Happy thanksgiving to my Canadian homies! I am thankful for so many things, including the fact that my husband is a chef :'3 I am also thankful because OMF WTF IDGAF TGIF Inside Out Digital HD Release tomorrowww (which means RILEYSFIRSTDATE?) ahhhhhhh~

seriously is anyone else freaking out
no
k

Speaking of the film, though, I should really be mentioning each chapter that this story has its heavily spoilery parts, and this chapter is no exception. I'll be making small updates to the beginning of each previous chapter to indicate that there might be spoilers for future readers. My bad. :c VERY sorry if I spoiled anyone so far.

Anyway, in addition to that I'm thankful for those who have stuck with the story this long, for all of those who have chosen to follow the story (seriously, 100 followers, that is so flattering! yeeeeek! c': ), and to those who have been so kind to leave their thoughts behind. Hope everyone enjoys chapter 8!
~KQSimply


"...Hey, Bing Bong? Where'd you go?"

Taylor traced her fluffy friend to a corner, where he was seated at a tiny blue tea table with a stuffed rabbit, a beanbag dragon, a vintage GI Joe action figure and Rex, a green dinosaur who was wearing a most becoming purple sundress. Bing Bong drew a deep, elegant breath through his trunk and tipped his hat to the group. "Would you excuse me, ladies and gentlemen? Our Future President would like a word with me."

He crossed the room and joined Taylor beside her bed, pawing gingerly at her feet through the blankets. "...What's up, pal?" The words You Wanna Play were visibly poised on his lips, but he held his breath, hoping for Taylor to suggest it instead. It had been so long since she had, after all.

Taylor yawned, stretched, and finally pulled the covers away from herself. Bing Bong was about to cheer, but he quickly closed his mouth, forcing himself to keep respectfully quiet as Taylor spoke over top of him. "So…Riley was really good at hockey, right?"

"Oh yeah, she was the BEST at hockey! Probably the best in the whole entire world. Why do you ask?"

Taylor grinned. "I had an idea not long ago, and…well, I dunno, I think maybe I should play hockey too, just like she did."

Bing Bong arched his hands through the air. "Hey, that's a swell idea! Riley would be all over it, I'm sure. And who knows, you might even end up on TV!"

The thought sent tiny thrills through Taylor's body. A part of her always wanted to be the star of something, and she often dreamed of being on television, though her dreams never featured her in a hockey rink, necessarily. She was usually on stage, her purple ukulele in hand, playing for thousands and thousands of fans.

For certain, ukuleles and hockey did not mix. Taylor shook herself, pushing instruments and stages as far from her thoughts as possible. "That's the plan," she said as-a-matter-of-factly. "Now I just gotta start playing!"

"Yeah, okay!"

There was an awkward pause. The two stared back at each other with anticipation written all over their faces, but they weren't sure what they were waiting for.

"...Ummm…How does hockey work again?"

"Oh. Yeah. Guess it'd help if you knew the ins and outs of the game, huh?" Bing Bong's eyes lit up and he thrust his hand in the air. "You need someone to teach you about it?! Ooh, ooh, right here, pick me!"

Naturally, Taylor smirked and waved him on. "Go ahead, Bing Bong. Tell me everything you know about it."

Calming himself first, Bing Bong straightened and assumed a scholar's sophisticated posture. He then closed his eyes, drew a set of spectacles out of thin air, poised them on the bridge of his trunk, and began. "See, you take ten or so grown-up men and put them in a giant room with white kitchen flooring – they call it the 'rink'. There they must run around with butter-knives tied to the bottoms of their shoes and squabble over a can of tuna somebody painted black, with the objective being to get in as many fist-fights as possible without the man in the striped shirt catching them. Whoever spends the least amount of time on the Time-Out bench wins."

Taylor sprang up and clapped. "Makes perfect sense so far!"

Bing Bong took a graceful bow. "Well, naturally. I'm an Expert on Everything after all."

Riley slapped a hand to her forehead and left the console to pace back and forth. What she wouldn't have given to travel back a few moments in time and kick herself in the shins for feeling so confident about Operation Hockey Island before. Somehow, though by now she was much wiser, she'd been certain the subject would've come to Taylor naturally, especially given the Emotions in charge of her Headquarters.

