The Reiteration of All Things

Chronology: Set behind the scenes of episode 4.14 (The End of All Things).

Summary: After his colleagues finally track him down, September must face the consequences of his actions.

A/N: I had actually planned to write this one-shot shortly after 4.22, and had even started writing a few paragraphs, but it wasn't too good. Now, after realizing that September was stuck in a time loop in S4, and with the insight into the Observers we've gained in S5, I've revised my original plan and I'm ready to try my hand at this project once again.

This one-shot deals with September's "trial" at the hands of his colleagues in S4, which happens offscreen (and which results in his expulsion from the universe). According to David Fury on S4 DVD extras, 4.14 was originally going to actually feature this trial, but they decided against it, suspecting it would be too boring to watch the affectless Observers bestowing judgement on September. Thinking this to be slightly unfortunate (because Observers clearly have too much sex appeal to ever be boring onscreen XP), I have decided to give my take on how this trial went down.

Enjoy!

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Even after the Boy had departed, he continued to observe the disintegration of their shared mental space. When the floor gave way, September fell, pulled further down into the void of unawareness, the imagined chamber where they had conversed fading from view. Every step of the way, he had known what needed to be done, but everything that might happen beyond this point lay beyond his knowledge.

Not that there was much left for him to look forward to. He was vaguely aware that his body was convulsing, his heart pounding, his breathing made short and shallow as his biological systems underwent shock. He had done what he could for them in the little time he had, but as he felt himself slipping away, all factors pointed to an increasingly probable outcome.

For him, it was the end of all things.

He made no effort to resist, curious to witness his own end. Energy could not be created or destroyed, had no beginning or end, yet September sensed that the constant state of self-awareness that had characterized his existence would be ending in moments, never to begin again.

For all the possibilities September had witnessed in living, he had only ever glimpsed a sliver of infinity. So many things left unseen; and yet in death, only two concerns remained. The first, that their fates were left uncertain, that he would not be able to see if his actions had prepared them adequately for what was to come.

The second, that he would never see them again.

The thought was somehow distressing. Perhaps if he had found a way to articulate the sensations brought about in observing them, he could have told them before his time was over. But it was too late for that, now; what was done, was done, and all that was left for him to do was face the enrapturing darkness of finality.

Without warning, the end came.

He was gone.

Then he wasn't gone.

September's eyelids opened of their own volition, giving sight of a world bathed in the familiar bluish, gridded hue of his augmented perception, revealing facets of reality otherwise imperceptible to organisms lacking cortical implants. It dawned on him that he was still lying flat on the bed at Walter's Lab, but two figures were now standing on either side of the bed, examining his body. The slight tingle at the back of his neck indicated that he was now operating at hyper-attenuated time, raised to that state when they had touched him, bringing September to their level.

After meticulous combing of the timeline, they had found him at last, and with mere moments to spare; no longer was his body writhing in the throes of death, his colleagues having used healing techniques beyond Doctor Bishop's human understanding, and September was restored to his normal self. While removing the wires from his body, they noticed that he had returned to consciousness, and propped September up to sit. Operating at so many factors of real-time, the relativistic effects caused the humans in the Lab to appear frozen, standing as statues; September had already vanished from their perception at this point, moving faster than their brains could compute.

So he had not died, in the end. That left only one course to pursue.

The three of them knew what was to happen next. Compliant, September spun on the bed to place his legs over the edge. No words were exchanged as September stood to his feet. It was impossible, of course; they were moving faster than sound itself, and they weren't going to wait around for their voices to reach their ears. But even if they could speak, there was nothing to be said. September had known that if they found him, they would bring him to answer for his actions, which is why he had prepared accordingly.

Peter, Walter, Astrid Farnsworth, Lincoln Lee, Philip Broyles; they stood fixed in nanosecond silence, eyes still geared on the bed he had been lying on. March and July, sandwiching September fore and aft, began to escort their charge out of the Lab, ignoring the humans. September readied himself; the timing would need to be flawless.

When they weren't looking, he slid his nonchalant hand into his pant pocket and extended his arm, using a slight kinetic jolt to implant the chip into Peter's pupil.

That they kept on walking without incident informed September of the success of his maneuver. His plan – the contingency plan he had devised in case they managed to track him down – was now set into place. He would still have to go through with his impending trial, but there was no anxiety to be found, and not only because he knew what they would do to him.

He had been through this many times before, and would go through it again many more times to come.

They warped through space, transitioning from the Lab to Morrow Street before the door to Apartment 228; still operating at high speeds, the surrounding pedestrians and vehicles were flash-frozen in place.

