Chapter 4
Time passed strangely.
Agatha had grown accustomed to that, in the past year of her life. It was how time moved in this isolation she had inflicted on herself, in the rubble she had made of her life.
New Year's Eve came fast, with Rio dropping Nicky off at noon. The boy was all grins and laughter, holding a stuffed rabbit under one arm and his little overnight bag on his shoulder, claiming as always that he would stay up.
He never did. This year was no exception. Nicky fell asleep with his cheek glued to her thigh no later than ten p.m., the Magic School Bus still playing on the tv. She flipped channels, unwilling to get up and chance waking him up. It was … quiet, and sad, in exactly the way she had expected.
She woke him up at exactly 11:30, as she and Rio always had in years prior, hoisting his sleepy form onto her back to carry him into the kitchen to grab pots and pans.
If they banged those pots and pans a little closer to Dottie's house than was socially acceptable, who was going to tell on her? Nicky?
As time went on, it was easy to almost … forget. Despite the conversation with Rio, despite Nicky's continued insistance and reminders that she was Santa Claus, she could imagine a world where she … simply wasn't. There was no evidence to the contrary. Time moved on; she did not start humming Jingle Bells or discover an affinity for peppermint or the color red.
Valentine's Day came and went without fanfare. She could have gone out. This town did not have anything that passed for a gay bar, but she could have figured her way around it. She could have opened up Tinder. She could have sat down in any bar in America. It wasn't that she was self conscious, wasn't that she was unable to find a hookup if she wanted one.
She simply … did not want one.
Easter was Rio's, though Agatha staged an egg hunt in her house for the following week regardless, to make up for the years that he had been too sick to participate. Far too much time and money was spent on an Easter basket that was worth it when Nicky tore through it with glee, and insisted on sharing most of the chocolate with her.
Mother's Day was … rough. It was already Rio's week, and who was she to rip Nicky away when she'd already done it once? No, this suffering was her own doing. Agatha had made her bed, and she'd lie in it.
And that was exactly where she found herself the morning after Mother's Day Sunday.
It wasn't that she was old. No, Agatha had a firm grip on her own life stages and abilities. Sure, the knees creaked a little more often than they used to, and if she slept at the wrong angle she woke up to hell. That was just life, though.
There were things she might be too old for. Drinking more than two glasses of wine before bed and passing out face down on top of the comforter was one of them. Unlike time spent with Rio, there was no glass of water and Advil on the table.
She was dying. Surely, this was how she met her end: face down on her own bed with the cheap comforter in her bachelor pad, at forty five years old. Not with a bang or a whimper, but with a hangover.
The light burned straight through her. Blackout curtains were probably an option she should look into - or maybe not drinking most of a bottle before bed. Both were options. Neither were ones she would likely take. No one had ever accused her of making good decisions.
It was apt to say she was dragging herself out of bed this morning. The dragging continued from her bed into the connected bathroom. If it were a weekend, she wouldn't bother - but a Monday morning necessitated turning on the light, which she slapped at with a groan.
That groan turned into a shriek. The shriek turned into a yell, fingers white knuckling the sink as she stared back at her reflection. What should be her reflection.
"That's not my hair!" Fingers left the counter to tug at the offending hair. What was normally a head full of unruly brunette hair was stark white. "That's not my fucking hair!"
It could be a trick of the light. It could. She turned the lights off and on again. She rubbed at her eyes until she saw black spots dancing in front of her. The hair on her head remained white despite the black spots in her vision.
There was a briefly horrible second where she considered shaving her head. She could rock it. She could pull it off.
Vanity got the better of her. Instacart it was.
--
She wasn't proud of it.
But.
But.
The woman in the mirror had stared back at her with hair as stark white as it had been before she'd gone about trying to dye it. Whiter, maybe. If it was at all possible.
The panic of her own altered face staring back at her had her phone in her hand before she truly knew what she was doing, movement a muscle memory she hadn't managed to kill off.
"Agatha?"
The voice on the other end of the line was slightly tinny with distance, and the bad service in the bathroom she was still sitting in, where she'd sat and rested her forehead against the bathtub and taken deep breaths when she'd watched her own hair go back to white before her eyes.
