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Assistant: Title: Give and Take
        Author: notromanticjusthopeless notromanticjusthopeless 
        Chapter: 6/6 
        Summary: Agatha Harkness never intended to become a mother again—especially to a child tied to her painful past. While mentoring the Maximoff twins, she’s forced to confront her buried grief, uncover the mysteries surrounding the little girl—Rio’s little girl—now in her care, and face the question: Can she risk opening her heart again—to love, to motherhood, and to redemption—without losing herself to the pain of the past or the fear of repeating it?
        Contents: Chapter 6
    

    


      
        
          1) Rio has arrived.2) I'm sorry I've taken so long to update. I feel like I am dragging myself kicking and screaming through writing this story. I hope it doesn't read that way.3) I promise that one way or another, I will finish it. I'm getting surgery this upcoming week, so I don't know when I'll update next, but this story will get finished, come hell or high water, I promise.4) I'd love some feedback to help with my nonexistent motivation to write.5) This is angst.
      
  

  
  
    
    
  
    "The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves." – William Penn
  
 
  May 1, 2027

  Agatha Harkness had never been particularly comfortable in the kitchen. Sure, she could feed herself, but she’d never been one to do anything special. But pancakes were easy enough, especially when she had put in the time to practice.

  As she placed what she surmised to be a slightly underdone pancake on top of an overdone one, her daughter burst into the kitchen wearing her pink fairy garden nightgown, her hair wild. Completely disregarding the ‘no running in the house’ rule, Bella sprinted toward her, throwing her arms around Agatha’s legs as she stared up at her. “Feed me,” she said in her deepest voice, which was far more cute than ominous. Agatha looked down at her expectantly before sweetly adding, “Please?”

  “Go sit down,” she said, grabbing the plate off the counter. Bella's little hop before scampering over to the table made Agatha smile.

  Agatha shut off the stove, grabbed her own plate, and joined her little girl at the table. “They have chocolate chips!” Bella exclaimed, quickly shoveling pieces into her mouth.

  Agatha barely touched her food as she watched her daughter eat, bits of chocolate appearing on the sides of her mouth. The past eight months had been hard. Moving, redecorating, schooling, soothing nightmares, figuring out all the ins and outs of modern parenting. But at the end of the day, that look of wonder on Bella’s face made it all worth it, especially today.

  Bella’s birthday.

  Agatha was excited, ready to spoil her girl rotten and soak up all the ensuing smiles, giggles, and physical affection. And then, the note came.

  The previous Saturday morning, she had walked into the kitchen and found the scrap of paper on the counter.

  
    “Would like to visit May 1st. Your call. - R” 
  

  She had crumpled the note into a ball and thrown it back onto the counter.

  
    No.
  

  That’s how she wanted to reply. 

  
    No, you cannot visit 
  
  my
  
     daughter, the one you seemingly care nothing about. You cannot visit the kid you dropped off in the woods with an irresponsible teenager because parenting got too hard. How dare you try to disrupt the life of a kid who you never showed interest in? Who you spoke about once in all the years we were together? Is that why it was so easy for you to take Nicky? Because motherhood was merely a title attached to fleeting feelings, like that one time in the woods? No. I won’t allow her to be abandoned and betrayed—not again.
  

  
    Go f@ck yourself.
  

  A flame of rage ignited within her, burning so intensely that she had to drop Bella off at the Kaplan’s, persuading Billy to watch her despite their current silence—something to do with her pushing a somewhat redeemable adversary off a cliff, an incident he was still dramatically brooding over. Then, she spent the rest of the day fuming, pacing the house, mumbling to herself all the things she wanted to say to Rio, all the arguments for why the woman was a horrible mother and a horrible entity and just pure evil altogether.

  But then she picked Bella up and half listened to her chatter in the car on the way home, her disarming charm and innocence quelling her anger. As she tucked her into bed, Bella chose a book from the shelf and said, “Mommy used to read this to us all the time!”

  Regardless of its plausibility, she wanted to kill Rio for still having Bella’s love.

  So, before she went to sleep, Agatha wrote a single word at the bottom of the note: 
  
    “Fine.”
  

  She hadn’t told Bella, hoping against all logical reason the infuriating woman wouldn’t show up, that they could enjoy the day she had planned just the two of them. But as Bella finished her breakfast, Agatha braced herself for the inevitable.

