5 Minute Fiction: Nothing Else Matters

A completely unwarranted sequel to A Shared Suffering.
DISCLAIMER: I have no idea where this is going.

===========================================

Daria reached the dorm room she was looking for and politely knocked. The journey from Raft had been more tiring than usual, but then everything seemed tiring these days. For all the hours of sleep she had enjoyed since That Day, Daria didn't seemed to have been able to properly recharge her metaphorical batteries. She had let her work slip at first, then doubled down and not only caught up but got ahead of herself so she now had a chance to relax again and focus. Her social life, never great to start with, had snapped back to pre-Lawndale levels but at least this wasn't down to social anxiety on her part; she just had much more important things to do.

Wearily, Daria knocked on the door for a second time.

"Oh, sorry," called a muffled voice from within, then louder: "Yo! Come in!"

Daria opened the door. The dorm room had changed a little since she'd last set foot there - it was now impossible not to know which student had claimed which half of their quarters. The walls to the right were covered in sketches and notes, while canvases and art supplies were piled up on every available surface. There had been a few arguments which most of BFAC had heard, which had prevented anything more than sketching being done in the bedroom.

Jane was used to living with other people, but not being able to turn any given living area into a creative space was starting to get to her. Though, Daria mused as she looked at her best friend, that seemed to be all that was getting to her.

Jane Lane looked up from trying to sketch Leonardo da Vinci's proportions of the human figure upside down in a mirror and smiled at Daria. "Hey, amiga, what can I do for you?" she said cheerfully, rubbing a little charcoal to shade the sketch.

"Well, it's coming up to Thanksgiving," Daria replied. "My dad's coming to pick me up for the weekend and I thought you might be interested?"

"Cross country drives with Jake Morgendorffer trying to make small talk?" Jane shrugged. "I think I might give it a miss."

"You could still come over," Daria pointed out. "You could catch a plane, especially now the prices for air-flight are so low. Another thing to thank International Terrorism for."

"Nah, it's no fun now everyone's on the air marshall's side," Jane shrugged. "They don't see the fun in pretending to be a suicide bomber at airports nowadays. What is this country coming to?"

"So you're just going to stay here over Thanksgiving?"

"For want of something more pressing, yeah."

"I'd like you to come with us, Jane."

"You don't need me, amiga. You've been clean of your family almost the whole year, you've spent more time with me than them. I dare say you can cope with two-and-a-bit days of them." Jane suddenly crumpled up the drawing, threw it away and started sketching a gum tree on a fresh piece of paper. "You should really keep in touch more."

"I do," said Daria levelly. "I call them lots. They're probably sick of the sound of me."

"I thought Alexander Graham Bell's invention sweetened your dulcet tones, Daria."

"No you didn't."

"Well, if you want to be all strictly legally accurate about things..."

"Jane, it's Thanksgiving."

"And you know I refuse to celebrate holidays after that bout of food poisoning when I started seeing them personified as jerkish teenagers living on a magic island somewhere."

"That's a pretty pathetic excuse."

"Anyway, you know I'm persona non grata at Schloss Morgendorffer - and how's that for a multicultural sentence?"

"I want you there, my dad would want you there. Besides, it's a holiday. They're all about being with the people you love even if you hate them the rest of the time..."

"So Helen and Quinn do hate me, huh? Nice to know that's clear."

"Then why not go to your mom's? You do know the Lanes are getting together this year?"

"Of course I do," Jane replied, a slight tightness in her voice. "I always answer my phone. These days."

That was true, Daria reflected. Ever since That Day, Jane made sure she always answered the phone in her dorm room and responded to any missed calls within a day. Though it wasn't like she actually conversed much. It was a brisk, cheerful demand to know what you wanted, a direct answer and a pleasant hanging up as soon as possible. Daria hadn't truly spoken to Jane on the phone ever since. It was just curt words and pleasantries, which was why Daria was here in person trying to convince her friend not to figuratively hang up on her right away.

"How did you hear about it anyway?" Jane asked, adding a rickety-looking wooden fence to the base of the gum tree.

"Your mom and my mom are talking a lot more," Daria explained. "Now Eric's not pestering the new partner every two seconds, she has a lot of free time. Who woulda thought it, huh? Our parents being friends."

"Well, it was never going to be our children," muttered Jane darkly. "Daria, it's a Lane get-together which by definition means half won't turn up and the rest will get into a violent fight until it ends. Count me out."

"Your dad's already there, and so's Wind. Summer's RSVP'd as well..."

"But that's all, no one else will show up," Jane countered. "Just leave Vince and Amanda with their beloved firstborns and pass the turkey sandwiches."

Daria considered her next words carefully. "I think they'd really want you there."

"Well, I don't want to be there," Jane replied. "I think it's time my wants trumped theirs. Just to break the cycle of the last thirty years or however long its been since they started spitting out disposable and unwanted offspring. I didn't get what I wanted my whole life, now they can have some disappointment."

"Jane..."

"I'm not going back, Daria," said Jane calmly. "Not ever. Not for them, not even for you." She pinned her new sketch to a small free gap on the wall.

Daria took a deep breath. Well, if it ends the war early and saves millions of lives...

"What about for Trent?" she asked.

***

That Day. Did it need any other description? Time was split neatly in two, cleft in twain so there was only a time before That Day and the time afterwards. That Day when they got That Phone Call, That Day when the last fluttering scraps of innocence and idealism had been scorched away. When they stopped being alive and started just existing.

It was a Saturday, if that mattered. Daria had spent the night at BFAC, sleeping on Jane's bed as Jane sat at her desk drawing and thought dark, unthinkable thoughts. The previous night they had learned of the terrible misunderstanding, that thanks to some poor phone maintenance and general thoughtlessness they'd not contacted Trent in the months they had started college. And Trent had believed they were deliberately cutting him out of his life, to the point Quinn had started worrying he was a suicide risk.

Jane had swung through a dozen emotions - she'd been beside herself with worry, sick with guilt, burning with anger, slammed with despair. Eventually she'd settled down to a level playing field of self-hatred and waited for Sunday when Trent was apparently due to return to call them. If he bothered to. If something didn't happen to him first. And even if he did, what was she going to do? Trent put more store in two months of absent silence then eighteen years she'd been beside him. Either he had no faith in her or no faith in himself. How was she supposed to deal with that?

And then Daria's mother had rung up that morning.

"Daria?" Unlike the last time they had spoken, when Helen had angrily berated them both for diving into their new college lifestyles with no interest for the families they'd left behind, she now spoke calmly and gently. A doctor about to break bad news to the family of the deceased.

"Mom?"

"Daria, are you with Jane?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Can you put me on speaker, please?"

Daria pressed the relevant button and turned to talk to Jane. Jane was already standing behind her.

"You're on speaker, mom, and Jane's here."

"Jane, dear, I think you should sit down."

"Why?"

"Because I know what I'm going to tell you."

Daria pressed her hands hard down on Jane's shoulders, forcing her down onto the bed. Jane's eyes were fixed on the phone, her mind coming up with every possible worst-case scenario in her brain and her gut confidentaly predicting that anything she came up with wouldn't match what was about to happen.

"Jane, I told you yesterday how your brother had become very depressed, didn't I?"

"Uh-huh." Jane didn't trust herself to say anything else.

"Well, I also mentioned he and Quinn went on a road trip for the weekend. They got halfway to the next town when they ran into an alligator of all things. They ran over the poor thing and Quinn was very upset, so Trent brought her back here. He left right away, I didn't get a chance to tell him you rang."

Jane noticed that Daria was now holding her hand. Rather tightly.

"And?" Jane asked, knowing nothing good would come from the answer.

"He drove off in his car. We don't know where he went, and since he changed his car's license plates, well, there's no easy way of the police locating him. But before he left Lawndale, he left a note for your family. I'm very sorry, Jane. But it reads very much like a suicide note."

"Very much?" Jane boggled. "Either it is or it isn't, Helen!"

"It's a note saying none of us will ever see Trent again because he can't keep going on, and that he doesn't expect anyone to miss him or feel bad he's gone," Helen continued firmly. "He signed it with his full name. Your mother came home last night, having just missed him and found the notes. She is terribly upset."

"Did you remind her about butterflies dying if you hold them too tight?" Jane asked flatly.

"She's well-aware of how badly she's handled this situation, Jane," Helen replied, some of her sympathy fading. "I'm going to get your number so she can call you about this. I think you might want to talk to any campus counselors..."

"No, this is just some big misunderstanding," Jane said confidently. "Trent leaves lyrics and notes around the whole house. Mom's just jumped to the wrong conclusion..."

"Jane..."

"I bet see didn't even realize Trent's a musician!"

Helen sighed. "Jesse is with her, Jane. He confirmed it's not any song they were working on. He thinks it's a suicide note too. And I really do fear he's gone through with it."

Jane snorted. "What does it say, this note? Bet you anything half of it was originally by Jim Morrison."

"Jane, I don't think..."

"Mom," said Daria, quietly but clearly. "Just tell us."

"I don't have it here."

"But you do have an incredible memory for witness testimony," Daria replied bluntly.

"All right, I might be paraphrasing slightly but he addressed the note to his parents, brother and sisters. But not Jane. He said 'It's stopped being fun, I can't keep doing this. You won't see me again but I don't anyone to feel bad about this or grieve for me, but you probably won't.'" Helen paused. "'Give my love to Jane, I really hope she does really well. Goodbye.' He signed it 'Trenton Alaric Lane'."

Jane said nothing. She just sat there, as though Helen was still talking and she was listening.

"Jane?" called Helen.

"Mom, he-he's not been gone a full, for 24 hours yet," Daria said, stumbling over her words slightly. "But if you've got proof he's suicidal, you must be able to do something..."

"I've done all I can at the moment, sweetheart," Helen replied gently. "If he was anywhere in Lawndale, it'd be no problem but we don't know where he's gone and if he doesn't commit a crime, no other police will be interested in finding him. He's been thinking about this for some time, Daria, and there are plenty of tricks he could pull to make sure we don't find him in time. Can you think of anywhere he might have gone? Jane?"

Jane shook her head.

"She can't think of anything right now," Daria said. "Can't Quinn help?"

"She thought he might go back in the direction of where they hit that alligator but the sheriff, who's met Trent, confirms he hasn't been back. Quinn's very sure that Trent's snapped out of it, that he's not in the space he was when he wrote the letter." A long pause. "I'm not correcting her, Daria. The last thing she needs now is to think she failed him."

"Quinn failed him?" repeated Jane as though trying to learn a language.

"We all failed him, Jane," said Helen darkly. "I include myself in that. I was more worried about Quinn, I admit that. But I am a mother. I can only imagine the hell Amanda's feeling and I think you could help."

"How?" asked Jane, dull and bewildered. "I can't help. How could I help? Do you want me to tell mom it's not her fault, it's mine? Is that supposed to fix this? Nothing's going to fix this." Her gazed hardened. "Trent's dead. He killed himself because none of us were there for him. End of story."

Jane got up, dusted down her skirt and strode out of the door.

"Jane?" Daria called. "Jane! Come back!" She turned to the phone. "Mom, I'll text you Jane's number, I've gotta get after her..." She sounded faint, like not enough air was in her lungs to speak properly. "I've... I love you! And dad, and Quinn, but I've gotta go!"

She hung up and ran out of the dorm trying to find where Jane had gone.

***

"What about for Trent?" Daria asked.

Jane wasn't upset or angry. "Well, he's definitely not going to be attending," she said reasonably. "So that's three of us Lanes not there. Barely worth anyone attending, when you think about it. Besides, what exactly are we supposed to be giving thanks for? You know, apart from ethnic cleansing indigenous Americans?" She opened her art book and flipped through it. "I can get a turkey sub from the deli if needs be."

"Jane, please."

"What, Daria?" Jane said, mildly-exasperated. "A festive luncheon isn't going to make anything better. It's just a symbolic gesture of self-flagellation for a bunch of self-obsessed bohemian types finally aware of what horrible human beings they are." She tutted."And my family's just as bad!"

"You really want to just abandon them all?" Daria asked, arms folded.

"And the survey said... yep. Come on, Daria, they're only pulling together like this so they can tell each other they're not to blame and they'll never give Trent a second thought. Because this would be their first thought. I've got a choice of dragging myself back to the town I hate to spend 48 hours with the people I despise in being with the same room with for a generic ceremony before dragging myself back here. Or I could just spend the weekend here, doing work, getting my scores up and actually doing something."

"I'm worried about you," said Daria simply.

"I get that, Daria, and I appreciate it. But you don't have to. I'm fine."

"Trent killed himself a month ago..."

"And yet the world still keeps turning. Daria, I'm doing this because Trent wanted me to. I'm going to make something of my life, I'm going to be a success. I'm not going to rot in Casa Lane being neglected by excuse of a family. I'm not going to just lie on a bed all day listening to Leonard Cohen and feeling sorry for myself. Trent told me not to. So... I'm not. Ipso facto, QED and all that jazz."

"I understand." Daria got to her feet. "But I wanted you to go."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to go back on my own!" Daria shouted. "I don't want to go to Lawndale knowing Trent's dead and I could've stopped it, that everyone thinks I didn't give a damn! I could've done something, for Trent, for Tom... I left them both behind and they both wanted to die! I didn't know... and now you..."

"Well, don't worry," Jane said gently. "I'll be here when you get back."

"I've let so many of my friends down already, Jane," Daria said, frowning behind her glasses. "I came to college trying to be all friendly and positive, making friends, meeting new people, finding other human beings who actually want to learn. Now they're just... faces. People who didn't know Trent. People who never will." She took a calming breath. "I've never felt lonelier, Jane. And if I'm feeling that bad, how are you feeling?"

Jane regarded her friend for a long moment. "How am I feeling? I'm feeling nothing, amiga. Absolutely nothing."

***

Quinn Morgendorffer lay on her bed, gazing up at the canopy of her bed thinking the same thought over and over.

Why didn't I tell them the truth?

As ever, the only reply is her own guilty breathing.

***

Okay. This is me, Quinn Morgendorffer. Talking to myself because this is the one thing I can't talk to anyone else about.

I mean, I've been in I guess what you'd call therapy for the last couple of months. My mom and dad think it's post-traumatic stress disorder from seeing a crocodile - no, wait it's supposed to be an alligator - getting run over by Trent. I've coped pretty well with that, not just because it didn't happen, though. Being hunted through the woods by an honest-to-Versace swamp monster hasn't really got to me at all. Nope, not even nightmares. Instead I've been talking about how depressed I am, how I shouldn't be depressed and maybe why I should. So I've been getting stuff on my chest.

But not about Trent. If my therapist ever spills the beans, I'll be screwed but I'm not risking Trent.

Which is getting to be quite the burden, I can tell you.

So. Why haven't I told everyone he's alive and well? Why am I making good people upset?

I guess I'm to blame for the start of it at least. Though, I had just had my life-or-death-swamp monster encounter, plus broken down in tears about the whole depression thing. It's not like I was firing on all cylinders or whatever, was it? I guess I handled it a bit badly, but that Friday night was just... gawd, it was crazy.

So, Trent left. Mom was fussing over me and then dad was fussing over me too, which was kind of awkward at the best of times but knowing they'd both been... you know... doing it when I got home. Eww. And then there was a knock and the door and it was Trent's mum, crying like a baby, and Trent's friend Jesse who looks like some Pride and Prejudice hunk crossed with early Arnie Terminator Schwarzenegger. It just went crazy.

TRENT'S MOM: Waaahhh! My beautiful baby Trent's killed himself!

MY MOM: Don't be silly, Amanda, I saw him five minutes ago.

TRENT'S MOM: What?! But he left this suicide note!

(Yes, Trent forgot to mention he'd left a suicide note on his front door before he drove off into the sunset. If he'd told me that, we could have sorted things out a lot sooner. I wonder if, when he drove off, he was heading back to take the note down but was too late? Oh well, it's all pretty freaking academic right now.)

MY MOM: Oh dear! Yes, that definitely looks like a suicide note! He must be really upset Jane never called him. Oh, wait, I forgot to mention Jane DID call! Dammit, Jake, you had to distract me with the Baby Oil Twister!

EVERYONE ON PLANET EARTH: Ewwwwwwwwwwwww!

TRENT'S MOM: You mean... we could have saved Trent if I was a few seconds earlier and you weren't so focused on sex?

MY MOM: Well, I wouldn't put it exactly like that...

MY DAD: Sounds about right though, honey.

MY MOM: Not now, Jake!

MY MOM: I can't bear this! My baby is dead and it's all my fault! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!

JESSE: (probably said something, but I don't remember it).

So, yeah. I should have said something. It should have been

ME: Don't worry, everyone, I know for a fact Trent's okay because me and him talked things through while a hell-beast chased us up a tree and anyway, he's got my spare mobile so we can ring him at any time and everything's fine.

but I didn't say that. I was shocked and confused and didn't say it. Part of me thought, "Hey, Mrs. Lane, you screwed your son up! I had to literally bully him into not letting a monster eat him! You deserve to suffer so you realize how badly you've made him feel!" but I didn't think it for long. Trent's mom isn't a good parent, but she's a good person and it really isn't nice seeing her so upset. I know she'd do anything for Trent, she just doesn't know WHAT to do for him.

But I still couldn't tell her, could I? Trent made a really big deal about how he had to leave Lawndale, how it was his only shot to get out of here with his soul in one piece. And if anything would make him turn around, it would be his mom crying. Who wouldn't come back for their mom crying? Even Sandi would. So what was I supposed to do? Stop Trent's mom crying by dragging him back here and maybe risking him killing himself for real? Or let her think him dead and ruin her life forever?

I thought what Daria would do and came up with what I thought was a brilliant third option:

Say nothing and get Trent to sort it out.

After all, he promised me he'd ring the next day.

And he didn't.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not stupid. Trent isn't that good with deadlines, he wasn't exactly living to a schedule and I was pretty sure he needed a bit more practice using a mobile phone. I wasn't that worried when Saturday came to an end and he still hadn't rung. What DID worry me was how everyone else was acting. Dad was put in charge of looking after Trent's mom and he was... actually pretty good at it. He cuddled her like she was a little kid, he didn't shout or say anything stupid. And she seemed real comfortable in his arms. Makes me wonder just how well they know each other, cause I don't remember them having spent much time together before. Still, what do I know?

Mom rang Daria and Jane. I listened in on the other phone. Mom was pretending she thought Trent was still alive, partly for his mom's sake but mainly for me. She was really worried how I'd take if he died, which was kind of funny because that was the one thing I WASN'T worried about, right? But she knew how much I cared about him, and how unhappy I was even if she thought it was about a dead alligator. But the conversation with Daria and Jane was all sorts of messed up.

MY MOM: Daria, Jane, we think Trent killed himself.

DARIA: ZOMFG!!!

JANE: Meh. You sure about this?

MY MOM: Uh, yeah. Got his suicide note. Signed and everything.

JANE: Oh well, what a pity, never mind. I'm off for pizza.

DARIA: WTF?!? Jane, where are you going...?!

JANE: Sayonara, losers!

MY MOM: ...well, that could've gone better.

Dara was upset about Trent. Really, properly upset. She doesn't get upset often, so I can tell. She was refrigerator-box-dad's-heart-attack-kissing-Tom upset. But Jane... she didn't give a crap. Not in the slightest. Everything Trent ever dreaded, every dark thought I had about her, it was true.

And that surprised Daria. It worried her. It SCARED her.

Daria doesn't get upset often, and I can't remember another time she was scared.

It was just past midnight when Trent rang. I couldn't sleep and was able to grab the phone after just three rings. It turned out that Trent had driven on until he felt sleepy, stopped, and then slept through the whole day. He had tried following the railway line to the north, but was now totally lost. He'd waited a few hours to ring me, hoping not to get my parents.

ME: You forgot about your suicide note.

TRENT: Oh. Yeah, guess I did. What's happened?

ME: Well, you've broken your mom's heart pretty badly and your pal Jesse says he was going to get the band together.

TRENT: Wow. Did not see that one coming.

ME: Trent, everyone here thinks you've killed yourself. I haven't told anyone you're still on a road trip and have a cell phone, and I think I'm going to get in a lot of trouble for not mentioning it earlier.

TRENT: So why didn't you?

ME: I... I guess I didn't want to go behind your back. Everyone thinks you're dead, so you don't have to worry about coming back. But they're really upset. And Daria's been calling. Turns out Jane's phone was broken.

TRENT: And it took her two months to notice?

ME: Hey, you're the one who hates deadlines.

TRENT: Heh. Good one, Quinn. Look, don't get worked up about this. Just act like you know nothing. I can always say you left your phone in my car and ring them up.

ME: Are you going to?

TRENT: No. Not yet, Quinn. I... I really need to think about this before I let them know.

ME: Why? Just ring up, tell them you're still alive, then hang up! That's all you need to do.

TRENT: Yeah, but... I dunno, Quinn. I've burned all my bridges and now I have to either keep going or swim a lot of rivers to go backwards. Part of me is scared if I go back, I'll never get out of this hole I'm stuck in.

ME: You don't have to come back. Just tell your mom you're safe. I know you didn't want her upset.

TRENT: I didn't think she could GET upset.