For just a moment, she didn't speak.
"Agatha." A pause. "Answer me. Did Nicky's school call?"
Embarrassment colored the high points of her cheek like a flame. At least she had the dignity of being behind the phone, and the woman on the other end of the line could not see her hide her face in shame.
"No," Agatha said. "School didn't call."
They would have called Rio, if they had called at all - she lived closer, and that was on the paperwork. It was a safety thing, as much as it pained Agatha to be listed second.
"Then-" The single word was an open question.
"Something weird is happening." Agatha said the words before she could swallow them, pushing them out between her teeth like something she was throwing away. How do you remind your ex you had no other real friends, and even if you did, who the hell would believe this? "It's entirely possible I'm having a hallucinatory experience."
The jingle of a set of keys was audible on the phone line. Relief flooded her, quickly followed by a rush of shame, both of them going straight to her head.
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."
--
"I hate you."
Rio was holding back obvious tears of laughter, fingertips pressed to her lips. Agatha glared. She pictured burning a hole straight through her with nothing but laser vision alone, Superman style.
The woman across from her had made it in less than twenty minutes, arriving at the front door with something bordering on panic, which had devolved quickly into the situation before them.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You said 'hallucinatory experience'. I thought you'd taken too many gummies and forgot you weren't part of the floor again."
"One time. Once."
"It was memorable." Rio was grinning, teeth showing, and for a minute, for a second, it was like she could forget. "I have to say, the new style-" She trailed off, whatever she'd been about to say cut short as her cheeks flamed. "How did you decide on this?"
Fuck whatever she'd been about to say. Agatha didn't care. She didn't need to know. She didn't.
"I didn't do this."
"Come on. Everyone has a breakdown once in awhile. Remember the pixie cut- Agatha!"
Dye stained fingers wrapped around Rio's wrist, unceremoniously dragging her towards the master bathroom. Her ex-wife was muttering something under her breath about wanting to kill her. That bordered on an overreaction, maybe, but she had to give it a fair enough.
"I didn't do this."
"You said that," Rio huffed. She wasn't digging her feet in, but following willingly. Agatha still had not let go of her wrist. "You don't need to drown me in the bath tub about it."
"Grow up."
"I can see the dye on your fingers!"
"Yes," Agatha said, with what she imagined was the patience becoming of a Saint. "Black dye. What color is my hair right now?"
"We are both missing work for this."
"And what a shame that is! The world weeps."
Rio shot daggers in her direction. Agatha let go of her wrist when they'd reached the bathroom. Evidence of this morning was strewn about the outdated room - dark brown hair dye stained the sink and the countertop around it, a formerly purple washcloth tossed to the ground and dyed as well along with a pair of rubber gloves she'd clearly forgone, if the stain on her fingers was anything to go by.
"This is-"
"Don't."
"You brought me here."
The grimace Agatha wore might as well be audible, a quip about regretting it on the tip of her tongue. She knew exactly the way to wield it to dig it in between her ribs. Rio stared her down, like she knew.
"I woke up like this," she hissed instead, rounding on her. "I know I've got a few grays, but this is overkill."
"You're going gray?" Her eyes widened, voice softer than it had been a moment ago.
"I tried to dye it." Agatha's jaw flexed as she ignored the look, ignored the tone of voice. She gestured towards the boxes - one of them torn open, the other few lined up untouched on the sink counter. "And when I finished, and washed my hair," she gestured towards stark white hair again. "That's not possible."
"You did it wrong. No big deal."
"I know how to dye my hair!"
Rio didn't speak, just looked from the sink to Agatha's hair and back again.
"I'll show you," Agatha said. "If you need to see it. Sit down."
"On your toilet?"
"Or the floor. I'm not partial." She was already grabbing for the second box of dye and ripping it open.
"Okay, Agatha."
From the corner of her eye she could see Rio sit down, having chosen to perch on the toilet lid.
"Do you need to read the instructions, or do you trust me to dye my hair?"
There was no answer from the woman on the toilet seat. Taking it as permission - not that she needed it - she pulled out the contents of the second box of hair dye in as many hours.