  That woman had the nerve to enter through the back door. She dared to wear a tight-fitting black shirt, dark green pants, jeans, and black combat boots, her hair cascading down around her stupidly perfect face. And when Bella jumped from her chair and into her other mother’s arms, Rio had the gall to look like the ‘cool mom’ as she easily held her crying daughter.

  “Happy birthday, baby.”

  Suddenly, Bella leaned back with a look of fear on her face. She glanced between the two women before Rio added, “I’m so happy I get to visit you today.” Bella’s body relaxed in relief. She had been afraid her mother had come to take her away, and she had wanted to stay here with her. The fear in her eyes at the thought of leaving made Agatha smile and hate herself.

  Bella grasped her mother’s shoulders. “You’re really here!” 

  Without meeting her eyes, Rio looked down at Bella. “I am,” she said. “So, what’s on the agenda today?”

  “We’re going to the arboretum. You’re welcome to tag along.” Her words were cold and dismissive. She’d be d@mned if she’d let the other woman control the situation. “Honey, why don’t you go upstairs and get dressed.”

  Bella skipped out of the kitchen up the stairs, leaving the two women alone for the first time in a year and a half.

  Rio shoved her hands into her pockets and finally made eye contact. “Thank you for letting me see her today.”

  “Hmm,” Agatha replied, ignoring the other woman’s presence as she removed the dirty dishes from the table. At that moment, she wished she’d turned down the woman’s request. But it was too late for that, so she decided to make the most of this sh@tty and awkward situation. “So, precisely how old is she?”

  “Six-hundred-twenty-seven.”

  “May 1, 1400” 

  Rio rocked back and forth on her heels. “At witching hour.”

  Despite the awkwardness, she had at least extracted some necessary details from the woman.

  Having laid out her clothes the night before, Bella came bounding back down the stairs and into the kitchen wearing her chosen sundress covered in fairies—it was all fairies, all the time these days—smile as bright as sunshine as she twirled. “Gorgeous, my dear,” Agatha said before deciding to use her newfound knowledge to her advantage. “I hear someone is over six and a quarter years old,” she said.

  Agatha glanced at Rio with a smug smile, but the woman only closed her eyes and sighed. Looking back at her daughter, Bella’s face fell, her lips quivered, and her eyes grew glassy. Before either woman could react, the little girl bolted from the room, ran up the stairs, and slammed the door before heart-wrenching cries echoed through the house.

  Rio immediately ran toward the stairs, clearly knowing exactly what had caused their daughter’s meltdown, and Agatha despised her for it. She should know. Rio should have told her. Instead, she left her in the dark, resulting in her traumatizing their kid with who knows what.

  Agatha’s heart sank as Bella’s cries tore through the house. She stood frozen for a moment, rooted in her shock and guilt, before following Rio toward the stairs.

  When she reached the door to Bella’s room, she saw Rio holding a hysterical from behind.

  “Shhh.”

  Bella thrashed and cried. “I don’t want to be older!”

  “I know. But—”

  “Why can’t you fix it?!” Bella flailed, attempting to hit her fists against her mother.

  Rio closed her eyes, holding the struggling child tighter. “It isn’t something that needs fixing.”

  The words only served to increase Bella’s hysterics. “I don’t want to be older than him!” 

  Agatha gripped the doorframe as her heart dropped and throat constricted.

  
    “I want to be dead.”
  

  Like him. Bella wanted to be dead like him.

  Nicky was six years and four months old when he died. Six and a quarter.

  F@ck. 

  “Sweetie, I need you to—.”

  “Make me dead! I want to be dead like Nicky!”

  “Stop it,” Rio snapped.

  “No! I want—”

  Rio’s placed a hand firmly over Bella’s mouth, silencing her.

  “You can’t ever say that again, ” Rio said, her voice sharp but tinged with something else—panic. “Not to me, not to anyone. Not ever.”

  Agatha narrowed her eyes at Rio’s reaction. The way she clutched Bella, the way her voice wavered—it wasn’t just fear for her daughter. It was fear of something else. Something she wasn’t saying.

  Rio’s hand was slow to leave Bella’s mouth. When she finally let go, it was as though she were afraid the words might escape into the air where someone—something—could hear them.

  
    “Because this is where you’re safest.”
  

