Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

First, they were reincarnated as flowers, until they were picked.
Then, they were reincarnated as trees, until the trees were cut.
Afterwards, they were reincarnated as chickens, then they were killed.
Then, reincarnated as bears, until they were shot.
They couldn’t communicate, but Five knew very well that he was with his family. And he’d noticed a pattern back with the chickens and bears that they were becoming more and more alive.
Slowly, they went from inanimate objects, to living creatures.
As his eyes closed after he’d been shot, he wondered where he’d find himself next.

Then, he woke up in a nursing home.

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“Max! It’s time for breakfast! Wake up!”

Max turned over and sat up. His grey hair falling into his face. Everything sounded muffled and he hadn’t quite opened his eyes yet.

Last he’d seen anyone, they were shot when they were bears and had went into the city. It was Diego’s fault honestly. He’d ran off and the others chased after him. Leaving them all dead once again, Max hadn’t quite noticed that he was human again.

Until now.

“What…?” He groggily said as he opened his eyes and looked at his hands. He looked around the room. It had a green carpet and a brown ceiling. There was a small television sitting on the floor and a calculator near his bed. There was a bathroom near his bed.
He got out from under the covers and walked into the bathroom.

What happened?

Thats when it finally hit him again.
He looked in the mirror and saw his 71 year old self staring back at him. How was this even possible? Well, he stopped questioning what was possible long ago.

He began to laugh as he ran his fingers through his hair and touched his face. How was he alive? It’d been quite some time since he felt his own flesh-

“Max!” A woman in the hallway called, as she knocked on his door. She had a deep voice and was continually knocking. A voice that Max didn’t recognize immediately.

He’d assumed he was in a nursing home, at this point, but he didn’t need to be there! He needed to be out, finding his family. He needed to be out finding Lila.

“Max!” He finally walked over to the door and opened it. There he saw an older woman in her late 60s staring back at him. Her hair was blond with streaks of grey in it, and she had sequins on her clothes.

He recognized her immediately.

“Dolores?” He croaked out, his eyes wide in shock. She stared back at him before laughing a bit.

“Did you forget who I was? Again? I knew they said the dementia was getting bad, but I didn’t think you’d forget me already.” She replied, and grabbed his hand.

“C’mon, let’s go get you some breakfast.”

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Allison didn’t remember much. She’d remembered following one of the others into the city when they were bears. She had a hard time telling them apart, but she was almost positive that the one with the green eyes was Klaus. She’d followed him and the others, and it seemed that they were all shot.

Allison, too, had picked up on a pattern of slowly becoming more alive. When she first became a bear, she thought of killing herself right then to see if she’d come back to life as a human. But she didn’t want to be away from her family. They had to be her family after all, right? There were eight of them total.

She didn’t have to wait long. Because their deaths came quick. They spent years as the trees. Sometimes, she’d feel one of her brother’s leaves leaning against her’s. All that changed when the trees were cut down.

She never thought she’d be an environmentalist.

When she woke up today, she felt strange. Her eyes opened and she looked around. She was in a recognizable house.
She was in a house.

She jumped up and looked at her hands. She laughed and tears began to fall down her face.

I’m alive!

She ran into the bathroom of the room and looked at herself in the mirror. She just laughed and tears streamed down her face as she touched her hair and her face. She was finally alive.

She walked out of the bathroom and found herself back in the bedroom. This was her old house, that was in the 60s…
Was she in the 60s?

She wasn’t too sure, but as she walked out of the room and made her way downstairs, she heard a familiar voice.

“Baby? You got sick last night, are you okay?”

Ray.

The last time Allison had seen Ray, it was after their divorce years ago. She never could hate him, because she’d pulled him to that timeline. But how was he here?

“Ray?” She walked down the stairs and rubbed her eyes. She saw Ray at the table. He was eating pancakes, bacon, and eggs. He stood up and wiped the crumbs off his shirt. He then came over to her and kissed her forehead.

She wrapped her arms around him, happy to be in his embrace once again. She had a lot to figure out. And a lot of people to find. But, for now, she had Ray again.

Chapter Text

All he wanted was to sneak a peek of his daughter, he was positive that he’d seen her.

Diego hated being stuck as an animal. He hated being near Five. He hated not being with his kids. In Diego’s mind, he wished he could’ve died instead of live forever without his children. So, in every reincarnation, he’d look for them.

In the flower reincarnation, he was in the very front. He got all the wind and sun to grow as big as possible and see as many people as possible. And he saw his children at the park. Grace, Coco, and Clay. All his children, but he couldn’t reach them. It was Anita who’d picked them. Lila’s mother, so caring for nature, yet she’d pick any flower she saw.

