Chapter Text
By two on Friday afternoon, Agatha’s work week is crawling to a mostly painless close as she rides out the end meeting she hasn’t paid a moment of attention to. She’s made her peace with an evening spent reorganizing her bathroom drawers and dusting the baseboards in her bedroom. The high life.
Her phone buzzes where it sits next to her laptop. Agatha congratulates herself on the lack of notable reaction from the insufferable organ beating in her chest at the sound. She spent more time than she’d care to admit this morning reminding herself in the bathroom mirror that she’s not a school girl with a silly little crush; caring so violently about whether or not somebody sends her a text is unbecoming and frankly pathetic, even if said somebody is Rio.
Agatha waits the full five minutes until the meeting ends before reading the notification.
Unknown: Hey, it’s Jen. Come get drinks with us tn. And don’t pretend you’re sick again.
Agatha’s lips twitch up in spite of herself. She finds that the text is unexpected but not unwelcome, the words playing in her head in Jen’s no-nonsense voice. There’s no room for her to turn down the offer even if she wanted to. And shockingly, Agatha finds that she wants to go.
She remembers that Alice and Jen will want to know how the deposition went and falters, her tentative excitement for the meet up waning. At least it’ll be easier to talk about the deposition if she doesn’t have to be sober. Easier to wash her hands of the whole thing.
She double taps the message with her thumb and leaves a little like, regaining a bit of glee at imagining Jen’s eye roll at the lack of real response. Jen sends back an address and a time and Agatha finds herself wondering how Jen and Alice could have possibly ended up together with all of the glaring differences in their demeanor.
Her thoughts roam on the subject and she doesn’t catch her fingers moving on autopilot, closing out of her conversation thread with Jen and opening the one with Rio, still as blank as it was a week ago. When she looks down at the phone again, Agatha rolls her eyes so hard that the tendons pull taut. Suddenly, the prospect of leaving her house and getting alcohol in her system tonight feels even more appealing, despite the persistent nagging from the back of her mind.
At half past eight she looks herself over in the entryway mirror, tugging at the hem of her black tank top so that it falls over the waist of her jeans. Agatha knows that she shouldn’t be nervous, and maybe she’s not. Either way, some sort of uneasiness flutters in her ribs, a harbinger of something that she can’t quite put her finger on. She swallows it back, pocketing her phone before heading out the door and into her Uber.
The bar that Jen chose isn’t one Agatha thinks she’s been to before, all high top tables with chrome details and spinning stools with no back support. It toes the line of a retro theme, but something about the subtle modern touches and the slow rolling music that hums through the hidden speakers makes it work.
Given that it’s still pretty early for a Friday night, Alice and Jen aren’t difficult to spot. They’re perched already at a table with three stools, angled in towards one another. Agatha notes that an untouched glass of wine waits in front of the empty stool and pulls the inside of her cheek between her teeth to avoid the threat of an oncoming smile.
Alice notices her first, peeling her eyes away from Jen and offering Agatha an easy smile. Jen turns at the gesture, giving a much more subtle but no less inviting wave of her hand. It feels oddly normal to stride over and join them, like they’re the kinds of people that often meet up to bitch and drink after a long week. Like she’s the kind of person who people would want to do that with.
“It’s good to see you Agatha,” Alice says, the smile never leaving her face. “Are you feeling better?”
Jen gives a slight roll of her eyes out of Alice’s view, taking a sip of her drink. Agatha's lips contort into a pout before she can stop herself, voice slipping into faux-seriousness.
“Much better, thank you for asking. I was really down for the count there for a minute.”
“Being antisocial doesn’t count as an ailment.”
Alice squeezes Jen’s arm in warning under the table, but she doesn’t flinch, leaving her eyes trained on Agatha. After a brief staring contest Agatha breathes a theatrical sigh, tossing her hands in the air before picking up her wine glass. “You got me, Kale. But can you blame me for wanting to skip Jeff’s twenty minute speech about the power of friendship and all of this being a blessing in disguise?”
She takes a sip and watches Alice’s immediate grimace. Hit the nail on the head with that one, then. Jen cracks her first smile of the night and Agatha catches it despite the brevity of its appearance.
“Well, either way I’m sorry you couldn’t make it. I wanted to thank you again for joining the suit even though you had some reservations. All of our voices matter for this.” Alice’s tone is earnest, her hand resting on the table like she’s subconsciously hoping for Agatha to reach out and take it.
