And here it is, the follow-up to Yellowjacket. I know it took a few months, but it's finally here. Just a heads-up: I don't plan for this to be very long. It's just here to wrap a few things up.

With that said, let's continue.

Aftermath

"Is. . . Arabella here?"

Of all the things Mary Godwin expected to hear when she answered the door, this was the last of them. The thought of anyone asking to see Arabella, aka the Pale Girl, was downright mind-boggling to her.

But then again, this was the post-apocalypse.

Standing at the door was a man that everyone had come to know of as the Boss. Then again, he didn't look so boss-like, now; he was dressed in average clothing, his blonde hair had been combed back, and he was no longer wearing glasses, thus letting everyone see his half-dead, half-alive eyes.

The Boss, Mary and Arabella were what the "Freaks" referred to as "Others". For nearly a year, the Others had taken over San Francisco and many parts of the country. If a Freak was found, they were pursued relentlessly until they were caught and converted into an Other, having their humanity and memories stripped from them, reducing them to a lifeless husk of their former selves.

That is, until a very special girl changed everything. Her name was Riley K. Ann Andersen.

Or as the Others called her, Yellowjacket.

Thanks to Riley, the Others, and by extension the entire city, were able to heal and be integrated back into normal society, and the Freaks, who used to be hunted down by them, could now help them heal further. And now San Francisco, and the rest of the nation, was on its way back to recovery.

But that was besides the point.

"You wan to see. . . Arabella?" Mary asked the Boss, for confirmation. She admittedly didn't know very much about the Boss, but she did know that he and Arabella had a very rocky past. After all, the Boss was partially responsible for Arabella becoming Patient Zero and kicking off the whole apocalypse in the first place.

The Boss paused for a brief moment, then said, "Yes."

Mary was miffed, but she opened the door the whole way through and let the Boss inside. The man strolled in, observing the furniture in the house as he searched for the young blonde girl.

"Mary, who was at the door?" A voice called out from downstairs. It was Mary's twin brother, George.

"It's just the Boss," Mary replied.

"But we don't have a job!" Another voice, which Mary identified as Rob, called out.

"No, it's just me!" The Boss shouted down to the basement. "I'm just visiting. There was someone I wanted to talk to, so you could you point me in the right direction and-"

Suddenly, the door upstairs was kicked open, and the Boss whipped his head up. His eyes widened as he saw a familiar figure walk down the stairs.

"Hey, Mary, who's at the door-" Arabella, known better as Pale Girl, started, but stopped when she noticed the Boss. Her smile turned into a bitter frown, and her eyes narrowed.

"Oh, it's you," She said, her voice turning raspy.

The Boss gulped. It had been several months since he'd last seen Arabella. He was shocked that, after the time that had passed, she still looked so corpse-like. She was definitely more human now than before, but she still had the long claws, fanged teeth, and vaguely dead eyes that bore into his soul. It was in stark contrast to him and Mary, who could pass off for fully-cured now.

Despite his visible fear, the Boss spoke. "So, I was talking to my friend Bill, and after months of prompting, he's finally convinced me that the two of us should talk," He said, trying to get Arabella in a good mood. "You know, bury the hatchet between us. What do you think?"

Arabella responded by giving the Boss an animalistic hiss.

The Boss' hopeful yet nervous smile quickly turned into a frown.

He knew instantly that this was going to be way harder than he would've liked. Granted, it was no harder than he expected, but that didn't endear him to it any more.

"You excited, Riley?" Jill Andersen asked her thirteen year old daughter as she packed her schoolbag. "It's your first day of school in over a year. Aren't you happy?"

In the months that had passed between the battle at the Hideout and moving back to their old home, Bill and Jill, Riley's parents, had mostly given up fighting Others, especially now that their daughter was fully cured. Instead, they were attempting to go back to being as normal a family as possible.

Riley shrugged her shoulders at her mom. "I dunno, I guess I have mixed thoughts," She said to Jill. "I mean, on one hand, it's school. But on the other hand, hopefully going to school will let the young Others become more human again, so that's a plus!"

"That's my bright little girl," Jill said, ruffling her daughter's hair. "Always staying positive!"

"Yeah mom, that's me," Riley said, chuckling. "Always positive."

But in her mind, that wasn't exactly the case.

(In Riley's Mind)

"Um, guys," Fear asked the other emotions at the console. "Do you really think we're ready to go to school again? I mean, we practically skipped an entire year of education while we were in that 'Yellowjacket' phase. What if we've forgotten our education?"

"Now Fear, calm down," Joy, always the optimist, reassured him. "It was just a year."

"And a half," Sadness reminded.

"Okay, a year and a half," Joy said, still keeping the smile. "But it's not like we missed much. I mean, the teachers skipped an entire year of education us, so there you go. We go to school, get our education, and we're back to business!"

"And Meg's joining us, too!" Sadness pointed out. "That's a plus!"

Disgust decided to butt in. "Okay, while we're discussing our education, there's another problem," She pointed out. "The Other children."

"What about the other children?" Joy asked, confused. Realization set in, and she just said, "Oh."

"I mean, do you realize how uncomfortable it's going to be when you're at school and you're the only normal person?" Disgust asked. "We're going to be surrounded by Others who haven't been fully cured yet."

"But they're on the way there," Joy reminded her. "Riley was an Other, and now look where we are."

"And Others don't bite anymore, remember," Sadness interjected. "They may be kind of creepy, but they're harmless, now."

"I don't know," Anger, who had kept quiet up until now, said. "I mean, it's a big city. How do we know all of the Others are safe? Remember those ferals Sawbones released those months ago? They definitely weren't harmless."

"Anger, relax," Joy said, leaning on the console. "The ferals were taken care of, remember. They were all caught, so don't worry about a thing. Trust me, today is going to be the safest day ever."

In another part of the city, a young woman walked down an empty street to try and find her way to work. She had missed her taxi, and was trying to locate her workplace by memory.

She paused when she heard a soft growl coming from within a dark alley. Slowly turning in the direction of the alley, she asked, "Is somebody there?"

She was met with silence. The woman stood there, silent, waiting for some kind of respond. A few minutes passed, and she heard no sounds.

Eventually, she shrugged. "Must be my imagination," She said, and continued walking down the sidewalk as if nothing happened.

As she did, she didn't notice several lifeless eyes peer out from the alley and watch her as she leave. A single word was uttered from the darkness of the alley, one spoken in a raspy, almost inhumane voice.

"Freak."

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