She's not exactly sure how long she sits there, waiting. She knows it's a while, judging by the way Wynonna, Gus, Doc, Nedley, Rosita, Kate and Jeremy have all come and gone, but exactly how long, Waverly can't say. Not that she minds; she'd wait until the end of eternity and then some for Nicole Haught.
Part of her thought she might've been fine, seeing Nicole in whatever shape she was in, but reality was much harsher than her imagination and she was admittedly barely holding it together. How could she? Not when her girlfriend was attached to a machine breathing for her while another tube drained the blood out of her lungs.
It wasn't fair; not in the slightest. Nicole worked so hard to get to where she was, her efforts paying off as evidenced by her performances in the regular season but especially in the playoffs. She was on pace to set even more records, and not just the rookie ones. Nicole was flying high up until that Jolene bitch came around and blew her right out of the sky like it was nothing. As far as Waverly knew, Jolene had escaped the scrum after the hit with just a black eye and a busted nose. She hadn't wanted the woman to be hurt back, necessarily. (An eye for an eye does make the world go blind, after all). No, she just wanted some semblance of justice—equality even—in this situation. Maybe all Waverly really wanted was for Nicole not to be as bad off as she was.
A tap on her shoulder and a cup of coffee being placed right in her eye level broke her out of her thoughts.
"How's the creepy staring going?" Wynonna teased, making sure she took the coffee. (Among other reasons, Waverly wanted Nicole to wake up so that she wouldn't have to drink the sorry excuse for coffee that this place forced on them. To say it tasted like dirt diluted with lukewarm water would've been generous).
"It's not creepy," she pouted, "nor is it staring. I'm sitting at Nicole's bedside because I care about her. Because I love her."
"I know babygirl, I'm just…" Wynonna trailed off, resuming her seat across the bed, biting the inside of her cheek sadly.
"Yeah, I know." Waverly understood. They both had their ways of avoiding their emotions. Waverly buried herself into anything that could keep her mind busy; Wynonna used jokes and humor as distraction. "Have you heard anything new from the doctors?"
"No, not really." She said, eyes trained on Nicole's face. "They're gonna be kicking us out in about fifteen minutes though."
Waverly looked up at the clock, seeing the time tick toward 4 pm. She had read over the pamphlet that Dr. Valdez provided them at least thirty times, trying to keep herself distracted. From 4 to 5 they'd have to be out of the room to allow the nurses to do their work, and allow the doctors to run any sort of test they may need. Waverly held onto the hope that Nicole would be awake by the time she was allowed back in the room. After all, Dr. Valdez had said they were taking Nicole off the sedative and were hopeful she'd come around by the evening.
"You think she'll wake up soon?" Wynonna asked when the silence overtook them. She'd always been good at sensing what Waverly was feeling, but she was starting to wonder if her sister had mind reading powers.
"I hope so."
"She better," Wynonna quipped, "we made a bet, and Wynonna Earp always follows through on her bets."
"Not exactly sure what she'll be able to do with that $50, 'Nonna." She grumbled a little bit more bitterly than intended.
"Right." Her sister mumbled, averting her eyes downward.
A tense silence fell between them again. She hadn't meant to come off rude, but she could tell her sister had been a little hurt by her tone. The anxiety of the uncertainty was eating at them, emotions were high, the hospital coffee sucked and both of them had spent the night on arguably the least comfortable chairs in the world.
Dr. Valdez' gentle knock on the door informed them that they needed to leave the room for the next hour. She followed Wynonna back down to the waiting room, seeing their tight-knit crew taking up the corner of the room. The Devils, minus Powers and Finning, had gone home—which Waverly suspected Wynonna told them to do, seeing no need to take up everyone's day and all the seats in the waiting room for a sleeping redhead. (If Waverly knew her sister, which she did, she probably said it exactly that way). One remained, off just outside the pack, which Waverly found odd.
"Wynonna," she asked, getting her sister's attention. Wynonna hummed in response, facing Waverly as they approached their seats. "How long has she been here?" She nodded over in the direction of the outlier. Last night Waverly hadn't been any mindset to notice who was here and who wasn't.
