_The Look-Alike Series_ Daria fan fiction by Canadibrit Season 3, episode 13 (finale): "Love's Labour" prose adaptation by Austin Loomis "Do you bury me when I'm gone? Do you teach me while I'm here? Just as soon as I belong Then it's time I disappear" -- Metallica, "I Disappear" ACT 1: M.I.A. "I'm alone, sitting with my empty glass My four walls follow me through my past I was on a Paris train, I emerged in London rain And you were waiting there, swimming through apologies" -- Berlin, "The Metro" Lynn Cullen's room was empty and slightly untidy that morning when Andrew Philip McIntyre's head appeared in the window. "Hey ho, Purple Peril! Rise and shine, 'cause..." A.P. trailed off, seeing the room. "Purple Peril?" He clambered in through the window as usual. "*Hey Purple Peril!*" Still nothing. That's when he began to worry. "lynn?" * * * And so, in the halls of Lawndale High, he was drumming his fingers on his locker door, his forehead nearly pressed against the locker, when his friends, Daria Morgendorffer and Jane Lane, walked up and stopped a few feet from him, watching him carefully. "Forget the combination or something?" Jane asked him. "No," he replied. "Are you okay?" Daria wondered. "No." "Are you going to tell us *why* you're not okay?" Jane returned. "No. You'll think I'm nuts. I'll wait." "For--" The bell rang, cutting Daria off. A.P. slammed a fist into the locker. "What did it do to you?" Jane asked him. He didn't answer, just walked off. Daria and Jane looked at each other, and Daria sighed. "I'll talk to him." She followed him into English class to find him looking sullenly down at the surface of his desk...and to find, next to him, Lynn's empty desk. At this point, she did the math. "Not home?" "There's this story I kind of remember Purple Peril telling me about," he said. "About this boat, and it went out, and they found it empty, but like people had just vanished. Pipe burning on the deck, I think she said..." Daria recognized the story at once. "The _Marie Celeste_." "Probably. Well, that's what it's like at Chez Cullen. Coffee machine turned on and perking away. Another cup of coffee getting cold on the table, along with about half a microwave dinner. Book of those codeword puzzle things I don't get very well open on her bed, puzzle half-done." He thought a moment, then added, "No Merc." Daria just looked at him. Then she got a really fed-up look on her face; her elder half-sister's behavior had just crossed a line. An idea hit. "A.P., do you have Mara Fitzgerald's phone number?" * * * Armed with Nympho-Goth's information, Daria barged into Biers on an approach vector to the bartender -- or "barman" as Jerome might put it -- a clean-cut, not-bad-looking brunet in his early 40s, somehow giving the impression of being more than just a bartender. He looked up at her, studied her for a moment, then went back to his paper. "Sorry, kid," he said dismissively and with a slight New York accent; "we don't serve minors." Daria thought fast; when she spoke, she modified her voice to sound that little extra bit like Lynn's. "The words `faeces tauri' spring to mind." The bartender blinked, then laughed. "Nice try, but she'd have said bullshit. At least, in here she would." He seemed to think of something. "You'd be the other one." Daria was derailed, but tried to recover. "Uh...yeah. I was looking for Lynn." "Well, you've come to the wrong place. She was here last night with Missing H..." Now she was confused. "`Missing H'?" He thought about it. "Oh. As a friend of the Peril's, you'd think Rust." He let her chew on that. "Anyway, he came, she came, they left." "Okay, then I want to talk to him." He looked at her. "Sorry, no can do." She raised an eyebrow. "And I assume you have some kind of explanation for that?" "Hey, look, kid, I just take orders." After a moment, he seemed to relent. "Of course, you could hang around. He comes in around this time, when he comes in." She looked at him, saw the meaning behind his words, and gave a little shrug. He turned around and mixed...something unidentifiable, handing it over to Daria, who looked at it. "Excuse me?" she asked, instantly wary. "The Peril's drink of choice." He waited for a response, but none was forthcoming. "On the house, of course." Daria looked a bit dubious, but took a sip of the drink anyway. Then her eyes widened as she sputtered and choked. She looked at it again. "Would