Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time he sees her, he can’t be more than two years old. (She knows exactly how old he is, down to the minutes that tick away in her head, time falling like sand through the pinched center of an hourglass.) Pin straight hair, brown as a chestnut, falls past his ears.

The cloak he’s wrapped in reminds her of her own. Soft and warm, brown to her green, both of them earthen.

She could reach out and pull her own son to her now, but she doesn’t do it. She’s patient. (She is rageful and jealous, always moving, too many dualities to count.) But for him, for them , she is patience incarnate. 

Agatha isn't keen on letting her son go too far from her. And oh, how can Rio blame her, knowing what she knows? She can’t, but it means that he’s two by the first time he sees her. Even when he was young, Agatha woke in the night every time, soothed him back to sleep. 

(Rio can be anywhere, everywhere, and she is. But Agatha and her son sleep in nature, and Rio can feel them everywhere, all the time, her beating hearts.)

The first time Nicholas sees Rio, it's because he runs too fast.

Right into the forest, past the treeline, little feet carrying him over twigs and rocks, clumsily, right into her waiting arms. Like it’s by design. 

Nicholas Scratch grins at her, so much the both of them it aches, trust in his eyes that neither of them shared. A grin like he's saying hello, not like he's greeting a stranger.

She can already hear his mama calling for him. Playful, now, but she knows that won’t last long.

“Hi,” he says, unafraid, big eyes wide and looking up at her, arms wrapped around her legs, until she crouches, green cloak pooling around her on the ground. 

“Hi.” She reaches out. Smoothes the fabric of his cloak. “Hi, baby.”

“I’m two. ”

Two fat little fingers, held up in protest. The scrunch of a brow, the twist of his mouth in a pout.

“Oh, pardon me,” she says, in a way that would make an older child giggle, but makes Nicky nod his head seriously. In the distance, she can hear the more frantic calling starting. Nicky turns his head over his shoulder. 

She gave Agatha time. It is not something she can afford herself. 

“You know, it’s not a good idea to run from your mama.” There are wolves in the woods. There are things with teeth. Brown eyes go from the treeline, back to him. “Go on.” She wiggles a finger. Smiles. “Go back. Say hello for me.”

She should regret that last part. She doesn't.

“No more game?”

He pouts. It’s positively adorable.

“Not today, Nicky.” 

He is two. He doesn’t question why she knows his name. She doesn't offer the reason.

Several things happen all at once.

There is creaking at the edge of the forest, the snapping of a branch underfoot and a brush of sunlight. Two sets of eyes dart up to meet the woman, who freezes with her mouth in an o before her hands raise, fingertips glowing.

“Nicky, come here -” 

Agatha’s voice is fearful, but stern. Formidable. It is the voice of the woman Rio used to fight for fun, but there is none of the teasing in her expression this time, none of the flirting, of the game they used to play. It is the face of the woman she loves, turned on her like an enemy. Rio brushes Nicky’s hair behind his ear, and stands. The hood slips from her head to her shoulders.

There is naked fear on Agatha’s face, the likes of which she has only seen a couple of times before. She can count them on one hand. (Agatha, back to a pillar she was tied to only moments before, the adrenaline fading from her body. Standing in the cottage they had shared, her hand on her abdomen when the spell had confirmed what she’d already known, fear and realization co-existing on her face. Agatha, by the lakeside, pleading .) 

Their eyes meet.

Rio shakes her head. 

“Not today, Agatha.”

Agatha releases a breath like a sob.

“When?”

Rio puts her hand on Nicky’s head, nodding towards his mother. 

“Go on.”

The purple glow fades from Agatha’s hand as Rio fades from the forest.

Chapter Text

She is not one for melding into mortal experiences. There is very little purpose for it.

Not for her. Not anymore.

There was a time - 

But that time is gone, and it’s never coming back. She knows it from the way she begged, from the way she told her , knows that Nicky’s beginning signaled their end. It was never meant to be. Not until she was there, by the side of the river, Agatha’s eyes desperately seeking out her own did she know.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was meant to be all of them. Rio let herself believe - 

How many stories has Death been told? How many desperate pleas since the dawn of humanity? People tell her - it took them so much time, they say, and they’ve only just found each other again. They’re in love again. They’re finally alright, you can’t take me now.

(She does, anyway.) 

She wants to believe there could be that still, for Agatha and herself. Somehow. One day.

But she knows. Not in the way that she knows when someone’s time is up. She knows this in the same way she accidentally taught herself how to be human.

It’s been four years.

