When Nicole came out of her bathroom towel drying her hair she knew something was off. She could hear quiet whispers coming from the kitchen. Choosing not to disturb whomever was speaking the redhead instead walked slowly to her bedroom. There she put on fresh clothes, brushed her hair, and finally just laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling trying desperately to get the imagine of Rosita being sucked into the crystal out of her head. The heartfelt conversation the two had shared in the woods the first day Nicole had realised she was a Revenant seemed like a million years ago. Poor Rosita had become so desperate to regain her mortality that she'd lost all of her morals. "I wonder what part of hell she is in now?" Nicole wondered as she watched the sun slowly set.
From inside the house Nicole could hear movement and the dull buzz of conversation. Eventually however she heard the front door open and close leaving the house in blissful silence. Had they all gone? Nicole though to herself, but not strongly enough to warrant leaving the room, let alone sit up from the comfortable position she'd found lying on her bed.
The sun was almost completely set and the bedroom dark when Nicole heard a dull knock on her door. "Come in." She said, her voice sounding strange and unfamiliar.
The petit form that could only be Waverly Earp entered the bedroom. The smaller woman silently crept across the dark room and lay on the bed next to Nicole, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze as she settled.
The couple lay in silence for several minutes. Nicole not having the strength or will to speak, the defeat within her too strong. What Waverly was silent about, Nicole didn't know.
"Wynonna and the others left." Waverly said after a moment, her voice sounding hollow. "Jeremy's secured the crystal and they are going to burry it in the salt flats in a bit box labelled do not touch."
Nicole would have laughed under different circumstance. Instead her mind was once again flooded with images of screaming Revenants being sucked into the stone.
"Nicole."
"Yeah baby?"
"Will you really need to go?" Waverly shuddered. "Once⦠Once they are all gone?"
It only took Nicole a moment to realise what Waverly was talking about. Wynonna had told her. Wynonna had told her about their pact for her to shoot Nicole. In all honesty, the redhead was surprised that the smaller woman was broaching the subject with such a vulnerability and lightness. She had been expecting large firing cannon like fights full of denial and refusal. Instead here sat Waverly, heartbroken and timid. Something that oddly brought Nicole comfort. It meant she was making the right decision, that as much as it hurt Waverly to accept Nicole needing to die.
"I really wish I didn't." Nicole said through the darkness, grateful that the two couldn't see one another's faces. Silence held for another minute or two as Nicole thought about what she could say. What comfort she could bring to them both.
"But, if I need to go." Nicole said finally, settling on her own internal motivation. "I'm glad it'll be a way of securing yours and Wynonna's and Alice's future."
"I don't want a future without you." Waverly said quietly, her tone quivering as she began to lose her resolve.
"Shhh." Nicole moved closer to her now crying partner and enveloped her in her warm arms. "I know baby. I know. I don't want to leave you either."
"Do you think you will go to hell?" Waverly said through her tears. "You can't go to hell, you're too good for that." Despite herself Nicole gave a denying chuckled. "I'm serious." Waverly sobbed. "You don't deserve to be sent down there with all the rest of them."
"Maybe it won't be that bad down there." Nicole placed a gentle kiss on the top of the brunette's head as she held Waverly tighter. "Rosita told me a bit about it once."
Waverly sniffled. "What did she say?"
Nicole looked into Waverly's eyes and saw the woman's desperation. While the youngest Earp was in the process of accepting Nicole's fate she was far was welcoming it. Any words of comfort even if they were speculation would be welcome.
"Rosita said hell is made of levels." Nicole began, Waverly hanging on her every word. Nicole spoke for several hours; beginning by explaining all Rosita had told her, following it with her theories and hopes. Eventually settling on just talking, she could tell Waverly was being soothed by not only her words but by the sound of her voice. They'd both done this before, just talked, talked long and deeply into the night. Oddly enough it was the most normal thing the two had done since their dinner date before Nicole had been shot. Even if the topics discussed were as morbid as Nicole's journey to hell and Waverly being alone; both woman found comfort in it and eventually ended the evening by drifting off into content deep sleeps. Their arms wrapped firmly around one another.
XXXXXX
"His is name is David O'Grady." Waverly said the following afternoon, pointing at the Revenant board. The photo of a pale looking man with wild eyes and a shaved head was the only image remaining on the once packed board. "He was Purgatory's first ever bar bouncer."
"I'll bounce him right into hell." Wynonna said from her favourite armchair. "Even if his ID is fake."
Waverly ignored her sister. "He was known to be pretty brutal and violent. There's even stories that he broke a couple of bar patron's necks when they didn't listen to him."
"Doc you gotta get some more efficient guys into your staff."
Again Waverly ignored her sister, knowing that the quips were the heir's way of defusing her own personal tension. Wynonna was nervous. O'Grady as the last Revenant. This was the closest any heir had every come to breaking the curse.
"O'Grady is big, strong, angry, and an experienced murderer." Waverly ploughed on, needing to get to her final point. "The biggest problem though." She took a deep breath. "We have no idea where he is."
Silence.
"No idea?" Dolls asked, needing clarification.
