Disclaimer: Ending a bit slowly, I know. But I had to give this one final decision the attention it deserved.

I think after this, an epilogue.

Disclaimer: Joss, Glenn, me: Buffy, Daria, everyone else.

X X X X X

There were still more opinions to sort out. She was saving the most important one for last. In the meantime, it was Xander Harris' turn. Plus maybe time to threaten a little bit of mayhem if he didn't back the hell away from his hesitations about Anya.

He was still preoccupied, but when asked he took the time to cast his vote for Daria and Faith splitting up. "I kind of had the opposite problem," he said. "Anyone tell you?"

Daria thought. "I don't think so. Please. Clue me in."

"Last year, we were all fighting a demon who had a wand that split me in two."

"Whoever sewed you back up again did a kick-ass job, I have to say," Daria said.

Xander glared for a minute, then said, "Okay. Sloppy wording. It split me into two different people. An ubercool, confident Xander, with all of my good qualities, and a nerdy, geeky, incompetent Xander, with all of my, well, not-so-good qualities. I know, I know. It's hard to believe, but the suave, cool guy in front of you wasn't always this awesome."

"I'm shocked and amazed," Daria said. Then, more seriously: "This wand. You think it might be able to separate me into an individual Daria Morgendorffer and Faith Lehane?"

"I'm not the magic guru, but given what it did to me, I'd say yeah. But unless you want the both of you dropping dead when one of you does, it's probably not a good idea. See, the demon wasn't trying to hit me; he was trying to hit Buffy. And while, yeah, he would've been facing pure Slayer, he also would've been facing pure Buffy, with no Slayery goodness added. A lot easier to kill. SO, sure, it'd probably split you, but you probably wouldn't want to take the risk."

"So why do you think I should split mentally if it ain't likely to happen physically?"

"Because I wasn't me when I was split up," he said. "Both halves thought they were, but they were both wrong. And I don't think you're you when you're together. I'm hardly an expert on the way the mind works -- sometimes I'm not even sure mine does -- but if your two halves are going to integrate it seems to me it ought to happen naturally, at its own pace. Plus, this is magic. You're not going to hear me knocking magic, especially not where Will and Tara can hear me, but I'm not so sure you're going to want to live the rest of your life with a magical effect in your head that maybe someone might be able to take advantage of. That's all."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Now, about this thing with you and Anya."

He closed his eyes. "You, too?"

"Me, too. I don't know what your problem is, Harris, but you've got to make things clear. If seeing her kill someone is going to be an insurmountable obstacle, tell her. If it ain't, tell her that too. But letting her twist like this is just torture."

"I thought I was pretty clear back in the SUV," he said.

"I'm sure you do. But you're saying one thing and acting entirely differently. Look. I don't pretend to be an expert on human interaction. I tried to avoid it as much as I could in both of my personalities."

"What do you call all that sex?"

"A way to have contact while avoiding contact," Daria said. "You can't call what you and Faith did any kind of intimacy. And this isn't about me, it's about you. If you were some random acquaintance of mine, and Anya likewise, I wouldn't give a good goddamn. But neither of you are. I fought next to you; that earns you some points in my book. And I like Anya. I actually do. We might not have a lot in common, but she speaks the truth as she sees it. People like that are damned rare, and I appreciate them whenever I find them." After a pause, he said, "You had to have known she could do that."

"I'd never thought of it," he said. "I'd never let myself think of it. And now I can't do anything but think of it."

"I know you've killed," Daria said.

"Yeah. Vampires. Evil demons. Creatures trying to kill myself or others."

"It isn't that big a gap between that and killing Ben. Look. Could you have done it?" When Xander didn't answer, Daria said, "I propose a thought experiment. The situation is the same, except now you're the only one left conscious. Ben's lying there, but Glory's going to come back within five minutes. No one else's going to be awake in time to do anything about it. What would you do?"

"I know we had to kill him to stop Glory," Xander said.

"Good. Not the question I asked. What would you do?"

"I'd have killed him," he finally said. "And I'd have hated myself for it."

"So your problem with Anya isn't that she killed an innocent man in cold blood, it's that she feels insufficiently guilty about it?"

"Don't oversimplify things," he said.

"Don't undersimplify them," was Daria's response. "Look. I'm not the one to provide easy answers. But you're hurting Anya, and you're hurting yourself, and when Dawn told Buffy and me to kick your ass, I suspect consequences if we don't. Make your choice."

