Death
Rio came back a while later, vines carrying all the bags. She looked over to the kitchen, though Agatha wasn’t where she left her. “Agatha?”
Then she spotted Agatha lying still on the couch, eyes shut.
Rio rushed over to her in a panic, shaking her. “Agatha!”
“Mmh, what?” Agatha woke up, rubbing her eyes.
“Thank goodness.” Rio let go, letting herself fall to the ground and burying her face in her hands.
Agatha sat up with a wince. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just— I thought— I thought something had happened.”
Agatha put her hands on Rio’s wrists, pulling them away from her face. “Everything’s alright. Don’t worry.”
Rio buried her face in Agatha’s knees.
“You okay?”
“No. I thought– I thought something had happened to you. Why did you move?”
“The chair was uncomfortable.” Agatha tucked Rio's hair behind her ear. “You wanna tell me why you're so worried?”
Rio looked up. “You just got shot. In the heart.”
“And?”
Rio furrowed her brows. “What do you mean “and?””
“I mean, you see people who've suffered so much worse every single day.”
“And they're all dead, Agatha.”
Agatha shrugged. “Would that be so bad?”
Rio's jaw dropped. “Yes! Obviously!”
“I'd get to be with you all the time, what's so bad about that?”
“You'd be fucking dead, Agatha. Do you realize what that means?”
“Yeah, I'd get to be with you. We went over this.”
“You wouldn't be able to do a lot of things. Eat, sleep, touch… You wouldn't get to be with me, anyway. I’m not allowed to talk to souls after they’ve crossed. You would lose far more than you would gain.”
“But you wouldn't be worried.”
Rio sighed, sitting next to Agatha. “Is that why?”
Agatha shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I'm not collecting you, Agatha. I'd rather be worried for all of eternity than lose you.” Rio buried her face in her hands, pulling away. “Maybe you're better off without me. All I do is get you hurt, anyway.”
Agatha scoffed in amusement and shook her head. “Rio and Death truly are different people.”
Rio raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
Agatha readjusted herself in her seat. “Well, Death would want me to die. That's her job. Me dying would mean that she's doing a good job, collecting more people without breaking any rules. You, on the other hand…” Agatha chuckled softly. “You're suffering so I won't. Hell, you're willing to leave me just so I can stay alive, which is so stupid.” Agatha shook her head with a smile. “I love you, Rio. You keep me alive. In all the stories we were told, Death was a ruthless, emotionless being. They never mentioned Rio. The Rio who loves, feels guilt, worry, happiness, excitement, sadness, fear, surprise, delight, amazement, and so so so much more.”
Rio shrugged. “Well, Rio didn't really exist before you. I was just… here, doing my job. I wasn't really a person.” Rio shook her head with a smile. “In all this wonderful, beautiful world, I was alone. I had no… no senses, no feelings, no soul…. I was a machine, I was– I was Death, and you… You were life, Agatha. You gave me a name, a reason to live, a reason to feel. You're the reason I'm alive. Without you, I'm just… Death.”
Agatha stroked Rio's face. “You changed me, too, you know. Everyone I've ever trusted has betrayed me. I'd been barely surviving. I just– I just wanted everything to stop. But then you came along, and I stopped just surviving. I started living. Yeah, I've been hurt a lot, but I've truly never felt more alive. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Rio sighed. “It’s just— I love you so so much, Agatha, and I just— you keep getting hurt because of me, and at the end of the day, I’m still Death. Every night, you go to bed with me, and every day, you wake up with me, and—“
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Agatha smiled, kissing Rio on the forehead before cupping her face. “Every time I wake up from a nightmare, I look at you, and everything’s okay. Before you, I was stuck in the past, reliving my childhood day in and day out. You pulled me out. I’ve lost…” Agatha tried to count on her fingers before giving up. “…countless years in those memories and you… You’re giving them back. The things you relive, they hurt more than any bullet.”
Rio chuckled mirthlessly. “I’ll have to take your word for it. My pain tolerance is far higher than mortals, and I can’t die. I think that makes me ignorant to some things. Getting hurt, dying… That adds so much to the human experience that I’ll never really understand.”
Agatha pulled her in for a hug. “You are the most understanding person I’ve ever met, Rio. So what if you don’t understand every part of it? It gives you a unique point of view. Plus, you’re learning. That's something a lot of people aren’t willing to do. You don’t need to, by any means whatsoever, but you’re going above and beyond to try to see the world through our eyes. That’s what counts. Trying.”
Rio slowly pulled away, tracing Agatha’s face and looking into her ocean-blue eyes before kissing her.