Ada and Hecate have been missing each other's signals for six months before Agatha decides to get involved. 

To be fair, they'd have continued to miss each other's signals for the next ten years if Agatha hadn't taken matters into her own hands. Agatha doesn't even know how much longer than that it might have taken them to acknowledge their feelings, if indeed they ever would have; the draught of future water she took only showed her the next decade. In any case, Agatha is not interested in watching her sister pine away endlessly for a woman who is clearly pining for her in turn. She also finds the prospect of a little spice and drama to be delicious.

So Hecate is surprised one afternoon, upon returning to her potions lab after dinner, to find Ada there waiting for her. Normally if Ada wished to speak to her she'd have summoned Hecate to her office, but here she is, sitting demurely at Hecate’s desk, an empty cauldron in front of her and a variety of ingredients laid out neatly around it. Hecate’s pulse begins to pick up as she takes note of the particular ingredients Ada has chosen. Barrenwort, maidenhair, pomegranate seeds. Bloodred rose petals, oyster hearts. What sort of potion can Ada possibly be making with those? And why is she looking at Hecate that way – a look that's challenging, almost arch?  The brooch that normally secures the top of her jumper is missing today, and the top two buttons of her pink dress are undone. All these things flash through Hecate's mind in an instant as she steps into the room. Her mouth has gone dry.

“Hecate,” Ada says, not rising from the chair.  “There you are.”

“Is there… something you needed, Headmistress?” Hecate says, a little awkwardly. 

“Well, you could begin by calling me Ada,” Ada says pleasantly.  “That would get us a little further along.”

“Further along?” 

“Oh, Hecate,” Ada says, and laughs lightly. “I’d almost believe you really were entirely oblivious.” 

“Oblivious…”  Hecate feels like she’s stepped into quicksand, is feeling the ground shift as it begins to swallow her.  “Oblivious to… what?”

“Oblivious to me,” Ada says, a bit sharply.  “Oblivious to my feelings for you.” 

Hecate’s jaw drops.  She is entirely flummoxed. 

“Surely you can’t really have missed it,” Ada says.  “All this time.” 

“I…” Hecate literally can’t find a single word more.  She makes a little interrogative noise. 

“I’m mad about you, Hecate,” Ada says directly, one hand playing idly with the dish of rose petals.  Then she rises to her feet and begins to move toward Hecate.  “I always have been.  The same way you’re mad about me.”

“Ada!” The word bursts out of Hecate without her consent. She has never been so stunned in her life. 

“Oh, don’t pretend it isn’t true,” Ada says, her voice lowering conspiratorially now.  Conspiratorially and caressingly.  “Hecate, I’ve spent months upon months longing for you, hoping you’d take the hint, but that doesn’t seem to be your strong suit.  So I’m having to take a more direct approach now, I’m afraid.”

“But – I –” Ada is moving closer now.  Hecate catches a whiff of floral perfume, and a few odd notes of scent from the ingredients scattered around the cauldron, heady and exciting. 

“Shh,” Ada whispers, now inches away from Hecate’s face.  “Let me have this.”

“Have…” But Hecate can no longer pretend she doesn’t know what’s going on, not as Ada’s face moves in close to hers.  Her body begins to press against Hecate’s own, and fire whips through Hecate’s nerve endings.  Helplessly, she begins to lower her face to meet Ada’s –

“Hecate?” Hecate startles so hard that she nearly falls over as Ada’s voice tears through the moment.  Ada’s voice?  Ada’s mouth is still closed, her lips just barely parted.  What –?

“Agatha!”  Now there’s horror in Ada’s voice.  The expression on the face of the woman before Hecate now is complicated – the sullenness of a child who’s been caught misbehaving mixed with the mischief of a woman who’s enjoying the chaos she’s wrought.  Mixed with a subtler note of triumph and more than a hint of provocation. 

Hecate whirls around and sees the real Ada in the doorway.  The expression on her face tells Hecate everything she needs to know. 

