Archive of Our Own ^beta

Camelot doors are heavy.

Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, they’re not even really that heavy, Agatha thinks. Not much to test the theory with, as there were maybe three Gavaldon doors total that she ever opened in the first place, and were all sitting on creaking, rusted hinges that barely needed the right gust of wind to swing ajar, lest Agatha’s strength to push it open. 

And on her first trip to Camelot, six some odd months ago, she was never, if her dodgy memory of the bleak time serves her correctly, exactly allowed to open doors on her own. Camelot, with their heavy doors and prying eyes, and strict affinity for playing by the rules. Whether they agreed with her impending regality or not, an almost Queen was still the latter, an almost Queen , and Queens, apparently, let everyone else do the hard work. Like opening doors.

Agatha knows for certain she rolled her eyes at that like clockwork, no need to consult memory, dodgy or not. But maybe, she would have scaled back her distaste for the stupid etiquette, if they had let her try, at least once, to open a door here. 

It’s heavy .

Ornate with stiff embellishment on top of already thick and sturdy wood, the thing barely budges under the weight of one of her shoulders, attempting to push it open.

“I could--”

“I’ve got it,” Agatha nods, jumps a bit on her toes with the effort of trying to tuck her billowing mountains of unnecessary tulle her wedding dress  into a better grip under her one arm, and pushes on the door once again, “Maybe I locked it on my way out.”

“Sure we took our time to be tidy and respectable homeowners before fleeing the kingdom,” and Agatha could buckle under the weight of uselessly old and ornate Camelot palace doors and let the wedding dress that didn't fit in any trunk for the ride back so she was forced to carry it herself swallow her whole, just to hear the lift in Tedros’s voice that she does now. She chances a glance over at him, boxes of more misplaced things no one knew how or where to pack in his arms beside her, and sees there's a slight turn up of his lips to go with it, and she feels doubly successful. 

She laughs herself at his response then, homeowners the most ridiculous way to put returning to their castle that could fit a dozen of Agatha’s Gavaldon homes inside it, at least.

“Speak for yourself,” she tuts, “Bet my bed is made on the other side of this thing.”

There is the smallest bout of silence between them when the door to Agatha’s bedroom doesn’t open with yet another attempt, and she feels the dip in Tedros’s voice coming before he even begins, “Agatha, if you’d let me--”

“Said I’ve got it,” she reaffirms, because even though logically she knows Tedros is alive and well, well enough to crack jokes and pester her, she feels she’s justified in taking a page out of the Camelot etiquette book for the day, and refuses to let him and his head attached to his body (she triple checks on the hour every hour) open the door himself, “Consider it a wedding gift. Me to you.”

“Agatha.”

“Do I adopt all your middle names too? Forgot to ask,” she tries the door again, but it's hard to multitask keeping Tedros away from physical strain with… physical strain, so they remain stuck in the hallway again, “Might keep you busier than just scolding me with one name if you get to add one… or two… or seven.”

“We could go to my room,” the sole of his shoe squeaks in the silence between them, “I don’t mind.”

He does mind. She knows. 

She won’t let him back in that room, not today, not right now, not when he’s got a barely healed scar from the very sword he spent six months staring at from the windows of that room. He feigned sleep the whole carriage ride here, she knows, just to placate her. And he’d do it again if they went to bed in his room. Would stare at the ceiling, wracked in even more thought with his once looming failure glaring at him. Would not sleep a wink, and the cycle of worry would start over so furiously Agatha wouldn’t bar him from opening doors for just a day, but maybe months. Years, even.

They’ll sleep in here. In her bedroom. 

This train of thought must do it, magic what happens when she worries, so she won’t be inclined to stop any time soon, if you’re wondering, and the door finally, finally , swings open.

She almost topples forward with the unexpected motion, but catches herself, wedding dress still clutched to one side, and turns back to Tedros smiling, a little less tightly than before, “You’ll be pleased to know, unlike yours, royalty has done nothing for my ego. Bed’s not made.”

For the time being, this placates him the way his shut but not sleeping eyes had for her on the way here. 

Give and take. There is magic in marriage too, Agatha guesses.

Tedros steps to her side and past her, into the room, dusty and decidedly un-lived in for the better part of…however long they’ve been gone. It’s hard for Agatha to keep track. All she does know, throwing her dress finally and mercifully out of her hands for the first time in hours and into a ball on the floor at the foot of her bed, is that she married Tedros exactly two days ago, at school. They put it off as long as they could, which wasn’t much. It was expected, after him being crowned king, but it was difficult to do anything emotionally taxing after… him being crowned king. Give and take. Give and take. A few days to let the dust just settle, to let Sophie pick out flower centerpieces and the coven sculpt something that resembled Tedros mid-sneeze for the ceremony, and a few extra minutes but nothing more, for Agatha to break every tradition in the book to wipe her groom’s tears with the sleeves of her wedding dress after the last of purple velvet left his sight before she walked down an aisle to him (and he cried then too.) 

