Daughter of a Witch

The Olive Tree

I know I don't normally write about Agatha and Rio, but I wanted to write this chapter based on the song "Would You Fall in Love with Me Again" from EPIC, the musical concept album. Let me know what you think!

The rain came down in steady sheets, drumming against the roof of the old cottage as Rio stood frozen in the doorway, the storm clouds swallowing the last flickers of starlight. Thunder rolled through the hills, but the silhouette moving through the curtain of rain stole the breath from her lungs. A figure she hadn't seen in years, shoulders hunched beneath the weight of distance, of loss.

It wasn't the storm that made her heart pound.

It was her.

Agatha.

Rio's hand tightened around the worn edge of the doorframe. Knuckles pale as Agatha stepped out of the shadows. Every inch of her was soaked—drenched hair clinging to her sharp cheekbones, her coat heavy with water and something far older: grief, regret, time.

"...Is it really you?" Rio asked, voice barely audible over the storm as if the wind might snatch her words before Agatha could hear them.

Agatha stopped at the edge of the porch, boots sinking deep into the mud-like roots, searching for something solid. Her voice, hoarse and fragile, met the rain. "It's me."

But Rio knew. She could see it already—the flicker of weariness behind Agatha's familiar eyes, once vibrant, now clouded with shadows. The storm raged on, but the space between them was louder than any thunder.

"I don't know if I'm the woman you remember," Agatha added, voice fraying at the edges.

Rio stepped forward, out of the doorway, into the downpour. The years between them stretched taut, like a thread threatening to snap. Yet here she stood, beneath the same sky, on the same porch they built together with bare hands and hopeful hearts.

"You look... older," Rio whispered, blinking against the rain streaking down her face. "Tired." She swallowed thickly. "But it's still you."

Agatha's lips twitched into something like a smile but faltered. "I'm not the woman you married. I'm not the stubborn, reckless witch who made you laugh at midnight and carved promises into trees. I've changed."

Rio's chest ached. "We all change."

Agatha shook her head, rainwater dripping from her chin. "No. I've done things, Rio. Terrible things. I've left wreckage in my wake. I've hardened, lost pieces of myself out there, trading softness for survival." She looked away, ashamed. "I don't deserve to come home."

The words lingered like smoke.

Rio's breath came fast as she stared at the woman she'd mourned and longed for, standing before her, alive but battered by the years apart.

"Tell me," Rio murmured, urging her.

Agatha's voice broke. "I hurt people," she confessed, shoulders shaking. "But every step, every choice... I made to find my way back here. To you."

Lightning cracked across the sky, casting fleeting light on Agatha's tear-streaked face.

"And if I'm not the same?" Agatha asked, her voice fragile beneath the thunder. "Would you still love me? Even knowing who I've become?"

Rio's eyes burned, but she didn't flinch. Her gaze drifted past Agatha, through the doorway behind her, where the olivewood bedframe stood silhouetted by the soft, golden light inside. The bed Agatha had carved all those years ago, out of the olive tree's roots that still stretched beneath the cottage like anchors holding them to this place, to each other.

"Then move it," Rio challenged softly, her voice cutting through the storm.

Agatha blinked. "What?"

"The bed," Rio repeated. "Move it."

Agatha's breath hitched. "Rio... you know I can't. It's carved into the roots. It's part of this house, part of the earth beneath us. To move it would be to tear the whole thing apart."

A tear slipped down Rio's cheek, mingling with the rain. "Only my wife would know that."

Silence.

Then, like the first break in a storm, Agatha's walls crumbled. Her eyes widened, shimmering with understanding. And before Rio could say another word, she crossed the rain-slick porch and pulled Agatha into her arms. They crashed together like waves against the rocks, clinging desperately, shaking beneath the storm's howl.

Agatha buried her face in Rio's shoulder, breath ragged, as Rio's fingers curled tightly into the back of her coat.

"I would fall in love with you again," Rio whispered fiercely against Agatha's ear. "Over and over and over."

Agatha sobbed, the sound raw and unrestrained as she held on tighter. "Even now?"

Rio nodded into the crook of her neck. "Especially now."

And there they stayed, lost in each other, as the storm raged and the olive tree's roots held fast beneath their feet, whispering the truth Rio had known all along—

You can always come home.