She should be elsewhere. She can feel the tug and pull of it. The call of somewhere else. It’s the call that pulled her here. That call has pulled her near Agatha just about constantly. Oh, Agatha can’t find a coven to kill every single day. There are hardly enough witches in the world for that, and Agatha and Nicholas have to travel to find them. Still. For a woman who does not want to see her, Agatha ensures Death is closer to her far more often than she is anyone else. Usually, she’s gone by the time Rio gets there, but there have been times.

Today she drowns that urge to be elsewhere, like one might throw a blanket over the cage of a bird. She wants. There was a time when she was not used to wanting. When it was not something she knew, at all. Agatha changed that. Agatha brought wanting into the equation, and it has devastated her ever since. 

It might have ruined her. It might ruin her still. 

Nicky is so much like his mother. 

It’s been two years and she can still feel the brush of his hair under her fingertips; she can still see the boyish smile. She wants it again. She wants that smile turned on her, those bright eyes latching on her face. She wants to hear his laughter, see those stubby little fingers again. It is easy to see him. It’s not easy for him to see her back. 

She wants. She cannot stop wanting.

Existence was so much easier without it. Emptier, too.

The woman whose soul she reaped sold produce in the village. Rio takes the opportunity, and the handles of the cart already laden with produce, and takes it with her. People still need to eat, don’t they? Rio can feel them nearby, the two of them. Being nearby is very rarely an accident, but then Agatha has to know that, too. Not that she killed the woman that Rio found earlier - no, that one was natural. 

No one questions her presence. There’s no need for it. Rio blends seamlessly into the village. Tomorrow, they’ll wonder where the young woman went, and they’ll wander to her home and find her body. Today, as it always does, life moves on with Death amongst it. 

Death moves on to find her son. 

She sets up shop, pays attention to prices. She’s always been good at transaction. What is death, if not one long transaction? A little time. A little sunshine, and rain, and air. Balance, and order. No matter what they all think. No matter what they say to her on their ways out. 

For now, they’re kind. Uneasy, but kind. There are very few people who are truly easy with her, even when they don’t know. Some people can just sense it. 

She can almost pretend. It’s almost nice. This is what it could have looked like, were it not for her job. Were it not for who she was, at her very core, it could’ve looked like this: 

Rio, selling produce in the center of the village. Exchanging pleasantries with the townsfolk. Laughing when a little girl with blonde curls curtsies and offers her a flower in exchange for a tomato, which Rio decides is transaction enough. Idly carving into a gourd with her knife, until there’s a horrifyingly evil face - 

Alright. So that last part isn’t winning her any admirers. 

She feels them before she sees them. They are the two person pull equivalent to a tide, pulling hard at her body. She does not fight against it. There is only one thing she wants, and the thrum of it hums louder and louder under her skin the closer the two of them get. 

And then - 

The tide dragging her under. Saltwater on her tongue. 

Agatha should look the same. In the fifty odd years that Rio has known her, she has only changed ever so slightly - youth still clings to her face. It’s very likely close to the oldest she’ll ever look. She should look the same. 

She shouldn’t look younger. 

There’s no logical reason for her to look younger.

She does. 

Sun-warmed hair falls in waves over her shoulders, strands clinging to sweat-slicked spots on her neck and temple. She’s not proud of the fact that she stopped breathing, or that there’s a metallic taste in the back of her throat. A soft smile warms her face, eyes focused nearly entirely on her son. Their hands are clasped so tightly together that it’s hard to see Nicky’s hand at all, swallowed up by his mother’s. Those hands swing together, back and forth, lazily. Agatha’s head is angled down towards him, tilting her hair just in front of her face. She’s saying something Rio can’t make out. She’s laughing.

She looks happy.

She looks so happy, and the want in Rio’s chest flickers like the flame of a candle. Down, tilted to the side, and then flaring back twice as strong. 

How could you do this to her? How could you let her see you? 

How could you not? 

Because that boy with his face tilted up towards Agatha is hanging on her every word. There’s a little bounce in every step he takes - he’s only four, and he should have to take two or three steps for every one of Agatha’s, but she has slowed her walk so he can keep up. He has something clutched in his other hand. 

He’s saying something. She can see his mouth moving and can’t hear him. He waits, listening to Agatha, and then starts laughing, swinging his mother’s hand harder. His hair is longer, as if it’s never been cut, and it curls just a little at the ends. It’s not the same cloak anymore; he’s grown too much. This cloak is made for autumn, and there are delicate leaves embroidered into the sleeves. 

Did Agatha make it? Did she choose it? Did Nicky? 

