The human race never solves any of its problems. It merely outlives them. - David Gerrold

~lalaLAlala~

"You really scared Tom," Jane noted to Daria the next day at school. There was a smile on her face though, so she clearly found the boy's fear amusing.

"I really can't think why," Daria replied honestly.

Jane smirked. "He's never been faced with such complete and total apathy before," she answered with a chuckle. "I think you had him questioning the validity of his existence."

"That self-assured young man?" Daria checked with faux surprise.

"You have once again spoken, and left total chaos in your wake," Jane answered proudly. "Not even kids who grow up with old money and are forced to attend expensive prep schools stand a chance against you."

"That is actually very comforting to know," Daria admitted with a small, pleased smile. She'd gotten Brittany to realise that there were better guys to date than Kevin, and she hadn't spoken to the quarter-back more than was strictly necessary for the better part of six months. Yes, she came, she spoke, she left chaos in her wake. "Now, if only I could properly dent Mrs Bennet."

"Well, at least she's stopped exclusively drawing football plays on the board at last, and is actually giving us some real notes to copy now and then," Jane commented, and went first into their next class.

Mrs Bennet's econ class.

"This is going to be very exciting," Mrs Bennet told the class once they were all seated. "We're going to set aside our textbooks, and experience some real life economics. Renting an apartment, applying for a credit card, opening a retirement account. Of course, I don't expect you to actually rent an apartment or what have you. You'll just go through as much of the process as you can, and report back on your experiences. Your assignment tonight is to pick a project, and a partner."

Daria smirked.

Jane spotted it, and while she could only guess at what her best friend was thinking, she couldn't help but smirk right along with her.

"What are you thinking in that genius head of yours, Amiga?" Jane asked when they were let out.

"Art house," Daria answered succinctly.

"Daria!" Jane exclaimed, thrilled.

~lalaLAlala~

"Step one for an art house is, for the sake of this project, going to be finding a suitable building," Daria said when the two friends were settled in on the couch of the Casa Lane living room. "I've got the software for the recording studio."

"And I've got the art to stock the place, ready for the grand opening," Jane added with a smirk.

Daria nodded. "We just need a location. We can't operate out of Casa Lane forever."

"Why not?" Trent asked.

"Ah!" the two girls exclaimed, surprised. He'd snuck up on them.

Trent chuckled. "Sorry," he apologised with a smile.

"It's okay," Jane replied, one hand over her still-racing heart.

"So, why can't you operate out of Casa Lane forever?" Trent asked. "I own it already, and I really don't mind converting it."

"Two good reasons, Trent," Daria answered with a smile. "One: it's your home. Two: it's in Lawndale. I don't really see an art house being all that successful in Lawndale, all desires to the contrary aside."

"Hmm, good point," Trent admitted. "Still, it's a good back-up, right?"

Daria nodded. "And while it's just us involved, it serves us well, but if we want to expand -"

"And we do," Jane agreed.

"Then we need something bigger, and in a place where art houses won't be dismissed out of hand," Daria finished. "But also somewhere that the competition won't be too fierce."

"Fair enough," Trent admitted with a nod. "If you need collateral though..."

"We really shouldn't need to take out a loan against the house," Jane stated firmly. "I mean, with my berry sales..."

"My earnings from Zon gigs," Daria added.

"And all our other avenues of minor income, we're doing pretty good on the savings front," Jane declared.

"At least enough for a deposit," Daria affirmed. "And property sales rarely get purchases that are made in one lump-sum payment. We make the deposit, we keep earning, and we pay back a bit more each month with what we manage to make."

"If you need another income to make those payments though," Trent reminded them.

The girls smiled.

"Lane, Morgendorffer and Lane," Jane said with a smile. "It's got a nice ring to it."

Trent slid around to sit next to Daria on the couch. "Except that if I have my way, Daria won't be 'Morgendorffer' for too long after she graduates."

"High school or college?" Jane asked archly.

"College," Trent answered with a sigh. "I've started taking some make-up classes while you girls are at school. Hopefully, when you both go off to college, I can do the same thing at the same time. Go with with you, for preference."

"What are you going to study?" Jane asked softly.

"Accounting," Trent admitted. "I may still shudder at even the idea of algebra, but I've been handling the money for this house long enough. Want to see if I can step it up to the next level. If I can, then that'll be a good thing."

"I'll be studying business and law, since I've got the background for it, with a few lit courses for fun on the side," Daria said.

"I clearly remember saying I was gonna do business, but if you're taking that, then I suppose that leaves me with the advertising and public face aspect of the art house," Jane declared with a happy chuckle. "Fine arts college, along with media and marketing studies, here I come!" she called, and pumped a fist into the air.

Daria and Trent chuckled at her enthusiasm. She really was the most dramatic of them all.

"So, where are we gonna set up the art house?" Jane asked.

