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When the request comes, Agatha isn’t expecting it. Out of all the things she thought Nicky would ask for on his 7th birthday — a dog, a cat, a skateboard, an iPhone, this definitely wasn't on her list.
“Moms, I want to go to Jurassic Park for my birthday.”
Rio, who was reading the morning paper like that is just something she does, looks up at Nicky in confusion, “Is that an actual thing? I thought it was a movie.”
Agatha can pretty much hear the gears on Rio’s brain working overtime to understand how she could have missed the revival of dinosaurs. Her famous
‘sacred balance’
speech plays inside Agatha's brain without her needing to utter a single word.
“It is a movie,” Nicky explains. “It is also a theme park.”
“Uh.” Rio's eyes shift to Agatha, an excited smile growing on her lips. “Could be fun. I've never been to an amusement park.”
If one was to tell Agatha, a few centuries ago, that she'd see Death herself thrilled about the prospect of going to a dinosaur theme park with her soon to be 7 year old son, she'd laugh in their faces.
“Really? Never?” Nicky asks, eyes wide.
“Never. I've had an
actual
pet dinosaur once though.”
The gasp Nicky lets out is worthy of Broadway. She has no idea where he got the theatrics from.
“YOU DID?” He all but bounces off his skin. Rio nods, looking proud of herself.
Agatha sometimes forgets how old her wife actually is. It sends a thrill down her spine whenever she remembers this entity, this
divine
being who has been around for as long as time itself chose
her
to build a life with. She knows her many centuries alive were nothing but an ink spot in her wife's long, long existence. Death was here before Agatha and she will be long after. Still, Rio has never made their years together, their centuries together, seem like anything but the best ones of her existence.
“What was he like? What was his name?” Nicky climbs into his Mom's lap, holding her cheeks between his tiny palms.
“He was a she, and she was the most sweet brachiosaurus I've met,” Rio smiles at the distance. “She didn't have a name, though. There was no language back then.”
“Can we name her now?”
Rio kisses his nose, “Sure, kid. What are you thinking?”
As Nicky and Rio keep throwing names back and forth at each other, Agatha fishes for the phone she barely uses and looks into the theme park. She may be the infamous witch killer, but she is also a mother. A
good
one at that. So she knew, the second Nicky's request was out, that they would end up at the park one way or another.
Agatha books the plane tickets, the hotel room and gets a two day pass for the park before Rio and Nicky are done with the names. She's great like that.
She watches as her son and wife, eventually, reach a consensus and name Rio's old pet dino, Clarisse. Nicky is ecstatic and Agatha knows for a fact Clarisse will show up on every family drawing he does from now on.
It could be worse. Really.
Exactly two weeks later, they walk through the gates of Jurassic Park and Agatha has a hard time figuring out who is more excited, her recently turned seven year old son or her four billion old wife.
Rio, somehow, gets them all explorer hats mere seconds after their arrival. Agatha refuses to wear hers, but she thinks Nicky and Rio look ridiculously adorable in theirs.
They go on every possible ride, fly on a Pteranodon, get ice creams shaped like dinosaurs, take lots and lots of pictures and hear Rio's tales of how those dinosaurs actually looked like. Every time they come across a brachiosaurus Nicky points to it, yelling “Clarisse!” excitedly. It's all adorable, really, but Agatha's favorite thing about the whole park experience is watching Rio with Nicky.
To say they were both in shock when Agatha found out she was pregnant would be an euphemism. For starters, Rio didn't even know Death was able to create life from scratch, so that, by itself, was already enough to destabilize her. Agatha remembers Rio being on the verge of a mental breakdown, doubting she was someone fit to be a mother, to be responsible for such, small, tiny creature. That's not to mention Agatha's own fear of turning into her mother and ruining the kid forever.
In this case in particular, Agatha is very happy to be proven wrong every single day.
“Oh oh, here we goooo,” Rio says, making Nicky giggle. He is tucked between the two of them at a ride he was barely tall enough to join. Agatha is fairly certain Rio cast some spell to make him appear taller simply because
how could they leave the park without visiting the T-Rex?
Rio's words, not hers.
So, here they are. Two minutes into River Adventure and waiting to be graced by T-Rex's illustrious presence.
Agatha has a half a mind to be annoyed at Rio when she feels Nicky shaking beside her. She has even caught his bottom lip trembling when all the lights went out for a few seconds and a dinosaur roar sounded through the speakers.
However, as annoyed as Agatha wanted to be, Rio has gone out of her way to make this whole thing less scary and more fun for their little guy. Even when Nicky did explicitly say he was scared, she just cuddles him closer and, with the same intensity, said she was scared too.
“I'm going to die,” Agatha hears somewhere from behind them the second they arrive at the T-Rex area. The realism of the thing really is impressive.
“Not on my day off, you won't,” Rio yells back, making Agatha snort out a laugh. Her wife looks at her mocking an exasperated expression, “Can you believe those people?”
Agatha makes a show of rolling her eyes, but the truth is she loves this woman and her awful sense of humor.
Beside her, Nicky gasps as a dinosaur bends low towards their train, mouth widening as if it's going to eat them alive.
“Aaaaaaaah!!” She hears Rio and Nicky scream at the same time. Then the ride picks up speed and even Agatha lets out an undignified yelp. She cannot believe this silly ride is actually giving her butterflies.
“Holy—” Nicky screams, whether out of fear or excitement, Agatha can't really tell.
She looks at Rio, who meets her eyes and winks before letting out a blood curdling scream. Agatha throws her head back laughing.
By the end of the ride, they are all soaking wet from that last drop. Rio and Nicky are laughing hysterically, and it's such a pleasant sight and sound that Agatha ignores the unpleasant squelching of the water in her boots and admires the two greatest loves of her life.
“Can we go again?” Nicky asks, eyes shining with expectation.
“Duh!” Rio says. “Last to the line is a loser.”