AN: Hey guys! So this is the final chapter for now. It's a little something, kind of random chapter 'cuz Ben could've had some more love. It's a "Day in the Life of" kind of chapter. Anyway, this'll be it until the series restarts whenever. I hope you liked the story and please, enjoy this, too!
Ben Hargreeves
Number 6
"The Horror"
Five Years before the Apocalypse:
Ben had been dead for some time now, a few years, and there was nothing. There was no Heaven, there was no Hell. There was simply "now". Perhaps it was Purgatory? That would make the most sense and it was the only thing he'd been able to come to terms with in the last few years. He hadn't moved on, so of course he was stuck in Limbo.
There was a cool side effect of being dead, however. Ben could finally see his family, see how they were doing with nothing more than a thought.
Luther Hargreeves:
Ben materialized back home in the Academy. He wasn't surprised, or surprised to find Luther working out. He was lying on a bench doing presses with an obscene amount of weight. Ben pitied his brother. The others had moved on, moved out, but Luther was either unable, or unwilling. Sometimes, Ben thought that maybe, just maybe, Luther thought that the others would come home. He thought that Number One must have stuck around because, for some reason, he thought that someday they'd just come back, throw on their old uniforms, and they'd all start fighting crime again.
It made him sad.
Diego Hargreeves:
When Ben materialized in an alleyway, it was dark, but not quiet. In the distance, he could hear the sounds of the city, sirens and vehicles, but the sound of fighting was much louder. He turned around.
There was a man dressed in black wearing a mask and a vest decorated with knives. He fought viciously and violently against a small handful of men that wore matching bandanas. Diego was fighting some gangbangers. Ben shook his head.
Nothing had changed. Diego was still determined to fight the bad guys of the world, but do it on his terms. He didn't want to take orders from Dad, or Luther. It was both honorable, and stupid. Ben was afraid that one day his brother would join him on the other side, and then what would he do? Diego wouldn't be able to help anyone if he died.
Allison Hargreeves:
When he jumped to Allison, Ben was met with something that made him smile. His sister was sitting in a rocking chair holding a bundle in her arms -his niece, Claire. She was only a few months old, and as adorable as a little potato could be at that age.
Ben stepped around until he stood behind Allison's shoulders. He looked down at the baby who, to his surprise, seemed to see him, too. Her eyes drifted to him and his smile broadened. Ben waved at her. Claire grinned as she nommed on her hand.
He hoped Allison would be a good mom. In fact, he knew she would be.
He vanished to give them time alone.
Andorra Croix-Hargreeves:
The midafternoon sun had risen high in the sky, but Ben couldn't feel it on his face. He couldn't feel the breeze or smell the salt air of the ocean, either. He might as well be standing in a green room surrounded by the images of a tropical paradise.
With his hands in his pockets, he followed the crowd into the building. They were led down a hall and underground before guided to the left. Ben scowled as a couple of kids ran through him, but he expected as much. It wasn't as though they could see him.
To the left was a large auditorium meant to sit about eighty-people, although the majority of those bodies were children under the age of twelve. Everyone filed into their seats. Ben didn't join them. He didn't want someone to sit in him, too.
When the room settled, a woman emerged wearing a headset and went into a spiel about saving the world's oceans and the importance of recycling so the animals couldn't be injured by all of the plastics. She finished a few minutes later and then the curtain parted. Hidden behind it was a wall of glass that, easily, was fifteen yards wide and roughly five yards high. Basically, it was a glass wall the size of a city bus.
On the other side was the oceanic wonderland that was untold gallons big. Despite the size of the window, and how brightly lit it was by the sun outside, Ben could never see the back of the tank. Given what called it "home", he doubted he ever would.
Mock-ruins scattered the space, mimicking the crumbling structures of old. Some of it was covered with living coral, with anemones that swayed in the current, and schools of small fish that called them home. Every once and a while, there was a flash of a larger fish, like a shark, or a manta ray. He knew from previous visits that there was even an angry-looking moray eel that lived in the corals on the far right of the window. It was green and looked like the thing from someone's nightmare, but it remained mostly hidden unless it was dinner time.
The woman with the headset spoke once more, teasing the kids in the audience about whether or not they could coax the mermaid out of hiding. She told them that the mermaid was shy and they had to be super quiet. She was good. Even though Ben knew what was coming, he was swept up in the fantasy of the moment, too.
The auditorium was deathly silent until a flash of black raced from one end of the tank to the other. It was far in the distance and disappeared quickly behind some of the ruins, but there. A little girl cried out that she saw something and the excitement became palpable. A moment later, there was another flash, but much closer. The kids started jumping around. Even the parents were a little giddy.
