Sexy Daria Chapter 4: Lab Lockdown Sex, a daria fanfic

Sexy Daria: Lab Lockdown Sex

"Skylar sweetie," Daria said through clenched teeth and a painted smile, "Your parents are nice and all but how do you put up with these parties?"

"I grit my teeth and bare it." Skylar replied through his own gritted teeth.

Then yet another old couple who Daria had no idea who they were approached them and while Skylar made the introductions she stood at his side, arm in his, rigid in pose, wearing some very nice and very new preppy casual clothing that wouldn't look out of place at a party on a yacht.

Which was a good thing because that's where she was, and it felt like torture.

Once the old couple, what were they're names again? Walked off Daria whispered to her date, "Are you sure we can't sneak off?"

"I wish," Skylar replied in a hush in her ear, making it look like an endearment, "Dad is having the crew sail around the harbor for a couple hours before docking."

"Crew?!" Daria asked with a raised eyebrow, the boat was of a decent size, or so her inexperienced eye told her, but she didn't think it was that big.

Skylar smiled at that, "For events like this Dad is fond of getting someone else to sail the damn thing for him, so he can mingle with the old money set."

"But just think…" Skylar added with a more interested whisper, "Once we're off this boat and we're back at my place, my parents were nice enough to let you use the guest room since we'll be getting back so late… And it's just down the hall from my room."

That did make Daria smile back at him and she whispered back, "Sounds like your parents forgot what it's like to be teenagers."

Skylar's smile turned quite evil as he replied, "They think the walls are thin enough to hear through, they're not and the way they sleep an earthquake wouldn't wake them up."

He then added, "And my little sister's room way on the other end, she won't hear a thing."

Daria giggled at that, "Oh Sky, you've become quite the schemer."

"I think all the tutoring you've been giving me has help."

"Oh is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Daria asked in mock-seriousness which made them both start to crack up.

Unfortunately they had to deal with another couple that they didn't give a crap about, which made Daria wish that there were any other people their age at the party.

"It would be nice for some age-related company." She thought with annoyance, since every time she had left Skylar's side for food or a bathroom break she had been hit on by the sleaziest old men imaginable.

"They put the old Charles Ruttheimer to shame." Daria thought to herself with snark at their unknowing expense.

"Hey Janie cool painting," Trent drawled suddenly from Jane Lane's open doorframe and unusually causing his sister to jump like she had been shocked.

"Ahhhh! Oh hi Trent," Jane said once she ascertained that she wasn't being haunted by a silent stoner ghost, "I didn't hear you come in."

"Just woke up." Trent said while rubbing sleep from his eyes, at very late at night, "But I couldn't find any food so I came up here."

"Oh, that makes sense I guess." Jane quipped and silently thought, "For you anyway."

Trent in that meanwhile began looking at the painting again and asked, "He looks familiar."

"It's just a guy from school," Jane explained very quickly, "One of my alter ego things, you know?"

"Cool," Trent said while looking at the painting, then at his sister, then at the painting again and an eyebrow was raised, but he said nothing of his inner thoughts.

"Well gotta go get some shut eye, see ya in a few Janie." Trent replied before shuffling out of the room, completely ignoring the twelve hours of sleep he had just woken up from.

"Thank God he's oblivious." Jane breathed once he was out of earshot then turned back to her latest work and smiled at it.

It was a painting of Charles Ruttheimer with his new clothes and developing muscles, ripping out of a skin of himself in his old geeky clothes and sleazy attitude.

Jane took a step back and looked at it for a long while to make sure that everything was just right before resuming her painting.

Quinn stepped out of the car and thanked the guy, whatever his name was for the ride.

"Thanks for the lift… guy." She said sweetly as she shut the door and he drove away into the dead of night.

"That party at Tori's was fun," Quinn said to herself, not worried about a thing despite the hour since her parents would be dead asleep from a combo of booze and work, "And since Daria wasn't there to ruin it I was sooo able to build on my new popularity."

Quinn was radiant with joy as she reached the front door and slipped the key into the hole, as the new President of the Fashion Club she had new connections and resources to call on in the Great Game of LHS.

"No matter what Daria does for attention, it's girls like me who are the truly popular." Quinn reassured herself as she unlocked the door and opened it.

"QUINN LOUISE MORGENDORFFER!" the voice of her mother roared from the living room like a monster from a fairy tale.

"Oh no!" Quinn said to herself in horror, suddenly the night wasn't so good.

As Helen began to read her daughter the riot act she felt a momentary gratefulness to herself for having listened in to Daria talking to a friend on the phone about missing a big party at some girl's to go to the Feldman event and then complain further that Quinn would be going.

Helen had no way of knowing that Daria had been talking into a dead line.

It was the first part of the vengeance that was to be unleashed upon Quinn Morgendorffer.

As the non-descript houses of Lawndale flew by in the window, both Daria and Skylar had small, satisfied grins on both their faces, it had been secretly hysterical how his parents had noted the glow that they both radiated like Chernobyl radiated radiation.

"Oh it's just love, that's all." Daria had said with a sweet as could be grin when Skylar's mother had commented on it and they had both laughed at that oh so mysteriously.

Well maybe not quite so mysteriously since Daria could swear that Skylar's dad had winked at them when his wife wasn't looking.

"Maybe our shenanigans weren't so hush-hush after all." Daria thought to herself with a silent fit of the giggles.

But all good things have to come to their appointed end, and once Skylar's sleek black sports car pulled up in front of the Morgendorffer house, Daria sighed and got ready to get out, but turned to Skylar and said in a lusty whisper, "I had fun last night."

Skylar grinned like a guy that won a million dollars and blushed at the same time, but when Daria kissed him goodbye, he returned it with fever.

But they were forced to part and Daria had to step out of the car and back into the jungle.

As soon as she stepped through the door she saw something that perked her right back up.

"Looks like the little dominos are falling along quite nicely," Daria thought with glee, "And it only took a minimum of effort, god these people are too easy!"

However she didn't say anything until she approached her family in the living room, Quinn was sitting on the couch and her parents were standing over her, Helen was doing a very good angry parent routine, Jake… Not so much.

"… I still can't believe that stunt you pulled! Oh hello Daria." Helen added once she noticed her daughter arrival with her night bag in tow, "How was the Feldman's party?"

"Fun if you like the old money set," Daria replied nonchalantly, "But his parents were nice and his little sister was cute, and you should see their yacht, and their house! They have a lot of cool stuff."

She added the last as a dig at Quinn who squirmed in her seat with envy, but Daria gave no sign of her joy at yet another triumph.

But to change the subject before things got into dicer territory Daria asked, "So what happened at the homefront?"

Helen gritted her teeth, "Your sister tried to sneak in at the dead of night from some party!"

"But Mo-om!" Quinn began to whine.

"No buts Quinn!" Helen snapped, "We caught you red-handed on this one."

Daria allowed herself an amused grin, "Quinn… What's gotten into you?"

Her little sister glared up at her, "And what were you up too? I mean besides tramping it up!"

"Quinn!" Helen snapped even more loudly, "This isn't about Daria, for once, this is all about you."

The aside that Helen had included caused Daria to sniff, and in her very preppy outfit she did a very good imitation of an offended young lady with an irreproachable record.

As Daria then took a step back and listened to her parents yell at Quinn, something that they probably had picked right back up from the night before, something her father said caught her attention.

"Hey!" Daria snapped in a disturbing imitation of her mother, "How come I have a curfew but the party princess here doesn't?"

Then while they stammered petty excuses, Daria took the opportunity to storm off, knowing full well why they tried to keep her on a short leash and let that twit have a free reign.

"Well let's see if the favorite is oh so favored after pulling this stunt!" Daria said to herself with hope, even though the track record of her parents and disciplining Quinn was quite sparse at best.

She then shut the door to her room behind her loudly, just to make sure they got the message.

"So how was Cindy's Steakhouse?" Jane asked with her phone pressed up to her ear while she idly flipped through an old sketch book.

"Great!" Scarlett chirped on the other end of the line as she lounged on her bedroom floor and stared at the mouse cage she had brought down while Roger ran endless laps on his little wheel.

Scarlett then added, "We both got big steaks, baked potatoes, side salads, and we even took home a slice of cherry pie for dessert."

"Hmm, yum." Jane replied while looking at an alter ego of the Fashion Club as the Beatles walking down Abby Road, "And did Ronnie get an extra dessert?"

Scarlett giggled and replied mysteriously, "I'd never kiss and tell on that."

Though her gaze turned to her small desk where a borrowed copy of The New Kama Sutra lay, she wasn't finished with it yet but once she was she fully intended to knock Ronnie's socks off.

"Well you two have your fun… Safely." Jane lectured a bit and then added, "Anything else new on the home front?"

"Well," Scarlett replied with bemusement, "Brooke called to let me know the scoop, apparently Sandi's coming back to school on Monday."

Jane chuckled very evilly, "I wonder what torments await the former Queen of Lawndale now that she's been brought down a few pegs."

Scarlett enjoyed a laugh at that, "Well Quinn's running her little cult, the image of her nose falling apart still makes people puke, and with her bitchy attitude… Well I have a feeling that a whole lot of people will be extracting their payback now."

"Excellent!" Jane hissed with delight, before she and Scarlett chatted away about other topics for a few more minutes before they hung up on each other.

"It's good that she's got a good one out of the herd." Jane thought to herself but when her gaze fell on her latest painting for some reason she felt forlorn.

It took a while to shake that feeling for some reason.

Skylar and Daria were sitting side by side on the couch watching an old Pumpkin Skull horror movie, or rather they were trying to watch it since the sound was being drown out by an argument in the kitchen.

"But Mo-om!" Quinn whined, "I'm the President of the Fashion Club now and it's my duty to manage things."

"Quinn you are tying up the damn line!" Helen roared back, "Who knows how many calls from Eric that I've missed!"

"Who's Eric?" Skylar asked his leading lady, having come over later that day to see her for what was supposed to be quiet time together.

"My mom's boss at the Firm." Daria answered with boredom, "He's managed to become quite the leech and my workaholic mother just gives and gives."

She then glanced at the kitchen where the argument was getting louder, "Let's go upstairs, the padding in my room will be a blessed relief."

Skylar just grinned at that, "Lead the way."

