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Tahani stood at the furnace... oven... microwave... whatever the thing was called, preparing dinner. She was, of course, quite the culinary expert, but she had to admit she'd fallen out of practice a bit. Food happened through servants. Only the truly desperate cooked their own meals.
Still, now that she was dead, Tahani had been willing to take up the task of cooking for herself and her soulmate. For one thing because a woman could only stand a limited amount of sushi before she started craving anything else, and secondly because her soulmate appreciated it so.
Tahani would have to admit to having been a bit... ah... surprised to learn that her soulmate was a woman. Not that she had anything against queer people. No! Oh, no, no. No, not at all. She'd just... never really considered herself to be among their number, that's all. And anyway, the real surprise had not been that her soulmate was another woman, of course, but that that woman was... well... Eleanor Shellstrop.
Of course, a moment's thought had made it obvious that Eleanor must be her soulmate. After all, a soul as doubtlessly flawless as Tahani's simply had to be matched by one less magnificent. Two perfect souls attached together? Well, that just didn't work. It was just a mirror. Practically narcissism. No, true soulmates had to be very different so that they complimented one another. One adding what the other lacked. Completing each other.
Eleanor struggled with this from time to time, the poor thing. Shortly after their first meeting Eleanor had confessed to her that she didn't belong in the Good Place. That her life had left her obviously undeserving of a rewarding afterlife.
Well, Tahani had put that notion to bed right quick. Yes, obviously, Eleanor didn't 'deserve' to be in the Good Place, but Tahani indisputably did. And what would the Good Place be without her soulmate? Not Good. Quite a lot less than Good, even. Very nearly Bad. So obviously, Eleanor had to be here in the Good Place. For Tahani. There was nowhere else they should be.
More or less where they should be, in any case. Because... while of course Tahani really... appreciated... the tiny little hovel she shared with Eleanor (not to mention all of its... very modern... clown art), there had been times where she felt that perhaps she and Eleanor had been... accidentally housed in the wrong place. That instead of the hovel, a woman of Tahani's stature deserved to live in the grand, glittering mansion next door.
She'd been troubled by it, she had to admit. Especially in the dark depths of night when she had nothing but her own thoughts to distract her. Once or twice (or thrice or... well, alright, 52 times total) she'd considered marching up to Michael and demanding- that is, calmly explaining to him that she, and, by extension, Eleanor, actually deserved to live in the mansion.
But then Eleanor would snore hugely or fling her arm across her face and the impulse faded at once.
Because the hovel was perf- Well, it did still have all those clowns. The hovel was completely adequate. It had taken her some time, but Tahani had come to realize its small size was actually a blessing. If ever she wanted to be with Eleanor, she could be with Eleanor within seconds. They were never separated. She would never miss her. They could instantly be together whenever they wanted. Unless either one of them happened to be out, obviously.
The great mansion wouldn't have offered her that. It was too big. Too empty. She could wander its hallways for minutes, perhaps even hours at a time and never meet anyone. Except servants, and they obviously didn't count. If ever she felt the impulsive need to be with Eleanor, the mansion would not let her satisfy that impulse. Instead, it would force her to search endlessly, crying out for someone, anyone, to hear her. It had happened to her before, after all. Her parents had lost her so many times somewhere in the mansion she'd grown up in. Days, weeks, and on one occasion a month, had sometimes gone by where Tahani had not seen her parents or sister at all. Where she'd been utterly abandoned and hopelessly alone. Except for all the servants.
Of course, Kamilah had never got lost in the mansion. Not for more than a few minutes, anyway. Her parents had always rallied all of the servants to look for her and bring her back. Oh, they always claimed they went looking for Tahani as well whenever she was lost, but Tahani had stopped believing that after the twenty-third time.
Well. Whatever. She didn't need mansions. She didn't need servants. All she needed was Eleanor. And slightly less sushi restaurants. And maybe not so many clown paintings.
And Eleanor needed her. That was, perhaps, the greatest beauty of all. Besides Tahani herself, needless to say. Anyway, more importantly, Eleanor needed her her. Tahani Al-Jamil. Now, granted, at first, Tahani might have been just the tiniest little bit put out that Eleanor had never even heard of her and her many, many accomplishments when she'd been alive, but she'd come to think of this as a good thing. This way, Eleanor could love Tahani for Tahani. Not Tahani the Charity Worker. Not Tahani the Model. Not Tahani the Curator. Just Tahani.
To Eleanor Tahani could be Tahani and that was enough.
One added benefit of Eleanor's complete obliviousness to the superior classes was that she'd also never even heard of Kamilah. Tahani had been a bit worried about that. People had always measured her against her sister and she'd never measured up in their eyes.