I regret asking what the hell is *in* this thing?" The bartender sort of nodded. She looked at him, then at the drink, then shrugged and took another sip with a slight grimace. "It grows on you." After thinking about it, she added, "Kind of like fungus." He smirked at her, then went back to his paper. * * * I could tell you where the airport arrivals lounge was, but then, of course, I'd have to kill each and every one of you, and I just don't have that kind of time. Lynn was sitting at a table with a cup of coffee in front of her and an apprehensive look on her face. A hand dropped on her shoulder and she looked up, not particularly surprised, into the face of a stocky, swarthy young man whose general stance and expression gave nothing away. On Lynn's other side stood a woman of medium height, with shoulder-length brown hair and a "mess with me and I kick you across the room" air about her. Lynn raised an eyebrow at the man, who nodded slightly. She shrugged his hand off and got to her feet. They walked off, the new arrivals flanking Lynn and staying quite close, like either prison guards or bodyguards. At a distance, you wouldn't have been able to rule out either possibility. * * * Tom Sloane entered Biers and heard what sounded like the last voice he should have been hearing just then. "Salutations, Rust." "Cullen?!" he interrobanged, mildly panicked. "What the hell are you doing here? You're supposed to be in..." He trailed off. There seemed to be something expectant about the pause that followed, and he realized how he'd almost been fooled. "Nice try." "Damn," Daria observed. After a pause, she added, "Still, it's nice to know we're not that interchangeable after all." "Not to people who know one or the other of you fairly well." He thought of something. "How'd you find this place?" "You're not the only one with connections." There was a pause while she didn't elaborate. "Where is she?" "She's safe. That's all you need to know." "No, that is not *all* I need to know. I need to know a lot of things. Like why the hell she's there. And where `there' is. And why you're so sure she *is* safe." He sighed. "If it were up to me, I'd tell you. It isn't." When she didn't follow up on that after a few seconds, he went on. "How the hell did you find out we meet up here? It's supposed to be something of a secret." "Like I said, you're not the only one with connections. I made some inquiries and they led me here. Now stop trying to sidetrack me. Who *is* it up to?" "Lynn." That took Daria somewhat aback. "She's *that* anxious to keep me out of this." "You actually care that much?" She just glared at young Thomas. "Okay, okay, I won't make you say it." He sighed. "Look, *I* personally think you can handle...this. But..." "She's the boss' daughter," Daria shrewdly observed, "and what she says goes?" The sheepish look Tom gave her was all the answer she needed. "Okay, how about I ask questions and you answer the ones you can. Will you do *that* much at least?" All right," came the wary reply. "But I reserve the right to plead the fifth." "Okay." She thought a moment, then came up with a reasonably good ploy for catching him off guard. "`Missing H'?" _Aw hell._ "Well, you know Tom is short for Thomas? Well, a... an associate in Pittsburgh tends to spell my name T-*H*-O-M. And when it came to code-naming me...the fact that I spell my name without an H came up. It stuck." Daria went in for the kill. "And she never saw fit to tell us she was going anywhere." "It was...kind of sudden." "Or leave a message." "Check your e-mail." Daria raised an eyebrow. "She didn't mail A.P." Tom shrugged. "And how long is she gone for?" Tom couldn't look at her, or at anything else but the floor. "I don't know." Daria stared at him. He still wouldn't look at her. Dead silence reigned for a moment. When it got oppressive, Daria broke it. "And you're so sure she's safe?" A half-shrug. "Pretty sure. She'll be seeing some people. I'd trust them with my life. Even if they *don't* use the right code- name," he ruefully wrapped up. "And the only way I could get answers to questions like `What does the Smythe family do?' and `How deeply is Lynn involved in whatever the Smythe family does?'..." "Put a gun to my head." "*I* don't have that option," Daria replied, not trying at all to make that not sound like an accusation. With that, she walked out. Tom watched her go, looking (to put it mildly) unhappy. ACT 2: BREATHE "It'll be all right on the night." -- traditional reassurance of English actors PLAYER (to Tragedians): It was a *mess.