PILGRIM
A Daria Fan Fiction
by
Daria, all related characters, and all related situations are ©1993, 1997, 1999, 2000, and 2001 by MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International. All Rights Reserved. All characters were created by Glenn Eichler. Dialogue and events from episode #413, "Dye! Dye! My Darling" appear within this work; said dialogue was written by Glenn Eichler.
All of the above was used without permission.
PROLOGUE: THE HOUNDS OF LOVE ARE HAUNTING
"Yeah. We're the kind of friends who can't stand the sight of one another."
Jane's words, red-hot needles of accusation, replayed in Daria's mind as she lay on her bed counting the cracks in the ceiling. Each crack reminded her of the events of the past few days. Her fractured friendship here, her own divided feelings about the guy who was the cause of it all there, and other such suitably cheerful little glasses of liquefied rat poison scattered about. The phone rang, and so lost was she in her own personal misery that she barely heard it.
"Quinn!" Again it rang. "Quinn! Phone!" No answer. "The hell with it," she said with finality and sat up. Hoping fervently it was Jane, she picked it up from where it lay on the floor and spoke into the mouthpiece with something almost resembling hope. "Hello?"
"Daria?" Any hope of being able to try and put out some of the burning bridges with her friend went up in flames themselves, as it was his voice. The bastard. "It's Tom."
"Oh." Part of her was depressed that it wasn't Jane. Part of her wanted to kiss him, and was afraid of what she might say. Part of her wanted to kill him, and was not in the least bit afraid of saying so. "Hello." A grand beginning.
"I'm not sure how to say this," he began, right before trailing off into silence. It looked like Tommy Boy hadn't had much experience with this sort of thing. What a surprise. She decided to speak for him, her words flooded with guilt.
"You and Jane broke up."
"How did you -?" Amazingly, Tom sounded puzzled.
"She used to be my best friend, before you came along. Who did you think she was going to tell first?" He seemed taken aback by this, as if it was a thought he'd never considered.
"Look... about the other night..."
"I don't want to talk about that. Now or ever. Do you understand me?"
"Daria... I just wanted to say that I'm sorry about all of this." This son of a bitch, she thought, had no right to be apologizing to anyone now, now that it was too late to change a damned thing. The floodgates broke, and white-hot anger rolled out of the deep chasm it had been welling up in since the creature known as Tom Sloane had first stepped between she and Jane. The poor bastard just didn't know what was about to hit him.
"Sorry? How the hell do you get off by saying you're sorry? Are you aware that - thanks to you - I've probably lost the single most meaningful friendship I've ever had? Jane just left here, basically saying that she never wants to see me again. And it's all your fault." She took a breath. "So far as I'm concerned, I don't give a shit what happens to you." Not entirely true, a part of her brain reminded her, along with the memory of a dream she'd had the night before. May Jane forgive her for that one, some day.
"Now, wait a -"
"Fuck you, Tom." You'd just love that, wouldn't you? She wasn't quite sure who the thought was addressed to - the boy or herself. Either way, it was probably true.
"If you'd just -"
"What part of fuck you do you not understand, Sloane?" With that, she hung up and lay back down on the bed. The phone resting on her chest, she stared at the ceiling until she finally fell asleep, the final words of her conversation with Jane haunting her dreams.
"Temporarily, right?"
"I hope so, Daria. I'll see you."
* * *
Jane was sitting on a park bench, slowly savoring the sights and sounds of Lawndale at night. Every second spent here beneath the piss-colored sodium streetlight, with her mind turned off, was a second she didn't have to think about the icicles of heartbreak being driven further into her heart with every passing second. Of course, she couldn't really try and forget about it. That would be like... forgetting about a fishhook puncturing her cornea.
She didn't see how she could trust either of them ever again after this. She'd believed Daria when her friend had said she had no interest in Tom; she really had. She had continually bombarded Tom with accusation after accusation, and discovered she'd believed him when he'd denied them all. She'd finally thought everything was back on track. Yeah, and then a nice long switchblade was planted between her shoulder blades by the two people she trusted the most.
She was in the process of considering homicide, suicide, or some twisted combination of the two when the other woman walked over and ended up changing everything. Monique wandered out of the shadows surrounding the bench and took a seat next to Jane; Jane didn't notice. The taller woman patted her pocket curiously, checking to see if the dagger was still in place. It was. Good.
"Jane," said Monique. It wasn't a question, but Jane didn't answer her anyway. "What's up?" She reached into her pocket nonchalantly. The Goth was nervous, knowing full well if this retrieval didn't go exactly according to plan that she might end up in a shallow grave. And she didn't much like the thoughts of that. But the readouts all confirmed that the time had come to bring her out, and so Monique was there.
Jane glanced over once, blue eyes staring dully out of her hang-dog countenance. "Oh, hello," she said perfunctorily. "You and Trent have another fight, or something?" Monique went out of her way to avoid Jane, except after having a fight with Trent, when she became Miss Congeniality. It wasn't an action Jane understood or particularly cared about, but every once in a while she did think it was nice to get away from the never-ending sarcastic streak that she'd once thought comprised most of Daria's personality.
"Not really," said Monique coolly. She hadn't actually seen Trent in months, but she saw no reason to tell Jane that. "Any particular reason you like you're about to kill someone?"
"Because I think I am." It was a dead voice that Jane spoke with, and to anyone else it would have seemed genuinely frightening to hear her so drained of vitality. But Monique had heard this before, and thus was unaffected. On several occasions, actually, most recently after their graduation. And the Fight.
"Want to talk about it?"
"I just broke up with my boyfriend."
"These things happen," said Monique, gripping the knife. Steady. Steady. Wait for the right moment.
"On Jerry Springer, maybe. Anywhere else, no." She sighed. "He kissed my best friend." A hint of something primal lurked in Jane's voice there, the first time during their brief conversation that Monique had heard any emotion at all out of the high-schooler. She almost acted then and there, but delayed. It was interesting to see Jane like this. She was usually so confident, and so in control of the world around her.
"Daria, was her name?" Jane nodded. "That sucks." The pebbled gold of the knife's hilt was digging into her palm, itching to get moving.
"Give her a hand, ladies and gentlemen. Understatement of the year." Weak comeback. Even Monique thought so.
"Kinda been a long week for me, too, Jane," she replied, finally deciding that the moment was right and pulling the knife surreptitiously. Jane didn't notice. Until the knife had been plunged straight into her heart, that is. And then she noticed it in spades.
Jane looked down in shock at the hilt protruding from her chest before sliding off of the bench and pooling in a compact lump on the grass, vital functions already ceasing. "See, I just had to kill you. But I wouldn't worry worry about that too much, if I were you." Monique spoke gently as she pulled the knife out of the corpse's chest.
"You'll be home soon enough. And then you can get back at that bitch, if you'd like." She wiped the blade off on her jeans, noting as she did that Jane had already started to fade away. She shrugged and began the trek out of the park. By the time Monique reached the front entrance, Jane Lane had faded away, into oblivion and - in one possible future - a string of missing person reports. In most of the others, she wasn't missed. In most of the others, she wasn't missing.
She glanced up at the sky above her as she stepped through the gates,
relishing the simple beauty of the cosmos at night. The clouds glowed with
an unearthly white, illuminated by the nearly full moon that hung high and
heavy over the city. She shrugged, and flickered out of existence
herself.