Chapter Text
Chapter One
Her grandmother had always told her to focus on her five senses when she was nervous, so that’s what Agatha did as she sat waiting for the two minutes it took the doctor to enter the exam room.
Hear. She could hear the ticking of the clock over the door. It was off by about thirty seconds. Agatha’s time changed before the minute hand dragged itself across the blocky twelve at the top of the clock.
Smell . It smelled like rubbing alcohol in this room, sterile in a way that tickled her nose. It didn’t burn her eyes, though, which was a plus.
See . She saw a lot of things. The walls in this room were light blue, probably in an attempt to comfort the patients. It was hard to be comforted in a place like this, though; this medical center was for a specific purpose. Nobody actually wanted to be in a place like this, she was certain. An infographic poster on the wall assured her that she was not alone, as three in four people diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis were female.
But Agatha Harkness had not yet been diagnosed, so there was still hope that she was here by accident. There was still hope that the MRI that had caught the white matter in her brain was a fluke. There was still hope that the doctor would walk into the room and apologize because this had all been a huge misunderstanding. Agatha Harkness did not have MS. She was a runner and an artist, a painter. The numbness that she had felt in her left side just a year ago was actually caused by the flu shot she’d received two weeks prior. It had returned to normal just two weeks after that, after all, after the ER doctors and her own primary care physician sent her to the neurologist just to be sure.
Agatha had been dumb about the MRI order, she knew. She should have gotten it right away. But by the time she saw the neurologist with the gentle voice and the kind eyes, she had regained all feeling in her left hand. She could write and paint again with ease. She wasn’t stumbling over herself anymore. She was fine .
She’d found the MRI order in a desk drawer in the summer, nearly nine months after it had been written up for her. It was good for up to a year. Agatha didn’t think it would yield any results, but she figured it couldn’t hurt just to schedule it.
She was obviously wrong.
Taste . She could still taste her coffee from that morning. She’d been out of oatmilk, so she had to drink it black. She tried to sweeten it with a couple packets of cane sugar she’d stolen from Dunkin, but it didn’t do much to take the bitter taste out of her mouth.
She really needed to stop drinking coffee: it made her anxiety infinitely worse.
Feel . The exam bed underneath her was uncomfortable, the paper crinkling with every move she made. Agatha hated sitting still. She’d always hated it. She was a runner. She needed to run. It helped clear her mind, as if she could leave any and all thoughts behind her pounding feet on the pavement. She ran nearly every morning before dawn, pushing herself further and further and further…
Would she still be able to do that?
The door opened and she jumped slightly, looking up as an older woman with salt and pepper hair entered, a pair of glasses slipping down her nose. Her eyes were brown-hazel and her smile was kind. She sat down on the little moving stool, pushing herself towards Agatha.
“Hello,” she said, “I’m Doctor Calderu. You must be Agatha Harkness.” She had a subtle Italian lilt to her accent. Agatha offered her a stiff smile, reaching out to shake her hand. “How are you doing today?” Dr. Calderu asked, tilting her head in genuine interest.
Agatha shrugged. “Honestly,” she said, “I’ve been better.”
Dr. Calderu chuckled at that. “I bet,” she said. “It’s always a scary thing to be faced with a serious illness, but it doesn’t have to be.”
“I dunno,” Agatha said, looking down at her jean-clad knees. “MS seems like a pretty… devastating disease to possibly have. As far as I’ve seen, anyway.”
“It can be,” Dr. Calderu admitted. “But it doesn’t have to be. You seem rather physically fit, and your MRI scans aren’t too concerning.”
“What does that even mean?” Agatha sighed. “Aren’t there lesions in my brain?”
“Yes,” Dr. Calderu confirmed, “but they are new. This indicates that the disease may be at its earliest stages.”
“So I do have it, then?” Agatha felt her heart stutter in her chest, her breathing growing shallow.
“It is indicated by your scans and other tests, yes,” Dr. Calderu said, “but I would like to perform a few more just to be certain. Is that okay?” Agatha nodded, fighting past the lump in her throat. “Okay,” the doctor said. She lifted her hands, palms facing Agatha. “Please push my hands away from you.”