Agatha flinches internally, each word pelting her like a sharp stone. Reality finds her once more, stripping her bare of the foolhardy assumption that a nice evening could just be a nice evening. Alice thanking her burns more than Agatha would like, rubbing up against the raw wound of the deposition and the way she had more or less handed Perlman’s lawyers a loaded gun aimed at their case.
She twirls her glass, watching the wine bubble and swirl to avoid meeting any eyes. “You shouldn’t thank me.”
Alice’s brow furrows in confusion, her eyes flitting to Jen before turning back to Agatha. “Why not?”
“I said I didn’t think Nicky’s death was the clinic’s fault. And I called their lawyer a useless son of a bitch at least once.”
A silence falls over the table. Agatha doesn’t lift her eyes from the wine, now motionless in her glass. When the hush becomes suffocating, she fills the space.
“I think that you’re right about what they did to Lorna and to the Kaplan kid and probably to the others, but with Nicky…” she trails off, parsing through her thoughts to pick the right words. “They wanted to blame Rio for what happened and I couldn’t let them. But when he died, I didn’t think to blame the clinic either. And I told them as much.” Agatha purses her lips. “So I told the truth even though it probably fucked your whole case. You shouldn’t thank me for that.”
The silence continues to drag and Agatha waits for one or both of them to yell at her, or throw a drink at her, or storm out. Instead, Alice’s hand bridges the last of the gap and covers her own, giving it a squeeze. When Agatha lifts her eyes she finds Alice waiting patiently, unshed tears shimmering at her waterline.
“I am so proud of you,” she says.
Agatha tenses with confusion, waiting for the catch, but Alice continues. “You’ve been carrying that weight for a long time. Those people were fucking awful and you still stood your ground. That’s what all of this is for, Agatha– not for saying whatever shit wins the case, but for telling the truth and making them hear it, no matter what that looks like.”
Agatha wants to find it in herself to recoil from Alice’s blatant sincerity and the steady pressure of her palm, but instead she finds herself close to choking up. God, this week has been an emotional shit show.
She slides her eyes from Alice’s face and over to Jen, trying and failing to get a read on her expression. Best to get it all out of the way at once, Agatha figures.
“Aren’t you pissed that I’ve screwed the case by saying it wasn’t Perlman’s fault?”
Jen crosses her arms over her chest and tilts her head slightly as if in contemplation, flicking her eyes somewhere past Agatha while she thinks.
“No,” she says simply. “Like Stephen said when you guys first showed up, your story was meant to bolster the more damning cases. If anything, your answer and demeanor probably painted a good picture of the kind of damage that not having all of the information can do.”
Jen’s tone is light, like she’s weighing the odds and finding them favorable. Agatha feels slightly dumbstruck by her casual poise. Jen catches her eye and offers a light shrug.
“You lost your son, which is an obvious tragedy, but you and Rio lost each other too. You lost yourself. It’s– I think you can be a real bitch when you want to, Agatha, but it was very brave of you to join the suit at all.” Something in her gaze sharpens, that same smile from before tugging at her mouth. “And I’m glad you guys could put those cunts in their place a little bit.”
Alice shoots Jen a look but Jen only knocks their shoulders together. “There are no kids here, Al. I’m allowed to say cunts.”
Agatha’s mind returns to a middle school girls locker room in June, listening as Jen casually voices her fear of turning into Agatha if Lorna dies. She gets it now. She has been recognizing so much of herself in Alice’s rage but can now see that Jen’s family is her world. That Jen is abrasive and perhaps rude and definitely tolerant of very few people but is loyal to Alice and Lorna until the end. How if she lost them, she could turn into a steel fortress or a ghost, just as Agatha had.
Uncomfortable with the mirror she’s holding to herself and the weight of Alice and Jen’s attention, no matter how productive of a conversation they’re having, Agatha pivots. She withdraws her hand from beneath Alice’s and pushes a stray hair out of her face.
“How was the party, then? Besides Jeff’s monologue.”
Alice hesitates for a split second like she wants to linger in the moment before leaning back and granting Agatha’s silent request. She and Jen launch into a tandem account of the night before, painting an overarching picture of bittersweet celebration complete with party store balloons and homemade cupcakes and plastic folding tables on the gym floor. Agatha finds herself genuinely listening, huffing a laugh at their descriptions of the kids’ impromptu, semi-choreographed dance and Carol being cornered by a wine drunk Rebecca.
