I'm back everyone, and I'm so very sorry for the long wait between updates yet again. This pause was entirely my fault. I expected I could update during my honeymoon but naturally, never found the time. The longer I spent away from my creative outlets, the more I realized that I needed a mental break. :c I realize now that I should have just announced that I was going on hiatus before leaving home but I screwed up and failed to do so. Again, I'm super sorry.

I understand that Inside Out is old news for some people, but regardless I still plan to flood the inboxes of those following me with a few IO fic updates later in the week, just a heads up, as I'm still hopelessly in love with it and I'm loaded with ideas / plans c:

Thanks again to those who have been patient enough to stick around and continue to read, and thanks to those who recently started following. Your encouragement is a tremendous help and means a lot to me!

~KQSimply

The ridges of Riley's dreams drifted apart, returning her to the plains of reality, and at first was difficult to determine whether or not she'd actually returned to such a plain at all. Surrounded by a dazzling rainbow of her memories, it simply felt as though she'd crossed from one dream to another. A dreamworld in which her old bedroom had been divided into orb-shaped fragments all around her, allowing her to experience slivers of her former life before it faded away so many mornings ago.

There was no resisting the smile had waited all night to show itself. Her focus frolicked high above her, where memories of her ceiling stars had been hung, and then it came sliding down the colour-washed walls and found an orb containing a memory of her old hockey lamp seated on the night-side table. Riley placed her fingers on this memory's surface and glided them along its circumference, which moved its footage along to a point where she could see her own hand switching the lamp on. Light exuded from the memory, spilling into the room, and with that, Riley sat up and stretched.

Her room had everything she could have asked for and more in terms of comfort. The only thing it seemed to be missing was a clock ("But Taylor can't tell time yet anyway," Joy had informed her once, with a shrug, "so what would be the point of a clock?" which didn't make a lick of sense, but such was the flow of Emotion-logic). Still, Riley certainly wasn't sure if she'd ever be able to repay the Emotions for their kindness and their efforts to repaint her room with a surplus of fond, familiar memories. It was at once charming and heart-wrenching to think that they likely had no idea just how magical their gifts truly were to her, that she saw their contributions to her private quarters as brilliant, gleaming flecks of vigor, putting 'Life' to the term 'Afterlife'. She hoped that a new Core Memory for Taylor would come as a decent thank-you to them.

Today, after all, was going to be the day.

Riley pressed the sole of her bare foot to the floor, closing her eyes with the way Taylor's mind whispered back to her senses, transformed as they had become since she woke up inside of it. Every day, she could gather more information through simply feeling for Taylor's state of being than ever before. Today, it was just before she pulled her striped toe-socks onto her feet that she could tell Taylor was still sleeping. How alarming and entirely too cool it was to sense Taylor's status without needing to see for herself. She felt like a magician. A soothsayer. No, better…she practically felt as talented as any of the other Emotions residing here in Headquarters. Now, that was something.

She ventured out to the control area, being very cautious as she crept past the Emotions' rooms – it wasn't wise to disturb Anger too early in the morning, though to be perfectly frank, she was perhaps even more uneasy as she crossed Disgust's door. No one recommended interrupting her precious time of rest. Thankfully, she exited the hallway without incident, but in the end it was the silhouette standing before the wide window of early morning dreams that prompted Riley to remain extra quiet as she guided the door to a close behind her.

Fear was down there. Riley supposed he must have been wrapping up his Dream Duty shift, though if this was the case, she found it rather unsettling to discover him standing straight and tall and apparently on high-alert – normally, the Emotions were weary and lethargic at the end of a shift until Joy's arrival at the console. Not wanting to cause him any discomfort, given the pitiable fact that Fear startled as terribly as Anger snapped, Riley tip-toed to his position, tucking her hands behind her black. As she approached, hidden somehow from his sensitive peripheral vision, her ears picked up the distinctive sound of ceramic knocking against teeth, and she saw that there were three teabag strings hanging from the edge of the mug he held between his hands, and he was shaking so badly that he'd managed to spill more tea than he could sip.

Right away, Riley knew what had his nerves in a jumble, and she knew she had to correct this sooner, rather than later.

"'Morning,", she carefully whispered, immediately recoiling when Fear yelped and fumbled his cup in the most disastrous of ways. Tea went everywhere.

Naturally, Riley felt at fault, but Fear overrode her apologies with his own as he untucked a handkerchief from his sleeve and knelt to clean up his mess. He kept admonishing himself for unintelligible reasons until Riley finally put a stop to it by placing her hands on his shoulders.

"Hey, hey, take it easy."

"Sorry, Riley."

"And c'mon, stop apologizing. It's just me."

"Sorry. I'll stop." He blinked. "Er, starting now. Sorry."

Riley fixed him with a withering grin as she helped him to his feet again. "You're still pretty worried about the trip to the rink today, huh?" Fear nodded, and Riley felt her features collapse into a frown. "...Did you let Taylor get any sleep at all?"

