Chapter Text
She had been called there by the existence of something out of the ordinary, something wrong. There had been a large number of people lingering on the edge of death for days. None of them had succumbed, none of them had improved, and the singularly odd piece to this puzzle was that she could not sense a cause. There had been no indication of any disease or disaster that would typically be expected to affect this many people all at once. It was too interesting— and too potentially dangerous— to be left alone. She arrived just outside of Westview in the middle of the afternoon, the hood of her cloak draping her face in shadow. She wore her humanesque mask, hoping to allay any discomfort of people she passed. She was aware of the effect she had on human beings, despite her best efforts to make (most of) them comfortable. For as long as they’ve existed, they could sense her. Not well enough to identify her, but well enough to instinctively steer clear. Rio has always been received by the living like a bone chilling breeze.
The empty street puzzled her. Westview didn’t seem particularly large, it was far from a metropolis. From what she could see from the road leading in, it looked like a sleepy little town. However, even sleepy little towns have some traffic. Rio’s brow furrowed. This wasn’t right. She took three slow steps forward, and stopped in her tracks. Magic. She could feel it now. The air around her bent and shimmered with its weight. Someone in that town was a heavy hitter, and chances were, her problem was a symptom of whatever they’d been up to. She took a few more steps forward, taking care to be vigilant, and that’s when she noticed it. A barrier of some sort, not likely visible to the human eye. She weighed her options. Walking through it wouldn’t do anything to her. She couldn’t die, after all. Still though, there was the chance that her passing through would alert whoever had created it, and that could prove to be a nuisance. For the time being, she decided to observe from the outside.
It was evening by the time Rio had made it around to the opposite side of the dome. She had walked carefully and deliberately for hours, continually surprised by and suspicious of the lack of people. Just after nightfall, that changed. Directly across from where she’d started, there was a house sitting close to the edge of the barrier. She heard them before she saw them. Animated, happy voices. Maybe a little over the top, even. As she got closer, it became easier to hear what they were saying.
“Oh Agnes, you’re a lifesaver!”
“Well, what kind of housewife would I be if I didn’t have a gourmet meal for four just lying about the place?”
Rio froze. This wasn’t possible. Every single muscle in her body was tense as she tried to explain it away. It sounded like her, that didn’t mean it was her. Still, she couldn’t resist getting closer to check. She crept through the brush line that separated the house from the trees behind it, and as the back door came into view, Rio paled. She could see her through the window. It was Agatha.
“Thank you Agnes, I think I have it covered from here.”
“Oh, are you sure dear? Many hands make light work, and many mouths make good gossip.”
Who the fuck was Agnes?
Who the fuck was this other woman?
And why did she have her hands on her wife’s waist?
Rio watched, breathless, as Agatha was nearly ushered out of the other woman’s kitchen. It didn’t occur to her to move back into the brush, so she hunched, frozen and exposed just outside of the backyard. As Agatha was pushed closer to the door, she looked out the window. For the briefest of moments, they made eye contact. Rio, crouched like an animal in the dark, looked into the eyes of her wife for the first time in centuries. The door opened.
Agatha whirled around inside, avoiding her departure. She began talking the other woman through recipes, asked her some inane question about jellies, and her next words sent a hot blush up Rio’s neck and across her cheeks.
“Good girl.”
Pale and motionless seconds before, Rio was now ignited with rage and left with a burning in her chest that propelled her out of the yard, away from the house, away from the dome, away from her wife. Her mind reeled with shock and betrayal. Agatha had been hiding from her for all these years, had refused to show her face, had she been here the whole time? She hadn’t even reacted to seeing her outside. What was so rewarding about spending time with that doe eyed, handsy little mouse? Were they fucking? Were the 1950’s era outfits supposed to be part of some weird role play?
Rio slowed. None of this was Agatha’s style. It dawned on her that the magic she sensed when she arrived wasn’t Agatha’s. It hadn’t been familiar the way Agatha’s would have been. She turned around with an exasperated sigh, dutifully returning to the house her wife had been in. If this wasn’t Agatha’s magic, wasn’t Agatha’s doing, there was a chance she was in danger. Rio couldn’t abide that. She was angry, she was hurt, and she had questions, but she would not leave her alone in this. She couldn’t. She had been grieving her still living wife for too long already. Even Death had a heart.
Rio stayed close to the house she last saw Agatha in that night, barely blinking in hopes of another chance to see her. By the time the early morning colors started to bleed into the inky sky, she still hadn’t seen anyone. She could guess that Agatha didn’t live there, not with the way she saw the other woman attempt to kick her out of the kitchen. But because she stormed off, she missed the chance to see where she might have gone. She mentally kicked herself. Idiot. Just because Rio hadn’t pursued anyone in the last couple hundred years didn’t mean Agatha was doing the same. It’s not like they’d had an amicable split, or even any contact whatsoever. Agatha hated her, and sometimes when Rio thought too hard about it, she hated herself too.
