A continuing series of AUs with a simple "Morgendorffers as punks" premise, and the chaos that results has fucked everything up for everyone. Lawndale High is closed, every student and teacher's future is in question, and Daria has to deal with blame from the worst of sources: herself.

GOD SAVE THE ESTEEM

Episode 40: This Is No Fun

On the last day of Lawndale High, there was an assembly to mark its passing. Ideally, that would be a moment of fond reflection and solemn atmosphere; what everyone got was the visible absence of half the faculty (including Principal DeMartino), the visible who-gives-a-fuck look on the remaining half, and an atmosphere that'd make a Calvinist funeral seem like a barrel of monkeys.

"So," Ms Defoe said to the assembled students, "it's our very last day at Lawndale High."

The students waited patiently for the next sentence.

"Remember that time we…" Defoe thought very hard for a good time at the school. "Wasn't the roller hockey game fun? Eh?"

Coach Nikahd walked over, took the microphone, and said, "assembly adjourned", making her the most popular Lawndale teacher of all time.

Jane had been unpopular for years, but now she'd made the jump to unperson. Nobody was even bothering to hurl verbal abuse. She could be 'accidentally' pushed, kicked, spitballed, and have her food knocked from her hands, but even then nobody would say a word to her. She'd helped kick everything off when she'd stood up for herself against Coach Morris, so of course she was responsible for all the things she hadn't done too.

She was glad school was ending because a week of this treatment had left her on edge – hour upon hour, every day, of constant harassment, wherever she went. And she couldn't retaliate with anything in case that became the excuse for escalation. She was only safe when she hung out near Quinn, but Jane refused to do that for more than a few minutes at a time. Relying on someone else didn't sit right with her. Anyway, she had Daria to suffer with.

Until today. Because today, Daria hadn't come to school.

She'd fought off mental images of overdoses and self-harm for an hour, then sought out Quinn in the hope she'd know something.

"She said she didn't feel like it," said Quinn. "She need another reason?"

"Normally, yes, or no one would ever come here."

"Well there's the fucking problem right there," said Quinn sagely. "Look, Daria's just… well, you've seen how she is right now, yeah? I think Mum and Dad thought she should sit today out. Because, y'know."

Jane sighed. "I do indeed. Screw it, I doubt anyone's gonna notice if I go home. I'm surprised you turned up, actually."

"You're going, you're my sister's friend – look, shut the fuck up about not wanting help, you might change your mind, right?"

"..ah, screw it. Nikki's been on my back all week, can you hit her?"

"Pbbt, I'd twat her if you were Kevin's sister's friend!"

Daria had woken up at seven and gone back to bed. She'd woken up again at nine thirty.

She'd stayed in bed, awake, for three more hours. She'd closed her eyes and then she'd opened them to stare at the walls, then closed them again, then opened them again. At midday, she got up and spent twenty minutes in the shower, her mind blank and her eyes vacant.

Breakfast was an unbuttered slice of toast. Everyone had gone out by this point and the house was silent as the grave.

She finished breakfast and sat down to stare at a book without really reading.

At one, her mother came back into the house to check on her. Daria made a few non-committal grunts and single word sentences, and then continued to not read.

At one forty, Daria went back to bed for three hours. Jane turned up in two hours and came in to talk to her, but the conversation lasted just ten minutes and Daria did not rise during it.

At four forty, Daria got up because her parents asked her to. She turned on the TV and stared at Sick, Sad World without really taking it in.

At six, Daria came down to microwave herself some leftovers and ignored a few tentative, worried questions from Erin. Then she went back up and by eight, she'd managed to get back to sleep again.

"I've seen her having a breakdown and I've seen her overusing her sarcasm to avoid being scared, and that freaked me out, but this? Where do I even start?"

Jane had been visiting Tom more and more over the past week: she didn't feel like meeting at the usual hangouts where she might run into classmates, and she couldn't just talk over the phone or online, she needed face-to-face. One thing you had to give Tom was that he could comfort like the best of them, a side effect of his paternalistic side.

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's a very good question."

'Could' didn't mean 'would'. "Last time, you told me that I was making a positive difference to Daria by being there. This is a bit of a disappointment."