Anger padded after her for a few short footsteps, his palms splayed earnestly before him. The air around his body was very warm – she was clearly frustrating him with her lack of enthusiasm, but was too frustrated herself to try to rectify the situation. "Come on, Riley, we're trying our best here. Things are just so…different, now. It's just not the same as it was when we were with you. You get it, don't you?"

"It can't be all that different. Taylor's an Andersen. She's got my blood. Right?"

Fear's fingers tap-danced against his jaw. "Well, yes, that's true…but are you sure blood's all that's got to do with it? I mean, didn't you start playing when you were really little?"

Riley paused, dropping her gaze to the floor. "I guess I did have a bit of a head-start…but Taylor's really not that far behind. There should still be a little time to get her started. We just need to teach her." Joy was about to gesture out the window when Riley thrust her finger into the air, commanding immediate silence from the other. "And no, we're not going to ask Bing Bong any more questions about it. You guys are gonna to have to unlearn everything he just told you about how hockey works. Pronto." She blinked at Bing Bong, who was polishing those gold-rimmed glasses on the scratchy seam of his coat before tucking them behind his back, where they were likely to disappear forever. "No offense, big guy."

"Okay," Disgust sighed, her arms now impatiently crossed. "So, I'm on-board with this Operation Hockey Island thing, but how are we supposed to just convert her into a natural like you were, when she knows literally nothing about hockey? Taylor doesn't play sports. So far, all she plays is the ukulele."

"Rather well for her age, I might add," Joy supplemented with a grin.

Riley shook her head at them both. "She needs exposure. That's all there is to it. When we lived in Minnesota, we went out on the lake every weekend and practiced, taught each other tricks, goofed around…that's how I learned how to skate so fast. And I scored my first goal when I was only three. Don't you guys remember?"

The others turned to Joy, who nodded hastily. "We remember what it meant to you, Riley."

The others' scattered voices agreed with her. "Yeah, well said, Joy," said somebody.

"But Disgust has a good point, " Joy went on to say. "And so do you. Taylor's experience with hockey is definitely, um…limited. Yeah. That's it. Limited. We just need to find a way to get our hands good and dirty."

"Well, not too dirty."

"Of course, Disgust. That was a figure of speech."

"Whatever."

"Anyway, you get where I'm going with this. Any little push'll be a big help. Baby-steps, and we'll have a bright and shiny Hockey Island for Taylor in no time."

"…Baby steps, huh?" Riley turned her attention back to the view, kneading her lips beneath her fingertips as she hummed. "...There might be something hockey-related on Taylor's bookshelf," she mentioned. "Can someone help me give her a prompt?"

"Absolutely!" Joy skipped up to the console, inviting Riley's hand into her own. Together they held a key down, turning the console a brilliant gold, and all eyes turned up to the window as Taylor donned her glasses and focused on the bookshelf in question.

"Let's see," Taylor hummed to herself, "what else, what else, there's gotta be more…"

"Good thinking, Taylor. Maybe Riley stashed something in there for you to check up on. So clever, that Riley...though it helps that she's also got yours truly working as her Royal Messenger, right?"

"Uh huh."

"What're we looking for, Riley? Stickers? A colouring book? Photo album?"

Riley narrowed her eyes. "I thought Mom kept some of my sports novels for Taylor to look through. Could've sworn I heard her talking about it once."

"Oh, er – wait – you're looking for an actual book?"

There was a collective audible wince from the others crowded at Riley's back.

"Yeah, there's a bit of a flaw in your plan, Riley." Anger pointed over her shoulder, inciting Riley to look closer, realizing that through Taylor's eyes, the words on the spines of her books looked Greek. Or perhaps Russian. Or Mandarin Chinese. Or a strange combination of the three. "Taylor's only four and a half years old for Pete's sake. She doesn't know how to read yet. Cut her some slack."

Riley groaned, her head collapsing to one side. "Ugh. I guess I forgot." She turned her head, without necessarily facing anybody. "You know, that's something I still don't get. You guys can read a little – why can't she?"

"Hey. What'd I tell you about asking so many questions?" Anger muttered, rolling his sizzling gaze onto Riley.

Everyone else just shrugged at her.