--
Silence stretched. Everything seemed weighted - the air, the way her lungs expanded and contracted, her own goddamn hair. She was too aware of her own hands in her lap, their warmth against one another, the sting of the spot where she’d cut a hangnail too close. It was suffocating, this weight of expectation. More than anything she was aware of the woman next to her, far enough away not to crowd but still close enough she could feel the warmth coming off of her, could feel the way her shoulders rose and fell in rhythm with her own.
“You’re like one of those hair color changing Barbies.”
The tension snapped. Agatha thought she could hear the pop of it breaking, and a breath shook out of her in a choked laugh. She pressed the palms of her dye stained hands to her eyes seconds before the laugh turned to a sob, and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth instead.
“Agatha-“
She could feel the hand hovering over her shoulder without looking, alike to the weighted tension in the moment before it fell the five inches onto her shoulder and gave a squeeze. They'd spent a half hour in the bathroom, Agatha dying her hair and Rio eyeing her from the toilet, where she scrolled through what was likely work messages on her phone.
And at the end of it, Agatha's hair had faded back to white.
“It looks good on you. I’d still-”
“Don’t finish that thought.” Her voice was muffled behind her hand. “For the sake of my remaining mental health.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that.”
“Rio.”
“As soon as tax season comes around and you say you’re San-“
“I’m aware of the facts, yes.”
“I’m just saying. You can rock it. It’s not the end of the world.”
“It’s not about the hair!”
“I know.” Rio’s shoulders deflated, and Agatha’s stomach twisted.
“Then would you drop it? Stop bringing it up!” She shoved her palms into the mattress and stood, roughly, knocking Rio's hand aside and walking several paces away before stopping and turning back. Rio hadn’t moved from the spot on the bed, but she could see the whitened knuckles gripping the edge of it, the lines of her jaw hardened. But the eyes - her stomach flipped again, and she turned way. All that softness, reserved for her.
To say she didn't deserve it would be self pitying, and to say she didn't want it would be a lie.
“You’re going to be fine.” The voice matched the eyes, and Agatha lost the battle against not turning away. She straightened out her shoulders, rolling her neck. White hair flashed in the corner of her vision and quickened her heart. She huffed, eyes burning, and tied her hair up above her head.
“This is ridiculous. I can’t do this. No one could do this.”
“Someone’s been doing this since the beginning of time,” Rio said. “Or Christmas. Technically.”
“Okay,” she scoffed. “Not Agatha Harkness from Massachusetts.”
“Why not?” Rio leaned back a little, palms flat on the mattress, eyes glued on Agatha. “You’re incredible. You’ve always been incredible. You’re the smartest person in any room. You could sell sand to a crab,” that one almost earned her a laugh, though it got lodged in her throat, “you carried our son for nine months-“
“Eight.”
Rio rolled her eyes. “And kept him strong and smiling and happy in the face of everything. Who better to be Santa Claus?”
It was as though she was folding in at the center, a star collapsing.
“Anyone else.” She tried to tamper the discomfort, to not let it show to a woman who had always been able to read her beyond words. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Of course not. You don’t have instructions yet.”
"It's not about the instructions! How do I do something like this alone?"
“Whose fault is that?” Rio’s eyes widened, as if she were shocked at herself for saying it, but Agatha could see in her eyes the moment she decided to push on. “I didn’t initiate this, remember? You walked away. You burned this down. I begged you not to.”
Her mouth went dry. Of course she remembered. Burning everything down had been her way out. Burning everything down was what she was good at. Not just now, or a year ago with Rio - but always, from the time she was young.
“I didn’t want to do this. You did. And it’s a year later and I still don’t understand why, and you’re still not alone! You called me at eleven in the morning on a Monday and I dropped work and showed up. This insistence that you’re alone, that you have to be alone-“
“Stop.”
“You asked me here. So I think I have a right to speak. Fighting with you constantly was exhausting, but so is this.”
“This isn’t fighting?”
“No, this is some half-assed thing where you’re snapping at me like some wounded dog, hoping I won’t come back and still asking me to. And I do. I always do. Do you realize that?”
She wouldn’t completely meet her eyes - she looked, quickly, and found herself being stared directly at.
