(Amelia having an older, suspicious-of-Daria brother was 'inspired' by The Angst Guy's fanfic Prisoner of Hope: theangstguy com (slash) fanfics (slash) prisonerofhope htm

4.

Amelia's brother had picked up the phone – he sounded wary of her, but confirmed he'd drop his sister off.

She was going to meet Amelia tomorrow. She was going to meet someone. A friendly face, someone from the Outside World, a reason to not give in to a nervous breakdown.

Except she hadn't liked Amelia before and she wasn't sure if she did now. She pitied Amelia, true, but liked? Would it be possible? Could she fake it at least? Did she really want to exploit a well-meaning, lonely girl to – okay, yes, that was what she wanted, but she wasn't comfortable with it. She failed her own standards.

What if Amelia picked that up? What if she made outbursts in front of her, how would Amelia respond? What if this didn't work?

What if it did?

Which class was she in now, anyway, and what time was it? Hadn't it been 10 AM just a moment ago?

Don't outburst, Daria. Don't even think about it.

Which class was she in now?

That night, consumed with nerves, she threw up into her dustbin. (This wasn't so bad, she reflected, because what else was she going to do with the school dinners?)

"Stay calm, Daria. Just think: what would Dad do? Work it out, and then do the complete opposite.

"It will all be fine. You can do this. You can get through.

"You got to watch them, be quick or be de- you can do this."

She dreamt fitfully of being back in Highland, in her old clothes, setting fire to insects and giggling over the stupidest crap with the only two people who she would ever really be able to talk to. She was casting aside intelligence and standards and a future, embracing the oblivion.

Saturday morning. The last day.

She somehow managed to keep breakfast down. ("I knew this bread was made of paste.")

Her visitors could only get in once she'd gone to reception and confirmed they were legit. They'd be allowed in the grounds but not into the school buildings, that was for Special Occasions. And nearby, she knew – the suspicious look the receptionist gave her spoke volumes – the security guards would be waiting in case they had to take her away (ha ha), take her away (ho ho hee hee).

Did I really just think that? Yes I did. Ah, thanks. No problem.

"You're legally responsible for any damage or disruption your visitors' cause."

Daria nodded at the receptionist. "Don't worry; I hear some of the lower classes are capable of basic literacy and cutlery usage."

She stepped outside the school building, feeling a little light-headed as she realised this had been the first time in weeks she had stepped outside. There hadn't been anywhere to go, she hadn't seen the point. For prison grounds, though, the greenery looked quite nice.

Every step took her towards the somewhat battered Oldsmobile parked near the main gate. And the two people there.

She suddenly wanted to turn around and go back to her room and never write to Amelia again and stick with the breakdown.

She walked on.

Amelia was waving at her, smiling nervously. She looked just like her photo. Her brother was next to her, looking friendly enough, a tall ripped guy dressed in black everything and with black dyed hair and black... make-up?

Daria looked at him again as she came nearer, and found herself saying: "I'm sorry. Who died?"

The man looked less friendly now, though Amelia was stifling a giggle.

"I'm going to Alternapalooza," he said.

"I see," said Daria, who didn't.

He turned to his sister. "Operation 'The Hills Have Four-Eyes' complete – reorganising for primary objective. ETA of pick-up, 0900!"

"See you, Rob."

Daria watched him head back to his car, blinking. "I know I understood the individual words..."

"He's gone up in rank in the Guard, he's been like this all week." Amelia suddenly appeared to shrink, and clasped her hands behind her back and looked downwards; she had just realised she was talking to someone. "I, I guess it's a bit silly, but he said he'd give me a lift and, well..."

"Alternapalooza?"

"It's a big concert in August, he's been every year." Her eyes widened and she hurriedly added: "I know it's not August now! Erm, they, um, they moved the date forward from the summer this year. I dunno why."

Reluctantly, Daria asked the last obvious question. "So if he's not staying with you, you're staying..."

"There's a motel near here, I'm staying overnight."

Now she had to think of a conversation. And one came, one she wasn't sure she wanted the answer to.

"You came all this way and you're staying here just for a few hours with me?"

"Um."

Daria realised that sounded bad, and quickly switched to a safer topic. "I'd take you inside, but they only allow visitors in on certain days. They need to have time to round up the undesirables so the foreign dignitaries can't see them."

She smiled. "They let you out."

"I escaped. Soon, they'll found the rope ladder I made out of my underwear. Hur hur hur panties-"

She clasped her hands over her mouth, horrified. Amelia showed a brief glimpse of confusion before covering it up.

"Bet you wish you could've done that at camp! Hey, remember that time you rode off on the horse and left us all behind?"

"You mean the time the horse rode off with me on it and threw me off? I needed nine stitches."

"Oh."

There was silence over that. Daria had allowed her annoyance to show – she felt guilty that she didn't feel guilty over that (did Amelia not remember the stitches?).

