Chapter Text
After that night, Rio and Agatha’s relationship changed. They didn’t really discuss it but they met even more often if that was possible, kissed and had sex in between their lessons. They also started cuddling and Agatha opened up a bit more. She looked happier than she ever had before and Rio did everything she could to act like the best girlfriend ever even though they were not official.
In addition to all the lovey-dovey stuff, they also loved to tease each other and fight for foreplay. Usually, they fought with magick for fun. Agatha would annoy Rio or the other way around over something trivial. Agatha would blast Rio and Rio would respond with her magick and they would have this little back and forth magical fight with both giggling and chasing each other all over the forest until one of them either tapped out or caught the other and tickled her or they threw themselves into each other’s arms and kissed passionately.
Rio was always careful during these ‘play sessions’, the last thing she wanted was to actually hurt her lover. She took great care into dimming her powerful magick and more often than not, let the green beams turn into wind just before hitting the witch if she hadn’t managed to doge, or counter it, whereas, she let Agatha use her full potential and hit her with all her strength and magick. Rio couldn’t be hurt and couldn’t die anyway. And that way, she was able to measure the witch’s’ power and her progress.
This way, Agatha not only got to use her magick freely but also got to play with it and with Rio, the only person she had ever trusted, without any consequences. She finally got to be simply herself. Something she had been denied for too long. She was finally free. Her mother had never let her explore magick and with Rio she got to. She got to do all the things that were forbidden to her.
Work and play… Work on your magick and play with it (and with your girlfriend). Agatha loved these moments.
Agatha didn’t know life could be so good. She didn’t know what fun was up until she met Rio. She didn’t know what love was either. Rio really gave her everything. Her life could not be more perfect. She finally had everything she wanted. She had found her piece of heaven and wouldn’t let anyone take it away from her.
She had been avoiding any communication with her older self now that she was with Rio, afraid of her reaction. But she knew she would not be able kept her at arms’ length forever.
In short, Agatha was very happy with Rio and didn’t want to put an end to whatever they had going between them.
***
After one of their work and play sessions that ended up in sex yet again, Agatha gifted Rio a bouquet of red lilies she had kept hidden until then. She had picked the flowers on purpose, knowing their exact meaning. They were a symbol of pure and loyal love, an everlasting feeling that would endure for years. The color red added desire and passion to the message. She hoped Rio would understand the words she was not ready to say out loud. As Rio was also a fan of rocks she had also brought a rose quartz which was also referred to as the stone of unconditional love.
Rio understood right away, her eyes welled up with tears and took Agatha into her arms, kissing her head lovingly murmuring. “Me too Love. I love you too.”
***
Maybe avoiding Agatha was going to be easier than she thought. The communication requests she was sending the older witch through their channel kept getting denied. Either older Agatha was busy or had decided she wanted to cut all ties. She didn’t know whether to be relieved, worried or mad. Maybe it was for the best. Older Agatha didn’t need to know about the recent developments with Rio. That everything was going great, that for the first time Agatha was experiencing what real love actually felt like and reveled in it. They finally talked about their feelings and… their future. They had been together for the better part of a decade now and had moved to a small cottage lost in the middle of the woods where they could have their privacy.
Agatha was living her best life and would have never guessed that she could feel like this.
They had talked about marriage, witchy weddings. Rio was the one who actually proposed, reassuring Agatha, telling her to take all the time she needed. She explained to her what it meant and the consequences it would have as Rio was not just a witch but also Death, an immortal cosmic entity. Honestly being bound to Rio for eternity didn’t scare her at all, on the contrary, it excited her. She wanted nothing more than to show Rio her love and commitment. It also reassured her a bit knowing that from then on, there would be no way Rio would leave her. The connection they would forge between them would be unbreakable, everlasting. They would always be connected no matter what. Being death’s wife had a nice ring to it.
