because Interstellar and Danny Phantom made me think of time in a physical plane and that extends so neatly to Big Hero 6 AUs

this is connected to Five Alarm Death March, Jazz Elective Antipathy and It's a Body Shock, so go read those first please

the title alludes to Sophie's Choice, a "a choice between two persons or things that will result in the death or destruction of the person or thing not chosen."

disclaimer: I don't own any of the copyrighted material within

they don't get to choose which one of the universes is the "right" one, because they all are. endless variations extend for infinity in every direction, and all they can do is Observe and Search for one they'd like to imagine is the "right" one.

and there is so much death.

Tadashi sees Callaghan betray him in the final 10 seconds of his life, and he dashes back towards the doors but the explosion triggers a fallen beam to splash Tadashi's intestines on the burning floor. Hiro hit the ground, sees his brother's cap and cries.

Tadashi inhales too much smoke and collapses by a stairwell, and the burning rubble crushes him so deep down that it takes three days to recover his corpse. Hiro coughs up a lung outside, waiting for his brother, and cries.

Tadashi wrestles against a surge of microbots that tear away his skin and meld Callaghan's insanity into his screams, and it's not the fire that kills him. Hiro forces his way into the morgue, sees his brother, and cries.

Hiro crawls over broken glass and twisted metal and gouges apart the delicate skin of his arms, and he is so close; maybe if Callaghan hadn't smashed his head against a concrete pillar he could've run into Tadashi's arms, but as it stands he burns to death 10 feet from the doors. Tadashi falls to his knees, smells his brother burn, and cries.

the fates are entwined like roses and ivy so savagely around the two brothers and no matter where they Look, they can find no relief.

the universes have decided that someone must be lost, perhaps one perhaps both, and Death is an artist with her palette of suffering.

Hiro forces his way into the flames after his brother, and he's the one who sees Callaghan betray them right before the inferno explodes and Hiro is incinerated in front of his brother's dying eyes.

Hiro pulls Tadashi away from the flames, but they are too close to the doors, and when the explosion hits glass constellations riddle into their flesh, marking them for a future that Aunt Cass doesn't get to see.

Baymax can save only one of them from the inferno, and Hiro sobs and screams as Tadashi pushes him to safety, Hiro clawing at Baymax's vinyl until the explosion ruptures Hiro's eardrums and he collapses into silence.

Tadashi cries at Hiro's funeral. He cries so hard from his bleeding, burning heart thumping death marches in his throat, he thinks he's going to die—

when he throws himself off a bridge he does.

around and around and around they go.

Tadashi dies in the doorway, and Hiro can see his brother burn before he screams himself into unconsciousness. He is scarred, and he forms a team to catch the man that caused this disaster, and when he sees Callaghan's face behind Yokai's mask it hurts, it's betrayal, it's flesh cooking rancid under his tongue and Tadashi saying 'It's ok, I'll protect you' in Hiro's earliest memory and it's too much.

He takes the green chip and clutches it to his trembling lips, and watches Baymax rip Callaghan apart.

Tadashi carries Hiro's urn to his parents and sharpens a blade to exact sharpness. He lights incense and bows three times and sheathes that blade into Callaghan's quivering stomach three times.

Both Hiro and Tadashi die in the fire, and when Yokai is unmasked while tearing apart SFIT, Honey screams in outrage. The four survivors assemble tech too crude and too bloodthirsty for a child's elegance, but it's effective, and they make their former mentor pay.

Aunt Cass has no weapons or technology or inflatable robots, but she has a surrogate mother's rage, and Callaghan learns the meaning of fear.

Baymax is a robot and he waits until Callaghan is old and gray in his senior healthcare home, and then he takes out his chip.

Hiro puts on the neurotransmitter and rips Callaghan in half.

Tadashi doesn't even need a weapon.

they Search for universes far gentler than the tide of blood, and they find sorrow.

