Chapter 1
Nicole's breath was gasping, ragged, trying to draw air into overworked lungs. The eyes looking down at her, watching her struggle, gave no quarter. When Waverly wanted something, nothing would stand in her way, least of all Nicole's heart. That was especially true when what Waverly wanted was her, shivering and gasping and writhing under the smaller woman's weight as her unrelenting fingers drew another orgasm from her.
Nicole managed a wide smile as she caught the tail of her breath, her body feeling lit from the inside with afterglow created by Waverly's attentions. A last, gentle ripple of pleasure rolled over her before she was finally able to relax back into the mattress, pulling the blanket up over Waverly's bare shoulders to protect them both from the chill air.
The smile she got in return was a small, satisfied lift at the corners of that beautiful mouth. Waverly's eyes were half lidded with desire but her expression was one of love as the last rush of passion played out over Nicole's body and face. She did not want to be done with her sexy deputy just yet. The emotions she felt for Nicole, swirling inside her head and her heart, felt too large to be contained in one body. Making love with Nicole, watching her passion grow, erupt, and bank into a low burn to wait for the next time, was just about the only thing the aching poignancy inside her would accept as a balm. Waverly was ready for the next time, her love for Nicole swelling in her heart once more with that breathless flash of a smile. But Nicole was obviously spent for now.
Her smile blossomed, eyes crinkling, as Nicole gave a throaty moan of loss when she withdrew her fingers. Maybe after a short break, she thought hopefully to herself.
"Oh no you don't," Nicole laughed at the sparkling eyes looking back at her. She could tell what Waverly was thinking. "It's your turn next." She took another deep breath before consciously slowing her breathing rate to something closer to normal. "Just as soon as I recover from your sneak attack."
"I wasn't sneaky," Waverly defended herself with a sly smile. "It's your birthday and I wanted to get you something special. Didn't you like your present?"
"I loved my present," Nicole's wide eyes and exaggerated nod reinforced her words. "Although it's not my birthday for another…" she turned her head to glance at the clock by the bedside, "…hour and twenty minutes yet. And where did you find edible lingerie in Purgatory?"
"I have my secrets," the smaller woman preened. "And I have never been able to wait to open my presents."
"I thought it was my present."
"That too."
"Yeah well, I did love the unveiling. Although, when you unwrapped your sarong and were standing there in just those little bits of strawberry rice paper, I sorta pictured this round going a bit differently."
Waverly had the grace to look a bit abashed as she laughed at the teasing. "Well, I thought so too, but you made me so crazy with how slowly you were…edibling," the sultry tease was back in Wave's eyes. "I just couldn't wait anymore."
"So you ambushed me," Nicole raised a teasing eyebrow. Waves had surprised her, waiting until she had nibbled away the last of the rice paper and was just about to taste the prize it had hidden when the smaller woman had rolled them both over and proceeded to drive Nicole to the brink of combustion. Repeatedly.
Waverly laughed, "Yes I did, and I am unrepentant. Please notice I did not take the easy shot at the word 'ambush'?"
"Your restraint is amazing," Nicole deadpanned before pulling Waverly down into a lingering kiss.
When it ended, Waverly eased herself down to lay her head on Nicole's chest, just under her chin, settling in with a contented sigh as a long arms pulled her close. "So, what do you really want for your birthday?"
"Exactly what you gave me," Nicole's chest moved under Waverly's cheek when she laughed.
"Noooo," the smaller woman whined. "Seriously! You are SO hard to shop for."
"That's because I have everything I want right here. Not only do I not need anything else, I don't want anything else." Nicole pressed her lips to the top of Waverly's head, breathing in the clean scent of her shampoo before releasing a contented sigh. "Just you."
Waverly closed her eyes, allowing a moment to bask in the warmth of the words. Not one to be put off, she was soon back on track. "You are still getting a real gift for this birthday. I mean, I know it might not be a big deal to most people but 27 is a huge freakin' deal in the Earp family. Honestly, it makes me a little nervous."
