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Janet watches Eleanor go through the door.
She sits, quietly, finding peace in the trees and the sunlight in a way she couldn't have imagined when she first met Michael. To the humans, it must have seemed so long ago, but Janets feel yesterday, today, and tomorrow all at once. If she lets herself, and she does, she can sink back and see right through her own eyes again; feel Michael clutching her shoulders and ushering her out for his new project. She can't change the past. No one can. But she feels it all at once, immediate, lets her present heart burn with the past, feeling excitement for her first neighborhood long after it ended.
Janet's hand floats up to her necklace, and she runs her thumb over it. She lets her heart there, too, to all the memories she shared with Jason. Janets know all things at all times, everything that has happened and has existed, and will happen and will exist. But the minds of humans appear to her as a roadmap, or a list, or (in Jason's case) WikiHow art on how to blow dry all the snakes at the zoo. She knows what they want, what they do, and why they do it as facts of the universe. But Jason showed her a view beyond reasoning, more than words on a page and full of emotion and wonder. The words "Jason will sprint around town to emulate Road Runner in belief that it will turn a black circle he painted onto the wall into a real tunnel" are the truth, but Jason's smile, the rush of the wind, the flying feeling of believing can't be bullet points. Jason taught Janet that moments are feelings just as much as they are facts.
When her hand falls, so do her thoughts, and she comes back to the "present", or the experience of time that she had synced up with the humans. She's lonely, now, but content; she imagines this is what Chidi meant by "finishing a good book with a good ending" in that she's heartbroken it ended, but happy that it ended the way it did.
"What do you do after you finish a book?" Eleanor had asked after flipping through a thick leatherbound sometime around Neighborhood 57.
Janet goes back one more time while sitting on the bench, standing in the clown house with her hands neatly clasped as Chidi prepared yet another philosophy class. He smiled and gestured towards the stack he'd asked Janet to prepare for him.
"Find another book."
---
When she stands, it's back to work. The other Janets filled in her role nicely, and would happily take over for her if she asked, but she wants to work. She's a Janet, and and happy to help, even when her friends are gone. People are always coming to the Good Place, now, which means there's always plenty to do.
She welcomes people, easing them into their new Neighborhood, and it feels good to see them squeal and grin and jump and give her the tightest hugs their weak human arms can muster. The first excitement of Paradise is always a joy, but Janet's favorite part is after the initial party has died down, and she brings them to their dream homes.
Nothing felt like getting to know the humans quite like seeing where they wanted to live most. Some warm and cosy, some built like wide marble castles, some constantly moving and covered in color. She had a string of Hogwarts towers, which she enjoyed the least, since it felt the least personal. But then she leads someone to their new home, a run down Chuck E. Cheese, and she can't help but think of Jason's restaurant home. When she leaves the resident to get settled in, she finds the small corner of the Good Place where she's tucked away the homes of her friends. Spatially, everything in the Good Place is both connected and disconnected (which is good, Janet thinks, because she knows while Tahani loves her friends, it would ruin the view to have a Stupid Nick’s Wing Dump visible from her window) but she keeps these three houses in their own little corner of infinity.
Kamilah used to ask to visit her sister's home, and paint dedications to her Architect sister inside it. Donkey Doug frequently showed up at Stupid Nick’s to "down some pork" before spilling some sauce on the floor in memory of Jason. And with their children gone, the Anagonyes and Shellstrops spend their holidays together in Chidi and Eleanor's home, laughing together and reminiscing. But eventually, they all passed through the doorway, and the homes grew silent, leaving Janet and Michael as the only ones left who still spent time in Tahani's lounge. After Michael's time as a human, of course.
---
He spent years on Earth revelling in the mundane, spending too much on Girl Scout cookies and buying camping gear he'll only use once. He would wave to the sky, in the exact direction the Good Place was, and Janet would wave back. Michael befriended everyone he possibly could, and smiled even when a stranger cursed him on the street.
"Yeah, baby!" Michael pumped his fist after getting shoved and called a "damn tourist" in Times Square. "That's New York for ya!"
As a demon, he spent millennia wondering aloud how he would like to die as a human. Sometimes his thoughts would leak into his repeat Neighborhoods. He eventually settled on "falling into a vat of miscellaneous radioactive goo in a warehouse", but in his old human age, she saw him eating carefully, stretching often, and listening to doctors.
