Hello, all. Thanks to the kind response I've received, I'm hoping to update this story every other day if I can manage it!

Thanks to all of those who have chosen to follow - I hope it continues to please. c:

~KQSimply

A brief, impulsive thrill fired through Riley's system as she realized that she was waking up.

It was quickly overridden by the unpleasant sounds of a baby's cry and the recollection of where she was. Somewhere in the night between Sadness and Joy, she had fallen asleep.

Her spirits deflated.

Groggily, Riley sat up, searching for the source of the distressing sound, quickly greeted by the oval window and the early morning light that poured through it. Sadness's silhouette stood on tip-toe at the very center of things, relentlessly working the single button of the console. Blinking curiously, Riley stood and joined her at her side.

"…Sadness?"

"Oh…good morning, Riley." Nothing sounded good about it. Sadness frowned sappily up to her before slowly turning back to the window, using the full weight of her upper body to press the button down again. While Joy drew a cheerful, golden light from the button when she operated the device, it seemed Sadness was only able to produce the colour blue.

"…Um…What are you doing, exactly?" Riley prodded as the baby's cries only worsened. "I think you're upsetting her."

Sadness sighed despairingly. "Yeah. Taylor's hungry, so I figured we should probably cry."

Well…Riley supposed that made sense. Taylor was only a baby. It was weird and very frustrating to exist in a position where everyone was coherent and self-aware, but that they could do so little to communicate this to the world outside of this place.

Riley winced against a particularly shrill cry and looked down to the console. It's large, bulbous button was very tempting, suddenly.

"Can I try?"

Sadness glanced up to her and her suggestion, prompting Riley to try to explain herself. "I may not remember much of this, but I've been through all of this before. Right? Who knows. Maybe I can help."

After a little consideration, Sadness swallowed audibly and released her hands from the console, letting her blue light die away. "Uh…I suppose so."

Taylor's cries lowered by a few merciful decibels as the two traded places. Riley took a breath, rubbed her palms together, and carefully placed both of them across the smooth circumference of the button on the console. She pressed down.

Nothing happened. No light, no pleasant ringing tones…no response from Taylor. Riley's shoulders eased.

"Oh…that's disappointing," said Sadness quietly. "I kind of wanted to know what emotion you would produce. I bet it would have been pretty neat…but it looks like nothing happened."

"…Yeah. Guess not."

Riley looked down to her hands and released the breath she realized she'd been holding. A part of her had been hoping that perhaps she'd be able to speak through Taylor this way, somehow. Now, she realized the thought had probably been a little impractical. She didn't know the first thing about this contraption, after all.

The solution to this was clear: it was time to start asking questions and acquiring some answers.

"…So…what exactly does this thing do?"

Sadness looked at it. "The console? …Well…It's sort of what we use when we want to we reach out. You know. So that we can be felt. You had one just like it in your Headquarters when you were her age. Yours was a little bit different, but it's mostly the same, I guess."

"Weird." Riley shook herself a little. She'd always imagined something a little more organic than this, when imagining how things worked in her own head. "How does it work?"

"It's kind of complicated." Sadness began to worm her way back to the center of the device. "I think it's better if I just show you."

She frowned and pushed the button down once more to Riley's dismay, returning the blue light beneath her palms.

Taylor resumed her cries with vigor.

Riley shrunk, amazed that such a tiny little baby could produce so much noise.

Joy finally sat up from her nest of pillows and groaned, running a hand through her disheveled hair. "Good grief. I didn't exactly miss this." Quickly, she rose to her feet and looked up to the window, checking her surroundings.

It wasn't long before bright lights of the hallway entered the bedroom, suddenly; Riley's breath caught in her throat as her mother hastily entered the view. The world around them grew warm, suddenly, as Taylor was nestled snug against her chest.

"Ah…finally. There she is." Joy stared fondly up to Mom's eyes. She and Sadness exchanged positions without having to watch their feet, as though they could read each other's minds.

"My goodness," Mom was saying in a hushed, pleasant voice. "What a fuss you're making." She wrapped a new blanket around her, pulling Taylor very close to her body. "There, now. How's that? Better? Poor little Early Bird."

With that, Joy leaned her hands down on the console and kept them there, while the soft sounds of suckling filled the air. She sighed, inclining her head, twisting one foot into the floor. Joy looked as though she could have stayed in this position forever.

"…I did miss this," she whispered. "I let so many of these kinds of memories fade, but I never forgot how warm and nice it all was. I still can't believe we get to do it all over again."

Mom was looking straight into the window. Directly at Riley, it seemed.

"Look at you," she was saying. "You have your daddy's nose, and I think, fingers crossed, you'll have mommy's hair…but you have Riley's everything. You're so pretty. She would have been so proud of you."

While before, these words would have left her feeling gutted, this time they injected Riley with an encouraging stream of pride. A new desperation woke inside of her to hear her mother say words like this over and over again. She felt willing to do anything to make it known that she was much closer than the world believed she was.