* ROS (to Guil): It's going to be chaos on the night. -- Tom Stoppard, _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead_ In Pizza King, A.P. turned a rather unflattering shade of purple with rage -- not too far removed from Lynn's "really weird shade of maroon," ironically enough. "*She did WHAT?*" he exploded. "Apparently, packed her bags and left for an unknown destination for an indeterminate span of time." Daria let that hang there, then snarked, "But she's with people `Rust' would trust with his life." "That...that...that..." "A.P., calm down." "But...but...but..." A sigh. "A.P., take your own advice and *vent.*" He let out an anguished scream-whimper and banged his head on the table. His soda cup wobbled, then fell over, dousing his head. He didn't move -- in fact, he didn't even seem to notice. "Better?" "No," he said into the table. He thought it over. "I gueff dere'v dat fhe didn't go wif *him.*" "Yes." Said kindly. "There's that." "But we don't know what fhe'v doing or when fhe'v coming back." Another sigh. "No, we don't." In tones of idle curiosity: "Wonder if fhe'll be back in time for de play." Daria shrugged. They sat in silence for a moment...then A.P. raises his head, revealing the same shocked, horrified look that was subsuming Daria's face. With one voice, they breathed, "The play..." * * * In the auditorium, Timothy O'Neill (Language Arts/Dramatic Horizons/Self- Esteem) was weeping into a stack of papers. Ink was running. Not pretty, not a sight for the faint of stomach. Daria, Jane and A.P. exchanged looks. "It had to be a grandmother sob-story, right?" Daria muttered. "Wow," Jane gawked. "It's like Niagara Falls." "Well, what did you want me to say?" A.P. snapped. "Meningitis would take months, and what happens if she comes back tomorrow?" "She gets to stay away from school until the senior year." Jane noticed the underwhelming reaction. "You think this would be a problem for her?" "But it would leave *us,*" Daria pointed out, "in the same situation as if she doesn't come back. No Juliet." "You'd think the man would have the sense to cast understudies ahead of time like *normal* people. I mean, after what happened with Kevin..." "He's the eternal optimist. He couldn't conceive of people getting sick or abducted by their fluffy-headed girlfriends or taking off for unknown duties three days before the play." "Hey," A.P. blurted, "he stopped crying." Indeed, Wimp-in-the- Willows had recovered and now had that "eureka" look on his face. "Wonder what he came up with." Daria had a sudden horrible premonition. "He'd better not..." O'Neill approached them now. "Daria, I just had a wonderful idea!" "If it involves me standing on a balcony reciting lines about my bounty..." She saw O'Neill's pleading look, then A.P.'s, then a raised eyebrow from Jane, and sighed. "...then okay. But only until Lynn comes back." A.P. looked grateful, and O'Neill looked like he could hug her if he didn't remember the lawsuit potential involved. "Thank you, Daria! Now, I'd really appreciate it if you could get the lines memorized -- as well as you can -- and do some of the blocking. Can we go through the ballroom scene?" She and A.P. shrugged and faced each other. Jane stepped off to one side. O'Neill stood back and gestured for them to start. A.P.'s lines came out rather flatly. "`If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this; my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a gentle kiss.'" There was a brief pause before he remembered and moved to kiss her hand. O'Neill looked puzzled. Daria, on the other hand, was slightly more expressive than normal. "`Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this, for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss.'" She slipped her hand over his until their hands were pressed palm-to-palm... ...Or rather, tried to. But A.P. hesitated, then followed her, so the twining of their fingers didn't work and he curled his fingers around the tips of hers, bending them back. "*Ow!