Chapter Text
Agatha slumped back in her chair, eyes on the cluttered board in front of her as she tried to piece together a puzzle without all its pieces.
She was tired. Her eyes burned against the overhead fluorescents and her skin was dry from the harsh air conditioning that never ceased to pump musky air into the building.
She was the last one in the precinct, not an abnormality.
She was the last one privy to the details of this case due to a two-day suspension without pay. Irritating.
Her colleagues had been working on this for a week, their efforts perfectly organized on the whiteboard centered in the middle of the room. Useless buffoons.
Agatha tapped her fingers on the edge of the pleather armrest, stopping after her fingers found a loose bit of fabric. She tugged at it idly, staring into the dead eyes of a man with no family, no property, no name; it didn’t make sense.
She studied the strange pool of blood under his body, too large to come from a single stab wound on his chest that was nowhere near his heart. It didn’t make sense, the immediate gush of blood didn’t look to have reached even the back of his shirt. The blood that stained his back was patchy at best. The working theory was that he’d fallen face-down and had later been flipped. For what? Something in his pockets?
Agatha grimaced. Her eyes slipped to the multiple pairs of footprints pulled from around the house where his body had been discovered. There were dozens; different sizes and shapes that were likely using the abandoned home as a place to light up or shoot up. Of the freshest, one pair gave Agatha pause.
They were heels. Tall too if the indents left gave any indication. That wasn’t her area of expertise and they still hadn’t gotten any report from the forensics team.
Why they would have walked through the grass is beyond her when the home’s sidewalk still functioned as such, hardly covered by weeds.
Agatha pushed herself up and trudged over to the board, eyes looking at the heel prints. They weren’t. . . stable. That much was clear. The gait was uneven and seemed. . .
Agatha’s eyes widened, a smug smirk turning her lips as she began to dismember the board picture by picture. She erased everything and began to remake it.
By the end, it looked far worse; sloppy handwriting, lazy application of symmetry and good organizational techniques, but she was right and that was what mattered.
Tomorrow or the next day, her theory would become fact once the blood samples were revealed to be multiple victims’ DNA.
She picked up a dry erase marker and squeaked out a final note to the remainder of her team.
Morons
Agatha left the station without fanfare and headed for the closest bar.
—————
The next morning started as expected. Simmering outrage restricted only by their wounded pride, the other members of Agatha’s team glared at her.
Her head pounded from her lack of sleep and the four to nine Dos Equis she’d consumed in the span of the night. She’d gone home alone at last call with a peaceful numbness sitting on her breastbone and a glimmer of hope that maybe it would carry her through the next day.
It was always a false hope.
Agatha ignored the looks as she sat in her worn jeans and frumpy flannel, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. A part of her, long lost, grated at the undignified image she painted for the world. But that woman had been crushed under the heel of one too many losses. The Agatha that remained would not be convinced to care that her shirt wasn’t buttoned through the right holes or that her jeans were starting to fray at the knees and hems.
She collapsed in her desk chair and waited for the call.
“Detective Harkness. My office.”
Agatha stood, her eyes rolling across the office and watching eyes dart away from her gaze. She huffed a mocking laugh and took her time walking to the Chiefs’ office. That included making herself a coffee on the way and his eyes fell to the steaming cup in her hands as she entered.
“Agatha–”
Agatha rolled her eyes.
“Save it, Chief. We all know I’m right. You’ll see it soon even if your brain can’t wrap around it now.”
He’d never known what to do with her. He was soft, an “empathetic leader” he had once called himself. Agatha had laughed in a room filled with her colleagues and select members of the press.
It hadn’t started them off on the best course and she had blasted through every one of his attempts to right the ship. Agatha had wondered when his patience would snap. She was almost impressed with his self-control until she discovered that Chief Jones was simply weak. A weak will, a weak constitution, an inability to show up to work without a stain down the front of his perfectly pressed shirts.
Agatha hated him.
Chief Jones pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed tight.
