XXXX
Once she had composed herself, she walked back inside, not bothering to bring any of the rest of the mail with her, not even bothering to close the door. Jake, the only member of her family who had noticed her mad dash outside, looked at her inquisitively, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "Did you get anything in the mail, kiddo?"
Daria nodded once, slowly. It was not a nod of joy. She listlessly handed her father the letter, watched him read it (it took him longer than it took her), then watched as he crumpled the paper in his hands and began bawling like a baby. Helen came out of the kitchen (cutting off her phone conversation with her boss Eric) to see what was the matter. Taking the crumpled paper from Jake, all she had to do was see that it was from Bromwell, and she could connect the dots between her husband's mood and her daughter's mood, and she threw her arms around her eldest and joined her husband in the crying.
Quinn came downstairs. "What's everybody crying about?" she asked impatiently.
Helen held up the letter. "Your sister didn't get into Bromwell."
Quinn rolled her eyes. "Gawd, so what? Don't you have, like, a safety or whatever it's called? I thought you applied to Raft too." She chuffed out a sigh of resignation. "I'm going over to Sandi's. I'll be back for dinner!"
"Fucking idiot," Daria muttered to herself. If her parents heard, they gave no sign.
Bromwell WAS her safety. It was her raft, literally her life raft. Without Bromwell, her life may as well end today.
XXXX
Daria dialed Tom's phone number. After a few rings, he picked up. "Hello?"
"Hey," Daria answered flatly.
"Hi, Daria!" Tom replied, more enthusiastic. "Did you get your acceptance letter from Bromwell today?"
"I got a letter from Bromwell today," she half-confirmed.
She heard a whoop on the other end. "That's great news, Daria! I knew you could..." He trailed off as something clicked about what Daria had just said. "Wait, you got A letter."
"Mmhmm."
"Not an acceptance letter?" he squeaked out.
"Nope."
The line was silent for a few moments, except Daria thought she heard a faint gasp. Finally, Tom spoke again. "Oh God, Daria, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry...wait! My parents! They have some pull in the school, maybe they could -"
"I think we should break up," Daria interrupted him, seemingly not having heard him.
"Wait, what? Daria, why -"
"Because, Tom," she cut him off again. "You'll be in Bromwell, and I...won't be...and we may as well acknowledge that fact now, so you can get me out of your system and go on with your life." Normally, her voice would have grown more venomous as the sentence wore on, but she simply could not raise the effort to move her voice out of its duller-than-usual monotone it had fallen into since reading the letter.
"Damnit, Daria, wait just a -"
"Goodbye, Tom." She hung up on him, then laid down on her bed.
XXXX
She didn't get up for two days.
Well, that was a lie. She did make the occasional trip to the bathroom. If she was so set on laying down and dying, at least she was going to do it with dignity, and 'dignity' meant 'no shitting yourself'. And her father kept bringing her food, and she kept feeling his guilty stare bore into the back of her skull, so she would sit up and eat a few bites just to make him happy and go away. But other than that, she didn't get up for two days.
On the third day, Tom came over and slid into bed behind her, spooning up to her. "I asked my parents to do what they could to get you a place in Bromwell," he said without preamble. He waited expectantly to see if Daria would respond to that. "They couldn't."
"I figured," Daria finally said. "Whose place would I be taking? Whose life would I be ending?"
"I'm not going."
Daria turned around. "What?"
"I'm not going."
Daria swatted him upside the head. "Are you an idiot? Are you a FUCKING IDIOT? What do you MEAN you're not going?"
He bit his lip, looking into her eyes. "I don't want to live without you, Daria. I love you."
She stared at him for a moment. "Bastard!" She swatted him upside the head again, even harder. "You fucking bastard! You gave up surviving just for me? Stupid fucking bastard!" She punctuated each sentence with a further slap.
Finally growing tired of her abuse, he snatched her hand, pinned it to the wall behind the bed, and snatched her lips into a fierce kiss. She responded in kind, pulling her hand free of his grip only so she could grab the back of his head and pull him even closer towards her.
After a few moments, she pulled away. They were both panting heavily with the force of their embrace. "Take off your clothes," she ordered him. His eyes widened in surprise, but he did not hesitate. She followed suit, and soon they were down to their underwear. He reached into the pocket of his discarded pants and withdrew his wallet. "What are you doing?" Daria asked.
"Um, getting my condom?" he said, eyebrow raised in curiosity.
A nervous giggle escaped his girlfriend's mouth. "As if that matters now," she said, grinning. Grinning, of all things! Tom shrugged, tossed the wallet aside, and they removed their last vestiges of clothing.
XXXX
Afterwards, Daria stood up and moved to the window, not bothering to cover her nakedness. Tom appreciatively eyed her for a moment, before standing up and joining her. Together, they looked out and up, towards the night sky, towards the massive comet due to impact the Earth in under a week's time.
"So you gave up your seat in that old Cold War-era bunker that the government built under Fielding in the 70s," she asked him once again.
"Yeah."
"Did you think about giving the seat to me?" she asked. Her voice wasn't accusatory.
"That's what my intention was the whole time. I gave up my seat, begged the Dean of Students to admit you in my place, but he just went right down to the next person on the waiting list. I knocked three of his teeth out." The last was said with a measure of pride.
She turned away from their impending doom. "I love you."
"I love you too."
They returned to bed.
XXXXXXXXXX
Just your typical "Hey, why is everybody weirdly overreacting to a mundane event OH oh yeah okay" story, haha. It just occurred to me, what if being wait-listed from Bromwell was a death sentence for Daria? This followed as a result.
Originally, I was going to end it with them taking government-issued cyanide pills a la On the Beach, but in the end it seemed a tad too morbid. I might or might not do sequel-ish things for this, one-shot dealies focusing on other characters. Probably not, unless I can think of something interesting to do that hasn't been done before.