She'd been in shock when she saw it happen, of course.
She'd locked up the arena office and went down to watch the third period, leaving some security guard named Bruce? Bryce? Bryan?—whatever his name was—to ensure the safety of the entrance, seeing as she hadn't had the opportunity to watch the a game not on the screen in the office all season. Gus had always had an extra seat next to hers tucked away and saved for Curtis' memory, right up in the front row of the right corner boards, his favorite place to watch games long before the small-town community rink had upgraded to the venue it was today. Her aunt had welcomed her to sit in the seat, an honor not bestowed upon anyone in the town of Purgatory.
It was all going so well, the Devils were winning, and she'd been texting her sister about the bet she'd made with Nicole. She hadn't expected things to go so wrong so quickly.
Her seating arrangement had given Wynonna a front row seat to the incident. She'd seen everything in the highest definition possible—Nicole trudging toward the puck, the sick look of deviance that Wynonna knew all too well on Jolene's face telling her that something bad was about to happen. And then there was the collision. She wasn't exactly which hit first, her head or her leg, but there was the unmistakable sound of bone snapping and helmet smacking into the wall. The one thing she hadn't heard was Nicole scream out or yelp or anything.
Wynonna had known Nicole now for a while and knew that she was as tough as they came. It was one of the things she respected most about her unlikely best friend. But she also knew that a collision that sounded like that would've hurt beyond anyone's pain tolerance. Wynonna stood up to get a better view once the scrum had cleared away, seeing the redhead laying on the ice, motionless, right leg bent at an odd angle, blood pouring from her chin and what looked like some other source she couldn't visualize. She hadn't screamed, or yelled, or cried, which could only mean that she'd been knocked unconscious almost immediately. (Part of Wynonna took solace in that thought, that Nicole hadn't really felt any of the pain, though she figured that it would be of little comfort to Waverly).
Her mind switched gears to her sister. Her sister who had just watched the love of her life be viciously attacked playing a game. Everything she'd been feeling, she knew Waverly was feeling and then some.
Gus joined her to look through the glass when Nedley and the training staff made it to the corner, clearing the few Devils players who had gathered around the area away. They'd tried to do as much as they could without moving Nicole, but quickly realized they wouldn't be able to do anything for her while she was unconscious. They spent the better part of the next ten minutes safely moving Nicole, first onto a backboard and then onto the stretcher. Doc realized that Wynonna had been in close proximity just as they were getting ready to roll the stretcher away, shaking his head at her with a look saying "This ain't good."
Part of her wanted to go find her sister, hold her close and tell her everything was going to be okay, but after what she'd seen, she wasn't quite sure what weight those words would hold. Part of her wanted to march straight onto the ice to give the bitch who hit Nicole a piece of her mind, or kick her ass—mostly the latter. But she felt paralyzed, unable to move from her spot, the reality of Nicole's injury still not fully taking effect, but still enough to envision all the bad things that could happen to her.
She was guided back down into the seat by Gus, who had tried her best to comfort her. Wynonna found herself irritated at the fact that they up and started the game like they hadn't just witnessed an attempted murder fifteen minutes earlier. Some logical part of her brain understood that the show must go on, and the rest of the game must be played out, but it didn't change her feeling that it was wrong to just go on like nothing happened. Instead, she sat in Curtis' seat, her head in her hands trying to forget the images she'd just seen and the things she'd just heard.
"'Nonna, your phone's ringing," Gus had told her. She'd heard it, felt the vibrations, and had half a mind to ignore the damn thing, not really in the mood to talk to anyone right now, but something was telling her that she'd needed to take this call. The number was an unknown one, which normally would've deterred her from answering, but she ignored the urge, pressing the accept button anyway.
The call was quick; she gave a few short replies and shot upward once it had ended.
"I gotta go," Gus looked at her curiously, but Wynonna didn't have time to explain. "You make sure Waverly's okay, alright?"
Her aunt had nodded, but if she answered verbally, Wynonna didn't know, taking off quickly toward her truck in the parking lot.
That's how she ended up at Northern Memorial Hospital, asking the nurse at the ER desk for Nicole Haught. The nurse had paged someone, presumably the doctor in charge of Nicole's case, and instructed her to wait in the waiting room for just a moment.
"Wynonna Earp?" she heard the doctor who'd just entered the room call her name, standing up to greet the woman.
"Uh, yeah, that's me."
"My name is Dr. Gloria Valdez, I'm in charge of Nicole's case here."
"Yeah, nice to meet you, you were the one I talked to on the phone, right?"
"I was."
"Why exactly did you call me, though?" She asked, still not quite sure. She hadn't thought to ask during the phone call, too hung up on the words, Nicole, hospital, and we need you to come.
"Oh," Dr. Valdez looked at her, confused. "Were you not aware?"
