A/N: This was a pretty hard chapter to do, but here it is! Thanks once again to everybody who's supported me and put up with me thus far! You lot are really too kind!
"Rise and shine, everybody!" That was Joy's voice, waking up the other emotions. "Time for another great day!"
After the other four had reluctantly dragged themselves out of bed, they headed downstairs for another group meeting.
"Today, it'll be your turn to call the shots at practice," Joy told Disgust. "Make sure Riley's doing everything right, and keep her at the top of her game."
Disgust flipped her hair. "Too easy."
"Joy," Sadness whispered. "Won't you talk to them?"
"Sorry, Sadness, but it'll have to wait. School's probably gonna get boring, so I'll talk to them then."
The blue emotion's shoulders drooped. "Okay."
...
"Alright, class," the math teacher announced. "There's ten minutes left of class, so you can use it to get started on your homework."
Nobody stopped Fear from making Riley feel the need to take advantage of those ten minutes because both Anger and Disgust had gone to the other room with Joy. Once Riley had started her homework, Fear said: "Not that I'm complaining, but how come Joy said she wanted to talk to those two in private?"
Sadness grasped the bottom of her sweater and averted her eyes. "Well, Fear...the truth is...I asked her to."
"Why's that?"
"I don't know...I just thought that they were being really mean to you - meaner than usual - and I hated to see them do those things to you, so...I told Joy about it, and she said she'd ask them what's up... I'm sorry. I just figured that you were having a lot of trouble, and we wanted to help you."
Fear raised his eyebrows. "You asked her to do that...for me?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Sadness replied, still not making eye contact. "Sorry."
Fear couldn't believe it. All this time he had been deathly afraid of confronting Anger and Disgust about their issues with him, but now he didn't have to! "Oh, Sadness! You don't know how much you've helped me! I'm only sorry I couldn't stand up to them myself." He could barely resist hugging her. "Thanks so much!"
Sadness smiled, a bit embarrassed. "Well, Joy's the one talking to them. You should really be thanking her, too."
"Oh, I will, I will!" he said, the grateful relief in his voice as obvious as could be.
.
-Meanwhile, in the other room-
.
"Alright, Joy, make it quick, we gotta get to work," said Anger.
"I want to know what the problem is," Joy said flatly.
"What problem?" asked Disgust.
"The problem with Fear. You two have been pretty mean to him lately, and I want this problem to be solved as quick as possible so Riley doesn't suffer during the game."
The other two exchanged a look. "Can you believe this?" Anger muttered under his breath. "Hey, sister, you don't want Riley to suffer, you'll keep Fear away from the console just like we're doing," he told Joy, exasperation in his voice. "Capisce?"
"No, not capisce! I gave Fear a special job to do, and if you won't let him do it-"
"Let me ask you this, Joy," Disgust interrupted, "if you think Fear can be trusted to help Riley like you want him to, then how do you explain the little accident - which was completely his fault - that we had yesterday?"
"Well-" Joy began.
"She's right. We may have been let off easy this time, but one more screwup and I don't think the coach is gonna be so forgiving," Anger agreed. "Frankly, I'm surprised we didn't get kicked off the team when it happened!"
"That's not exactly-" Joy started.
"If we leave Fear to do things the way he does, he'll get the entire team to lose faith in Riley, and then it's a one-way ticket to Loserville for all of us," Disgust concluded, folding her arms.
"That's enough, you guys!" Joy yelled. "The only reason Fear messed up at all was because you pressured him into it, Anger!"
"I did not!" Anger yelled back.
Joy sighed. "Look, if you'll just give Fear another chance, I'm sure he'll come through. Besides, chances are you'll need him today, Disgust."
Anger groaned and Disgust rolled her eyes. Finally, she said, "Fine."
"Thanks," said Joy, all smiles again. "And don't worry, we're gonna win!"
"What the heck did you say that for?!" Anger accosted Disgust as soon as Joy left the room.
The green emotion rolled her eyes as though she couldn't believe his stupidity. "Hey, I had to say something to shut her up. Now, listen. How come do you think Joy was so upset with us today? She didn't say anything yesterday, even when you did mess up Fear's face. I'm willing to bet that slimy coward went whining to her."
Anger's head began to flare up. "How could he?! He's got no right! It was his fault in the first place!"
"Well then," said Disgust, eyes narrowed. "Looks like we just have to scare him straight."
"Absolutely," growled Anger.
...
"Thanks so much, Joy!" Fear was saying. "You just saved my life!"
Joy laughed. "Hey, what are friends for? And anyway, Sadness was the one looking out for you."
Just then, the door to the other room opened. It was Anger. "Hey, Fear," he said. "Me and Disgust wanna talk to you for a sec." And then he closed the door.
"Hey, this is it!" Joy said while helping Riley pack her bag to leave school.
