She thinks living with Doc and Dolls will be weird. In a way, it is—it's weird to wake up and strain her ears for the sound of footsteps before realising that she doesn't need to do that; that if her friends catch her up and around they aren't going to fly into a rage over some perceived slight. It's weird to be able to cook when she wants, and to catch a ride to her classes in the morning as a foregone conclusion on Dolls' part, because one morning Wynonna had woken up panicking she was going to be late, and Dolls offered to drop her off, and the tradition has stuck. It's weird to live with people who she doesn't constantly have to force herself into an ill-fitting mould around.
In December, when she stops by Rays to give Waverly her dinner and money to buy lunch for the next day, Waverly pulls out of the departing hug and says, "Wait. Something came for you yesterday." She digs in her backpack, pulling out a thin envelope with P-Hi's address and emblem in the upper left corner, addressed in sharp typeface to Wynonna Earp , with the Johnsons' address printed beneath it. "Grades, I think," Waverly says.
"Oh." Wynonna regards it for a moment, before taking it and hurriedly sticking it in her messenger bag. She doesn't have the heart to check it, especially not in front of Waverly. "Thanks," she says, and squeezes her sister's shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow. Stay safe, alright?"
"Alright," Waverly says, dutifully; and then says, "I gotta go—Nicole's waiting for me. We're walking home together." She smiles at Wynonna broadly, and practically skips over to where Nicole's waiting a few feet away. Nicole catches sight of her, and says something, and Waverly laughs, before grabbing the redhead's hand; the two of them disappearing down the street.
"Huh," says Wynonna. "Well, that's new." She's happy for Waverly, though—Nicole's a good friend to her. Girlfriend? She's not sure what terms they're using.
Adjusting the strap of her bag, she tugs the scarf a bit tighter in an attempt to ward off the cold; makes her way down to the bus stop, taking a seat on one of the benches beneath the cover. Cars meander down the street, hampered by the reduced speed zone around the school, their headlights refracting off the thick, freezing fog that's been settled over the town for the past few days, casting halos of light around them.
Doc is still at work for another half hour, and Dolls is busy with tutoring; and she finds herself, suddenly, missing them. It's not something that would have occurred to her a few months ago—this ache, like a missing limb; the lack of Doc's easy smile and Dolls' gentle hands. They were important to her, yes, but they weren't a part of her, her— life . She closes her eyes; thinks about the future. She wants them to be there, she wants to be there for them . She l—
No. Nope. She is not going to say it, or even think it. Down that path lies madness and heartache.
The rumble of the bus engine startles her from her thought; and she looks up to find the dusty red and deep green painted Purgatory Valley Transit Line Three bus idling, door propped open; the driver clearly starting to get exasperated with her. She shoves herself to her feet, hurrying up the steps and into the bus; claims one of the seats towards the back, next to the window.
In the three stops between Rays and home, she finds herself boxed in as an older man holding a cage with a rat in it takes the aisle seat. It takes her a minute to remember her breathing techniques, but she manages to, in the end; and by the time it's her stop, she's pretty calm again.
She gets off, sticking her hands in her pockets, and uses her shoulder to push the door open, making her way up the stairs, taking them at a decent clip, ready to get out of the cold and into the warm, well-insulated apartment. She has to take her gloves off her hands to handle the keys, parsing the apartment key from the three other keys and the swiss army knife on the key ring; slots it into the lock, the bolt sliding out with a distinctly metallic snick .
Turning the doorknob, she pulls the key out, sticking the ring back into her pocket, and hurries inside, closing the door behind her; pulls off her scarf and boots—a recent acquisition—and starts putting things away.
She sets her bag on the bar counter; takes one of the stools, taking out her notebooks, and starts going over her notes. She's got a quiz coming up in Stats, and she needs to make sure she knows how to work with percentiles and z-scores for normal distributions—she managed to buy a second-hand graphing calculator, but she still finds herself accidentally muddling up numbers when she inputs them, as well as figuring out when to use cumulative versus singular point probabilities.
She's just about halfway through the second sheet of practice problems when the door opens, letting in cold air for a long moment. "Hey, some of us don't want to freeze!" she calls without looking over her shoulder. "Hurry up and come in!"
"Hello to you, too, sweetheart," comes the timbre of Doc's voice; and a moment later, the door closes, and she comes over to Wynonna's side. "Ah, being industrious, I see. Very commendable."
" One of us has to actually pay attention in class," Wynonna says. "Honestly, I don't know why you're taking it since you spend half the lessons napping."