“You know why I brok-“
“We could have gone through it together.” Rio took a step closer. “You could have gone through it with me. Instead you cut yourself off-“
“I couldn’t stand still doing it!” Her voice betrayed her by cracking down the center. “I couldn’t stand-“
“What? Being with me?”
Agatha leveled her with a scathing look. "We were suffering, Rio."
“We were through it. He was through it.”
“I wasn’t! And what about the next thing? I was drowning.”
“And you stabbed the life raft I threw instead of climbing on! Agatha. I was drowning too.”
“I would have continued drowning. I would have drowned you with me. Again, and again, and again. Dragging you down, every time something happened. Faster than you could have done it yourself. Every time he started to cough, or when I felt low-“
“I didn’t ask for a noble sacrifice. We were always meant to save each other, after him. And you have always been good at that last part, but suddenly you decided you were shit at letting the first part happen. You didn’t even let me try.”
“I didn’t decide I was shit at it. I am -“
“The pity party isn’t cute. You blew up everything for no reason because you were hurting.”
“Now you’re getting it.”
"I can't." Rio stood. "I can't do this with you."
Panic surged so fast and so hard in her chest that she thought she'd faint with it.
"Wait. Wait. I'm sorry, I'm just-"
"Scared." She sounded resigned. "I know. You're shit when you're scared. But I need to go back to work. And you need to-"
"Get a wig?"
There was a flicker on Rio's face. She thought she might get a laugh, but it died.
"Figure out what you want. I have your back. You'll be okay. If you couldn't do things on your own, you wouldn't have survived as long as you did."
--
The alarm clock had read five in the morning when the doorbell rang, and livid did not begin to cover the emotion Agatha felt when she ripped open the door.
"This is an absurd time for UPS to show up." The scowl she was wearing was giving her a headache, though certainly the lack of coffee and the hour of the day was doing nothing to help either. She blocked the doorway with an arm, a brow raising, waiting. Early July heat hit her like a brick wall.
"I drive a truck," the man at the door said. "And deliver packages. Clearly I make the rules for the postal system." With a blank and tired expression, he pushed forward a pen and clipboard. "It requires a signature."
"I didn't order anything." She didn't move to take the clipboard, and the man at the door continued to stare at her, unmoving. "Don't you lot use iPads these days? What are we in, the stone ages?" With a frustrated grunt, she tore the clipboard from his hand, signed, and shoved it back into his chest.
Whatever made this end faster.
"Great. Thank you, Miss Harkness. The others will be in in a moment."
"Sure," she waved a hand dismissively, only for words to catch up. "What?"
"Boxes. Multiple." He was speaking from the bottom of the porch steps, and Agatha took a few steps out of the door, half a question on her lips.
It didn't need to be asked. There wasn't one truck in front of her house: there were at least six, and coming up the driveway was one driver after another, boxes and trolleys in their hands.
--
It took forever to get the boxes inside, sweat gathering at her collarbones. She hadn't bothered to change from the flowing floral robe she'd put on to answer the door. If the neighbors wanted to stare - and she'd seen more than one curtain open in the past hour, and Dottie had the audacity to wave - then let them. They might as well get a treat. Who was she to take that from them? Nothing happened in this town. They could use the entertainment.
Eighty boxes, give or take. They filled the entire dining room and spilled into the living room and kitchen. Box after box after box. She'd stopped counting after eighty two, and started plotting revenge instead.
Still sweating and refusing to do much about it, she dragged the last box into the only remaining spot in the living room and debated throwing herself onto the couch instead of dealing with any of it. Not that she cared what her neighbors thought, but how long until one of them posted on Nextdoor about her shopping addiction? Probably not long. Dottie was likely typing away. Screw them. Whatever they said couldn't be worse than the truth, which was that she'd had eighty boxes delivered from the North Pole.
Oh, yeah. She'd caught that label on the first box.
She ignored the box, reaching instead for the manila envelope that had been delivered alongside them. There was red and green tape on it, and a strip along the top that said OPEN FIRST.
She might s well. This was probably done better with a glass of wine, but one look at the maze from here to the kitchen made her certain she'd be doing this sober. No way was she hopping over all those boxes and bringing a glass back unharmed. Not even on her best day. That left the manila envelope in front of her, which she slid her finger under to open.
