"Good morning, sunshine" said Daria, while reading a newspaper, as soon as she heard Jane waking up.
"Daria? What the hell happened? Is this the parallel universe in which you did accept my invitation to have sex to see if we were lesbians and it turned out we were?".
"That probably would've made things easier with Alison" Daria replied ". I don't know if you noticed, but you're in the hospital. I'll have to call Trent and tell him you woke up. I told him to go home, he didn't sleep during the two days you were sedated".
"Wait, why am I here?" she asked.
"So you don't remember it. Okay" she put down her newspaper and stood up next to Jane's bed ". You drank too much, passed out and almost had an ethylic coma. Trent and I found you in your room and called 911" Daria now stopped looking neutral and looked sad, as Jane had seen only a few times, remembering the first time that was when she had seen Trent leaving to go on a date with Monique " I don't know if Trent wanted to tell you this instead of me, but you're going to rehab after you leave the hospital".
"What? Did you say rehab?" Daria nodded ". Why would I need to go there? It's not like I'm a drug addict".
"Technically, Jane, alcohol is a drug, just a very socially acceptable one. And you do have a problem with it. Didn't you hear what I said? We had to call 911 and you've been in a hospital for 2 days. Trent and I haven't been paying enough attention to this and look what it's done to you".
"Hey, look, I think it's, uh, sweet and everything that you and Trent care about me, I appreciate it. And I admit that I exceeded the limit a little bit this time, but it won't happen again".
"How could you possibly know that? You weren't expecting it to happen this time, but it did. It can happen again" she looked frustrated because Jane wasn't listening to what she'd said.
"C'mon, Daria, alcohol is the only thing that can make life bearable".
Daria raised an eyebrow showing her disapproval to her friend's belief.
"I was just kidding" Jane stated ". But I'm going to be okay, I don't need rehab. I can even stop drinking for a week to show you that I'm okay, but I wanna go home".
Her brunette friend sighed and while leaving the room, said "I'm going to call Trent".
Jane, confused by what Daria told her about "having a problem", stayed in her bed waiting for her friend to come back.
Meanwhile, outside the room, Daria was on the phone with Trent.
"Did she wake up?" was the first thing he said, before even letting Daria say hi or knowing who was calling.
"Yes, but...".
"I'll be right over" he said clearly excited even for his low voice.
"Yeah, Trent, but..." he hung up before she could talk to him. She wanted to tell him that Jane didn't admit having a problem and that she didn't seem willing to go to rehab. She was worried that when he saw Jane she would convince him to forget about the incident and he would agree to let her go home where, feared Daria, it could happen again and she didn't know what could happen a second time. Jane had been lucky, she virtually hadn't been harmed by what had happened and for some reason this made her believe it wasn't that of a big deal, despite of being in a hospital.
Daria thought about going back to Jane's room, but even though she wanted to be with her friend and see that she was now okay she didn't know what to do there. She felt angry because Jane was doing something destructive towards herself and others and she wouldn't even admit it. She knew that if she went to her friend's room all she'd do would've been to uselessly try to convince Jane that she was wrong and that she did have a problem even if she couldn't see it herself. She didn't want to upset Jane after she had almost faced an ethylic coma, or worse, getting in an actual fight in a moment in which she was required to be there to help.
She prefered to go to the entrance of the hospital and wait for Trent.
He won't take too long, she thought, normally he would still be sleeping but this is something about Jane so he must be desperate to see her. If he didn't sleep for two days I think he wants to see her enough not to postpone it.
And she was right, Trent's black van parked in front of the entrance only 15 minutes after Daria made the call. He got out of the car and went straight to hug her as soon as he was close enough to cover her with his arms. Lately, they've had a lot of physical interaction Daria wasn't familiarized with, but she never mind because both of them needed someone to rely on. They both were distressed about Jane's situation and since both of them only had Jane and each other as really close people, with Jane being out of the picture, all Trent had was Daria and all she had was Trent.
"How are you?" he asked before saying anything else, as if he was aware that he had sounded a little rude on the phone.
"Uh, I'm okay, I guess. What about you?" she replied.
"I feel much better" he said as he yawned ". I got a few hours of sleep. I was asleep when you called".
"I'm sorry I woke you up".
"No, it's okay. Actually, thank you because you called as soon as Janey woke up. How is she doing?".
"She's doing fine. But I still need to talk to you about...".
"I need to see her" he interrupted Daria ". I'll go check Janey and then we can talk, okay? I won't take too long. You can wait me at the waiting room if you want to".
"Okay" she agreed.
She saw him entering Jane's room and went to sit on a chair in the waiting room, feeling kind of guilty because she didn't tell Jane things she thought she should've told her after such a bad incident like that. It reminded her of the incident with Tommy Sherman, when after he died everyone kept repeating the phrase "it really makes you think". Now that her best friend had been so close to death, that had made Daria think about how she never told people around her important things they should know. She somehow assumed that the people she appreciated knew this, but it wouldn't be bad to let them know through words.