Another short jump circumvented the need to open the door, appearing in the corridor, and a final one allowed them to land in the middle of Apartment 228.5, September's residence in this general historical period. The three resumed real-time existence, and September's handlers relinquished him.

"It would be better for you to get dressed," said March, noting that September was wearing only pants and an unbuttoned white shirt stained with blood.

September obliged, opening his wardrobe without much haste; urgency was a concept foreign to those with mastery over non-linearity. As September re-buttoned the bloodied white shirt he was still wearing and picked a necktie from the closet, he reflected on the peculiarities of his current situation.

He didn't know when it had happened, but then again, it didn't matter; when a causal loop forms, it arises in all of its parts simultaneously, past, present, and future existing only in relative frames of reference.

It was Olivia who had unwittingly informed him that he was caught in such a loop.

At some point after the rewrite procedure, and much to his dismay, he had lost his Neurotemporal Amplifier, his glowing blue rod that greatly expanded his perception of time, allowing him to foresee days and months and years ahead instead of mere minutes, and allowing for the computation of a much wider array of possible futures. So when he had decided to allow the traces of the Boy to persist, he went forth into the timeline, wanting to see how his act would change things from that point onward.

In his covert venture through time, he discovered that the Boy had somehow returned to physicality. Most intrigued, he followed his movements more closely, wishing to see how he and those close to him fared as time went on. Even without his Amplifier, he could see space and time heaving and groaning as a great disturbance was forming on the perceptual horizon, the two universes grinding and colliding into each other in worrisome ways. He began to follow the woman Jessica Holt after he had read her mind, suspecting she meant harm to Olivia, but it was a trap; they had intended for him to show up, confining him using technology no human from the 21st Century could possibly have developed on their own.

Holt had shot him, using a gun firing bullets that moved in hyper-attenuated time, something he did not anticipate, and could therefore not defend himself against. Thankfully, Olivia had managed to eliminate Holt, after which Peter disabled the field that had been holding him upright. It was then, as they knelt down to his collapsed form, that she told him what his future self had told her.

"I've seen you shot like this before. You came to me at the Opera House. You said in every version of the future, I would have to die."

It became clear then and there that he had been swept into an unchanging cycle. The September of that moment had not yet experienced that conversation, so he set out to investigate the future, seeking to ascertain why he would eventually travel to the relative past to warn her of her death.

What he had found was greatly troubling.

He had seen that Olivia was killed, putting an end to the plans of Doctor William Bell, the man who had engineered the technology Jessica Holt had used against him. He had seen that Peter and Olivia came to birth a child.

He had seen that they had already arrived by 2015.

September then understood why he would eventually appear to the past of the Fringe team members; his motive was the same as it was since the moment he chose not to erase Peter Bishop.

To ensure the wellbeing of these few humans, those to whom September found himself drawn to for reasons he could not fully rationalize.

Despite his grave wound, he went back to visit Olivia at that Opera House, telling her what her future self had told him, something she only comes to tell him because he was speaking to her past self at the Opera House. She had to die in all possible futures, both because it was necessary to stop Bell, and because it had already happened.

Then he ventured to find the Boy later on, at the point where Olivia had been kidnapped; in their mental link, he explained to him the state of affairs. He told him to reunite with Olivia, from whom their shared future was meant to spring, a future that has already sprung in the near future, and one that only happened because September told Peter about it. When he had sensed the impending arrival of his colleagues, his implant tingling from nearby spatial warping, he forcibly severed their shared mental state, saving the Boy.

Now, as he was about to face his colleagues, September knew that even though he was only experiencing it for the first time, he had undergone their judgment time and time again as part of a recurring cycle with no definitive beginning or end, a reiteration of all things.

September finalized the buttoning of his suit and placed a fresh fedora on his bald head. He gave a sweeping glance around his small abode. The newspaper articles of bygone eras affixed to the walls and the stacks of additional journals lying nearby, his small table with its salt and pepper shakers, the tiny kitchen area, the couches and television, the record player where he had hid the briefcase for the Boy; he took in the sight fondly, knowing he might never again return.

Seeing their colleague ready to go, March and July once again placed themselves at September's side and exited the apartment, folding space to reach the hallway, then the street outside, orienting themselves to reach their next location in space-time, the last place September ever thought he would end up.

They were standing on some glade in the wilderness, trees encircling them; looking further, September saw that they were near the shores of a sizeable lake, whose undisturbed waters were reflecting the overcast clouds above.

Reiden Lake. The place where it all began.

So this is where they rendered their verdict. September thought it to be most appropriate.

