Chapter Text
"Oh… it’s me.” Robin realised. “I’m causing this.”
Sixty-four days later
An odd quirk of the Good Place Nancy had come to notice over the past two months, was waking up to birdsong every morning, but never any birds. Janet had told her it’s because birds don’t just naturally live here, she’d have to make them.
‘So why the birdsong?’ Nancy had asked. Janet said it relaxes people, eases them into the morning. Nancy had just found it a little unsettling. But whatever, she couldn’t exactly complain in paradise.
“Wow! Look who slept in!” Robin greeted her as she roamed out of the bedroom, stretching her tense muscles. “I never thought I’d see the day where I was up before you.”
“In my defence you’re up earlier than usual.” Nancy noticed the frying pan in Robin’s hand, the hissing sound of scrambled eggs in the pan. “And making breakfast? What’s the occasion?”
“Seven whole glitch-less days.” Robin beamed. “Okay, fine, in comparison to eternity it’s nothing but I’m proud. I haven’t fucked anything up in a week. I surprise even myself sometimes.”
Nancy took the tub of salt from the cupboard and handed it to Robin, letting her hands linger as she did. “I’m not surprised. I knew you could do it.”
“You did it. All of your help. I would’ve been on a train to the Bad Place on the first night if it wasn’t for you keeping me in line.” Robin replied.
“You need to give yourself more credit, Robin.” Nancy said.
“I smell eggs!” Steve called out, opening the front door (and forgetting to knock). “You better have made enough for us, Nance.”
He walked into the kitchen, his mouth dropping a little to find Robin at the stove.
“You better ask the chef.” Nancy took a seat at the dining table.
Robin chuckled. “Yes, Steve, I did. It is Eddie’s celebration, too, after all.”
“You what?” Eddie asked.
“A week without glitches. That’s down to you as much as it’s down to me, Mr Metal.” Robin said.
It had been about a month since Eddie had dropped the bombshell on Robin. He wasn’t meant to be here either. Not a cellist, but a metalhead from the outskirts of Philadelphia, who played mostly dive bars and seedy clubs. Nancy was surprised he’d made it a month in the first place, but he grew on her, and soon even Steve grew on her. They had become their own little group, especially tethered by the fact that they were the only four people in the neighbourhood who knew the truth. There was no reason to hide.
“You know, last night, me and Eddie were talking.” Steve said, taking a bite of egg as he did so. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like the guy. But soulmates?”
“Wow, Steve, very open minded.” Robin laughed with an eye roll.
“I just mean- what if we’re not actually soulmates? Literally. The system put Eddie here by mistake, wrong house, wrong Earth-life… wrong soulmate.” Steve said. “Just a thought.”
Even Steve and Edward the Cellist had been somewhat of a surprise. Steve and Eddie the Metalhead was just plain insane. The guy had a point, but at the same time…
“Wouldn’t that mean Nancy and I aren’t soulmates?” Robin read Nancy’s mind. Nancy watched her reaction carefully. Robin raised her eyebrows exhaled a little. “Weird. Anyways, who gives a shirt what the system says? Can’t be that special if it put two people in the wrong place, right, Nancy?”
“R-right.” Nancy stammered.
Nancy was never the type of woman to believe in soulmates, or true love, or any of that. Relationships were work, not fate. But when she’d died and learnt that soulmates were real after all, she’d always put her failed relationships down to the fact that ‘they weren’t the one’. It was an easy excuse, and relieved her of any of the guilt she felt while on Earth. A few days after her death, while ruminating on all the times she’d fucked up with her ex, it brought her a sense of peace to know that no matter what, it would always have fucked up.
Robin was different. Because despite chaos following her wherever she went, nothing ever seemed difficult. Not like it was with her exes. She had a way of breaking through Nancy’s walls that no other girl had, seeing the part of Nancy she’d spent her life on Earth protecting. It wasn’t perfect, far from it, but despite the threat of going to actual Hell looming over their heads almost constantly, Nancy somehow felt more at peace with Robin than she ever had on Earth. They were soulmates, it made sense in Nancy’s head. They were meant to be.
But what if they weren’t? What if Steve was right, and Robin wasn’t… the one?
Three months earlier
New York, Earth
Nancy’s fingers danced over the keyboard, tapping the keys light enough for them to not appear on the screen. She had no ideas, no stories, and no motivation. But she had to write, what else was she supposed to do?
“Babe?” Chrissy yawned, emerging from the bedroom. “Seriously, it’s almost two in the morning.”
“I need to get this article finished.” Nancy replied.
