Rating: T
Spoilers: For the fall finale, The Akedah!
Summary: Alternate ending
Author's notes: My AU take on the episode's ending.
In the clearing with the four white trees, Moloch and Henry accost the small band of people who would oppose them.
The fire at the warriors' feet lights the darkness, and shadows dance across their faces. Abby, Crane, Jenny, and Katrina stand bound to the trees, and the pile of their confiscated weapons spans the distance between the warriors and the agents of the Apocalypse. The humans struggle against their ties, but they remain bound, unable to move, unable to fight, and unable to stop the terror about to be unleashed upon the Earth.
"The End of Days is at hand! All that's needed now is a sacrifice, and then the fourth tree will be burned. With the blackening of the finale tree, Hell will be unleashed upon the Earth!" Henry waves a hand at the witch, and Katrina slumps over. Though she is freed from her bonds, control of her muscles is still magically bound to her captor, and she cannot help but be dragged by enchanted roots to the center of the clearing.
"Jeremy, please. You do not know what you are doing. Please do not do this. You are my son, you came from my flesh, and I know that there must still be some good in you," pleads Katrina.
"Katrina!" yells Crane.
"Silence!" yells Henry. "For two hundred years, I lay dying in a white pine box. I had no one to save me. No one to console me. No one but Moloch, who took me out of the Earth and gave a new life and new purpose. I will see that purpose fulfilled." Henry walks toward Katrina. With a wave of his hand, she is pulled toward the earth and wrapped in branches. "Goodbye, Mother."
"Jeremy!" cries Katrina.
Crane yells once more. "Katrina! Katrina!"
Abby gasps. "Frank!"
A shadowy form emerges from the darkness. Frank Irving walks into the clearing. He looks as he did in death; blood clings to his clothes where he was run through by War's Flaming Sword, and sickly pallor clings to his skin. But where his eyes were once brown, they now have turned silver, and the metallic hue causes his face to glint like steel.
"A thousand demons and a thousand souls have been claimed by the Sword of Methuselah. I had no soul when I claimed the armor of the Horseman of War, and now the sword is seeking its payment." Frank extends his hand, and the sword flies from the arms of Henry to him.
"Irving!" calls out Jenny.
"I gave my soul to the Devil, and I gave my life for the Witnesses. I have nothing left now except my will." Frank wields the sword, and points its tip toward the warriors and demons in turn. "My name is Frank Irving. In life, I was a police captain. In death, I will be a soldier of Order."
With a flick of the sword, the bonds of the warriors are released. The sword again swings, and Katrina is again released from the earth.
"Tonight, those who have defied order, who have threatened to bring death into the world of the living will die." Irving crouches into an attack position and stalks toward Henry. "Henry. You must die."
Henry flicks his hand and the roots surround Irving, but the touch of the dead man's skin withers the wooden tentacles.
"I belong to the Sword now. And Order must be restored." And with a plunge of enchanted steel against flesh, Irving lunges toward Henry.
"No!" exclaims Katrina. At the last moment, she flings herself in front of the blade.
"Katrina!"
The wet crunch of steel on flesh confirms the horror before their eyes. Katrina is stabbed.
"Mother!"
Irving withdraws his blade, and blood begins to pool, first at her wound, and then in her mouth. Katrina gasps and wheezes. "Jeremy? Ichabod?"
Ichabod runs to Katrina and catches her as she falls. Henry moves toward her, uncertainty slowing his steps.
"Katrina, my love, you must heal yourself. You are needed in this war, to fight with us. Henry needs you. And I cannot live in this strange world without hope of living in it with you." He puts his hands over her wound, hoping to staunch the flow of blood coming from her. "A witch, a spy, and my beloved wife. You must fight."
"Ichabod."
"I am here, my love," he replies.
"Jeremy?" Katrina asks weakly.
"Mother?" Henry asks. He bends on one knee to hear her.
Blood pools at her wound and stains her lips. She coughs, and bloody spittle stains her lips. She looks at the men in front of her, her husband and her son, and with hands stained with scarlet death, she reaches for both of them.
"I love you, Ichabod," she wheezes. "And I know that I have been, for you, at the center of your heart. With my death, I must be replaced in your heart by our son, Jeremy."
She places Jeremy's hand in Crane's. With her hands free, she strokes the face of her son.
"You are loved by both your father and by me, Jeremy, and it is through love that you will be redeemed. Forget it not." And with a final, gurgling cough, Katrina dies.
"Katrina? Katrina?" Ichabod leans over his wife's body, and caresses her face. Hearing not breath and seeing no light in her pupils, he closes her eyes.