So that was it, the deputy thought to herself. While always wonderfully attentive in bed, Waverly was unusually focused on Nicole tonight. There was almost an air of desperation in her need to touch and to hold, enough that the investigator in Nicole had noticed the difference.
"You're scared of my birthday?"
"Bad things happen in the Earp family with that one."
"I'm not an Earp."
Waverly smiled shyly, knowing that Nicole could not see it. Not yet, she thought to herself, but you will be some day. The truth and the rightness of the thought settled into Waverly's heart. Suddenly, she knew what to get Nicole for her birthday.
"There's nothing to worry about, Waves," the redhead went on, trying to ease any concerns her love might have. "It's just another birthday. And I'm willing to bet that before my next one, your family's curse will be broken."
"I can't believe we're only 4 revenants away from being done."
"I am ready for it be over," Nicole pressed another soft kiss to the head resting under her chin.
"Yeah, but those 4 are a combination of the toughest, Bobo among them, and they're getting desperate. Even Edwin didn't get this close to the 77," worry tinged her words once more.
"Wynonna will get it done," Nicole kept one arm around the smaller woman, but snuck the other one out from under the covers to run slow fingers through Waverley's hair, trying to soothe. "She'll break the curse for Alice." She kept her own concerns to herself, that once the last revenants were gone, the other demony things might not go with them. If that happened, life could continue to be the interesting times implied in the Chinese curse. Nicole missed being bored sometimes.
"Oh God. I can't believe she turns 2 in a few months," Waverley lamented. "Wynonna's missing her growing up."
"So are you," Nicole's softly stated truth won her a quiet laugh in return.
"Yes, I admit it. I hate not getting to watch her grow up too. It's an aunt's right to spoil her sister's kids rotten, making them impossible to live with as means of revenge for getting picked on while we were growing up."
"Wait… when did you grow up? Did I miss it?"
Waverly raised her head and offered up a genuine laugh at the quip. Her eyes were sparkling once more, the worry and regret of a moment ago forgotten.
"Ooooohhhh, so that's how it is?" There was a teasing threat to her tone, promising retribution.
"Yeah," Nicole tilted her head, a hint of seductive challenge in her eyes. "What are you going to do about it?"
The impish light in Waverly's eyes instantly morphed into a heavy lidded, sultry blaze as her earlier desire caught fire once more.
The hand resting on the flat plane of Nicole's belly began a slow caress, moving lower, and then slower, as Waverley changed directions and swept a feather light brush of fingers up her inner thigh.
Nicole's breath caught in her throat, more at the look she was receiving than from the touch. Even now, 2 years into their relationship, intimate moments like this with Waverley caused emotions to well up inside of her, filling her up to the point of bursting.
"Hey," she tried to complain, even while her own body betrayed her, leg shifting out slightly to make more room for the wandering hand. "I thought it was your turn…."
"It is," Waverly's voice was low, husky with need. "I'm calling dealer's choice."
Nicole's eyes closed with a quiet gasp of air, her head pressing back, deeper into the pillow with every inch of territory Waverly reclaimed inside of her.
Soft lips kissed the side of her jaw before offering a whispered, "Happy birthday, baby."
Nicole turned her head to give Waverly's lips more room to wander on her neck. She offered one last breathy denial. "It's not… not my birthday for…," she gasped and shivered as Waverly gently curled her fingers, "…another sixty-two minutes."
"Close enough," the unrelenting love of her life whispered back.
Nicole did, finally, manage to discover if Waverly still tasted of strawberry from her birthday present (yes), and that the best way to get what she wanted when Waves was in a mood like this was to let her stay on top (a win to her way of thinking, even if the official butch handbook disagreed… foolish book).
When Waverly had finished working out her worries on a very willing civil servant's body, she curled up in the shelter of Nicole's longer frame, reaching behind to pull strong arms around her. Within minutes she was asleep, leaving Nicole to drift in a wonderful endorphin-filled sea, teasing at the shores of sleep but still aware of her surroundings. Best. Birthday. Ever.