But Eleanor's immediate response to those worries had been nothing but reassuring, as was to be expected of her soulmate. Well, actually, her immediate immediate response had been "Really? You're bringing this up now, when I'm so forking close?". But after all that had been satisfactorily concluded, her immediate response had been "Don't know your sister, don't care either. You're all I need, my gargantuan Aphrodite".
And speaking of Goddesses...
Tahani felt Eleanor's arms crawl around her waist and felt the warmth of her body against her back, dragging Tahani back into the here and now.
"What's cooking, my magnificent Eiffel Tower?"
"Dinner," Tahani replied playfully, remembering to stir one of the pots for the look of the thing. "How was your day, my darling?"
"Pretty OK," Eleanor replied. "Didn't really do much. Ran into Michael. He seemed pretty upset about something."
"Oh? About what?" Tahani asked.
"Pfft. I dunno. Something. I didn't pay much attention to him. Too busy thinking about you."
Tahani smiled.
"Speaking of which," Eleanor continued. "I got Janet to hook me up with some stuff I think you're gonna enjoy."
"Oh really? And what might that be?" Tahani asked.
"It's a surprise," Eleanor purred, causing promising shivers to run down Tahani's spine.
Some awkwardness happened behind Tahani. Eleanor up and down against her back and at one point she thought she heard her soulmate actually jump without ever letting go of her waist. Then Tahani felt Eleanor's lips press against the back of her dress, having evidently given up on trying to kiss her on the back of the neck.
Tahani felt herself melting into Eleanor's embrace. She was perfectly content to be held and kissed for the rest of-
"Is all that black smoke supposed to happen?" Eleanor asked.
"Yes!" Tahani shrieked. She wrenched desperately at the knobs of the probably stove, managing to twist the right ones the right way after only three attempts. "Means it's ready."
A few minutes and several opened windows later, Tahani and Eleanor sat down for dinner, Tahani proudly serving up her latest culinary sensation. It was accompanied by wine. Not very good wine, sad to say. A rather subpar vintage. But more than adequate to wash the food down.
Eleanor poked her dinner listlessly, the expression on her face suggesting she was absorbed in some unhappy thought. Tahani recognized that expression instantly. She'd seen it in the mirror often enough.
"Something the matter, my dearest?"
"No. Not really. I mean..." Eleanor began hopelessly. "Alright, so, this is gonna sound real pathetic. Or maybe sappy, I dunno."
"Try me," Tahani said.
"OK, I'm... you know... really grateful you're making dinner for me. For us, I mean. Nobody else ever even bothered. Unless I was paying them, you know. Or if I promised I would pay them."
"Really? Nobody? Not even your ser- parents?"
Eleanor snorted sarcastically. "Oh, yeah, sure. Just long enough so they wouldn't get in trouble with Child Protective Services. But once I knew how to work the microwave, that was it. I had to do it all alone. I think I was about five."
"Oh, darling, I'm so-"
"But on the upside, that did teach me how to steal from my parents without them noticing."
"To buy groceries," Tahani said.
"Yeah, sure," Eleanor said breezily. "Anyway, point is, dinner might not mean much to you, but it means a lot to me. I really appreciate coming home to a plate of blackened potatoes and... uh..."
"Peas," Tahani graciously supplied.
"Peas. I was just about to say that," Eleanor said. "So, yeah, thanks. For this. All this."
"It's the least I could do for my beloved soulmate," Tahani said.
Eleanor actually blushed. "OK, alright, enough of that. Let's just... Oh, hey, you wanna hear something funny?"
"Funny?" Tahani asked. Then, recognizing Eleanor was desperate the change the topic to anything else, added, "Of course. I'd be delighted."
"A while back, I thought this wasn't the Good Place. That it might actually be the Bad Place."
Tahani laughed. "Oh, my beauty, how could this possibly be the Bad Place?"
Eleanor shrugged. "I dunno. I just thought something was off about this whole thing. Couldn't exactly put my finger on it. Then I figured out it was you."
"What?"
"Nobody's ever loved me the way you do," Eleanor said. "No wonder I was freaked out."
This time it was Tahani's turn to blush. "Oh. Yes. Well. And I do. Love you, my darling."
"And I love you, my gorgeous... uhm..." There was a pause that went on slightly to long. "Mount... Kilimanjaro," Eleanor said.
There was a deeply awkward moment where neither Tahani or Eleanor managed to look at one another. They just smiled and blushed and glanced.
Tahani cleared her throat. "You were right, you know, in a sense."
"Of course I was," said Eleanor. "About what, exactly?"
"This isn't the Good Place. When we're together, this is the Perfect Place." Tahani raised her glass of deeply mediocre wine. "Don't you agree, my beloved?"
Eleanor enthusiastically returned the toast, spilling half a glass of wine all over the tablecloth.
"When you're right, you're right, babe," she agreed.