This has been an excellent day, and so I'll end it by writing a fic. First of all, thanks to everyone at Bethel for giving me such a perfect day... even if you did wear me out. And my greatest thanks goes to the big G, the best friend ever to live.

Thanks to Symphony of Terror for your reviews. This may or may not suck, but I tried.

Review, all of you.

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Many paths, many decisions, many outcomes. What a tangled web could be weaved, if destiny chose to weave the web. Or so it seemed.

I had always thought that destiny was so absolute, almost as it were written in stone. Centuries of watching Desmond at work had only justified such ideas. But what if I was wrong? What if destiny was not based upon the planner, but the person that was affected? What if we could change our destiny? Would that change everything?

Darren had made me really change my ideas about destiny. He'd been predestined to conquer or to die before he'd been born. There was no doubt about that. But yet he'd both eliminsted his opponent and, by destroying himself, rejected his destiny. What did that prove? That we could reject fate itself? That our choices truly are our own?

So much wasted time, time spent thinking that I had nothing to do but live the way Desmond had forced me to live. If Darren, an ordinary half vampire, had a choice, did I not have a choice as well? Could I not shun Desmond and his acid humor, his destructive plans? What would the consequences of that be?

I was free to at least test the theory. But I owed Darren. He'd made everything new. He'd given me my life, the life Desmond had stolen from me so long ago. The least I could do was give him another chance to live. I would ask Desmond to restore him, and perhaps test my new freedom a few times along the way. Darren's diaries could warn the young human Darren... and perhaps I could ruin the last chance Desmond had to destroy the children of the night.

He wanted something from me in return, of course, something destructive. "Have a child, Evanna. I want you to have a child with a vampaneze."

He wanted to start a war by the power the child had. But then, maybe I could use that and make the two races come together... "Can I choose the father?"

"Yes, I suppose," he sighed, and left me to decide.

"Vancha, Gannon, I need to have a child with you both."

"WHAT?!"

"Well, this could end the entire war, and bring your races together as nothing else could. And it would hurt Desmond."

Vancha burst our laughing. "If you put it that way, then... Let's DO IT!"

Gannon nodded reluctantly. "Let's restore what needs to be restored."

My plans went the way I wanted them to. I even had the opportunity to talk to Darren. But there still wasn't a fairy tale ending. Steve was to stay in the torment of the Lake for all of time, Desmond spent every moment destorying America's economy and planning an asteroid, and half of the vampires and vampaneze were dead.

I felt a certain emptiness without Hibernius. He had been my other half, my closest friend, the only one who could fully understand me. And he had been taken away from me. He'd wanted death, but that made his absence no easier to cope with. And everything I had ever believed was being questioned. I was too depressed to even stay in my own mind most of the time.

"You only get so long to live, you know. You should enjoy being free while you can. You can do anything, go anywhere you want, Evanna. Go and live while you're living." Vancha sighed after he saw me stiffen at his words. "You're wasting amazing gifts. What point is there in being miserable? Go!"

Something within me made me obey him. I began to run, and I couldn't bring myself to stop. All thoughts, all rationality, all time, all awareness escaped me as I ran. At last I let go. It was time to live... Before I died...