Fear.
It's a four letter word I'm intimately familiar with. Through it I'm also familiar with a whole bunch of other four letter words.
Primarily 'shit' and 'help' which tend to be wedged in between 'Oh' and 'me'.
If you asked me the most frightening thing I ever experienced that summer; I'd have to rate Cordy driving us to Bremmerton as only the second.
The top slot is reserved for the trip back.
"Johnathan!"
The young man's head jerked up at the sound of Cordelia yelling at him.
"Did you hear what I said?" she asked him.
"Uh, yeah." He lied. He'd actually been too busy trying to keep calm to hear whatever inane prattle Cordelia was going on with. But he wasn't about to tell Cordelia that in fear of what she would do to him. Also he desperately wanted Cordelia to stop looking him and start looking at the traffic she was passing at 90 miles an hour.
Cordelia rolled her eyes at him.
"Bull." She said and went back to thinking about her driving, much to Johnathan's gratitude. His gratitude was sort lived as Cordelia spied an opening between two cars and she went for it, avoiding collision by mere inches.
He managed not to whimper out loud.
Just.
Cordelia had, despite her public exclamations, become their friend over the past year or so. Helping the Scoobies fight the forces of evil (despite her better judgment) had changed her. She spent increasing amounts of time with the Scooby Gang, much to the derision of her other 'friends'. But she was beginning not to care as much as before what Harmony and the others thought or said.
But there was something deeper, something powerful but vaguely disquieting to the old Cordelia about the new Cordelia that was slowly taking shape.
As they raced down the freeway there was a silence that disturbed Cordelia. Buffy and Willow had hardly exchanged a single word the whole trip back to Sunnydale. Come to think of it, they hadn't said much to each other all day.
There were other indicators that there was trouble between the Scoobies. Buffy's attitude had been distant all day while Willow had pulled into her shell whenever Buffy had been close by. When Willow had asked Cordelia to help her go clothes shopping for Johnathan, it had only been when Cordelia asked if Buffy was also coming that Willow had actually rang and asked Buffy if she wanted to come.
Now Willow and Johnathan shared the backseat while Buffy sat in the front and stared out the window.
Plus the small matter of the absent Y chromosome carrying Scooby.
*Great* Cordelia thought *I'm stuck in the middle of a potentially world ending lovers tiff* She'd seen the leather clad end result of what happened when the Scooby Gang broke down.
Broaching the subject would require a delicate touch.
"You know, the whole brooding look works on a tall, dark, vampire with a soul. But on a short, bottle blonde, vampire Slayer? Brooding just comes across as sulking. What's wrong with you guys? Finally saw Xander naked?"
Buffy continued to look out the window.
"It's none of your business Cordelia." She replied.
"Wrong answer. For anyone interested in avoiding a repeat of the First Evil bitches, i.e. everyone, your happiness is everybody's business. So what's up with the no talking and where the hell is Xander? God knows he could use some decent clothes."
"I don't know Cordy! I haven't seen him in weeks! I don't know where he is!" Buffy yelled at the cheerleader, real anger flashing in her eyes. Buffy settled back down into her seat and resumed looking out the window.
"And I don't care." Buffy declared softly. Her cold tone chilled everyone to the bone.
Awkward and strained silence reigned supreme the next day when the Scoobies were reunited.
The awkward and strained silence reigned for the next 2 weeks.
It reigned through school days and through the zombies raised by Joyce's mask. Xander fell into a deeper funk at his failure to stop it before it happened. The problems between the three weighed heavily on all their minds resulting in a number of close shaves during patrols.
Giles had paired up Faith and Buffy for the nights patrol out of worry for his blonde Slayer.
Faith had spent the night telling stories of what she had done before coming to Sunnydale. Buffy had only half listened to Faith's stories as the two patrolled.
"Didn't we, um, do this street already?" Faith asked the elder Slayer.
"Funny thing about vamps. They'll hit a street even after you've been there. It's like they have no manners."
Faith shrugged.
"Mm. You've been doing this the longest."
"I have."
"Yeah. Maybe a little too long."
Buffy gave Faith a look.
"Excuse me? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing."
"You got a problem?" asked Buffy, a definite edge to her voice.
Faith held her arms up in mock surrender.
"I'm five-by-five, B, living entirely large, actually wondering about your problem."
"Well, I may not sleep in the nude and rassle alligators.."
"Well, maybe it's time you started, 'cause obviously something in your bottle needs uncorking. What is it, the, the Xander thing?"
Buffy stopped walking.
"What do you know about Xander?"
"Just what I've been able to pick up here and there. Xander's been spending a lot of time away from you guys lately. Says it's important for the future and stuff. I believe him too.
"But it's not the only reason he's not around much. He's got issues about some such crap that he ain't sharing with anyone. Typical macho bullshit. But he isn't the only one with issues. You and Red have your own crap going too and it's all fucking up your life right now."