However, older Agatha’s words were still casting a shadow of doubt in younger Agatha’s mind. Had she never met her older self, she would have said yes right away. It was a no brainer. Rio was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She was her best friend, her mentor, the love of her life, the only person who had ever treated her respect, the only person who had ever seen her for who she really was and had never recoiled at her. She was the one for her. No other person could be as right for her as Rio was.
Agatha had always been surrounded by Death so it was only poetic justice that her soulmate was Death herself.
Agatha was torn between her will to say yes without putting any more thoughts to the question and the desire to know why and how older Agatha could hate Rio with so much passion. She wanted to know mostly so she could avoid committing the same mistakes as her older-self had, therefore allowing her to stay happy and saving older Agatha from heartbreak. If only the witch could get her head out of her ass and actually talk to her. But she also knew this would not happen as they were both one and the same and hated talking about their feelings.
She tried to enter into contact again and again over the course of the following week to no avail. Well, fuck it, it was probably the universe telling her to accept Rio’s proposal.
***
Older Agatha’s silence had continued for years. Younger Agatha had not completely forgotten about her but thought about her and their discussions less and less, basking in her own bliss. She strongly believed that she had avoided whatever happened between older Agatha and Rio and if not, they would find a way to overcome it, to weather through the storm, because that was what marriage was about, for better or for worse, until death where Rio, aka Death, would take her to her realm and they would begin a new era of their relationship. Agatha didn’t want to die but the perspective of reigning over Death’s realm alongside her wife was quite appealing.
And now they were about to take a new step in their relationship.
***
“What the fuck was that? Were you just kissing Rio?”
“Hugh?” Young Agatha was stunned when she heard the familiar angry voice. She turned around to be faced with an impatient her who was sizing her and looked extremely mad. How dared she bring such an attitude after ignoring her for years when she needed her? This just wouldn’t do.
“Look who finally decided to reappear.” Young Agatha spat sarcastically, crossing her arms over her chest in defense.
“Oh forgive me for being busy and having a life and more importantly from protecting the world from witches who don’t know how to control their powers.”
“It’s been years Agatha.”
“Well how should I know, this time travel thing is so tricky, it’s only been a few weeks for me. I can’t really choose what year I am contacting you. It just happens.” Her older self said throwing her arms in the air clearly annoyed at everything that was going on.
“How are you here again?”
“I asked Teen to send me back. I had a weird feeling and I was right.”
“Right about?” Younger Agatha furrowed her eyebrows and decided to play dumb. She had a good idea what the woman was talking about.
“The weird feeling. So I’m going to repeat my question. Were you just kissing Rio?”
“What’s it to you?” The young brunette felt like she was being interrogated and didn’t like it one bit. She needed to take back control. Her older her had no right to judge and tell her what to do. Her past was her past. It belonged to young Agatha now, not to older her.
“It’s everything to me. Did you listen to any word I’ve ever said to you? Do you remember the part where I told you explicitly to stay away from Death/Rio? Do you? Because it doesn’t seem like it.” Older Agatha was losing it.
“Oh believe me I do…” The young brunette snarled.
“So why didn’t you?” Older Agatha shouted accusatorily.
“BECAUSE I COULDN’T!!! I was facing my coven and then all the death/Rio stuff happened. I tried… I tried so hard to stay away. I wanted your help, to help me understand how someone like her could bring me so much pain… well according to you.”
“What Death Rio stuff? What?”
“I’ve been trying really hard and I get it now. Like all the other magical advice was so good. But, along the way, I started falling in love with Rio. I didn’t want to let you down or mess up our life. It just happened. It was meant to be.”
“Answer the question. Just say it. What Rio stuff?”
“We’re together. I’m sorry, I know you told me not to. But everything about her feels so right. I’m sorry but I tried really hard to find one bad thing about her and I literally can’t. I don’t understand why we wouldn’t want to be with her. I just need you to tell me what she did because I’m not going to be able to stay away from her. The connection is too real. The love is too strong. I don’t want to walk away from what we have, from the only good thing that I ever had in my life. You can’t ask me to do that.”
“But you have to leave her!”
“No. I don’t. I won’t.” Young Agatha said firmly and icily.
