Life's Scares
by Caela

Disclaimer: I own Danielle, the name of O'Hailey, and especially Jena.

The room was dead silent, not a single person spoke, not even in a whispering tone. The desks were in rows in the medium sized class room, each filled with a student taking a test. Minds were working harder now than they ever had that semester. My O'Hailey's tests were hard, excruciating pain when it came to thinking of the answers to the questions of the history in Europe. Everyone feared Mr. O'Hailey, not only because he was tall, and didn't smile much but because his students were all freshman in the college. All the horror stories were passed down to them from those who had taken his class before. All of his students couldn't figure the man out. He was very professional, dressed the part as well, and he never made anyone uncomfortable, aside from being largely intimidating.

The year before he had learned that a girl was in an abusive relationship with a guy and had confronted her one day during class hours, He thought that it would be inappropriate to see her in her dorms, and asked her straight out if she was doing all right. She tried desperately to dodge the question by giving him stressful stories of school and blaming it on her over reactions towards everything. He didn't buy it and she didn't think he would, but she tried any how. After learning that she was terrified for her life with this boy, her professor approached the urchin and told him to back off, in a threatening voice that was never heard from the teacher before. He was always a docile man, he never raised his voice higher than as if he were talking in a conversation with people only 6 feet away. (Hence; the reason for a small class.)

The boy froze and looked around as if he were looking for some type of back up. No one was seen in the hall that he and the staff member were on. When Angel didn't get an answer, not even a nod of accepting the warning he took the boy's throat in his hand and pressed him against his dorm room door and held him up, a few inches off the floor.

"I didn't hear you...." Angel peered into his eyes as his lips hissed the words.

"What th-" Angel pressed harder on his neck.

"Whats that?" He turned his head a little, giving his ear the boy's full attention.

"Ok, I won't touch her. I swear!" The boy was whimpering in his throat. The boy's eyes slowly grew wide and looked down between their two bodies. Angel stepped back and let the boy down and looked down at the boy's pants. A large wet stain was patched in front of the boy's package. Angel smiled, satisfied and amused, turned and walked away down the hall and down the stairs.

Everyone had great respect for him, but just the thought of knowing what he did to people that pissed him off gave everyone a little bit of a "CAUTION" sign in their brains whenever they approached or passed him in the halls and on campus. He had lovely pictures of his family on his desk. One of a, "Hot chick!" as the boys would call, at least those who were knew to knowing Angel O'Hailey, who would, of course get an evil glare, and then smile at the knowledge that he had the most beautiful woman as his wife still, and of an equally gorgeous little girl with brown hair and creamy brown colored eyes. The girls who had had his class the past semesters that he had been there liked to ask about his family, imparticularly his little girl, Jena. Danielle, a student of his, was her baby-sitter and came to visit often, even on the days she didn't have school. Each time someone would ask about them he couldn't help but smile and beam in pride.

Today he kept to correcting papers while his students finished up their final. Everyone would have winter break from his class as soon as the beeper on his watch went off. The phone rang from Angel's desk.

He picked it up in a hurry so as to not create any more disturbance to his students' concentration. "Hello?" He spoke in a sort of whisper.

Nothing, except for breathing and what sounded to Angel of lips fidgeting, smacking together and being licked every couple of seconds.

"Hello?" He sat up straight.

Nothing...

Angel decided to listen for a second...His ears focused on the breathing and the other sounds...they sounded somewhat familiar.

"This is Professor O'Hailey, may I ask who is calling?"

No one spoke once again.

Angel was just about to hang up, feeling that someone had just knocked the phone off the hook and had accidentally dialed his class room number. Yes, it sounded far fetched, but that's all that he had to go with at the moment. Just as he pulled the phone from his ear he heard something. It sounded close to a whine along with an impatient mumble of no word that was known to him. But he did know what that meant and who was making that oh so familiar sound.

"Jena, is that you sweetie?" He stood up in his chair and caught everyone's attention, every head in the room was not up and straight and looking directly at their teacher with concern written on their faces, but not as much as Angel had PAINTED on his features.

"Jena, what's wrong sweetie?" He was not possitive that she was the one who had called him.

"Daddy?" Her voice was shy and tinted with fear.

"Baby, where's Mommy, put Mommy on the phone." He gave the instructions to her with calm, for his benefit as well as her.

"Mommy's not herah." Her baby voice broke his heart. That was, however, how she spoke, being only 3, but he still knew that she was scared if she didn't have her mother with her.

