Warnings and Disclaimers: As stated previously, I don't own either of these stories. I don't own much of the dialogue in this chapter, either. But I do own the background rewrite!

Zane rode away from his shell-shocked client, his mind awhirl. This was the second time he'd actively interfered with a death, changing the course of a client's life. Convincing a woman not to kill herself was one thing- while he knew she wouldn't have, considering he was there to collect her soul, it would have been perfectly understandable if she had of her own volition decided not to suicide.

But deliberately pulling a drowning man from the middle of the ocean and setting him on dry land...

The new Death couldn't help but think that was something completely different.

Maybe it was squeamishness, maybe his conscience that led him to act so irrationally. The office of Death was one that demanded impartiality, but he couldn't seem to keep his personal hang-ups from affecting his duty. Those people had been meant to die, yet... he'd saved them. He'd interfered with the natural order of things.

And something inside him knew he'd do it again, if the opportunity presented itself.

Beneath Zane, Mortis trotted diligently through the sky towards their next client, the magical horse unconcerned that his master's thoughts twisted and turned, trapped inside a maze of self-recrimination and worries. Abruptly the Incarnation shook his head, reaching for his wrist to stop the Deathwatch. "I've had enough of this for the moment," he directed down to his steed. "I want to pause and reflect. Do you have a favorite pasture where you graze? Take me there."

The horse whinnied and galloped up to a thin cloud layer. As they pierced the haze, Zane saw a green, open field stretch out before him, improbably perched on top of the cloud. "So your pasture is in the sky!" he remarked with a sense of wonder.

Mortis alighted in the meadow with barely a jolt, trotting across the grass until he reached an enormous ginkgo tree. The man dismounted rather clumsily, using the tree to catch his balance as much as he was able. "You'll be near when I need you?" he asked, the slightest bit worried at the thought he might be stuck there for eternity on the whims of a horse.

The stallion nickered assent, tossing his head, before trotting off a few feet to graze. Zane blinked as he realized the saddle and bridle were nowhere to be seen, and finally shrugged. It was magic, after all…

With a sigh, he dropped to the ground next to the tree and leaned back against its trunk, looking upwards at the infinite, azure dome of the sky. "What am I doing here?" he murmured out loud to himself, thudding his head against the bark. "Why aren't I doing my job?"

There was no answer. Mortis didn't even lift his head from his grazing, and the wind made no reply as it rustled the leaves of the ginkgo. Zane sighed again, and his gaze fell on a small spider dangling from a thread in front of him.

"What am I doing wrong, Arachnae?" he asked it whimsically. "I have a good job here, fetching in the souls of the borderlines. Why am I letting them go, when I thought I wanted to act in accordance with the standards of my office?" He rubbed a hand over his eyes, feeling a wave of disillusionment wash over him. "Am I a hypocrite?"

A change came over the spider, as he watched with wide eyes. Four of its legs fused into two larger limbs, as the other four lifted up, becoming two slightly smaller extremities. Its abdomen lengthened, swelling and then slimming at the midpoint. Eight eyes merged into two, very human eyes.

In but moments, a woman knelt beside him, holding a strand of silken webs between her palms.

"Oh, we call it the delayed-reaction syndrome," she said dryly. "You can't step from ordinary life into immortality without suffering systemic dislocation. You will survive it."

"Who are you?" Zane demanded, shocked, though there was a faint tugging at his memory at the sight of her face.

"How short your memory is," she stated, a teasing note in her voice. Her appearance changed again, reforming as a younger woman.

The memory fell into place. "Fate! Am I glad to see you!"

The other Incarnation seemed pleased at that. "Well, I did bring you into this, so it may be my responsibility to tide you through the break-in period." She shifted into a slightly more comfortable position, looking intently at him. "All you have to do is accept and adapt to the new reality, and you're all right."

"But I know the new reality," he protested, shaking his head. "I know I'm supposed to take souls." Zane hesitated for a moment, then plunged onward. "But I'm not taking them! Not consistently. I talked one woman out of suicide and I actually rescued a drowning man."

Fate blinked at that, then stared at him thoughtfully. "That does complicate things…" She shook her head. "I never heard of Death helping people live. I'm not sure there's a precedent."1

Zane grimaced, leaning back against the tree again. "Wonderful… I've been carrying out this job for a single day, and I've already managed to make a mess of it."

"Not necessarily. I said there was no precedent, not that it was wrong," Fate corrected matter-of-factly. "We'll simply have to wait and see if there are any consequences."

Zane had to wet suddenly dry lips. "Do you think there will be?"

The Incarnation shrugged her shoulders. "Death is your domain. I would imagine it is within your power to choose whether or not to let a person die."

He glanced up at her, beginning to hope. "Then... it won't affect anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, hadn't you slated them to die? Severed the threads of their lives?" Zane asked, feeling his anxiety begin to rise up again.