ME: Oh she can, Trent.

TRENT: I'll ring home. Not now, but soon. My head's not right yet.

ME: They think you fricken committed suicide, Trent!

TRENT: So they're going to be upset whenever I tell them the truth!

ME: Trent...

TRENT: Look, I'm not even a missing person yet. I promise, Quinn, I'll let them know. When I'm ready. My mom, Jesse, the rest. They're not your problem.

ME: Oh boy am I being sick of people telling me what are and aren't my problems!

TRENT: Okay, they're not your problem unless you want them to be. Look, you've said you think I'm alive, right? Well, just keep telling them to be positive. You know how to twist folk round your fingers. You do that.

Then he managed to trick me into talking about myself - shut up! Trent cares how I'm feeling! - and the next thing I knew he was promising to ring me next Thursday and of course I call him tomorrow, or Monday or Wednesday or any time if I needed to.

Over the next few days, Trent found himself in a town called Rookdale I'd never heard of and decided to crash at a hotel while he worked out his next move. He said he'd rung his house but no one had answered. And I definitely did not tell him that Jane couldn't give less of a crap that her brother was dead or that Daria was beside herself with worry for both dead brother and live sister. Maybe if I did, he might have done something else. Or maybe something worse.

I thought lies were what were supposed to get out of control like a snowball down a hill, not secrets. I was hiding as much from Trent as I was to everyone else. But he already thought Jane hated him - how could confirming that possibly help? Wouldn't it just drive him away even further? And if he found out I hadn't told him, what was to stop him throwing the cell phone away and me losing him forever?

You know, things were a lot easier when we both just straight up wanted to kill ourselves.

So, the next few weeks drifted by. Trent's not really much of a talker and though he did make sure to ring every "R"-day and answered me every "N"-day, he didn't say much. He found a bar that needed some light bar-tending and once he'd made enough to recoup the money he'd spent on the hotel and a fresh tank of gas he was off again. He went through four more towns before he found one either of us had heard from and I worked out he was at the edge of the state. He decided to stick it out there for a little while as he worked out his route.

In the meantime, Trent's mom stopped coming around. She did ring a lot and mom spent as much time talking to her as she used to do with Eric, and it reminds me of how Daria would drop everything for Jane. Maybe the mothers are them in past lives or something, except Jane's mom is crying her heart out. And Jane doesn't seem to have a heart.

Anyway, it's been three months. No one except me has any news of Trent, so no one talks about him. Mom and dad have noticed I'm in therapy a hell of a lot for someone who was upset to see an alligator run over, but they're not pushing it and I try to make up by telling them how much I love them (in the old days, my allowance would be in triple figures by now) and how if I ever feel things are getting on top of me, I'll let them know. And between my therapist and Trent, I am getting a lot of stuff off my chest. Like I agreed with Trent, I'm staying alive for him and he's staying alive for me. Maybe it's easier to help other people than help yourself? Cause it's been months and I've become a regular guardian angel...

...ooh, the story about Sandi and Skyler, oh, I'll have to tell it later...

...and since no one is talking about Trent, I don't really have to keep so many secrets. So, anyway, Trent rings up and says he's got his plan worked out. He's very vague about what the plans are, but - as always - they're not suicidal. He says he may not be in touch for a few days and I'm not to worry. And I'm not worried. During the phone call, when I'm updating him with what happened (including the stuff about Sandi and Skyler, but again, later) he has the car radio on and it's playing some foot-thumping violin-fiddle rock.

ME: I'm not boring you, am I?

TRENT: Huh? No. Sorry, just can't believe this song is on the radio. Kinda appropriate. So what happened when they found the toilet seat stuck to her locker?

(Awesome story. But later!)

Anyway, the next day I'm at the department store when I see that goth chick Andrea. She works there and she's got a promotion because she smiles a bit more now instead of giving scary I'm-not-joking-I-really-am-going-to-rip-off-your-head-and-use-it-as-a-toilet glares at people. And apparently it's because she's fallen in love with Upchuck of all people. I mean, Upchuck? Those crazy rednecks in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre would be grossed out by that, even if Andrea says he's "hung like a Brahma bull" (I think I know what that means and really hope I'm wrong) and "the only biped in this stupid town who actually understands me".

So, anyway. Andrea was happy and whistling a tune to herself as she stacked a shelf.

ANDREA: What do YOU want?

She glowered at me when I tried to get her attention. I gulped. Andrea might be happy and smiling but she still looks more than capable of ripping out your optic nerve and using it as dental floss.

ME: I was just wondering about that tune. I've heard it before and I didn't know the name...

ANDREA: Huh? Oh. It's the Dropkick Murphys. Song's called 'I'm Shipping Up To Boston'.

ME: Oh.

ANDREA: Uh... are you okay?

ME: (so unconvincing it hurts) Yeah. Fine.

Trent. Appropriate song on the radio. Shipping up to Boston.

Boston.

Where there is the Boston Fine Art College.

Where Jane is.

Trent is going to come back from the dead in front of his uncaring-possibly-psychotic sister.

So, yeah, right now, I'm lying in bed knowing this is about to happen.

And all I can think is Why didn't I tell them the truth?

***

Trent doesn't see anybody on his way home. Casa Lane is deserted. He carries his shopping bag in one hand as he enters. He finds an old sketchbook Jane left behind and writes a simple message:

JANEY
I LOVE YOU
I'M SORRY

Then he goes upstairs to his room. He gets out the lenghth of sturdy rope, ties it into a noose and then loops it over the ceiling fan. It probably won't hold his weight for long, but does that matter?

He climbs onto the chair, bare feet sinking into the cushion as he pulls the noose tight. It's rough and harsh against his throat. He takes one last look around and folds one foot back to kick the chair away from him and end it all.

The phone rings.

Weeping, Trent rips the noose away, self-destruction forgotten for the moment and crawls to the quacking duck and the salvation that it offers.

And then Daria awakes from the dream to a world where that never happened and Trent is gone.

***

It had been like that ever since That Day.

Sometimes she or Jane or both of them came in just in time to stop Trent overdosing or jumping off a bridge or slitting his wrists or blowing his brains out with a shotgun Kurt-Cobain-style. Sometimes they arrived just as he was starting to cry. Sometimes he was having a good day and they just made him smile.

In every dream, they hadn't let him down.

Daria's nightmares had become windows on a world she would rather be in and every morning was a cruel betrayal. She focused herself, digging deep into work and study and checking on Jane.

Trent is dead. Jane is alive. I have to help her.

But Jane didn't need help, it seemed. She attended classes, met the demands of course work. She didn't shut herself in her room, either. She still went out and partied (fairly responsibly) whenever her studies allowed it. She spent much less time with Daria, but was hardly avoiding her. She answered and replied to every phone call, and Daria was always welcome at her dorm at BFAC.

Daria said nothing about Trent. She was waiting for Jane to broach the subject.

But Jane didn't.

She'd said, so she claimed, everything she had to say on the subject That Day and had nothing to add.

***

That Day, after That Phone Call, Daria ran through BFAC in virtually blind terror. She was sure Jane was going to jump off the roof, or dive into traffic, or slit her wrists or whatever it took to end it all.

Because Jane Lane, unstoppable, unflappable, the devil may care cause she sure as hell didn't artist of Lawndale, would only ever break under one circumstance.

If she lost her big brother Trent, the useless reprobate who saved her from a foster home and provided her with total unconditional love.

Everyone has one thing quite capable of destroying them utterly. The one thing that can override the survival instinct that kept humanity on top of the totem pole for the last billion years.

Trent's had been the belief he'd lost his sister.

Surely Jane's was the knowledge she'd lost her brother, that she'd unwittingly driven him to kill himself? How could she possibly endure that?

Daria saw a familiar red-coated figure on the path out of campus and hurled herself after her with a speed that would have, in other circumstances, started a lot of conversations on why she'd never tried out for the track team at high school. (Well, among anyone who'd never actually met Daria, anyway.)

"Jane!" she screamed, desperately.

Jane stopped and turned around.

She wasn't crying. Nor was she dead-eyed and broken.

She looked perfectly normal.

"Hey," she sighed as Daria caught up with her. "Take it easy, amiga, you'll have a heart attack." She put out a hand to steady her. "Catch your breath."

"Jane..." Daria gasped. "Don't do anything stupid!"

"That wouldn't leave me with many options," said Jane thoughtfully. "Look, sorry I bolted, but I could really use a drink and some pizza. Tell you what, let's split the difference and head to the bar, huh? You can get re-hydrated there. C'mon, Morgendorffer."

Daria felt utterly disorientated as Jane put an arm around her shoulder and guided her across campus. She began to wonder if she'd gone mad and hallucinated a phone call from her mother that Trent had killed himself because of them. Actually, it DID sound a bit unlikely and she'd had vivid hallucinations before, like that time she was stalked by living holidays...

"Here we go," Jane said as they reached the bar.

It wasn't crowded, being a Saturday morning and all. A few burned-out-looking students who clearly had yet to go to bed were either nursing coffees or having animated chats. A snooker table in the corner had been abandoned mid-game.

Daria flopped onto a stool, feeling lightheaded. Jane leaned over the bar. "Yo, Len," she said to the overqualified-looking bartender, "get an orange juice for my friend. Oh, and one for me. But with vodka in it?"

The bartender did as he was bidden. "Starting a bit early, aren't you, Jane?" he asked casually.

"Life is short," she replied philosophically, then shot the bartender an evil grin. "And so are you!"

"I prefer 'under-tall'," Len replied with a smile.

Daria gazed at the fruit juice she was handed, wondering if this was a dream or madness or hell. She sipped it. It was gritty, freshly-squeezed, just the way she hated it.

"You feeling better, amiga?" Jane asked cheerfully, pulling the slice of orange from her glass and taking a bite. "I think you broke the sound barrier back there. What was the big rush?"

Daria looked at her blankly.

"I was worried about you," she said simply.

"Well, keep worrying like that and you'll end up in an early grave," Jane remarked. "Already lost one of my social circle today as it is."

Daria reeled. She could just about function thinking Trent's suicide wasn't real, that made sense of how Jane was reacting, but...

"Trent," she began, before realizing she knew nothing else to say.

"To Trent," Jane agreed, and clinked glasses before swigging hers. "Hey, Len, you seemed to have mixed up the bottles. Do I need to order a plain water to get some vodka in here?"

"You don't care?" Daria exclaimed, amazed.

"Well, if a student bar is going to water down drinks then someone's got to complain!"

"I'm not talking about your stupid screwdriver!" shouted Daria. "Trent's suicidal, he's probably already dead! Don't you give a damn about that?"

Jane sipped her cocktail. "I get the feeling there isn't a right answer to this one, amiga," she said. "Especially as you've always been the one telling everyone to be all pragmatic when it comes to people shuffling off the mortal coil."

"This isn't like Tommy Sherman! Don't you dare compare them, Lane!" Daria snarled, gaining a few worried and weary looks from other patrons.

"Hey, they're both men whose names begin with T who died stupid and avoidable deaths," Jane replied. "Oh, and we were less than courteous to both of them just before they left this mortal coil. Quite a few similarities, really." She gave a wistful sigh. "Nothing original under the sun, huh?"

"Trent was your brother!"

"And now he's my ex-brother," Jane agreed. "He has ceased to be and is no more. He's rung up the curtain and joined the choir invisible or however it goes. It was always going to happen. Being a male and six years my senior with an unhealthy lifestyle, the odds were always that I'd outlive him. Personally I expected him to just one day stay asleep, end up in a coma ward somewhere, maybe playing Mystik Spiral on hospital radio. Would wake up the other patients."

Daria put down her glass. She felt like she was going to be sick. "You think this is funny?" she spat.

"Well, not very," Jane conceded. "Okay, Daria. How should I be reacting? Please tell me, as we both know when it comes to human emotions you're the baseline for normality and a total authority on the subject."

Daria's face turned red. Jane had called her worse, much worse, but this time it actually felt like an insult. "Your brother killed himself because we were too selfish and egotistical to even give him a courtesy call. He ended up with only Quinn on his side and surprise, surprise, it wasn't enough."

"Yes, those are the facts. Do you see me disputing them?" Jane finished her drink. "Daria, just a little perspective. I knew Trent my entire life. You knew him for three years and you avoided him for half of that - first when you fancied him, then when you didn't. I had to look after Trent since I was four. He bummed money off me when I was in school and he refused to get a job. The first day we met, he nearly let the house be repossessed because he needed a nap. He wasted every opportunity he was given, then tried to stop me going to college because he didn't want to lose someone to mother him."

Daria was sickened. "So... what? He deserved to die?"

"That's what he thought," Jane said flatly. "So he's alone and depressed, what did he do? Did he get off his ass and try and contact us? Concentrate on his music? God forbid actually do something with his life? No, he scrounged off your baby sister until your mom stopped him and he left a suicide note and ran away. Just like when he was little and stayed out in a tent on the lawn for six months. Oh, and guess who had to bring him his meals? Me. Always had to be the centre of attention and get everyone to do work for him. Three months without that and boom, suicide."

Daria said nothing.

"So, to summarize, my brother is dead. How should I react, Daria? Am I supposed to become some hermit, drink myself into oblivion and never paint again? Become some anti-suicide advocate for the rest of my life? Or maybe I could keep living my own life without Trent clinging to me like a bloodsucking leech? He killed himself, he's not alive, he doesn't get to dictate anything I say or do."

"You're not upset he's dead?" asked Len who, like everyone else in the bar, had been listening.

"I'm not happy about it," Jane said. "My pal Dar here will confirm I was quite upset when I found out Trent was contemplating ending it all. But that was when there was still hope he could be saved. He's gone now, there's nothing anyone can do about it. He can't be helped and I'm in Boston while he is at the bottom of some cliff in Lawndale." She turned back to Daria. "So what, precisely, am I supposed to do?"

Daria said nothing.

"I cried myself out last night, Daria. Give me a while to re-hydrate the old tear ducts. Weeping for Trent is not going to help me or him or anyone. Screaming at the sky isn't going to help. My heart breaking isn't going to do any good either, and it will just make things worse before they get better."

Daria swallowed. "I thought... you loved Trent?"

"Yeah," Jane sighed. "I did. And what good did that ever do me, huh? How's that love benefited me? Or Trent? It made me his dogsbody and him so dependent on his little sister he self-destructed without me to wait on his hand and foot. Our love didn't outweigh a dodgy phone line for crying out loud!"

"You know there's a counselor here," Len said gently.

"Do I look like I need counseling?" Jane asked, then held up a hand. "Don't answer that. Last time I asked that question I was stuck in self-esteem class for eighteen months. The point is, my brother killed himself. What is the best thing for me to do now?"

"Let us drink and be merry," hiccuped a burly bearded student who had been drinking and merry for at least the last sixteen hours, "for tomorrow we die!"

"Speak for yourself, Briggsy!" Jane chuckled, then got up and crossed over to the jukebox in the corner. "But yeah, let's toast the departed!"

"Are you saying the drinks are on you?" asked Len doubtfully.

"I am definitely not," Jane said, flipping through the displays on the jukebox. "My brother was a musician. Now he's an ex-musician, he's de-composing!"

There was a smatter of genuine amusement.

Daria realized she was shaking.

"And we tribute the dead musicians with a song," Jane proclaimed theatrically and shoved some coins into the slot and thumbed the number pad.

The jukebox kicked into gear. A delicate woman's voice crooned an upbeat, rather cheerful tune that Jane immediately sang along with.

"Who knows what tomorrow may bring?
Could be most anything!
Peace will come? An atomic bomb?
Who know what tomorrow may bring?

Who know what tomorrow may bring?
These may be the last words that I sing!
Say your prayers to the man upstairs
And in the meantime let's just swing!"

Jane leaned over the snooker table and started potting the balls, still singing along. As the chorus began, the rest of the students added their voices.

"Let's swing! Let's swing! Let's swing-swing-sing!
Let's swing! Let's swing! Who know what tomorrow may bring?"

Daria sipped more of her orange juice. Maybe she was in shock or hell. But she couldn't argue with anything Jane had actually said. And how else would Trent want his memorial service except a bunch of people laughing and drinking and singing?

Maybe this was the best way to react.

Trent didn't deserve the usual cliched tropes, after all.

Daria sipped more orange juice and added her unpleasant but earnest voice to the tune as best she could. Whatever else happened, right here and right now she was doing what she wanted.

Showing she cared about the friend she had lost.

"Who know what tomorrow may bring?
Well, it could be a rainy spring
A discouraging word? A buffalo herd?
Who know what tomorrow may bring?"

Daria felt hands taking her arms and she was gently pulled into the middle of the bar as Jane began a half-thought-out tango with her. She sang right into Daria's face, and Daria saw the pain in her best friend's eyes that was barely-restrained.

"Who know what tomorrow may bring?
Let the rhetorical oracle sing!
Say your prayers to the main upstairs
And in the meantime let's just swing!"

***

Jane had gone from bar to pizzeria to local cinema and more, with a shell-shocked Daria in tow. Their odyssey didn't last beyond the afternoon though, as their adrenaline reserves finally ran out and they eventually staggered back to the dorm room to sleep.

Daria eventually woke up to find Jane sitting in bed, sketching, with the phone tucked between her ear and shoulder. Someone on the other end was crying.

It was Amanda Lane.

Jane patiently made sympathetic noises, telling her mother she wasn't a failure, that four of her five children were still alive, that sometimes people just can't be helped and it's no one's fault. She sounded like she meant it, but she looked utterly bored.

When the phone call ended, Jane yawned and stretched. "Oh, hey, Daria," she yawned. "Seems the inbound calls work fine, at least. You should probably get back to Raft, call your mom, calm her down or whatever. She's probably worried you might kill yourself in despair."

"Is that what your mom was worried about?" asked Daria.

"Oh, maybe, but it was mainly just needing an ego-boost. I just reminded her she's got all that free space in the basement to use now, and she'll be all abuzz with the possibilities."

Daria looked at her. "Really?" she asked in a small voice.

"Nah," Jane smirked. "She already knows that." Her smile faded. "You know there are a hundred suicides a day, mostly men, some of them barely fifteen? It's kinda amazing it's only been Trent."

"I should probably check up on Tom," said Daria, getting to her feet. "Someone who can still be saved and all things pragmatic."

"Good luck with that," Jane yawned. "Call me if you need anything."

"Only if you call me if you need anything."

"Your number doesn't have a 5 in it, does it?"

"No."

"Well, then you can be sure I'll be in touch. Don't worry, Daria, nothing lasts forever - especially not bad times. It'll get better."

***

Ever since That Day, Daria waited for it to get better.

And as Thanksgiving approached, she was still waiting.

***

Routine Surveillance Transcript:
Lawndale Phone Network

QM = Quinn Morgendorffer
SR = Stacy Rowe
SG = Sandi Griffin
TBD = Tiffany Blum-Decker

TRANSCRIPT READS:

QM: Right, that's everyone.

SG: Quinn, dear, what exactly is this conference call for?

QM: I'm in big trouble, guys, and I need your help.

SR: Oh no! What's wrong?

QM: I can't tell you.

TBD: Ohhh. Okaaay then. Bye...

QM: No, don't hang up, Tiffany! This is important!

SG: Tiffany's got a point, Quinn. Unbelievable as that may be. How can we help you if we don't know what the problem is?

TBD: Yeaaaaaaaah.

SR: You can trust us, Quinn!

QM: I know I can trust you guys, but I made a promise. So I can't go into details. But the problem is I need to get out of Lawndale and up to Boston as soon as freaking possible.

SG: Okay. And what do you want us to do?

QM: Well, Sandi, you still have those duplicate keys for your mom's car, right?

SG: Right, but, you want to steal my mom's car?

QM: Borrow it! Just to Boston and back!

SG: 'Just'?!

QM: I'll pay for gas, she'll never know!

SR: Um, Quinn, the odometer might give that away...

QM: Okay, Stacy, I bow to your knowledge of car stuff. Can't you wind it back or something?

SR: That would be very illegal.

TBD: I sawwww it in a film once.

SR: Saw what?

TBD: Winding the odometer baaaack. They used a drill.

QM: Uh, thanks for that Tiffany.

TBD: Matillllllllda.

SG: No, your name is Tiffany. We've told you before.

TBD: Nooo, Matilda was the mooooovie.

SG: Moving hastily on, everyone? Quinn, why do you need to go to Boston? Has something happened to your sister or whatever? And if so, shouldn't your own family be helping you out?

SR: Gee, Sandi, that's a good point.

QM: I... Look, I really wish I could explain this. I need to get to Boston without my parents knowing. I need a car, I need a driver, and I need someone to cover me while I'm gone.

TBD: Danny DiVitooooo had a drilllll.

QM: Yeah, thanks, Tiffany. I was hoping you'd tell everyone I'm at your place for the next day or so, and use Sandi's mom's car.

SG: I can hardly keep my mom from noticing the car's gone if I'm driving, Quinn.

QM: Well, no, I know that, Sandi. I thought Stacy could.

SR: Me?

QM: Yeah, you're all about racing cars, right? Get me to Boston at top speed, won't that help you practice?

SR: Well, I guess so...

SG: Wait, you want to steal my mom's car, drive it to Boston and back and also practise stunt driving? I must say, Quinn, you're asking a lot for something you're unwilling to discuss with us.