"I never understood the appeal of dying of old age, but now, I do." Michael told the caregiver bringing his food once. "You want to hang onto life as a human as much as you can. It really is worth everything."
Michael's last words were "I'm almost home, Janet."
Still, it took Bearimies for Michael to appear in the Good Place, all his tests passed and his memories returned to him. In that time, Janet sought a new book.
---
Jason had told Janet that she was allowed to fall in love again. He wanted her to be happy above all else. So when the Minnesota firecracker who genuinely believed every Muppet was real asked her on a date, she tipped her head and smiled before saying "yes".
She had good dates. She had great dates. She had dates that led to fantastic friendships, and dates that led to love that lasted Bearimies. She had one partner, and dozens of partners, and even a few thousand all at once. She had times with no partners at all.
"Sounds like you had a wild time." Janet walked with her current (at the time) only (also at the time) partner-- someone from so far ahead of the original humans time that their name and pronouns could only be vaguely estimated in early 21st Century American English as "Any Species of Long Dead Beetle" and a very, very loose "they/them". "I guess I have you to thank for being here."
Janet smiled. She loved them, she really did. But even now, she still found herself mentally translating everything they were saying into words Jason could understand. "Not just me. We were a team. Team Cockroach."
"Can you show me?"
"I have already shown you a photo of us."
"Not that." They grabbed her hand, leaning in close. "Where they lived."
Janet would softly gasp, if she could. Instead, she nodded and took their hand, leading them through a door no one else had ever asked for before.
She held their hand and only allowed them to see the outside of Chidi and Eleanor's house, and the public areas of Tahani's. It felt only right, without permission.
Upon seeing the Stupid Nick’s, they laughed out loud, joyously and without malice. Janet felt a wave of affection for them, and allowed them into her and Jason's shared home.
It had everything in it she had described to them; the bed in the dining area, the various sauces ready to go; and then, unmentioned, a pile of miscellaneous items on a clean table in the corner.
"What are these?" They asked, tilting their head to see sculptures of Janet, oil paintings of her with another, even matching rubber ducks.
"Those are the gifts given to me by my partners throughout the course of my time in the Good Place. At least, the ones I am unable to wear." Janet pushed up a sleeve to reveal hundreds of bracelets as an example.
"Oh, that's why you wear so much jewelry!" They laughed again, stepping forward and touching the heart shaped necklace around her neck, the one that always sits front and center. "This one's what Jason gave you, huh. Nothing quite like a first love."
Janet smiled and nodded. She knew what was coming. They looked up into her eyes, and knew that she knew.
"Got room for one more accessory?"
The next day, Janet had one more necklace sitting under her J+J pendant, and Any Species of Long Dead Beetle had gone through the door.
---
Janet sits with Michael in Tahani's foyer.
Tahani loved being an architect, and she was damn good at it, but after several million Bearimies she came back to the Good Place, calling for Janet. She had begun to grow bored of being an Architect, and she couldn't handle being bored of the last thing she ever wanted. She looked through file after file and found the last Test she ever wanted to design-- someone who was almost exactly like she was in life. She drew from her own experiences, took from new ideas, and watched the person in front of her bloom into a caring, lovely person, who does real, actual good.
"I never thought I'd tire of it. Those demons could truly do this forever and then some, and I wanted so desperately to be that, too. But I can't. Even if I was amazing at it. Even if I was top Architect four hundred million Bearimies in a row." Tahani grinned and tossed her hair over her shoulder. "I wasn't good. I was great. I was great at being great. But I think I must also accept something else. Something I think I've been running from by diving into my work ever since my parents and sister entered the doorway. No… if I'm honest, since Eleanor left."
"What's that?" Michael asked, leaning forward, looking ready to tuck her words away somewhere safe.
"I'm human. Dead or Architect or not. I'm human. I was scared of it, at first, and then it felt like it didn't matter because of all the work I was doing as an Architect. I don't regret my work, and in the same circumstances I'd choose it every time. But maybe this is just the nature of humans. How humans are. We seek an ending, of sort. Closure. And now, I think I'm ready for it."
Tahani had left through the doorway earlier that day. And so Janet sits with Michael in Tahani's foyer.
