Jane was nearly finished with her fine arts degree and had sold more than one original artwork already. That people were figuring out that Jane Lane was the infamous J of D for Detriment – it really helped that they'd found a way to put her art up on their website – might have had something to do with it. Maybe it should have worried Jesse that Jane would be able to make a hundred bucks by selling a pair of her panties on ebay, just because they were hers. Jane loved that he was able to shrug it off with just a possessive little statement like: "It's the closest they're ever going to get." Of course, he could get two hundred for a worn out pair of shoes if he'd worn them on stage.
Trent had asked them not to do that again after they'd done it the first time. It was only good for a laugh once after all. If they kept it up, it would just become stale and consumerist.
Daria was half way through her bachelor, doing it only one or two subjects a semester. She spent the rest of her time, apart from when she was doing her show, either working on her writing or being the domestic person in the house. Now and then she'd suffer this weird urge to just clean the house. Considering that most of the guys were fairly tidy in the shared living areas, and she didn't do personal rooms except for the one she co-habited with Trent, it wasn't ever too big of a job.
Mercifully, Nick and Max both knew how to cook, and took turns at it, occasionally teaching a curious third party how a certain dish was done, so they didn't live on pizza and cheese fries alone.
Quinn had visited once, the summer she'd graduated from Lawndale High. She had won a scholarship to study sociology in London. Dating her tutor hadn't worked out the way she thought it would, but it seemed to still work out for her anyway, and they'd stayed friends even though they weren't dating – something Quinn had once denied being possible between members of the opposite sex.
Considering how much she had matured since Daria had left Lawndale, she wasn't too much of an irritant for the three days she stayed. She managed to really hit it off with Nick, which was perhaps not as surprising as it could have been. The guy obviously thought about his hair after all, the way he dyed it. Jane had stood there terrified for a full minute as she watched them discussing hair care.
With Quinn's departure came the arrival of Aunt Amy, just a quick stop over, but it was the first she'd heard in some time of what was going on in Daria's life. She normally wasn't one to pry, but the opportunity had been too good to pass up.
"You're one town away from me and you couldn't tell me yourself?" she had joked when she appeared on the doorstep. "Let me in, Daria, I want to see what you've been up to all this time."
Before dinner was over, Amy had become a hands-off manager to them all, no charge. She was rich anyway, so it was a fun distraction and some bragging rights for her. The job was pretty much organising tours for the band when they needed to happen – from transport and hotel to venue and staff, the lot. They didn't need a manager when they were just writing music, and the label handled the album releases. Amy would also take care of finding places for Jane to exhibit her artwork on a regular basis, and advertising that the exhibitions were happening.
Amy even said she'd do the agent thing for Daria when her book was ready to be published, since publishing houses took authors more seriously if they had an agent, something hard to get if you weren't published already.
Jane and the band stood in awe of the woman, the one and only relative Daria believed to be cool all the time, rather than just having a rare moment like her parents. As Amy drove off, the whole band plus Jane and Daria just stared after her.
"Hey Daria," Jane said, breaking the silence as they all turned slowly back into the house. "That aunt of yours is without doubt the coolest person to come under the title of 'relative' that I have ever met. We should invite her round more often."
"Yeah, I guess."
"Don't push her Janey," Trent said quietly. "We'll get to see a lot of Amy as things are now anyway."
---
The Spiral were due for another tour, their fifth by now. They'd released more than just a couple of albums over the last three years. Jane and Daria weren't sure how they would survive in the house without the guys for as long as this tour was set to take. It would just be way to quiet. Even Amy would be away, making sure everything she had organised ran smoothly.
This was essential, because this tour wasn't just of the main cities in a few states across America. Amy had organised the tour to go to a couple of other countries as well. She'd arranged for a movie to be made of the tour, and for a live album to be made in their last stop, to capture any new material they might write while they were on tour.
"Hey, why the long faces?" Amy asked. She came by often enough that she had her own key to the back door, and had just come in to find the girls staring at the TV, which was turned off.
"You and the guys all leave for the tour next week. It's gonna be real quiet without them around," Jane explained flatly.
"You didn't think I'd just leave you girls behind did you?" Amy laughed quietly.
That got their attention.
"I've already talked to the radio station, and they've agreed with me that you two are due a holiday. When I told them I wanted to take you with me on the Spiral tour, the only condition they made for such a long hiatus was that you sit down now and then, record a show, and email it to them. Oh and Jane? I hope you don't mind, but I organised for some prints to be made of some of your more 2D works, so we can sell them with the Spiral merchandise at the shows."
The two friends blinked up at Amy over the couch, turned to glance at each other and confirm that this was real, then turned back to Amy. They cracked their widest smiles simultaneously, which spawned a matching one on Amy's face.
"Get ready girls, you're about to find out what it's like to tour."
---
Trent had been waiting by the back door for Amy to show up, and when she had, he'd left after sharing a small smirk with Daria's aunt. His destination was their little secret. He'd called Helen and Jake on Amy's advice, so they knew about it. After all, Amy had told him, it concerned Daria so they would want to know.
When he got to the jewellers, he spent ten minutes looking at all the rings before he realised he wasn't going to find what he wanted here. None of these rings looked like they would suit Daria at all. Then again, she didn't really wear jewellery anyway, so picking something that would suit her was a little harder.
When he got back to the house, he caught Amy's eye and shook his head. He hadn't found a ring.
---
Every place they stopped, Trent would slip away to the nearest jewellers and search for a ring. He was very careful that Daria wouldn't notice his absences, or be suspicious if she did, going when she was being occupied by Jane or Amy, or leaving under the pretence of finding food. He'd even taken Jesse with him once, to hide that his behaviour might be anything other than normal.
It wasn't until they got to London that he found the perfect ring.
Amy had planned a little extra time in London, so the band were all out together, spread across a street full of shops, looking in various windows and sometimes ducking into doors. Daria had been just going into the book shop across the street when he'd seen the ring in the window. He'd whipped in and bought it on the spot, the ring in a box in his pocket before Daria had finished with the first lot of shelves.
He crossed the street and walked in.
"Hey Daria," he said, sliding his arms around her waist.
"Hey Trent," she answered, smiling up at him, though one hand was still resting against the spine of a book on the shelf.
"Let's you and me go out for dinner tonight."
"Alright."
---
When they climbed into the cab, Trent pulled Daria close. She was wearing that dress again. Even after all these years, she still had it, and it still looked hot on her.
"Daria, there's something I want to ask you," Trent said, pulling the little box from his pocket.
Behind her glasses, Daria's eyes grew wide.
"Will you marry me?" he asked, opening the box.
"Trent..."
"I've asked your parents before the tour started, I just wanted to find the perfect ring before I asked you."
"Yes Trent, I'll marry you."
Everything else in her life was going fine, why the hell shouldn't she say yes to the guy she loved and had been living with for three years?
---
Jane was thrilled when they told her. She'd been angling for Daria as a sister-in-law ever since she first discovered her friend's crush on her brother all those years ago.
The End