Doc shrugs. "Nothing I can't learn from looking over your notes," she says, cheerfully, and pats Wynonna on the shoulder, making her way over to the fridge and pulling out the container with the remainder of the spaghetti. "Now, I find myself famished—what do you say to taking a break from your work and joining me for a meal?"
"Uh, give me a sec," Wynonna says, and quickly jots down her thought process for the problem she's on, before she opens her bag, checking to see if she's left anything inside. She pulls out the envelope from P-Hi, and grimaces.
"Why the long face, love?" Doc asks, glancing over from where she's serving them. "Something wrong?"
"I got my progress report from P-Hi," Wynonna admits. "I...haven't opened it yet. I'm kind of afraid of what's it's going to say, honestly. Advanced Construction and Culinary Arts II aren't exactly classes where you get graded papers handed back to you, you know. The closest I can remember to being told what my grade was for a project was Ms. Reyn saying that my dog house was, and I quote, 'uninspired, but of acceptable quality'." She's rambling—a stress reaction, probably, but she can't stop it.
Doc puts the bowls in the microwave; comes over to set her hand over Wynonna's; the calloused skin warm against her own; comforting. "You do not have to open it if you do not so desire," she says. "But if you do, I am here for you, whatever the little printed letters and numbers on that sheet of paper within it may be."
"Thanks," Wynonna mutters. "Um—can we wait until Dolls gets back? I appreciate your support," she hurries to add, "but I think I need, like, twice the amount for this."
"Of course," Doc says; and steps back when the microwave beeps. For a moment, Wynonna misses the contact; and then she shakes herself, and takes her bowl and fork from Doc; joins her on the couch.
They're putting their dishes in the dishwasher when Dolls comes in; bundled in her absurdly thick jacket and fluffy scarf, fuzzy black hat pulled over her ears, bright red gloves cocooning her hands; and, not for the first time, Wynonna and Doc watch in amusement as she struggles to get everything off. After a few minutes, they take pity on her and go to help her out of her outer layer.
"Well, would you look at that," Wynonna says, widening her eyes comically as the scarf falls away to reveal the lower half of Dolls' face, "there is a person beneath that. I'll be damned."
"Shut up," Dolls grumbles over Doc's laughter; but it's fond. This isn't the first time this has happened.
They get Dolls a bowl of spaghetti, and fall into easy conversation about their respective days. Finally, when a lull comes, Wynonna takes a deep breath and grabs the envelope from where she tucked it back in her bag; slides her finger beneath the flap before she can think better of it.
Pulling out the sheet, she closes her eyes for a moment. Doc's hand comes up to rest on her arm, comforting; and she opens her eyes to peer at the words—and nearly drops the letter. "Holy shit," she says. "Holy shit! Guys, I've got a 3.28 GPA!"
"Congratulations," Dolls says, warmly, and sets her bowl on the coffee table, settles her hand on Wynonna's knee. "I know you've put in a lot of hard work to get to where you are now."
Wynonna just stares at the paper, trying not to gape. "This is—this is insane! That's a solid B! I haven't had grades this good since I was in elementary school!"
Dropping the letter into her lap, she leans back against the cushions, head buzzing; drags her hands through her hair, nails against skin, in an attempt to get the overwhelming bigness of the emotion out from where it's trapped, just below the surface. Words fail her.
Seconds, or maybe minutes, pass before she can speak again; and when she does, it's a quiet, "Holy shit."
"This calls for a celebration," Doc declares, squeezing her arm. "I'll grab the cake. Wynonna, you and Dolls choose the film."
That leaves Wynonna with Dolls' hand on her knee; and she leans against her, letting out an incredulous laugh. Dolls lets her; doesn't force her to move past it.
They wind up choosing a Western, with broad shots of the prairie and buffalo and the high, hot sun; and Doc sets the plate with the pieces of tiramisu on Wynonna's lap, handing them each a fork.
Dolls complains about the acting, and Doc complains about the historical accuracy, and Wynonna sits between the two of them, content to listen and watch the expressions play across their faces, and finds herself suddenly, inexplicably, spine-tinglingly happy.
In January, Wynonna asks Doc to teach her to drive. They're barrelling down the narrow streets of the old part of town, Doc going ten over the speed limit, not getting into an accident only by virtue of the fact that it's the middle of the night, on their way to make a last minute shopping trip because they've all been busy and none of them realised that they were practically all out of food until Wynonna opened the fridge at ten that night after spending the evening studying and working on a paper for English and came face to face with baren shelves.