"The whole time."
"She didn't go home?"
"That is what I mean by the whole time."
"Hmm," Waverly considered this information. The woman hadn't exactly been her favorite character in this narrative, but surely there had to be a reason she stayed when everyone else left.
She left Wynonna as she rejoined the group, walking over to one of the empty seats surrounding the woman sitting all alone.
"Hey, this seat taken?" She greeted, not sure how to approach this conversation.
"No, all yours."
Waverly took the seat, but struggled to find words to say to the woman across from her. What could she say? She hardly knew the woman, but couldn't help but hate her. It wasn't very Nicest Person in Purgatory of her, she knew that.
"Why did you stay?" Had been her first thought, though she was thinking of a way to say that that didn't come off rude or standoffish. The look on the woman's face, however, told Waverly that she had said it aloud instead of just thinking it.
"I wanted to show I care. Like I told Wynonna, I know it's not much, but I should probably start somewhere."
"You wanted to show you care?" Waverly asked dryly, confused and maybe even a little taken aback. "You made my girlfriend's life a living hell, Shae. I think it might take a little more than sitting at the hospital to make up for that."
Shae didn't look surprised by her tone in the slightest, almost like she'd been expecting it. She wondered if Wynonna had already laid into her last night. Maybe that was why she was nursing a black eye.
"And I get that, and you have every right to hate me. I'm not making excuses for the way I acted, all I want to do is do better going forward."
Waverly crossed her arms, reading the captain's face. She needed to decipher whether or not Shae meant what she was saying or if she was just saying what she thought Waverly would want to hear.
"You said that to Wynonna last night?"
"Mhm," Shae nodded.
"And what did Wynonna say?"
"Wynonna was," Shae paused to find the phrasing, "nicer than I thought she'd be about it. Actually said that it was in the spirit of healing to focus on doing good going forward."
Waverly furrowed her brow. That didn't sound like her sister at all.
"Wynonna didn't kick your ass?"
"No," Shae laughed under her breath, "but I was expecting her to. Your reaction was more along the lines of what I thought might happen."
Wynonna not choosing violence was one thing, but choosing peace? Maybe there was a mature bone in her body after all.
"So if my sister didn't give you that," she pointed to the shiner, "then who did?"
"Jolene." She answered as if Waverly would understand. (Maybe she should've, but the rest of that game was a blur, and her memories of last night were spotty at best).
"I-I'm sorry, I don't kn—"
"I was right there when it happened last night," Shae started, "there was a mass scramble to get a piece of that bitch, but she was still on top of Haught—Nicole—and she was right in the way of the fight that was about to happen. I guess she got a good swing in as I pulled her out of the corner."
"So you—"
"—She kicked the shit out of Jolene is what she did." Wynonna jumped in, seemingly out of nowhere.
Waverly looked to Shae for any sort of confirmation, the woman shrugging her shoulders slightly.
"I wouldn't say I kicked her ass, so much as I was defending a teammate."
"Bullshit," Wynonna said, slapping Shae lightly on the shoulder, "you threw your hands around like the best of them. Tie Domi would've been proud."
Waverly pondered this. She couldn't remember anything that happened around that scene last night other than seeing Nicole hit the wall and then the ice. She tried to think back, bring back her memories of the scene. She knew there had been an altercation, but hadn't been able to register who was involved.
On her phone, Wynonna had video of the fight. She started it just after Nicole had been hit, and even though she hadn't seen it again, Waverly cringed at the mere mention of it. Waverly watched the captain sprint in, grab Jolene by the collar of her jersey and pull her off of her girlfriend lying motionless in the corner. She saw where Jolene swung on Shae, the winger taken aback for a split second before shaking her own gloves off and socking her opponent square in the face. The Devils' captain landed a few big haymakers in fairly rapid succession before taking Jolene down to the ice, skating away from the scene, pure rage on her face, but also concern. Even after the fight, Shae had been directing the players away from Nicole in the corner, a level of protection that Waverly wasn't sure the captain was capable of showing.
"Thank you," Waverly said after a beat. "You protected her, so thank you."