Tadashi drinks himself sick until Gogo and Wasabi drag him one and his crying is ugly and broken, because he held his brother at birth and during lonely nightmares and on his death bed in the hospital, where five alarm flames burned too deeply in Hiro's skin.

He never forgets the pain in Hiro's eyes, not even when he and Baymax draw Hiro's name in the skies above their home.

Hiro doesn't eat, and wastes away until his heart shudders in hysteria and Baymax carries him to Aunt Cass; the two break down and Hiro gets an IV and a therapist to convince him that it's ok to eat, Tadashi never would have wanted this.

But grief turns food to burning ash in his mouth and it hurts, it hurts so bad.

Tadashi cups Hiro's cheek, rubbing away ash and blood. They were both inside the auditorium when it burst into flames and now Hiro is pinned beneath a pillar, bleeding to death on Tadashi's lap.

"Itai," Hiro half sobs, and clings to Tadashi's shirt, "Leave, save yourself, onegai niisan."

Tadashi smiles past his tears and kisses Hiro's forehead, "My place is here, otouto," and then the fires carry them up up away from the pain, Tadashi's corpse scalded around Hiro's in one last protective embrace.

Hiro wakes up in a rush and clasps his hands over his mouth to hide his screams from his sleeping teammates. But his breathing is harsh and Baymax inflates and leads him outside so he can cry into a vinyl chest, begging to see Tadashi's videos just one more time, he can get through this but please, just one more time.

Baymax can never say no to that, not ever.

blood paints kanashii against the universal tide and one of them finally demands why can't Callaghan die in the fire, a life to replace the hole Death demands.

but those universes always implode, because Death is patient and she can wait.

The home invader doesn't look back even as he pumps Tadashi's chest full of lead, and Hiro screams his brother's name in the wreckage of their home, tears spilling into wounds that Baymax can't heal.

The earthquake is brutal and sucks the sea into a piling wave, and Tadashi runs towards the shore because Hiro was down there with his classmates, Hiro is in danger, Tadashi needs Hiro to live—

the tsunami dashes Tadashi against the rocks and his twisted arm catches the remains of his brother for the survivors to find.

Hiro cries and screams and wails against the glass separating him from his brother, and Honey pulls him back before he can break the transmission scream. Tadashi, so young to be leading medical experiments high above the stratosphere, smiles past the five alarms firing off behind his back.

"I love you," he says, and then the space station is compromised and he's sucked into the deep and Hiro doesn't get to say "I love you" back.

It's a work accident, they say. It could've happened to anyone at any time, they say. But Krei's faulty tech kills Hiro in a crash of falling glass and scalding chemicals that take so long to finally stop his shuddering heart, and Tadashi doesn't want the compensation money.

He puts on a mask and wants Krei's head.

and there's something missing from these universes that only Callaghan's life can provide.

Abigail.

they don't want her to die, they don't want anyone to die, and they Look for a universe where maybe they get to keep everyone but it alludes them.

Hiro and Tadashi watch the portal explode, eyes wide because Abigail was still alive in there, and now there's no chance of rescue from the wrong side of the dimension.

Tadashi sits at Abigail's hospital bed, sunlight glinting from a purple koi fish in the sky, and Abigail demands with a broken voice, "What did he do?"

He tells her, and Abigail hates her father for the rest of her life, just as Tadashi promised Callaghan after sheathing his katana into the man's spine.

Abigail runs her nails up and down Hiro's back in multidimensional swirls as Hiro throws up the last of his nightmare. She helps him wash up, providing an extra toothbrush, then she tucks him into her bed and runs her fingers through his hair over and over. Little sobs abort in his chest, and he clings to her steady warmth as she soothes that it's ok, she's here, Tadashi is gone but not really, not when Hiro lives and thrives and it's ok, it's ok.

grief is harsher than Death's favorite matcha and even more bitter, and they despair at how every universe they Observe is steeped in it.

but yet there are worlds that aren't so bad, not by a long shot.

