Chapter Text
November 11th, 2021.
Most of the time, Alice Wu-Gulliver truly does love her job. Though her feelings towards the system she serves have grown…complex since the wide-eyed days of her childhood, full of idealistic aspirations of catching the bad guy and saving the damsel, she truly does get a certain sense of satisfaction from feeling like she’s doing some real good. She’d recently closed the book on her first case as a detective (only six months long- a mercifully quick end to a heartbreaking murder) and the thank-you letter from the victim’s partner now sits in a place of honor on her nightstand. A reminder that there’s some light at the end of even the darkest tunnel.
No amount of love for her job, however, will make days like these any better. Honestly, she’d hoped to see less of them when she’d finally made it off patrol. Call her selfish, but she’s more than a little tired of being the first responder.
Then again, it’s not exactly like she was responding tonight. She wasn’t even working.
She wasn’t supposed to be there.
She kicks her boots off with an exhausted sigh as soon as she’s in the laundry room- then yelps in alarm as something white and fuzzy bounces out of the way. “Wha- oh shitshit shit! Oh buddy, I’m sorry!”
Agatha’s rabbit thumps over to greet her and Alice crouches to stroke his ears with a soft sigh. “Sorry, dude. It’s been a long day, I wasn’t paying attention.”
The bunny nibbles her fingertips, clearly more interested in his goal than her perceived offense. She cracks a little smile, reaching for her lunch bag. “Okay, okay. You’re lucky I’m a sucker, you know.”
Señor Scratchy snatches the snap pea triumphantly, hopping off and settling at his mistress’s feet to enjoy his snack. Alice follows him, throwing Agatha- who’s curled up in the armchair she and Jen like to fight over, flipping through channels with a bored look on her face- a little wave as she passes.
“Hey.”
“Someone’s home late!” Agatha chirps, not looking up from the television. “I wonder what mischief you’ve been up to, hm?”
Alice gnaws on her lip, walking past her to get to the kitchen sink. “Just…one of those days.”
“ Very specific,” Agatha drawls. Lilia, who’s settled on the couch across from her, throws her an admonishing glance.
“Be nice. Her line of work is difficult.”
Agatha mutters something under her breath, something which Alice pointedly ignores. She’s gotten quite good at that in the year Agatha’s lived here (better than Jen, who’s known Agatha for twenty years now and still falls for her baiting at every other turn). Besides, the hiss of the faucet would have drowned out the specifics.
By now, she’s let the water run for over a minute. When she sticks her hands in, however, the water is still too cold. She drags the handle as far as it can go, sticks her hands in again. This time, the spray hits her skin with a satisfying burn, and she sighs in relief.
She snags one of Jen’s gel soaps (a formula the beauty guru had formatted specially for her), scouring her hands with a vengeance. Her skin starts to sting as she scrubs, the hot water slipping into the cracks in her hands. She’d wiped them down thoroughly with cleanser offered by the paramedics when she’d left, but there’s still a touch of red staining her fingers.
Red like the victim’s hair, she thinks to herself, and shoves her hands back in the water.
She can’t get the family out of her mind, probably won’t be able to for a while to come. Try as she might to scrub it away, she can still feel the tacky cling of the blood on her fingers, sticking them together like glue that hadn’t set. The ghost of another woman’s touch brushes across her palms like a dying wind, cold and light but undeniably there, as there as if it had been imprinted on her nerves.
Maybe it had. She’d read somewhere, sometime that the human brain never truly forgets a face. Perhaps the woman will linger in the back of her mind, tucked away to the far where she wanders when she dreams. She certainly will dream of that woman, with her red hair and her red blood and all that damned red.
She’s never seen that much red in her life.
Seemingly, out of nowhere, a hand grasps her shoulder. Alice jumps, starting under the gentle touch.
“Alice, stop for a minute.”
She glances around, finding herself meeting Lilia’s eyes. “Huh?”
Lilia, looking concerned, grasps her wrist and lifts it out of the water. “Your hands are bright red, sweet girl. For gods’ sakes, look at this, you’ve nearly scrubbed the skin clean off.”
Alice does a double take, looking down at her hands. Sure enough, her hands have turned the same color as the tomatoes sitting on the counter- a bright, ugly, raw shade of red that makes her wince. The knuckles are cracking at the corners, peeling skin giving way to flecks of blood around the very edges.
Shit.
Lilia clucks her tongue, giving her a disapproving look. She tugs Alice to the kitchen table, pushing her lightly into her favorite chair. “Sit down while I grab the first aid kit.”
“It’s not that ba-”
“No, but you stood there scrubbing your hands for nearly ten minutes, just staring into space,” Lilia replies briskly. “Which means you had the kind of day that you need to talk about.”
Alice chuckles dryly. “You’re psychic. Do I even have to tell you about it?”