*" A.P. jumped back. "Sorry, Pur...I mean...Aw hell..." He rans out. Daria stared after him. * * * In Jane's room, A.P. had adopted the "something eating at my soul" pose. Jane was sketching, a cold expression on her face. Daria was jotting things down in a notebook, pausing for thought occasionally. "This doesn't help," A.P. snapped. "All the blood is rushing to my head. It's making me dizzy." "Yes," Daria admitted, "but after a while, the dizziness drowns out the buzzing of unwanted thought." "Oh." He considered that, then went on. "This sucks. I want answers." He sighed. "But I don't even know all the questions." Daria consulted her notebook. "What exactly does Jerome Smythe do, and what did he do in the course of recent events that caused someone to release a homicidal high school principal for the sole purpose of letting said principal kill his daughter? How deeply is Tom `Rust' Sloane involved in Jerome's doings? How deeply is *Lynn* involved in those doings, and how much more so is she likely to be in future? And, on a slightly related note, does this have anything to do with Kate Cullen's divorce of Jerome Smythe and subsequent retaking of her maiden name for herself and her daughter?" "What does that have to do with anything?" Jane snarled. "Might explain, in light of Kate's defection to Tokyo, why Lynn has taken to the Smythe family...whatever it is...so completely." Jane nodded sagely, calming down. "Mmm. Good point. A bit psychoanalytical, but good point." Silence supervened again. A.P. sighed. "I don't get it. She used to tell me *everything.* There was none of this...this...this keeping it all so close to the vest crap. It's like she's doing it just to piss me off!" "I really don't think she'd do that--" Jane hurriedly stopped at that. The other two didn't notice. "Anyway, they're all good questions. Plan to get any answers for them?" "Tried the first couple," Daria allowed as. "Got informed that the only way I'd get answers for them is at gunpoint." "I think I could get my hands on the crossbow..." "A.P..." "I wouldn't mind holding him at knifepoint and carving strips off him until he gives." Now Daria was slightly shocked. "*Jane*..." "Well? Before he turned up there was none of this knife- throwing, take-off-on-a-whim-without-a-word secrecy crap. She...I..." A.P. struggled with the words. "...dammit, it would make me feel a lot better if..." "You could hurt him the way he's hurting you?" A.P. glared at Daria, then tried to stay calm. "Just...she's my friend and I'm worried." "I know how you feel, A.P., believe me." She thought a moment, then spoke with a determined air. "Well, if this *is* some kind of family thing, then it involves me whether she likes it or not. And I'm going to get some answers." Jane and A.P. just looked at her. The tone in which she'd said that, and the look on her face as she said it, were so...so *Lynn,* for lack of a better word...that it underscored the point she was making quite nicely. * * * While not as close to the Smythes as his brother Adam, Angier Sloane was doing well enough in his own right to afford quite a nice house for himself and his family. Tom's rickety car ground to a halt in the driveway and he got out...and saw Daria, Jane and A.P. standing on the front walk, arms folded, looking at him. He stopped and stared at them a moment. "How did you find out where I live?" "Neat little invention," A.P. observed. "It's called the phone book. There aren't that many Sloanes in Lawndale." "There aren't that many *anyones* in Lawndale," Jane added. "Safety in numbers, Erudite?" They all glared at Tom for that, and he sighed. "I can't tell you where she is, I can't tell you what he does, and if you have any other questions--" "Lots of them," Daria interjected as she handed over a piece of paper. He skimmed it a moment, then told them, "I can answer the last one." That elicited raised eyebrows from his guests. "Do you want this or not?" Daria sighed. "It's better than nothing. Go on." "Yes, you're right, it does have something to do with it. As far as I can tell, the Cullens have a very different attitude toward... things...than the Smythes do. And when Kate Cullen found out...certain things...about the Smythes, she wanted to show that she'd cut all ties with her husband's family -- for herself *and* for her daughter. That's why the name change." "She hates Purple Peril so much because she's like Jerome?" A.P. blurted. Tom nodded. "But..." "How ironic," Daria observed." That drew puzzled looks. "Lynn's middle name is Jaquenetta, I think I remember -- a character in `Love's Labour's Lost.'" She paused, then clarified, "In regards to Kate, that's exactly what Lynn is." Jane looked like she kind of got that. Tom *definitely* got it, and looked at Daria somewhat admiringly. A.P. was completely lost, and wondering (as he often does in those circumstances) if this were a good thing of a bad thing. "It doesn't really matter -- that was just something I wanted to know from a...family standpoint. Nothing else you can tell us?" "I talked to some people. If it makes you feel any better, she's still safe." Their general expressions said that yes, they *were* in fact feeling better, but not by much. