I don't own this movie or its brilliant characters.

Riley and her parents stayed up late together that night. They spent time talking about everything, and for much of the time Sadness was driving—all three of them—but at the end of the night, Riley found herself going to bed happier than she had been in a long while. Tomorrow was a Saturday, and her father had promised to spend the day with her and Mom. She was, for the first time since the move, content.

III

"Aaand…we're out," Joy sighed from the console. And for a moment she just stood there, breathing, trying to sort through her thoughts. They all were. Silence reigned for a solid few minutes, no one daring to even move for fear of shattering it. Then, Sadness looked up from her hands, and looked up at Joy. With the eye contact came a smile.

"Yesterday was supposed to be my turn for Dream Duty," Sadness finally said, addressing all of them. "Who took it?"

Fear raised his hand weakly. He still had not looked up from his own wringing hands.

"I can take tonight instead," she offered, but Anger quickly cut her off.

"No, kid," he said in a surprisingly subdued tone, "It's my turn, I'll do it. Besides, you're probably exhausted from what you had to go through."

Joy chuckled a little. "Well, I doubt it was much fun for you three up here, right?" She meant for it to lighten the mood, but her comment only seemed to cause the three emotions that had stayed behind to drop their shoulders and bring the silence back. Joy's small grin faltered. "Guys?"

Disgust looked like she was going to excuse herself to bed at any second, and Fear looked as though he just wanted the ground to swallow him whole. Anger was stoic.

Before Joy could say anything else, Anger spoke up. He was quiet, and his demeanor was altogether unsettling for the others, who were so used to his booming voice and personality. But now he barely moved, barely made a sound.

"I'm sorry. To all of you. I am so sorry."

Joy started. "Wha—sorry? What do you mean? What would you—"

"Joy…" It was Sadness that stopped Joy from her confused rant, and when she had the other's attention Sadness motioned over to the other three, none of whom looked particularly comfortable, or surprised in the least by Anger's apology. In fact, they all looked as though it was meant to be from all of them.

"…Guys? What's the matter?"

"What's the matter," Anger scoffed, self-depricavingly, "what's the matter, she asks." He was talking to himself. Then, louder: "We messed up. I messed up."

"Don't flatter yourself," Disgust's voice was at once harsher and more subdued than usual, "the credit for this epic failure goes to all three of us."

Anger looked up at her, and her eyes finally fell into focus. He said, "The two of us," then turned to the yellow and blue emotions. "To be fair, Fear was against the idea."

"Yeah, I guess," Disgust agreed, readily, much to almost everyone's surprise. "He really didn't have anything to do with the whole…running away thing."

"Yes I did."

Fear's sudden interjection into the conversation startled everyone, though his voice was more hushed than anyone else's had been. "I…I tried to run. Remember?"

Sadness and Joy were confused, to say the least. Sadness was the one to ask what he was talking about. Disgust and Anger were silent, and somehow, uncomfortable.

Fear took a shuddering breath, his eyes glassy and focused on the floor in front of him. "I, uh…I wanted to run. To quit. I thought that, if the two of you could leave then…then I could too. I-it didn't work, and things just kind of moved on, but I still…I-I—"

Before he could break down completely, Joy cut him off. "Woah, hey, hey hey! It's okay! It's—"

"No! No, it's not okay!" No one was prepared for his outburst, not even Fear himself. He gestured wildly with his arms, and his hands were curled into claws. "We ruined her! The three of us, without either of you, we broke her! We watched her fall apart and we couldn't to a thing about it! Look at what we did to her!"

His harsh voice carried thought Headquarters, and echoed slightly back to them. His brows were furrowed, his teeth bared into a hateful snarl, and his eyes piercing; they would all agree that, at that moment, Fear was scary.

Ignoring how that all flinched back, he continued. "We couldn't even do our own jobs right, let alone either of yours. Anger failed to find any one thing to be angry at, and so Riley was just plain angry; Disgust did nothing but just make it harder for Riley to find friends or have fun, everything was just so distasteful to her—" Disgust visibly flinched at his words, her eyes becoming more glassy and her pout more prominent; Fear paid no mind. "—and I—ha, well, does it look like I kept her safe to you!? We failed her!" The quiet following his rave was deafening, and when Fear finally spoke again, the regret in his tone bled into each one of them. "We failed her."

No one spoke. What did one say to that?

Sadness was, again, the one to break the silence. "Maybe…" she said gently, testing the waters, "maybe we should all stay up tonight. It, um…it looks like we all have some things to talk about."

Joy agreed, but said nothing. She simply looked from Sadness to their three friends, who all looked so broken and guilty and wrong, waiting for them to respond.

"Yeah," It was Anger who finally answered for the three of them. "I think…I think that would be a good idea."

A/n: Everyone ready for dramatized, heartfelt angst? Yes? Good. Because I'm in a mood.