"Right, okay, sorry. I just don't know either. I've actually been noting down how many words she's been saying in any given conversation. I can prove scientifically that she's becoming more and more monosyllabic, and on a daily basis."

Jane frowned. "You really took notes?"

"I thought it might help me figure something out. It didn't. Except, y'know, that Daria's getting worse, but I was hoping for something more useful."

"Maybe she'll get better now the school's finally gone. That should settle things, right?"

"Or it gives her three months of nothing to do but dwell on it. And then, when her new school starts…" Tom looked apologetic, but not that apologetic. "Being a cynic is a full time job, it seems. Joy."

"You visiting her tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Going to try and get her out of the house – specifically, to the country club and all the rich, arrogant, impossible-not-to-snark people within. Questioning the worth of complete strangers should cheer her up."

Erin answered the door when Tom called; she looked nervous, had been all week, but put on a smile when she saw it was him. Everything was hitting a little too close to home for her.

"It's good that you're trying to help her."

"I kinda have to. It's the third clause of the Boyfriend Contract."

"Yes, well, some people wouldn't – anyway, never mind. She's upstairs."

On his way upstairs, he saw Jake Morgendorffer patiently gluing a model skeleton together. Or, at least, he had been until bits of plastic bone had been glued to his own raging hand.

"Damn it, I'm GLAD you're dead, you bastard!"

"Uh, hi, Snake."

"Oh, hey Tomb Sloane! I'm making a gift for Daria! She still likes dinosaurs, right?" He then, from memory, repeated: "No, plesiosaurs aren't dinosaurs, they're a separate species. Heh, don't want another lecture like the last one… Or maybe I do, she still likes lecturing people, right?"

Tom almost asked why, if the model kit was for Daria, her dad was the one assembling it. But the answer would probably be a lament about how the toy hadn't been properly assembled and how the Man was ripping people off, so he stayed quiet and just headed up. Besides, Jake was trying to help.

He knocked on her door. "Open up, it's the Thought Police."

Nothing.

Tom pushed the door open and Daria was sitting next to her computer. The screen showed a Wikipedia page but her eyes showed no sign of reading anything. Her clothes were crumpled and several days old, her hair uncombed.

"Hey, dear."

Daria didn't respond, just like she hadn't two days before. Annoyance reared up within him and he squashed it as best he could.

"What're you reading?"

She shrugged.

"Well, I think we've exhausted all possible conversations there." No response. "Hmm, tough room. Don't make me resort to fart jokes."

"Resort to them downwind," said Daria, but her voice was completely toneless when she said it.

"Speaking of farts, I was planning to visit the country club and take advantage of my parent's tab. I was hoping you'd come along, two mouths are better than one and everything."

"I don't want to go outside."

"Yeah, I have noticed that. You've been making Quasimodo look sociable." His voice was harsher than he'd wanted and he waited before speaking again. "Look, it'll be good to get out–"

"Yes, I might find something I can fuck up. That'd be fun."

"Daria, I know–"

"Or maybe I can stare around the country club and remember the last time I spoke to my grandmother, and how I deliberately tested that relationship to see if it would break and what a surprise, it did. I can remember how I deliberately pissed away the chance to get out of Lawndale High and go to a better school."

That threw him. "But that 'chance' was making you miserable and she was treating you like crap! You can't seriously be wishing you'd gone along with her!"

"Maybe I was wrong. Or maybe I'd have just been– oh, it doesn't matter."

Silence filled the room until Tom said: "okay, if you don't want to go out, I'll stay in. What do you want to do?"

"Honestly, I just want to go to bed."

This early? "Alright. I'll come back tomorrow?"

No response.

Tom would have said something, but Jake chose that very moment to burst in: "kiddo, I got you something! Check it out! Dinos– plesiosaurs are still cool, right?"

Daria looked at the feeble model and said: "You've put the elasmosaurus' head on the end of the tail."

After leaving the house, Tom let himself have a few minutes of seething quiet in his car. Then he phoned Jane.

"That didn't work at all."

"Damn it. We'll find something else."

