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The problem – well, one of the problems – with having powerful cosmic enemies who, for the moment, are too frightened to act against you is that looking over your shoulder wondering when they'll realize their mistake can distract you from other, more immediate dangers. Especially dangers from the people whose side you're on, but who haven't got the memo about that yet.
Which is perhaps why it takes Aziraphale a little too long to figure out where Crowley's gone, and consequently why by the time he finally comes bursting into the demon hunters' basement, the candles are lit and the chanting in Latin is reaching its crescendo and Crowley's voice, which a moment ago was no doubt trying to coolly talk or tempt the humans out of their actions, has devolved into a sort of frantic, frustrated hissing. "I'm telling you, you're making a missstake!"
They're not listening, though, the humans. Of all the times for humans not to listen to Crowley! The ungrateful things.
The candles flare, and there's no time, no time at all, so Aziraphale does the only thing he can think of to do. He lets out a cry – he'd like to think of it as an awe-inspiring angelic battle cry, although it's really more of a desperate "aaaarghhh!" – as he barrels through the small group of chanting humans and hurls himself bodily into the flickering occult circle and on into Crowley.
His foot scuffs against the chalk on the floor – enough? oh, let it be enough! – as Crowley goes down in a frenzy of flailing knees and elbows and lands...
Oh, thank... Thank something. He lands outside the circle.
As he goes sprawling face-first onto the floor, Aziraphale tries to think of something clever and casual to say. Something like, there you are, my dear, don't thank me, now we're finally even for that time in Paris![1] But something unpleasant is happening suddenly, something sucking and sulfurous, and Crowley is shouting at him. "Oh, no! No, no, no! Oh, you stupid, stupid angel!" in a strange, broken voice like none Aziraphale has heard from him in the last six thousand years.
"Sorry," he manages to say, and then the ritual does what it was meant to do (albeit with a different target) and sends him back to Hell.
It feels different from the last time he passed through a portal. Stranger. Slower. Not that he's complaining about that, as it gives him time to clutch at his molecules and prevent himself from discorporating again. But it is very odd.
It takes so long that he has time to wonder if something's gone wrong with it, if his disruption of the circle altered the ritual somehow, and whether that is likely to be a good thing or a bad one. He has time, also, to hope that Crowley isn't being too hard on the humans. Crowley isn't normally a violent sort of demon, but he did seem quite awfully upset... Not that Aziraphale himself isn't extremely cross with them, but presumably they thought they were doing right, and that is something he can understand, perhaps a little too well.
Abruptly the vortex of swirling infernal nothingness stops, and Aziraphale is in...
He blinks. Is this Hell? He only saw a very small part of it before, admittedly, but it didn't look quite like this. It's a great deal cleaner than he remembers, and slightly better lit, although the soulless corporate aesthetic of this particular empty corridor seems about right.
It feels like Hell, more or less. The itchy, uncomfortable sense of loveless emptiness is much the same. And... Aziraphale closes his eyes and lets his other senses free.
Yes. Metaphysically speaking, it smells like demons. There's no mistaking it; it's a sensation he's quite intimately familiar with. Heaven likes to describe it as the stench of evil, but he's always thought it more reminiscent of distant woodsmoke, with, perhaps, a faint hint of something not unpleasantly peppery.[2]
It's getting stronger, too. That's probably not good. He should probably find somewhere to go and hide, before...
Oh dear.
Aziraphale opens his eyes. A demon looks back at him. His head is tilted slightly, his expression puzzled and annoyed. He, too, is cleaner than Aziraphale would have expected. No boils, no filth, no vermin. The suit he's wearing is completely lacking in character, but it is neatly pressed.
"Er, hello," says Aziraphale. Perhaps he can salvage this, without having to test the limits of his and Crowley's deception. Perhaps the demon won't recognize him. Perhaps – he almost blushes at the thought – perhaps he smells just a little of demon himself, these days[3], just enough to mask his true nature, and...
"What," says the demon, "is a Good Place fartknuckle doing in my office building? Don't you have a committee to form, or some of your own boogers to eat or something?"
Well, all right, he thinks, ignoring the more confusing parts of this conversational opening. Perhaps not, then.