Agatha lifted her hands and pushed Dr. Calderu’s away. Her hands were slender and soft. The doctor gave her a smile as Agatha easily pushed her hands away despite the doctor’s resisting effort.
“Good,” she said, placing her fingers together as her palms now faced herself. “Now pull them towards you.”
Agatha tugged Dr. Calderu’s hands towards herself, and the doctor nodded.
“Good,” she said. “A few more tests.”
“I’ve already done these,” Agatha complained as the doctor instructed her to put her own hands up and resist her trying to push and pull them.
“But not with me,” Dr. Calderu said. “And when you did these tests with your other doctors, they were not looking for signs of MS, but rather for signs of stroke, which you thankfully did not have. Push up.” She placed her hand on Agatha’s knee, and Agatha lifted it against her palm. She knew that her legs were strong, muscular from her daily run. “Good,” she said. “Now stand and do as I say.”
Dr. Calderu had Agatha walk on her tiptoes, then on her heels, and Agatha stumbled a little bit, her face warming and her heart jumping. Was this a sign of MS? Could people without the disease do this kind of thing with ease?
She then had Agatha walk with her heel touching the toes of the other foot. This was also a bit of a challenge, but Agatha didn’t stumble at all this time.
“Good,” Dr. Calderu said, writing something down on her clipboard. “Sit back down and take off your shoes for me.”
Agatha had worn her Converse for the appointment. They weren’t her usual running shoes, but she liked the dark purple color and how they felt on her feet. Plus, they were easy to toe off.
“Socks, too,” the doctor requested, smiling at the Starry Night -inspired socks. Agatha toed them off as well, tucking them into her sneakers.
Dr. Calderu pulled out a tuning fork from the pocket of her lab coat. “I’m going to test the reflexes in your feet,” she explained. “I want you to look away while I do this. When you can no longer feel the vibrations, let me know. I will do this first on the right foot, then the left. Understand?” Agatha nodded. “Good. Look away.”
Agatha looked at the wall that had the infographic on it. She read it a couple times as she felt the vibrations in her foot slowly fade until she couldn’t feel anything anymore.
“Okay,” she said, turning back to the doctor, who nodded, writing something on her clipboard.
“Next foot,” Dr. Calderu, motioning for Agatha to turn away.
This time, Agatha looked at the blank baby blue-colored wall. It was slightly textured, the paint job looking relatively new. She couldn’t smell the paint, though, so it couldn’t have been that new.
When the buzzing in her left foot stopped, she said, “Okay” and looked back at the doctor again. The doctor nodded.
“Five seconds,” she said. “That is the difference between the time your right foot stops buzzing and your left foot.”
“Is that…significant?” Agatha asked.
Dr. Calderu stared at her, smiling, for five full seconds before she answered: “Yes.” Agatha nodded in understanding, her chest feeling tight again. “ But ,” the doctor continued, “it confirms my suspicions that your MS is in the very early stages. So long as we start treatment immediately, you should be perfectly fine.”
“Except for the fact that my central nervous system is going to be slowly shutting down for the rest of my life, you mean?” Agatha huffed, frowning.
“I see you have been Googling ,” Dr. Calderu chuckled. “That is fine. But you need to take everything you read on the internet with a grain of salt. Everybody’s experience is different, and treatment will slow the progression of the disease. You are lucky to have found this out now.”
“I don’t feel very lucky,” Agatha murmured, looking down at her feet.
“Miss Harkness…”
“Agatha,” Agatha corrected. She always hated being called by her last name. It connected her too much to her mother.
“Agatha,” Dr. Calderu echoed. “You are lucky. Not to have developed this disease, of course, but that it was caught so early. This is almost unheard of . More often than not, I see patients who have already lost feeling in one or both of their legs, who need canes or even wheelchairs , who cannot walk more than twenty feet without losing their breath. So believe me when I say that you are lucky. Now that we’ve caught the MS, we can begin treatment and slow it down to a snail’s pace. I can’t promise you that you’ll never have a need for a mobility aid of some sort, but I can promise you that it’s a long way off. Okay?”
