Disclaimer: Daria and all associated characters owned by MTV. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money or any other goods have been exchanged.

The characters Ashley Winters and Cassidy Hemming were created by Ognawk.

THE GREAT AND THE GOOD
By Ognawk

Part 14 - Pieces Of The Puzzle

Tom was sat in his bedroom at The Cove, reading one of the books he'd brought with him. He'd spent most of the past week trying to enjoy himself as much as he could and not thinking about Jane and Ashley, but it was always there in his thoughts. He was also trying to figure out who could have sent the picture to him in the first place. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

"Come in," he said, closing the book and putting it to one side as his sister Elsie entered the room.

"So, are you going to sit in here and mope around all day?" Elsie asked, "Or are you going to come out here and be miserable with the rest of us?"

"What do you think?" Tom replied with his arms folded.

Elsie sighed and sat down on the bed next to Tom.

"How long are you planning on being like this?"

Tom shot her a frustrated look. "My girlfriend and my best friend kissed. Forgive me for not being the life of the party right now."

"And what have you done about it, exactly?" Elsie asked.

"Nothing. I'm not in a mood to talk to either of them right now," Tom said, "I can't believe she'd do that after giving me hell over Daria and Cassidy."

"Considering how clingy Cassidy is, I could understand Jane being a little frustrated over that. But Daria?"

"You can understand her being frustrated about Cassidy?"

Elsie sighed. "Why is it that you can't see what everyone else can? Or do you just not want to see it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Let me spell it out for you, Tom," Elsie said frustratedly, "Cassidy doesn't want you as a friend. She wants you as a boyfriend."

"No, she's just enthus..." Tom stopped himself. When he thought it through, he realised that she was right.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right. You said yourself to be careful around her, so you clearly know something I don't," Tom said.

Elsie nodded. She knew that Tom wasn't as clued into the Fielding gossip mill as she was, and Cassidy had generated a lot of gossip with her strange behaviour, some true, some false.

"OK, but you heard none of this from me," Elsie said.

"Understood," Tom replied.

"She's very needy, as you know, and she has a fear of being abandoned," Elsie explained, "She lost her father at a young age, she's never been able to hold on to a friend for long because she tries too hard, and nobody's ever dated her more than twice."

"Myself included," Tom said, with a sad look on his face.

"Indeed. However, she seems to have latched on to you and really wants there to be something between you two, and given her history, she might be desperate enough to do something reckless, even if it means hurting others in the process."

"I need to make it completely clear to her that I'm not romantically interested in her," Tom said.

"You need to be firm about it," Elsie replied, "I know you like to be friendly to people, but I don't think you can be friends with someone like her. But there's no guarantee it will work."

"You're right," Tom said sadly, "Thanks, Elsie."

Elsie got up and went to leave the room before turning around and smiling at him.

"That's what I'm here for," she said, "Oh, and talk to Jane and Ashley sometime, huh?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

Jane was in the Ashfield cafeteria with a plate of pancakes. However, she hadn't eaten them and was just resting her face on her hands, sobbing quietly. Ashley had grabbed some oatmeal and orange juice and went to sit over with her.

"Hey," Ashley said quietly. He wanted to put his arm around Jane to try and comfort her, but knew that it would be a foolish thing to do right now.

Jane didn't respond. She just sobbed a little more and didn't move. Ashley took a sip of his orange juice.

"This is a really fine mess we've gotten ourselves into it," he said, taking another sip.

Jane finally raised her head, her pale, tear streaked face an absolute picture of despair. "Why did you never tell me about the kiss?"

Ashley sighed. "Because you didn't remember it happening. I figured that if I was the only one who knew, I might be able to keep it to myself and carry on as if nothing happened."

"You were trying to protect everyone involved," Jane said, "That's rather noble of you."

"Well, yes, I figured that it wouldn't do any harm if nobody else knew about it. I had no intention of letting it happen again."

He had a spoonful of oatmeal and Jane finally decided to start on her pancakes. Ashley then let out a bitter laugh.

"Guess I didn't reckon on one of our resident photographers snapping us and sending Tom the evidence," Ashley said as he continued to eat his oatmeal.

"Funny, I came here expecting to get away from my problems and things have gotten even worse," Jane said disappointedly.

"You've had some fun though, right?"

"Well, I admit it's been pretty good, complete explosion of my love live aside," she said.

There was a short silence before Ashley spoke again.

"We're not completely done yet, though. We've still got to face Tom yet."

"Yeah," Jane said with a sigh, "We really need to figure out a way to fix all this."

"We're going home in a couple of days, so I guess we've got some time to throw ourselves into our art before we have to face the music."

They both finished off their respective breakfasts and got up to take their dishes away.

"Ready to paint our souls out for the day?" Ashley asked.

"Lead the way," Jane replied.

Ashley returned to his cabin later that evening, sketch pad under his arm. He went to the mini fridge in the kitchen and grabbed a soda. He went upstairs to his bedroom and threw his sketch pad onto the bed. He opened a lockbox by his bed and pulled out his diary and a pen, opening it to that day's date.

This has been a tiring day. Jane and I are still dealing with the results of Daria's visit. It's kind of weird that I made a decision to confess everything to her when it turns out she already knew. I've been relatively OK dealing with it, seeing as I already knew what happened. Jane didn't recall that night, though, and she's taken it really hard.

She'd been suspicious of Daria and Cassidy and was convinced Tom was up to something behind her back. She saw Ashfield as a way to escape from those problems. Instead, a whole new set of problems reared their head.

I really hope that I can patch things up with Daria and Tom. I really care about Daria, and I never meant to hurt her. I broke her trust, and I hope she can find it in her heart to give me another chance, although I don't feel I deserve it.

I'd be interested to know who Ashfield's version of the paparazzi is. When I think about it, it's funny how someone happened to get a picture of us kissing and it happened to get into Tom's possession.

As he was writing those last words, something he witnessed a few days ago came back into his head. He flicked back a few pages in his diary to an entry he wrote a few days ago.

It was a hard run today. I had a lot of things running through my mind, thinking about whether I was going to tell Daria about my kiss with Jane. I think honesty will be the best policy on that. But it depends whether I have the nerve to tell her. She'll be hurt by it, but not as much as if she finds out months from now.

But when I took a rest, I was sat a short distance away from Allison's cabin, and I saw Cassidy Hemming, of all people, coming out and looking around. It looked like she was trying to make sure she wasn't seen, for some reason. Then I saw Allison come out and set fire to something. I couldn't see what it was from that distance. I'd be interested to know what happened during that exchange.

Something was suddenly nagging at the back of Ashley's mind. He was once again thinking about what he saw. Why on earth would Cassidy be here talking to Allison?

Then suddenly, things started clicking into place for Ashley. The alcohol that Allison had given him and Jane. Someone being conveniently nearby to take a photograph when Jane kissed him. The fact that Tom had been directly sent the photograph of them kissing. In that moment, as he considered everything, a realisation suddenly dawned on him as his eyes widened.

"She set us up!"