QM: It's urgent! I'll be back by Thanksgiving!

SG: Always assuming Stacy doesn't crash en route.

SR: Oh no!!!!

QM: Don't say that, Sandi, she'll freak out!

SG: Stacy's only just got her license, Quinn, asking her to break all the speed records to make a round trip to Boston before the long weekend is a legitimate safety concern. Better Stacy freaks out here than at the wheel of my mom's car which, I cannot emphasize enough, she loves more than any human being.

QM: Sandi, you know that's not true!

SG: Okay, but I'm not going to risk pissing her off this badly because of one of your reckless do-gooder charity cases. You're not Robin Hood, Quinn, you don't have to champion the underdog all the time!

TBD: Maaaaid Marion is reaaaally pretty.

SR: Sandi, Quinn's done a lot for us. We owe her.

SG: We owe her not letting herself getting killed on the highways in Thanksgiving traffic, Stacy!

QM: Guys, I know the Fashion Club isn't around any more, but remember that promise we made?

SR: Uh, which promise was that, Quinn?

SG: Quite a few have been made, Quinn.

TBD: Annnnd brooooken.

QM: I'm talking about the one we all made that, once we were old enough to, you know, do it with guys we would always be willing to help each other out if any of us accidentally got knocked up and needed to go to another town to get an abortion while keeping it secret...

SR: Oh my god! Quinn, are you pregnant?!

QM: What? No, that's not what I meant!

TBD: Whyyyy do you want an aboooortion then?

QM: I don't want an abortion!

SR: So you're keeping it? Oh, it's okay, Quinn, I bet you'll be a wonderful mom!

TBD: Whoooo's the faaaaaather?

SG: Tiffany, I believe Quinn was using that Fashion Club promise as an example.

TBD: An exaaaaaaaaaample?

QM: Yes, that's exactly what I mean!

TBD: You meaaaan... you uuuuused a sperm donor?

QM/SG/SR: Ewww!

SG: Tiffany! Quinn is not pregnant! She is not after an abortion! She is saying we have promised in the past to drive her out of town, so she wants to hold us to that now she needs it.

TBD: Yeeeeaaaaah. Baaaaaabies make you faaaaaaat.

QM: Dammit, this is getting so complicated! Look, if I don't get to Boston ASAFP something very bad is going to happen! I need your help!

SR: Well, okay, Quinn. I'm in.

SG: And I suppose I am too, even though I get the fun job of risking the wrath of Linda Griffin and the task of trying to explain this to Tiffany again.

QM: Oh thank gaaaaawd! Oh, seriously, all of you, I owe you all big time.

SG: I'll have the car ready tomorrow morning, I'll call you when it's free.

SR: And I better get some ultra cola in, to keep me alert on the road.

TBD: Uhhhh.... I have a quesssstion?

QM: (long sigh) Yes, Tiffany?

TBD: Whhhhy doesn't Quiiiin just riiiiiing her sister and telll her whaaaaat's goiiing to happpen?

SG: That is actually a very good question, Tiffany.

QM: Because ideally me going to Boston will stop the bad thing from happening and no one will know it happened.

SR: Okay, I guess that's a good enough reason.

SG: That answer your question, Tiffany.

TBD: Yeaaaaaaaaaaah. You shouldn't truuuuuust the phone lines annnyway, Quinn. The CIiiiiiiiiiiA are listening to eeeeverything we saaaaay.

SG: Oh, Tiffany, you really are getting paranoid.

TBD: I'm not paaaaranoid. You're only paaaaranoid if you're wrooooong.

QM: But you are wrong!

TBD: Am Iiiiii? Ohhhhh.

SR: (giggles) Yeah, Tiffany, don't be so naive. No one's listening to us!

END OF TRANSCRIPT

Security Threat Analysis: 2.34 %
No Action To Be Taken
Maintain Surveillance

- co-signed Agent A. Li.

***

"I've never felt lonelier, Jane. And if I'm feeling that bad, how are you feeling?"

"How am I feeling? I'm feeling nothing, amiga. Absolutely nothing."

Daria stared at Jane for a long moment.

"You don't, do you?" she said at last. "You really don't care that Trent's dead, do you?"

"What's there to care about?" Jane protested. "Me caring isn't going to change anything, is it?"

"You caring would have changed everything!" Daria shouted. "If you'd cared more, just enough to ring Trent, he would be alive!"

Jane would have been more emotional discussing the weather. "It's not my fault he killed himself."

"You damn well didn't help, though, did you?" Daria retorted. "Trent thought you didn't care about him and he was right, wasn't he? Twenty-five years he was on this planet, your whole life, and you don't consider him worth a single tear? There was nothing in his whole life worthy of your time and emotion, is that it?"

"What am I supposed to do?" Jane began.

"STOP ASKING ME THAT!" Dara snarled. "What do YOU think you're supposed to do? He was your brother, he loved you more than anyone else in the world! Okay, he sucked as a musician and was probably second only a balloon animal as a foster parent for you! No one ever thought he was perfect, and definitely not him! Trent Lane was a good guy, he cared about us, he loved us, he understood us! He mattered, you heartless bitch."

"Oh, I'm heartless?" Jane asked drily, arching an eyebrow.

"People don't mourn the dead because it's a useful long-term career strategy," Daria spat angrily. "They do it because they lost someone that mattered! They do it because life won't be better without them! Yeah, you crying won't bring Trent back. No, the world's not going to miss him. But you should! He never, EVER did anything so bad to deserve his sister turning his back on him! If Trent's not worthy of your love, Jane, then who the hell is?" Her anger ebbed. "And if something happens to me, Jane? Is that all I'm worth? You go for a morning drink and karaoke, and then on with your life?"

"You want me to give up everything because you're not around?" Jane demanded. "Nothing egocentric there!"

"So what IS going to be important enough for you to stop and cry, Jane?" Daria asked. "How many funerals are you going to miss because there's no point you wasting time being sad? You've abandoned your old family, are you ever going to have a new one? Will your kids be happy to learn you won't give them a second thought if anything happens to them? I bet your future husband will be glad to know you don't give a damn if he's buried or not!"

"This is not like that," said Jane firmly.

"You remember when I was going to kill myself, back during my 30-hour-happy phase? You said you'd kill yourself rather than live in a world without me..."

"Yes, I did say those words. You didn't believe them then, I remember."

"So if I had killed myself that day, it wouldn't have bothered you?"

"If it didn't I wouldn't have saved you, would I?" Jane replied. "Besides, it was a completely different situation. You weren't really suicidal. It was temporary psychosis, which I was directly responsible for. I had a duty of care."

"And you had a duty of care for Trent," Daria replied.

"I shouldn't have had to..."

"But you did. You let him down, Jane. We both did."

"His death is not on me, Daria!" Jane insisted. "He could've gotten help!"

"And if he did?" Daria asked. "If he'd got through to us? Begged you for help? Would you have lifted a finger then? Or would you have just hung up on him? 'Sorry, Trent, you're not my problem, I have my own life to lead.'"

"It's true!" Jane said, getting almost irritated. "Why should I sacrifice anything for anyone else?"

"I bet that's what your mom and dad and sisters said when they left you alone!" Daria accused. "Why should my mom and dad have sacrificed anything for me and Quinn? We could have been left out on a rock somewhere and they could have gotten on with their lives without me screwing them up! What were they supposed to do, Jane? Waste time and effort and money on two kids? Why, my mom should have never called that ambulance when my dad had that heart attack, just left him to drown in the guacamole! Instead, she stupidly sacrificed something for her husband!"

Jane folded her arms. "This is really big talk, Morgendorffer. So, what have you sacrificed for someone?" she asked. "Just how much of your comfort and happiness and future prospects are you willing to give up for someone else?"

Daria's eyes narrowed behind her glasses. "I'm standing here talking to you, aren't I?" she hissed.

"What?" Jane snorted.

"I'm wasting my breath trying to reason with the monster I thought was my best friend," Daria repeated. "I could be doing anything else, dealing with human beings, and not someone who's just admitted that as long as they're not blamed they wouldn't care if I died tomorrow. I care about you, Jane. You're my best friend, I love you and that means I would do anything to keep you safe in this world. And if you died, yeah, maybe I'd get over it. Some day. But it would hurt like hell existing without you and that's why anyone helps anyone else, to put that day off as long as possible. But you, apparently, wouldn't prioritize Trent or me or Tom or your mom or anyone over flossing!"

"Dental hygiene is its own reward," Jane replied haughtily.

Daria shook her head. "You know, it's a time like this that might have made me say something like 'I wish it was you that died and not Trent'. And that would be a stupid thing to say, wouldn't it? It sort of presupposes you're not dead already!"

"Yeah, looks like your address book is becoming a real cemetery plot, Morgendorffer. First Tom, then Trent, then me."

"Tom's alive, Jane. He's hurting and he needs help. But what are you supposed to do? Care?"

Daria turned to leave.

"Just to be clear," Jane called after her, "that's a definite 'no' about me going to your Thanksgiving party."

Daria slammed the door after her.

Jane was already working on a new drawing.

***

Daria's dark mood stayed with her on the journey back to her own dorm room at Raft. People very wisely got out of her way as she returned to the closest thing she had to a home since leaving Lawndale: 317 Fenderson Hall. The door to her room was not merely shut but locked, which surprised her since her roommate was normally around at this time of day. Delving into her jeans pocket, Daria took out her key and unlocked the door.

The door was suddenly shut from the inside, clicking locked once again.

"What the hell?" Daria said, surprise overwhelming her irritation. "Karen? Is that you?"

The door opened and her roommate poked her head around the door. Karen Myerson was taller than Daria, a sturdy blond farm girl studying towards becoming a vet. She was comparatively bland by the insane standards of Daria's lives in Lawndale and Highland, but she was a kind and friendly person and a considerate roommate. Daria wasn't sure she'd have coped this well since That Day without Karen providing a broad shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen.

So being trapped out of their room like this was totally unexpected.

"Uh, hi, Daria," said Karen in a flustered Southern drawl. "Sorry, I didn't want you to come in right away."

"Oh really?" Daria felt a faint smirk request permission for her lips. "It's customary to leave an article of clothing on the doorknob if you've brought a guy home."

"Yeah, guess it is," conceded Karen, eyes darting back and forth nervously. "It's just, the guy's here for you, Daria."

"Me?"

"And he thought it best if you didn't burst in and see him all unexpected-like. Didn't want to be a shock."

Daria wondered if her father had turned up early to collect her for Thanksgiving, but that couldn't be right. Why would her dad be a shock? And Karen had been unfortunate enough to meet Jake Morgendorffer on their first day. There was no reason for any of this subterfuge. But what other men would pester her like this?

"Wait. Is it Tom?"

"Tom?" repeated Karen, frowning.

"Elsie told me everything," said Daria, pushing at the door. Taken by surprise, Karen couldn't stop it opening. "I know he's been through hell, but it's hardly worth all this. Hey, Tom, how's the land of the living?"

The man sitting on her bed looked up and smiled at her. "Not too overrated," he admitted.

Daria froze.

It wasn't Tom who'd been waiting for her.

It was Trent Lane.

***

Karen and Trent were, between them, braced for quite a few possibile reactions from Daria. They were ready if she screamed. Or fainted. Or ran away. Or attacked Trent. Or somehow started believing she was hallucinating and reacted violently.

Frankly, they were ready for most things.

Except for what happened.

Because Daria walked straight over to Trent and wrapped her arms around him and buried her head in his shoulder. She didn't say a word. After a moment, Trent's slender arms folded around Daria.

They hugged for a very long time. Long enough for Karen to sniff slightly at such clear affection. She knew enough about Daria to know she had once had a crush on Trent, but there was no adolescent lust here. Just two people who loved each other, beyond petty sex and desire, drowning in each other's arms.

"I'm so sorry, Daria," Trent whispered. "I never meant you for this to happen. I didn't want you to think..."

"I don't care." Daria's voice was muffled as she clung tightly to Trent. "I really don't care."

"Really?" Trent was visibly surprised.

"You're alive," Daria replied. "Screw the details."

Trent sniffed, not quite hiding his tears as he hugged Daria tightly. "I know this probably feels like I was just after attention but seriously..."

"Trent. You're alive." Daria lifted her head and looked up at him. She looked incredibly young and vulnerable all of a sudden. "Quinn said you weren't going to do it. She never gave up on you."

"She's a better person than you'd think."

"Unlikely, Trent." Daria smiled as tears ran down her cheeks. "I wanted nothing more than for her to be right. And you're back. I don't care. I forgive you, I forgive anything. Just stay alive."

"I will. I promise." Trent chuckled. "I kinda promised Quinn. She can be kinda scary."

Daria smirked properly. "Morgendorffer family trait." Her expression softened. "Oh God, Trent, I'm so sorry. I should never have just assumed you'd be fine. I never forgot you, honest. I haven't done anything here, I haven't met anyone that has made me forget you." She sighed. "This is the second day in my life I've been lucky. You're alive, Trent. I've never had a better gift, not at Christmas, not at birthdays."

Trent smiled sadly. "You mean it?"

"I love you, Trent!" sobbed Daria, hugging him again. "Never ever think I don't! Ever! You're the big brother I always wanted and there will never be any time in any circumstance I don't want you in my life!"

"Yeah," said Trent. "Quinn told me you felt that way."

Daria laughed through her tears of relief. "She had to be right about something sooner or later. Oh, Christ, Trent, you're alive. If I never get another break again, I don't care." She hugged him tighter.

"It's kinda hard to believe this," said Trent gently.

"I've lived in a world without you for three and a half weeks," said Daria. "It's not worth it. If you ever believe ANYTHING else I say, believe this - I want you to be alive. Oh sweet Jesus, please don't let this be a dream!"

Karen cleared her throat. "I've kind of told him about what's been happening," she explained. "He's very sorry about the misunderstanding."

"Yeah. I wrote the note before Quinn talked me out of it," Trent explained. "I didn't expect my mom to find it and tell your mom and everything. Honest."

"I forgive you," said Daria simply.

"I thought you'd decided you were better off without me," Trent continued.

"We're not," said Daria with the certainty of a child saying the sky was blue.

"Quinn told me. I believe her."

"Then I can't forgive you," Daria chuckled into his shoulder, "because now I am forever in her debt. I can never complain about anything she has said or done. She's paid me back a hundred times over. Oh, Trent, please, never think I would want you dead."

"Your sister's pretty cool."

"Okay, maybe NOW I want you dead."

Trent laughed. "When I heard everyone thought I was dead, I wanted to tell them, you know, I'm not."

Daria lifted her head - confused but not angry. "So why didn't you?"

"What's a guy supposed to do?" Trent shrugged. "Ring up and say, 'Sorry, false alarm'?"

"Yes!" Daria insisted. "I like false alarms! False alarms are now officially my favorite things!"

"I... I had to tell my family first, Daria. I really did. I'm sorry."

"I forgive you." Daria sobbed, her tears wetting his shirt. "I forgive you everything. Oh, Trent, I'd give anything to tell you this before. I know we, you know, could never be together, but I love you. You're my brother in every way that matters."

"I'm proud to be your brother," Trent smiled, crying himself now (if anyone noticed). "And Quinn too. You Morgendorffer girls are really worth it."

Daria turned to Karen. "Please, if anything happens to me," she said, "be there for Trent. You don't have to look after him or anything. Just be there. I'll never ask you for anything again."

"It's okay," said Karen hastily. "He seems a really nice guy."

Daria grinned proudly up at him. "He is. He's a terrible role model, a worse musician, but he sees the world the way it should be seen. He deserves to be loved." She looked at Karen. "If he needs someone to talk to, please, I'm begging you, talk to him. I'll even pay you for it. Please."

Karen held up a hand. "I have talked to him," she reminded Daria. "He's nice. I see why you like him."

"He's a directionless tone-deaf bum," said Daria bluntly. "But if you show me a world that's better off without him, I'll show you a world that doesn't deserve to exist." She squeezed Trent until the pain in his ribs was visible. "Thank every god in every religion anywhere, Trent!" she whimpered.

"I'm a jerk for ever upsetting you," he said quietly.

"I don't care," Daria whispered. "You're alive. I don't care about the whys. You're alive."

"Seriously?" asked Trent with a smile.

"Yeah," said Karen with a smirk. "She totally loves you, Trent. I'm not sure if anyone loves anyone more than she loves you. If you get my drift."

***

Since Daria had graduated and her dating pool had started to shrink, Quinn had resigned herself to the fact she was going to have to learn to drive. She hadn't really put much effort into the task, however, given she still had boys on offer and she had through osmosis grasped the basics of the art of driving. In a pinch, she could drive quite competently but she lacked anything approaching even a learner's permit and focused more of her time on Trent than clocking up miles, and since Trent's "suicide" her parents had been far too protective to risk allowing the chance of her dying alone in an automotive accident.

Besides which, even if Quinn was legally able to get behind the wheel she still needed someone else. Someone who could not only drive but drive fast. Stacy's racing car obsession had come out of left field but she was genuinely committed to it, and just shaving a few minutes off the journey time to Boston could be all the difference. Quinn felt slightly cruel, effectively manipulating Stacy to be her driver without actually telling her anything, but how could she? Stacy deserved to know the truth, but could Quinn betray Trent's trust?

If she had a little cartoon angel and devil on her shoulders right now, what would they say?

...well, in all probability they would be flattened against the headrest of the car-seat, screaming and gibbering that they were going to die any second with the madwoman at the wheel on the verge of traveling faster than light.

"KY-NET-IK NER-VAR-NAAAAA!" whooped Stacy, pigtails flying. "We're like adrenaline in a dying's guy's artery! Wooh-hoo!!!"

Quinn stopped looking at the speedometer once it went over 110 mph. She was amazed that the tires hadn't exploded or the engine had disintegrated. The scenery outside billowed past, too quick for her to focus on any one detail before it was ripped out of sight. Linda Griffin's prized four-wheel drive was now an unstoppable hunk of metal inertia, and any laws of physics had given up and gone home the moment Stacy's foot found the accelerator.

Stacey swept the car up into a new lane that snaked up and around an overhead pass and rejoined the main road at least a dozen car lengths ahead of where they would have been if they'd simply gone straight through. A small town became briefly visible on either side of the motorway and then it was gone. Quinn took a few moments to register the signs that had flashed past and tried to work out where they were.

It took so long because they weren't supposed to pass through for at least another seventy minutes. They were two-thirds of the way there already, helped by some lucky traffic patterns and Stacy's wholesale contempt for any reality beyond brutal acceleration and high-velocity forward motion.

"So, uh, you're pretty good at this," Quinn said, her meek tone distorted by having to shout over the engine.

"Thanks!" said Stacy happily. "My uncle's a NASCAR racer and we used to go and watch him down at the Gymkhana every week! It's awesome, all the checkered flags and the twisting roads and the crowds cheering you on! And no one cares what you look like, with all the helmets and suits and stuff! You get ahead and you stay ahead, and you never look back!"

It was obvious that being a racing driver wasn't something Stacy was into, it was something she was damn-well born for.

"I think we might have to slow down a bit, though," Quinn said as another population centre blinked in and out of sight. "We must be catching up with everyone else who set off this morning, so..."

"I thought you were in a hurry?" asked Stacy, puzzled as they hugged tight to a corner.

"Yeah," Quinn admitted. "But we're already ahead of schedule, right?"

"Well," Stacy shrugged, slowly removing her weight from the pedals, "if that's what you want." It was clear that she wasn't overjoyed at traveling at less-terrifying speeds, but she didn't complain. "The trick is to keep weaving through other cars, and make every car-length count. You need skill as well as speed, that's what my uncle says. I just thought since this was a really big emergency, you know, we had to get there as soon as freaking possible. Since you said that to me."

"I know," Quinn agreed giddily as she realized they'd slowed to the point she was no longer being slammed into her seat. "But that was when I thought going as fast as we could would only get us a few minutes earlier, you know?" She sighed. "I still don't know if we'll get there in time, though."

"I wish I could tell you it'll be fine," Stacy said, "but I don't know what's happening anyway."

"Yeah, good point," Quinn mused. "I'm trying to stop someone make a really big mistake."

"You mean Jane?"

Quinn tensed. "Jane?" she said airily.

"Yeah, you know, Jane? She's your sister's best friend?" Stacy prompted. "I mean, we are going to BFAC and she's the only person we know who's studying there. It's about her brother, right?"

"Er, what do you mean?" Quinn said, fascinated at the scenery out the windows she could now see.

"C'mon, Quinn! We're not all dumb, especially since we broke up the Club," Stacy said reproachfully. In a way, her new self-confidence was a bigger shocker than her speed-crazed racer antics. "I know you were spending time with Jane's brother the last couple of months. And then he disappeared and everything thinks he killed himself."

"I didn't realize it was on your radar," Quinn said, shifting uncomfortably.

"Well, you're on my radar, Quinn," Stacy said with a kind smile. "I noticed you were really worried about him. I just, you know, thought you'd talk about it in your own time. Like admitting Daria was your sister. But if we're here to help Jane, I'm glad. She and Daria have been really kind to me, even when I was saying stupid stuff that might upset them."

