I took as many overtime hours as I could gather. I practically begged for them. The work doesn't keep my mind off you. The memories and daydreams assault me constantly.

I remember you dancing in your underwear and that tiny blue tank top in your kitchen. Dancing with abandon, as if nobody was watching, but I was and it was spectacular.

I remember when we visited the state fair. Your hand clasped in mine as the sliding boards behind us move us up and down on the Gravitron as it whirled at speeds that made me dizzy. Your laughter and mirth made the ride worth it.

I remember near the end that we were spinning as if we'd never gotten off that ride, but you weren't laughing anymore and your beautiful smile didn't grace your features.

I remember drinking my days away wondering when you'd come home again. I nearly lost my job, which was now the only thing I had left. It was the end of my rope. The last thing in this shitty town I had to cling to. It took me awhile to realize that, while I thought I was on the outskirts of hope, there wasn't any hope at all. That's the day I put the alcohol away. While I was drinking I thought things could change, that they would change. I drunkenly dreamed that whatever had gone wrong between us could be fixed. If we could fix it, we could change the end result, right? I always thought things could change, but they never did as the months marched by.

I called you. Repeatedly. Desperately. I called you. Did you hear the phone when I called? Did you listen to the messages? Did you hear my voice crack when I broke? You left me here in this lonely town. That's what it is to me, after all. A barren wasteland; I only stayed because of you. Now I stay because I'm trying to cling to that last bit of a threadbare rope that ties us together.

I avoid all the places we used to go. The memories are white hot and searing. I circumvent most of the places but not the memories. How can I possibly avoid my own apartment? My bed? The sweaters you used to steal from me, and wear better than me, I might add. These places have the heaviest memories attached to them. The bed is the worst. I've changed the colour of the sheets and the comforter, but colours can't erase you. Colours can't erase the images of you beneath me, your hands clutching the sheet when you come undone. The colours changed but the vision is still the same.

I think you'll probably be burned into me forever. You've marked me. I'll be damaged goods to anyone else. I still come undone at the thought of your smile, after all. Your laugh is the only laugh I want to hear, the only melody my ears will accept except the sound of your voice. Anyone new with half a brain will look at me and see that I would be faking the attraction because the only person I'm attracted to is you.

I spend a lot of time considering how it all fell apart. Trying to pinpoint the moment the threads began to unravel. Could I have done something differently to keep them together? I'd give up anything for you. Was that not enough? Was I not enough?

I remember the first time you kissed me in my boss's office; the force of your charge and kiss driving me to stumble back towards the couch. You said I scared you. It's me that is scared now. Scared that I can't live without you. I certainly cannot imagine my life going forward without you in it. Yet here we are.

I remember the last time you kissed me. It was wet and sloppy with your tears. I never wanted to be the cause of sadness in you. You said there was too much going on, that you were weaker with me around. I only ever wanted to strengthen you, to stand by your side and never in front of you. You said things were "too complicated" because of me. You didn't want to "drag me into this curse". You never had to drag me anywhere; I would have gone wherever you were willingly, even to the ends of this Earth. I suppose that was the problem, because it put me in danger. You once told me it was sexy that I went where the danger was. You must have changed your mind.

I'd been taken trying to find you. Trying to save you. Can you blame me? You were everything I loved in this world. You are everything I love in this world. So what if the revenant tortured me? He could have killed me and I would have never given him an ounce of information on you or Wynonna. You went missing and I was sick with worry. I shouldn't have gone to that meeting, I knew it was a trap, but I couldn't pass up a lead to find you. I didn't know Doc and Dolls had already found you. You had me rushed to the hospital and the fluorescent lights above your head made your hair shine. I thought you were an angel.

It took weeks but I healed. You were drained. I didn't see it coming. I tried to blame the pain medication for my inability to observe what was happening around me. You were drawing away. Maybe you thought me weak. Do you think me weak? Did you see the knife when it cut everything that tethered us together? I did. You pulled back from the kiss and something in your eyes changed and I knew I was doomed. I pleaded with you, I begged…God did I ever beg, for you not to do this. I would have gotten down on my knees if I thought it would have made a difference. It wouldn't have, your mind was made up and I was soon to become a figment of your past—another thing you shut behind a locked door.

I spent weeks, and then months, trying to fashion a key to that door. As it turns out, I'm not a very good locksmith. When I saw you, your eyes that used to be open books to me, were wholly unreadable and never held mine for long.

Wynonna tried her best to bring us together. Inviting me over under the guide of a movie night when she knew you'd be home. You would storm away like the mere thought of seeing my face was worse than burning in the fires of Mt. Doom. Wynonna would apologize and I'd feel my heart crack just a little bit more.

I stopped accepting her invitations.

The months drained everything out of me, but the sight of you no longer broke me.

I figured it was progress.

I even tried smiling at you once at the station. You stopped dead in your tracks and dropped all your research. I rushed over to help you collect it. Our hands brushed together. You inhaled sharply and hurried away. Your touch caused another crack I'd need to mend.

Would I ever not be mending cracks you caused?