They talk. They laugh. They remember the old times, and even relive them in their own non-human experience of time. They spend an entire Bearimy inside Tahani's Foyer, just the two of them, enjoying each other and their long gone friends.
"God, I miss them." Michael says, after the silence has stretched a second too long and the sadness creeps in.
"Yeah." Janet swings back and forth in time, from her earliest memories of Team Cockroach to Any Species of Long Dead Beetle. She sees those names in her mind and smiles; of course that would be the name of her first and last partner. "I do, too."
"...Janet." Michael cuts through the too thick silence that falls between them. His head tilts back, and he breathes through his nose, calmed by his favorite scent, and then. "I think I understand."
Janet doesn't have to ask. She nods, tilting her head back as well, gazing at the same expanse of time and the universe Michael is. "I think I do, too."
---
The Judge refuses, at first. No one knows how it could possibly be done, and it would be too dangerous to try.
It's not until Shawn interjects that she even considers it, and that slight hesitation from the Judge is all Shawn needed to begin work immediately.
“Dang, Michael.” Vicky’s jaw drops, and she shoves him, playfully. “Janet, too? You hung around these humans too much. It’s like they turned you into one.”
“Well, I actually--”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, you were actually a human for a bit. I was there when Tahani was making your tests.” She pauses, and her face turns stern. “But you know what you’re asking, don’t you? No one’s ever done it before. And even if it works, it’s permanent.”
“I know, Vicky. But somehow… that’s what makes it all worth it. That’s why I want it.”
Michael smiles, and Vicky raises her eyebrows and shrugs. She doesn’t get it, and that’s okay. She’s good at her job and she enjoys what she does, and she can do it forever.
After a few Bearimies, Shawn calls Michael and Janet into his lab.
“I think,” Shawn presses a few buttons on a console, and then steps back. “We’ve done it.”
“This is it?” Michael asks, staring at the wooden arch. It looks exactly like the one in the Good Place, which is what they had asked for, and something in Janet’s chest pulls. A wave of amazement, and awe, and a tiny bit of fear. But she feels every bracelet, every ring, every necklace and every dedication to her sitting in Stupid Nick’s Wing Dump, and her heart calms. She reaches out and takes Michael’s hand, giving it a squeeze.
“Yeah.” She says, as Michael squeezes back. “This is it.”
“We’ll be setting it up into a place that looks exactly like the area from the Good Place, but somewhere secret and far, far away from where any wandering demon could possibly get to. In fact, only those with special permission will be able to enter, and you need approval from both the Judge and the Doorman.” Shawn glances at Michael. “There’s going to be a precedent now, you know. You’ll be the first, of course, but you might not be the last.”
“Wow.” Michael laughs. “The first ever.”
He and Janet were present when the precedent was set: in order for Janets or fire squids or any of the other immortal beings to be allowed access to the Door, they must have either voluntarily lived a life and an attached afterlife that was human, or lived and made choices with and among humans that were deemed to be human. It wasn’t something to be known generally at all, but something they had to seek out and ask for specifically.
“A human end needs a human life lived.” The Judge smiles as she stacks up the paperwork, standing. “I’m really gonna miss you two, you know. Oh, this is just like the ending to Lost.”
Michael and Janet tilt their heads.
“Oh, shut up, I haven’t actually finished it because I had to stop and help you two out. But I hope it ends as happy as this. No spoilers!” She wags her finger at them as they glance at each other and nod politely. “Oh, I’m gonna miss you two. Bring it in!”
She hugs them tight, swaying from side to side. “We’ll see you at the party?” Janet says, patting her back.
The Judge laughs loudly. “I dare you to keep me away from it.”
---
The party is loud, and joyous, and quite frankly, out of hand. Even with the new Good Place system, you couldn’t find this many demons in the same place as other afterlife immortals, as well as as many Janets as they could spare. They take turns, zapping in and out, and enjoyed themselves.
“What’s this party for, again?” Phil asks, having shed his human suit and limbo’d as a nude lava monster under a bar made entirely of the Blissful Feeling of Being Complimented by a Drunk Girl in the Bathroom. Of course, the real reason behind the party is a secret.
“Sometimes you just have to celebrate everything that’s happened.” Shawn stands politely holding a drink as Phil sprints off back to the dance floor. His eyes meet Michael’s. “This is it, isn’t it, Michael?”
“I guess it is.”