"Ah, yes," he says. "I, er..." Why would an unfallen angel descend into Hell? To his knowledge, it has only happened once. That was several months ago, admittedly, but then Heaven and Hell have never had a particularly keen sense of the passage of time, not like those who live by human clocks on Earth. He seizes on the thought. "I, ah, came with Michael." He smiles. He hopes it looks more convincing than it feels. "But we appear to have got separated. If you could, perhaps, just point me to the exit?"
The demon snorts. "Michael? That colossal dweeb? Well, it figures. You've both got equally stupid faces."
Aziraphale blinks. "Oh, I say..." he begins, before he can stop himself. He has no desire to be compared to the archangel Michael in any capacity. Although, really, of all the negative things he could think of to say about her, he's never thought there was anything particularly wrong with her face.
The demon cuts him off. "Michael's in the Medium Place now, you dingus. How do you not know that? You gotta take the train."
"The train. I see." Aziraphale looks at the demon hopefully. Or perhaps just helplessly. "I don't suppose you could show me where to... to catch the train?" Not that he wants to be where Michael is, but surely anywhere is preferable to Hell. Could "the Medium Place" be some new demon slang for Earth? Might he be that lucky? Not that Michael being on Earth sounds like a particularly lucky thing, but, well, one terrifying situation at a time.
The demon rolls his eyes. "Oh, fine. If it gets your disgusting Good Place stink out of my hallway."
And that is how Aziraphale finds himself, a short while later, the sole passenger on a train being run by a confusing creature in leather trousers who keeps calling him "dink" and popping her gum at him.
He is, he decides, going to have a great many questions for Crowley when he gets home.
**
For one happy, hopeful moment, he thinks he's actually made it back. The place the train has deposited him certainly doesn't feel like Hell. Or like Heaven, for that matter, which, honestly, would probably have been worse. It feels blissfully neutral. Like Earth. The sky is a beautiful blue. Like Earth's.[4] There are streets and shops and people. It feels like home.
Except it doesn't, quite. On second glance, the sky is a little too blue, the streets and shops artificial in a way that somehow feels different from the familiar artificiality of human creations, and the people...
The people appear to have no souls. He is quite sure of that. He is made to sense this sort of thing.
Where in the world – where out of the world – is he?
It's all terribly confusing, and worrying, and stressful. So Aziraphale does what he often does when he finds himself in need of familiarity and comfort. He wanders into a place that looks like it serves food.
The first thing he notices is that, to his disappointment and further confusion, the only thing that appears to be for sale here is frozen yogurt. Although some of the choices on the menu do look... interesting.
The second thing is that one of the soulless not-people is standing behind the counter smiling at him an an overly friendly fashion. "Hello!" it says. "Just let me know when you want to order!"
He mutters something vaguely affirmative, but he's not entirely sure what, as he is distracted by the third thing he notices, which is that there is a human sitting at the counter. An actual human, with an actual human soul. She is tall and poised, and her flowered dress is made of some particularly fine fabric. Or what would have been considered particularly fine fabric the last time Aziraphale went shopping for clothes, at least. It's always possible that human tastes in such things have changed while he wasn't paying attention.[5]
She is also quite dead.
Aziraphale has had very limited experience with dead humans. Even if he'd spent much time in Heaven since the creation of humanity, which he hasn't, the dead humans are kept in an entirely different section from the one where he reported in person on the occasions when he couldn't think of a way to get out of it. He has no idea how one is supposed to speak to a dead human.
Well. Presumably the same way in which one speaks to a live one? The woman is turning to look at him now, so he attempts a cheery, "Hello, there!" Which possibly comes out a touch more manic than cheery, but with the sort of day he's had, he's certain no one could fault him for it.
'Hello," the woman says in return, pleasantly enough, but as she turns in her chair to face him, her eyes flick up and down his body, and her smile grows slightly stiff. "Oh, my. What an... interesting fashion choice."
Had he been asked, Aziraphale would have said that recent events have left him so confused that he now has absolutely no idea what to expect of anything or anyone. Clearly he would have been wrong, as it is now obvious that he expected, well, not this.
"I'm sorry?" he manages, as his fingers unconsciously smooth out his waistcoat and tug at his bow tie.