During the three years spent as a tree, he didn’t seem them even once.

When he was a chicken, he’d attempted to escape the coop once. It sounded so dumb in his head, that he was literally stuck as a chicken. But, he tried anyways.

He, along with his siblings, were killed.

When they were bears, he took his chance. He had run into the city one night during a block party. In an attempt to find his children, he and his family only ended up scaring people. And as they ran away, they were shot.

____________________

Lila hated this. She’d spent her last 7 years on Earth with Five and not her children. She’d wished she’d gotten more time with them. And the last time she’d seen them, she was in between Diego and Five, and saw little Gracie run right past them. It hurt so badly that she couldn’t reach her.

As trees, her’s and Diego’s were side by side for two years. So much unspoken, yet said.

As chickens, she didn’t try to stop Diego from running away. She knew death awaited them either way. How else did the meat packing industry work?

As bears, she was quick to impulsively follow Diego. She wanted to see her kids just as bad as he did.

They ended up dead again.

_____________

Lila yawned and turned over. Unaware of being alive and in the comfort of a bed, she rubbed her eyes. As she raised her hand to her eye, she elbowed someone in the face.

Diego had remained asleep. Also unaware of his reincarnation as a human, he was an extremely hard sleeper. He did, however, wake up when he was elbowed in the eye.

He groaned out in pain and put his hands in his face. He sat up quickly and yelled, “What was that for?”

It was right then that the two of them realized they were alive.

Lila sat up and stared back at Diego, in shock. Her eyes were wide and had tears in them.

Were they really alive?

Quickly, the two of them embraced eachother. Once again, nothing said for a moment, but they hadn’t felt eachother since they held hands before their deaths.

They sat there in silence for awhile. They both had started to cry and just held eachother for at least a hour.

“Diego…?” Lila finally managed, “Are we alive?”

“Yes, my love.” Diego brushed some of her long brown hair out of her face, “We’re alive.”

Lila immediately felt guilty for thinking of Five when Diego had called her ‘my love’. It was a name that Five had used at the strawberry farm. She let the thought quickly drift away as her children entered her mind.

“The kids.” Lila let Diego go and they both got out of the covers. Both in satin pajamas that they didn’t know how they’d gotten into, Diego opened the door of the unknown house. They both saw two other rooms and a flight of stairs. Though unsaid, they both decided to look downstairs first.

As they came running down, they found an empty house. The stairs led in to the living room. There was a huge couch and a large television. The two of them weren’t entirely sure where they were. That was until Lila came across a picture on the side of the wall.

“Look.” She said and Diego ran over. Both of them exhaled in relief at the same time.

On the picture was Lila’s family, accompanied by Grace, Coco, Clay, and Claire.

They were home .

Chapter Text

Luther was the only one who smiled as he went.

He was the only one blinking back tears and thankful he could be with the people he loved most.

“Hold on, it’s almost over.” Were his last words. And they were to Klaus.

He regretted not telling them how much they all meant to him. Klaus had said that he loved them and Luther was processing too many feelings to even respond.

As flowers, Luther didn’t mind there short lived life. It was peaceful. He could occasionally catch a glimpse of some of his loved ones who’d lived. Luther was able to rest easy knowing he’d saved his nieces and nephew.

As the tree, it was lonelier than being on the moon. The only thing that kept him from losing his mind, which he still kind of did, was the feeling of knowing his siblings were near him. He could feel them. He wasn’t alone.

Being a chicken is absolutely humiliating. It was nice to be able to stretch his legs, as weird as it sounds, but he hated it. He preferred it over the tree though.

He wasn’t looking forward to death while a bear. Oddly enough, he’d finally been at peace. He knew that he was with his family.

He knew he was with his family when he saw one of the other bears scratching calculations into the side of a tree.

Five.

Death came quickly as bears. Luther could only hope that death wouldn’t await him again next time. He’d died 5 times in less than 4 years. He finally understood Klaus.

__________________________
His head was pounding when he woke up. He could feel hard concrete beneath him and his vision was hazy. He sat up and groaned.

“…What?” He looked around. He was in an alleyway, a recognizable one at that.

Elliot’s! This is where I landed in the 60s after the first apocalypse.

He stood up and smiled to himself. He was finally human again. It didn’t come as super shocking to Luther, he had hope that he’d come back to eventually.

His main concern was his pounding headache. He sat in the alley for a few more minutes in silence. He held his head and processed everything.

