Chapter Text
The alarm clock blared at exactly 6:00 AM. Agatha Harkness groaned, slamming a hand over the snooze button before peeling herself out of bed. She didn’t need an alarm—not really. Her body, centuries old and accustomed to waking at dawn for battles and rituals, was already attuned to the rhythm of human life. But appearances mattered.
As far as the people of Blackwood, Oregon, were concerned, she was just Detective Agatha Harkness, a woman in her early fifties who had a knack for solving crimes and an even greater talent for sarcasm. The latter, unfortunately, didn’t make her many friends at the station. Not that she cared.
Her morning routine was mechanical: black coffee, two pieces of toast (burnt, because she never paid attention), a quick shower, and a begrudging glance in the mirror. Same piercing blue eyes, same streaks of silver in her dark hair, same exhaustion that no amount of sleep ever fixed.
By 7:30 AM, she was behind the wheel of her car, a black ‘68 Mustang that growled like a beast when she started it. The damn thing was older than most of her colleagues, but unlike them, it didn’t complain or ask stupid questions.
The Blackwood Police Department was a small but functional building, nestled between a rundown diner and an even more rundown bar. The kind of place where nothing big ever happened—missing pets, minor thefts, the occasional bar fight. Easy work. Quiet. Perfect for someone trying to disappear.
_________________________
"Morning, Harkness," Officer Jones greeted as she walked in, already nursing a coffee that smelled like burnt rubber.
"Jones," she replied with a nod, grabbing a fresh cup from the station’s communal pot. She took one sip and winced. "Jesus. Did someone summon a demon and force it to brew this?"
"That’s Detective Jesus to you," came a voice from behind. Harris her boss, smirked as he passed by. "And if you hate it so much, maybe you should make the next pot."
"Right. Because I have nothing better to do than become this station’s personal barista," she muttered, taking another reluctant sip.
The morning briefing was dull—some reports of trespassing at the old mill, a stolen bicycle, and someones cat stuck in a tree again. By the time it ended, Agatha had successfully tuned out most of it, nodding along at the right moments and throwing in the occasional "Mhm" to make it seem like she was engaged.
Her colleagues thought she was cold, distant. Maybe even a little mean. But none of them ever asked why she worked late every night or why she never talked about her past.
Because the truth was, if she wasn’t working, she was thinking. And thinking was dangerous.
_______________
By noon, she was in her car, patrolling the town out of habit rather than necessity. Blackwood was one of those places where people still left their doors unlocked and knew their neighbors by name. She should have found that charming. Instead, it unnerved her.
She pulled up near a small bookstore, watching as an elderly man struggled to carry a box of books inside. With a sigh, she got out.
"Let me guess," she called out. "You’ve decided weightlifting is your new hobby, and I’m about to watch you throw out your back?"
The old man, Mr. Graves, gave her a tired smile. "Agatha, you wound me. I’m perfectly capable."
"Sure. And I’m perfectly capable of ignoring you when you start yelling for help."
He sighed dramatically and handed her a book from the top of the stack. "Fine. Hold this, at least."
She glanced at the title. Memory and the Mind: A Study on Forgotten Pasts.
Something in her chest twisted, sharp and sudden. She quickly handed it back. "Looks boring."
"That’s because you refuse to read anything published after 1800," he teased.
"Because everything after 1800 is boring."
She helped him move the boxes inside, pretending she didn’t feel the weight of that book’s title lingering in her mind.
______
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, Agatha was back at her desk, filling out reports with the kind of mindless efficiency that came from years—centuries—of repetition. The station was quiet, the night shift crew settling in.
Jones passed by and knocked on her desk. "You staying late again?"
"Wouldn’t want to break tradition."
Jones gave her a look but didn’t push. "Alright. Don’t forget to eat. You get meaner when you’re hungry."
Agatha smirked. "I thought that was just my natural charm."
He snorted and walked away, leaving Agatha alone with her paperwork and the steady hum of the overhead lights.
She preferred it this way. Routine. Order. Work that kept her mind occupied.
Because when the quiet settled in too deeply, when the distractions faded away, she started to wonder why she sometimes woke up feeling like she had forgotten something important.
Something that no amount of sarcasm, coffee, or late nights at the station could ever bring back.
________________
The station was quiet. Too quiet.
Agatha had spent centuries in the presence of silence, but this was different. It wasn’t the peaceful kind of quiet—the kind that came with a job well done, with a town finally asleep. No, this was the kind of silence that pressed against the walls, stretched into the corners, and made the air feel just a little too heavy.
She ignored it.
