Chapter Text
A cloaked figure watches the house from the woods. It’s their seventh visit to this unassuming old New England colonial nestled down a quiet, thickly forested road. As dusk falls lights flicker on in the home, following their usual pattern. There’s a slight chill in the air, the kind that comes when autumn creeps its way in at the tail end of summer. The watcher doesn’t feel it; they’re focused on the house, waiting for something.
A few moments later it happens. The back door of the house opens and a brown-haired woman steps out onto the stone patio. She pulls a dark purple shawl around her shoulders and releases a sigh. The figure hidden in the shadows watches, transfixed, as the woman closes her eyes and tilts her head to the sky. She does this seemingly every night, her own personal ritual. Some nights she stays out longer than others, usually she is alone.
There is movement inside the house, a burst and flurry of energy that catches the woman’s attention. A tired grin spreads across the woman’s face and she turns back to the house. She opens the door and calls to someone inside. For a brief moment the silent figure glimpses the inviting warmth of the life created here.
She wants to follow the woman, wants to be welcomed in with open warms, wants to throw herself at the woman’s feet and receive her penance. She wants and wants and wants but she does not move. Not yet. She isn’t ready.
Soon, though. Tomorrow perhaps. She didn’t think it would be this hard, coming back. The cold air finally leaches through her skin and she shudders. It’s time for her to go. But she will return, couldn’t stay away if she tried.
Rio was prepared for a lot of things when she finally regained a corporeal form and was able to find Agatha again. A new lover, perhaps. Chaos and destruction - more likely. A million possibilities played through her mind as she made her long journey to this sleepy town in western Massachusetts.
But nothing Rio imagined comes close to the shocking reality.
Agatha has a child.