Archive of Our Own ^beta

No one has ever given Hilda’s powers much credit, mainly because she uses them so seldom, but there is little Hilda can’t see. Mortals are easily read. Witches a trifle more difficult. Zelda has always been careful about this, the one gift Hilda possesses that her sister covets, the one she’d have no defense against if Hilda really decided to use it.

Not that Hilda has to use it, not when Zelda’s emotions burn bright when she isn’t actively suppressing them.

It takes her a moment, just one little moment because she is so full of joy and purpose herself, to notice Zelda is all lit up. There might as well be a neon sign hanging above the kitchen table.

Hands stilling over her muffin, eyes widening, she takes Zelda in properly. "What, what are you going to get up to today?"

"I believe the High Priest is calling."

Hilda wants to dig deeper but Zelda hides behind the morning paper, as always, and she needs to get to work.

[===]

In between making lattes and ringing customers up Hilda almost forgot about it, but the nagging suspicion, more than suspicion for she has never been wrong before, comes back when Zelda is nowhere to be found for dinner. It's all but confirmed the next morning when Zelda informs the family of her newfound position at the Academy.

Hilda is left stupified for a moment and hardly hears the snide remark about her job.

Faustus Blackwood is not a man to be trusted. Even if he were, he is married, and while her sister is hardly celibate, she isn't one for sharing.

Witches might still be somewhat polygamists; certainly the young and single are, but Zelda is not. However much her sister may deny it, Hilda knows Zelda likes to nest too much for trivial connections. In that, they are the same.

Short of Lady Blackwood dropping dead, the whole thing is doomed, and Hilda needs merely to sit back and wait for it to end.

No point in getting jealous, she tells herself.

Logic is not enough to stop her from retrieving the small bottle labeled 'Amor' from the kitchen cabinet that holds all her potions. There is hardly any left, she used too much on Luke, but her mother's recipes have always been potent. A few drops are all she'll need to direct Faustus’ mind back to his wife.

[===]

Meddling with people's happiness is risky and as sick as she gets at the thought of that man's hands all over her sister, Hilda keeps well away from his office when Ambrose calls her to the Academy.

Zelda deserves some happiness, however brief it might turn out to be.

It's a lesson they've apparently failed to teach their niece because Sabrina has meddled in the worst way. There is no time to think about anything else after that.

[===]

One disaster follows another. Zelda and Ambrose disappear, and Sabrina goes off on her own. Hilda holds the fort, as she always does.

The magic she weaves is powerful, strains her resolve, and she thinks she'll fail Zelda and mortals when Cee appears.

When it's over, she lets her boss walk her home and kisses him because he'd stayed when everyone else had abandoned her.

[===]

Up in their room, she finds her sister alive and well and with Faustus Blackwood's daughter. The surge of jealousy that knowing Zelda had left her and been with him ignites instantaneously.

The sudden intensity leaves her feeling overhot and her mind a little foggy. It takes a moment to process Zelda's words.

"Hilda?"

Blinking back the fog, she looks into her sister's panicked blue eyes. "You and Blackwood are over then?"

Panick turns to curiosity. "How did you...? You haven't been poking around where you don't belong have you, sister?"

It's incredible how quickly Zelda can go on the offensive. Like a shark smelling blood, that one.

"Oh, please, as if I'd need to. You weren't subtle you know, with your red dress and all but purring his name."

"Careful, Hilda, you're starting to sound almost jealous."

"Faustus Blackwood, is hardly my type is he." Not that Hilda has a type as far as anyone is concerned.

Zelda closes the gap between them. "Not exactly what I meant."

They've danced this dance before. It was Zelda's favorite spot to poke at when they were younger, though it's been years now, decades even. Fingers pull at Hilda's curls as Zelda steps closer.

Her eyes stray to her sister's lips of their own accord, her tongue wetting her own lips. How ridiculous that she still reacts so quickly to Zelda, even knowing her sister's game, having been the victim of it one too many times.