“I know you,” Lilia retorts. “So don’t bother taking an attitude with me. You’re going to let me put some ointment on those while you get that off your chest, then you’re going to let me make you some chai and go lie on the couch until you feel better. Capische?”
Alice sighs and gives Lilia her hands. Lilia dabs the split skin with an oily cotton swap, tightening her grip on Alice’s fingers when the younger woman flinches.
“Don’t squirm.”
“Sorry,” Alice mutters. “Stings.”
“I know.” Lilia squeezes her hands gently. “What was it? At work?”
Red hair. Pale skin. Big, green eyes.
“I saw someone die today.”
Fire. Metal. Blood, blood, blood .
“Ah.” A gentle touch to the gash on her palm that she hadn’t even noticed until now, and her muscles tense involuntarily. “What was their name?”
Alice tilts her head, wincing when Lilia probes the cut with the ointment. “You don’t want to ask how it happened?”
“If that was the part that was bothering you, you would have led with it,” Lilia replies. “So what was it?”
She’s turning an ID over in her hands, over and over and over . A locket sits in her free hand, open to a photo of a smiling family- a mother, a father, and two beautiful sons waving up at her.
“Her name was Wanda,” Alice says softly. “Wanda Maximoff. There was an accident, and-”
A glass shatters. Both Lilia and Alice jerk around, startled, and stare into the living room.
Scarlet is spreading across their carpet.
“Agatha?” Alice calls, craning her neck to get a better look. “You okay?”
“Perfectly fine!” Agatha chirps back. “Red wine just- makes me clumsy, that’s all!”
There’s a slightly forced air of pleasantry to her voice- not necessarily uncommon for her, especially when she thinks she’s being witty, but there’s something different about this time. Her voice is strained- cracking a little here and there at the crest of her words- and her smile, when she pads into the kitchen, doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Hope no one was particularly attached to that rug.” She shrugs, gesturing to Alice. “Go on, finish your story. How’d this Wendy person die, huh?”
Alice frowns, giving Lilia back her hands. “You’re being weird.”
“I’m taking an interest in your life, ” Agatha counters. “Isn’t that what Lilia’s always telling me? Everyone tells me I’m such an asshole, but the minute I actually ask about your problems, suddenly I’m being weird? Talk about an impossible standard.”
“Fine,” Alice sighs. “But you are .”
“This coming from the person who just washed her hands until they bled? Pretty sure I’m not the only one who’s acting a little off tonight, toots. Come on, spill.”
Alice rolls her eyes in her direction, the momentary distraction beginning to fade into the background as that heavy, gray- no, red. Maybe even scarlet- cloud settles back over her shoulders. “I held a woman’s hand while she died, Agatha. I sat there, and I held her hand, and I talked to her to distract her from the fact that a shard of her windshield was sticking out of her husband’s head. ”
She looks down at her hands, now shiny with ointment. She would heal. Others…
“Someone’s wife, someone’s
mother
died holding my hand tonight. Is that what you wanted to hear? Or did you want to hear about the sound she made when she stopped breathing? Maybe I could tell you about the moment when she begged me to tell her that her family was alright, or when she asked me to lie to her once she saw the look on my face. Would that
interest
you, or is that still-”
“ Alice, ” Lilia says sharply. Alice drops her face into one hand, rubbing her forehead with the pads of her fingers.
“Sorry. That was- I overreacted. I’m sorry.”
“No such thing as overreacting to that,” Agatha replies calmly. Alice peeks at her from between her fingers, to which she cocks her head. “You’re right. Someone’s dead, and I’m being a bitch. You should be upset. You should be yelling at me.”
She purses her lips, fingers briefly brushing that heavy purple locket she wears nearly every day. A half formed thought flashes across Alice’s mind, something about the red-headed woman’s own locket and two boys she’d never known.
“Don’t get me wrong, not everyone deserves to be mourned. But everyone deserves to mourn. So this woman’s death makes you angry, then be fucking angry , and don’t you dare apologize for it.”
Alice blinks, glancing up at her. “…thanks, Agatha. That’s…surprisingly insightful.”
Agatha shrugs. “Don’t mention it.” She folds her arms over her chest, doing a fairly convincing impression of a casual look. “So were…the boys with her?”
“The-“ Alice pauses. “Wait, what?”
Agatha raises an eyebrow at her, looking as though she’s trying to explain an assignment to a particularly slow student. “You said she had kids, right? Were they in the car with her?”
“I never said…” Alice shakes her head, cutting herself off mid-sentence. “Never mind. I…yeah, one of her kids was in the car when the accident happened.”
Agatha purses her lips again. “Is he…”
“Gone,” Alice says softly. Agatha nods gravely, eyes dropping to the ground.
“Damn.”
Is she crying?