Something in her told her that Shae's actions weren't for show, or even to fulfill a duty as captain, but were done out of actual caring. She decided that if Wynonna had changed her opinion on the woman so quickly and so easily, then it had been for good reason. While all wasn't forgiven just like that, Waverly decided that not hating Shae could be a good first step.
Shae nodded her head.
Waverly bit the inside of her cheek, looking past Shae, back to Doc, Nedley, Shan and Vic across the room. In the spirit of healing (Wynonna's words, apparently), she decided to take another step.
"Shae, do you maybe wanna join the group over there?" She motioned toward the others. Shae looked surprised at the invitation. "We're all here for the same reason, no sense in sitting alone. Plus, company's good for the sanity, that's what Gus always says."
Shae glanced between the two sisters, Wynonna nodding her approval before she finally agreed. The three of them stood and crossed over to the circle of friends in the middle of the waiting room. Shan and Vic eyed the woman curiously as she approached, but Wynonna was quick to defuse their suspicion. Nedley welcomed his captain to their powwow. Any awkwardness or objection to the controversial figure that was Shae Pressman was concealed well, and the group sat, making small talk as they waited for news, Waverly and Wynonna waiting for 5 o'clock so that they could return to Nicole's bedside.
"Hey, where'd Gus go?" Wynonna asked, noticing the absence of her aunt.
"Said she had to run back home right quick," Nedley explained, "Shower, get some fresh clothes I reckon."
Her sister nodded, though Waverly knew Wynonna would probably text Gus and tell her not to worry about rushing back for the night. God knows that woman was a saint for spending the night with them in the hospital for a girl who wasn't even her blood.
"I oughtta head out," Nedley said, standing up. "Make sure that cat of hers is fed."
Waverly knew that even though Nedley would say he hated that cat, he secretly loved Calamity Jane. She found it endearing that Nedley would go above and beyond the duty of coach to make sure that he could do something to help Nicole out.
Sometime shortly thereafter, Waverly watched Dolls strut in, stick up his ass looking bigger than usual, headed straight for the nurse at the desk. When the nurse stood up, peered over the desk and then pointed in their direction, Waverly couldn't help but wonder what the hell he could possibly want.
"Waverly, Wynonna, I need to speak with you two," he addressed them, hardly looking away from his phone, which had been buzzing pretty much nonstop.
Wynonna stood, following the GM, Waverly lock-in-step behind her.
"What do you need to talk about, big man?" Wynonna asked once they were secluded enough.
"I think we should put out a statement," Dolls said bluntly. "Appease the media, get them off our backs."
On the list of things Waverly was worried about right now, appeasing the media was so far at the bottom it may as well not even be on the list at all. She couldn't quite find any scenario in which she gave a rat's ass what the media thought; didn't quite care if they wanted a scrap of information to beat to death on the nightly news. There were bigger, more important things to worry about.
"With all due respect, I don't really care what the media wants," she responded, just as bluntly as Dolls had been. The executive quirked an eyebrow at her, surprised at the way Waverly had addressed him, silencing a phone call he was getting.
"Right, but they're not really taking whether or not you care into consideration. They're gonna get what they want, even if they've got to push and pry to do it," Dolls countered. "You're friends with that kid from the paper aren't you. What's his name, Jimmy? Jackson? Jethro?"
"Jeremy." She said flatly, rolling her eyes.
"Right, either way. Haven't you seen him doing whatever he could to get his stories?"
"Well yeah," Waverly conceded begrudgingly. "But he's not right now, because Nicole's his friend. And he cares, which I thought you might too, considering she's one of your players."
"I do care," Dolls rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Believe me, as far as players go, Nicole's one of the nicest ones I've worked with. But at the end of the day, it's my job to protect every single member of this team and to deal with the media image of this club."
"Okay, but she's a person too. With friends and family that care about her. Those reporters out there are just looking for their paycheck while she's lying unconscious in a hospital bed. I don't really care about appeasing the media just so they can play the same sixty-second soundbite on repeat for the next three weeks."