Fear winced, which wasn't at all reassuring. "Well…I-I tried my best. I did! I was going for a 'We're Way Too Excited to Fall Asleep' approach, but all I did was make a mess of things. I don't deal with excitement the same way Joy does – it always winds up upsetting me." He began to wring his hands, and as he continued to speak, his tone of voice began to rise. "I-it's just that there's so much riding on this outing: a new Core Memory, Taylor's safety, Dad's approval – I couldn't stop thinking about everything and what might go wrong – and it'll all be so – so new, a-and—"

"Relax." It was clear that if Riley hadn't interrupted him, he might've kept going forever. With effort he forced himself to pause and look up at her. "There's really nothing to worry about. This'll be a cinch. First of all, Taylor's going to do just fine out there; she's an Andersen, she's got my blood. Remember?"

"Uh huh. A-and she's only got so much to spare. I'm the one that has to keep that in mind, you know."

"And you will. I'm sure of it." She smirked pointedly before going on. "Second, it's not really all that new. It just seems that way since it'll be in a different body, but I'm sure some it will all come rushing back to you as soon as you hit the ice."

"We have to hit it? How hard?"

"Never mind." Her eyes softened as she approached her third point, and she took a single step closer to him. "And last…don't worry about Dad. Okay? When he sees you guys out there in my old skates, giving it all you've got…he'll approve. I just know he will." She couldn't resist taking his hand…but as whispers sprang into the air around her head, surrounding her with doubt, uncertainty, and a dark, looming sense that something wasn't quite right, she found she couldn't hold it for long, even if it had brought Fear a little relief to be held by her. She simply couldn't stomach his Overflow.

Fear snatched his hand from hers the minute he realized he was making her uncomfortable. "Sorry, Riley. I'm sure you're right and all—you always are...I'm just afraid that maybe, this one time, you won't be. What if this doesn't work? What if something does go wrong?"

"Just tell yourself that it won't." Fear cocked a brow at her as though she'd told him to solve some outrageous mathematical problem. So, she chose to end things on a different angle. "And, remember that I'll be with you every step of the way. Nothing'll go wrong if your big sister can help it. Okay?"

Fear dared himself to smile. His rigid posture finally eased. "...Yeah. Okay."

Riley smiled back at him. Perhaps from having settled Fear down by a few degrees, Headquarters felt warm and at peace for all of eight or nine seconds before various machinery and devices whirred to life around them. The lights in the control area came on in sections, and an invisible sun illuminated the outdoors.

Taylor's hand appeared in the window behind them, groping the edges of her bedside table for her glasses, and as this happened, the other Emotions were lead out from their rooms by an over-eager Joy, who executed her first steps of the day on tip-toe, light, delicate and full of life, like a ballerina at the peak of her performance. Already she was trying to talk Anger and Sadness into showing a little extra enthusiasm, but Anger wasn't having it just yet ("Knock it off, Joy. It's still only stupid o'clock," he was grumbling), and Sadness, as Riley knew, didn't handle mornings well enough to comprehend Joy's suggestion. Disgust, meanwhile, hovered on the landing, still powdering her nose, humming to herself before she dared to join the remainder of the crew.

Riley set her hands on her hips and grinned at the lot. "Good morning, Team."

A chorus of 'Good Mornings' followed, but it was Anger's deep voice which said "'Morning, Coach'" that caught Riley's attention, and she pointed at him. "There. Now that's the attitude I'm looking for today!" Anger blinked at her, stunned and silent before he broke into an edgy sort of smile. It was really quite entertaining to find ways to flatter or compliment Anger….even if it did make Joy a little jealous on occasion. This morning was no exception, but as she favoured Joy with a wink, Joy smiled and did the same.

Taylor donned her glasses, blinking as her vision cleared. As she struggled to sit up, her bedroom door creaked open, and everyone's attention snapped on to the appearance of Dad as he poked his face in.

Riley found his eyes and dove into them. What she found was a look she was wonderfully familiar with. It was a look he shared with her on once-lazy Sunday mornings before suggesting they do something together, just the two of them. A free-skate at the rink, a stroll downtown to see what was what, a car ride to nowhere and back. For a moment, Riley forgot her circumstances and felt thoroughly alive as she looked at her father through Taylor's bright eyes.

"Hey, Taylor. You awake?"

Taylor sat up and nodded. "Uh huh."

"Excited for your first skating lesson?"

From the corner of her view, Riley spotted and practically felt as Fear shivered. He desperately cast his gaze all the way over to Joy, who was still a considerable distance from the console, hopelessly distracted as she watched the Train of Thought roll by the oval windows at the back of Headquarters. Disgust, here, deliberately coughed, which snatched Joy's attention at once; she pointed a stern finger over to the display. "Uh, Headquarters to Joy? I think that's your cue."

Joy spun and her blue eyes bounced from Dad's to the control panel, and she gave a sudden start, realizing what Disgust had implied. She rushed to her position, nearly bowling Riley over. "Whoops, it sure is."

The result of this tiny delay caused Taylor's answer to feel rushed...almost forced. "Um…Yeah. Yeah! I'm excited. I'm ready for skating. I'm gonna beat up all the hockeymen and get lots of points and win and everything."

A chuckle resonated from Dad's chest. "Sure thing, kiddo. Find something warm to put on and I'll meet you downstairs. We'll head out right after breakfast."

He closed the door behind him. Taylor bolted out of bed at Disgust's command and began a search for a suitable outfit to flaunt at a public skating rink. "I'm not going to let something like sports interfere with Taylor's budding sense of fashion. We're going to play some hockey and look cute while we're doing it." She shuddered for some reason and looked over at Riley with large, imploring eyes. "...Th-that's okay, right Riley?"

