Chapter Text
Your name is Franklin Delano Donut and you’ve just been shot.
Haven’t you?
There are seconds missing from what must have been the end of your life. You remember Simmons angry, frightened, voice choked with tears. And before that, Lopez taking a bullet to the head. (But he’ll be alright, you tell yourself. He can be rebuilt. Sarge can rebuild anything. With more lights and features and an onboard music player!) And between those fragments of memory…
Well, you can put two and two together even if you can’t actually recall the moment itself. Isn’t that for the best? Who wants to dwell on the moment of his death? That’s so gross. It reminds you too much of your goth phase from when you were 14 and still thought the goth clique in school was as nonconformist and welcoming as they claimed.
Your armor is probably going to be an absolute mess to clean out, and you’ve always kept it so spotless. Will they bury you in something nice in a flattering cut and color? Will they follow the instructions in your will to play “Boogie Wonderland” at your funeral to cheer everyone up? Did you actually write up that will? You forgot to save the document, didn’t you? Damn.
Only now, while you think about how you turned off your computer without saving (or lost the nerve to actually save your own living will, because the idea is just so depressing) does it hit you that you are, in fact, dead. Otherwise you’d be in a lot more pain, wouldn’t you? And you’d be reassuring a panicked Simmons, not standing in a cornfield.
Why is Heaven a cornfield?
You feel like you should be more upset about this. You didn’t want to die. You’ve never wanted to die. Certainly not like that, in the most anticlimactic way possible. You had no time for a final speech, a tearful farewell to Simmons, a last request that Sarge and Grif use your tragic departing as impetus to try to get along better. (They’d bond over shared grief and overcome their differences, and then Red Team would resurrect you with the sheer power of love. You weren’t sure how that last bit would have worked out because you’re more about the ideas than the logistics.)
Or maybe you’d sacrifice yourself for someone you loved, go out in a blaze of beautiful glory. This? This just feels random. Bang bang, they shot you down, as the song goes, only you aren’t still alive for some roaring rampage of revenge against the man who ruined your wedding and stole your daughter.
(Briefly, you consider the possibility that you might still be alive, that you have not yet wandered into the light. But there is no shining light to wander into, which means wherever you are, it’s your final destination. Besides, if you are still alive you might have to deal with what’s happened to you and-)
Enough of that. Look, fat thunder clouds are gathering and obscuring the chromatic grey sun at the first thought of unpleasantness. Heaven clearly doesn’t like negativity, and neither do you. There’s no crying over spilled blood. No, milk. It’s spilled milk.
Great, now milk is gross to you. How are you going to keep up your bone strength and healthy complexion? Does Heaven have calcium supplements? Will Sarge remember to take his supplements so he doesn’t develop osteoporosis? Did Grif ever take your advice about olive oil hair treatments? Will Simmons take good care of your copy of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth?
No, stop. You are in Heaven, and Heaven is not lonely. You just need to find out where they hand out the adorable wings and halos and find one of those places where the fluffy clouds part and you can wave cutely at all the living people. That way they’ll know you’re alright.
(Of course you’re alright. You want to reassure them , not yourself.)
If you’re honest with yourself, which of course you are because you read a book once about self-deception being unhealthy and you have always, always taken that to heart, you’re really looking for an excuse to leave the part of Heaven that looks like a gray, colorless cornfield stretching out forever. This must be the soothing entrance area for people who, unlike you, are upset about their sudden and unearned deaths. You can see how, to someone else, the rustic rural scenery might have a calming effect, though personally you’d go for a different approach entirely. Calming colors like powder blue and mauve, lavender scented candles, dimmer lighting and maybe some wind chimes or ambient music. In fact, that’ll be your first suggestion to God when you meet with Her. All this silence is so off-putting and empty-feeling. It can’t be that hard to find some rain sounds or gentle meditation music in Heaven. Doesn’t Heaven have spas?
If this is Heaven, that means God exists after all. You were never entirely sure, which you suspect God is alright with. But in order to combat patriarchal norms you’re going to refer to God as a She.
It is by coincidence that this particular section reminds you of Iowa, very unfortunate coincidence. You don’t want to think about Iowa, so you won’t. Instead you stand up, still wearing your lightish-red armor because it feels comfortable, and start marching forwards. If you weren’t meant to go in that direction you wouldn’t have woken up facing it. Everything happens for a reason, except this stop.
The corn stalks bend as if under a powerful gust of wind, but you don’t feel it. That’s weird. Is it going to be like that forever? Spas are going to be pretty underwhelming if you can’t feel the massages.
In fact, that’s what’s missing. You can see, better than you have since the grenade, but there are no sounds or sensations. Yet you feel yourself breathing. Isn’t it odd how you’re always breathing but never notice or think about it until it’s brought to your attention? And here you are, fully aware of your own breath when in fact you probably aren’t breathing at all.