“Oh, Merlin.” For a moment Hecate thinks she is going to throw up.  This is it, her life is over, there’s no coming back from this –

“Agatha, how could you?” Ada demands, taking several steps into the room.  “How dare you – how you can –”

“Oh, calm down, Ada,” Agatha says, flippantly.  “I’m just trying to help you out.  You could thank me, instead of turning that unattractive shade of purple.” 

“Thank you!  For harassing my best friend?!”

“Oh, come on, now, sister, if she were only your best friend I’d never have tried to put the moves on her.  Well, I wouldn’t have done it pretending to be you,” Agatha amends. “I’m not making any further promises.”

Hecate bites the inside of her cheek until it bleeds, trying to wake herself up from this nightmare.  She digs her nails into her palms.  Nothing. The room stays solid around her, the two Adas still real.

“What did you even think you were doing!” Ada is pacing, rhythmically striking her forehead with her palm.  She hasn’t made eye contact with Hecate yet. 

“Isn’t it obvious?  I was helping the both of you along.  Since neither of you is capable of acknowledging that you’re mad for each other, I thought I’d fix things up a bit.  Don’t worry, I’d have magically given you the memory of all of this later.  You’d have thought you finally worked up the courage at last, that’s all.” 

“You would have – you would have –”

“Oh, really, Ada,” Agatha says dismissively.  “I can’t imagine why you’re acting like you don’t know me.” 

“Because you’re appalling!  This is – oh, fuck –”

“Ada, swearing!” Agatha laughs delightedly.   “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard you use language like that in my life. It suits you wonderfully.” 

Ada stops her pacing and instantaneously spins to face Agatha, raising her hands in one imperative motion.  Hecate’s force field blooms between the two sisters just in time; Ada’s spell crashes into it, blue-white and deadly, and dissipates in a shock of electricity.  “Hecate, let me at her,” Ada snarls now.  “What she tried to do to you – Agatha, you’ve crossed the line before, but this –”

“Oh, let’s not overdramatize,” Agatha says indifferently.  “If it had all worked out as I’d planned I’d have handed you the woman of your dreams.  There would just have been an element of proxy involved, initially.”  

“Hecate.”  Abruptly Ada turns her back on Agatha, rushing to Hecate’s side.  “Hecate, I can’t – I don’t even have words to tell you how – how sorry I am, how horrified I am – Hecate, please, don’t –”

Ada is beginning to cry.  Hecate stares at her dumbly. 

“Well, I think I’ve done my share of matchmaking for the day,” Agatha says, sounding bored.  Emotional scenes have never been of any interest to her.  “Work it out amongst yourselves, but take my advice and finish off what I’ve started.  A vial of future water told me you’ll be miserable for at least the next ten years if you don’t.”  With that, she flicks one hand up and disappears. 

“She stole a vial of future water?” Hecate says, randomly.  Ada, still crying, begins to pace again. 

“I can’t believe she could – even Agatha – the idea that she would – and now she’s ruined everything –”

Suddenly Hecate’s mind snaps into gear, honing in on that last phrase.  “What?” she says, voice unsteady.  Ada has stopped pacing now, is looking at her with cow’s eyes. “What has she ruined?”

Ada closes her eyes.  “All right,” she says, and her voice is abruptly calm again.  “I’m going to count to five and pinch my arm, and when I open my eyes I’ll wake up.” 

“Don’t bother,” Hecate says.  “It doesn’t work.” She takes a step closer to Ada.  “What has she ruined?” 

Eyes still closed, Ada shudders. 

“Because – if –” Hecate gropes for the next words, but they’re eluding her. 

“Nothing,” Ada says suddenly, savagely.  “She’s ruined nothing at all, because there was never any chance I could have had what I wanted.  That I could have had you.  I’m in love with you, Hecate, and I have been since the day we met, and for so long I dreamed – but it was nothing but foolishness, and now she’s flushed it out into the open and I can’t pretend it away, or even pretend to be normal around you anymore. And I’m sure you can never forgive me, although whether my worst sin is loving you or having the most ghastly sister on the planet I’m not sure –”

“Ada.” Hecate cuts into this torrent of words, holding Ada’s eyes with her own. “Please.” 