There was a thick set of pages inside, held together by a red and white striped paperclip that resembled and smelled like a candy cane. Of course it did. Hand written words on thick paper that could only truly be called parchment read as follows.
Agatha,
These ninety seven boxes contain The list. I'm sure you understand which one. Be sure to check it twice. Though it is mostly children, there are a few notable exceptions. You'll find your mother in box forty-two. You'll find Beyonce in box forty-five.
Her head had started to pound.
You'll be wondering about your instructions. You will need to report to the North Pole the day after Thanksgiving. Don't worry about transport, we'll cover that part. Before you ask, yes, it will be discreet. We will be there at 9 AM sharp. Pack whatever you will need for a month's stay. While you will be allowed to return home, your visits will be brief. You might prefer to take your son with you. We are prepared for this possibility, whether it be a temporary visit or for the duration of your month long stay.
Was that something she was going to do? Nicky would want to go, she knew that already. But he had school, and monthly doctor's visits. Rio would be here - it made more sense, for stability's sake, for him to stay.
It put an ache in her chest regardless.
Over the course of December, you will be trained in the ins and outs of being Santa Claus. While you are familiar with how to deliver toys, you will learn specific rules and circumstances. It's the best way to keep you safe on Christmas Eve. You will learn to operate the sleigh by more than intuition, and have your suit customized.
The most important rules for Santa Claus that must be followed now are as follows:
Your identity remains secret. Children may instinctually know you are Santa Claus, though adults are unlikely to believe you. It is easier to have a cover. You may find it useful to start developing that now.
The secrets of the North Pole are to be kept just that: a secret.
If you are spotted on Christmas Eve, by a child or an adult, you are to remain in character. You are to uphold the public image of Santa Claus.
There is one other rule that applies to your role as Santa Claus. It is called the Mrs. Clause - occasionally the Mr. Clause, but we have had a look into your personal history and see that the Mrs. Clause will be the most fitting. If we are wrong, you are welcome to correct us.
We would have liked to elaborate on this rule on your first day, but you were … combative.
The Mrs. Clause is as follows: Santa Claus must have a spouse. If Santa Claus does not have a spouse by Christmastime, the powers that make them Santa Claus will fade. This is not a get out of jail free card. The powers that make you Santa Claus are what keep you alive. Without them, you too will disappear.
Back in the day, this Clause was to ensure it wasn't only men in the North Pole. Nowadays, it is antiquated, but still a rule that is written into the coding of your magic.
If you have any issues with this -
Agatha had stopped reading. The urge to be sick had crawled up her throat and was threatening to escape. With an angrily shaking hand, she tossed the paper down on the box covered coffee table.
"What kind of a rule is that? What kind of a rule is that?" The anger in her voice in an empty room felt worse. "You die if you don't have a wife?"
Screw the mountain and maze of boxes - she was going for that glass of wine, stumbling and kicking over the boxes as she did.
Of course it would happen on a day she was meant to pick up Nicky from school, on the day he switched houses from Rio's to hers. What would life be like if everything didn't go wrong?
She had barely an hour before Rio was due with Nicky's things, and she spent that hour trying and failing to rearrange the house. There was no rearranging this many boxes - her best hope was to take the binders out and find a place for them. The boxes may be in the nineties, but the binders were far more.
Couldn't this have been a PDF? It was 2025, for Christ's sake.
When the doorbell rang for the second time that day, she answered it with a second glass of wine in hand to Rio on her porch.
"You … you look like death, Agatha."
Not a compliment, but her own name sent warmth through to her stomach. She'd always loved the way her name had sounded in Rio's mouth - and how often she'd said it, added onto sentences like a term of endearment. Her name, on Rio's lips, had turned from something she flinched from to something she savored.
"Gee, thanks. Should I put that one on the fridge, or-"
Rio let herself in, and Agatha cursed and stepped aside. She'd go away, if Agatha asked. She didn't ask.
"Holy shit, Agatha. Did Amazon explode in here?"
Rio was turning in circles, wide eyes taking in the room, hands on her hips. When she finally turned back to Agatha, the woman's stomach flipped at the concern in her eyes, at the downward trend of her mouth.