Disgust still had a terrible habit of checking with Riley before she let Taylor make any decisions. It felt odd to let her do so, but time and time again, she did. "Er...of course it is."

"Oh, thank God. Okay, where was I? Ah yes, something cute, something warm, something not-orange…"

Riley began to turn, thinking it best to let her sister continue to dress without her, when she felt a placid tugging at the base of her shirt, beckoning her attention. Riley looked down and found Sadness standing behind her, tucking a lock of her hair behind one ear with a shy swish of her hand. Her large, deep eyes were twinkling and absorbent; staring into them had the profound effect of drowning out the subtle noise in the background.

"…Riley?" she muttered, her voice small and meek. Riley had to lean in closer to hear her better. "…You are going to help us get through this, right? You'll be there for us?"

Riley's heart swelled to twice its size. How could she have refused, even if she'd wanted? "Oh, Sadness…of course I will." She lay a hand on Sadness's shoulder. When this didn't seem to lift Sadness's spirits by even a fraction of an inch, Riley drew a breath and next lay her palm on Sadness's cheek, which was soft and very faintly moist. Compelled by Sadness's Overflow (or perhaps she would have felt compelled anyway), the girl frowned and lowered to one knee. The Overflow cast a shadow over Riley's once-positive outlook, quietly telling her that something was, in fact, off. Wrong. She leaned her head to one side, curious and a little more than uncomfortable. "…Where else would I be, other than with you?"

Sadness ducked her head, wringing her hands. There was a distinct answer to Riley's question languishing on the tip of Sadness's tongue, and Riley felt desperate to hear it. Here, a small intake of breath, and there, a to-and-fro movement of the eye, as Sadness prepared to utter what was on her mind.

The disquieting and thoroughly unfitting squeal of a kazoo overrode her. Riley tossed her head over her shoulder, gawking up to the display that Bing Bong had finally made his translucent appearance on.

"Can you believe it Taylor? Today's the day! It's finally here! You're going to learn to play hockey just like Riley!" he cried.

Bing Bong's obtrusive self attempted to cartwheel, though his form could've used a lot of work. When he was upright again, his fists were full of cheer flags marked with the letter 'T'. "Gimmie a 'T'! Gimmie an 'Aylor'! Gooooo Taylor! You ready to make some hockey players cry or what? They won't know what hit 'em! It's gonna be great! I can't WAIT til we get out there!"

Riley stood up again, shoving all of her former apprehensions to the back of her head. "'We'? Hold up, 'We'?"

The Emotions turned in unison to face her. She glared back at them, expecting to find disbelief equal to her own on their faces…and of course, she found nothing of the sort. They were wide-eyed, eager, and curious as to why she'd ever question Bing Bong's companionship. Riley opened up at once to explain herself. "Come on, you guys…Bing Bong can't come with us. He'll distract Taylor. To do this right, she's going to need to focus."

She scanned the Emotions in front of her with stern eyes at first, but once they happened upon Joy, she flinched, and her strict demeanor seemed to stagger. Joy was staring back at her with eyes which were confused and conflicted, and they blinked once or twice with disbelief at Riley's suggestion.

Joy panned her attention back to Bing Bong, who had started a jig in Taylor's honour. "...Wait. You mean...w-we have to leave Bing Bong behind? Here? All by himself?"

Already, Riley was beginning to regret what she'd suggested, even if she still believed it to be true. Her shoulders stooped as she tried to explain herself in a more delicate, heartfelt manner. "Well...yeah."

Everyone fell still. Even Anger seemed dumbfounded. And this, surprisingly enough, stung even more than Joy's stunned silence did. Finally, Riley expelled a great sigh and thrust her hands forward for understanding. "Look, I know you all want to take him along, but if we're going to make a new Core Memory for Taylor, we can't afford any distractions. It's not like we'll be leaving him behind forever. It's just for a little bit. Taylor has to just pretend to be me for, like, an hour or two, and then as soon as Dad sees that, she can go back to being four years old again and spend all the time she needs with Bing Bong. Okay?" She winced. "…You all understand…don't you?"

After a considerable pause, there were shuffling, scattered nods all around.

Riley forced herself to feel relieved.

"...Sadness?" she said, after a brief hesitation. "Think you can help Taylor explain it to him?"

Sadness shuddered as she regarded the console with a weak, reluctant gaze.

Taylor, therefore, shuddered too, arching her shoulders as she waited for him to finish his little dance that showed no signs of letting up anytime soon. "Ummm…Bing Bong? Hold on a second." Bing Bong froze in mid-dance; his cosmic smile twitched, threatening to recoil. He was clearly apprehensive of the dark tone of Taylor's current voice "…L-listen buddy, um…when you say 'we'..."

"Er…Well…of course I say 'we'. We're gonna go to this thing together, aren't we? I'll get up in the stands and do the cheering while you do all the…hockey-ing. It'll be great, just like old times. You know, we haven't really played with each other since – since –"

Taylor put her hands up defensively, locking eyes with him as she made her cautious approach. "I know, I know. It's been forever. I know you really wanna come, but…I think you should just stay home today."

