We're all waiting for S2. Here's something to help tide us over.
A Sentinel Darkly.
Waverly Earp looked over the spot.
She had to. She had to see where it happened. Where her sister died. She understood it, she knew it had to happen, and why it happened. But she still needed to face it to feel closure.
Plus, of course, she needed to check the area for anything important the less thoughtful and researched members of her team might have missed.
"What's that?"
Her investigations led her to notice a spot that looked just like revenant blood right by the old stone gate. She decided to take a closer look, considering that no revenants were killed anywhere close to there to her knowledge. Could a wounded Bobo have passed by here, either before or after being detained?
She examined it closely.
"Looks just like revenant blood. Only one way to be sure I guess."
She carefully dabbed her fingers in intending to sniff for the copper-and-brimstone scent of hell-tainted blood.
Suddenly, her body was moving of its own devices. She felt herself walk up to Wynonna and Doc, smiling broadly at her. Every moment her own dazed mind protesting that this was wrong.
"You ready?" Her body amicably asked. Seemingly questioning the mission at hand.
"Sweetheart, I'm ready for anything." Came Wynonna's confident reply.
And then it felt like slow motion. Her body drawing the gun in the blink of an eye, yet the sensation lasting forever. Watching as she herself shot Wynonna Earp—her own sister—in the head.
"Waverly?"
Wynonna's voice interrupted her.
"Huh?" She looked at her fingers and found the black ooze gone. The puddle too, in fact.
"Hello? Wav's? I should get home and plan, and you should check on your girlfriend." Wynonna seemed tired and ready to leave.
"Girlfriend?" Waverly was confused. She looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings.
"Uh, yeah. Girlfriend. Tall hot and packing heat? Gun, of course, because she's a cop." Wynonna stared incredulously at her younger sister. "Are you alright? Because something is seriously messed up if your begging me to risk ending the world to save a chick, and a few hours later you're staring at me like you just met me and have no clue who I'm talking about."
"Yes. Nicole. Girlfriend. Shot. I remember." Waverly suddenly blurted out. "Sorry. I'm just really tired." She sighed heavily. "We didn't actually sleep the entire night, remember?"
Her older sister nodded, starting to feel the affects of exhaustion herself.
"Maybe we should just go home and sleep? You can't plan anything in your state. And Nicole should probably sleep off that huge bruise." The younger girl offered.
"Are you sure?" Wynonna was clearly still skeptical. "I mean, she doesn't know whether your alive or dead yet."
"She's probably asleep. We should be too." Waverly would brook no argument. She ushered the older girl back to the nearest car to go home.
They drove back to the homestead. Wynonna fell asleep the moment she fell onto the bed. Waverly just smiled and passed out beside her rather than bother making it to her own room.
A few hours later she was awake again though. The younger girl just stared at Wynonna. She still had the gun at her waist, a gross violation of any decent safety standards, even considering the need to have it handy at all times.
"I wonder what it would be like. I could just grab the gun and take it for myself. Waverly Earp: Gunslinger. Just take the gun, put one through the head, and I'm the gunslinging heir."
Her eyes shot wide open as she realized what she was thinking.
"What the FUCK Waverly? What are you thinking? You're talking about killing your sister for fucks sake! What is wrong with you?"
"Uh, Wav's?" Wynonna's voice interrupted her panicked internal monologue. "Your staring at me. Creepy like. And you look like you're going to have a heart attack."
"I'm fine!" She squeaked. "Totally fine! Super fine. I was just… Having a nightmare about yesterday! Yeah." "Nice save Waverly" "But it's good. I'm fine now. Totally not weird now."
"Okay." Wynonna drew out the word. "Sure. Not weird at all. Well, I'm ready to work out a plan to rescue Dolls. And not to butt into your relationship, which we still haven't had the time to talk about, but you should probably tell that lady cop you survived the night."
Waverly suddenly shot up.
"Nicole!"