Fate chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. "That... depends. On how many other strands their threads may touch. I don't think it will be many, or I would have been called on to arrange their fates myself. It's normally an automatic process," she explained at his puzzled look. "Rather like your own duties. You are only called on to take the souls of those who are neither good nor evil, that Heaven and Hell cannot call themselves. So, too, does Fate work. I interfere only when a person is destined to do great things."

Zane was interested. "You mean, you make heroes?"

She nodded. "And villains. Anyone who truly changes something falls under my jurisdiction, whether it is the world they change, or only a small part of it."

Zane dropped his gaze to the grass as he filed that information away with everything else he'd learned since preventing his own suicide by killing the previous Death with the bullet he'd intended for himself. "Still, though," he said after a moment, "I can't help but worry."

The woman frowned. "If you'd like, I could check my loom," she offered.

Zane's head came up. "Oh, would you?" he said hopefully. "It would let me breathe much easier."

Fate nodded amiably, and took the strand of spider web between her hands and began weaving it around her fingers. In less than a minute, the single strand became a thin, gauzy sheet that gave off multi-colored shimmers in the bright sunlight.

"Alright, then," she stated, spreading the silk out on her palms. The Incarnation bent over it, and Zane watched in fascination as her eyes glazed over.

"There are the threads," she murmured mistily a minute later. "The man will be killed in a month anyway, victim of a hit and run, final destination unknown. The woman will divorce her adulterous husband and remarry, but will bear no children." She shook her head slightly, her eyes clearing. "And so you see, nothing has truly changed. One will die anyway, most likely no longer in need of your services, and the other will affect the lives of few."

He closed his eyes with a feeling of relief. No one had been hurt, this time...

Zane's eyes popped open again. This time. But what about next time?

He turned to the older Incarnation to ask her about what might happen if he couldn't help himself again, and saved someone instead of killing them, just in time to hear her gasp and her face go pale. Fate's eyes searched the silk screen, flickering almost wildly over the cloth. "What is it?" he hardly dared to ask, hoping against hope that it had nothing to do with his actions.

The woman studied the silk for a few seconds more. "There is a new thread in the weave," she said at last. "One that has no beginning, that simply is. It wanders across the cloth, unguided, uncontrolled, and touches the threads of both mortal and Immortal alike."

Zane sat there, frozen. "Er..."

Fate glanced up at him. "No, it was nothing you did. Nor was it of my doing." With an abrupt motion, she rose, folding the silk and placing it in a pocket before brushing off her skirt. "It may be another's, though, and so we must be wary."

"Whose doing?" Zane couldn't help but ask, following her to his feet.

She shook her head sharply. "No. To speak his name is to draw his attention to ourselves." The woman fingered the spider silk in her pocket. "Nevertheless, we must see what has occurred. Have you visited Death's mansion as of yet?"

The Incarnation blinked. "I was unaware I had one."

Fate smiled thinly. "Well, then, since the thread's owner is currently there, I think we'd best pay a visit, don't you?"

(1) Up until this point, all dialogue was taken directly from On a Pale Horse, though the rest of the stuff was a rewrite. Now I'm on my own…

A/N: leaps for joy Yes! It's done! Four weeks of staring at a blank screen has finally borne fruit!

blushes Erm, right. Sorry it took so long… I blame trying to figure out how to write in a completely new genre. Not to mention I only just realized how awkward Anthony's writing is in this particular novel… hence the rewriting.

Oh, and there should be a little bit of Harry in the next chapter. Not really sure what's going to be where, since this chapter turned out longer than I thought it would be… (Yes, I was going to try super-short chapters, but my muses rebelled.)

Our thanks to bellashade (Falling… grimaces Pretty much, yeah… And if you can believe it, there're actually stories I'm not posting, because I still need to research them, etc…), borne-shadow-childe, crazy-lil-nae-nae, E.A.V. ( grins Thanks! I've always loved the AUs, etc. that only changed one little thing from canon, then let the story go where it would.), Fate (puts on her halo When did I ever say I was fair...?), GinnyHarryP, Lady Selenity ( laughs By all means, continue on…), LassyD ( sniffles You're quitting fanfiction? How horrible! I'll miss you…), Mithros ( nods Yep. Er, to the second question. Though, kinda but not really to the first one, too… Fear the confusion!), none, OOMaxwellDemonOo ( chuckles ), Quillian, Shade Dancer ( shakes her head sadly Those foolish Gryffindors…), Timra, Valkyrie Nienna Helyanwe ( grins Yes, a fellow Sirry-fan! Don't worry, I've been meaning to write a Sirry fic for a while now, and decided on this one. Can't imagine it not being Sirry, now…), and Wren Truesong (I hope so…) for reviewing.

21 April 2005