Agatha nodded, tears still slipping down her cheeks as her heart continued to squeeze in her chest. Dr. Calderu handed her a tissue. Agatha blew her nose.
“How old are you?” the doctor asked.
“Twenty-Nine,” Agatha said, sniffling. “This shouldn’t be happening to me.”
“Listen,” Dr. Calderu said, “you have a long, long life ahead of you. Don’t let this make you feel as though you can’t do anything and everything you set your mind to. It will all be okay.” She reached out, taking Agatha’s hand. Her grip was stronger than the younger woman had expected it to be. It was comforting. “Do you have any family?” the doctor asked. “A support system at home?”
Agatha hesitated at that. Her father had died when she was two. Her mother had never been kind to her even before that. Her father’s mother had done most of the child-rearing after his passing, teaching Agatha everything she needed to know. Agatha had even gone to live with her when she was seven, staying with her until her gran’s death when she was twenty-one, when Agatha was still in undergrad. She’d left Agatha with enough money in her will to go to grad school for Art History, leaving her house to Agatha.
Agatha’s mother had attempted to take that house from her, but Agatha had fought back. Evanora Harkness had no claim to any of her mother-in-law’s assets, but that didn’t stop her from antagonizing Agatha until her own death when Agatha was twenty-seven. By that point, Agatha had earned her Master’s and opened an art gallery with an old classmate of hers, but she didn’t know if she’d count Jen Kale as family.
She was the closest thing she had, though.
Still, Agatha shook her head.
Dr. Calderu nodded and reached for one of the pamphlets from the counter, handing it to Agatha. “This is a support group,” she said, “for women with MS. They meet twice a week at the Westview Community Center. Please consider attending.”
Agatha nodded, taking the pamphlet, though she had no real intentions of going to a support group. She didn’t need anybody else. She had gotten through adult life thus far mostly on her own. She didn’t need anybody.
I don’t need anybody.
That was the mantra in her head as she changed into her running shorts and hoodie, slipping easily from her Converse to the running shoes, and headed off on her second run that day.
It was a nice day for October, the sun still shining through the gaps in the trees as leaves crunched underneath Agatha’s feet, which pounded the pavement of the sidewalks through Westview.
I don’t need anybody else. I’ll be fine. I am fine.
She passed the Westview Community Center without giving it a cursory glance, shaking her head slightly as she picked up her pace, checking for cars as she crossed the street, keeping her breathing even as she started running up an incline. She loved hills. They provided her with a challenge. They made her muscles work just a little bit harder, added a little bit of strain to her lungs and heart, more muscles that could be strengthened.
Will I still be able to do this in ten years? Twenty?
Agatha shook away the thoughts, her long ponytail slightly slapping her in the side of the face as she continued to run, sweat beading on her temples, starting to make the front of her shirt damp.
She ran past a park with a track that she ran on in the mornings, when it was mostly empty. Now, there were people milling about, families having picnics in the afternoon sun, smiling and laughing like there wasn’t a worry in the entire world.
Agatha picked up her speed again, running straight past the park and taking a familiar turn at the corner. She knew this neighborhood – this whole town, really – like the back of her hand. She had moved to Westview, New Jersey, from Salem, Massachusetts, when she moved in with her gran, after her mother had signed away her rights, not giving a single shit about her only child. Agatha had been upset when Evanora told her to start packing her shit, that she was moving out. She had thought that Evanora was taking her away, moving her further from the grandmother that she didn’t get to see nearly enough because of her mother.
But then Gran had been in the kitchen when Agatha walked out with her suitcases, beaming down at her with her arms out. Agatha had run straight into them, pressing her face into her gran’s neck, feeling her kisses on her cheeks and temples.
“Let’s go home,” she’d said, taking one of Agatha’s suitcases and guiding her out the door with a gentle hand on her back.
Agatha hadn’t even spared her mother a second glance.
She never missed Evanora, not even for a second. And Evanora never called, anyway. She did show up at her grandmother’s funeral, but Agatha hadn’t even acknowledged her, ignoring whispers about her being ‘cold’ and ‘cruel’ to her own mother.
She didn’t give two fucks about Evanora Harkness. Agatha hadn’t even attended her funeral. When she’d been sent a small urn of her mother’s ashes by a distant family member, she’d poured them down the toilet because fuck that bitch .