Sometimes Headquarters was a little too magical for its own good.

"O-kay…How about this:" Riley slipped her hand out from beneath Joy's and made haste toward the second level. "What if I took one of the memories from my room, something hockey-related, and just put it in the dock with her other Core Memories? That should jumpstart something, right?"

Fear laughed from behind her, though he sounded more pained than amused, which provoked Riley to spin on her heel and find him in the crowd. "See? RILEY thought it'd work." He was glaring obnoxiously at Anger and Disgust before his eyes found Riley's. "But uh, yeah, before you take another step, kiddo, I can confirm that route's a guaranteed flop. We'll just end up with an untidy Headquarters." He winced. "And possibly some bruises." He winced harder. "And likely a concussion or two."

Riley parted her lips in order to put his ridiculous exaggerations to rest when Disgust and Anger spoke in unison, monotonously: "Trust 'em."

Riley closed her mouth, with that, and sighed through her nose, exasperated. Taylor's eyes were beginning to drift, making it clear that other things were beginning to seem more appealing to her. Her toys, her picture books, her little ukulele. Wanting for just a little progress before letting her sister succumb to these trivial distractions, Riley straightened her back, studying Taylor's bedroom door. "Well..." The others regarded her as she fixated on the console. "There's still a more direct way to introduce her to hockey, I guess. We could just have her ask Dad about it outright."

Anger shrugged. "…Couldn't hurt, I suppose. Sorta takes the magic out of it, but that'd definitely be...easier?"

And Disgust rolled her eyes. "Kinda true. I mean, Dad would be an expert. When he's not on the phone or out of the house, he's, like, hypnotized by the stupid television, and you can guess what's always on it."

Concurring with a slow, easing breath, Riley nodded and sought Joy's eye. But before she could request her assistance, Fear coughed, and again, Riley impatiently shot her attention to him, suppressing the urge to ask What is it this time?

Any lingering semblance of humour, sarcastic or otherwise, had long since drained from his face. He was tugging profusely at the bottom hem of his sweater-vest. "Uh...hang on. I'm not so sure that's a...I mean, maybe we..." Suddenly he straightened, thrusting a strange, unfamiliar round of confidence into his voice and every gesture. "Actually, Riley? I think your previous idea would work a whole lot better. You go find a few memories from your bedroom to try, and I'll start working on, uh, setting up a place for us to duck for cover." He flashed an atrociously forced smile at her. Even Joy looked uncomfortable as she attempted to stomach it.

Riley furrowed her brow at him and he flinched in response. "Oh? I thought that idea was a 'guaranteed flop'."

Fear chuckled nervously and crouched, putting himself at least two heads shorter than Riley as he stared up at her through the narrowing slits of his lashes. "I-I did say that, didn't I? Well, there's nothing, er...IMMORAL about giving it another shot for shiggles, right? Or, you know, if you're nervous about it too, we could just wait and see if we learn all kinds of things about sports once we start kindergarten. It's just a few months away. I can wait."

"Kindergarten? No way. I'm not waiting that long for her to get into hockey. And where'd you pick up the word 'shiggles'?"

"Uh...daytime TV?"

Disgust beheld her coworker in silence, looking as though she had just swallowed something her sensitive gag reflex could barely tolerate.

Anger, without a lick of patience, couldn't look at him anymore. He shook his head in Riley's direction, his eyes stationed skyward. "I don't know either, Riley." He often read her thoughts with relative ease, and this moment had been no exception to the rule.

Riley knew better than to neglect the opinions of Anger and Disgust in the first place. In her growing experience living with personified Emotions, their perspectives were ones she tended to prefer, directly alongside Joy's, in fact. Ignoring Fear's incessant stammering at her back, she approached the control panel, beckoning for Joy to join her with a curly index finger. Taylor's gaze lifted once again to the bedroom door. She stood and toddled toward it, her tiny hand reaching for the doorknob as Riley and Joy moved to the front in unison.

Steps away from their destination, Fear suddenly threw himself between the pair and the console, bracing himself against any further advancing with two sweaty, trembling palms.

"Stop!" he hollered. His voice cracked. "…Just…wait a minute. Please? I-I really, really, really don't think this is such a good idea."