Chrissy leaned over her shoulder, and laughed. “Looks like you need to start it first. Come on, you’ll be here all night. You look tired.”
“I have a deadline.” Nancy said, the flat tone of her voice even surprising her a little.
Chrissy pulled out the chair next to Nancy’s, sitting down and fiddling with the necklace around her neck, the way she always did when worrying. “Nancy, I get that you’re a workaholic, I knew it going into this relationship. But… this? Not coming to bed, staying at work late, and skipping the ADHD meds?-”
“-How do you know about that?” Nancy finally turned to her girlfriend to glare at her.
“It’s fucking obvious, Nancy! You’re destroying yourself!” Chrissy exclaimed.
“Okay, let’s not be dramatic. It’s ADHD meds, I won't die if I skip a day.” Nancy bit. “It just makes me super tired, okay? And plenty of people go without it.”
“I know, I know. And if you want to try then we can talk about it, properly, with a doctor. But let’s be honest. That’s not the reason why you’re doing this.” Chrissy sighed. “You can’t bury yourself in work forever, Nancy. You have to talk about it at some point. You have to talk about her.”
Nancy felt a lump block up her throat. Her entire life she’d been in search for answers. As a child she’d always get them from her mother. By high school she no longer needed the answers from Karen, and by college she no longer needed anything. She was independent, getting a good job, becoming successful. She was getting all the answers herself, and she was good at it.
She didn’t feel like she had any answers anymore.
When her father had a heart attack two years ago she’d prepared herself for the worst, and once he recovered she still kept herself prepared. He was in his mid-sixties, losing mobility, and everyone knows men live shorter lives than women. Considering how ready she felt for the day she got ‘the call’ from her mother, she found it insane that she’d never once considered it would come from her father instead.
It was an undiagnosed genetic condition, often going unnoticed until it was too late. The doctors said there was much that could’ve been done. No getting older, no warning signs, nothing to prevent it other than annual tests Karen couldn’t have possibly thought to make unless she already knew she was at risk. Nancy had gotten the test afterwards, her siblings had, too. They all came back healthy. But every now and then she felt her throat close up and her heart beat out of her chest. As much as Chrissy would try and calm her, reminding her it was just a panic attack, the same as before, it wouldn’t do anything to help. How could she know? How could Ted Wheeler be thriving after a heart attack when one had killed her mother? How could Nancy be sure this was a panic attack, when for all she knew, this time it was different?
How could Nancy have any answers anymore when nothing seemed to make sense?
“Nancy-” Chrissy touched her arm, jolting Nancy out of her head.
Nancy stood up, slamming the laptop closed. “You’re right, I am pretty tired.”
Nancy laid awake that night, staring into the darkness of her bedroom. The next day she’d accept a story on the dog-fighting rings of New York City, a big story that would uncover a part of the world that not many people were privy to. She’d ignore the previous night, tell herself it was just a blip, and really, she was fine. She’d spend the next two weeks pouring her heart into the article, she’d pretend she didn’t hear Chrissy’s frustrations as she spent more and more nights awake. And when Chrissy couldn’t do it anymore? It just wasn’t working, that was the nature of relationships. Nancy was married to her job anyways, so it was fine. And on the fifth sleepless night in a row she’d be tipped off to a fight possibly happening that night. And sure, she could sleep, but this could make or break her career. This meant everything. To Nancy, it felt like life or death.
Turns out it really was.
Present day
The Good Place
Good Place panic attacks didn’t have the same solution as Earthly panic attacks. Nancy and Robin had figured that out on the third try.
The goal on Earth was to stop hyperventilating, it only made it harder to breathe. Suck in deep breaths, exhale them, until eventually it became like second nature. But at some point Robin figured out it wasn’t working, and instead challenged Nancy to hold her breath, as long as she possibly could.
She lasted about forty-five minutes before she eventually forgot about the challenge altogether. If breathing wasn’t necessary, then hyperventilating wasn’t necessary, so there wasn’t any real point in trying to breathe in the first place. Panic attacks became less frequent and on the rare times they did occur, they didn’t last at all long.
This time felt different, holding her breath didn’t help, even breathing deeply didn’t help. And soon she’d found herself curled up on the floor clutching her chest as if it were about to explode. She blindly called out for Robin, soulmate or not she always made it better. She was magic like that.
“Nancy? Nancy!-” Robin crouched besides the girl, pulling her up off the floor a little. “Hey, what’s wrong.”
“I had a heart attack.” Nancy gasped in between breaths.
