There's a whole lot I want to say
If there was a best-case scenario to Buzz finding out what he did in demo mode, this ain't it.
I keep thinking I'm not going to write another oneshot for them in the immediate future but my single viewing of Toy Story 5 has FUELED me
Ao3
Woody and Jessie had come back from one of Bonnie’s playdates to find everyone uncharacteristically quiet. Woody scanned the room: Bonnie’s toys looked either worried or confused. Andy’s looked uncomfortable in a much more knowing way. Buzz looked pensively into the middle distance.
Slinky wrangled everybody but Buzz to the other side of the room while Hamm, Rex and Potatohead argued under their breath about whose fault this was. Woody and Jessie glanced sidelong at each other, waiting for an explanation.
Buzz finally spoke up. “Is it true?”
Woody’s eyes darted between him and Jessie, whose face had fallen.
Buzz continued, “At Sunnyside? Did I really do all of that?”
Woody squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. “They probably made it sound worse than it was.” He opened them again and realized he’d just confirmed enough to make Buzz absolutely horrified. Jessie started wringing her hands.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
He was about as angry as he possibly could be at his friends. It was rare, but they could tell when he was completely furious with them. His voice would get low, and he would try to suppress a scowl. If he didn’t know or trust someone anyway, he wouldn’t bother maintaining his composure. With them, everything he did was carefully controlled.
“There’s not a good way to tell someone that,” said Woody.
Buzz narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “I’d think you two would at least try.”
“Woody wasn’t there for it,” said Jessie. She looked at Woody and nodded toward the group across the room.
He hesitated, but left them to talk.
The other toys had been watching and, though he chided them for it, he ended up doing the same. The conversation didn’t seem to be going too well.
“I never seen ‘em fight before,” Slinky whispered.
“They’re not fighting,” said Woody unconvincingly. “They’re just…talking.”
The Potatoheads shared a look.
Eventually everyone saw the two of them pause. Buzz said something to her, she nodded solemnly, and he left the room. The Andersons were about to go out to dinner, so he could be gone for hours.
Jessie slumped against the wall in the corner. Like usual, Bullseye was the first to go to her. Woody trailed behind him as the others went about their business trying to pretend they hadn’t seen it all.
Bullseye had just laid his head on Jessie’s knee when Woody got to them.
“He asked for some time,” she said.
Woody furrowed his brow. “That a good idea?”
She shrugged. “His head’s not in a good spot. But if he says he needs it…”
He sat down next to her.
She absentmindedly stroked Bullseye’s mane. “I messed it all up.”
She’d said the same thing back when Bo found out about the museum, soon after they got back from Al’s. Bo had been understandably hurt at finding out Woody was going to go along with it. Jessie felt she was the reason Woody ever even considered it. Ultimately, Bo just needed time to process before they could start to repair things, which they did. If she’d ever blamed Jessie at all, she was darn good at hiding it.
That had been Woody’s mistake, plain and simple. This was more complicated. No one had done anything wrong just by going through what they had at Sunnyside. Buzz had effectively been a puppet.
He might tell Buzz, after all of this, how she’d made him promise they wouldn’t leave Sunnyside without him, even if they couldn’t find a way to fix him before then. It never occurred to any of them to leave Buzz behind. She knew Woody was the last person who would consider it. All the same, she’d been adamant that he shake on it.
He hadn’t told Buzz about demo mode partly because, as Jessie said, he hadn’t been there to witness most of it. She had also asked him not to say anything until she had a chance, but he wasn’t about to tell on her like that. Admittedly, though, he was never sure when she would take that chance.
“Why did you wait so long to tell him?”
“Kept thinking there was gonna be a better time, I guess.”
“Jess.”
She sighed. “I hate thinkin’ about it. We all thought you were dead, I didn’t know if we would ever get him back…”
Bullseye lifted his head and huffed. She rested her chin on her knees.
“There was a whole day when I lost both of ya.”
Bullseye’s ears drooped.
“And then it just kept happening. He changed again, but he still wasn’t him, and then he got hurt ‘cause of me, and we all – ugh.”
Woody gave Bullseye a comforting scratch on the head. They both knew she needed to get this out, but even after all this time with her, Bullseye still worried.
“I didn’t wanna feel all that again,” she said.
Woody put a hand on her shoulder. “How much does he know?”
“I got all the way up to the box ‘fore he walked out.”
“You tell him that was the punishment for talking back?”
“And for everything else.”
“And that you talked back the second he said that?”
She raised her eyebrows for a second, then rubbed her forehead and groaned. “Well I never went in there!”
“Does he know that?”
“I didn’t get to finish.”
“Jessie, you know him. He wants to help; he wants to protect people. He’s a space ranger. They used that against him.”
She lifted her head a little.
“Maybe he’s mad at you – well, us – right now. He also thinks he threw you right into your worst nightmare, and I’m pretty sure that’s his worst nightmare.”
She shook her head slightly. “He’s too noble for his own good.”
Woody nudged her with his elbow. “Hey, you love him for it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I do.” She sat up a little straighter, and her face fell again. “I dunno how to fix this.”
Woody shrugged. “Give him his time,” he said. “Then tell him what you told me.” ***
It was dark except for Bonnie’s nightlight. She’d gone to bed awhile ago. Jessie had been watching the door. Buzz still wasn’t back, but nobody could go looking as long as Mom and Dad were still up and moving. It felt like forever before they went to bed, too, and Jessie could venture out into the hallway.
She found him, as expected, on top of the office filing cabinet under the skylight. He’d fallen asleep there again. She climbed up the drawer handles and did a flip to get on top, though she overshot and nearly fell right back down to the floor. She must have woken him up in the process, because he caught her by the arm and pulled her from the edge. He was good at that.
He seemed to take a moment to remember why he was there to begin with, and he cast his eyes down sadly. She smiled softly and angled her face under his to make sure he saw.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “None of this was your fault.”
“Wasn’t yours, either,” she said.
He didn’t reply. He couldn’t, because he still didn’t really believe her.
She opened his helmet and kissed him gently on the forehead. Then she took his hand and sat back.
“What do you wanna know?”