The movie was now on the credits on Daria's upstairs TV while Skylar lounged on her bed and Daria was, oddly enough pulling out a couple old photo albums, wanting to show them off.

"Well to justify having you up here, in case Mom comes up I'll show you some pics from Hell, AKA Highland Texas." Daria said with her best smile.

Skylar made appreciative noises, fully expecting to be bored.

Daria held up a hand, "A word of warning, no judgments should be passed, based on the past. Kay?"

Skylar granted his assent to this, not having any idea what he was getting himself into.

Within a few minutes as he saw ever increasing levels of madness he whistled, "Pwhew! I can't believe it! Is this place for real?"

"Yup." Daria replied very flatly, "Those two boys managed to generate chaos and insanity, which is why I always kept tabs on them, it made living in that town slightly more tolerable. How many times have you seen a downed jumbo jet? I think I can answer that, none!"

They both laughed at that, the pictures of Butthead wielding a shot gun while standing in front of his prey had been quite the show stopper.

She then turned a page that contained pictures of her other class mates, Daria listed a few of them for him but when she got to a nice but nerdy girl with glasses she seemed to pause for a moment.

"That's Cassandra," Daria breathed with a fond smile, "I'm not ashamed to admit that she was my first girl."

"…Really?!" Skylar asked in shock, granted he knew that Daria was Bi but he had always assumed it to be an act, a way to get attention.

"Really." Daria replied in perfect honesty. "Oh granted she's very quiet, in public, but once you get her somewhere private… Oh she can become quite the kitten."

Skylar licked his lips at the thought of his sexy girlfriend with another woman, it was more than enough to get his libido up.

"Any ex-boyfriends I should be jealous of?" Skylar asked as nonchalantly as he could, but Daria wasn't fooled by the act.

"Nope," she replied, "I know I don't look it but when I date someone I go exclusive, completely loyal, cus I've seen relationships come to pieces when three or more people get involved… It's messy."

Skylar nodded at that, "Yeah, it always looks like those soap operas that my Mom watches."

Daria teased him with a raised eyebrow and he added very quickly, "Not that I would pay attention to that!"

She giggled and replied, "It's ok, I've known guys who did weirder things."

She then noticed the picture of Earl in the jumble and smiled at the memory of the things that he got up too.

Then there was a knock and her mother burst in a moment later with a tray full of chips and salsa and said very happily, "Snacks!"

Helen was very visibly relieved to see that they were on the floor, clothes on, with a photo album in front of them.

"Told ya!" Daria said to Skylar with a small smile and a laugh as Helen set out the tray and asked what they were up too without any shame.

"Just showing Skylar my photo albums," Daria answered with total honesty.

"That's nice sweetie," Helen replied in a voice that was clearly glad at seeing something so innocent out of her wayward daughter.

As the mom from hell departed she couldn't help but think, "That Feldman boy is doing Daria some real good, best not to discourage them from dating, but… Yeah I won't let them do that in this house!"

As soon as the door was shut, both teenagers grinned at each other and then began to make out in defiance of parental tyranny.

Daria walked the hallways of Lawndale High with her friends Jane, Scarlett and her new additions of Jackie Wentworth and Brooke Crest and countless new hanger-on's as well.

Then a very welcome face made its presence known, Jodie Landon made a beeline for Daria with a very large grin.

"I know you would be interested in this!" Jodie said as she held a collection box in front of her and a spool of tickets attached to it.

"What is it that I'm supposed to be interested in Jodie?" Daria asked in genuine confusion even while Jane called out, "We'll take one each!"

"It's for the Annual Teacher-DJ roller Hockey Game." Jodie answered, which didn't dispel Daria's or Scarlett's confusion for that matter.

Jane then glanced at them and then it clicked, "Oh right they weren't here last year."

Jodie laughed darkly, "Should we tell them?"

"Yes!" They both answered each other.

Daria then said, "Hey what are you two talking about?!"

Jane then grinned like a Cheshire cat and said, "Well last year during the big game DeMartino suffered an explosive heart attack and required emergency angioplasty, he almost died."

"Ahh…" Daria breathed in complete understanding, "And this year I assume he's participating?"

"Oh yes…" Jodie breathed very wickedly, which made Daria smile at the memory of making her breathe like that for other reasons.

"Is the betting pool up?" Jackie asked from the background.

"Charles is running it this year so we don't have any mishaps." Jodie replied more businesslike.

Jackie grinned at that and then headed off to find Charles Ruttheimer III to place her bet on when her history teacher would die and how.

"I'm in." Daria said with glee as she handed over her money for a ticket to what was now the greatest show on earth.

Other than her running bare naked through the streets, but that was only in the fantasies of the boys and curious girls of Lawndale High, and everywhere else on earth that had been graced by her presence.

Now once again Daria found herself in the seething cauldron of misandry fueled hatred that was Ms. Barch's Science Class.

As Barch's lecture on positive and negative reinforcement slowly slipped into her ranting (again) about her ex-husband leaving her after twenty two years of marriage, Daria was sorely tempted (again) to suggest that she get laid as soon as humanely possible.

"As in, leave for the nearest bar and nail the first man she can get her mitts on!" Daria thought to herself with amusement at the thought of Barch chasing down terrified barflies down Dega Street.

Something of that amusement must have shown since Daria felt the glare of the Feminazi teacher fall upon her.

"Daria!" Barch snapped, "Since the Neanderthals weren't able to answer, perhaps you can give us an example of reinforcement?"

"Well…" Daria began in her breathy voice, "Let's say you wanted to make a child stop crying, you could threaten them with a trip to Scottsdale Arizona to live with their abusive real father. Then afterward whenever the child showed signs of upset, you could wave the ticket in their face, or frame it on their bedroom wall."

"Very good…" Barch began to say before Daria cut her off with her voice flipping to a very dull monotone.

"Then years later due to the constant reinforcement of not being allowed to convey their emotions properly, anything associated with air travel could cause the now grown up child's fragile psyche to shatter and trigger violent and possibly deadly psychotic episodes worthy of America's Funniest Home Videos."

The teacher's smile was terrible to behold, "I like the way you think Daria."

Then she randomly screamed at Mack to shut up and for reasons unknown to science he blanched in confusion.

"Doesn't Mack Dynamite realize that since he doesn't fit the stupid male stereotype that she hates him even more than Kevin?" Daria thought to herself, even while noting that Barch was slowly coming around.

At first her science teacher had had no idea how to respond to a girl like Daria, a seemingly vapid sex crazed bimbo, who then revealed a truly frightening level of intelligence and coupled it with an inhuman talent at manipulating the boys and men of Lawndale into doing her bidding.

She had veered between bursts of anger and awe but seemed to be slowly leaning towards cheering her on.

Daria was vaguely aware that the teacher was explaining their assignments even while comparing the two articles she had turned into the Newspaper before slipping into class.

One she didn't expect to see printed and the other would pass muster, but the first had a different purpose than being printed.

"Daria," Barch said, "Mack will be your lab partner for this project."

That caught her attention, "What?!"

"You and Mack will design and construct a maze and condition a mouse to go through it using either Positive or Negative reinforcement."

"Oh," Daria breathed and for some reason felt very hot all of a sudden in spite of wearing clothing with very little fabric.

"Um… Ok!" Mack said simply.

"Shut up Mack!" Barch and Jodie both snapped together.

Poor Mack didn't know which way to blanch, but he did back his chair away from his girlfriend a bit even while she and Barch stared at each other for a whole minute before shaking it off.

Then as Daria tried to let her mind wander she heard something that was almost as shocking as being assigned to work with Mack.

"And Jodie will work with Upchuck." Ms. Barch said with a strange relish, which sounded quite strange since Charlie's old nickname was passing out of favor at Lawndale High.

"Oh my," Daria said under her breath, "This could get very messy."

Then Barch snapped at Kevin and informed him that he'd be working with Brittany and finished assigning lab partners.

Fortunately for the males in the room the bell rang soon after and Barch called out, "Oh and don't forget about the Teacher-DJ Roller Hockey Game since that MAN DeMartino is looking for students to beat up… I mean train with!"

Even Kevin knew that volunteering for that gig was a bad idea.

Just the students were filing out, Daria was approached by, among others, Jodie Landon who seemed anxious about something, and Ms. Morgendorffer had a feeling it wasn't about her article on the Fashion Club.

Before Jodie could speak Daria said very gently, "Jodie I am not going to use this as an attempt to steal your boyfriend."

"Um… That's not what I was going to talk about." Jodie replied very weakly.

There was a pause and then Jodie said even more lamely, "Ok even I didn't believe that."

"That makes two of us." Daria replied flatly and elicited a laugh out of the beautiful girl.

"But consider the message sent and received." Daria added more kindly and Jodie smiled at that.

"Great," Jodie replied and then changed the subject with, "But there was one other thing, your article on the Fashion Club, 'FC Without a Point', I loved it but I don't think Ms. Li will let us print it."

Daria smiled mysteriously at that, and Jodie felt her heartbeat increase, "Well I did give you that alternate one on my investigation into 'the Secrets of Mystery Meat' just in case."

Jodie laughed, "That one did make my day brighter, but I want to know, what's your beef with the Fashion Club."

Daria replied with a single word, stated in a monotone so flat it was robotic.

"Quinn."

Then she walked away and even though she was quite off-put by that, Jodie stared at the Alice tattoo on Daria's lower back as it swayed back and forth oh so invitingly.

She stared so intently that when Mack approached to get her going to her next class that for a minute she had trouble remembering where she even was.

Angelia Li sat at her desk in her office, the beating heart of her precious Laaaaandaaaale Hiiiiighhhh, the proposed articles for the Lawndale Lowdown were in front of her, but the one on top of the pile had truly captured her imagination.

And not in a good way.

"I give those girls 1500 dollars in operating funds and what do they contribute back?" Angelia Li asked herself while her mind went through a rundown on what each school club and group brought her school in terms of glory, honor, prestige, and possible lucrative sponsorships.

She couldn't think of a single gods damn thing that the Fashion Club had ever brought the school except headaches.

"Hell without Sandi involved I don't even have a link to her mother Linda at the local news station to call on for favors!" Li screeched to herself.

She then made a note to herself to call Quinn in and first read her the riot act and then give her an ultimatum.

"Make the Fashion Club into something that contributes to the school or else it will be cut!" Li wrote down.