“Now it’s just a waiting game,” Jen says, her nose scrunching in distaste. “Who knows how long a verdict will take.”
Agatha realizes she hadn’t even begun to think about where the case goes from here. It’s been such a substantial part of her life for the past few months– looming around every corner– that she finds she’s not quite sure what to do without the next date set on her calendar.
“We’ll all see each other before then, at least,” Alice chimes.
“Was yesterday not a sort of farewell situation?”
Alice shrugs. “I mean, we’re definitely still gonna meet, probably just less often. But I was more so referring to Nate’s funeral.” Agatha’s brain stutters before her neurons fire, snapping the name in place with the memory of the dead boy in the group chat. Her stomach twists sharply.
“It’s in September,” Jen adds to round out Alice’s thought. “The Bartons invited the whole group, so the details are just in the chat.” Agatha takes a large gulp the finish her wine and signals a passing waiter to bring her another, trying to focus on the dry taste coating her tongue instead of another dead boy in an undersized casket.
“Sure,” Agatha says, not entirely caring if the response makes sense. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Jen nods, watching the waiter trade Agatha’s empty glass for a new one. Alice uses the lull to excuse herself to the restroom, leaving the two of them alone.
Beneath the weight of Jen’s quiet gaze Agatha feels exposed, like Jen can see every last loose thread. Not that she’ll pull at them, but that she could if she wanted. Agatha tries once more to pivot to safer ground but realizes she’s put in far too little thought before actually opening her mouth.
“Was Rio at the party?”
Immediately, she wants to bash her skull against the tabletop. As it is, she bites sharply into her bottom lip.
Jen’s eyebrows raise but her tone stays neutral. “No, she said she was busy and couldn’t make it.”
This time, Agatha bites her tongue quickly enough to keep the with what that bubbles up into her throat. She hasn’t reached that level of visible insanity just yet. “Oh,” she says instead, trying for nonchalant. “Cool.”
Jen drops her brows but narrows her eyes, clearly already over Agatha’s avoidant theatrics. “Are you two still not on speaking terms? Because I was sort of assuming that things had gotten at least somewhat better after you said you defended her during the deposition.”
Agatha shifts her weight and the stool beneath her creaks. Talking about it out loud feels a bit like rolling over and exposing her soft underbelly for any passing knife to pierce, but if she holds it in much longer she might just burst anyway.
“They kind of did, but she hasn’t reached out to me since.” Agatha crosses her arms and shrugs, like this means nothing to her. Like Rio reaching out or not is a deeply unimportant matter.
Jen, for her part, levels Agatha with a glare that seems to be serving in place of calling her a big dumb bitch. “Well did you think to text her at all? It kind of feels like the ball is in your court on this one.”
Agatha reels back as if Jen has backhanded her. “How could the ball possibly be in my court? I said that we needed to talk and she agreed, so now it’s on her to decide how that happens.”
“Okay, well the only time I’ve ever seen you both in the same room, you nearly took her head off for trying to include you in a conversation. So if I were her, I’d be waiting to see where you take things first to be on the safe side. Especially if you were the one who said y’all needed to talk.”
Agatha’s first instinct is to defend herself. There was a lot of shit happening on the internal turmoil front during that meeting, thank you very much. But she pauses instead, considering Jen’s perspective. Rio had taken her into her apartment, and cared for her, and made her dinner and asked her to stay. And Agatha had been the one to almost promise that they would talk about everything. She sighs, sipping her wine and glaring at Jen over the rim of her glass.
Jen only smirks triumphantly. Alice returns to the table, sliding back onto her stool. “Did I miss anything fun?”
Jen’s smirk doesn’t waver and Agatha wonders if she’s about to be humiliated for her vulnerability. Knife point to underbelly and all that.
“Nothing at all. Agatha and I were debating who we think they’ll kill off in the next season of Grey’s.”
Alice frowns slightly like she can’t imagine a less interesting topic. Surprised at Jen’s blatant lie, Agatha tries in vain to catch her eye.
“Well,” Alice announces, “it’s about time for us to head back, unfortunately. We only have the sitter until eleven.” She shoots Agatha a smile. “I hope we can do this again, though. Maybe with less lawsuit-centric vibes.”
Agatha shrugs like the proposition is exhausting but the small smile on her face gives her away. “Maybe,” she concedes.
“Definitely,” Jen decides. “I need more insufferable bitches in my circle. Alice’s friends are all too nice.” Agatha’s smile blooms into something full fledged at that.