“He didn’t suffer,” Alice blurts out. Agatha’s eyes flit back to her, and- oh god, her eyes are swimming with tears. Subtle, restrained, but undoubtably there. For a moment, Alice isn’t sure she’s ever seen her cry.
Then she remembers she has, and bites her tongue hard enough to bleed.
“Just thought that might- I don’t know. That you might like to hear that.”
“Yeah?” Agatha asks quietly. Her face doesn’t change, but her eyes stay fixed on Alice’s.
“Yeah. He- he died on impact, it would have been instant.” She nibbles on her lip, squeezing Lilia’s hand a little. “The last thing he knew would’ve been sitting in the car, listening to the radio with his parents. Then just…”
She snaps her fingers.”He wouldn’t have even known it happened.”
“One of the kindest ways to die,” Lilia says softly. Agatha nods in agreement, eyes drifting to somewhere unseen. Perhaps not even seeing.
“...thanks, Alice.”
“Yeah,” Alice whispers, staring at her face with a mixture of concern and curiosity. “Of course.”
Agatha nods again, then turns on her heel and leaves without another word. Alice watches her go, then stretches and tugs her now bandaged hands away from Lilia.
“Thanks, Lils. I’m…I think I’m gonna go lay down on the couch for a little bit. I promised Jen I’d watch a movie with her tonight, but she won’t be home for nearly an hour..”
Lilia nods, letting her go without a fuss. Before Alice can leave, however, she catches her shoulder and turns her around.
“Alice.”
“Hm?”
“You did a beautiful thing tonight,” Lilia murmurs. Alice inhales softly and the older woman reaches up to cup her face in one hand.
“Leaving this world isn’t an easy thing. To give someone the gift of a gentle hand or a comforting voice to ease their journey…it’s difficult, but it’s one of the purest kindnesses a person can offer.”
Alice nods, closing her eyes to quiet a sudden sting to them. Lilia runs her thumb soothingly across her cheekbones, leaning up to press their foreheads together.
“It will hurt your heart for a while, my girl, there’s no getting around that. But that pain you feel is the pain you spared her. Remember that when it gets hard to deal with.”
She wraps Alice in a hug then, the sort of hug Alice had been craving, that the lost little girl who lives deep inside her heart- the one who’d lost her mother when she was young and had been losing her since she was much younger- always craves after a day where the world seems dark and frightening. Alice buries her face in her shoulder and hides there for a moment, letting Lilia stroke her hair.
“Thank you. Thank you.”
“Always,” Lilia murmurs, and kisses her forehead.
~
Alice manages to walk past Agatha’s office door five times- flicking the lights on and off in the hallway twice- before the professor pulls it open with an annoyed look, cocking her head at her.
“Need something?”
“No,” Alice lies (though she’s fairly sure Agatha sees right through her). “Just passing by.”
“Right,” Agatha replies skeptically, leaning against the doorway. “Just passing by, huh? In the hallway above your bedroom?”
Alice shrugs, pretending to keep walking. Agatha rolls her eyes and snags the back of her collar.
“Right. So what would someone who wasn’t looking for an excuse to talk to me need, huh?”
Alice pauses- taking a quick breath for courage- and turns back to her, tucking her hands into her pockets as she goes.
“You said boys.”
“And you said, what, girls?” Agatha snarks. “Is this a guessing game or something? Because I’m not finding it especially fun. ”
“When you asked me about the crash victims,” Alice replies patiently (carefully ignoring Agatha’s halfhearted attempt at deflection). “You asked me if the boys were in the car with her. ”
Agatha rolls her eyes again. “So?”
“So I never told you she had two boys.”
Her friend scoffs, folding her arms across her chest. “You said she was a mother, I guessed. I may as well have flipped a coin.”
“I didn’t even say she had more than one child,” Alice says softly. “But you knew, didn’t you?”
Agatha’s gaze hardens for a moment, long enough for Alice to wonder if she’s seriously considering hitting her. Frankly, she wouldn’t put it past her. After a pause, however, she chuckles dryly and pats Alice’s shoulder.
“Can’t get anything past you, huh? No wonder they made you detective.”
“Agatha-”
Agatha grabs her arm and spins her around, shoving her lightly down the hallway. “Go on, go get some rest before Jenny comes home.” She swats Alice playfully on the ass, earning a surprised squeak from the younger woman. “Judging by the mood she’s been in lately, you’ll need your energy.”
Before Alice can protest any of the above, she ducks back into her office and shuts the door behind her. Alice shakes her head with an exasperated sigh, turning and heading down the hallway.
Somethin g is going on with Agatha, and she has no idea what. Maybe she’ll ask Jen about it later. Maybe not. It isn’t like it really matters, is it?
Whatever’s going on with Agatha tonight, she’s sure that she’ll never have to worry about it again.