Agatha’s calves were starting to burn with her effort. She had probably already run the entire length of Westview, which was confirmed when she saw the distant town sign in the distance. If she ran past it, it wouldn’t be too long before she reached Eastview.
She didn’t feel like going to Eastview today.
Agatha made a wide U-turn, crossing the street to keep herself from stopping. She couldn’t stop. If she stopped running, everything, she knew, would fall apart. She couldn’t let everything fall apart. Not yet.
She turned another corner, making her way back in the direction of her house. Her legs were starting to get tired. Usually, she could run right through it, push herself just a tiny bit more, but she had already done that today. She was just tired now. She needed to rest. And she needed to be somewhere safe when she broke down.
She didn’t run home.
Jennifer Kale lived two blocks down from Agatha, in one of the fancier apartment buildings on a whole block of apartment buildings. Her doorman instantly recognized Agatha as she ran toward him, opening the door for her just in time.
“Thanks, George!” Agatha called over her shoulder as she jogged through the lobby, bypassing the elevators in favor of the stairs for the third floor apartment.
Jen lived in Apartment 3B. Agatha rapped on the door, jogging in place as she waited for the door to open. Her heart was pounding in her throat now, her knees aching slightly, the muscles in her calves burning as she waited…
“Agatha?” Jen asked, placing a hand on her hip. She was wearing a salmon-colored sweater and a matching beanie. Her pants were soft gray cotton and her feet were bare on the hardwood floor. “What are you doing here?”
And, all at once, the dam burst.
Tears flooded Agatha’s eyes the second she stopped jogging, her legs giving out beneath her as she crumpled to the ground, her body wracked with sobs. Jen’s eyes widened and she immediately got to the ground with her, her perfectly-manicured fingers reaching out to cup Agatha’s cheeks, which were drenched with her tears.
“Agatha?” she asked, panicked. “Agatha!”
Agatha leaned forward, pressing her face to Jen’s shoulder, her tears soaking through the impossibly soft sweater. All Jen could do was wrap her arms around Agatha’s shoulders, her hands stroking up and down her back. She had never seen Agatha shed more than a few tears over a particularly moving art piece. To see her break down like this over…well, Jennifer didn’t even know what had happened. What could have happened to bring Agatha Harkness to tears like this?
“Come on,” Jen said, tugging Agatha into the apartment and shutting the door. Agatha obviously wasn’t in her right mind because the Agatha that Jen knew – stone-cold, tough as nails, sharply charming, secretly soft and somewhat maternal – would never want a stranger to see her cry. The fact that she was here, sobbing in Jennifer’s arms right now, was…worrying.
Jen led Agatha to her couch, which was light pink and plush and had a fuzzy white throw blanket on the back of it. Jen sat down with Agatha still in her arms and tugged the blanket around her shoulders, separating only for long enough to wrap Agatha up before wrapping her arms around her again. Agatha wasted no time in pressing her wet face to Jen’s neck again.
Jen just waited her out, rubbing Agatha’s shoulder and pressing her cheek to the top of her head. Agatha’s shoulders continued to shake for a few more minutes as she sobbed, but Jen could tell she was starting to wind down.
When all she could hear were a few watery sniffles and the clearing of Agatha’s throat, she finally pulled away some to look down into Agatha’s eyes. Agatha avoided her gaze, her cheeks pink with embarrassment, the hair that had escaped from her ponytail sticking to her face. Jen pushed it away, softly.
“Hey,” she said.
Agatha still didn’t look at her.
“You want some water?” Jen asked, trying to keep her voice even and casual. “You look like you just went for a run; you’re going to dehydrate yourself if you keep leaving the house without water, dumbass.” She shoved Agatha’s shoulder playfully when Agatha let out an amused snort, nodding.
“Okay,” Jen said, standing up out of Agatha’s embrace. Agatha let her go easily, wrapping the blanket more firmly around herself as she sank into the couch.
Jen spared her a concerned glance as she entered her kitchen area (thank Goddess for open floor plans) and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. She brought it back to Agatha, who was now staring blankly into outer space. Jen flopped down next to her, pressing the water into her hands.