Then she made a quick call to her secretary to have her inform Ms. Landon that the Fashion Club article would not be printed.

"Tell her to print the one on the Mystery Meat, we can survive that one since it's a joke piece." Li said dismissively and then sent her aide away and used the PA system to get Quinn Morgendorffer there forthwith.

A few minutes later a very shell-shocked Quinn Morgendorffer stumbled out of Principal Li's office.

Ms. Lime, the Principal's secretary watched the poor girl try to get her motor skills back and shook her head.

"Angelia must have been in a bad mood today," Lime thought to herself and checked her supply of Tylenol, "Good, I have enough to survive."

It was obvious that Aunt Flow had come to visit early, or Li was freaking out over money.

They both caused psychotic levels of anger in her boss and either way it meant that at some point she (Ms. Lime) was going to be yelled at.

She then checked her supply of disposable earplugs and tssked at the nearly empty box.

"This is going to be a long day." Lime said in resignation and wished she could hand hers in.

But she needed the money dammit!

Sandi Griffin was alone, completely and utterly alone.

Her return to school to what she had hoped would be a triumphant restoration of her status hadn't gone off according to plan.

She had learned to her absolute horror that Quinn had seized the reigns of the Fashion Club, brought it her own choices for new members, then had… had…

"Kicked me out!" Sandi thought to herself once more and had to fight back tears.

She had already openly wept once that day and redoing her makeup was such a bother.

Especially since most of her supply had been stolen out of her locker, along with a bunch of other stuff.

Oh and vandalized with the words "Busted Nose Bitch!" spray painted all over it.

After having been shot down by the girls who a few days before had been all hers, Sandi had endured a day of brutal taunts, teasing, tripped legs, 'accidently' spilt drinks and food all over her person, and in gym she fully expected things to get much much worse.

"How dare these unpopular girls do this to me?!" Sandi moaned to herself once more, not realizing that she was talking out loud again, "I'm popular!"

It was enough to make a girl want to just ditch and go to the mall, but no guy was willing to give her a ride.

Or go on a date with her.

Or even talk to her.

In fact most of them couldn't even look at her without a shiver, their minds filled with the image of her on stage with her nose completely concave.

"No one loves me." Sandi moaned to herself as she walked in total isolation from everyone.

Then she reached a corner and stopped when she heard girls talking, she recognized one of the voices as that Brooke girl.

"…I couldn't help but laugh at her Jackie." Brooke said and Sandi wracked her brain cus she couldn't recall a 'Jackie' at their school.

"Well I have to admit that seeing Quinn knocked down a few pegs was worth seeing but openly enjoying her misery? I'm not sure that's a good thing." A voice replied and Sandi made the mental connection.

"Brooke is hanging around Slutty Girl!" Sandi hissed with glee as she thought she found a handle for juicy gossip.

Then another voice emerged, that weird art girl who was friends with Daria the Superslut, "Well with Quinn being grounded I doubt she can do a whole lot to save the Fashion Club, but it will be interesting to see how it implodes."

"What?!" Sandi thought to herself as her body froze in instinctive horror.

"Exactly," Brooke replied with dark joy, "I mutilated my face to try and be one of them and I still wasn't good enough, now it's their turn to suffer, and hopefully crash and burn so I can laugh at them."

The voices grew more distant but Sandi stood stock still, her mind processing all of this and then her demeanor changed and for an instant she no longer seemed like the fallen and shattered Sandi Griffin who had been standing there a moment ago.

She looked a little like her old self again.

During lunch, while DeMartino trained on the weight machines, huffing and wheezing like a man slowly dying of cancer, Ms. Barch was showing Ms. Bennett how to use a hockey stick on mannequins normally used to resuscitation classes.

"Um… Janet." The economics teacher stammered very nervously as Barch slammed the stick hard in a male mannequin's crotch, "I'm not sure this how we're supposed to… eep!"

The eep happened because Barch had glanced at her, cold inhuman fury burned in her visible eyeball like a fragment of hell itself.

The only other sound was DeMartino's wheezing.

At lunch, Daria held court as usual with her friends Jane and Scarlett, the new additions Jackie and Brooke, and their assorted boyfriends and manfriends, or those that could fit at the table that weren't official manfriends.

During this, Mack approached the table like a man with his hat in his hand, except he didn't have a hat.

"Um hey Daria," he said a bit nervously, not sure how close he should get, considering that he was dating another girl, had had sex with Daria and said girlfriend (at the same time), and that Daria was in her usual provocative outfit with her current boyfriend within punching distance.

"Oh hi Mack." Daria said nicely, but not overtly friendly, "Is this about Barch's assignment?"

"Yes." He said simply, "So where do you want to do it… The assignment I mean!" He added the last very quickly lest Skylar get the wrong idea.

"Well we can build the maze at my place because yours doesn't have a garage… right?" Daria added the last in a desperate bid not to seem like she had been to Mack's house before and failed miserably.

"…That'll work." Mack said and then scurried off before he hit anymore landmines.

Skylar, who was sitting opposite of Daria raised an eyebrow and began to form the obvious questions in his head but Jane spoke up first.

"Uh… What's all that about Daria?" she asked since she didn't have science with Barch.

Daria then explained what Ms. Barch had come up with for homework and had assigned people their lab partners.

"Oh," Jane replied once her friend was done talking, "Well that explains a lot actually."

Daria saw an opening for a dig to change the subject and she took it.

"Yeah, like how Charlie is working with Jodie on their maze."

"What?!" Jane exclaimed in shock and then after the girls giggled at that said, "What's all the laughing for?!"

That made everyone else at the table giggle even harder.

Once more Daria found herself in the hellish purgatory that was dinner with her family, while she enjoyed some Cream of Mushroom soup, they suffered on, yup you guessed it, frozen lasagna.

It got worse somehow when her mother spoke to her, "I heard that you're working on a big science project with the Captain of the Football Team."

Daria recognized the tone, it was the preliminary to an interrogation and then an argument about everything about her, but she mentally shrugged her shoulders and said to herself, "Fuck it."

"Yes," Daria answered flatly before taking another spoonful of soup, "We're working on training a mouse to get through a maze."

"That sounds interesting," Helen replied and then fired the first shots, "But I expect you to be on your best behavior dear."

"Now why wouldn't I be Helen?" Daria asked and smirked at her mother's irritation at being addressed by her real name by her daughter.

"Because I know you." Helen replied in dangerous tones.

"Now there's a laugh and a half." Daria snapped right back, her voice turning quite frosty.

"Gee look at this!" Jake cut in while waving a letter around with at a pitch of voice that screamed 'desperate to end hostilities', "There's a new channel on our cable package called the 'Pigskins' which shows the good old football games!"

Daria latched on to that and made a smart comment about watching the games you have seen before since the new ones were so boring.

"That's right!" Jake replied enthusiastically.

Daria then glanced at her food and picked it up, "I'm finished eating." Then threw out what was left in the garbage and took the bowl to the sink and didn't bother washing it, leaving it for someone else to deal with for once.

"We're not finished talking young lady!" Helen yelled, not wanting to be denied another chance to lash out at what she viewed as one of her biggest failures.

"You never are Helen," Daria replied flatly as she stopped in mid-stride and turned to face them, "But I only have this to say, I'm dating Skylar, not Mack, get it through your head if you can squeeze it in between calls with your husband Eric… I'm sorry I meant your boss."

"WHAT?!" Jake yelled and turned to look at Helen with a face that was a mask of pain and betrayal.

Daria smirked quite wickedly at this and walked away.

Quinn in the meanwhile got up and slipped away, not quite sure how her sister had twisted the situation to her own benefit.

"I have to learn that trick!" Quinn thought to herself, "But I'll never ask for help from that hussy!"

But before she left, Quinn swiped the phone, she had to make some calls to the Fashion Club, it was so hard to run a club of that caliber while imprisoned by her crappy parents.

Then the doorbell rang.

"That's for me." Daria yelled out to no one as she went to door and answered it.

The full force of noise hit Mack Mackenzie like a cement truck driving through a nitroglycerine plant.

"What is that?!" He asked her as the yelling from the kitchen reached a new pitch.

"My parents are arguing." Daria replied very flatly, "Can we take this to the garage? That's where we'll be building the maze."

"Sure." Mack replied as he stepped aside to let Daria out of the house and followed her ot the Morgendorffer's garage, grateful to be away from the noise.

The tension could be cut with a sharp knife, but even while his mouth watered, Mack was able to lay out the blueprints for the maze he had come up with without a stammer, or drooling.

Daria on the other hand was quite flush, but doing her best to keep it under wraps and made some modifications to the plans with a pencil.

They were keeping a two foot radius in between them, the saw horse table between them was serving as a barrier, of sorts.

"This shouldn't take more than a day or two to build," Daria commented and hoped that her voice was as normal as possible.

"Yeah… Your right," Mack said and felt even more blood pump into his genitals, "About the maze I mean." He added very quickly.

"So when do we start?" Daria asked and then added, "On the maze I mean."

"Now sounds good." Mack replied very carefully, hoping that it didn't come off as a double entendre.

It did.

Daria blushed but understood what he meant, even if it came off differently, "Ok I guess… Grab a hammer."

"Yes ma'am." Mack replied with a grin and hoped that Daria knew how to use a saw.

Quinn spied on them through the small window of the garage while standing on a small pile of bricks propped up on the side of the structure.

"My god," Quinn thought to herself as she climbed down, "Doesn't she ever stop trying to seduce guys?!"

Even while she fumed about this, she also thought about not being able to get everyone on the line since Stacy and Siobhan both had dates and Tori had some family event that night, which had resulted in having to talk to Tiffany one-one-one.

An exhausting experience even for the President of the Fashion Club.

Then as she headed back into the house, which was now eerily quiet, Quinn had a brainfart and a smile formed on her pretty face.

"If I can win Mack over instead of Daria, then my popularity would be even more secure!" she said to herself in an excited whisper like a treasure hunter that had located the Holy Grail.

She then rushed up the stairs to go into emergency dress-up, now quite certain of her ability to win Mack over, already planning out their dates in her mind.

As she reached her door however Quinn paused for a moment, the image of Jodie Landon came to mind.

"Well she used to treat him like crap," Quinn thought to herself, "I doubt that she'll stick with this 'new and improved thing' for very long."