The only birthday that might have competed was when she and Ginny had hitched Pirate to the buckboard and taken that 3 hour ride to the fork in Little Buffalo Spring. The wild flowers were blooming in a small clearing in the prairie grasses near the water, and there had been no one around for miles and miles. They might have been the only two people on Earth that day. Ginny's picnic basket kept them fed, down to the lemon birthday cake she had managed to hide. It had been such a perfect day that they had not wanted to leave, only making it home by the light of the moon.
Wait. The drowsy sensation of almost-sleep blew away in an instant. What? Who the hell is Ginny? The memory had surfaced so naturally, so organically, it wasn't until she remembered the detailed scent of the flowers and the sensations of lying on a blanket with Ginny, naked under the sun that the red flag went up. Nicole's eyes snapped open. Her adrenalin kicked in with the shock of realization. She had a memory that was not her own. Buckboard and a white horse with a dark paint patch around one eye, Pirate? The memory was becoming clearer, more distinct, even as her confusion grew.
Then the clock struck midnight.
. . . . . . .
A lifetime of memories flooded into her, the shock and pain of the sudden intrusion, the deluge of new knowledge caused her to scream. Waverly was suddenly there, holding her and looking terrified. Her mouth was moving, talking, but Nicole heard nothing over the roar of voices in her mind. Waverly turned her head, appearing to yell towards the door. Wynonna. She was calling Wynonna. Yes, this was definitely an Earp Curse Event.
Nicole wanted to calm the fear in her eyes, but she could not speak, her body rigid, tendrils of fire twisting in her brain. Emelia.
Childhood, the first one, a hard one, flashing by, growing up and older, a misery of loneliness hidden under polite smiles and reasonable excuses until…Virginia. Night and day change, a life of light and love and growing together and then…. She cried out again as the memories turned dark once more. Ginny dying so slowly, draining the hope from them both until she was left alone in the world once more. Tears rolled out of Nicole's eyes onto the pillow beneath her head, the agony of catastrophic loss ripping her heart open even as the memories tore at her mind. Waverly brushed them from her cheeks, still speaking silently. Nicole could read 'I love you' from her lips, but not much else, the memories still coming. A blessedly short time before the sound of gunfire and a bullet slamming into her head. The Other Place for a time, floating and joyous… Ginny had been there, waiting for her.
Nicole's body started to relax, end of the line, a sad ending to a life but a weird happy-ever-eternity. When the next wave hit, her body convulsed in Waverly's arms, the shock of being ripped from bliss and dropped into cold darkness. Her muscles locked, tendons standing out as another round of memories invaded her. Addie.
Another childhood with no memory of the first, this time in a different place…New York? Easier, happier. Growing up to find the aching loneliness again, choosing a life helping others to try to fill the void. A birthday, 27, and a firestorm of memories burning into her brain of the life before, Emelia and Ginny and dying. The first round of the curse, resentment and rage at memories of a love she would never feel again, Ginny's loss in her head and heart once more. Then the cattlemen war, choosing to follow the soldiers into a battle ground, medicine bottles clinking with the sway of the wagon. Another bullet finding her, not as fast this time, infection spreading, and then…. The Other Place… The petty trials and hurts of mortal life dissolving into nothingness, Ginny there waiting for her still, filling her with peace.
The memory of that Other Place, the sensation of Ginny surrounding her, was muddled and indistinct, but the soothing touch of it released Nicole once more from the squeezing fist that seemed to close on her entire body with each new lifetime of memories, leaving her gasping for air. She did not allow herself to relax this time. She knew another one was coming. She had not reached her current life yet, Nicole's life. She screamed in agony again as memories of the next life scored themselves into her brain. Gladys.