"You must be one of Derek's. He certainly seems to have a... a fun sense of style." The way she utters those last few words, it sounds like she means the exact opposite. Which is, nevertheless, the least confounding thing about this statement.
"I'm sorry," he says again. "Who is Derek?"
"Didn't Derek make you?" she says, leaving Aziraphale for one brief, bizarre moment wondering whether "Derek" is some unexpected new addition to the many names of God. She brushes a lock of hair back from her shoulder, and it settles back again exactly where it was, perfectly in place. "Sorry. Well, I suppose it's still not too surprising, really." She leans in a little, her voice growing mildly conspiratorial. "I mean, you have seen the sort of thing Janet wears."
Being an angel, Aziraphale is not normally subject to headaches, with the exception of the occasional hangover, miracled away as quickly as it's noticed. But he believes he's starting to understand what the phenomenon must be like. "I'm afraid I haven't," he says.
Now the human is beginning to look confused, too. Good. That seems entirely fair.
"Do they serve anything in here besides frozen yogurt?" he asks, sitting down at the counter next to her. At least with the subject of food, you know where you are. Metaphorically, if not necessarily literally.
The person-who's-not-a-person suddenly appears in front of him, smiling broadly. "Nope!" it says. "Just the FroYo. Have you decided what you want yet?"
Aziraphale peruses the menu. "What does 'the relief of being able to quit a job you hate' taste like?" he asks.
"Absolutely delish!"
That gets the first real smile out of him since he came here. Or to Hell. Or wherever he actually is. "I'll have that, then. Thank you."
"Wait, wait," the woman next to him says. "Are you not one of Derek and Janet's people?"
"I'm not one of anyone's people," he says, shaking off the unwelcome, lingering sense that there's something blasphemous about saying so. "I have no idea who Derek and Janet are. Are all humans this cryptic after they die?"
The woman's forehead wrinkles slightly, for a fraction of a moment.[6] Then, "Janet!" she calls out into nothingness.
There's a rather pleasant bing! sound, and someone is suddenly standing next to them. She looks quite a lot like the driver of Aziraphale's train, while somehow also giving the impression of having nothing in common with her whatsoever. "Hi there!" she says.
"Janet," says the woman. "Is this... person... one of yours? Or Derek's? Because if so, well, not to criticize, darling, but--" Her voice drops to a stage whisper, which he can still hear with perfect clarity. "--I think he may be malfunctioning."
"Nope!' says Janet, in a bright, helpful tone. "He's not one of ours! He's a former representative of an alternate version of the Good Place who ended up in our reality by accident."
"Wait," they both say at once. And then, "What?" they both say at once.
But Janet doesn't answer. Her hand has come up to cover her mouth, and her face has taken on a slight greenish tinge. "Oh, boy," she says. "There's another one coming up. Gotta go, bye!" And with another, equally pleasant bing!, she's gone.
"I don't understand anything whatsoever," Aziraphale says miserably.
"Here's your FroYo, sir!" says the not-a-person, setting a dish down in front of him.
"Oh. Thank you." Lacking anything more sensible to do, he picks up the spoon and takes a bite. It does, in fact, taste just a bit of the feeling of knowing he's never going to have to report to Gabriel again, which is rather lovely. Unfortunately, it also tastes of frozen yogurt. Aziraphale has never understood the appeal of the stuff. He adores ice cream, and finds a high-quality gelato utterly divine. No, better than divine. It's the sort of pleasure one can only find on Earth. But what good does this sort of pale imitation do anyone?
"I'm not sure I do, either," says the woman, and Aziraphale realizes he still hasn't learned her name.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I should have introduced myself. "I am..." He debates for a moment what name to use, but this women is dead already, after all. She ought to know about angels. "The Principality Aziraphale," he says, and waits to see if the name means anything to her.
It doesn't seem to. "Oh!" she says. "How unforgivably rude of me." She holds out her hand. "Tahani Al-Jamil." He shakes her hand politely, and she, too, seems to be waiting to see if he recognizes the name. He can't quite tell whether she's disappointed or relieved at his lack of a reaction.
Aziraphale takes another bite of his yogurt, which is growing more disappointing by the spoonful. He thinks longingly of Crowley and the Ritz, and the utterly scrumptious little gateaux they had there last week.