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more." He thought about that. "Actually, no, I'm not. I'll see you around." He stepped past them, toward the front door and into the house without looking back. Daria, Jane and A.P. exchanged looks. "You think it's worth asking *her* when she comes back?" Daria wondered. "No," A.P. sullenly replied. "I hate her and I hate *him* even more. I've had enough of this." He walked off, hands in his pockets, dejected and angry. Daria and Jane look at each other. "He can't mean that," Jane pleaded. "He doesn't," Daria insisted. "It's just anxiety talking." "It'd better be. I mean, she..." She managed, just, to hold to her promise to Lynn. "...she'd be really miserable if he gave up on her." Daria held to her own promise to A.P. "He hasn't. They've been friends for too long. There's no possible way he could give up on her after eleven years." Jane looked unsure about that. Daria looked slightly more certain...but only slightly. * * * On a shooting range, Lynn, wearing shooter's earmuffs, was blowing holes in a target. A couple of red lights flashed, and she put the gun down and pulled off the muffs, leaving them to hang around her neck. The swarthy man entered, looked at her, then at the target. "Nice." After a pause to let her bask in that, he added, "Missing H called." "That's Rust," Lynn corrected absently, not even looking at him. After a pause of her own, she asked, "And what is the sound of the suburbs?" "The Erudite's asking questions. And she's not taking no for an answer." "Well," Lynn gritted, "she's going to have to learn to live with the disappointment." There was a pause. Lynn still wasn't looking at him; her attention was on the target. He watched her. "They'd probably try to get me out of it...or they'd get into it, and they might get hurt." "Point." He considered her words and realized something. "They?" *Now* she looked at him. "She could probably handle herself. So could Scarlet. But..." She trailed off. "That leaves Maverick." Silence followed, but the look on her face said it all. "Ah." "I got him shot. Nothing like that will ever happen again. Even if I have to make him hate me to keep him out of my life." After another itchy pause: "Are we done?" "Here? Yeah." When she didn't ask him to elaborate: "Think you can handle a recurve?" Lynn raised an interested eyebrow. ACT 3: EVERYONE IS WATCHING "I am everything you want, I am everything you need I am everything inside of you that you wish you could be I say all the right things at exactly the right time But I mean nothing to you and I don't know...why" -- Vertical Horizon, "Everything You Want" It was evening, but the lights of Lawndale High were on and cars were parked all the way around the block, the way they usually are when a play is on. (It's been long enough since my own high school days that I have no precise memory of seeing that, but it sounds rights somehow.) Backstage in the auditorium, A.P., in cargo pants with obscenely large pockets and a tight-fitting black top with a digital readout on the front flashing random numbers, was sitting impatiently as Jane, already wearing her black PVC maid's uniform, sprayed green streaks through his hair. "You got this in London?" he asked, picking at the top. "There's this shop in Camden called Cyberdog," she replied. "I wanted one of the Jetsons dresses but couldn't afford one *and* get Christmas presents so..." She voiced an exasperated sigh. "Will you hold still?" "Sorry, Art-Smart Scarlet. I'm just..." He fell silent, once again struggling with the words. "Edgy. In the bad way." _The icky way._ "Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit! I mean, why *now?