PILGRIM
A Daria Fan Fiction
by
CHAPTER ONE: A MIDSPRING MORNING'S IDENTITY CRISIS
She'd been alone for a week, and Daria was getting more and more worried about Jane by the minute. She hadn't seen, much less spoken with, her friend since that last painful discussion. By all accounts, neither had Trent. He'd called the police a few days earlier when she hadn't come home.
For her part, Daria feared suicide, and scanned the morning papers and news broadcasts apprehensively for any mention of her compatriot's body being discovered. Even now, on the eighth night since she'd disappeared, there was no news. The authorities had promised Trent (and Daria) that they'd do everything in their power to find her, but... Daria suspected that - in fact - she was gone. That Jane Lorelei Lane had become nothing more than a phantom to the minds of those who'd known her.
Like every other night since the fight, Daria had spent most of it awake, staring up at the ceiling. By now, she'd managed to memorize the location and length of every single crack, discoloration, and lump, and could even make them out in the near-blackness of the room. To the left of and above her head, on the dresser, the readout of the alarm clock read 3:37 AM, the garish red filaments representing all color and brightness in the room. She sighed and rolled over, turning her back to the time glowing crimson.
At some point, she fell asleep telling herself that the next day would be better. Jane would turn up alive, and all would be forgiven between them. In a way, Daria was somewhat correct.
* * *
Thursday's morning dawned grey and warm, thick with humidity and the threat of forthcoming rain. Thunderheads blanketed the city, and by day's end record accumulations would be recorded in Lawndale. For the time being, however, the air was merely stifling and sticky.
Even in the Morgendorffer house, the imminent storm was palpible. Inside the house it was clammy, and Quinn - who sat at the kitchen table - thought it felt like a fish tank. She wore a more stylized version of her usual outfit, and the strawberry hair crowning her head was perfect. She'd spent an hour making it so, for this was a special occasion.
The Amazon Modeling Agency was coming back to Lawndale, and she was determined to get a contract out of Claude and Romonica this time. To achieve those ends, she had been up for the last three hours, primping and preening and preparing. For the last thirty minutes or so, as she sat at the table waiting for her ultra-strength I'm Not Really a Waitress Red nail polish to dry, she had been talking her mother's ear off.
Across the table, Helen sat examining legal briefs, cursing Jake for being lucky enough to have an office to go to, and silently vowing to personally nail the bastard who had set fire to the offices of Vitale, Davis, Horowitz, Riordan, Schrecter & Schrecter the week before. She did love her daughter very much, but... Some days it was a chore to keep from throttling Quinn.
"Mom!" It was a multi-syllable pronunciation, carefully calculated to be as shrill and exasperated as possible. How else would she get the lawyer's attention? "Are you listening to me?"
Helen sighed. Jake really didn't have a clue how lucky he was. She looked up from the papers, meeting the desperate plea for attention screaming from her daughter's milky green eyes with a wearily knowing stare of her own. "Of course I am, sweetie." She was amazed at how cheerful she sounded. A brief moment of anticipation, before she registered placation. Good. She could get back to Flynn vs. Lawndale High School.
"So I said, 'Why do you think he's a stalker?' And Sandi said, 'Like, because he's following you around, Quinn.'" It was a near-perfect imitation of Sandi, Helen noted idly. Her daughter, meanwhile, glanced at the clock. Another twenty minutes before she had to leave. Plenty of time to finagle a ride out of her mother, to avoid driving to the mall with the rest of the Fashion Club. Ewwww. "And the whole Fashion Club philosophy is built around getting guys to follow us around, so it's really hard to have a stalker." She paused for a moment, inhaling. "Besides, she's the one who needed to get a restraining order on that Ted guy."
Helen had managed to successfully block out most of the chatter, responding with a hollow "That's nice, sweetie" while she perused the details of the case. Li was going down this time, she thought with a victorious smile. No way in hell she was getting out of this. Not with the racial slurs she'd used on the plaintiff.
Outside, the heavens cut loose, and for a moment the only sound in the house was that of heavy rain ricocheting off of the roof and windows. And then Helen turned a page in the brief, and the illusion of silence was broken. Neither she nor Quinn noticed the third girl, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, scowling.
Daria was beyond pissed. She wasn't quite sure how they'd managed to do it, but she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that her parents had successfully managed to smuggle all furniture out of her room while she was asleep, without waking her up. Primarily, she thought this because she didn't want to consider any of the alternatives as to why her room was suddenly empty. Obviously, Helen was planning to actually go through with her long-threatened redecoration scheme. They'd even taken her posters away.