  
    “I wish I were dead.”
  

  
    “When did you tell your mother?”
  

  
    “Before I came here.”
  

  It made everything make sense, yet she still refused to believe it.

  Bella whimpered. “It’s not fair.”

  “You’re right. It isn’t.” Rio released her grip, allowing Bella to turn around in her arms. “But remember what Nicky said? He said you were the best little sister and the best twin sister, so he knows you’ll be the best big sister, too,” she said, brushing back the little girl’s hair.

  It sounded exactly like him, her sweet boy, whose kind words made her sick. She had him for six years, half of which he wouldn’t remember; Rio and Bella had him for almost three hundred. Three hundred years with a mother and sister, with a family and tons of little dead friends and the human connection he had always so desperately craved. Rio had given him more in death than Agatha ever had in life. She didn’t know who she hated more—the other woman or herself.

  “But I don’t want to be bigger. And I can’t even see him anyways.” Bella’s lip quivered as a tear slid down her cheek. With a small, soft voice, she asked, “Why does everything have to be bad?”

  Because no matter how hard Agatha tried, she was the second choice, the mother who just happened to be there, never the one who was wanted.

  Rio shut her eyes and took a deep breath. “Well, I don’t think everything’s bad. It looks like you have a very pretty room.”

  “I got to pick the colors.”

  Pink, purple, and green. Agatha would have loathed it if Bella hadn't loved it so much.

  “I can tell. And you get to go to the arboretum today and see all the flowers. And you have tons of toys, too.”

  “I guess.”

  “See, not everything is bad,” Rio smiled.

  How did she always know exactly what to say? Agatha hated it. Hated 
  
    her
  
  . She hated how her daughter’s sobs melted into her chest as if she belonged there as if she hadn’t left her behind.

  Agatha lingered in the doorway, watching Rio wipe away the little girl’s tears. Bella clung to her as though she were her anchor.
  
    
  
  And maybe she was.
  
    
  
  The thought twisted in her chest. Agatha wasn’t sure whom she resented more—Rio, for being the mother Bella still longed for, or herself, for not being enough to change that.
  
    
  
  She turned and headed for the stairs, her hands curling into fists so tightly that her nails bit into her palms.
  
    
  
  This day couldn’t end soon enough.

  Agatha planned this particular outing because she knew Bella would love it, but she hated that Rio loved it, too. 

  Agatha trailed behind them. Bella’s laughter rang out like sunlight through the trees, and Rio’s soft voice followed, teaching, guiding, loving. She watched the two observe the plants and flowers and rattle off facts about each. And the ones Bella didn’t know, Rio explained softly, gently, in a manner so far removed from her role as Death that it made Agatha want to destroy something. 
  
    
  
  It didn’t matter to her if they hadn’t seen each other in a year. 
  
    She
  
   should be the one holding Bella’s hand, crouching beside her to explain the world in hushed tones. But no matter how many books she read aloud or how many nightmares she chased away, it wasn’t enough.
  
    
  
  
    She
  
   wasn’t enough.
  
    
  
  Not for Bella. Not for Nicky. Maybe not for anyone.
  
    
  
  The two of them stopped in front of another flower. “Hmm. I wonder if you know what this one is?” Rio asked.
  
    
  
  Bella used her arms to push herself up onto the guardrail before hopping back down and turning back toward Rio. “Belladonna! Like me!”
  
    
  
  Bella reached instinctively for Rio’s hand, her tiny fingers curling around the woman’s without hesitation. Agatha froze, watching how Rio crouched to Bella’s level and smiled. “That’s right, just like you. Now, do you know its proper name?” The little girl shook her head. “Atropa belladonna.”
  
    
  
  “Atropa belladonna,” Bella repeated.
  
    
  
  “And it’s poisonous, but you can still use it in very small amounts to make medicine.”
  
    
  
  Bella gasped. “It has green for green witch, black for death, and purple for purple witch, all just like me!”

  “Purple is for spirit witch, but otherwise, you’re right. It’s just like you, which is why it’s your name.”
  
    
  
  She suppressed a smile at Bella’s excitement while anger bubbled up from her depths. A part of her hated the little girl’s happiness. A part of her wanted to march right up to the kid and force her to choose. A part of her didn’t care if it left the little girl in tears or ruined her birthday; she didn’t care if it hurt her. Life wasn’t fair after all. But instead, she took slow steps and fell further behind them as she held her tongue.
  
