[Author's note: Well here we are, the last chapter. Thank you all so much for your feedback.]
The evening ended wonderfully; Riley left the party with fond farewells to her friends and a big bag full of candy and other goodies. Her father arrived to take her home and she gave him a big hug before getting in the car and recapping her entire night to him.
By the time she got home, the excitement from everything that had happened and the inevitable sugar crash caught up with her, and Riley fell asleep moments after hitting the pillow.
"Congratulations guys." Joy grinned at the other emotions as the lights turned out and the memories rolled out to long-term. "We've successfully guided Riley through a great first Halloween in San Francisco!"
"Now all we have to worry about is her first Thanksgiving in San Francisco…And her first Christmas…and New Years…Valentines Day…Groundhog day…" Sadness droned dawdling up the ramp to the bedrooms.
Headquarters was quiet, or it should have been. Despite his Halloween anxieties being put to rest, Fear couldn't escape the usual night terrors that plagued him in his sleep. And it seemed after several nights of insomnia they were making up for lost time.
The purple emotion tossed and turned and whimpered and called out. And no matter what he did Anger could not tune it out. After his pillow failed to block the noise, the red emotion tossed it on the floor.
"That's it!" he snarled, climbing out of bed. "You'd think all that screaming at the haunted house would be enough for one night." He stomped over to his dresser and began rummaging through it.
"What are you doing?" Disgust asked sleepily, peeking at him from under her night mask.
"Looking for a silencer." He said, pulling out a balled up sock from the drawer. "This should do it."
He stalked over to Fear's bedside. The taller emotion was softly whining, sporadically opening his mouth to gasp for air and let out short scream. Anger took this opportunity to plug his sock into Fear's mouth. The sound was instantly muffled.
"You're welcome" He half-bowed to Disgust. She only rolled her eyes and laid her head back onto her pillow.
Anger started back to his bed, content with his work. But behind him Fear was still in the throws of his night terrors and the sock in his mouth was only sucked into his throat when he inhaled for another scream.
Jolted awake and upright by the sudden lack of air, Fear instinctively performed the Heimlich maneuver on himself. The balled-up sock was expelled like a cork from a Champaign bottle, and smacked Anger in the back of the head with a wet splat.
"Where you trying to kill me?!" Fear shouted as he gasped for breath.
Anger peeled the saliva soaked sock off the back of his head.
"If it got you to shut up." He snarled.
Fear crossed his arms with a huff. "I'm appalled at your lack of concern as to whether or not I choke to death."
"Maybe that'll give you a hint to keep it down when I'm trying to sleep."
"What I do during my night terrors is involuntary." The purple emotion tried to explain. His red counterpart hardly looked convinced.
A long sigh from the other side of the room broke the tension between them.
"Well, it sounds like you woke Sadness up too." Anger stated.
"I woke her up?" Fear questioned with annoyance.
"Neither of you woke me up." Sadness explained without rolling over to face them. "I was already awake."
Fear dropped his resentment against Anger, immediately filled with concern.
"You were? Why?"
There was a pause, then she said. "Nothing, just having thoughts."
"Just keep your thoughts," he looked to Fear. "…and your nightmares to yourselves. I'm going back to bed." And with a grumble he crawled back under his covers.
Fear waited until he heard Anger snoring before turning back to Sadness and whispering, "Do you want to talk about it?"
She flipped over to talk to him face to face. Without her glasses her eyes seemed so small. It also looked like she had been crying.
"I don't want to bother you." She said.
"You won't bother me. I probably wasn't going to get much sleep tonight anyway."
She frowned and her eyes turned downwards with pity.
He insisted, "I know what it's like to be kept awake by your thoughts. You can tell me if something's bothering you."
"Arg, could you two wait until morning to be annoying?" Groaned Disgust from across the room.
The two sat hushed and embarrassed for a few awkward moments.
"I guess we should get back to bed, then." Sadness whispered even quieter than before.
"Oh, uh, if you want to, okay." He hesitantly agreed.
"Will you be okay? With your night terrors, I mean." She asked.
"Not much I can do about it." He shrugged, pulling himself back under his covers. "But they haven't killed me yet…Night Terrors can't kill you, right?"
She blinked. "I don't think so."
He took her word for it and laid his head down and closed his eyes.
The silence in the room didn't last. Before long he was again whimpering and crying out loud and flailing his arms, tossing his blanket askew. He woke up abruptly, ejected from the horrors too great for him to handle. His eyes searched the room as he regained his bearings, realizing he was no longer a prisoner of his nightmare. He screamed again, startled by the sight of Sadness standing over his bedside.
"Oh, I'm sorry." She pleaded, backing away, looking terribly embarrassed. "I just felt so bad hearing you screaming and I didn't know what I should do, I wasn't sure if I should wake you up or not, but I wanted to help you somehow but I just made things worse, didn't I?"
He blinked, catching his breath, then he shook his head.
"No, no, you're not making things worse." He insisted.
"I'll go back to bed now. I'm sorry if I disturbed you." She started shuffling back to her bed.
"Oh no, you only gave me a little fright, which isn't anything new for me." He paused, a thought coming to him. "I didn't bother you did I?"
She looked back at him. "No, not really. Actually, I guess I kind of like hearing all the noises you guys make at night." She turned her gaze to the back of the room where Anger's snoring and Disgust's small snuffling filled the quiet. "It lets me know I'm not all alone."
He frowned, remembering their conversation from last night.
"Are you feeling alone tonight? Is that why you were crying?"
She looked down at her slippers. "A little, maybe."
"Why?"
"Sometimes at night I just think about all the sad things that have happened during the day. Usually it helps me fall asleep, but sometimes I can't help but wonder if Joy or the others would tell me I'm being silly. That I'm wasting my time thinking about stuff Riley can't control."
"I don't think it's silly. I obsess over things Riley can't control all the time. Although that's the stuff that usually keeps me up all night."
"Do you think it would help if you were to tell me all the things that bother you? Maybe it would get your mind off of them, then we could both fall asleep."
"Actually, I think that would help." He said. "You wouldn't mind?"
"No. I think it would be nice." She smiled. "But we'd have to be quiet not to wake up Anger and Disgust."
"Yeah." He thought a moment. "We could…" he stopped, suddenly blushing. "Never mind. You wouldn't want that."
She looked up, curious. "Wouldn't want what?"
He hesitated, looking a little sweaty. "Uh, maybe we'd be quieter if we…s, shared a bed." He shuttered with embarrassment. "Just forget I asked that."
"No. I like that idea." She said, blushing a little herself. She lifted the edge of her blanket invitingly. "We can share mine if that's okay."
"O…okay." He stammered, climbing out of his own bed and following suit as she climbed into hers.
"I have to warn you." He said. "I sweat when I'm nervous."
"That's okay." She said. "I cry in my sleep. Chances are, neither of us are going to wake up dry."
He got under the covers and she did her best to tuck them both in.
"So, where did you want to start?" She asked.
"Well, The big holidays are coming up," he began quietly near her ear. "Riley's going to have to find gifts for everyone, and that can be so stressful."
"And most of her family is still in Minnesota." She added. "We may not get to see them this year."
He shifted slightly and wrapped his long arm around her.
"Yeah, and grandma's getting old…what if she dies before Riley gets to see her again?"
"That would be terrible." She took his hand in hers, holding it close to her chest.
"We should remind Riley to give her a call. Maybe tomorrow."
"That would be nice. We haven't talked to her in a while. She's probably feeling lonely."
Their conversation lasted hours until they both dozed off into a deep, restful sleep. And to both their pleasant surprise, the next morning, neither of them were the least big damp.
[The End]