Author's note: Hey, I managed to not take fifty years to update this time! Hooray for me.

Anyways, this chapter is pretty self explanatory. There's no warnings yet, everything is still pretty hunky dory.

I'm unsure if I really need to say this, but just in case:

* When you see this: - A sentence. - it means that the character who's point of view it is is thinking something. In most chapters it will be Yakko, but we will get some other characters' POV.

* When you see this: - A sentence. - it means the voice is talking to Yakko through thought.

Did anyone feel weird about the underlined thoughts the last two chapters? Because this is why they sounded weird. Surprise! Yakko has a body-buddy. And it's a sassy bitch lol.

He was in a deep sleep, colors passing through his mind and making shapes, turning his blank thoughts into dreams. Somehow, this time, his dreams weren't filled with red and black, nor did he feel the need to run away from anything.

The colors were calm. There were blues, greens, yellows; the dream was colorful and happy.

- Damn it, you never listen to me! -

And for some reason, the voice considered this to be a good time to bother him and cut off his pleasant dream.

Now half-awake, Yakko groaned at the voice's complaint. However, he was all too used to it and thus only trained his ears to the sound of the ceiling fan turning above him. He yawned, turning over in the bed, effectively relaxing enough to stay in the hazy half-awake state.

- You're seriously going to ignore me. -

He did, indeed, ignore the voice. He had been trying to do that for a while actually, because when he'd talked it over with the WB psychiatrist, he'd been told it was not normal to have a second voice in your head that contradicted with your thoughts. Almost like it had a personality of its own.

It had always been there. For as long as he could remember, this voice talked to him inside his head. It had been theorized that it could be a side effect from the accident, that maybe he'd hit his head so hard that not only had he lost his memory, but he could have also gained a few mental illnesses along the way. Yet no matter how much the psychiatrist had tried to match up his symptoms with an identity disorder nothing seemed to be similar enough for a proper diagnosis, and he was left shrugging at the identity of this voice in his head. It didn't seem to want to hurt him, so surely it couldn't be too terribly concerning for it to be there.

- Alright. Fine, go ahead. It's not like I'm trying to make sure you don't get killed or anything. -

The only real threat it posed was that it had the uncanny ability to annoy him in almost any situation.

"Ugh, shut up... I'm trying to sleep" he grumbled, snuggling closer to a warm and soft pillow lying next to him.

- Sleeping in an unknown place? Yeah, that sounds very smart. -

- I've been running through a forest all night, the least you could do is let me sleep for five more minutes. -

He easily switched from talking out loud to thinking his responses. Being inside his head, the voice could hear them perfectly well, and besides, it was easier to speak to it by thoughts instead of out loud. Otherwise people might think he was crazy... Hell, maybe he already was. Who knew at this point.

- ... I'm sorry, okay? I know you're tired. I'm just saying that you should at least see where you are. You don't remember what happened before you got here, do you? -

... As a matter of fact, he didn't. He had been so tired that the part where he got a decent place to sleep in was a blur.

- Just open your eyes for a second. -

The thought was physically painful and he couldn't help but frown in misery just considering it.

- Noooooo, that's too much wooooork. -

- Don't whine at me, you lazy ass. -

- You weren't the one running around. I have every right to be lazy. -

The voice sighed, and Yakko could picture it staring at him in a deadpan.

- Hard to deal with as always, aren't you? -

Instead of answering, he got closer to the source of warmth and sighed contently. It had been a while since he'd gotten such a good amount of sleep without his siblings sleeping next to him. It was cruel of the voice to try and cut it short, he deserved this small bit of happiness.

There was a pause.

- I'm serious, you know. -

The voice didn't sound light and ready for banter anymore. It really did want him to at least check where he was.

It made him frown lightly, eyes still closed. While the voice did make a compelling argument - it was a bit stupid to simply sleep the day away after being chased and having had a gun pointed at his head - he was so tired, he didn't think his muscles would work even if he tried to get up.

"Hey, get up. I'm not your cuddle buddy."

What?

- Oh, look at that. Blondie's coming to wake you. -

- Blondie? -

Confused, he slowly opened his eyes, already feeling a bit woozy- only to find that the soft pillow he'd been burrowing his face into was actually not a pillow. It was someone's side.

"Uh..." he blinked once, twice, three times, to wake himself up and try to understand the situation. The girl just stared at him blankly, sitting up, while he looked up at her with wide eyes, his arms around her waist and his cheek square on the side of her stomach.

"Oh" as if scalded by hot water, his hands jumped away from her waist and his arms became stones by his sides.

Great. Now he'd embarrassed himself.

The blonde - her name was Rose, right? - didn't seem too upset though. She merely bit her lip, her shoulders shaking and a smile threatening to break across her face, trying in vain to contain the mirth that his expression had clearly caused her. She scooted a bit closer to him, causing him to scoot back, and then, with a gigantic grin, she pushed him off the bed.