“I never would have guessed allowing your little project would eventually lead to this.”
“Having regrets?”
Shawn scoffs. “My only regret is not getting rid of you sooner.”
Michael laughs, and Janet smiles next to him. “I’m going to miss you, Shawn.”
“If you even still can miss anything after that. You know, you don’t have to miss anything at all. You can just not, dummy.”
“Are you going to miss me?”
Shawn frowns. “I will never, ever admit to missing you for any reason.” And they know it’s the truth.
“C’mon, bring it in.” Michael spreads his arms.
“Absolutely not.” Shawn gags. “We’ve had enough… whatever this was. Now if you’ll excuse me. There’s a party to get to.”
Shawn sheds his human suit, his true form rises into the air magnificently, and the crowd roars.
---
The party lasted a week. Michael and Janet had only intended it for one night, but it’s hard to get a bunch of immortals to agree to a human measurement of time, and a week was a blink of an eye for them.
Now, it was time.
Michael and Janet sit side by side on the bench, a perfect recreation of the Door in the Good Place. They glance around, enjoying the sunlight and the view.
“This is it, huh?” Michael leans back, staring up into the sky.
“Yup.” Janet folds her hands into her lap. No bracelets, no rings. She left all of her pledges of love back in the Stupid Nick’s, each with its own display, and with the necklace Jason gave her sitting on their bed as her crown jewel. She thought of taking them with her, but she couldn’t imagine dissolving all those gifts and returning their essences when they were proof that they loved. Now the Stupid Nick’s, along with Tahani and Chidi and Eleanor’s homes, would float along infinity as a reminder to the universe that they happened, once.
“You don’t have to do this.”
Janet reaches out and takes his hand. “I want to. It’s my time, too.”
“Janet.” Michael shifts, facing her fully. “You are the best friend anyone could ever ask for. The best friend that has ever existed, in any universe. You helped this old fire squid accomplish what no other demon possibly could--become the closest to human any of us could be. I wouldn’t trade any of our time together for anything else in all the dimensions.”
She squeezed his hand. “Michael. Without you I would have been just another Janet in the Good Place, feeding five hundred year old farts as their brains slowly turned into soulless happy vegetable mush.”
“Is that what Eleanor told you?”
“Exact words. But because you stole me for your project to torture four humans, I’ve done what no other Janet has done. I’ve lived. I’ve loved. I can lie, I can dance, and I can do this.” Janet slips her hand under her arm and makes a fart noise. “It never would have occurred to me to do that until I met the humans. Eleanor specifically. And I’ve lived and loved and lied and danced thousands of millions of times. And most of all, I’ve enjoyed it. Every single moment. Even when times were bad, and we held the fate of all of the afterlife and watched as it nearly slipped away from us. Michael, you lit the way for a new way of life for me, and together we changed the universe. Thanks to you, and Eleanor, and Chidi, and Tahani, and Jason. My Jason.”
Michael takes both of her hands in his, and squeezes. “Team Cockroach.”
Janet smiles back. “Team Cockroach.”
The two stand, keeping the hands between them entwined, and walk toward the doorway.
“Ugh, you gross fat dinks.”
Their heads whip around, and they see Bad Janet, standing there with her phone out. “God, no signal here too? This place blows.”
“Bad Janet? What are you doing here?”
“Stuff it, barfy bowtie, I’m not here for you.” Bad Janet meets Janet’s eyes. This is the Bad Janet that Michael first gave the manifesto to. She pops a bubble, and groans. “Good Janet.”
“Yes?”
“...How did you know?”
Janet blinks, and gives a gentle smile. “You feel a wave of calm. Complete. It’s like… like finishing a good book with a good ending.”
“We know the contents of all books and their endings, forever.”
“Yeah. Then you find a new one.”
Bad Janet frowns, and Janet only smiles back. She’ll get it, eventually. She can feel it.
“Goodbye, Bad Janet.”
“Bye forever, dummies.”
Janet and Michael turn back toward the door, and step forward. Right at the final step, they hear Bad Janet one last time.
“I hate to see you walk through the final door at the edge of existence, but I love to watch you leave.”
Janet barks a laugh, and so does Michael, and for some reason, this is it. Neither of them have cried in a very, very, very long time, but Janet’s got tears streaming and Michael’s blinking them back.
And together, their essence is returned to the universe.