A/N: Just to answer a couple questions I got - this is set sometime after Willa comes back and the scene in the barn, but before the party and the finale (I know that's vague). And no, they haven't hit any of the big milestones yet, but that could change...
Nicole roots through drawers and she pokes through cabinets. She checks the fridge and behind the toaster, but no matter where she looks can't find it.
Whatever it is.
She searches and she searches as Waverly watches her from the living room side of the counter, keeping that two and a half feet of wood and formica, littered with empty glasses rimmed with whiskey stains, dirty plates, and a couple stacks of junk mail high enough to get lost in - housekeeping a la Wynonna - between them at all times. It's like she's afraid to get closer and Nicole doesn't really think she's afraid, not of her, but thinking isn't feeling and she can't help but feel like she's terrifying Waverly right out of… whatever it is they are.
Crashing through drawer after drawer on some blind treasure hunt with no end in sight is probably not helping with that.
Nicole's not even sure what she's looking for, and no, that is not a metaphor or a euphemism or any kind of statement on her life in general. She knows, in that regard, exactly what she's looking for and - safe distance and dirty plates and two and a half feet aside - she thinks… she knows… that she's found it.
She's found her.
But like wanting and doing and thinking and feeling, Nicole knows that finding and keeping don't always walk together and even though she knows she's found her, in this moment, in this kitchen with the whistling kettle going ignored again and the open package of butter cookies sitting there unattended on the counter and Waverly watching from that safe distance?
Nicole's not entirely sure finding really matters much at all.
There's another drawer - one in a seemingly endless line of 'another drawer's - a long and narrow one with a cracked handle, next to the stove, and Nicole pulls and pulls but it stays shut, locking her out and holding its secrets at bay as it jiggles in place. With every pull - every yank that's almost a tear or a rip or a break - she can hear the wood creaking and she pulls on it, again and again, but nothing gives.
"You have to wiggle it," Waverly says, the first words she's uttered since Nicole left the living room and even just the sound of her voice soothes something in her and dammit, that can't be right, that can't be yet, it's too soon and it's too easy and it's too much. "It jammed years ago, when I was a kid and daddy always said he'd fix it but he…" Waverly rests her hands on the counter and stares at the closest glass, her gaze sort of distant and lost. "Side to side and then pull," she says, softly. "That should do it."
Nicole hesitates, her hand flexing around the handle and there's this… urge… bubbling up inside to just pack it in, to give up the hunt and cross the room and lean over that counter and take ahold of Waverly and not some dumb fucking drawer she knows doesn't hold anything even close to what she's looking for.
She might not know what that is, not really, but she knows it's not there, it's not hiding behind the cracked handle and the stuck wood and she knows she's got a better chance of finding something over there - with her - but as fast as that urge comes hiccuping to the surface, it dissipates, dissolving back into the empty it came from because she knows Waverly's just humoring her, she's just riding out the crazy - riding alongside it - cause that's what Waverly does, that's how you survive in Purgatory, even when you don't know what's going on or what's really wrong.
And that's just it. Nicole doesn't know either. She doesn't know what's wrong, not exactly, and it has to be exact, it has to be specific and precise. She's a cop, she lives in the details, not in the margins and yeah, she's got an idea but as long as it stays just an idea… well… she can't fix an idea, but she needs to, she needs to do something because that's how she works, that's how Nicole deals.
She does.
She did when she was seven and her parents spent most every night yelling and screaming and breaking and so Nicole woke up most every morning and she went to school and did. She did knock over a desk and she did tear the cover off her math textbook and she did break Ryan Grace's nose at recess with a well placed heater of a basketball pass and yes, it was totally an accident and no, it had nothing to do with him tripping her on the way to lunch and sure, she promised to try out for the team when she was older.
She did when she twelve and her mother caught her older sister Lindsay with a boy - a naked one - in her room, in the middle of the night, and Nicole snuck out and threw rocks at his car, parked two streets over and behind a gas station. And she did again when she was sixteen and her mother caught her with a girl (on the couch) (in broad daylight) (holding hands) and she went to school the next day and she did skip class and then skipped another and she did end up late for basketball practice cause she was busy busting Ryan Grace's nose (again) when she did catch him putting the moves on her girl.