Death is always waiting, following, but now her fingers twitch. Time slows, presses together, expands like a set of lungs. 

She could leave; she could go. It would be as simple as breathing - something she’s still not doing. She takes a breath.

Agatha turns within the same minute. 

The witch’s hand comes to cover their son, as if by pushing him behind her she might save him from his fate. The same fate they all have. Even Agatha. No matter how far away it is. 

“Agatha-” 

“No. Nicky, go.” 

“Mama-” 

“I said go.”

“You’re still clutching his hand, Agatha.” Rio’s voice is calm. She gestures towards their clasped hands, just as Agatha looks down. High points of color appear on her cheeks. Most importantly: she does not let go of Nicky’s hand. Rio remembers to breathe again, and pretends to inspect the sack of green beans in the cart. “And you cannot send him anywhere I can’t follow.”

They breathe in tandem. 

“Not here,” Agatha says, like it will matter where. “Not now.” Like it would matter when.

Rio can’t look at her. Grief twists so deep in her it might as well manifest as a knife. She can feel the place it entered, feel the place it twisted. She looks instead to Nicky, who seems … shockingly unbothered by the whole thing. As if he can’t hear them, or doesn’t want to. Like he’s at peace. 

It doesn’t soothe the blow of the fear on Agatha’s face. Fear directed at her. 

That face never should have looked at her like that, but this was inevitable. 

“Not here,” she says. The world continues to breathe. “Not now.”

“When?” 

She shakes her head, just slightly, and when she looks up there are tears gathering underneath Agatha’s eyes. The age comes crashing back down on her. 

“Tell me,” she says. “Tell me when. I deserve to know. I deserve-”

“So that you might run away again?” Rio snaps. 

“I am not the only one who ran.”

She scoffs. “As if you would have allowed me to be by your side.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t have to!”

“Mama?” 

Two sets of eyes snap towards Nicholas, who tugs on his mother’s hand. Agatha spares one more look in Rio’s direction before she bends down, listening to whatever it is Nicholas has decided he must tell her now. 

“Fine,” Agatha says, then catches herself. Her voice grows softer. “Yes. You may.”

“Mama, I can’t reach. ”

Rio leans forward, just a little. Nicholas’ face is set in a perfect little pout. He and Agatha stare at each other for a second, and then she grins. 

“Very well.” 

From her crouched position, Agatha scoops Nicholas up underneath the knees and lifts him, so he can see Rio over the top of the produce laden cart. 

“Hi,” he says, his feet dangling as Agatha holds him up. He’s bigger. His fingers aren’t so stubby anymore. He’s taller. The spots underneath his eyes are darker. Blue, almost. 

“Hello,” she says, and curtsies. The resulting grin makes her heart flare like an explosion. He has more teeth than she remembers him having last time, all of them flashing at her in that smile. 

“Nicholas would like to give you something,” Agatha says, face partially hidden behind their son’s head. 

“You would?” 

The knife of grief is twisting harder. 

“I been holding on to them,” he says, each word carefully measured on his tongue. “For a special-”

He twists, wiggling, looking at his mother with a furrowed brow. 

“Occasion,” Agatha supplies. 

Rio is bleeding out. 

“Yes. Okay-shan.” The fist she had seen earlier clutching something tightly sticks out towards her, then falls open. 

She gasps. 

Five wriggling earthworms rest in the palm of his hand.

“You can take them,” Nicholas says, with a nod, and Rio wants to pick him up and crush him to her chest. “You grow things.” 

The produce sits between them.

“They will help you!”

Rio shoves her hand forward, and the pile of wriggling worms and dirt falls into them. His little hand brushes her palm. 

“I will keep them safe,” she promises, closing them in her hand. Rio brings her fist up, and kisses the back of it, the worms safe inside.  “For as long as I’m able.”

She does not look at Agatha, but she can hear the intake of air. 

“You should have something,” Rio says. “A gift for a gift.” 

Nicholas looks only briefly up at his mother before back to her, and Rio feels the full weight of that gaze. His mouth twists as he thinks, and then his previously worm filled hand points at the beans. 

“Those are Mama’s favorite.”

I know, Rio wants to say. 

The hand without the worms bundles beans together. Magic flows from her fingertips as she does, hidden in the cart. The beans she pulls up are fuller than the ones the woman was offering.

But he gave her worms. What else was she meant to do? If it would be allowed, she’d give them this whole cart. No worms required. 

“For the price of the worms,” she says, handing them over. Nicky takes them, and Agatha sets his feet on the ground. It’s only them, now, staring back at each other. 

