Dedicated to Panio, Unicornfairy12, Breeze, Edilioismylife, Thebreezerocks, Janine, Analytic_Astrid, thekingcaine and 1_Chelsea_2 from for asking the questions! : ) You guys rock. Sorry I couldn't put them all in. XOX

BIG SPOILERS FOR ALL SIX BOOKS. DO YOU READ UNTIL YOU HAVE FINISHED THE SERIES.

This is basically a 1 shot set 5 years after the end of the FAYZ (When Diana is 21). It's a Diana interview by a magazine, and is a little different to most fics I've done because all the questions were asked by real-users on the GONE fansite . I pretty much couldn't bear the back that we were told so little about Ms. Ladris's life after the barrier went down, so I guess I had no choice but to write this fic. XD

It's done in the style of a magazine article.

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy! All reviews (glowingly positive or scathingly negative) are much appreciated. XOX

She enters the café and shoots me a sardonic, coy smile.

The 21 year old is clad in a black, strapless blouse leaving just a little to the imagination and some light denim jeans. She appears to be wearing some exceptionally high black heels, yet she walks with passable grace.

We sit down together, and get talking over a coffee as I set up my recorder.

She laughs, rolls her eyes a bit, and makes some dry witticisms at my expense.

"Wow. A rainbow bowtie. I bet you're a catch with the other journalists, right?"

She laughs, and looking over my notes on her, I am aware that a lot of eye witness accounts from the FAYZ recall her being like this. As being teasing. As being insulting and sly and sarcastic to a fault. Potpourris of eye witness accounts mention her having a bad habit of raising her eyebrows and curling her lip in jest.

But this isn't quite like the accounts (all the way from 5 years ago) describe her as.

There isn't the cold, conniving or malicious streak the survivors made her out to have.

She's laughing at me, but it would seem she's more or less complimenting me too.

She's snarky, yet she also seems very sincere in some respects.

In other words, she seems like a very normal- if somewhat ravishing and unapologetically rude - young woman.

You wouldn't have thought that just half a decade ago, she was dating a sociopathic, self-proclaimed king. The same king who managed to bring the Perdido Beach anomaly down, but died in the process.

You wouldn't have thought that less than 6 years ago, she was giving birth to an alien monster that was responsible for the death of 70 children at the Lake Tramonto massacre.

You wouldn't have guessed that she was the infamous Diana Ladris.

I tell her that we have some questions from our readers for her. We received over a thousand, but had to narrow it down to just a few dozen.

"I bet you 20 dollars that within the first thirty seconds, something about Caine or a cannibalism joke comes up."

"What?"

"I said, I bet you 20 dollars that within the first thirty seconds, something about Caine Soren or panda-meat pops up." She seems to find my discomfort amusing. "What, scared you'll lose the bet?"

I take a deep breath, switch on the recorder and begin to ask my questions.

"How yummy is panda meat?"

Ha! Told you. You owe me 20 dollars. *Laughs triumphantly* No wait, I want 50. There's this nice handbag at Gucci me and Astrid have our eye on and we're both just a little short. There's no way I'm losing out to Astrid the Genius. That handbag is mine.

*I explain to her that I never agreed to that bet*

*She rolls her eyes dramatically* Fine. Whatever. *smirks* I'll just permanently borrow the bag from her. She'll understand. I wear it better than her. Besides, she's busy building a rocket for NASA or something. She doesn't need it like I do! I need it for…Next question.

*I ask her to answer the question at hand* Oh right. Ask me that 5 years ago, 4, maybe even 3, and I would have cried my eyes out on the spot. *serious expression* I'm still not quite over it, you know. What I did to Panda. But I know it wasn't my fault now. The therapy has really been helping me.

"Do you still live with Sam and Astrid?"

I moved out 3 years ago, after Ken and genius-Barbie got engaged. *Smiles affectionately* I was happy for them and all, but it was really awkward sharing a house with those two after a while. You might have heard that back in the FAYZ those two used to "rock the houseboat". Well, turns out they now just rock the house. I can't wait to be a godmother to their blonde babies or whatever, but I think those two needed some privacy. So, after living with them for 2 years, I packed my bags out of California and settled to live with my Ex-long-distance boyfriend Quinn Gaither. I lived with him in Ohio for 3 months before deciding we were just better as friends. And here I am now in New York. As I'm sure you heard, I then became a DJ for Big apple beats radio station, a job I won partially because I'm just so witty and partially because having the mother of the Gaiaphage on their station really boosted ratings. *sips coffee* Up until that point, I was just a part-time model for a seedy underwear catalogue, but this pays better. Tune in every Friday night to hear me verbally destroy my guests and play some crappy pop tunes.

"While at Coates, what was your best subject?"

*Thinks for a second, as if she can't really remember Coates before the adults disappeared* I recall getting top marks for sex-education. Isn't irony a bitch?

