Chapter Text
The rain hammers the car roof loud enough that Agatha can barely hear herself think, but not loud enough to block out the echo of the absolute carnage that was her fight with Wanda just minutes ago.
Her eyes are stinging with unshed tears adding to her already limited view of the road ahead. Her hands are shaking where she’s gripping the wheel, barreling down the road in pure determination. If she never saw Wanda’s face again as long as she lived it still wouldn’t be good enough. To think of all she’d been robbed of; all those years she’d never get back.
She takes a right down Hexwood Lane.
As her left hand goes from nine o’clock to midnight on the wheel, a streetlight catches her engagement ring, drawing her eye to it. She lets out a loud growl of fury at the sight of it and starts using her thumb and her pinky to try to shuffle the offensive thing from her ring finger.
The rain is so heavy now that you’d think the roof was about to come in. The fucking ring won’t come off. Wanda was meant to get the thing resized but had insisted that Agatha wore it anyway in the meantime. It had been nearly a year since then. The more the ring refuses to budge, the more frantic Agatha becomes.
She stops at a red light on the end of the street.
“Stupid fucking-“
Agatha frustratedly bashes her hand against the wheel just once, then uses her right hand to try to prize the thing off. It’s dark but she can see her finger going nearly purple as the blood starts trapping in her finger the harder she pulls.
There’s a honk from the car behind her and she vaguely makes out someone in the mirror throwing their hand in the air in frustration.
The light had turned green.
Agatha flips the asshole off even though he likely can’t see in the dark and the rain.
Giving up on her ring, she focuses all her energy on reaching her destination and surges forward. She just has to get there. She has to-
The last thing she sees is a flash of bright white headlights approaching fast from the passenger side. There’s the screeching of tires against wet tarmac.
Then darkness.
“-and the worst of it all is over. She likely won’t remember much but luckily there’s dashcam footage-“
Agatha can hear faint beeping. When she tries to open her eyes they burn and her eyelids snap shut in protest to the clinical white light of the room.
“-Miss Harkness.”
Agatha groans and tries to open her eyes again. She blinks a couple of times and makes out a clipboard. Then the rest of the person comes into focus.
“Miss Harkness? Can you hear me?”
Agatha groans once again.
“Yeah.” Her voice comes out hoarse and gravelly. The room finally comes into focus and the memory of tires screeching and bright headlights flash through her mind. “Car accident.”
She’d meant to ask it as a question, but she’s pretty confident that’s what happened.
“Yes, that’s right,” the doctor answered anyway, “and a bad one too. Someone out there’s looking out for you Miss Harkness because you’re extremely lucky to be here.”
Agatha takes inventory of the pain in her body. She feels a slight sting in her ribs whenever she inhales and her head is pounding.
“To get you up to speed: you have a couple of broken ribs from the air bag deploying which is nothing compared to what you would’ve had if it hadn’t; you have a skull fracture and some superficial injuries to your arms, torso and legs that should heal up in a few days.” The doctor tells her, reading from her notes. Then the nurse at the end of her bed pipes up:
“And likely whiplash. The Xray didn’t show any neck injuries but given the nature of the crash, whiplash is guaranteed, but we obviously couldn’t check for that since you’ve been unconscious since the accident.”
Agatha glances around for a window to get a read on the time but finds none.
“Oh! And I can’t believe I forgot! We nearly had to amputate that finger.” The doctor nods, gesturing to her left hand lying above the hospital blanket. Sure enough there’s a deep indentation below her knuckle. She frowns.
“Why?”
The doctor chuckles.
“Miss Harkness, the ring you had on was quite flashy so I understand why you wouldn’t want to take it off but I would advise that you get your fiancée to resize it as a matter of urgency.”
The nurse laughs too.
“Don’t worry - it’s safe. We managed to remove it but it was lodged pretty high up your finger and it took a while to get it off.”
Agatha’s ribs are burning now from how hard she’s breathing. It’s pure panic.
“Fiancée?”
The laughter from the hospital staff dies. They look at her as though waiting for the punchline to a joke they don’t understand yet.
“Uh…yeah…you uhm…” the doctor frowns. “Agatha, what’s the name of your fiancée? Can you remember?”
Agatha feels like she’s going to be sick. She’s praying this is some sick joke she can sue the hospital for later.
“I don’t have a fiancée.”
The doctor and nurse look at each other with concern then start muttering to each other quietly and reviewing their clipboards. Agatha wants to scream at them. She’s about to, too. But the door to her room flies open.
“Miss Vidal! I must insist again you wait outside-!”
A small, stumpy man in a lab coat frantically stumbles into the room after a woman with long dark hair, glassy eyes -red from hours of crying - wearing what looks like sleep-clothes: a Jurassic park T-shirt and old, grey sweats. She looks at Agatha with absolute, profound relief, which is exactly how Agatha feels when she lays eyes on her.
There she is.
Rio.
“I knew it! I heard your voice from the hallway!” She practically sobs “You’re awake!”
The doctor rushes to the woman and tries to usher her out of the room.