With that justification, Quinn then went into her room to change.

As Jodie and Charles began working on the rather ambitious design that he had come up with, they made small talk.

"So I heard your tutoring the J's." Jodie said as she started to feel more at ease being in the lair of the beast as it were.

Granted Charles had been improving a lot, but even someone as forgiving as Jodie had been nervous about building the maze at his house, but he had been a perfect gentleman so far.

"But if he tries anything I'm stepping." Jodie told herself again firmly.

"Yes," Charles replied as he set up the outer walls, "So far it feels like I'm trying to break rocks with a rubber hammer but I think I'm getting through to them."

"That's great," Jodie replied with a smile, "Maybe they won't have to rely on the grade fixing crap like some of the other Jocks."

"Like Kevin?" Charles asked and they both laughed at that.

Then as they started working on some of the inner walls, he then asked Jodie a question and a loaded one it was.

"So how are things between you and Mack Dynamite?"

Jodie snickered at the use of his new nickname, "That nickname is much better than 'Mack Daddy'."

"Yes it is," Charles replied, "But you didn't answer my question."

Jodie paused and sighed, "The honeymoon period is over."

Charles pursed his lips and thought, "That's not good."

She then continued with, "And… We don't really know a whole lot about each other, ah hell I should be honest I don't know much about him. I spent so much time doing my parents bidding that… I lost sight of everything."

Jodie seemed to be crawling into herself as she said this even while her eyes welled up with tears, "I… I have a lot to make up for and I… I don't know if there's enough time to do it before it all falls apart."

"Jodie." Charles replied quietly and came over just in time to grab her as she started to sway and the waterworks unleashed itself.

It took Jodie a long time to stop crying, but never once did Charles Ruttheimer III do anything other than hold her until she was finished.

"Things with Jodie…" Mack began before sighing and pausing for a minute, which caused Daria to raise an eyebrow oh so daintily, "I think we're at a fork in the road, just not sure which way we'll be going."

Daria gave him a small smile, "Well I hope you two can work it out."

Mack gave a dark laugh at that, "It isn't something to be worked out so much as her learning about me for the first time."

He then explained a little further, about how that now that she was trying, it was becoming obvious that Ms. Landon didn't really know a whole lot about her boyfriend.

"Hell I'm pretty sure she only learned what day my birthday was a week ago." Mack said passing it off as a joke but Daria wasn't fooled.

"March the fourth." She said quietly.

"What?"

"That's your birthday right? March the fourth."

Mack felt a smile slowly form on his face, "Yes, yes it is."

Daria smiled back and then glanced down at their project and tried to force it off her face to little avail and asked him what came next on the maze.

"This is so cool!" Brooke squealed as Jane finished showing her the latest sketches she had made, specifically they were part of her 'Alter-Ego's' collection, a mix of the old ones and some of the new.

"And you really captured my eyes." The popular girl added as she flopped down onto Jane's bed and looked at the drawing of herself as Wonder Woman.

She then turned the page and smirked at the picture of Charles as a circus strongman and thought to herself, "God it's so obvious that she's crushing on him."

She then turned to her new artistic friend and commented a bit more on some of the other pictures, like Daria in frumpy clothes and a bad attitude, or Quinn as a punk, or Jane as a photo-image negative version of herself.

Then she nonchalantly mentioned the Charles drawing and threw in how she had overheard him saying that she was cute.

"What!" Jane replied with a mixture of shock and hope.

"Psyche!" Brooke teased with glee.

Jane growled at that while turning beet red and then struggled to change the topic but her mind kept bringing up the possibility that Charles… Liked her.

"Oh come on!" Jane told herself even while distracting Brooke with some of her paintings, "This is getting ridiculous, I mean sure he's cleaned up nice and he's getting some muscle but… He's still Upchuck… But he's not acting like that anymore…"

Then Jane realized that during her mental storm she had pulled out the painting she had recently made of Charles bursting in his new form shirtless out of the tattered skin of the old Upchuck.

The gleam in Brooke's eyes was enough of a giveaway that she was in for some serious taunting on that one.

"Eep!" Jane squeaked before Brooke unleashed the storm of good-natured razzing.

Quinn got her golden opportunity to strike when Daria went to the bathroom, it was a simple matter to watch the garage door from the kitchen while making it seem like she was leafing through the latest issues of Val and Waif.

Luckily for her Daria was so desperate for the restroom that she didn't see what Quinn was wearing, a come-hither purple strappy top, tight blue jeans, nice flats, and enough makeup to seem beautiful without overdoing it.

As soon as the bathroom door was shut, Quinn quickly slipped into the Garage where Mack was sitting in a folding chair taking a break, the maze looked pretty much done as far as Quinn could tell.

"Oh hi Mack," she said in a sweet innocent voice to get his attention.

"Oh, hey Quinn." Mack said as he head snapped up to look at her, he had to admit that she was cute.

"So how's the science project coming along?" she asked politely while walking over oh so delicately and then standing next to the table in such a way that she looked like a sweet little angel.

"Well we have the maze pretty much done," Mack replied without any sign that this was having much effect on him, "Tomorrow we'll pick up a mouse and start training it."

"Gee that sounds really interesting," Quinn answered in a very man-inciting voice, "Could you tell me about it?"

Mack gave her a polite smile and said, "Sure."

Then as he started to explain the project to her, the inner door to the garage opened and Daria stepped in.

Her eyes zeroed in on Quinn, Quinn in that outfit, Quinn who was trying to put the moves on Mack, and Daria for some reason started to see red.

However she pushed all that anger down and said in a fake sweet voice, "Oh hi Quinn, I thought you were busy with something tonight."

"Oh Daria," Quinn replied in an equally fake sweet voice but her eyes said something else, "I was just asking Mack here about this project, he said something about a mouse."

"Yup," Mack answered as calmly as he could even while looking for the nearest exit before the claws came out, "Well as I said we're training a mouse to get through the maze and we're going to use negative reinforcement to do so."

"Well that sounds cool," Quinn replied even while keeping an eye on Daria as she slowly moved around them towards the door, "Well I should go, I'm working on a little project for the Fashion Club, you'll probably hear about it soon, well see ya!"

The last was directed at Mack and Quinn gave him her nicest smile and rather enjoyed doing it in front of Daria, daring her to call her out on it.

"Let's see if the hussy will take my bait!" Quinn thought with glee.

She did not.

Instead Daria kept her face very masklike and waited until Quinn had left and shut the door behind her before she let her emotions show a little.

"I can't stand that little bitch!" Daria muttered to herself before remembering that Mack was still in the room.

Mack for his part did the gentlemanly thing and pretended that he hadn't heard a thing and worked with Daria to finish off the maze, due to the circumstances he didn't stick around for idle chit chat afterward, but he did ask Daria if she was ok.

"I'll be fine Mack," Daria answered kindly once they were outside and Mack was waiting for his ride home, "It's nothing that I can't handle."

He gave her an appropriate response as Kevin's jeep pulled up and Mack climbed in, and almost said, "Don't call me that!" to Kevin before he realized that Kev had called him 'Mack Dynamite' and not 'Mack Daddy'.

"Sorry man," Mack offered up as they pulled away, "I'm still adjusting."

"No sweat man!" Kevin answered and after a couple second promptly forgot all about it and turned on the radio.

But as the music played Mack used the time to do a mental comparison between Quinn and Daria and while he wished he knew Quinn's side of the story, so far everything Daria had said about her hated younger sister seemed to be true.

"Vapid, shallow, self-absorbed, extremely cute but not in her sister's league at all," Mack thought to himself having seen right through Quinn's attempt at seduction, "I wonder what she wanted since I'm pretty sure that no one's slept with her yet."

He pondered the notion that Quinn had honestly believed that she could have taken him for herself, and laughed at it.

"Between Jodie and Daria I've been ruined for the 'plain old cute ones'." Mack thought to himself with amusement.

Daria in the meanwhile had gone up to her room and turned on some music, her homework long finished but she turned on her compute to do something else.

She pulled up the files and began to type out ideas for the third Melody Powers story, "I wonder what thrilling erotic action fueled adventures my Melody should have this week?" Daria said to herself as she put her brain into overdrive.

The first story, which she had read out loud at the coffee shop had been a huge hit, and had caused a riot that had forced the school to shut down the coffee shop, which had been her goal all along.

But 'The Erotic Adventures of Melody Powers' had proven to be too good an idea to let go of, so she had created a sequel, which had yet to see the light of day and now.

"Onto number three." Daria said to herself as a structure slowly developed involving Solomon's Mine's, a lost magical artifact that couldn't be allowed in enemy hands, and a secret occult group that was descended from the Thule.

Even while she was doing this, Daria wondered a little bit about what Quinn was planning to do to save the Fashion Club but wasn't particularly worried.

"Whatever it is I can crush it," Daria thought with confidence before dismissing the notion for another day.

At the moment she had bigger fish to fry, and so did Melody.

The next morning, Daria didn't even bother going down for breakfast but instead headed straight out the door and waited outside for her ride, which she had called ahead the night before and asked to arrive early so they could snag some breakfast from McDonald's before school.

It was a good excuse as any to avoid dealing with the fallout from her parent's fight.

"Which I instigated for good reason." Daria reminded herself as Skylar's car pulled up in front of the house and she bounded to it with a stride that bordered on a jog.

Once they were on their way, Skylar beamed like the morning sun outside and gave her a small giftwrapped box.

"What's this?" Daria asked with a sly grin as she ripped at the paper.

"Oh my!" She breathed with her mouth popped wide open with surprise once she had it unwrapped.

It was a brand new cellphone and a bill for six months of service that was already paid in full.

"You like it?" Skylar asked as they pulled up at the drive through.

"I love it!" Daria squealed with delight and kissed him on the cheek as they got to their turn and Skylar placed their order for pancakes, hash browns, and coffee.

"I hope so it cost me a bundle," Skylar teased as he drove up to the window and got their food and drove away after paying up.

As they headed on to the school a bit early while eating their food Skylar commented, "The reason I got you the phone, I mean besides the fact that you're my number one girl, is because I can't get through at your house anymore for some reason."

He then asked if her mother had some big legal case she was working on.

"Probably," Daria said airily as they pulled up at Lawndale and Skylar got a good parking spot, but they didn't get out since they were very early, so they just kept eating in the car, "But Quinn's the one burning up the line, she's grounded and running the Fashion Club at the same time, so..."