The other eight were already present, forming the perimeter of the circle within which September now found himself. December stood before him, hands clasped at the navel.

"Where was he?" he asked.

"We located him at Doctor Bishop's Lab," said July. "He was in a state of septic shock, but we have stabilized his condition. If we had not arrived when we did, he would have died."

"I see. Well done."

March and July broke away from September's side, joining the rest in the circle, ten of them now encircling September. A breeze of wind ruffled the trees and caused the lake surface to ripple in shivering, but none of the eleven experienced the chill.

"You certainly gave us quite the chase," said December after a short period of silence. "But your time was limited the moment you strayed from protocol. And now, you must face the consequences for this breach in our code of conduct."

From his suit pocket, December extracted a small cylindrical object, its core emitting a faint blue light.

"Yes," said December, seeing September's head tilt in recognition. "Your Amplifier."

The chief scientist of their expedition then handed the device to March.

"A human by the name of Neil Chung had found your Amplifier, and was using it to further his own ends," March explained, examining September's Amplifier. "We have determined that he first found it at Reiden Lake in the year 2009. You must have dropped it in the year 1985 during the rewrite procedure, leaving it undisturbed until Chung stumbled upon it. You may have it back, now."

March broke formation to approach September, handing him the rod. Coming into contact with its owner, the Amplifier pulsed, and September was finally privy to his entrapment in the causal loop. He saw the way his trial would unfold, foreseeing not only the impending words and actions of his colleagues – who too were part of this loop, much to their ignorance – but his own words and actions as well.

It was much too strange to see his own actions set in stone before him, and so he sheathed his Amplifier. He could have chosen notto sheathe it, but if he had, his vision of his future self would still have kept it; no matter what September chose to do inside this loop, it would have been the choice he made anyway.

His prescience having now returned to normal levels, September observed the trial unfold, and while he couldn't follow along in his perception with the Amplifier tucked away, he had seen enough to know what was in store for him.

"Shortly after you were given the task of erasing the traces of the Boy," said December as March regained his place among them, "we detected a shift in history, one that did not conform to our projections. Finding Chung, we suspected he was responsible for these unforeseen changes, but it soon became apparent that the source of this disturbance in the timeline lied elsewhere. In March's investigation of the Chung incident, Peter Bishop was sighted, alive and matured, despite having died as a child. And the Boy's point of origin in this timeline was found to be here, at Reiden Lake, surfacing from the waters without a causal precedent."

September's eyes drifted to Reiden's surface. He had not known where and when the Boy had appeared, but in retrospect, he could not have shown up anywhere else; his last known location in this space-time was at the bottom of Reiden Lake, and so the universe saw it fit to simply spit him out there.

"Were you responsible for allowing Peter Bishop to return to this timeline in physical form?" asked December, eyes locked on their captive.

"I was not," replied September. "It should have been impossible, but after first sighting him myself, I had been unable to determine how it had happened."

His colleagues exchanged glances, assessing September's statement.

"You may not have been directly responsible for the Boy's return to physicality," said December, "but you are responsible nonetheless, as this event would not have occurred had you not reneged on your orders. Do you admit to neglecting to eliminate the Boy once and for all?"

There was no point in obscuring the truth at that point. "I do."

"Why did you fail to complete the task entrusted to you?"

September was going to speak, but all words escaped him; for the truth was that there was no easy answer, and even now, he could not fully understand why he had hesitated to activate the eraser on that night outside the Lab.

In September's silence, his superior continued.

"From the beginning, our mandate had been to observe history, learning from our past to find solutions for our future. In your original mistake, you altered history, creating unforeseen and unpredictable outcomes. We had no choice but to interfere, ensuring balance and stability, but our efforts were not enough to avert the formation of a destructive temporal loop. Erasing the Boy was the only option, both to abolish this loop and to remove his influence as a central variable in the progress of history, preventing him from bringing about destruction on such a scale ever again. You understand this, do you not?"

"Yes. But..."

"But what? We erased the Boy for good reason, and to allow him to return was unacceptable. And yet you did just that in your negligence."

"I had assembled the eraser," explained September. "I had even gone so far as to power the device. But just as I was about to activate it, I... I could not go through with it."

"Your sudden change in behaviour has left us all most puzzled," noted December. "Your performance had been exemplary from the start, and even after your mistake, you worked hardest of us all to correct it. And your perception has always been a strong one. You saw what I did not, using the Joyce event to demonstrate the flaws in my perception, and you had correctly predicted how the rewrite would affect those close to the Boy. You even condemned August's own actions when he violated protocol and interfered on behalf of that woman. Has your perception become erroneous, just as August's had before you?"