There was one more day after. They slept in, and kissed, and giggled, huddled under covers like they were back in first year in more than just choice of bed, and eventually remembered they had guests to watch and wave goodbye to, starting their journeys home after the haphazard marital celebrations. 

Then, it was their turn. No more days. They had a journey home to make too. Anyone left at the school helped them pile their scant array of belongings into a carriage with destination reluctantly set for Camelot. Tedros shrugged his wedding jacket on, some cheeky remark to her about being sentimental, but Agatha noted no other clothes of his she stuffed in their travel trunk seemed to have quite as regal and tall of a collar, obscuring any view of his neck.

Agatha couldn’t even pretend to be sentimental about her dress at a time like this, bone tired and stuck in that pesky state of worry about the boy already climbed into his seat in the carriage, and tried to make a case for abandoning the darned white thing entirely, if there was nowhere to put it. Maybe they could hang it in a hall somewhere in the school, parade it out for a history lesson once a year, if they felt so inclined. 

Sophie had not shed a tear when she had enveloped Agatha in her hug goodbye outside the carriage initially. After her sheepish answer to “Aggie, where’s your dress?” however, there were hot tears on Agatha’s shoulder.

So they picked up their third carriage passenger, Agatha’s wedding dress. Sat beside her the whole way. 

She lets it be on the floor for the moment, places her crown off her head and onto a dresser, and unceremoniously flops on her unmade bed, the first content sigh in what feels like ages on her lips, “Did you need a room tour, or are you going to join me?”

Tedros peeks back at her, somewhere over on the other side of the room, like he got lost on his way to collapsing on the bed and not moving a muscle until someone bothered them to do anything else, and found a spot to brood in the corner instead.

“Just looking,” he shrugs, picking up a book from the desk by the window, blowing dust off its cover with a cute puff of air she is glad to see he has in him.

“Looks different in the light, yeah?” she attempts at teasing, thinking back to the only other time they’d ever been in here together, when he had visited her, distressed, in the pitch black middle of the night. Lifetimes ago, it seems. She sinks into the mattress further, rolls her head to look at him more squarely.

“I’ve seen it in the light before,” he drops the book, turns more squarely to her too.

“Not possible, you’re barely seeing it in light right now,” she answers, the sun setting quickly in the window and casting oddly shaped shadows around them, “When?”

“I lived here.”

“So did I.”

“Before you.”

“And you visited my bedroom?” she counters cheekily, “ Before me ?”

“Castle secret,” she feels the weight shift on the other side of the bed, and sees his fists pressed into the end of the mattress, having made his way over, “This bed was more comfortable.”

“Was? Is it not anymore?”

“Was. Before you ,” he whispers, before giving in, and mirrors her, flops onto the bed with his feet dangling off the opposite side, their heads next to each other, “You took the good side.”

“I’m open to switching.”

“Another wedding gift?”

“They don’t call me Agatha the Good for nothing.”

“People call you that?”

“They might, once they hear how Agatha sounds with all your middle names and decide they’d like to save their breath for something more useful.”

The world is a heavy place, in the fallout of everything Tedros had to give, heavier than a door met with Agatha’s shoulder strength, but his laughter is light on her cheeks, so she’ll take it. 

It is quiet for a moment, and another, and another, just the two of them, laying with legs hanging off opposite sides of a far too large bed, staring at the ceiling. Quiet still, for another, and another, until--

“What do we do now?”

“Don’t believe there’s a rule book,” Agatha whispers back to him, keeping her voice as low as he did, barely disturbing their quiet, “But I do believe this is the only night they won’t bother us with some set of duties or another.”

They had made polite small talk with the palace staff that had greeted them upon arrival, had waved to the familiar faces and new ones too that they had passed, making their way through the halls, but were content to leave it at that. Had bee-lined straight for the bedrooms, alone, even though it was probably barely five o clock, and could tell by the pitied looks they got from most everyone, they would be allowed one night to not be King and Queen of Camelot with a million and six unnecessary royal middle names. Work would begin tomorrow. 

Agatha knew they should capitalize on it. Do something really good with their scarce and precious time. Something like take a walk in the gardens, Agatha hadn’t gotten to appreciate them at all last time she was here, or maybe they could raid the kitchens, bake a chocolate cake, there was always the library she hadn’t gotten nearly enough time to explore, and she doubts she’ll read anything that’s enjoyable for a while once they start handing her Queenly things, or maybe they could do something like--

“Could use a bath, probably.”

Tedros’s voice, still quiet, a little hoarse, cuts off her elaborate train of thought. 

Something like a bath, too, she supposes.

“Is that so?” she tucks her head an inch closer to him, nose on his shoulder, and despite his ever present minty and wonderful scent, she likes that he’s got the conviction to suggest doing something of his own for the first time in over a week, and she’s also always looking to make his tired form laugh again, so she feigns disgust, “Oh, not probably , Tedros, definitely .”