"Don't bother with the landline, gotcha!" Skylar replied and they both laughed even while polishing off breakfast.

Quinn took pride of place as she lead the Fashion Club through the halls of Lawndale, showcasing the latest teen fashions of course, and setting a proper example for the others.

Since they were all dressing so… Slutty.

"It's because of Daria." Quinn thought to herself with disgust but then reminded herself of her little brainstorm that would change all of that, and save the FC from being axed by Ms. Li.

"So what's the plan President Quinn?" Tori asked from her left since she was now the Vice President of the Fashion Club.

Quinn smiled beautifully at that, "Well I was thinking that to show Ms. Li what we do for the school, we should do what we always do, give out fashion advice… But offer it up as a free newsletter!"

"Hey yeah!" Stacy squealed in servile obedience.

"Coooool…" Tiffany drawled.

"That's a great idea Quinn!" Siobhan added while secretly wishing she could do her hair up like she used too, but the bylaws of the Fashion Club wouldn't let her.

"It sounds like work…" Tori began but was forced to go with the group and added, "But if it helps us survive Principal Hitler, then I'm in!"

"Great!" Quinn said very hopefully, having been worried about a fight, "We'll discuss what to write about when we all have study hall later and then at lunch we'll eat fast and type it up in the computer lab."

Everyone in the Fashion Club agreed with this and Quinn truly felt in her element, she was large, in charge, and saving the last bastion of true popularity from destruction.

"Cus the alternative is… ugh!" Quinn mentally shuddered at the memories from Highland Middle School when she and Daria were there together and she had… she had.

It didn't bear thinking about.

Daria was walking through the halls with Skylar, and accompanied by Scarlett and Ronnie, the latter three were chatting about the upcoming Roller Hockey game.

Or more specifically their bets on what fate Mr. DeMartino would suffer.

"I've got him suffering a stroke in the first quarter." Skylar boasted happily, feeling sure that Mr. D was in even worse shape than last year and wouldn't last as long.

"I'm giving him some hope," Ronnie replied with a competitive streak, "He'll make it until half-time and once he stops moving he'll croak."

Scarlett giggled and mentioned that she and Andrea had the same bet, "So when we're dancing it up and cheering together boys don't feel bad about it." She added with a smirk.

Daria would have thrown in her two cents but the devil himself came towards them with darting eyes, not wanting to be spotted, and wound up drawing more attention than before.

"What's up Mr. D?" She asked sweetly, holding back the charm a bit since he was one of the few teachers here that had her respect.

He made some general comments about her schoolwork and then slipped her a note and walked away.

"Hmm…" Daria breathed as she read it and then giggled.

"Oh god!" She said in between fits of laughter and when everyone asked her what it was about she handed it to the nearest person, Scarlett, and went back to laughing.

"Ms. Morgendorffer," Scarlett read aloud quietly to the other two, "I need a small favor of you, could you sit in a prominent place during the Roller Hockey game and use your charms to distract the other team?"

Ronnie and Skylar both busted up laughing.

"Wow this is rich!" Ronnie said while hanging onto Skylar for support as he heaved in deep breaths in between laughs right along with him.

"I know!" Skylar added and then he looked at Daria and began to ask, "So are you going to…?"

"Oh yeah." Daria replied with confidence, "Anything for the cool teacher."

While the guys praised her, Scarlett decided to reexamine her bet since this might cause Mr. DeMartino to actually win this time.

Even while working to ensure the survival of the Fashion Club, Quinn still made time to bump into Mack when he wasn't around Jodie, which took some doing but she had gotten her hands on his schedule so she knew when she could get away with it.

For some reason he seemed… Immune to her charms.

"I mean I know that he and Jodie made out with… her!" Quinn thought to herself after plying on her own talents a bit thick before walking away oh so beautifully for him.

"But from what Daria said they didn't actually go all the way… Right? Right?!"

She also observed Mack with Jodie and picked up on some stuff that while they were making a big show about being together that there was an emotional distance between them.

"If they're not breaking up within a week or two I'd be surprised." Quinn thought to herself before jotting down an idea for the right shades of pink in the newsletter.

A little bit later when she was headed down to her Math class she really did accidently come across Mack and Jodie and saw something that really surprised her, they were talking to Charles Ruttheimer III.

Quinn stopped nearby and pretended to check her makeup and listened in.

"…So we're going to do positive reinforcement," Charles said to Mack who then mentioned what he and Daria would be doing.

"I have to admit that I'm enjoying this assignment," Jodie added, "Normally I have to ignore Barch's man-hating rants to get anything out of her classes but this go around…"

Mack tried to go with the flow but even Quinn knew that he was on Barch's shitlist and was her number one target for verbal violence.

Quinn observed them until the three of them went in their separate directions but a couple images replayed in her mind a bit.

One was of Charles himself, now that he wasn't so sleazy and she had really seen him acting decent over the last few weeks, he had filled out and was in preppy clothes and he was turning into, well…

"A catch!" Quinn thought with surprise.

Another was of the lingering stare that Jodie had given Charles when he had walked away.

"Less than a week before the breakup." Quinn said to herself before having to rush to get to class on time.

"Thanks for letting me know," Daria said to Heidi, "I owe you one."

The other girl beamed at that before Daria then fulfilled her end of the bargain, by dishing out advice on how to land that cute guy from Oakwood that she had always had a crush on.

After the freshman scampered off, Daria sighed with relief and then remembered who she had to talk too next and grumbled.

"No choice," Daria muttered before getting comfortable in a chair in the unused classroom and only had to wait a minute before the door opened again.

"Hello Tori," Daria said politely.

Tori Jericho nodded, her blond hair bouncing as she did it, and Daria couldn't help but wish that the girl had a better personality.

"Otherwise she'd be wonderful." Daria thought as they exchanged some pleasantries and got down to business.

"Tori," Daria said as they opened the floor, "There's one thing that I know about fashion and that you can be in one season and out the next, you're current President, Quinn… Is clearly on the way out."

Tori said nothing in reply, but she did seem intrigued.

"I've noticed that she's been having a very difficult time in running your little Club and a little birdy told me about Ms. Li dropping the hammer."

"Yeah," Tori replied, "But we're working on a solution."

"This newsletter," Daria cut right in and enjoyed seeing the blonde's eyes widen with surprise, "I am aware of that, but I know Quinn better than anyone else, she'll screw it up and that will be a wrap for the Fashion Club."

"Buhbutbuthbuh…" Tori stuttered, but Daria cut her off again.

"But that doesn't mean that you have to go down with the ship."

That shut her right up and with a dawning of hope in her eyes, Tori whispered, "How?"

Daria smiled oh so prettily and replied while sliding a piece of paper towards her, "Just do these little things for me and when it all goes down… I'll pull you out of the fire."

Tori read over what Daria had written very carefully before looking back up and said, "Deal!" without any hesitation.

Daria's smile stayed in place as she thought, "Now we have momentum."

But the instant Tori left, Daria shuddered and muttered, "I need a shower."

Because she felt dirty for all the wrong reasons.

"And it was soooo nice of that nerdy teacher to let us use the computer lab for this." Stacy cheered merrily from Quinn's side as they typed out everything they had come up with for their newsletter, they still needed a name for it but Stacy felt confident that they could come up with a cool one.

"I know!" Quinn replied as she typed away and wished they could trust a boy to do it for them.

"But it's too important!" Quinn reminded herself as she made sure not to press down with a nail lest she risk breaking it.

Tiffany drawled some sycophantic words, while Siobhan showed them the latest fashions from Waif and Val and compared them to the predictions from that website Stacy had found, .

"It was so sweet of Brooke to show it too me!" Stacy thought to herself, "And she even said I could take all the credit for it too."

Meanwhile in a different part of the school, Brooke was chatting with Jackie and Jane and asked them why Daria would want her to give Stacy a helping hand with the fashion newsletter.

Jane laughed wickedly, "I highly doubt that Daria wanted to help them at all."

"Huh?"

Jackie grinned since she had looked at the website earlier and then looked over her shoulder before whispering to Brooke, "She's setting them up for a massive failure."

"Oh…. Oh!" Brooke breathed before grinning evilly herself.

"This is going to be fun to watch." Brooke said with glee and the other two girls agreed with her, but alas they had to part ways for their next classes, none of them were in the same grade, which was a bummer but it couldn't be helped.

Sandi sat down in the stall of the bathroom and sighed with relief, a few moments of quiet, away from everybody else was a good thing.

At home she maintained a mask of still being popular even without the Fashion Club, making sure that she wore the latest stuff and right makeup when coming home and leaving the house, but when at school she didn't expend the effort needed to maintain it.

There wasn't a point since everything would be ruined by one person or another and it took too much effort to reapply everything over and over again.

Being popular, loved, envied, feared, and above all else respected, all of it was down the toilet, right where she was now.

Sandi pulled up the sleeve of her shirt and felt like weeping at the sight of the growing collection of cuts, but she took out a pair of nail clippers and flicked out the little knife and clenched her teeth to suppress the sounds as she pressed the pointy end on a fresh piece of flesh and began to drag it down.

She turned her face away so she couldn't see the damage, but even as she did it, she started to feel better.

After the first cut, she forced herself to take the knife away and wished once again that she hadn't broken that nail polish bottle and cut herself on the glass after that first horrible day back to school.

"But I did," Sandi thought to herself as her right hand moved the clippers back into place and began to cut away again, "And the pain of it felt like… relief."

She hadn't understood why it had felt that way, but she had found that feeling to be addicting and after a couple days of pure hell had found herself doing it deliberately.

Sandi forced herself to look at her arm and started crying again, it looked like a chopped up turkey leg.

"Why am I doing this?" she asked herself again even as the little knife touched her skin again.

She knew the answer as the third cut was made, she just didn't want to admit it.

She needed relief from being at the bottom of the popularity totem pole, and this… was giving her that relief.

Even as she made more cuts on her arm, the tears and blood flowed freely from her, she felt total release from her worries and cares.

Until she was finished and she looked at her arm again, but all she had to do was wash it up, roll up the sleeve and go her merry way.

Until she had to do it again.

Math class was the equivalent of water boarding for Jane Lane and getting out of that class was always a good feeling.