Dolls' been up since four because something came up with her job and so she's swaying when she stands up, and so she reluctantly allows them to press her into the armchair and let Doc take the car keys with the yawn-punctured threat that if Doc getsinto an accident she'd be relegated to the couch and banned from the kitchen. Doc looks suitably horrified, so Dolls pulls her down for a departing kiss. Wynonna averts her gaze in an attempt to give them a bit of privacy, and also because she's pretty sure that if she looks she'll say something stupid. They've only recently started to do PDA around her, which is both nice—it means they trust her—and terrible—Wynonna wishes she could be kissing them even more than usual.
Doc takes the stairs two at a time, leaving Wynonna to scramble after her. "Slow down!" she calls. "Not all of us can be blessed with your freakily athletic body!"
"Your body's great!" Doc calls back, "but Dolls never lets me drive, so this calls for a bit of excitement." She does stop to hold the door open for Wynonna, though.
The seats are familiar by now, but Wynonna only has a moment to appreciate it before Doc steps on the gas.
"I'm pretty sure you're supposed to stop at stop signs," Wynonna says as Doc blows through the third one in ten minutes; gripping the seat. "Dolls never drives like this."
"That's because Dolls is a coward and a geriatric at heart," Doc retorts, "no offence to her."
Wynonna snorts. " I could drive better than this," she says, as Doc jerks the steering wheel and the car swerves around the corner.
"Well, you do not know how to drive, love," Doc says, and slams on the brakes as the light turns red. "So the point is, as they say, moot."
"You could teach me," Wynonna says, half out of exasperation and half because she genuinely has wanted to ask for driving lessons because her peers have been driving since they turned fifteen and honestly, she feels kind of ashamed that she never managed to convince any of her foster families to teach her, and now here she is, months past eighteen, and she doesn't have so much as a driver's permit, let alone a driver's license. And then she adds, "Forget it, that's a stupid suggestion."
Doc looks thoughtful. "No, actually, that isn't a half bad idea. Well, out you get, come around." And with that, she puts the car in park and opens the door.
"What, now? " Wynonna squawks; about the protest; but Doc's already opened her door and is gesturing for her to get out.
"No better time to learn than the present," she says, cheerfully; and then when Wynonna's sat down, "Alright, put your left foot off to the side and your right foot on the brake—that's the large pedal in the middle, and put the shift into drive."
The light's been green for a few seconds; and the singular car that's pulled up behind them slams on the horn. Doc puts her window down and yells, "Shut up! At your own pace, darlin'," she adds to Wynonna.
Wynonna bites her cheek; pulls the shift until it hits drive, and then eases off the brakes. The car slides forward, smoother than she expects. Her palms have started sweating. "That's it," Doc says, "now, press down on the gas—right pedal, only use the one foot."
She gives it a go; creeping up to the speed limit. The streets have gotten wider and the stoplights further between, and she finds herself relaxing, the motions coming naturally; flipping the turn signal on when Doc tells her to and making the turn easily, the car moving like an extension of herself.
Pulling in to the parking space turns out okay, too; and when she puts the car in park, foot on the brake and key in the ignition still, she turns to look at Doc; to say something; and finds her friend looking at her like she's seeing Wynonna for the first time; like she's the sun peaking out from the clouds after hours of rain; expression open and awed. It's wonderful. It's wrong. Doc shouldn't be looking at her like that.
She clears her throat; watches Doc blink, the expression fading away, and doesn't let herself mourn it because it wasn't supposed to happen. "How did I do?" she asks, rather than panic and freak out because if she doesn't try and distract herself from the fact that Doc looked at her like that she will.
"Wonderfully," Doc says; and her tone is flat. When she moves, her motions are jerky. Is she angry? Wynonna wonders, and then reminds herself that that's better than the alternative.
They don't talk in the store, and they don't talk on the drive back. Despite her best efforts, Wynonna finds her stomach knotting over the extended silence; guilt coursing through her.
When they get back, Dolls is reading a book in the armchair, and she looks up when they enter. "Hey," she says, "how was it?"
Wynonna can't look at her; not after betraying her like this. She mumbles something that might be a goodnight and night just be a mumble, and drops the groceries on the counter, and hurries into her room; peels herself out of her clothes and pulls on her pyjamas.
She lays in bed for a long, long time before she falls asleep, the memory of Doc looking at her replaying over and over again, each time with a new layer of guilt and self-loathing.