Jonathan didn't like the way Tor smelled.

It was angry and scared and it made his nose itch something awful. He'd tried sneezing, but it hadn't helped. He also didn't like the way Tor kept looking at his Alpha. Tor wasn't pack anymore, he shouldn't have been looking to Cordelia for guidance the way the pack did. But for all that he smelled terrified of her there was no doubt that that was exactly what he was doing.

Jonathan didn't like it.

Being Pack was a gift. It was family and friends turned into each other to make a stronger connection. A deeper one. A better one. One no human could appreciate, or truly grasp. Which is what made Tor such a traitor to the pack. Because he'd had that connection. He had, in fact, been one of the first to experience such a thing, and he had turned his back on it.

He'd chosen to run the same way Jonathan had asked to be pack, and he was no longer worthy of it. He wasn't Kyle, who had known a good thing when he saw it. No, Tor had all but spat on their pack, on their alpha.

He did not deserve the consideration in Cordelia's eyes.

He did not deserve to be pack, not when he'd had his chance and he blew it.

Jonathan didn't like Tor at all.

Okay, so it was mostly that he didn't like the thought of his alpha gathering her former pack. Taking stock and deciding that maybe the original model was best and booting him and Amy to the curve. She might even keep Amy, who was so gorgeous all dressed up and happy to sit at the table with the popular kids who'd been terrorizing him since kindergarten, and just boot him.

It was stupid. He knew it was stupid. Every instinct he had told him pack didn't work like that. That the weak weren't culled because there was strength in numbers. That everyone had a role in the pack and he just had to find his. That pack was family, forever family, not the kind that let their eyes skim over you because you were such a disappointment no matter how good your grades were.

Even everything he knew about Cordelia declared her far too possessive of them. He belonged to her and she would sooner claw her own eyes out than give any of them up.

But there was still a little voice in his head that wouldn't shut up. no matter what he did. A voice that whispered what if. A voice that meant that Jonathan didn't like Tor.

xXx

Rhonda can't sleep.

Which is unfair, because it's all she wants to do. To turn off her brain and pretend she didn't want to crawl back to Cordelia in the vain hope that she could be pack again. It doesn't help that she is right freaking next to Johnathan's house, and that she can see them. Had seen the way Amy had wrapped herself so happily around Cordelia's mate. Had watched with envy as Kyle threw a companionable arm around the nerd Rhonda had held in contempt since she figured out how much smarter he was than her, and Johnathan's face had lit up with a freaky sort of zen happiness Rhonda wanted so desperately for herself.

Because she could remember the bliss found in a pack mate. The solid connection to another person, the uncompromising, complete and utter acceptance. It made her friendship with Heidi feel like a joke. Especially since Rhonda hadn't seen her since the night they had stopped being pack and wasn't all that sure that she cared.

She'd hung out with Heidi, but the other girl wasn't terribly likable. Mostly they spent time together because it wasn't like people actually liked Rhonda all that much either. It wasn't like she could blame them exactly. No one wanted to be friends with the girls who were nice to your face and talked all kinds of shit behind your back. She just didn't know how to stop. She'd never learned to be nice and mean it. And then it just didn't seem worth it because anyone who might actually be worth the effort already hated her anyway.

Heidi and the others had been easy to fall in with because they offered a distraction. It wasn't particularly entertaining to terrify geeks or pull mean tricks on fat girls, but it passed the time. Made her feel like she was doing something in high school instead of just being miserable all the time. It also gave her names to give her mom when she asked about Rhonda's friends, and someone to invite over as proof that she wasn't some friendless loser.

Her mom was always talking about how amazing her high school experience was. How she'd had so many friends, and had to beat her suitors off with sticks. How it was where she'd met her dad, and that they had been so happy until his unfortunate Barbecue fork incident.

Now Rhonda made up headaches so her mom wouldn't worry too much when she tries to sleep the second she gets home from school.

She tried everything she could think of. She finds black out curtains for a truly fantastic price and tries to forget about the possibility of Vampires running wild in her town. She sneaked her mothers prescription drugs, but all she could manage was a light doze on them that made her feel worse than before.

She has finally resorted to stealing her mothers alcohol. She is halfway through the bottle and nowhere near as sloshed as she is supposed to be at this point. She drains the entire thing and all she feels is tipsy. Whimsy drunk her grandmother calls it. It's then that it occurs to her to go outside and find out if vampires are real.

It's one of the stupidest thoughts she's ever had. But she's never been all that bright, so at least she knows it's purely the idiot teenage in her and not whatever animal echo that haunts her every thought.

She grabs a bottle of Vodka and takes off into Sunny-dale at night.

xXx

Xander was supposed to be hunting Willow down.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd really talked with his best friend. As in had an actual conversation where no one yelled or wigged out. He missed her, and while he wasn't looking forward to the part where she tore him a new one about Cordelia, he was looking forward to making up and being Xander and Willow again.

But Willow wasn't following the pattern. She hadn't gone home to sulk in her room. Hadn't locked herself in the computer lab, hadn't crawled into her sadness nook between her backyard fence and and her house. Willow was no longer doing Willow things, she wasn't even at the Bronze while they fumigated and Xander had yet to see the classic resolve face that would brake his own to dust.

He was starting to think there might not be a quick fix for this. Especially since he was having trouble finding Willow for the first time that he could remember.

Xander didn't even know what he'd done wrong. Sure Cordelia had hit hellmouth levels of strange, but that was hardly his fault. He'd even had a talk with her, set her straight about exactly what wouldn't be happening. Okay, so Amy had kind of derailed him before he could tell anyone about that. But he was pretty sure he'd done the right thing by supervising the newly turned pack member. Maybe Willow could have thought of something better to do, but she was the smart one for a reason. Xander just tried to do what he'd thought would help. It probably wasn't the best philosophy to live your life by, but he didn't have anything else to go by.

Hell, soon he might not even have a Willow, and damn if that thought didn't make him want to cry. He'd taken to wondering around in the hopes of spotting her.

He sighs, and nearly trips over Rhonda.

x

So school started, but I seem to have something of a window before I get stupid busy.