* I mean, I wouldn't be so nervous if..." He was obviously trying not to talk about Lynn or even say her name. "I mean, she'd have said..." And failing miserably. "Dammit, what the hell kind of friend *is* she?" For the first time, Jane found herself wavering on her promise. "Look, A.P., maybe you should go easy on her. I--" She got no further. The livid Maverick went up in a thoroughly uncharacteristic, almost Cullen-esque explosion. "Go easy? *Go easy?* Dammit, she didn't even mail me! Erudite Emerald, yes. Me, no. What does that say?" Jane was well and truly teetering on the brink now. "Um..." "Stuff it, Jane," he said coldly. "She doesn't care. *I* don't care." He got up and walked away. Jane looked after him sadly. "Yes, she does..." she muttered aloud. * * * Later, elsewhere in the backstage area, the cast and crew were standing in a circle. Daria looked panicked. A.P. looked sullen. Jane was nearly bleached white with tension. The rest of the cast and crew had the ordinary stage jitters, but Ted DeWitt-Clinton and Michael Jordan MacKenzie were watching Daria, Jane and A.P. with some concern. O'Neill looked rather green. "All right now, let's..." "Let's skip the pep talk and get on with it," A.P. practically spat. O'Neill, too nervous to deal with this sort of thing, made a miserable squeaking noise and ran off. Daria glared at the Maverick. "Way to go, A.P.," she nearly yelled. "Just because you're having a hard time with this doesn't give you the right to pick on other people." "Get *bent,* Erudite Emerald! I don't want to have to listen to him yammer about how we have to be onstage. I just want to get the lines said and go home!" "Look, just don't take your frustrations out on other people! I've had three days to learn the lines and the blocking for this *and* I'm still doing the damn chorus part and I don't want to listen to you bitch at people just because Lynn's pissing you off!" "It's not..." he sputtered, enraged, and amazed that Daria was mad enough to show it. "I don't...I don't *give* a...gah!" he choked, frustrated, and walked off. "Way to go," Jane muttered. "As if he's not wired enough already." "Stuff it, Jane." Daria stalked away. "Why do people keep *saying* that?" Jane asked the world in general. "Advice worth taking, maybe?" said a female voice from behind her. _That sounded like..._ Jane turned around, and it was. She did what is referred to in anime circles as a "facefault." * * * Daria was standing offstage left, arms folded, waiting in the wing for her cue. Onstage were Alice Little as Lady Capulet and Jane as the Nurse. "`Nurse, where's my daughter? Call her forth to me.'" Daria was turning white with fear. "`Now, by my maidenhead, at twelve years old, I bade her come. What, lamb! what, ladybird! God forbid! Where's this girl? *What, Juliet!*'" Daria cleared her throat...and a voice from behind her said, "`How now! Who calls?'" "`Your mother.'" Daria turned just in time to see Lynn approaching in the Juliet costume -- a short, tight, black lace-edged purple dress with a long black velvet lace-up-the-front surcoat thing; delicate suede thigh-boots; Goth makeup; hair done in ringlets and caught up in purple satin rose clips. The Peril stepped past her sister with a slight nod in her direction and stepped out on stage. "`Madam, I am here. / What is your will?'" Daria stared out onto the stage as the scene played on and the Nurse remembered Juliet's weaning. Then she gave a little smile. _Well, she cares enough to be here, at least..._ * * * Later, the dance scene. A.P., as Romeo, was wallflowering, watching the dancers. On cue, Lynn drifted into his line of sight, dancing with Upchuck as Count Paris. The expression on A.P.'s face indicated two things if you knew what to look for: (a) he hadn't seen her yet, and (b) his resolve to hate her was being strongly tested. Completely in character, he said, "`Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I never saw true beauty till this night.'" Jane, standing nearby, gave a smile. In the wings, O'Neill was almost sobbing with relief. * * * Later still, Jack what's-his-name -- the one Jan calls "Crew Cut" and I call "Beefy Boy" -- was onstage with Alice and Upchuck. Behind them stretched a sheet of backlit gauze which allowed silhouettes to show through. Lynn's silhouette could be seen, sitting on a bed, apparently waiting. It was Act III, scene 4, and Jack, as Capulet, had the first line. "`Things have fallen out, sir, so unluckily, That we have had no time to move our daughter...'" A.P.'s silhouette came into view behind them, and