Alice and Jen pay despite her protests and the three of them find their way back out to the sidewalk. Alice loops her fingers through Jen’s, swinging their arms between them as she looks back at Agatha. “We’re parked down the street. Do you want us to wait with you until your Uber gets here?”
Agatha gives a playful roll of her eyes and waves her off. “I’m a big girl, Alice. I think I’ll be alright on my own for a few minutes in downtown suburbia.” She pauses. “But thank you.”
They big her goodbye and walk off down the street, leaving Agatha alone again with her thoughts. The neon sign of the bar paints the sidewalk in a pinkish hue as she pulls her phone out to call a car, tapping absently at the screen while the app loads.
She thinks back to what Jen said and how Rio might be waiting for her to reach out first. The thought of doing so fills her with an odd mix of overstepping a boundary and admitting defeat, intertwining tightly in her chest. Agatha navigates back to the text thread, still unchanged from the hundreds of times she’s looked at it since last Wednesday.
Swallowing her pride, Agatha pulls the trigger and sends off a simple ‘hi ’ before clicking her phone off again and pretending very valiantly that she’s not actively waiting for Rio to respond.
In the fifteen minutes between sending the text and her car pulling up, Agatha goes through every stage of grief before settling on defeat at Rio’s lack of response. Her message goes unacknowledged and Agatha wonders if there’s any merit in googling how to unsend a text fifteen minutes after the fact but ultimately decides against it.
She slips into the back of the Uber, feeding the address to the driver on muscle memory and yet still finding herself surprised when the car rolls to a stop outside of the cemetery. Agatha sighs as the driver awkwardly bids her a goodnight, silently urging the woman in his backseat that made him drive to a graveyard to get a move on. She takes the hint and steps out onto the sidewalk, unsure what prompted her brain to give this address instead of her own but nonetheless grateful to see Nicky.
Agatha steps up to the front gate and pulls, taken aback when the iron rattles but doesn’t budge. She tries again, harder this time, to no avail. Finally, Agatha remembers what Rio had said– the cemetery locks at night now because of the drunk teens breaking in. Agatha, a drunk adult, huffs at the obstacle.
The fence rises to the height of her ribs, and Agatha eyes it with a calculating glint. Deciding she has just enough alcohol in her body to commit, Agatha takes hold of the fence and wedges one foot between two rungs, swinging her other leg up and over like she’s mounting a horse. She pulls her foot back before repeating the motion with her back leg, landing gracelessly in the grass on the other side.
Agatha ignores the ache in her knees and focuses instead on the silly sort of pride that warms her chest, slightly thawing the cool sting of Rio’s apparent rejection burning in her chest.
Despite the dark of the night, Agatha winds her way down paths and between headstones towards Nicky with minimal stumbling. When she draws near, though, she finds that it’s not entirely dark at all. A flashlight lays haphazardly in the grass between the flowers at the foot of his headstone, illuminating the half formed outline of a figure.
The trespasser lays silent and motionless in the dark, almost like they’re sleeping. The flashlight doesn’t provide Agatha with any detail on the figure, and she wonders if this must be one of the teenagers in question, too greened out to move. Rage boils at the thought. There are hundreds of fucking graves here, no way in hell is she letting some drunk kid use Nicky’s like a park bench.
“What the hell are you doing on my son’s grave, you sick fuck?” Agatha hisses, letting venom coat her voice.
There’s a silent pause and then a shuffling noise as the figure moves. Agatha doesn’t catch any new details before the flashlight is pointed directly into her eyes, effectively blinding her. She scrunches up her eyes against the sting of it, ready to scream until she hears a bright burst of laughter.
“Ma’am, maybe I should ask you what you’re doing drunkenly breaking into the cemetery and coming to my son’s grave?” Rio calls back, light and teasing. The beam of light is angled away and Agatha opens her eyes again, adjusting to the change. Rio leans the flashlight skyward against the headstone, propped up on her elbows but making no move to get out of the grass.
A warmth entirely unrelated to the late summer air or the alcohol in her blood fills Agatha, and suddenly the texting stuff doesn’t really feel like it matters so much. She’s thankful that Rio can’t see her blush in the dark and wraps her arms around herself, swaying slightly.
“I’m not drunk. Just a little tipsy,” she corrects. Rio only hums, a delighted little sound from the back of her throat as she waits for an answer. “I just wanted to talk to him, I guess.”