"No."
"Miss Haught listed you as her emergency contact, is this not correct?"
Under different circumstances, Wynonna would've probably been touched, maybe even honored, that Nicole had trusted her with this responsibility. Maybe she would've teased her about how terrible an idea it would be; maybe she would've told Nicole that if she ever ended up in the hospital it would've been because of something stupid they were doing together that Waverly certainly wouldn't have approved of.
The doctor looked at her expectantly.
"Yeah—I mean no…right, of course I'm the emergency contact."
The woman seemed skeptical, but handed her a clipboard regardless.
"I'm just going to need a quick medical history—allergies, previous injuries or procedures, any preexisting conditions we may need to know about."
Wynonna overlooked the paperwork, feeling slightly overwhelmed. She hadn't known any of this stuff about Nicole. Sure, they called each other best friend, but they'd never had casual conversations about their blood type or anything remotely that deep.
"I-I'm sorry, I don't know any of this." She said, flipping through the pages, feeling a little useless.
"Oh, well, do you know if she has any immediate family in the area? Maybe her parents or grandparents?"
Last she knew, her parents were in Edmonton, but also knew that there was a reason that Nicole hadn't put them as people to contact in a situation like this. Nicole had trusted her because she couldn't trust them, and wanted nothing to do with the people who had given such little care to her growing up.
"No, she doesn't have any."
Dr. Valdez thought over the interaction, taking back the clipboard from Wynonna.
"Okay, well, as emergency contact, you'll be in charge of any decisions regarding her care that Miss Haught cannot make for herself."
Wynonna nodded. Made enough sense to her, though she couldn't imagine how much help she could actually be.
"Uh…how is she right now? Do you know?"
"She is in serious condition right now, but the trauma team have gotten her stable enough to take her for a head CT, and then up for X-rays. We'll know more about our course of action once we get these scans back."
"Thank you."
The doctor excused herself, getting paged to another case, leaving Wynonna to sit in the sparsely populated waiting room.
She tried to distract herself by watching one of the televisions on the wall. The game had ended at some point during Wynonna's conversation with Dr. Valdez, the Devils holding on to a 3-2 win to advance to the second round in what Wynonna reckoned was an uneventful ending to game seven, all things considered.
She figured that a call to Gus was warranted, at least to explain what was going on and where she was.
"Wynonna, where on God's green earth did you run off to?"
"Hey, Gus. I'm at the hospital for Nicole. She named me as her emergency contact."
"Is she alright?"
"No, um, she's hurt real bad," she said bluntly. "Is Waverly okay? Is she with you?"
"I've got her but she ain't doin' too good herself."
That was to be expected, but she still couldn't help but feel for her sister.
"You keep an eye on her, yeah?"
"Of course Wynonna, what kind of guardian do you take me for?" The woman protested incredulously.
"Right, I'm just worried about her."
"Me too," Gus sighed over the receiver. "She's not herself. Robin and that reporter boy offered to clean up and lock up the arena, and I told her we could leave to go to the hospital, but she won't. She's as busy as a bee around here, I can't get her to stop."
Wynonna frowned, knowing Waverly would take this hard. It'd been similar when Ward and Willa died, six-year-old Waverly getting really interested in doing schoolwork and readings beyond the ones assigned by her teachers. She understood it now better than she had when she was twelve; Waverly, in order to distract herself, kept herself as busy as possible so that there was no time to think about the bad things going on. (She supposed it was a better strategy than Wynonna's rebellion and getting blackout drunk underneath the bleachers behind the high school).
"Okay, well, it's gonna be a while before we know anything for sure. I'm in the ER waiting room at Northern Memorial whenever you guys can get here."
"Alright, bye Wynonna."
She deposited her phone back into her pocket, slouching down into the barely padded seats, trying anything to take her mind off of the shit situation she found herself in. The first thing she really noticed was the fact that this hospital was much nicer than it probably should've been for its location. It was no big city hospital, but it definitely had capabilities and capacity beyond a small-town one. The second thing she noticed was the steady stream of idiots coming through the doors. It had been a little amusing to see some of the people come into the emergency room, most of them casualties from drunken shenanigans from tonight's game (it didn't matter if it was Friday night or Monday night, Purgatorians would find an excuse to get drunk and rowdy). Pete York entered the ER holding his bloody nose, his brother trailing behind him, brandishing bruised knuckles, both practically incoherent after most definitely spending the night at Shorty's; a few of the members of the Purg High '07 hockey team rolled in, blackout drunk, propping up one of their buddies who'd had the genius idea to show off his (lack of) parkour skills.
The stupidity of the townsfolk had offered her a little reprieve, but the uncertainty of Nicole's situation sat heavy in the pit of her stomach.