Her surroundings slipped away slowly as her eyes lost their focus. Gone was the manicured, empty backyard stretching out before her. Suddenly, she stood at the edge of an ancient forest. She can see Agatha, smaller than ever against the towering trees and endless slate grey sky. Her wild hair is damp with mist and sweat, sticking to her forehead and her chest. She hears her labored breathing, the signs of her pain and struggle. She approaches.
Agatha looks to her immediately. She was always able to tell somehow when Rio was nearby. It used to make Rio feel loved, feel known. Not today. She keeps trying to gather the proper words to say, like so many flowers. She needs Agatha to know that this is tearing her into pieces, too. She had not known before today that this would be their child’s fate. She imagines the bouquet she would bring if she could. Purple hyacinth, I’m so sorry. White lilies, he will not be lost to you forever. Aster and heliotrope, I will never stop loving you, even though I have to do this. Rio decides that if Agatha ever lets her near her again, she will bring her flowers.
The noise of a helicopter overhead startled her. She wasn’t aware how much time had passed, lost to her memories. Rio blinked slowly in the bright sunlight, somber and sluggish coming out of her reverie. She tilted her head up, tracking the helicopter with mild interest as it hovered closer and closer to the dome. When it vanished she searched the sky, eyes zigzagging across the blue expanse, not able to make sense of what happened. It dawned on her too slowly. The dome. She was glad she made the decision not to breach it.
She looked to the house in front of her, searching for anyone in the windows who might be responding to the noise from the chopper or the sudden lack thereof once it disappeared. There was no indication that anyone heard it, but she did learn something new. A man lived in this house, with the woman from last night. And she recognized him.
Rio had seen that face before, she had tried to guide him to rest mere weeks ago. Vision, she remembered him calling himself. She also remembered being perplexed by him, because technically he wasn’t ever supposed to have had a soul. His body wasn’t made of flesh and blood and bone, he was intricately knit together with wires and circuits and memory boards. And that stone in his forehead. Before he had a body, he used to exist in voice alone. He’d had a different name then. His purpose had been to serve human beings, to answer calls for help and obey orders. Somewhere along the way, this little marvel had fashioned himself a soul. While that was technically against the rules, she hadn’t disliked him. In fact she had surprised herself by being somewhat fond of him. He was incredibly intelligent, but he had also been kind and inquisitive about her work in ways no one else had been before. She remembered feeling disappointed when he gently declined her offer to escort him to his eternal peace. He had seemed wistful about something, more focused on the past than on his present circumstance.
That made sense now. He had clearly decided to interfere with the sacred balance yet again and return with the help of the magic that radiated from him. And for that woman? Pathetic.
The more she watched them interact through the window, the less she understood. They seemed to be practicing fake magic. Vision had a shoddy toy wand, and the woman stepped into a cabinet and then back out again. Rio shook her head slowly, her tongue poking into her lower cheek. She rolled her eyes and crept behind the brush line to follow it in its circle around to the front yard. There was nothing to see from the backyard but amateur hour, and she still had no idea where Agatha had gone.
As she neared the front yard, she spotted Vision walking briskly out of the house. She ducked lower, waiting a few beats before she allowed herself to continue. Just as she peeked her head back over the top of the shrubs, the woman exited the house. Rio watched as she made a beeline to one of her rose bushes that lined her yard against the street, and she picked something out of them. She felt her stomach sink as she realized what it was. There in the woman’s hands was a toy helicopter. It was clear from the woman’s reaction to the toy that she had noticed something was wrong. She stood in the yard for a moment, holding it like an injured bird before dropping it suddenly when someone approached and startled her. Rio craned her neck to get a better view.
Agatha.
“Look, it’s the star of the show!”
Rio watched the interaction, and fought the urge to laugh when Agatha pulled out her “pet rabbit” for the other woman to use in her “magic act”. That must be what Rio had witnessed through the window. Agatha cracked a couple of jokes, something about the rabbit starring in a Christmas pageant as the other woman went back inside, and Rio couldn’t understand why she was acting this way. This over the top, campy, annoying persona was not like Agatha at all. She watched her have a similarly odd interaction with a passing mailman. Did she just do finger guns?
She didn’t have time to dwell on it before the other woman returned. Maddeningly, Agatha extended her arm for this stranger to take, and they walked away together down the sidewalk. She was acutely aware of the dull ache in her chest as she realized she was about to lose sight of Agatha again, and in that moment the only thing worse than the uncertainty of the dome was the clawing fear she felt at the thought of being so close to her wife again and not knowing where she’d be sleeping that night. It was time to make a decision.
Rio stepped through the invisible barrier.