"Daria? The neighbors are starting to talk," Jane said, trying to coax her friend outside of the box.

No answer. Crap.

"Daria!" Jane turned. It was Quinn, coming towards Jane and the box. "Hey Jane, where's Daria?"

"In the box," Jane said, gesturing toward the popular carton.

"Daria! I remembered! You were right!" she said. "I remembered I was three or four and it was nighttime and I woke up because Mom and Dad were fighting, and then Dad was yelling and a door slammed and then I heard a car start up and he drove away."

Jane was impressed that Quinn didn't rupture a lung. Quinn, however, stared intently at the box. "Damnit, Daria, are you even listening?"

Jane knelt down onto the grass and opened the box. There was nothing inside.

"Crap," she uttered, her face going pale.

XXXX

"So."

"So."

The elder and younger Darias were sitting at opposite ends of the box, staring at...themselves.

"Are you from the future?" Daria the younger finally asked. "Like in the H.G. Wells book The Time Machine?"

"I...guess so, if this is the past and not a hallucination brought on by a blood clot in my brain."

"So, how much did Quinn go for?" Daria the younger asked.

"Excuse me?"

"When we sell Quinn, how much did we get for her?"

"Uh, well...there wasn't really a market for annoying little sisters, so we had to keep her."

"Darn it!" Daria the younger frowned.

"Well, she does get...uh, tolerable. Later in life."

XXXX

"Jane, Daria isn't in that box!" Quinn said, annoyed.

"Quinn, she was just a minute ago! I swear!"

"Yeah, right, then where did she disappear to?"

"I...I dunno! The last time we dealt with something like this was when that...uh, that strange thing happened. With all those people who were dressed up as holidays."

Quinn was silent for a moment. Then, a look of horror appeared on her face.

"Oh my God! This can only mean one thing!"

Jane waited. "Yeeeeeeees?"

"Daria found out that mom and dad are going to try to have another kid again and she became a horrible misanthrope when I was born and that made mom and dad fight about her and now she's worried that she'll go even more antisocial and she'll break up mom and dad, so she decided to run away!" Quinn dashed back to the house as fast as she could.

"...Misanthrope?"

XXXX

The two Darias were sneaking into the kitchen to grab a bite to eat. Younger Daria had assured older Daria that their mom would be asleep after having her medicine (which Daria strongly suspected to be a few martinis).

Daria the younger fixed herself a bowl of ravioli, while Daria the elder contented herself with a bowl of Squirrel O's (A prize in each box!). As she wondered why they had stopped making the brand, she observed her younger self read the ingredients label on the can.

"Poly...poly...polysodiumglucoselactate...what does that even mean?" she complained.

"It means it's probably a preservative that's going to give you cancer in 20 or 30 years," Daria answered helpfully.

"Oh." She continued eating her ravioli nonetheless.

"So...do you know what mom and dad were arguing about?" Daria the younger finally asked.

Daria sighed. "No. I only just remembered the fight today...er, in 2000, I guess."

"Tell me about the future!" young Daria insisted, suddenly remembering that this was her older self from the future.

"Well, it isn't all that different from your present day. Of course, we have to harvest clones for spare body parts since my arms and legs keep falling off from Super Leprosy."

"Cool!"

"Damnit, Daria, what are you doing up so -- who are you?"

Daria froze at the voice. It was Helen. Her voice had gone into Mama Bear mode at the end of the sentence, and Daria knew she would have to tread on eggshells or else go to prison and end up spending the rest of her life in the 1990s. (She would probably kill herself before living through the Macarena a second time).

She slowly turned around. "Uh, I can explain..." she started off, clamming up as she became very nervous.

Helen's face softened. "Amy! When did you get in town?"