"Yeah, well, college life has brought out the worst in Jane," said Quinn darkly. "She... she treated her brother really badly. It was her fault he started feeling suicidal."

"I thought Jane and her brother were really close?"

"So did he. So when she left Lawndale and never spoke to him again, he felt..."

"Abandoned," Stacy supplied. "Aw, poor guy. Did they have a fight?"

"No. She just cut herself out of his life."

"And now he's dead," Stacy sighed, her face creased in sadness. "She must be feeling awful."

"She's not."

"Quinn..."

"I mean it, Stacy. Daria's been in touch, saying how Jane's acting like nothing's happened."

"Maybe she's hiding her pain?"

"Why?" Quinn demanded. "I mean, she's an artist. Like that Van Gock guy would have hid his pain! And why hide it from Daria? It's not like anyone doesn't know she lost a brother!" She let out a quiet growl. "I mean, she's not upset, she's not drinking or partying or anything like that, you know, to deal with it. It's like she really doesn't care."

"Sometimes it's the only way," said Stacy quietly. "If you start crying, you'll never stop."

Quinn was about to say something but decided not to. Not until they were safely out of the car, anyway.

"So is Daria going to be waiting for us?" Stacy went on.

"Uh, no, I don't think so," Quinn answered. She hadn't thought about that particular eventuality.

"But this is an intervention, right? We're going to save Jane from herself, for Thanksgiving?"

"Sort of..."

"I knew it!" Stacy grinned.

Quinn was surprised. "You did?"

Stacy's face fell. "Well, no. Not 'knew it' knew it. But I thought, why would Quinn want a fast car with a getaway driver and a round trip to Boston? You want to kidnap her, tie her up and snap her out of it!" She grinned again. "You know, Quinn, Sandi's mom has some fluffy handcuffs in the glove box if that helps."

Quinn felt like shuddering with disgust and wailing "Ewwww!" at the top of her voice.

"Uh, thanks, Stacy," she said dully. "Um... yeah, good thinking."

To be honest, Quinn's plans after reaching BFAC were nebulous to say the least. She wanted to make sure Trent didn't get to see Daria and Jane, at least not without her to help prepare them for seeing someone return for the dead. She was also very worried what might happen if Trent saw Jane without someone to help. Just the thought of her hating him had driven him to total despair, so how would he cope to find she apparently had forgotten he'd ever existed?

Yeah. Maybe kidnapping Jane and dragging her back to Lawndale would be a good move after all. Trent's mom did, after all, want all her kids home for Thanksgiving. Maybe Amanda would know how to deal with this. And if it was a frightening, confusing and very humiliating experience for Jane Lane then all the better.

Quinn thought of how she'd found Trent, wretched, half-starved and broken.

Karma, as a wise woman once said, is a bitch...

***

Karen cradled the cup of coffee in her hands and brooded over her faint reflection in the liquid.

"Nope," she said at last. "I still don't get the bit about the swamp monster."

"Neither did I," Trent shrugged. He was sitting on Daria's bed, cross-legged. Daria was perched beside him, apparently her normal self apart from the way she held Trent's wrist and traced patterns on the back of his hand with her fingertips. "But whatever it was, it killed a little old lady and a dog. Quinn'll back me up."

Karen looked to her roommate. "And you're buying this, Daria?"

Daria blinked behind her glasses. "Trent's unlikely to lie about that," she said at last. "And after my mum found a pair of hand-forged steel dentures chewing a hole in her car door, I've reluctantly been forced to concede the world is unable to even maintain a facade of logical cohesion." She turned back to Trent. "So then what happened?"

"Nothing special," Trent replied. "Just went from town to town, doing some odd jobs at the hotels. I was just trying to find a place I recognized. But it helped me, kind of. I don't sleep so much nowadays, and I don't go to bed not wanting to wake up. Plus, I kept in touch with Quinn. She's talking to some therapist and she's doing a lot better."

"Even though she has to pretend she doesn't know you're alive?" asked Daria.

"She tells everyone she thinks I'm alive," Trent said. "Not her fault if they don't believe her."

"It's kind of your fault, though, isn't it?" Daria reminded him. "Since you could confirm it?"

"Huh?"

"I think she means you shoulda told people you were still alive," Karen translated. "Like your poor mom?"

"Oh, I told mom," Trent said calmly. "I mean, yeah, it was a few days before I rang when she could answer the phone. Jesse was looking after her, getting her out of the house and stuff. She cried a lot, so it took a few more phone calls before I could clear things with her. But she knows I'm alive."

Daria blinked in amazement. "So that Thanksgiving get-together they've having...?"

"Mom's idea. She wants the family together so everyone knows I'm, like, loved and so are they."

"And your family didn't mention it to my family or to me that you were still alive?" Daria asked, a note of irritation entering her voice. "They didn't think we might benefit from that information?"

Trent frowned. "That's a good point. I guess they just thought Quinn would tell everyone. I mean, I think only you and your mom and dad were the only ones still in the dark. Bummer." He scratched his chin. "We really need to work out a better way of communicating. This just causing all sorts of problems."

Daria frowned. "But if your mom knows you're all right, and she's told your dad and Wind and Summer and Penny..."

"...why didn't she tell Jane?" completed Karen, sipping her coffee.

Trent's face was expressionless. "She did."

"Say what now?" Daria gaped. "Jane... knows you're alive?"

"Mom told her. Jane just was like 'Yeah, of course he is, mom'. And then she hung up." He sighed. "Mom's rung her again and again. Wind tried, but that worked out about as well as anyone expected. We're all pretty worried about her. So I thought it would only work if I came here in person, you know? But then I thought, 'what if Jane hasn't told Daria she's been told I'm alive?' so I thought I'd better, you know, tell you."

"Right," said Daria slowly, lying back on the pillows and gazing up at the ceiling. "Me and Jane had a big fight an hour ago when I tried to convince her to go back to Lawndale for what I thought was your memorial service. She refused but she never once mentioned you were still alive. Because that is, actually, a very good reason not to go."

"Sounds like Jane's, uh, not firing on all cylinders," Karen said gloomily. "I mean, she finds out second-hand that Trent's killed himself because she missed a phone call. And then another phone call tells her he's actually alive. It's like that thing where there are two signs pointing to to each other and the left one says 'Do exactly what the right hand sign tells you' and the right one says 'Ignore whatever the left hand sign says'. I don't think she's coping."

"Typical. I'll bet reminding her of the opportunities of bone marrow transplants Trent represents won't help either," Daria agreed. "So, Trent, how are we going to handle your estranged and possibly psychotic little sister?"

Trent looked glum. "I was kinda hoping you'd have an idea, Daria."

"Well," Karen said, getting to her feet. "Maybe we should sort out a plan of attack tonight and tackle Jane tomorrow? I mean, there's no actual hurry, is there?"

"Guess not," Trent agreed. "We can't afford to make any mistakes."

***

The four-wheel drive swung a sharp corner as it headed towards the car-parks of the BFAC campus.

"Yeee-haaa!" the pig-tailed driver cheered as she parked the car. "We're here! Let's find Jane and intervene the ever-loving crap out of her! Woo-hoo!"

Quinn and Stacy headed away from the BFAC campus and across the street to the college's single residence block, Summerlin Hall.

"So what's the plan?" asked Stacy, still buzzed from the ride. "Do we go to her or make her come to us?"

"Go to her," Quinn decided, scanning every face she saw for a Lane - be it Jane or her brother. She had no idea if they'd got there in time, or even if Jane would be at her dorm.

"Right, which room is she in?"

"Daria said she was in room 665 because she wanted to be neighbors with the Beast," Quinn replied. "Wouldn't be surprised if the Beast has moved out."

"You know," Stacy continued brightly, "the devil's number is actually six-one-six, not six-six-six. I think they let everyone think it's six-six-six because it means all the devil worshippers are, like, dialing the wrong phone numbers to talk to him..."

"Crap phone technology," Quinn muttered. "And people think terrorism is a threat to modern life."

"If the terrorists don't have working phones, they can't set off those bombs, though," Stacy pointed out. "Of course, the proper solution would be to stop them wanting to blow people up in the first place, but you know they always say prevention is better than cure, but I'd rather have a cure than nothing..."

"Stacy. Breathe."

Stacy gulped, nodded, inhaled and then screamed "OH MY GOD, WHAT A RUSH!" and started several freshmen milling around the entrance. "I bet this exactly how Batman feels! Burning rubber, saving lives, bringing justice to an injust world..."

"Well, you're not dressed in black leather pretending to be a flying squirrel with nipples on the outside," Quinn fumed, trying to calm her down.

Stacy regarded herself for a moment. "Gee, Quinn, do you think I could pull that off?" She giggled. "Oh, I bet you'd be an awesome Poison Ivy! And Tiffany could be the Riddler! And Sandi could be Two-Face!" She frowned. "No, that's not fair. I bet she could be a good Joker." Stacy grinned creepily and put on a Valley Girl drawl. "Geee, Ka-win, did you ever, like, dance with the devil in the pale moonight or whatever?"

Quinn really didn't want to laugh at that. She really didn't. So obviously she guffawed her guts out.

"Stacy!" she said when she could breathe again. "No Batman villains! We are here to do a job, not to attract crime-fighters!"

Stacy pulled on a serious expression and nodded. "We are here to do a job," she agreed, before a tiny smile fluttered across her lips. "We are taking this seriously."

"Very seriously!" Quinn agreed, realizing a smile was slowly creeping across her own face. "There is absolutely nothing amusing about us wanting to kidnap my sister's best friend, take her back to Lawndale and force her to spend Thanksgiving with her family."

"Not a laughing matter," confirmed Stacy, struggling to keep a straight face. "This is deadly earnest!"

Quinn clamped her jaws together and tried to stop smiling. "Deadly! There is nothing funny here!"

"Definitely not!" Stacy said, gasping.

"You bet your ass," Quinn nodded, smacking her fist into her palm to fight the desire to giggle. "What could there possibly be in this living nightmare we are facing that could ever, under any circumstances, possibly be here for us to laugh about?"

"Nothing!" rasped Stacy, nodding.

"Exactly."

"So, uh, Quinn," Stacy asked, holding up the fluffy pink handcuffs, "do you want these now or later?"

Quinn and Stacy burst into screams of helpless laughter, barely able to remain upright. They clung to each other's shoulders, giggling and unable to look at each other without cracking up.

***

Greenday's "Broken Dreams" was wailing out of the radio by dresser nearest the bunkbeds. Jane was sitting before a mirror, having abandoned one last sketch and staring at the unfinished image.

Her roommate, Cecilia 'CC' Czernicki, idly glanced at the sketch. It had been unfinished when she'd gone for her shower, and it was still unfinished now.

It was a picture of a front garden with a crude tent made out of ropes and towels. A small female child was crouched by the opening to the tent, holding a plate of toast with one hand for a larger figure that had absolutely no detail added.

"You're allowed to crumple it up and throw it away, you know," CC said as she finished toweling her long dark-blue hair and put her small oblong spectacles onto her nose. "I think we've reached the point there's so much charcoal in this room it should be paying us rent."

"Mmm?" said Jane, not looking up.

"I was just curious," CC went on. "Are you doing anything for Thanksgiving?"

Jane blinked in surprise. "I never realized Thanksgiving was such a big deal. Is this just Boston or did I miss a memo?"

"Just curious," CC shrugged. "Not as if the moment you're out of here I'm going to get Nell and the others to help me get all this crap out of the room, burn it on a festive bonfire and get you locked up in a therapy session."

"Not at all. Why, only a fool would ever expect such a thing," Jane agreed, crumpling up the sketch. "I thought we agreed this side of the room was mine and I could do whatever I liked with it?"

"Actually we agreed that if you even touched my side of the room, I would ritually disembowel you in the street," CC corrected amiably.

"It was a busy day, and there was no one here for me to lose my virginity with," Jane apologized. "Some of the details were fuzzy."

"Yeah, you were a whole different person back then," CC agreed. "Now you make the Terror look like decent company, lavender or no lavender."

Mary Kelsey was a nice enough girl and fellow floor-six freshman, except she was what would happen if all four Fashion Club members were fused into a single being, blasted with gamma radiation and then required raw perfume instead of oxygen. The stink of lavender had become virtually toxic to the poor denizens of BFAC. Mary 'the Terror' Kelsey was thus literally stomach churning.

And apparently she was more pleasant to be around than Jane? What next? The Female Eunuch II by Charles Ruttheimer III?

"Wow. Who spat in your coffee today?" Jane asked.

"We don't have a coffee machine here," CC reminded her.

"Ok, who put coffee in your spit today?"

"Just calling it as I see it, Jane," CC replied. "You're really creeping folk out nowadays. You know what us artistic types are like, we don't really feel comfortable around dead souls."

"And why's that a problem now?" Jane asked.

"Well, at least at the start we could just assuming your soul was, you know..."

"Pining for the fjords?"

"Yep. But now it's definitely dead. Bright green. And beginning to smell."

"More than the Terror?"

"Ooh yeah." CC went to the closet and took out a jacket which she shrugged on. "I'm no expert, but I think it was around the time your brother ended it all. I'm not sure, it's not like you talk about."

"You never knew him," Jane pointed out. "Never will."

"I thought you'd do some big art memorial for him. Make a big exhibit of him so we'd all know about the guy and what we're missing out on."

"You're not missing out on anything, CC," Jane yawned. "I actually tried to imagine what my life would be like if Trent never existed."

"Rome never fell and Nazis ride dinosaurs to work?"

"Maybe. But I can't see any downside. My parents and siblings would have been forced to spend more time with me. I would have had more money, more time to myself, no awkwardness with my best friend crushing on him, and hell, even if I'd ended up in a foster home it would probably have been an improvement."

CC stared at her. "Wow, I wish I had someone I could blame for absolutely everything in my life, that would be real convenient."

"Hey, I made mistakes, I'm not denying it. But he made more. He didn't just have feet of clay, he was one bit pit of quicksand sucking me down."

"Surprised you didn't kill him yourself," said CC. Only the most intense observer would notice she was tense and ready for something nasty.

"Hey, why bother when he could do it himself?" Jane chuckled. "He shoulda done it dooner, but he never respected deadlines. I'm not saying that he didn't add anything good to my life whatsoever, just that I can't think of anything at all. So, why miss him?"

"Good point," CC agreed. "I mean, give it what? Ten years, everyone will have forgotten he existed."

"He was hardly THAT memorable," Jane agreed. "Then again, who is? No one lives forever, and all we have to show for it are a few books, statues and music and how long will that go for? The sun will explode any billion years now, and then the universe will end. Who exactly are we trying to fool?"

CC pondered the question. "The morons on the college board, I guess. It's just, roomie, folk are starting to think you might be depressed."

"And what do they base that on?" Jane asked, counting on her fingers. "Am I losing sleep? Dreading waking up because I have to force my exhausted self through another day? Have I lost interest in everything? Am I hiding in my room and avoiding contact?"

"And you've memorized all the warning signs of depression," CC observed. "Not creepy at all."

Jane rolled her eyes. "I've been depressed before, blue. I know what it's like. Back in Lawndale I was in a miserable hell every day. Oh, it wasn't a day that ended in Y unless I'd contemplated by own veins."

"But you're not like that now?"

"Nope. I got a friend. Who did more for me in a few weeks than Trent managed in his whole life."

"Daria, right?"

"Right."

"The one who keeps wondering if you're coping?"

"She's not exactly the minority, it appears."

"Just saying, she'd know if you were depressed or not."

"Daria's genius is inversely proportional to her social awareness. The last time she was worried about my emotional state, she stole my boyfriend."

CC smirked. "Sounds like something she'd do."

"Hey, shut up," Jane grumbled. "You don't know what she's talking about. Daria's not a slut."

CC held up her hands. "Well, who ever said that? Maybe you're angrier about it than you think."

"CC, you're an exotic dancer. If I want a lapdance, I'll ask. If I need psychiatric help, I'll go elsewhere."

"Just saying, Daria took your mind off your troubles by giving you something to be angry about. Sounds like the sort of thing she'd do. Didn't she, like, get folks to pay her for dealing with grief and she'd just piss them off so they felt angry instead?"

Jane regarded him. "How do you even know that?"

"You told me."

"I told you?"

"Yeah. You told me all about Daria and Trent and the QB and his bimbo and... well, you had a lot of stories to tell. I tried not to listen but some of your husky words slipped through."

"I don't talk about Lawndale."

"Not anymore. You stopped."

"Well, there were a finite amount of anecdotes," Jane said coolly. "Generally once I get to the hurricane and everyone singing, interest ebbs."

"Maybe you don't want to think about it?"

"Well, do you like thinking about getting a pap smear? Or do you just try to bury that concept and focus on something slightly more pleasant."

"Like your brother?" CC replied.

"No, I said pleasant. Look, CC, just because I think my brother was lower than the grease in a comb doesn't mean I'm depressed. Vietnam was a senseless waste. September 11 was a tragedy. Those are facts, it doesn't automatically mean I'm miserable."

"Cause maybe you're ignoring..."

"I'm not ignoring anything!" Jane wasn't quite shouting, but she was speaking loud enough to cover up the squeaking of the elevators. Which were loud. "There is nothing TO ignore, roomie. I haven't had bad days here, nothing has gone wrong, nothing bad has happened. Everything is fine!"

"Your brother..."

"I am more than just poor Trent's kid sister!"

Yep, Jane was definitely shouting.

"I am an artist at the best art college in this whole stupid continent, I am getting recognition, I am doing what I love." She pointed at her face. "This isn't a mask, CC! I'm not crying because I'm not upset! I'm not crying out for help because I don't need it! I'm not drowning, I'm as far from rock bottom as it's possible to get!"

"Jane," said CC calmly, "I've been there."

"Oh yes, your wonderful army mom who forgot to duck in the Gulf War! I suppose that's exactly the same, given your close relative decided to hang around in a warzone instead of spend any time with you. The only difference, really, is that Trent left a note and hasn't come back wrapped in the American flag!"

CC nodded. "Pretty much."

"Well, it looks like YOU'RE the one who needs therapy, Cecilia!" Jane ranted. "Working out your mommy issues as an army brat as a poorly-paid stripper, yeah, you've left no cliche unticked, huh?"

CC cracked her knuckles. "Okay, Lane. Before we carry on, can we clarify what your endgame is here? Are you trying to get me to smack you down, physically or verbally? Do you think this will convince me you're not going through some nervous breakdown?"

"Ideally, I'd like you to shut up and go away and do whatever the hell you Czernickis do on Thanksgiving as far away from me as the Earth's circumference allows," said Jane in a low, angry voice.

CC nodded thoughtfully. "You're not worth hurting my knuckles anyway. Punching a corpse is just tacky."

CC turned and calmly made her way over to the door.

"Everyone seems to think I'm a zombie," Jane mused. "Is there some new necrophiliac fraternity I'm being lured into, is that it?"

CC opened the door and was slightly startled to find a flushed-looking teenage girl standing right outside, her hand raised to knock on the door.

For a moment the two of them stared at each other.

Raising her own fist, mimicking the girl's stance like a salute of worker's solidarity, CC stepped past her and disappeared off down the hallway.

Jane looked up and saw the girl in the doorway.

"Stacy?" she said, incredulously.

"Oh, sister!" wailed Stacy, hurling herself into the dorm room and flinging her arms around Jane's waist. "EMBRACE ME! It's been too long!"

"Too long, not long enough, one of those," Jane conceded. "Don't tell me, you're part of this Thanksgiving necrophilia society and you want me to do a banner saying rigor mortis makes everything stiff?"

Stacy looked up at Jane with her guiless blue eyes. "Huh? No, Jane, it's not that! I just wanted to welcome myself to the Lane family, big sis!"

"Oh my god," said Jane dully. "You didn't agree to marry Wind, did you? The terrifying thing is, I can actually see that working better than his last few relationships..."

"Wind?" Stacy let out a girlish giggle that was nowhere near as annoying as it should be. "Oh, Jane, no I'm talking about Trent!"

"Trent's dead," said Jane. "And once more the necrophilia angle becomes more plausible..."

"Yes, but he lives on in me!" Stacy said happily, placing a hand over her middriff in a way that meant one of two things - she was pregnant and proud, or she was about to throw up some undercooked fast food.

"You... you mean...?"

"I know! First time lucky, huh?"

"Yeah, lucky," Jane said dazedly. "I always assumed he'd knock up Monique. He must have really been circling the drain if he let you seduce him..."

"Oh, it was beautiful!" Stacy grinned, taking Jane's hands in her own. "You should have been there!"

"I like to think of myself as open-minded, but even that is a level of kinkiness I shy away from!"

"To paint a picture, silly! Imagine it! Conception on canvas!" Stacy went on.

"Porn on paintbrushes?"

"If you like!" said the girl, nodding happily. "And I'm sure you and your family will welcome me and baby Trent in with open arms, right?"

"Hooboy, Stacy, did YOU make a bad life decision," Jane sighed. "Apart from the fact your baby will be a talentless, narcoleptic, hysterical idiot without a father, joining my family is second only to joining Charles Manson's family. I advise an abortion clinic, or maybe throwing yourself down some stairs."

Stacy looked hurt, but not as hurt as Jane expected.

