You were instructed - via sticky note stuck to your forehead - to shower, change, and meet up in the basement lab, accompanied by a warning stating that if you weren't there within the next two hours, Wynonna would be forced to give you mouth-to-mouth.
You immediately sprang into action, practically giving yourself whiplash with how fast you sat up. You had to take a second to just breathe until the swimming in your head subsided and you felt you could at least get out of bed.
Without any windows in the room, you had no way of knowing what time it was, but you had an inkling it wasn't the same day as when you had woken up the last time. The wolf confirmed with a huff and you quietly apologized for your weak human body. She was growing reckless and the prickling of your skin told you she needed to get out and soon.
Over the years since The Incident - The Change, The Bite, The Whatever - the two of you had come to a series of compromises. One being, she would always allow you the conscious decision to change before taking over - with a few fine print clauses, of course - and you would allow her to stretch her legs every once in a while, so to speak. (The full moon was an exception out of your control, unfortunately, but she wasn't hostile if she didn't need to be and even though you still locked yourself up every month, despite the wolf's eye rolls, she understood why you need that sense of control.)
When you finally stood, your legs didn't wobble like you expected them to, from lack of use, but instead successfully carried you over to the counter against wall, opposite the bed. You found a set of hideous pink scrubs sat, folded neatly, next to a toothbrush and small travel sized tube of toothpaste, a shiny red apple, a peanut butter chocolate chip granola bar and another note:
"Found these just for you! Thought they'd go GREAT with your hair! Oh, and brush your teeth, you have dog breath.
P.S. Eat these, that wolf of yours was about to have a hissy fit if we gave you one more bag of liquid 'food'.
P.P.S Eat them SLOW! I do not need to relive you throwing up all over yourself again.
Thanks, Scoobs!"
As if on cue, your stomach growled something fierce and you stuffed the scrubs under your arm, the apple into your mouth, and the granola bar and toothbrush and tube of toothpaste into your free hand before leaving the room and set out to find the closest shower.
The closest shower happened to be directly across the hall. You figured it some good omen or a sign from the gods that things were looking up. (You also figured that was a huge stretch because this building was old as dirt and there was no way in whatever hell this was that someone put the shower directly across the hall from this specific room, anticipating you were going to be half dead in it at one point. But you didn't dwell on that, you simply accepted the shower for what it was.)
You took your time. You had two hours to waste (assuming you hadn't been asleep that long after Wynonna left the note) so you took your time in washing the remaining gunk out of your hair, off of your skin, from under your fingernails. You let yourself forget how much time you spent under the hot spray of water and just stood there, your eyes closed, hoping it would somehow wash away the memories as well, the pain - the wolf was silent the entire time, you figured she was giving you this time to yourself.
Unfortunately, the water only resulted in scorching your skin red and it eventually ran cold, forcing you to cut the stream off and gather a towel around your bruised body. (You were pleasantly surprised to see your wounds free of stitches and blood-stained gauze. Most of them had healed into scars surrounded by yellowing bruises, but a few of the deeper ones were scabbed over and healing nicely, now that your blood was rid of any silver. Chicks dig scars though, right? Not that you could actually tell the story behind them...) Once significantly dried off, you slipped the pair of pink scrubs on, avoided the mirror and grabbed the toothbrush and toothpaste. Now that you were aware, your mouth tasted an odd mixture of plastic, acid, and copper, which you immediately set about getting rid of. You didn't bother messing with your hair, you towel dried it as much as you could, but that was it, it was a futile effort. You would've thrown it up if you had a hair tie.
You ate the apple and granola bar on your way to the elevator. It required a code to get down to the lab, but you knew the override code so it didn't matter. As the elevator descended, you briefly wondered who it was exactly that you were about to walk into. You didn't enjoy meeting new people, especially with the wolf's unsaid comments in the back of your head, mostly hinting at you leaving without explanation, never to see them again. Needless to say, you didn't have many friends. Wynonna, Dolls, and Eliza were pretty much it, unless you counted your sister. But the two of you only talked during holidays when the kids called their favorite - only - aunt and told you all about school and what they got for Christmas and to thank you for the gifts you got them (courtesy of Hailey because you rarely ever left the safety of the forest) and you told them how life was in the middle of nowhere and how many animals you saved since the last time they called. You hadn't seen them in person since you were turned. You felt guilty about it, but you weren't sure how Hailey would react to it, so you ostracized yourself and made up excuses and pretended you didn't hear the hurt in Hailey's voice when you told her you wouldn't be coming home for Thanksgiving or Christmas or a birthday.
But, you could've died. You almost died, and without ever seeing your niece and your nephew again. Without ever seeing your sister again.
Just as the elevator doors dinged open, you thought maybe this was the year you went home for the holidays. After everything, you think you deserved at least that. But then the wolf protested and something told you to look at the calendar hanging from a tack on the corkboard on the wall to your right and you noticed every day was marked with a black X, stopping on-
"Merry Christmas! Want some eggnog? It's homemade, but it's not too bad, lots of booze, non-dairy. You're welcome." Wynonna rushed it out in one breath, almost as if she didn't want you to know the date. Your gaze immediately zeroed in on Wynonna. She was holding out a mug, filled to the brim. You ignored it.
Looks like next year it is then…
"Wait, what the fuck. It's Christmas? How long was I out?!" You could've sworn you had at most, two weeks before, well, now. Although, that would explain the wolf's ever-growing anxiety. The full moon was exactly a week away (you had your calendar marked in angry red sharpie, circling every date of the full moon because if nothing else, you were at least a prepared werewolf) and NASA was calling it a Wolf Moon. That didn't put any confidence into how that night was going to go. You thought briefly of asking Wynonna to spend the night with the wolf, keep her company.
