(A/N: Wooh-hoo. Back again. Was looking forward to this next part almost as much as introducing Love, Hate, and Heartquarters. I must say, it's a lot of fun making up these 'worlds' and incorporating things into them. You'll see what I mean in this chapter when I offer an explanation for the reason why the control panel was turning black towards the end of the movie. Don't want to give too much away, so read on. And congrats to those that spotted the Frozen Easter Egg last chapter, though I guess it was pretty obvious. No Easter Eggs in this chapter though, sorry.)

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 11: Old Memories

"And so he dropped us down here," Joy concluded. She looked around curiously. "Actually, I didn't even know this place was here."

Love giggled. "Some memories live on in your heart, so we occasionally get delivers that contain copies of certain memories. You fell through the mail shoot where they're delivered. Other than that, the head and the heart don't really interact with each other during childhood. Kids tend to think with their heads instead of their hearts until they get older. That's why we haven't interacted before now." She shook her head. "But that's not important right now. This I.B. person sounds like a real problem."

"Yeah, I hate people like him," Hate grumbled. He gave Love a look. "You realize what this could lead to if he isn't stopped."

Love gasped and ran over to the window, pressing herself against the glass as she looked at the giant heart. "You're right! This could lead to heartbreak!"

Anger raised an eyebrow. "Heartbreak?"

The pink Emotion turned back to them, looking worried. "This could break Riley's heart. The generator for the heart can start to malfunction under certain circumstances, like getting dumped, or losing a loved one. If Riley's heart breaks, she'll be completely cut off from feeling anything. She'll fall into a depressive, unfeeling, emotionless state until we can repair the damage and get her heart working again. And there's no telling how long that could take; it depends on the extent of the damage."

"There was some damage to it back when Riley tried to run away two years ago," Hate told them, "but we managed to repair it before it became anything serious. Fortunately, whatever was causing the heartbreak was stopped before it became a real problem."

Anger, Fear, and Disgust looked away, recalling that it had been their fault for putting the idea to run away from home in Riley's head. At least now they knew why the control panel had stopped working back then and had started to turn black. Sadness getting the idea out of her head must have stopped the damage being done to Riley's heart, allowing Love and Hate, or whoever was in charge of repairs, to fix the damage.

Unwilling to bring up past mistakes, Joy attempted to address the current problem. "We just need to get back up to the mind and figure out a way back into Headquarters."

Love tapped her chin. "That could be difficult. Things go into the heart, but they don't generally go out."

Fear panicked. "Are you saying there's no way out of here?"

Hate scoffed. "Of course there are ways out, but when you love or hate something, you generally feel that way about it for a long time, and we need to get you guys out of her heart as fast as possible. Which leaves only one option."

He shared a look with Love, who clapped her hands. "Of course, that'll work! We could send them straight to Riley's Subconscious."

Joy's face fell. She immediately looked at Sadness, who was mirroring her horrified expression. "Riley's Subconscious?" the blue Emotion asked. "The place where they keep all of Riley's deepest fears? Like Jangles?"

Hate growled. "I hate that stupid clown."

"Yes," Love replied in regards to Sadness' question, "but her Subconscious isn't just a place for her deepest fears. It also connects to her heart."

Joy looked surprised. "How so?"

Hate threw his hands on the air. "Oh, for the love of… Do you need to have everything explained to you?"

Happy to explain, the pink Emotion ignored him. "Have you never heard of speaking from your heart? You literally just talk without thinking, saying what you truly feel. It comes from here," she tapped her chest, "not from here," she tapped her head. "And sometimes the things in your heart are feelings you're not even aware of, because they're locked in your Subconscious. So there's a spot that connects the heart to the Subconscious."

The Emotions shared a look. When no one protested, Joy turned back to Love. "Ok, lets do it. Where do we go?"

Hate cracked his knuckles, grinning evilly. "Alrighty then. Follow me."

The black and pink Emotions led them to a different area. Love skipped merrily ahead, stopping beside what appeared to be a large tank connected to a recall tube. Hate walked up beside her and opened the door to the tank. "Ok, get in."

The Emotions hesitated. Anger crossed his arms, giving Love and Hate suspicious looks. "What is this?"

Not bothered by his grumpiness, Love patted the tank. "This will send you to the Sea of Subconscious Thought."

Disgust gave her a strange look. "The Sea of who now?"

Hate sighed in aggravation. "Ok, listen up, 'cause I'm only going to explain this once. In Riley's Subconscious, there's a place called the Sea of Subconscious Thought. It's where all of Riley's subconscious thoughts and feelings are gathered. The Sea breaks off into several rivers called Rivers of Repression, each one relating to a certain aspect of Riley's life that she's not aware of because it's all being held back by the Dams of Dulled Emotion."