"Look, the media are vultures; they're all but beating down that hospital door as we speak." Dolls explained, his phone ringing yet again. He looked down to see who it was, holding up the screen to show the sisters. "Vance Kerr, CEWHL Network. You wanna guess how many times he's called me today trying to get a story?" Wynonna shook her head; Waverly couldn't really bring herself to care. "Just hear me out, we can put out a vague statement—say Nicole's sustained a lower body injury and is waiting further assessment. Not much, but enough to get us some breathing room."
"Babygirl," Wynonna looked at her with a big-sisterly look on her face, "getting the media to go away now will be one less thing we have to worry about when Nicole wakes up. Vic and Shan said they were mobbed leaving last night and coming in again this morning, don't you think that's a headache we should avoid?"
"Yeah, I guess." She sighed, knowing it was for the best. Wynonna was being oddly mature over the last day or so, and Waverly decided to roll with it. (They were decisions she would've made on her own if she were in her right mind anyway). "Go ahead, do the statement, but keep it vague, and make it clear that we want our privacy, please."
Dolls nodded, already furiously typing away, leaving the lobby and the sisters alone.
"You'd think he'd show some sort of sympathy," Waverly grumbled as they returned to the group yet again.
"I don't think they programmed him with that capability," Wynonna cracked. "Maybe it'll come with his next software update."
"Dolls doesn't have the emotional storage for that sort of update," Powers chimed in, hearing Wynonna's comment.
Waverly might've laughed, but an announcement over the loudspeaker had taken up all of her attention.
"Dr. Gloria Valdez to room 414. Dr. Gloria Valdez, 414."
That was Nicole's room. Why would they page Dr. Valdez to Nicole's room? Had something gone wrong? Or was it a good thing—had Nicole woken up? They all looked around at each other, silently wondering what could be going on up there. Moments later, another announcement came over the speaker.
"Code blue, ICU. Code blue, ICU."
Her heart dropped to the floor, her chest tightening with the anxiety. Some (not insignificant) part of her figured that it had to be Nicole, and her world started to blur around the edges. It couldn't be her. She couldn't be dying. She had to be okay. But, they'd called her doctor to her room, and then there was a code blue called, and Waverly couldn't logically dismiss it as a coincidence.
"It's the ICU, there's a lot of sick patients up there. We don't know it's her." She felt a hand on her shoulder, Shae of all people trying to comfort her. She appreciated the gesture, but wouldn't believe it until she saw it with her own two eyes.
PURGATORY BLUE DEVILS OFFICIAL STATEMENT
[PURGATORY, AB]— Purgatory Blue Devils center Nicole Haught sustained lower and upper body injuries and is currently in stable condition as she recovers. We will continue to monitor the situation, but the family requests full privacy from the media as Nicole continues her recovery. This will be the only statement on this matter.
The team will continue with its preparations for the second round of the playoffs as scheduled. Game 1 against the Prince Albert Rangers will be played Friday, April 26 at the Wyatt Earp Memorial Coliseum at 7 PM MST.
CEWHL DEPARTMENT OF PLAYER SAFETY
[OTTAWA, ON]— The Department of Player Safety has ruled today (Tuesday, April 23) to suspend Brandon Bobcats' center, Jolene DiMoni, for her hit on Purgatory Blue Devils forward, Nicole Haught. The incident occurred with 9:21 remaining in the third period of Game 7 on Monday night. DiMoni was charged with a 2-minute minor penalty for boarding, a game misconduct penalty, and also a 5-minute major for fighting in a subsequent altercation with Blue Devils' captain, Shae Pressman.
DiMoni, a repeat offender, will serve a 41-game (half-season) suspension starting at the beginning of the upcoming regular season, and will additionally be fined $7,500 for the infraction.
The first time Nicole wakes up, it's less than ideal.
It had taken all the restraint in the world not to sprint upstairs the second the clock struck five. She'd wanted to see what was going on one way or another, but also realized that this was a hospital, and some level of decorum was necessary. People were trying to heal after all.
