Disclaimer: I own nothing of this show or songs.
Summary: Snippets of a timeline washed away, along with all the rest, and a theory about alien interference alongside a Fate who is fickle.
Author's Note: I did not hate season 4. I have no interest in fandom fighting. I'm here to have fun, not be full of rage.
This series of snippets explores mental health, particularly suicidal ideation, as well as platonic love, trauma-bonding, and melodramatic family reunions with a bunch of unmitigated assholes.
There are timeline snippets here that acknowledge, through dialogue, the canon romantic attachment as though it was one-sided and not acted upon. Feel free to believe in whichever timeline you prefer.
Title from the song "First" by Cold War Kids
Honorable mentions of songs that almost became the titles: "Flying Upside Down" and "Hospital Beds" by Cold War Kids.
:: :: ::
heavy as a feather when you hit the dirt (first you get close, then you get worried)
:: :: ::
A subway station.
Orange lines glowing stark in the underground.
A map in an unknown language.
Lost to time, again.
Fate sure is one stone-cold bitch.
:: :: ::
They bicker. Whisper when hidden, shout to each other under threat. Find decent places to stock up on supplies and many, many bad ones. Five pulls glass out of her foot, after she's run down their attacker through broken windows. Lila shaves him when there is no mirror, after his display of unhinged fear at the prospect of growing a second apocalypse beard.
The years without his powers had stripped him to the bone. After that panic, his apocalypse armor stitches itself back together.
The years without seeing home peel her skin away in layers. She never panics but the circles under her eyes darken each day.
She finds him a mirror and a razor. He finds her shoes whenever hers wear out. Stations become campgrounds. She cries when she finds a stuffed reindeer, then rips it to shreds. He leans his head against hers as they sit in endless train seats.
He grows weary. But he broke when he was eighteen, and this is all round two. It cannot break him again.
She lasts longer than he did. Six years before her shatter. After an apocalypse timeline with a school unfortunately close to where their subway entrance emerges into smog and ruin. Too many tiny bodies. Too close to the stop two worlds ago, where the bodies were shockingly familiar and far more violently dead. (He took something from that world, though she didn't notice at the time.)
(He does what needs to be done, then.)
:: :: ::
Seven years and some scattering of days and gluing the fragments of themselves together, his scavenging turns up a half-rotting notebook written in his own hand.
He hands it to her in their garden as she sets down a watering can.
They never water their plants again.
:: :: ::
Back for less than an hour and already, the thrill of living siblings has warped, twisting into a stifling level of noise and irrelevant commentary. He tries so hard, the way he couldn't the first time back from isolating years of murder and ash. Back when the world was going to end. There was no time to rest in the chaos of other people before that first apocalypse.
The apocalypse armor he re-grew in the past seven years is too much for the version of him that thrived in years of peace. His heart beats like the world will be over again, soon, and he has no time to waste.
And Lila, the center of his universe for seven years, the only stability, is further than an arm's reach while they are surrounded by other people.
Because, how do they even begin to explain? They didn't discuss it, on that last subway ride, didn't plan what to say, too afraid of this hope being stolen from them yet again. So, there is no script for the secret they're holding, no explanation for Lila holding her daughter too tight or Five's inability to find his voice, his hesitation as he slips off shoes and almost immediately slips into scouring the room for danger.
There's too much. Lights and sounds and extra bodies that he keeps reminding his brain are not threats. There's a couch underneath him, and food warm on the table. But he knows his face is wrong, his voice stuck inside instead of responding like he must have, before. From the outside, he must look just like his anchor, who sits across the room looking just as detached—
He chose his family and forgot, somehow, again. They are all assholes who never think before poking at him when he just wants quiet—
He lashes out. Diego pushes back.
And he only snaps back to the room when Lila's hand is on his chest.
And Diego's always so stupid and so observant. (How can that moron be both so easily?)
"What's that?"
"What's what?"
"That thing on your wrist. You hate bracelets."
Back for less than an hour.
"No, I don't."
Forty-two minutes and their fragile façade is finished.
"Yeah, you do. I gave you one for Valentine's Day. You traded it for a Dyson vacuum. What…"
Who she used to be is pulling the rug out from under who they have become.
"Did you give her this?"
She looks away from his brother, a habit that means she wants to lie her way out of trouble. A habit that means she is afraid. A habit that means he takes the hit for her, instinctual.
"Answer the question, Five."
Because his heart is a feral, snarling thing, full of too many years.
"I made it."
This family's all made up of assholes. And he's no exception.
"For her?" Diego steps into his personal space, steps into threat—
Five swallows the urge to blink and to punch and meets his brother's eyes. "Why? Do you want one, too?"
All those years, through apocalypses and being lost to time's grasping claws, and he never forgot how Diego's rage can funnel so fully on a target. Blooming suspicion flips into a sickly pain: a fraction of what stirs in his own chest.
"Is there something going on between you two?"
The peanut gallery of their other siblings predictably does nothing to either quell or stoke the horrid, escalating tension.
His eyes flicker back to Lila, who only has eyes for his brother. Well. It's really more her story, than his, and the least he can do is let her take the lead.