"Do you need me to take Nicky for the weekend? This is…" Her teeth dug into her lower lip. "I'm worried. What is this? I don't mind if you want to switch weekends. It's alright."
"No. Stop. Stop, it's-" She pulled at the collar of her shirt. "Stop."
"Okay. Hey, it was just an offer. His room is clear, right? I'm not going to insist on it."
"Yes. It's- look." Nearly grabbing her wrist and forgoing it at the last second, she reached for one of the boxes and shoved it at Rio. "Go on. Open it."
She was all too aware of what she looked like. Makeup hid some of it - like the dark circles under her eyes erased with concealer - but her hair was still frazzled, and her eyes were red rimmed. No matter how she stood, the way she held herself, she could not feel comfortable in her own skin. The truth of what was coming felt pressed against her ribs, and threatened to rip through.
She was a mess, and Rio could see it. That alone made her want to crawl out of her skin. The concern in Rio's eyes was genuine. She had the same look she'd had all their lives when she wanted desperately to fix something and couldn't.
But Agatha had made it so it wasn't her place anymore. No one's place but her own. Rio tore the box open, brow twisting in confusion.
"You had a bunch of binders delivered?"
"Open them," Agatha groaned. Rio's eyes on her were like a hot brand, but she flipped open the binder.
"Oh my fucking god."
"Careful, you'll get yourself on the wrong side of that thing."
"Is this actually-" Agatha looked up. Rio was flipping through the pages of the binder, eyes wide. "I mean - Agatha."
"Mm. It is."
"And they delivered it by -" Rio checked the label. "UPS?"
"At five in the morning."
"I'm sure Dottie was thrilled."
Agatha's lips twitched. "I think she has video."
"I'll have to hit her up." She lifted her eyes from the binder, taking in the room again. "You need a storage unit."
"I need-" A nap? A stay away in someone else's life? The energy went out of her like her strings had been cut, and she dropped onto the couch with her head in her hands. "I'll figure it out. I'll … I'll organize them os they don't freak Nicky out. Please don't switch the weekends."
"I was only doing it for you. I won't. It's okay."
Agatha rubbed her hands at her face, pressed her fingertips to her lips.
"There's something else." Eyes found her feet, unused to the feeling of wanting to be smaller. Unused to wanting to disappear. The noise of Rio flipping through one of the binders reached her ears, as well as her hum in response to the statement. Her mouth had gone dry. "They sent the rules."
"Oh? You have to check this thing twice?" Rio was clearly distracted, looking through the binder, a finger running through the names. Her eyes tracked that finger, which made what she was about to say worse. "Are you forced to wear the hat?"
"Rio."
It must have been the tone of voice that got her to look up. Agatha looked down again, avoiding the gaze.
"I'm going to start dating again."
Silence. Agatha didn't, couldn't, look at her. Not even the sound of paper flipping reached her. Only her own breathing, and her heartbeat in her ears.
"Okay."
The word was small, but final. An end of conversation Agatha rolled on past.
"It's not-"
"Seems like bad timing, considering. Are you going to lead with that on Tinder, or is I'm Santa, my house is home to the Naughty and Nice List a third date thing?"
"Rio."
"I'm just trying to understand. You broke things off because you needed to be alone. I did think it could be a lie, but-"
"It's not. I don't want to."
Rio scoffed.
"I mean it." She despised the desperation in her voice. Why should she care what Rio thought of her dating? Except - "Do you think I really want to put Nicky through that?"
Not just dating. The Clause had said spouse. What a confusing thing to have to put him through. She was truthful when she had said she wanted to be alone. If she'd ever decided to change that, it certainly wasn't going to be when Nicky was still in school, and definitely not in the first year after her divorce.
"Then-" Rio huffed. "Why? If you don't want to, then-"
"I'll die if I don't." Agatha interrupted.
Rio's strangled noise finally drew Agatha's eyes up to meet Rio's own. The other woman's eyes were too bright, her shoulders too straight - as though she was forcefully holding herself up, and couldn't figure out how to stand. Her hands were loose and open by her sides, mannerisms that Agatha recognized all too well.