Fear looked confused. "I don't get it."

Love hurried over to him, wrapping an arm around the purple Emotion. "You hear about stuff like this all the time. People are known to keep certain things bottled up inside, but then something happens or they come to a realization. That's when the Dam of Dulled Emotion breaks, and everything that person was feeling into relation to that topic comes spilling out in a massive flood. Sometimes it becomes so much that you can't stop yourself from expressing or speaking what you're feeling. But once a Dam breaks, it becomes a Floodgate of Feeling, able to be opened and closed at will. That's pretty much how the process works."

Fear looked uncomfortable with Love's close proximity. Anger stared at her, dumbfounded, before glancing at the other Emotions. "Did any of you follow any of that?"

Hate sighed impatiently. "The Sea of Subconscious consists of Riley's deepest most subconscious thoughts and feelings. Think of what happened after Riley ran away from home. When Sadness finally let her feel sad, one of the Dams broke down and everything she had kept bottled up came spilling out. That's when she finally confessed what she was really feeling to her parents. Once it was all out, the Floodgates closed, and everything was all hunky-dory, but she'll still talk about it from time to time because she can now open that Floodgate at will. Get it now?"

He knocked on the tank. "There are times where Love and I need to send certain matters of the heart into the Sea of Subconscious. If you get in here, we'll be able to send you there without issue."

Even Joy seemed uncertain. Glancing at her fellow Emotions, she saw that they were too. But at Love's enthusiastic expression and Hate's impatient look, she pushed aside the concerns that Fear was obviously projecting onto her. "I like this plan! Let's give it a shot."

Fear's eyes bugged out. "What? You're actually willing to get tossed into the Sea of Subconscious?"

"Hey," she said with a shrug, "I jumped off a tower of imaginary boyfriends, onto a trampoline on the collapsing Family Island to bounce out over the Memory Dump, catching Sadness, and crashing into Headquarters. This is nothing."

Love clapped her hands. "Sounds exciting."

"Well, when compared to that…" Anger mumbled, and stepped into the tank.

Joy entered next, followed by Sadness. Disgust sighed irritably, muttering how this had better not ruin her hair. Fear seemed frozen to the spot, so before he had a chance to run away, Disgust grabbed his curl of hair and pulled him inside.

Hate slammed the door shut and dusted off his hands. "So long, and good riddance."

"He means good luck," Love told them. "It was lovely meeting you. Hope we see you again."

"Speak for yourself," Hate growled, pulling a lever.

The tank began rapidly filling up with water, or what seemed to be water. The Emotions cried out as they were submerged. While they couldn't drown, the fear of drowning that all humans shared was something they had inherited from Riley, and they splashed around in desperation, made all the worse as Fear's own panic reflected onto them.

"Let us out!" he shouted as he pounded at the door, only to find it locked.

Love gave him a thumbs up. "It's all good."

Once the tank was full, she pushed a button. The tube attached to the tank opened, sucking up the water and everything in the tank, including the Emotions.

Love smiled as she watched them disappear up the tube. Once they were gone, she turned to Hate. "Well, they seemed nice."

The black Emotion just scoffed. "Whatever."

She looked back at the tube. "I hope we see them again."

"You do," Hate told her. "I hate entertaining people."

(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)-(-)

Riley was an emotional wreck when she got home. Her thoughts and feelings were all over the place. She didn't know what she was thinking, she didn't know what she was feeling, but she certainly didn't feel like herself. All she knew was that she didn't like the way she was right now. It all felt so wrong, and her mood swings weren't helping.

I.B. had to admit, this wasn't exactly going as planned. Being at the controls was one thing, but trying to force Riley to think and feel a certain way that was different from her nature and personality was rather difficult.

He tried to focus on his main objective, which was breaking up Riley and Jordan. And now he had something he could work with, Riley and Jordan's first major fight as a couple. He decided to steer her thoughts towards hockey, and how upset she would be to not have Jordan at her game.

This was how Riley found herself in the attic, going through the boxes her parents had stored up here. Amongst the boxes were some of Riley's things from when she was a small child. She opened one of the boxes, finding some of her stuff from when she was much younger.

Among the items in this particular box was her old hockey gear. She had started playing when she was very young, and none of this stuff fit her anymore, but was kept because of the sentimental value they possessed for her and her parents. Here was her old hockey mask. And here was her helmet, and her skates. And the first hockey stick she ever had, now snapped in half from a little accident.

A smile grazed her lips as she went through her old things. She really loved hockey, it was very important to her. And even though she had been playing for nearly her entire life, her team had never won a championship match. This was the closest she had ever gotten, and she had wanted Jordan to be there to give her the courage and strength to win. Couldn't he understand that?