"Introductions, your account of the events that took place, and then we'll go over the minor details." He said it so casually, as if you hadn't worked with him for years.
Minor details? How long you were essentially held captive for didn't seem like a minor detail to you.
"Minor details? Oh, cut the shit, Dolls, and just tell me how fucking-"
"Two weeks, give or take a few days." It was Wynonna who answered. Somewhere in the back of your mind you already knew this, but hearing it out loud somehow made it worse. It felt like she punched you in the gut. You didn't even register the seven pairs of eyes on you, four of which were complete strangers. You were frozen.
"Wynonna-"
"She's not wrong, she deserves to know, Xavier. Quit being an ass, she's family." Dolls only responded with a petulant huff before Wynonna continued and you tried to grasp onto every word. "It took us almost a week to even pick up your location, the fucker left your sat phone and radio on the trail with your belt by the bear head, we're guessing he used a tranq of some sort before dragging you. Dolls and I managed to follow the trail until a blizzard hit and wiped his tracks, forcing us to either turn back or get stranded. Shapiro brought the polar bear head back here for Jeremy and started checking camera feeds in the area. It wasn't until a couple days later she got a ping from your watch. He had you in the gun vault of one of the abandoned ranger stations, off the unmarked trail near the old campsites. Apparently, whenever he would open the door to the vault, the signal from your watch would reach the tower out there, but up until Shapiro got the ping, the blizzard had knocked everything out.
"Once we had the coordinates, it took us a few days to drive out there. We didn't know what we'd find so we took the big truck and one of the snowmobiles. We parked the truck as close as we could and took the snowmobile until we were a mile out and hiked the rest of the way. When we got to the station, Dolls kept watch while I went in. I found the guy ripped to shreds and you, naked, covered in blood, and shaking like a fucking leaf.
"We brought you back here, cleaned you up, calledyoursister, put you in a room, and here we are. Now, introductions-"
"Wynonna, you called my sister?!" So much for grasping onto every word…
The wolf was oddly calm about the whole thing, but you, you were practically a livewire. You weren't completely sure if it was Wynonna you were mad at though, or if it was residual.
"If that's all you got out of that, then we need to have a talk about your-"
Dolls cut her off, "We told her you were attacked by a cougar, that you wandered into its territory-"
A cougar, seriously?
"That doesn't even make any fucking sense, I wouldn't have-"
"Would you rather us have told her that you were kidnapped by a man who fabricated and sold silver weapons to Hunters and used you, a werewolf, as a guinea pig for his own pleasure? That he was recording the entire thing to send to possible buyers as proof that his weapons worked? Or maybe you would've liked me to tell her you nearly died from silver poisoning, Nicole, and not from the multiple lacerations to your entire body, or the one that almost went through your heart? What about the fact that he shocked you with nearly-"
"Okay, Dolls, enough!"
You only realized you were growling, your hands balled into fists, when Eliza had to physically push Dolls back down into his chair and step in between the two of you. Wynonna stepped in and shoved you gently back against the wall and down to the ground, forcing the mug of eggnog into your hand and told you to drink it and fucking relax.
So you did.
And then she poured you another, leaving out the egg and just filled your cup up with whiskey and left you the bottle.
It took longer and a few more drinks than you anticipated to calm down, probably because you were actively ignoring the wolf and she wasn't outright pushing the anger down. When you were somewhat thinking clearly, and the rage was completely extinguished, it was immediately replaced with embarrassment and guilt and you thought maybe if you stared at the floor long enough, you would be able to will it to swallow you whole.
Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case and when you were forced to look up after a tap to your shin, you found yourself being immersed in a pair of dark eyes and a small smile, while everyone else seemed to be murmuring quietly from the other end of the room (you weren't sure when they all migrated over there, but you weren't complaining either). You pretended not to notice Wynonna glancing toward the two of you out of the corner of your eye.
"We already know who you are, but we're all a bunch of strangers to you. I'm Waverly Earp, lead researcher. Technically I'm the only researcher, but ya know, Dolls is Dolls." She sat down next to you, her shoulder a hair's width from yours, holding her hand out in front of her, waiting for you to shake it. You're not sure if it was you or the wolf that actually put your hand in hers, but you found yourself shaking her hand almost on autopilot, your eyes glued to the speck of brown in her irises.
"Earp?" You found yourself questioning as she - Waverly - dropped her hand back to her lap. You immediately missed the contact.
"Yeah, clearly Wynonna hasn't mentioned me…" She breathed a laugh and glanced towards Wynonna, breaking eye contact, her smile not really reaching her eyes.
"No, she has, it's just...been a long couple of weeks…" Waverly shook her head before meeting your gaze again and gently bumping her shoulder to yours.
"You don't have to cover for her."
"I'm not, she just...doesn't talk a lot about her home life. None of us do, really. Why do you think we choose to be here?" As soon as the words were out of your mouth, you realized how that might've come across and wished you could take them back, visibly grimacing. "Shit, sorry. I didn't mean it like that-"
"No, you're right. I can see the appeal. Lots of room to...run around, you know, stretch your legs, let your hair down." Your eyes went wide for a split second before you realized she was smiling at you. She was joking, it was a joke.
Jesus, lighten up, Nicole, she doesn't care.
"Funny. You're funny."
"I know, now come on and I'll introduce you to the others." You barely bit down a whine as she grabbed a hold of your wrist and practically dragged you across the room with a soft, "Oh, and nice scrubs, by the way." You didn't bother with a rebuttal.