Riley was dumbfounded, rooted to the spot for the fault of a number of reasons. She lingered in vain for Joy to speak up first, but could sense that the other, just barely outside of her peripheral, was also hesitant, and that she, too, was having difficulty perceiving the dark gravity of Fear's eyes. They were wide and heartfelt, dancing to and fro. Desperate. She could very nearly hear them pleading with her to understand.

"Fear?" Riley uttered slowly, pacing one step closer to him. Fear tread backwards in retaliation, pressing his spine against the edge of the console. "...What's the matter?"

Unable to maintain direct eye-contact with anyone any longer, Fear's gaze vaulted all over Headquarters, seeking unsatisfying points of refuge here, or there. "It's just...I-it's just that–" Finally, he pinched his eyes shut and let his words overflow. "He – he's always so busy – he won't have time for stupid little questions – we shouldn't bug him with this – he might not be in the mood – he's got enough on his plate – we really shouldn't bother him, a-and–"

A low whine shuddered beneath him as he fumbled for the console's edge with the base of his palm, sending rippling vibrations through the air that caused Riley's stippled essence to tingle. The console's beams shifted to violet, and Taylor's hand flinched away from the doorknob. Realizing his mistake, Fear twirled around, spotted Taylor's fingers curled apprehensively in the air before her, and the antenna-like hair atop his head bowed between his narrow shoulder blades. Having made Taylor too nervous to attempt leaving her room, Fear, visibly ashamed, could not so much as glimpse the dismayed faces of his colleagues out the corner of his eye.

It left Riley speechless behind him. And as she reconsidered his string of words, studying his silhouette as it trembled into itself, she realized she could not recall a time Taylor had approached Dad without some dire reason or out of sheer necessity. One could go as far as to say Taylor actively avoided him. A possibility she'd yet to consider dawned on her, then, accompanied by a sharp sting against her core as she gently called Fear's name again. Though her bid warmth and tenderness into her voice, he struggled to face her nevertheless, his every blink and gesture simply riddled with guilt.

"…Fear…You're not…scared of Dad, are you?"

The suggestion kicked Fear's habit of rummaging with himself into overdrive. His tongue squirmed clumsily in his mouth as he tried to speak for himself, but with an audience containing the aghast eyes of Disgust and Anger, this seemed to be an impossibility. He did turn hopefully to Joy, but even this thwarted his efforts, for once; Joy was visibly upset by his unvoiced confession too.

Finally, his entire body caved as he expelled a long, defeated sigh. "…I'm not in trouble, am I? A-are you mad at me?"

Riley's shoulders drooped; she tsked piteously before she spoke. "Of course we're not mad at you."

She was very careful to say 'we', though passing her eyes over those of the others proved that everyone seemed as quick to forgive him as she was. Even Anger was maintaining his cool, though he appeared as baffled by Fear's response as she could have expected.

"And you're definitely not in trouble. I just wish I'd known. I wish you would've told me." To be honest, for not knowing, she felt like a fool. "...You know you can tell me things like this, don't you?" He was red in the face as she spoke, and Riley could only imagine she was too. "How long has this been a…a thing?"

Fear moaned, his eyes downcast. "...A while," he muttered.

"…What's a while, to you?"

"…Ah…about a year, now. Or two. M-maybe three. I don't know. I was trying so hard to keep it to myself, I guess I lost track of the time altogether…" He massaged his shoulders with his palms, and as he cringed while he did so, Riley nearly succumbed to an urge to take his hand, forgetting about his unpleasant Overflow for a split-second. "…I'm as excited about a new Hockey Island as the rest of you, but…w-well, don't the rest of you remember what happened the last time we tried to make a Core Memory with Dad?"

Riley lobbed her puzzled gaze onto Joy, now, unsure of what Fear was referring to. The suggestion to craft more Core Memories was a very recent thing – the three glowing orbs resting in the dock had come to exist more or less by surprise over the course of Taylor's second and third year. But, to Riley's surprise, she could not keep Joy's eye for long either. In fact, the sunny Emotion's natural smile dwindled remarkably at the echo of Fear's words and her bare shoulders stooped.