"It's me, Mom," Riley uttered as she paced forward. Sadness and Joy turned to her. "You can see me so clearly because I'm right here. I never left. Not really"

Taylor was lowered back into her bassinet, satisfied and drowsy again. As the lights in her room dimmed and her eyes sleepily dipped and closed, Riley folded her arms, as though trying to keep warm, in spite of how warm she already felt.

"…I'll find a way to tell you somehow, Mom. I promise."

Sadness had been about to approach Riley again, as though irresistibly drawn to her welling sensations of sorrow, when Joy suddenly dashed away from the console.

"–Joy?"

"Someone's coming!"

Riley quickly turned, following Joy's scampering figure to the murky backdrop of Headquarters, where a new form was indeed beginning to build itself from the air. She vaguely recalled that Joy and Sadness had been referring to 'the others' all along, but caught up in her distress as she had been, she hadn't fully processed that there could possibly be anymore to this strange universe. Her eyes danced as iridescent particles compiled themselves in the air, folding together into a new, living essence.

Riley couldn't have been less prepared for the appearance of this one, as he drew his first tremulous breath and hastily strung his fingers into a tight, anxious knot. His eyes, wide and overly calculative, made up the majority of his head, sprouting from which rose a prehensile antenna of sorts that began to coil above his brow as he fretfully threw his gaze to and fro. Though his body could have been described as a solicitous shade of violet, something about it was off-putting, like the fine edge of a poorly understood, unpleasant shadow. He was the opposite of Joy and Sadness combined – thin, awkward and crouched, as though he wanted nothing to do with his surroundings but could concern himself with nothing else.

The instant his eyes found Joy's, however, relief loosened his every muscle and he practically fell into her arms. Sadness too, once she had pattered over to him.

"Joy! Sadness! Oh, thank goodness – I didn't know what to expect!" He drew away from them, wringing his hands as he passed his eyes between the other two. "That was terrible. The last thing I remember was how dark everything was getting, and then realizing that you guys couldn't hear me anymore. I could've sworn it was the end."

Joy winced, and immediately, he read into it. "Unless—" The nearly comical situation of his face shifted very suddenly; his massive eyes darkened and his thin shoulders began to collapse. "Oh, no…"

Sadness settled a hand upon his elbow.

"Oh no…don't tell me…Riley…d-did she…?" He rose a finger, unable to decide who to lock eyes with more. "…she didn't die, did she?"

Joy folded her hands together. Her frown expressed everything. "…I'm so sorry to have to tell you like this," she said gently amid his rising devastation. "There really wasn't anything you could have done – it just wasn't in our hands. But everything's okay now."

"What? 'Okay'?! This is as far away from 'okay' as it can get!" He began to pace back and forth frenziedly, like a caged animal, starting a new sentence each time he changed direction. "Poor Riley – how could I have let this happen? – if only I had panicked more – I knew I should've been driving – the doctors said we had more time – I wasn't prepared – b-but –oh, Riley, why–"

"Hey, hey…calm down," Joy said, managing to snatch him by the shoulders. "It really is okay."

"No, no it is not. Riley's gone. Riley. Our Riley. I had one job to do and I let everybody down. I let her slip right through my—"

Joy couldn't help but chuckle at the calamity of a display he was putting on as she stepped aside and gestured behind her. "See for yourself! Riley's right over here."

Pausing, he glanced over to Riley and heaved an big sigh, wiping his brow with a skinny wrist. "Ohhh, right over there. Sweet mercy, what a relief." He grinned and nodded wearily, letting a sort of drunken giddiness take over for a while as his panic dwindled away.

And then he double-took.

He stammered nonsensically, pointing to Riley, and then to the window, and then at the console, before his legs gave out beneath him and he crumpled to the floor like a string on its end.

"Oh, gosh, that's a record." Joy and Sadness lowered to their knees and fanned the air around his face as Riley made her cautious approach, feeling somewhat responsible for rendering their friend unconscious. To judge by Sadness and Joy's quick response, however, it seemed like this was somewhat of a practiced ritual.

"Er – is he okay?"

"Definitely. He's, uh, he's always been the fainter of the bunch. Right Sadness?"

"Right."

His eyes fluttered as he came to, and he murmured incessantly as they dragged him back to his feet and lead his attention – very carefully – to Riley once more. His consciousness threatened to slip again, but Joy insisted with a firm jostle that he stay awake. "Relax! It's just fine," she vowed. "I promise."

He flicked wide eyes at Joy as though questioning her sanity as she directed him to stand close enough to Riley that a proper introduction could take place. First, however, his eyes stirred all over her, assessing her thoroughly from top to bottom. When he could be sure she was safe, he regained some semblance of composure and straightened slightly, nearly proving that he could have been quite tall if only he wasn't so cowardly.

"Riley…is that really you? I-I can't believe my eyes. I never thought we'd meet face-to-face. This is so surreal."

"Tell me about it," Riley muttered. She couldn't help but grin just a little.

He nervously cleared his throat, wiping his palms off on his houndstooth sweater vest before extending his arm toward her. "Oh, uh – I'm Fear."

Riley didn't have the heart to tell him she'd already sort of gathered. "Er, hi. Sorry if I startled you earlier."