“I told you the worms was a good idea!” Nicky exclaims, and both the women’s faces flicker into momentary smiles. 

“I only wanted to see him,” Rio whispers.

“And now that you have?”

The smile she was wearing morphs into something sad.

“He’s beautiful.”

You’re beautiful.

Tears shine bright in Agatha’s eyes. 

“We do not live here,” Nicky says, and Agatha shakes her head a fraction. As if he’s telling a secret; as if Rio doesn’t know where they are, always. “Mama and I walk far. All the time. I’ll still come back and give you more worms.”

That spot of grief will never go numb. It will never take to stitches.

“I look forward to that, little one.”

The way Agatha straightens her shoulders and puts her hand on Nicholas’ back tastes like a goodbye. By now, Rio should know the flavor of them. 

“Next time,” Rio hears Nicky say as they walk away, “I’ll give her six worms.”

Chapter Text

She wisens.

Or she becomes a coward.

Death is not a coward. Death just is.

Death is not meant to want, either. So they’ve crossed that fucking line awhile ago, as these things go.

If she’s going to get what she wants, she’ll have to be more creative. It means giving up, in a way. It means letting one of those hopes, those wants, wither. For the sake of the other.

For Nicky, she’s willing to do it. For Nicky, and just about no one else. 

She stops trying to visit them together.

(In the end, it will make things easier.)

Contrary to popular belief, Death does not have a favored time of day. She is there for sunrise, sunset, and all the times in-between. People die when they die, and she has no control over it. Well. Very little control over it, except when Agatha Harkness is begging her.

Despite the lack of preference for time, getting around Agatha is easier at night. Agatha sleeps through it, because Nicky no longer wakes up like he did when he was a newborn.. Rio knows this because she watches. She is always watching in one way or another, especially when Agatha isn’t looking.

They’re sweet. They’ve started singing together. (Never mind the ache in her heart about that.) They sing, and Rio listens. They play, and Rio watches. 

Agatha teaches. 

She’s a good mother. Rio had told her she would be. 

She waits until Agatha is well and truly asleep the first time. By now, the woman knows how to sense her coming. She’d like to avoid that, if at all possible. Rio keeps herself quiet, and light, the type you don’t hear coming, and when she does extend her magic, it is only to wake Nicholas. 

The five year old wakes with a yawn, Rio’s magic rolling over him like a mother’s hand. From her spot in the forest, she can picture his face as a newborn, doing the same. She can picture the tiny fist, waving in the air. His feet kicking, his nose wrinkled.

(If it were not for duty, she could have had that. There was a cabin. There were violets. There were candles, and cool breezes through open windows, and love made on a soft bed.

And then there was Don’t come. There was I don’t want you there. )

Rio tugs with her magic, seeing Nicky turn to follow it, eyes catching on her in the forest. She wiggles her fingers. Holds her breath as he slips out from underneath his mother’s arm. 

If she wakes now -

Rio holds a finger to her lips. Nicky’s forehead wrinkles in confusion, looking back at his mother for a moment before he stands.

Agatha doesn’t wake. She looks peaceful. 

( You could have had this. ) 

Rio closes her eyes and feels the forest around them - the wind that hums through the trees, the leaves just starting to fall cutting through the air, the chirping of crickets - and strengthens those noises around Agatha. Not too much. Just enough to ensure she won’t wake. To keep her peaceful, asleep.

It’s the least she can do. 

When she opens her eyes again, Nicky is in front of her. He rubs a fist across his eyes, and for a moment, she feels bad. Just a moment. It dissipates the moment he grins with recognition. 

He recognizes her. Nicky recognizes her.

“Are you here for worms?” His head tilts. “I don’t have worms.”

A smile warms her face.

“I have your five already,” she says. “They’re in my garden, eating rot and making the dirt better.”

It’s not exactly a lie. It’s not really a lie at all. The five worms are in her garden. They’re not in a garden Nicky can visit , of course. Not yet. They’re in her realm, around the little cottage she keeps. (Death, too, needs somewhere to rest.) Rio has never had an issue with her gardening skills, but Nicky’s worms have made the flowers brighter. She’s sure of it. It’s not confirmation bias at all. 

“I knew they were perfect.”

“They’re perfect,” she says. “Of course they’re perfect.” She pats the forest floor in front of her, and he sits. His legs stretch out in front of him, his little arms balanced on his knees as he leans forward with rapt attention. He blinks at her. She blinks back at him. He leans in. She raises a brow. 