Wynonna turned back to one of three TV screens after the people coming through the ER doors stopped being funny. The local sports channel had been playing, showing highlights from the night's game. She turned away as the hit replayed on the television. She'd been there, she didn't need to see it again. But the universe had other plans. The second screen in the room had been tuned to a program that again showed a zoomed-in, slow motion version of the incident. The third had been the same, a national news program reporting on the pending disciplinary actions against the Bobcats' center, choosing to broadcast the images that had landed Nicole in the hospital. Wynonna felt like she'd entered some circle of hell, surrounded by a seemingly endless loop of the same images that would be burned into the back of her mind for life. She couldn't escape it, and it drove her crazy.
"Can't we put anything else on?" She snapped at no one in particular. "Turn this shit off, Jesus."
A nurse at the desk looked at her with an unimpressed scowl, but changed one of the televisions, nonetheless. Wynonna hadn't planned on watching TV, but she just couldn't be bombarded with the reminders right now.
Dr. Valdez walked through the door with a little too much purpose for Wynonna to think it would be good news.
"Wynonna," she called for her as she approached.
"Yeah, what's the news? How is she?" Wynonna bolted upright, meeting the doctor halfway.
"We have to take Nicole into surgery, now. Her blood pressure dropped dangerously low while we were in CT and she has some pretty significant internal bleeding and a punctured lung. They're prepping as we speak, but we need to inform you first as the contact person."
"What you need my consent?" She questioned, seeing enough Grey's Anatomy to know that internal bleeding, punctured lungs, and the words dangerously low, were more than serious. "Do the surgery, I don't know shit about this kind of stuff. Do what you have to, please."
Dr. Valdez nodded, informing her that they planned to send someone out to update her periodically, before taking off back through the door she came through. Pivoting to return to her seat, she caught sight of Waverly standing behind her, frozen, face dropping in abject despair.
"Waves," Wynonna said, frowning, a pitiful tone lacing her voice. Her sister had to have heard the conversation she'd just had with the doctor. The younger woman tried to respond, but could only muster a distressed squeak. Wynonna stepped toward her sister, pulling her tightly to her body as Waverly started to sob uncontrollably. She'd wanted to tell her not to worry, that everything would be okay, but she couldn't promise that. Her own tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as she caught sight of Gus behind Waverly, a look of pure sympathy on the woman's face.
"Babygirl, you're gonna put a hole in the floor if you don't stop." She said, the nonstop pacing of her sister starting to make Wynonna dizzy. She'd been partially successful in getting Waverly to calm down—she'd stopped crying, but the tears had been replaced by the inability (yet again) to sit still.
Waverly had almost knocked over the doctor who'd come to update them on Nicole's surgery as he walked through the ER doors. Wynonna wasn't too fond of the guy anyway. He came about 45 minutes after Wynonna spoke to Dr. Valdez, looked like he was maybe twelve years old, and provided practically no useful information.
("They've got her into the operating room and they're getting her under," the doctor looked down to check his notes. Wynonna couldn't help but roll her eyes. Was it this guys' first day, or did he just suck at his job? "She's bleeding internally, so they have to patch up the hole in her right lung."
Waverly thanked the guy as he scampered off back toward the OR, but Wynonna could only scoff. He literally hadn't provided any new information, and wasted everyone's time with this so-called update.)
Doc had found the three of them in the waiting room just before that, having already been at the hospital. Wynonna could tell he wanted to tell them everything that was wrong or could go wrong, but thought better of it, knowing that it wouldn't help anyone under these circumstances. Nedley joined them an hour and a half or so after the game ended; Wynonna knew that his presence extended beyond his professional responsibility for his player, the coach having an obvious connection with the redhead. A couple of the Devils had stopped into the hospital, taking up a few seats around the room, but Powers and Finning had joined the closer group that had since expanded to include Robin and Jeremy, Rosita and Kate following shortly thereafter. Internally, Wynonna couldn't help but laugh shortly thinking of how completely different this was compared to the last time this group had assembled—full of good cheer, strategizing and preparing for the playoffs.
They all sat, relatively silent, waiting for something, any sort of news, but as hours dragged on, they were left essentially completely in the dark.
Somewhere after midnight, roughly two and a half hours since Nicole had gone into surgery, Wynonna stood to stretch her joints, walking around the room, telling the visitors that it was probably going to be a while and that they could go home if they wanted to, seeing no need for people to sleep in the uncomfortable hospital chairs. The players debated, looked like they wanted to stay out of solidarity, but they'd had families to get home to, and really Wynonna understood. Nedley stood, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder and gave a curt nod as he left, looking to do the same for Waverly. Doc had tipped Gus his cap and placed a kiss to Wynonna's cheek before he left as well. Robin and Jeremy excused themselves around one in the morning, walking out of the hospital behind Powers and Finning who'd been uncharacteristically silent the entire time. There was one player who stayed, however. Wynonna debated taking a seat and talking to the woman, but thought against it for the moment, seeing that they'd clearly been shaken by the night's events.
