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An attempt to salvage S4, for your delectation. S4E6
And so we end. Watch my brain check out repeatedly trying to make sense of how the subway could work.
EPISODE 6:
Flashback to Five: Initially paranoid interactions with siblings post arriving in new timeline, trying to break into Reggie’s house, snooping around, waking siblings in the middle of the night to talk about increasingly wild conspiracies. Gradually, that eases, as he’s taken along on his siblings lives - there’s a baby, there’s Ben occasionally showing up to rub his fortune in their faces, there’s jobs and houses and relationships that he experiences in various states of sobriety and sanity. He sees opportunities in the library during his conspiracy investigations for programs to get GED and further education - he can become a real person, someone who exists outside of the apocalypse. So he does, but the space where it’s quiet in his mind gets filled with the Apocalypse, the deaths of his siblings, the paranoia. When Five’s with fam he’s fine, when he’s not, he drinks, sometimes it's both. He gets entrance tests to college/uni and gets a degree and gets hired all in record time - he’s busy. But when he’s not, when it’s back to the room of whichever sibling he’s bunking with or later in a string of short-term rental rooms, it’s the past - and he drinks. He drinks so he can sleep.
In present time we see Five and Lila tracking across the Apocalypse, she’s coaxing him, not far to go etc, he’s clinging onto her bruisingly and in a panic state but he keeps going. They keep going, through flashbacks of his siblings bodies, of images of himself starving, raving, crying. All the while keeping hold of sanity by Lila’s hand and arm clutched with his. They enter the subway, it all goes quiet, and he drops to the floor like a stone. Lila kneels down and holds him, saying they’ve made it, Five can just be heard mumbling ‘I know’ as he holds onto her very real body like a lifeline.
Viktor is shouting for Ben to try and control it, the Horror is going wild, Ben is terrified and in pain as the dark light seems to be swallowing him but allowing more and more of the Horror. Viktor is having to blast away some tentacles and is saying ‘sorry sorry’ to Ben and that he doesn’t want to hurt him. Jennifer is cowering and murmuring horrified phrases to herself.
Allison, Klaus and Reggie have heard the Horror’s roaring as it comes to life, its tentacles are bursting out of the academy and killing members of the Keepers. Reggie is shouting that they need to let him act and that Allison’s rumour is going to get everyone killed. Klaus just says to zip it Reggie and calls Dave, who says what’s happened and happening. Klaus makes him corporeal enough to go help protect Viktor, Allison rumours away The Keepers, but there’s pandamonium, she has to order people to help evacuate everyone as Klaus is summoning Ghosts to try and reign in the Horror and Abigail and Reggie say at the same time that ‘it’s too late.’
In the subway, they’re looking at the map Lila found in the subway Vs Five’s city map. They’re seen over a period of time debating, drawing all over the floor and walls, arguing, stopping each other from getting on the trains that are coming through, Lila re-focusing Five from looking back at the apocalypse, her going back up to relay the symbols from the front of the subway down to him instead of him going up. Gradually, after nearly a day, they have grouped together the stations by the symbols on the maps and trying to work out what the backwards-sounding announcements are saying.
Each train line is a different colour. Each station is a real place in the city. There are 43 coloured lines. The lines might intersect per station, end there, spawn multiple of the same colour or enter the station with multiples of the same colour and leave with less. Each station seems to be a disruption point in the Timeline. The circled symbols had a coloured background that related to one of the 43 line colours.
They go back to there being 43 children, if the line colour represents a different one of them, and at least one of the lines to This station has to be Five’s line.
So they just have to find the one that’s Ben’s line, follow that and see what we need to change. - They decide, and hop on a line.
Reggie and Abigail have a confrontation: R - you did this? A- I did what you should have prepared our children for all along! R- They’re hardly our children. Abigail says why not? They were born from my science, my work and then you raised them, and all you had to do was show them love. Love? He scoffs. Love doesn’t solve anything, it didn’t save you, in fact preserving you on the Moon clearly had an adverse effect on you, the woman I love would never have caused the end of a world! Abigail retorts that Love might not save the day, but it can save how you handle the day. Reggie doesn’t have a good comeback.
Allison and Klaus reach Viktor as the Horror is growing to the size go the room, Ben can’t be seen and Viktor is crying in a protective bubble of power, Dave has saved Jennifer in the corner and is getting her closer. Allison and Klaus shout where Ben is but Viktor can only point to the ben-size portal on the floor that is smothered with writhing tentacles and rapidly growing. Allison and Klaus are deeply upset but still focus on pulling Viktor out because the walls are becoming unstable as the Horror tries to escape the building it’s confined in as surely as the body it was previously.