Heaven is weird and you’re not sure you like it yet. The ghastly lack of color at least matches how Sarge described his near-death experience. Sarge also told you, on one of those late nights when he felt like telling the same four or five stories over and over to alleviate the boredom of Red Base, that he’d encountered an angel who looked and sounded suspiciously like Church. There’s no Church here. Which, in a way, is a relief. You don’t know Church very well. What would you two talk about? You pride yourself in your ability to get on the good side of just about anyone, but if Heaven is full of angels who are like Church you’re going to have to listen to an awful lot of complaining and shouting.
Just like old times!
But what if all the angel Churches know that you’re Red Team and want to start up old feuds? Church was, at least at one point, the leader of the Blues. You think. No one could quite keep straight what went on with them except that Church and Tucker always seemed to be going through some kind of extended break-up with each other, and the one lady who almost killed you the first time was pretty scary. And well, it isn’t that you lack Red Team pride at all. Not in the least! You wear your very, very obviously red armor that currently looks greyish without reservations. But an entire army of Blue angels versus you? That would just be unfair!
You realize as your thoughts wander that you’ve been marching through this cornfield for quite some time and the landscape hasn’t exactly changed much. You passed a rickety old wooden house once and made a point not to look at it. Up on the horizon you think you see a blot that, after another five minutes of wandering, reveals itself to be the same house.
“...Okay,” you finally say and then stop short, as the sound of your own voice is the first noise you’ve heard in Heaven. It echoes. “Oh, hey, nice! Echo! Marco! Polo!...ahem. Hey, God?” You tilt your head upwards, cupping your hands around your mouth despite wearing a helmet with a speaker.
There is no answer.
“Um, are you there? I know you’re probably busy. Should I be calling you Goddess? Anyway, I know you have mysterious ways and all but this puzzle is really starting to throw me off! Is there some secret exit from this level?”
All you get in return is a puff of wind and another house-shaped blot on the horizon. Somehow, despite the fact that you’re passing that old farmhouse, the blot up ahead looks like the exact same building.
If Heaven is trying to steer you into that thing, they haven’t figured out how stubborn you are. You’ll stick with the field, thanks.
“Okay, uh, this is nice! Surrealism. Never really my thing, although I like that one painting with the melting clocks and all. But, um, if I’m being honest here? This isn’t exactly what I expected out of Heaven. Where are the fluffy clouds and harps? Do you want me to wear a toga? Because if so, I certainly wouldn’t mind. I mean, I’d look pretty great in one.”
Nothing. The door to the old house swings open and closed.
“Actually,” you add, your voice losing its volume as unease creeps into it, “not gonna lie here? This is pretty eerie. I mean, the lack of color is really off-putting. It kind of reminds me of-” You stop. “Wait. Wait, I get it now. It’s the Wizard of Oz, right? I mean, that started in Kansas, not in Iowa, but I guess for all I know this might be Kansas! So you’re just waiting to bring me to Heaven and show off all that bright Technicolor and let me wear some stunning emerald green. That’s adorable, God! I didn’t know you were a fan of that movie.”
The stalks are bending over harder and faster now. The sun is rapidly being obscured by colorless, dark clouds. And you remember just how The Wizard of Oz did, in fact, start.
“...Uh, hey.” You force the unease out of your voice, because you don’t want to hurt God’s feelings. “I like the Wizard of Oz as much as the next guy, but what about if we skip the part with the twister? I was never really fond of those.”
hide in the bathtub, hold your hands over your head, just remember you’ll get out of here someday and space colonies don’t have tornadoes
“Really,” you add as the sky dims, “it’s totally fine if we just jump ahead to me crashing in Oz and a bunch of adorable Munchkins singing about how I murdered some lady’s sister and got gorgeous shoes out of it. I won’t even question why the afterlife is actually just an old MGM movie. And maybe you’re doing this for me, like your entrance to Heaven comes through something you liked as a kid! Like Sarge’s was going to be some big war movie, and Grif was going to get Ninja Turtles!” The more you think about it, the more charming the idea is. You’re not so warm on the execution. “I really appreciate it, but uh…”
The stalks bend almost vertically in the wind that is blowing around you, the wind you can’t feel. But you can hear, and what you hear is the first sound that isn’t your own voice. There’s a roar, not a lion’s roar but something deep and ancient all around you. It mingles with the slight whirring and humming of armor, a hissing and growling, and a click. The click of a reloading pistol. And there’s shouting in that maelstrom too. You know that voice, don’t you?
How could you do that? What’s wrong with you!?
“Don’t make me look,” you beg the void, and yet you turn and look anyway. Just for a moment, because you can never really avoid looking, can you?
It’s a wall, a cylindrical wall of darkness and debris, wind so powerful it seems to warp the air around it and twist the landscape into rippling shapes. But you know what that is. That’s not the part that’s hard to look at, is it? No, there’s glints of gunmetal and yellow highlights and the chromatic shine of a visor you can see yourself in before he-
You are very briefly aware of darkness punctuated by flickering emergency lights, the red bleeding and shimmering in your view. It’s kind of beautiful, but you’re in no condition to appreciate it. You remember pain as you know for a fraction of a second what a gunshot wound to the stomach feels like.
Then you forget again.