She broke into a slight jog past Wynonna as they reached the fourth floor, skidding to a halt just outside 414. With the door closed, she braced herself for whatever would be waiting for her behind it. The last half hour or so had sent her anxiety through the roof, though she took the fact that Dr. Valdez hadn't come to see them as a good sign. She pushed her way into the room, breathing a sigh of relief that there hadn't been a swarm of doctors or a dying Nicole inside. (Maybe she had overreacted just a bit when she heard the call come over the intercom downstairs).
She had the slimmest of hopes that Nicole would be awake; slightly bigger ones that the breathing tube would've been taken out at the very least. Unfortunately, neither had been the case. She struggled to hide the disappointment on her face as she took her seat near the bed. Wynonna followed, muttering a, "What the hell, Haught?" from the doorway, obviously expecting to see Nicole had come around.
Waverly clasped Nicole's hand in hers, taking the slightest of comforts in the fact it was the tiniest bit warmer than it had been earlier that morning. She decided she needed to take a look at the positives. Sure, Nicole had still been on the ventilator, but the number of tubes in her body had decreased by at least one—the chest tube draining the blood from her lung must've been removed while they were gone. For another thing, her girlfriend's face had started to take on a bit of color, a slight pinkish hue replacing the deathly pale it had been before.
"I know you're disappointed that we couldn't remove the tube," a nurse said, entering the room. She'd recognized her from the few check-ins she'd done throughout the day. Waverly's fairly sure her name is Joria, but can't say with complete certainty. She's a young nurse, not much older than Nicole or herself, and she has an air of kindness about her that's soothing—at least from the few interactions she's had with her.
"Only a little," Wynonna sighed, pushing her chair away from the bed to allow the nurse access to the nearly empty bag of clear liquid hanging on a stand next to Nicole.
"Dr. V says her sats just weren't good enough to do it yet," the nurse (whose name Waverly sees is in fact Joria) says as she exchanges the old bag for a new, fuller one.
"Do you know why she was paged to this room before?" Waverly asked, still curious as to what happened then.
"She was running a slight fever," Joria explained, "we needed her to decide if it was something to worry about, determine the next course of action."
"Was it?" She questioned, hoping it wasn't. The fever would explain the increased warmth in Nicole's hands and the pinkness in her face. Upon closer look, she did notice the tips of her ears had taken on a similar coloration. "Something to worry about, I mean."
"We're keeping an eye on it," the nurse said with a smile and a small wave of her hand, "Dr. V wants to make sure it's not an infection. She'll be the first to let you know if it's anything serious, I promise."
On the list of all the bad things that Waverly imagined it could've been, she supposed a slight fever was an optimal scenario.
"Okay, thank you." She sighed, relieved, noticing some of the tension leave her sister's jaw at the explanation.
"Of course," Joria said with a smile, "Oh, look. Dr. Valdez we were just talking about you!"
"All good things I hope, Jor," the doctor said, making entrance through the doorway.
"Of course, I only bad mouth you to the other nurses—never to the patients or the families." The nurse teased before excusing herself to continue making her rounds.
"She's one of the good ones," Dr. Valdez grinned; the Earp sisters nodding in agreement. "I'm just rotating around the floor, but do you guys have any questions for me? I'm sure Joria already told you Nicole started running a fever a little while ago."
"Yeah, I was wondering why she hasn't woken up yet," Wynonna spoke up. "I mean, you pulled her off the meds this morning, so shouldn't she have woken up by now?"
"You know, head injuries are always tough. There's not really a hard schedule you can put on them. The brain's a tricky organ."
"What if there was more than one injury?" Waverly asked, remembering that Nicole most likely had a concussion even before she had her head driven into the boards.
"Well, that would certainly play into it." Dr. Valdez considered the information. "Do you suspect there was multiple impacts in the hit?"
"I'm not sure about that, but I think she might've been playing with a concussion before the incident."
"Mhm," the woman nodded, "do you have any details?"
"She took an elbow to the head in the second period." Waverly explained. "She was slow to get up, and then she had delayed reactions, and she looked a little woozy. I don't think anyone else saw it because no one stopped her, but I could tell something was off."
