Work Text:
Her mother has been side-eyeing her ever since she got back. Their house on Graves Hill is claustrophobic enough without the feeling of constantly being watched, but it's the suspicion in her stare that's really bugging Agatha.
"Happy to be home?"
That, and the biting tone in her mother's voice. Sarcasm. A family trait, it would seem.
"Obviously." She shruggs and moves uselessly around the kitchen, searching for something to do.
"Is it?"
Agatha frowns.
Months ago, that was her range of expression. Scowl, bicker, hiss, sulk. But just recently, she's noticed her face doing things a little differently.
You smiled at him.
If Callis' scrutiny doesn't drive her to distraction, that voice in her head almost certainly will.
All she'd wanted from the minute they set foot in that school was to go home. Well, now she's here. Safe and sound, her best friend by her side again. Everything she'd ever wanted.
Everything?
Agatha picks weeds out of cracks in the stone floor. She can feign indifference and boredom till she's blue in the face, but it doesn't matter; the difference in her demeanour is too obvious to hide - like last night, when she'd got halfway through dinner before realising she was sitting up straight.
Even her mother wouldn't buy that they teach posture at the School for Evil.
"I'm going out." She mumbles.
"To see Sophie?" Callis sounds chipper. It's irritating.
"Yes." She lies. She makes it almost out the door before her mother calls -
"Let me know how rehearsals are going."
That shouldn't feel like an insult, but it does, it does, it does.
The graveyard used to be the only place she could go to think. Now it looks like what it is: a collection of tombstones falling over wilted little graves. People who went through their entire lives never seeing half of what she's seen.
At school, she liked to sit and think in her dorm room - surrounded by flowers and delicate pink marble architecture, and the sound of the fountains outside.
This is a far cry from her dorm room. She's back where she belongs.
You don't honestly believe that?
Of course she does. She makes sense here: just another harsh, irregular shape on top of a graveyard hill. Solitary and small and ugly, like the witch she is. A perfect fit.
But you fit in there, too.
That's ridiculous.
Is it?
Throwing her mother's words back at her. Nice.
And yet...
The seed of doubt is there, she can't deny it. She can't deny that she scored 100% on a test her peers all failed, or that one touch of her hand could grant wishes, or that she walked into the Circus Of Talents looking and feeling exactly like what she was: a princess.
But she's not a princess here.
A truly good soul can never hide.
She remembers with a painful twinge that day in Dovey's office. The lessons she'd had to learn, the painful truths she'd been forced to confront. More than that, she remembers the words which were spoken almost under the teacher's breath, the meaning of which she hasn't been able to divine until very recently.
You can't fight true love, Agatha.
And there it is again. The tidal wave she's been surpressing ever since her first night back, when the weight of her decision truly, finally hit her.
She can't do this. She can't think about him and the way it felt when they were together, and the curl at the nape of his neck that's just slightly longer than the others, and the deep clear blue of his eyes as he was leaning forward to kiss her -
She starts running when the sobs reach her chest; running anywhere, anywhere but here.
Callis watches her from the window.
The dream returns again that night.
The Ballroom is exactly how she remembers it, but now it's filled with music and ambient atmosphere.
The Yule Ball.
The one they never got to have.
Couples spin and laughter is heard from every corner, and in the middle of it all, there they are.
Her head is resting just below his shoulder. They're not really dancing anymore, just swaying back and forth. She hopes he won't say anything, that they can just have this moment together, but he speaks just the same.
"Back again, are we?" He can sound so gentle, when he wants to.
"I suppose we are." She manages, after a moment.
"No witty remarks tonight?" He teases.
She has nothing to say to that.
He must sense something is wrong, because he moves to gently tilt her head up, so their eyes can meet.
His are as crystal clear as she remembers. Hers are welling with tears.
"Oh, love." He murmurs quietly. She thinks that she ought to have some autonomy in her own dream, but it's him pulling her off of the dance floor and out into the gardens.
They settle on a stone bench overlooking the hedge maze. The tears are falling down her cheek now, the moonlight illuminating them like pearls.
"Tell me." He insists, and she does.
"Nothing makes sense. I grew up with Sophie, she's my best friend. I got what I wanted, we came home and everything went back to how it was. I should be happy, and instead I'm dreaming of you." She doesn't mean to make it sound that venomous, but he doesn't object, so she carries on.
"I hardly know you. We barely got to spend any real time together, and yet I feel like I've lost this important part of me that I never even knew I had."
She glances over at him. He's still, pensive: clearly mulling over her words.
"Love isn't really meant to make sense, I guess."
Agatha slumps backwards, wishing he would've said something more profound.
"Professor Dovey said something to me once." He continues, "She had a word with me after the Trial, about Sophie. Said that the obvious choice is usually also the wrong one, that I'd have to trust myself to know when I'd found the real thing. 'You can't fight true love', she said."
Agatha looks up, her surprised eyes meeting his.
"And if we're this miserable apart, maybe we should take her advice."
She buries her head in his chest as his arms wrap around her in an embrace. "I don't know what to do." She whispers.
"Come and find me." Tedros whispers back.
And then she wakes up.
Sophie gives up trying to get her out of the house after thirty minutes.
Her mother grumbles when she says she has a stomach ache, but leaves her alone in bed all day.
Tears come and go throughout the long hours, but she couldn't move if she wanted to. Not until she figures out what to do. Could she go back? It seems insane, to risk throwing herself back into a world of murderers and magical creatures on the small chance that a boy she left behind might be willing to take her back.
Then again, what's the alternative? To sit in this house for the rest of her life, dreaming of a love she might have had, once upon a time?
It seems futile to even think about it though, when she has no way to re-enter the woods.
Her thoughts churn round in circles all day long. There has to be an answer. What does she want? What would make her happy?
He would.
Oh, god. She has to go back, doesn't she? But she doesn't know how to go back, or if he'll be waiting if she does, and she just wishes -
Wishes.
Wishes.
Maybe she does know what to do.
Maybe she always has.
You can't fight true love, Agatha.
She's not going to, ever again.