He laughs.

She ruffles the dark brown locks that flop over his forehead, pushes them to the side so there's a spot open to place her lips in a soft kiss. 

She does. He laughs again.

“Want me to go get the water running for you?”

“No, I’ve got it.” 

“Tedros--”

“Maybe if you wasted your breath on reciting all my middle names in one go, you’d use less of it trying to smother me.”

She pales at the notion of being caught in the act, but only for a moment, because her concerns feel valid and he doesn't sound all that upset about it anyway. 

“I heard turning on faucets is very bad for beheadings.”

He hums, his eyebrows jumping up cutely.

“My mother said so.”

“You know I listen to everything she says,” Tedros says, and with a little grunt of effort, sits up, “You might be right though, might need you to join me.”

“Hm?” Agatha stays lying, watches Tedros pad slowly around the foot of the bed and towards the door to the bathroom directly opposite it, sees him stop abruptly when he reaches it, “Why’s that? You okay?”

“Yeah, I just,” he shrugs, turning his head to her, “No idea how to open a door without you.”

It's the first time she’s gotten to hear his laughter bounce off the walls of this place. It feels amazing. 

“Oh, shut up.”

“Really, how’s this thing work?” He touches the handle gently, quickly, stares down at it with mock perplexion, keeping up his bit as Agatha pulls herself up to standing.

“So glad Excalibur kept your ability to be an ass intact.”

“Help me, my Queen!”

“It’s not funny,” she says, biting down laughter of her own as she reaches him, tracks her eyes over his cheeks the rosiest they’ve been in weeks, alight with color at the way his nose scrunches in another buckle of laughter, “You could get hurt.”

“Big scary door.”

“You guys make them heavy here,” she says, turns the knob and watches it glide open with ease, eating her words.

“Clearly.”

“Go turn on the water before I get there first and let it fill up enough for me to dunk your head under and hold it down,” she waves towards the tub across the large and ornate bathroom, and he trudges over lightly.

“Really glad now we got married outside,” Tedros says, but does as he’s told, starts the bath water, “How would I get us out of the castle chapel? It’s got doors.”

“If you knew anything about me you’d know I would have always picked to be married outside,” Agatha says, leaned against the ledge of the bathroom sink, eyeing her husband, “Even before I remembered that helpful tidbit of doctor advice from my mom about not letting your beheaded loved ones open doors.”

“Thought she just said no faucets.”

“She said anything I want her to have said,” Agatha mumbles, pushing off the ledge with a smug smile and going to get him a towel, something else she’ll add to the list if he has anything to say about it.

Tedros’s hum of agreement says plenty, having spent not a ton of time with Callis but enough to know there’s no world where she would take his side over Agatha’s. Had she been here, Agatha smiles at the thought, she would have replaced the stupid Camelot bedroom doors herself. A wedding gift, she’d claim cheekily. Like mother, like daughter.

Agatha drops the towel she’d retrieved on the side of the bath, Tedros sitting on the ledge of it.

“We actually do have all night, for once,” Agatha starts, “But there are a few other things I’d like to do, if you’d like to get on with this.”

Tedros glides one finger through the low level of water, staring at it instead of at Agatha, and says softly, “Too cold.”

“Baby,” she responds, using her own hand to splash a bit of the luke warm water up at him. When he doesn’t answer in more than a smile, she takes it as her cue to sit, and let silence wash over them once more. Alive and joking Tedros comes in waves, to be replaced by solemn and inside his own head Tedros. Alive still though, she amends, alive and solemn and inside his own head. So it’s enough. Give and take. She sits on the cool marble floor by his feet, and lets him have this, keeps busy with absently untying the laces of his boots. 

“Did you like our wedding?”

Agatha looks up sharply, and because the question feels so out of left field, she can’t find any words other than an echo, “Did I--”

“Did you like it? Or, was it at least okay?” 

She nods before her thoughts catch up to her, but her silent Tedros has morphed into one who can’t get the rambling words out fast enough again, and he continues, “I just, I thought you didn’t really have any opinions on it at all. You hated wedding planning here and so I didn’t think it mattered that we used it to make some big, Woods-wide statement on unity. But you had thought about it. You said you would have always wanted it to be outside.”

She nods again, because she remembers saying it but doesn’t remember giving the statement much thought when she did. Tedros, it seems, has.

“So I guess, I’m realizing, it might not have been, you might not have--”

“Liked getting married?” She finishes for him, trying to tilt her head side to side to catch his gaze, trained on the floor.

“At least not in the way we did.”

When he still won’t look at her, she finds his hands, runs a thumb over the backs of them soothingly, and after a beat of silence to collect her thoughts, she starts softly, “Tedros, I dressed up as a bride one year for Halloween, because getting married was a thought equal parts terrifying and impossible to me.”

She feels him twist one of her rings around her finger.

