Fear

Anger hated to admit to being wrong on any given day. He was never one to back away from his opinions and he certainly wasn't going to give anyone the satisfaction of being right to hold over his head if he could help it. He was nothing if not fair, though, so when he did or said something that proved to be wrong or hurtful (more so than was accepted of him, anyway) he would always twist his pride enough to give a proper apology.

After the incident with Joy, Sadness, and the core memories, he unsurprisingly offered an apology to them all for his rash decision. Surprisingly, though, he kept on offering more.

At first it was fine, and the other emotions thought nothing more of it than a bit of an uncharacteristic episode for Anger. When it became obvious that he would continue to apologize whenever the subject was brought up, they tried to ease his mind. Joy and Sadness told him that it was just his way of thinking about things, that he was just as unbalances as Riley was without them there. Fear and Disgust even tried to take a bit of the blame for themselves. After all, they did nothing to stop him. But Anger persisted. The apology became a habit. Compulsive.

For the first few weeks after the incident, he was hesitant to touch the control panel at all, and would bat away any help from the others when they noticed. What if he made the wrong choice again? What if he hurt Riley? Even after the excitement died down, and he managed to stop saying sorry to the others, he would apologize to Riley every night before bed, quietly. And he would worry every morning as he got ready for the day that he could screw up that badly all over again.

III

Sadness had never actually been alone. Even when the others had sort of left her in the dust, so to speak, they were always there. And it may have been far from ideal, but she would take what she could get.

She was afraid to go to sleep at night. She wasn't scared of the dark, or of something under the bed, like Riley used to be. No, she was scared of the nightmares she was sure would come.

They only intensified after what happened, and Joy had finally become her good friend. She would dream of losing her, losing all of them. Sometimes they would fade from existence, or they would simply walk into another room and never be seen again. However it happened, she always find herself alone.

She sound of her crying in her dream would mesh with the sounds she made as she woke up, and she would move quickly but silently to the others' rooms to check on them. Just to make sure that they hadn't really left her all alone.

III

Joy trusted her coworkers with everything she was. They were practically a family, with how much they relied on each other. She knew that they would always have her back.

At least, thats what she told herself.

Don't get her wrong, it started off that way. For eleven years she had been content with the fact that everyone was behind her decisions. But after the fiasco in long-term memory, Joy felt less and less confident that she was doing right by the others. Every time she made a decision, every time she chose to drive, she found herself glancing over her shoulder at her friends who she trusted, I should trust them! just to make sure they thought it was a good idea, too.

How much sway did she hold over them, really? They had always sort of smiled and nodded when she did something, but was that just because they thought that they did't have a choice? Now that she'd stopped degrading Sadness, would the other emotions shed whatever shell was around them and finally voice their true opinion of her, without fear of retribution?

They were her friends. They were. But was that a decision that was hers, or theirs?

III

Disgust was afraid of fear. No, not Fear, but, well…fear. She had heard Riley's dad tell her once that 'the only thing to fear is fear itself.' She took to this saying faster than even she thought she would. There were plenty of things on Earth for her to be less than fond of, but truthfully, she was too busy being grossed out by it all to really think of being afraid.

She was hard to scare, she supposed. Which was good, until she tried to think of how she would react if ever she was scared.

She wasn't afraid of fear because it was all that was left, because it was unknown. She was afraid of fear because she knows what it can do to people who are unprepared.

Countless times she had seen people—live, on TV, in the news; through Riley's eyes—who had been incapacitated by fear, had completely shut down. She had seen people become irrational beyond the point of sanity, and had even seen people hurt others in their efforts to save themselves. It was like they became animals, vicious beings who gave no heed to the people around them. Would use them as stepping stools to get out of a pinch. These were people whose Fear didn't take their job seriously in the beginning; she knew, as she had asked Sadness, and Sadness seemed to know more than any of them did. The Fears of those unprepared were underdeveloped, without a plan, and desperate.

Riley had a good Fear. A great one. He kept her safe, and even if he was panicking himself he tried his best to keep her head level enough to get out of whatever trouble they found themselves in. She trusted their Fear.

But in a panic, in a mass of people running from or responding to a threat of some kind, would they all be safe from the fear that engulfed everyone in its path? Would every other Fear near them have enough sense and human decency to protect their Riley, too?

A/n: Hope you all enjoyed! Thanks for reading and for your feedback and support! Fear was such an enjoyable chapter to write, and I hope you al liked reading it, and the others. That sums it up for this fic. Love to all!

Because I failed to do it at the beginning: Disclaimer- I own nothing.