Probably not

/

Today Wynonna rushed into the station as the radio crackled to life; a hostage situation in progress. I knew when I saw the frantic look in her eyes that it was you. I've never moved so quickly in all my life. You are hanging from a rope, feet barely touching the stool, your hands are grasping desperately at the noose. Wynonna informed me on the way to you that she had gotten a call from a revenant. He was going to take you the way she took his brother. I see Dolls sneaking up behind the revenant, but a twig cracks and the revenant gets spooked. Kicking the stool out from underneath you, holding a gun pointed towards your head as you hang there. Dolls swipes at the rev's ankle and the gun discharges, missing you wildly. I rush to you, raising the stool to climb up and cut you down. I catch your unconscious form in my arms. I hear Peacemaker fire, but barely. All my ears are tuned into is your weak breathing.

I rush you to the hospital.

It's touch and go for awhile.

Everything I've been repressing for months just trying to survive bubbles to the surface. The sound of your laugh. The way your voice always raises when you're particularly excited to share something you've researched. The cute words you place in for curse words. The sopping wet tank top with the tiny flowers you were wearing when I met you. The way you reached for my hand despite being kissed by your ex-idiot at Shorty's wake. The way you look when the sun shines through the crack in the curtains first thing in the morning. I miss everything about you and I'm terrified it's all about to slip away forever, that these memories will be all I have of you.

When you finally wake up I'm there. I've been by your side every hour you've been here. Only leaving to shower and change clothes. I didn't want you to wake up alone. You whisper out my name and tell me the fluorescent lights above make me look like an angel. I can't help the smile that graces my face when I hear your voice, raspy with disuse. It's still the most beautiful sound in the world to me.

Wynonna takes you home when you're discharged.

I don't know where I fit in anymore.

It's been a week and I haven't heard from you.

I make up my mind to go to your house. It's pouring rain outside, a storm threatening to roll in. I don't care. I'll sleep in the pouring rain on your porch if that's what it takes for you to finally let me in and talk to me.

You open the door in the tiny blue tank top.

My blanket is wrapped around your shoulders.

My breath catches in my throat and I'm worried my heart will forget to beat.

I'm sopping wet. You wordlessly motion for me to come in and disappear. You come back with a t-shirt and a pair of my pyjama shorts I'd forgotten you even had. Why didn't you get rid of them after all this time?

Before I know it your hand is under my shirt pulling it over my head, your eyes focused on mine.

It feels familiar.

Once I'm in dry clothes you take my hand and lead me to the couch.

It's far gentler than the first time you lead me to a couch.

I reach my hand out tentatively to tenderly brush the tips of my fingers over the bruising on your neck. You stiffen. I retract my hand, chastising myself for touching you in the first place. That's no longer something I'm allowed to do. Your body is no longer something I am privy to.

The silence stretches before us like an open highway with miles to go before an exit.

"Nicole…"

I close my eyes at the sound of my name on your tongue. I hadn't realized how much I'd missed it.

"You must hate me."

How could I sufficiently express to you that I could never hate you? I've gone through almost every emotion the last several months—but it never occurred to me to hate you. I could hardly think anything negative of you despite everything. I blamed myself.

I give you the same look I did after you told me I scare you on Nedley's couch and shake my head.

A loud boom of thunder comes and you jump, grabbing my hand in the process. Just like you always did during a storm. The boom subsides, but you leave your hand in mine. Your features contort into what I've always called your "concentration face". I know you're collecting your thoughts and I wait await their tidy order because I know it means you'll finally speak your mind to me.

I'd wait forever for you.

You let out a little sigh before you finally speak.

"I thought if I left you, you'd be safe; that this curse wouldn't get you, too. Wynonna said something that really scared me—she said she didn't get seriously involved with anyone because she didn't want to leave anyone behind to mourn her when the curse finally got her like it inevitably gets all of us Earps."

You draw a breath and move closer to me.

"I had nightmares every night you were in the hospital. In every single one of them I had to watch you grieve for me or I would grieve for you and I would wake up shattered. They always won. I made up my mind then. If I let you, they wouldn't come after you and I'd never have to grieve your loss. If I left you and something happened to me, I'd just be a part of your past that slipped away; a dull ache instead of a gaping wound. Then I was hanging there and I saw your face. I've never seen a look of pure terror like that. I realized that it would always be a gaping wound between us. It wouldn't matter how long we were apart. We could be apart fifty years and hearing of your death would still wreck me. I saw the very same thing in your face that day. I saw the relief in your eyes when I finally woke up in the hospital. I realized then how stupid I'd been. I've made us waste months of our lives, months that we could have spent together, because I was scared. I don't want to let fear rule my life—not anymore."

It takes me a moment to realize you're no longer speaking, so enthralled I was with the sound of your voice. I look into your eyes and let out a shaky breath.

"Nicole" you plead.

"Please, say something."

The words are failing me. I reach my hand out to run my thumb along your bottom lip, sliding my hand down to your chin and raising it up enough for me to kiss you. You groan into my kiss, and it's as if the months between us melt and dissipate into the air.

It seems fitting that the first kiss we start over with happens on a couch.

I say the only words that come to my mind.

"Waverly…I love you."

You kiss me more fervently, and just like that we're back spinning on the Gravitron. Only this time you're smiling and laughing again. This time you're kissing me. This time, I love this ride. This time I'm leaving Lonely Town.