    
  
  “Azaleas!” Bella cried, running ahead.
  
    
  
  Rio stood there and watched her go. No matter how slowly she walked, she eventually caught up to her.
  
    
  
  The other woman’s gaze remained fixed on her daughter. “She’s happy here.”
  
    
  
  Agatha clenched her jaw and glared at her. “I don’t need your approval.” The words caused Rio’s shoulders to stiffen, an observation that should have brought Agatha more satisfaction than it did. With that, Agatha walked off to catch up with Bella, leaving the other woman behind.

  Agatha stood outside the bedroom, leaning against the wall beside the doorframe to avoid being seen. She listened to Bella’s giggles as Rio got her ready for bed. Agatha pressed her back into the wall, rhythmically digging her fingers into the sides of her pants as she eavesdropped. She should walk away, not intrude where she was unwelcome. But her feet wouldn’t move. Every laugh from Bella, every soft word from Rio, felt like a knife to the chest. Had Bella ever sounded that happy with her? Had she ever deserved for her to?

  That infuriating woman had stolen the entire day.

  She had interrupted breakfast and monopolized Bella’s attention at the arboretum. And when Agatha had made her daughter’s favorite food for dinner—tacos—the little girl squealed in excitement as she said, 
  
    “Mommy used to make these for me all the time!”
  

  The entire meal had been filled with “
  
    Mommy, I missed you
  
  ,” and “
  
    This is the best day ever because you’re here!” 
  
  and “
  
    Mommy, remember when…”
  

  Then, Rio had pulled out 
  
    that
  
   gift, a beautiful star map of the night Bella was born with an astrological birth chart overlay. And it didn’t matter that Agatha had gotten her numerous fairy-themes gifts—a fairy tent, fairy garden kits, books on fairies, fairy outfits. Bella responded to Rio’s singular gift by exclaiming, 
  
    “It’s my favorite thing ever!”
  

  The real kicker came when Bella asked,
  
     “Mommy, can you read me a story and tuck me in?”
  

  Of course, Rio had said yes and stole the last moments of Bella’s birthday, as if she hadn’t taken enough from her already. She just had to pop in and take this day from her when she was the one raising the kid. Agatha could kick herself for ever agreeing to let her visit.

  Bella was tucked in, and Rio’s voice carried into the hallway as Agatha stood there and seethed. “Now the tiny plant from the tiny seed is all alone. It grows on and on. It doesn't stop.”

  As she read those words, the slight waver in the other woman’s voice made her nauseous. That maddening woman had no right to those emotions. Not anymore. Six centuries didn’t matter, not when she’d abandoned her kid in the middle of the woods with f@ck@ng Tommy Maximoff—a g@dd@mn teenage boy—and a note saying she’d be back next millennium.

  She was ripped from her thoughts by the sound of Bella’s voice. “I love you, Mommy.”

  “I love you, too.”

  She found herself swallowing her vomit out of painful envy.

  As silence descended upon the house, Agatha hurriedly crept down the stairs, not wanting to get caught.

  Moments later, she heard the door click closed as Rio followed. The other woman shoved her hands in her pockets. “Fast asleep,” she said.

  “Well, aren’t you the perfect bedtime storyteller? Must be nice to show up just for the fun stuff.”

  Rio sighed. “It’s not a competition, Agatha.”

  “Mm.” Of course, it wasn’t—no when Rio’d already won. Agatha ran a finger over a side table, frowning at the pattern it made in the dust. “Well, it was nice of you to waltz into her life for the day. I take it you’ll just waltz back out again until the next time you want to play Mommy?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rio rolled her eyes and looked back at the stairs.

  The woman deserved a taste of her own medicine. With a sneer, Agatha began traipsing toward her. “Well, from what I’ve seen, you only appear to care for the kid whenever it suits you. Hell, back in the day, you barely spent any time—”

  “Stop it.” Rio’s nostrils flared, her right hand moving to her hip to grasp at an absent blade. The reaction filled Agatha with satisfaction and joy. 

  She batted her eyes. “Why? The truth too much to handle?”

  “It’s not like you’re any better.”