The whole of Bing Bong's glowing nature turned over to something very unpleasant. His hands fell from the air, his flags tumbled to the floor, his trunk hung limp before his belly…his smile faded. "…Huh? You…you want me to stay home?"

Taylor tried to rescue the situation with a forced, short-lived smile of her own. "Y-yeah. Just this once. I won't be gone for long. It won't be so bad, you'll see."

Bing Bong collapsed to his bottom on the floor, his eyes wide and lost and beginning to water. His voice was very faint as he spoke. "…Stay home…uh…okay…y-yeah!…I'll just…stay home..."

The air began to feel strange and miserably heavy, like bad San Francisco fog. Taylor truly didn't want to leave Bing Bong by himself…but this whole hockey ordeal wasn't a game to her. It certainly wasn't playtime. She wasn't even sure if it was meant to be fun. She was doing it because a tiny little part of her was insisting that if she did everything correctly, if she could just be as Riley-like as possible, something magical would happen – something so magical that surely, her father, stony and cold as he seemed, would feel it too, and perhaps after that, things would change. Things would feel better.

Somehow, as though someone else had made her mind up for her, it only made sense.

Taylor lay a hand on the bridge of Bing Bong's trunk and pet him. Bing Bong purred for her in spite of his wandering eyes and the odd sugar cube that fell from them as he blinked at her. "Shhh...Don't cry, Bing Bong," Taylor said soothingly. "I'm really sorry about this...It's just that…well, to be honest, I'm kind of nervous about this whole hockey thing. It's really serious business, and I'm just worried that I'll, you know…mess it all up somehow."

Bing Bong sniffled. "Really? I wouldn't've known, looking at you. You seem so brave."

"That's nice of you to say, B.B., but…deep down…I'm actually really scared." She shook herself and frowned, full of determination and vigor. "But I'm not gonna let that stop me. I'm ready to do my best and make Daddy proud. Riley too. Still, if I'm gonna make a mistake or two out there…I'd rather not do it in front of Dad AND in front of you. Know what I mean?"

Bing Bong sighed, running his sleeve beneath the end of his trunk. "I…I guess so." He attempted a brave smile…but he couldn't manage it. It slid from his face in the same fashion his curious tears did. "...I-I'll wait here for you until you get back. 'Kay?"

Taylor flashed him a warm, loving smile. "Thanks, Bing Bong. I'll be home before you know it, and I'll be a better Taylor than ever before. I'm gonna make Riley SUPER proud to be my sister, and Dad's gonna...well..." She gulped as her eyes flickered to the doorway and back. "...You'll see. Be good, Bing Bong."

"Oh…I will," he muttered, fanning his fingers in and out at her. "…Bye-bye, Taylor."

His faint image became fainter still as Taylor brought her bedroom door to a close.

"Alright, Team, let's look alive and recap."

Riley had assembled the Emotions in a neat row in front of the console. Their postures were immaculate and their attention to her was stringently precise and undivided. She paced up the line in one direction, then swiveled on her heel, passing them once more, pausing to address each individual in the order that she arrived to their position. She was posed as a coach, but felt more like a drill sergeant.

"Joy."

"Yes, Coach!"

Riley smirked. "Your assignment is clear?"

"Clear as crystal, Riley. We're gonna have fun; lots and lots of it. We're going to love hockey as much as we love cake."

Riley gave a firm nod of her head. "I want you front and center and doing the majority of the driving. Can you do that?"

"Do birds fly? Are clouds fluffy? Is my name Joy?" She raised her hands, systematically cracking all of their knuckles and joints before giving in to excitement, dancing on her toes. "Ooh, I am feeling it, feeling it, feeling it. I'm totally ready. This'll be fun. This'll be easy! Step on it, Daddy, let's get to that rink!"

"Er, try to bottle it up until we get there, Joy."

"Ooh, yep, right. Sorry. Little Miss Excited over here." She chuckled, and then straightened. "I'll try to resist."

Riley winked at her before moving on to the next in line.

"Disgust?"

Disgust's body leaned into an elegant slant. "Mm-hmm?"

"Your goals are to keep Taylor's fun-to-seriousness ratios in check. She's gotta have fun – but not too much fun."

"Er – right." Disgust went cross-eyed for a moment as she tried once more to wrap her head around this concept. "She – she's got to take it seriously enough that it makes a Core Memory, but have enough fun that the Core Memory stays happy." She frowned, batting her lashes. "Y'know Riley, in hindsight, that doesn't make a whole lot of –"

"It's a delicate balance, I know. But if anybody out there can manage it, it's you."

Disgust rolled her eyes, though her sarcastic sneer melted into a gutsy smirk. "Of course. Yes. I can manage pretty much anything. Where would you guys be without me?"

"That's my girl."

Disgust blushed as Riley moved on.

"Anger!"

"Riley!" Anger appeared to be the most attentive out of all of them. His gaze was fixed dead-ahead, burning straight through Riley's stomach. She appreciated that. It was no surprise that this was where her determination came from back when he served in her Headquarters. He even saluted her as she stopped in front of him.

"It'll probably take Taylor two, maybe three tries to get the hang of things – "

"—Which is why I'm going to keep Stubborn Island running strong as ever." He balled his hands into eager fists. "'Quit?' Taylor never quits! The word alone makes me sick. As of today, I'm taking it out of our vocabulary."