“Wait, what? How? Nancy, you’re not having a heart attack, you’re dead-”
“-I know, I mean, that’s how I died. I wasn’t mauled by dogs, it was a heart attack. I remember it now.” Nancy cried.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Breathe, or don’t breathe.” Robin pulled Nancy into her arms, running her thumb through her hair. “I bet there’s a bunch of people who had heart attacks in this neighbourhood. You’re not alone in this, okay?”
“You don’t get it.” Nancy whimpered. “It doesn’t make sense. I was fit, and healthy, and I took all the tests the doctor wanted me to after my mom… you know. They said I was fine. How could this happen?”
“Well, based on what you told me. Your mom just died, you were under stress at work, and… Nancy… you hadn’t slept in five days. That’s heart attack soup, right there.” Robin explained. “For as amazing and brilliant and smart as you are, you’re really bad at taking care of yourself, Nancy.”
“I had my whole life planned out.” Nancy said.
“So did I.” Robin replied. “I guess we both learnt a little late that it doesn’t work like that.”
“I thought I could do everything right. Learn everything I possibly could, find the answer to everything. But instead I just killed myself in the process.” Nancy sniffled. “You know, I don’t even think it worked while I was still alive. My whole life I was always one of the smartest people in the room, but I always felt like everyone else was one step ahead of me. They were all just a little more clued in to what was happening.”
“I felt like that, too.” Robin said. “It’s why I wanted to get out of Hawkins so badly. I thought I could find people who understood me. I just don’t think I was making enough effort to understand Hawkins.”
“I thought if I could learn the truth to everything, have all the answers, then it would stop the feeling. But it never did. And now I really do have all the answers. I could call Janet right now and have her tell me everything. But it still wouldn’t work, because…” Nancy sighed. “Because Janet doesn’t know what I know.”
“Pretty hard to outsmart an all-knowing otherworldly database.”
“She doesn’t know how much I like you. Or how, when I’m around you, for once my brain doesn’t feel like it has to think of everything. But… she also doesn’t know that you’re not supposed to be here.” she pulled away from Robin, immediately regretting it. “Robin, if Steve is right, and you’re not my soulmate. Then I’m getting the answer wrong.”
“The answer?”
“If you’re not my soulmate, then falling in love with you is wrong.” Nancy stated.
“Nancy…” Robin exhaled a deep sigh, the kind Chrissy used to do when she felt as if Nancy was utterly hopeless. Nancy prepared herself for the worst.
“Attention, residents of the Good Place.” The giant screen appeared from thin air, Michael’s face projecting throughout the neighbourhood. “I urge you all to meet me in the town square immediately. I have found the source of the glitches.”
Nancy looked at Robin, who looked wide-eyed and more terrified than she’d ever been before. Everything felt hopeless in a whole new way, now.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The neighbours were all gathered, chattering about what could have possibly caused the glitches. No one seemed to suspect it could be a neighbour, but that fact put Robin all the more on edge. No good person would accuse a resident of wreaking havoc in the neighbourhood.
“Alright, if I could have your attention.” Michael announced from the stage in front. “As you know, Janet and I have located the sources of all the glitches in the neighbourhood. We tested many theories, and as much as it saddens me, we have come to only one possible conclusion…”
Robin glanced over at Nancy, noticing her quickened breath as she chewed anxiously on her nails. Robin deserved to be in the Good Place, no matter what the system said. She belonged here, she’d made a home here, and she wanted to be here.
But she couldn’t let Nancy suffer for it.
“Michael!” Robin stood up, feeling all the eyes in the square pull towards her. “I know the source, too.”
Nancy whispered below her. “Robin, what are you-”
“It’s me.” Robin said. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
Three days later
If Good-Place-Nancy told Earth-Nancy that one day she’d be having a dinner party with a small town radio DJ named Robin Buckley, a meteorologist also named Robin Buckley, and a literal demon from Hell, Earth-Nancy probably would have a lot of questions.
To tell the truth, Good-Place-Nancy also had a lot of questions, but so far they had gone unanswered. How did the system mix up the two Robins? Had it ever happened before? Was Eddie also a mix-up?
But instead, she nodded politely as Other Robin Buckley talked about her career. She understood why they were soulmates. An investigative journalist and a meteorologist, both in search of answers. While Nancy specialised in humans, Robin specialised in the weather.
“I also spent a few years down in Oklahoma, studying tornadoes.” Other Robin told her.
“You know, I was obsessed with the movie Twister when I was a kid.” Nancy laughed. “I’m sure it’s not as dramatised as the movie was.”