"I, erm..." Amelia fidgeted. "I always thought you'd done it deliberately."

"Nine stitches."

"Well, yeah, but I thought you got them from..." She trailed off, before looking around the grounds desperately. "It looks pretty nice here!"

"I haven't been here in weeks. There's nothing to do."

"Oh."

It was going badly. She knew it was going badly. She didn't know how to stop it.

Desperate herself, she pointed at Rob's car. "He's still here?"

"Yeah, he's checking the map to Alternapalooza. He's got a thing about not getting lost, it..."

She bit her lip. Now Daria felt guilty.

"Look, Amelia, I..." Yes, good start, now what? "I..." Don't do an outburst, not now. "I haven't talked to anyone in a long time. Except for insulting people, but that's just a bit of fun. I'm not trying to insult you."

"I know."

"No you don't. You were about to apologise for being boring or being stupid or having a name that starts with the letter 'a', apologise for something anyway."

"Erm, well, erm..." She took a deep breath. "Erm, yeah."

"I'm really sorry," she said, and was surprised to realise she meant it. "I'm not what you needed, I realise that. You need a friend and I'm... Well, I kind of suck."

Silence.

A long, lengthy, awkward silence.

Daria wasn't inside the school building, but she felt it. Grove Hills was Grove Hills: pressing down on her, stripping away all she had and all she thought she was, a dark force cutting her off from everything. Grove Hills didn't want her to be capable of talking to Amelia. Grove Hills wanted her to have that breakdown.

Grove Hills was whispering at her to turn around and give in.

Or had she already given in?

"You're just having a bad day, right?"

Amelia was still talking. That honestly surprised her.

"You're usually – I say usually, I know we haven't seen each other much, but at camp and in the letters you always had this, this aura. Confidence or – no, assuredness. You knew who you were and what you wanted, you marched to your own drum whatever happened. That..." Amelia looked away again. "You were kinda my role model. You did everything I wanted to do. That last letter? That... that really helped, Daria. I, I, I know this isn't working and, and I'm sorry I can't get it to work, but it really helped to see you explain things like that."

Amelia was starting to cry.

In Daria's head, something went 'crack'.

"Amelia?" There was something important, something she needed help to grasp. "If we were at Camp Grizzly and there was something going on that I hated, and then there was a way to get out of it, a way that'd get me into trouble but would still allow me to get out of this thing... What would I have done?"

The girl blinked. "What? Oh, erm... You normally just left, right?"

"You're right. I did."

She glanced over, and saw Rob had finished with his map.

"Amelia, would you rather go to Alternapalooza than stay here?" She took one look at Amelia's face and said: "Sorry, let me rephrase that. If we could've met at Alternapalooza, would you rather that than meeting here?"

"Oh! Well, I've never really gone to a rock festival before, I-"

"Would you like to?"

She nodded mutely.

"Let's go there now. Get your brother to wait."

Blink. "Why wait?"

"I have something to take care of first."

Her heart was beating like there was no tomorrow and she felt like throwing up again, but still she grabbed everything that was hers and shoved it into the suitcase she'd had since she moved in. She'd made her decision. She was sticking to it. She was thinking outside the box and achieving a paradigm shift, or at least that's what she was going to say if a teacher saw her.

She took one last look at her room, her living space for over two months.

"I never cleaned up that vomit. Good."

She ran as fast as a physically unfit teenage girl with a heavy suitcase could run, knowing at any minute she could be spotted. And just before she got out the building, the guards noticed her.

Instinct took over, forcing her legs to go faster, screaming "I AM CORNHOLIO!" at the sky as she went and trying not to trip over. Behind her, the security guards were starting to jog. Ahead of her, the Oldsmobile had started, the trunk was open, and the gates to Grove Hills were blessedly open.

She hurled her suitcase into the trunk (well, onto the ground next to it and then she had to pick it up and put it in). Mad, terrified eyes looked at Rob pleadingly.

"We can go now?"

"Yeahhh…" He looked at the guards, then at Amelia. Then at Daria, a clear 'I don't trust you near my sister' message in his eyes. Then at Amelia again. "Hop in."

"Thank you."

The gates were starting to swing shut as the car drove off – the guards must've called it in – but too slow, too blessedly slow to stop it from driving through. Rob accelerated once they were through, giving a yell of "DUSTOFF!" as the car went.

Daria, sitting in the back, turned to watch the school recede. It looked big and imposing, but soon began to shrank and became just another building.

She was out.

"Do any of you know Black Sabbath's Iron Man?"

"Yeah"/"Affirmative"

Daria raised a triumphant fist. "Daaa, daaaa…

"Dan-dah-dah," chorused Amelia.

The car sped on to Alternapalooza, a roar of "danananana daaa-nah dah!" trailing in its wake.