Work Text:
It came back to her, all over again.
Agatha being dragged by her sisters witches, tied to the stake. Her own mother, sentencing her to death. The burning feeling of their powers through her body, her own desperate screams begging for them to stop. The tears in her eyes when she promised her mother she could be better, she could be good. The weight of her mother's words saying that she couldn't. Those words repeated over and over again, ringing in her mind.
“No, you cannot.”
You cannot be good.
Agatha awakes from her nightmare, more a terrible memory than a dream itself. She feels her nose and pillow slightly wet from the tears she shed while asleep. She reaches the other side of the bed, but there's no one there. Usually, when the nightmares caught her in the middle of the night, she'd just reach for Rio, and Rio knew. She knew all of it.
Agatha wipes her face and gets up from bed. She wraps herself in a robe and walks out of the room. She stops by a door not far from the one of her bedroom. She silently opens it, trying to not make any sound. Nicholas was sleeping, peacefully. It wasn't even near the time for him to wake up.
“You cannot be good”, her mother said, and Agatha believed her words for so, so many years. Until Nicholas came. Maybe part of it was true, maybe she could not be good to the world outside. They had given her nothing but deception, betrayal and pain, so she paid it back the same way. But she could be good to that boy, her precious little boy, whom she loved more than anything in this earth. She could be a good mother, a better mother than her own, she could give him the love that was never given to her, and somehow more.
She closes his door and walks towards the kitchen. From the corridor, she could already feel the smell of coffee invading her nostrils. Rio was there, preparing her own breakfast.
“Bad dream?”, she asks. Rio was always up before the first light, and it was unusual for Agatha to be awake this early, so Rio knew something wasn't right. After all these centuries, it still astonished Agatha how good it felt to just be known by someone, especially so well. She took a moment before answering, just to savor the feeling.
“Always.”
The images from the dream invaded her mind once again: her mother's face, her words, her own coven, united with the one same goal: killing her. Killing her for something she wasn't guilty of, for something she couldn't control, for being herself. The tears flooded her eyes again, but she refused to shed them. Rio goes to her, reaches her face, her thumb caressing Agatha's cheek, and she places a kiss on her forehead.
“You're safe now, Agatha.”
She pulls Agatha closer and wraps her arms around her. Agatha clings to her, burying her face on Rio's neck, her grip so tight as if she wanted to fuse herself into Rio and hide inside of her.
“They can't hurt you, not anymore.”, Rio says, and places a kiss on the top of Agatha's head. But even though the memories couldn't physically harm her, they still hurt. More than she could ever begin to admit.
“I'll make you something. Why don't you go sit outside? It'll be a beautiful day.”, she runs her thumb underneath Agatha's eyes as if to clean the tears that weren't shed.
“Okay.”, Agatha says with the softest tone that she doesn't commonly uses.
She walks out the front door, a soft breeze winds through her clothes, not too cold, not uncomfortable, but gentle, as if it welcomed her to the outside. She sits on the bench in the porch of their cottage. The day was still dark, it hadn't quite begun yet, but it was close to. Agatha never understood why Rio would always get up so early.
Around their little cottage there was not much to be seen beyond the green of the fields and the trees that surrounded them. It was hard finding a place away from everything and everyone, where they could try and live peacefully, raising their boy away from the dangers of their previous lives before him. Rio liked the place because it was everything she loved about the world. Nature, quiet and peaceful. Agatha loved it because it reminded her of Rio. Especially on the days Rio had to go out to perform her duties, where Agatha would stay outside for hours playing with Nicholas and enjoying the view of that land that resembled so much her beloved wife.
The door beside her opened, but she doesn't look until she hears Rio's footsteps closer to her. Rio hands her a cup of coffee, Agatha grabs it with her left hand, and holds Rio's with the other.
“Thank you, baby.”
Rio responds with a soft squeeze on her hand. Then she looks up to the horizon, and her eyes brighten up.
“Hey, look up!”
She sits beside Agatha on the bench, still holding her hand. Agatha holds her cup upon her lap, waiting 'til the coffee's not too hot to take the first sip. She looks to the direction Rio's looking, but sees nothing, nothing different than before. She looks to Rio, but her eyes are still locked on the same spot.
“What is it?”, Agatha questions.
“Any minute now.”
Agatha turns again to face the horizon. A few moments pass, she takes her first sip of coffee. Then, something shifts in the distance. The rusty gold color of the first ray of sunlight fills the sky. Rio laughs of excitement while playfully squeezing Agatha's hand once again.
“I always wanted to show you this but you were never up this hour.”
Agatha can't help but smile at the sight of her lover so happy about something so simple. Yet, she begins to understand it as well. It was beautiful, indeed. It felt... peaceful. The sight of the day setting itself to begin, the quietness, it was so soft, delicate. She never dreamed this could be possible for her. After so long, running, fighting, clawing, finally there was some peace.
She lays her head on Rio's shoulder. That was how she wanted everyday to begin from now on. It reminded her of how far she was from all the horrors that insisted visiting her in her sleep. She was safe now. And she would never go back again.