“No one in that town would look at me, let alone hold a conversation with me long enough to get a feel for my opinions on a wedding venue,” she smiles up at him, “I didn’t waste my breath on reading all your royal names out loud in my storybook and I didn’t waste my thoughts on planning a wedding that I was sure was never going to happen.”

It’s the truth. She had never given it much thought at all. Even after meeting Tedros, and knowing with every bit of her heart that he was her True Love, and that marriage realistically comes after True Love, she hadn’t thought of it as something that would really happen. Impossible, she remembers when she had returned to Gavaldon the first time without him, and impossible the second time with him too. Impossible when she was sure she’d be kicked out of the palace for being an awful queen before they got to that point, impossible when they spent weeks on the run, impossible when Japeth had--

“Point is,” she shakes the bad memories out of her head, and steadies on, “I thought even if I had gotten myself a groom, the only other people in attendance would be my mom and my cat, and they were already in one place, so why make a fuss doing it somewhere else? Graveyard was nice.”

“Outside,” he nods.

“And last week, when they told us we should probably get married sooner rather than later, I thought about my homey little Gavaldon graveyard, for a minute, and then I thought about the garden I got dropped in at School. The school where I met you. Someone who wanted to marry me. Liked the idea of it.”

“Just a little bit,” he brightens infinitesimally to tease, still playing absently with her rings, a nice habit he’d picked up in the last few days.

“So I guess technically yeah, I’d thought about getting married a little bit, but not much about where or when or how. I was mostly thinking about you.” She would have never been able to say that sentence out loud a year ago, even less than that, maybe, she thinks. 

“I would have liked anywhere we got married, as long as you were there,” Agatha finally gets a lock on his eyes, holds his chin in place with one of her hands, tacks on a whispered, “And my cat.”

Her Tedros is alive and smiling.

“Agatha, you don’t have to just say that for me--”

“I mean it! Anywhere in the world, wouldn’t matter to me,” she says, one hand waving out for dramatic effect, “That whole day moved so rapidly, Tedros, I hardly remember the details. We could have been in the Ever Boys bathroom exchanging vows and I wouldn’t have known the difference.”

“It was a bit of a blur, wasn’t it? Is it supposed to be like that?”

“Don’t know many happily married people to ask for references,” she laughs, “And I’m afraid as some of the only married people we know right now, if we look too happy about this whole thing people will think we can be that reference.”

“Can’t have that. Might go suggesting good deed tests in between courses.”

“See, you could tell me that happened the other day and I would believe you.”

“It did happen,” his eyes twinkle as he says it, “You failed.”

“Impossible.”

“Too busy eating your way through the chocolate covered sculptures with Dot.”

“Okay no, see, that did really happen, don’t confuse me!” Agatha laughs, sits up higher on her knees to be at level with his face, “You have a delicious nose, you know.” 

He tries to squirm out of her touch, but she’s too quick, too loving, and plants exaggerated kisses on top of his nose, on the bridge, on either side, before giving up and kissing any part of his giggling face she can reach. 

“Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Agatha settles back, hands resting on his knees, and returns to the conversation, “Let’s see, what else do I remember?”

“ I remember Sophie and Hort kissing more all day than we did,” Tedros says, wrapping her curls one at a time around his fingers now, her rings out of reach.

“Hard to forget that really,” Agatha giggles, and sinks into Tedros’s touch, “ I remember talking to far too many people.”

“Guest list was insane,” Tedros nods in laughing agreement, “Should have stuck to the you, me and your cat concept.”

“Well now I know for certain you’re too ill to turn on faucets by yourself,” Agatha says, “You’re actually suggesting spending time with Reaper.”

“Very funny--”

“Are you feverish?” she says, sitting up to dip a hand in the still too cool bath water and splashing it pesteringly on Tedros’s forehead again. His bright gasp as he tries to duck away fills the room and her heart in rapid succession. 

“I’ll push you in.”

“Go right ahead,” she says defiantly, even as she backs up an inch, “I don’t remember anything in the vows about until cold bath water do us part.”

“Do you remember any of them?”

She shakes her head, taking a seat on the ledge of the bath opposite him, “Too many people staring at me. Think I blacked out.”

Tedros tucks his chin in a chuckle.

“Think they could send us a copy? For future reference,” she counters, “Gotta know when rules are broken and I get to kick you out.”

“Kick me out?”

“At least revoke comfier bed privileges.”

“You know, now that I think about it, I don’t even remember saying I do,” he jokes, “So I don’t think you technically have that power, my love.”

“Maybe we should just re-do the entire thing,” she says absently, her head tossed back mid laugh, can’t remember the last time the two of them got to be this unabashedly happy with no interruption, and wishes the night could stretch on forever and ever, just like this. 

Silent Tedros makes a reappearance for a beat, but it's different this time. He’s looking at her like he’s seeing her for the first time, his eyes wide and a little bewildered, full of love and mirth and the poor lighting in the gaudy palace bathroom. 