"…Sadness?" Joy squeaked, her starry eyes now trained on her friend who was seated on the farthest sofa. Sadness hadn't uttered a word since the excitement over Operation Hockey Island was first drummed to life. She looked up now, sweeping the thin, glittery curtain of hair that obscured her view out of her face, and her body expanded with a single, shallow breath. Joy, meanwhile, exuded a sad smile that left Riley feeling cold inside as she watched the other cross the room. "…Do you still have that memory tucked away somewhere?"

Sadness, now blank, merely stared back at Joy at first. Her distinct hesitation left Riley with the impression that Sadness thought the request to be somewhat unnecessary. She almost looked poised to argue and decline. But who was anyone to refuse Joy, when her smile appeared so weak and uncharacteristic?

Sadness's brow knitted in what appeared to be concentration, but developed, to Riley's shock, into a state of despair. Tears lined her eyes as they hovered into space, but no one moved to console her. Though Riley was moved to pity, the others regarded her as though she were the intricate operations of a very delicate procedure, and little else. Just as Riley's muscles were about to insist she step forward to comfort her and ask what was wrong, Sadness closed her eyes, allowing her tears to flow freely down her cheeks. She collected one onto the very tip of her index finger and held it away from her face.

Gravity overcame the weight of the little teardrop and it eventually dripped from Sadness's finger, falling no more than an inch through the air before magic once again took hold, slowing its progress until the droplet was very nearly floating in mid-air as it began to increase in size and luminosity. Reflections danced within the fluid, and as it grew into larger and larger of a sphere, Riley could almost hear what its innermost reflections had to whisper.

"Come back here, you little Monkey!"

She couldn't remember the last time she'd heard that precious, precious nickname.

The air surrounding the crowd in Headquarters was tinted a faint, icy blue as Sadness tucked her palms around what was no longer a tiny teardrop, but was now an old, severely faded memory. Riley, slack-jawed as she beheld it, watched as a familiar scene unfolded within its marble circumference. There was Dad, scurrying after a little tiny Someone with an open towel. He was smiling. It was too good to be true. A part of Riley wanted to doubt it was Dad in the first place, with a smile as bright as that, but it could be no one else. The vision of him in this faint, sad memory rendered her tongue weak and feeble as it moved to voice her bewilderment.

"...When...when was this? When did Dad and Taylor ever have so much fun together?"

Sadness gawked up at her through her endearingly large glasses, gradually rocking her head. "That's not Taylor," she said, her voice cotton-soft and humble. "...That's you."

"...Me?"

Without a prompt, Sadness offered the memory to Riley's hands, letting her squint into it for herself.

...And so it was. Riley and Taylor looked so much alike in their toddler years, not even she could hardly tell them apart.

She rewound the memory with her fingers, watching her father closely. A dull ache began to pool in her chest.

"...That was one of your earliest Core Memories, Riley." Joy's voice, soft and tender though it was, jarred Riley out of her trance. "It powered an amazing Island for you."

"Goofball Island," Sadness uttered.

"But this memory wasn't always sad. Actually...it was something you and I made together. And even as you grew up, even as things started to change inside...I was always so proud of it. It remained as one of my favourite Core Memories for years. Not just because it was so happy...but it powered a part of you that could make other people happy, too." Riley's eyes dipped; she could see that Joy had clenched her hands into tiny fists. "Other people like...l-like Dad. So...years ago, when I tried to make that same Core Memory again with him and Taylor, it...I thought it would just sort of...work. I still don't understand why it didn't. I don't know what the difference is between then and now."

Fear swallowed audibly. "But Dad knows. He must." He swiveled on his feet and entered a swift code on the console in order to summon a memory – a visual aid, to compare Riley's Core Memory to Taylor's failed duplication to the projector. "He sees something in us, now, that just wasn't there when we were with Riley." The memory that sprang up across the display was tainted a most unpleasant purple. Shadows were elongated; the hallway Taylor stood in seemed cold and foreboding; Dad stood before her as a wicked, unruly giant. "O-or maybe...maybe it's what he doesn't see? Maybe he's looking for something that we just don't have anymore. Maybe it's something Riley had that Taylor just...doesn't." Dad's voice boomed in the memory, but his words were inaudible against the crackling thunder of his fingers as he snapped them at Taylor. Fear withered and turned his head away from the display, unable to bear it any longer.