All she had left besides the glasses on her face was a pair of old gym shorts and a t-shirt, her usual sleeping outfit. And there was no way she was going outside dressed like that. Not with the weather as it was. Helen was just going to have to tell her where her clothes had been relocated to, or risk getting a major piece of Daria's mind.
She was so far beyond pissed that she'd even managed to temporarily forget about Jane.
She cleared her throat, and - not waiting for the duo at the table to look up - spoke. "Excuse me, but what the hell happened to my furniture?" She spoke with a frigid tone, the kind that just might have been able to lower the temperature in the room if it weren't for central heating.
Quinn was the first to look up, at the disheveled spectre in the doorway, with Helen a close second. They were looking at a total stranger, and an intruder. Fright wrapped its icy tendrils around Quinn's spine, and for an instant she couldn't move. Stacy had told her all about the break-in at the Rowes' the week before, but she'd never suspected it could happen in her house. She hoped the woman would take her old clothes and leave her jewelry alone.
"Who are you?" The stammer that she'd managed to beat down since the fourth grade made a sudden reappearance. Wonderful. The day was just getting better and better, all the time. If it continued like this, she'd probably even have to ride with Sandi.
"Very funny, Quinn. When we're at home, you don't have to pretend we're not related, you know." The older girl's eyes lit up with some heat. If the little brat was going to pull this stunt now, she was...
"Excuse me, young lady, but you are aware that breaking and entering is a crime, aren't you?" Helen wasn't going to stand for it. The neighborhood had gone straight downhill since they'd moved there two years earlier, and she was damned if she was going to put up with a break-in here and now. And if it turned out to be another of Quinn's little friends... "And how do you know my daughter's name?"
"What are you talking about, mom?" Daria's frown deepened; it wasn't like her mother to play along with Quinn's little game. In fact, she'd have bet the Cabin Fund that Helen would have been pissed if she found out about it. Come to think of it, why was her mother home at all? "I live here, remember?" Wasn't Helen usually at work by now?
"I've never seen you before in my life, but I'd suggest that you leave before I'm forced to call the police." The stranger didn't seem dangerous, merely confused, and possibly delusional. Maybe on drugs.
"Mom?" Daria was inwardly frightened, now, but not going to show it. This situation just wasn't adding up. No furniture in her room when she woke up, and now this total lack of recognition. It was as if she had ceased to be. Vacantly, her sarcastic streak noted how completely and totally non-wonderful this life was turning out to be at this particular moment.
Quinn was recovering rapidly, as she realized the newcomer wasn't any sort of threat at all. "What's she talking about, mom? Why is she calling you that?" A shocking, sudden realization hit her. "You didn't have some secret love child, did you? Because having a bastard sister would be really bad for my public image." She peered carefully at the girl whose angry facade was rapidly melting into one of confused semi-terror.
"Don't be ridiculous, Quinn." While her mother sounded convincing, it had long been one of Quinn's fears that just such an occurrence might have taken place in the past. After all, she and Dad had separated for a while, and she'd been seeing that one guy... She looked back at the girl, her gaze no longer tainted by abject fear. It'd been replaced by an almost morbid curiosity, instead.
She was short, and plain-looking - the thick horn-rimmed glasses didn't help. No real figure to speak of. And yet... she looked awfully familiar for some reason. Throughout this second appraisal, Helen had continued to speak. "Why on earth would I have done something like that? Some days, I swear I don't understand you, Quinn."
Daria listened to the brief conversation between mother and daughter, her face falling just a little more with each successive word. She felt like a puppet who's strings had been cruelly slashed by a razor, cutting it completely off from the show. And she didn't like it one bit. Unwilling - or unable - to listen to any more of this, she turned and disappeared into the relative darkness of the living room.
Helen had come to the conclusion, while addressing Quinn's typical insecurities, that the girl definitely needed help. The sort provided by men wearing large white coats. "What's your name, young lady?" Having gone for several seconds without an answer, she was in the process of asking again when the sound of the front door slamming resonated through the otherwise-quiet house.
Helen looked at Quinn; Quinn looked at Helen. "What was that all about, mom?" She had a sinking feeling that she wouldn't be getting that ride now, after all. Damn it.
"I don't know, Quinn," came the reply. Helen made a mental note to tell Jake to change the locks. She also thought maybe it was time to find another place to live; the neighborhood was only getting worse. Maybe Crewe Neck would do the trick. After all, that particular neighborhood had a gate.
