how s4 should’ve gone AKA they should have consulted me (a non-exhaustive outline):
they’re back in 2019 with no powers. okay that can stay
everything up to and including sparrow ben tricking them into drinking the marigold can stay
klaus not drinking the marigold can stay
klaus getting shot and allison saving him with marigold can stay
klaus’s powers start coming back. and when they do oh—uh, wow, okay, hey ben? umbrella ben? what are you doing here didn’t you Move On yada yada
umbrella ben has been following them around since they showed up hereand !!! oh !!! the timelines are collapsing on each other oh god oh no hey what the fuck ahahah help
five’s funky timeline substation can stay. he blinks and he ends up there and as the season progresses it gets increasingly more chaotic and there are ??? actual people there ???? oh god what did they do how do they get home where are all these people coming from? people are getting lost outside of their own times???? that can’t be great
instead of all of them going off on their own little detours they, i don’t know. maybe stick together as a family. because hey yeah wow the universe is trying to implode on us isn’t it maybe we should stick together on this one
jennifer!!!! the jennifer incident. okay oh god yeah.
the durango-marigold reaction can stay. everything else about that whole thing……….no
reggie did kill umbrella ben!!! but the eldritch monsters inside of him killed jennifer and then reggie killed ben before it could kill ben too and break through into their world and become basically unstoppable
it did not make them melt together into some disaster blob. but the durango in jennifer….the monsters living in ben Do Not Like. it’s less to do with the marigold and more to do with the horror. that’s why it had to be ben, it’s always had to be ben. he was always the one destined to die. he’s been the tragic hero who failed since the beginning and it was always going to come back to him.
“it was a tragic accident” brainwashing bc reggie couldn’t explain to them what had happened without showing his own hand and exposing his nefarious plans with jennifer and the durango and marigold and all that
because the horror will go on, beyond that, if left unchecked. it will raze the whole planet. burn it to the ground. it will rip through that fragile portal and it will destroy everything.
umbrella ben, invisible to everyone but klaus, learns this along with the rest of them. he doesn’t remember his own death, he just knows what klaus has told him, and what he’d overheard at his own funeral
he’s secretly very glad he doesn’t remember dying. he places a hand over his own abdomen as he listens. he hadn’t felt a kick or pull from there in decades, from that beast he used to harbor.
after they regain their memories of it (which klaus is there for as well) he makes ben tangible without a second breath and hugs him in a way he never has before. turns out ghosts can cry.
sparrow ben is still out there, and he doesn’t know he’ll be killed if he’s exposed to the durango. he doesn’t know it could put the whole world in jeopardy. he’s trying to find jennifer but he doesn’t know the whole picture and he’s going to die too if they don’t stop him
umbrella ben: “you couldn’t save me, but you can save him. you have to go—klaus, you need to take the others and go. you need to save him.”
cue family cross country road trip to find sparrow ben, who is grieving his own family’s deaths and spiraling into reckless self-destruction because he has no one, here
along the way they have a chance to reconcile all of these gaping wounds (allison’s actions from s3 and lyla and diego’s marriage and five’s exhaustion after being in fight-or-flight mode for like fifty years straight and oh wow yeah kid’s just traumatized and NOT a homewrecker who would abandon his family and luther and sloane and the time they should’ve had and viktor just being like “it’s kind of weird to face an apocalypse that has absolutely nothing to do with me”)
and claire and uncle klaus!!!!!!!!!!! i just need more time with them please (“uncle klaus is immortal right” and like. please i just need to see the conversations happen i need them so bad.)
and eventually they find ben but oh no oh god they’re too late he already found jennifer and now oh god it’s gonna kill ben, shit, the horror is killing ben and oh god now reggie’s people are here too? and they’re trying to save jennifer and they’re angry at the umbrellas for ruining their experiments and their “weapons” and so they’re all going to try and take them out too
but they’re the umbrella academy!!!!! and they can kick ass we have seen it 😤 so cue the big epic superpowered fight where they work as a team and all have their big last huzzah moments and then they are defeating their father, reggie loses, he loses everything
and then they have to go and save their brother. they have to save him.
and something something the power of family and love something something, they realize the only way to appease the horror and kill it without killing ben is to overcharge it. if the durango is a poison to it, marigold is the antidote. marigold is the key.
and the only marigold they have left is what they hold inside of themselves. it’s so simple and it’s so quick. they don’t hesitate
so they sacrifice themselves to the horror, feed themselves to it, before it can take anyone else’s lives, before it can destroy the world trying to appease its hunger
and it sucks the marigold out of them, sucks the life out of them, and it’s a familiar feeling, one they’d experienced once before, on that tiled floor—
—but they’ve got a master of death on their side. someone who death has tried and failed to claim many times before
and with his last ounce of power, with that last bit of strength that he has, he casts them all a lifeline. buffers them from the world beyond, from that veiled shadow that has always been too transparent, to him. the prophet, the master of death, their guardian angel. an agent of life.
and he watches as ben—his ben, umbrella ben—stands with them, holds this line with them—and he catches klaus’s gaze
knowing and calm and collected, like he always had been. gentle and good, to his dying breath.
and then ben’s ghost offers a grateful smile, beautiful and devastating, before fading away. the only goodbye they’d get, one klaus thought he’d never have to face.
and then it goes quiet. it goes still.
something has changed, in their cores. they can feel it.
sparrow ben—the only ben, now, they’ll ever know—is stirring on the floor. he’s alive. he’s alive.
he can’t believe they came back for him. he’s out of it and confused and terrified, but they came back for him. maybe these people are his family, too.
and the world starts crumbling around them. the timelines are shifting, collapsing on one another. they have to get to the station, have to go back—back to their own time, before any of this happened, before that first apocalypse that set off a chain reaction into this imploding universe, back before they’d ever messed with something as fragile as time, back and back and back. they have to save the world.
but five can’t blink. he can’t get them to the station—it’s a pipe dream, thinking that they can fix this.
but reggie’s still here. reggie has enough marigold for one last sip. the universe is crumbling to pieces beneath their feet, time folding in on itself, a black hole of antimatter as realities lay on top of each other and molecules begin to split—
—but five takes the shot. it’s their last shot.
he blinks. gets them on to the station.
he’s spent time here, a lot of time. he knows what the routes mean, now.
luther and diego are supporting ben as they rush into the train car. it’s now or nothing. they know—they know—how this ends. they know what they have to do.
the “family sacrificing themselves to save the universe” ending can stay. as long as it’s done right.
the train pulls away from the station. they’re all holding onto each other. they came into this world together, by the same insane roll of the dice, and they’ll leave the same way. a cycle to repeat, ad infinitum.
as the train speeds down the tunnel, they see the shift around them. they feel time slowing to a stop, can’t grasp it in their hands.
but they’re together. as a family.
and in a time long since past—a time always destined to come again—the universe is quiet.
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