At the Headquarters

"I don't understand it!" Joy proclaimed, staring at the large monitor intensely with an uncommon frown across her face.

Disgust stared at the screen dourly. "What's not to get? Riley's smiles are all coming across as too forced and desperate. I'm sure I explained to you earlier that we wanted to look cool to the other kids, not act… like this."

Their mission to make a few friends had not come to fruition by the end of another school day and Riley had become scared and ended up sitting alone during recess and lunch. Anger had so far resisted straying over to the controls (aside from a few quickly-forgotten fist clenches briefly when the teacher had been a touch too condescending when Riley struggled with a question for too long, her mind occupied with other things), but Riley hadn't relaxed and become her usual cheery self.

"But it wasn't working and I wanted Riley to seem happier again. I think you're overdoing a bit with the distasteful angle because we know they'll her more if she seems more fun and cheerful," Joy replied defensively, a few unnecessary gestures thrown in for good measure.

Disgust was unimpressed and merely crossed her arms. "Since when do we know that?"

"All Riley needs to do to make friends is to be herself, alright? And she is a generally happy, cheerful person who loves to have fun and play ice-hockey." Joy pointed out, dancing over to the golden core memories safely stored in the centre of the room.

Disgust nodded reluctantly. "Yes, but Riley isn't feeling like herself right now and you can't push it too far; it made Riley seem odd and unapproachable."

"It's a serious problem too, the window of opportunity for making new friends is quickly closing – she's already been at this new school for two whole days!" Fear lamented, and spread some of that worry onto Riley's current state of mind.

Joy dashed back over to the controls. "Stop that, Fear! Riley really doesn't need you adding on to all her worries right now. It's already a stressful time," she snapped, a touch more harshly than she intended.

Fear blinked at her for a second, taken aback. Then he responded: "but Joy, we need to face reality. What if we don't make any new friends?"

"We will! Let us be optimistic this is all just a minor setback, okay?" Joy insisted, looking back and forth between Disgust and Fear. Neither of them seemed to share her hope.

"What do you mean minor setback? This is a major setback!" A loud voice erupted behind them. Joy turned to face Anger, walking towards them.

"I thought you were going to stay in the circle until tomorrow," Joy gestured, running up to the theoretical 'circle of Anger' before bouncing back again.

"It's not working though, is it! Riley looks lost as ever and she'd probably feel way better if she can release all that anger!" Anger roared stomping over to the monitor.

On the screen Riley was staring at her feet and moving slowly, impossible to please. Whenever she looked up, she saw her empty room and it seemed to reinforce her bad mood. The moving van still hadn't come and she seemed to be in a negative spiral. Joy had been having huge difficulty in lifting her spirits, though not for lack of trying.

And Joy wasn't about to give up either. She leapt up in front of Anger to stop him from getting any closer to the controls. She wasn't nearly as strong as the stocky red emotion though and fell back on trying to persuade him to back down.

"Please Anger, not now. I can still fix this if you let me. I will show Riley that there are still things to be happy about and that will fix everything as she might start to like living in San Francisco. That's what we need to do."

Anger didn't knock her over so she supposed her persuasion was a success. At least Riley had made the ice hockey try-outs earlier, that was one thing that had generated happy memories today. Everything else seemed to have been spoiled by other feelings recently.

After a short pause, Anger spoke up in a more measured tone. "I still think that San Francisco is the problem, don't pretend that it's the cure."

Disgust replied in her unaffected cool tone. "It's not inherently bad though, it's simply how you approach the situation. I don't think there's anything to do other than let Joy take care of things."

Joy met Disgust's eyes and gave her a thankful smile. It was good to have someone still on her side. Lately everything had felt far too antagonistic. She hoped things would start to improve soon.

Sadness stood by the entrance of the massive dream studios, slightly dazed by the amount of activity as all sorts of workers and ideas moved with the kind of energy she usually associated with Joy. It had to be very late then and that meant she'd spent a whole day away from the HQ. She wondered how the others were, and how Riley was doing.

Riley probably didn't realise she was missing part of herself; under Joy's influence of course, Riley might not realise there was a sad, sombre part of herself. But Riley was growing up and adults couldn't afford to just be silly all the time – they had to be serious and the probably had lots of sad memories. Perhaps Joy just didn't want Riley to change and grow up though – it was a scary thought.

Contrary to what Joy thought though, Sadness didn't want Riley to become cold and miserable. She had never wanted to enforce unhappiness but that didn't change the fact that it was sometimes necessary. If you're not sometimes sad then it would grow harder to be properly serious and thoughtful when it mattered.

Joy didn't really think about the future, but that was okay because it was Sadness and Fear's job and they'd help her if she allowed them to. Not even Joy had enough influence and spirit to do everything by herself, no matter how committed she was.

Finally, Sadness slipped into the building, passing actors that Joy would probably be awestruck by, and followed the momentum of the crowd forward. As she'd hoped, a massive glistening sign proclaimed that she was entering the set of the dream studios, where they would be preparing an exciting dream for the night. All around her props were being hastily placed in order to form a scene – in particular one within a classroom.

Sadness frowned slightly, fearing that they were deciding to do the anxiety dream yet again. That tended to occur whenever Riley was feeling slightly stressed or worried. Generally a more fanciful, fun dream left Riley in a better mood. This one had her embarrassing herself in the middle of a crowded classroom and everyone laughing at her.

She sighed, but she didn't want to get in trouble by interfering. The dreams were carefully chosen in order to perfectly illustrate some of Riley's thoughts and feelings. She wasn't really sure how to make sweeter dreams anyway and she could end up accidentally making things worse.

She found a soft seat in a corner to sit down in and stay out of the way while Riley slept. She wouldn't be getting in anyone's way here though in a few hours she'd be returning to the HQ and would have to face Joy and the other emotions. She could only hope it would go alright and the Riley wasn't doing too badly.

On an adjacent seat she spotted a discarded paper and picked it up with a touch of curiosity. She'd been rather out of the loop all day and maybe the news would be able to cheer her up. Papers were printed essentially whenever something Riley considered noteworthy occurred.

Distressingly, the front cover proclaimed "Alone, Friendless in the World." Oh dear. A closer read revealed how Riley had been arguing with her parents, still had none of her possessions and how she hated school.

Had Joy really failed to cheer up Riley? Would Sadness be able to do anything to help or would it be better if she stayed far away? Sadness threw the paper away and curled up in her chair, lost in thought.

Long time no update. I looked back at my stories and realised I wanted to write another chapter for this so here it is! I think I'll need to re-watch the movie at some point to get more inspiration.

A bit of introspection from Sadness and some more chaos at the HQ that I enjoy writing way too much! I could write about Joy, Disgust, Anger and Fear arguing all day. Ironically, Sadness is far harder to write but I try anyway.

Joy would be the kind to get involved and cause trouble at dream studios but Sadness sort of just sits off to the side passively, not that she doesn't want to change things. Joy's probably too distracted to change the dream to a pleasant memory again unfortunately so Riley will have to suffer through her bad dreams.

Anyway thanks for reading and feel free to leave a review for this!