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They’re all singing Take on Me, and he’s trying not to cry, he really is. He never realized how much they all truly cared about him until now. He feels bad, he wishes he wasn’t putting them through this, he hadn’t wanted to die, not really, he somehow thought he’d be the exception to the rule, that he might come out ok.
He never got to reconnect with Eliot. He died without saying goodbye.
As he thinks this, he hears the unmistakable sound of Eliot’s voice joining the harmony of those who are already singing, and he just breaks. Eliot is walking over on a cane with Margo’s help, and it’s over.
Quentin hadn’t gotten to see him after they took the monster out, and to see him, the real him, up and about and singing, it’s too much.
He starts crying. He can’t help himself; he’s always been soft; he’s allowed to cry about this being the last time he sees his best friends and the man he loves.
Margo steps up to the fire with his crown in her hands, she stands still for a minute, holding it tight to her chest as she reminisces, and then leans over to put it in the fire.
Right as she leans over to drop it into the fire, she looks up and around at all of them, and her eyes fall on him and Penny.
She’s looking him right in the eye, and she thinks she’s hallucinating, and as everyone keeps singing, she steps back and puts her hand over her right eye. Nothing. She takes her hand off and puts it over her left, and there are Q and Penny.
She stumbles back another few steps and drops the crown. “Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. You’re here? You’re here?! The both of you?” She stomps up to them and Quentin and Penny are both in shock, frozen, looking between each other and at Margo. Not even Penny knows what to do, the Underworld Handbook probably didn’t prepare him for the fairy eye aspect of it all.
“What the fuck is going on?! What the FUCK are you guys doing here?”
She’s yelling at what looks like air, and at that, Julia and Penny23 remember that she was able to see Hymen’s ghost with her fairy eye.
“Margo,” Julia runs up to her, eyes frenzied with what she won’t say is hope, but maybe hope’s twin sister. “Margo, what are you seeing? Is he here? Is Q here? Is he ok? Q?! Are you here?” She’s looking around frantically, eyes skimming over where Q and Penny are because she can’t see them, and now she’s screaming too, telling him she loves him and misses him and that she hopes he’s ok, and Penny is cringing because he’s sure that he is monumentally fucked.
“Yes, he’s here! He’s here with Penny! With OUR Penny!” This makes Kady and Eliot stand up, the former much quicker than the latter, and make their way over to him.
“What are they saying?” Alice asks softly, “Did they tell you why they’re here?”
“No, I can only see them because of the eye, I can’t hear anything they’re saying, but they’re both here and they both look great.” Margo tries to put her hand on Quentin’s face, but it passes right through, and he tries not to notice how much this makes her eyes water.
“Hold on a sec, everybody step back and give me a minute.” Penny23 steps in front of Margo and everyone else, sits down, and astral projects.
“You again.” He says to Penny40.
“Yes, it’s me, I’m just doing my job. Having Quentin say his last goodbyes, get his last look. I’m actually not even supposed to be doing this.” They both turn to look at Quentin who is now crying much more openly, and at Margo watching him from behind Penny23’s seated body, looking absolutely anguished.
Eliot is clinging to her like a lifeline, making her tell him everything Quentin is doing, what he’s wearing, if he has any wounds, and she’s reassuring him that Quentin is fine, but now he’s crying and she can’t hold him or hear him, and this is worse than his death. This is much worse.
She steps away from Eliot after making sure Alice is fine holding him up, and steps beside Penny23’s seated body and back in front of Quentin.
“Q, honey, can you hear me?” She says, looking into his eyes and enunciating every word more than she ever would in a normal conversation.
Penny40’s hand is still on Quentin’s shoulder as he tearfully nods yes.
“He can hear me!” She turns around excitedly, almost stepping on Penny23 in her haste, and then screams, “He can hear us!”
“He can? You’re sure?” Julia questions, and then walks up to where Margo was a mere moment ago. “Q, I can’t see you, so this is going to be weird, but I love you. I love you and I know why you did what you did, and it’s ok. We love you. We’ll find a way to bring you back. I promise. I’ll ask the Binder to help me get my god spark back, and we will fix this. And Penny, I know you’re happy now, but if you want, I can try to help you too. I know it’s been a while, and you may not want to come back, but we can try. We won’t stop trying. I’m sorry it took us so long.”
She looks so earnest and sincere it makes the new, soft parts of Penny ache. His eyes start to water, and he remembers how empty he felt when he died, and when he saw that no one but Benedict cried for him. It still smarts sometimes, but as he looks at Julia, he realizes, they don’t show their love through displays of emotions. They don’t show their love through words. They show it through actions, like this. With their persistence, their stubbornness, and maybe he never saw it because he didn’t want to believe it, and as he looks at Kady, who’s trying fiercely to pretend she’s not crying, he realizes that no, he always knew.
“He’s crying now too!” Margo blurts out, and Penny sends her a glare that she just brushes off with an equally cold one right back.
“Listen,” Penny40 says to 23, “I think I can get Quentin out of here. I can get him back.”
“You what?!” Quentin splutters and turns, brushing Penny’s arm off his shoulder as he does, suddenly indignant, “You knew of a way to get me back and are just bringing it up now?”
“I don’t know if it’ll work, and if it doesn’t, we are both fucked worse than when the library owned my ass. Are you willing to give it a shot?”
Quentin turns around, back to his friends, back to Eliot, whom he loves with his whole heart, who maybe loves him back, if the peach in his hand was any indication, and his face goes steely with resolve as he says, “Yes. I’d do anything.”
Penny travels them back to the underworld and Margo screams, running to the place where they were just standing while covering her human eye. Penny23 stands back up and says, “Hold on! Hold on, they’re fine. Penny, other Penny,”
“You mean our Penny.” Kady mutters, eyes squinted at 23, who she still feels is an imposter.
“Yes, ok, your Penny, the dead one, said he might have a way to bring Quentin back. He said if it didn’t work it would be worse than when the library owned his ass, and Quentin said he’d try anything. And they were gone.”
“Do you think it’ll work?” Eliot’s voice, a bit hoarse from misuse, singing, and now crying, rings out from the back of the pack, where he is clinging onto Alice as tightly as she is to him.
“I guess we’ll see ...” Penny23 trails off, looking at something in the distance.
“Oh my god! Holy fucking shit!” Margo is running towards the same thing Penny23 is looking at, both eyes open, and she’s screaming again.
She runs up and tackles Quentin in a hug that sends them both straight to the ground, and Julia is right behind her.
They end up in a sort of dogpile against the benches, with Margo and Eliot up by Quentin’s head, Julia and Alice’s heads on his chest as they listen to his heart beat, listen to him breathe. And nobody asks any questions, because it already seems too good to be true. Kady, Penny23, and Fogg are sitting on the bench, and it’s silent for a good while, as everyone listens to Quentin cry and breathe and live.
Penny40 pops back up again in the distance, and they can all see him. Kady is the first to move. She runs up to him and pulls him into a hug that has him almost choking for air, and as she cries into his ear, he tells her that he loves her, and he’s sorry, and that he’s back now, for good. Their story wasn’t finished. They have time.
Nobody dies again before their time. Hades makes sure of that. He owes them all that much, at least.