"...When are you going to listen when you're asked to do something, Taylor?"

Taylor, who winced and began to nibble the tips of her fingers, was through with the memory too.

And the others, who released a breath they hadn't meant to be holding, followed suit: Disgust looked down at herself, at her delicate hands, her dainty feet, and her brow creased, as though she was, for the very first time, somehow disgusted with herself, reluctantly resenting her every particle. Anger's breaths began to pass in and out of him in shallow spurts, and his eyes scanned the air before him, as though in search of some visible, lingering reason to feel as angered as he appeared. Joy and Sadness could only swap hesitant, agonized looks with one another.

"...I don't know, Riley," Fear continued meekly. "I don't really understand what's going on anymore...but I do know understand how terrible it feels. A-and I also know that if we stay out of Dad's way altogether, just like we've been doing, we won't have to feel it. We'll just feel other things, like...well... I dunno, like..."

"...like Dad doesn't...love us anymore?"

Everyone brought their eyes onto Sadness, who abruptly huddled into herself, writhing her hands into a tight, solid knot. And for a long, painful instant, as her words echoed in everyone's hearts, Headquarters was for once tranquil, very still, deafeningly silent. As though the council inside were moved to a moment of silence, mourning the dead.

Riley was the first to straighten, drawing a series of breaths until she inevitably drew the one that allowed her to speak again. "...Fear...Dad is...Dad's so messed up right now. I don't know how else to put it. But it's because of me." There followed a soft collection of protests, but Riley held her hands up to them like a teacher to a class of children, and they fell silent before her. "It's because he doesn't get that I never really went anywhere. He doesn't get that I'm right here." She looked intently at Joy, who gave in to a helpless smile. "As soon as he opens his eyes, he'll see it. I know he will. And as soon as he sees it, as soon as he realizes I'm right here, things will change. It will literally change everything." Riley pressed her lips tightly together as she looked back up to the window. "And I know – I just know – it'll start with hockey."

Making a point to reassure Fear with a nod first, Riley beckoned Joy forward once more. "Come on. We've got to give this a try. Not just for Taylor, not just for Dad...but for me." At this, Joy hesitantly made to approach Riley and the console again, transfixed by the idea that this would assist all parties involved. As Joy took the hand outstretched to her, and hope blossomed through Riley's chest as a result, she made a careful point to smile at Fear, and even went so far as to settle the steadying palm of her free hand on top of his shoulder. He blinked back at her; his bow-tie bobbed as he gulped. "One shot. Okay, Fear? Just let us give this one shot. If it doesn't work, we won't ever have to worry about trying again. I promise. But if it does...you'll thank me later. Trust me, you will. So...what do you say?"

Fear banished a great sigh from his breast, wringing his fingers together as his gaze flickered between the console, the window, and Riley herself. In a single motion, he took a step away from the console, folding one hand behind his back, gesturing through the air with the other, politely allowing the girls to pass him.

Riley and Joy assumed their position at the console, and when Taylor's eyes next hovered across the doorknob, they worked together to trigger her emotional response.

Anger, Disgust and Sadness remained in the background, their hands lenient against their sides.

"Hope you know what you're doing Riley," Anger grumbled. "This better not get us in any more trouble than it needs to."

"Trust her," hissed Disgust. "This is Riley we're talking about. Of course she knows what she's doing. And if not, well...at least Taylor has the ukulele to fall back on, I guess."

Riley grinned at them both before returning her attention to the control panel below her hands.

"Go ahead, sis," she said under her breath. "I'm right here with you."

As though bolstered by Riley's words, Taylor puffed out her chest and marched once more to her bedroom door.

Out in the hall, the smell of breakfast was thick and succulent on the air, as were the sounds of the television downstairs. Taylor eyed the staircase and exhaled through her nose.

"Uh, Taylor? What are you doing?"

Bing Bong appeared over Taylor's shoulder, anxiously tapping his begloved fingers together.

"I'm on a mission," she replied, her voice a very harsh, very serious whisper.

"A mission? What sort of a mission? Is it a Super Mission? A Secret Mission? A - gasp! - a Super-Secret Mission?! Have you hired a captain yet?"