But sometimes the did was more about the did not. Nicole did not ever speak to that girl again, not after she watched her worry over Ryan's nose and not after she listened to her yell and scream and call her a 'bitch' and 'a phase' and a 'fucking experiment', even if there'd never been any of that and there never would have been cause Nicole did not do that, not unless she was sure, not unless she knew.
Like she does now.
But now… well… now she doesn't even remember that girl's name (Louisa) or the way that girl's hand felt in hers (cold and small and not a fit at all) or the way that girl's lip gloss tasted on her tongue (watermelon.)
Nicole doesn't remember that at all and there's a lot of things she doesn't remember just as well.
She does remember that the doing - all of it - it didn't make anything right or even all that much better (sometimes even worse) but it did make it… tolerable… it made it bearable, liveable, made it so she could get through, even if only for a few minutes, until she ran out of rocks to chuck or the class she wasn't in was done or until Ryan stopped bleeding. And Nicole remembers that she came here - to Purgatory and, today, tonight, right now to here - because she was sick of tolerable and she'd had just about all the bearable she could stand and liveable wasn't so… liveable… anymore.
Nicole came here to stop doing and start being and maybe, just maybe all she needs to stop the one and start the other is right there, is standing just on the other side of that counter.
But that's a maybe and Nicole… well, she's not quite ready to trust in 'maybe' just yet.
Her hand moves almost of its own will. Side to side and then pull and yup, that does the trick, the drawer snaps open, almost sliding right off the rails until Nicole bumps it with her hip to keep it in check. She glances down and she's not surprised that there's not much to it, barely enough in there to poke through. A pile of old screws and a couple batteries - one triple-a and one double-a cause why would they match - and a pocket knife, busted and rusted and most likely dull as hell, and a half gone roll of duct tape, the end of it torn in jagged cuts, like someone ripped it off with their teeth.
There are moments, fleeting ones, the ones that are filled with all the guns and all the whiskey and all the brawls and secret agents and scary monsters and drawers full of screws and tape and knives - drawers that would have been right at place in her father's garage - moments when Nicole so clearly sees all the 'dude' that comes with the Earp women, everything about the life and the world that surrounds them that is so stereotypically… guy… and she can't help it, even if she wants to, she can't help but wonder if maybe this one, if maybe this… relationship… if it would be enough, if it would be close enough to make her mother happy.
No. Not happy. Never that.
OK.
But then, in those same moments, Nicole thinks of Waverly in her Shorty's top and her Shorty's shorts and she thinks of all the thoughts that go through her mind every time she sees Waverly in them - or in anything really, even her two sizes too big PPD hoodie - and Nicole knows how utterly and completely not 'dude' any of those thoughts are and she thinks of how many of the so-called men she's known that Wynonna could absolutely kill - even without the gun - and well, that moment? That question, that thought of her mama and what she'd want?
It passes right quick.
Nicole shuts the drawer and rests her hands against the stove, fingers drumming on the cooktop, unable to be still. "I don't…" She shakes her head and sighs and curses herself, pissed that - again - she can't just let it happen. "I don't," she says, pushing herself to try, to try again, "I don't even know what I'm looking for," she says softly. "Or why. I just…"
"I get it," Waverly says and Nicole wants to believe that, she might want that more than anything ever, but she doesn't know how. How can Waverly get it when she doesn't? "I do the same thing," Waverly says. "Or I did… before."
That one word hangs there between them, like a long strip of that jagged tape, a line down their life. Before. After. They've both got one foot in each and that's got them stuck in now and neither of them seems to know how to move.
Waverly walks slowly around the counter, only halfway, taking her turn and giving a little space and distance. "Back when it was just me," she says, "before Wynonna came home and Willa came… back…" Her eyes cloud, like they always do when Willa comes up and that's probably the best way either of them can think of to describe Waverly's feelings for her other sister.
Cloudy.