"That does sound like a concussion," Dr. Valdez confirmed. "Multiple impacts could contribute to her not waking up as quickly. I can take a look at her CTs, but there weren't any indications of bleeding or swelling. We may need to do a repeat scan if she doesn't come to within the next couple of hours."
The sisters nodded, and not having any other questions, Dr. Valdez left them to be with Nicole yet again. She'd gotten her answer about Nicole's second period concussion, but the possible implications of that didn't make her feel any better.
She turned back to Nicole, who was oblivious to the world. Waverly knew she was on a lot of drugs to kill her pain, but she still shuddered to think that her girlfriend may have been hurting. She couldn't imagine what she'd feel once she finally did wake up and the drugs wore off. Waverly had fallen off the top bunk of her and Wynonna's bunkbed when she was six, merely bruising her ribs, and she'd cried for hours and it hurt like a bitch, so she couldn't imagine the pain of breaking the bones—the last number she'd heard was five broken ribs—or the puncturing and collapse of a lung on top of that. (Never mind the broken leg bones and torn ligaments). She couldn't imagine a painkiller that could be strong enough to numb that kind of excruciating pain. Her heart clenched at the thought of Nicole being in any kind of pain, especially when there wasn't anything she could do to help.
"I can't believe Doc would let her play with a concussion like that." Wynonna said incredulously, not believing the staff could miss something so serious. "Is that why she was losing those faceoffs so badly?" Waverly nodded. "I knew something was off, she's kind of a faceoff wizard—I mean, she's no me, but then again, who is?"
(Leave it to Wynonna to make it about her no matter the situation).
Waverly rolled her eyes playfully, but a verbal response was interrupted by what she thought was a twitching of fingers in her hand. She snapped her eyes to Nicole's hand in hers, not seeing any motion. Maybe she'd been imagining it. Maybe it was wishful thinking.
Or maybe it wasn't. Not when she felt it again moments later, this time completely certain it had happened.
Her joy was short-lived, however.
Following the twitch of her hand was a scrunching of her face, and then coughing followed by choking, spluttering, and panicking. The monitor next to the bed that previously had been beeping rhythmically starting to wail frantically, Nicole's body reacting to a foreign object impeding her ability to breath.
Waverly sprang to her feet, running out into the hall to call for anyone who could help, Wynonna standing over the bed, rambling—"What's going on? What's happening? Someone help her!"
Joria hurried in, followed by two other nurses and Dr. Valdez. They directed the sisters away from Nicole's bed to allow them to do what they needed to do to help her. Waverly watched with a racing heart, catching a glimpse of Nicole's eyes, open wide, frantically looking around the room, terrified. She really wished she could've been the first thing her girlfriend saw when she awoke. A warm, welcoming, gentle face to peacefully welcome her back to consciousness. Instead, Nicole woke to a tube in her throat, the inability to breathe properly and a mob of unfamiliar people working around her.
Dr. Valdez and her team struggled to get Nicole to calm down, even after they removed the breathing tube. Waverly could see that the doctor was worried about Nicole exacerbating her injuries the longer that she struggled and couldn't relax. Until she saw Joria hand Dr. Valdez a syringe of something, that was. The woman injected the contents of the needle into one of Nicole's IVs, and within seconds, the machine's violent blaring had returned to its steady beeping and Nicole's eyes were closed again.
"The good news is, she's breathing on her own," Doctor Valdez explained once the scene had calmed down. "Unfortunately, fighting the intubation caused a panic reaction—which isn't uncommon—and we had to administer a light sedative to get her vitals back under control."
"So, it's gonna be a little while longer before she wakes up then?" Wynonna asked, calmed down herself, now with a hint of dejection in her tone. The doctor just nodded sympathetically.
The second time Nicole wakes up, it's just before visiting hours are over and Waverly and Wynonna have to leave the room.
It's just about five minutes to 7, Waverly yawns, stretching her arms to relieve some of the tension from her muscles. Wynonna's fallen asleep in her seat, the events of the last 24 or so hours taking its toll.
"Mmm," she hears a murmur from the direction of the bed, but dismissed it as Wynonna. She knows she should wake her sister because they have to leave soon, but doesn't want to deal with the consequences—that girl could be a bear in the morning. "Mmm," she hears the murmur again, and looks to Nicole's face. She can see her girlfriend trying to pry her eyelids open, the drugs probably working wonders to make them as heavy as humanly possible.