In the subway Lila and Five are standing on the platform as they get off the latest train, both look a little worse for wear. Five is ruling out the colour of Luther’s lines along with a handful of others they’ve found - either naming them or numbering them if they’re members of the 43 they haven’t met. Lila is looking exhausted as they get on the train. Five checks what’s wrong, she is deadened as she says ‘it’s been six days. it's the longest I've been without them'. Five replies that compared to the apocalypse this is nothing, they’re making progress. Lila’s face crumples - she says what if they don’t make it back, if they don't fix this, then she’ll never be seeing her family again, Diego again, that they’re all she ever wanted and she’ll have lost them chasing adventure in the subway.
She starts to cry, and Five comforts her as the train sets off, holding her. Says they’ll make it home, we’ll be with our family. She says how can you know? He says because I won’t give up, and neither will you, they’re our family after all, and we can save them. Lila clings to him, manages to get herself back together and they exit the subway
Outside the subway there are screams as The Horror rips across the city. Lila isn’t laughing any more. The Horror’s sheer mass consumes the world around it through an immense portal. Guess we’ve found Ben’s timeline. Five says, Lila sob-laughs a bit, awestruck by the sight, and they retreat to find a different starting point for Ben’s line.
Diego and Luther swing by Diego’s house, they’ve picked up Claire from home and turn up along with Pogo, Sloane and Grace - there’s some time assuring the family, Diego hugging his kids, Luther and Sloane are having a debate on whether she wants to help the fight or stays here too. Grace meets them all pleasantly, and though they’re shocked at Pogo they accept him. Claire is made to stay there and that Pogo and Grace will help keep them safe. Sloane goes with them as they leave.
Reggie and Abigail are staring at the scene as Diego, Luther and Sloane turn up, and the other three are just escaping the house with Dave and Jennifer. (They all are shocked but pleased to see Sloane, Allison straight away hugs her. Klaus introduces Dave to Diego and Luther. Diego, in particular, says heard a lot about you man.)
They gather, and Five and Lila pop up-looking banged up. They look at the scene and comment that they guess it’s too late for Plan A. (Diego and Lila reunion) (Klaus re-intro Dave and Sloane saying hi until Reggie snaps at them all to please do focus!)
Others ask what they’ve found, they say that in every timeline, all of them, once the pair touch either Ben or Jennifer get killed, both do, or the Horror causes the Apocalypse. Five says that they never once think to save both of them after the fact. It’s the only anomaly, the only one that might work.
The others argue that Ben is gone, this thing is out there, that the only way they could survive last time was by killing off the Horror before it had even gotten this far are you telling us there was a way to save Ben all along? Five says there is, with her- points to Jennifer. She created the reverse portal, but if she was on the other side of that portal, then she could swap it back. Viktor -who had been silent before, looking at Abigail who is smiling- pipes up but how do we get there, Five says that luckily, Jennifer and Ben aren’t the only portals around, and gestures to himself.
The others kick up a fuss, that he’ll get trapped, he says not necessarily, besides it’s do or die people.
Reggie pipes up that they’d still have to prevent Jennifer and Ben from ever touching the Horror again, how will they do that if they’re alive. Viktor, breaking Abigail’s gaze, says that he can take their marigolds, once the swap is done, that without their powers they’ll live, but they’ll be safe. He's done it before.
Luther says that Ben would hate that.
More than being stuck where that thing came from? Viktor asks. They debate whether Jennifer will even help her, Five points out that they won’t need her to agree, so long as they take her with and bring Lila.
Lila says she doesn’t want to leave her fam or Diego though, that she’s done that once already and hasn’t seen them for two weeks now, she needs to be on this side protecting them - Diego soothes her, says that he won’t make her, he’ll go with Five and hold Jennifer at knife point if he needs to, but that if she does want to, he’d feel better with this plan knowing she was there with his brothers, because he trusts her, even if that scares him. Says can you trust me when I say I’ve already made sure our family are protected? She says she can, that she’d feel safer knowing that he was still here, fighting to protect them whilst she was away.
Allison says neither of them need to go, she will, her powers won’t help out here they didn’t do much the first time, but that she can make sure Jennifer plays ball, She's not letting the Horror kill her daughter. Jennifer pipes up saying will it help if she says she’s going to play ball? They all say no to her.
Viktor is decided as too effective to go to the other side, and might be the only one strong enough to completely blow up the Horror if they fail. Diego and Lila will stay and fight, so will Luther. Klaus says he want’s to go with Five and Allison, that it’s Ben and even if he’s an asshole, well, he’s Ben, there’s some stuff he wants to pay forwards. Allison asks Klaus if he’ll stay instead, so he can look after Claire if anything goes wrong, Diego says he should go with you, we’ll look after Claire they promise, and that Klaus has always known Ben best.