  Her face fell. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Rio ran her tongue over her teeth. “I mean, she’s got over a millennium left before she’s fully grown, and everyone knows you’re a fan of running away.”

  “She’s my daughter.”

  Rio laughed bitterly as her voice grew louder. “Well, excuse me for being skeptical when you’ve avoided your son for the better part of three centuries. Do you know how often I have to promise him he’ll see you again?”

  The words were a slap in the face. So, she did what she’d always done—transformed the pain into fury. “None of this would have happened if 
  
    you
  
   hadn’t taken him!”

  “You think I wanted him to die?!” Rio stalked toward her, invading her space, fire in her eyes. The absolute gall of this woman. “
  
    He’s my son, too!” 
  
  Agatha stood her ground, crossing her arms tightly as her body involuntarily shivered at the words. Rio’s voice went cold and quiet. “You have no idea the sacrifices I made to allow him to live. To give you time.”

  “Ha, time? 
  
    Six years
  
  .” She huffed. “Some pathetic excuse of a sacrifice that must have been.”

  Rio took several steps back. She fell quiet, eyes shimmering with tears. The look of pain on the other woman’s face was deliciously satisfying. She waited for a reply, for Rio to shake off the emotion and return to sparring, but the room remained silent. The woman whose emotions were blunted at best stood before her, eyes wet as she swiped at her tears. No matter how intensely she wracked her brain, Agatha couldn’t recall a time when Rio had displayed even half as much emotion. Not even when she first came to take their son. The unfamiliar trails of tears gliding down the other woman’s face set her nerves on edge.

  “Oh, please. Spare me the tears,” Agatha said. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t quite hide the waver from her voice. Over three hundred years, and this was the thing that broke Death. Not her. Not their son. 
  
    This
  
  . The anger and jealousy were practically overwhelming, tampered only by the fear gripping her throat. She never thought the other woman could feel such intense emotions, not like this.

  Rio sniffed. “The gift of time had to come from somewhere.” Her voice faltered, dropping to a whisper. “And you know what they say: every action has an 
  
    equal
  
   and 
  
    opposite
  
   reaction.” 

  Agatha looked at her puzzled, mind frantically trying to decipher Rio’s words. Then, all the air left her lungs. “No,” she whispered.

  “Did you really think they’d just allow me to break the laws of nature without punishment?” Her voice broke. “I know you’re not that stupid.”
  “I didn’t…” she stammered, her voice cracking under the weight of her own guilt. She hadn’t known. If she had…
  
    
  
  But that wasn’t true, was it?
  
    
  
  “You didn’t what? That the choice to give our son time, to let him live, would affect anyone but you?” She scoffed and shook her head. “Oh, you knew. You just didn’t give a d@mn.”
  
    
  
  But she hadn’t known Bella, not then. Most of the time, she had forgotten the girl even existed. Bella had just been a little girl she’d never known, never held, never loved. But Nicky? She’d known Nicky. She’d carried him for nine whole months. And back then—if she’d been given the choice?
  “I…”

  “You what? Didn’t give a d@mn that I couldn’t spend any time with him while he was alive? Didn’t give a d@mn that I went home to find the Tribunal had already decided the consequence necessary to keep the balance and punish me? Didn’t give a damn that my three-year-old was sent to another dimension alone where I couldn’t f@ck@ng reach her for as long as he lived? For as long as I gave him to you?!” Her voice devolved into hysterics as all vestiges of her composure vanished. “You took everything, and I still gave you six f@ck@ng years!”

  Agatha couldn’t move, couldn’t think. She was trapped in a nightmare. She had to be.

  Now, she had held them both. She 
  
    loved
  
   them both. The choice of allowing Nicky to die as an infant or condemning three-year-old Bella to suffer alone for years? What mother could ever make that choice?

  
    Rio
  

  Rio had made that choice. 

  Agatha had forced her, 
  
    begged
  
   her to choose.

  Rio’s dagger appeared in her hand. She stepped forward and pointed it at her. “F@ck you,” she spat, her voice breaking. “You don’t deserve them.” 

  With that, she vanished, leaving Agatha alone with her thoughts.

  One dead son. One immortal daughter.

  Rio was right. 

  She didn’t deserve either of them.
 
  
    "We do not always get what we deserve. We get what we choose, and we live with what we’ve chosen." – Anonymous'
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