She hops up on the counter, her legs dangling off the edge, toes just barely crossing the border, slipping just inside Nicole's bubble. "A lot of nights," she says, "I stayed with Champ… well… he stayed with me and he'd fall asleep and I… wouldn't… it wasn't that I couldn't, not that he snored or anything, I mean he did, but that wasn't…" Waverly catches herself and ducks her head, embarrassed. "Sorry," she says. "I ramble sometimes."
"I've noticed," Nicole says, wishing desperately she could just take Waverly in her arms and give her the full long and lengthy list of everything she's ever noticed about her. She stretches out one foot, brushing her own toes against Waverly's, trying to ignore how even that simplest of touches zaps sparks through her heart and catches her breath in her throat. "It's OK," she says, smiling. "It's kinda adorable."
Waverly blushes. "Wait till you've been dealing with if for like twenty years…" She says, the 'like I have' lost in the trail off as she catches herself, as she hears the implications of what she said suddenly bounding their way through her mind but Nicole doesn't seem to mind, in fact she smiles and she blushes and Waverly feels her own skin flush again at that.
She's not sure, not at all, not even remotely, how Nicole does this to her, or if she even knows she that does. Waverly can feel it, the charge in the air between them, like it's a solid thing, like even if she closed her eyes and held out a hand, she could still see, she could see by feel, following the path of the electricity as it brushes against her, the sparks dancing along her skin.
It's always like that with Nicole, even now, even when they somehow keep managing to attract and repel in equal measure. It's always been like that with her, at least for Waverly. There's always been that charge, that jolt, that current of alive and it's not the electricity of attraction or, at least, it's not just that. Waverly knows they have that - the way she can't stop imagining what it would be like… what it will be like… to be with her, even now, tells her that - but she's known that from the start, even before they were a they, even when she was still with Champ and even when she was still with Champ, even on those nights when she let her mind wander and drift and maybe she didn't quite imagine that he was Nicole but…
But when she shut her eyes and she rode out whatever moments of pleasure and completion and that rush that coursed through all of her on those rare occasions when Champ managed to work just enough magic to conjure that up within her? Waverly always saw the same thing behind her eyes.
Red.
So much red, beating like a heart against her lids and so, yeah, Waverly's known, she's known from the first moment she saw Nicole, from the first moment she saw Nicole see her, when it was right there, dancing in the deputy's eyes. Waverly knew lust when she saw it, she knew desire too, but she'd never seen it like that, like a hunger and not just to have her, but just to be, to just drink her in and swallow her down and then to do it all over again, over and over and over forever.
Waverly's lived her whole life never thinking of forever because - in her whole life - she's never gotten one. But now… now, she finds herself having to not think of it, not cause she hasn't had one but because it's only been a few weeks of a few nights (and days) (and Nedley's couch) (and the barn) of kisses and touches that haven't even gone as far as Champ's did on their first date and yeah, Willa knows but Wynonna doesn't (which makes her the only one) and it can't be forever until she does, but no matter how much Waverly tries not to… God… she can see it.
Most of the time. Except times like… well… now.
Times when it's cloudy.
But dammit… she's tired of cloudy.
Waverly shuffles around on the counter, drawing closer, breathing a little easier when Nicole doesn't pull back and maybe, she thinks, just maybe, this time they can take the two steps forward without the one step back.
"When Champ would fall asleep," she says, "I'd get online. And I would just… look. I didn't know what for or why or if I'd even know it when I found it, but I looked. I looked everywhere."
Nicole nods and she doesn't say anything but there's this spark - the other kind - behind her eyes and Waverly takes that as a good sign (she'll take any she can get) and soldiers on.
"It was like the rabbit hole in Alice," she says. "I'd start out looking for something about Greece or Rome or wherever…" Wherever Wynonna was, she thinks, but doesn't say. "And then I'd just fall and stumble and slide my way down the hole and next thing I knew it was four in the morning and Champ was still snoring and I didn't know quite how to find my way back."
"And sometimes you didn't really want to."
Waverly's not sure if Nicole's talking about her or herself, but, in the end, it doesn't really make much difference, does it?