She took a walk down the hallway instead, serving no other purpose than to get up and move around. She stopped at the coffee cart at the end of the corridor, purchasing four cups from the vendor who'd looked less than pleased to be there at this hour. Returning to the waiting room, she handed a cup to Gus before going to track down her sister. Wynonna was certain her sister must've walked well over a mile pacing the waiting room throughout the night, and she found the girl doing precisely that, right in front of the big window that looked out into the parking lot.
"Waverly," she approached gently, receiving no answer or even acknowledgement of her presence. She placed a hand on Waverly's shoulder to get her attention, her sister jumping slightly at the contact.
"Huh? What?" Waverly looked at Wynonna, startled. "Oh jeez, Wynonna you scared me."
"Why don't we go sit down for a while, yeah? Look I brought you coffee." She extended a one of the cups from the tray. Waverly just stared blankly at the cups, not giving any sort of response. "Come on, I know you're tired, it's been a long day and you haven't sat down since you got here. Let's go."
Hesitantly, the younger Earp reached her hand out to accept the offering.
"Wynonna?" She asked, voice much smaller.
"Yeah babygirl?"
"She's gonna be okay, right?" Before Wynonna could answer, Waverly was rambling away. "Because she might not be okay. I mean, people have had much less serious injuries end their career. What if she never plays again? Oh, god that'll kill her. Or-or-or, what if she's paralyzed—Wynonna, she hit her head against the wall, what if she can't walk again. What if—"
"—Is that going to change how you feel about her?" Wynonna interrupted, fighting the tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. Waverly was crying now, the most emotion she'd shown in the hours they'd been at the hospital. Wynonna knew she had to be the strong level-headed one. Her sister was watching her girlfriend hang in the balance; Nicole, stupid fucking idiot Nicole, had made her the one in charge of making decisions for her. Wynonna had to be the strong one, even though all she really wanted to do was crawl into a corner with a bottle of whiskey and stay there until everything went back to normal.
"No." Waverly shook her head in response.
"Then, we'll get through this. Together."
"But Wynonna, what if she dies?"
Well to that, Wynonna didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she could say to make it okay. She honestly didn't know what would happen if it came to that. So instead, she reached forward to her sister and pulled her in tightly, letting Waverly cry on her shoulder. They stood there for an indeterminate amount of time, but eventually, Waverly's crying died down.
"I'm tired Wynonna." She mumbled into her shoulder.
"Alright, let's go take a seat then." Wynonna led the way back to Gus in the waiting room, not even bothering to suggest that Waverly go home to sleep. That girl wouldn't leave this place until Nicole was walking out of it with her, that much Wynonna knew for sure. (Waverly was out like a light practically the second she settled into the seat, which Wynonna and Gus were grateful for.)
Wynonna left Waverly with Gus as she took her cup of coffee and the last remaining cup across the room to take the seat next to the last remaining Devil. Said woman looked up curiously, seeing the cup of coffee that Wynonna was offering her. Like Waverly, she looked at the cup hesitantly, only taking it when Wynonna nodded for her to do so.
"Thanks."
"Figured you could use one. Crazy night huh?" Wynonna said as the woman beside her nodded. "How are you doing? I mean, you were right there when it happened."
"I'm…" she sighed heavily, "it's a lot. It was scary. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel."
"You're supposed to feel whatever you need to. You don't need anyone to tell you how to feel." She said, surprising herself with how level-headed she sounded. Maybe Nicole was rubbing off on her more than she realized.
"It almost feels wrong, to sit here and be upset. Not when you and your sister care so much about her."
"Are you saying you don't care about her?"
"No, not at all."
"Then you're allowed to be upset. She's your teammate, you care about her too."
"I haven't been great at showing that lately." She said, looking down to the coffee cup in her hand.
Wynonna knew that, but that didn't matter now. There wasn't a lot of outside drama and noise that mattered right now.
"Past is past, that doesn't matter now. All that matters is what you do next."
"You know, you're nothing like your reputation around here." The woman half-smiled, nodding her head, still looking at the coffee cup. "You sound exactly like Haught."
"She's been a good influence I guess," she shrugged. "I promise I still live up to most of that reputation."
Wynonna could tell the woman had more she wanted to talk about, but she seemed to have noticed something just over Wynonna's shoulder and nodded her head in that direction. Turning around, she saw Dr. Valdez emerging through the doors.
"I, uh, gotta go see what she has to say." Wynonna pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. The woman beside her nodded, thanked her for the coffee, and let Wynonna go off.
