Waverly was sipping on the tea she'd managed to make in her hotel room, flipping through the league's rule book, and looking over the last of the notes she'd made over film from the last game. She'd had the book pretty much memorized since August, but wanted to make sure that she had all of it nailed down before the big meeting. This was her first time running point on one of these league conduct meetings and, well, Waverly Earp was never not prepared.
She gently closed the book as she finished the last of her tea, hearing the knock on the door.
"Ready to go?" Dolls gave her the closest thing she'd consider a smile. (Contrary to popular—Wynonna's—belief, Dolls was actually a pretty okay guy to be around once you got to know him, and definitely not a robot alien).
"Yep!" She cheered, dampening down the normal amount of nerves she had in her stomach.
"Perfect, I've got the hotel conference room all set up."
She followed Dolls down the hall, and into the elevator, folder of notes firmly tucked under her arm. They were in Moncton, three games into a nine-game road trip, so they would be conducting the meeting via video conference with the league office in Toronto. Dolls led her into the conference room with the big round table virtually empty, instead a laptop set up and connected to the television on the wall so that she could see everyone who would be on the call as well.
"Alright, I'll leave you to it," Dolls said, turning to close the door behind him.
"Wait," she cut in, "you're not staying?"
"Nope."
"Well why not? I've never done this before."
"Waverly, I trust you," he said, still not moving away from the door. "You are more than capable of handling this. In fact, you might know the rulebook better than I do." Waverly shrugged, but she guessed she couldn't argue. She'd practically read it back to front every night for a month after she'd gotten the job. "You've got this, Earp. Don't fuck it up."
This time, he left the room, leaving Waverly to finish her preparations. It still managed to blow her mind that Dolls could go from semi-comforting to professional, demanding and even a little intimidating like the flip of a switch.
Looking at the clock on the wall, there were about five minutes before the meeting was set to start. She took a deep breath to settle any lingering nerves, pulling out her phone to silence it. The screen lit up with a photo of herself leaning over the bench to give Nicole a kiss (once practice had ended of course)—one of her favorite photos of the pair. The deep breath she took next was a heavy sigh laced with something that wasn't quite uncertainty and teetered on the edge of guilt.
Things between her and Nicole were…complicated.
They weren't actively fighting, per se, but things were definitely off. She guessed she shouldn't have expected everything to be all sunshine and rainbows between them all the time, but she and Nicole shared such a special relationship built on communication and trust and Waverly could tell that she'd impinged on that by the way she acted when Hannah came around.
Nicole had apologized for her ignorance and for her actions, but Waverly had yet to do so. And she truly did owe Nicole an apology. She acted like a jealous girlfriend, yes, but she also acted like a child pouting and ignoring Nicole instead of talking things through like they usually did.
Timing didn't really help the situation either, the team embarked on the current road trip not even a full week after Nicole commandeered her office and apologized to her so sincerely. It felt like they'd made up, but there was this disconnectbetween them—Nicole was still struggling with what was going on between them and their sudden lack of communication, and Waverly leaving for two weeks wasn't going to help the situation. (Especially not when she was three time zones away and busier than she'd ever been).
She didn't have any more time to dwell on her personal life, the video call beginning and the board from the Department of Player Safety appearing in front of her.
"Good morning, Miss Earp I presume?" The director, who she recognized as Jeannie Lucado, greeted her.
"Yes, good morning," Waverly nodded.
"Perfect, let's get down to business, shall we?" The board agreed, and Lucado pressed forward. "We are meeting to discuss the matter of the incident occurring on the evening of Tuesday, November 26 between Purgatory Blue Devils forward, Lecia Wilson, and Charlottetown Storm defender, Kaley Cooper. The board is meeting to determine the punishment for the penalty, in accordance with rule forty-five," Waverly read along with the rule she'd highlighted as Lucado recited it for everyone on the call. "Elbowing shall mean the use of an extended elbow in a manner that may or may not cause injury. Furthermore, the referee, at their discretion, may assess a minor, major or game misconduct penalty depending on the severity of the incident. Miss Earp, your suggestion on how to proceed?"
Part of her job as Assistant Director of Hockey Operations was to maintain compliance with league offices and player safety. In this case, it was attendance of meetings like these and providing the first suggestion for discipline when Devils players acted outside of the rules.