Lila inches forward. "Listen to me, all right? No matter how strange this sounds, just listen." There's no tremble in her voice, and that's how he knows how badly she's holding it together. "Five and I, we've been lost in a subway." Diego scoffs and she presses on. "It's not a regular subway. It's a waypoint between alternate timelines of the same moment in time."
"Yeah, you think I'm going to buy that bullshit?"
"She's telling the truth, all right?" Five jumps in, too monotone, instinctively pitching in to back her up. "We got lost. We couldn't find our way back."
That's when Diego starts to believe. When Five speaks. Even suspecting betrayal, he only believes his wife after his brother confirms it.
Lila, eyes glittering with unshed tears, says, "We were searching for seven years, Diego."
And that truth pulls the air from the room.
The weight of it, dragging Diego to sit, achingly slow. For Lila to join him, her hand shaking as she lays it loosely over the top of her braceleted wrist. She says each word like a stone. "We were moving from timeline to timeline. We had no idea what we would find. We were chased, attacked, shot at. I wanted to come home. But I got tired…"
She stares as though his brother will disappear. Diego's missing that look, stuck on his own theory, and she's spiraling. Five can see it in the sheen of her eyes.
Okay. Fine. He can be a little less of an ass when she needs it.
"Three strips of metal," he says. Diego stiffens slightly, eyes lifting, then following Five's gesture to where Lila's holding her wrist. She shifts her hand to show it as he continues, "Three kids. Seven intersecting points to weld it together."
Diego blinks. Allows Lila lift her wrist toward him, to show the evidence.
Klaus breathes from the peanut gallery, "The homewrecking bracelet is us?"
Why are they all so stupid?
Even as he inhales, he can tell that Lila's not capable of taking the lead anymore. Diego's fear from before their time-jumping disaster is a strong bias that needs the truth to stab him if he's going to hear it. Five lets his eyes close. "We found some of your knives in one of the other timelines. That alternate you—." The image of his violently-murdered alternate-timeline brother flashes in front of his eyes. "He didn't need them. Not anymore." Diego's staring at him when he looks, still confused. "I used your stiletto."
"My knife. You destroyed my knife. To make a homewrecking bracelet."
"No. I made it as a threat," Five explains. The peanut gallery makes noise, but he doesn't look away from his confused brother. "She only got to keep the bracelet for as long as I didn't have to pull back out the IV and the pre-owned feeding tube." An uncomfortable pause. "Like she said. She got tired."
"Oh my god," Allison murmurs.
It takes another several breaths before Diego unsticks himself to look at his wife, whose major-depressive-episode almost left Five guiltily clawing the walls while being lost in time-travelling hell. And those dark eyes spill over, in an admission of shame.
This is the thread connecting them together in a way that is unignorable and warped and wrong. The kind of survival they have endured leaves deep wounds.
She grasps Diego's arm, fingers curling too tightly. "I wanted this life back so much that I almost didn't live." The tears spill over, a sob of, "I gave up. I'm so sorry."
At least his idiot brother knows when to hug his wife.
Five looks away, eyes catching on the kids. The younger niece doesn't look back, but Claire is, and her kind face is too sweet and wiser than her years. She looks at him with sympathy—and a raised eyebrow.
That might be a problem.
Movement in his peripheral draws him next: Klaus setting his popcorn aside, Allison holding Luther back. The big guy never does know when not to try and initiate a group hug.
And Diego. Meeting his eyes over Lila's head as she quietly pours her tears and snot into the collar of her husband's shirt. The bracelet is visible, the way she holds him with her arms up his back, to his shoulders, clinging. Five points with his chin. "She's kept that on for four months."
Muffled against his brother, she says, "Five never gave up. He fought me the whole way and then he found our way back." She pulls back, red-rimmed eyes meeting his as she twines her hand with Diego's. "He brought us home. To our family."
There. Ugly, scarred, and unfair, there's their truth.
"So, to answer your question, Diego, no. I'm not fucking your wife."
"Hey!"
"Little ears, little ears!"
"Five," Lila scolds through a flash of a near-deranged grin.
What do they expect? He's still an asshole.
"Hey, stupid grown-ups," Claire says, sudden and loud, "check out the TV."
:: :: ::
In one timeline, there's a moment during a fight against a lost brother who has become a monster:
"Are you sure there isn't something else you want to tell us? About what's going on with you two?"
"Getting us home again was the only thing Lila wanted from me."
"And you?" A knife twirls. "Is keeping Lila alive the only thing you wanted from her?"
"I brought us home."
"And your heart?"
"Doesn't factor into the equation."
"Five. You're still my brother. I know—"
"No. You're a paranoid, neurotic mess. A dog who thinks he found a bone." Running. They have to make it around this balcony to find an angle for this fight.
"Seriously. Five. You think I didn't see the way you looked at her when she was crying on me?"
"You been having these hallucinations for a while, or is it a recent development?"
"Nah, I think that of all people, I would know best what it looks like to love her."
"That's because you're an idiot."
"And you haven't actually told me I'm wrong about your feelings yet."