"Yeah, I bet they're going to apologize," said Sadness. "Go talk to them."
Fear twiddled his fingers a bit. "I hope so. You guys okay for a minute or two?"
"Yep!" Joy replied.
"Alright." He went into the other room.
"W-what's up?" he asked Anger.
"Nothing, really."
"You guys, uh...really don't need to bother to talk this over with me," Fear told them, wanting to be polite.
"No, no, we insist," said Disgust with a touch too much sugar in her voice.
Anger slammed the door and turned to face Fear. "What did you tell her?!" he demanded, advancing toward him.
Immediately, Fear raised his arms up in front of his face to protect himself. "I didn't tell her anything!"
"Fess up, ugly!" Disgust ordered.
Fear backed away from them. "N-no! I told you, I didn't say anything! She...she probably just thought you guys were overdoing it!"
"Overdoing it?!" Anger fumed. "I'll show you overdoing it!" He rammed Fear in the gut with his fist.
Fear bent over and knelt on the ground. As the pain flowed through his particles and he heard the two emotions scolding and accusing him, he came to a decision. They can't hurt me any worse, he told himself. I don't care what they do to me anymore. I'm aware of it, and I'll be prepared. Slowly, tentatively, still holding his stomach, Fear rose to his feet. "For the last time," he began, his voice still shaking a bit, "I didn't tell Joy anything."
"Prove it!" Anger challenged him.
He took a deep breath. "I was upstairs in my room all morning yesterday. You two saw me go to bed that night. I haven't left the console once today to talk to anybody in private." His confidence grew with each word, until his voice was steady and even, almost monotone. He stood upright, moved toward his two accusers, and said with all the confidence he could muster, "And I'll tell you something else, it was your fault I wouldn't leave my room in the first place!" He leaned in toward Disgust and pointed an accusing finger at her. "'He touches that console, he'll live to regret it!'"
Disgust's eyes grew wide. She glowered at him. "You were spying on us that night, weren't you?!"
"No, all I did was hear you, and then you guys went and scared me to death!"
"Oh, yes!" Anger hissed. "Always running away from your problems, huh?! Just like that time last year, when Riley's life was falling apart, and you packed up your bags, and you called down that tube, and you-"
As the images flashed by, Fear clapped his hands over his ears, shut his eyes, and gave his head a violent shake. "Listen, I don't want to hear about it!" he snapped. "I don't want to hear about it anymore! This conversation is over, do you understand?"
"We're not-"
"Over!" He began stomping off.
"Ya know what you are?!" Anger yelled, following him. "You're a...a nuisance!"
The purple emotion whirled around to face him, his face in an expression of unbelieving exasperation. "Why?" he demanded. "Because of who I am or what I do?"
"Try both," snapped Disgust.
Fear gave a scornful chuckle. "Oh, and now we're right back to how worthless I am again, aren't we? Well, regardless of what good I can do, I care about our safety and security - something I wouldn't expect the Nag Bag" - he glared at Disgust, who scoffed - "or Old Napoleon" - he shifted his glare to Anger, who scowled - "to know anything about. And regardless of any little complaints you may have, we are meanwhile approaching a life-changing event, and I've gotta get back to work."
"Tch. 'Back to work', he says!" mocked Disgust. Anger sneered.
"HA! What a load!" He grabbed Fear by the collar and pulled him downward to speak right into his face. "As if we're gonna let some coward up behind the console when the last thing that Riley needs is to start shakin' in her skates over whatever stupid conspiracy theories you're gonna fill her head with!"
As Anger had expected, Fear began trembling. His entire body shook with terror. But unlike so many times before, he did not try to pry himself away, nor even avert his eyes from Anger's terrible scowl, but instead looked the red emotion straight in the eye and scowled right back. He's not going to frighten me into submission, Fear convinced himself. Not this time. "And why not?" He countered, his teeth clenched the same as Anger's were.
A bit taken aback by the other emotion's sudden lack of timidity, no, newfound courage, Anger gave a short gasp. "Whaddaya mean, why not?! Do you honestly think that, by any stretch of the imagination, that would be fair to Riley?!"
Inside, Fear began bubbling. With a sudden burst of strength, he shoved Anger right off him. "Fair?!" he shrieked. "That wouldn't be fair?! And here I thought you'd know better than anybody what fair is! Let's remind ourselves of a few things that happened, shall we? Last year, when we'd just moved here, you, Anger, had the brilliant idea of going back to Minnesota without telling anybody, which you, Disgust, had no objection to! Nobody listened to me, and then we ended up stealing Mom's money, running away from home, hopping a bus full of total strangers, scaring Mom and Dad half to death, nearly shutting down the console completely, and causing the collapse of the last two islands, creating a total death trap for Joy and Sadness, who were having a hard enough time already! Now tell me, was any of that fair to Riley, or to any of us for that matter?!"