“Well, it has its moments.” Other Robin chuckled.
“You know, back in Indiana whenever we got a tornado warning I’d play the weather report on the radio.” Real Robin chimed in. “I guess I’m kind of a meteorologist myself.”
Other Robin gave an awkward laugh. “I’m gonna use the bathroom, I’ll be right back.” she neatly folded her napkin onto the table, pushing her chair in before she walked away.
“You could be a bit nicer to her.” Nancy muttered, playing with her food. “I know this is all hard, but she’s not the bad guy.” she glanced at Trevor the Demon, scoffing down food and not taking in a word.
Robin squinted at Nancy, the brief confusion on her face turning into what looked to be anger. She scoffed, getting up from her chair and walking straight out of the restaurant.
Nancy wasn’t having that.
“Robin!” she ran after her. “Hey, genius! This isn’t the way home!”
“I’m not going home.” Robin called back, striding ahead at a speed Nancy had never seen before. “I’m going to the station, catching a train to the Bad Place.”
“What?! Come on, don’t give up! Michael, Steve, and Eddie are doing everything they can to keep you here! I think we can do it.”
“I don’t care.” Robin replied.
“Why not?”
“Why do you think?” Robin turned around, staring down at Nancy as if Nancy had just killed an animal, or something. “Do you think this is fun for me? To watch you flirt with a woman who has the exact same name as me? A woman who is undeniably better than me and more importantly, better for you. You said you were scared I wasn’t your soulmate, that you were getting the answer wrong. Congratulations, Nancy, you were right. You’ve got your soulmate.”
“Robin, we could’ve avoided all of this if you hadn’t stood up in front of everyone and confessed!”
“I did it for you! You were miserable, Nancy. I was making you miserable, and don’t even try to argue that. You deserve to be happy, to live out eternity with all the answers. I don’t regret doing what I did, but I can’t be happy for you, okay?” Robin turned back towards the station.
“Please, don’t do this. Okay, fine, you can’t be happy for me, but you don’t have to be tortured for it! You should be here, where you belong.” Nancy argued.
“So I can watch you live out your afterlife with your soulmate? Go back to feeling like I don’t belong. I don’t want to be here if it means I’m spending eternity trying to get over you. For god’s sake, it’s been three days and I’m already in hell.”
“You’ll be in actual hell if you go through with this.” Nancy said, and Robin stopped in her tracks, turning back to Nancy and finally seeing sense.
“…I’m already in hell.” she repeated, beginning to pace back and forth. “Jesus…”
“Robin, you’re scaring me…”
She turned back to Nancy with a look of clarity. “My entire life I felt like I didn’t belong, and then I die, get to Heaven and I literally don’t belong.”
“We already went through this-”
“And you.” she pointed at Nancy. “You spent your life searching for the answers, for the undeniable truth. And then you die, get to Heaven, and you had to choose protecting me over finding out the truth, you had to lie, and you had to knowingly deprive yourself of the answers you wanted. This is as much your hell as it is mine, Nancy.”
“Yeah, the system forked us up, so what?”
“No, I really don’t think it did. In fact, I think the system worked perfectly. I confessed for you, I put myself through hell for you, and you did the exact same for me. We’re torturing each other, Nancy, and thats exactly what they wanted.” Robin said.
“Oh…”
“Yeah, oh. This isn’t the Good Place. This is the Bad Place.”
The next day
Waking up in the cluttered room of a forty year old mad woman wasn’t exactly Robin’s dream afterlife, but it was better than waking up in the Bad Place. It was perfectly medium.
It was Nancy who had gotten her here. Called Janet and asked for a location in between the Good Place and the Bad. Janet had informed them of Mindy St. Claire’s house, and off they went.
It was strange, how since she’d died, it felt like wherever she needed to be, Nancy had somehow gotten her there. Despite Nancy literally being her torturer, she hoped it could continue for a long time.
She found the girl in the question in the living room, sitting on the couch with the classic Nancy Wheeler stare into space as she got lost in her own mind.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Robin yawned, dropping down next to Nancy.
“They’ll know we’re missing by now, probably realise we figured it out.” Nancy mumbled. “I don’t think going back is an option.”
“But…”
“But what about everyone else in the neighbourhood? Eddie is definitely being tortured, Steve too, probably everyone else there.”
“In their own special way. It’s ingenious.” Robin had to give it to the demons, they were smarter than she’d imagined demons to be.