Taylor shook her head. "I don't think I'll need one this time. Wait for me up here, okay?"

"Oh...Okay...but, uh, listen, Taylor, don't go doing anything I wouldn't do. Like, you know, crossing your Old Man. You be careful down there."

Joy saluted her old friend and winked. "We will, Bing Bong. Don't you worry about us."

Taylor shuffled down the stairs and crept along the corner of the den, finding her father, in his PJs every bit as much as she herself was, seated on a sofa, his eyes obscured by the lights radiating from the television. Taylor glanced at the screen and could confirm that he was watching hockey highlights, as had become the norm. She hesitated against the corner, wondering if she should have avoided bothering him altogether, as her intuition was suggesting. Not only that, but breakfast was beginning to smell terribly tempting, and she'd far sooner take up a calm, encouraging, safe conversation with her mother than try to strike something up with Dad, who often spoke to her in brief sentences that were ironically difficult to understand.

"Psst, hey!" Taylor turned, finding Bing Bong directly behind her again, tugging at his ears. "C'mon, we just talked about this. You really shouldn't go in there. Not alone. This is one of those times you could reeeeally use a captain!"

Taylor's eyes went wide; with Dad so close, she had to resort to 'loud' facial expressions which Bing Bong often had trouble reading. But he understood her this time. "Oh, fine, you're hired," her eye-roll announced as she began to tiptoe into the den, with Bing Bong trailing close behind her. She found, in fact, that his presence bolstered her spirits, easing the difficulty of her mission as she arrived in next to the sofa with her hands tucked tightly within one another.

She opened her mouth and then immediately closed it. She had no clue what to say or how to tactfully broach the subject. He was so engrossed by the screen that he did not bat so much as an eyelash now that she was close to him, though he did eventually greet her with a deep, sluggish "Morning, kiddo", which giving her a little start.

"How does he do that?" Fear whimpered, hovering over Joy and Riley's shoulders. "H-how can he talk to us without even having to look at us? It, i-it really freaks me out."

"Deep breaths, Fear," said Riley as she coaxed Taylor to sit down in front of the television. "It'll be alright."

Taylor gawked up at the screen, watching as the hockey highlights took place up there. Bing Bong watched too, curling his tail around Taylor's waist as though to protect her from any threat that loomed in the room. This seemed to help her too.

It helped her enough that she, enticed by Joy, eventually rose her arm, pointed at the screen, and asked, "So how come the hockey men wear butter-knives on their feet?"

Riley clapped a hand to her forehead yet again. "Thaaat's a perfect start, right there."

"Whew. You, uh, you really had me going for a second, Riley. I thought maybe we said something stupid."

"Er - yeah, Fear, I was being sarcastic."

Fear crouched, but it wasn't until Taylor looked over her shoulder, catching sight of the strange look Dad was giving her in response to her question, that he whined loudly and made to usurp the console. "Oh, that look. We're blowing it, big-time!" Disgust and Anger worked together to haul back on his houndstooth sweater, preventing him from doing so. "We gotta take that last one back, now! L-let me go, you guys, come on–"

Taylor snapped her head back to the front when Fear's fingers narrowly brushed against a key at the far edge of the console. But, she eased as Dad finally sighed and answered her: "Uh, no, Taylor. Those aren't butter-knives. They're wearing skates."

"...Skates?"

"Yeah. Skates."

"Skates. Skates!" Joy beamed at the others, persuading Fear with her smile alone to calm down by a few degrees. Just enough that the other two could let him go. "Oh, that makes way more sense than butter-knives did."

Anger shrugged his shoulders. "...It does? You think so?"

"Well...Hold on a sec; I'll settle this." Joy triggered another button on the control panel, with Riley's hands balanced on top of hers.

"Why do they wear skates?"

Dad paused to relieve an itch from the corner of his eye. "Well...they wear them so that the players can move across the ice a lot faster."

"Why do they play on the ice?"

"Er...Beeeecause it's Ice Hockey. So, according to tradition, it's, uh, it's played on the ice."

"How come?"

"...I don't really know, Taylor," Dad sighed, his shoulders slumping. "The Canucks are just strange sometimes."

"What are Canucks?"

"Canadians. People from Canada. They invented modern Ice Hockey."