Anger and Disgust could hardly believe what they were seeing. Was this really the same Fear who was at their complete mercy just this morning, the same coward who always held himself and shrunk away whenever they were telling him off, as he was telling them off just now? Disgust looked round at Anger, waiting for him to say something. He was looking back at her, hoping she'd say something. "Hey, uh, hang on..." he got out, his voice barely audible.
"And while we're on the subject of worthlessness," Fear went on, bringing himself up to full height, towering over Anger, "do you, by any chance, consider yourself worthy of protecting Riley after what you did to nearly get her killed? You failed her, Anger. So did you, Disgust! Even more than I did! If I'm as worthless as you say, then you two must be the most worthless of all, because I'm obviously worthier than you!" Though he trembled through and through, the skinny emotion's pale purple eyes were wild with fury as he glowered at the other two, whose mouths were still hanging wide open in shock. It was as if the emotions had switched namesakes, with Fear looking both sickened and infuriated, and Disgust and Anger looking all but terrified.
All three were silent. Nobody moved nor spoke. After what seemed like an eternity of deafening silence, Fear turned and left just as quickly as he could. Even after he was gone, Anger and Disgust kept standing there, wordless and dumbfounded.
"Well, Anger? Are you going to let him talk to us like that? Go after him!" Disgust said all of a sudden, her voice back to its normal snotty tone.
"We...failed her," Anger mumbled.
Disgust rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me you actually believe all that trash. You just did what you had to do. So did I. That's nothing to feel sorry about, right? Fear was the one who tried to run."
"But...I was the one who made her run. And I almost got away with it."
"Ugh. Look, that was a year ago! Just forget it already!"
Anger sighed. "Yeah...alright. Listen, you go back to the console. I'll, uh...be with you guys in five minutes."
"What do you mean? What if we need you?"
"Nothin' you or Joy can't handle. I know that."
"Anger!"
"I said, get outta here," he growled through clenched teeth.
Disgust gave up. It was clear that she wasn't going to get anywhere with him. "Fine, if you're going to be acting all weird." She turned on her heel and left the room.
Fear hadn't told Joy or Sadness about what had happened in the other room. He had just come back, looking very disconsolate, even a bit wild-eyed. Disgust, however, owed it to her self-consciousness to act as though everything was normal, and so she did. Not wishing to seem awkward, neither Joy nor Sadness asked about the conversation, so all Disgust said was, "Anger said he'll be with us in five minutes."
...
"Isn't five minutes up by now?" Sadness asked some time later.
"Yep," Disgust replied, blowing on her nails. "Three minutes ago."
Fear was still upset with Anger, but his worry momentarily overcame it. "What could possibly be keeping him?"
"Oh, he's probably in his room, throwing pillows at his reflection in the mirror," Disgust said curtly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Joy wanted to know.
"Why do you care?" was the green emotion's response.
"Disgust," Fear said, trying to sound firm. "What happened after I left that room?"
"That's what I want to know! After you had that big yelling thing, Anger just started staring at the floor, his face got all guilty, and all he could say was 'we failed her', 'we failed her'!"
"Hold the phone," said Joy. "What yelling thing?"
"After Anger started tearing into him," said Disgust.
"Hey, you did it too!" Fear protested.
"Wait, I thought you were going to apologize!" Sadness cut in.
"Us apologize to him? Are you crazy?"
Fear whistled to get everyone's attention. "All right! Confession time! Two nights ago, I overheard Anger and Disgust planning to keep me away from the console no matter what. I got scared and wouldn't leave my room. I messed up later and Anger threw me at the wall. Sadness figured something was up and told Joy about it. Joy called Anger and Disgust out on it, they figured I knew something and dragged me into the other room to bludgeon me to death. I tried to defend myself, but I ended up raising my voice and saying some things I shouldn'tve said, Anger's taking it personally, and now I've gotta go straighten things out because if I don't, we're gonna lose the game." And with that, he zipped up the stairs.
He knocked on Anger's door. No response. He knocked again, louder. Still no response. He called Anger's name. Not even a "bug off!" from inside. Nervously, Fear turned the handle - which, for some reason, was not locked as he expected - and opened the door. Nobody on the bed, nobody under the bed. Nobody in the closet, nobody behind the door. Fear gulped. He began shaking again. He searched Disgust's room. Nobody. He searched Sadness's, Joy's, and even his own room. Nobody. He darted back downstairs and into the room next to the console room. He practically turned the room upside-down, and still Anger was nowhere in sight.
"GUYS?!"
It was such an alarming scream that all three girls came at once, only to find Fear running all over the room in a massive panic, eyes bugging out of his head.
"Fear! What's wrong? What happened?" Joy asked as soon as they were able to restrain him.
In a disturbed voice that was barely audible through his hyperventilating, Fear said: "Anger's gone."
A/N: Thank you for reading! And thank you for over thirty reviews!