"I thought you'd be happy."

"That Trent's final act was statutory rape and he couldn't even use a condom? That I have another worthless lump of Lane DNA calling me auntie and expecting me to look after it because the parents are dead, useless or both. Oh yeah, I'm dancing for freaking joy!"

Jane went to fling her arms up in a sarcastic gesture.

Went to.

Because she realized at that point that a pair of hot-pink fluffy handcuffs were now around her wrists, and that Stacy had cuffed her while she was completely distracted. Things felt even more unreal now.

Jane managed to point a finger down at her restraints and gave Stacy a hopeful smile. "Uh, what's happening?" she asked pleasantly.

A finger tapped her on the shoulder.

Jane turned and saw Quinn standing right behind her. The redhead threw out her palms, jazz-hands style, and said with a loud, angry triumph "SUR-PRIIIIIIIIIZE!!!"

And then she punched Jane's lights out with a single blow.

***

Stacy wasn't sure if it was the punch from Quinn or the collision with the hard floor of the dorm that left Jane Lane unconscious. It was hard to concentrate over Quinn's screams as she alternately shook her hand and then squeezed it under her armpit.

"MY FREAKING HAND!" she squealed, along with a string of words that Stacy never expected to hear Quinn say and that she knew would never be spoken in front of Quinn's parents.

Stacy looked worriedly at the open door to the hallway and hoped no one was interested in the screams. Weren't college students supposed not to care about loud noises?

"Um, Quinn, low-profile, remember?" Stacy reminded her, closing the door to be on the safe side.

"MY BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL HAND!" shrieked Quinn, tears running down her cheeks.

"It's okay, it's okay," Stacy said soothingly, taking Quinn's reddened right hand and kissing it. "There, there, I'll kiss it better!"

"That doesn't ACTUALLY work in real life, Stacy!" Quinn whined in pain.

"Swearing like that won't help!"

"Actually, it does!" said Quinn, letting out a string of four-letter words that made Stacy feel like she should really talk to a priest after this. "There are studies! Swearing helps deal with pain!"

"That sounds like something that people who like to swear would say to justify themselves..."

Quinn replied that they did this because it was actually true, then insulted Stacy, Sandi, Tiffany, the last four generations of their families and made slanderous accusations about their ancestors' tendency to forced intercourse with farm animals and something that sounded like 'bull elephant sodomy'.

Finally, she sobbed and fell quiet, cradling her hand. "It was like hitting a bag of cement," she sobbed. "I thought her thick skull was just an expression!"

"Why did you hit her, though?" asked Stacy.

"Well, you heard her! We tell her she's going to be an aunt, and Trent is going to have a baby and she tells you to throw yourself down some stairs?"

"Maybe she didn't believe me?"

"It doesn't matter if she didn't believe you!" Quinn snapped angrily. "It's the principle! She thinks her brother is dead and she wants his unborn child killed because she thinks it'll be a drag on her time?" She kicked Jane's prone leg.

"Quinn, she's out for the count..."

"She thinks Trent is a waste of DNA?" Quinn kicked the unconscious artist again.

"Quinn, control yourself!"

"Plus she thinks you couldn't be a good mother and any kid you had would be an unwanted hysterical piece of crap!!" Quinn shouted.

Stacy stepped between Quinn and Jane. "That's enough, I said!" she ordered, forcing the redhead back.

Whereupon Stacy turned and repeatedly booted Jane up the backside with sudden ferocity before calming again.

"Right. We've got that out of the way," Stacy said reasonably. "Now the healing can begin."

Quinn cradled her sore hand and whimpered.

"Well," Stacy added. "You know what I mean. Oh, what do we do now? What would Batman do? I bet he would had a bat-taser or something."

"We take her back down to the car and head back to Lawndale," Quinn declared. "Okay, she's unconscious, but at least this way she's not fighting all the way or shouting for help."

"We carry her?" Stacy wondered. "Won't people get all suspicious us dragging an unconscious woman out of the residency hall?"

"Maybe," Quinn admitted. "Maybe they'll think she's drunk and taking her home?"

"But THIS is her home?"

"Well, we'll pretend it's not Jane but her identical twin sister who's had too much to drink."

"Gee, Quinn, that's a great plan!"

"Thanks, Stacy."

"It's an amazing plan."

"Yeah, thanks."

"Absolutely brilliant in every conceivable way."

"Stacy, I know, thanks."

"Except for one little thing."

"What?!"

"Well, okay, if anyone asks us, we say she's Jane's drunk sister and we're taking her home, right?"

"Yes!" said Quinn impatiently.

"And what do we say when they ask why she's got a black eye and is in handcuffs?"

"Oh. We better take off the handcuffs."

"How?"

Quinn's face slackened in weary contempt. "You're going to tell me you don't have the key, aren't you, Stacy?" she asked quietly.

"Um. Well, they're not my handcuffs," Stacy pointed out. "They're Sandi's mom's. Well, at least I hope they are. Do you think her dad's into that stuff?"

"So you're saying we have got a bruised and battered unconscious artist on our hands wearing kinky furry handcuffs we have no way of getting off her?"

"Well, there might be a key in the glove box."

"...that's not a huge help to us, is it?"

"I could go and check?"

"No. Stacy, search this place for a hairpin or something. I've got to give us an alibi."

"Cool!" Stacy looked around the dorm room. "Hairpins, hairpins... I really need to get a utility belt..."

***

Daria had started crying again. Trent sat beside her on the bed, an arm wrapped around her. Karen wasn't sure if she was still recovering from Trent's resurrection or worrying about Jane.

The phone rang. Karen reached out and picked up the receiver. "Hello? 317 Fenderson Hall, Morgendorffer and Myerson residence," she said brightly.

"Oh, er, um, hi," rasped a voice in her ear. "It's me, Jane. I'm off to Lawndale for Thanksgiving. Let my amiga Daria know, will you? Gottago, bye!"

Click. Brrrrrrrrr.

Baffled, Karen put down the phone. "Uh, guys?" she asked politely. "That was Jane and apparently she's going back to Lawndale."

"What?" exclaimed Daria, amazed. "And she didn't even want to talk to me?"

"She seemed to be in a real hurry," Karen explained. "She told me to let you know."

"How did she sound?" asked Trent warily.

Karen shrugged. "A little bit throaty?"

***

Quinn wheezed and spluttered as Stacy got her a glass of water. She supped it gratefully and coughed to clear her throat. "Oh, that was painful."

"That was amazing, Quinn!" said Stacy, awed. "You sounded just like Jane! I never knew you could do impressions! That was incredible! Who else can you do?"

"Uh, just my mom, really," Quinn rasped. "I didn't think I sounded that much like her..."

"It was uncanny!" Stacy enthused. "That was better than when Sandi does Brittney and Tiffany does Mrs. Barch! You could do that professionally!"

Quinn rolled her eyes. "'Professional' is not a word I'd use to describe what's happened today. Did you get a hairpin?"

"Nope! Jane doesn't have any and neither does her roommate," Stacy said. "But I found this scarf!"

"...that's very good, Stacy. How does it help?"

"We tie the scarf around her wrists and hide the handcuffs!" Stacy said happily. "Plus, I found a pair of sunglasses! That's how we get out of this!"

Quinn nodded slowly. "Stacy, if you ever become a professional racing car driver, here's my advice."

"What's that, Quinn?"

"Get someone else to do your after-race interviews. Now how exactly does stealing unfashionable items help us get away with assault, battery and kidnapping?"

Stacy tapped her nose. "I have a cunning plan!" Her confidence wilted. "Well, it's a pretty cunning plan. Well, it's an idea I saw in a movie once, but it worked then so why wouldn't it work now?"

I can think of so many reasons it's not funny, thought Quinn but she forced herself to smile brightly. "Okay, Stacy, what do we do?"

***

The door to room 665 swung open and three figures emerged, walking shoulder to shoulder. The middle figure was clearly Jane Lane, wearing sunglasses indoors and her head lolled from side to side as her companions shuffled forward. They were holding her hands and almost seemed to be carrying.

"That's it, everyone!" Jane could be heard slurring as they approached the elevator. "I'm hauling ass to Lawndale and no one's gonna stop me! Go on, one at a time or all at once, I'll take you all outside!"

"Uh, Jane!" the brunette in pigtails said, very embarrassed. "Let's not be a nuisance to your fellow freshmen, huh? Maybe we could keep it down?"

"Keep it down?" grunted Jane, gazing at the floor. "Do you have any idea who I am, you pulchritudinous bimbo? I'm Jane freaking Lane! I'm an artist! I create! I'm the most talented person you've ever met! You should be grateful I allow you to carry me, no matter how much I drink! AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT!"

"Now, now, Jane," the brunette said, reaching out and hitting the call button by the lift. "We're all friends here, and we don't want to make a scene."

"A scene? Stacy, you wouldn't know a scene if back-flipped down the side of a skyscraper, machine-gunned its phone number into the wall and left a tray of milk chocolates! What do you even do for a living anyway, you empty-headed clothes horse?"

"Well, actually," Stacy huffed, "I'm going to be a NASCAR driver..."

"Such ambition, Stacy!" jeered Jane as her head lurched to glare at the wall opposite. "Sitting inside a tin can whizzing around in circles at ludicrous speeds going nowhere! That really plays to your strengths, doesn't it! Just think, maybe one day you can achieve your dream of being a hamster in a wheel!"

"Hey!" Stacy snapped, rounding on Jane. "You want to walk home, Lane? Do you?"

"I bet I could, toots! I run ten miles a day and eat total crap, while the rest of you dumb floozies diet and eat celery sticks! I'm better than all of you!"

The elevator doors opened and the third member of the group, bent double with long red hair, let out a throaty cough of relief and rasped, "Oh thank god for that. Come on."

The trio shuffled into the elevator and hit the control for the ground floor. The doors closed and the cab began to descend.

"You're doing reall well, Quinn!" said Stacy, giving her friend the thumbs up. "No one would think Jane's not wide awake and being a total bitch!"

"I think my vocal chords are gonna snap," sobbed Quinn when the elevator stopped at the next floor.

The doors opened and four other BFAC students entered. Stacy shot a worried look and then said very casually, "So, Jane, tell me about that time, you uh, dyed your hair that one time?"

"Glad you mentioned that, Stace!" came Jane's voice from somewhere near her, even though her head was bowed and her lips weren't moving. "It was a truly spectacular occasion which will ride out in the annuals of history! You see, I was really pissed off that Daria was showing interest in my boyfriend and not my emotionally-abused older brother and that meant I had no control over them. So I decided to get Daria to paint stripes in my hair even though she didn't want to and didn't know how to paint, because I wanted her to screw up so I could emotionally blackmail her and break her pathetic spirit - plus I could use it to bully my boyfriend at the same time!"

The other occupants of the elevator exchanged uncomfortable looks as they waited to reach the ground floor. If they heard the painful gasp between Jane's rants and what seemed to be the redhead muttering she was going to kill someone for this, they didn't mention it.

"And then of course Daria and Tom acted like they had free will and decided they actually wanted to be together without me, so I ditched Lawndale for three months to go to an art colony and, uh, become bisexual so I could screw over twice as many people as I did before..."

***

"Welcome to Purgatory."

Quite a few responses came to Jane's mind. Something classic like 'Did anyone get the number of that truck?' or 'That first step's a doozy!' perhaps? Or something withering like 'Your welcome could be a little less-fist-to-the-face!' or 'I'd hate to see how you greet people you don't like!'

But between the shocking, bone-deep agony on the left side of her face, all Jane could croak to herself was, "Well, I've heard that before."

Hadn't she?

Yes, dimly she remembered when she'd first come to BFAC. Daria and Jake Morgendorffer had helped her move into Summerlin Hall, because Trent's car had broken down and he could help. Pity, she'd have liked him there, just to make a crack that she had a choice of Pennylin Hall, Windlin Hall and Trentlin Hall but settled on Summerlin Hall.

Welcome to Purgatory. Yeah, CC had told her that after living out the terms, conditions and graphic violence that would be their roommate agreement.

Damn her cheek hurt!

"You know, if you keep lying down there, you're going to miss everything," the voice continued.

It wasn't CC.

It was a guy's voice.

She didn't like it. It annoyed her.

Standing over her was a man dressed like he'd stepped out a speakeasy after being no help to a private eye seeking a Maltese falcon. He had a fedora, a pinstripe suit and well-tailored coat. A single curl of hair peaked out from under the hat's brim and his long pointed face boasted a smug grin of white teeth.

"You," said Jane thickly, her jaw hurting.

"The only and only, sweetheart," he grinned at her.

"You still convinced that the present's better than the past, Jane?"

"For all it's faults, I didn't see you there," Jane retorted. "It really put a spring in my step. I guess if hell stinks of sulfur, then purgatory stinks of palmade? You know, I never learned your last name."

"Class-acts like me don't need a second moniker, Jane," came the pretentious reply.

"Fine, I'll just call you Douchebag. It has a nice ring to it. Nathan Douchebag."

Jane wasn't sure where she was. It seemed to be some kind of cinema, but she hadn't paid to get in. Nathan Douchebag Esq. sauntered along, hands in pockets, flashing his grin and winking to various people. He received nods and noises in acknowledgement yet not a single person pistol-whipped him.

More distracting were the paintings. Instead of posters for romcoms, actions flicks and CGI dinosaurs, they were... paintings. And worryingly they looked like Jane's own work. There was the one with Quinn in the guillotine, or the old guy pulling his eye wide open, or that photo-realistic bulimia-school-spirit poster.

But there were other ones she didn't recognize, even though they were definitely done in her style. There was what appeared to be a portrait of herself and Quinn smiling at each other through a spectrum of light against space. Another one clearly showing a younger her making out with a guy that seemed to be Daria if she'd had a Y-chromosome. There was a disturbing one showing Trent holding her back as she tried to attack Daria, who was cowering on the floor, painfully thin, messy hair and sobbing.

Jane paused by one that was arranged landscape rather than portrait. It showed her, Daria and what seemed to be Jennifer the burn-out chick from Lawndale High. They stood side-on, arms raised and pressed together so their forearms linked to show off a tattoo of a big red love-heart. All three were grinning in a deliriously happy screw-you kind of triumph.

"Corporate art," sneered a grubby-looking janitor type as he and a young, nervous-looking gofer suddenly pulled the painting off the wall and dumped it unceremoniously on a trailer. "Corporate art!" he spat again. "It's tax-deductible, honest!"

Jane watched as they tore down the next portrait - what seemed to be a military recruitment poster of her and Daria standing in front of a submarine as mushroom clouds rose in the distance - and continued.

"People fall over themselves to buy this," the janitor ranted, face twisted in a snarl. "I bet there are other artists out there, people who can't sell their stuff, artists who have to take crappy little jobs like this just to make ends meet!" He almost lunged at the throat of the gofer. "It make you sick, DOESN'T IT? IT MAKES YOU WANT TO THROW UP ALL OVER THE DECADENT AMERICAN TASTELESS SHAG-PILE, DOESN'T IT?!?"

"Hey, Baby Jane," Nathan called. "Time's running out."

"What are they doing with my paintings?" Jane demanded.

Nathan shrugged the squared-off shoulders of his zoot suit. "They always said art is dangerous," he said. "Plus, if it's important, you can always paint more. I know a few tricks myself."

Jane glared at him. "I know. After we broke up, one of your exes contacted me. You really know how to hide the bruises. You even made her glad about it."

"Just old-fashioned chivalry and power dynamics," said Nathan modestly. "That coulda been you, toots."

"Toots?"

"Hey, you were already ditching your loser pals, dressing up how I wanted, doing what I said," Nathan said reasonably. "Those sweatpants probably saved your life. You'd be in my place right now, ironing my clothes, cooking my dinner, feeling so great that I'm into you that the bruises don't matter."

"Yeah. Sweatpants save lives. Who knew."

"No one else woulda saved you," Nathan pointed out. "It's not like you had an older brother who'd sort me out, is it?"

Jane wasn't sure what to say. "I do have an older brother. Two of them."

"Not what I heard." Nathan glanced at his watch and groaned. "Great, we've missed the last screening. If we can hurry, we can catch the last scene!" He broke into a run towards one of the cinemas.

Jane followed, not sure what else to do. She stopped at the doors and the illuminated sign above them said "CINEMA 665 - JANE LANE'S LIFE (DIRECTOR'S CUT)".

Bewildered, she entered the chamber. Hardly anyone was there. She saw down the front were Tom and Daria, dressed like they were in American Gothic, throwing popcorn at the screen in disgust.

"You call that thematic depth!" Tom laughed. "This film is so bad I'd take an overdose of drugs to escape it!"

"If you were really Bromwell material, you'd have done that before watching," Daria sneered. "Why couldn't we have watched something uplifting."

"What, like the Care Bears movie?"

"Well, maybe less nauseating. How about I Spit On Your Grave?"

"Kinky," Tom replied. "What bodily fluid do you want on your burial plot?"

Nathan dropped in a seat beside them. "Just can't seem to get rid of you two," he sighed, helping himself to the popcorn. "Hey, weren't you knocked up?" he asked Daria with a frown. "Something about Jane giving you some crappy condom or something?"

"Us?" Tom scoffed. "Kids? As if!"

"You show me a newborn baby, I'll show you a horny couple who's luck ran out," Daria replied. "You never hear about post-partum euphoria, do you?"

"Funny you should say that," Tom said, cutting his wrist with a razor he found in the popcorn. "That's what the big finale is all about."

"You mean his sled was actually his father the whole time and he was really a woman?" Daria yawned, knocking back a bottle of pills that had a label with a skull and crossbones. "Epic."

The old cross-hairs countdown filled the screen.

"Feisty ladies and oh-so-lucky gentlemen," crooned Upchuck from somewhere, "we now present the final part of the film in true Quentin Tarantino style non-linear narrative! The first minutes of Jane Lane's life!"

"Oh great," Daria yawned. "A sex scene."

"Odd how everyone shaves nine months off their age, huh?" Tom agreed.

"I guess everyone prefers to start their lives making their fathers panic and their mothers scream in agony. It's better that thinking of them doing it."

"You're disgusting," Nathan said, spitting out the popcorn and a few rotten teeth.

The screen showed a murky red blur, and a suffocatingly-close rubbery white surface pressing forward. Somewhere a woman was screaming and rapid heartbeats pulsed loudly.

The audience looked awkwardly away from the screen.

"I am never going to be able to look Amanda Lane in the eye again."

"You're not looking her in the eye now, though."

"Good point.

Speakers crackled with feedback and the cinema was flooded with warm candle-light. The image spun and blurred with huge faces crying and grinning, and the hideous scream of a gurgling baby.

Nathan winced and covered his ears with his hands, taking care not to muss up his hair. "Oh, man, talk about starting as you mean to go on!"

"Swap?" asked Tom.

"Swap," said Daria and they exchanged pills and razor blades and set to work destroying themselves.

Finally the hideous screams died down and a new face filled the screen. Jane watched as it gradually sharpened into focus. A soft, soothing voice filled the cinema.

"Hey. I'm your brother, Trent. It's cool to finally meet you. In fact, next year, we're going to throw a party just for you being born today. If you're really nice, I'll write a special song just for you!"

"Boo! Boooo!" shouted Nathan as he and the others hurled first popcorn, then broken bottles, rotten tomatoes and some BFAC course guides at the screen until the material split.

"Unheard-of distortion of the author's work!" Daria shouted, plunging the razor deep into her arm.

"Everyone knows..." Tom gulped down the pills. "Jane doesn't have a brother!"

"Basic stuff, ma homies," said Nathan, pulling a bloody human femur out of his mouth and adding it to the pile. He was now more zoot suit than man. "Jane Lane 101! She has no brother!"

"She has no friends!" agreed Tom.

"She walks alone!" Daria said.

Upchuck came down the aisle, pushing a round barbecue on wheels and looking apologetic. "The management apologizes pro-fuuuuuuuse-ly for any misunderstandings, my valued patrons. We've removed any art that may have been created under the influence of this Trent person and here, for your delight and delectation, are all the film reels."

He lifted the rounded dome from the barbecue to show it was full of ribbons of cinema film.

"Burn, baby, burn!" came a voice from Nathan's zoot suit slumped in the chair.

"Burning film IS poisonous, right?" croaked Tom, wobbling to his skeletal feet.

Daria was prodding her arm, trying to find the razor blade. "Literally or metaphorically?" she asked absently. "Think of it as Fahrenheit 451 Part Two: This Time, It's Personal."

"Trust me, honored customers," Upchuck grinned, "once these go, there will be no question that Trent ever existed in the first place."

Kevin leaned in, dressed as an army general. "Doesn't that, like, present us with a moral kee-nun-drum, bro?" he asked, leaning out again.

Mr. O'Neill was holding a fish-tank full of broken circuits and wire. It spoke with the voice of Mr. DeMartino. "Everything has an EFFECT on EVERYTHING ELSE around it!"

"Meeemmmmory," Tiffany drawled, a blood-drained corpse in black leather, "is an encuuuuuuuuuuumbrannnce."

Quinn shook her head and hugged a panama hat to the cricketing pullover she wore. "A man is the sum of his memories, you know," she warned.