"Maybe we will. I don't think she wants to be helped. She was talking about how she wishes she'd done what her gran wanted, for god's sake."

Pause. "Oh." Jane sounded bothered but trying to hide out. "Well, now we know Daria's on drugs, that was handy to know," and now she sounded too cheerful.

"Jane, this is me. What's the problem?"

"It's nothing. She broke off with her gran shortly before she kicked Li's boat down Shit Creek without the paddle, and if she hadn't that wouldn't have happened."

"That doesn't sound like no– oh. She did that because she wanted to get at Li and Morris for–"

"She's just upset, she doesn't mean that."

"Alright." I'd hope she didn't meant that. Even in his private thoughts, it was 'that'. Daria had kicked things off after Morris and Li had tried to bully Jane; Daria wishing she hadn't done that was anathema. "As you said, we'll try and find something else. See you."

And back at the house, Daria was staring at the wall and waiting to sleep.

The idea was a simple one: Daria could tune her brain out in front of the telly or her computer and she could get by on monosyllables in a conversation, but she'd have to pay attention for a video game. The X Box was moved upstairs and a co-op game started on Trent's copy of Strontium Dogs. Conversation was raised between Jane and Tom, all the while waiting for Daria to join in; on the screen, her character responded slowly to each threat and challenge, but it was responding. There was a spark in there.

"Have you played this one before?" asked Tom.

She mumbled rather than spoke, but the words "a bit" were still audible.

"We've been drafted by Trent a few times when Max and Nicky refuse to co-op," said Jane. "Remember that time he fell asleep in the middle of the boss fight?"

"Mm."

The screen erupted into fire and violence as a new wave of enemies made their attack. Daria pounded her controller, sending her character into reverse while firing explosives to cover.

"You remember that arts colony I was applying to?" Jane looked to Daria for a reaction. "I've been accepted into their summer scholarship programme. I'd be gone two months."

Their characters were withdrawing to cover, Daria firing the last explosives. Her weapon clicked four times before she remembered to switch.

"I'm still not committed, but…"

They waited. It was a good few seconds before the enemy began their slow approach.

"What's stopping you going?" asked Daria. She fired wild for a bit but was soon making hits every two seconds – bang, dead, bang, dead. "If you want to go, you can just go."

"It'd be two months of just cell and email contact, amiga." Jane missed her shots. "If you want, I could–"

"Just go." Bang, dead, bang, dead, bang, dead.

"What I'm saying is, we won't have much time together before I go." She switched to explosive rounds and started zeroing in. "We should do something before I go, what do you say?"

"Mm."

Tom held the button down and strafed his part of the screen. "Remember that club with the nuclear war bunker theme? That might be cool to go to. What do you think, Daria?"

"Mm." Bang, dead."

"Or we could go round my house during my dad's fraternity reunion. They've got a mean game of charades planned."

"Mm." Bang, dead.

Jane began to miss, her character took hits. "Charades it is then! No one ever guesses my Manos impression."

"I'd rather not do charades." Bang, dead.

"What do you want to do instead?"

"I dunno." Bang, dead. "Does it matter?"

"Yes," said Tom. He reloaded and held down to fire the whole clip. "It matters a lot. It doesn't have to be anything fancy but something outside of this house, eh? C'mon. We won't see Jane for a while."

Bang, dead, bang, dead.

Jane's character fell. "Damn it. I'm out. You two able to carry on without me?"

"I dunno." Tom stopped to reload. "Daria?"

"No. We're almost out of ammunition and we can't make a break for it without you; we'll last another minute and then we're dead."

"Yeah, well, getting there's half the fun. Last one to die's a big wuss!"

"There's no point." Daria abruptly paused the game and exited it. "We could try it again if you want."

"What do you want to do?"

"Nothing really. I might go to bed soon."

"It's five," said Jane.

"There's not much to do."

"Yeah, sitting right here," said Tom, his voice brittle.

"I didn't ask you two to come round."

There was a long, leaden silence.

"I, I should probably get the game to Trent, I think he might've been sleeping with his eyes open when I asked to borrow it." Jane stood up and took the game back without looking at either of her friends. "I'll talk to you guys later?"