"Yeah, there you go. Yesterday you were going crazy about her, then suddenly you had no idea who I was talking about. It was freaking me out." Wynonna commented as she got up. She quickly chucked her old clothes that she had fallen asleep in onto the ground and threw on new ones. A burgundy blouse and brown leather jacket.
Waverly frowned.
"What was I doing when you first saw me after your fight yesterday?" She asked, clearly concerned.
"I don't know." Wynonna shrugged. "It looked like you were examining the scene of the battle."
"Was I looking at anything in particular? Anything at all?" The shorter girl pried.
Wynonna thought for a moment.
"No, not really. You just looked to be staring at the ground, or your fingers. I don't really remember. Either way, you didn't bring up anything interesting and I didn't notice anything. Why, do you think something was left there?"
Waverly shook her head.
"No. Nothing. I just… nothing."
She ran out the door leaving a confused Wynonna.
"I'll catch up with you later!"
The older sister shrugged.
"Must have been messed up by the whole thing. I'll see if she's okay later."
She slowly hoisted herself off the bed.
"I've got my own tough day ahead. Xavier here I come."
Waverly rushed to the hospital to see Nicole, again. The last time Nicole was there, she had been left behind by an immortal serial killer. This time was just a checkup after being shot by her new girlfriend's—as in Waverly herself's—psychotic sister. Thankfully, while wearing a bulletproof vest. Also, everyone was supposed to get a checkup due to the mass poisoning, just as a precautionary measure.
After asking a nurse for the location she burst into the room. Her girlfriend was already up and in her uniform, sitting on the edge of the bed.
"Nicole!" She rushed up and embraced her, much taller, girlfriend in a hug.
The policewoman returned her embrace in kind.
"I was worried sick about you Earp! I heard something about grenades and a giant snake from Doc." The redhead exclaimed.
"There was nothing to worry about silly. I wasn't actually in the fighting. Unfortunately." She looked miffed to be left out again, as usual. "I arrived just in time to check it out once it was all over."
"I had nothing to do other than wondering what you crazy people were getting yourselves into. Other than a huge bruise nothing's wrong with me, I've been helping out getting people cured. The poison really was only in the champagne, and one weird basement were they were probably making it." Haught explained.
"Well, it's all done now. Hopefully we can get back to normal." The younger girl mischievously smiled. "And by normal I mean slaying demon cowboys, and my sister probably attacking a secret government prison."
Nicole's eyes went wide.
"Yeah, I'm going to need a LOT of catching up on all of this. So, is Willa?" She hesitated at the question, but clearly figured it was best to get the hard part out of the way immediately.
"Gone." Waverly sharply frowned.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." The younger girl shook her head. "My sister died that day back at the homestead many years ago. They took what was left behind and tried to use it against my family. It didn't work, that's the end of the story."
She felt herself pulled tighter into a protective embrace.
"You're strong Waverly. Stronger than they think you are. Stronger even than you think you are. If you ever need me though, I'm always here for you."
"She's beautiful. Powerful and gentle, and just… beautiful."
Waverly did not object to her thoughts this time, strange or not. She nuzzled herself further into the crook of Nicole's neck and, after deeply breathing in her lover's scent, began to lay kisses across it. Her partner gasped in surprise at the sudden sensation as she felt herself pushed back down onto the bed.
"Alright. Uhm, Waverly." She awkwardly coughed. "Not that I don't appreciate it but we are very, you know, public?"
The smaller girl pulled back with a quiet "Eep!". A quick glance revealed a number of doctors, patients, and nurses staring at them.
The duo stood up. Officer Haught guided Waverly to the door gently with a hand on her back. As they left through the door, the redhead turned back to face the room.
"Girlfriends, 'm I right?" She smiled and ducked out.
Waverly found herself riding with Officer Haught to the police station. The goal was for Nicole to report back to duty (and some sense of normalcy again) and Waverly to meet up with Wynonna and Doc.
"So what are you Earps doing now anyway? Should I be worried?" Waverly glanced away from her phone to her concerned looking girlfriend.