There was a serious look about Dr. Valdez that made Wynonna nervous. As she approached the doctor, she glanced over to see Gus and her sister fast asleep. Part of her wanted Waverly to hear the update, knowing all the conclusions she'd been jumping to, but part of her was glad that she'd be able to take in the information without the sad, terrified, puppy dog eyes of her sister listening in on the conversation.
"Wynonna," the Doctor said as she finally reached her.
"How is she? Is she out of surgery? It's been hours, are there any updates?"
"I want to apologize for not getting you all any more updates, there was a complication in the surgery an—"
"Complication?" She asked, keeping her voice level despite the fear that had started to surge through her. "W-what do you mean?"
"She's allergic to the thiopental—the anesthetic we used," she revised, seeing the question forming in Wynonna's head before she could ask it. "She had a severe anaphylactic reaction to the medication, and it took us some time to restabilize."
"But you did, right?" She couldn't help but feel the guilt rise in her chest. She was the emergency contact. She was supposed to fill out the paperwork; the paperwork that would've told the doctors not to give her the thio-whatever that could've killed her. But she hadn't known anything of the sort, and it almost cost her her best friend and her sister her girlfriend.
"We did, but it took longer than expected to get her back." The doctor confirmed, Wynonna only slightly releasing a sigh of relief. "She was bleeding in both her chest and abdomen. We were able to repair the tear in her lung and stop the bleeding, but she did lose quite a lot of blood."
"Okay, but what about her other injuries?" She asked, knowing there definitely had to be more.
"On top of her internal injuries, Nicole also broke bones in her lower leg and in her ankle and suffered damage to the ligaments in her knee, all of which will require surgery. Unfortunately, because of the trauma and the bleeding, her body was too weak for us to proceed with any procedure tonight. We addressed the pressing injuries, and we'll be monitoring her over the twenty-four hours. If Nicole remains stable, we'll take her back into surgery to repair the leg and ankle."
Wynonna nodded, taking in the scope of Nicole's injuries. She'd seen the incident and the aftermath, so she knew that it would be a lot, but having the magnitude of it all explained to her was almost jaw-dropping.
"The blood." She said, almost as if she'd suddenly remembered it.
"I'm sorry, the blood?" Dr. Valdez asked, begging for clarification.
"She was bleeding, there was blood on the ice." Wynonna explained. "She was bleeding from her chin, but somewhere else too, I think. There was a lot of blood."
"The existing laceration on Nicole's chin had been reopened when she came in, and we feared that the blood around her ear may have been the result of a skull fractu—"
"—A skull fracture? Jesus Christ." She interrupted, unable to hold back her shock.
"We feared it may have been a skull fracture," Dr. Valdez repeated, shifting her tone, "but the x-ray cleared that, and instead it was just a superficial cut just behind her right ear, that could've easily been from a skate or a stick from the incident. Just a couple of stitches, should dissolve in seven to ten days."
Wynonna took a deep breath, relieved that at least something seemed to be minor. There hadn't been much of that tonight—or this morning now, she supposed.
"Where is she now?"
"She was in recovery when I left her, but…" she turned to her watch, "she should be in Intensive Care by now."
"Can we see her?" Wynonna nodded over her shoulder to the two asleep in the waiting room. "Or is that not allowed?"
"I can give you a few minutes, but just you for now." She told her with a sympathetic smile. "Visiting hours start at 11 AM, and we'll allow for any family to accompany you then."
She nodded in understanding, following the doctor up to the ICU floor. The sterile hospital smell intensified as they approached the unit, the overhead fluorescent lights far too bright for her liking. It felt like she was entering a parallel universe with each step she took behind Dr. Valdez. The whirring of the automatic door echoed loudly in her head, the beeping of electronic monitors and machines adding to the cacophony of unpleasant sounds.
Dr. Valdez stopped in front of a door and turned to face Wynonna.
"I can give you five minutes, but no more. It's important that we keep her stable and let her body rest."
Wynonna nodded in understanding, the doctor pushing open the door.
Even for a hospital room, it felt far too clinical. Too many machines and too many wires; the smell of antiseptic burning at her nostrils; the sight of her best friend in a hospital bed, looking very much not like the woman she knew; it was all too much.
The doctor entered first, using this opportunity to look over Nicole's vitals and readings on all the monitors. When she noticed Wynonna standing timidly still in the doorway, she waved her in.
"Come on in," she said soothingly, "I promise everything in here is for good. You being here won't break her."
Somewhere subconsciously she snickered. That was her exact fear—she'd been terrified to do any more harm to the already battered woman in the bed in front of her.
She took a few hesitant steps toward the doctor, who was checking the tube protruding from the redhead's lips. Seemingly satisfied by all the numbers (Wynonna certainly had no clue what they meant), she walked toward the door, saying that she'd give the two their time.