"Sure," said Tom. "Right?"

Silence from Daria.

Tom waited until Jane had left and then waited some more, and then finally, with his voice tight: "Do you realise what you just said to Jane there?"

"I said I didn't ask you two to come round. I didn't."

"We came round here because we love you and we're worried about you."

"Why?"

"Why what? Why are we worried or why do we love you? Because I can give answers to both if you're actually asking and not trying to get us to leave. I can tell that's what you're doing. Mr O'Neill could tell that's what you're doing."

"Haven't got the damn hint, have you."

Tom shut his eyes and counted to ten. "If you want me to leave now, I'll leave. I'll be back tomorrow. To be honest, if you say things like that to Jane again, she won't be."

"Then she'd be better off than you."

She'd said it so quietly he almost didn't hear it, but once he'd registered the words it was like they'd been screamed out.

"What? Is that what this is about, you want us to break up with you because, what, you think we'd be better off without you? That's our fucking shout, Daria! You can't seriously tell us that you're so irredeemably–"

"So how often do you talk with your extended family since they met me and you called them horsefuckers in response?"

He didn't count this time. "Okay, you win, whoopee doo, I'll wait until you ask me before I make contact again, and if you want to wait until the damn Last Trump then so be it! But we need the wood, Daria, so get the fuck off the cross!"

And once he'd stormed out, the room was empty even though Daria's shell was in it.

Helen and Erin had met in the wine bar that Erin went to after work; her aunt stood out like the sorest of thumbs, but it was somewhere to talk where Daria wouldn't overhear.

"She's not going to stop dwelling on it," said Erin, "that's pretty clear by now. She's deliberately dwelling on it. It's something you do when you're at rock bottom and you're the one who dug the hole. When you're afraid that there's an even lower depth and that if you try to get out, you'll only dig down."

Helen drew her fingers across her face. "She always seems so strong but underneath the armour, there was always… Whatever you think you can do, do it. You're the expert on this, Erin."

"There's one thing. It might have worked with me, I think it will work with her. She has to be far away from any reminders of Lawndale High–"

"–and I can't do that, I know." Helen looked her niece in the eye, without wavering. "I know this is the price of having a daughter like Daria. There are things I can never truly understand or help her with. There's a reason why I've kept contact with Amy, however strained things got between us and they've been strained for over twenty years. So if you have the solution and I can't be a part of it, I'll accept that."

"I know. You're a good mum, Aunt Helen." Erin looked away, embarrassed. "Uh, heh, besides, if I don't do this, Uncle Jake's going to bankrupt you with all those toy dinosaurs."

"You know, for years I thought he was only pretending to forget dinosaurs didn't swim or fly so Daria could have the fun of lecturing him…"

The sun was going down when Daria finally left the house and it was dark as pitch when she reached Pizza King. She could feel the looks and hear the remarks from every other student in the place, and continued to pick at the pizza she'd ordered. After ten minutes, she left – the pizza was barely eaten – and headed out. There weren't many people out. None of Quinn's gang had been in the place.

She walked on and she could hear people following. She was near an alleyway. She didn't speed up even when they did.

The first hit sent her stumbling into the alley before she was stabilised by the rough grabbing of her hair. She saw six people, three from her year and two seniors and there was Siobhan Higgins, ol' Chipmunk herself, who had a look of triumph on her face; Daria also recognised Adam from some of her classes, and there was Brittany holding her. She wasn't that surprised Brittany had been the one to land the first blow.

"You–you got us to, to, and then you think you walk around and get away with– "

Brittany's increasingly high voice broke off and she punched Daria hard in the gut. She kept the girl upright by her hair and hit her again. There was a squeal in her voice, the same noise made when she'd thought Daria was stealing Kevin and tried to attack then.

"No fucking clever words or threats this time, eh?" None of the others looked as excited as Siobhan. "No metaphors to make, huh, no snark?"

"It's fitting that you're here," said Daria, or tried to.

The next few seconds were a blur but she was pretty sure Siobhan had taken over and whatever had happened, she was on the floor. Her glasses were off; there was a crunch of glass and plastic from nearby. She'd landed face-first on a bin bag – someone was holding her down, then she was up and then down again, the bag's contents spilt open now.