"You'll give it all you've got?"

"And more!"

"And when the going gets tough?"

"I'll be even tougher!"

They high-fived.

"Sadness..." It was difficult for Riley to maintain her stern disposition whenever she addressed Sadness. Therefore, for this rainy-blue Emotion, her voice was soft and subtle.

Sadness shuffled forward, and….really….she did try to appear as hardy and prepared as the others did, but she kept looking over her shoulder and out the car window, no doubt wondering how Bing Bong was faring without them.

"Oh – uh – present. I mean – hi. I mean–"

"Your job is to be as not-Sadness as you possibly can be, just this once. Think encouraging thoughts. Okay? If you get the urge to be sad today, feel free to suppress it." Riley pointed to the farthest sofa. "I want you to have a seat over there and cheer Taylor on."

Sadness hesitantly obliged, folding her hands in her lap once she was seated. "…Uh…Cheering. Right. Cheering. Umm…hooray."

"With feeling."

"Um: Hooray – and…stuff."

"…You're, uh, you're getting warmer...? Keep working on it."

"Okay. Hooray…hoo-ray. Hoo….ray?..."

And, while Sadness practiced her rather dismal cheerleading, finally Riley came upon the last in line. Fear, who had been trying not to look at Dad through the rearview mirror, scrambled to straighten up his posture once Riley arrived to his position.

"…Fear."

He gulped.

Riley stood toe-to-toe with him, speaking in a low, intimidating voice, wearing a smirk that simply dared him to break eye-contact with her. "…Your goal is the single-most important one of all. Remind me what it is, again?"

"Well...I'm not to drive," he peeped.

"Beg pardon?"

"N-no driving."

Riley cupped her ear. "Sorry, I didn't quite catch that."

Fear rose his voice a little. "No driving, ma'am."

"That's Coach to you."

"Y-yes, Coach!"

"Look me in the eye and say it. No blinking. Say it."

"N-n-no driving! I won't drive! I promise, I promise, no driving, I won't drive."

Riley nodded firmly. The smile she fixed him with felt as binding as a contract. She folded her arms behind her and continued along her militant stroll...

…only to flinch when Fear added under a single breath: "Except-in-cases-of-absolute-necessity."

Before Riley could strike up another banter with him, Joy squealed and rounded upon the console. "We're here, we're finally here, this is it!" She mashed keys and twisted knobs beneath her hand and Taylor skipped past her father, her eyes searching wildly for the hoards of hockeymen she was determined to beat up, one by one.

Riley grinned. The whole of her stippled being began to tingle.

Though Dad was holding her hand, Taylor was leading him onward like an eager puppy on a leash; her voice and giggles echoed through the facility. At one point she looked over her shoulder, and there it was…there was that familiar, undaunted smile Riley had seen her father sporting so many times, right before big events that featured his happy girl. To her shock, Family Island rumbled to life behind them. The Emotions were so focused on their various goals that Riley seemed to be the only one to notice it. The longer she watched as its figurines and animatronics creaked and danced, the more she could see that the Island was trying to rotate one of the statues to the front…the one hidden from view, stashed behind the shadows…the male one which represented their father.

"Alrighty," Dad was saying, "have a seat on the bench over there and we'll get you all fixed up." He laughed and set both of his hands on Taylor's ankles. "Hold still, will you? No kicking. You'll shave more than just my beard off with these things if you aren't careful."

As he laced up her skates, Riley glanced down and wriggled her toes. Closing her eyes brought on physical waves of awareness across her senses. She felt the cool air of the rink, the snugness of the skates on either of her feet…a breath of euphoria escaped her lips. It was as though Taylor's experience was bringing her back to life.

There was a sudden pause as Dad reached into his personal gym bag and withdrew a light-blue hockey helmet. It was so tiny, cradled within his large hands. He stared at it in silence for quite some time while Taylor watched, smoothing the backs of his knuckles along its scuffed, faded surface. The features of his face weakened, and his eyes clouded over, illegible as he lost himself in thought.

Taylor hiccuped (and here, Joy realized, with Disgust's help, that she had to ease up a little), encouraging Dad to take notice of her again. He carefully settled the helmet on Taylor's head, buckling the strap beneath her chin, and he smiled…though it was a strange smile. Eerily hollow, and somewhat dark, and a little unsettling at first…but it was new, too, and warmth seeped from it. Taylor and the Emotions seemed to be terribly fond of it, even if it made Riley feel a bizarre sort of weight roost on her shoulder.

She also happened to notice that Fear took this particular opportunity to back away from the console.

"…This helmet was your sister's once, when she was your age," Dad finally explained in a low, distant voice. Now, Riley understood. "...It's all yours, now. Looks like it's a perfect fit." He sighed through his nose, and a new warmth began to creep into this curious smile of his. "…Wow."

Taylor leaned forward as Dad carefully pulled her glasses off of her face. "What?"

He laughed again, in disbelief. "…You really do look just like her."

"...Just like Riley?"

"…Yeah. You sure do. I never really noticed before."

The Emotions turned in unison to face Riley, who could tell from the heat of her face she was blushing as pleasantly warm tears began to pool in her eyes.