"That isn't funny." Her voice was rough as sandpaper, strained through her teeth. "I don't need the dramatics, Agatha. If you want to date, just date. You don't need to justify it to me. You don't need to do a it to soften the blow."
Agatha drew back. Was that what Rio thought of her, now? Was that how low she had fallen? And if she did, did Agatha have any right to correct her, after what she'd done?
"I never said I did," Agatha replied, after a breath. She stood, her own voice surprisingly tight. "You're a big girl. You can handle whatever I throw at you. You always have." Rio didn't answer, so Agatha reached for the manila envelope. "Here."
"What does this-"
"Read it, and you can leave. Promise. You won't have to see me again until you pick Nicky up on Wednesday." She rpessed her tongue to her teeth. "But you deserve to know."
The look on Rio's face screamed exhaustion. If she wasn't already feeling guilty - well. Agatha watched Rio's eyes on the page, waiting, holding her breath, estimating when she'd reach the words. She saw and heard it - the shift of her face, the narrowing of her eyes, the little inhale.
"This is-"
"I know."
"I mean-"
"I know, Rio."
"This isn't enforceable."
"It's magic, not the Supreme Court. I'm not keen on dying, so-" She laughed, humorless, and gestured about. "Death or marriage. I'll find a way to explain it to Nicky, just give me … a week."
Rio was still staring at the paper. "They just … force you to get married. How can that work? What if you're bad at dates?"
"I'm incredible on dates."
"I was being hypothetical," Rio scowled. "You'll die if you're not married sounds like something your -" She bit off her words, tossing the papers down on one of the boxes.
"No, you can say it. At least the North Pole is more progressive than my mother."
"I'll do it."
"Be progressive? I caught that around the second date when you stuck-"
"Agatha. No. I mean, yes. But I'll do it. I'll marry you."
For a moment, all Agatha could hear was the rush of blood in her ears, a hot metallic taste on her tongue. The heart pounding in her chest felt foreign, the beats an alien rhythm.
"What?" She drew out the word, as though she were sure Rio had to be kidding. "We did that. We live in two houses now."
"Catch up. You don't want to date. I don't want a random woman — around Nicky. You … cease to exist? If you fail to get married. So take my hand in marriage."
"That's cute," she swore she could taste blood. "But we just had it out about why we were divorced."
"I know. Agatha Harkness wants to be alone. We fake it." She shrugged a shoulder. "You get a wife, I get to spend Christmas at the North Pole every year. We can pull that off. Tell Nicky I'm just going with you for the holidays. Make sure we're not too … together in front of him. You're fantastic at improv."
"Someone will figure that out."
"It doesn't say you have to love me, Agatha. Just that you have to be married."
That knocked the wind out of her sails. She sucked air in through her teeth and tried, failed, to feel it entering her lungs.
"That's not fair to you."
"I'm a big girl," she parroted. "I decide what's fair. This is practically like marrying for insurance purposes." A little grin, that classic smirk. "Life insurance purposes."
"I can't let you do that."
"We've never let each other do anything. Do it. Prove yourself wrong." She hummed. "Prove that Agatha Harkness knows how to let someone else fix her problems. Or don't," she shrugged. "If you can't manage it."
Oh, fuck her. She knew exactly what she was doing.
"Okay," she grit out. "Yeah."
"Yeah?" Rio's grin was instantaneous, wolf-like. "Then we'll figure out the details. Don't worry about it during your time with Nicky."
How was it possible this woman was capable of saving her, constantly, despite her own efforts to the contrary? She met her eyes out of force of habit, insistent on not letting it seem like this was tearing her down.
(A little late in the game for that, but she might as well start now.)
"Fix-" Rio wiggled her finger about the space. Agatha groaned. "-before Nicky comes over and thinks you're moving again. Since I'm not actually your wife, I'm under no obligation to help you with this. I suggest under the bed."
Agatha bit her cheek. "Goodbye, Rio."
The woman grinned over her shoulder at the door. "Te veo."
—
At the curb, behind the driver's wheel of her little black Honda Civic, Rio Vidal put her head in her hands.
"Fake date the woman I'm in love with so she doesn't stop being Santa Claus and die. Sure. Why not. Great plan, idiot."