"Not a problem; happens all the time." He chuckled self-consciously.

She reached for Fear's hand and they awkwardly shook.

Riley's heart rate kicked into overdrive. Her breath caught in her throat. A chill twisted up her spine, suggesting with a series of sinister whispers that someone or something could've been directly behind her, breathing down her neck. Her eyes bounced back and forth as she connected some dots in her head; her hand, meanwhile, trembled as it remained in Fear's grasp.

A part of her suddenly twisted itself into knots with concern over Taylor's welfare.

Fear quickly snatched his hand away, questioning her with his eyes, wondering, perhaps, if he had hurt her. The instant he released her, her anxiety dispersed.

Riley glanced to the window, noting that Taylor seemed to be just fine. She'd had nothing to worry about. A sigh of relief cleared her lungs, and Fear quickly understood that he was quite off the hook.

His pupils fell to examine the hand he had been holding, and surprisingly enough, a grin suddenly appeared on his face.

"Hey, look at that! It's completely gone."

Riley looked down to her hand breathlessly, fanning out her fingers. "What's gone?"

"The wound from your IV." He gestured to the back of her hand, looking pleased. "It healed over just fine, just like Mom said it would. I was so worried she was wrong. I should've known better."

She hummed softly, rolling up her sleeve to reveal the odd, stippled material of her arm. It dawned on Riley that she had been worried about that, in spite of her mother's relentless assertion that it would eventually mend one day. "Oh. You're right. It is gone." She grinned. "I guess Mom was right."

"Isn't she always? There's not even a scar anymore. That's good. Well…as good as it can be, I suppose, given the circumstances." The antenna suspended above his brow began to curl counter-clockwise, hiding itself behind his shoulders. It seemed to compulsorily follow his shifts in behavior, like a dog's tail, though not nearly as active. It was peculiarly charismatic. Something about its position now, however, caused her to feel a touch of pity for him. "I'm really sorry about all of this, Riley. I can't believe that after thirteen years of keeping you safe, I just let it…happen."

She wasn't sure how on earth this could have been his fault.

"I know I overreacted when we first found out we were sick. That wasn't wise of me at all. I don't know where my head was that day. I'm sorry about that too. It was just so much to take in. It didn't seem possible. You lead a healthy lifestyle, you were careful, you always washed your hands, and you were just a kid. So…w-when they said it was terminal…I got scared. I got really, really scared."

Riley's brow began to curve as she recalled the dreadful feeling of falling she'd experienced the day they told her and her family how serious her illness was. The way the words beat her into a stupefied little pulp. She'd wanted to wake up then one hundred times more than she wanted to wake up now.

It was amazing to think that she had felt this way because of the eccentric individual standing in front of her.

"It took all of my strength to keep myself from driving, after that. Knowing that you were suffering was a kind of torture in and of itself, but knowing just as well that making you feel scared was only going to make matters worse…w-well…" He fumbled his hands over themselves. "…I just couldn't bring myself to do that to you. You were going through enough. Besides, any time I stood back and saw how brave you were being without me…I was reminded of how much of an inspiration you've always been to me." He glanced down to his slender fingers. "…I hope you can forgive me for this someday, Riley."

A warm smile graced Riley's face. "If you're seriously going to insist that you have a reason to apologize, Fear, I think already know exactly how you can make it up to me."

"You do?"

"Uh huh." She carefully pinched the button of his sleeve and led up him to the console. Joy and Sadness followed suit.

Fear opened his mouth to ask the million-dollar question – Riley spoke directly over him. "This is Taylor," she said, closing Fear's mouth for him. "She's my little sister." Riley carefully set a hand on Fear's shoulder, realizing that so long as she came in contact with his clothes and not his violet particles, she wouldn't have to feel the discomfort of his essence. "And it looks like I'm going to be staying in here with her. Here in – you know – this place."

"…Headquarters?"

"Yeah. Headquarters. Thanks, Sadness."

"You're welcome."

"So…since I'm in here, and not out there…I guess that means I'm going to need a little help making sure that things go well for Taylor, and that she stays…you know, safe." She glanced meaningfully at Fear, whose eyes began to brighten. "…Think you can do that for me?"

Fear's wiry antenna sprang up above his brow. "Wow…Riley…Of course I would. I'd be honoured to. You'd seriously trust me with your kid sister, a-after what I let happen to you?"

Riley nodded confidently. "You went against everything you believed in to let me be brave when things couldn't have been worse for me. You're exactly the kind of emotion I'd want for her."

She passed her blue eyes over all of the individuals that had come to gather in Taylor's mind thus far.

"…You all are."

Joy could hardly contain herself, beaming so brightly that her faerie-like aura seemed to double in size. Sadness was deeply touched, and couldn't resist yet another one of her sweet, endearing smiles. And Fear—

Fear dove onto the console when the sound of a door slamming shut jarred everyone fully awake, repeatedly jamming the single button down in perfect time with Taylor's rapid little heartbeat.

"What the HECK was that?!"

Everyone winced when Taylor started to bawl.

"Yep," said Riley through her teeth. "He'll be perfect for her, alright."