"Basically," yawned Daria, taking off her glasses to reveal empty black eye sockets, "you can't pick and choose what you forget."

"It's all or nothing, you bastards!" Mack shouted.

Daria put her glasses back on. "But hey, what are you supposed to do? Live with a less-than-perfect past and the loss of someone who loved you?"

"Yeah, what are you?" Couch Morris sneered. "Some kinda GIRL or something?"

"Enough of the metaphors already!" CC grumbled, and threw the Molotov cocktail into the barbecue.

Jane found her voice to scream, but the films had burnt away to nothing. So had the cinema and the occupants and she was now alone in featureless nothingness.

"Welcome to Purgatory," the voices called to her.

And then there was silence.

***

Confidential

Student evaluation on: Gupty, Jane
14 years old
Lawndale High Intake 1995

Report compiled by
Margaret Manson

It was quickly apparent during the initial psychological assessment that Jane Gupty comes in neatly between the Composer and the Craftsman on the Briggs-Myers-Cook Personality type. Her overall demeanor was one of forced cheer and positivity, but clearly a genuine interest in art and other such creative expressions. She was unsurprisingly eager to complete the test as quickly as possible but thought through answers and made efforts to clarify her thinking as well as numerous attempts at wit, presumably to lighten the mood.

Born at the end of the 1980s, the fourth child of bohemian artists Vincent and Amanda Lane, Jane was often left in the care of eldest brother Wind and his wives. Wind had been married and divorced nine times at last count, meaning Jane was rarely in a structured and secure environment. At the age of twelve, a failure in communication led to her being left alone at the family home for a period of no less than twenty-one weeks. When the electricity was cut off due to non-payment and food ran out, Jane sought help from the neighbors and was immediately placed in a foster home. Her biological parents were out of the country and by the time they made a token gesture to regain her custody, the courts had already made their ruling.

Jane was placed in the care of Lester and Lauren Gupty, a local Lawndale couple. Jane found their attention cloying and alarming at first, but admits to tolerating it on the grounds they are the only family she has who actually want her. She has on several occasions suspected that Lester and Lauren adopted her to try and keep their marriage functional when additive-free foods is not enough, and admits she works hard to be supportive and well-behaved even though she does not personally agree with their "sickeningly wholesome worldview".

Although generally content with her new family, Jane is very interested in Lawndale High's art classes and hopes to be able to work freely without her parents seeing the end result. They are deeply concerned about her more disturbing and graphic artworks, which upsets her greatly and is perhaps the biggest obstacle in their ongoing relationship.

Jane likewise clearly has a desperate desire to do well at classes and eventually go to a local college, as she neither wishes to let the Guptys down nor go too far away from them. She repeatedly insists she owes them everything, loves them deeply and at no point feels like a Stepford Wife in training.

Although possessing a high level of social empathy, a large vocabulary and a classically acceptable body-type, Jane admits she had made very few actual friends in her life. She suggests this could simply be down to her adopted status, but there is obviously a deep fear of abandonment and rejection that has ensured that she keeps all bar the Guptys at arm's length.

Jane Gupty's natural confidence has been broken by her birth family's neglect and paranoia her adoptive one will abandon her at a moment's notice. She is unlikely to cause trouble or draw any undue attention towards her.

I would normally recommend she go an after-school counseling course for her low self-esteem, but have instead decided Jane should instead focus on the Lawndale track team under Coach Morris. Jane is a natural athlete running up to ten miles a day. With the "byes" provided by the athletics department helping her with academic qualities, not to mention the positive reinforcement of her prowess, I am sure she would achieve much greater things for herself and Lawndale High than anything Ms. DeFoe could provide.

***

STUDENT SUICIDE SOLVED

Police announced today that the dead teenager found in the abandoned south-side quarry has been identified one Jane Gupty (aged 17). Although initially considered an accidental death, forensics show that Gupty deliberately jumped off the high cliff overlooking the quarry that has been Lawndale's Lovers' Lane since time immemorial.

Gupty's boyfriend, Evan Bischoff (18), helped police with their inquiries but any fears of a date night gone wrong were cleared due to Bischoff being at the Lawndale Lions that night. The police have ruled Gupty's death as suicide and there is no foul play suspected.

Gupty's parents, Lester and Lauren, were horrified and shocked at their adoptive daughter taking her own life. They found no evidence hinting at depression or upset and "cannot understand what could have driven her to such a destructive act of self-determination".

The only clue, according to Bischoff and his fellow track teamers, was a recent assignment at Lawndale High when English teacher Timothy O'Neill instructed his homeroom class to "find a class they are sure to fail at" in order to help them accept failure and improve odds of future success.

The assignment, ironically, has proved to be a total failure and all members of the class have been left miserable and unsatisfied with numerous students losing their places on athletic teams as a result. Had O'Neill not already resigned in shame over this matter, he would undoubtedly have been blamed for Gupty's suicide as her task was "to die a Lane".

Gupty, prior to her adoption, was a member of the widespread Lane family and it is believed jumping off Lover's Lane was an uncharacteristically-gruesome joke as she took her own life.

A memorial service for Gupty is to be held next Monday, with a tribute from famous Lawndale celebrity Tommy Sherman. Sherman was saved from certain death two years ago when Gupty pulled him out of the way of a falling goalpost. "She was there for me," Sherman has reported has saying, "and I was there for her. At least till her parents caused that stink."

In other news, Lawndale High is seeking a new English teacher for an immediate start.

***

"Well, Trent," said Mr. O'Neill, making a mental note to stock up on St. John's Wort for this evening, "I must say that essay was truly phenomenal. But I can't help but recognize a certain dark flair to the prose. Are you sure you didn't get Daria to write this for you?"

"No way, Mr. O," Trent replied calmly. "I mean, she might have helped, but you did ask me to write how the world would be a worse place if I was never born."

The teacher nodded. "You certainly did that," he agreed. "Trent, I'm really impressed in how seriously you're taking these self-esteem classes. When Daria and her sister told me how upset you were, I was only too pleased to offer my services to you."

"Yeah. Thanks for that, Mr. O," Trent said. "I told them I wasn't really that depressed and they said if that was true, you'd be the first to prove it."

O'Neill almost swooned. "Really? Oh, their faith in me is truly rewarding." His smile faded. "Even though they're quick to think I could drive a student to suicide..." His brightness returned. "But the fact is, low self-esteem can get out of hand. If they hadn't got you to me in time, well..."

"I know." Trent smiled. "Anyway, it's good I've got them to look after me. They'll never let me down, not like Janey."

"I know," O'Neill mused, re-reading the essay. "I really like how you wasted that bitch. She shoulda suffered more though. Got an STD or something."

"Maybe I'll write a story about how things'd be if Jane had never been born?" Trent wondered.

O'Neill laughed. "Oh, that WOULD be a good read!" he laughed and turned to glare at Jane. "Wouldn't it, you heartless unworthy piece of crap?"

***

Jane jolted awake. Between the terror of her dreams, the shock of consciousness, and suddenly and unexpectedly being handcuffed and buckled horizontally across the back of an unfamiliar car, all she could do was scream in blind panic.

In a chain reaction, both Quinn and Stacy screamed in horror and fright as well. Finally Stacy spun the wheel, swung the car around a chicane, and the kinetic energy slammed Jane's head against the side of the door, forcing her silent again.

Stacy steadied out the car.

Quinn stared at her in horror.

She opened her mouth to speak.

"Shut up!" Stacy wailed. "It's what Batman would've done!"

***

No one appeared to be on the sixth floor when Daria and Trent arrived. Karen had remained at Raft in case Jane rang that number once more.

As the door to Jane's dorm room clicked open, Trent reflected how utterly un-surprised he was that Daria had her own key. That was probably against the rules, but everyone knew Jane trusted Daria with the key probably more than her own roommate.

Jane's room was pretty small, with a bunk-bed on one side and the rear half covered in drawings like a conspiracy theorist studying sketches. There wasn't much evidence of personality from either inhabitant, unlike Daria's room that seemed almost bespoke.

If Jane was submerging herself in wild college life, none of it was happening here.

"Jane?" called Daria, striding into the room like she owned it and looking around. It was immediately obvious she was gone, and also that she had left without packing any clothes or possessions. Unusual for her, especially now when she put herself before anything and anyone else.

Trent saw a folded piece of paper on a dresser, picked it up and unfolded it. "'Dear everyone, I had to go home to Lawndale for Thanksgiving. Don't know when I'll be back. Love, Janey. PS - sorry for being a completely ungrateful bitch, it's just a phase.'"

Daria glanced at it.

"Jane didn't write that," she declared.

"Yeah. Only I call her Janey."

"I meant more the little smiley faces above the 'i's."

"Oh. That too, I guess. But she's not here, someone wrote this and then the phonecall..."

Daria's eyes narrowed. "It's Quinn."

"Yep. You recognized her perfume too, huh?"

"No, but there's only one person who could convincingly pretend to be Jane on the phone."

Trent replaced the note. "She once said she could pretend to be Jane to me. I thought she was just, you know, being metaphorical."

"Quinn and metaphors don't mix," said Daria, checking the room for any further clues. "But why would Quinn come here to kidnap Jane?"

"Kidnap?"

"Jane never struck me as the type to willingly go on a road trip with Quinn, even before all this. But Quinn knows you're alive, Trent. What's her motivation?"

"She wants to help," said Trent with a shrug.

"Point taken, but I was hoping for something a little more specific. How is kidnapping Jane going to help you? Wait, does Quinn know your family are aware you're alive?"

"...uh, I don't know. I guess I didn't tell her exactly, but wouldn't mom have told everyone?"

"This is just another reminder that people are idiots and we cannot assume they will do logical and rational things," Daria fumed. "If Quinn thinks your family thinks you're dead, then Jane's refusal to go the Thanksgiving get-together will be pissing her off as much as it did me."

"So she's going to drag Janey home kicking and screaming?" Trent asked.

"If she has to," said Daria grimly. "Especially since she blames Jane for everything."

"It's not all her fault," said Trent.

"No, not all - but enough. Trent, you get back to your car and get ready to head back to Lawndale at Warp Speed Five. I'll call Karen and let her know what's up, then follow you down."

Trent nodded. "Sorry I'm causing all this mess, Daria," he said quietly.

"Trent - if you want me to be angry with you, you'll need to wait a few decades before my delirious joy at you being alive wears off. Get the motor running."

***

Perhaps it was familiarity that meant that Stacy's driving wasn't quite as mind-shatteringly traumatic on the return drive. Or perhaps it was because Stacy was now singing at the top of her voice as they hurtled at light-speed down the highway.

"Batgirrrrrrrrrrrrl! Batgirl!" yodeled Stacy happily (way, way too happily). "Where do you come from? Where do you go? What is your secret? Baby! We just gotta know! Batgirrrrrrl! Batgirl!"

Quinn let her head rest against the cool glass window, feeling very tired. Just what the hell had she gotten them all into? What in god's name did she hope to achieve from all this? She'd done all this because of the name of a song she thought she heard Andrea humming! That was craziness! Utter craziness!

Guiltily, Quinn glanced up into the vanity mirror and saw Jane reflected in the backseat. She was sitting upright now; Quinn had insisted Stacy pull over and check that Jane was okay from the second bump to the head. She was, unharmed bar the vicious-looking yellow-purple bruise on her jaw.

Jane had not shouted at them, ranted, or even tried to escape. She glared and sulked, barely saying a word. It was quite clear she did not intend to waste her breath trying to reason with them, or even ask them what they going to do with her.

That bothered Quinn for some reason. Even though it spared them the difficulty of having to shout explanations while hurtling at ludicrous velocity, the silence was... uncomfortable.

No wonder Stacy had started singing.

"Batgirrrrrrrl! Batgirl!
Are you a chick who flew in from outer space?
Or are you here with a tender warm embrace?
Yeah, whose baby are you, Batgirl?"

The car's headlights picked up a sign in the distance that rapidly expanded to list the motorway service station and greasy spoon diner they were about to slice past. Quinn's heart leapt.

"Batgirrrrrl! Batgirl!"

"Stacy, there's a cafe coming up! Pull in there!"

"Huh? Why?"

"We should all eat, get a drink. You know, stop and revive and survive?"

"Oh. Well, if you think so," Stacy shrugged and they began to decelerate to the point they were able to see objects before they'd already passed them.

In a few minutes they'd pulled up outside the service station and parked. "You go in and get something to eat, Stacy," Quinn told her. "A proper meal, and a drink, and bring some stuff back for us, okay?"

"Sure. They should have some pies or something I can takeaway." Stacy called into the backseat. "You want anything in particular, Jane?"

Jane shrugged. "World peace, artistic recognition, slightly less skull trauma?"

Stacy's expression became more pleading. "I could do you some fries and an ultra-cola?"

"Well, low expectations are often met," Jane replied. "You go and get them, caped crusader."

"Yes!" Stacy grinned. "I AM THE GODDAMNED BATMAN!"

So saying, she sprang from the car with the grace of an Olympic sprinter and the glee of a three-year-old and raced for the diner.

"It's nice to know she's adjusting so well to post-Fashion-Club life," Jane remarked.

Silence fell once more.

Quinn broke it. "I thought you'd try and run away. I mean, you're a brilliant runner. You could probably get back to Boston faster than Stacy could drive."

Nothing.

"Of course, you running away started all this in the first place."

Quinn glared at Jane in the mirror. Jane barely looked back.

"I'm not sorry I hit you back then. It wasn't planned, but you've been making me really angry lately. And what you said about Stacy and Trent..."

"Doesn't matter," Jane interjected. "Stacy's barely met Trent, let alone slept with him. She's so skinny she probably doesn't even menstruate yet."

"It does matter, if you would rather want a baby killed than be reminded of your brother."

"It was poor Stacy I was thinking of," Jane replied flatly. "My avoiding Trent-spawn was just a side-benefit."

"You're probably the most evil person I know," said Quinn darkly. "I can't think of anyone who is more cruel, selfish and flat-out mean than you. And don't say 'ooh, you should get out more' or 'wow, you're flattering me' because it's impressing no one. You're just making noises."

"Hey, I'm not to one who kidnapped me."

"Yeah, that took you by surprise," Quinn retorted. "The idea anyone cares about you enough to do that must've come right out of left-field."

"The idea you care about anything is even further out of left-field, Princess," said Jane blandly. "Did you get personality surgery from Dr Shar as well as a nose-job? I've had to experience your empty, self-pitying existence first hand and frankly I was rather hoping never to see your freckled Barbie-Doll face for the rest of my life. So yeah, colour me surprised at your BFAC home invasion."

"Shut up."

"I got the impression you wanted to talk?"

"Well, you seem much happier not talking to people! Like your poor family..."

Jane idly gazed out the window. "Yeah, they're poor all right. In every sense of the word."

"I know they're not perfect! I know they're nowhere near perfect but they're your family and they love you and they need you!"

"Yeah. Only took one guilt-ridden suicide. Quinn, you have no idea what my life has been like. You're only hungry by choice. I have gone weeks without food, living on tap water and charity. For every cheesy after-school special moment of family love, I have three more of being cold, lonely and scared."

"Oh, you had no one, huh?"

"No."

"Not even Trent?"

"Not even Trent. Daria despises you, Quinn. Whatever joy she found in life ended the day you were born. But she still treats you better than Trent ever treated me, looks after you better, cares about you more."

"Trent thought you hated him!" Quinn shouted.

"I did!" Jane shouted back. "I'm glad he's dead! I wish it'd happened sooner! I hope it really hurt! I hope he overdosed on pills and had to wait ages for his guts to burn inside him and every second he wanted someone to come and save him, and every second people did nothing because Trent Lane was a toxic waste of space! Hallelujah! Let joy be unconfined and jubilation reign! Ding-dong, Trent is dead!"

Quinn's fists bunched up and she felt rage surge through her body. She was truly Jake Morgendorffer's daughter because right now she felt ready to rip Jane's arm off and beat her to death with the wet end.

"And you," she rasped coldly, "are alive. At least for now."

"I've been reliably informed that I'm just a walking corpse," replied Jane with equal venom. "So I don't exactly have anything to lose." She folded her arms and looked at the lights of the diner through the car window. "So go ahead, Quinn. Do what you like."

***

"Stop the car."

"Huh?" Trent said, glancing at Daria in the passenger seat. "What's wrong?"

"You are. That's the third time this minute you've let your eyes closed. There's such a thing as micro-sleeps," Daria explained. "You're blacking out for a few seconds and a few seconds is all it takes. Stop the car, and I'll start driving."

Shamefaced, Trent did as he was told. "Guess it's been a bit of a tiring day," he apologized, getting out of the car and letting Daria scoot across to the driver's seat. "I thought the whole thrill of the chase thing would keep me wide-awake."

Daria watched him climb into the passenger seat. "Yeah, well, let's not rely on it," she said, starting the engine and resuming the drive. "You're still not eating properly or sleeping regularly, are you?"

"No," Trent admitted. "Mind you, I never have, so it's a hard habit to get into."

"Maybe I'll let Quinn micro-manage your diet and exercise regime," Daria said with a faint smile. "She's got prior experience with that, and it sounds like she'd adopt you at the drop of a hat."

"She shouldn't have to," Trent sighed, exhaustion getting the better of him. "Your mom's right, Daria. She's got enough to deal with, she doesn't need to worry about me."

"Quinn likes worrying about people," Daria replied. "The day she realized her guardian angel was not a guaranteed presence in her life, she decided she'd be a guardian angel for other people."

"For every man there is a purpose. Let yours be the doing of all good deeds."

"Well, it's one way of getting out of purgatory..."

Daria kept talking, describing Quinn's numerous flaws and shortcomings but never quite losing the note of affection in her voice most people would miss.

Trent closed his eyes. He was very tired, and the gentle vibration of the Plymouth was rocking him like a baby. He felt safer and more loved than he had for a very long time, and sleep gently enveloped him.

And then he began to dream.

And he dreamed of Purgatory.

***

Trent was dreaming his eyes were closed. He opened them but it was still dark, black shapes smudged against blackness. He blinked, unsure of how much time was passing. How long had he been here?

"Where was Trent when the lights went out?" whispered the chill wind at his left ear, like a kiss from a drunken groupie. "In the dark!" it answered itself and cackled quietly.

That was, Trent had to admit, kinda creepy.

"Uh, any chance of a light?" he asked the darkness.

"Smoking is bad for your health," a different voice replied from his right. "But then again, what is? Health is an ideal, never a reality, and can only ever be maintained by the dead! Sorry, I'm digressing. Filthy habit. Almost as bad as smoking. Sorry, doing it again! Oh! You mean light-light? Light to see!"

"Uh-huh."

"I sometimes think sight is overrated, between you and me. I mean when you're in the dark and you can't see anything, you're afraid you're alone. Or even more afraid you're not. But at least you've got hope. Turn the light on and you can't even pretend any more. They say ignorance is bliss for a reason, you know."

"Er, I think I'll take my chances."

"I thought you'd say that."

The evil whisper returned. "You know 'good cop, bad cop'?" it hissed in his ear. "I'm NOT the bad cop. You should have stayed in the night."

"He made his decision," the friendly voice pointed out. "And like so many others, it was the wrong one. Free will is a two-edged chopstick or something along those lines."

"Of course," whispered the tickle on his ear, "what do either of us know? We're just voices in your head."

The friendly voice snorted. "Speak for yourself, padre!"

"Must you do this when we have company?"

"YOU'RE the one that refuses to go to couples' therapy nights, so don't take the moral high-ground here!"

"Um, not to interrupt, but wasn't I going to get some light to see stuff?"

"Are you still here?" rasped the whisper.

And there was light. A door opened and blinding light shone through, dazzling Trent as he realized he was in some kind of cell, but the door reminded him of a rabbit-hutch for some reason.

"There's your light," the voice snapped. "Now will you please bugger off? This is a serious and frank exchange of views on a private working relationship!"

"Your mother warned me about you..."

"Don't you dare bring her into this, you harlot!"

Trent took his chances and stepped out of the cell.

A man was waiting for him. He was average height, weight, middle-aged in a neat suit and spectacles with a bland smile of someone who'd never actually had fun in their entire life. He held a pen and clipboard and an air of contemptuous disappointment.

"Ah, Mr. Lane," he said with all the warmth of a bank manager refusing a loan. "Just in time for the final sentence and execution. I'll be your existential liaison officer for the next phase of proceedings. I am Everything You Ever Hated And Feared, but please call me Mr. Normal if it helps you control your rising sense of dread and panic."

Mr. Normal set off up the corridor that seemed to be a huge metal pipe splashed with brown-rusty stains that might have been dried blood but smelled distinctly of barbecue sauce. Electric lights hung from above, each shaped so they cast corporate logos across the walls.

"Is this purgatory?" Trent wondered.

"Yes, Mr. Lane. Well, strictly-speaking this is an administrative block on the outskirts of the godless void, but yes, purgatory."

"The place for people not good enough for heaven but not bad enough for hell?"

"The very same, sir. However, as you can imagine, the recession is tightening its vice and we are undergoing a severe streamlining and rationalization of the over-arching performance sector."

"Um... what?"

"Cutbacks, Mr. Lane. We can't just keep sucking in everyone who is neither black nor white, can we? We need to process them and send them on their way, up or down. Already paradise and the inferno are suffering declining property values..."