"Oh."

There was a long, rather uncomfortable pause. Taylor's attention drifted back to the television, and she watched with mild curiosity (as best as she could without her glasses) as the game continued, as announcers baffled her with shouting and fast-paced talking she simply couldn't keep up with, despite how eager she was to at least try. Her eyes danced across the screen as though she could see symbolic visualizations of the words being hurled back and forth.

She hardly paid the game itself any attention because of this. To be frank, the game itself was a little too much for her. But she tried. With all of her might, she tried. Anger was one of the first Emotions to look over his shoulder at Stubborn Island as it began to power up, negating any desire she may have previously held to give up soon. He smirked to himself, proudly flattening his lapels. "Atta girl, Taylor," he muttered under his breath.

And then, of all sounds to occur in the den, there was a soft, mildly uncertain chuckle from behind her. Taylor turned around to face her father once again, and her eyes lit up to see that he was smirking at her.

Riley's eyes came to life as well, and she simply couldn't resist worming her hand beneath Joy's as she leaned her hands over buttons across the control panel.

There it was.

There was that glimmer, faint as it was. It was there. Struggling for life, begging for more.

It was there. It was coming back. Slowly...but surely.

Surely.

"...What's got you so excited about all of this sports junk, anyway?"

And Taylor answered, without missing a beat: "Riley."

Dad's facial muscles twitched. The former smile collapsed from his face.

Riley flinched to see it, and in her peripheral, she saw that Fear hesitated too, and she could hear Sadness squirming with discomfort in her seat.

Joy, oblivious, flashed a tremendously proud smile as she rotated a wheel on the console, provoking Taylor to turn to face her father in full. "I want to be a hockey star just like Riley," Taylor sang cheerfully. "And, and, plus, I can get lots of points, and beat up all the hockey men, and win all the games…and maybe even be on TV." She beamed up at her father, thrusting her very small, eager fists beneath her chin. "Do you think I could, Daddy? Do you think I could be on TV someday? Do you think I could be like Riley?"

Riley and the Emotions fired their attention up to Dad, leaning breathlessly on angles of mass anticipation. No one could speak. Few dared to take a breath. Fear struggled in vain to stifle an endless, high-pitched whimper by fixing his lower lip tightly between his teeth.

Riley closed her eyes as the silence persisted. Every heartbeat that passed was painful.

Come on Dad.

Look hard.

Look deep.

I never left you.

I'm right here.

"…Now…Riley wasn't ever on TV…" Her father's grin brought Taylor's dwindling smile back to life. "…But we're not going to find out how good you are until we get you into a pair of your own skates, are we, kiddo? ...Would you like that?"

"YES!"

Headquarters' subsequent cheers overcame those coming from the television, and nearly those which came from Taylor herself. Anger jostled Riley by the wrists and Joy hauled her into a painfully tight hug, and Disgust squealed with her, jumping up and down on her toes. Bing Bong could practically hear the cacophony – when Taylor glimpsed in his direction, he flashed her two silent but feverishly excited thumbs of approval before disappearing from the room.

Riley's heart was pounding by the end of their cheers and applause; she stumbled far away from the console, a breathless grin reaching across her face as she watched Joy continue to drive without her.

"Wow...I can't believe it. I can't believe this is actually working so far. You were right, Riley."

Riley turned to her immediate left, faced, now, with the profile of a terribly winded Fear who had narrowly kept himself from fainting moments ago. "…Maybe there IS a chance…Maybe we really can make a Core Memory with Dad." And then, just as Riley was about to congratulate him for thinking so positively for once, he gulped, and his airborne brow sunk with the onset of anxiety. "…P-provided we don't screw it up, that is."

"You're going to do just fine," Riley assured him. "Taylor's an Andersen. She's got my blood." She placed a kind-hearted a hand on his back, being careful to avoid his Overflow. "And, I'll be with you guys every step of the way. Promise."

This, at least, seemed to raise his spirits a little. Fear turned at the waist, admiring Taylor's hovering Islands of Personality, and at first, Riley assumed he was about to envision where Hockey Island would surely be floating soon. But upon following his gaze, she found that he was instead looking out to Family Island, his eyes aglow with all of the hope an Emotion called Fear could ever muster.