“Agatha. I’ve really tried with you. I’ve kept you on despite the complaints of my other detectives. I’ve overlooked all of your insubordination and frankly rude behavior because you are good at your job–”
“The best. The only thing those cucks might succeed at is watching me fuck their unhappy wives.”
The Chief ignored her interruption, grimacing through the crassness of it.
“You asked me to screen the calls from the FBI. I did so. I said that we needed you here.”
Agatha’s body went cold, her eyes locking into the guilt already present in her Chief’s. She’d told him that she would not accept any contact from her old team or, god forbid, a new one, and he’d happily agreed. She gripped the chair arms tightly as the headache became a distinct nausea born from terror.
Chief Jones sighed.
“But we don’t. We don’t need you here. You make the jobs of my other detectives harder. We cannot work as a team; there is no trust. You are the reason I cannot make this precinct a family.”
Agatha wanted to puke all over his white starched shirt. She seethed.
“The reason you cannot make this team a family is due to your lack of anything resembling a spine.”
Chief Jones didn’t raise to the bait and Agatha was reeling with rage. He was a simpleton and a coward and Agatha hated him.
He shook his head.
“Pack your things, Agatha. The transfer request that came through was marked as mandatory and you’ve given me no reason to fight it. They expect you in DC next Monday.”
Agatha stood and she clenched her shaking hands to hide them.
“Tell them they can kick rocks.” She stalked toward the door. “Enjoy mediocrity. I hope it kills you.”
Agatha slammed the Chief’s door, the wood and blinds clacking and drawing the attention of the room as she made her way to her desk. There was nothing to pack, no personal items beyond the coffee mug in her hands and a now-dead plant given to her by the Chief that sat on her desk corner. He’d provided a small plant to all of his Detectives on his first day. Agatha’s had shriveled into nothingness and she’d left it there as a reminder to Jones and her department that they meant nothing to her.
Agatha dumped her remaining coffee in the mesh trash can by her desk and barely felt any joy as it flooded out across the floor. Murmurs started amongst the detectives and Agatha wouldn’t admit it but a rash singe of shame branded her chest. She dropped her badge and service weapon and looked up at the Detectives around her. None looked away this time, holding expressions of smug glee and relief that the ‘Wicked Witch’ of the 120th NYPD Precinct was no more.
Agatha felt the curling grin on her face and knew they would not see her fall apart. Apathy held her like a snug coat and it would not fail her now.
“I’d say it was a pleasure but fortunately you’ve never given that to any woman.”
Agatha stood tall through every emotion, long ignored, knocking hurriedly at her door. She left the precinct and felt the sharp wind of Fall cutting across her arms and cheeks. Coffee cup dangling from her fingers, Agatha mechanically made her way home to her small, dingy apartment. It was dark and bare. Not much sat in the living room beyond a single, ugly, patterned couch that had once been vibrant and was now muted and graying. A dusty record was set on a similarly unused bookshelf in the corner. The shelves were empty and the records, once well-loved, lay untouched in a wicker basket on the floor.
Agatha’s bedroom wasn’t any more personal. A full bed with gray sheets and pillows that lay flat against the short wooden headboard. No photos sat on the walls and the only color in the room was a quilt that covered the dreary sheets of her bed. It was her treasure and greatest agony, purple and white and gold patterned squares with cross-stitched pictures that told a sweet, perfect, silly story of a boy who became a superhero.
Agatha often slept on the couch when the sight of it aimed to cripple her.
Now, she stood staring, eyes wet with fury and frustration and guilt, and her dormant heart roared in her chest and clattered against her sternum.
Her throat closed up and her lungs burned and she tore her gaze from her greatest failure to the table beside her bed. She pulled out a bottle of cheap Whiskey and drank it straight, focusing on the sear of it down her throat.
Agatha knew sleep would bring nightmares and so she dropped onto her couch and drank. Her mind slipped toward the past with desperation and she fought for a distraction with every breath.