"Wilson was assessed a two-minute minor penalty for elbowing at 12:14 of the third period, but the incident resulted in the Storm defender leaving the game and entering concussion protocol. Since the primary source of contact was Miss Wilson's elbow with Miss Cooper's head, it is my suggestion that the penalty for this incident is a two-game suspension."
Lucado nodded and the others on the board appeared to mull over the information.
"Why just the two games, Miss Earp?" An unpleasant-looking man with a walrus mustache asked from beside the director.
"My suggestion is for two-games on the basis that this is Miss Wilson's first infraction with league conduct and there was no clear intent to injure Miss Cooper on the play," she answered succinctly, confident in the case she made. She knew that Wilson not being punished for the incident would surely ruffle feathers around the league, but she also knew that she had to stand up for her player when they'd unfortunately injured another on accident.
Again the board looked to discuss amongst themselves, Lucado cutting discussions short when she appeared to have reached a verdict.
"We all seem to be in agreement that a two-game suspension is the best conclusion to this incident. We will put out the official statement this afternoon, and Miss Wilson's suspension will be enforced starting immediately, lasting for the games today, Thursday, November 28 and Saturday, November 30. Thank you Miss Earp," Lucado said, the rest of the board members leaving the screen, "I must say, it was refreshing to have you here."
"Thank you," she said and bid the director farewell, but understood the dig she had thrown towards Dolls. Those two had apparently had some deep-seated bad blood that she didn't quite know the scope of.
She left the room, finding Dolls sitting in the hotel lobby, reading something on his phone he'd swear was a stock report or the latest notes from the team scouts. (For as much of a boring robot he presented himself as, Waverly often caught him reading the comics or looking at Kyler Murray's stats from the last Cardinals game).
"Well that was fast," he noted, locking his phone screen. "I'm surprised she didn't swallow you whole through the computer screen."
"What is your problem with her? She seems kinda bitchy, I'll give you that, but really she wasn't the monster you always make her out to be."
"You really wanna know?"
"It sure would help me understand your little vendetta."
"Do you know where I used to work before Bunny asked me to be GM?"
"Vancouver, right? With the old team?"
"Mhm," Dolls nodded, "with Jeannie Lucado in the main office. Both of us were Deputy Directors of Operations, and she was the coldest, snakiest bitch you'll ever meet. There was slightly less than friendly competition between us the whole time we worked together, and it was always a race to one-up the other. We were both in line to head up Player Safety, and she knew that I had the upper hand—right up until she sabotaged my interview and took the job out of my hands."
Okay, so the vendetta made sense now.
"Well, I'm sorry you lost out on that job, but look what you've got now," she smiled, trying to point out the bright side.
"What, a job in a town smaller than my college campus, working for the world's least pleasant woman?"
"Wow, I know Purgatory isn't much, but it's quaint, charming almost," she teased. "Come on, you're really gonna tell me you'd be better off in Toronto?"
"No, no, I guess you're right. This job is much more pleasant now that the team is winning games, and I guess it's better than some stuffy job in Toronto anyway," Dolls admitted.
"Wouldn't want anyone thinking you were stuffy."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he said with a roll of his eyes.
Waverly flashed her team pass to the security guard who allowed her access to the visiting team area, finally able to take a breath after spending the last forty-five minutes on the phone with Bunny Loblaw. Apparently, she was less than thrilled to have heard about her suggestion of a suspension for Wilson. After the first twenty minutes of trying to reason with the woman, she abandoned any sort of rationality and just listened to the woman curse her out while she updated the team statistics spreadsheet. (Sometimes it was best to just let crazy talk itself out, but when it became clear that Bunny had a lot of crazy to talk out, she ended up faking bad cell reception and abruptly ended the call—for her sanity, of course).
She mentally went over the list of engagements and responsibilities she had on her schedule for the rest of the week: a media appearance before tonight's game to talk about Wilson's suspension, a video call with a man named Levi about a potential brand partnership between the Blue Devils and an up-and-coming line of hockey equipment tomorrow afternoon, cleaning up whatever mess Bunny will inevitably make with her recently created Twitter account, and just about a million other phone calls she was taking for Dolls all while having to get on a flight pretty much every other day on each stop of this road trip.
Slumping down in a nearby chair, she closed her eyes, thinking about how she missed home after being away for a few days. She'd found her mind wandering toward Wynonna and Nicole back home without her more and more as the days passed, and grew slightly irked by the way that she and Nicole kept just missing each other when they tried to call. She chalked it up to their increasingly frustrating disconnect.