She went to her locker in a rush, not seeing the other person in her way as she rounded the corner until it was too late.

"Ouch!"

"Ahh!"

Jane managed to stay on her feet while the other guy wasn't so lucky since she had sent him flying to the ground, ignoring the laughs of the others she apologized profusely while helping the kid to his feet.

Then she noticed who he was and muttered a very faint, "Sorry Charlie."

Charles Ruttheimer III for his part dusted himself off while getting his books and replied, "Its ok Jane, I should have been paying more attention."

"No I'm the one that screwed up." Jane replied quietly and felt unusually flustered while fidgeting.

Charles shuffled his feet and struggled for something to say.

"Well… gotta go." Jane said while not quite able to reach his eyes.

"Bye." Charles replied as she ran off again and stared at her retreating figure even after she was out of sight.

This left him vulnerable to being pounced on by Joey.

"Gotcha!" he said after sneaking up on him and pulling him around into a bro-hug, then laughed at his surprise.

The other two J's came up with big grins, and everyone said hey to each other.

"So I saw you with Burnout again…" Charles said to Jeffy once they got to talking while heading to their lockers.

"Yup," Jeffy replied with a big grin on his face, "We've been talking and… I think we're gonna try to go steady for a while."

"Cool." Charles and Jamie said in unison.

"What about you Joey?" Jeffy asked, "I heard that you and Slutty Girl…"

Joey let a big shit eating grin emerge and replied, "Yup."

"No way!"

"Way," Joey replied with pride, "Me and Jackie went to the old quarry for some backseat fun, then we got some late night tacos and beer."

Everyone else looked confused so he clarified, "That's Slutty Girl's real name."

"Ohhh." They breathed, which made Joey fall into a fit of silent giggles.

"What about you Jamie?" Joey asked his blond haired friend.

"I would have asked Quinn out," he admitted, "But she's apparently a bad date, which is sad because she's so beautiful… I couldn't think of anyone else to ask so I just stayed home and played video games."

The J's and Charles gave him words of sympathy and when Charles was asked about his night he told them the truth.

"I was working on Barch's science project with Jodie, she's my lab partner." He clarified when the J's gave him confused looks.

"Oh." Jeffy said flatly.

"Well…" Joey began nervously, "As long as you don't steal Mack's girl from him then its cool."

"What do you mean by that?" Charles asked while playing with the string of his blue hoodie.

"Well Mack is really cool," Jamie answered for him, "And the captain of the team so if you did something not cool like steal his girl it would… well…"

"Suck." Jeffy said for him and the others went, "Yeah."

"I'm not going to do that," Charles answered firmly, "Besides… I don't even think the girls see me like that anymore."

Then he had to ask why they were all snickering and grinning but they brushed it off dismissively.

Once Charles stopped at his locker, the J's were forced to keep going since theirs were not there.

"How can he not see it?" Jeffy asked his friends once they were out of earshot.

Joey shrugged while Jamie said, "Well he was very slimy for a while so it's like… Now that's his improved he still thinks that no one wants him."

"But there are so many girls that are looking at him with, like, interest!" Jeffy protested.

"Yeah…" Jamie replied, "But he hasn't picked up on it yet."

"Hmm…" Joey breathed, "Maybe if we set him up on a date, then he'd realize that the girls are getting interested in him."

"…That could work." Jeffy said after thinking it over, "But who?"

That required some thought, which even with their improving mental capacities was giving them all headaches.

So they went to someone that they knew could do the hard thinking for them.

They found Daria hanging out with Brooke and Skylar, and surrounded by an impressive group of admirer's, so it took some effort to get her attention, but once they did and laid out their idea for her, she laughed.

That laugh and smile lit up the room and had all the guys, and some of the girls, panting.

"Oh I think I know the perfect girl for Charlie to take out on the town." Daria said with a grin that was for some reason extremely wicked.

Brooke added with her own grin, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I think I am Brooke." Daria replied and they both looked at each other before busting up with more giggles.

The J's and Skylar were very confused by this, but as long as Daria was happy then it was ok in their books.

After school had ended, Skylar had taken Daria home and had been intrigued when he noticed she was reading a copy of the Fashion Club's new newsletters.

"I thought you didn't like those girls." He had said to her as they pulled up in front of her house.

"I don't." Daria replied flatly, "But this thing is a bucket of laughs, or rather it will be when Quinn gets the next issue of Waif tomorrow."

Skylar scratched his head at that but was forced to dismiss it, "It's chick stuff," he thought to himself, "Best not to get in the middle."

Instead they made out in his car for a few minutes before Daria had to go in and wait for Mack to show up so they could train their mouse.

Her mother arrived about half-an hour later with legal briefs spilling everywhere and Daria sighed since she had been expected her mother not to be home so early and had been doing her homework in the living room.

She started to gather her things to retreat to her room but her mother called out to her in an unusually flat voice, "Daria, can you wait? I need to talk to you?"

Daria turned around to face Helen, who for once wasn't hostile but seemed… sad.

"Yes?" Daria asked without any emotion in her voice.

Helen stood in front of her, her eyes a tad downcast and she said, "About last night… I… I need to assure you of something, I am not having nor will I ever have an affair on your father."

Daria rolled her hips and would have folded her arms across her ample chest if the books in her hands would have allowed for it.

"Though I do understand if some of the hours and calls that I've been taking would make it appear if…" Helen then trailed off, not sure how to phrase what she wanted to say.

Daria wetted her lips and said very flatly, "It's more than how it appears Mother, I know how human nature works and… If you're not having an affair with Eric now, you soon will be."

"Daria…" Helen began to respond before she was cut off by the unreadable expression on her eldest child's face.

"Dad doesn't deserve that," Daria said very calmly, "So either cut back on 'boss time' or at least give Dad a clean break now before you stab him in the back like that."

Daria then turned her back on Helen and headed upstairs but called out, "I'm going work on my homework, Mack will be here shortly so we can train the mouse, I'll let him in, he'll be staying for dinner but I'll take care of it."

Once Daria was out of sight and up the stairs, Helen went into the living room and sat down on the couch, emotionally numb and she stared at the blank TV screen for a long time.

Daria stroked the soft fur of the white rat as part of Positive reinforcement and glanced up at Mack, not realizing how sultry her gaze was.

He gulped and asked as calmly as he could, "So… The little guy is taking well to it, the reinforcement I mean."

"Yeah…" Daria breathed as she put the rat back at the start of the maze, the cheese on the other end and let him in again, "The last time was quicker than the others."

"Yeah…" Mack drawled, even as he eyes drank in Daria bent over the table and it took every inch of his will not to slide on over and grind himself into her backside.

He pulled his eyes away and looked at the mouse as it ran through the maze, going very quickly through the right paths.

"The little guy is light on his feet." Mack observed, not noticing how sexy and husky his voice was.

Daria ran her teeth over her lips and checked the clock as the mouse reached the end of the maze, "Yeah, he beat his last record."

She scooped him up and fed the mouse a hunk of cheese and petted it before putting it back in the cage.

Daria then glanced at Mack and hoped that he didn't see that she was a quivering mass of hormones and asked as nicely as she could, "Wanna take a break? I'll whip up some salad, trust me it's better than my Dad's cooking, or Mom's frozen lasagna."

"Sounds good." Mack replied honestly, feeling acutely hungry.

Just not for food.

They went to the inside door of the garage and as soon as Daria opened the door, they saw a swish of red hair from a corner.

"Why is she snooping?" Mack wondered aloud before getting a look at Daria and hoped he hadn't just made a mistake.

"Reasons I'm sure," Daria said very flatly as she glared at the corner before she glanced at Mack and said much more sweetly, "So… Food?"

"Cool." Mack drawled and followed Daria to the kitchen and sat down an enjoyed watching her scurry around and noticed how adept she was at putting food together like that.

As she sat the bowl down in front of him and helped herself to some of her creation he asked, "How often do you do this?"

Daria put some ranch dressing on her salad and replied without looking up, "Almost every single night."

Mack felt a pang of sorrow at that, able to put two and two together and replied, "I have to cook a lot at home, since my parents work so much, if you want I could show you how to make some stuff."

Daria looked up at him and smiled, "I… I'd like that."

When the rest of the Morgendorffer's arrived in the kitchen for Helen's frozen lasagna they were greeted by the sight of Mack and Daria in the kitchen, laughing and putting together the finishing touches to a chicken dinner to go with the big bowl of salad on the table.

"Daria…" Jake spoke up first, "Did you guys…" He couldn't finish the sentence, not sure where this was going to go.

Both Mack and Daria looked at the three very shocked faces and laughed like hyenas and it took a few minutes to calm them down.

"We got dinner ready." Daria managed to wheeze, "Help yourselves, there's plenty for all."

With trepidation the rest of the family sat down to chicken and salad and discovering something surprising.

That it was the best meal they had eaten at home together in years.

It had taken another day to get the mouse properly trained but by the time Ms. Barch had everyone make their presentations, Daria felt very confident in her and Mack's work.

So they found themselves waiting to be called up to show everyone their hard work, first up had been Kevin and Brittany and it had been hysterical to see them admit that they had spent their time making out and their mouse had wound up in her brother's hands, the results of which were curled up in a ball in a box covered in its own filth, not responding to anything at all.

They both got F's, and Daria noted that Barch seemed to relish flunking Brittany as much as Kevin and concluded that her ex-husband probably left her for a bouncy cheerleader-type.

Then it had been Jodie and Charles in the hotseat, and to no one's surprise, Barch wouldn't even let him speak, which forced Jodie to give the presentation, granted she had to borrow his cue-cards but she did it with style and got an A.

Charles got a D.

Daria winced at that just before she and Mack were called up and swallowed the bile in her mouth and offered her presentation on positive reinforcement, and mixed in a couple pro-feminist slogans into the mix to keep Janet interested.

Oddly enough after she was finished, Mack was given a C and she got an A+.

Mack had given her a look that said, 'Don't say anything' when she had begun to open her mouth to speak up for him.

At their desks while another pair began their presentation, Daria hissed at him, "Why aren't you fighting this?"

Mack whispered right back, sitting next to her, "Two reasons, one is that Ms. Li will wind up changing it anyway."

Daria gritted her teeth at the thought of the byes, but in this case she'd let it slide since it was for a good cause.

"And the other is that Ms. Barch scares me."