Squeezing the railing with both fists.
"We're done talking about this."
Time. They need more time.
"Misdirection always means you're lying, kid."
blink
:: :: ::
In one timeline, there's a moment during a fight against a lost brother who has become a monster:
"Are you sure there isn't something else you want to tell us? About what's going on with you two?"
"Getting us home again was the only thing Lila wanted from me."
"And you?" A knife twirls. "Is keeping Lila alive the only thing you wanted from her?"
"I brought us both home."
"And your heart?"
"Intact. Not about to be stabbed, I hope."
"So, you don't have a crush on my wife."
"I love her. Just not in some way you need to be jealous of." Running. They have to make it around this balcony to find an angle for this fight.
"Don't know how else I'm supposed to take those words."
"We all love Klaus and none of us want to sleep with him."
"Like a sibling, then?"
"More. Less. Slipping through time fucks with your head. When you have exactly one other person to cling to, and you're keeping them alive against their will. Things get twisted up in ways you know aren't right."
"That's not exactly reassuring me that you and I aren't going to have a problem."
Squeezing the railing with both fists.
"I don't want to kiss her. And I can't stand it when she's out of my line of sight. What do you call that?"
"I don't know, man."
Time. They need more time.
"Neither do I."
blink
:: :: ::
In one timeline, there's a moment during a fight against a lost brother who has become a monster:
"Are you sure there isn't something else you want to tell us? About what's going on with you two?"
"Getting us home again was the only thing Lila wanted from me."
"And you?" A knife twirls. "Is keeping Lila alive the only thing you wanted from her?"
"I brought us both home."
"And your heart?"
"I learned how to survive being lost in time much earlier than Lila. And I had to do it alone. Mostly."
"Dolores?"
"She was real. I know what she was. And I also…know what she wasn't. But without her, I'd never have pulled myself out of that same pit Lila ended up in." Running. They have to make it around this balcony to find an angle for this fight.
"So, you don't have a crush on my wife because she's not a manneq—"
"I love Lila. That doesn't mean I want her. Certainly not that I'd want to stay lost in time without my family. Same as why I left Dolores."
"Thank you for keeping her alive."
Squeezing the railing with both fists.
"Without her, this time around, I don't think I would have made it back."
Time. They need more time.
"You would have."
blink
:: :: ::
In one timeline, there's a moment during a fight against a lost brother who has become a monster:
"Are you sure there isn't something else you want to tell us? About what's going on with you two?"
"Getting us home again was the only thing Lila wanted from me."
"And you?" A knife twirls. "Is keeping Lila alive the only thing you wanted from her?"
"I brought us both home."
"And your heart?"
"Isn't broken, if that's what you're asking."
"Because you don't have a crush on my wife?"
"Because my little sister needed me to make sure that we both survived." Running. They have to make it around this balcony to find an angle for this fight.
"You know you can't claim to be the oldest sibling, no matter how much random time travel you've done to inflate it."
"I am over sixty years old—"
"In your mind, debatably."
"As compared to your sage wisdom?"
"But that body's barely eighteen and you know it, little bro. Technically, you've just barely finished with puberty."
Squeezing the railing with both fists.
"I hope that's the last of your petty jealousy, because I'm starting to wonder which one of us is theoretically eighteen."
Time. They need more time.
blink
:: :: ::
There was a notebook written in his own hand. There are other timelines. There are other versions of him.
He must have answers for himself.
One of him has to know something.
:: :: ::
Of fucking course.
Be careful what you wish for, huh?
:: :: ::
He's so weary of trying to save everyone and everything. He got, what, five years of peace? Before the next slipstream of time carried him back into a nightmare. And now, now he knows, it will never, everend.
What if they just…stopped trying?
… Maybe Lila wasn't the only one shattered and his hubris kept him from seeing his own damage. Maybe this is something like paradox psychosis. Maybe he should tell someone that…
… but if his family is the problem.
And no other version of himself has tried this solution yet, because the very thought requires him to feel this low and lost and out of hope…
Huh.
Well.
They've tried everything else.
:: :: ::
One more time, back down in the subway, he holds his north star as she sobs, children speeding away in the vehicle responsible for their seven years of pain.
He hopes his nieces and nephews, the tiny splotch of family latched onto the side of their warped tree, has gone somewhere good.
"I hate you. I hate you. I hate you."
(Yeah. So does he.)
:: :: ::
The team goes on one last mission.
The family is consumed together.
:: :: ::
There is a timeline untouched by aliens who developed dangerous, world-altering particles called marigold and durango.
Unfortunately, there are so many others where the aliens destroy their home planet and proceed to wreak havoc on Earth in endless cycles is similar destruction. Luckily for these divergent strands in the grand web of time and space, they are no longer tangled up in, and interconnected by, the beings infected with marigold. No, now the world without marigold is not being overwritten and infected, which leaves those beings finally, firmly, neatly relegated to their original strand.
Also unfortunately, they can't forget the echoes of their riotous, disruptive excursions along grand tapestry of Fate.
She's one stone-cold bitch, after all.