"So, uh, are you going to send me to hell?"

Mr. Normal stopped and looked at him. "It would be most remiss of me to make such a prediction without a full feasibility study and over-arching moral imperative analysis, Mr. Lane." He let out a pleasant laugh that made Trent's skin crawl. "Oh, dear me, no sir. YOU are not being processed, not today. No, no, no, you're just playing your ongoing self-deconstrualist avatar-imperative scenario..."

"Which means?" Trent interrupted.

Mr. Normal kept a sneer from his voice but not his mud-brown eyes. "You've been called as a witness?" he said slowly, as if to a particularly stupid child. "Basically, Mr. Trent, you are there simply to be seen by the selected candidate as they are processed."

"Why me?"

"I'm sure you'll work it out," Mr. Normal said as he checked a sign on the wall giving directions.

One said OUT OF HELL AND UP INTO THE LIGHT with an arrow pointing to the right. Beneath were the words WARNING: WAY IS LONG AND HARD.

Mr. Normal followed that arrow, even though the pipe they were in was one-way and offered no alternatives. Trent followed, briefly distracted by a poster showing an unsmiling smiley face and the slogan NO, YOU ACTUALLY DO HAVE TO BE BEYOND GOOD OR EVIL TO WORK HERE, THAT'S A BASIC REQUIREMENT.

The pipe ended in what seemed to be a mass of gears and wheels, like they were on the other side of a massive clock-face. The clicks and whirs of the mechanisms provided a tune identical to the Macarena.

Mr. Normal knocked on the wall politely, four times with the emphasis on the final knock. The cogs and gears moved anticlockwise and the whole end of the pipe slowly began to open on rusted hinges.

From the other end of the pipe, there were screams and poundings on metal like a cross between a lunatic asylum of patients going cold turkey and a zoo where all the animals had been kept hungry. It was noise of violence and anger and total despair.

It was still better than the Macarena, though.

Mr. Normal shoved Trent through the portal into whatever lay beyond the pipe. Trent tripped and fell to the ground, soaked in dirty brown bong water. The door swung shut behind him, silencing the screams of all the other inmates.

Trent peeled himself up out of the sludge and looked around the huge domed room he was in. The ceiling was a huge, impassive eye right out of the logo for 'Sick, Sad World' gazing down at them.

The room looked like some courtroom or other. Mr. Normal was the judge sitting on a throne with a dirty white wig, while Mr. Normal sat below writing in a book with a huge biro. The bailiffs were Mr. Normal, and so was every single one of the jury.

Trent was on a balcony, and next to him was Daria, and Tom, and also Wind, Summer, Penny, his parents, Jesse, Max and Nick. They all looked defeated, and none of them noticed him.

They all looked down into the courtroom.

At the dock stood Jane, hands tight around the metal spikes at fenced her in.

"In this final outflow-processing-review-situation situation," said Judge Normal, "we find you to be guilty of rejecting all your friends and family and also that you were justifiably-provoked by the apathy of your so-called relatives. You are thus sentenced to be processed before this Sell-Out Court of Societal Conventions immediately."

The dock faded and Jane fell to the floor before the judge, looking small and vulnerable.

"You will be freed from all guilt and concern for your biological family and close friends. You will be free to leave this court without recrimination or shame. However, all creative endeavors will be denied and you will never paint nor sculpt nor be inspired again. Your future will be free from both pain and joy, and reduced from life to existence."

Jane wanted to speak, but she couldn't.

"The sentence has been found to be just and will be carried out immediately. You will remain in purgatory for all eternity."

"No! This isn't fair!" Trent shouted.

"Oh, but it is," Jane said, not looking at him. "There's nothing crueler than when bad things happen to people to deserve it."

A wall panel slid back to reveal a completely bland and colourless room barely the size of a phone box. The rear wall was a mirror. Jane walked into the booth, staring blankly at her own reflection.

"You are now forever alone, but certain never to be abandoned again. You will never lose faith or hope again, but nor will you achieve it."

Trent was screaming, but he couldn't hear himself.

"Seira Juana Lane, you have made your meager and simpler choices, rejected chances and accepted others that do not require sacrifice and all those decisions have brought you here. Congratulations."

The door closed and Trent realized that this would be the last anyone ever saw of his baby sister, trapped in a tiny room staring at her own reflection. Never again to see any meaning or beauty in a world that was now just violent, pointless nothingness.

So Trent jumped off the balcony.

He landed painfully. Every bone in his legs felt like they'd exploded and the pain clogged at the very back of his neck, boiling just below his brain.

None of the Mr. Normals tried to stop him. The door was already sealed shut and Jane was out of reach. Trent crawled pathetically over to the door, scratching at it with bitten-short fingernails.

"It was never good enough, Mr. Lane," said one of them. "The love of her parents and siblings playing with her and letting her help them. Music, singing, sunshine, moonlight, the warmth of summer, the coolth of winter, the smell of flower, the laughter of friends, the first kiss, the warmth of a lover's body in her bed... Nothing would have satisfied her, Mr. Lane. She was never worthy of any of you."

"You don't get to decide that!" Trent shouted, hurling his shoulder at the door. "Janey wasn't put on this earth to impress you or meet your standards! If she's screwed up, then it's not her fault, it's mine!"

"We must all take responsibility for our actions. No one forced her to do such things. She chose this path."

"She chose it because I let her down!"

"And why did you let her down? Because your parents let you down? Because their parents let them down? She allowed herself to suffer, and chose to close herself off rather than heal. Who are you to decide to take that fate away from her?"

Trent's normally-calm face was twisted in rage. "Who do I HAVE to be to take that fate away from her?!" he demanded. "I am her big brother and you are going to let her go or be very, VERY sorry you didn't!"

"It's too late," said Mr. Normal simply. "You waited too long, Mr. Lane. You have passed the point of no return. You cannot help someone who does not want to be helped. You of all people should know this." He frowned and tilted his head. "Come to think of it, aren't you dead?"

Trent wanted to object.

But he wasn't in purgatory any more, he was just tumbling through a soundless void everywhere and nowhere. He might have screamed but there was no one and nothing to here. There was no end, no sleep, no release.

Unpleasant. But not undeserved.

One plus one is only two
Trent broke Janey's heart clean through
Will he live? Will she die?
Will my mom bake apple pie?

He'd ruined Jane's life every time he'd tried to help and every time he'd been selfish. Everything he did made it worse. Even if she believed he was dead and gone bad things kept happening to her. The very fact he ever existed. He'd damned Jane the moment his mom had introduced him to that slimy red baby.

And not just Jane. He'd stopped Monique and Jesse doing anything with their lives. He'd been an annoyance and a disappointment to his teachers, a shame to the rest of the family. Daria had asked so little from him and he'd failed her every time.

He was toxic. A cancer. A waste of food, a thief of oxygen. He was pretty crap at music, too.

Hated by family, abandoned by school, rejected by girlfriends, a physical wreck, a talentless fool, undeserving of happiness or love, worthless and unwanted, unable to achieve oblivion.

Unworthy of heaven or hell.

Welcome to purgatory.

Admission is free to those who deserve their fate.

"Oh no you don't," growled a voice behind him.

Small, warm hands grabbed his arms. He was wrenched backwards. He smelled perfume, caught a glimpse of long hair a rich orange colour, bright green eyes, and a smiling yellow face with a circular halo above it.

"You promised me, Trent! YOU PROMISED ME, DAMMIT!"

And Trent clung onto her as she hauled him away from the comforting darkness. They were rising up through the darkness, all the self-hatred and loathing and despair not touching her as she saved him.

He wasn't dead. He wasn't too late.

There was still hope.

And its name was Quinn.

***

Stacy bundled herself back into the driver's seat of Sandi's mom's car, with a mouth full of cheese-fries. She was beginning to get a little pudgy, she noticed, probably because she wasn't in a state of total anxiety and panic to burn off the calories.

"Here you go," she said, handing over a plastic-covered salad pita wrap to Quinn and a microwaved hotdog into the backseat for Jane to catch with her cuffed hands. "I got you some Ultra Colas too," Stacy added, taking cans from her coat pockets.

"Thanks," said Quinn quietly, pulling the plastic off her wrap and munching it.

"Oh," Stacy said to Jane, "I've got some aspirin and car sickness pills if you need them."

"Nothing for a concussion?" Jane asked flatly, taking a bite of her hotdog without enthusiasm.

"Uh, no," Stacy admitted. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"Well, if you have to do Batman-related karaoke, how about Kiss by a Rose for a change?"

"Sure!" said Stacy brightly. "Anyway, we should be back in Lawndale in an hour. Are we gonna drop her off home or what?" she asked Quinn.

"I don't know," Quinn grumbled. "Maybe this is all a waste of time. She's beyond help."

"You don't mean that," Stacy said confidently.

"Oh yes she does," said Jane sourly.

"Jane needs our help," Stacy repeated. "That's the whole point of an intervention, right?"

"I don't need any help from anyone," Jane told her.

Stacy twisted round to look directly at the unwilling passenger in the back. "Jane. You've lost your big brother, of course you need help," she said gently. "You need to be home with your family and your loved ones. And they need you to be home."

"Taking me back to Lawndale is not going to make anything better, Stacy Rowe," Jane said calmly.

"You're not the first person to lose someone they loved, Jane," said Stacy gently. "You're not the only one who couldn't stop someone in their family from killing themselves."

Quinn groaned. "Stacy, don't do this..."

"I have to, Quinn," said Stacy firmly. "Plus, I owe Jane."

"You don't owe me anything," Jane snapped.

"Then I owe Daria!" Stacy snapped back. "I know how lonely she is, how important you are to her! And you need help, precisely because you don't think so!"

"Stacy..." Quinn was almost pleading now.

"You never met my dad," Stacy said, looking Jane right in the eye. "You never will. He's dead, and he killed himself, just like your brother did."

Quinn winced. "No, this isn't like that..."

Stacy ignored her. "I was seven. My dad was at work a lot, and he was getting really upset with my mom. I wanted to spend the fall vacation with my uncle at the racetrack. My dad said no, said he wouldn't even let me visit him because, I dunno, airplane prices were up. I was angry and I said 'Oh, I hate you!' and went upstairs to sulk. I never saw him again because that night he went out in the car, put a hose from exhaust pipe into the driver's seat and turned the engine on."

Jane said nothing. There was still a resentful look on her face, but not the scorn of before.

"My dad was my idol. He was the cleverest, bravest, most amazing man I knew. When he and my mom argued, he was always the one who was right. He kept talking about life insurance so we'd be all fine when he was gone. I thought he was right, but I never thought he'd be gone. I never thought we'd lose him. My mom was angry, because she knew that he wasn't worried about dying, he wanted to die. I didn't know. My mom and dad didn't want me to know how bad he was, how upset he was. I didn't know and I couldn't help. Couldn't even try to help."

Stacy wasn't crying. Quinn was.

"The last time I ever saw him, I was angry with him and I said I hated him," Stacy said. "I know that. And my mom knew that. The next morning the cops woke us up, because they found my dad's car. My mom cried a lot that day. She's never cried since. I got sent to my uncle after all. I didn't get to go to the funeral. Apparently I didn't miss much."

A long pause.

"Sucks to be you," Jane said quietly.

"Every day my mom told me it wasn't my fault. That it wasn't me saying I hated him that made him kill himself. Every day, I didn't believe her. I was so scared if I said anything wrong, people would hurt themselves. They'd kill themselves. I got really anxious. Everyone thinks I'm just stupid and hysterical. Only four people outside my family know about this, Jane. Quinn, Sandi, Tiffany and you."

Stacy cracked open a can of Ultra Cola and drained it, swishing the dregs around her mouth.

"People wonder why I hung around them. When Sandi can be such a bitch and Tiffany so dumb and Quinn... being so much better than me. Because they are my friends, Jane. They know everything about me and they know what I said to my dad. And they forgive me. Not once, not ever, no matter what happens, they ever blame me for my dad killing myself. When you and Daria helped me that day at the fair, I asked Quinn 'Would they still have been so nice if they knew the truth?' and she said yes. No hesitation."

Quinn glared back at Jane. "I'm a bad judge of character, it seems."

"I don't think you're to blame," Jane said. "But then, I always agree with what the cool kids say."

"Last year, on the tenth anniversary, I broke down," Stacy said quietly. "I really broke. Sandi and Quinn weren't around, and all I had was Tiffany. You know Tiffany, she couldn't look after a plastic goldfish. But she wanted to help me. When my mom came in to tell me off, Tiffany yelled at her. Well, she spoke louder than normal. She said to my mom, 'What do you think is wrong with her? She's feeling guilty she told her dad he hated her and then he killed himself.'"

"Tiffany, huh? What a poet," said Jane flatly.

"And my mom told me the truth. What really happened with my dad. You see, we're always told that people who kill themselves are weak and selfish and they ruin the lives of everyone around them." Stacy gazed somewhere they couldn't see. "My dad was away on business. His friend was really upset his girlfriend left him. My dad took him to a strip bar, you know, to cheer him up. But then one of the strippers had this psycho boyfriend who tried to kill her with a needle. I mean, like, a syringe. My dad tried to help her and got stabbed in the arm with it."

"I guess the needle wasn't clean?" Jane asked.

"The psycho was HIV positive," said Quinn darkly. "He thought he'd got it off the stripper. He hadn't, so he wanted to infect her. He got Stacy's dad instead."

"My dad got tested. Back then... well, they don't have the medicine they have today. Back then, HIV and AIDS, it was... well, you know what it was like. My dad was so scared what was going to happen. He was scared he'd pass it on to my mom and me. He thought it was going, I dunno, eat his soul or something." Stacy took a deep breath. "He killed himself because he thought it would help us. That he was protecting us."

Jane contemplated her half-finished hotdog. "He was wrong," she said simply.

"Yeah," Stacy agreed quietly. "He was wrong. If we had talked about at the start, we could have helped him. If my mom had told me what happened at the start, I wouldn't have spent all of middle school and high school thinking it was my fault. And Tiffany fixed it all by making us sit down and talk." Stacy looked back at Jane. "So that's why we're intervening with you, Jane. Because doing nothing won't help. Thinking it'll sort itself out without us will make things worse. You're either going to spend the rest of your life hating yourself like me, or switched off like my mom. I am not going to let that happen to you. For your sake, for Daria's sake, hell, for my sake."

Stacy stuffed her empty cola can into the garbage bag and put on her seat-belt.

"So, unless anyone has anything to add to that, we're going back to Lawndale faster than Commissioner Gordon can switch on the Bat-Signal!"

Moments later, the four-wheel drive screeched out of the car park and out onto the motorway before hurtling at top speed into the night.

Less than thirty seconds later, a battered blue Plymouth followed in its wake.

***

I hate Jane Lane.

I hate her. It is that freaking simple.

Now, I've said I've hated a lot of things in my life. I've said it so much I think "hate" has come to mean "for the next few seconds annoyed by", and I've said it about people I love - like mom and dad and Daria - or things that never really meant a damn - English projects, double-booked dates, that time I stubbed my toe and cracked my toenail. I guess it's been really easy for me in my life that I've never really, truly, properly, honest-to-god hated anything.

Until now.

Until Jane.

And we all know why. It's not like I leapt to a decision or anything like that. I've known her for three years. She's always been a bit weird, weird like Daria, weird like sometimes I think we're speaking two different languages that only share odd words. She's a good painter, she's clever, she's the one person Daria cares about most in the world outside the family. So we weren't besties, so what? I didn't mind her around the place. She was nice, she made Daria happy, and her colour sense is second to none (the Fashion Club would have welcomed someone with her makeup judgement no questions asked), so yeah, I always assumed the worst I'd say about Jane was that she was a loser. And even then I don't mean a failure, just someone who isn't popular. Hell, Daria and Jane would take that as a compliment.

But that was then. This is now.

It's not like I wasn't there. It's not like I wasn't the one defending her every step of the way. I wasn't surprised it was some dumb luck that stopped her from calling Trent, that it was all just meaningless worry that drove him to the edge; it was what I told him at the time. I was a bit angry at Jane then, but I didn't hate her.

And then I heard that she didn't care that Trent was dead.

Even then - even freaking then! - I gave her a chance. Hey, I thought, maybe she's just switched off or whatever? People grieve in different ways. Maybe this is the only way she's stopping herself chucking herself off a bridge like Trent. Maybe it's not what it seems. Maybe she needs help.

And then I saw her today. Listened to her insult my friend, tell her she couldn't be trusted to look after a baby, say that Trent was so worthless and despicable that no one should bear his children. She told me she did care that Trent was dead, in the sense she absolutely hated him. She imagined much worse things happening to him than actually did and the sick bitch actually enjoyed it. She laughed about stuff that would have scared me if I saw it in a movie, and she was saying it about Trent - the one guy I've ever met who still cares about me even though I would never date him.

How dare she.

How the hell dare she!

How dare someone so important to Daria and Trent be so utterly horrible and evil!

I could have hit the door locks, got Stacy to turn a sharp corner and thrown her out onto traffic and let her artistic talent stand up to high-speed asphalt and oncoming cars. I could have got behind the wheel and reversed over her again and again until her face was made all flat under the tires. I could have tied her stupid raven-black bangs to the rear bumper bar and dragged her along the highway by her hair. And those weren't even the most extreme options I thought of.

But why the hell was I even trying to help this evil bitch?

I mean, she doesn't want help. She's quite clear that she doesn't even think she needs it. For her, she needed Trent like an ovarian cyst and now he's gone all is good. Her only regret is she didn't make Trent suffer more when she had the chance. She says she often thought about smothering Trent with a pillow when he was asleep, but didn't because it wouldn't hurt enough and she wanted to see the life go out of his eyes. She says every birthday she wished Trent would die horribly. She broke up every girlfriend he liked to make sure he wasn't happy, and even pretended not to get phone calls so as to screw his band over. She says when she left for BFAC, Trent begged her to stay in touch and she took extreme satisfaction into laughing at his stupid goateed face.

All that and other stuff too. Stuff that grosses me out and probably would be familiar if I had an older brother.

Oh, and the whole Daria and Trent thing? Apparently that was Jane being nasty too. Because Daria was too young, Trent could never go for her and she liked dangling the unobtainable treat in front of him. She really got a kick out of making him realize he'd never be in her league and telling him that Daria had only gone for Tom because Trent made her so unhappy.

Yeah, so, she's probably lying. Probably. But she's still saying it. Owning it, like she's proud of what she might have done.

And therefore I hate Jane.

And why am I trying to help her?

Let me tell you a story. A long time ago, back in Highland, it rained one day. It rained so much that the sport's day had to be cancelled and everyone had to stay indoors for school and the teachers decided to shut all the stupid students up with the ancient tradition of putting a movie onto a crappy TV and making us watch it. Hey, don't knock it, it works.

They showed us this film called 'Escape from New York'. It was an old action film set... actually, it was set the year we came to Lawndale, but back then was spooky and far-distant future. America had put a huge wall around New York and turned it into a prison, and just left the prisoners to go all feral and evil. One day, the President's plane crashed in New York and the POTUS was captured by the crazy criminals. Plus he was also holding a cassette tape - remember those? - which had, I dunno, the secrets to nuclear power on them or something.

So the CIA or FBI or whoever decide to rescue the POTUS by sending in Kurt Russell, this guy called "Snake" with an eye-patch who hates the government and everything to do with it. They implant this little bomb in his neck and say it'll blow up in 24 hours, and they'll only defuse it if he gets POTUS and the cassette back from Manhattan. Nice. Anyway, that's the movie, basically - Kurt Russell finds the President and gets him back over the wall with, like, five seconds to spare or whatever. And while he's in New York, Kurt meets these other guys who help him out, like this sweet little old guy who drives a taxi or a stripper with a truly impressive set of abs and able to run really fast in high heels.

It's all going well until the last bit. Kurt, POTUS and everyone are about to climb over the wall when the bad guys turn up with bombs and guns and stuff, and everyone except Kurt and the President gets killed. On the other side of the wall, Kurt gets the bomb defused and goes up to the President and says "How do you feel about all our friends who just got killed?" and the President is all "Well, it's very sad, but life sucks, you know? Can I have that cassette please?"

So Kurt gives him the cassette and walks off and then we find out he deliberately gave the POTUS the wrong cassette, and the real one, well, he just smashed that up so no one could use it.

The movie ends and everyone in that class room was cheering and yelling, even me. Not Daria, of course. I'd ended up sitting next to her for some reason (back in Highland everyone knew she was my sister, so we often got shoved together since everyone hated our family). Daria looked at me and, well, basically it was like this...

DARIA: You think that's a happy ending?

ME: Duh, Daria! Kurt totally got his own back on those guys!

DARIA: And that means America no longer has the knowledge for nuclear energy and Kurt made sure the rest of the world saw our humiliation. The USA has lost its only bargaining tool and will probably be invaded a dozen times before the week is out, but Kurt got his own back, so that's a happy ending.

ME: Oh, yeah, but, well, the America in that movie was all corrupt and twisted and stupid anyway!

DARIA: Because they imprisoned criminals instead of killing them all on the spot?