"Well." Waverly decided to start the most currently pertinent part of the explanation her girlfriend had requested back in the hospital. "Wynonna works for a secret government monster hunting squad. Actually, I work with them too, doing all of the research and almost everything else that doesn't involve running in and shooting everyone. Anyway, it's called Black Badge."
"I pretty much got all of that already." The cop shrugged.
"I'm getting to the important part!" Waverly whined. "The secret government honchos apparently didn't like how Dolls handled things here in Purgatory. So they arrested him and are keeping him in some kind of lab prison thing. I'm a little short on the details this time, Dolls didn't exactly spend time confiding in me. Or confiding in anyone for that matter."
Nicole frowned.
"Be careful Waverly. Fighting Bobo was one thing. All he had under his belt was a bunch of trailer trash and a few small town suits. The US government is a little bit more to handle."
"Don't worry." Waverly reassured. "It's not like we're going to find a military base and go in shooting."
"I say we go in shooting." Wynonna suggested.
Waverly just flung her arms up in the air, before giving up and falling into a nearby chair in a huff.
To say their planning session was not going well would be an understatement. Without Dolls providing some level-headed leadership, and years of experience at this kind of thing under his belt, they were struggling to come up with any serious plans.
"Can we focus on one problem at a time?" Waverly pleaded. "Like the fact we need to FIND him first?"
"Back in my day, finding a either a fort or a prison was hardly a challenge. The trouble lay in the journey. And we did not have the aid of your 'Internet'." Doc offered his take.
"Yeah, well things have changed. Underground bases and secret sites; all the Feds need to do is rent a warehouse and not tell anyone." Wynonna countered. "Anyway, how would you figure out where a prisoner was taken back in 1860?"
"The fact that I was nine years old when that dark year rose, means I could not tell you I'm afraid." The cowboy explained in his distinct drawl. "1880, however, I am familiar with. Tongues tended to be loose and word spread all of its own device when soldiers passed through town with a prisoner in tow. I can already see how that could be harder on your more crowded frontier."
"So does anyone have any actual idea how to find him?" Wynonna asked, frustrated at their seeming dead end.
"The reason he's being taken away has to do with something that happened in Kandahar. Is there anyway we could track that down, maybe find someone else who was there?" Waverly tried to reason out a solution.
"Probably a dead end. He sounded pretty clear that everyone else died." The older one shot down her plan.
Waverly sighed in disappointment, pulling out her folders with obvious reluctance.
"Well then, there is an alternative." She poured over her folders and pulled out a series of papers. "Constance Clootie wasn't the only witch in the old west. There were others. Many witches, like Constance, were believed to have gained their powers through bargains with demonic forces. Others used different methods."
She pushed forward a picture that the others looked at curiously. It looked to be a weathered old drawing of a woman slicing flowers over a clearly ill man.
"One variety of these were called bruja. Bruja were most famous for practicing spiritual healing in areas with little to no access to other medicine, or for people established doctors would not treat. However, they could also manipulate chance, contact spirits, or pretty much any other traditional witchy act."
Wynonna and Doc both looked skeptical.
"Wait, I think I've heard enough Spanish to know bruja really is literally just the word witch." Her sister spoke first.
"It is. The word gained particular connotations in North America, especially among latin and African-American populations. Next question." Waverly tried her best imitation of Dolls. Except the part about allowing questions.
"I hate to burst your bubble, but my experience with witches is that no deal is the best deal. Bargains with supernatural forces are best left to your bullet, and their head." Doc opined.
"Constance was a very, very bad witch. Simply, put we need a good witch. Like The Blacksmith, who you might remember for having died helping us. Which was really unfortunate considering she could have helped us a lot, and was really cute." Waverly looked to thoughtfully ponder their brief past acquaintance.
"Okay, don't really need to hear that." Wynonna piped up. "How would we find a bruja, and what would we even need them for?"