"No," she says. "I couldn't be out there… wherever that was." She frowns a little, the clouds rolling in again and Nicole doesn't know everything, not about Waverly and not about her family and their history with - and without - each other, but she knows enough, enough to know that 'out there' was never really a 'where', it was always a 'who.' "I was here," Waverly says, "and I didn't know how or if I could ever change that."
Nicole can tell Waverly wishes she had, wishes she'd changed that, but - selfishly - she's so very glad she never did.
Waverly slides down off the counter, dropping her whole self inside the bubble. "I looked," she says. "I looked and I looked and I looked… because I knew I'd never find. And that was easier."
There's a second, a tiny moment, when Nicole presses herself back against the drawer, when she feels that cracked handle pressing against her hip and she wants… needs… to crawl inside that drawer, to hide behind the tape, to dive under the pile of screws, to hold up that busted and rusted dull-ass knife like a fucking sword.
And then she sees Waverly there - she sees her - and yeah, Nicole can see it too.
"I look," Waverly says. "I look all the time. I've been looking since the moment we met. I've been looking for every reason, the ones I know make sense and the ones I whip up in my mind like… like the fucking Witch… every reason you'll go."
She doesn't say 'because everyone always does' but Nicole hears it just the same.
"I look…" Nicole says. She hangs her head and grits her teeth and wonders just why it is she can stare down a guy with a gun or a demon back from hell or fucking Dolls but Waverly Earp scares - terrifies - her. "I look for every way people are going to disappoint me, let me down, try to… keep me from being what… who… I am."
She doesn't say like 'turning out not to be what… who... they thought they were' or 'giving into what other people want' or 'not telling your sister that we're not best friends' (and maybe Waverly just thinks that last one all on her own) but Waverly hears them all just the same.
Waverly scoots over, moving past Nicole to a set of three stacked drawers under the sink, sliding the bottom most one open with her foot. "I don't want that to be us," she says, kneeling down and scooping a clear bottle out of the drawer. "I don't want us to be one of those couples that make their own drama and keep fucking things up and making messes when they could solve it all just by…"
"Talking?"
Waverly nods. "Yeah. We've been doing a lot of that, which is good," she says. "But we keep talking ourselves right up to the edge and then…" She kicks the drawer shut. "I want to," she says. "I want to talk right up to the edge and over it. I want to talk and talk and talk until we've talked about it all but… fuck… I want so much more than just talk."
Nicole likes more. She likes the sound of it and the idea of it and she likes thinking that maybe they're actually already more.
She watches as Waverly grabs up their tea mugs, topping them off from the kettle before handing her one and keeping the other. She unscrews the cap off the bottle and pours a liberal helping of whatever it is (is that peppermint) into their mugs, mumbling something about 'liquid courage' and 'learning from Wynonna' as she does.
Waverly moves back in front of her, any semblance of space and distance absolutely gone. "I think," she says, pausing for a moment to hunt for the words, for the right ones, but they're not there - those perfect words - and they wouldn't be her anyway. "I think I can stop looking cause I think I've finally found and I think maybe you have too." Nicole nods (even though Waverly didn't ask) and Waves feels like maybe her heart can start again. "So, maybe, if we want more… we ought to start looking for that," she says. She sighs and tips her mug back, downing it in one gulp. "Maybe we should start looking together."
Nicole stares down at the mug in her hand for a long moment and OK, maybe Waverly was wrong, maybe her heart shouldn't have started but then Waverly watches as Nicole sets the mug down and then she takes Waverly's hands in hers (and what do you know? Warm and soft and a perfect fit) and kisses her, so softly and so sweetly and it feels like goodbye and hello all at once and Waverly doesn't know what to think.
"I hate tea," Nicole says, breaking the kiss and tipping their heads together, her eyes squeezed shut but Waverly's are wide open. "I hate tea, but I love you and so, yeah," she says. "I think looking together sounds like just about the best plan ever."
Nicole looked in drawers and she checked cabinets and behind the fridge and the toaster. But she should have known. What she was looking for?
Right there all along.
