Chapter Eight

"You just let an alien impregnate you?!" Quinn gasped. She then turned to Jake. "No offense."

Jake shrugged. Helen frowned. "Well he did manage to pick up a few pointers during his time on earth."

"Actually she didn't," Daria deadpanned, "I'm one of the pod people, sprung fully-grown from Mom and Dad's backyard vegetable patch."

"Yes, his technique was quite good," Helen murmured, flushing. "Talk about the student surpassing the teacher-"

"Okay! We get it!" cried Quinn.

"That's too much information," Daria agreed.

"Anyway," Helen went on, "We were a little worried about what a half-alien child might look like. But the pregnancy went well... and we had a home birth, with your father delivering... and there was Daria - pink, messy, attached to an umbilical cord. A normal human baby. Well-" Helen's forehead wrinkled as she looked at her older daughter. "Normal enough, anyhow."

Daria shrugged.

"Then, a little less than two years later, we had Quinn, who also looked like a normal human child. And as you girls grew up, aside from being bright and curious, there was nothing unusual about either of you." Helen breathed a quiet sigh of relief. "It looks as though the alien gene has passed you over."

Daria and Quinn looked at each other.

"Your mom had gone to law school in my absence," Jake took over, "and pretty soon found a job with a firm in Houston. And so that's when the four of us moved to Highland. Realizing that it could be dangerous if we stayed separated, Gob agreed to come along and live in town."

"But to do THAT," said DeMartino, "I had to find a stable occuPATION. So I thought, 'What's the ONE profession you can be stuck in FOREVER, where people go out of their way to pay as LITTLE attention to you as possible?' So I became a TEACHER."

"I was thinking of circuit judge," said Daria, "but all right."

"Don't MAKE me regret my decision," DeMartino warned. "Besides, in Highland it was either THAT, or be a walking billboard."

"Did we ever have you?" asked Quinn.

"Matter-of-fact, your SISTER did," DeMartino said, a gleam in his eye. "Only I wore a different costume at the time."

He glanced at Daria, who gave him a long, steady look. Then her face took on an expression of horror. "Mr. Buzzcut??"

"Feel like giving me a swift kick in the 'NADS?" DeMartino returned, with satisfaction.

"Oh for heaven's sake. Grow up," Helen muttered with revulsion.

"So with his new identity, Gob kept an eye on us," Jake continued, "and you girls had a typical American upbringing. Until one day, when we got another tip that my enemy had returned to the United States, and was quickly making his way toward Highland. I told your mother-"

"And I said 'Forget it, I won't let us be separated again. If you need to escape, we'll escape as a family,'" Helen said with determination. Her brow then creased, as she weighed the pain and regret that went along with her decision. "So I gave up my lucrative partnership in my Houston firm and settled for a lesser position at a smaller firm in Lawndale."

"We chose Lawndale because so many people get confused about where it is on the map," Jake added.

"What about you?" Daria asked DeMartino. "Why did you change your identity again if we didn't change ours?"

DeMartino gritted his teeth. "Lousy little MUTANTS," he muttered. "I had such a GREAT costume, but the one day I decided to hang it up and CLEAN it, those two imbeciles, Beavis and BUTT-head found it and RIPPED IT TO SHREADS!" His eyes blazed. "So I had to make a whole NEW one, and with that, I chose a new IDENTITY so no one would think I killed the OLD Buzzcut and took his."

"What happened to Beavis and Butt-head?" Quinn wondered.

"Oh, I got EVEN with them." The red from DeMartino's eyes faded, and with a wicked smile, he patted his stomach.

Quinn went pale. "You didn't."

"Oh, I DID."

Quinn covered her face. "They were horrible, but they didn't deserve-"

"I spiked their nachos with HOT SAUCE, and I'd do it AGAIN!" said DeMartino with satisfaction.

"What?"

Daria rolled her eyes. "Can we get back to the story? Please?"

"For a while, everything seemed fine," said Jake. "We didn't receive any new tips, and you girls seemed to adjust and find friends pretty quickly. Then one day, Gob informed me that Lawndale High had a new math teacher, someone who acted suspiciously like my old enemy. Yet for some strange reason, he hadn't made a move. I wondered if maybe he'd finally decided to settle down, to create a life for himself on earth, the way I had. Gob then mentioned that maybe he was just confused because my essence was split between you two. When I learned that he was helping Quinn with math, I decided to keep a closer eye on him."

Quinn's eyes widened, and her face flushed with guilt.

"Under the guise of attending a parent-teacher meeting, I went into his classroom to try and discern his purpose. I zapped myself a shield ray from my home planet, which would disguise my essence for a short amount of time, so he would think I was a typical bumbling parent. Throughout our meeting, I couldn't see any ulterior motives, and felt that transferring Quinn out of his class would arouse his suspicions. Still, I was concerned. I had to do something. I told your mother that we would probably have to leave again," Jake said in a sad tone, "and she said-"

"I said 'no,'" Helen finished quietly. "Not this time. I wasn't prepared for the emotional toll that leaving Highland would take. While our move could be easily explained the first time, after two short years, I couldn't see how we could come up with a convincing story again. And what about the next time? What if we had even less time to adjust before we had to pack our things? You girls are at an age where you aren't as easily fooled. You would have known something wasn't right."

Helen then turned and looked at Jake sadly. "And then there were other things. Over the years, being married to an alien was slowly taking its toll on me. Not only did I have to avert my eyes whenever your father wanted to 'wash his costume,' but it was the little things. The cultural differences that couldn't be surmounted." Helen sighed with irritation. "The fact that on Xulfanex, gazing inattentively into space while your loved one is speaking is considered a sign of affection. Or that ranting for hours about nonsensical topics is considered a turn-on."

Morose, Jake slowly reached over for his wife's hand. For a second she held it on her lap, as if allowing him to take it. Then she pulled it away.

"I just wanted some normalcy," Helen said slowly. "I was feeling more and more alone, and I just wanted to have normal human contact." She cupped her hands, and stared at them. "So I told your father that if he wanted to leave, he would have to leave on his own, and let me and you girls go on with our lives."

There was a bleak, heavy silence, which Jake rushed to fill.

"But I couldn't leave Lawndale. Not yet. It dawned on me that you girls were old enough to learn the truth. And when Quinn called me this morning to ask about 'Mr. DeMartino,' I knew something was about to happen. And I knew that I had to gather you all here."

Jake stood up. Tears danced in his eyes, which he sought to hold in. "I have to lure my enemy away from here. It's me he wants - you girls are as harmless as your mother. So I guess I wanted to gather you here to tell you... good-bye."