Flicking her pen against the desk, she leaned back in her chair, staring at the half-finished report in front of her. Some idiot had tried to steal a lawn gnome from Mrs. Calloway’s front yard. She should have found it funny. Instead, she just felt… off.
The clock on the wall ticked, slow and steady. 10:47 PM.
She exhaled through her nose and ran a hand through her hair. Maybe Patel was right. Maybe she did need to go home, eat something, sleep for once. But just as she reached for her coat, something shifted.
A sound.
Faint. Almost imperceptible.
Agatha froze, her senses sharpening. It had come from the hallway—the one leading to the evidence room.
She narrowed her eyes.
Now, Agatha had been a cop long enough to know that nothing good ever came from strange noises in the middle of the night.
Slowly, she pushed her chair back, the legs scraping against the floor.
The sound was soft, like footsteps.
Or someone trying very hard not to make any.
She grabbed her gun out of habit, but she already had the sinking suspicion she wouldn’t need it. Because no supernatural force would be dumb enough to break into a police station.
Which meant…
“Oh, this is gonna be good.”
She moved silently, stepping into the dimly lit hallway. The air smelled faintly of stale coffee and printer ink. The station was mostly empty at this hour—just her and a couple of officers in the back. But whoever was sneaking around clearly thought they had the place to themselves.
Agatha followed the noise, her boots making no sound against the tile.
The evidence room door was slightly open.
Amateur.
She took a breath, pushed the door open with one hand, and—
There he was.
A burglar.
In a ski mask.
Trying to shove a box of confiscated evidence into his backpack.
Agatha blinked. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
The man froze.
Slowly—painfully slowly—he turned his head, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights.
“Oh,” he said.
Agatha raised an eyebrow. “That’s all you’ve got? You break into a police station, and your grand opening line is ‘Oh’?”
The man blinked. “I—uh—this isn’t what it looks like?”
Agatha stared at him. Then at the open evidence locker. Then at the half-eaten donut he was currently holding in his other hand.
“…Are you seriously eating my donut?”
The man looked at the donut. Then at her. Then, in a move so profoundly stupid that Agatha almost respected it, he took another bite.
And ran.
“OH, YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT—”
Agatha bolted after him, her chair clattering to the floor as she launched forward. The guy was fast, but she was faster.
“You do realize you’re running deeper into a police station, right?!” she shouted, dodging a desk as she chased him through the bullpen.
“I panicked!” he yelled back.
“Oh, great strategy! Maybe if you panic harder, you’ll phase through the goddamn walls!”
The burglar skidded around a corner, nearly slipping on the freshly mopped floor. Agatha grinned. Perfect.
“You’re gonna want to—”
Too late.
His feet went out from under him, and he crashed onto his back with all the grace of a drunken moose. The half-eaten donut flew from his grip, landing pathetically on the floor beside him.
Agatha slowed to a stop, hands on her hips, breathing only slightly heavier than normal.
“Wow,” she said. “That was just embarrassing.”
The man groaned, staring up at the ceiling. “I think I broke something.”
Agatha snorted. “Yeah, your dignity.”
She reached down, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him up with far more strength than a woman her size should have had. He wobbled, dazed, as she shoved him toward the holding cells.
“You’re lucky I’m in a good mood tonight,” she muttered, unlocking a cell and pushing him inside.
He slumped onto the bench, rubbing his head. “You call this a good mood?”
Agatha smirked. “Oh, trust me. You don’t want to see me in a bad one.”
She locked the door with a satisfying click, then dusted off her hands.
“Now,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. “I’m gonna go write the most humiliating police report of all time. And if you behave, maybe—maybe—I’ll leave out the part where you lost a fight to a donut.”
The man groaned again, rubbing his face with both hands, clearly trying to regain some shred of dignity. Agatha leaned casually against the bars, arms crossed. The whole situation was almost too much. She could barely contain her amusement.
“Okay,” she said, tilting her head, “let’s go over what happened here. You broke into a police station—” She raised a finger, counting the ridiculousness. “You ate my donut, which, by the way, is a capital offense in my book. You tried to steal evidence—what exactly were you planning to do with stolen evidence, huh? Sell it on the black market?” She raised her eyebrow in mock curiosity. “What’s the going rate for a confiscated box of expired donut coupons?”
The man sat up straighter, still looking dazed. He was young, probably no older than twenty-five, with a nervous energy that screamed “I’m in way over my head.” His ski mask was now hanging off his ear, revealing a mop of messy brown hair.
“Look, lady, I wasn’t gonna steal anything important,” he said, rubbing his temples. “I just needed—uh, I mean, I was just—uh—borrowing some stuff. For personal use, y’know?” His voice trailed off, as though he was trying to convince himself more than Agatha.