Daria grinned at that, "You're a wise man Mack Dynamite."

On Mack's other side, Jodie was listening in, noting that nothing untoward was being spoken but still feeling a knot of worry growing in her belly.

"I've said it before and I'll say it again," Daria whispered, "We need to get her laid, pronto!"

Mack chuckled, "Good luck with that."

It was so surreal to be a complete social pariah, or at least that's what Sandi thought as she walked through the crowded halls, alone among the masses.

She grimaced when she stepped on something that wasn't the floor and noticed that it was a copy of the Fashion Club's newsletter.

Her glances turned by instinct to a gaggle of popular girls strutting nearby, wearing the fashions promoted by the newsletter, a supposed sneak-peak of what would be hot even before the next issue of Waif had come out.

"I wonder if it's, like true." Sandi thought to herself once more as she walked on, glad that she had least stopped crying whenever she saw her former frenemies being popular and happy and not in the outer darkness of loserdom like her.

Sandi felt her fists clench, the stress of thinking about her situation was getting to her again, she hated what was coming next but knew that she would be drawn to do it anyway.

In her pocket, a brand new pocket knife waited to taste fresh flesh.

"I've got to find a better way to handle this place." Sandi thought to herself again as she headed by instinct for the bathroom, the privacy of a stall would let her take care of the tic she was feeling.

For now.

Life should have been perfect for her as she lead the Fashion Club down the halls, wearing her predictions for fashion in the next season and stuff.

Quinn maintained the facade of happiness even while her puny brain could only focus on the flaws that were marring the situation.

A sudden massive wave of nasty rumors had emerged about her a few hours after she had personally overseen the distribution of the newsletter, no doubt her enemies were jealous, and she thought she spotted Sandi heading for the bathroom again.

"No doubt that Queen Loser was behind it." Quinn thought to herself firmly, even while she remembered what she had overheard Tori telling Siobhan.

"There is no way that Stacy is behind all this nastiness." Quinn reminded herself, "Why would she do that? There's no motive and she did help us with that website, all those tips and predictions wouldn't have been half as good without her."

Quinn even recalled that Stacy had let her take all the credit for the Fashion Forecast, "Which was so sweet of her," the President of the Fashion Club thought to herself.

"Stacy's a true friend, she'd never betray me like that."

Meanwhile, at her side, the Vice President of the Fashion Club wondered just how big the scandal would be and hoped that Daria would uphold her end of the bargain.

Daria looked at her reflection and was satisfied with the results before slipping into a large and heavy trench coat.

"Ugly and brown," She thought to herself while dabbing on her rose scented perfume, "The perfect means to go around unnoticed until it's time."

It wouldn't do to leave the house and cause a riot before the Roller Hockey game, or risk not being let out at all.

She checked the time and grabbed her purse, when she opened the door she saw Quinn slipping down the stairs all dressed up, she raised an eyebrow at her sister's brazen abandonment of her 'grounded' status.

"Oh wait," Daria suddenly recalled, "Dad's away at a last-minute meeting and Mom was slammed with some case so if they're not here and I'm leaving anyway…"

For a moment Daria contemplated a means to use this against her, then she shrugged and headed on downstairs herself, Quinn having already gone out the front door.

She had sometime so before going outside to wait for her ride, Daria slipped into the kitchen and grabbed a banana, on top of the garbage was the latest issue of Waif, which had been in the mail when they had gotten home.

Daria's evil grin at the anorexic model on the cover, which was covered in potato peelings, was horrible to behold.

"All of her predictions were wrong," Daria said to herself flatly as she exited the kitchen and left the house, "Just as I wanted."

As Daria headed to wait at the curb for Skylar to mosey on down, the only thoughts on Daria's mind were of how much fun it was going to be causing chaos, making Quinn miserable, and…

"Giving two emotionally disconnected people the right connections." Daria said to herself as she saw a familiar set of headlights headed her way.

"Time to play." Daria thought to herself, anxious to get the show on the road.

Charles rang the doorbell and felt Jamie's hands on his face as he removed the blindfold, he heard a front door open as his sight was returned to him.

And then the sight he beheld turned his legs into jelly.

Jane Lane stood in front of him, flabbergasted, in her usual clothes, her eyes wide with shock.

"Uh… Hi!" Charles squeaked nervously before remembering that he had a small bouquet of wild flowers in his hands.

She took them limply and said very hesitantly, "I guess you're my blind date… right?"

"Uh… Yeah!"

They stared at everything but each other, and shuffled their feet.

A car horn shocked them back to reality and Charles stammered a bit while saying, "So we go to the game together and then get a pizza?"

Jane latched onto what she knew, since everything else was currently in free fall and found herself replying… "Uh… sure."

Very nervously, Charles offered her his hand.

She stared at it for a long moment and he started to withdraw it, scared that he had already screwed up.

Then with fierce determination, she snatched it and they both wondered why the other one was smiling as he led her to his ride, Jamie already in the back with his date for the night.

Neither one realized that they were perfect smiling mirrors of each other.

Anthony DeMartino sat on a bench in the locker room that they had commandeered for the teacher's use for the Roller Hockey game against those… those…

"BAStards!" DeMartino thought to himself with rage at the memory of his near-death experience and humiliation at the hands of that fat sack of crap, Rock N Roll Randy.

"Not THIS YEar!" Mr. D thought as Gibson gave them the standard pep speech.

"I HOPE that the GENTS in this ROom, reMEMbered to… EVACuate themselves prior to THIS!" Antonty contemplated, having warned them of his little scheme with Daria to distract the other team.

But she was a double edged sword and could be just as distracting to themselves as no doubt she would be to the DJ's.

"So a little BIShop choking was… REquired." He justified to himself, his manhood lighter and hopefully rendered unable to respond to Ms. Morgendorffer's magnificent charms.

It was difficult enough under normal circumstances to be professional around her, let alone when she was actively trying to seduce someone.

A wiggle in his pants was a sign that maybe he wasn't as properly taken care of as he thought he was.

"Damn!" He hissed to himself and then gave the ones that looked at him an ugly glare and a bark of "WHAT?!"

That ended the stares at his random outburst.

Daria was ecstatic as she sat down in her reserved seat on the ground row, in a prominent spot where the players wouldn't fail to look, to her right was her main squeeze, Skylar, and to her left, as per her devil's bargain, Tori Jericho.

However the bargain had come with perks, a last minute request to Ms. Jericho was now in a bag at Daria's feet, she looked in it and grinned and looked at Tori and said with complete honesty, "You have the coolest stuff!"

"I know Lady D," Tori replied with sincerity, always one to lap up a compliment, "My parent's rock!"

"How much longer?" Scarlett asked from behind them as she sat down with Ronnie at her side.

"In a few minutes," Skylar answered and then glanced at Daria who grinned at him with mischief in her eyes, "Uh what exactly are you wearing underneath that trench coat?"

"You'll see." Daria answered cryptically.

Then they were distracted by the new arrivals, Brooke, Jamie, Jane, and…

"Hey Charlie!" Daria said with glee and waved at Jane's surprise date and he waved back, his face still had the stunned look from earlier plastered all over it.

The new arrivals took their seats around Daria, and unwitting added to the grandeur of her court, Jackie was the late arrival who had Joey on her arm, and for a moment Daria wondered if Jackie was going steady with him.

She looked around and noticed the dejected and defeating remnants of the Fashion Club on the other side of the gym and then amended it as the Former Fashion Club.

"Because they are toast!" Daria thought with a wicked smile on her face at the memory of what had transpired out in the parking lot the instant Quinn had arrived.

As soon as Miss Priss had shown her face with her minions, they were mobbed by angry girls who had bought into those fashion predictions of theirs, demands for answers, refunds, retributions, and threats of violence had bloomed like desert flowers.

Then like clockwork, the Fashion Club had turned inward on itself, Tori in the meanwhile had arrived just when this had started and had made a discreet beeline for Daria who had been watching with Skylar, leaning on his car.

Daria gave her the nod of approval and let her join them and watched the fireworks together.

Quinn had, as Daria had hoped started to yell at Stacy about the Fashion Leaks website, Stacy for her part completely broke down into tears and had fled the scene sobbing, and made Quinn look even worse.

Just in time for Ms. Li to arrive screaming bloody murder and using the twin threats of suspensions, detensions, esteem class, and general nastiness had gotten the warring girls to break it up and go into the gym.

But the FCers were forced to stay behind for an impromptu tongue lashing from the Principal and then Li had smiled like a Wicked Witch and dropped the hammer and saved herself 1500 dollars in the process.

She had declared the schools support of the Club to be DOA and ended its role as an official extracurricular.

The memory of Quinn screaming in pure horror and running away in tears just like Stacy had been music to Daria's ears.

Then she was brought back to reality by the dimming of the lights in the gym, a predatory gleam in her eyes was not seen by anyone, but any who had would have flinched.

"It's Showtime." Daria whispered to herself as she shimmied out of the trench coat and moved quickly, she grabbed the contents of the bag and stuffed the trench coat into it and put on the soft coat that Tori had brought her, the feel and the smell was fabulous and would, hopefully compliment what she was wearing.

The sound and light people did their thing as the DJ's came out on skates and lapped up the boo's, then the teachers came out on skates to cheers and laughs.

The ref skated up to DeMartino and the man that Daria had heard was Rock N' Roll Randy, a fat balding middle aged man who she had been told suffered from delusions of grandeur.

The ref asked for a clean game, and everyone laughed, even the players.

The lights came on and after a second there was a collective gasp from the other side of the gym and finger pointing, which caused everyone present to follow their lines of sight and then gasped as well.

Daria was sitting serenely on the gym bench, her heart-shaped glasses dancing on the edge of her nose, her eyes teasingly sweet, her outfit anything but.

She was wearing a very thin gold micro bikini that was kept from being obscene by the small real white mink waist coat she had on in such a way that it covered some things up while revealing others, her white sandals tapped on the hardwood floor merrily and she giggled and said, "What? It's time to play boys!"

The male players, and some of the girls too, shook themselves out of their stupors and gave war cries that would have made Vikings proud and the ref blew his whistle and dropped the puck and fled for dear life.

The battle was on.