Lynn's shape stood to face him. Behind the gauze curtain, they regarded each other for a moment, then stepped towards each other, going through their blocking, eyes locked. "And what do you have to say for yourself?" A.P. asked her coldly, and softly enough that even their costars couldn't hear. Lynn looked at him, obviously planning to say something equally cold. She took a breath...then let it out in a sigh. She couldn't be cold to him. She looked him square in the face, expressionless. Quite truthfully, she said, "I'm sorry." A.P. swallowed. He couldn't stay mad either. Following the blocking, he raised a hand to her face as he said, "I know." As she put a hand over his, she added remorsefully, "I can't promise it won't happen again. I wish I could." He pulled her close, under the cover of having to for the scene. "Okay. Just...mail me too next time, okay?" "Okay," she breathed. And, as per the stage directions, they kissed. "Well, get you gone," Jack said out front. "Thursday it be then." The backlight cut. Lynn and A.P. moved away from each other quickly, each turning their backs for a moment so the other stood no chance of seeing them blush. * * * "`...For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.'" The spotlight on Daria cut. The stage was now dark. The scuffling noises of people exiting stage left, right and (if possible) center was covered by the applause from the crowd. The lights came back up, and the actor types took their bows, starting with Daria, then miscellaneous Capulets and Montagues -- Jamie, Jeffy, Robert and other football types. Kevin and Brittany as the elder Montagues. Then Alice and Jack. Then Upchuck on his own. Then Joey as Tybalt and Ted as Benvolio. Then Mack (as Friar Lawrence) and Jane. Then Bill, that guy with the eyebrow ring, as the doomed Mercutio. Then, from opposite wings, Lynn and A.P., who met at center stage and clasped hands by instinct. _Last chance..._ A.P. thought. "Give 'em one last show?" _I'll never get to do this again,_ Lynn thought. "Like at the end-of-year-dance at Oakwood?" They looked at each other...then gave big smug grins to the crowd and kissed. This was cause for general cheering. "Slip her the tongue!" little Sam Griffin shouted with his usual bottomless reservoirs of couth. "Slip her the--" The *smack* of fist on face interrupted him. "OW!" "Shut up, you little freak!" his sister Sandi snarled. In the wings, O'Neill was in tears of happiness. Jane and Daria were each wearing, unnoticed by the other, looks that showed their thoughts: _I wish I was convinced that meant something -- why doesn't {s}he *notice?*_ Lynn and A.P. broke the kiss, faced the crowd and took a bow. "Cast party?" he asked hopefully as the lights went down. "Well," Lynn replied, resigned, "there's a big empty house just waiting to be trashed." She thought about it, then added, "Again." * * * And so, in the Cullen living room, Lynn was wallflowering, looking tense, when Daria, Jane and A.P. approached. "So...anything to tell us?" Daria asked her sister. Lynn sighed. "Look, mainly I was setting up some contacts. Lorna's set up a tour of the States for Mystik Spiral and she felt it was important to meet some of the people I might wind up working with or for." "Is that the only reason?" "It's a reason." There was a short pause before the subject was dropped for fear of reprisals. "U.S. tour?" Jane asked. "You never said anything..." "...I know. My bad. I...could use some help on this one." A pause. "Anyone spare a summer for a tour?" "Count me in. This is cooler than going to London for Christmas! And anyway, Mom and Dad are taking a nineteenth honeymoon in Tahiti over the summer; they'd be happy to know I'm not going to be home all by myself." She thought, then added, "I think." "Oh good," A.P. perked, "something to do for the summer. I think Dad's ripe for one of his `let's go camping and make a man out of you' trips. Now I can say, `Hey Dad, I'm a roadie. How's *that* for manly?'" "Oh, I don't think I'll have any problems," Daria allowed as. "Mom and Dad are trying for patching up the marriage the...physical way and would be happy enough to have me out of the house." "Great," Lynn replied, sort of pleased but also chagrined. "You don't have to get so excited and happy about it," Jane snarked. "It *is* great," Lynn tried to sound more sincere this time. "Really." She had one last tactic to keep them out. "Even if..." She made scare quotes. "...