Agatha blinked. “Personal use?” She let out a short laugh. “You break into a police station for ‘personal use’? What, were you planning to sell a few bags of confiscated weed to your friends? Maybe resell some stolen printer paper? This is literally the worst heist I’ve ever seen.”
The man winced, clearly regretting his decision to try and rob a police station. “I didn’t think this through, okay?”
“No kidding,” Agatha shot back, stepping closer to the bars. She leaned in, her voice dropping low. “Tell me, what exactly was your plan if I hadn’t shown up? Were you going to waltz out of here with a box full of stolen evidence and just… disappear into the night? You’re in a police station, you genius.”
He winced again, his face turning red. “I—uh—I thought you guys would be busy with, like, paperwork or whatever. I didn’t think anyone would be here. It was late.”
“Late? Late?” Agatha repeated, her voice rising in mock disbelief. “It’s barely 11 PM, and you thought this was a good time to break in? What’s your next brilliant idea? You gonna rob a bank on Christmas Eve?”
The man’s eyes widened. “No! I wasn’t—look, I’m not a criminal, okay? I just—”
Agatha cut him off, raising her hand dramatically. “No, no, no, don’t tell me. You’re a misunderstood young man, right? Just trying to make a living, doing some petty crime to pay the rent? Look, kid, I’ve heard it all. You know what? I’m gonna make it easy for you. Just tell me one thing: What the hell were you thinking?”
He hesitated, then mumbled, “I was thinking I needed money. Okay? And I saw the door open, and I thought maybe I could just take a little something. I didn’t think anyone would notice.”
Agatha stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing. “You’re a piece of work, aren’t you?” She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “You broke into a police station for a little extra cash, and you didn’t think anyone would notice? Well, congratulations, Einstein, you’ve officially set the bar for the worst criminal in Blackwood. I’m almost impressed by your stupidity.”
He groaned, sinking back onto the bench, his hands covering his face in embarrassment. “Please don’t tell anyone. I’ll do anything. I just… I didn’t think this through.”
Agatha straightened, her face hardening slightly. “You’re lucky you didn’t break anything more than your own pride. I could throw you in jail for a long time, you know. You’re trespassing, theft, breaking and entering—there’s a lot I could charge you with.”
The man’s eyes widened in panic. “Wait, wait, please don’t! I swear I won’t do it again! I’ll leave town, I’ll—”
She raised her hand again, cutting him off. “You’ll leave town? Oh, sure. You’ll just disappear into the sunset like some bad movie character, right? Poof, and you’re gone. Is that your plan?”
“No! I mean, I’ll just… I’ll stop. I swear. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
Agatha’s gaze softened slightly, though her lips remained tight. She’d seen this kind of desperation before—people trying to cover up their own stupidity with empty promises. She leaned against the bars, folding her arms.
“You’re not going anywhere until I finish writing my report,” she said flatly. “And trust me, I’m going to make it very clear how much of a disaster this whole thing was. I’ll even throw in a few ‘amateur hour’ jokes for good measure.”
The man slumped even further, his shoulders sagging in defeat. “Please, I’ll never do anything like this again. Just let me go.”
Agatha looked at him for a moment, considering. She could be harsh, but she wasn’t a monster. The kid was an idiot, but he was harmless. Probably.
“Alright,” she said finally, straightening up. “I’m not going to throw you in jail for the rest of your life. But you’re going to learn something tonight. You’re going to learn that breaking into a police station is a special kind of stupid, and that you can’t just walk away from it like it’s no big deal.”
She walked to the door of the holding cell and unlocked it with a satisfying click. The man stood up, rubbing his face, looking more defeated than ever.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Agatha said, holding the door open. “I’m going to let you walk out of here, and you’re going to go home, pack your stuff, and leave Blackwood. Now. If I ever see you again, I will personally make sure your life is a living hell. Got it?”
The man nodded vigorously, his eyes wide with fear. “Got it! I swear, I’ll leave right now.”
Agatha stepped aside and motioned for him to leave. “And you better not come back. I’m not in the mood for a repeat performance. You’re lucky I’m in a generous mood tonight.”
As the man hurried out of the holding cell and out of the station, Agatha shook her head with a sigh.
“God, I need a vacation.”
She closed the door behind him and locked it, then turned to head back to her desk. The whole thing had been ridiculous, but at least it gave her something to laugh about for the rest of the week.
As she sat down and started drafting the report, she couldn’t help but smile to herself. It was a good night. A very, very good night.