“What?” she asks, when his gaze gets almost too intensely loving for her, giggles still sputtering out of her. She pushes her unruly hair over one shoulder and watches his smirk quirk up another inch.

“We should.”

“Hm?”

“Re-do it, get married again,” he says, sounds almost out of breath with the lofty thought.

“I’m sorry?”

“They kept us so busy that day, with nonsense, talking to dignitaries and listening to speeches from people that don’t know us. Barely spent any time together, wouldn’t have been any time really, if I hadn’t insisted on breaking tradition and sitting in on your dress fitting.”

“True, but, I mean, we kind of expected--”

“And because we had to be polite to everyone in the woods at the expense of remembering any of the good bits, or having the ceremony where you wanted--”

“For the millionth time, Tedros, they could have pinned this bath towel to my head for a veil, and tied your boot lace around my finger for a ring, sitting in this bathtub, and I would have been happy,” she says, holding up the long forgotten bath towel, kicking at the boots she untied for him at his feet, because she means it, “I’d love it because I love you .”

“Then let's," he nods, “I love you too. Let’s get re-married, right here, in the bath tub.”

She and Tedros are a lot of things. Loud and brash decision makers often, messy and imperfect, not great with social cues in even the best of times, especially with each other, dramatic and piss poor communicators. A lot of people questioned, and likely still were scratching their heads, wondering if the two of them, with all these things working against them and only teenagers on top of it, if they’d really be up for the task of being the most famous and powerful married couple in the Woods. 

But they’d never doubt, Agatha is certain, how they loved each other.

In love enough to do something like this, for once wedding-phobic Agatha to lean forward, hands on the edge of bathtub that hasn’t been used in months, and let her prince (does she have to say King now? Husband? Her inner monologue doesn’t know Camelot traditions…) wed her again, less than 48 hours after the first one.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” she nods, already trying to stifle a swoon at his giddy enthusiasm. Her Tedros from before all this King mess is back, here, right now. She sees him in real time, the way he smiles now, jumps up from where he was seated, eager and motivated to do something just for himself when he hadn’t wanted or been allowed to for so long. “How does this work?”

“Hadn’t gotten that far,” he taps his temple, like he’s trying to encourage the thoughts to catch up, “Didn’t think you’d say yes.”

“Do we need an officiant? A witness?” she offers, standing up to meet him halfway, where he’s already bustling around, tosses her the towel she’d mentioned, and she flips it over her hair, sitting funny on top of her curls, “How do I look?”

“Beautiful,” he says, without missing a beat, flashes her a very charming smile.

“It’s a good thing we’re doing this again, because now I can’t remember if you’d told me I looked nice at the actual event.”

“That’s not true and you know it,” he says, twinkle in his eye.

“I don’t know,” she crosses her arms over her chest, the bath towel veil slipping off already, “It’s not ringing any bells. Think even Pollux might have said something before you.”

“That’s not even a funny joke in the slightest,” Tedros crosses the small space between them, unamused, picking up the towel.

“Made you smile.”

“No, you made me smile,” he says, placing the towel veil gingerly back on top of her head, tries to tuck it into a more secure place using the pins in her hair from the elaborate updo she was sent home from the school with, “My beautiful wife.”

“Not yet,” she teases lightly, going along with the charade, “Gotta get married first.”

“Still beautiful,” he says softly, genuinely, tucking a tuft of hair behind one of her ears, letting his hand rest on her cheek, before continuing with mirth, “Can you commit that to memory, please? Remember that I said that, so when we go to bed--”

“Knew there was an ulterior motive,” she steps back from him, feigning offense, but she does, commit it to memory, every little bit of it. The way he holds up his wedding jacket that he had only just discarded for a bath and asks if he should put it back on, teases her when she stares at his abs a second too long before saying no, he can keep it off. She keeps a memory of the way he asks, requests, all but pleads, for her to put her wedding dress back on, and she can’t protest because its right there , in a heap on the floor outside the bathroom doors and if she does he’ll tell her she looks pretty again. And that’s another thing to remember, the six time he tells her she looks pretty and the way she doesn't squirm uncomfortably at the compliment the way she would have long ago, lets him break more wedding traditions in this obviously very upstanding and traditional wedding ceremony, and kiss her between each time he says it, before they’ve been pronounced anything. She remembers hiking up her bustle of tulle and chiffon and closing the door for dramatic effect, remembers the sweet hum of Tedros’s terribly off key rendition of a wedding march when she pulls it back open, to walk the three steps down the makeshift aisle he made with very old and dried up flowers left and forgotten somewhere in Agatha’s bedroom from before. 

She commits to memory the way he kisses her, out of turn in the order of this very official ceremony, like he’s kissing her for the very first time all over again, before she turns and runs back into the main bedroom.

“Oh very good, I forgot about the standard altar dash at every good wedding.”

“Shut up, I just wanted to get…” her voice trails off as she rummages through the drawers of her desk for something. It’s been a while, but muscle memory takes her where she needs to go, before she can run back in, almost tripping over her long skirt with her bare feet.

