Archive of Our Own ^beta

Holding my breath, I stared at the elevator floor indicator. This was it - the sum of my life and the five days I’d had to fix relationships I hadn’t resolved while alive. I really didn’t want to know what the Below was like.

A noise dinged, and I looked down. A “B” was lit up in glaring red.

“Oh no. Oh no no no,” I felt like I was going to puke. “Val, please! Can’t you do something?”

Val looked at me, wincing. “I’m sorry, dear. Their decision is final.”

Because I hadn’t put a puzzle piece in in time? I felt tears pricking at my eyes as the doors opened and Val put a hand on my back, nudging me in. How was this fair? She was going to get a promotion, and I was going to something that sounded like Hell?

The inside of the elevator was white in the same stark way as the floors and walls of a hospital ravaged by a plague. I looked at the people around me, sitting in chairs, and sat down in mine as the elevator started to descend.

“So, what are you here for?” An old lady was the first to speak up, in a raspy voice.

Clenching my fists, I forced out “I was a rude party girl and I didn’t manage to figure out my relationship with my parents.”

“Oh, the whole “honor thy father and mother” thing,” A goth woman who looked a decade or so older than me laughed. “I killed mine. That’s why I’m here.”

“Killed?” Jesus. Well, maybe Jesus didn’t actually exist, seeing as the afterlife I’d found myself in was nothing like the Heaven and Hell of the Bible. But honestly! I’d hated Sofia for her neglect of me, but I’d never thought about killing her.

The goth woman shrugged and folded her arms. “Sometimes a rapist and his apologist wife get consequences.”

I felt acid building up in my throat. So many people in this elevator were probably ones who had been hurt and had hurt others back. Was that just what this was, the casualties of an endless cycle of violence? And was the fact that I hadn’t succeeded in completing my list going to reset all the progress, like Val had said would happen if I gave up? All of my work, all of everyone’s work to fix their “waiting room” situation, all for nothing?

“But surely we won’t end up in the same level as a murderer?” A blonde girl spoke up, her voice shaky. “Because of the whole tiers thing that the angels mentioned. Hi, I’m Amber, I was the bitchy popular girl at my high school.”

“Oh, right! So this is going to be like Dante’s Inferno! Who among us committed suicide to get where we are?” The goth woman said, scowling.

“Well, when you’re dying of a terminal disease and miserable, it seems like the best option,” the old woman answered.

“Shit. I’m sorry.” the goth said.

That darkened the mood in the elevator, and everyone became quiet. I tried to think of something to think about that wasn’t our horrible predicament. I started singing to myself. “Something tells me I should not let go, something tells me I don’t know…”

As I got to the chorus, I felt an energy materializing next to me, but I kept my eyes closed tight. I didn’t want to see everything horrible that was going to go on when I landed in the Below.

“Girl you make me blush, alright, it’s almost too much sometimes…” I thought I heard Lisa’s voice next to me, but there was no way that was happening. She couldn’t be dead.

“The way your body just comes alive, every time I turn out the lights…”

My singing was interrupted by an annoyed throat-clearing sound from Amber. “Lesbos.”

“Would it kill you to be polite?” the old woman asked.

“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” Amber retorted.

I reluctantly opened my eyes. “Wait, who are you calling a lesbo?”

“Hi, Cassie.” There Lisa stood, still sparkling with the little lights that had surrounded me when I’d become visible to her.

“Lisa? What are you doing here?” I felt the elevator’s descent slow, like it was as confused by my best friend’s presence as I was.

“I just, I felt this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, like something bad was going to happen to you - which it clearly is because we’re going down not up!” Lisa’s voice came out in a panic. “I started singing to comfort myself, while worrying about you, and now I’m here…”

“An extraordinarily strong connection,” I said, and then repeated it, my voice getting louder. “An extraordinarily strong connection. Soulmates. You came here by singing our song.”

“Took you long enough to figure it out, seeing as the song is about having a crush on a girl and not knowing how to deal with it,” The old woman had a wise smile on her face.

I blinked, turning towards Lisa, my hand in hers. “A crush.”

She bit her lip, looking up at me. “Yeah. I just never knew what to do about it…”

I leaned forward and captured Lisa’s with my own. As our lips touched, the elevator stopped.

A booming voice sounded. “This is Supervisor J-3. An anomaly has been detected on board the elevator. Why is there a living person in your elevator?”

I saw the hand of Lisa’s that I wasn’t holding balled into a fist, and she yelled up at the invisible loudspeaker. “Because I’m not letting my…” She looked at me with an eyebrow raised, and I nodded. “I’m not letting my girlfriend go to whatever version of hell you have here!”