Having a few free minutes, she decided to try Nicole again—6 PM in Moncton meant it was 3 in Purgatory, so she figured this would be the best chance she had of actually reaching the redhead for the rest of the day. She heard the rings in her ear as she waited for the call to connect.
One…two, she counted in her head, three…four…five…
"Hi, you've reached Nicole Haught, I can't come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I'll get back to ya lickety split!"
Waverly heard her girlfriend's all too familiar voicemail message and sighed exasperatedly as she hung up the device, opting to text the woman a quick: Thinking about you love and miss you xoxo.
"Earp, let's go, the vultures await" Dolls said, entering the room just as she got a new message.
Nicole: Sorry, just missed you. For someone who's so lazy, Wynonna's really motivated to kill me
She chuckled at the thought of her girlfriend and her sister working out together. Talk about a personality clash. She was a little disheartened at the lack of response to her heart emoji but didn't dwell on it, instead following Dolls down the hallway to meet with reporters.
Waverly woke up Saturday morning in Bathurst with a sinking feeling in her gut. She couldn't explain it for the life of her, but she could just feel like something was off today.
She did her morning meditation by the window as she watched the sun peak over the horizon and drank some warm green tea as she prepared herself mentally for the day, but still just could not shake whatever this feeling was.
She found some semblance of distraction in her emails, one particularly catching her eye. Levi had gotten back to her following their conversation yesterday, saying that he thoroughly enjoyed her pitch and what she had to say, and that after speaking with his associates, that the Revenant company would love to officially establish a partnership with the Devils. Securing this was clearly a big deal to Dolls, the sponsorship meant more exposure for the team which would open up more opportunities in the future, and she was ecstatic that she'd been able to get it done. She'd be lying if she said she didn't feel like she was drowning in her new position, but with the success at the Player Safety meeting and now this, she felt like maybe she'd be alright here after all.
The morning pressed on, Waverly knocking out a chunk of her unread emails while having to pop a few Advil to get through the exorbitant amount of off-color tweets Bunny had produced in the span of two days (reminding her of a certain man with a bad spray tan who will remain nameless). She wasn't sure how monitoring the team owner's Twitter account fell under hockey operations, though she suspected it was more likely that it fell under Dolls' "I don't wanna deal with this" list.
By lunch time, she was so far down the Twitter rabbit hole that she truly didn't know how the app was free for anyone to own.
Her sinking feeling diminished slightly, but hadn't disappeared like she'd hoped it would. She ate lunch beside Dolls, who was seemingly constantly on a phone call, while she scrolled through her own phone, mainly looking at stats and league leaders. Shae was on pace for a career year, and Hannah was, unsurprisingly, impressing in her first year in the CEWHL. Despite the high performers, the Devils sat in the middle of the pack in terms of conference standings, and needed to pick up the pace now that they were getting into the thick of the season.
She stabbed at the lettuce in her salad, her mind numb from statistical reports and analytical terminology. She was offered relief in the form of a Snapchat from Wynonna—a photo of her sister in the weight room at the rink with Nicole, the both of them drenched in sweat with the caption GAINZ .
Waverly sent back a quick snap in reply, happy to hear from the pair even if just in photo form. She groaned at the thought of another whole week away from them.
As game time rolled around, Dolls handed her the daily list of things to double and triple check before the puck dropped.
"One:," she read aloud as she walked down to locker room level, "check in with equipment team."
She heard commotion from the tunnel as she drew nearer to it, a few members of the equipment team squabbling over something.
"Bro, I'm telling you, it's not here," one of them, Carl, snapped.
"Well, then where is it then?" Malcolm returned fire.
Great, she thought as she finally reached them, what could actually be missing now?
"Where is what?" She asked, enjoying the way the group silenced themselves and looked like they'd been caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
"Oh, uh, nothin'," Carl said nervously, earning himself a slap on the back of the head from John, the big burly one with the Brent Burns beard.
"This one," Red threw Carl under the bus in a heartbeat, "lost one of the stick bags."
"I'm sorry," she laughed in disbelief, "you lost what?"
"I didn't lose it, per se…just sorta, uh…misplaced it."
"Well, you better un-misplace it," Waverly growled at the man, knowing that half of the players' sticks were in that bag.
"What if he left it back in Moncton?" The one they called Fish asked.
