Se tries to tell herself that she does not care for him. She doesn't.
Teen is not her child.
And yet she fails miserably at it, even though she knows he is safe now. Jen had healed him and all he needed now was to sleep the pain off but she can’t quite ignore the absolute horror she felt seeing the piece of glass buried into his skin, the blood soaking his clothes when they had to remove it and his pained groans when Jen had first started healing him.
The black hair in her locket, the small curl of it. It look like Teen’s but is also completely different. It hadn’t really smelled like Nicholas for a long time now, and besides, it’s not like she remembered. Not even the sound of his little voice, that had been the first thing she had forgotten.
Teen is not Nicholas, but she can’t stop this itching in the back of her brain telling her that he is.
Even though she had seen it and felt it against her skin as her child had drawn his last breath, even though she had clung onto his small body for dear life as his left him, even though it was not possible she wanted it to be. She wanted him to be.
She had tried everything in her power to keep him alive, she had traded him for that godforsaken book to find a way to keep him alive and yet… And yet, here she was a childless mother crying for another mother’s child because hers was gone.
She feels so goddamn stupid because she is praying for him to wake up, so much for putting all those walls around her.
She hears him moving and the weight around her shoulders vanish and finally she can breath again, she hadn’t even realized that she was holding her breath before.
He jokes about her being nice to him — and she barely corrects him, mostly because she’s still a bit frightened that he would fall into near death again — and, of course, he would after almost dying, as one does.
But when the real question comes, about the one thing she can’t barely speak out loud about it, comes, all she does is run, far away from him and his confusing presence only to end up sitting right besides Rio.
“I’ve got a scar.” Rio speaks darting her eyes around the circle and Agatha scoffs slightly.
“No, you don’t.” It comes out naturally because, Agatha had, in fact, seen it first hand. Rio treated her body like a temple, even during a nasty fight she never let an ugly cut become a scar.
She sees all the looks the others give her, there’s no judgment, but surprise is inevitable. Both Rio and Agatha do have a challenging relationship — if you can call it a relationship — Agatha loves Rio, she has never denied that, but it’s hard being around her.
Rio often brought out the worst of her, even without meaning it.
Rio was good even if she denied a thousand times over, it was the truth. Agatha was the complete opposite, that was, also, the truth. Her own mother tried to kill her over it to prove it. But there’s a lot of things along her time alive that were complete bullshit she said to keep people away, absurd things even but it wasn’t her fault people took her seriously.
“A long time ago, I loved someone.” Oh God. “ And I did something I did not want to do, even though it was my job and it hurt them. She is my scar.”
The air is knocked out of her lungs little by little every time Rio looks at her after just blurting out their past to their brand new coven. This journey could not be worse than it already is at this very moment.
She tries to play it cool, to be subtle about it. Pretend that Rio isn’t talking about her but it’s useless, mostly because Rio won’t stop looking at her. Agatha knows it fair that Rio hates her, Agatha often does ask too much of people, especially Rio.
She makes up an awful excuse to run away. Again. This is all she seems to be able to do today, run away from all her problems and difficult spots, God she feels sick.
She had lived so long but she can’t help but feel trapped in the loop of the wave of destruction she caused after Nicholas’ death. She had been merciless, evil even. And yet, she would never apologize for it. Her little boy was the one good thing she had ever done and even that they took from her.
Agatha couldn’t be good, every good she has ever done had come back to her in a suffocating sea of hurt.
The warmth of Rio palm at her back is what remove her from the darkness that’s inside her own head. Rio hates her, she knows. But Rio also loves her and Agatha can see how that’s a curse worse than Alice’s. Rio is understanding and Agatha hates it, she hates it because she wants Rio to hate her, she want Rio to be so angry at her that she cannot see reason and finds a way to be able to end Agatha’s misery.
It has to be her, she’ll not stand for anyone else to do so. Even if it means coming back from the dead.
Their hug is loving, Agatha engulfed her into her arms like she had done a thousand times before, an apology of sorts. This is their way of communicating, as twisted as their affair is, they have their own language. It is love. Even if it kills them a little bit.
How long has it been since they last hugged like this? A hundred or so years ago? She genuinely cannot remember.
Even covered in dirt after digging her way here, Rio smelled divinely.
Their kiss is charged, Agatha can tell it had been long for her too. She holds her face with one hand as the other holds Rio as close as she can taking from her as much as she could. And the other woman is nothing if not hungry for Agatha as well, her hand going up the nape of her neck and grabbing a handful of hair and pulling her the way she knows Agatha likes.
She pulls her hair harder pulling her face away lightly.
“Stop.” Rio says and Agatha’s hands immediately falls away from her.
She says nothing to contradict her. She just stay still as Rio steps away and Agatha awaits for the slap that’ll certainly comes her way. But it never does, Rio just looks at her big brown glassy eyes.
“That boy isn’t yours.” She clarifies.
And she should know this, she had been the one who had buried Nicholas after. Agatha could never bring herself to ask where. She never really intended to visit, she guesses it because it would be so much harder to know where.
It's not meant to be hurtful but it is nonetheless. Any mention of him is.
She swallows the lump in her throat and looks away. She should not run for the heels every time someone tried to talk to her about anything and yet, she does.
She walks away from Rio, just as she had thousands of time before.