Another life, past memories wiped clean once more. Another childhood flashed past, young adulthood marred by an adolescent broken heart complicated by intolerance, several years of misery and then Amanda. Brief happiness until the first minute of the 27th year. The searing agony of recovering two lifetimes, while Amanda held her as Waverly was doing now. Inescapable awareness of those other lifetimes, the curse, and the heart-ripping certainty of Ginny still waiting for her in the Other Place.
This one was different, Nicole realized, the memories coming slower, more deliberate… and taking longer. A longer life.
Leaving Amanda was painful, but better that than the lie of staying, once she remembered Ginny waiting for her. Nor would she waste this life like the last, seeking out a war and waiting for a bullet to find her again. This time she would hide and watch, try to find a way to break the curse so that she could stay with Ginny when that time came around again. She closed the book on her life in the old world and moved to the new, settling in Purgatory.
Years of research, and of watching multiple Earp Heirs from afar, one after another, try and fail. The hope with Edwin until she realized the darker cost of his zeal. The heartbreak she felt anyway when he fell, so close to the goal. She knew she would not live to see Ward reach his majority and don the mantle of heir. That was still several years away and age had caught up with her. Still, she remembered the bright blue eyes of the oldest Earp daughter, and the baby Wynonna when she/Gladys had encountered them at the town grocery.
The toddler Willa looking up at her in fear, stating loudly, "You're old!" with an air of horror that made Gladys's wrinkled, paper-thin skin stretch into a smile and a laugh. The mother pulling the child back, apologizing for her precociousness. She/Gladys had looked into a young mother's eyes and seen intelligence and hopelessness. She had considered then, telling the woman her story, her past lives. Someone needed to watch while she lived another life through to the awakening. Twenty-seven more years, at least. The moment passed before she could decide and mother and children moved on to another aisle. She could have caught up, told her story later, but the risk of others finding out, or revenants learning of her existence, was too great. She had no protection save her anonymity. She would have to wait until the 77 were eliminated and then see what happened, see if she was needed. Weeks later, the ripping chest pain and it was time to be with Ginny again. The sensation of coming home, the glow of love and welcome, the wordless joy. That time, the in-between time, seemed both infinite and instantaneous. Then she was torn out once more and thrust into another life. Nicole.
The last convulsion released her, leaving her hanging limply in Waverly's arms, tears still streaming down her own face at the original memory of Ginny dying, compounded by multiple lives of loneliness and loss, all connected by slivers of love and joy in that Other Place. She threw herself to the side, breaking free of Waverley's hold and rolling herself into a tight ball, shaking.
"Baby, what is it? What's wrong?" She could hear Waverly now, voice frantic, hands running over Nicole's body, trying to comfort and make sure she was whole.
Nicole had no words to explain, the cacophony of new memories bouncing like pinballs in her brain, each vying for her attention immediately. All she could do was bury her head under her arms and wait it out, the remembered experiences from past awakenings telling her so.
Waverly had held on tightly through each convulsion, her terror growing the longer it lasted. What was happening to Nicole? She had allowed sleep to win her over, only after convincing herself her worries about a 27th non-Earp birthday were silly. And only after exhausting herself in addition to that.
There was a crash…wood? The bedroom door. Nicole could not look up from her ball of misery, curled tight against the pain, old and new.
"What the hell?" She could hear the edge in Wynonna's voice even over the roaring in her head, could imagine her wielding Peacemaker, scanning the room for threats.
A new sensation… burning… around her eyes, deep into the sockets. Oh God… Peacemaker! A new memory, Emelia's last one, flashed to the forefront once more. A death dealt from the muzzle of Peacemaker… in Wyatt Earp's hand.
Were her eyes glowing demon red? She kept them squeezed tight, even as the noise in her head faded, making it easier to hear the voices now in the room with her. Nicole had been around Peacemaker for the last 2 years with no glow, no sign at all. It appeared the gun only recognized her now, after her awakening. Addie had run from the curse and the memory of Ginny's loss, had never ventured anywhere near Purgatory. Gladys had stayed far from the firearm, remembering only too well the sensations from Emelia's last memory, the same ones Nicole was remembering, was feeling now.