Waverly stood up to be closer to Nicole.
"Hey, it's me, can you hear me?" A few more soft murmurs follow, but Waverly can see Nicole's efforts to wake up slowly start to pay off. "C'mon baby, you can do it, just open your eyes for me."
Her requests appear to be answered, soft brown eyes cracking open ever so slightly, eyelids drooping heavily as they close again briefly. Waverly squeezed her hand again, prodding the redhead awake. The next time Nicole's eyes open, they stay that way.
Waverly can't hide the joy that she feels seeing her girlfriend conscious again. Small happy tears bead up along her eye line. Nicole furrows her brow and groans, pouting slightly.
"Nicole, can you hear me?" Waverly tries again. The girl in bed tried to nod, but realized that it hurts, wincing and squeezing her eyes shut momentarily.
When Nicole finally makes eye contact with Waverly for the first time, there's a spaced-out smile that graces her lips.
"Pretty," she slurred, voice raspy from having a tube down her throat. Waverly can't do anything to fight the blush. Even incoherent, Nicole gave her butterflies.
Said girl, still very much (adorably) out of it, appeared to have discovered the oxygen cannula attached to her nose, pulling at the tubing curiously.
"Hmm, what's this thing do?" Nicole drawled, giggling drowsily as she pulled the plastic tubes from her nose. "Oops."
"Okay, silly," Waverly rolled her eyes playfully, "I think that Dr. Valdez might need you to keep this on." Nicole tilted her head gently, reminiscent of a puppy, but eventually allowed Waverly to replace the object on her face.
"Thank you." The redhead smiled. "You're pretty. And nice…oh and pretty too."
"Nicole do you know where you are?" Waverly tried to assess, working past the blush (again) that her girlfriend was so good at bringing out of her. It was a little like trying to talk to a kindergartner after they've woken up from a nap; Nicole's eyes dancing curiously around the room at all the unfamiliar surroundings.
"Mmm, no." She frowned. "Kinda looks like a hops—a hosp—a hopsital."
Waverly smiled as she suppressed a soft chuckle at the mix-up in syllables.
"It is." She confirmed; Nicole's eyes lit up with pride in getting the answer right. "Do you remember how you got here?"
"No, not really."
"What's the last thing you do remember?"
Without missing a beat, Nicole responds, smirking as she says it:
"Waverly Earp, smiling at me from between the benches." Waverly couldn't keep the happy tears back. Of course Nicole's first thought after a serious injury would be to put her charm to good use, flirting with a girl who was so obviously hers already. "Hey, you kind of look like her, you know that?"
The happiness had dampened a bit. She quirked an eyebrow, figuring Nicole was playing around, but Nicole looked completely serious.
"Do I now?"
"Mhm," Nicole hummed, "Waverly's sooooo pretty, and I like her so much. She's so smart—like a genius, and so funny, and pretty. Too bad she'll never like me back."
"Well, I don't know about that." Waverly countered, playing along. She wished she were recording this interaction so she could tease Nicole over it later. (It's what the Wynonna in her would want).
"No, really," she slurred, "Waverly's got this boyfriend, Champ—more like Chump, I'd say—and he doesn't treat her like she deserves, but she'll stay with him because she doesn't know I'd treat her so much better, and she probably doesn't want to hurt his feelings, she's too nice." While she didn't like that Nicole had seemingly forgotten that they'd been dating for six months, Waverly smiled at the way the girl spoke, no matter how incoherent it may have been. "She's so nice, Waverly's the nicest person in Purgatory—really, the town voted. She's got a sash and everything."
"This Waverly sounds amazing," Waverly spoke of herself to Nicole.
"She's the amazingest."
"Do you wanna know what I think?" She asked, having a little more fun with this now.
"What?"
"I think you should give it a shot with that girl—"
"—Waverly Earp."