Waverly shrugged helpless. "No one has documented seeing him for at least 60 years and even then it was never confirmed"
Dolls looked to the floor and rubbed his temples.
"Even Rosita." Nicole called from her place leaning against the doorframe leading to the hall. "She told me she hadn't seen him. He's vanished even among the Revenants."
Wynonna groaned and poured herself another whiskey. Her second, and it had only just cracked noon.
"So do we have a plan?" Jeremy piped in, looking hopefully from Waverly to Dolls to Nicole. All three avoided his eyes. No one seemed to have the motivation or energy to think through the problem.
Surprisingly it was Wynonna who spoke next. "Waverly?" She said, eyes squinting at the photo attached to the board. "How old is this picture?" While the actual image on the board was a freshly printed from an inkjet, it had clearly originally been scanned from an older photograph. The scanner had kept the same yellow tinge old photographs develop; as well as frayed edged and creases.
"That's the only original print I could find of him." Waverly said pointing at the photo. "Because no one has seen him, duh."
"So that is what he looked like a hundred years ago." Wynonna said, eyes lighting up.
Waverly didn't even bother to answer her sister and instead crossed her arms in frustration, glaring at the heir.
"No. No. No." Wynonna set her whiskey down on the coffee table. Inspiration building within her. "I mean, like. That's what he looked like a hundred years ago." She tapped the picture of the man vehemently. "So if he doesn't look like that anymore, if he changed his appearance, of course no one will have seen him. They wouldn't recognize him!" Wynonna put her arms above her head like someone had just scored a touchdown.
The room was silent. No one fully grasping the heir's point. She groaned in frustration. "Come on guys!" She exclaimed in annoyance. Before anyone could react Wynonna had gotten hold of a sharpie and was scribbling all over the photo.
"Nonna!" Waverly yelled, her built up despair and frustration about to overcome her. She was not going to tolerate her sister treating this hunt as a joke any longer. Plus, no one dared to ever touch her Revenant board, not even Nicole.
The younger Earp made to snatch the marker from Wynonna's hand.
"There!" Wynonna said deftly stepping aside before her sister could hit her and pointed at the now marker covered photo. "He could look like that today!"
The room gasped. The once pale and bald Dave O'Grady now had a poorly drawn black beard and full head of hair, making him nearly unrecognizable from the originally image.
"How else could he have not been seen in over three generations?" Wynonna said emphasising each word to allow the group to grasp what she was proposing. "Purgatory is a small town, there is no way he could go that undetected. Unless!" She made wild gestures towards the doctored photo.
Waverly's jaw dropped, matching most of the other group. Wynonna had figured out what none of them had been able to, and she'd done it after 2 at least two glasses of whisky.
"Shit." Nicole said aloud from the doorframe of the room, her eyes locked onto Wynonna's altered photo. Nicole pushed herself off of the doorframe and approached the board.
"Waves do you have another copy of that photo?" As Waverly nodded and dug into a folder for another photograph; Nicole grabbed an orange marker from the coffee table. Wordlessly Waverly handed her partner a clean copy of O'Grady's face.
The redhead took it and began to scribble orange hair and a long beard over his face. After a moment she stuck the photo onto the board and took a step back.
"Dave Geary."
The group let out a collective mix of sighs and gasps.
With the addition of the full head of red hair and long straggled beard the last Revenant now looked remarkably like the owner of the hunting supplies store on the edge of Purgatory. Dave Geary. This monster truck of a man was known for having a horrible temper and even worse had access to more guns than the entirety of the Purgatory PD. Nicole ran her hand through her hair as she stared at the photo. Twice she'd been called out to the hunting supplies outpost while employed by the Police Department. Both times Nedley had joined the call, him and every other on duty officer. Everyone knew that a visit to Geary's never ended well. Luckily the first call Nicole had been part of had been a simple B&E report and she had merely taken Geary's statement. He was a large man, at least 6'3" and weight at least 100 pounds more than her. Even though she had just been taking notes and descriptions; Nicole had sensed the danger and evil that the man possessed.
The second dispatch to the gun outpost had been much more enlightening as to why Nedley insisted on bringing at least half a dozen officers with him. The call had come from Geary's neighbour who reported him acting drunk and lighting his field on fire.
Nicole remembered Nedley saying for her to hang back and let the more experienced officers deal with Geary. That they weren't going to even try to arrest him, knowing it was no use and he'd just cause more mayhem if they tried. Nicole had of course been skeptical of this and assumed Nedley was joking; of course they'd arrest someone causing this much trouble. She had been wrong. Just in the attempt to reason and calm Geary resulted in one officer taking a bullet to the shoulder, another receiving a broken arm, a third a concussion. In the end Nedley had pulled the officers back to the property line of the gun outpost and verbally calmed Geary down.
As Nicole stared at the man's face she wondered how she had never made the connection before that Geary was a Revenant. He had always seemed faster and stronger than any of the other officers, not to mention his temper and affection of rifles and revolvers.
"Well.' Wynonna said once again picking up her whiskey. "This is thoroughly going to suck."