But her life was empty. It held no meaning or warmth or joy. Instead of helping, instead of the usual numb buzz, the Whiskey made her enervated will falter.
Blue eyes so closely matched to her own blinked in her mind with the soft innocence of youth. Curly, brown hair and pink, chubby cheeks. A gap-filled smile that let out her favorite sound; a squealing giggle that haunted her and turned to screams in her sleep.
Agatha closed her eyes and she cried. It was quiet, no loud sob to distract her from the tragedy of her life laid bare before her. She dropped the bottle on the floor, not caring if it spilled, and wondered how good it would feel to fall asleep and never wake up again.
Her dark musings were interrupted by the buzzing in her pocket. She blinked, the room blurry as she pulled out her phone and squinted at the screen. Her breath, shallow before, ceased entirely.
After the failure of her marriage and then her life, Agatha had been driven by despair and bitterness. She’d changed her ex-wife’s contact to a skull and thought that time might piece together her fractured heart. Instead, despair settled in to stay and her bitterness faded into apathy so consuming that she wasn’t sure she’d ever overcome it.
Now, the skull stared back at her with alarming clarity. Dread cratered Agatha’s chest and she held the power button on her phone until the screen went black.
Relief lasted all of a second before a knock came at her door, the pattern so familiar that Agatha considered throwing herself from her third floor window. She’d probably survive.
There was no way She had come here.
Agatha didn’t move or breathe in hopes that the vile demon on her doorstep would pass her by.
“Agatha.”
The sing-song, smug lilt that carried her name through the door had Agatha’s hair standing on end. She grit her teeth, looking around her pathetic apartment. Her eyes locked on the smudged window and she decided it would lead to a less-painful afternoon.
She’d just stood, boot kicking the whiskey so it rolled across the floor and spilled whatever remained, when she heard the scratch of picks in the lock.
She’d barely taken a step toward the window when the whine of her front door sounded behind her. She heard her past step over the threshold and plant itself firmly back into her life like it wouldn’t absolutely destroy her.
“Nice digs.”
Agatha saw red. She spun, her rage steamrolling any other emotion that may have taken precedence when facing her ex-wife for the first time in three years.
“Get. Out.”
Rio frowned, eyes tracing across Agatha from the messy, low pony to the scuffed boots she hadn’t taken off. She did not seem inclined to listen to Agatha’s vitriolic command. Instead, she met Agatha’s eyes, raised a single one of her brows, and began to circle the room toward the kitchen.
Agatha just watched, jaw clenched, tears still wet on her cheeks, fury roiling in her chest, as Rio studied her fall from grace like it was a crime scene to be picked apart.
Rio peered into the kitchen.
“A bit sparse on the decorations. It’s October.”
Agatha fought to keep her anger from slipping away even as Rio ignored it. Whatever would come after it could not do so in the presence of her ex-wife.
“Nothing to celebrate.”
She was glad her words were solid and sharp despite the Whiskey and the unkempt feelings in her body.
Rio shrugged.
“Fall was your favorite.”
The knowing, casual way the words left Rio’s lips had Agatha’s shoulders sagging.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Rio looked back at her, studied her, and faced her.
“So talk about your plans to return to DC.”
Agatha slowly bent down to pick up the whiskey from where it lay near-empty by the basket of vinyls. She set it upright and lifted the basket to keep the liquor puddled everywhere from staining the sleeves.
“I’m not going to DC.”
Rio leaned against the kitchen archway and watched. She said nothing as Agatha used the bottom of her flannel to wipe the whiskey from the bottom of the basket. She said nothing when Agatha pulled the flannel off and used it like a paper towel, spreading the whiskey across the floor in an attempt to clean it up.
Soon, Agatha ran out of tasks she could complete and she stared at the still-soggy floor until she couldn’t anymore. Her face lifted, gaze falling on Rio, and really looked at her for the first time since she’d stepped into Agatha’s shitty, little apartment.