He was back in Texas. He needed to find his siblings.

Viktor had the least hope that they’d all come back. He’d stayed the most put together during their “deaths” in the Cleanse, but the truth was that Viktor was tired.

He was also thankful that he hadn’t caused the apocalypse this time. For once, he wasn’t the bomb.

During the times as a flower and a tree, Viktor was at peace. Maybe he just felt like it was a forever sleep. Maybe this was heaven.

Until he became a chicken, he hated that.

He also hated being a bear. He was happy to be with his family, but he didn’t want to be an animal.

But today, he woke up in a teacher’s lounge at a high school.

“Vik! Get up. You’re gonna be late for your own class again. Plus, you gotta tutor today. I shouldn’t have to remind you all the time.”

Viktor woke up, startled. He was sitting in an office at a desk. His clothes were uncomfortable and tight. The room definitely belonged to a school.

“…What?” He asked, disoriented.

“Harlan wanted tutoring again, we talked about this.” The man in front of him said, waving his hand in front of Viktor. “Get up. I should’ve just left you.”

“Harlan?” Viktor’s eyes widened and he stood up, slowly gaining balance.

“Yeah. Plus, your class starts in-“ The man in front of him checked his watch, “10 minutes. Get going.”

Chapter Text

Max was led into the lounge area of the nursing home by the woman who he presumed to be Delores. She walked off and he sat down on a chair and grabbed his head. His shoulder length hair felt matted and his nose was stuffed.

‘Delores’ returned after a few minutes with a plate of noodles for him. “Eat.” She told him and he took the plate from her and began eating.

He hadn’t had a hot meal in 10 years. He’d hunted rabbits and was back to apocalyptic survival foods for seven years with Lila. And the food that flowers, trees, and chickens get isn’t very filling. When he was a bear, he had some rabbits. But he hadn’t had a hot meal since his days at the CIA.

“What do you remember?” She asked him, after he was about half way done with his food.

“My siblings.” Max replied, his voice hoarse and his nose running, “Lila.”

“Oh, yeah?” ‘Delores’ replied, intrigued, “I haven’t heard this one from you yet, Malone.”

Malone?

“Luther.” Max managed after he’d swallowed some of his noodles, “And Diego, Allison, Klaus, Ben, Viktor, And Lila.”

“Interesting.” She nodded after Max had finished. She then stood up, “This is definitely progress since we found you. Do you remember any last names?”

“Hargreeves.”

“Okay.” She walked off and he stood up and quickly followed. He almost tripped as he kept up with her. He wasn’t used to being an old man again.

He followed her over to the phone. He saw her pull a small device out of her pocket and a screen appeared on it.

“What’s that? Why aren’t you grabbing the phone off the wall?” Max asked and ‘Delores’ just laughed.

“I’m using a smartphone, silly. You can look up your family members in the phone book too if you’d like.”

Max just raised his eyebrows and shook his head, confused. He searched through the H section in the phone book.

Hargreeves didn’t exist.

________________________

“Where’s Claire?” Allison let go of Ray, confused and slightly disoriented. Her eyes scanned the room. She couldn’t believe she was back in her old kitchen.

“You tell me.” Ray replied with a chuckle as he sat back down.

“What do you mean?” Allison asked and she sat down in front of him.

“Well, we just got back together. I haven’t seen her and you haven’t mentioned her, Allison.”

That made a lot of more sense. They were still in their main timeline, sort of, anyway. Her and Ray’s divorce had still happened.

“Oh…Yeah.” Allison stood back up and exhaled, “It’s been nice. But I’m going to go and find her.” She quickly left the room and left Ray, leaving him wondering where she’d go.

Allison didn’t know where she would go. But she knew one thing, she was in Texas. She had to get to Indiana and find her daughter.

Chapter Text

Ben wondered if they knew.

The last person he’d seen before his “death after death” was Viktor. And things were a lot different back then.

He didn’t remember anything after that other than growing into a flower. There, he was surrounded by seven other flowers.

‘Guess we all died in the end’ He thought to himself. He wondered who the other flower was. He assumed that he’d never know.

Months past and one day they were all picked from the ground and wilted away. The years as trees lasted longer. He couldn’t see a lot besides other trees. It got lonely, but the time eventually past.

After that, his time as a chicken was brutal. Ben had promised himself that if he ever got another chance at life, he’d become vegan. Because that death was quite worse than the death that Dad had given him.