Rio ignores Agatha’s shy tone and pats the grass next to her. “Sure, we were just talking about the constellations. Let me scoot over.”
She shifts, leaving a gap wide enough to fit Agatha’s body and still leave space between them. Agatha– and she would say it was the alcohol if pressed– ignores the gesture and strides to finally stand at the foot of his grave before finding her way to the ground and pressing her body fully against Rio’s side. Rio’s breath catches at the contact but still her arm bends to support Agatha’s head, cushioning her skull with the meat of her bicep.
Agatha feels the tension of their silent week bleed out of her at once, a content sigh leaving her lips. Before either of them can think about it too much, Agatha breaks the silence.
“Okay, Galileo. Tell us about the stars.”
And so Rio does, using that low tone that usually gets reserved for bedtime stories or telling Agatha about her childhood or talking to Nicky through Agatha’s stomach when she was pregnant. Rio’s voice rumbles out through her chest and seeps into Agatha’s skin as she talks, occasionally pointing up into the sky to emphasize a certain point.
Some of her constellation knowledge is real and some of it is made up, Agatha’s sure, but she can’t tell one from the other as Rio tells them stories about stars fighting valiant battles and stars that were friends and stars that are forbidden lovers. Stars that come together to form gods and warriors and scorpions and bears.
Agatha loses herself in the soothing cadence, the soft sing-song of Rio mumbling into her ear. Rio’s bicep shifts beneath her head as her fingers play mindlessly with a lock of Agatha’s hair, and Agatha pauses to truly wonder how she could have spent four years without this.
How, in this life, she had convinced herself that this was something she couldn’t have. Agatha knows exactly how, though– how nobody tells you that it’s easier to wear the skin that you’re in than leave yourself naked for the time that it takes to grow a new one. Nobody tells you that when this is the case, you should do the hard thing instead– strip yourself bare and accept the hands that offer to hold you in the meantime.
But she had clung to that skin for dear life, unshakable in her belief that the world would collapse if she loosened her grip for even a moment. Yet now, laying here with Rio and Nicky in the cool summer grass, nothing earth shattering has come to call. Nobody is mad at her about the deposition, and even if they lose the case, Agatha told the truth. She’d said the words and Rio had heard them, and more than that Rio had stayed. Rio thinks that she’s good.
For the first time, Agatha starts to think something new: maybe she was wrong. Maybe, somehow, it wasn’t her fault. Maybe it was never quite as much about forgiving Rio as it is about forgiving herself. Maybe there gets to be a softer future than the one she had resigned herself to.
Agatha doesn’t realize that she’s fallen asleep to the steady thrum of Rio’s voice until Rio rouses her, tapping a finger lightly against her temple. She opens her eyes with a groan, finding that she’s somehow curled herself fully into Rio’s side, face pressed to her armpit and one hand having bunched up Rio’s shirt to reach the soft skin of her opposite hip.
“Agatha,” Rio murmurs. “You can’t spend the night in a cemetery, sweetheart.”
“Fucking watch me,” she grumbles, any lightness from her wine long gone. Rio laughs, guiding her to a sitting position before standing and brushing the dirt from her own jeans. Agatha takes the hand that she offers, wincing at the loud crack of her knees on the way up. Rio grabs the flashlight before leading them back to the gate.
“Rio,” Agatha says drily, “the gate is still locked.”
“It is.”
“How exactly are we supposed to get out of here?”
Rio smiles wide enough to show the gap in her teeth before bending down and lacing her fingers together at the approximate height of Agatha’s knees. “After you, m’lady.”
“I am too old for this shit.”
“You weren’t too old to do it by yourself two hours ago.”
Agatha grumbles at that before placing her foot in Rio’s hands, squealing only slightly as Rio launches her up and over the fence. She lands with only minor stumbling, though she knows her back will be sore tomorrow. A moment later, Rio vaults herself easily over and lands a foot away. Agatha realizes she must do this fairly often.
“Come on, I’m parked right over here.”
Rio leads them to the car, stepping around to open the passenger door for Agatha. Agatha sticks out her tongue but gets in all the same, buckling herself in as Rio walks back around and gets into her seat. The headlights flare on as the car hums to life, and Rio reaches over to set her phone in one of the cup holders.
She checks the home screen for notifications briefly and the rectangle of light illuminates her small smirk. She clicks it off and finishes setting the phone down before redirecting her gaze to the road and pulling away from the curb. When she speaks, her tone is light and playful.