"Where you belong with the other fucking trash–"

Someone kicked her in the side, and then another. Someone else was yelling an insult but she couldn't tell what. Then someone kicked her a few times, that was probably Brittany, it was her form of attack.

There was no way out of this.

Someone called out and the kicks stopped.

"None of your fucking business, get lost!"

"Shan't." Steve's voice.

"This isn't school and you're not even a security guard anymore, so what the fuck authority do you have anyway? You can't make us do shit!"

"I can't make you do something? Seriously, you want to try that argument, you got your eyes closed or something?"

After a second, someone let go of Daria and she could hear the group departing. Steve was picking her up a few seconds later, and she winced from the pain of moving.

"No offence, Daria, but for a smart girl you were really fucking dumb going out to a Lawndale High hangout without a posse. Come on; let's get you home. And before you ask, everyone in the school staff knows where your family lives."

Her parents had both been out when she got home. She could wash herself clean, put on her spare glasses, and just keep quiet about the bruising, they wouldn't know. Quinn had been home and – Daria assumed because she couldn't see her clearly – looked livid, but she wouldn't 'nark' on her sister.

She had asked, her voice shaking and all the more terrible for it, "who did it?".

"Just some people."

"Who did it? Gimme some names, sis! Fucking track team again? Was it them?"

"Just some people."

"Whoever it was needs to learn a lesson, sis! Anyone fucks with one Morgendorffer they fuck with all of them and they go home in an ambulance! Who did it?"

"Let it go. Please."

Daria spent twenty minutes in the shower.

She woke up to hear someone in her room, opening and closing the cupboard, but she kept her eyes shut for another hour. There were bruises now and that made it more uncomfortable to stay lying down, but there was nothing to get up for.

She got up at twelve to eat. Downstairs, Erin was waiting for her with a pair of packed suitcases.

"Daria! Better eat quick, we've got a schedule to keep."

"Aren't you still employed?"

"I've cashed in my holidays from work." Underneath Erin's bubbly demeanour, there was something hard as steel. "And we're going on a holiday! A little road trip for the girls, and we're going to meet up with Aunt Amy on the way!"

"I'd rather not."

"That's tough titty, pardon my French. I've already packed your clothes and your parents are expecting you gone. And I'm bigger and older than you, I can and will drag you out if I have to."

Daria shrugged. "Alright."

"Not curious where we're going?"

"Does it matter?"

"I dunno, I arranged for Aunt Amy to pick the route." Erin gestured at the kitchen table. "As I said, better eat quick!"

Daria ate slowly and listlessly. That was the only thing that could even vaguely be taken as defiance, but Erin knew it wasn't. The normal Daria would have been on the attack if she'd been forced to go anywhere without warning; that alone squashed any remaining qualms she had about this plan.

And if this doesn't work, I have no idea what will.

THE END

Next: Is It Fun Yet?

AUTHOR'S NOTES: The series has been leading up to this point for a while now. Originally, I had vague ideas of a different event kicking it off but when I rewatched The F Word, I realised that was too fitting to not use.

The next chapter has more jokes, I swear to McClaren.

MEANWHILE, SIDEWAYS IN TIME…

"You're just mad because I said you're shallow. Which I meant in some other way!"

"So then, it is cute?" asked Brooke, trying to get the conversation back on track.

"Let's ask an average person," said Sandi. "Quinn, there's that girl you know. Let's ask her." She started to wave. "Hello! Quinn's cousin or something."

Daria noticed that Quinn didn't want her to come, so on general principle she slouched on over.

"So Quinn's little friend, or whatever, take a look at this. It's Brooke's new nose."

Daria's head snapped back and it was only by sheer luck that Quinn managed to push her away in time.

"No, Daria, Sandi wasn't asking you to break it! She didn't want you to break it!"

"She wasn't?" The punk looked mystified. "What the fuck did she call me over and point out a nose for if it wasn't to break it?" She turned and punched Sandi hard in the gut. "You need to be more careful, bitch, that's how wars get started!"