"Thanks," he said. "And I actually mean it."

Back to the debate over the split decision. Jane's turn this time. And she was almost as to the point as her brother had been.

"You sure you want my opinion?" she asked. "Because I'm warning you. My opinion is like a no-u-turn sign."

"Metallic and frequently ignored?"

"No. Once you come across it, there's no turning back. So, once again. Do you want my opinion?"

"You're making this sound real dramatic. Are you about to tell me to go take a flying leap?"

"Oh, good heavens, no. Just making sure that when you ask for the unvarnished truth from me, you get it."

"Asked and answered, Lane."

"Fair enough. I want you to split up. My reasons aren't philosophical, they're not practical, and they sure as hell aren't spiritual. They're selfish. I like Daria Morgendorffer. Not that I don't like Faith. She's a fascinating person, don't get me wrong. But a fascinating person that I have almost nothing in common with except for Watchmen and a fondness for Daria. I don't connect with her the way I do with Daria. And you -- well --"

"I am Daria Morgendorffer."

"Legally, sure. I haven't yet received my law degree, so that's not such a big issue to me."

"Look. I've never been big on the whole emotional thing. A couple of days ago you were worried that I wouldn't like you. Now it's the opposite. I'll tell you what. What say that if I decide to remain Daria Faith Morgendorffer, that we try to get to know each other as we are now?"

"I haven't changed the way you have."

"Rather blasé about the whole 'demons-are-real-and-I-know-someone-who-kills-them' part of this, aren't you?"

"You know what I mean."

"I do. And thank you for your opinion."

"You're welcome . . . amiga."

And next, Rupert Giles. "Ah," he said. "I see that the rounds have finally made their way to me. I presume that you now wish me to render an opinion as to whether you should once again be Daria and Faith rather than who you currently are?"

"Well, I suppose we could simply chat about the weather, but really, how much can you say there? It's rainy, it's sunny, it's cloudy, it's foggy, boy there's a lot of snow out there, there's a hurricane a-comin', and all meteorologists are idiots."

Giles smiled. "You forgot 'Hot enough for you' and its variants, but on balance, I'd call that a reasonably accurate summary of such conversations. Still, I wonder why you're soliciting our opinions. For one thing, from what I know of you individually, neither of you is prone to do so -- you're both highly independent individuals. Surely this is your decision to make, and no one else's."

"And in the end that's what it's going to be," Daria said. "But right now I ain't too certain that I can trust my own opinions. It's only natural for me to want to live, so I'm instinctively gravitating towards that. But other people might have good arguments, and I thought maybe hearing what you guys think might help me figure it out. Yeah, I'll make that final call myself. But I'd like to be sure that it's the right one."

"So the decision has not yet been made?"

"Not at a conscious, intellectual level, no. It's one of the odd balances about being Daria Faith Morgendorffer: Faith was always a lot smarter than she or anyone else gave her credit for, but she was a woman who on the whole tended to follow her instincts. Daria, on the other end, was at the opposite end of the scale: Her instincts about people were usually correct, but she always thought things out. And right now I got instinct and reason, and I ain't sure if I can trust either of them."

"So you are conceding the possibility that at some point in the near future you may not exist?"

"Yes. Painful as it is. But, as I seem to have all of Daria and Faith's memories -- which leaves me only one gap, the gap of April 10, 1997, which neither one of us seems able to consciously recall, and which Dr, Vaughn assures me that at one point under hypnosis I asked her to not let me consciously recall it -- I would presume that, should I once again separate into Morgendorffer and Lehane, I will recall this as well. So in one sense, at least, I'll still be here." She smiled slightly. "It ain't that easy to get rid of me. I'll just be my parts again, rather than their sum."

"Or, possibly, more than their sum. I heard what Spike said to you about the practical aspects of your remaining joined. That your reason and your instinct were able to work together in defeating Glorificus speaks well to the possibility that they could work together under other circumstances. Even now. As someone who has primarily operated on either instinct or reason, you may have this mistaken idea that those who use both have them work in harmony. That is not always the case. But when they do -- in your case, with your tremendous intellect, and more, how quickly you think, and with your instincts, which are better in a fight than anyone I've ever known, save one --"

"Buffy?"

"Buffy," he said. "It was unlikely I was talking about Xena, Warrior Princess."

"I don't know. What I hear about your past, you could've cast a spell or two and run into her."

"My magical misadventures were primarily limited to demon summoning. And I would have been more likely to try to run into Emma Peel."