Agatha’s fist closed around the bottle and she looked down at it. Her brows furrowed and she let out a scoff. “ Voss ?” she said. “Really, Kale? How pretentious.”
“And there she is,” Jen laughed. “Welcome back, Harkness.” She knocked against Agatha’s shoulder with her own.
Agatha rolled her eyes, taking a long sip of her water. Jen waited her out for a moment or two before speaking again.
“So,” she said, “what happened?”
More tears appeared in Agatha’s eyes, but she stubbornly refused to let them fall. “I went to the doctor today.”
She hadn’t told Jen that she was going to the doctor. She had only told Jen about her left side going a little fuzzy. She was still able to use it, but she was clumsier, and it limited her ability to paint, so she had mostly ignored it, blaming it on the stupid flu shot, until she had something more to worry about.
Jen had forgotten about it, obviously.
“Okay,” she said. “Why? What’s going on? Is it about the headaches?”
Shit . Agatha had forgotten about the headaches. She should have told her doctor about them, too. It made sense that she’d have them, what with the lesions in her brain.
She’d complained to Jen about them a few times, popping a few Advil every now and then to rid herself of them so that she could stand the bright lights in their gallery during shows. It usually helped.
Usually.
“Sort of…” she said. “It’s connected, I think.” She shrugged.
“Okay…do you have, like, a brain tumor?” Jen asked. “Is it brain tumor Agatha that’s a bitch? If they remove it, will you be all sunshine and rainbows?”
“Shut up,” Agatha huffed, but she couldn’t resist the upturn of her lips. “No,” she said. “I don’t have a brain tumor, Kale. Bitchy Agatha is real Agatha.”
“Shame,” Jen tutted. Agatha shoved her so hard that she fell over, cackling.
“Fuck you.”
“You’re not my type,” Jen retorted, pushing herself back up.
“I was in junior year,” Agatha snarked.
“And look how that turned out.”
“With a successful art gallery?” Agatha shrugged. “Could’ve gone worse.”
“ After you ghosted me for a full year until our graduation,” Jen pointed out.
“I thought you said I wasn’t your type, Jenny,” Agatha purred, batting her eyelashes at the taller woman.
“You’re not ,” Jen huffed, shoving her. “Don’t call me Jenny. I left my favorite sweater in your dorm room, and it took forever to get it back because you kept dodging me.”
“You got it back eventually, didn’t you?” Agatha huffed.
“Whatever,” Jen said, rolling her eyes. Then she got serious. “So…what happened?”
Agatha took another sip of water, steeling herself for what she was about to reveal. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and pressed her lips together before looking up at Jen, her oldest…friend? They were business partners, but she wouldn’t have considered Jen Kale her friend until right now.
Really, she was her only friend.
Agatha got along well with the artists whose work they showcased, but she didn’t go out for drinks with any of them. She didn’t veg out on their couches on off days, watching bad, usually straight, rom coms and drinking wine like she did with Jen. They barely ever hugged. Jen hadn’t really seen Agatha cry until now. Agatha had never seen Jennifer cry.
But they were friends, Agatha realized. They were best friends, as odd as it felt to even think. As such, she decided that Jen deserved to know. After all, they also worked together. If something happened and Agatha couldn’t do that anymore, well Jen would be the one that deserved to know the most.
“I have MS,” Agatha blurted, the words sending a shockwave throughout her entire body. It was the first time she’d said those words aloud. It felt unreal, like they belonged to somebody else. They couldn’t possibly belong to Agatha, who ran miles every single morning before she even had her first cup of coffee. Agatha, who kept herself in shape and ate well enough and worked out whenever she had a spare hour to herself. Agatha, who worked hard to run a successful art gallery and sold her own paintings for more money than she would have ever thought possible.
How could that Agatha Harkness have such a devastating disease?
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jen said, her voice low and gentle. “That really sucks, Agatha.”
Agatha nodded, tears falling down her cheeks again. She swiped them away furiously. “Yeah,” she said. “It really does.”
