For those that got the alert, the new side story has been moved to between chapters 2 and 3. My apologies for those that got the alert and then though something odd had happened.


Two days later, Jodie sat across the Morgendorffer table from her friend. Instead of the serious expression she tended to wear when teaching, Daria was listless and dragging.

"Are you ok?" Jodie asked.

Much to Jodie's surprise, instead of signing or writing on her whiteboard, Daria unclipped the card pouch from her skirt and slowly fingered through the cards before pulling out a card with "sick" typed on it.

Jodie blinked. "You should have had Quinn call me and cancel. You shouldn't be pushing yourself on my account. Wait; if you're sick, why were you in school today?"

"Wasn't that bad this morning," Daria wrote. "Got bad after lunch, but Dad's at a conference and Mom is . . . Mom, so I couldn't leave early. They're still out and Quinn's over at Stacy's trying to calm her down."

"What's wrong with . . . No, no," Jodie interrupted herself, "I'm canceling today's lesson and you're going to bed. Then, if you feel up to it, you can tell me what's wrong with Stacy."

Jodie helped a grumbling Daria up to her room. Once she had gotten Daria inside her bedroom, Jodie eyed what Daria was wearing. "Can you change for bed yourself or do you need help?" Jodie asked.

Daria shot Jodie a hard look and wrote on her whiteboard. "I can change myself, thank you. If you're going to be insistent, you can get a glass of water and the medicine I laid out in the bathroom."

"You haven't taken anything yet?" Jodie asked, mildly incredulous as Daria slowly removed and hung her coat. "Why not?"

Daria did not answer, but instead shot Jodie a direct look and began to slowly pull her orange t-shirt up.

"Okay, okay, I'm going," Jodie said laughingly as she went to get the medicine as directed. It took Jodie less than a minute to find it, so she went to the kitchen to get water instead of using the cup Daria had set up in the bathroom. When Jodie felt she had given the sick girl enough time to change, she knocked and entered the bedroom.

Thankfully, she must have taken long enough, because Daria was sitting in bed writing on a notepad. Jodie handed her the medicine, which she quickly took. When Daria was finished draining the glass of water, she noticed that Jodie had raised her eyebrows and seemed to be staring at her chest.

Daria raised her own eyebrows as she matched Jodie's expression. After a few seconds, Daria began to redden, and finally broke down and looked down at her chest. Finding nothing out of place, she raised a hand and signed, "What?" to Jodie.

"I didn't take you as a fan of Tweety," Jodie said, gesturing at Daria's t-shirt, which had a picture of the bright yellow cartoon bird on it.

Blush still going strong, Daria set aside her story pad, picked up the speaking pad beside her, and added a few lines before handing it to Jodie.

"I didn't take the medicine earlier because it makes me drowsy. I didn't want to fall asleep in the middle of your visit."

Further down the pad was Daria's new text, "Dad got it for me several years ago without looking at the tags. It was big enough to be a dress on me when he got it. It's been one of my regular sleep-shirts for years."

Jodie laughed. "Ah yes, the dreaded parental clothes shopping. I have never been as grateful as the day my mother let me start picking out my own clothes."

Daria laughed. "Quinn would tell you the exact same thing," she wrote. "Only the way she told Mom she would get her own clothing got her grounded for two weeks."

"And when did you start getting your own clothing?" Jodie asked.

Daria shrugged, "For as long as I remember. Mom took Quinn shopping, but Dad took me. I started picking my clothing early out of self defense. Bad fashion sense." Daria added when she saw Jodie's expression. "Dad would take me, but I'd pick out the things I wanted. Dad isn't colorblind, but if you had ever seen some of the things he wanted me to pair together you'd think he was."

"Then why is Quinn involved in fashion if you've been doing it longer than she has?" Jodie asked, noticing that Daria's hands were beginning to slow.

"I dress to be practical, comfortable, and to blend in, in that order," Daria wrote. "Quinn dresses to deemphasize her condition while still calling attention to herself as a person. Quinn's the one with the shopaholic bug; I only browse in bookstores."

"Speaking of Quinn," Jodie began, "You said she was with Stacy?"

Daria nodded and slowly began to write. "According to Quinn, this plastic surgery thing is hitting the 'popular' kids hard. Most of them have been half-seriously considering getting work done themselves."

Jodie swallowed a giggle. "I did hear Kevin muttering about getting his nose 'fixed' yesterday. I hadn't realized it had become an epidemic."

Daria shrugged and yawned, then slumped a bit further into bed. "That's the truth according to Quinn. Some people that aren't talking about receiving plastic surgery, but are 'suggesting' things other people can fix."

"Sandi," Jodie stated.

"Right. Well, for some people her suggestion has been 'don't bother' and not because they don't need it."

"Wait; let me guess," Jodie speculated, "Sandi's been harping to Stacy all week."

Daria gave Jodie a sleepily inquiring look. "We went to the same middle school," Jodie explained. "I remember a crying Stacy running into me my last year there. Rumor had it that Sandi had been bullying her."

"Quinn's telling Stacy she doesn't need any surgery and that she should come to school tomorrow."

