AUTHOR'S NOTE Part 1: Hey guys! Long time no see! I've been gone for a long time because of a bunch of different reasons. The main one being school. I promised myself I wouldn't stop writing this book, but I did need to take a break. So without further ado, I introduce a new chapter! Please comment if you have any questions, concerns, comments, or jokes! Other than that I hope you enjoy, a long awaited update!!

P.S. The sides and to make their own food because no waitresses or chefs reside on their plane of existence.

Everyone groaned. This was going to be a long night.

"This was a bad idea. I'm going back to the mind palace." Just as Anxiety was about to dematerialize, Roman stopped him by unsheathing his sword and putting the flat of it across his chest.

"Not so fast! I have a solution. It's just a door, right? And what do you do with doors? You push them open!" Roman began to stride up to the door.

"Roman! Don't!" Logan and Thomas both tried to stop him, but because Anxiety stood closer to the royal-clad trait, he lunged managing to topple him over and prevent him from advancing on the doors further.

"Roman! No! You don't push open automatic doors! The alarm could go off!"

"Ugh. This is the second time today we've been in this position. And what alarm? We aren't even in the real world's plane of existence. And what harm could it possibly do?" Roman managed to stand up lifting a flailing Anxiety off of himself and onto the ground, resuming his charge towards the door.

"Roman! Stop! You don't-"

"Just let him be stupid." Logan rubbed his forehead, the rest of the aspects and the humans watching Roman running up to the door and tried pushing it open. Contrary to popular belief though, nothing else happened. Roman's smirk widened into a teasing smile. "Haha! See Anxiety? Nothing happened." Anxiety's surprised expression evolved itself into a smirk as he watched Roman trying to move the door in an attempt to get it open. "It. Won't. BUDGE."

Patton had been watching the whole thing silently, before getting an idea and bounding up to Roman.

"Patton?" Logan watched the moral aspect concerned.

"Hey Roman! Remember Toy Story 2? How they jumped in front of the door to open it up?" And that's just what Patton began to do.

"Patton." Anxiety turned to look at the logical aspect and did his best to hold back a laugh at how irritated he looked.

"Patton, that won't...well...obviously this isn't working." Roman motioned to his current position and abandoned his fruitless effort at the door, joining Patton in his jumping escapades.

On the other side of the sliding doors, Thomas was doing his best not to bust a gut at how stupid his fanciful and moral sides looked. "No seriously Thomas. What's so funny?" Joan was quite worried for his friend, because he was laughing at something he wasn't sure he believed was there.

Anxiety walked past the jumping pair and towards the door, a smile playing on his lips. "Of course only you would believe a disney reference." He placed a hand on the door, curiously resuming Roman's earlier job. Unfortunately, it was then that fate decided to make Anxiety's prediction come true.

The alarm sounded throughout the restaurant. Anxiety sprung backwards. Joan and Thomas groaned. "Welp we are screwed."

Patton and Roman immediately stopped jumping and looked accusingly at their fellow aspect. "What did you do!?"

"I pushed it! Just like you had!"

"Roman already showed us, that pushing doesn't work."

"Guys! Shhh." Thomas silenced his aspects as he assessed the situation inside the restaurant.

The sight was quite pitiful. Joan and Thomas weren't even in the vicinity of the automated doors when the alarm sounded. So, to the waitress who had seated Thomas's friends five minutes earlier, it looked as if the door had only malfunctioned.

The waitress rolled her eyes, left her station, and walked up to the two adults.

"Ugh. I'm sorry. It does this all the time." After retrieving a key from her pocket, she walked to a control panel and used it to turn off the alarm in the restaurant. Luckily for the four aspects outside, she walked through the sensor causing the door to open. Almost immediately, they all filed inside, not wanting to waste another minute in the parking lot.

"I guess that's one way to open the door." Logan straightened his necktie, obviously quite peeved at Prince. "I was going to suggest we find a different version of the door that was open, so we wouldn't have to go through this...mess."

They all turned their attention to the main eating area inside the restaurant, that had flown into a panic as soon as the alarm went off. A manager quickly passed them and rushed in to notify the now standing customers that it was only a faulty alarm. The waitress to the right of them only chuckled nervously before grabbing them their menus.

"I'm assuming you are with the party that just walked in the door? This way please." Joan and Thomas followed hurriedly, with the four sides trailing behind.

It wasn't too hard to find their destination in the midst of the busy restaurant. The rest of their friends had found a table that sat six at the back of the restaurant. The sides huddled closely behind Thomas, taking care to avoid the people shuffling around to get food. Anxiety shuddered as he followed his crowd, thinking back to the incident with the alarm and how he so easily triggered it. He stared down at his hands as they twitched in uneasiness. He had a theory as to why it happened, but he would need to talk to Logan.