They all agree
So there’s a big fight between Luther, Sloane, Diego, Lila, Viktor and The Horror to hold down the fort.
Five, Klaus, Allison and Jennifer use a Combo of hers and Five’s powers and get pulled into the other side, the Horror’s realm.
It’s a dark ocean of writhing tentacles and they’re dropped into the mess. They can see where Ben is trying to claw at the portal alongside the behemoth body of The Horror, just his fingertips making it through. The horror is unimaginably vast, and its tentacles are poking through holes everywhere they can see - windows through Ben’s stomach into other worlds, all of time and space existing in The Horror’s dimension simultaneously, appearing and disappearing as specks whenever a timeline of Ben uses his powers, but all happening somehow at once.
They cry out to Ben to hold on. He looks up and begs them to help, but sees Jennifer and tries to get away, The Horror’s tentacles are lashing and it's difficult to get to him.
The fight on earth is messy and difficult. Reggie and Abigail die
They struggle to reach Ben who wants Jennifer nowhere near him - he’s exhausted from fighting against The Horror. Klaus and Allison calm him down and ask him to trust them as Five holds Jennifer from accidentally touching the tentacles until Ben agrees, without any rumours. They have Jennifer touch him, and the portal begins reversing.
The team on earth step up their desperate fight as they notice the difference, helping to beat back the Horror further and further.
The team with The Horror are now being inundated with tentacles, Ben thrown around, so they’re struggling to stay together but Klaus manages to float Allison over the water and they grab Jennifer, Five blinks to them. Ben’s in the in the thick of it as the portal reverses, screaming, but even as they other 4 and Dave are all caught and begin getting constricted together by The Horror, Dave holding it from crushing them best he can, Jennifer’s skin being covered by all of them so she won’t make contact with The Horror again, they say they can’t leave Ben here until they know he’s on the other side, so they’re just screaming encouragement at him.
The earth team are wrangling tentacles like pros and all get close enough to grab an emerging Ben with a hand, calling him. It’s only when Sloane grabs him, demands that he come back, she’s not loosing any more family, that his eyes open and he manages to snap the portal shut.
In The Horror’s realm they see Ben vanish, the Horror’s wrath is palpable and Five powers up so that Jennifer can reverse which dimension he moves through, they blink out just before they’d have been squished.
Ben falls into everyone’s arms as the others crash land back. Everyone’s exhausted, injured. Viktor manages to stagger upright enough to grab Ben’s arm. Says you know we have to take it out of you, right? Ben looks around at all of them, who have risked everything. Says ‘take it, I don’t need it anymore.’
Viktor pulls out the marigolds, exhausted, the others ask him to wait before doing Jennifer too, that it’s too much, but Viktor says ‘I’m ending this’ and takes Jennifer’s - he blacks out.
(I’m so tired after writing this that I’ll just say the ending would show them getting back to their lives - happy days!)
I know that a happy ending isn't for everyone but this is my S4 so that's what they're getting! Hope you enjoyed
HOW UA SHOULD HAVE ENDED
Hard cut to Klaus talking to the girl on the bicycle
Klaus: “Did we save the world or screw it up again?”
Bicycle God: “You were never the problem”
She holds up an action figure of Reginald and crushes it in her bare hands. Marigold lights emerge from it. Golden light envelops everything
Hard cut to Klaus waking up in bed. He is wearing pajamas covered in marigolds.Street noise can be heard from outside.
(From offscreen) “You okay, Hon?”
Klaus looks over and Dave is cooking breakfast in their flat
Klaus: “Yeah, just had a weird dream.”
Looks out the window and sees an empty lot where the Hargreeves mansion should be.
Klaus: “Wasn’t there a building there?”
(Naïve Melody by the Talking Heads begins to play over a montage)
Diego and Lila Are wrangling their kids into the camper van. One of the kids gives Lila a picture of her family in a field of bunch of orange flowers (marigolds)
Luther is stripping and the obsessed lady in the crowd is Sloan. He has a marigold in his mouth. He takes it out and gives it to her.
Viktor is playing the violin with Harlon. Sissy is setting the table. She sets a bouquet of marigold into a center vase.
Allison is gardening while Clare and Ray play in the yard. She is planting Marigolds.
Five is teaching at some university. An older woman comes in. “Dolores” he says as she kisses him. He has a Marigold in the lapel of his suit jacket.
Jennifer serves Ben at the dinner. Closeup on her pouring coffee. He has a Durango flower tattoo that says “Jennifer” and she had a marigold tattoo that says “Ben”
Cut back to Klaus staring out the Window
Dave: No, been an empty lot as long as I can remember
Klaus, smiles: Yeah, I don’t know why I thought that
Camera Zooms out from the window as music continues
Reginald, voiceover: And that is how our unlikely heroes manage to create one timeline where everything was fine.
