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The Gang of Four
by Jim Loats
EMAIL: j_loats@yahoo.com
SUMMARY: What if "The Wish" wasn't Anya's first time
meddling in Sunnydale? Willow POV, early Season 1.
SPOILERS: Um, "The Wish", I guess, and the very first
couple of episodes as well.
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon owns all of these characters;
I'm not him.
FEEDBACK: Yes, please!
ARCHIVING: If you want to; please let me know.
NOTES: I haven't tried to write fiction since college,
about ten years ago -- this story just woke me up
early one morning and spent the rest of the day
battering its way out of my head.
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It's getting harder to remember every day, so I'm
going to try to write it all down before it's gone.
I know that we were the Three Musketeers, Xander and
Jesse and I, the We-Hate-Cordelia Club, best friends
since forever. We were inseparable until that Harvest
thing last week, when...we lost Jesse. It's still so
hard even to think that, much less to say it. Xander's
still got that haunted look in his eyes most of the
time -- it's been there since he had to stake his best
friend. Of course, finding out that vampires are real
and that our new friend Buffy was something called the
"Slayer" might have something to do with the whole
"haunted" thing, and if you look at it that way then
"haunted" even makes more sense what with the whole
supernatural deal and ...
I hate when I do that.
Anyway. I remember growing up, the three of us against
the world, all for one and one for all. I remember
when the worst enemies we had were Queen C and her
pack of Cordettes. And I know that that's real.
But I also remember the Gang of Four.
Willow and Xander and Jesse and Cordy. She'd been
Cordy ever since kindergarten because Jesse couldn't
say "Cordelia" any better than I could say
"Alexander". And we were inseparable, best friends,
the whole bit. All through elementary school it was a
rare day that none of us put in an appearance at one
of the other Gang members' houses. And it didn't
matter if we were playing Commando Adventures in
Xander's back yard, hide-and-seek in Cordy's huge
house, or having a movie-and-pizza fest at Jesse's
place, as long as we were all together. Nobody's
parents minded (well, Jesse's and Cordy's didn't mind;
mine didn't notice, and Xander's didn't care, but
that's beside the point). Sometimes Cordy and I did
"girl stuff" together while Xander and Jesse did "guy
stuff", but most often we were the Gang.
Things started to change during junior high. Cordy'd
always been pretty, prettier than me, although we'd
had plenty of makeover parties where she'd helped me
with makeup and hairstyles and clothes and stuff (her
mom knew a lot more about that sort of thing than
mine...not saying much). After sixth grade, Cordy's
folks committed the ultimate sin and split up the
Gang, taking Cordy to Europe for the summer. We cried
for days before she left. The three of us tried to
keep the magic going that summer, but it just wasn't
the same without her. Jesse in particular seemed to
miss her, even more than me; he was so down that
Xander and I spent a lot more time together than
usual. That's when I first started to fall in love
with him. Yeah, that part's still the same. So's his
obliviousness. Oh well.
Anyway, Cordy came back at the end of the summer, and
she'd changed. She'd been pretty before; now she was
beautiful. And woman-shaped. And she and Jesse took
one look at each other and it was over. Although we
were still the Gang, it was clear that the Gang of
Four had in a sense become the Gang of Two and Two
Others. We still all hung out together, we still had
fun together, but Jesse and Cordy had something extra,
something that Xander and I couldn't enter into. I
don't think we really felt any resentment; we were
still just as close to them as we had been. It was
just that they were now closer to each other, doing
things like holding hands and kissing and suddenly
staring off into space with goofy grins on their face
at times when the other one wasn't there. I've never
seen two people more in love.
It wasn't always perfect, of course. They fought from
time to time, over little stuff and big stuff. We all
had, all the way through school -- Xander and Cordy
especially had tempers -- but we always managed to
patch things up within a day or so, and so did Cordy
and Jesse once they started dating.
But sometimes there just isn't enough time.
I still remember that night at the Bronze quite
clearly, although the rest is starting to fade. We
were all there, the Gang of Four having the time of
our lives, when it happened. I don't even know what
set them off, but one minute Jesse and Cordy were
sweating it up on the dance floor and the next she was
storming off. Xander and I were at our usual table,
talking to this new girl named Buffy (so far she
seemed nice, in a kind of ditzy LA sort of way), when
Cordy stomped up, grabbed her jacket, and headed out
the door muttering under her breath. We looked at
Jesse to gauge the severity of the damage, and decided
between ourselves that whatever had happened, he was
still too mad to go after her just then. It was okay,
they'd be lovey-dovey again by morning. He'd dance and
talk with some other girl to cool off, and we'd head
out. He'd call Cordy when he got home.
