Chapter Text
Rio Vidal was assigned Agnes Bohner. She read the name twice. Bland. Bureaucratic. Bohner. German? Eastern European? She barely registered it. Just another case folder with too many redacted lines. Homicide, female suspect, unusual patterns. Suspected ties to the occult fringe. No priors, no prints, no birth record before 1983. Rio closed the folder with a soft snap and tapped her pen once against the table.
Agnes Bohner.
She’d never heard the name before. At least she thought so.
It was three minutes past eight when Rio walked into the interrogation room.
The woman was already there, seated, relaxed, legs crossed like she owned the place. Her hair was longer now. A little darker. Her face sharper with time.
But the moment their eyes met-
The air went out of Rio’s lungs.
Agatha.
No one had said that name. No one knew to.
But there she was. Real as breath. Real as blood.
Not dead. Not vanished. Not a memory she’d buried a decade ago in a bottle of bourbon and a locked room in her head.
Alive.
And smiling.
Something cold spilled down Rio’s spine. Not fear—never that—but something sharper. Familiar. Dangerous. Like recognizing the scent of a fire before the smoke.
Agatha’s mouth curved just slightly. Like she could feel everything Rio was feeling. Like she’d planned it.
The name Bohner faded from Rio’s mind like dust in water.
All she could see now was the woman who had once held her face like it was something holy. The woman who had whispered don’t follow me with blood on her hands. The woman Rio had let go, just once, and never found again.
Until now.
Her chest tightened. Her fingers curled around the file.
She remembered the way Agatha kissed her. slow, deliberate, like it was a secret. She remembered the last time she saw her, disappearing into the dark with a smile and a lie.
Rio remembered everything.
But her voice came out steady. Practiced.
“Agnes Bohner?”
Agatha’s eyes flickered. Not surprise, but amusement.
“Detective Vidal,” she purred. “Still chasing ghosts?”
And just like that, Rio knew:
She was going to burn for this woman. Again.
Agatha Harkness tilted her head. “Well. If I’d known it was going to be you, I’d have worn perfume.”
“I’m not here for pleasantries,” Rio said.
“No,” Agatha said, lounging back like this was a hotel lounge. “You never were.”
There was silence. Tight, expectant.
The lights overhead buzzed faintly. Rio opened the file. Pages flipped. Photos slipped. A body. A ritual. Symbols drawn in lipstick.
Agatha didn’t look at them. She looked at Rio. Like she was trying to remember how her mouth tasted.
Rio finally spoke. “Where were you last Thursday between 8 and 11 p.m.?”
Agatha smirked. “Still pretending this is professional, are we?”
Rio’s voice stayed even. “Just answer the question.”
She could feel Agatha’s eyes on her. Tracing the line of her throat, the faint scar beneath her collar. The one she gave her.
“I was out,” Agatha said softly. “Would you like to ask where?”
“No.”
“Would you like to ask who I was with?”
Still silence.
Agatha leaned forward then, elbows on the table, mouth close enough to feel. “Would you like to ask if I thought about you?”
Rio looked up, and for a second, the armor cracked.
Just a second.
“Let’s start over,” Rio said. Her voice was low, clipped. She flipped to the photo. “Jane Callister. Forty-three. Found dead in her apartment last Thursday. Symbols drawn on the wall. No forced entry. No sign of struggle.”
Agatha leaned forward, eyes dragging lazily over the photo. “Sloppy work. Whoever did that.”
“Don’t play games with me.”
“Oh, darling,” she murmured, soft and lethal. “That’s all we ever did.”
Rio’s hand tightened on the pen.
She couldn’t let this happen—not again. She couldn’t let this woman twist her into knots with just a look. But Agatha had always known the shape of her, how to bend her, where the old wounds lived.
“I want the truth,” Rio said, eyes locked to hers. “Where were you that night?”
A beat.
Then, softly, “Do you remember Paris?”
The question hit like a slap. Not loud. Worse. Quiet. Loaded. Their last case together, their last night. The hotel room with no lights. The argument that turned into a kiss, that turned into something else entirely. And then she was gone.
Rio didn’t answer.
Agatha tilted her head, watching her crumble by degrees.
“I was with someone,” she said finally, running a finger along the edge of the table. “A woman. Much younger than you. She cried when I left.”
Rio’s jaw tensed. “Agnes.” She hated that name.
“Would you prefer I lie?” Agatha’s voice dipped low, velvet soft. “Would that make this easier for you?”
She leaned in then, slow, patient. Like she could taste the storm rising in Rio and wanted it.
“I didn’t kill that woman,” she said. “But if I had… you wouldn’t be able to stop me. Not anymore.”
Rio held her gaze. Her heartbeat was thunder in her ears.
“You’re not untouchable,” she said, though she didn’t believe it.
Agatha smiled, finally. A real one. Hungry. Sad.
“Then touch me.”
Rio didn’t move.
Couldn’t.
“You are impossible.”
This was already spiraling, already too far gone. She should cuff her. Walk out. Slam the door behind her and tell herself she did the right thing.
But her hand stayed still on the file. Her body stayed in the chair. And across the table, Agatha watched her with something between victory and longing.
Silence fell like smoke between them.
And Rio knew this wasn’t going to end with an arrest.
It never had.
Rio Vidal leaned back in her chair, the edges of the file cold under her fingers. Across from her, Agatha—Agnes, technically had gone quiet.
They’d been here for over an hour.
Agatha hadn’t asked for a lawyer.
She hadn’t asked for anything, really. Just sat like she was waiting for a drink to arrive. Like this wasn’t real. Like it didn’t matter.
“You’ve changed,” Agatha said suddenly.
Rio didn’t look up. “People do.”
“No. I mean…” Her voice dipped into something softer. “You used to ask better questions.”
Rio’s hand stilled. “You used to give better answers.”
Agatha smiled.
There it was—that maddening, smug little curve of her mouth, like she knew things Rio didn’t. Like she could see the future and it already bored her.
Rio stood up abruptly, pacing to the corner of the room like distance would help. It didn’t. She could still feel Agatha’s eyes on her—pressing, pulling.
“Where were you the night Jane Callister died?”
“I told you,” Agatha said. “I was with someone.”
“Who?”
“I don’t think she’d want to be involved.”
Rio turned, sharp. “We can bring her in.”
Agatha’s smile faded. Not fear, something else. Something more intimate. “You really don’t want to do that.”
“You’re not in control of this,” Rio snapped, louder than she meant to.
For a moment, Agatha just looked at her.
Then: “Aren’t I?”
Rio went still.
And Agatha—damn her—laughed, soft and low.
“Look at you,” she said, “all buttoned up in that little badge, pretending you didn’t walk into this room already mine.”
Rio’s jaw clenched. She wanted to leave. She wanted to throw the chair. She wanted to drag Agatha across the table and—
Instead, she picked up the file again.
“I don’t know what you mean ‘yours’.” she said.
Agatha’s voice was quiet now. “You and I both know, my love.” Rio Vidal leaned back in her chair, the edges of the file cold under her fingers. Across from her, Agatha—Agnes, technically had gone quiet.
“We’re done here, Agnes.” She stood up, taking all her things in her arms. “Up.”
Agatha followed Rio out the door and into the cold lobby of the station. Rio watched her go.
Technically, Agatha had to be released. No direct evidence. No cause for detainment. She hadn’t even twitched when they took her fingerprints and sent her out the door.
She was wearing a long black coat and didn’t look back once.
But Rio stood there anyway. Watching.
Burning.