Taylor beamed at him as Joy assumed control of the console. With her skates securely fastened, she was finally ready to face the rink. Unexpectedly, she found her hand tucked safe and sound in her father's hand, and Joy's jaw dropped. "Wow. Oh, wow. He's holding our hand! Look! We're not even at a crosswalk! This is amazing!" Happy memories rolled down the railings, lining up for the eventual descent to Long-Term Memory. Riley and the others, even Sadness, cheered to see them.

"Let's head on out there, kiddo."

Taylor grinned and stood up. Or, at least, she tried. A half-second later she was plunging toward the ground, having been caught off-guard by the seemingly impossible task of balancing on the two narrow blades attached to her feet. Dad caught her in the nick of time, not only preventing her from striking the floor, but unknowingly freezing Fear in his tracks before he could reach the console.

Riley was too stunned to snap at him for trying to drive. She couldn't recall a time where she, in her youth, had struggled to walk in her skates – from what she could recall of her own experience, it had all come to her so naturally. Her skates were like an alternate pair of feet she could borrow when her natural feet were bored of the earth and the soil and its monotonous traction. Skates were her wings. Her destiny. But then, perhaps she'd simply been too young to remember her VERY first experience. Perhaps it'd been harder than it seemed before becoming engraved on her brain, like riding a bike.

Yes. Surely, that was it.

She turned and snapped her fingers in Anger's direction. "Alright – let's keep Stubborn Island in check. We're just getting started. We're not going to give up already."

"Right." Anger slammed his palms against the keys of the console, and behind them, the steam-powered instruments of Stubborn Island squealed and thundered to life, fuelling the mechanical movements of a pig-tailed girl hauling relentlessly on the reigns of a seated mule.

"I can do it," Taylor spouted as she struggled to keep her feet, blinking at the world that was so miserably fuzzy without her glasses.

"Alright. Just watch your step. Here we go, one foot in front of the other."

"I know, Daddy." Taylor fought her hand from her father's grasp, attempting to walk a few pathetic steps ahead of him. "I can do it!"

"Fine, fine, if you insist…You sure are stubborn, aren't you?"

Anger guffawed and straightened his tie. "Did you hear that, Riley? Well, did you? So far, so good!"

Riley focused again, finding Joy merrily steering the console, Sadness…attempting, at least, to root Taylor on, Anger keeping a steady eye trained on Stubborn Island, and Fear chomping madly on his fingertips and frothing at the mouth, and Disgust monitoring Joy's erratic, at times unpredictable behaviour. Yes, things were going just –

She double-took in Fear's direction, noting the strange tick that was occurring under his left eyeball. He wasn't doing so well, she realized, and her stomach flip-flopped.

"Umm – uhhhh – we're sort of wobbly, aren't we, Riley?"

"She's fine," Riley said hastily. "Give her a few seconds to figure out her balance. It – it just takes a minute." She glanced up and changed the subject. "Keep it up, Joy, you're doing great."

"Thanks!"

The rink was completely empty – a true, energizing blessing in disguise. Riley passed her eyes over the ice, noting the faint grids former free-skaters had carved into it before them and a new, fresh smile attempted to creep out yet again as Dad stepped out onto the ice. He was a natural skater too. Riley had always been jealous of the way he could work himself across the ice without having to think about it. He could close his eyes and ride the rink in the same way a bird owned the sky. His footwork was immaculate. His starts and stops were clean and flawless. She'd always wanted to be as good as him some day. Riley closed her eyes for a moment, wondering how close she came before her illness forced her to resign from hockey.

When her eyes opened again, Taylor had eased herself onto the ice, focusing as best as she could on Dad's feet, watching as they curved and slid across the ice. Riley felt as Taylor's heart skipped a beat.

"Okay, Taylor. It's a little like walking, but you're going to use your toes a little more, you're gonna guide yourself along the ice just like I do. Come this way." He put his hands out to her. "Easy does it. Come straight to me."

Sadness squirmed in her seat, well aware that this was her cue. "Um – okay, straight. Yeah. We can go straight. Maybe? Maybe not. I, uh, I don't know. Probably not, that seems hard…"

"Sadness," moaned Joy before Riley could speak. "Y'know, that's kind of the opposite of cheerleading."

"Sorry."

Taylor rose and lowered her right foot, driving all of her concentration into 'walking with her toes', as Dad has suggested. But the ice was not what her body had come to expect at all. It caused her skates to behave in a manner she couldn't predict. Her foot wanted to keep going in directions her leg did not.

"What the – ? Argh! It's like we have to learn to walk all over again. A-and it feels like we're constantly about to fall. This is Trouble, Trouble with two B's and a Q." Fear's voice was shaking. And it was as his own actions caused his voice to jerk that Riley turned...and discovered him manning the console.

"Fear! You're doing the thing I specifically told you not to do!"

Fear looked down to his hands and his eyebrows skyrocketed, as though he too was just learning that he'd shoved Joy out of his way to gain control of the device. He snatched his fingers away from the dials and crouched. "Sorry! Sorry. It just seemed like one of those times of necessity. Th-this stuff is slick."