Upon hearing the door close, Wynonna felt a surge of something she couldn't quite name run right through her. From where she sat beside Nicole, she could see the new stitches they'd put in her chin; her skin was uncharacteristically pale, except for the faint remnants of blood around the wound. Less clearly, she caught a glimpse of the fresh stitches they'd put behind her ear, dangerously close to her throat. If it had been a skate like Dr. Valdez suggested it may have been, there could've easily been a more serious injury if it had caught Nicole even a couple inches lower. She took note of the tubes and IVs and wires that littered her body, unable to suppress her chuckle, thinking about the mess it would be to undo those wires if they got tangled up like headphone wires. Through a slit in the hospital gown, she could see a bandage wrapped around a thin plastic tube sticking out from between her ribs, and further down she could see it was connected to a bag filled with what looked like blood. Her right leg was splinted and braced, still yet to be operated on.
The reality of the situation was dire, Wynonna knew, and the weight of her role weighed heavy on her shoulders. She didn't know enough to be of any use to Nicole, but the redhead had put her in charge anyway.
"Damn it Haught," Wynonna sighed, "I need you to wake up soon. I have no clue what I'm doing here, and I don't know if what I do is helping or hurting." She searched Nicole's face for any sign of recognition, but was met only with closed eyes and the faint movement of her chest in time with the machine breathing for her. She was only glad Waverly wasn't here to see this right now; she wasn't sure how the girl would react. "You need to wake up, Haught. If not for me, then for Waverly. Because if you don't, it'll break her, and I don't know if she'll ever be okay. That girl loves you, more than I've seen anyone love anyone or anything." Wynonna cleared her throat and wiped at her eyes. She'd never truly been comfortable with showing emotions. It'd always been easier to crack a joke or a bottle. And since it was generally frowned upon to get drunk in a hospital…"And, you gotta wake up, because when you do, I'm gonna draw a bunch of dicks all over your cast."
Dr. Valdez knocked on the door, signifying that Wynonna needed to leave the room. She bid Nicole a "see you later", and followed the doctor back downstairs to the waiting room.
CEWHL (CEWHL)
Purgatory forward Nicole Haught hospitalized following a scary incident in the third period of Game 7 against Brandon. At this time there is no update on her condition.
22 Apr—10:45 PM MST
EDMONTON DRILLERS (drillersCEWHL)
Thoughts and well wishes go out to the family and friends of Nicole Haught
22 Apr—11:15 PM MST
PRINCE ALBERT RANGERS (rangersCEWHL)
On behalf of the entire Rangers fanbase and organization, we wish all the best for Nicole Haught and a speedy recovery
23 Apr—12:21 AM CST
PURGATORY BLUE DEVILS (bluedevilsCEWHL)
Many thanks to each and every single team, player, fan or otherwise for sending their well wishes. As of right now, we have no updates on Haught's condition, but we will make a statement at the appropriate time. At this time, we ask for continued respect of the family's privacy in these uncertain times.
23 Apr—6:55 AM MST
She must've dozed off at some point, because when she woke up at 7:30 with a knot the size of Texas in her neck and back, she found that Waverly had rose before her with the same inability to sit still, but thankfully wasn't pacing the halls and making Wynonna dizzy. Wynonna laughed as she watched her sister track down and harass just about anyone who could explain Nicole's condition to her. By 9:00, Waverly had burrowed herself into a stack of medical books, chewing on her nails as she read through the pages, her knee bobbing up and down.
Much of last night's crew had returned to the waiting area, all curious about Nicole's status. Wynonna had filled them in with as much as she could tell them, and they all sat somberly, doing the only thing that they could do—wait.
Under normal circumstances, today's off day would've been a reward for coming out on top in a hard-fought seven game playoff series, but the Devils weren't exactly in a celebratory mood. It felt more like their season had ended, but the team would have to gear up and prepare to take on Prince Albert in just three days' time. The league had been sympathetic to their situation, and scheduled the first day of the second round to be a day later than originally planned—it didn't seem like much, but Wynonna could tell that the players appreciated the gesture.
While most of the Devils had gone home and come back, Wynonna quickly realized that one had never actually left—the same one she'd spoken to last night. She took a seat next to the woman.
"You stayed, huh?"
"Uh, yeah." She yawned, shifting in her seat slightly. "It's not much, but you're right."
Wynonna furrowed her brow, confused. She loved being told she was right, but couldn't place what she'd said to warrant it this time.
"Right about what, exactly?"
"It's not about what you did in the past, it's about what you do going forward," she clarified; Wynonna nodded in understanding, vaguely remembering saying something that sounded vaguely like a bumper sticker. "I figured I'd start somewhere. Show I actually do care, no matter how awful I've been."