Oh, he does hope Crowley is all right, and not worrying too much. Or perhaps that he's worrying just enough to figure out what's happened and how to fix it.
"So," Tahani says, as if she's thinking through something slowly. "You're from the Good Place?"
"If by that, you mean Heaven, then yes." He takes another taste of yogurt. "Well, that is, no. Not any more."
"I see," she says, although it's clear that she doesn't. "Are you here to check up on us? Make sure the experiment is being set up properly? Because, I assure you, we are doing our absolute, level best. Admittedly, some of the décor is not what I would have chosen, but Michael says--"
"Michael!" he exclaims, cutting her off. "Oh, yes, they did say... Is Michael here?" He finds himself fiddling nervously with his spoon, and can't quite seem to make himself stop.
"Well, yes, of course. I mean, not here here. Not in... whichever yogurt shop this is. One does rather lose track of them, there being..." She looks slightly pained. "...so very many. But here somewhere. I mean, he is in charge."
Aziraphale, having spent the last six thousand years living among a species that devotes a truly staggering amount of its time and attention to obsessing over the concepts of sex and gender, picks up on the unexpected pronoun. Michael's corporation has been noticeably female for some time now, and he can't quite imagine a reason for her to bother changing it. "He?"
"Yes, 'he.' Michael. You know Michael? White hair, glasses, shares your taste in ties? Sort of... demony? But in a nice way."
"I don't believe we're thinking of the same Michael," he says, faintly. Demony? In a nice way? For a second, he wonders if perhaps Crowley has somehow followed him, in disguise. But Crowley would hardly be caught dead in a bow tie, never mind dying his beautiful hair. He's done everything conceivable to it in the last six thousand years, but absolutely never that.
"I'll be honest," Tahani says, "I have no idea what we're talking about at all."
But, playing this conversation back in his mind, Aziraphale is starting to have Thoughts.[7] "An alternate version, she said. She said I'd ended up in 'our reality.' That is to say, in your reality. Are there... are there different realities, then?" It seems absurd. God created one universe, didn't She? One Heaven, one Hell? How could there be more than that? Why would there be more than that?
Of course, with ineffability, who ever knows? No one. That is the point of ineffability, after all. And humans, clever little things that they are, have begun pondering such questions, haven't they? He seems to remember the subject coming up in that dreadful scientifiction[8] film Crowley once forced him to watch.
"Like... parallel universes?" Tahani says, and, ah, yes, that's the phrase they used in the film, too. "I wouldn't have thought so, but then, I wouldn't have thought all this existed, either, so." She waves a hand gracefully through the air to indicate the yogurt shop and everything beyond it, and lets out a little, self-conscious laugh.
"It might explain a great deal," says Aziraphale slowly. Like how long and strange his journey through the portal was. Like everything about this place being so incomprehensible and just slightly wrong. Perhaps whatever happened to that occult circle under the influence of his foot, it made more of a difference than he'd thought.
"Would it?" she says, sounding unconvinced. "Oh, good."
"Yes. Well, possibly. You see, I had a little bit of an accident. Minor mishap, really, could have happened to anyone. I ended up being, well, being sucked into Hell. But it seems it may have been the wrong Hell."
"Gosh," says Tahani. "There's more than one Hell?"
"So it would seem? It would have been nice to be informed about such things, but God does seem to have Her own concepts of what constitutes a need-to-know basis." At least, Aziraphale very much hopes that is the case. The alternatives don't bear a great deal of thinking about.
"I'd only just barely got used to the idea of there being one," Tahani says. "Bit of a shock, I don't mind telling you."
"I'm sorry," says Aziraphale. "I suppose warning you all about such things, consequences of bad behavior and all, was meant to be part of my job. I never was very good at it." Although if this is an alternate cosmos, with an alternate Heaven and Hell and Earth, he supposes it must have been someone else's job, here. Perhaps an alternate Aziraphale? My, what a thought.
"Oh, well," she says, with a sort of artificial lightness, "it's not as if being warned helps, does it?"
Unable to think of any answer to that at all, he takes another spoonful of his yogurt. It hasn't improved any since the last bite. Briefly, he considers miracling it into something more pleasant, but perhaps that would be rude?