I.B. shook his head and tsked. "Shame on you, Jordan, letting Riley down like that." He glanced at the light bulb plugged into the control panel that contained the idea for Riley to break up with Jordan. Much to his irritation, she still had not accepted it yet. "It's just a matter of time."

Riley glanced back into the box, seeing more things from when she was little. Curious, she began going through the box's contents, reminiscing about things from years past.

Inside, she found a folded up piece of paper. When she unfolded it, she saw a crudely drawn picture of what appeared to be a pink elephant siting on a red square with rainbow streaks coming out the back. Beneath the drawing were the words BiNG BONG, the letters N's having been written backwards.

Riley raised an eyebrow at the image. She must have been really young when she drew this. She had no recollection of it at all though. Was she really this bad at drawing when she was younger?

"Hey, monkey, what are you doing up here?"

Riley turned to find her father poking his head up through the entrance to the attic. "Oh, hey, Dad. Just going through some old stuff."

Climbing up the ladder, her father sat down beside her, looking at the box she was going through. "Boy, this sure takes me back. Look, here's your first tooth. Your old hockey mask. And look, your old security blanket."

"Yeah, why did you guys keep that?"

Mr. Anderson chuckled. "We also kept your old pacifier too. See."

He held up a plastic bag containing what was indeed a pacifier. Riley made a disturbed face and scooted back a bit. "Why would you keep that?"

He chuckled. "They have sentimental value, I guess you could say."

She rolled her eyes. "Are you going to keep my braces too once they're taken off?"

It had meant to be a joke, but her father looked serious. "Actually, your mother and I considered putting them in a picture frame with the message 2 ½ years beneath them."

Riley looked horrified at the thought. "Please, tell me you're kidding."

He chuckled. "You'll understand when you have children of your own one day. Hey!" He pulled a book labeled Baby's Firsts out of the box. "It's your first times book. You want to look at it?"

Knowing the contents of that book were ground for humiliation, Riley desperately waved her arms in front of her. "No way!"

Mr. Anderson's eyes were drawn to the paper in her hand. "Hey, what'cha got there?" When she handed him the paper, he smiled at the image. "Oh, it's Bing Bong, your old imaginary friend."

Riley raised an eyebrow. "I had an imaginary friend?"

Her father chuckled. "You certainly did. If I remember correctly, he was part elephant, part cat, part dolphin, and part cotton candy."

She gave a snort of laughter. "Part cotton candy?"

"He was your imaginary friend, sweetheart, not mine. According to you, he also cried candy."

Another eye roll. "Oh, come on, you're making that up."

Smiling, he shook his head. "No, it's true. You even had your own little theme song for him to power his magic rocket. Who's your friend who likes to play? Bing Bong, Bing Bong! His rocket makes you yell 'Hooray'! Bing Bong, Bing Bong! Who's the best in every way, and wants to sing this song to say, Bing Bong, Bing Bong!"

Riley stared, completely dumbfounded. "Oh my gosh, you actually remember something like that?"

With a small smile, he tapped her nose. "I certainly do. You sure sang it enough."

He handed the picture back to her. She took another look at it, frowning when she came up with nothing. "I really have no recollection of any of this, like at all."

"Well," her father replied, "you were really young. That's actually why we hang onto these things, so we can think back and remember." His smile became a curious frown. "So what made you want to look at this stuff?"

Riley wondered if she should tell him. Usually, she preferred to have her parents butt out of her relationship with Jordan. She didn't want to get into the fact that they were having a fight over him skipping her semi-finals game. No, not skipping, being too busy to come.

"Don't sugarcoat it," I.B. argued against Riley's reasoning. "He's not going to the game. Period. It doesn't matter why."

She decided to at least mention part of what was bothering her. "The game, I guess. We're so close to the championship. One more win and we play the Bladers for the title."

Her father's face lit up at that. "I know, it's so exciting. I know you guys can do it. How can The Foghorns not win with my little all-star on the team? Go Foghorns!"

Riley cracked a smile. At least her parents would be there for her. If only Jordan could be too.

Inside her head, I.B. gave an irritated groan.

(A/N: A little shorter than I would have liked, but that's because this chapter and last were almost one chapter. So, this time we got to see a little more of Heartquarters. I also provided an explanation for how and why the control panel was malfunctioning in the movie. I hope I explained things clearly enough. Riley's heartbreak over the situation with her parents when she ran away caused the heart in Heartquarters to become damaged, which in turn prevented the control panel from working, so the Emotions couldn't make her feel anything. They'll be more on that later though. The Emotions may have left, but we haven't seen the last of Heartquarters, or of Love and Hate. Right now, they're taking a bit of a water ride if the Sea of Subconscious. Will this help them get back to Headquarters, or just get them more lost? We can only wait and see.)