Only the girl turned out to be a vampire. And we never
saw Jesse alive again.
Xander and I looked for him that night, but got
attacked ourselves, and Buffy rescued us. That's when
we found out about the whole vampire/Slayer/Hellmouth
deal. Amazing what you can come to consider "normal"
if you don't know any better.
Cordy was frantic the next day; she knew their routine
as well as we did and had been expecting that call.
And then Jesse never showed up at school. Xander and I
told her what had happened to us the previous night,
and about Buffy and Giles and all, but I'm not sure
how much of it managed to get in through the panic.
I'm not sure how much of it *I'd* managed to really
absorb yet, but the possibility that Jesse had been
killed or worse was flashing at my brain like a big
neon sign. I don't think I heard a single word one of
my teachers said that day.
We went out that night, the three of us, against the
strong warnings of Buffy and Giles, 'cause we just
couldn't let him go without looking for him. And we
saw him. Staggering through the park, looking like
hell. Dazed, sweet, bruised, clothes all torn up.
Cordy just freaked and ran straight to him, despite
our efforts to hold her back. They grabbed each other
and held on, and we heard her sobbing as he said "Hey,
babe" the way he always did. Then we saw his face
change. Buffy'd warned us about that, that it wouldn't
be him, just "the thing that killed him wearing his
face", but it didn't sink in until we saw his eyes go
all yellow and the fangs appear. Cordy couldn't see
it, but she could feel it when the Jesse-thing grabbed
her hair and yanked her head over to the side. Xander
and I rushed in and managed to tackle them apart
before it had done so much as break her skin. Xander
had a stake with him, and I had a cross (we hadn't
*completely* ignored what Buffy and Giles had said),
and between us we managed to keep the vampire
off-balance until Xander was able to drive the stake
into its heart. And we watched, Cordy in complete
stunned horror from the ground where she'd fallen, as
the face and body of our best friend, the Fourth of
the Four, the love of Cordy's young life, went black
and crumbled into dust.
Cordy let out a scream that didn't sound human, and
then just sort of froze. Just sat there on the ground,
staring at the spot in the air where Jesse's face had
been, with a couple of tears running down her cheeks
and absolutely no expression on her face. Xander and I
went over, helped her up, and grabbed her in a
desperate three-way hug. We were both crying so hard
at that point that we didn't notice right away that
she wasn't. She just had that blank look; blank except
for her eyes.
We kept an eye on her for the next couple of days; I
knew she was hurting, but couldn't get her to talk to
me. She went through the motions of school, but anyone
could see how much pain she was in. Two days after
Jesse died, I spotted her after school got out talking
to some girl I'd never seen before under one of the
trees in the lawn. Cordy was full-out sobbing, and I
could see her talking through the sobs, barely pausing
for breath. At first, I was kind of angry; we were her
*best friends*, couldn't she talk to *us* about this?
Why was she spilling to this complete stranger? Then I
realized that Xander and I were probably too tightly
connected to her pain for her to be able to face us
yet. As long as she was talking to *someone*, I
figured it would do her good.
I didn't want to pry, but I wanted to make sure Cordy
was OK, so I sort of sneaked closer, in time to hear
the stranger say something about "and what do you
want?" Cordy's reply was low, but I heard the words
"wish I'd never loved him...it wouldn't hurt so much".
The stranger's reply was very clear: "Done."
And that's where that set of memories, that entire
version of my life, ends. It must have been a spell of
some sort; I think the main effect must have been on
Cordy's parents, making them meaner and snobbier so
that it rubbed off on her early. Maybe the reason I
can still remember is that I was so close to the
source, maybe there's some other reason. But the
memories are fading, getting dimmer. I can feel it
happening day by day. Probably it's some side effect
of the spell, a delayed reaction or something, and
when I've finished writing this down I'll forget where
I put it or something. But for now, I remember. I
remember having a best girlfriend my whole life,
someone to squeal about the New Kids with, dish with
about Jesse's kisses, cry to about Xander's
bone-headedness, and laugh with each year at the
Snoopy Dance. I remember the joy of chasing each other
on the playground, dressing each other up before
junior-high dances, and thinking up tricks to play on
the boys.
I remember the Gang of Four.
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