Chapter Text
There was never an actual man in Agatha’s house, thank the goddesses and demons alike. The deadbeat husband was just a construct. He needn’t be seen on screen and therefore needn’t exist at all. That’s why it was especially strange that, on the same day color returned to Westview, Agatha returned home to find her character now had a housemate.
She had to hand it to Wanda; the girl really knew her eras. The shag carpet, lime greens and bright oranges, aggressively modern furniture—all soft, listing triangles—were almost exactly as Agatha remembered from living through the actual 1970s. That had been a good decade, loud with the sort of change-makers and protests that drew her kind into the open. She’d been running with all the wrong crowds, throwing bricks and burning bras instead of witches. Somewhere, there was a mugshot of her wearing the same leather coat as hung on the banister.
Nostalgic or not, the house was entirely different. She’d have to relearn it all over again. Still, through all the newness, she could feel it the moment she walked through the door. Someone else lived there now. The O’Connor household had a new cast member.
For half a heartbeat, she saw a second, smaller pair of boots next to hers in the entryway and thought, irrationally, Nicky.
It wasn’t. Couldn’t be. Wanda couldn’t possibly know and wouldn’t be so cruel if she did. Any version of Nicky she might encounter in this godforsaken town would be a magical construct, like Vision or whatever was growing inside Wanda. And, when Wanda’s little pantomime crumbled, he’d crumble with it. She wouldn’t survive that, immortality be damned.
And yet, a part of Agatha ached to turn left on the second-floor landing and find her son, seven and playing with lincoln logs or teenaged and broody, snapping at her to get out of his room. For that, she might entirely abandon her plans and join forces with Wanda, keep this sad, little town bound for the rest of time, raise her son. But it wasn’t Nicky. That room was as much a tomb as it had ever been. Agatha was relieved.
Her own room was another story. The bed was rumpled, both pillows askew. Gross. If some balding, beer-bellied man bumbled into her bedroom expecting to share Agatha’s bed, she’d turn Wanda’s little sitcom world into a true crime series. But there were no men’s clothes in the closet. She yanked open the drawer of the bedside table that had stood empty since she arrived and stared blankly at the vaseline and cold cream and…
Agatha slammed the drawer shut.
Well.
She hadn’t seen one of those in a very long time.
Just to be sure, she hurried around the bed to her own nightstand and found it filled with her own junk.
So. Unless Wanda had conjured her a real freak, her new steady was a woman. A wife, in sentiment if not law, judging by the plain gold band on her left hand. It seemed the little witch next door was dispensing with her heavy-handed heteronormativity. Fair enough. How very seventies.
Agatha sat down heavily on the mustard bedspread. A woman was better than a man—and more fun, if the contents of that bedside table were any indication—but inconvenient, nonetheless. She had plans and really didn’t savor the idea of wasting energy controlling a ball and chain.
Downstairs, the front door slammed. After a crackling, pregnant pause, a familiar voice called up, “Honey, I’m home!”
Shit.
That voice—Agatha would’ve known it anywhere, in any century and any language. Nothing could’ve prepared her for this after so much time. After everything. After Rio Vidal went from her beating heart to her certain doom. If Nicky would have been the worst possible surprise addition to the cast, this was number two.
As footsteps ascended the stairs, Agatha hid one glowing hand behind her back and tensed.
And then there she was, leaning on the doorframe in bell-bottoms and a tight sweater vest. Rio Vidal. The Green Witch. Death, in the flesh.
She looked incredible.
“What are you doing here?” Agatha asked, with not near enough of the force or accusation she’d intended to convey. The shock choked her, sapped her vehemence and smoothed her sharp edges, just for a moment.
“I thought I’d come home early to surprise you,” Rio said, a genuine, warm smile rising like the sun on her face. “Surprise.”
The magic crackling through Agatha’s fingers sputtered out.
“And I needed to get the hell out of Ohio,” Rio added, smile turning devious. She crossed the threshold, cupped her hand around Agatha’s jaw, and leaned down to kiss her, quick, like that was still how they greeted each other. “Next time, don’t let me agree to a work trip unless it’s somewhere fun and you can come with.”
“I don’t know what you expected,” said Agatha, playing along cautiously. “Ohio has been a trash heap longer than it’s been a state.”
Rio laughed. As she turned away to set her keys on the bedside table, sunlight glinted off the gold band on her left ring finger. “Just say you missed me.”
“Like a tumor.”
“Ooh, because I’m part of you.”
“Rio,” Agatha said tightly. It was all too wrong. She couldn’t do this, whatever it was.
From one heartbeat to the next, Rio was in front of her once more, cradling her face with both hands. She studied Agatha thoroughly, holding her gaze for an almost unbearably long time. It had been an eternity since Rio had last been this gentle with her—since Agatha would allow it. And then Rio had stopped trying.
“Why are you here?” Agatha asked again.
“Because I refuse to give up on you. Forever isn’t over yet.”
“You left.”
“You told me t—” Rio swallowed her words and the edge of frustration in them. “If I could do something different—a job that could never hurt you—I would,” she said, in that voice just a little too gravely to sound entirely human. “But this is what I was made to do.”
Despite herself, Agatha’s eyes flicked over Rio’s shoulder towards the closed door across the hall. “I thought we were of our own making,” she said.
“If that were true, I’d unmake the world for you.”
Agatha clenched her teeth, willing away her treacherous tears. She wrapped her arms around Rio’s waist and tugged until Rio climbed into her lap. For a moment, they stayed like that, foreheads touching, breathing each other in. “You always have been a sap. And a liar,” said Agatha. And then she surged up.
Their next kiss was not quick.
Even in Wanda’s sprawling farce, Rio smelled like fresh earth. Agatha licked into her mouth and tasted honey and hibiscus on her tongue. Her hands slid to Rio’s hips, into to the back pockets of those bell-bottoms, then up to slip under the hem of her top, where her skin was like a furnace. Rio made a little noise of approval and pressed herself tighter against Agatha.
They kissed until the heartache was a small, smoking ember in the back of Agatha’s mind. It was not forgiven, not forgotten, only contained.
And then, sprawled out on the bed with Rio draped across her, Agatha admitted, “I did miss you.”
Rio nuzzled into her neck and scraped her teeth lazily over Agatha’s pulse point, bonelessly content. “I love you, Agnes O’Connor,” she said sleepily.
Agatha’s heart leapt into her throat. “What did you just call me?”