BTS footage plays with the final credits 
eivor joining the hidden ones at the end of the game would have solidified her letting go of the expecatations she put on herself to make up for her father's dishonor. she felt she had to be the valhalla-bound, glory-seeking vikingr, a loyal warrior to her jarl because it was all she could do within her means and culture to try and erase her father's shame from her. but in the hidden ones their entire creed disavows personal glory. it sees violence and killing as a burden to be carried for the sake of the oppressed. her joining would have fulfilled her journey of refusing power and glory for the people she loves and being with them and protecting them. it would have been the ultimate "fuck you" to odin who was using her hunger for redemption / glory as a way to further entwine them so he could live again through her. but the hidden blade, the blade designed to end tyranny and oppression and control, is the one weapon that is able to get a hit on odin when they're in valhalla. eivor becoming a hidden one would have been her choosing herself and her loved ones rather than trying to make up for the past
I was rereading some of my posts from 2021 and was reminded of how much meta I used to write so imma share my crazy headcanon/ theory which i thought up as plot for a revolution fic:
RR verse is on the "Olympus will fall" timeline and Zeus' actions are speeding it up.
In the recent decade there has been several great prophecies back to back. And people have remarked how weird it is that there have been so many. What if the reason is because of Zeus?
Remember, in greek mythology there is a major theme of how Your Fate Cannot Be Defied. And Zeus, king of Olympus, has a major Fate: being overthrown. However he managed to "defy" it by eating Metis.
My idea is that he has been forcefully clawing out a future where he is still king of Olympus. By doing this, he is literally changing the flow of fate. And obviously fate wants to correct itself, so the harder he fights it, the more counterforce he triggers. All prophecies meant to lead to his overthrowing are suddenly sped up. Olympus begins to lose power. Zeus is aware of this. He is also aware how people are becoming suspicious. And he needs a scapegoat. And who better than the god of prophecy who is also a threat to the throne?
Apollo mentions that Zeus blamed him for his oracle revealing a prophecy "too early" and therefore causing it to happen early. However, everyone knows it's not possible to actually cause a prophecy to happen early...so why would Zeus even have this weird line of thought? everyone probably dismissed it as Zeus being irrational, but there a juicier theory this ties into:
Apollo being the one to overthrow Zeus.
The idea of "fall of the sun, the final verse". What if this is the final prophecy that is meant to happen before Zeus is overthrown? And what if the fall this speaks of is actually when Apollo fell close to chaos? When he pulled himself together there?
What if he reformed different from his original godly form. He was literally almost gone, his body was disintegrating. Maybe he pulled himself together using the energies of chaos. Apollo himself isn't aware of this, due to a suspicious memory gap between him clawing up from the cliff and him waking up next to Artemis.
And this adds to another headcanon of mine, the fates choose Apollo to be the god of prophecy on purpose. At first glance, this is a horrible match. If they wanted a good servant, why would they choose someone so closely tied to his heart and so likely to fight fate? Someone who dares get them drunk just to extend a human's lifespan? UNLESS... they WANT him to eventually try and defy fate??
Imagine if fate was a compass and Zeus had forcefully wrenched the needle point at a bleak dark future where Olympus falls with him. And this river direction has been set so deeply in stone and run on for so long, it has worn a grove and become the mostly likely future.
you need someone willing to fight, someone to wrench the needle out. SOMEONE FAMILAR WITH FATE AND Prophecy. Someone who has the power to fight it and win. Someone who has the will. Perhaps a baby god who was willing to fight Python, and who would have likely died there. But if he successfully did take on the powers of prophecy, one day that same godling would fight Python again, would absorb the powers of chaos to recreate himself.
Perhaps not today and maybe not even for the next four thousand years
but one day that godling would stare down at that wretched compass hand and decide to yank the flow out of its place. And maybe, that godling means a chance for Olympus to have a different future.
Anyways that's my crazy theory i hope it wasn't too confusing. It also links up with my other story theme idea about fate, hope and apollo blah blah blah, which i rambled about in a different post.
Edit: just remembered my other crazy thought, what if ZEUS PURPOSEFULLY TRIED TO GET RID OF APOLLO NOT ONLY CAUSE HE IS A THREAT TO THE THRONE BUT ALSO BECAUSE AS THE GOD OF PROPHECY HE IS MOST LIKELY TO REALIZE SOMETHING IS WRONG AND THAT ZEUS IS MESSING WITH FATE?!???? Basically pulling a imma say you're the murderer before u realise im the murderer. (i cant remember the actual saying Lmaoo)