ME: Well, no, but... they were the bad guys! They put a bomb in Kurt's neck!

DARIA: They promised to take it out when the job was done. And they kept their promise. It's not like they didn't ask Snake politely to save the entire USA and the President first, was it?

ME: The President was a total jerk, though?

DARIA: Yeah, I bet you'd totally be calm after two days of being physically and emotionally tortured by corrupt serial killers. But he still went back to save Kurt, though, didn't he?

ME: He didn't give a damn about all the people that died to get him out of there!

DARIA: He didn't ask them to help him. And they were only helping him to get a free pass out of jail, not because they were good people. They also deliberately put themselves in fatal danger going across a bridge they knew was full of explosives. POTUS didn't have any way of preventing them from dying, and he didn't leave them behind until they were dead. So should he really be weeping buckets over convicted criminals who would have left him to die if there was nothing in it for them? Kurt had to be forced at gunpoint to do it.

ME: So you're saying Kurt was the bad guy in the movie?

DARIA: ...no. I'm saying the movie was full of people who were both good and bad, but some were more likable than others. Kurt had all the cool fight scenes, quips and natural charisma, so we like him even though he murders half the other characters in selfish cold blood. We hate the President because he seems like a jerk, even though he only kills Isaac Haynes in self-defense and saves Kurt's life. The movie made you believe it has a righteous ending, because it knows if you think about it you'll realize that life isn't so black and white.

That's why I'm trying to help Jane.

Because I realized then that some jerks are good people who have done bad things and some heroes are total assholes who simply haven't been caught yet. I'm smart enough to know I don't know everything. So while I hate Jane for everything she's done, I'm not going to be the one to say she doesn't deserve the help that Stacy, Daria and Trent think she needs.

I hate Jane Lane.

But then, I never said I'm only allowed to help people I like.

***

"Say, Helen, is it me or are you drinking more?"

The silence at the dinner table had been pleasant and companionable up to that point. With both daughters away, husband and wife had had plenty of time to discuss their days at work and other topics of interest. There wasn't much left to say and so they were eating their lasagna wordlessly. And then Jake asked that question.

Helen's eyes flickered to the empty glass beside her plate and the bottle of wine that was rapidly just becoming a bottle. "What makes you say that, Jake?" she asked innocently, slicing up another mouthful of dinner.

"Well, just noticing the old wine rack's getting a little slimmer," Jake said with forced cheer. "I mean, it's not empty or anything but... well, sometimes you just notice little things like that. And it's not like you're letting it affect your work, or setting a bad example for the girls, or anything like that."

"You think I'd do that?"

"No way, Helen! I know you could always drink any man under the table, or any woman, and be raring for a lecture in the morning," Jake laughed confidently. "You'd have to have drunk a town dry before it affected your, uh, performance. But still, you seem to be drinking more than you used to."

Helen arched an eyebrow and emptied the last of the red wine into her glass. "Well, Jake, I'm not going to deny it," she said. "I used to only drink on special occasions. But now Daria's gone and Quinn's not far behind, I suppose I have less to occupy my time. What was it Coyote once told us?"

Jake grinned. "'Wine is here to be drunk and so are we!'"

They both laughed.

Helen sipped from her glass. "I suppose in a way I'm still sad about Trent," she said at last.

"Oh?" asked Jake. "I didn't think you were that upset."

"Not that upset? Jake, a young man barely older than our children killed himself!" scolded Helen. "Someone we knew and cared about is dead and you think I'm not upset about it?"

"Well," Jake shrugged, "you didn't act upset. Well, you weren't happy about it, I never said you were."

"Someone has to be the grown-up in this ridiculous family," snapped Helen, swigging down the rest of her glass. "Everyone else seems to be falling apart in grief and I do it too, well, what will happen to the rest of you?"

Jake was quiet.

"This" family included both the Morgendorffers and the Lanes, of course. It always had, long before Lawndale. Jake had told Helen all about the first girl he ever loved, a beautiful flower child with blue eyes called Amanda, and how their respective families had split them up. Amanda had been rejected by her family, disowned and forgotten and left to travel on the road to an uncertain future. Jake, unable to find her, had been on the verge of giving up altogether when Helen had given him a reason to keep going. Perhaps it was taking Amanda from him that had been the one reason Jake had never been able to forgive his father, even after all these years, or perhaps not.

And then they'd moved to Lawndale on the same street where Amanda was now living. And Daria had become best friends with Amanda's youngest daughter, and had a huge crush on her youngest son. And Amanda's eldest son looked the spitting image of his father, but not Amanda's husband Vincent. Oh that day when Jake had given Jane a lift home and discovered precisely who Amanda Lane once was. That was awkward.

It was a mercy Helen had been so tolerant of the whole business, able to understand and forgive. Amanda, of course, was just as understanding. The three of them had agreed to let sleeping dogs lie and not bring up the fact that Daria and Jane were technically related. It was a weird string of coincidences that had brought them back together, but they had lived their own lives long enough to keep going. They'd been on good terms ever since.

Until Trent disappeared.

"They screw you up, your mom and dad," mused Helen quietly, misquoting Phil Larkin.

"We're doing better than our parents, honey," Jake argued. "I never hurt my girls the way my bastard of a father would have, and you've never played favorites with them like your mother did."

Helen went to get another bottle of wine. She had spent the best part of two decades not playing favorites, which was harder than she expected. She felt closer to Daria, more proud of her, yet Quinn was so much less hard work, so easy to deal with, so conventionally perfect. She sometimes wished she only had one daughter, if only so she could focus completely on whichever one it was, and then hated herself.

"Honey," Jake said, following her out of the kitchen. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"I told Trent to take a hike," said Helen, cracking the top off a bottle of red. "I knew how upset he was, but I told him he wasn't my problem and he shouldn't dump all his crap onto poor Quinn."

Jake looked disappointed. "Well, he shouldn't have," he said quietly.

"I should have helped him, though! God, Jake, how often has he stayed over? Sometimes I think we've spent more time with Trent than his own parents have. We took him in, we took Jane in... Trent was our problem!" Helen poured herself a fresh glass. "We should have helped him. No, I should have helped him. You would have helped him right away, Jake, and so would Daria."

"Honey, we would have tried to help," Jake said gently. "It doesn't mean it would have worked. Some people, you know, they're beyond saving. I don't know if Trent was there, and we might have saved him, but we might not. You can't beat yourself up over what might or might not have happened, can you?"

"No, no, you're quite right," said Helen bitterly, sipping from her glass. "Twenty years of Amanda and Vincent drove him to suicide. Or twenty years without them because of some goddamn crap about butterflies. How the hell were we supposed to fix any of that?"

"Amanda and Vince aren't bad people, Helen."

"No, but they're bad parents, Jake. Good friends, bad parents. How Jane's turned out halfway sane I don't know. If she hadn't met Daria she'd either have become a serial killer or just killed herself by now." Helen took another sip. "All those hippie values from the sixties with no lick of realism. Even Coyote and Willow had more maturity back then and they were out of their skulls more than inside them!"

Jake took the wine and poured himself a glass. "Amanda loves her kids, Helen," he said.

"It doesn't mean she's a good mother, Jake. Because there are so many ways to fail your children but she failed the worst, Jake. She made her child feel so lonely and hopeless and unloved that he thought there was nothing for him to live for, that the world would be better without him. Even us, Jake. Trent thought him being alive made us so unhappy we'd be glad he was dead. That's what Amanda did, Jake, even though I know she would never want it."

Jake drank his glass.

"I suppose I can always comfort myself with that," said Helen, sounding disgusted with herself. "I may be a terrible mother but I've never made my daughters feel so worthless and unloved they want to take their own lives."

"You're not a terrible mother."

"It's why I'm so scared about Daria's little deadpan mask," Helen continued as if he hadn't spoken. "All those teachers and counselors thinking she's depressed and miserable and wants to end it all... I know Daria's not suicidal, you know it, we both know that's how she is. But what happens if Daria gets upset, Jake? What if she ends up suicidal? What if everyone just thinks she's joking as always? What if she needs help, like Trent needed help, and no one does anything?"

"They will," said Jake confidently. "Remember how upset Daria was after that business with Tom. She went to you, Helen. I mean, just saying that makes it sound serious! If Daria needs help, she'll get it, and we will know about it. Everyone will. Yeah, Daria doesn't make friends easily, but she does make friends. She's got Jane and Karen and Tom, and Quinn too. And Amy and Rita. And, I know they're not good parents, but Amanda and Vincent would help her out too. If they can."

"She loved Trent," said Helen dully. "Maybe it was just a crush, but it was still more than she'd given anyone else before. And Trent didn't use her. He treated her right, made her realize he was a poor choice." She laughed sadly. "Trent was probably the best son-in-law you could have, because he knew he was the worst. He deserved better than what we gave him, Jake."

"We gave him a place he was always welcome, Helen," Jake said gently. "He knew that. And, yeah, there was this stupid phone business, but he knew we cared about him as much as Jane. And Quinn made sure he knew that. And, come on, sweetie, we don't actually know for sure he's dead."

"Quinn's in denial," said Helen angrily.

"Just because you're in denial doesn't mean you're wrong," Jake replied. Then he looked left and right, as if to make sure that no one was observing them. "See, I checked on Amanda last week, you know, after she told us that we didn't need to worry about her? Actually, it was your idea..."

"Suicidal tendencies run in the family," Helen agreed. "I didn't want Amanda to end up like her son."

"My point is, Amanda wasn't so upset as before. Her eyes weren't sad any more."

"Maybe she forgot all about Trent, just like he thought would happen?"

Jake shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "We don't know Trent is dead. He drove off and left a note, but Quinn was the last one who saw him and she's sure he wasn't going to kill himself. I think Trent's alive and he rang up Amanda and told her he was still alive. That's why she's getting the family back together for Thanksgiving, to tell them all he's alive."

"Why hasn't she told us?" asked Helen, draining our glass.

"Maybe she wants to tell Vincent and the other kids first? I mean, it's family."

"Family," said Helen quietly. "You know, it strikes me that Quinn is the only one who's never doubted that Trent's alive. She's been absolutely certain from day one. Almost like she knew for sure he was alive."

"Well, Quinn had faith in him..."

"There's faith and there's certainty, Jake. Quinn knew, actually knew Trent was alive." She frowned. "But how? Trent could kill himself at any time. Or get caught in an accident. So how would she know? She has to be in contact with him."

"But how?" asked Jake. "I mean, Trent doesn't have a cell phone, does he?"

"Doesn't he?" asked Helen softly. "And Quinn lost her cell the day Trent disappeared." Swaying slightly, she reached down and grabbed the phone headset. With one overly-manicured figure, she punched out a specific phone number, placed the headset to her ear and listened.

"Uh, Helen, who are you...?"

"Shhh!"

A few moments later, the phone was answered.

Helen's eyes narrowed and she gave a predatory smile. "Why hello, Trent, and good evening to you too..."

***

Afternoon, all! Yes, it's me and my compatriots again - we were so disappointed by the Game of Thrones finale we took a wrong turn through causality and ended up in a reality where Jane Ianuzzo had butchered half of Baltimore but she did with such a happy smile. We headed back along the destiny-line and ended up in Trent's purgatory. Yes, yes, I know it was all a dream but there are worlds out there where you're the dream and all the Freudian symbolism is one whacking great coincidence. Freud? Fraud more like, that coke-addled nasal-sex holier-than-thou genital-obsessed baboon...

I digress. Frequently.

Anyway, we were slightly discombobulated to find ourselves back in this particular narrative (and it's a bit confused, isn't it? Has Trent been "dead" for three weeks or three months? Mm? Both inquiring and pedantic minds want to know!) which we thought we'd left ages ago. Anyway, as we're going back down the casual nexus from effect B to cause A, we got to see how Lawndale coped with the demise of its unfortunate son.

Yes, that is a Creedence Clearwater Revival reference. Well spotted. Your parents must be so proud. Anyway, we're off again and trying to get back in the galactic restoration period of the third century of the second calendar. I still can't believe the fate of a mighty empire rested on a planet named "Geddon". I suppose the moon "Arma" was double-booked that day? Sheesh.

Anyway - just how did the world cope without Trent Lane, mmm?

***

It all starts with an innocuous exchange in an English classroom (as many things often have). The not-Fashion-Club-any-more are taking their seats, talking loudly over the din as the other students do likewise. Mr. O'Neill, dear Skinny Timmy, is idly listening to their voices as he gets ready for their lesson, and whether it's because he still worships Quinn as a potential brain or just misses her sister, that's his business.

"So, Quinn," says sweet Stacy, rummaging through racing car magazines for her exercise book, "uh, who was that woman at your house last night?" It may not have been a Fashion Club meeting, but they still conglomerate the same way.

"Oh, that's Amanda," Quinn replies. "Amanda Lane, you know, Jane's mom?"

"Your sisterrrrr's best frieeeeeeeeeeend?" Tiffany asks, firing on at least two cylinders today.

"She looked pretty upset," Sandi observes. "Did something happen to Jane?"

"No, her brother Trent," Quinn explains with a sigh. "He left town a week ago and everyone thinks he's gone and killed himself. I mean, yeah, he did leave a suicide note but that could have been unconnected."

"It sounnnnnnds connected," Tiffany points out.

"Look, Trent's still alive, I'm sure of it, it's just I can't prove it at the moment."

"Ohh," says Stacy sadly. "Poor Amanda. Poor Jane. How are they coping?"

"Stacy," Sandi interjects, "this isn't a fit subject to gossip in class about. Let's talk about it in lunch before any overly-emotionally-sensitive people get into a tizzy about it..."

Which is when the class see that Skinny Timmy is weeping silently.

"Aw craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap," concludes Tiffany, saying for once what everyone is thinking.

***

The teacher's lounge. Have you been there? No, well, you're not missing much. Timothy sits in his chair, sobbing uncontrollably. You know, Timmy used to have a real problem with names at the start? Well, that was because he had this endearingly-stupid idea of always remembering every last student he taught. While only a handful of the later years stick in his memory, he does recall the first few generations. He remembers Trent Lane, especially when the young man helped the teachers out over their strike. He liked Trent. He'll miss him.

"I wonder how Jane will be coping," Claire DeFoe asks softly, cradling a cup of tea in her hands. She is fonder of Trent's sister than Trent himself, but still had a smile for the calm young man who often helped them transport art supplies, the sleepy smile and simple wisdom. She knows that Jane, perhaps the best student she'd ever had, adored her big brother and the thought she has lost him is depressing beyond belief.

"Probably a hell of a lot better without that be-testicled parasite clinging onto her like a leech," growls Janet Barch. "The whole stupid, clueless gender should hurl themselves over a cliff the exact way lemmings don't and the world would be a better place for everyone concerned!"

"Your clear MATERNAL CONCERN for the YOUNG AND VULNERABLE students in your care IS OBVIOUS TO ALL, Janet," sneers Anthony DeMartino. "It's just a pity MORE OF THEM don't END THEIR OWN LIVES for YOUR BENEFIT! I'm surprised you would ACTUALLY WANT women to stay alive, as STATISTICALLY-SPEAKING one hundred per cent of ALL MEN exist BECAUSE OF A WOMAN!" Eyes normal, voice low, he adds, "You're part of the problem, Janet, not part of the solution."

"A typical responsibility-dodging male retort!" Janet snaps. "I'd expect no more and certainly no less!"

Even so, Barch does not comment on the suicide again.

"That'll be the seventh one since the millennium," DeMartino sighed.

"Seventh?" asks Mrs. Bennett. I forget her first name, she's not that memorable.

"The seventh student FROM THIS AUGUST INSTITUTE OF LEARNING," DeMartino roars, "who looked upon ALL THE VARIED WONDERS LIFE HAS TO OFFER and SOUGHT BLESSED OBLIVION INSTEAD! The seventh student in three years this school NOT ONLY failed to prepare for life in the outside world BUT ALSO left so vulnerable and insecure THEY CHOSE TO END IT ALL BECAUSE IT WAS A HOPELESS STRUGGLE BEYOND THEIR POWERS!" He sighs, hair going greyer as they watch. "Of course, since none of you seem to have noticed that alarming statistic, it'll probably grow higher every passing month BUT AT LEAST FIFTY PER CENT OF THEM WILL DESERVE IT, WON'T THEY, MS. BARCH?!?"

Janet glares at him. "I'm not responsible for the well-earned inferiority complexes of male students."

"And just what have you done to help them?" asks Claire coldly.

Janet finds some excuse to leave. Playground duty or something. Do they have that in Lawndale High? They do now.

***

Principal Angela Li sees all, knows all and occasionally uses that information for the benefit of others. Occasionally.

Trent Lane hasn't been a student at Laaaaawndale High for over six years. Taking his own life will not bring shame and ignominy to the school. It will bring nothing to the school... will it? Perhaps not. His suicide can be an object lesson, a useful scapegoat to demand more mandatory psychological surveys to weed out any more manic depressives and self-harm risks. Unlike Tommy Sherman's totally pointless and embarrassing demise, Trent Lane's death can become a catalyst to improve student morale and reduce mortality rates.

Surely that's what Li should do? The course of action that benefits her charges the most?

There has to be some positive outcome to this. Otherwise, well, what's the point?

***

OBITUARY

We are saddened to report that former Lawndale High student and professional musician, Trenton Alaric "Trent" Lane, died recently in unclear circumstances at only twenty-four years of age. While his body has yet to be recovered he left a suicide note for his family, detailing his long and courageous battle with depression before the pain became too difficult and unbearable. Trent was not merely sad but imprisoned in a powerful darkness, and his life was taken too soon by his own hand.

Trent will always be remembered as a kind and wise man, a loving brother and son. He was the head singer and lead guitarist of popular local band Mystik Spiral which have vowed to continue their musical career in his memory. Trent is survived by his parents Amanda and Vincent and his siblings Wind, Summer, Penny and Jane.

If you or someone you know is struggling with depressing, crisis helplines and free counseling can be obtained easily...

(Excerpt from the Lawndale Lowdown #1023)

***

"Bummer," sighs Kevin Thompson, reading the school newspaper. "He was kinda cool."

***

Erica Dupri hugs Eclipse, the black cat almost as big as she is, and holds her up to her mother. "You want a cuddle with Eclipse?" she asks, concerned at her mother's sad face and the way she keeps trying not to cry.

"Yeah, sweetie," croaks her mother, patting the couch beside her.

Erica drops the cat and climbs up beside her mother and cuddles around her thin arms and legs. "Did something bad happen?" she asks, wanting to help but at the same time not wanting to know for sure.

"Yeah, sweetie," sniffs her mother. "You remember Uncle Trent? Something really bad happened to him."

"Is he hurt?"

"No," Monique Dupri tells her daughter with a forced smile. "He's not hurting, Erica. Not any more."

***

Axl contemplates the bottle of medicinal alcohol he's been using to sterilize the piercing equipment for a long moment, then opens it and drinks it all in one go. His latest customer is maxing some stink about needing more bits of metal in their navel to match the tattoos, but he'll deal with them later.

He is one friend down. That hurts more than any piercing.

***

If Curtis Stalano is bothered by the death of a classmate, none of the people passing through his toll booth notice.

***

Happy Herb sighs at the news. He liked Trent, and his music. Pity. Still, business is business.

***

"What was that for?" Charles "Upchuck" Ruttheimer III asks his beloved Andrea with a laugh, as upon entering their apartment she kissed him with enough passion to risk sucking his skeleton out through his mouth.

"Just... I don't want you going anywhere," she tells him, looking the redhead right in the eye.

"Alas, sweet Andrea, life will not allow us the full twenty-four-seven sexual olympics we crave..."

"Not that. I, uh... You know Jane's brother?"

"The crybaby or the guitarist?"

"The guitarist. He killed himself."

"Oh," Upchuck sighs. "Poor guy. Jane and Daria must be devastated."

"Probably. But forget them. It's not them I'm in love with, so I want you to promise me something."

"What?"

"If you ever feel that bad, you tell me. Even if we've split up. Even if I'm a swimsuit model and you're some gay fashion designer. You never, ever think you've got nothing to live for."

Upchuck delicately runs a hand over her round face. "Only if you return the favor, my sweet," he coos. "Let us make sure this promise is always remembered by making it..." Lust thickens his voice. "...thoroughly memorable."

You don't need to know what happens next. But Charles and Andrea love each other very much and they hold each other that much tightly from now on. They never really knew Trent, but they understand the pain caused by his loss and neither would wish that on anyone anywhere.

***

Dawn Harris listens to Mystik Spiral on her headphones. She thinks of the afternoon she spent with Jane's brother and how they'd chatted. She thinks of how he'd told her that she reminded him of Aretha Franklin, a woman who never had to worry about being plus-size. How Trent had said she looked beautiful when she smiled, and how he noticed she smiled more at girls like her friend Angel. She thinks of how that one afternoon changed her life, led to her joining the LGBT club of Lawndale High and not remaining satisfied with some younger guy's chubby chaser obsession.

She thinks of how much she owes Trent and how she'll never get the chance to pay him back.

And beautiful, big Dawn Harris weeps in silence.

Angel, her girlfriend, wishes she'd tell her what was wrong and maybe she will, one day.

***

Trent Lane is, quite simply, missed.