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Agatha wouldn’t say she hated her job, some mornings were harder to get out of bed for it than others, but that was mainly due to the woman beside her rather than the job itself. Rio outranked work, it was as simple as that. Agatha worked hard to be where she was, endless nights of studying and stressing about her degree, papers strewn across her apartment in no logical order and then trying to find that one piece of paper that had the formula on that she so desperately needed.
Everyone said an advanced maths degree with a minor in architectural studies would be difficult, but Agatha sailed through it. She could work out a problem at the click of her fingers, it would only take a second for her eyes to scan the puzzle and her hands to write down the answer. And the architecture was no problem, Agatha had been obsessed with buildings since she was small, always wanting to go up the tallest buildings and see the view from the top. That was until Agatha’s mother Evanora said they were a ridiculous form of witchcraft, which naturally made Agatha want to do it even more.
So when Agatha was faced with a day of board meetings and people talking at her all day with figures and plans for the new office buildings they wanted she was questioning why she even got into this in the first place. She was ready to go home and curl up into Rio’s side and binge watch Lucifer.
Agatha slumped down into her office chair during a short break just before lunch. Before Agatha could even turn her phone over to unlock it there was a knock at the door.
“Yes” Agatha huffed out as the door opened a tad enough for her assistant Billy to sneak in, a very sorry look on his face as he sat down in the chair across from Agatha. This could only mean he was about to say something she wouldn’t like, he was normally in and out and very concise.
“Mr Barnes is asking if everyone can reconvene now, something about needing to get away early”
Agatha rolled her eyes
“Really? We’ve only just stopped” she tried not to snap at the teen, he was a good assistant, but it took a lot of self control from Agatha and she did not have an unlimited supply of that.
“He was very insistent”
“I’m sure he was, I’ll be right out Billy, I just need a moment”
Billy knew exactly what to do “I’ll stall them”
“Thank you” Agatha whispered as Billy closed the door, although he was sometimes annoying, he was a damn good assistant.
Agatha ran her hands through her hair and took a deep breath before looking at her phone only to see loads of missed calls and a text message from Rio, she opened the text message first as it was the last thing from her. Agatha was hoping for some words of encouragement but what she saw was much worse.
An accident
Rio
Ambulance
Agatha felt all the words fog up her vision.
Rio had been hurt before. Some broken glass here and several scalpel incidents there but they were never so serious that she couldn’t text Agatha herself.
This must be bad, all the possible scenarios were cycling through Agatha’s brain. Had a vile of mutated small pox been broken? Did someone break in to steal the antibiotic resistance flu they had been working on?
Agatha leaped up out of her chair and burst out of the office, storming down the hallway and pushing people out the way if they didn’t move fast enough. She got to the corner by the conference room and crashed straight into Billy as he came out the doors.
“Agatha are you alright?”
“No, I’ve gotta go tell them I’ll reschedule”
“For when?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Agatha shouted as the elevator doors closed due to her furiously pressing the doors close button. She knew it wouldn’t get her there any faster but what else could she do. She couldn’t even think about what state she would find Rio in at the hospital.
She flagged down a cab as she came rushing out of the building, normally one of the security guards would do it for her as it could be partially tricky sometimes, but today she was not in the mood to rely on someone else.
Agatha sat in the back of the car as it headed towards the hospital, her leg constantly bouncing, trying to release some of the nervous energy before she got to the actual hospital. She debated calling Rio’s phone and trying to speak to Mrs Hart, to find out what happened and prepare herself for what she might find at the hospital, but she decided against that. The woman would 100% go off on a tangent and it would leave Agatha even more wound up than before.
As Agatha thought about her life with Rio while on the way she had thought about how suddenly Rio creeped up on her. At first she was just there, an annoying and flirtatious presence in Agatha’s everyday life. She slowly wormed her way into Agatha’s heart with the little things. Making her favourite dinner when she’d had a particularly tough day, the little notes stuck into her text book reminding her to breathe and drink some water (a habit Agatha was terrible at maintaining, there’s enough water in coffee), always leaving a hoodie or a sweatshirt in Agatha’s dorm room when she had to leave. It was always the little things.