Buffy stepped up to the other Slayer and got into her face.
"I got an idea: how about from now on, we don't hear from you on Xander or Willow or anything else in my life. Which, by the way, is my life."
"What are you getting so strung out for, B?"
"Why are your lips still moving, F?"
"Did I just hear a threat?" asked Faith, ready for a fight.
"Would you like to?" Buffy was getting extremely pissed off at Faith right now.
"Wow. Think you can take me?" Faith challenged.
"Yeah." Buffy said and looked over Faith's shoulder. "I just hope they can't." she said indicating to the group of five or six vampires headed for the two Slayers.
The fight started out well for team Slayer with two vamps dusted in the first ten seconds. But after that the going got tough.
Normally, fighting two vamps at a time was Slayer standard operating procedure, but these four vamps were anything but standard. Extremely strong and experienced, the four remaining vampires fought as a team. They frequently changed their tactics and kept Buffy and Faith off balance.
Buffy and Faith battled against two vampires each, each Slayer so engrossed in her own fight that neither saw the setup. The two Slayers had backed themselves against the opposite walls of the narrow street. With the walls to their backs, the two girls ensured that no vamp could sneak up behind them.
Only problem was that neither Slayer could come to the aid of the other if things went down hill on one of them.
Just the way the vampires had planned it.
One of Buffy's vampires left her and joined the other two fighting Faith. Within seconds Faith found herself pulled out into the middle of the street surrounded by three vampires.
It took Buffy a second or two to see the danger. The three vampires were positioned so that no matter which way Faith faced she would have a vampire behind her and the three attacked at the same time, rather than the usual one at a time. Buffy was fighting the largest and best fighter of the four vampires and there was no way that she could make it to Faith before it was too late.
Once they were done with Faith it would be her turn.
There was a roar and a dark blur crash tackled two of the vampires facing Faith. Using the unexpected distraction both Faith and Buffy managed to dust their remaining vampires and saw Angel in full game face squaring off with the last two vampires.
"Angelus!" one of the two roared.
"Not quite." Angel growled back. The two remaining vampires weighed their options. Fighting two Slayers and the traitorous Angelus was a loosing proposition so they decided that retreat was the order of the day.
"Buffy, you OK?" Angel asked her.
"Peachy."
"So you're Angel huh?" Faith wandered over to where Angel and Buffy stood and checked out the vampire with a soul. "Not exactly what I was expecting."
"What were you expecting? Cape and bad accent?"
"According to Xander, less tall, dark and handsome, more brooding. Although lately Xander's seems to have cornered the market on the brooding."
At the mention of Xander, Buffy rapidly changed the course of the conversation.
"You knew those four? 'cause they seemed to know you. What's their story?"
"The Lancaster Brothers. Tore through England during the civil war."
"So I take it they didn't vote for Lincoln then." Buffy joked.
"Uh, the English Civil War."
"England had a Civil War? Since when?"
"In the 1640's. Don't they teach kids anything in school these days?"
"Can we skip the history channel and get to the 'let's-worry-about- the-leftovers' channel?" interrupted Faith. The idea of having a couple of pissed off 350-year-old master vampires hunting them down didn't particularly appeal.
"The good news is that you staked Jacob and Trent who were the brains and the brawn."
"Good news." Buffy agreed.
"Bad news is that Nathan and James are extremely sadistic, even by vampire standards. They'll want revenge for their brothers."
Buffy sighed and shrugged her shoulders in resignation.
"What's two more vampires who want me dead in a town full of them?"
Angel looked at her in concern. It was obvious that Buffy was hurting, not physically, but emotionally. Her reached out and caressed Buffy's cheek.
"Are you sure you're OK?" he asked her. Buffy closed her eyes for a moment then turned away from him.
"I'm fine." She told him and stalked off into the night watched by a concerned Angel and a troubled Faith.
It was the expression on their faces that so chilled Xander. Their eyes were open and their faces were a waxen mask of shock, pain, and horror.
As yours would be too if you had been brutally murdered, your throat slashed, and repeatedly stabbed by the cloaked figure that held a knife that still dripped with Buffy and Willow's blood.
A blood-drenched hand reached up and pulled back the hood of the cloak to reveal the face of Buffy and Willow's murderer.
Alexander LaVelle Harris.
Xander awoke with a gasp, perspiration coating his body as his heart beat wildly from the dream. It took Xander a few seconds to regain his bearing before he got out of his bed and quietly padded his way past Faith's room and to the bathroom.
He splashed water on his face and dried his face and body with a towel.
Every night since that horrible one, he had had the same nightmare.
He was a killer, a murderer.
Looking into the mirror at his reflection, he was overwhelmed by a single emotion.
Loathing.