"Ow! What was that for?" he narrowed his eyes in a weak glare as he rubbed his bottom, which he had incidentally fallen on top of.

She stared at him from the top of the bed, letting out high-pitched giggles she tried to contain with a hand pressed to her mouth. Unlike the black suit she had worn while in the forest, she was wearing light blue shorts and a white tank top, both baggy enough to be comfortable for pajama wear.

"You're going a bit fast" she chuckled, trying to stop laughing, her brows arching playfully "I can't even remember your name properly yet, you know. You tryin' to get to first base or something already?"

"I wasn't doing anything" he mumbled, his shoulders tense as he crossed his arms. It was more the surprise of having her in the same bed that had made him nervous, rather than him being particularly bothered by it "And I'm Yakko."

"Yakko. Right" it sounded like she stored it in her long-term memory, sitting up and turning in place so that she could let her legs dangle from the edge of the bed, still facing him "I remember you trying to become one with my side. That sure sounds like doing something."

"... I thought you were a pillow."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

She shrugged, not looking upset in the least that he had accidentally invaded her personal space "I can count with both hands the amount of times Mary's drooled on me when we were younger" she shook her head fondly at the memory "I'm used to it."

"I can relate" he snorted, remembering his own experiences with being mistaken for a headrest. Wakko slept like a rock and wouldn't let go of him the first few times the three of them had slept in the same bed. Thankfully the studio had taken pity on him and given them bunkbeds.

"I thought you would" she smiled as she let herself fall to the floor on her feet, pulling her arms over her head and stretching with a satisfied hum "Traditional sibling experiences and all that."

Now that he was a bit more awake, he noticed the room around him was very... barren. There were no personal items to be seen, only a bedside table, the ordinary ceiling fan, and the lone bed in the center of the room, stuck to the northeast wall. The floor was wooden, and the walls were a perfectly pearly white. There was an only door at the south of the room, a wooden cupboard beside it, and the only thing he could think was how hopelessly empty it was for a bedroom.

"This is your room?" he had thought that someone like Rose would have had a room full of accessories, or at least walls that had color. She didn't seem like the impersonal type, this was more something he would have expected from someone like StarDust.

"Yeah, I know, it's so empty it might as well be a hospital room" apparently she realized the state of her bedroom was odd, but didn't seem to care, her voice light as she walked over to the cupboard "It's not really supposed to have any decoration."

"But... it's your room, isn't it?" That didn't really make any sense. If it was her room, wouldn't she want it to reflect who she was? Make it a bit more personal?

"Of course it is. I just try not to get attached to it."

Ah, that put an idea in his head "Do you guys move a lot?"

She hummed, seemingly thinking her answer over. As she did so, she pulled out a turquoise dress from the cupboard, and he suddenly realized he was wearing borrowed clothes. A quick look down at himself told him it must be a pair of Marilyn's pajamas, seeing as she was his same height and only a little burlier than he was. Didn't change the fact that it was just a plain white shirt and pajama pants though, he couldn't go out like this.

"We don't really do it often, we just have to be ready to move if we need to. Meaning no unnecessary decoration and no getting too attached to a location" Rose finally answered, wordlessly handing him folded clothes that he immediately recognized as the ones he'd been wearing the day before. Had they laundered them? What time was it if they were already dry and in Rose's cupboard? "By the way, you should get dressed. We have somewhere we need to go and we don't want to have to come back too late."

He was about to ask where the bathroom was so he could change, but instead, Rose wordlessly went to the door, her own clothes in hand, and only announced that she would wait for him "down the corridor, you'll know where to go" before closing it behind her. It left him alone in the white room, with only his thoughts and the voice's constant presence as company.

He eyed the walls nervously, an itch starting to appear down his arms.

- ... Dress quickly so we can get out of here, yeah? -

It didn't need to tell him twice.

In record time he was ready to go wherever it was Rose was planning on taking him, opening the door and closing it behind him with no small amount of urgency. Outside the plain room was an even duller corridor which, as he walked along it, he saw it was filled with several oak doors that must've lead to different rooms. A few doors were open and as he passed them, Yakko could get a glimpse of what looked like a gym, then what seemed like an infirmary, and one room full of machines he couldn't name at first glance.

This place certainly didn't look like a house.

He didn't let it bother him too much however, since, like she told him she would be, Rose was standing near the end of the corridor waiting for him. She slid off her comfortable position leaning against the wall at the sight of him, and motioned with a hand for him to follow.

As they kept walking however, the silence around them was starting to unnerve him. He couldn't help but notice the absence of two very distinct voices he should have been hearing for a while now.

"So… Where are my siblings?"

Rose didn't seem to notice, or perhaps didn't care to notice, the anxious way he asked the question, shrugging like it was no big deal. Her answer held the same amount of disinterest.