* * *
Rain. Cold, grey, pounding rain, ricocheting off of the roof of Charles' vintage Cadillac and causing his concentration to be thrown off for just a moment. And before he knew it, he'd missed the turn-off to Cranberry Commons and found himself heading back into the suburbs, only at the other end from where he'd exited. And, of course, the entry lane was one way only.
He swore silently, pretty pissed off and cursing the broken car stereo system. Today was the day of the modeling tryouts down at the mall, and he'd even bought a new roll of film for his Nikon to commemorate the occasion. He'd just come up to the corner of Glen Oakes and Nunn when he saw her marching through the rain, a ghost setting one foot slowly in front of the other and shivering every few steps. The apparition looked depressed, almost like she'd been... crying. He was immediately transfixed by the sight.
Charles Ruttheimer III might have been many things - a womanizer, a rake, and even a heel among them - but he also understood something fundimental to getting any nookie at all in his precarious position in the school hierarchy as "nerd:" Always help out women in need. If they think you're sensitive, they're more likely to "dig" you, and therefore you're more likely to score. He glanced at her through the windshield again, her dark auburn hair sopping wet and threadbare sportswear soaked through to the skin; if this wasn't a woman in need, he reflected, than the term was meaningless. And a woman in need was a woman, indeed. It was time for the patented Ruttheimer charm. More's the pity he never actually learned how to use it.
Daria looked up from the barren, dead world that was the sidewalk as she heard the car pull up beside her and stop. She'd barely managed to get out of the house before she felt the tears streaking down her face, faint trails of warmth against the curiously chilling rain. She was alone, without the foggiest notion of what the hell was going on or where she could go. And so she just... wandered.
It had been maybe ten minutes since her departure from the Morgendorffers', and she was soaked to the skin. She looked down at herself woefully before peering through her water-logged glasses at the driver, and lamented the fact that she didn't even have a bra to her name at the moment. Just another in the long line of unpleasant little revelations the day had held so far, and fairly minor when compared to some of the biggies. Like the fact that she had somehow become a literal stranger to her own family, instead of the theoretical one she often considered herself.
As she looked at the driver, her desire for some underwear of any sort rapidly shot through the roof. Upchuck. Fuck, she thought with an uncharacteristically angry flourish of profanity. This is the last thing I need. She crossed her arms over her chest, hoping like hell that the damage hadn't already been done.
The window cranked down with a screech that set her already-tense nerves further on edge, and Charles stuck his head out the window. Naturally, with customary semi-leer in place. "Hey, sweetheart," he said. "Care to go for a ride?" She looked him square in the eyes, and a part of Charles Ruttheimer blanched. It was an unusual look for him to get - absolutely hateful, true, but also mingled with a sort of deep-seated depression that he didn't think he'd ever seen before. This chick was probably bad news, with a look like that in her eyes. Maybe even an escaped mental patient, if her horrendously inappropriate attire was any indication. He'd have to check the newspaper when he got home later.
"I'd rather die then set foot in another car with you, Upchuck." Her voice, too, was rather interesting, a deep monotone that turned him on immensely. And if there wasn't also that trace of homicidal rage mingling with depression, he might have even tried to act on it. But as it was, he was... frightened, just a little, by this strange girl. Definitely a head case, he decided, right about the same time as he decided not to pursue this little chickadee any further. Plenty of other fish in the sea, and plenty of other girls to check out down at the mall. Most of whom probably didn't have this many issues.
Rake though he was, Charles drew the line at head cases. Even he wasn't that desperate for female companionship. Besides, it seemed his reputation had preceded him, dropping the odds of getting lucky to roughly one in a googol, give or take a few zeroes. Her usage of "another" puzzled him a bit; he'd never seen her before.
"Suit yourself, toots," he said in his usual smarmy manner. The look Daria gave him would have melted a solid chunk of ice instantly. He visibly flinched before rolling the window back up and pulling away. Quickly. The mall didn't seem like such a good idea, after all. Maybe going home and watching Cave Girl Island would be a better idea, after all. Less chance of meeting up with this particular psycho bitch again.
Daria just stood on the corner, staring after the car until it had disappeared from sight and her glasses were no longer lit up like emergency beacons by the taillights of the Cadillac. She just stood there until the wind started howling, lashing at her thin clothing with a thousand phantom hands and forcing her arms to wrap even more tightly around her torso.
Well, now what, Einstein? It was a long moment before she realized she'd spoken aloud, and a longer one still before she realized she had no answer. No friends, no family, no possessions, and - by all accounts - no identity. Her feet started moving, as if by their own accord, to the east. To the only other place in Lawndale she'd felt even remotely at home in.
To Jane's house.
(TO BE CONTINUED)