"Yeah, Genius." Disgust was glaring at him, thoroughly unimpressed. "It's ice. It's like an ice-cube, only…bigger, I guess. And flatter. And we're, uh, on it for some reason." Disgust's tone kicked itself up a notch – there was a faint note of desperation in it, now. "Get up there, Joy, this is supposed to be your thing. Look, see, Dad's doing it –"

"Yeah, yeah, I see it, I see it. Gosh, he makes it look so easy." Joy wet her lips and seized a wheel on the control panel, rotating it frantically. Taylor, in response, dared to push herself forward, while Fear spiraled into insanity in the background, clenching his sweater, tugging his collar, even the delicate nerve-like hair sprouting from his head to keep himself together.

"Come on, Joy, dig deep. Dig really deep." Riley's hands had become fists at some point in time. She couldn't determine when it happened. "Try to remember what it was like when you were with me. Whatever it was you did that made me feel like I could touch the stars…do it again."

Joy's eyes fluttered to an enchanted close. She lifted her chin as though seeking out the sun's warm, bolstering Summer rays, and her spirit seemed to curve inward, searching for skills deep within that she wanted to come bubbling to the surface. A light, feathery smile began to reveal itself and its pearly accessories as she did so. Joy's shoulders arched, her fingers quivering over the console.

"…I…I feel something," she whispered as Riley leaned toward her. "I feel it...I do!…I feel…music…music, I hear music and applause…"

Riley straightened, frowning. "…What? Music? Applause?"

Disgust seemed to shudder. "Joy, not now. Snap out of it. We have to focus! This is no time to start daydreaming about –"

Fear finally exploded. "WATCH IT, JOY!"

There was a nasty thud as Taylor struck the ice with enough force to distort the display. Red footlights repainted the whole of the Headquarters control area, signaling that Taylor was in pain. Joy, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness, from her place on the couch, recoiled with a loud, grievous "Ooooooh" in response, while Riley stammered incompetently from the side.

It was Taylor's first fall of what could wind up being many. It was only a very minor setback.

Why, then, did it feel so wrong?

"I – can't – take it anymore!"

Fear pounced on the console and drove in desperation around Joy's torso and much against Riley's continued attempts to fix things with words that weren't coming to her anymore. Taylor whimpered and shook herself in response to Fear's uncontrollable urge to drive, struggling to return to her knees in order to regard her palms, where she could pretend to see through her purple mittens and admire the developing bruises beneath.

"Still alive!" Fear cried as Taylor moved, blending relief into fresh waves of anxiety. A mad grin crossed his face as he attempted once more to regain total control. Whatever he was doing, it was causing Stubborn Island to malfunction. "Let's get the heck off the ice before something else challenges that."

Riley rose her hands to protest. But when she opened her mouth, there were still no words.

Something wasn't right.

"Hey! Who asked YOU to drive?! Move over; we're not quitting yet." Anger butted Fear out of his way and fought for a set of curvaceous levers on the control panel. He eased them forward by several calculated notches before turning at the waist to glare out the back window.

Riley, too, turned her attention out to Stubborn Island as Joy and Anger attempted to team up on the console. She could see as fine lines of steam began to issue from the joints of the mechanics out there. She could hear as the metal workings of the attraction began to grind in their attempts to work double-time to accommodate Anger's demands. And as she watched it struggle, Taylor fought her way back up to her feet and huffed through her nostrils, trying to be brave again.

"You okay, kiddo?"

"Yeah."

"Alright...up you get...let's try again."

And she did. She stood up and made her best attempt to reach his outstretched hands, but found she was still unable to find her poorly developed sense of balance. Again, she slipped and fell. And again, she wrestled her way back to her feet, gritting her teeth against the new pains developing in her knees and elbows. She adjusted the position of her helmet and tried to advance once more. Only to fall again. And again. And again. And again. Until it became painfully apparent that she was spending more time collapsed on the ice than standing upright upon it. Dad insisted that Taylor slow down, that she rest a minute, but it only seemed to irk Anger all the more, prompting Stubborn Island to show off a display of pyrotechnics the Emotions didn't know it had. Before they knew it, Anger had assumed complete control; the air around him grew to be so hot and intense that it forced Riley and the other standing Emotions quite out of his way. Fueled by his fury, working her every ounce of concentration into her aching, uncoordinated muscles, clenching her fingers into her fists until they bit at her palms, Taylor couldn't feel the impact anymore as she collapsed over and over again.

At last, with a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, Riley felt a violent urge to look away. When Taylor hit the ice once more with enough force to wake those blaring signals of pain again, she finally had to. It all felt so significantly hopeless that Taylor's falls were just painful to watch.

Something was wrong.

That same something she'd felt the faint whispers of long before they'd arrived at the rink was coming back to haunt her. Rectifying the situation began to feel overwhelmingly impossible. The unfortunate thing was that aside from Fear, and perhaps Sadness, whose 'cheering' had long since ended, the other Emotions had become so determined to meet the respective agreements they'd made with Riley, they'd become painfully oblivious, even as Taylor's efforts went from bad to worse.

"We – w-we can keep trying," Joy insisted. Her voice shook at odd intervals as she spoke...her nigh-indestructible spirits were notably worn. "We have to get the hang of it sooner or later. We're working so hard."

"How much longer are we supposed to keep this up?" Disgust stammered as she attempted in vain to fan away Anger's flourishing flames. "Everything hurts, Taylor's exhausted, and this is just so...so...so not what I was expecting..."