"You better hope for all of your sakes that's not true."
She left the group, who had started to frantically scour the equipment in front of them, with a headache starting to form in her temples. This was so not what she needed right now.
She turned back to the list, hoping she could actually get something done and accomplished before the game started—if the game started, considering only half the team had sticks.
"Two: get Nedley's rost—" she cut herself off when her phone started to ring. She prayed under her breath that Dolls hadn't found out about the stick situation. Fortunately for her, it was an unknown number with a New Brunswick area code. "Hello, Waverly Earp speaking. Who is this?"
"Hi uh, this is Jameson, I was driving the Blue Devils bus and I think you guys might've left something here. Looks like a long black bag," the driver said, and Waverly cheered internally for her luck.
"Yes, yes that's ours."
"Great, I can drive the bus back up to the front if you want to come get it."
"Perfect, thank you, Jameson," she cheered as she sped back over to the entrance the bus had dropped the team off at earlier.
Waverly found the driver, a man younger than she expected who had a sort of post-One Direction Niall Horan look about him, fairly easily and met him at the storage section that was underneath the bus. Jameson pulled out the bag, dramatically grunting as he dragged it from the back of the storage area.
"Gee, that thing sure is heavy," he said, standing in up next to Waverly. "Don't tell me you got a body in there."
"Do you seriously think we'd just leave a body lying around?" She teased. "That's not exactly something you forget."
"Alright, yeah, fair enough."
"Well, thank you Jameson," she smiled as she hoisted the bag onto her shoulder. It wasn't as heavy as he made it out to be, and didn't want to take up any more of his time. "Seriously, you saved this game. This is half the team's sticks ya know."
"Ahh, don't mention it," he waved it off, "but if you do decide to mention it, I don't know, say to TSN tonight after you guys win, my name is Jameson McGuinness and I'm a downright hero."
"I'll keep that in mind," she smiled brightly as the pair went their separate ways. She had some equipment boys to read the riot act to now.
Waverly walked purposefully down the hallway, knowing that it was drawing nearer to warmups and a good twelve players still didn't have a stick to warm up with. When she arrived back at the spot where Carl and the gang had first told her about the missing bag, she found them not looking for said object, instead still loudly bickering with each other, now with the added noise of the angry players who were very much empty handed for warmups.
"Ahem," she cleared her throat to get everyone's attention. Unfortunately, the crowd was far too belligerent to even register her presence. "Hey!" She tried, louder this time, unfortunately with little change in result. She tapped into her inner Wynonna, hoping that it would help. "EVERYBODY SHUT UP!"
That seemed to do the trick, everyone freezing in their exact spot, only turning their heads to the sound of the yelling, like you see on TV. (Thank you, Wynonna).
"I think I may have solved everyone's problem," she said, removing the bag from her shoulder and opening it to reveal what the players had been looking for. They all but swarmed her for their sticks and immediately strode toward the ice to get a warm up in.
Once the players were gone, she fixed the equipment crew with a hard stare. She swore she could see Fish audibly gulp as she approached.
"This better not happen again," Waverly said sternly, "you all are not to leave the bus area until the checklist, which you're supposed to be completing anyway, is done and double, no, triple checked. Do you know how hard it is to play this game without a stick?" She asked rhetorically.
"No, but I bet it's pretty hard," Carl shrugged.
"Right, so you better make sure the team doesn't have to do that. Understood?"
"Understood," came a chorus of mumbles from the crew.
"Thank you," she changed her demeanor to a smile and then walked away, finding several voicemails from Dolls on her phone that was on the brink of death. She had maybe a five-minute phone call left on the battery and cursed the fact she'd left her charger in the hotel room. She pressed the button to return Dolls' call.
"Earp, what the hell?" he said, not bothering to greet her. "Why didn't you get me Nedley's roster? It was like number two on the list."
"I'm sorry," she apologized, turning to hopefully find the coach, "I'm down here now, I can get it for—"
"—No, I got it already, what the hell happened?"
"There was a situation with the equipment guys. Carl lost one of the stick bags—"
"—he lost the stick bags?"
"I said one of them, but we found it and it's all taken care of now."
"Remind me to have a serious talk with Carl. All of them actually."
"Already taken care of, Dolls."
"Well, thank you then, Waverly."