“Listen to me, you are leaving her now!” Older Agatha was getting angrier by the second, probably asking herself why younger her couldn’t listen to her, why she was so stubborn.
Younger Agatha took a few breaths before answering, knowing that what she was about to reveal would open another can of worm and would drive her older self even more insane.
“Even if I wanted to… I can’t. It’s too late.”
“You already got married, didn’t you?” Older Agatha face palmed.
“Yeah.” Young Agatha said sheepishly. “But I tried to contact you to tell you about it. You weren’t answering.”
“Great just great. Now you’re going to tell me it’s my fault right? Well don’t come to me crying in the future because I told you so. And I am allowed to have a life and be busy without you freaking out and committing the worst mistake of our life.”
“But what does she do, Agatha? What happens. She’s so nice and understanding. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The only person who truly loves me for who I am. There’s nothing she could do that could be so terrible. Does she leave us?”
“No.”
“Just tell me!” The young witch pleaded.
“I can’t.” Older Agatha was blinking away tears now. Younger Agatha could tell she was either close to breaking or close to explode in a fit of rage and disappear. There was no middle ground.
“Tell me! It literally cannot be that bad!”
Change of plans. Maybe she could allow her younger self and herself to be happy with Rio. They should just avoid having a child together. Agatha would have to find another way to have Nicky. She was still working on it. “Okay. Fine. You can be with her. Just don’t have a child with her. Promise me. Never have a child with her. Don’t get pregnant. It’s really important.”
“Why?”
“Stop asking questions! Because! Just listen to me okay. Just enjoy life with her, be disgustingly in love with her, but don’t have a child. It will be the beginning of the end. It will ruin you. Without a child, you might have a chance at happiness.”
What was her older-self on about? Why didn’t she say don’t have a child in the first place? “Why? Does she leave us? Because it doesn’t sound like the Rio I know.”
“I can’t tell you, okay. Please just listen to me. Please.”
An Agatha begging was a weird sight. The young witch knew she just had to push a little more and she would get her answer.
“Well I didn’t listen to your warning about not getting involved with Rio and it seems to me that you were wrong. Which is why I don’t think I should listen to you anymore. You’re just a jealous old hag. You just didn’t manage to keep your Rio and now that I know, I’ll do everything to keep her.” The younger witch turned around and was about to leave when a desperate voice reached her ears.
Older Agatha was fuming and was growing desperate. She was going to give in. She was going to finally tell her. “She betrays you!”
“What ???How???” Younger Agatha stopped dead in her tracks dumbfounded.
“She takes him.”
“What ? Who? Where?” Older Agatha was not making any sense right now.
“She takes him. Our son. To her realm. He dies Agatha. Rio takes him at night and you can’t even say goodbye. He was supposed to die at birth… but she manages to give you six years only to rip him away from you at the worst possible moment. She loves her job more than you. You spend those six years always looking over your shoulder, wondering when she will come back for him. You never have a moment of respite. And then she acts as if she hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“But maybe I can…”
“There’s nothing you can do to save him. I tried everything. I literally moved heaven and earth. I fucking got the Darkhold… and I still failed him. And no, right now you can’t find anything bad about Rio because there’s nothing bad about Rio before she takes our son. Agatha, it is so hard. So hard. You end up all alone again, betrayed by the only person you thought could never betray you. The only person who ever loved you and who you opened up to. I don’t want you to go through that. I want to protect you. We’ve already suffered enough.” The older witch had tears falling freely on her cheeks and young Agatha had never seen her(self) this distraught.
“Agatha…” the younger witch’s voice dropped. How was she going to tell her older-self, especially after such a revelation?
“You’re not already pregnant are you?” The older brunette asked swallowing soundly.
Young Agatha closed her eyes to chase the tears away and replied with a broken voice and a small smile. “We found out this morning. Rio felt a second heartbeat. Maybe it’s fate.”
“Agatha! But wait! How old are you? What year is it? Is it already 1750? Agatha, you need to run, get away as fast as possible from Rio.” The older witch was clearly spiraling.
