She said it.

She said it. No, not it. She said them, those words, the three of them. I and love and you and, really, Waverly knows that when you say them like that, all separate and individual like and with an 'and' between them, and not smushed together in a jumbled rush that just comes tumbling out of your mouth when you're totally least expecting it, well, when you say them like that, they're just words.

But then there's the other way.

That way is the way you say them when they're not all individual and they're not all separate, when they're absolutely together cause you can't imagine them any other way, you can't even begin to fathom each word not following the other. When the 'I' has gotta come first cause it's all about you and it's all about that feeling you're feeling, that bubbling and gurgling and filling and all the other -ing's thing that's spilling over inside you and that means the 'love' has to come next cause that's the only word for it even if, really, that word, those four little letters, that one tiny syllable, that one so so so short utterance (that seems so so so long, forever long, end of fucking time long when it's finding its way out of you) doesn't even come close - like not even in the zip code or area code or country code of close - to expressing that bubbling, gurgling, spilling thing.

And then comes the 'you'.

And don't get Waverly started on the 'you' cause, really, she could go on and on and on and on about the you even if, really (again), talk about tiny and talk about inadequate and talk about… insufficient. Like there's any way, any chance, any hope that one word - or many words or lots of words or all the fucking words - could ever encompass or encapsulate or… whatever (she's got no other 'e' words and that's just killing the flow but you get the point)... there's no chance that they could do justice to her. Because 'you' (even after those other two words) or 'her' or 'Nicole' or 'Officer Hot' (and it should probably be with at least two 't's cause, have you seen her?) isn't just the end of that phrase, the object of that verb, the third of those three little words.

She's so much… more.

And yeah, Waverly knows 'more' is a bit… anticlimactic. It's not all that poetic and it's certainly not pretty and it's not quite the deep thoughts she was having about the 'I' and the 'love' but see, that's the thing - it's getting kinda hard for her to think. It's getting to be (and, really, it's past getting) something of a struggle for her to put the words in their places, to follow the bouncing ball, to string them together in any way that makes any sense, what with, you know, Nicole.

Nicole right under her, right there. Nicole's one hand on her hip, slipping and gripping and clutching like she's afraid Waverly's gonna float off. Nicole's other hand dancing across her back, just under her shirt, moving in ways Waverly can't predict or follow, a brush of fingertips here, a pressing and kneading and working of her flesh there, a sliding down down down under the waistband of her shorts and oh, then the other hand's there too and there's lifting, scooting Waves up and up and up and there's lips pressing lightly against the bare skin of her neck and hands down there, cupping and holding and pulling her even closer (like that's possible) and yeah, thinking?

So overrated.

Even thinking about her.

Still… Waverly knows she said it (or them or whatever.) The words, the three of them, she said them before the lips and the hands - the one still on her ass and the one starting to move slowly down and tickling against her leg in a way that so doesn't make her want to laugh - and she said them out loud and to someone else and not a someone else she's related to cause, you know, she said them in that way…

That way you say them to someone whose fingers are trailing lightly along the soft skin of your leg, slowly daring their way further and further up your thigh and oh, hello, that's the inside of that thigh and um… well… yeah (and yeah)... and nobody's been there in a while (nobody except Waverly herself and that's definitely not her hand) and oh, that's new

"Wait," she says, she whispers, almost hoping Nicole won't hear or that maybe she'll hear but she'll ignore, even though Waverly knows good and well that if there's one thing Nicole will never do, it's ignore her. "Nicole… baby…" and God, that sounded so much more like a moan, like a 'yes', like a 'don't ever stop doing that, like not even long enough for food or water or sleep ever' than a plaintive cry to stop. Waverly presses her hands against Nicole's shoulders and all she really wants to do is grip and squeeze and hang the hell on and ride out the storm just like this, but… "Nicole, wait, Nicole… stop."