September had pondered the question himself ever since his found himself straying from their mission objective. Was his perception indeed an error, causing him to behave as he had? Yet in dying, August had shared his theory as to how he became invested in Christine Hollis upon observing her as a young child, and thought that he had fallen in love with her. However, these were words humans used to describe their emotional states. Could September's kind experience such things as humans did? Had September become invested in the Fringe team, as August had with Hollis? He would have asked August were he here, but he was not, and doubting the rest would understand, he kept to himself.

"I would have thought," continued December, "that given your previously steadfast performance, eliminating the Boy for good would prove no trouble for you. But you have evidently not learned from your mistakes, once again placing the balance we have worked so hard to maintain into jeopardy. The damage is already done; Peter Bishop has now influenced history. Simply eliminating him will not undo his presence, and enacting another rewrite is fraught with risk, as the outcome is difficult to predict. You have left us with quite the mess to sort out."

"How can you be certain that the Boy's overall influence on events will be negative?" countered September. "How can you be certain that he will lead these worlds to destruction as he had done once before?"

"We were in the process of determining the likelihood of these matters," said July. "But our efforts have been focused in ascertaining your whereabouts. It is the combination of Peter and the Machine that is of most concern to us. As was anticipated, the Machine was preserved into the new timeline, and in erasing the Boy, we would keep the Bridge he created while preventing him from ever stepping into that Machine again. As a result of your actions, the possibility now exists that he can find a way to interface with the Machine, and by extension, bring about destruction."

"You are correct, September, in that we cannot know for certain what the Boy might do," said December. "But it would be better to prevent the possibility of misusing the Machine altogether than to allow this possibility to exist, risking that it manifest. With your compliance in the rewrite procedure, we thought you understood all this, but it is clear that we were mistaken. Were you opposed to our plans all this time? Why have you not acted before, or tried to stop us? Why have you only made your opposition known now, with your act of dissent?"

"I..." September struggled to formalize his motives. "I have done...what I believe is the correct course of action."

December appeared perplexed, his head tilting in September's ocular filter, where his colleagues and Reiden's backdrop were cast in soft blue, electromagnetic frequencies and spatial curvatures as sharply defined as the trees and the water.

"You were shot trying to help them," said December, "and almost met your end because of it. What do you gain in assisting the Fringe team? It does not contribute to this expedition's ultimate goal in any form."

September found his superior's answer to be understandable; they had not yet seen what he had seen. The data they compiled from their observations was routinely sent back to their native time for their collective to review, in the hopes of finding solutions, ways to ensure their survival on their dying planet. How would his colleagues react if this solution literally was found in the past, with their kind relocating to the early 21st Century and claim the home of humans as their own? How would they react if they knew that they had been kept in the dark by governmental interests, not given the full story as to what their expedition's true mandate was?

He didn't think it worthwhile to tell them; after all, they had already invaded further up the timeline, so this scientific team would be finding out about it soon enough. Until they did, September would have to give a more restricted answer.

"I see things that you do not," explained September, "and because of these things, I have carried out my actions, which I believe were done with just intent."

His declaration was met with tilting heads and glances of incomprehension, condemnation, and curiosity.

"You are free to believe what you will," said a stern December after a moment's consideration, "but that will not spare you of your judgement."

Then the chief scientist of their expedition pronounced September's sentence, one that September had suspected was in store for him from the moment he couldn't go through with erasing Peter for the second time.

"Like the Boy you value above all else, we have no choice but to remove you from the equation. Our kind cannot simply be erased from time as humans can, but there are other ways to permanently excise you from this timeline. It has thus been unanimously decided that you are to be forevermore expelled from this universe, never allowed to return. The location of this world will remain hidden to you, even to your Amplifier, preventing you from ever finding your way back here and interfering with events ever again. Such is the fate you have brought upon yourself."

He could have told December that this was always his fate at this point in time, but he held his tongue. Instead, September made an inquiry; while he had expected that they would do this to him, there was nonetheless something he was curious to know.

"If you desire to prevent me from interfering, why do you not end me where I stand?"

"We have decided to be merciful in your sentencing," said December. "Taking into account your past contributions to our initiative, we know that you are capable of doing what is right, despite you having misused this potential. You will remain alive, September, free to exist for as long as you happen to exist out among the Roads Not Taken, but you will simply never be able to return to this universe or its entangled companion." He paused to let September grasp the scope of those implications. "Is there anything you would like to say before you go?"

He thought for a moment, eyes parsing the grass at his feet, then gave his answer.

"No."