"Time to start making a list," Daria said, and pulled out a pad of paper. "If we say New York, I might be able to ask Val if she knows anywhere going."

"Ooh, good idea," Jane agreed eagerly.

"Or there's Boston," Trent suggested. "There's good colleges there, and if you can get to your art house to keep up the business without having to catch a plane while you're still studying, then that would be good too."

"An excellent point," Daria agreed, and wrote Boston down under New York.

A couple more cities got added, and then they started looking through the property ads. Ultimately, they narrowed it down to two warehouses in Boston and two in New York. The current owners were called and prices discussed, but there would be no purchases made before they could actually look around the places themselves – they just didn't trust advertising photos to be completely truthful.

Trent made appointments with each of the property owners to visit them on a couple of weekends – the Boston warehouses one weekend, the New York warehouses another. He was just going to have to serve a few more judicial processes than usual to be able to pay for the flights up and a room to stay in each city. And taxis.

The stage they were currently stopped at, however, was enough to give a report for Mrs Bennet's econ class.

~lalaLAlala~

"Class, in my hand I hold a piece of paper which has the potential to open up a world of positive experiences!" O'Neill declared with a smile. And, yes, he was waving a piece of paper around in one hand. "A sign-up sheet for an overnight hill-trek. An excellent opportunity to understand the primal struggle for survival we made it through together in The Call of the Wild."

"Hmm, twenty-four consecutive hours with our classmates," Jane mused.

"It doesn't get any more primal than that," Daria agreed.

"So my guess is you won't be signing up," Jane said as the sheet was passed to her.

"No," Daria agreed. "I'm going to wait for Helen to pay me to go, so that she and Jake can have some quality private time."

Jane blinked at her friend. "I don't know if you're being uncharacteristically optimistic, or if it's just creepy how well you've got your parents' behaviour patterns figured out," she admitted.

"In this instance, I see no great downside," Daria explained as the sign-up sheet was passed on without either of their names on it. "I could stay home and avoid spending those twenty-four consecutive hours with our classmates, or I could get a nice little wad of cash, and have the opportunity to expose myself to an alternative muse."

"Well, not to deliberately abandon you or anything Amiga, but I had a bad experience on that hill with the girl scouts," Jane admitted. "We kept marching and singing and marching and singing. So I won't be going."

"You were a girl scout?"

"Not after the deprogramming."

~lalaLAlala~

"These climbing shoes will look so cute with the matching tear-resistant cigarette pants," Quinn declared happily as she browsed through a catalogue.

"Yes," Helen agreed wearily. "Daria, is there anything you'd like to order from the catalogue?"

"How about the tear-resistant new identity?" she suggested, and left the breakfast table to turn on the small kitchen TV.

"Dad and I would be happy help you get outfitted for the field trip too," Helen informed her eldest with a smile, even as she turned off the set seconds after Daria had clicked it on. "Wouldn't we Jake?"

"Dammit! What the hell is that letter?" Jake demanded. He seemed to be having trouble reading the back of the cereal box. A problem solved by Helen when she took it from him.

"Now, I'll need a credit card," Quinn interjected with a smile. "But don't worry about the cost, because it's for a field trip, so technically we're talking school supplies, and nothing's too good for our girl's education," she quoted with a giggle.

"You're going on a trip?" Jake asked. He really wasn't very good at multitasking when he was reading.

"Jake, with Daria and Quinn away over night, this is the perfect opportunity for us to spend that quality couples time recommended by our intimacy counsellor," Helen informed the man.

Unseen, back at the other end of the kitchen, Daria smirked to herself. Oh yes, she'd be getting cash for this one.

"Great idea!" Jake declared happily. "Who?"

"I've been seeing an intimacy counsellor to promote growth and togetherness in our relationship," Helen explained as she set the cereal box down on the table. "It was just easier to schedule if I went alone. I'll fill you in later."

"Alright," Jake agreed, his attention diverted once again by the cereal box.

"I hate to burst this bubble of marital bliss," Daria stated, "but since I'm not going on the field trip, you'll have to forgo your quality couples time for the usual inferior couples time."

Daria got a hundred in cash, a new, good-quality, pure wool coat with lots of pockets, and another pair of Doc Martins as her price. Similarly to how Quinn was milking the occasion for a great deal more clothes than she would actually be taking with her. She may have been slowly creeping up from being a straight B student, through B-plus, to an A-minus student, with designs on straight As (she was still aiming for med school when she got out of high school), but she still loved her clothes and accessories.

~lalaLAlala~

"Alright girls, your father and I will be at the Big River Cabin just a couple of miles from your camp site if you need anything at all," Helen told them when they reached the school.

"Unless it's money," Jake added. "Bye!"

"So," Daria said to Quinn as the car drove off. "What did you manage to pare your supplies down to? If I recall, you did order a lot more than you brought with you."