Finally, after teasing for some time, a head poked out from behind one of the overturned columns. It was Andy.
A torrent of dark hair fluttered around her head. Ben could see things tied in it like shells, bits of seaweed-like things, and other stuff that made her look more mermaid-y. She played her part well –tentative, but curious. Slowly, but surely, Andy made her way out into the open. He always liked her costumes.
Because Andy didn't need them to swim, her tails were elaborate and fancy. They were also a good deal longer than those of her coworkers, the other mermaids, but being so much longer made it look almost real. The tail she had on this time was dark, almost-black kinds of blue along the sides, the back, and the "boning" in the fins were the same. Bright, silvery blue offset the deepness of the other color.
The fins themselves were exaggerated with little points and layers. There were even fins on her hips and one along the back of her tail. Instead of a bikini top like her coworkers, Andy had a chest piece made of similar material that covered up what was important, but still left her stomach and arms bare.
As she neared the glass and looked at the kids, tilting her head a bit to the side like she was seeing them for the first time, another couple of mermaid heads popped out in the background. Soon, there were three of them in total, and the children were ecstatic.
Ben smiled as the show progressed. Every once and a while, the other two young women would disappear to get some air, but Andy never did. She didn't have to. Ben felt bad for her coworkers. They had to work alongside Andy, which couldn't have been easy. They would flail a little, and struggle to keep themselves in place, then scamper off every two or three minutes to breathe. Andy was graceful and had perfect control over her body and the water that surrounded her. If he didn't know better, it'd be easy to think she was a real mermaid.
At one point, she let herself sink to the bottom and sat. Andy curled her tail around herself, took hold of the end of her fin, and played peek-a-boo with some of the youngest kids that had –for the majority of the show- remained plastered to the tank. She stayed there for a good few minutes before she returned to swimming around with the others and interacting with whatever sea life wandered into the space.
Ben wondered if the people she worked with accepted or were freaked out by what she could do.
When the show finally came to an end about forty-five minutes later, the mermaids waved goodbye to the audience and swam off into the distance. Ben felt better having seen her, and Allison, too. He liked that some of his family had a good life.
While the crowd dispersed, he disappeared.
Vanya Hargreeves:
Ben was surprised when he appeared in Vanya's apartment. It wasn't that she was home that surprised him. It was that she was sitting at her kitchen table hunched over a typewriter.
His brows creased as he watched her fingers dance erratically over the keys, filling her apartment with the familiar clack, clack, clack. He stepped forward and read over her shoulder.
Our father was never a kind man. He wasn't loving, or attentive. He viewed us as a project, or something to be studied. His main motivation seemed to be nothing more than conditioning us-
And then she paused. Vanya reached forward and with a pen marked out us and quickly scribbled them before she continued to type.
Ben took a few steps back and stared at his sister. She was writing a book about them, about their family. His stomach sank. God only knew what would be in it.
Klaus Hargreeves:
Ben poofed into existence in his brother's room, shocking Klaus when he had.
"Jesus," Klaus hissed as he held his chest. "Stop doing that."
Ben said nothing at first. He simply shook his head. Klaus let out a sigh and fell back against the wall. He was sitting on his bed, leaning into the corner with a pad of paper in his lap.
"What were you doing, anyway?" He asked as he began to write.
"I went to see the others." Ben said as he climbed up onto the bunk and sat at the foot of the bed.
Klaus shot him a glance over his narrow knees. "Oh, yeah?" He sounded annoyed. "I bet that was fun."
"What else am I supposed to do?"
"I don't know. Take up a hobby." He said sarcastically. "Knitting, maybe?" Klaus giggled at his joke while Ben rolled his eyes.
"What are you doing?"
"Oh, y'know," He sighed, "Making my list."
Ben nodded. Klaus was in the beginning of his Twelve Steps. He wouldn't bother if it didn't determine whether or not he'd be released because both of them knew he wouldn't remain sober once he was out on the street again. This was just another in a long line of rehabs.
The pair fell into silence and as they did, Ben thought about the others. He didn't expect to die that day and it left him with a lot of unfinished business. He had things he still wanted to do and things he wished he could say. If Klaus wasn't so determined to kill himself every other day, Ben would ask him to help with the second thing, but there was no point.
As a ghost, there was nothing Ben could do beyond existing, and even that was only just.
AN: If you want to get a slight idea of Andy's fin, check out and just type in custom made mermaid tail. I didn't know it was a thing, but there are LOTS! And some of them will give you a pretty good idea of what I meant. Bye!