“No!” The young woman said firmly.
“What?” Agatha stopped moving and looked at her shock, not understanding her younger self’s motivations for staying.
“You heard me! No!” Young Agatha repeated even more firmly to make a point.
“What do you mean no?”
“I mean no.”
“But she’s going to take our son away, I just told you…”
“No I’m gonna keep being in love with Rio. I’m gonna love her so hard. And we’re going to have a baby. She gave you six years. You know about the balance, you know how much she had to sacrificed to gift us that precious time Agatha. Deep down you know it was an act of love. And you know that death doesn’t mean the end to Rio, it’s just another beginning, a new beginning. Not accepting his death is you not accepting who she is at her core. We will be reunited for eternity someday, when our time comes. It would just be a goodbye. I’m not saying it won’t be hard…” Tears were now freely falling from young Agatha’s eyes. “It’s just your grief talking. You don’t really hate Rio. You just don’t know what to do with all those conflicting feelings because we never learnt how to manage them. I am learning. Your warnings made me work on myself to brace for whatever bump in the road our relationship with Rio was going to face. I have to thank you for that. You should too. Work on yourself I mean. Everything is not lost. You can be happy again. Or maybe I’ve already changed our future and when you go back to your timeline, everything will be different.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re young and dumb.” Older Agatha was shaking her head. How could her younger self seem to be okay with all of this? It was beyond her.
“I know how horrible and unfair life is. We both do. Evanora Harkness abused us, our coven hated us. So now that she’s gone, I want to live my life. I want to be happy. I want to experience all the things I’ve always wanted to experience. If we weren’t young and dumb, we’d just be thinking about the fact that people are going to die someday. And we would never be brave enough to do anything, to live our life, to get close to people. So maybe being young and dumb isn’t such a bad thing. I’d rather get to know my child for six years on earth than never knowing him at all. I’d rather have Rio by my side even if it means that there will be some heartbreaks along the way than not having her at all.”
Both Agathas were crying. Was the younger one actually trying to give life advice to the older one? Wasn’t it supposed to be older Agatha who was supposed to use her wisdom and advise her younger-self? Not the other way around. A voice interrupted their exchange.
“Agatha, Love, who are you talking to?”
It’s her. Rio. Well Rio from the past.
When she looked up almost immediately, older Agatha was met with young Salem Rio. Sweet innocent Salem Rio. She looked so happy at the time. No haunted look in her eyes just yet. Just pure love and devotion.
“Agatha?” Rio asked surprise. Rio looked at the two women in front of her and blinked in confusion, trying to make sense of what was going on.
“Yes.” Both replied.
“Can you… Can you see her?” Younger Agatha asked with hesitation, as if she was wondering if they should even broach the subject of what was happening.
“Yes.” Rio stared at the older witch. “You’re older… How? Witches can’t time travel.”
“Apparently Chaos magick can.” Older Agatha shrugged.
“You found the Scarlett witch?”
“Yes and one of her sons.” Agatha was not surprised past Rio already knew about Wanda. Her life and power were a prophecy that had existed for millennia that had yet to come to realization at this time.
“What are you doing here?”
Ermm She didn’t have the heart to tell Rio. This Rio was still innocent, she hadn’t done anything yet. She had no idea what was coming. Agatha knew the heartbreak and pain that was about to come barreling. She wanted to let them be happy for a little while longer. She didn’t want to ruin their happiness just yet. However, younger Agatha had other plans. Maybe it was better to rip up the Band-Aid right away.
“She’s been telling me to stay away from you and not to have a child with you. That our… son dies and that you take him.” Younger Agatha supplied the information, struggling to get the words out.
Rio swallowed soundly. Her face unreadable.
“Okay Love, stay here. Agatha, walk with me… Please.” Rio requested with a firm commanding voice, not letting room to argue.
“Rio…” The younger witch tried to plead.
“Trust me love. I’ll be back soon.” She kissed her Agatha on the cheek and gestured for the other one to follow her.
