Achieving Heaven Through Hell Part 3: Only the Results

Chapter 2: Persona

Author's Note:
Okay, SPOILER ALERT
There are spoilers for A Peaceful Afterlife in this chapter. If you haven't read that fic, you may want to stop here and do that. Also give Helluva Job a read, if only to understand some of the stuff that comes later!

Enjoy!

Chapter 2: Persona

Vaggie smiled as she watched the Princess of Hell, her nose in a book, her big bright eyes darting back and forth, glinting with characteristically irrepressible energy. The book was some dry tome regarding psychological archetypes and something-something. Vaggie honestly just sort of tuned it out, but Charlie was voraciously consuming any and all literature she could find on the subject.

Charlie had tasted success, tasted victory, and was ravenous for more. Vaggie admitted it was impressive that she'd managed to crack that stoney-faced feline nut and drag something almost human out of him, and had his stay at their establishment not been cut so tragically short, not even Vaggie doubted Charlie inevitably would have had him on his back for belly-rubs. Charlie was eager to try again, to improve her method, to help more people. It was one of the things Vaggie positively adored about her.

"Ooh! Vaggie! Get this," said Charlie, snapping her fingers. "Right so, there's this thing called 'the shadow', right?"

Vaggie had been the ever-patient recipient of Charlie's increasingly frequent hypotheticals. "That's the Jungian one, right?"

"Yeah, but less specifically. I'm talking about the general idea that repressed thoughts and unacknowledged aspects of a person's inner self influence their behavior."

"A world-breaking theory," said Vaggie, her voice playfully flat.

"Hush," said Charlie, smiling. "Now, it seems to me that a lot of people down here have trouble with their shadow."

"Slow down with the revelations, there, Doc!"

"Sassy bitch." Charlie's face scrunched into a moue. "In life, they repressed the parts of themselves they couldn't identify with, either positive things about themselves due to low self esteem..."

Vaggie nodded. "Or they're suppressing some evil shit and it starts leaking out."

"Kind of..." Charlie shrugged. "Point is, they're not only carrying on with these behaviors imprinted onto their soul, they're encouraged to express their negative aspects as well. If they're going to redeem themselves, they have to embrace their shadow."

Vaggie snorted as a demon ran by on the sidewalk, consumed in flame. "I think they're embracing their shadow plenty."

"That's not what embracing it means," Charlie said, rolling her eyes. "For example, Kira could come to terms with himself because he knew himself. He had nothing hidden, no internal conflicts, he had accepted his darkness. He was remarkably self-aware for someone so... uh..."

"Psychotic?"

"I never said he was a good person in life, just that he was very self-aware." Charlie cleared her throat, desperate to move on from her praise of the ex-serial killer. "But that self-awareness led him to embrace the program more fully, to identify in himself what needed work and how to achieve his goals. That's why he crossed over!"

"Charlie..." Vaggie broke in. "We don't know for sure that's what happened."

Charlie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Right, he just exuded beautiful golden smoke for no reason."

Vaggie tried to articulate a response but gave up. "So, going forward we just have to get people into that 'know thyself' stage first?"

"Theoretically?" Charlie shrugged and smiled. "Honestly, I'm grasping at straws, here."