It's like a switch flips, Nicole's hands stilling and then they're moving again and Waverly's dropping, settling back down on her girlfriend's lap and it's almost like the world's just stopped and it takes her a moment or two - more than she'd expect - to remember to breathe but then Nicole's there, right there, right with her, hands cupping her cheeks and there's this look in her eyes, this… look (it's the best Waverly can do)... as she stares at her and it's like… like… like…

Nothing. No, not that it's like nothing, it's that she's got nothing. Waverly's got no words for it, no way to describe it, no basis for comparison, no mythical legendary perfect relationship to hold it up to as some kind of measuring stick, nothing to weigh the strength of everything she sees dancing behind Nicole's eyes against. And that makes that bubbling gurgling filling and spilling thing rise up in her with power and ferocity that would put the Witch to shame but, more than that, it just reminds her, it brings it slamming home, raising it all into the kind of stark relief Waverly just can't ignore.

This is new. New. And Waverly's not too good with new, at least she doesn't think she is, though she's not quite sure cause, really?

She's not too used to new. She lived a long long long time without new, with every day being the same day - different details and different shadings and different moments but the whole, oh, the whole was always the same - but now there's sisters and there's Docs and there's Dolls and there's demons and witches and monsters (oh, my) and there's Nicole and most of all?

There's her.

And that new is the one that scares her most of all.

"Are you OK?" Nicole's talking and Waverly's realizing she's already missed half of it, but she's pretty sure she's got the drift. "I'm so sorry, that was too fast. I should have known, I mean we've done some… but not that but you said… and I…" She hangs her head, letting her hands slide down onto Waverly's shoulders. "I'm sorry, the last thing I want to do is pressure and I don't… I don't wanna be like some… female version of Champ, you know? I don't want to make you feel like you're just… that."

Waverly smiles to herself, wondering if maybe she should point out that while Nicole never makes her feel like she's just anything (except maybe, sometimes, just perfect) she also makes her feel more like… that… than Champ ever did. And that's not a bad thing, not at all.

She tucks a finger under Nicole's chin and lifts her head, pressing a soft silencing kiss to her lips before leaning back, smiling at the way Nicole's eyes stay flutteringly shut just a beat longer than they should before she starts speaking. "It's not… well… I mean..." She shakes her head at the irony - babbling Nicole and her, suddenly speechless - and tries to figure how to say it, all of it and maybe that's the problem, maybe she doesn't need to say it all, not at once, but she doesn't even know where to start. "It's not too fast," she says, finally, though it really is but it isn't too and how can she make that make sense for Nicole when she can't make heads or tails of it for herself ? "It is," she says, "but it's not because of you and it's not because I don't want it to be fast cause, trust me, I want it, I want you and I want it and you right now."

If Waverly ever wondered what confusion looked like, she doesn't anymore. Confusion, thy name is Nicole. Confusion is, apparently, fucking gorgeous and damn hard to resist and why was she stopping again?

Right. New.

New and those words that she said and that seems - at least it does to Waverly - like maybe a good place to start and, definitely something they ought to talk about and it's more than just 'ought to', it is that but it's a so much more too, so much more of a 'want to' than just a 'have to'. "A part of me," Waverly says, "or, you know, several parts of me, really really really want to just lead you right back into the bedroom and do… you know… things." But, maybe, she thinks, it's better that they don't do those things just yet.

At least not until she can actually bring herself to call them something other than 'things'.

"But see," she continues, "there's other parts of me, important parts, parts that…" Her hands fidget in her lap as she trails off, fingers fumbling like her words, until Nicole takes her hands in her own and that doesn't make Waverly's thoughts any less jumbled or confused but it does seem to make that confusing jumble seem just a little less scary. Until, that is, she opens her mouth again and Godammit, will she ever know what's gonna come out of it before she says stuff like "I did things with Champ" and she has to clamp her hands around Nicole's before the other woman can pull away. "I did," Waverly says (cause, yeah, it needed reinforcement) "but I never… I didn't… those words…"

She doesn't clarify, doesn't say if she never said them or if she never meant them or if she's just realizing now that she didn't even understand them, didn't really know what they meant, not until now, but those are just details and those - the specifics, the exacts, the nitty gritty - they don't really matter. Waverly can see it in Nicole's eyes and she can feel it in the way Nicole's hands relax in hers. Nicole get is, she gets her.