Logan...oh god...no he couldn't. Not after the notepad incident.

Once they reached the back table, Thomas and Joan took their seats.

"Sorry guys." Joan jokingly apologized as they sat down. "I thought I locked the keys in the car." They lifted up their left hand holding said keys for them to see.

"It's no problem." Talyn said taking a sip of water.

"Thank goodness you didn't! Or else we wouldn't have a ride." Terrance laughed, leaving Valerie the last to speak.

"Perfect timing! We were just about to order!"

The waitress came walking up to the table at that exact moment, with table commodities in hand. As she began to take order on the other side of the table, the four aspects watched Thomas expectantly, whom had accidently forgot why they were staring at him like that. "Oh! Umm...There's a table for four over there and it's kind of out of the way." Thomas pointed to a table down and out of the way of the rest of the crowd. Logan nodded and lead the way, with Anxiety bringing up the rear.

"Thomas who are you talking to?"

"Oh his imaginary friends." Joan joked earning a playful nudge from Thomas.

"Hey!" This earned a chuckle from everyone at the table including the waitress who had moved to the other side of the table, collecting menus from everyone as they ordered. Unfortunately for Anxiety, she had entered into the same area he was trying to escape from, clipping him from the side. The waitress stumbled and Anxiety fell to the ground, along with one of the menus he had knocked out of her hands on his way down.

"AH!" She cried out and looked down at exactly where Anxiety had fallen.

"Anxiety!" Thomas shouted quickly rising from his chair in shock. This gained the attention of some other people around the area as well as the rest of the sides, looking back at their fallen fellow facet. Anxiety's breath began to quicken as he saw the people staring at Thomas from his sudden outburst.

"Thomas sit down!" At his command, Thomas felt the embarrassment of shouting out the name of his 'imaginary friend' and sat down quicker than he had stood up; A feeling of shame creeping up onto his face.

Valerie gave Thomas an odd look then acted upon the situation. Unable to see the darker aspect on the ground, Valerie got out of her seat and held out her hand to help the only person she could. "Are you okay? Ma'am?"

"Oh I am fine dearie. I appreciate your concern. I must have just...bumped into something..." Anxiety knew that she couldn't see him, but the way the waitress stared down in his general area while she picked up the menu before returning to take orders just unnerved him to no end. Thankfully the moment had passed and others stopped staring to go back to what they were doing before. He barely had enough time to regain his breathing pattern, when he felt a sharp tug on his hoodie. Roman had raised him off the ground, set him on his feet, and turned his body so he was facing him.

"Anxiety. Is there something you aren't telling us?" Roman looked his shaken frenemy over, but was immediately pulled away by Patton complaining about being hungry and wanting food. The fanciful aspect was ushered out into the open before Anxiety even had a chance to answer his question. Logan however stayed behind.

"Anxiety. Come here please." The darker aspect whipped around and slowly walked towards the logical facet, a stone of guilt forming at the bottom of his stomach. Logan pulled out a chair at the table and motioned for him to sit down. Anxiety grimaced as he did, not bothering to look Logic in his eyes.

"What sushi would you like?" The question took Anxiety by surprise. He was sure Logan was going to have something to say about the situation. No questions about what just happened? No suspicions?

"Uhhh...crab please?" Logan acknowledged his answer and walked off silently without another word. Secretly, Anxiety was thankful, because now he had a moment to recover from his fall. He had never bumped into another human being before besides Thomas. Sure he had his 'what if' moments in the past if he could, but he didn't think it was actually possible. But what had just occurred solidified his deepest worries. He was not like the other sides out in public. Why would people phaze into them without a care, but when it came to him he was a brick wall?

Speaking of phazing, a shriek of laughter turned his attention to Patton in the distance who was standing in the way of many people that were coming and going. Apparently he was giggling about how it tickled each time a person passed through him, almost as if he were a ghost. Expectantly after the noise, came Logan's rebukes about 'messing with their brain waves'.

The anxious aspect chuckled as he thought back to Logan's drawings of Patton. "You like him and you know it, Logan." He mumbled to himself smiling ever so slightly, but it was quickly replaced by a grimace as a pang of guilt washed over his body. It seemed every thought he had lead back to the painful truth of the note book hiding in his jacket pocket. He tried to push it aside, but deep down he knew, that if he wanted to have an honest talk with Logan about the incident with the alarm and the waitress, he'd have to tell him the truth.

A couple minutes passed before the three sides returned to the table with their self-made food. Logan casually set Anxiety's plate of the food he requested in front of him with a set of chopsticks before sitting down to eat his own.