"Baby, where are you at? Are you at day care?" He waved over a female student from her seat to his desk.

"No...." It was a whimper that made him want to touch her right then and there and tell her it was all right.

"Are you at home, Baby?" He put his hand on the girl's shoulder. He knew this girl as a friend of Danielle's.

"Uh huh..." He could hear her nod into the phone, her hair brushing against the plastic object she held to speak with her father.

Angel took the phone into one hand and covered it with his palm so she couldn't hear him on the other line. "Go get Danielle, hurry, please." Angel gave the girl instructions and watched his student bolt out of the room in search of her best friend. Angel returned to his daughter on the telephone. "Baby?"

"Huh?" Her babyish voice made his so mad at Buffy for a moment. And then he was even more worried.

"Did Mommy pick you up from day care early?"

"Yeah. Daddy!" She screamed into the phone.

Angel jumped up, nearly loosing his lunch at the thought that she was screaming for him and he couldn't crab her and take her some where safe. "What? Whats going on sweetie?" His voice was frantic.

"I went swimming today! Mommy went in the water too! Mommy looked pretty in her new bathing suit!" She giggled a little at the memory of when Angel had come home a few days ago to realize that Buffy had taken his daughter on a shopping spree and most of the clothes were bought for Buffy instead.

Angel's heart began to beat at a more slower pace. "Oh, I'm sure she did." He smiled a little bit at the thought and then returned to the other thoughts that were running through her mind.

"Jena, do you know where Mommy went."

"Out the back door. She's not herah, Daddy...And I don't know HOW to cook macaroni and cheese. You told me NOT to touch the stove......" She whined and whimpered through the her complaints.

Angel smiled and couldn't help but laugh a little to himself at how his daughter was taking this. It was then when Danielle and her friend came running in, panting from their mission to get here ASAP. "What it it? Whats wrong? Whats the big emergency? Is it Buffy? Jena?" She stood in front of him while he was on the phone, spitting out words a mile a minute.

"Jena is home alone, and she say's that she doesn't know where Buffy is." He turned his voice back to the phone. "Baby?"

"Yeah?" She sounded so innocent....

"Danielle is here, do you want to talk to her? She says that she wants to take you to the beach this weekend." Danielle knew that she would, its just that it wasn't her idea at all. Angel was merely trying to keep his daughter on the phone and interested in speaking with Danielle instead of himself so that he could leave and be with his daughter.

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" She as hopping up and down in their living room still grasping the large phone to her small ear.

"Okay, here she is." He handed the phone to Danielle and wrote frantically on a sheet of paper and Danielle said hello.

"Hi, Jena! How are you, Girl?" Danielle liked to call Jena, in her heart, her sister, names that she would call her best friends. Like Chicky Dee, Girl, Girly, Babe and Missy. Those were some of her favorites.

"Hi, Daniel." Jena was still working on her pronunciation of Danielle's name. Instead it turned out the boy's name of Daniel. But Danielle didn't seem to mind, at least she knew that the girl loved her, in which was greatly returned from Danielle to Jena.

Angel held up a paper that had scribbled writing on it, saying, "Keep her busy, no matter WHAT!!!" Danielle's eyes grew wide at him and nodded hard, watching Angel grab his keys and rush out the door to his car.

Angel was only ten minutes away from home but that meant that his daughter was vulnerable to any attacker, demon or others for those long ten minutes. His foot seemed permanently planted on the gas peddle and skipped three lights of 5 and finally drove into the driveway of his home. He pushed the already open door in so that it fit his entrance. "Jena!" He looked around impatiently.

He checked the kitchen.

"Jena!?"

Nothing.

He hollered up the stairs. "Jena!?!?" His ears were caught off guard by a small sound that resembled a person hushing another. he followed the sound and found Jena hiding behind the couch between a coffee table and the wall. "Thank the gods." He whispered to himself as he recognized her huddled body.

"DADDY!" She dropped the phone and leaped up towards him as he picked her tiny body up and wrapped her legs around himself. Her hair was still wet from the earlier swim she had taken with her mother but she was no longer in her swimming suit, her overalls made her look more adorable than ever. She was so light and frail to him, but he knew that she would grow to be a well able young lady. He realized that she was crying. He knew it. He knew that she was scared while she was on the phone, she just didn't like to make her parents worry. She knew that her parents worried a lot about other things and especially over her, she always kept it to herself until there was something that Angel could really do. To hug her and protect her once again. And that was what she wanted.

Part Two

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