"It's Nicole!" Waverly's voice, panicked. "Something's happened to her! We were sleeping and she screamed and… I think she had a seizure, or several…I'm not sure!"
"Whatever it is, Peacemaker is lighting up like a Christmas tree. I've never seen it glow quite like this before." Wynonna sounded tense, but puzzled. "Nicole? Can you hear us? What's happening?"
Nicole drew in a breath through her nose. She sucked at lying to Waverly, actually she sucked at lying at all. Her first instinct was to tell them both everything, but Gladys was in her head now, encouraging the 3 C's: calm, calculating, careful. She was leery of telling a secret held since the first moments of the curse, but they knew something to do with the curse was happening.
"Nightmare," she managed to gasp out. "But not."
"Oh, baby! Tell me you're ok. Just start there, please?"
Waverly. Guilt flooded through her, followed by dread, remembering the heartbreak of Amanda. Ginny was still waiting for her in the Other Place.
"I'm ok," she steadied her voice, but kept her eyes tightly closed. "Just give me a minute… my head…."
She felt, as much as heard Wynonna shift closer to the bed. The burning in her eyes faded. Peacemaker was asleep once more. She must have holstered it in her boot. Nicole felt her body start to relax, Waverly's hands still moving over her back, trying to comfort.
"Can you tell us what the nightmare-that-wasn't was?" Wynonna's snark failed to mask her concern.
Nicole thought fast. No lying. "Me dying." Two words. The truth. What they chose to understand of that truth was her loophole for Gladys' caution.
Waverly's hands pulled her close. "You are not going to die! It was just a bad dream."
Wynonna, more practical and pessimistic. "How?"
"Shot." One word. The truth. Well, 2 out of 3 times. Good enough.
"Do you know when," Wynonna's follow-up question had come faster than Waverly could respond.
Did she know when? For the past deaths, yes. But if she was right, if Gladys was right, and Peacemaker had her name on its list, then when that bullet would come for her was anyone's guess. "No."
"Any details that can help us stop it?" Wynonna, still digging.
"No." The burning sensation in her eyes was gone, and the new memories had stopped their burning, squirming in her brain. She risked lowering her arms from around her head and opened her eyes, looking back over her shoulder at Waverly, watching for reaction.
A trembling smile came back to her. Waves was showing only concern over the situation, no revulsion or shock that revenant red would have raised. And they were on the homestead. Obviously, the protections here did not work against her part of the curse, even after the awakening. A second plus. And a third: the blanket was still doing its job of covering their naked bits… barely.
"We can stop it, now that we know," Waverly pulled her close, her voice was firmer, more adamant now that the immediate threat appeared to be passing.
Wynonna nodded. "So…27?"
Waverly nodded. "My thought too." She tried to sound calm, but her worry bled into the words.
"So Nic… umm… your folks?" Wynonna raised her eyebrows at her own question.
Nicole knew what she was getting at. "I'm not adopted… and I look exactly like my grandmother on my father's side when she was young. Not an Earp," she concluded, still feeling unsteady.
"Thank goodness," a small look of humor reentered Waverly's eyes as she spoke.
Nicole snorted in amusement despite her whirlwind emotions.
"Yeah, that would be a little too Flower's In the Attic," Wynonna added with a teasing half-smile. "So, not an Earp, but what part of the curse includes visions in Earp-Adjacents?"
Nicole closed her eyes again, shaking her head as if unsure instead of unwilling to answer. But memories from her past lives were answering the question in Nicole's head. Wyatt had been shooting at a killer, pulling the trigger just as the man had moved for cover. The bullet had no discretion, continuing on its original path, through the window of the school room to find Emelia. The curse had brought her back, which had to mean only one thing.
Wynonna would have to kill her, using Peacemaker, to break the curse.