Everything was quieter after that. Whether leaning in the direction of anxiety or of forgetful joy, something energetic had been left at the bank, never to be retrieved again.

With no conversation to divert their attention otherwise, and with spending the trip looking out the window seeming a selfish pastime, the group turned it to one another.

Was Jewel always this authoritative-looking? Paint wondered, her normally quivering and hyperactive lip harnessed firmly into place. Was Max this somber? Was Arrow this... dry-skinned? She looked down at herself, curling each toe individually around the floor mat to lift it up and press it back down again, one time after another.

Was I this... grey?

Irving's headrest making absolute sure to hide every last splinter of soul from his face, Paint could not analyze him. Perhaps that was for the better.

The car jolted on a pothole of a harmless size. The old fox didn't appear to notice. The two necklaces in the chamber, however, were sure to.

Grabbing it to quell its bouncings-around, the movements made capricious and noisy by contrast with just about everything else in the vicinity, Paint studied the wooden chain that consensus had declared to be her own.

That poor, poor man! She was on the verge of crying; she grabbed it as a helpless child does the safety bar on a rollercoaster, even after that second of no return as the deadly plummet begins. He loved his daughter so much and she never even knew it! He was only overbearing because he was just so enormously intent on getting her the best life possible, and now as harmless and sweet as he is, it'll always be too late!

"Irving!" she yelped out, resisting every last drop of hormonal urge to plug herself back up again, say it was nothing, anything. She had to do this.

"...Yes, Paint?" He spoke lowly, slowly.

"Do you want to keep the necklaces? We're just dumb kids who didn't know you until this morning; she's your daughter! We won't be offended, I promise! Take 'em!"

Even Arrowhead was glaring at her. She refused his offer to eye-combat; she stared Irving down, refusing to back off or leave the issue ambiguous if there was any comforting to be done.

"'O-offend'?" It was almost as though the act of exercising his vocal cords in the slightest were an act of throat-clearing, a speech he was not yet ready to speak, and clearing his throat was exactly what he did thereafter. And then he laughed.

"No, Paint, the past is the one place I don't need to look. I want you guys to keep them."

"Thank you," Arrowhead gasped. "They're beautiful!"

"Anyway!" Irving laughed again. "Where should I be dropping you kids off? Every departure needs a good setting."

Jewel took a sweeping look at the buildings that still streamed by as though it were his last. "Well, I guess the airport would make the most sense... but it'd be a shame to abandon this place so soon, I think."

"And we'll be the only ones who get to see it," Arrowhead sighed.

Irving coughed again. "Nonsense! Haven't you ever heard of postcards?"

The toad brightened up a few hues. "I suppose, although I'd rather be able to show my parents something more original. They've seen other people's pictures of, like, every city ever."

"Then fix that! Disposable cameras, for the amount of pictures they'll give you, are a whole lot better of a deal."

"If we had our friend here to draw whatever we saw," Jewel recollected with a shiver of nostalgia, "we'd be able to capture a lot more memories, and all for free..."

"Solakku!" Slapping her shin loudly enough to make the poor hyena flinch, even sitting across the car from her, Paint jolted forward in place to strain her seatbelt. "The loudspeaker! Back on the airship! Eggman said 'Little Apple' was one of the places we visited! We need to call her!"

"Well, it sounds like you've got quite the itinerary, guys. Ready to hop off?" Irving placed his hand behind the seat opposite him, making Jewel flinch once more, and backed into a parking space. The gift shop invited the typical unoccupied passerby with displays of everything weird, colorful, simply fundamentally Namosstok that could be packaged and carried away; garish yet heavenly and alluring, the building itself hypnotized the adventurers out through the car doors to see it up close.

"Uh... guys?"

They turned back.

"Can't leave without this!" he reminded. Star, still tied to the roof, whistled out in mock forlornness.

"Of course not!" Paint cried out. "We would never forget something like this! Come on, Star, let's get you down."

"I hate doing this..." Jewel moaned as he and his loyal muscles trudged over.

"So," the arctic fox recapitulated with a firm clap of his hands once the robot was safe and sound at ground level. "Money. Do you kids have all of it you need?"

Maxwell patted Paint affectionately on the back. "Thanks to Ms. Miner here," he proudly exclaimed, "possibly not, 'cause she's so liberal with the stuff, but we've got some!"

"But we'll have enough for plane tickets," she teased back, "if your face doesn't scare off the passengers and get us kicked off, and for a camera too, if it doesn't break the darn thing!"

"Looks like you'll all be fine, then, heheh. Anyway, the next plane over the ocean to Freedom leaves in two hours, so don't be TOO lackadaisical in this little souk before you clock over, you hear?"

"Got my biological clock right here!" Arrowhead answered, puffing his chest out with pride.

With no remaining bumps remaining in the trail, Jewel's face bunched up sadly. Starting out with an expected polite slowness, but barreling into a trot, the boy sank into Irving's chest, sniveling into the wispy coat. "I'm going to miss you so much, sir!" The fur barrier did nothing to muffle the despondent clarity of his words.

"Don't worry, kiddo, I'm going to miss you lot even more." After finishing the hug off, Irving gently clipped himself away from Jewel and stood all the way up. "You reminded me what it was like to have youngsters in my life – and you gave me closure about my own little girl. It's a fix I've been needing for a looooong time."

Paint kissed his cheek. "Just call us, Irving, whenever you need someone to mooch food offa you!"

"Count on it." He coughed again, smiling through the harsh noise. "I hope you kids'll excuse me now – I'm going to go home and catch up on some living."

He sat back down in the station wagon, closed the doors like sunset curtains, turned the ignition, and he was gone.

The gift shop was nice... probably. Paint figured so. But even though its presence without the old fox was all she had ever known of the place, it felt too empty for her.

The gang trudged up to the counter. "Could we please have a disposable camera, ma'am?" Jewel murmured at the desk.

"Of course, mister," the kindly old woman behind it said. "You all – even your robot – look like you've got a lot of memories to hold onto."