Hiro gasped as the rollercoaster arcs over Tomorrowland, and shrieks like a little girl, Abigail's hysterical laughter melding with Honey's shrieks and Gogo's popping bubblegum and Wasabi's wails and Fred's "THIS IS AWESOME!"

Their pictures are googly eyes, slack jawed perfection and Honey buys them all.

Nene stretches out her legs after a long mission and Hiro asks, "Do your skates need a tune up?"

She shakes her head, "Nah, Tadashi looked over them already, and Fujita girls are trained on razors." Hiro's expression is horrified and she snickers, "Calm down Bayboy, it's just an expression, my friend Abigail had worse ones" while Tadashi tries to explain the nature of their newest teammate's humor to his little brother.

Tadashi fails without Abigail's context and for a moment craves the scent of menthol.

Aunt Cass carries the ginormous birthday cake to the table and everyone in the cafe sings for Tadashi. He blushes and mutters about how Hiro would've videotaped this, and Abigail holds up her camcorder to capture the moment where Wasabi and Fred smush Tadashi's face into his plate.

Hiro grins and slams his feet against the pedals, catapulting Adorabeezle into first place. "Eat my dango dust, Tadashi!"

Tadashi chews on his bottom lip because when did Hiro become so good at Sugar Rush, it's the older brother's job to beat the little brother at every video game out there and this isn't going very well. "Wait a sec, how did you bypass that entire lap?"

"A little drifting," Hiro swerves his racer in a sugary arc and laps Tadashi's Candlehead, "what? Intimidated by my success?"

"But that's not—you cheated!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"The winner!"

Tadashi tackles Hiro out of the machine and whales on him for being a rotten little cheater, while Gogo cackles into her gum and Hiro laugh-screeches over his hard earned victory.

Hiro lists against Abigail's side, his senior thesis project finally completed and ready to revolutionize robotics. Three years of chaos and missions and research, and it's finally over, he doesn't quite know what to think other than thank the gods that Abigail is still at SFIT as a PhD student, because she and Baymax literally kept Hiro's head on his shoulders throughout this entire hellhole of a process.

He glances at the freshly typed packet containing two new laws of robotics and enough equations to rewrite history, and he shakes his head; his big brain has finally done it. He looks up—not fair, he stopped growing at 5'3" and even Gogo is taller than him—at Abigail and asks, "Do you think I did a good job?"

Abigail grins around her empty e-cig, before she squeezes his arm and kisses his hair, "Tadashi would be so proud of you."

Hiro only flushes a little at how his eyes well up, and they sit in pleased silence, the sun coming up to illuminate their future.

no, these universes aren't bad at all.

but who can blame them when they spin around and around the edge of a black hole hand chosen by Sophie, Searching for the perfect solution.

they won't be able to find the one that fixes everything, where Abigail doesn't go into the portal and trigger the events that leads to Hiro/Tadashi/Hiro and Tadashi's deaths. they can't Observe what they cannot change, and when they See the universes where Abigail is lost forever to frozen colors, they grieve for everyone involved.

Death is not unreasonable though, and time is a physical plane that can be walked, and they Search for endless lifetimes.

Tadashi cradles his brother close, keeping his brains in a skull cracked wide open against a concrete pillar, and he glares at Callaghan. His eyes burn with wild hatred and grief and "You did this" and Callaghan looks away, shame rising in his throat to squeeze at his eyes because Krei killed Abigail, and he killed Hiro.

The fire kills Tadashi because Callaghan uses the microbots to save himself, but he doesn't reopen the portal out of penance for what he's done. And now three people are dead from one man's actions, Abigail freezing into glass and Hiro and Tadashi mixed in the same urn.

maybe their Search is futile.

The rocket fist that pushes Hiro and Abigail into safety jolts and shatters the chip inside. Hiro walks forward without Tadashi or Baymax and it's so hard to lose them both but he remembers them so dearly and that's going to have to be enough.

When Abigail comes forward to offer any help she can give, staccato steps sounding off grief and guilt, Hiro opens his arms wide for a new loved one and is half-satisfied with his care.

maybe their Search goes against the natural order.