She felt Jen’s fingers interlace with hers between their bodies. She felt Jen’s cheek rest on top of her head again, closed her eyes as Jen’s warmth enveloped hers again, comforting her. Agatha leaned back against her shoulder, taking a deep, shuddering breath.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Jen asked after a long moment of silence.
“No,” Agatha sniffled.
“Do you wanna order takeout and get drunk?”
Yeah, Jen Kale was definitely her best friend.
“Yes,” Agatha said, nodding. “ Please .”
“Okay,” Jen said. “I have a bottle of noir I’ve been meaning to crack open. Pizza, sushi, or thai?”
“I don’t care,” Agatha sighed. “Whatever you feel like is fine. Can I take a shower? I feel smelly.”
“You are smelly,” Jen snorted, dodging Agatha’s kick as she ran away from the couch, chortling. “Girl, you just went for a run. You showed up drenched in sweat. Even you can admit that you stank .” She waved her hand in front of her face as she went for the takeout drawer next to her fridge, pulling out an array of menus and spreading them out on the counter. “There are fresh towels in the hall closet,” she called over her shoulder as she Eeny Meeny Miney Mo’ed their options. “I’ll put some clean clothes outside the bathroom if you don’t want to get back into those sweaty ones. You can wash them while we eat.”
“Sounds good,” Agatha said, groaning as she got to her feet. Her legs felt like jelly after that run. Good thing Jennifer Kale was a pretentious priss who not only bought overpriced bottles of water, but had also renovated her shower so that there was a bench for Agatha to sit on as the hot water ran over her sore muscles.
She sat in the shower for far too long, allowing the water to rinse off the run and the rest of that day down the drain. She used Jennifer’s expensive, coconut-scented body wash and her pink sugar scrub on her legs, then wrapped herself in a hot pink towel, sighing in relief as she sat at the vanity in the oversized bathroom.
Jennifer Kale had grown up the only child of two ridiculously wealthy and incredibly affectionate suburbanites. Her mother, Naomi, showed up for all holidays, major or minor (think Arbor Day) to spend time with Jen and, by extension, Agatha. She oohed and aahed at their art installations, raining affection and praise on ‘her’ girls, and treated them to nice dinners on the town.
Agatha actually adored Naomi Kale. She was everything that Agatha’s grandmother had been and everything Agatha wished that her mother would have been.
Being raised wealthy and well-loved, Jen was relatively well-rounded. She was the tiniest bit selfish (she didn’t share food and she was always her own priority), but she did have a generous spirit for the most part. She gave to charity and volunteered at some local events (which she insisted was just a way to get good press for the gallery) and, despite consistently teasing her, was always there for Agatha when she needed her most.
Like now.
Agatha slipped into a t-shirt and a pair of Jen’s sweatpants, which she had to roll the waistband several times not to trip over herself, and padded barefoot into the kitchen, where Jen was already unpacking several containers of sushi and rice.
“Of course you went for the most expensive option,” Agatha huffed even as she reached for a container of rice. “How much do I owe you?” They always split their shared meals fifty-fifty.
“Nothing,” Jen said. “This one’s on me. I’m keeping most of the leftovers, anyway. You can have your California and salmon rolls.” She wrinkled her nose, pushing two containers toward Agatha.
“Don’t make that face,” Agatha huffed. “They’re delicious .”
“They’re children’s sushi,” Jen said, pointing her chopsticks at Agatha. “You need to mature your palate.”
“With what?” Agatha snorted. “Spicy tuna rolls? Very mature.”
“Try some of my inari,” Jen said, holding up her container. “It’s delicious .”
Agatha wrinkled her nose, pulling away from the counter with her food and chopsticks. “No thanks,” she said. “I think I’ve been through enough today, don’t you?”
“Ugh,” Jen said. “Agatha Harkness has a new card to play.”
“Yep!” Agatha said, sticking her nose up as she walked into the living room, placing her food onto the coffee table. “And I am going to use it generously for a while, so be warned.”
“Noted,” Jen snorted, balancing her chopsticks and sushi in one hand, two wine glasses in the other, and her bottle of pinot noir under her arm. She expertly placed everything on her side of the coffee table and reached for the remote. “So,” she said, “what are we watching?”