She ran through the rest of the list, finishing the last few tasks before making her way upstairs to sit in the box that the Bathurst rink crew designated for visiting management. Waverly was thoroughly grateful that Bunny hadn't tagged along for this portion of the road trip, calling the Maritimes boring and unnecessary to visit; she dreaded the back half of the trip which included more exciting places like Toronto and Montreal, where Bunny would be obnoxiously in attendance.
Dolls nodded as she took her seat next to him following the singing of O Canada, barely looking away from the game. Nedley had gone with the bold choice of starting Powers and Finning's line with the Hastings-Thomas pair. She knew it probably went up Shae's ass sideways not to be starting, but Waverly had learned not to question Nedley's decision-making process. After all, he hadn't led the team astray yet.
She enjoyed watching the team play, she loved the game, but she really just found herself wishing for Nicole to be back out there again. It would give her some sense of normalcy, especially with how much had changed.
Her life resembled little of what it did just over a year ago before Nicole or the team came around. She went from a small-town skating rink worker with a big, burly, no-brained boyfriend to a front office employee of a fairly successful professional team with a gorgeous, star athlete girlfriend. Not that any of it was a bad thing—she'd learned fairly quickly with Nicole that change could be much better and much less scary than she'd often made it out to be. She was just hoping, for Nicole's sake, that change didn't include the redhead never playing again (though she supposed they'd find a way to get through that scenario together should they come to it).
The referee's whistle blew with the horn to signify the end of the first period, Dolls standing to take a phone call, one from Bunny Loblaw based on the Caller ID.
"Hello?" he answered, Waverly listening in curiously. "Yes, I'm aware of the score…" (1-0 Power after a breakdown defensively earned the home team a penalty shot). "No, Bunny, I don't think we should protest these refs," Dolls said, removing the phone from his ear and turning to Waverly, mouthing What the fuck to her. "You know, I think they were well within their rights to call that…no Bunny, Hastings tripped the girl on a breakaway—that's a penalty shot…yes, I'm sure that's the rule…You know, I'm not sure why they haven't scored yet, but you also know I can't control that…look, the period's going to start back up soon, I gotta go," Dolls said, abruptly hanging up the phone before Bunny could add anything else.
"Wow," Waverly said when Dolls returned to his seat. "I knew she was crazy, but wow."
"I seriously don't know how someone so delusional can be allowed to have so much money."
"It's the world's biggest crime."
"Speaking of delusional, looks like you're going to have your hands full with her Twitter account tonight. She was using some less than appropriate names for the refs down there."
"Lucky me," she added sarcastically, looking down to see the Twitter notification on her home screen (and her battery on 1%).
New Tweet from Bunny Loblaw:
"Loser refs tonight in Bathurst, makes you wonder if they really should leave women in charge after all."
"God, why even own a women's hockey team if she hates strong women so much? Makes you wonder if she even realizes that she's a woman in charge," she scoffed, showing Dolls next to her.
"Maybe it's some sort of self-aware social commentary."
"You and I both know she's not that smart."
Exhausted from the day in Bathurst, Waverly barely had the energy to plug her phone into the charger before collapsing into bed immediately after her return to the hotel room. They'd have most of tomorrow off before an afternoon flight to Halifax for Monday night's game against the Warriors.
She was glad in a way that her phone died at the start of the second period, not wanting to see the onslaught of progressively incoherent tweets from the team owner, what with the Devils completely falling apart, letting up 5 goals in the period and losing the game by a 7-0 margin. She'd deal with that in the morning.
Sleep coming to her almost instantly, she welcomed it, hoping that tomorrow would be less stressful, Sundays being typically free from business calls and the like.
Unfortunately, the hope was dashed much earlier than she would've liked, the blaring of her ringtone jarring her awake at…1:27 AM, looking blearily at the alarm clock next to the bed. She grumbled as she reached for the device, not bothering to check who was calling at such an absurd time.
"What do you want?" She muttered, still lying on her chest, hoping to be able to go back to sleep as soon as possible.
"DUDE!" Wynonna's voice bounced off the inside of her skull much louder than usual (though that may have had more to do with the sleep she was currently being deprived of).
"God, Wynonna, why are you disturbing my sleep? Do you have any idea what time it is here?"
"Babygirl, shut up," her sister cut in, "I've been trying to call you for the past three hours, why the fuck haven't you been answering?"
"My phone's been dead," she answered, annoyed, "and I've been sleeping. What do you want, Wynonna?"