"With Waverly Earp," she chuckled, "I mean, if you like her so much, what's the harm in asking? Maybe a date. I bet she'd drop that boy for you if you asked. You could take her skating. I bet a girl like that would love skating."
"She does." Nicole said matter-of-factly (as matter-of-factly as a drunk kindergartner could sound). "She skated with me one time before a game—but then Dolls busted us for playing tag."
"See, so you should definitely give it a shot. Ask her out."
"But what if she doesn't like me back? What if she doesn't say yes?" Nicole said, frowning deeply at the thought. Waverly spotted the adorable worry wrinkle almost immediately.
"Oh, I've got a good feeling she will." Nicole's frown flipped almost immediately, being replaced by a dopey lovestruck smile. "And if she's stupid enough to say no—"
"—Oh Waverly's not stupid," Nicole half-scolded, "She's the smartest, most genius person I know."
"Right, sorry," Waverly corrected herself, "but if you ask her and she says no, you know I'd always say yes."
"Thanks, but I don't really know you, even if you do look a lot like her," her girlfriend noted, "I've only got eyes for one angel."
Waverly smiled, toying with the angel wing necklace Nicole had gotten her for Christmas.
"That girl's gonna say yes, you know. You're very charming."
"You know, you're nice, just like Waverly." Nicole hummed, her eyelids drooping more and more by the second. "And pretty too, like her…" Waverly could tell Nicole was teetering on the edge of consciousness, and that their conversation would be ending shortly. "So, so pretty." Nicole closed her eyes, and for a moment, Waverly thought she may have fallen back to sleep. "I'm tired," the redhead said through a yawn.
"Go ahead, go to sleep," Waverly squeezed her hand, "I'll be right here when you wake up."
Nicole was out like a light pretty much immediately after that.
Wynonna groaned, waking up in the seat beside her, stretching her arms and not knowing she'd missed Nicole waking up.
Dr. Valdez knocked on the door, informing them that visiting time was up, but sensed that something had happened moments before.
"Anything new happen?" She asked.
"Nicole woke up, but she was pretty out of it," Waverly explained, Wynonna eyed her curiously, disappointment on her face that she'd missed it. "She just fell back asleep though."
"Not surprising," the doctor acknowledged. "There's still a lot of meds in her system. How long was she awake?"
"Eight-ish minutes? Maybe ten at the most."
"Was she communicative? Were you able to talk with her?"
"It was like talking to a drunk person, but yeah." Waverly nodded. "Is that a good thing?"
"Was she able to follow the conversation, respond to questions?"
"Mhm."
"Well, then," Dr. Valdez paused, "I'd say that's a great thing. We'll assess in the morning, or when she wakes up again, but it's a very positive sign."
Waverly's cheeks hurt from smiling from the time that they left Dr. Valdez, to the time they let the others in the waiting room know the good news, and all the way throughout the ride back to the homestead in Wynonna's truck.
Nicole was nowhere near completely out of the woods, but Waverly took comfort in the new positive development in her condition. Now that her girlfriend had woken up, she felt better about letting Wynonna convince her to leave the hospital to get an actual night's sleep. She'd be much more suited to support Nicole's recovery after getting to sleep in her own bed and drinking an actual cup of coffee.
Waverly practically skipped up the walk to the front door to the home, giddy with the excitement over the events of today. She may have been choosing to ignore the fact that her girlfriend had forgotten the last six months of their relationship, but it was only because Nicole was so adorable in the way she talked about her. Waverly had known that Nicole had a big ol' crush on her before they started dating, but she hadn't really stopped to think about how the girl felt about the possibility of the feeling not being mutual. Hearing Nicole speak today made her realize just how deeply in love the redhead was with her; the fear of losing Nicole that Waverly had felt since she saw her collapse to the ice made Waverly realize that she was just as impossibly in love with the girl.
The comfort of home worked wonders to draw the true fatigue right out of her body, Waverly unable to keep her eyes open past 9:30 pm. She went through her nighttime routine, going to the closet after brushing her teeth to find a navy-blue hoodie that smelled like her favorite hockey player (favorite person, really), before crawling under the covers and sleeping soundly in the hoodie that had kicked off her and Nicole's story.