"Stop toying with me, Zelds."

"I'm not."

There have been moments of stillness like this when Hilda has thought maybe, but it's never happened. Taking a chance, she leans forward reaching for her sister's lips, but Zelda pulls back.

Red lips spread into a wicked smile, she wants to slap right off. She glares instead and pulls away, but Zelda grabs her arm and stills her.

"What is your type sister? All these years and I've never figured it out."

"You know."

"Do I? You seem very cozy with that shopkeeper."

Jealousy is a two-way street it seems; still, she isn't ready to appease Zelda. Quite the opposite. All their lives she has watched Zelda traipse around with one beau or another, and she's never said a damn thing. Loving someone didn't give you a right over them, however strong the feeling.

"You have some nerve."

"It's serious then?" The hold on her arm loosens.

"Not as serious as you and Blackwood, I'll bet."

"Sex doesn't have to be serious."

"It's never just sex with you though is it?" It's rhetorical because they both know Zelda longs for love as much as Hilda does, even if she looks for it in all the wrong places.

"Hilda," she sounds almost apologetic.

"Now you want to raise his daughter."

"With you, not him, besides Faustus is hardly father material." The familiar bored exasperation colors Zelda's voice as if this is another squabble about an ill-fitting puzzle piece.

It's the last straw. Anger and jealousy burn through her unchecked, "I'm so bloody sick of being your back up plan, Zelda Spellman. Always your last choice, always an afterthought. I deserve better from you."

Zelda's hand covers her cheek, thumb moving gently over Hilda's skin. "If you were an option sister, I'd chose you every time."

The games have to stop, Hilda is sick of them. Two centuries of push and pull, of give and take, much more giving on her part than Zelda's. It was now or never. Hilda is more than ready for some happiness, she wants that with Zelda, has always wanted it with Zelda, but she would look for it elsewhere if she had to. Satan, she hopes she doesn't have to.

"Then choose me, Zelds. Choose me."

The smile returns, though the teasing is tempered by the soft look in her eyes. "I thought that's what I was doing."

"Yeah?" She asks surprised.

Zelda rolls her eyes, but answers anyway. "Yes."

It's not Hilda that moves first this time, but she responds immediately falling into the kiss with a sigh. The softness of her sister's lips surrounds her as much as her perfume and the lingering smell of cigarettes. She opens her mouth to Zelda's tongue and knows with certainty this is the kiss she will remember from tonight.

Hilda doesn't want to stop touching Zelda's skin, her mind begins to wander to all those things she's imaged a thousand times before. She tries to pin down what she wants to try first when the baby's cries fill the room.

They pull apart reluctantly, and Zelda turns to the bassinet with a frown.

"I see you have your father's ill timing."

Hilda chuckles and moves towards the little one, peering down at the precious face. Love and babies are two things that naturally go hand in hand and Hilda is in love with their new charge in an instant.

"Oh, she just wants a little attention, don't you sweetpea."

[===]

The baby goes down for the night easily once she's fed, burped, and changed, and then it's just them.

Hilda eyes her own bed for only a second before joining Zelda in hers.

"Is there something wrong with your bed?"

Hilda would be put out if not for the smile on her sister's face and the way she's pulling Hilda against her.

"Or did the thirteen scare you?"

"Well, you did leave me on my own."

"Not by choice. Never by choice, Hilda."

Her sister's fingers rake through her hair, tucking it behind her ear, caressing her jaw as she pulls away. The touch is as gentle as Hilda's had been with the babe, softer than anything she's ever expected from Zelda. She's more open than Hilda has ever seen her and is all but glowing with happiness.

"We should name her," Hilda says to keep the declarations of love from pouring out.

"Tomorrow, I have more important things on my mind right now."

Zelda pulls her in, her lips covering Hilda's, her hands rooming Hilda's body under the covers searching for skin. Those hands pull plenty of declarations from Hilda throughout the night, and those lips become a wellspring of whispered forevers.