Quinn nodded. "Yeah," she agreed. "I've got two full changes of clothes, in case of accidents, toothbrush, hairbrush, water, one of those nifty new sleeping bags that smushes up real small, and some trail-mix. You?"

"Some snacks, water, hairbrush, toothbrush, clean socks and underwear, one of those same sleeping bags, and my notebook," Daria answered. "I'm not worried if I get a bit muddy."

"No, I suppose you're not," Quinn said with a sigh. "One of these days, sister dear -" Quinn did admit to it when none of her school friends could hear her, and the Fashion Club had, as a collective, elected not to go on the hike. Quinn was the only one who was. "One of these days, I am going to get you to really care about your appearance."

"I do care," Daria answered. "My sense of style is just contrary to your sense of fashion."

"Allowable," Quinn decided with a resigned sigh.

"Good morning students!" DeMartino yelled into a speaker-phone. "Please be so gracious as to haul your milk-fed buttocks onto the bus!"

"Hurry up girls," Ms Barch instructed as she passed them, carrying a couple of large bags. "You don't want to get left behind."

"I want to make comment on that," Daria admitted to Quinn, "but it's Ms Barch."

"Yeah," Quinn agreed. "That woman scares me," she admitted.

"Apparently she was very calm and nice before the divorce," Daria said as they climbed onto the bus. They could get along and actually be sisterly to one another, it was just something that both of them generally avoided for the sake of their respective reputations.

Reputations that were going to be set aside for the sake of unity in the face of uncivilised wilderness.

"Um, Daria?" Quinn asked nervously as, an hour later, they disembarked from the bus. "You don't suppose those clouds are going to, um..."

"It does look like a blizzard of epic proportions," Daria agreed.

"Don't you worry girls," Ms Li said to them. "We'll reach base camp long before any inclement weather should arrive," she declared with surety, and then dug into the large pack she'd been dragging. "And once I document our triumphant assent with this camera -" it was practically a professional piece of equipment. Where were that woman's priorities for the school budget? "- Lawndale High's wilderness adventure club will be a shoe-in for a lucrative sponsorship from Extreme Sports Mania Worldwide Inc!"

"I didn't know Lawndale had an adventure club," Quinn commented.

"We do now!" Ms Li snapped. "Further more, Miss Morgendorffer," she said, and turned her gaze to Daria, so the sisters would know exactly which Miss Morgendorffer she was speaking to, "due to your outstanding achievements in media studies, you are going to be in charge of filming the expedition."

"What?" Daria asked, even as Li shoved the camera into her arms.

"That had better count as an extra-curricular activity," Quinn spoke up.

"It does," Li agreed shortly.

"I'll carry your backpack," Quinn offered. "Since it looks like you'll be carrying that thing now," she added with a gesture to the pack Li had pulled the camera from.

"Much appreciated," Daria said, and traded her usual grey backpack for the great green monster she'd just been corralled into toting.

~lalaLAlala~

"Wow Daria," Brittany said as she fell into step with her and Quinn. "I didn't know you were strong enough to carry all that equipment."

"Neither did I," Daria answered shortly. "It's kind of a surprise."

"It's because you're used to carrying all those books around all the time," Quinn suggested.

"Books are heavy," Brittany agreed thoughtfully. "Um, what's that?" she asked, and pointed up ahead to where Zoe – one of her cheerleaders and Kevin's girlfriend since Brittany had moved on – was screaming.

Daria checked that the camera was definitely recording, and pointed it at the girl.

"Kevin gave her flowers that had bees in them," Daria reported, able to answer with thanks to the zoom feature.

"Oh my," Quinn commiserated softly.

"Well... at least Zoe isn't allergic to bee stings," Brittany consoled.

"Not like O'Neill seems to be allergic to pollen," Daria added as she swung the camera around to where the man had collapsed on the side of the trail and was sucking desperately on an inhaler.

"Of course he is," Quinn quipped lowly.

"What's the hold-up people?" Li called out.

"Mr O'Neill can't find his inhaler," Mack answered.

"Then someone will just have to short-rope him," Li decided. "No one is turning back."

"Perhaps one of the football team?" Brittany suggested with a perky little smile that no one would even suspect of hiding a devious little brain. "Normally training is pushing against something, but wouldn't pulling be just as affective training when they won't be able to go to morning practice tomorrow?"

"Excellent idea Brittany," Ms Barch praised with a smirk. "Kevin!"

Daria and Brittany shared a smile, and even let Quinn in on it.

With Kevin hauling Mr O'Neill, the group made it to base camp without too much trouble. There was the unpleasant surprise of the impending blizzard deciding to stop being impending and start being actually present, but they made it to the cheap cabin that Ms Li had booked for their use within an hour of the first snowflakes being sighted.

All in all, it was a disturbingly boring field trip after that. Still, Daria was able to get some poetry written when they were inside, and she had something else she could put on her resume and college applications when she got home: knows how to operate professional-level filming equipment.