“What do you grow?”

It’s … not what she was expecting. Maybe why are you here or who are you or are you following us? Her head tilts. For a moment, the boy before her looks so much like Agatha it steals her breath. It’s the grasp for knowledge, like he’s drinking in any answer she might give him. 

“Okay.”

She has no need to concentrate to produce flowers, but she concentrates for this one. One hand spreads over the ground, and when she pulls back there’s a purple flower in its wake. She plucks it, and holds it out to Nicky.

“Flowers. Violets,” she says, as he takes it and holds it up to his face. “Lavender.” Her hand over the ground again, and it comes away with a sprig of lavender this time. She hands that over, too. His fingers brush her palm as he takes them, his gaze transfixed. 

“You’re a witch.” A lowered voice. His eyes - Agatha’s eyes, Rio thinks - dart nervously back the way he came. “Mama ki-” 

“Not me.” A quick flash of teeth in a smile as she pulls a flower from the ground for him. The yellow lilac’s hundreds of tiny petals bloom as she hands it over. Grief (Death. Death feels Grief.) has twisted in her stomach. She does not allow to poison the flower. It remains a perfect pale yellow against Nicky’s hand. She won’t transfer that feeling to him. Have his mothers not been burned enough? Tiny, delicate hands hold the flower underneath his chin, nose buried in it, and for a breath it lights his face golden. 

“Is that why Mama hates you?” 

Flowers bloom and die at her feet, multicolored in the moonlight before they’re gray. Before they’re ash.

Is that why Mama hates you?

(No. No, Rio thinks it was one of the reasons she-)

Was, was, was. Words like bitter poison. 

“No,” she says, carefully. More carefully than she says most things. “That’s not the reason your Mama hates me.”

She won’t deny it. Not to herself, and not to Nicky.

“Am I dreaming?” 

Her head tilts. “Do you want to be dreaming?”

Nicky peeks up from the flower, eyeing her through his lashes. She would give him anything in the world. She already has. She’s bent the laws of the universe for him. Was it ever just for Agatha? Could it ever have been just for Agatha?

(Yes. But it wasn’t.) 

“It is a nice dream.” 

“Then you’re dreaming.” 

How could she deny him anything? Rio has already proven awful at it. He’s here, after all. She’ll have to take the flowers back, if he thinks this is a dream. Agatha would have noticed either way. 

“You visited my dreams before,” Nicky says. That steals her breath. “Do you remember?” 

He’s dreamt of her before. He’s only met her twice, and he’s dreamt of her before. Her chest seizes. Her boy has dreamt of her. It turns over and over in her mind as she tries to make sense of it.

“You’re my favorite dream lady,” he continues, burying his face in the flower again. She hasn’t answered his question, but he seems not to mind. “I do like the horse.” 

“There’s a horse?” 

“Yes.” Assured that this is a dream, he sighs and lays down, hands folded over his stomach and his head tilted towards her. The lily is still clenched in his hands, and for a moment it reminds her so much of how he will look - how they all will - that she nearly has to look away. Not yet. Not today. “The horse visits my dreams and fights the monsters. Then we play catch.” 

Rio lays down besides him, mirroring, her hands folded atop her abdomen. She tilts her head towards him, and can’t help the grin. It’s such a little kid thing to say. Closing her eyes for a moment, Rio can see it - they are outside in the woods beyond the cabin. Their cabin. There’s a moon bruised sky above them. Agatha is inside, tending to the fire, and Nicky wanted to watch for comets. There’s a candle flickering in the window, his mama’s magic stopping it from swaying to the breeze. He’s loved, and protected, by not one witch but two.  

“We could play catch,” she starts, “next time.”

No one answers her. Rio opens her eyes and sees his face has gone slack with sleep. Turning on her side, she brushes a hand over that soft hair of his. It takes a moment before she finds it in herself to stand, to pull him into her grasp and lift him. A simple extension of her magic ensures he doesn’t wake, though his head lolls to her shoulder.

“Next time,” she promises. 

He doesn’t just look like Agatha. He looks like her.

She has seen Agatha in sleep too many times to count, but she looks vulnerable, now. Alone in the forest. The blanket pulled over her shoulders. She hasn’t woken, the lines of her face still as simple and peaceful as they were before. 

Her witch.

Rio places their son down in the spot that he left, pulling the blanket over his tiny shoulders. Agatha turns and curls into him, and the grief in Rio’s chest knows no bounds. It pours over her like twisting vines, poison ivy, and she lets it.

“Te veo , sweetheart.”