"Nicole's in the hospital."
Waverly bolted upright at Wynonna's words. Nothing else mattered in that moment than making sure Nicole was okay.
"I'll be right there," she responded hastily into the phone and hung up before she could hear her sister add anything else.
Frantically, threw on a hoodie and a pair of sneakers, not bothering to see if her clothes matched in the darkness of the hotel room. She gathered a few belongings haphazardly into a backpack and sprinted out of the room and down the hall, pounding on a door until the inhabitant reached it.
A half-asleep Xavier Dolls pulled open the door, squinting at the bright light coming in from the hallway. (Under different circumstances, Waverly probably would've chuckled at the fact that she'd never considered that part of Dolls' humanity meant that he slept in boxers and a t-shirt and not one of the three suits she'd always seen him wear).
"Earp?" He questioned groggily, voice still husky from sleep.
"I need to go see Nicole," she blurted, not interested in wasting time, "now."
"Waverly, look, I totally support yours and Nicole's relationship, but I'm not here to facilitate your booty calls at one thirty in the morning," he grumbled as he started to close the door to go back to bed. She stuck her hand out to stop him, holding the door open.
"No. I need to go back to Purgatory," she said seriously, "Nicole's in the hospital."
Dolls didn't look at her, but closed the door behind him instead. She huffed, annoyed at his rudeness until he reopened the door, now having thrown on a CEWHL hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, inviting her into the room.
"In the hospital?" He asked, opening his laptop. She nodded. "Do you know why?"
"No," she admitted. "I didn't let Wynonna get that far, but she sounded like it was important, and she…" Waverly trailed off, looking at her phone and seeing twenty-seven (27) missed calls from her sister and a few from Gus, as well as several unread text messages of varying franticness, all in all caps from Wynonna. "Whatever it is, it's important," she concluded, and Dolls nodded.
"Okay, well this is convenient," Dolls noted, turning his screen toward her, "there's a flight that leaves for Calgary in an hour. If you leave now, you can catch it, and I can have a car ready to take you back to Purgatory immediately after you land."
"Oh my god, please," she said, watching Dolls complete the purchase and book the flight, "how much do I owe you?"
"Don't worry about it," he dismissed, "make sure your girl is okay."
"Thank you," she said after catching the look that told her not to protest what he was saying, "really, I mean it."
"Don't mention it."
Dolls drove her to the nearby airport and even promised to make sure all of the rest of her things got back to her once the road trip was over, all of which she was grateful for. She thanked him once more as she ran through the doors to the airline counter, presenting the email confirmation of her ticket purchase. The lady (who looked less than thrilled to be there) printed her a boarding pass and informed her the flight would be leaving from gate three. The already small airport was practically empty at such an early hour, leading Waverly to surmise that this was the only flight right now. As a result, she sped through security and didn't have to worry about checking any luggage in. She only waited a max fifteen minutes at the gate before they started boarding the flight, and shortly thereafter, the less than full airplane took off for Calgary.
Waverly spent the entirety of the seven-hour flight worrying about what state she'd find Nicole in when she arrived at the hospital. Did she fall and hurt her leg again? Or her head? Did she have some kind of delayed brain bleed or seizure?
God, why didn't she let Wynonna explain?
Seven hours of worst-case scenarios later, she disembarked the plane, sped past the unnecessary baggage claim, and found the driver Dolls said he'd have waiting for her. It was another 35 minutes from Calgary to the Purgatory town line, and another 12 to the hospital once she'd given the driver the address. Hopping out of the car, she left her driver, Kurt, a nice tip and flew through the doors of the emergency room, crashing into one of the overnight nurses who was leaving the hospital following the end of her shift.
It was just about 7:20 when she found Wynonna, jogging over to the brunette to embrace her—she really just needed hug, and to know that everything was going to be okay.
"Wynonna what's going on? Where's Nicole? Is she okay?"
"Babygirl, relax, take a breath," Wynonna instructed. "Good, now, as I was going to explain on the phone, we had to call an ambulance for Haught because she passed out in the living room, right as she was heading upstairs."
"Wynonna, she didn't fall down the stairs, did she?" She asked, fear creeping in on her, remembering the sinking feeling in her gut from yesterday morning.
"No, but one second she was on her feet, not looking too hot, and the next," Wynonna said, smacking her hands together in demonstration of Nicole's fall.
"Do they know why?"