He becomes aware that Tahani is watching him eat. "Are you not having any?" he asks, gesturing with his spoon towards his dish. Perhaps he could offer her the rest of it.
"Oh," she says, looking surprised. "Thank you, but no." She waves a hand as if to brush the very thought away from her. "I mean, frozen yogurt? It's a bit..." She scrunches her face up in a way that indicates with surprising clarity just how far beneath her the poor dessert is.[9]
"Yes, it is, a bit," he says, and sets his spoon down with a sigh. It tastes a great deal like Heaven's idea of what Earth food might be like.[10]
"I didn't come in here to eat, in any case," she says. "I just thought I'd pop into all the shops before the experiment starts. Give everything a thorough inspection. Preparedness is an essential part of event planning, after all. It's certainly better than sitting around doing nothing, isn't it?" She delivers this last sentence with the ostentatiously carefree laugh of someone desperately trying to hide that waiting is about to drive them mad.
"You mentioned that before, this experiment. What experiment is that, exactly?"
"You really don't know?"
He shakes his head. "I really don't."
"It's an idea Michael had. To demonstrate that humans can... well, can help each other to become better people. Even after we die. If everything goes well, it could lead to throwing out the entire points system, so it is just a little bit of a big deal." As she says the last part, her face scrunches up and her head oscillates from side to side in a way Aziraphale believes is meant to indicate modesty. Or possibly a seizure, but in someone who is already dead, that seems unlikely.
He blinks. "Points system? What points system?"
"You know, the points system. Where every act on Earth is accorded a certain number of points based on how good or bad it is? Plus so many points for throwing a successful charity gala[11], minus so many for, oh, spitting on a commoner[12]?" At his blank look, she adds, "Do you not use a points system in... wherever it is you're from?"
"No," he says. "At least, I think not. I'm fairly sure I would have been informed."
"Lucky humans where you live, then! As it turns out, the whole thing is just ridiculously unfair. Do you know that no one has got into the Good Place for the last five hundred years? There's simply no way to earn enough points. I certainly didn't qualify, and, yes, all right, I had my faults, I can admit that now. But, really, whatever my motivations, I do like to think I at least did slightly more good than harm in a lifetime of charitable fundraising."
Aziraphale can only stare at her, appalled, trying to imagine this. He thinks of all the humans he's known over the last five hundred years, all the innocence, all the small kindnesses. Of all the times when offering someone a small nudge down the right path and seeing them accept it made him feel as if, perhaps, he were not such a failure as an angel after all.
All those people, condemned to the pits of Hell, regardless? Armageddon would be kinder. At least the souls of the dead would have some sort of a chance.
"Goodness," he says faintly.
Tahani leans towards him a little. "You know, if this works out, perhaps you could offer some advice? To the Judge or the accountants, or whoever is in charge of changing things. You could let them know how you do it where you're from."
"I'm afraid I don't actually know how we do it where I'm from. I suppose there must be some kind of system." It can't work the same as it does here, he tells the pit of worry that's threatening to form around the blob of yogurt in his corporeal form's stomach. It can't, or Hell wouldn't be nearly so eager to seduce human souls onto its side. "Or perhaps it's simply..." He tries to think of another word and can't. "...ineffable."
"Oh, I see," says Tahani, looking very much like she's trying not to look disappointed. "Well, never mind. I'm sure we'll work something out. Still. Wish I'd been born in your universe, eh? It is a little disillusioning to find out that all of reality is ruled by unfeeling bureaucracies."
"Er," he says. "Yes." And then, after a moment passes in awkward silence, he adds, "It's not actually much better where I'm from, I'm afraid." He picks up his spoon again and stabs at the yogurt as if it's done something unpleasant to him.
"Oh. How disappointing."
"Yes. It is, rather." He gives up on the yogurt and looks back up at her. She looks like she's trying not to look disconcerted, now, and he thinks he can see, just for a moment, something touchingly vulnerable behind it. His heart melts a little. Not unlike his yogurt. "I think it's very brave of you," he says, quietly. "Challenging things like this. It isn't easy, standing up to the moral forces of the universe and telling them that they're wrong. Even when they truly are."