The driver finally pulled up outside the emergency department and Agatha bolted out of the car, throwing a few bills at the driver and simultaneously hoping it was enough and not caring if it wasn’t. Agatha looked around and there was a few people sat in the waiting room but none of them were Rio.
“I need to find someone” Agatha blurted out to a member of staff passing by who pointed her to the reception desk with a huff.
Agatha was panicking, she didn’t know what type of accident Rio was involved in, what if they ask her the nature of the injury what was Agatha supposed to say then.
“I need to find a Rio Vidal, quickly” she rushed out to the receptionist, she could feel her temper going, she needed to find Rio asap or it was going to explode and Agatha would have no control over it.
“What is your relationship to Ms Vidal?” The receptionist asked with a slight tone
“She’s my wife” Agatha snapped back as the receptionist gave her a look that she had seen before whenever she mentioned her wife and she would happily give the receptionist a piece of her mind.
“Right” the lady scrunched up her face “you have missed visiting hours for today so I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later”
Agatha couldn’t quite process the words she was being told, there was no way she was waiting until whatever time to see Rio, she was going to see her now if it was the last thing she did.
“Listen here” she leaned forward across the desk and looked at the woman dead in the eyes as she spoke “I will be seeing her this second, I am not waiting for some stupid visiting hours to see my wife, now tell me, where is she?”
The receptionist cleared her throat and was going to speak before she was cut off by a nurse.
“Agatha right? I’ll take you to see Rio”
Finally she was getting somewhere. She followed the nurse through a set of doors and away from the receptionist when the nurse spoke again
“Rio has been asking me every ten minutes if you had got here yet”
Agatha couldn’t help but smile despite the rage inside of her at the receptionist.
“Now just a little warning we had to give her some painkillers so she might be a little bit spaced out when you see her”
Another corridor and another turning, Agatha was never going to find her way out of here alone.
“Is she okay now?” Agatha asked
“She is doing better, do you know what happened?” The nurse asked as he slowed to a stop outside of a room and as Agatha looked she saw Rio’s name written on a whiteboard outside.
“No I don’t, I just came straight here her assistant didn’t tell me much”
“The paramedics told us as they brought her in. Some lab assistant was carrying a cleaning tray with some conical flasks and ball bearings on when they were spooked by an alarm going off, they dropped the tray and then when Rio came round the corner she slipped on the ball bearings and unfortunately landed on her back. We’ve removed all the shards of glass and stitched up the cuts but she will need to be careful as they will be sensitive for a while” the nurse explained
Agatha breathed a sigh of slight relief, there was no mutilated small pox, just a bunch of cuts on her back. She was still confused why Rio couldn’t text Agatha herself.
“Can i?” Agatha gestured to the door to Rio’s room, asking to go in
“Oh please do” the nurse walked away with a smile as Agatha pushed open the door to see Rio laying face down on the bed, her head buried deeply in the pillow ignoring the sound of the door
“Have you brought my wife with you this time nurse Rogers? Because you’re not giving me anything else until you do”
Agatha held back a laugh
“Why don’t you get your head out of that pillow and check” Agatha teased
As soon as Rio heard her voice she snapped her head to the side
“My love”
Agatha walked closer to Rio and finally saw the damage, there were several white plasters on her back covering up the cuts Rio had sustained, Agatha reached out to trace the edge of them.
“Oh Rio” Agatha felt the emotions of the last hour finally come to the surface and the tears started to fall. She wiped them away hopefully before Rio saw.
“The doctor said he tried to stitch them up in line with my tattoos, but that they’ll show a slight line when they heal” Rio let out a small laugh “but I guess that’s what I get for having roses on my back”
Agatha started to cry more now.
She sat down next to Rio and held her hand
“How are you feeling?”
“A little weird, kinda like when we had that really good brownie Alice gave us”
Agatha laughed at the memory
“There was no pot in that brownie Rio I’ve told you this”
“I know, it was just an insanely good brownie”
Agatha squeezed Rio’s hand and smiled
“What on earth are we going to do with you huh?”
“Careful now Agatha, or people will almost think you cared” Rio joked
“Only for you my love, only for you”