“Where are we going?” Older Agatha asked after a few minutes.
“You’re not from the future. Time travel is impossible… even with chaos magick. There would have been huge changes in the future if you really were from there and meddled with your past self. It would have created a paradox that would have disturbed the universe in unimaginable ways and disrupted the balance. I don’t feel any disruption beside your presence that does not belong here.”
“So where do I come from?” Older Agatha asked confused. “Where has Billy sent me?”
“You’re from an alternate reality.”
“So, I’ve just been traveling universes all this time?”
“Yes.”
“Makes sense why nothing changed back home.” Agatha muttered still letting the news sink in and wondering whether she had warned this version of herself for nothing. Maybe Nicky lived in this universe. Maybe her and Rio had a happy ending. She was already jealous at the thought and tried to swallow down the resentment.
“I can send you back.” Death eventually offered after a small silence.
“Yeah.” Maybe it was for the best, the older witch thought. But being in the presence of the cosmic entity and witnessing the love shared by the two women made the witch realize how much she had been missing her Rio. Her Rio she had driven away and who probably wouldn’t want anything to do with her. A Rio she had told she never wanted to see her face again and to retire the form she had fallen in love with. A Rio who after years of chasing after her had finally listened to her and given up. Maybe this time would be the last time ever she could see a version of her wife. Maybe it would be her only chance to see and touch her again. “Can I.. hug you?” Agatha asked.
Rio nodded and opened her arms to let Agatha nestle in them before tightening her embrace. Agatha’s hand gripped into the fabric of her clothes as if she never wanted to let go and breathed in the familiar scent in her neck. A scent she didn’t know she had missed this much until this very moment. She wanted to stay in those strong arms forever. She wanted to kiss those beautiful lips. But it wasn’t her place. This Rio had her own Agatha. She had already interfered too much with their lives.
“You feel so much like… her.” The brunette exhaled.
“I am her, in a way. Just like you’re Agatha.”
Rio eventually let go, opening her arms but not stepping away.
Agatha rubbed her hand towards her eyes to remove a stray tear that had fallen without authorization.
“Your Rio loves you.” Death said placing her hands on Agatha’s shoulder, to make sure she was listening and that her words would get through to her.
“How do you know that?” The witch sniffled. After everything she had done, there was no way Rio would want anything to do with her. She had kept her distance so far and had ignored every attempt Agatha had made to contact her. And if she were to learn about her escapade to another universe to erase her from her life? Well, this would just be the nail in the coffin.
“Because I do. Whatever you do, I cannot help but love you. We were always meant to be. You will find your way back to one another. I think you will be ready soon. And also, we’re cosmic entities, we’re all connected.”
“Have you ever seen another Death?” Agatha asked, knowing she shouldn’t get her hopes up. Was she even ready to forgive Rio yet? She knew that if she had another chance, it would be a one shot and she’d better not fuck it up. She would need to be ready, and she wasn’t yet.
“I have. Nicky died in your timeline?” Rio asked softly.
Agatha nodded.
“I’m sorry for your son.”
“I hope yours live.”
Rio gave her a sad smile. “I think he dies in every timeline…”
“How do you know?”
“Connected, remember? I always thought there was a chance he might...”
“Maybe he will….Are you mad at me? For meddling between you and Agatha. Making it harder for you to find your way towards each other?”
“No I’m not. You were just trying to protect her. I could never hate you Agatha.”
Rio placed a small lock of hair behind the witch’s ear and brought their lips together for a few seconds, softly kissing the older version of her Agatha while the latter completely melted against her.
“Find your Rio.” Death murmured in her ear before sending her back where she came from in a woosh of green smoke.
***
“Will she be okay?” Younger Agatha asked as her Rio walked back towards her and enveloped her in her arms.
She will be… Eventually.” Rio said. “But I have a feeling we will see her again. I think she needs just one more little push to find her happiness again.”
Younger Agatha hummed and reveled in being in the arms of the love of her life, conscious about the rare love the two of them were sharing and the future heartbreak looming over them.