“Paper?” Tedros quirks a brow quizzically at Agatha, holding up a few blank sheets of Camelot seal paper and a pen in her other hand.

“For a copy of the vows, so we remember,” she smiles. 

He doesn't answer for a second, and she’s worried she’s doing something wrong. She was trying to dive head first into this ridiculous bit for him, seeing the way it lit him up, so sad and lost and unmotivated to just about anything for so long. She wanted this thing, however silly and unnecessary it seemed, to be 100% for him. And she had mentioned--she thought maybe--but could she have misread--

He kisses her again.

“You gotta stop doing that,” she says, without moving her face an inch from his, foreheads pressed together and breaths mixing sweetly, “We need some semblance of tradition here.”

“Who says? It’s just us,” he whispers, eyes still fluttered shut, “King and Queen of Camelot and all their stupid traditions got married two days ago, but me and you? We’re getting married today. Right now.”

Her heart, had it not already been three sizes too big for its spot in her chest, grows impossibly bigger. 

“I love you,” she whispers.

“I love you too,” he echoes, “Should we write that down?”

“I’ll remember,” she nods, skewing her haphazard veil yet again, but not paying it any mind, “Will you?”

“Forever.”

“Forever,” and since there are no traditions in the wedding of just Tedros and Agatha, she kisses him again. His lips are a little chapped, and cold at first, but they are soft and assured and gentle, they are hers forever. She kisses him until her mind goes fuzzy, all she can think is Tedros , and Tedros’s lips , and Tedros loves me , and I love Tedros , and it translates into her hands around his neck and his pulling her in by the waist until their chests are flush and they kiss over and over again, lips slotting between each other, cheeks bright, his floppy hair tickling her forehead. 

“Can probably skip your paper vows,” says cheekily, eyes flitting down to the pages she dropped.

“Not so fast,” she says, one because she would appreciate a minute to catch her breath, and two because, “I’d like to get something about my side of the bed in writing.”

“Of course,” he rolls his eyes good naturedly while she bends to pick her writing supplies up, and crouches to lean on the edge of the bath for someplace solid to write.

She swats at him with one hand, but gets to work with the other, and narrates her penning out loud, “I Agatha, no extra middle names, take you, Tedros, just Tedros.”

He rests his chin on her shoulder, and the giggle tickles her when he spots that she has written it out just like that Agatha No Middle Names and Just Tedros.

She continues, “To have and to hold on the comfy side of the bed in my bedroom. Will amend once I get to test out your bed, if we ever use it.”

“Shouldn’t I get the comfy side in at least one of our beds?” He counters.

“No,” she deadpans, shaking her head, but holds the pen out to him, “You can petition to add something else to the vows though, if you’d like.”

He seems to study her and the page thoughtfully, twirls the pen between his fingers, bites his lips together to keep from smiling too wide, then repeats, “Okay and I, Just Tedros, promise to love you, Just Agatha, even when the bath water is too cold.”

“Good one.”

“I will not wake you up from naps,” he adds, scribbling, “And I won’t make you share any of your sweets.”

“Oh don’t add that one, we can share,” she stops him, “I’ll actually get mad if you do not share, especially when it’s chocolate cake.”

“I will disclose every instance of chocolate cake in the palace.”

“Better,” she hums as he writes, “And I won’t hold anything you say against you if you’re saying it before breakfast.”

“Wow that’s--” Tedros makes a low, funny whistle sound, and Agatha glares while she snatches the pen back, “Are you feeling feverish too?”

“Kissed you enough times today, I must have caught whatever you have.”

“Should we add something about that?”

“About getting sick or about… kissing?”

“Both,” he shrugs.

“Well, even I remember promising to love you in sickness and health the other day, so we’ve got to come up with something more creative for this one,” Agatha says, adopting his habit of twirling the pen around a finger, “And I don’t know if we need any help with the kisses, Tedros.”

He taps the page excitedly, gesturing for her to add whatever he’s about to say, “I get at least one kiss every time you’re in your crown.”

“You’re kidding.”

“It looks really good on you.”

“You know I’m mostly only wearing that dreadfully heavy thing during things like, public appearances, important meetings, times it's really not appropriate to kiss.”

“Everyone knows we’re married, they were all there the first time,” he shrugs, taps the paper urgently again, and god she loves this boy so much, she scribbles it down anyway, logistics be damned. 

“You need to wear your shirt in public,” she adds for herself, and he scoffs loudly.

“What are you implying?”

“That you have an interesting knack for being shirtless.”

“So?”

“So, it makes me want to kiss you.”

“Same thing with me and your crown, so why am I getting in trouble?”

“Because you could politely kiss me once when you see my crown, walking into a meeting or something,” Agatha explains, eyes avoiding his and focusing on writing, “No shirt? I could not. It wouldn’t be just one kiss. Probably wouldn’t be polite either.”