"Good question." Waverly began another lecture. "The most significant incidence involving bruja was between 1755 and 1765 involving the Abiquiu land grant in New Mexico. The Spanish government attempted to rid the locals of native religious and cultural practices. It was recorded that locals resisted through the widespread practice of witchcraft.
"Not many witches survived the taming of the west. Small towns made up of narrow minded ex-city folk are not an environment for mysterious women to thrive in."
"Amen." Wynonna mumbled.
"Nonetheless, some survived. Given these genealogy records." She pointed to the other papers she had pulled out. "I believe that more than one ended up in the vicinity of purgatory. Which really should not surprise anyone by now. Once we find a willing witch, all we need to do is have them divine Dolls location. I believe that can be accomplished thanks to the badge he gave you Wynonna."
The older sister grabbed her Black Badge and briefly looked it over. She had actually forgotten about it. Apparently, so too had the agents who had taken away Dolls.
"So the mission is set." Waverly wrapped it up and put away her files. "Tomorrow, we track the eligible potentials, and find a bruja willing to perform the spell."
"I don't recall anyone agreeing that that was the plan." Wynonna skeptically tilted her head. "Did I miss something here?"
Waverly was ready for this part.
"Yes, Wynonna. You're missing the part where the only chance you stand of rescuing your partner, and of saving this town from being missiled into a smoking pile of rubble, is by actually finding a plan and sticking to it. And since I don't see any other ideas on offer, that makes me the leader."
"'Kay then." Wynonna just casually hopped of the table she'd been sitting on and clapped Waverly on the back. "Get us some addresses and we get you a witch."
She nodded to Doc, who just shrugged and followed her out.
"I could just kill her. Use the gun and then no problem with missions and plans. Just have fun and kill Revenants."
Waverly frowned and shook her head.
"Come on Waverly. This is getting really messed up. You can't keep letting this happen."
"It. Went. Amazing!"
Waverly practically bounced in excitement as she enthused about her days events to Nicole at the cop's apartment.
"I was badass. I took charge. No 'ignore Waverly but use all of her research' now."
"That's great." The redhead smiled. "They're going to need someone to lead without Dolls. He might have been an uptight hardass without apparent social graces. But he was the only one with the discipline to lead."
"Yeah." Waverly agreed. "Wynonna probably would have had a rough time of it.'
They were drinking tea and finally enjoying some relaxation.
"They're not going to be the only ones to need it. Remember, you're a member of the team now too. And I fully intend to use all of your talents." The smaller girl smiled.
Nicole actually looked surprised. "That was when saving the town from a poisoned mob. I have a job still. I need to pay the rent and feed my cat."
"And you can do that job best by helping us stop a mob of crazy hellspawn working out of a trailer park. He might have been evil, but Bobo was the only thing keeping the revenants in line. Who knows what they'll do know? I'm sorry, but like it or not; your part of the gang know." Waverly grinned mischievously at her.
The redhead sighed, but was nonetheless slightly smiling. "I'll see what I can do. Don't expect me to chase your cute little ass down through secret military prisons."
"Oh, like you could ever leave this ass. You know I still have at least four pairs of those shorts from my Shorty's days. I could lead you like a lost puppy." Waverly smirked.
"Well then," Nicole stood up and walked over to Waverly to whisper in her ear. "Why don't you lead me somewhere a little more fun."
"Maybe I will."
Waverly also stood up and sauntered to the bedroom.
I fully admit that I ignored that whole "imminent missile strike" thing for the sake of story. So what is happening to Waverly's mind? Will she tell anyone? Will it hurt Wynonna?
And will you get smut next chapter?
I'm ready to start another multi-chapter work. This one won't be extra dark or OOC. Obviously demonic ooze mind control isn't all rainbows, but pretty typical for the Earps. My last one didn't get of the ground well, but I think this one will go better.
Please review, and please spread the word. As a fandom, and especially in fanfiction, Wynonna Earp is far from huge. It would be nice to know there is an audience out there for this story.