“They’re lesbo soulmates! Deal with it!” Amber yelled, after Lisa.

“Actually, I think I’m probably bisexual…” I said.

“We’re not allowed to send a living person to Below!” A panicked voice sounded on the loudspeaker, and I recognized it as Val’s. “We have to bring the elevator back up!”

“Well, I’m not killing her to fulfill your weird plan. And I don’t think guardian angels are allowed to kill people,” The goth woman sneered.

I looked around at the other women in the elevator. Suddenly, we were all united in one aim, despite the different circumstances that had sent us here. It felt powerful, and I figured it was more powerful than some people randomly partying in the Above would feel.

There was whispering from the waiting area, but we could hear it because the loudspeaker amplified it. “Do it!” Supervisor J-3 insisted. “That’s what caused Lucifer to fall! I’m not doing that, I just got promoted,” Val responded.

“Gee, thanks, Miss I’ll Be Here For You,” I remarked. Maybe I knew what her real motivations were now.

Supervisor J-3’s voice was louder now. “You must do it,” he instructed Val. “We can’t send the elevator back down once it’s been brought up. We’d have to figure out a way to justify sending all of them to the Above!”

“So what?” Lisa was justifiably furious now about all the discussion of whether she would be murdered. “You gave all of them time to fix their fates. It was probably supposed to be an impossible task, but Cassie almost finished hers, and would’ve if she hadn’t added another name to her list! If you can give them time to fix things, they can fix themselves too! It happened with Cassie… well, it will happen with Cassie, if you don’t decide to undo it because she failed!”

“Why are you so fucking optimistic? Has life not ruined that yet?” The goth woman sneered at Lisa.

“It’s not that! I mean, I may have been mostly raised in my dad’s Japanese culture, but I know some basic information about how a sizable minority, how my mom’s birth religion, sees the world! Stuff about healing the world, tikkun olam, and teshuvah, returning to righteousness. Things you wanted Cassie to do! Things that are supposed to be possible, if people are given the right environment.” Lisa’s face was turning red with anger. “What is the point of giving people all these powers if you just undo their progress if it’s not perfect? If when you could help them fix things, you decide that some of them aren’t good enough and send them down in this stupid fucking elevator?” Lisa’s fist swung into the wall of the elevator, and she hissed at the sting.

There was a rustling sound through the loudspeaker, and miraculously, the elevator started moving upward. Lisa leaned against the wall with a satisfied smile on her face. “See? They can’t justify a murder.”

“I could marry you right here,” I flung myself at Lisa, hugging her tightly. Amber made a gagging noise, but it kind of seemed like she was just being dramatic. After all, she had called us soulmates.

When we stopped hugging, I kept holding her hand but turned back to the rest of the elevator, where everyone was looking at us awkwardly.

“I’m going to have to go to stupid therapy, aren’t I?” The goth woman asked.

Lisa giggled. “I think so.”

The elevator came up to the waiting room floor faster than it had descended, and opened up into a hallway where an impatient Val and Supervisor J-3 were standing. “So? What are you all doing here still?” Supervisor J-3 said as soon as we didn’t all step out of the elevator. “Get to doing your weird angel stuff.”

Everyone except for me and Lisa popped out to continue their progress, because I was contemplating my new outfit change and Lisa wasn’t sure what to do at all. “Cassie? Lisa? Come with me?” Val’s voice was hesitant, for the first time.

I shrugged, and walked up to her. For some reason, so did Lisa.

“Listen, I’m sorry about the whole contemplating killing you thing,” Val said, voice hesitant. “It’s just, my job-”

To my surprise, Lisa hugged the older woman. “It’s okay. I forgive you. After all, if I’m leaning into this whole teshuva thing, I have to be consistent.”

When they were done hugging, Val turned to me. “Well, Cassie, the supervisors have talked, and they think the technicality wasn’t enough to disqualify you from going Above. So, I’ll be escorting you back to the elevator, and Lisa…”

“I’m staying,” Lisa was adamant.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m staying. This place clearly needs some reform from someone who is both sensible and understands religious morality stuff, and I’m already in between death and life, so I think I’m perfect. And if I’m an angel, I can visit my soulmate when I’m not on my job, right?” Lisa’s arms were folded over her chest, looking sternly at the older woman.

Val was helpless under Lisa’s stare. “I… suppose I can put in a good word for you. We’re looking to make our lineup of angels less racially homogenous, so…”

“Good,” Lisa looked away from Val, and at me. “So, first date time?”

I couldn’t help the squee that escaped from my mouth. “First date time!!!!”