He loves that answer, apparently, and after a bright bark of laughter, takes to kissing her, on her cheek, down her jaw, along the side of her neck. Much more than once, and probably not very politely. 

Agatha is still a little ticklish at the contact there, but leans into his touch giggling anyway, writing in her last vow. 

“Come up with anything good for sickness?”

“Yeah,” he says, still kissing her wherever he can reach, “Whoever’s healthiest gets to turn on faucets and open doors.”

She is taken aback, a bit, at how casually he says it, given how opposed to the idea he seemed just a short while ago. This had always been a bit of a sore spot in their relationship, feeling like they were stepping on each other's toes, doing too much for the other, getting in their way of things they could do that you doubted they could. It seems silly, to worry about this over something like opening a door, and she hadn’t meant to coddle him, to anger him for coddling him. 

But he smiles and kisses her, and agrees to share the load.

“Not the worst idea in the world, really, to let you open some doors for me,” he answers.

She supposes, maybe, recent events put some other things into perspective. Give and take. 

“Also nice to know,” he continues, quietly, “You’ll always be around to bug me about it.”

“I promise,” she affirms, and gets to writing maybe her favorite vow ever. 

Camelot doors are heavy. 

But there are two of them.

The world, and Camelot doors, are only half as heavy with Tedros’s light laughter on her shoulder instead.

“That look good to you?” Agatha picks up the messy piece of parchment, holds it up to the dim and fading light coming from the window, so they can both squint at it.

“Perfect,” he shifts to stand up straighter now, lets the paper fall off someplace to be picked up later, she’ll probably hang it up, somewhere since, where the light catches it just right, and she can remember this perfect day always. He holds her hands between them and clears his throat, “Do you think we say I do now?”

“I do,” her eyebrows jump, she squeezes his hands, bites her bottom lip in a smile, then repeats, seriously, “I do.”

“I do,” he says, and without warning, scoops Agatha up in his arms and spins her around in a whirlwind of a hug. She tucks her face into the crook of his neck, inhales his ever-present minty scent and kicks her feet up, hugging him tighter, his little grunt of effort adorable in a stomach fluttering way, like she’s a princess. 

And she will be. She’ll be Queen tomorrow. But today she is Just Agatha. 

“You know what I’m just realizing?”

“Hm?” she hums, when Tedros leans back a bit, still holding her up with a little bit of effort, eyes tracking all over her face like he's still in the mode to commit everything to memory.

He blinks once, then says, “You said we should get married in the bathtub.”

“Oh no, I said we could--”

“Because it seems to me we’re not in the bathtub,” he winks, “And I’d like to make you the happiest I possibly can on our wedding day…”

“Tedros, don’t you dare--” she warns, but there’s no real bite in her voice, already feeling him lift her up more, a step closer to the edge of the tub, “Thought you liked this dress and you’re going to-- ruin it !”

With one final very un-Queenly like shriek, Agatha loses her grip on her husband and gets unceremoniously tossed into the large bathtub. Water barely lukewarm, but it doesn’t matter. When she sees the way Tedros grins at her, and climbs in after her, she is warm all over. 

He sinks with a splash, knees bunched up by his chest with the very little room left in this giant bath now that Agatha’s dress is taking up most of the space.

“Sophie would kill you for this,” Agatha’s voice is laced with laughter as she picks up limp tulle, soaked in bath water.

“Don’t even know if she needed the encouragement,” Tedros shrugs, takes a bunch of her dress in his hands, plays with the soft fabric between his fingers back and forth, absently, like he had done with her rings, and her curls. Cute habit. They must share a train of thought, weird marriage magic, because he perks up then, “Rings!”

She eyes him, waiting for more.

“We forgot rings!” he leans forward over the side of the bath, reaches for his boot and works on pulling out the laces, attentive to every detail of the made-up wedding she had spoken of before. 

Agatha lets her fingers make ripples in the water around her, wherever her dress isn’t bunched up enough to leave room for water, and traces patterns on Tedros’s knee where it bumps into hers. And while he mumbles something, silent Tedros gone and needing to fill in all available space with words like usual, she realizes--she hasn’t stopped to look at his scar, to make sure he’s alive and there and hers and in one piece, since they started this. She watches him ramble about nothing and unlace his boots and splash absently in the water, and she hasn’t thought at all about this being a dream. She hasn’t checked to make sure he was there. He just is. There. He’s there, right there, and he’s hers, and she’s not worried about him, for the better part of an hour. Time she hasn’t had since he came back to her in Snow White’s cottage. 

Maybe the whole thing felt ridiculous and unnecessary when he had first proposed it, and maybe she had only agreed to placate him. 

But sitting here, watching him try to figure out how to wrap his shoelaces like a ring for her in her castle bath, wedding dress dirty and soaked and bunched up in all the wrong places, she can’t think of a single thing more necessary, or more wonderful.

Not a single thing could have made her happier at this moment in time. 

“Hold still!”