“Please…?”  Ada’s voice is a whisper now. 

Hecate clears her throat.  “Please don’t.”

“Please don’t what?” 

“Please don’t think that,” Hecate says, and then as Ada’s brow crinkles Hecate takes three steps forward and kisses her. 

The room spins around them, the scent of the various aphrodisiac herbs and ingredients Agatha so diligently collected rising up in the air, enveloping them.  Hecate’s hand steals to the small of Ada’s back. Ada makes a muffled, shocked little noise against Hecate’s mouth, then deepens the kiss, pulling Hecate closer to her, standing on her tiptoes to reach. The kiss goes on for a very, very long time.  Both women have the idea somewhere in their heads that as long as the kiss lasts, they don’t have to talk about any of this. 

Finally it breaks.  Hecate stumbles a step, dizzy; Ada rather shakily leans up against the desk. “Hecate,” she says.

“What?”

“I… don’t know,” Ada says, a little faintly.   “I…”  She tries to find the words.  None are forthcoming.  Then, abruptly, she smothers a giggle. 

“Ada?” Hecate’s brow is furrowed now. 

“I’m sorry,” Ada says.  “I’m so sorry.  It’s just –”  She chokes off a laugh again, a louder one this time. 

“Something is amusing you?”

“No, no.  Only – I just –” Another giggle bursts out of Ada before she has a chance to stop it.  “Walking in on you and… myself.  I don’t think my heart will ever recover from the shock.” Another convulsive laugh. “Oh, Hecate,” she says, and now her eyes are wet again.  “Can it really be possible that you care?”

“I care,” Hecate says, her voice barely audible. 

“And you – you wish to try –? I’m so much older than you, really not worthy of –”

Hecate stops her mouth with another kiss. 

Eventually this kiss breaks as well, both of them breathing hard.  “Well,” Ada says, picking a point at random.  “Part of me thinks it’s time to head to the restricted section of the library and look up the most horrifying curses I can find to put on Agatha, and the other part of me thinks I should send her a thank-you note.” 

“Let’s not think about her,” Hecate says.  “At least, not any longer than it takes me to find a warding spell to put on myself that will notify me if I have any sort of romantic contact with anyone other than the true Ada Cackle henceforth.” 

“Are we to have ‘romantic contact’ in the future, then?” Ada says, playfully, and Hecate blushes a beautiful deep cerise. “Oh, my dear,” Ada says, moving closer and taking Hecate’s hand in hers. “You’re lovely when you’re a little flustered.”

“I must have been lovely beyond words since the moment you walked into the room, then,” Hecate says dryly. 

Ada gives her a peck on the lips. “You have been indeed.”  A smile steals across Hecate’s face, and she pulls Ada into a hug, the shorter woman’s head resting comfortably on the black-clad shoulder.  They stay like that for a long time, just breathing, enjoying one another. 

Eventually Ada says, without lifting her head from Hecate’s shoulder, “I wonder how much of what Agatha did today was done because she wanted to be an agent of chaos, and how much was because she actually wanted me to be happy.” 

“I can live a lifetime comfortably without ever worrying about Agatha’s motivation in doing what she did today.” 

“Not to mention how much was done simply because she wanted to make advances on you.”

“Ada!”  

“You heard her.  ‘I’m making no promises.’ We’ve always had similar taste in women, I suppose, although she’d rather corrupt them than –”

“Ada.”  Hecate holds Ada at arm’s length and looks directly into her eyes.  “If you say one more word on this subject I’ll turn myself into a bat and live the rest of my life roosting in the topmost tower of the castle.”

“Well, we can’t have that.” Ada pulls Hecate into an embrace again. “I think there are some rather ingenious curses in some of the older portions of the library…”

“That, at least, seems appropriate –”