"I know I don't really know you all that well, and I only know what Red Haught's told me, so I won't lie and say that I didn't hate you just a little bit," she used her index finger and thumb to demonstrate, "but I think that in the spirit of healing we can put the past behind us." The woman gave a small smile, nodding her agreement, wincing slightly, and taking her hand to her left eye. "You should see if you can't get an ice pack or something on that."
"Yeah, maybe I should," she hissed as she pressed lightly on the darkening shiner on her cheek and underneath the eye.
"What you did last night, that was badass by the way." Wynonna nodded, standing up.
"Just being a good teammate for once."
As the woman made her way to locate anyone who could get her an icepack, Wynonna returned back to where she'd been sitting for most of the last few hours to see Powers and Finning struggling to keep up with Waverly's rapid explanation of something in one of the books she was reading.
"…and this here, it's called hemopneumothorax. It happens when the pleural space—that's the space around the lungs, between the visceral membrane which is attached to the lungs and the parietal membrane attached to the chest wall." (It would've almost been funny, watching the two forwards stare blankly at Waverly as she explained, if the situation hadn't been so serious). "There's all this fluid in the pleural space—"
"—Let me guess, it's called pleural fluid?" Finning interjected proudly.
"It is!" Waverly confirmed; Vic and Shan hi-fived each other. "The pleural fluid holds these membranes together because of surface tension, so when the chest wall is injured—like from Nicole's broken ribs—the pleural space can start to fill with either air, blood, or both. Since the surface tension and the pressure in the pleural space is disrupted, the two membranes can't function properly, and the lung can't expand and respiration isn't possible, and so the lung collapses."
The two nodded at Waverly, but Wynonna had spent enough time not paying attention in high school to know that the looks on their faces meant that they hadn't really understood a word she said.
"Hey babygirl," Wynonna said once Waverly had finally reached a pause in her explanations. "What're we talking about?" (She'd already known, she'd heard everything, but she needed a way to officially join the conversation. Especially when Waverly seemed to have known more about what was going on than the doctors had explained to her).
"Dr. Cernak told me about some of Nicole's injuries," she pointed to a young-looking doctor across the room, "and then I snagged some medical textbooks and got to reading. I was just about to explain what they were doing in surgery last night to Vic and Shan here."
Wynonna thought about asking her sister where she even managed to get the books, but her sister seemed to be in an okay mood all things considered, and didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"Yeah, she was telling us all about the New-Homo-Lorax." Vic said, pointing to the book in Waverly's lap that had to have weighed ten pounds at the very least.
"Hemopneumothorax," her sister corrected.
"Same thing."
"No it's not, idiot." Finning teased; Wynonna snorted at the interaction, feeling maybe a bit too light under the current circumstances, but she supposed it was better than wallowing in sadness and uncertainty.
"Alright, shoot Waves, tell me more about this thingy," Wynonna added from beside the girl.
"It's not so much a thingy," she said pointedly, "as it is a combination of two conditions. Hemopneumothorax happens under trauma to the ribcage area, either from penetrating trauma like stabbing or blunt force trauma from heavy impacts like car crashes. It's a combination of pneumothorax—air in the chest cavity, and hemothorax—blood in the chest cavity…"
Wynonna tried to pay attention, she really did, but Waverly's essentially manic rambling had started to sound like her high school teachers' unbearable droning, and she found herself zoning out. She caught bits and pieces here and there. Words like intercostal and thoracostomy floated in and out of her ears before she saw her sister change books and start talking about tibias, fibulas, and the differences between ligaments in the ankle and the knee.
Somewhere in her zoning out, she noticed the time was approaching 11 am just as Dr. Valdez reentered the room. She had no hesitation in getting up to see meet the doctor halfway.
"Good morning, Wynonna." She greeted.
"Morning."
"Visiting hours rules," the doctor handed her a pamphlet with instructions and regulations. "Right now, it'll be just family allowed, two at a time in the room, okay?"
"Yeah, makes sense." She nodded. "My sister, she's not technically Nicole's family, but she's the closest thing, is she able to come up with me?"
"Waverly Earp, right?" Dr. Valdez looked at her clipboard. Wynonna nodded again. "It looks like Nicole has listed her as family, as well as a Gus Gibson, Jeremy Chetri, Doc Holliday, Rosita Bustillos, Kate Cummings and a Randy Nedley, so they are all eligible to go up, as long as you all follow the two at a time rule."
"Perfect, can Waverly and I go up now?"
"Of course. I'd be happy to bring the both of you up, if you want to grab your sister."
Wynonna nodded and went over to pull Waverly away from her books, earning a confused grumble from the younger woman who had just gotten into a discussion about concussions—something that Vic and Shan finally seemed to know about.
The sisters followed the doctor along the path to the ICU, Waverly growing more and more silent as they drew nearer to the room. Wynonna could empathize with the change in demeanor, remembering her own intimidation at the unfamiliar environment.