"Who appeared to you on your fifteenth?"

Can I say a doughnut? Yeah, let's go with that. A doughnut appeared to me on my poofing-day. I turned fifteen sometime before I went to the island, and sometime after I hit my head in that mineshaft, so I would have been starving enough. Yeah. A doughnut told me to go with it and leave the FAYZ. The best offer I had got in a long time. *Raises eyebrow* You don't believe me, do you? Ok, I'll be honest. I saw Caine. Caine appeared to me on my fifteenth. *cackles suddenly, as if someone had cracked a joke* which is probably why I didn't agree to go with him. *Restrains laughter* Sorry. Next question?

"If you could choose any power to have-had in the FAYZ, what would it be?"

The power to escape the FAYZ. *Sips coffee, grins* Well that was easy.

"Do you miss powers?"

Not really. Mine wasn't particularly cool. I had the power to rate other people's powers. Which lead to some bad things. Caine and Drake, when the other moofs wouldn't co-operate…Let's just say my power caused more harm than good. It was fun in the old days, before the FAYZ. Me, Caine, Dekka, Brianna, Taylor, Andrew…We were like a super-hero club, even though in public I acted like I thought it was stupid. *laughs* And Brianna…She was fun to be around. It's a shame, really. None of us knew then. We really had no clue.

"Did you really push your mother down the stairs?"

When I was ten... No wonder my parents weren't too happy I survived…

"Have you ever had a close female friend?"

Astrid and I are best-friends. We can't see each other much because she's busy with NASA stuff and marriage plans, whilst I'm a sadistic radio host. But every year we go on a…*Smiles coyly* A booze cruise. Yeah, booze cruises. Every summer in August we always meet up in Mississippi to go on a 2 week, wine-tasting cruise. Basically a cruise with booze. You should see that girl drunk. She might be a genius in most things, but she really doesn't know how to sing karaoke in tune. Anyway, the cruise always stops half-way in France for a few days, and I must say, I love Paris. I'll love to live there once I get bored of this radio gig.

I also have a lot of respect for Lana. She was my obstetrician when I was pregnant, and I always appreciated her cynicism. We saw eye-to-eye a lot.

"Did you have a weapon throughout the entire FAYZ?"

Yes. *Arches eyebrow, curls lip slightly* A sociopathic boy with telekinesis.

"If Gaia had been a normal child, how do you think you would've taken care of her whilst in the FAYZ?"

*Suddenly her expression doesn't look quite so jesting. It takes her a second to process the question. When she replies, the air of playfulness and of wit is evaporated. For the first time Diana seems almost vulnerable. Her answer is blunt, and her voice broke halfway through the sentence. When she looks me straight in the eyes, I know she means what she is about to say.*

I would have found a way.

*I ask her if she'll like to leave it at that. She says nothing, so I do*

"Who did you think was a better leader, Sam or Caine?"

Sam knows I mean no disrespect when I say I'm team Caine. Proudly so. But really, Sam was probably the better leader. How Caine managed to keep Coates together for as long as he did, I'll never know, but Sam looked after me when I needed a place to go. Caine didn't really do that. Caine was a bit of a sick, stupid creep. *suddenly her expression lightens and she winks at me* but he was my sick, stupid creep, so I guess we'll have to let that go.

"Have you moved on from Caine?"

"Do you ever want to have a boyfriend again?"

I wouldn't quite say I "moved on" from Caine. I still have his letter- which no one in the media shall ever see- in a frame, and I still visit his bench at the memorial every year, and I still dream about what it would have been like if me, him and Gaia were really a family. But I'm not hung up on him or anything. He got his blaze of glory. He got his big finish. I love him and he loved me. So what would be the point in mourning him forever? He got his happy ending. And I think he'd be pleased to know I have mine. So yeah, I did date again. I was with Quinn Gaither for a bit. I mean, look at those abs! Can you blame me? But since then I've been just teasing and flirting with guys. *Smiles brightly* Like New York journalists in stupid rainbow bowties. What? You're blushing?

"Do you ever think you'll have or adopt a child?"

Yup. I'll definitely be adopting when I move to Paris in a few years. But there's no way in hell I'll be having a child out of my own body again. *Shudders theatrically* I'm still…Getting over that. To put it delicately.

"What would you say to Brianna- who tried to help deliver your child- if you could say anything to her now?"

Thanks. I think it would incredibly awkward for both of us if we said anything more.

Thank you for find the time to talk to us Diana. It has been an absolute pleasure. One last question; "Is it true what they say, that when your former partner Caine climaxed, he yelled "HUNGRY IN THE DARK?""

*Tries to restrain laughter, puts on phony melodramatic voice*

ASTRID! THAT WAS MEANT TO BE A SECRET!