`Rust' is coming too?" Dead silence as Jane and A.P. scowled and mulled this news over. At length, and in unison, they grumbled, "I can deal with that. Just." They looked at each other dubiously, then at Daria and Lynn. "Oh, great," Jane muttered. "Now you've got *us* doing it." "Sooooorry," Daria and Lynn kevinned in unison, grins and all. They look at each other with that "what the hell?" expression -- that had obviously been accidental. Then they smiled and suppressed laughs. Jane and A.P., on the other hand, didn't bother suppressing their laughter. Sometimes, you just *need* a good laugh. ADAPTOR'S NOTES The most interesting theory I've ever heard on what happened to the _Marie Celeste_ came from a synopsis of the _Doctor Who_ story arc "The Chase" (vintage 1965), which indicates that Daleks chasing the (First) Doctor through time landed on the ship after he'd gone and, making the best of a bad deal, decided to ex-ter-mi-nate all those humans they found. This has almost nothing to do with the present narrative, and wouldn't even if the scene *were* laid in the west of Scotland, but I thought of it, and these are my endnotes, so I can put what I jolly well please in them. Just in case you've ever wondered, I got the verb "snarked," in the sense I use it to attach people's names to their dialogue, from the _Otaku Rising_ series. If J. Daedalus "Jon Corinthian" Govoni, Mario "DigiCom" di Giacomo, or any other Otaku Group members are reading this, consider yourselves shouted out to. I don't know where "Jack" came from for Crew Cut/Beefy Boy, but somehow it seemed to fit. On the other hand, I know that "Bill" for Ring Boy came from Bill Weasley, by analogy between the eyebrow ring and Bill's dragon-fang earring. Oh great, now I'm having to annotate the endnotes themselves. That remark about the west of Scotland refers to the opening sentences of Stephen Leacock's Gothic romance parody _Gertrude the Governess, or Simple Seventeen_: "It was a wild and stormy night on the west coast of Scotland. This, however, is immaterial to the present story, as the scene is not laid in the west of Scotland." Obligatory legal blap: Daria Morgendorffer was created (as were the rest of the Lawndale characters) by Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis Lynn, and she and her neighbors are copyright 1993, 1997, 2000 MTV Networks, a Viacom company. (As Michelle Klein-Haess has pointed out, work-for-hire sucks the yolks from ostrich eggs.) Monty Python quotes and characters are copright 1970, 2000 Python (Monty) Pictures Ltd. They are here used, without the permission of their creators or owners, in the not-for-profit context of fan-fiction. The characters of Lynn Cullen, Mara Fitzgerald and A.P. McIntyre are copyright 1999, 2000 Janet "Canadibrit" Neilson, as is this storyline, which was adapted by Austin Loomis (to whom the prose version is copyright 2000) with permission. Lynn's contacts are copyright...let's just say "themselves," since I don't know who *specifically* they're meant to be. All other characters, locations and incidents (of which I don't think there are any, actually) are either imaginary or used fictitiously. Any coincidence of names is regretted, and any resemblance to persons living, dead, undead, or wandering the night in ghostly torment is either purely satirical or not my fault. As a "substantially transformative" derivative work, this story is protected by the Supreme Court's decision in re Campbell v. Acuff Rose Music. It may be freely redistributed as long as this copyright notice is maintained intact, but may not be in any way redistributed for profit without the permission of the legal owners of all concepts involved. The present author hereby gives permission for any and all keepers of Daria fanfic pages to archive this work (as if I could stop them). Any publication of this story for profit without the express written permission of Austin Loomis, Janet Neilson and MTV Networks (like any of that'll happen, especially the last) is strictly prohibited, and violators, if I ever decide to track them down, will be strung up by the thumbs, beaten about the head and shoulders with a free-range carrot, and then handed over to corporate lawyers who will do terrible things to them. On purpose. Austin, and good day. Al D T0 W- Q Fw^Fr O+ Ow+OH+Of m c- MV+ F:111,208,313 BB+ FCT -DT+ q fJ^fj^fD