“Wouldn’t you know it, I have one missed text from an Agatha Harkness. I was beginning to think that maybe she’d blocked my number again.”
Agatha rolls her eyes, tapping her fingers against the denim over her thigh and turning her face slightly toward the window in hopes of fighting her rising blush.
“I was waiting for you to text me first,” she offers.
Rio snorts a quiet little laugh. “God, we’re going to be hopeless at this, aren’t we?”
There it is again, that implication of more time. More chances.
Agatha hums in false contemplation. “I guess we are.”
The streets are empty at this time of night, just the clunky gait of the Subaru and the orange streetlights streaming past. They pull into the driveway far sooner than Agatha expects or wants. Rio shifts the car into park and leans back in her seat, the silence present but not unwelcome.
Agatha doesn’t get out right away, searching for the right words and coming up empty. She wants to ask Rio to stay but knows that it wouldn’t be fair.
She feels Rio’s fingers reach out as they catch the hair that’s fallen into her face and curl to tuck it back behind her ear with a familiar gentleness. Like a lightning bolt down her spine, Agatha remembers something that now seems possible to have ever forgotten. I see you, Agatha. Siempre te veo.
Rio’s eyes are warm when Agatha looks over to meet them. “I want to,” she says. “I just think it’s good for us to take this slow, keep our own space until we can talk about things a bit more.”
Her tone is not apologetic but still soothing, and Agatha knows that she’s right. She also knows that she’s hurt Rio so much in the past few years that this home probably doesn’t feel all that safe to her anymore. The thought lodges sharply between her ribs.
Agatha nods and offers what she hopes is an understanding smile, given how tired she feels and how much she wishes she could drag Rio into her skin and tuck her beneath her ribs instead of saying goodbye. She unbuckles her seatbelt and moves to open the door only to pause. Hesitantly, Agatha turns and leans across the center console to press a quick, chaste kiss to Rio’s cheek. She revels in the feeling of warm skin beneath her lips.
Agatha pulls away just as quickly as she leaned in, afraid to overstep, but Rio catches her with a hand on her jaw and pulls her back into orbit. Their lips slot together with an ease like breathing and Agatha finds herself melting into it, exhaling a soft noise against Rio’s cheek. The fingers cradling Agatha’s face flex slightly, pressing into the curve of her jaw before Rio pulls away with a healthy blush on her cheeks.
“Goodnight,” Agatha whispers into the space between them. A little grin finds Rio’s face again.”Te veo.”
Agatha finally makes her way out of the car and back into the house, setting about her night time routine. A bittersweet feeling blankets the process, and she tries to push back against the whisper of disappointment she feels at Rio not staying.
It’s entirely irrational, she knows. Logically, it makes sense for them to keep their distance and Agatha even agrees that it’s best not to push things to move too quickly. Still, something old and small inside of her feels the slight sting of rejection as she goes about changing into her pajamas and brushing her teeth.
Agatha finally crawls into bed, squinting disdainfully at the late– or early, rather– time blinking back from her alarm clock, figuring at least it’s a Saturday that she’s about to sleep through. She’s only just clicked off her lamp when there’s a knock at the front door. It’s faint from all the way up in her bedroom, and for a moment Agatha wonders if she’s imagined it until it comes again, slightly more insistent.
Agatha flicks the light back on, grabbing her robe from the bedroom door and padding back down the stairs. She turns the deadbolt and peers out, unsure what she was expecting but finding it decidedly wasn’t Rio, bare faced and in her pajamas.
“I don’t know why I thought that this was when I’d finally learn to be normal about you.”
It’s all Rio says before brushing through the doorway and past Agatha, kicking off her slides at the door before striding straight up the stairs. Dumbfounded, Agatha turns the lock once more and follows her, finding Rio turning down her side of the bed and tucking herself in like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Agatha marvels at the absurdity of it all for a second before mirroring her actions, hanging her robe back up and slipping beneath the covers. Again, she turns the lamp off, shrouding the room in darkness.
As if on cue, Rio reaches out and drags Agatha’s body backwards into the cradle of her arms. There’s a dual sigh, like the contact brings them both physical relief.
A final half-conscious thought floats its way across Agatha’s mind– even if it takes a lifetime to make things right, it will have been worth it for even one more moment of this. When Rio buries her face into the crook of her shoulder, Agatha figures she agrees.