He wondered if his siblings had ever found out that it was Dad who killed him. Ben had told Klaus, but Klaus denied it. For some reason, Klaus could never wrap his mind around Dad killing Ben. Ben wondered how. He’d always known that Reginald would eliminate any of them if need be. He’d figured that Reginald had somehow erased it from Klaus’ head, but he didn’t know how.

The time as bears was short lived, but mostly peaceful. He’d found a stray cub that loved him immediately. He knew that if he’d gotten the chance, he would’ve been an amazing father. Sadly, one of his brothers took off into the city and he left his cub. There, in the city, he was shot.

__________________________

“Ben, get up! It’s opening time!” A woman had called to him and he jerked awake. He opened his eyes to complete darkness outside of a slightly opened door that had light peeking in.

He sat up and breathed out his mouth and could see his breath. It was cold.

But he was back! For the first time in however many years, he was back! He slightly chuckled and stood up. He wondered where the others were. He wanted to find Viktor. He wanted to find Klaus.

He walked to the door and opened it to find a flight of stairs. He walked up the stairs and found himself in a theater.

“Now this is more like it.” He put his hands in the air near his head and exhaled. The theater was huge! It seemed he’d been in the basement, but the theater was nice.

Ben had always loved movies. Everytime Klaus would get out of rehab, Ben wanted to go see a movie. He didn’t mind renting from Redbox though.

“Benjamin!” A woman with dark hair and brown eyes walked up to him and handed him a mop, “What happened to cleaning this place for an apartment?” She chuckled. Ben would’ve taken offense to this, but she was so gorgeous. He didn’t even reply, he just took the mop. He looked down at her name tag.

Jennifer. It read.

_______________

Klaus had been the most scared to die. He’d died so many times in the past, that a part of him expected reincarnation. However, he didn’t want to come back without his siblings. He was the one to cry when they’d died. He was the most scared. Not for himself, honestly, but for Claire. He couldn’t even watch her walk away. What if she forgot him? Would he ever see her again? Would he see anyone he loved again?

All four points of reincarnation leading to being human were peaceful to Klaus. He’d feared death for Claire’s sake, but for him? It was peace. A long deserved peace. He was able finally get his ‘eternal’ sleep as the plants. As the chicken, he was able to get his life back, but he hated it. The chicken and the bear were awful for Klaus.

Then he awoke with his head pounding in the middle of an alleyway. It’s as if he’d been there after an overdose the night before. He sat up and grabbed his head, “My head is pounding…”

He sat up and put his hands over his ears. His vision was hazy as he opened his eyes.

“Allison…?” He started, as he stood up and looked around. He had his cheetah print robe on with baggy jeans and a long sleeved shirt. He scratched his head and realized his hair was back to shoulder length.

He was happy to be alive, truly, he just had to process it first.

He had to find Claire next.

______________________

Luther, back in his normal body, had quickly gotten out of Dallas. He thought about trying to find his old place, but Jack Ruby was long dead. Thankfully, he’d died with his wallet in his pocket. He spent the few hundred dollars he had getting on a taxi and on a plane to Dallas.

I don’t know why Im so hopeful. What if they’re all still dead? Or what if I’m in a different timeline?  Let’s be more optimistic. What if they’re all alive? What if Sloanes alive?

He smiled at the thought. He was never able to move on from Sloane. Diego had encouraged him to move on, but he never could.

For now, he just wanted to see Diego again.

He wanted to see them all again.

Well, not Dad. He could go without ever seeing his father again.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to see him again.

He sat in the waiting room, waiting for the flight to Indiana. He’d been asked if he had a place to stay, but he didn’t budge.

Before he knew it, he saw a woman with long, dark, and curly hair approach the person at the counter. He could only see her from afar, and his ears were still ringing, but he was quite sure…

She turned around and it was exactly who he thought it was.

“Allison?!” Luther shouted, causing every single person in the room to look over at him. His eyes were wide and filled with tears, he hoped she remembered him.

“Luther?” Allison couldn’t believe her eyes. Was that really her brother? She ran over to him and hugged him. They both just began to laugh a bit, almost not believing it. Everyone in the room stared at the two of them.

After what seemed like forever, she finally pulled away. “You’re alive?” She asked, smiling and eyes full of tears. “You’re alive. I’m alive.” He chuckled and sat back down, she sat beside him.

“Do you know what year it is?” Luther asked her and she nodded. “2028.”

“Wow.” Luther nodded and looked up, his head still pounding and his ears ringing, “We’re well into our 40s huh?”

Allison laughed a bit at this before looking over at him and nodding. She leaned her head on his shoulder. With his sister by him, he knew everything would be okay.