My parents, as I'm sure your parents, too, would use destiny and fate in the same context, as if they had the same meaning or purpose. But really, they're two very different words that link together in only one way that I can cite.

Webster's Dictionary defines destiny as the inevitable loss or fate to which a person or thing is destined; fate; a predetermined course of events. It defines fate as the force or power held to predetermine events; fortune; inevitability; the final result or outcome; unfortunate destiny.

Can you see the difference? Even though that destiny is defined as 'fate,' the two words differences are like night and day. Destiny is a plan set for something or someone. Fate is the force that determines one's destiny. My beliefs tie into this... fate can change destiny, if there are such things.

So now, I sit here and reflect on the news that I just heard from one of my best friends in the whole world. Our friends (the aliens, of course) have plans in their lives. Their mother told them of their destinies and why they are so important to their people. They were genetically engineered, partly as their leaders who were killed in an interplanetary war, and partly as humans. They were sent to earth so that they could age and then, go back to their home planet and save their people from the war that caused their past selves deaths.

And Liz told me that we weren't included in their destinies, not at all. Wouldn't their mother tell them that we were involved in the plan, too, since we helped them find the orbs that communicated with her, in the first place? Wouldn't we be mentioned because we led Valenti and the FBI to not believing that they were aliens? Wouldn't we be mentioned because we saved Max's life from the alien hunter? Wouldn't we be mentioned because we risked our lives to save theirs? Wouldn't we? Were those all in the plan or were all of them just freak coincidences?

I'd like to know what's in store for us, now that they know their destinies and purposes in lives. Are we going to be pushed aside because we aren't in the whole big plan? Are they going to cling to us even more because they're afraid of what is going to occur? Or are they going to be distant and leave us to fulfill their destinies, forgetting about our feelings and thoughts? I sure hope that it isn't the first or the last one, because I don't know what I would do without Isabel. And to see her with Michael... It would kill Maria and Liz, too. Actually, it's already killing them; and me, too, because I don't want to see my two best friends so broken and helpless because of their love's 'destinies'. Liz told Max to follow his destiny and ran and Michael told Maria that he loved her... and said goodbye. As far as they're concerned, there is no way to change the way things are happening to us. Am I the only one who has hope?

I still believe that a person makes their own destiny, no matter what hardships they may encounter along the way. And I believe that something, that day at the Crashdown, when Liz was shot, was implying that the three aliens and the three humans were meant to be together. Something inside my heart keeps telling me that. (I know, I know; I'm sounding like Liz.) I don't know about what my heart is telling me, but I'm going to follow Grandma Claudia on this one. I'm going to say that fate has brought us together; that is, fortune, luck, or whatever you want to call it. It's the same to me. And fate changes destinies. It says so in the dictionary.

So, here's the question. Has fate changed their destines? The answer, I don't know; that's up to them to decide.