The table became unusually quiet and only subtle chewing could be heard. Logan suspected it was because no one else had anything to say unless it was about Anxiety's incident. But he could tell the darker aspect was thankful for Patton's change of subject when the moral aspect found a topic to break the ice.

"Ssoooo...did anybody get anything productive done today?" An odd topic choice for Patton, but he was not displeased with it.

"I went on a quick quest today." Roman said triumphantly. "It was a spectacular outlet! ...especially after losing a bet...." Roman managed to whisper the last part, but not out of earshot.

"Someone salty?" Anxiety teased while Roman shot him a glare in response.

"Be nice Anxiety." Patton warned, still keeping the same soft smile on his face. "What did you do that was productive today?"

The darker aspect shrugged. "I listened to a whole album in one sitting, if you can call that productive."

"Not exactly."

"Hey!" Patton gave the logical aspect a playful nudge before turning the same question over to him. "What did you do today?"

"Well. If we are talking about productivity, my work has been somewhat hindered by a mysterious happening with my notebook." Anxiety almost choked on his sushi, as his guilt resurfaced. God, if it wasn't one thing it was another. Luckily, he was able to minimize his coughing fit to not bring attention to himself.

"Hindered? How?" Patton's smile turned into a worried frown.

"It appears to have been tampered with. There is some unseen barrier preventing me from adding or removing writing and disfiguring it in someway."

Anxiety's stomach dropped, the pit of guilt only growing with his shame.

"I-I didn't open it. I swear!" Patton looked at the logical aspect worried, but suddenly clasped a hand over his mouth, forgetting that he was supposed to be covering for his dark, strange son. Anxiety's eyes widened as the truth came out of Patton's mouth. He should have known that Patton was going to have trouble with keeping a lie.

Logan raised an eyebrow, surprised that Patton would ever even think about lying. Especially to him. "You say that, and yet earlier you told me you had seen my drawings." By analyzing Patton's body posture, he could tell the moral aspect was at war with himself over withholding information pertaining to his notepad. "Your claims are not coherent."

"I'm sorry what is happening here?" Roman butt in. He'd been too busy checking out his Instagram feed to really notice what was happening between the three other sides. So when he did decide to listen in, he was completely lost.

Anxiety and Logan both rolled their eyes at the fanciful aspect. "Fine. Since all four of us are here I may as well explain the entire situation. Once I am finished though, I expect a proper explanation. Hopefully then you will find it in you to tell me the truth." The words stung Patton like a knife to the heart. If it was said to any other side, it wouldn't have had a big effect, but because Logan was directly challenging Patton's role as a side, it about drove him to tears.

That was when Anxiety should have spoken up, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was silence, leaving Logan to continue explaining the happenings with his notepad.

Choices. The word ghosted his mind like a haunted memory. With as much strength as he could muster through his shame, he glanced up at Patton. The tears streaming down the moral aspects face were enough to break him. He silently hoped Logan's incessant rambling would end itself, but Roman became bored with the conversation and had stopped listening again to go back to his phone, not even trying to care that their fellow aspect was hurting. Then he looked at himself.

Was he doing anything to stop this madness? Heck he had caused the problem in the first place. And it was his fault for taking Logan's notepad. Granted, it was Patton's choice to cover for him, but even then Morality didn't deserve to be treated like this. Especially by the side he had a crush on.

Anxiety began to shake as he took a metaphorical step back, finally noticing the grave situation. Logan's theory was becoming true. They were all very distant, even if they were sitting in the general vicinity of one another. Distant as in there wasn't much of a bond, let alone a friendship between them. If this continued, he determined they would tear Thomas apart from the inside. Choices. The word intruded his thoughts once again bringing him to the edge of a choice he knew he had to make. If he had to be the one to fix the broken friendship, then he would, regardless of the consequences. It was worth it, he decided. Not just for the other sides, but also for Thomas.

Anxiety jumped out of his seat, knocking over his chair in the process, and slammed the real version of the note pad in front of him on the table, startling the other three sides in the process. Logan stopped talking as soon as he saw his notepad and looked up into the darker aspect's eyes, shocked to find small tears begin to form.

"It was me, Logan. I stole your notepad."

AUTHOR'S NOTE Part 2: So That was Chapter 11!! I'm somewhat happy with how this came out. Again I'm sorry it took me awhile. I promise the next chapter will not take me as long!! I hope you all enjoyed! Please leave questions in the comments if something is unclear. Other than that, I hope you have a great whatever time of day it is where you are!! Take it easy guys gals and non Binary pals!! Ms. Chickoo out!