Jodie nodded. "Well, good for her. I hope she succeeds; Stacy could really use some more friendly support. Listen, Daria, I think I better get going. Can I borrow . . . ?"

Jodie trailed off; in the middle of her sentence, Daria had finished falling asleep. Smiling, Jodie eased Daria's glasses off her face and set them on her desk next to Daria's whiteboard. Leaving a short note for the unconscious Morgendorffer, Jodie borrowed Daria's house keys and locked the front door behind her as she left.


It was during the next day of classes that Quinn managed to catch up to Jodie.

"Jodie, do you know Daria's locker combination?" Quinn asked. "She asked me to pick up her school books for her, but don't remember what she told me her combination was."

Jodie shook her head. "Afraid not. Have you tried asking Jane?"

Quinn sighed. "Her best guess didn't work."

"How is Daria doing?"

"Well enough," Quinn replied. "She's still tired, but her fever's was almost all gone this morning."

"Good," Jodie replied. "Could you do me a favor? I borrowed Daria's keys last knight to lock the front door." While Jodie dug the keys out of her bag, a sly look crossed over Quinn's face.

"Sure, I'd be happy to return them." The albino girl said. "But wouldn't you rather do it? Daria would be happy to see you."

"I wouldn't want to disturb her."

Quinn waved Jodie's concern off. "Oh please; you've spent more time in Daria's new room than I have. I can't image a time she would mind seeing you."

Jodie laughed, "I don't think she'd be happy if I wandered in while she was changing."

Remembering Jodie's first visit to her home, Quinn snorted but said nothing.


Daria's bed was quite cluttered with things when Jodie arrived at the Morgendorffer home. In addition to a tray which must have once held dinner, several notepads and books lied scattered across the bed sheet.

Daria looked up from her book as Jodie entered the room. After she snapped the book shut, Daria signed "hello" to her fellow student.

"Hello Daria. How are you doing?" Jodie asked.

Daria made a so-so gesture with one hand. "Thanks to the medicine I'm either tired or disconnected." Gesturing at the mess on her bed with one hand, Daria continued to write out, "And I have the attention span of a three year old on pixie-sticks. I feel like a damn bobble-head."

Jodie giggled quietly, when Daria shot her a questioning look Jodie explained. "Sorry that made an image of our classmates as bobble heads. The funny thing is I think Kevin would look good that way."

Daria laughed, but suddenly turned intensely pink and hid her face with her hands and her shoulders shook rapidly. Worried that her friend had suddenly gotten worse, Jodie quickly rose to get help, but Daria put a finger in a 'wait' gesture. A few second later Daria's face returned to normal.

"Sorry," Daria wrote "A picture of Brittany as not quite a bobble head popped into my head and free association got away from me."

Jodie mouthed the first part of the sentence while trying to come to the same image Daria had. When the most likely suspect popped into her head Jodie simply fell out of her chair as she laughed so hard she was unable to make any noise. Jodie's collapse caused Daria to start laughing again herself. It would be several minutes before either girl could look at the other -without starting to laugh again.

"You know, Jodie," Upchuck said conversationally the next day, "just because you don't listen to rumors doesn't mean you have to feed them."

Jodie sighed, "I'm not really in the mood, Charles. What are you talking about?"

"And that is exactly the point." Charles replied as they walked down the hallway on their way to the next class.

"Charles." Jodie said warningly.

Sensing that the ice he was on was a lot thinner than he had first thought, Charles decided to get the conversation over with as quickly as he could. "It's just people have noticed how . . . snappish you are today and some of the students are claiming it doesn't have anything to do with PMS."

Jodie's glare intensified, "Get. To. The. Point."

Upchuck suddenly realized that he was sweating. "I heard some students saying that you're missing your girlfriend." He said in a rush.

Jodie's stopped dead in the hallway and closed her eyes. Hoping she was counting to ten, Charles also stopped. Almost a minute later, a visibly calmer Jodie Landon opened her eyes.

"While that was to the point," Jodie admitted mildly. "But I would like to have a little more detail."

"I exaggerated a little." Charles explained. "It's just some students noticed how grumpy you are today and noticed Daria wasn't here. They combined it with an older rumor and created the new one. The major rumors right now are all about cosmetic surgery, so not that many people are spreading it."

"And just who did you hear this from?"

"Some junior girls." Charles said. "I overheard them talking about it last period. Apparently the idea that you and Daria are dating is old news. They did compliment you on your taste however."

"Why do juniors even know who we are?" Jodie asked.

"You're on the student council and you helped prevent Mrs. Li from cutting all the 'frivolous' clubs last year."

"I didn't do it alone." Jodie pointed out.

Charles shrugged. "But you made the proposal that got adopted and a lot of the clubs that were on the chopping block are very grateful. Daria won her kudos getting Kevin an A in Ms. Barch's class. Without it he wouldn't have qualified for the match against Oakdale."

Jodie pinched her nose. "You know what? I don't care. If they're just rehashing old news then they'll forget it as soon as someone else makes waves. But, just for the record Charles, I'm not dating Daria." And with that Jodie resumed her trek to her next period.

"But you didn't say you never would." Charles pointed out under his breath.