Hello! This is my first Animaniacs fanfic (I think... I'm not entirely sure and am too lazy to check. :P)

This is just a one-shot that I wrote, like, three months ago. I know I should be working on updates to my other stories, but I'm not. During all these crazy times, I'm honestly just going to be focusing on one thing at a time. (That and I'm... well, lazy, as stated earlier.)

Hope you like this.

Yakko stared up at the top of the Water Tower in thought.

During the daytime, he, Wakko, and Dot were as zany as possible. When they got home, they were much less. Now that his sibs were asleep, Yakko wasn't feeling zany at all. Not in the slightest.

He sighed. He had no idea if his sibs felt the way he did. Sure, he loved being zany! And more often than not, the people they met ended up getting what they deserved one way or another. Just today, they had stopped a robber by slapping him in the face with a cherry pie. For that, they had gotten free donuts.

Yakko smiled. They were definitely zany. Once they got home, he made sure his sibs got their hygiene taken care of and made sure that they were ready for bed.

But once they were asleep, it was like all the crazy drained out of him.

Yakko sighed. There was no way he was getting any sleep tonight. He carefully got out of bed, avoiding the ladder that led to Wakko and Dot's bunks. He crept slowly to the other end of the room and exited through the door, heading towards the door to the water tower. He opened it up and stepped outside.

The icy air hit him hard, but he didn't feel it. It felt quite refreshing, actually. He closed the door behind him and scaled down the ladder, wandering the lot in silence.

He looked up while he walked, studying the stars. He always loved the stars. He even wrote a song about them once. Well, maybe it was more about the planets and the universe than just the stars.

This got him thinking about lyrics to a song about the stars. He shook his head. There was already a song about stars... two if you count the one that Wakko wrote.

He started humming the tune, still wandering down the street. His eyes seemed stuck on the sky.

He liked this. No zaniness, no being a model of a cartoon individual, no crazy, up-beat songs. Just him, wandering the lot by himself, soaking in the beautiful night sky while he admired the stars. It was peaceful.

"Yakko?"

Yakko turned around sharply when he heard someone call his name. He managed to relax again when he saw that it was just Dr. Scratchnsniff.

"Hey, Scratchy," Yakko greeted.

"Yakko, it's freezing outside!" Scratchnsniff exclaimed. He quickly wrestled on a coat and grabbed a blanket. He ran outside to Yakko and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders.

"Come on, ve vill go inside and varm up," he said. Yakko didn't even protest as Scratchnsniff led him inside the building. He sat the toon down by the fireplace and lit a fire.

"Vait here, I vill go get some hot coco," said Scratchnsniff. Yakko nodded silently when he took off.

Though he would never say this out loud, Scratchnsniff was worried for the oldest Warner sibling. First of all, he was alone. As far as Scratchnsniff knew, Yakko never ventured far without Wakko or Dot. He was also outside in the cold without anything to keep him warm. Sure, he never usually wore much, but he would wrap a scarf around himself when it was this cold.

Add that to the fact that Yakko was staring out into nothing, even when Scratchnsniff brought him in. Yakko seemed distracted, which wasn't something you saw every day. Yakko was usually right on the money, always aware of what was going on around him, even when is was unnecessary.

When Scratchnsniff returned to the room with two cups of hot chocolate, he saw Yakko staring out the window in thought. This was another strange thing... Yakko usually always voiced his thoughts, not kept them inside like the thoughts they were.

"Yakko?" Scratchnsniff asked. He would swear to the ends of the Earth that he saw Yakko jump.

"Yeah, Scratchy?" Yakko asked, taking the offered cup of hot chocolate.

"Are you alright? Vhere are Vakko and Dot?"

Yakko looked down at his cup, thinking. Scratchnsniff frowned slightly at this behavior. It wasn't like Yakko; not in the slightest.

"Hopefully, they're still in bed, asleep," Yakko finally said. He took a sip of his coco. Now that he had been brought down to Earth via conversation, he could feel his body shivering uncontrollably. He rubbed his right arm, trying to stop the shaking. Scratchnsniff wrapped the blanket around him tighter.

"Vhat vere you doing out zhere?" he asked. The toon just shrugged and looked out the window again.

"Don't tell anyone this, but... I like the nighttime. Everyone's asleep, meaning I don't have to be so crazy," Yakko said. Scratchnsniff stared at him, shocked.

"You don't like being zany?"

Yakko turned sharply to him, completely appalled at the thought.

"Of course I do! I love it! It's just..."

Yakko looked back to his coco again.

"Well... it feels nice to be able to calm down and enjoy the sights, that's all..."

He looked back out the window again. Scratchnsniff looked, too, and wondered what exactly Yakko was looking at. The Water Tower was visible against the horizon, but he got the feeling that that wasn't what was on Yakko's mind right now.

"Aren't the stars beautiful?" Yakko asked quietly.

"Yes," said Scratchnsniff. "Zey are."

Yakko nodded and finished his coco. He stood up, wrapping the blanket around himself completely.

"It's great being a toon," he said. "But even we need a break. Thanks for the coco, Scratchy."

Scratchnsniff took the coco from Yakko and insisted he keep the blanket. He sent Yakko back to the Tower but watched him as he went.

When Yakko had finally reentered the Tower, he took one last glance at the stars. They truly were magnificent. He had missed them the most when they were locked in the tower.

He smiled to himself. There was something that all of them had missed... Dot had missed being able to run around in the sun and pick flowers. Wakko had (unsurprisingly) missed all of the exotic foods and places they all got to go.

And while Yakko had missed those things, too, he had really missed the stars.

With a sigh, he closed the big door behind him. The weight of his worries of not being able to open the door again the next day came back to him, but he pushed them away. For now, he was content with sleeping with his sibs. The hot chocolate had made him sleepy.

When he woke up the next day, he found Dot and Wakko in his bunk with him. He smiled and decided that five more minutes couldn't hurt. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep, smiling.