Standing in front of the door, Wynonna squeezed her sister's hand, seeing the nerves and anxiety painted all over the younger woman's face. Waverly stood for a moment, gathering herself before she nodded to Wynonna for them to enter.
She entered first, already knowing what to expect, making her way to one of the seats beside the bed. It wasn't easier to be here the second time around per se, but she wasn't in as much shock as she was on her first visit. She heard a muffled squeak from the doorway, which she knew had come from Waverly. How Wynonna wished for her sister to pace the hallway or to ramble on and on about something from one of those books right about now, because she wasn't sure anything could be worse than the look of destruction on Waverly's face, intensifying as she stepped further into the room. She felt her heart shatter in a way she didn't think possible anymore as she watched Waverly choke on silent sobs at the sight of her girlfriend in this condition.
This wasn't her Nicole; wasn't anyone's Nicole. Lying here broken and unconscious, silent and unimaginably vulnerable—that just wasn't any way to imagine or describe Nicole Haught.
"Waves," she stood to cross to the other side of the bed, embracing her sister in a tight hug hoping it would calm her down even a little bit.
"Wynonna, it's not fair. This isn't fair," the younger Earp said, broken and muffled through sobs.
"I know it's not, babygirl. I know."
Another few minutes of tears passed before Waverly finally, determinedly took a deep breath. She wiped her eyes and pulled the chair near her closer to the bed, sitting in it. It looked like she did the same physical assessment that Wynonna had gone through, eyes focusing on the stitches on her face before migrating to the splinted leg and back to the tubes protruding from Nicole's mouth and side. Wynonna was sure she heard Waverly mumble some medical mumbo-jumbo that she had just read about under her breath.
She took Nicole's right hand in her own, looking her girlfriend with glassy eyes.
"You've got yourself in quite the mess now, haven't you?" She mustered a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes and a watery half-laugh. "You listen to me, and you listen to me good Nicole, you better wake your stupid, stubborn, cute-as-hell ass up because I need you with me. I love you, more than I ever thought possible, and I need you. And Wynonna, she needs you, no matter how much she'll try to deny it," she looked up at Wynonna who met her with a pained, tight-lipped smile and a short nod, "and you've got so many goals to score, and championships to win missy."
Waverly brought the pale hand to her lips, pressing a kiss to Nicole's knuckles, squeezing her eyes shut, allowing a tear to track down her cheek.
Dr. Valdez knocked on the door before entering, getting the attention of both sisters.
"We started to wean her off of the propofol about half an hour ago, so we're hoping she'll come around sometime before this evening. I'd like to check her vitals and oxygen sats to see if we can remove her from the ventilator shortly." The Earp girls both nodded at the doctor's explanation. "Her vitals have held steady overnight, which is good, but we'd hoped to see a little more improvement."
Waverly chewed on her bottom lip nervously as the doctor spoke.
"I-is that a bad thing?"
"Not necessarily, her body has undergone a serious trauma, so there isn't really a solid time clock we can put on her improvement or recovery."
"Okay. What about her leg? Or her head?" Waverly asked. "Is there any new updates on those?"
"Nicole sustained a Grade 3 concussion. Her head CT was clear, there were no signs of bleeding or swelling, which again is good, but we won't know about any long-term impacts on memory or motor function until she wakes up." Well, Wynonna didn't like the sound of that at all. She and her sister both knew that paralysis was always a possibility, but the uncertainty still hurt. "As for her leg, she sustained displaced fractures to the lower parts of both her tibia and fibula, hairline fractures to the lateral malleolus and cuboid bones, as well as partial tears to the anterior tibiofibular and calcaneofibular ligaments of her ankle and a complete tear in her anterior cruciate ligament, and sprains to the lateral collateral ligament and patellar tendon. We weren't able to operate last night, but out goal is to do so in the morning if she continues to improve and remain stable."
That was certainly a lot to take in. Some of those were words she recognized from Waverly's anatomy crash course in the waiting room, but hearing them from a doctor mad them sound scarier. Wynonna knew it was a serious injury, but never did she realize so much could go wrong in one area.
"Okay, thank you Dr. Valdez," Waverly said, clearing her throat, trying to stay strong, though Wynonna could see the tension rising in her sister's chest.
"I'm really sorry it's not great news, but it is an improvement from where she was last night."
The doctor excused herself, again leaving the sisters alone with Nicole.
Waverly looked at her girlfriend, squeezing her hand. Wynonna retook the seat on the left side of the bed.
"You just can't do anything small, can ya Haught?" She teased the unconscious redhead.
"That's my baby," Waverly mused, now standing to place push a lock of red hair behind Nicole's ear, placing a kiss to her forehead. "Always the overachiever."