"Shh," Tadashi soothes as Hiro gasps for air against his chest, "you're going to be alright."

"N-No," Hiro breathes with lungs torn around imbedded microbots, "I think t-this is it."

Tadashi's face contorts in agony at Hiro's meaningless death. The microbots were meant for Tadashi, Tadashi was going to take them on and stall long enough so that Hiro and Abigail and Baymax could escape. But Hiro screamed for his brother and Callaghan wanted them all to burn so terribly, and now Abigail's lost to the dead portal with Baymax and Tadashi's baby brother is bleeding to death in his lap.

Hiro twitches in pain and Tadashi thinks of anyway to save him, anyway at all, but there is none. Help will not arrive soon enough, and Hiro's lips are blue, and Tadashi's voice crackles like dying embers, "I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you."

Hiro smiles past the blood on his lips and nuzzles against Tadashi, "You're g-going to live," he wheezes, "I'm so glad."

Tadashi breaks down, shaking his head and crushing Hiro as close as he dared to his chest. "Please," he begs Hiro, he begs Hiro's wounds, he begs the gods in charge of life and death, "Please don't leave. You're the most important person in my life, I love you, please..."

"...sing for me?" Hiro's voice is far away, "You u-used to sing a lullaby, when I was very s-small."

Tadashi curls around Hiro and rocks him as he sings. The lullaby is what their parents used to sing to Tadashi, and after their death he used to sing to Hiro when the nightmares of the car accident were too harsh. Hiro smiles and dies halfway through the song, and Tadashi breaks down into tears before he can finish.

but it is their Search nonetheless, and there's so many worlds to See, so many variations to Observe, and so much hope lying nestles in waves of pain and grief.

Hiro looks up when the doors open, and the entire assembled group—all of them, Honey and Wasabi and Gog and Fred and Abigail and Nene and Aunt Cass—piles into the room where Tadashi waits with a tiny wriggling bundle. Tadashi and his partner smile, "It's a girl."

Hiro looks into the bundle while everyone congratulates the beaming parents, and the baby is small, wrinkled and probably light mocha skinned beneath the newborn red. Dark gray eyes latch onto Hiro's and the baby yawns, tiny fingers with tiny-tiny fingernails reaching up and latching around Hiro's thumb, just like how Hiro did with his niisan twenty two years ago.

His heart breaks as his neesan coos, "She's so beautiful, Tadashi, what are you going to name her?"

Tadashi smiles and helps Hiro hold his niece, Abigail gripping Hiro's shoulder to keep him grounded in the hospital room around the little baby. Tadashi pushes his hair back, "We're naming her Hiromi."

Hiro startles ust a little bit under Abigail's hand, and then his face melts into a blinding grin while Tadashi's exhausted partner confirms that yes, every Big Hero present is a godparent, even Baymax (especially Baymax who assisted with the birth). Abigail whispers, "How do you feel, Hiro?"

Hiro is a world changer, a jishinko shaker and mover, the leader of the Big Heroes and a leader of the robotics community and a senior coffee manager at the Lucky Cat Cafe and so floored by tiny Hiromi that he wonders how people can live when so thoroughly owned by their loved ones.

Hiromi blinks and squeezes those fingers, and Hiro sniffles, "I feel so humble right now."

Then Cass comes to hold the baby and Abigail wants to hold her all-but-blood niece and Honey and Gogo and Nene are fighting with Wasabi and Fred over who is third, and Tadashi pulls Hiro into a hug. They're alive, they're well, and they're so happy that it must be a beacon to their parents in the afterlife, who must be looking down on them right now, so very very proud.

here we see the Five Alarm Death March AUs, the Jazz Elective Antipathy and It's a Body Shock post-canon U, and so many more ideas that may or may not be expanded on in a drabble series I'm planning.

anyway, I hope this made sense, since we went around a lot of different AUs in one sitting!