"Gosh," she says. "Really?" And there it is again, that flash of vulnerability, of something very human peeking out from underneath a carefully maintained facade. He can understand that, he thinks. He may be feeling something similar himself, inhuman as he is. "Well. Thank you. That's very nice to hear."
"Don't let anyone stop you," he says. "Not even yourself. All right?"
She gives him a very nice smile. "I shall certainly do my best."
"Tell me. This Michael of yours. Is he actually a demon?"
"Oh, yes. Or he was. I suppose he's not really one of them any more. He's on our side now. He's quite lovely, really."
Aziraphale smiles back at her, a soft, angelic smile. He can see the radiance of it reflected in her face. "I'm glad," he says. "It's an excellent thing, to have a lovely demon on your side."
He thinks again of Crowley and home, and the sense of longing that washes over him feels almost holy. He finds himself reaching out, into nothingness, some ethereal, inhuman part of him searching wistfully for home. Home, where he is certain he is needed still. Home, where nothing is truly over yet.
Then, between one blink of his human eyes and another, something occult reaches back.
"Oh," he breathes. "Oh, there you are."
"I'm sorry?" says Tahani, her sculpted eyebrows drawing together in puzzlement.
On the floor of the frozen yogurt shop, a faint circle is beginning to form.
"I believe that is my ride home," he says. "Courtesy of one very lovely demon, indeed."
"Oh, well." She looks confused, but brave. Which is all one can really ask. "Jolly good. Very nice to have met you!"
He stands and puts a hand on her arm. "And you, too. Very much so. I wish you all the best of luck."
"Thank you," she says, as the circle blazes into light.
He squeezes her arm and lets a little bit of warmth and blessing flow from his incorporeal essence into hers. "You are very welcome, my dear."
She looks at him but says nothing, her lips parted in an expression of pleasantly confused awe.
"Just be there for each other," he says, releasing her. "That's the true secret to saving the world. Trust me. I know."
He steps forward into the portal, and, on the other side, Crowley catches him.
1 Which is being a bit modest, really. Had Aziraphale been discorporated in Paris, the consequences would have involved a great deal of paperwork, several Condescending Looks from Gabriel, and a number of missed meals, all of which, admittedly, would have been quite distressing for him. On the other hand, a trip to Hell right now, for either of them, is likely to have much more dire consequences. A fact which, arguably, Aziraphale should have thought about either considerably more or considerably less before attempting this particular rescue. [return to text]
2 Of course, Aziraphale's association of demons with food spices may be the result of sheer conditioning. He has encountered the two together often enough, after all. [return to text]
3 Out of consideration for Aziraphale's desire not to blush, we will refrain from describing the reasoning behind this using any variation of the phrase "rubbing off on him." But you are welcome to think it, if you like. [return to text]
4 Although not so much the part of Earth Aziraphale currently resides in, that being a notoriously gray and rainy corner of Creation. [return to text]
5 They have, but in directions that only make Tahani's clothing even more impressive to those who consider themselves the arbiters of such things. [return to text]
6 Wrinkles absolutely not being permitted on any part of Tahani's face for longer than that, lest they feel welcome and contemplate settling in. Tahani's attitude towards dermatological imperfection of any kind is remarkably similar to Crowley's attitude towards spots on his houseplants. Some things are simply not to be tolerated. [return to text]
7 He is quite convinced they deserve the capital T, to distinguish them from ordinary thoughts about things like cake. Although the importance of cake must surely not be underestimated. [return to text]
8 [sic] [return to text]
9 It might be pointed out that, although she doesn't remember it, Tahani's original opinion of Michael's neighborhood FroYo was much less judgmental. It might also be pointed out that, at the time, she'd been told that FroYo is what they serve in heaven. It's amazing how much human perceptions can be influenced by mere reputation. Especially Tahani's. [return to text]
10 But the fact that it had, in fact, been carefully selected for the original version of this neighborhood by a representative of Hell might not have surprised him, anyway. [return to text]
11 +438 points, with additional bonuses depending on the amount of money raised and the nature of the charity. Minus, of course, various points for the environmental impact of the fuel involved to transport everyone to the event, the level of celebrity douchiness on display, the working conditions of the caterers, etc., etc. [return to text]
12 -147 points. Less if the commoner is French. [return to text]