You said it yourself: "I decided to kind of write it where my mind took me." That's how you should write your next chapter, too. You've got plenty of ideas, and they all sound good, but sometimes we go to write one thing and another thing comes out.
Heck, the NOIP branches I wrote last week were supposed to immediately go back to France and explore the cascading effects of changes that Nina made to Jon's life, but despite myself, I wrote an entirely new thread where Nina stays in Lake Point.
Besides, this is Fiction Branches. You're allowed to write all the endings, if you so choose.
