Chapter Text
Now come one, come all, to this tragic affair…
Beep
Beep
Beep
Beep
Her body hurts.
She wants to succumb to it, the blissful call to rest emerging as the drugs masking her pain wear off.
It would be so simple to just… die.
Instead she lies, her body muscle losing mass at a rapid rate as her mind keeps her, trapped in a shell of the woman she was. And boy, was she something. Strong, witty, sexy as hell. A commanding force in all aspects of life. There was a time where she would have laughed at the thought of being anything less than a powerhouse willing to take the world with her.
But then there was an accident, and so many sirens, and now she’s here.
The doctors talk, and she listens.
“Coma.”
“Could be any time now.”
“Would she want to live like this?”
She doesn’t want to, not really. It’s no fun being in a coma. Being able to recognize the world happening around you, hearing the people in and out of her room, making idle comments as they check her charts and take her vitals.
There’s one nurse, Cassie, that she doesn’t mind. The kid is nice. She always comes in and talks about what’s happening in the world— news, politics, the latest celebrity engagement. Cassie talks like Agatha is awake, like she could respond back as if they were friends sharing gossip over wine. It makes her feel normal. Like her body isn’t shutting down around her rapid-firing brain. Like she might wake up tomorrow and get back to her life.
Like she isn’t dying.
It’s strange— the limbo between life and death.
Sometimes, she thinks, it's harder to live.
Maybe this is her penance.
She wasn’t the kindest person in life— was willing to suck the life from another to better herself. The name Agatha Harkness always brought fear into a room. She commanded respect, made sure to surround herself with people that required the same. Her mother always told her that greatness required sacrifice, and Agatha learned quickly that she was willing to do whatever it took to be great.
So, maybe this was God's will. Get her to the top, and then wrap her car around a tree.
Maybe when she dies, she’ll be first in line to repent. Front row seat to the penitence ball, confess her sins and walk into heaven and live out the rest of her existence in a world surrounded by sunshine and golden halos.
Oh hell, who is she kidding. Even if she did believe in all that— there’s no chance. She hasn’t done any good in her life to be worthy of any forgiveness.
There are sounds coming from her room. A creak of a door, the click of heels against tile, the scrape of a chair as it drags along the floor, the calm, even breaths that used to lull her to sleep.
“Hi baby.”
Okay. Maybe she did something good.
A hand comes up, brushes against her hairline, fingertips tracing gently along the crease in her forehead, the lines of her eyes, the curvature of her cheek, thumb brushing her bottom lip.
What she wouldn’t give to suck that thumb into her mouth.
“I don’t know if you can hear me.”
She can. She absolutely can. Every word, every prayer to a God they never trusted, every plea for her to just open her eyes and wake up. She hears them all. She feels every tear. Smells her rich perfume as the love of her life lays her head on the pillow, curls her body around Agatha’s and sobs herself to sleep. Every word is stored in her thoughts. They run on a constant loop in her mind, giving her only enough hope that maybe, if she makes it out of this, she knows she has something to go home to.
Rio.
“Today was hard. They’ve started interviewing for your spot in the partnership. I can’t sit in on them. No one is good enough. They’ve set these expectations to find someone who can fill your place but no one will ever be better than you. They don’t even measure up in comparison.”
Like hell they do. No one can replace the Harkness in “Harkness & Kale”, and fuck Jen for even allowing the board to try and send someone in her place. When she gets out of this, she’s firing them all. And then rehiring them, just to fire them again. She’ll show them, those stupid, good for nothing…
Beep beep.
Beep beep.
“Calm down my love.”
Rio’s hand comes up, cups her cheek and her thumb traces back and forth over Agatha’s cheekbone.
“Jen and I have stalled them. You know how stubborn we can both be.”
Damn right. That’s her girl.
Rio falls silent for a moment and then she hears it— the sniffle, feels the wet tears falling against her arm.
If anything could kill her more than a car accident, it’s this. Hearing the love of her life in this much pain and knowing there’s nothing she can do to comfort her, no part of her that can even give Rio a sense of hope that she can hear her, and she does love her, more than anything. It shreds her every time her wife sits here and cries into her skin, makes her heart crack and shatter over and over.
“I should have done more. I should’ve stopped you from going to work that night, in that fucking rain storm. Should have distracted you— ripped my clothes off and let you have your way with me. Anything to get you to stay home.”
Damn, that would’ve worked too. It’s not Rio’s fault— no one’s except her own. The case had been eating at her, driving her insane to the point that she could not rest until she was back in the office with her whiteboard and her files, trying to find any sliver of irregularity that would help her client. It was her own insistence that caused her to kiss her wife on the temple and promise she’d be back soon, to get behind the wheel during that hellacious storm, only to skid off the road and into a tree not even a block from their home.
The only thing keeping her going is Rio. The thought of holding her wife again, of looking into her eyes, of watching her breathe as she sleeps, of sitting at their kitchen counter as Rio pads around their house in nothing but a big t-shirt and her boxers, of taking her to Italy like she’s always asked, of listening to her sing along to her favorite song in the car, of just having the privilege of being alive at the same time as this beautiful, perfect woman.
She needs to get out of here. Out of the trap known as her mind. Back to her wife.
“I’ll do anything to save you. If you can hear me, just—”
Save me, baby.