"They say it was a combination of fatigue, dehydration and stress," her sister explained. "Her body was just so overwhelmed that it took matters into its own hands. I should've known, she really didn't look great—she was pale, clammy-looking, all shaky—especially when she got back home later in the evening. I knew she hadn't been sleeping great, but I didn't know she was pulling double workouts, with me and then by herself on the side."
Waverly felt more than a little guilty, knowing she'd been contributing to Nicole's lack of sleep and the added stress due to their relationship disconnect. And, she was now realizing that the redhead was exactly the type of stubborn that would run herself into the ground to get back to where she was as quickly as possible.
"Is she okay now?"
"She's resting," Wynonna said as she ran her hand through her hair, "they've got her on an IV to help with her dehydration, they've had her asleep since about 8:30 last night, so she should be coming around soon, hopefully."
"Can we go to her room?"
Her sister nodded and led her down the hallways. Waverly was glad that even though she was still in the hospital, at least Nicole was in a normal patient room and not the ICU like she'd been months ago.
Walking into the room, she saw Nicole's bright red hair in heavy contrast with both the baby blue gown she was wearing and the paleness of her skin. Waverly pulled up a seat and grabbed her girlfriend's hand, seeing what Wynonna meant when she said clammy. Holding the hand, she noticed the muscle definition Nicole had added as a result of her workouts with Wynonna, but also noticed in her face and cheeks that the redhead had visibly lost weight since she'd been gone. She reached up to tuck the loose hair behind Nicole's right ear, taking note of the deep circles beneath the normally bright, expressive brown eyes. The guilt mounted in her stomach, knowing that Nicole's state was partly her fault.
"I know it doesn't seem like it, but she looks a lot better than she did last night," Wynonna said.
"I'm an idiot," Waverly admitted.
"Yeah, you are, and you two definitely need to talk through this drama," her sister agreed, "but she's stubborn as hell, and I've been here—I should've kept a better eye on her while you were gone."
"Don't blame yourself, you're not responsible for her."
"What I'm saying is that there just needs to be better communication between all of us and set some better expectations so we don't end up in here every six months because of this one."
Waverly nodded, stroking the back of Nicole's hand with her thumb, the woman in bed responding to the contact, eyes fluttering open at the sound of the voices in the room. Nicole groaned, licking her lips as she came to, and Waverly jumped into action, grabbing the cup of water from the bedside table and bringing the straw to Nicole's lips.
The redhead took a few small sips before weakly thanking Waverly with a tired smile.
"What're you doing here?"
"What am I doing here?" Waverly repeated Nicole's question. "Someone got themselves sent to the hospital again. Do you think I'd let you here alone? Or worse—with Wynonna?"
Wynonna gasped melodramatically and offended.
"But what about the road trip?"
"Nicole, do you think I care more about the road trip than I care about you?"
"No," Nicole blushed, sending her eyes downward. "But your job?"
"Dolls knows. He actually set the flight up early this morning," she assured. "Nicole, you're in the hospital, obviously that comes first."
"I love you."
"And I love you too, baby," Waverly smiled before it turned slightly into a frown, "which is why we need to talk."
"Oh god, am I in trouble?"
"No," Waverly chuckled, "but I think we need to clear the air. It's no secret things have been off between us—since Hannah came around. I know you apologized, but I still owe you one…for acting like a child." Nicole cocked her head, but didn't speak. "I ignored you and pouted instead of telling you how I felt. That's not us. We're not that couple; we talk things through when there's a problem, and I screwed with that. I know it's been stressing you out and that's why you haven't been sleeping—"
"—Waves, I—"
"—From now on, I promise to communicate and tell you when something's bothering me, but I need you to promise that too. You can't be running yourself into the ground, Nicole, it's not healthy and you won't get back any faster if you end up in the hospital every couple of weeks."
"I just thought the sooner I could get back on the ice, the sooner everything could go back to normal." Nicole mumbled sadly, fumbling with the frayed edge of the blanket instead of making eye contact with Waverly.
"I know baby," Waverly placed a hand under the redhead's chin, "but you need to take care of yourself too, okay? And I'll be here to help you. I'm sorry I added to your stress, I love you."
"I love you too," Nicole said, both of them yawning in sync. Waverly supposed they were both pretty exhausted. "Now, you're tired, I'm tired—what do you say you climb in here next to me and we take a nap while Wynonna works on getting us out of this place?"