Rio Vidal had had a hold on Agatha from the moment they’d met. It had never been subtle or coy for them, never quiet. Rio was numinous. She was strange and powerful and perfectly content to let the world fall around her as it may. She had never once felt the pressures of their time at Quantico, never faltered in the face of tough decisions as a field agent, never second-guessed the connection between herself and Agatha.
Agatha noted the slim, black suit jacket and sinfully unbuttoned white shirt. She tried to ignore the way the cut of the pants shaped perfectly around Rio’s ass and only partially succeeded.
In another life, Rio Vidal in this suit would have brought Agatha to her knees.
Now it just made her angry. She rooted out the affection that had sprouted in her chest and crushed the life from it.
“If that’s all, you can see yourself out.”
Rio scoffed, her expression flickering to annoyance for the first time since she’d invaded Agatha’s space.
That Agatha could manage. She waited for Rio to speak, eager to pick a fight.
But Rio just shrugged.
“That’s fine. I’m sure there won’t be any repercussions to the contract you signed to get here.”
“That was coerced. They wanted to keep their best agent on the line.”
Rio nodded.
“Yes. And they’re calling to collect.”
Agatha laughed and it was lifeless and humorless and empty. She kicked the sopping flannel on the ground into the corner.
“That agent is dead. Why would they risk bringing back whatever’s left?”
Rio didn’t answer. Agatha felt the warbling high that always came from silencing her ex-wife rear its head. It was quickly stamped out by the feel of a warm hand on her shoulder gripping too tightly and swinging her around.
Agatha reacted without thought, teeth bared as she caught Rio’s hand and twisted it from her body. But Agatha was buzzed and out of practice and Rio had always been able to predict her.
Agatha found her attempt to dislodge Rio’s hand used against her as Rio slid behind her and wrapped her own arm around Agatha’s throat.
Agatha stilled, her eyes squeezed shut and her head falling back on Rio’s shoulder as she tried to ignore the onslaught of everything she’d once been so familiar with.
Rio’s touch, her scent, the way their bodies were so familiar with one another even after years.
Rio didn’t wait for Agatha to gather herself.
“Is this really how you see yourself? A bitter, self-loathing detective intent to waste her life away one bottle at a time? A shitty CBS procedural with a poorly written, pathetic female lead?” Rio’s breath was hot on her cheek. “I don’t have time for your pity party, Agatha.”
Agatha slammed her chin down, sliding it between Rio’s arm and her own neck. She bit down hard, her teeth drying on the gabardine as she locked them around Rio’s arm.
Rio yanked her arm back with a pained grunt, shoving at Agatha and sending her into the door that led to her room.
It gave under her weight, the latch never having worked, and Agatha stumbled before catching herself on the edge of the bed. The quilt was soft under her fingers and Agatha felt the sob crawl up her throat and die, the ache so violent she couldn’t breathe.
Rio’s footsteps sounded and stilled. Seconds passed, then a minute, before Rio’s breathless, strained voice cracked the dam in Agatha’s chest.
“You have Nicky’s quilt?”
Agatha felt the coil of guilt around her neck like a noose and she slowly straightened, her hand falling from the quilt and back at her side. She turned slowly.
Rio looked stricken, her eyes locked onto the colorful pattern of the quilt that covered Agatha’s bed in the same, imperfect, silly way Nicholas had always made his own. The top of it laid over the pillows, the bottom folded under so he could safely tuck his toes away from the floor monsters he was certain hung out beneath his bed.
Agatha’s heart shattered at the name of their son, at the desperate look in Rio’s eyes that was so rarely seen, at the agonizing loss they had both suffered five years prior. To Agatha it felt like it had been days. It felt like she’d only just received the call, Rio’s broken voice whispering through the phone, Agatha’s world crashing down around her.
Rio’s expression tightened, the betrayed look in her eyes fading behind a wall of indifference. She walked to Agatha’s closet and pulled out an old suitcase, tossing it on the ground.
“We’re leaving in ten minutes.”