“We can’t just leave them.” Nancy said, before her mind wandered to something else. “What I don’t get is why they let you know you didn’t belong there. When I first arrived they showed me all the correct memories, and all the glitches were definitely related to the stuff you did. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does, actually.” Robin told her. “I was terrified of not belonging on Earth. I threw away any connection I could have with people in exchange for somewhere better. It makes sense that they’d tell me I didn’t belong, fuel that fear.”
“I get it. I pushed everyone away, too. Not for a ‘better place’, but just… because I was scared. Scared that I wouldn’t be good enough, or smart enough, or funny enough. I thought it would just be easier to be lonely instead of having people hurt me. I had no friends, I pushed my girlfriend away. And then my mom died, and despite my efforts the hurt became unavoidable. Except I did avoid it, and look where it got me. I died in some farmhouse outside New York. Lonely and scared. All to do something stupid and reckless for my job.”
“And then I kept you lonely and scared here.” Robin sighed. “Jesus, Nancy, I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t. I mean, I was scared of being found out but I was also so happy. Getting to go home to you everyday was a better feeling than any published article ever gave me. You did that, Robin. And in some fucked up way, we really were soulmates after all. The system did choose us for each other.”
“To torture us.”
“You didn’t torture me, Robin, not once.” Nancy smiled. “You made the torture worth it.”
Robin grinned. “Yeah, you too.” she clapped her hands on her thighs, getting up off the couch. “Okay, you ready?”
“Ready for what?”
“To do something stupid and reckless.” Robin said. “Janet? Call the train, take me back to the neighbourhood. I’ve got friends to rescue.” She looked down at Nancy, reaching out her hand. “You with me?”
Nancy took it. “Always.”
Two hours later
Robin returned to her primitive Icelandic house (how did she not figure this out on day one?) to find Michael already waiting. Despite the planning on the train, and her moment of bravery at Mindy St. Claire’s, seeing him in the flesh made her want to run. But Nancy stepped forward before she could do anything.
“We know everything.” Nancy said, her hand still squeezing Robin’s. “We know this is the Bad Place, and we know this isn’t the first time you’ve done this.”
Michael grunted, seeming uninterested.
“Mindy told us about all the reboots, she says we’ve already been there five times.” Nancy continued. “How many times are you going to keep doing this before you realise it never works?”
Michael laughed, an evil cackle Robin didn’t think he could produce. “You’ve been to Mindy’s five times, yes. But there’s been over a hundred reboots now.” Michael stood to his full height, approaching the two girls like a predator cornering his prey. “And you ask me that question almost every time. And then, I ask you ‘How many times are you going to give me this stupid love will win speech before you realise that I can just click my fingers and make you forget you ever said it?’” The demon groaned, slumping onto the couch. “Go on. Say your last words. It’ll be nothing I haven’t heard before.” he yawned.
“What do we do?” Robin turned to Nancy. She expected her to look scared, but instead she was calm. As if she had figured something out, hopefully something the previous hundred Nancy’s hadn’t thought of.
“Remember when I was freaking out about soulmates? Right before you confessed. And I said to you ‘If you’re not my soulmate, then I’m getting the answer wrong.’” Nancy took a step forward, so close she had to look up to meet Robin’s eyes. “You terrify me. I mean, we were thrown together for the sole purpose of torturing each other, so of course you do. But at the same time… you talk, and talk, and half the time I don’t understand what you’re saying. And usually, with most people, that would fill me with anxiety but when it’s you I feel calm. Like I don’t need to prove myself to you, I can just listen.”
Robin took Nancy’s other hand, it was becoming clearer and clearer that this wasn’t an escape plan, it was a goodbye.
“I know you think you don’t belong anywhere, and I don’t know how to change your mind.” Nancy continued. “But you need to know that I belong, whenever I’m around you, you make me belong. You’re honest, and you point out when someone’s being a dick, but you also don’t judge. You have this superpower of making everyone around you feel welcome. The only problem was, you never felt welcome.”
Robin sniffed, leaning her head against Nancy’s. “Until you.”
“I know the answer now.” Nancy said decisively. “It’s you. You are the answer, Robin. Don’t forget that. Please don’t forget that.”
Robin looked up from behind Nancy’s hair, Michael was now standing. “I think I might have to.” she said, pressing a kiss onto Nancy’s forehead and bracing for impact.
She wondered if it would hurt, maybe it would give her a headache, maybe she’d wake up feeling as if she’d lost something. Robin felt Nancy’s hand shake in her own, squeezing tight. She couldn’t wait to meet her again.
Snap.
Welcome! Everything is fine.