“It tickles!” she can’t help it, squirming as he wraps the shoelace around her finger, over and over, far too long to fit like a ring.

“How bout a wedding bracelet?” he offers, slipping the lace instead, around her wrist. It’s still a little ticklish, but his hands are so gentle, and so familiar, and he kisses the side of her wrist where he knots it in a terribly lopsided bow. 

“I hope you know I’m re-tying that if you expect me to wear it ever again,” she says, but takes the second lace he offers her, and wraps it around his left wrist.

“You’re gonna wear it again?”

“I mean, it’s my wedding band, is it not?” she smiles, peeks up at him under her lashes, finishes a much neater bow on his wrist, “Look at that. You couldn’t do that for me?”

“You’ve got me beat in just about every other beauty department,” he says, “Let me have at least the shoelace.”

“I look ridiculous,” she deadpans, and as if on cue, her dress flops over the side of the bath again with a little puff.

“You look beautiful, that’s at least twice today, before you say I forgot,” he points to her, then gets back to twisting his new bracelet around his wrist, “Look like you just got married, which is a nice, visual reminder, in case we forget that too again.”

“More than I can say for you,” she splashes at his bare chest.

“ You told me not to put the wedding jacket on!”

“Right, but now I feel silly looking so bridal and you not at all.”

“If you feel left out, you could always also take off--”

She pushes the water with a little more force this time to splash the smug grin off his face (but really, she’s smiling too.)

“Tough crowd,” he tsks, but leans forward and with a little effort, pulls the towel she has sitting on her head, her “veil”, and flings it over top of his instead, “Better?”

“Much,” she says, but doesn't let him back away far, as she’s on him for more than one impolite kiss again almost immediately. 

When the need for air becomes apparent, she backs up less than a millimeter, her forehead still on his, her hands tangled in the hair at the nape of his neck and the towel veil long forgotten, probably stuffed somewhere under all her dress fabric. 

Eyes still softly shut, she feels him say, “You know what this wedding could use, right about now?”

“A jacket?”

He shakes his head, it bumps their noses together sweetly, Agatha feels like melting back into the water, but then he corrects her, “A piece of chocolate cake.”

“We have chocolate cake?” she sits up with a fervent speed, eyes wide. 

“Asked as soon as we stepped out of the carriage if there was someone in the kitchen who could make it for us,” Tedros shrugs off his gesture like it was nothing, “Probably ready by now.”

“And you didn’t think to share that with me until now ?”

“In my defense, you made the rule 20 minutes ago.”

“Such a beautiful ceremony for such a short lived marriage,” she shakes her head, “Now that you’ve made the vows null and void by disobeying them.”

“You want the cake or not, my love?” He says, standing up, water trickling off him, hand outstretched to her.

“Right now?”

“Right now, let's go,” he nods towards the door, and she takes his hand, letting him pull her up to standing.

He’s out of the bathroom faster than she is, giggling like the school boy she met years ago, not stopping to dry off, or put on shoes, or a jacket--

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she yells, bunching up her dress to step out, feeling the weight of it being wet, sag and plop in a puddle on the floor as she bends to grab the jacket he long forgot. 

“You said it yourself, vows are null and void,” he gestures with his arms widely, smirk on his lips, backing up towards the bedroom door with bouncing energy now, that she hadn’t seen from him in weeks, “So I don’t believe I have to listen to that nonsense shirt rule…”

“Oh, you’re so lucky I love you,” she grits, trying to catch up with him, his arm already on the bedroom door handle, waiting for her. She tosses him his jacket anyway, and he catches it with a free hand, slings it over one shoulder.

“I know I am,” Tedros smiles at her, genuine to the core.

“Are we allowed to do this? Sopping wet in wedding clothes, running down the halls to the kitchen for cake?”

Tedros sighs, looks at her and lights up again, “I know we talked about that whole, middle name thing and being Just Tedros or whatever, but…” he smirks, “We really are King and Queen. They can look at us funny, and gossip about the puddles we might leave, but they can’t really stop us.”

She had almost forgotten. Almost , the shimmer of her crown staring at her from where it sits on a dresser by the door. Like she had wanted to shield Tedros from having to stare down the spot Excalibur was wedged, taunting him, for months, she wasn't fond of looking that crown in the eye. It was heavy .

But her husband, the King , has one hand on the door, waiting for her.

She makes a detour in her run to him, grabs the crown and puts it on, sits lopsided on her curls still, but Tedros doesn’t mind one bit. 

She places her shoelace clad hand on top of his, and they push the door open, before running down the hall, holding onto the crown so it doesn't go flying, accepting more than one promised kiss, and leaving a trail of cool bathwater and giggles in their wake. 

(If anyone in Camelot finds it odd that the King and Queen fall ill exactly two days after their first wedding anniversary, the next year, and are so sick they can’t leave their room for a full 24 hours but do request a whole chocolate cake be left outside the door in lieu of medicine, no one says a word.)