"Oh my!" Daria gasped at the arresting sight in front of her, one of the DJ's had been slammed into the floor by Bennett who cackled madly with glee, two DJ's were taking on Gibson who was roaring in protests even as he went down, but even the sight of Barch and Li making a DJ hit himself with his own fists couldn't top the grudge match between DeMartino and Randy.

"BRING IT ON!" DeMartino roared with his eye firmly bulged out as he and Randy circled each other around the puck, "Take your BEATDOWN … like a MAN!"

"I'm not the Man dude!" Randy came right back, "I'm a rocker!"

Mr. D took the opening and swiped the puck and moved like a madman down towards the enemy goalie while roaring, "Where your ROCKpower NOW?! AHAHAHAHA….WHAHHHH!"

The whaaa came about when one of Randy's friends 'accidently' powerbombed DeMartino and sent him crashing to the ground.

Some of the students cheered and Daria guessed what their bets were, then they cursed when he rose like Frankenstein's monster.

However this had given Randy a shot at the puck and had stolen it, the Ref had been knocked out a few minutes before and was being tended too by DeFoe in a corner.

"The Rock LIVES!" Randy cheered as he came within sight of the teacher's goalpost… and within sight of Daria.

She had taken out a giant red sucker and was tonging it oh so slowly, her red tongue the same color as the candy confection that was being licked and teased oh so sensuously…

"OHHHHH YEAHHHHHHH…." Randy moaned as he instinctively moved on towards Daria… and into a trap.

"YOU FILTHY MAN!" Ms. Barch bellowed as she plowed Randy from the side, "IT'S TIME FOR REVENGE!"

Randy's screams of terror added to the bloodlust of the crowd as Janet Barch showed everyone the fruit of her practice sessions with the Resuscitation dummy.

"Wow!" Tori exclaimed next to Daria, "Is he going to die?"

"Not sure," Daria conceded, "Depends on when the cops get here."

Ms. Li might have stopped this, if for nothing else the liability issues, but she was too busy tackling another DJ and making sure that he stayed down.

Then a massive roar of triumph brought everything to a screeching halt.

"I MOTHER FUCKING WON!" Ms. Bennett yelled in very un-Bennett fashion at the enemy goal post, the goalie cursing and the puck was in!

Even though the only people who had put a bet that the teachers would win were Daria and her friends (and Andrea who had overheard them talking about it before the game and had changed her bet), the entire gym erupted into cheers and Bennett basked in a level of acceptance and adulation that she had never believed would be hers.

Then the gym doors busted wide open and a swarm of SWAT teams swept into the gym of LHS with automatic weapons primed for action.

The match was over.

It had taken a couple hours to sort through the mess but in the end the students were allowed out of the gym while Ms. Li was last seen henpecked and waiting for her lawyer to arrive, surrounded by Lawndale County's finest.

People left feeling buzzed and very happy with the results, especially Daria and the Gang, and in the midst of the excitement, a hyper Tori asked Daria, "What now?!"

Daria glanced at Jane and they both smiled and nodded, "Party at Jane's!"

The cheers of approval at this from their friends was enough to sway Tori to the cause, cus even stuck up popular girls loved to party.

Daria used her cellphone to leave a message on her parents answering machine that she would be staying at Jane's that night.

Then after putting off the rents, she put them out of her thoughts, shimmied back into her regular stuff, and had turned to the task of putting together a killer party at the last possible minute.

Trent and Jesse (who were passed out on the couch) were roused and sent to the liquor store for booze (with one of the J's to make sure they didn't pass out again), the corner store for snacks, and the regular store for a fuckton of plastic cups.

Trent made a few calls on a payphone to his friends, then they came back in short order, just in time and the party was on like Donkey Kong.

The party for 'just friends' grew when Trent's friends had arrived, they were older than the high school kids, besides Nick and Max there were a few others who had gone to school with Trent and were either in college or held down jobs.

But hey, a party's a party.

And now as Robert danced with a preppy girl from Lawndale State, Tori was showing some impressive dance moves to a stunned and amazed Jamie who looked enamored, Brooke had sniffed at this and had stalked off.

Ronnie and Scarlett were doing body shots, and Scarlett had a stunning body under her baggy clothes.

Jackie had vanished with Joey and a bottle of Wild Turkey and no one expected to see them the rest of the night.

Trent for his part was dancing with a raven haired girl with piercings that, when Daria asked around was named Monique.

She hated the bitch instantly and couldn't explain why.

However she held her peace, Trent was single and was entitled to have fun, she, Daria was dating and in any case hadn't…

"Don't think about it." She told herself and turned to Skylar and kissed him passionately without any warning, tasting beer on his tongue but didn't mind it a bit.

Jesse for his part had found Brooke sulking in a corner and in his own, fumbling way was trying to make the beautiful girl feel better, which she very much appreciated considering that Jesse was a freaking dream.

"Muscles, leather, sweat… God he's hot!" Brooke thought with a squeal and asked him to dance, Jamie quite forgotten.

Jesse drawled, "Yeah!" and was like a deer in the headlights when Brooke showed inhuman strength when she grabbed his hands and dragged him to the dance floor (i.e. the Lane's living room with the furniture moved to the side).

Then for a horrifying moment the music was interrupted by the dreaded, unspeakable song.

"FULL OF, FULL OF, FULL OF ESTEEM!" Roared the singer of Fetal Metal as they sang their number one hit "Full of Esteem".

A red blur at the stereo system caused the music to change to Gun's & Roses 'Welcome to the Jungle' and everyone cheered, and then realized who had done it.

For a moment all present were floored, and then Jane's voice rose from the crowd, "GO CHARLIE!"

Charles Ruttheimer III had tears in his eyes as he was applauded and cheered by all present and thought to himself, "I… I've been accepted, people accept me! And it was Jane who… who…"

The woman in question came up to him with a big smile and said with a wink, "Wanna see more of my paintings?"

Charles made a small purring sound and replied, "Of course Madam."

And it wasn't sleazy at all.

Daria for her part was hanging on Skylar's arm and he whispered in her ear, "Wind's room again?"

She kissed his cheek and said, "Penny's room, we need to christen all the rooms in this house."

"Yes ma'am!"

Upstairs in her room, the door firmly shut behind her, Jane felt almost as if she was outside of herself as she swung her arms around a surprised Charles and just… stared at him.

Not knowing that her eyes were big and round and had mesmerized him like a hypnotic trick.

For some reason they realized that the face of the other was getting closer and closer…

Then their lips connected, and Charles tongue touched Jane's and tasted the sweet nectar of her mouth and very quickly he felt hers within his.

Their bodies were entwined against each other for a long time until Jane pulled away and breathed, "Whoa!"

Charles blushed and stammered, "That was amazing!"

He didn't have to admit that was his first kiss, nor his surprise at how good he had found himself to be at it.

Jane smiled sheepishly and replied, "We're not going past first base… But do you want to do that again?"

The kiss that Charles gave her was answer enough.

"Thanks Skylar…" Daria said with a pounding heat in the light of the rising sun as he dropped her off at her house.

His car sped away and she stumbled towards the door, key in hand, a killer hangover in her head, but since it was Saturday it didn't matter.

She opened the door and began to head on up until she heard her mother yelling from the kitchen, "Daria get in here this instant!"

"Bitch…" Daria murmured to herself and directed her body to the kitchen, her parents were sitting at the table, Dad firmly buried in his paper, Quinn standing off to the side, looking dejected, and Helen had a godfather-esque look to her face.

Daria sat down without a word, facing her mother's glare with a nasty one of her own.

"Where you young lady?!" Helen snapped, opening the preliminaries.

"Jane's," Daria answered, "I left a message on the machine."

"You were supposed to be watching her!" Helen yelled and pointed at Quinn who jumped like she had been shot.

"No I wasn't," Daria answered with a bite, "You never told me to, and I'm not your automatic babysitter, you want Quinn watched? Pay me, pay someone else, or do it yourself."

Helen's face twisted into a snarl, "How dare you! You… You… Hussy!"

Under the influence of a massive headache and the anger at having her good vibes ruined, Daria's beautiful face twisted into a mask of years of repressed rage.

"Fuck you! You uncaring bitch!"

Everyone was shocked, even Daria at the words that had come out of her mouth.

"HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO ME THAT WAY?!" Helen screamed with froth flying out of her mouth.

"Because it's true," Daria yelled right back, "You've never given a fuck about me and you just insulted me to my face, so I'll say it again, FUCK YOU!"

"I'M YOUR MOTHER!" Helen roared with her face turning red, Jake's head vanished completely under the paper, Quinn was gasping like a fish out of water.

"You have a funny way of showing it!" Daria snapped, "You've favored that… THING!" She pointed at Quinn who jumped again, "Over me for years! And when you can be bothered to deal with me, in between calls to your boss, and I suspect your secret lover or soon enough, you have absolutely nothing nice to say and try to run my life like an old Roman Tyrant."

"So… What makes you think I see you as my mother?!" Daria finished, her face red with wrath.

After that speech, the screaming match between Helen and Daria grew worse and worse, reaching very high decibels, and nearly caused the neighbors to call the cops.

At some point that neither of them could remember, they had gotten into each other's face, and then…

SLAP!

Daria was on the ground, holding her face, Helen standing over her horrified as she stared at her hand like it was a foreign object.

Daria slowly rose from the ground without a shake or a sound, she snapped to attention and stared her mother dead in the eye and said without any emotion or inflection.

"It's nice to see that you have some shame left."

Helen flinched and stepped back like she had been hit in turn and began to stammer apologies.

"Save it." Daria said in that flat voice, glared at Quinn who nearly passed out and said, "You can keep them, I don't want them."

She then glared at Jake who was hiding behind his paper and said, "If you want people to think you're not paying attention, turn the goddamn page!"

Without another word she then turned her back on all of them and walked out, ignoring them all as if they didn't even exist, and went up to her room.

An hour later she went down the stairs with a suitcase and left it by the door, grabbed the message pad and taped a note to the fridge telling them she would be living elsewhere for a couple days.

Quinn and her parents had been in their respective bedrooms during this and didn't notice a thing until they heard the front door slam shut.

When they found the note, Jake went white, Helen almost passed out, and Quinn began to shake like a leaf.

"Is she going to come back?!" Quinn whispered to herself, not having any idea how to process all of this.

No one had an answer.

THE END

Notes: Some lines are from 'The Lab Brat' and 'The Big House'.