"You're giving up?!" Anger spat through his teeth. "Is that what it is? Just like that? Are you giving up on Riley, after all we've been through today?"

Disgust was mortified. Her gaze shifted back and forth as she tried to dredge up words through the smoldering wreckage of her pride. Nothing came to her but the odd, devastated sputter. There were tears edging along Disgust's emerald eyes, which didn't dare to cross Riley's position.

Riley couldn't let it end like this. This was wrong. All wrong. But it wasn't at all due to the quality of Taylor's performance.

It dawned on Riley all too suddenly, though she had not the words to explain it, that this budding disaster was entirely her fault.

Before she could open her mouth to console any of the panic-stricken Emotions, to assure them that she wasn't upset, that she would never ever think their struggles meant to insist anybody was giving up on her, a calm, emptily-level voice lifted into the air, and all heads turned toward the unexpected source that was Fear, who was inching toward the console, his large eyes locked on the display.

"...Dad? ...Wh-why are you looking at us like that?..."

Anger's early flames fizzled out in a single bewildered eyeblink. Joy faltered, a hand upon her chest as she turned to look out the window. Disgust blinked her tears away.

Riley felt as though all of the lights she'd ever known had just winked themselves out. It was dark, suddenly. Everything was dark.

Taylor was looking up and into the eyes of Dad who had come to hover over her. Ugly shadows had replaced those familiar shining lights that fueled his smile and the faint glimmers of life that had traced the features of his face. Neither Taylor, nor Riley, recognized him as the same man from less than an hour ago.

Sadness stirred on the couch, wringing her hands together as Fear stammered on, trying to sound braver than he was. "...We tried, we really tried, we did our very best...that was okay...right? It was at least a little okay?"

Dad shook his head. He chuckled softly from his nose and helped Taylor back to her feet, keeping his hands on her shoulders.

"...Uh...listen Taylor...what do you say we pack it in for the day, huh?"

Taylor rose her head, blinking her wide, blurry eyes.

"...Sorry, kiddo...I just don't think this is meant for you."

"But, but..." Heat began to climb into Taylor's eyes, obscuring her vision even more. "...you said...y-you said I looked like Riley..."

This seemed like the most relevant thing to say. She didn't know how else to phrase it, being so little.

Dad released a long, hollow sigh. His gaze flitted from the space in front of his nose to the skates tied to Taylor's little feet, to the baby-blue helmet on her head. He couldn't look her in the eye anymore.

A retort was poised on his tongue. Riley could tell by the way it churned in his mouth, by the way his throat bobbed as he struggled to swallow, to prepare himself. For a moment there was a flicker of fear...and then a brief moment of deep, resonating sorrow...and then, for a terrifying flash of an instant, what might have been unkempt, bottled rage...

And then, a little too suddenly, he let it all go. His breath eased from his lips, his shoulders fell...he settled a hand on Taylor's shoulder, escorting her from the ice.

"Yeah, I know. And you know what? You really do." A pause. "...Well...In the end, sweetie, when you get right down to it, even if you do look like Riley...you're still Taylor. There's only so much you can do."

Riley lowered herself to the edge of the sofa.

Gutted.

It was not the failure of the outing, nor was it even Dad's peculiarly devastating words.

But that even alive, even after all of the human errors she had made in her life while it lasted, Riley had never felt quite so guilty.

And Headquarters had never felt so empty, nor so deafeningly quiet. No one could speak as Taylor and her father returned to the car. No one moved, no one so much as dared to open their mouths until Taylor was inside and the scenery outside of the car window moved as they pulled away from the rink.

Anger spoke first. "...I...I can't believe it," he muttered, his eyes seeming to burn through the floor. "...I knew the stakes were high...I knew there was a chance that we'd struggle...but I thought we were at least playing our cards right...I thought we were on the right track...Who knew that Dad would give up on us before we did...?"

Disgust massaged her bare arms, cringing through her teeth. She, too, seemed to aim her discussion to the floor below her feet. "...what did Dad mean by all of that? By what he said? Of...of course she's Taylor...I thought that was supposed to be a good thing. Isn't...isn't that enough?..."

Riley began to feel dizzy with a very real, very livid sickness, a class of sickness she remembered experiencing long before she died. It was jarring to feel these sensations all over again. It was almost too much. Riley almost preferred the sensation of nothingness she sometimes experienced when she strayed too far from the window that taunted her with the sight of the Earth she left behind.

"...Oh, Sadness, please, come on," Joy urged in an uncanny tone of voice, prompting Riley to lift her head. "This is bad enough. Do you have to make it worse? Do you have to focus on every little thing that went wrong today?"

Riley sighed, steadily shaking her head. "It's alright, Joy," she said quietly. "...Just let her drive."

There was a soft moan from behind her, and Riley glanced up once more, this time coming to stand from the sofa. Her guilt mutated into something far more gruesome and overweight as it tugged and pulled at her heartstrings. "...Fear? Fear...where are you going?"

Fear looked over his shoulder from the top of the ramp and offered a paltry shrug of his shoulders. "Oh...Don't mind me. I'm just gonna go be anywhere else but out here."

He pulled the door to the hallway to a gentle close behind him.

"I knew this wasn't going work," she heard him sigh. "...We're just Taylor...There's only so much we can do."