Henry stands and backs away from them. His face is expressionless, though some deep emotion glitters in his eyes.
Crane stands, facing Henry. "My wife. You are the cause of her death, thus I shall be the cause of yours." He bends to lift his halberd from the pile of weapons on the forest floor, and with a smooth spinning motion, slices the air in front of Irving.
"Whoa! Crane?" asks Abby.
"You killed her! My love is dead. Katrina is dead." He raises his halberd again, but before he can bring the blade down upon Irving, Abby puts herself between them.
"Crane!"
"Abigail, do not stand in the way!"
"Or what, you'll cut me down too?" she asks.
The sound of a gun being cocked makes both of them turn. Next to the fire, Jenny stands holding a gun and pointing it at Crane. "Not if I can help it. Now put the halberd down, Crane."
The sound of Moloch's laughter splits the night in two. "The witch is dead, and the Witnesses seek death by each other's hands. Tonight, hell will come on earth, and no one will stop it." Moloch addresses Henry. "Now is your chance. Fulfill the purpose you were given when I raised you from the Earth so many years ago!"
Henry turns to Moloch, his eyes still glittering with emotion. "As you wish, Father."
A lightning bolt shoots from Henry's hand and hits Moloch in the chest. The demon is thrown backwards, his arms flailing as his body hits the forest floor.
Before he can rise again, another lighting bolt from Henry's hand strikes him in the chest. Roots from the earth emerge and wrap Moloch's dark form, swaddling him in wood, soil, and leaves.
"Your earthly form is made of dirt, and to dirt it will return. Go back to the plane from which you came!" cries Henry.
Moloch struggles against his bonds, but a vortex of wind, leaves, dirt, and branches buries him. With another flick of Henry's hand, Moloch's body begins to dissolve, and the demon cries out with a piercing wail.
Before them, the warriors watch the earth reclaims the as the body of the demon they came to fight.
The storm reaches its apex, and a red light glows at the spot where Moloch is being claimed by the earth. Skin gives way to flesh, then sinew, and then bone, and with a final yell, his skeleton dissolves, leaving only a pile of leaves, soil, sticks, and the slowing wind of a dying tornado.
Jenny, Crane and Abby look at Henry and then turn to look at one another. A sound behind them draws their attention, and they are just able to catch the sight of Irving and the sword before he disappears into the tree line.
"Irving!" calls Jenny. She is about to run for him when Abby stops her.
With a flick of Henry's hand, the body of Katrina begins to burn.
"No, Henry, stop! What are you doing?" asks Crane.
"She will enjoy in death what she could not enjoy in life—freedom." As Katrina's body burns in the supernatural flame, Henry looks up at the night sky. "No pine box for you. I release your spirit to the heavens, Mother. And in the heavens you will live forever."
Crane watches sadly as his son mourns the loss of his mother.
When Katrina's body is consumed, Henry looks at his father.
Crane can see it now—Henry's eyes glitter not with some unnamable emotion but with grief and hate and confusion. "Jeremy."
"We mourn tonight, father. But you will see me again, father, and when you do will meet as enemies." And with that, Henry turns and walks away from Crane and into the forest.
"Jeremy? Jeremy!" Crane calls for his son and starts to run after him.
"Crane!" Abby calls. She stands next to the fire, caught between her sister who would chase Irving and Crane who would follow his son. "Jenny. Crane."
They turn to her.
"Let them go," she says simply.
"But Abby—"
"Ms. Mills—"
"I said. Let. Them. Go." She bends to pick up the weapons that remain on the forest floor. She hands the rifle and Katrina's sword to Jenny. She hands the crossbow and halberd to Crane. She picks her gun and holsters it. "We are not fighting for Irving or Katrina or Jeremy. This war is not about us. It is about saving the world and making sure Moloch never comes to this earth ever again. He is back in purgatory, but we have lost our spy and our witch. And now, we have two wild cards—Henry, who has just defied his boss, and Irving, who is going God knows where to do God knows what with a thousand year-old sword. So you know what we are going to do? We are going to go home and think, for once, of what we are going to do next and of how to get ahead in this war. Because I am done playing defense against the forces of darkness. From now on, we go on the attack."
Behind her, the dying flames of the bonfire lit by Henry and Moloch begin to wink out. As the final embers die, smoke begins to rise from the ashes, and darkness envelops them.
With a determined squaring of her shoulders, Abby turns and walks toward the tree line. After a moment, she turns. "You coming?" she asks.
In the dark, lit only by what moonlight filters through the canopy, Abby looks at her sister and fellow Witness. With a start, they come to themselves and begin to walk toward her.
Against Moloch, they are only three, but they will have to be enough.