“Listen, Miss Vidal, now’s not a good time. It’s understandable that you want to speak with Agatha, but we’re trying to ascertain-“
“Don’t you dare give me that bullshit. I’ve been here for twelve hours. No one will tell me shit, despite being listed as her emergency contact, and-“
“Can we speak with you outside?” The doctor asks firmly, but it’s more of a demand than a request. The woman looks over his shoulder at Agatha once then reluctantly leaves the room with him, the nurse and the dumpy little man in the lab coat, leaving Agatha alone.
After five minutes of hushed discussion in the hallway, the woman alone comes back into the room. She pulls a chair from the wall and comes to sit by the head of Agatha’s bed.
“Agatha?” She speaks gently. “The doc says you’re having some issues remembering things-“
“It’s nothing.” Agatha stubbornly huffs out. The woman’s lips quirk a little.
“Hey, he said it’s only temporary. But I need to figure out how much of your life you can remember.” Her voice is comforting. Her hand rests on Agatha’s arm and her thumb absentmindedly draws little circles. She looks as frightened as Agatha feels.
Agatha feels the pain in her ribs growing stronger.
“Can you remember your address?”
Agatha says nothing. Because no, she doesn’t. She doesn’t even remember what her house looks like. She doesn’t remember who her friends are, what car she drives, what she does to unwind after a hard week…nothing.
But there’s one person she does remember. She slowly puts the pieces together. Rio, her best friend since she was in middle school.
“We got engaged?”
Rio looks at her, puzzled. Her eyes dart back and forth between Agatha’s own.
“You remember?” Rio asks carefully.
Agatha blushes. Holy shit. She’s engaged to Rio.
She’s engaged to Rio.
Her heart feels like it’s about to give out and that burning in her ribs feels like fire.
When did this happen!?
“Not really but I guess it makes sense.” She says nervously, barely able to hear the words leave her mouth over the beating of her own heart.
Holy SHIT. How? When?!
“So you remember Wanda?” Rio asks dejectedly. Agatha frowns, confused all over again.
“Wanda?” She repeats. “Who’s Wanda?”
They both stare at each other with the same dumb, confused look on their faces.
“Agatha…” rio says so softly it’s barely a whisper. “Do you know who I am?”
Agatha nods and feels pain shoot down her neck. She winces. Rio’s hand tightens around her forearm.
“You’re Rio.”
She chokes out through pain. Rio lets out a watery laugh then wipes a tear from her cheek.
“And how about Jen? Alice? Lilia?”
Agatha’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. Rio looks back at her like she personally hung the stars in the sky.
“Am I the only person you remember?” She whispers in disbelief.
Agatha is about to nod until she remembers the pain.
“I think so.” She exhales. “But that makes sense, right?” Rio blinks back at her, equal parts in awe and heartbroken all at once. It’s confusing to Agatha “You really stayed out there the whole night?”
She smiles bashfully at her best friend who it turns out she’s going to marry. Her best friend who sat in a plastic hospital chair waiting for her to wake up. Who’s clearly been crying for hours worried about her.
“I-I did…but listen, Agatha, I think I need to tell you something. I’m not-“
Agatha pushes through the pain. She pushes up on to her elbow, and presses her lips to Rio’s.
She knows logically that it can’t be the first time she’s done this, but fuck, it definitely feels like the first time.
Rio gasps the second their lips touch as though it’s the very first time for her too. Agathas hand weakly finds the back of her head, holding her in place as her lips start moving against Rios.
Agatha pulls away just slightly, cringing a little in pain. Her forehead rests against Rios. Rio stares at her like she’s in complete shock.
“Agatha-“ she chokes out. “I’m not-“
Agatha can still feel her body absolutely buzzing from the sensation of Rio’s lips on hers. She knows they must have her on some good drugs but nothing works quite as well as kissing Rio. She pulls back giggling like a schoolgirl finally allowing her head to rest back on the pillow.
“I can’t believe that we actually-“
“Agatha!? Baby!? Oh, thank God you’re okay!”
A well-rested redheaded woman comes bursting into the room. Agatha scowls over at her, puzzled. She walks over and crouches by Rio.
“Baby? How are you feeling? I got here as soon as I heard-“
“-are you serious? I called you like…a million times last night!” Rio stands abruptly, scoffing in disbelief.
“Yeah-well I…”
“I even had Alice stop by the house and she nearly broke down the door from knocking it so hard! Where the hell were you!?”
“I had some business to-“ the redhead shakes her head “-it doesn’t matter! I’m here now. Thank you, Rio, for everything you’ve done, but I want some time with my fiancée. I can’t believe I almost lost you, baby.”
Oh.
Oh no.
She looks up at Rio. Rio whose lips were just on hers moments ago.
Rio.
Her best friend.
Just her best friend.
Rio’s eyes finally drop to the floor, breaking contact from Agatha’s own.
“Yeah, uh, I better be heading home. Got work in an hour. Gotta change.”
Fuck.
Rio speeds out of the room before she can say anything further.
Agatha can’t breathe.
“The doctors say you have a little amnesia, but they’re gonna run a few tests this afternoon and have you back in our bed by tonight.” Wanda says full of hope. “Do you uh…do you remember anything at all? From yesterday?”
Agatha doesn’t know what to say.
“N-no.”
And I don’t remember you.
Wanda lights up. Like any of this is good news.
“Let’s get these tests done and we can get you home.”
Agatha doesn’t know where home is, but she has a feeling it’ll feel like anything but that