"The kids with you? They went out hours ago with Mary and Star."

- What? -

"… Hours. Alone. With essentially strangers."

He had gone through 48 hours with several almost-heart attacks to add to his collection. This added one more.

A massive one.

"Woah, relax! No need to panic" she held her hands up in peace, but she rose an eyebrow at his worry "There's nothing to be scared of. We're basically part of the police force, who could you trust more than us?"

Did she simply not understand social norms? Their profession mattered little when it came to trust… specially in human territory. More often than not, you couldn't trust the police.

"I've just met you three, of course I'm not going to let my little brother and sister go alone with them!"

Why his siblings went along with it wasn't exactly a mystery. After all, they were in an entirely new place and even he couldn't wait to see what was out there. However, they should have paid more attention to the fact that yeah, these three were pretty nice, but they couldn't be sure they wouldn't hurt them yet. He wouldn't have minded if they all went exploring WarnerStock together, even with the three Milers sisters, but he would never agree with Wakko and Dot going out without him. Especially with two girls he didn't know if he could trust.

And if he couldn't trust them with his life, he definitely wasn't trusting them with his siblings'.

He was ready to run out of the room in search for them, a couple hours' distance be damned.

Rose didn't seem to understand his dilemma. She only tilted her head to the side in a show of confusion "This must be a case of different cultures, 'cos it's perfectly normal for warners of those ages to go around with whomever they want."

He stopped his almost-dash out the door "... Even though they're children? Even though you guys are strangers?"

"The age of ten is pretty much puberty for us. They're teens" she shrugged "They're already of age to go walking around without supervision. At sixteen you're already an adult, so… It isn't that much different from you being alone here with me right now."

She sent him an amused smile, to which he could only stare in bewilderment. So he was an adult? What?

- Yeah, because someone who drinks a gallon of milk by accident when they know they're lactose intolerant totally sounds like an adult. -

The voice drawled, and Yakko could feel a small part of him want to punch it for making him remember the horrible experience.

Rose snorted at his apparent frustration "It's really not a big deal. It's not like they went very far anyway."

"So you do know where they are" he followed her to the end of the hallway, feeling a bit more calm since she was agreeing so easily to his requests.

Rose answered his earlier question "It's the same place I was planning to take you to. I tried to wake you up for us to go with them, but you were being stubborn and wouldn't budge. So I just told them to go without us."

Oh. Now he felt a bit guilty for freaking out.

Instead of apologizing though, he chose to continue walking next to Rose. She led him in silence till they reached a big square living room. He inspected the surroundings curiously, taking in the heater at the very corner of the creamy-white room, the big red couch with a few other green armchairs at its side that contrasted weirdly with the calm color of the walls, and the normal kitchenette at the other corner that held a big rectangle oak table for at least eight people.

"It's a nice place" he said as he turned his head left and right "Have you guys lived here long?"

Rose bit her lip as she walked faster. They reached another corridor that was much shorter and didn't have any rooms this time "For a few years, yes. Though we try not to stick around much."

"Huh" it looked like it was prepared to house more than just the three sisters "Why?"

"Do you always ask so many questions?"

"I'm a curious person by nature."

The blonde gave him a wry smile "Oh, really. I didn't know that 'curious' was the same as 'nosy'."

He felt a bit offended by that, of course he needed information from these three strangers if they were going to essentially be living with them until something else could be arranged for them "Hey, the one being nosy was you, not me."

She looked back at him in a deadpan "I thought we'd made the reasons for that clear. I had to make sure you weren't a spy."

"Well I have to make sure you aren't some crazy psychopath luring us out here to kill us."

Did that sound plausible? He thought it was plausible. 'Always consider the worst case scenario in order to be ready for it' was pretty much his motto.

"You've been… excessively suspicious of us so far" Rose looked at him with a weird face "You sure you're okay? You seem very paranoid. I mean, I thought you understood why I had to, uh, point a gun at your head. Like I said, we're not going to hurt you."

"I'm fine" he sniffed. This was how he usually was, after all. The only thing wrong with him was that he might have a cold from running in the rain for so long "I do get it, I just don't trust people easily. Selfless kindness is rare in this world."

"... That's something I can't argue against" she sighed, stopping after taking two more steps.

Yakko, who had kept his gaze on Rose from the moment they had started going through the short hallway, turned his head to look ahead and almost jumped at the unexpected sight in front of him. Instead of a wooden door, like a normal house, this odd place had a garage-like metal plate against the wall holding the exit.

Rose didn't even bother to explain what that was doing there "I see that you've already been hardened by the cruelty of the world, rookie."

Yakko looked at her with risen brows. Rookie?

"Though it is sad that your childish naivety has already disappeared, this will help you in the long run. No matter how much it shrouds you in darkness, to know cruelty is to know how to fight against it."