"Something about a woman in leather, right? I'm well aware of the effects myself."

"I'm sure you are," Giles said. "In any event, the combination of the two is far more likely to be to your advantage than your detriment, whether we are discussing battle or other parts of your life. Trust both. Listen to what both have to say."

"I notice," Daria said wryly, "That you didn't actually state your own opinion."

"No, I didn't, did I?" Giles said.

And finally, it came time to listen to what Doc Vaughn had to say.

"Psychiatrists," she said, "Typically aren't supposed to provide the answers. Ideally, they're supposed to ask the questions and let the patient come up with the answers. In practice, they're often simply the ones who prescribe the drugs while the psychologists and therapists handle the day-to-day counseling. As you may have noticed, I'm not a typical psychiatrist.

Daria faked a gasp and said, "No. Stop. I don't believe you."

"It's true," Doc Vaughn said.

"Of course it is. For one thing, you pay attention to the physical side of medicine."

"When I see a cut on someone's arm -- as in, a knife slash -- I not only want to be able to ask whether it represents a suicide attempt, an attack, or simple clumsiness, I want to be able to tell if it might be infected -- whether I need to refer them on to someone who can treat that. Given that I specialize in criminal psychiatry, I see a lot of injuries, some of them self-inflicted, some not."

"It was helpful during the siege. You also use hypnosis -- something that ain't usual for shrinks, I believe."

Doc Vaughn said, "No. It's not. Far too many of my colleagues think hypnosis is something best left for wacky therapists. My opinion is that I'll use whatever tool I think will help. An unskilled hypnotist can ask leading questions and create the answers she wants to get -- dangerous, especially when it comes to the field of 'repressed memories,' which have led to a truckload of unjustified lawsuits against people and institutions."

"The McMartin case," Daria said.

"For one," Doc Vaughn said. "Anyway, this isn't about me, this is about you. I'm not a typical psychiatrist -- and, in any event, you're not my patient, you're my friend; you're someone I care about. If you want my opinion, I'm going to give it to you."

"I do."

"I think you should remain integrated," she said. After a second, when Daria didn't react, Doc Vaughn said, "You seem surprised."

"I am," Daria said.

"The main worry you've been experiencing, I'll bet, is whether you would be erasing the lives of Daria and Faith by staying as you are now. The main argument in favor, in your head, is that this makes you who you were always meant to be."

"Ah. Not only do you use hypnosis, but telepathy."

"Both arguments are wrong."

"Do tell, Doc."

Doc Vaughn took a deep breath and said, "First off, this is not the Daria you were always meant to be. The Daria you were always meant to be would not have spent three years being anti-intellectual, promiscuous, and criminal. I'm not insulting you."

"'course not. It ain't an insult if it's the truth. Faith was all of those things."

"Daria never would have been. Had Daria Morgendorffer been recruited as the Slayer in Lawndale, she might have been an excellent Slayer, by using both her brains and her instinct. But she would have been nothing remotely resembling Faith." A pause, then, "There's no such thing as the Daria you were meant to be. We aren't meant to be anything. There's only what you are. And the Daria you could have been is unattainable. This is probably the best thing you can get to a replacement -- just don't think of it as predestined."

"I rarely think of anything as predestined," Daria said. "Still, I do think I was copping some of that attitude. Good catch."

"That's why they used to pay me the big bucks," Doc Vaughn said. "The other part's not right because you're not Tuvix."

"Tuvix?"

"From an episode of Star Trek Voyager. Two characters became one for an episode." A pause, then: "The thing is, Daria and Faith were never individuals or one unified being. Splitting you up again would not be the 'restoration' of two people with two separate lives, but one person with two separate lives. And that's not even factoring in the echo."

"Yeah, I've noticed the occasional Buffy-esque phrase creeping into my speech and thought processes."

"You -- Daria Faith Morgendorffer -- are the best you can be, right now. That it was a shortcut rather than long and intensive therapy gives me a couple of qualms. But not enough for me to think that this isn't the best thing for you.

After one more night, they were ready to fly back to LA. Dawn was getting antsy and pretty much everyone was getting tired of sleeping on the floor.

And that's when Willow and Tara came up to Daria. "We have it," Tara said. "We can drain Willow now."

"Good. Maybe once you're done you'll have some nice beachfront property."

"You know what we mean," Willow said. "If you want the mental structure back, you can have it. Just say the word."

Daria paused a moment and then delivered her answer.