"So be it." He looked to March at his left, then July at his right, prompting them to approach September. "Take him far away from here." They hooked their arms around September's, and he offered no resistance. "I have always had great admiration for your prowess as a scientist, September. It is a shame that you would throw it all away."

With that, September's sentence was enacted.

They took him further and further away, dragging him through the seas of Roads Not Taken, worlds that could have been, but weren't. And the further they went, the further the possible iterations of Reiden Lake diverged from 21st Century normalcy. Reiden as the site of a high-security military base, Reiden as a lakeside amusement park, Reiden as a site of a temple erected to ancient deities, Reiden frozen-over, battered by the blizzards of a new Ice Age, Reiden as a dinosaurian paradise; they passed through many possible Reiden Lakes per relative second, occupying each one for scarcely a moment.

They ultimately chose a Reiden Lake that appeared rather innocuous, bathed in the light of sunset. Here, July let go of September's arm, but March did not.

"Hold still," said July.

A moment later, September felt something applied to the back of his neck, and he was blinded as the small pen-like device July was holding sent a series of electric jolts into the base of his brain, interfacing with his cortical implant. Suddenly disoriented, September stumbled to his knees; in moments, his implant stabilized, and he was able to bring himself upright.

He turned to face his former colleagues. March and July shared a glance, and their work done, they pivoted and disappeared, space bending around them as they left this possible universe – and their long-time associate – behind.

Not for the first time, September was alone.

The scientist ventured closer to the shore to take in the view of this Reiden before directing his gaze skyward. As the silhouette of a titanic mothership floated gracefully across the heavens, September reminded himself that this was all happening at once; he was getting shot in that warehouse just as he was visiting Olivia at the Opera House just as he now stood in possible world dominated by an extra-terrestrial species.

Or was it still happening? Had he exited his loop, freed from the shackles of predestination?

He took out his Amplifier, pulsing brighter as it activated, and while its readings weren't fully clear, they revealed that the loop was still in effect. Examining things further, however, he realized what exactly it was July had done to him. Each universe had its own resonant frequency, a unique signature that differentiated one from the other along the universal wave function. What was different this time was the slight band along this wave function that September could not perceive, a blind spot in his vision.

They had placed a barrier in his cortical implant, preventing him from reading the signatures of his native universe and its entangled twin. The Neurotemporal Amplifier merely augmented the innate capacity of his implant, and so it was unable to pinpoint the location of these two worlds. It was just as they said it would be.

But all was not lost.

He had anticipated this move by his team. It was why, before first visiting Olivia at the Opera House, he had secured a Beacon and created the ocular suggestion chip. Soon, the chip would dissolve in Peter's retina, imprinting the suggestion into the Boy's mind, and he would eventually be compelled to visit September's Morrow Street apartment, find the briefcase waiting for him there, track down the Beacon, and activate it. The ensuing signal would let September know the location of his native universe in relation to surrounding ones, piercing through his artificially-induced blind spot.

He wasn't sure how long it would take Peter to activate the Beacon. And subjectively, it could take anywhere from a few seconds to billions of years for that signal to appear to him while residing in these Roads Not Taken. But as it stood, he was too far away to detect the signal anyway, and he would only get answers to these questions if he got closer to his intended destination.

Drawing a breath, September made the jump to another world; this Reiden was a crater filled with a shallow pool of stagnant water, victim of the nuclear wasteland that September found reminiscent of his own place of origin. Wielding his Amplifier, he made the jump to another world, then another, each step nearing the range of universes that they had hidden from his perception.

When he would near that narrow band of universes, he would wait for Peter's signal. September had resigned to his death when he thought it was inevitable, but having now been granted the opportunity to continue his existence, he found himself more focused than he had ever been. He now has the chance to see them again – Walter, Peter, Olivia – and watch over them closely, preparing them for the coming storm looming on their temporal horizon.

Their continued survival and contentment was September's sole mandate, and he was resolved to do everything in his power to see these things come to pass.

Passing a possible Reiden rendered exclusively in sepia, he suddenly found himself stricken with disquieting thoughts. What if they were met with danger? What if... what if they died because he wasn't there to save them?

No, he thought. The prospect was unacceptable. He quickened his pace, sifting through possible worlds at greater speeds.

Through September, Peter Bishop had returned to the timeline; as the suited man drew ever nearer to his destination, he hoped the Boy would be able to do the same for him.

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A/N: Comments, questions, criticisms, haikus; feedback of any kind is always appreciated.

And for the few who have been following Pulling the Strings III (The Coming War), this project is why I have stopped updating, as it took up my time. I'll try to get back to that soon. ;)