"That's oddly poetic... and depressing" he frowned at her.

She gave him a small smile "It's something my big sister told me once. She's a big fan of proverbs. It was kind of silly at the time, but it did sort of help me accept my instinctual distrust of new people. So, since it looks like you have the same problem… now I'm saying it to you."

- That's sorta nice of her, saying you two have something in common. Though it's something sad to have in common. -

"Thank you, I guess?" he understood what she meant. The thing was that it made him wonder... When had he experienced cruelty? He'd been suspicious of people for as long as he could remember.

He had learned cruelty at some point in his past and he couldn't remember it. That was pretty unsettling.

"You're welcome" ignorant to his worry, Rose replied cheerily in a way that reminded him of Marilyn and her always-sunny personality "Now, let's get this open."

She clapped her hands together and walked over to a keypad next to the metal panel, punching keys in a specific order that Yakko was sure was a code. In just a moment, there was a soft whirring sound and Rose stepped back to stand next to him again.

They both watched as the metal moved up, in the exact same manner as a garage door. Yakko could see how at the very bottom of it, some light was leaking through that made the artificial light they had in there seem useless.

"You've only seen human cities before, right?" Rose asked as she stared at the metal go up and up. Her face was lit up in a huge grin "Prepare yourself to be amazed."

Just those few words were enough to make a spark of interest light up in his stomach.

Okay, so maybe he had been left without a home. Maybe he'd had to run through a forest late at night with guns being pointed at him and rain falling on him. Maybe he'd felt extremely anxious these last two days. Maybe he'd been scared, tired, and paranoid.

But the thought that he'd be seeing new sights, meeting new people, learning new things- It was all just so exciting it sort of made him forget the horrors of the night before. WarnerStock's rules were probably bass ackwards to him, but to these people it was normal. Who knew what other things were different.

It was a new day and a new life.

"I can tell you're excited" she gave him a humorous smile and he noticed he had been unconsciously bouncing on his feet. He stopped that immediately because it made him look like a total dork.

- You are a total dork, you're not fooling anyone. -

- Oh shut up. -

- It's adorable. -

- Shush. -

The voice chuckled and he could feel his cheeks coloring slightly, so he frowned and tried to rub his face to make it go away.

Stupid voice and its stupid need to embarrass him. What kind of kick did it get from humiliating him?

"Aw, you're blushing. That's cute" was Rose teaming up with the voice?

"... It's just hot in here" he grumbled in protest, trying not to pay attention to the blonde's need to comment that he was 'like a fluffy bear, only a lot skinnier', as she poked his cheek and only made it a redder color. He crossed his arms and tried his best not to pout.

While they had been bantering, the garage metal door had almost gotten high enough for him to properly see under it. The light was stronger now, and he came up with the perfect mental picture of a beautiful sunny day without any dark clouds in the sky and of vast fields of flowers of all colors. He imagined falling onto the grass and looking up at the small clouds that had different shapes. He imagined being able to draw that landscape. Not that he was very good at art, but it was something he enjoyed.

The door went up completely and...

There was no field. There were no flowers. There was no sunny day.

In fact, there was no sky. There was a tunnel with a bright light at the very end. Instead of flowers, there were boulders scattered around the tunnel. All around them was dirt.

He didn't think he could be any more disappointed.

Yakko stared for a whole minute before Rose took him by the hand and ran forward, whispering 'come on!' excitedly. He didn't even get to ask why the hell they were in a tunnel, because when they reached the bright light he noticed the source of it was a flashlight that illuminated the path. The tunnel was a dead end.

"Okay, what am I missing" he shook his head, confused, and beginning to feel slightly claustrophobic "There's nothing to be amazed about here."

"You're not supposed to be amazed yet" Rose rolled her eyes, saying it was obvious "Just let me..."

She punched a few more keys on a new panel and suddenly what he had supposed was a dead end rumbled and a big circle of dirt rolled to the side, no doubt by a mechanism. In just a moment, the path was open and Rose stuck her head outside, looked left and right, and jumped out. Then, he saw her hand from the opening, motioning for him to go to her.

He breathed in and jumped out. His feet touched grass.

And there was the sky, a beautiful blue to contrast the dark clouds he'd seen the day before. He was standing on a wide field, several flowers sticking up from the grass, a few fruit trees around them. The field extended for as long as he could see, and there were a few shadows in the distance that he supposed were buildings. He turned his head to look behind himself and saw that they had been inside a mountain.

Rose ran ahead a few steps and put her hands up to the sky, taking a big gulp of air and smiling big as Yakko heard the hole in the mountain close itself by the same mechanism as before.

Her eyes were shining and so were his.

He'd only seen cities, cars and smog before, but this...

This was what he'd been excited about.

Rose laughed.

"Welcome to WarnerStock."