One more thing Champ never quite managed to pull off.

Waverly presses on, hoping Nicole can keep right on translating her into something she can understand. "I always imagined saying it… really saying it… I always thought it would make everything so much easier." Those words would be, in her mind, like a key turning a lock and the door would spring wide - safe passage for all - but Waverly's quickly coming to see that it isn't that simple, it's not quite that easy. Those words turn the key, they flip that lock, but that door?

It's a heavy son of a bitch.

"Champ said it," Waverly says, rolling herself off Nicole's lap (and she feels immediately colder for it) but she stays close, one leg draped over Nicole's, hands still clasped. "He said he loved me but not like… it was always a toss off, you know? A 'love ya' at the end of a phone call or sometimes a 'you're lucky I love you' when I'd done something to annoy him."

She sees the way Nicole's mouth twitches, can practically hear the snide comment, the biting insult she wants to fling (the one Champ probably wouldn't get) and there's a twinge that runs through her. Sometimes - not often, but sometimes - Waverly feels a bit guilty about the way they both talk about Champ, for the way she knows Nicole thinks of him that she's probably done nothing but encourage. Sometimes Waverly feels like it's an either or kinda thing, that it's either Nicole or him (and that's not even a contest), that she can't think even a little well of him or be even the tiniest bit grateful to him for having been there - for having stayed - that she can't harbor even the smallest bit of affection for him cause it's somehow cheating and sometimes Waverly thinks that's not quite fair.

It's not Champ's fault that he couldn't be the one to make her mean those words, that he wasn't the one she needed. It's not his fault he's not her.

She scoots closer, dropping Nicole's hand and curling up against her, tucked tight under one strong arm, warm and safe with her head on Nicole's chest and that makes her feel so protected and so turned on all at once that she can barely sit still, the temptation of those… things… so very very real. "There was a time… a long one…" she says, "when I honestly thought I was going to be with him forever." It wasn't like that was the worst option, but back then it seemed like it was more like the only one. "But I never… no… we never talked about it. About the future or about life or about… us."

Waverly knows she's starting to tread on dangerous ground, that she's taking a few hesitant steps out onto the ice and she's not sure - like at all - that the Witch has frozen it all the way just yet, but she's never even come this close to something like this, something real and something lasting, and something (someone) she knows will be there, always, and the temptation is just too great, she can't help but take the risk.

"I never thought I'd get any of that," she says, "the whole having a future with someone stuff, something real, something past a week or a month." Waverly knows - she can feel it in every part of her, every 'flimsy fiber' as Gus used to say - that she's not just crossing a few 'it's new' 'or 'it's early' or 'we're not there yet' lines. She's bulldozing them into dust. "I do want those things," she says, "those bedroom or couch or… hell… up against the wall things." She swears she can feel Nicole's heart racing - just a little - but that might just be her own. "But I can't help thinking about other… things."

Things, she says, like where they might live. Things like kids. Things like which of them will do the dishes and who's gonna walk the dog - or if there will even be a dog - and things like weekend mornings eating cold pizza in bed and watching old movies and never once leaving the house.

"Like who'll get which side of the bed," she says. It's possibilities, she says, that's what they are, those things she can't stop thinking about. "Possibilities of conversations," she says, "and I know that's a lot of talking and there's so many less talking things we could be doing but…"

But this is what she does, this is Waverly. She talks. Even when she knows the best solution, the least risky one, is for her to just shut up (and maybe do those things) but that isn't her. She talks and she talks and she talks and, when she's done talking, she talks just a little more cause talking is safe and talking is easy and talking has only rarely ever gotten her into trouble, at least not until Wynonna came home (and yes, Waverly is well aware of how many things in her life are now totally 'until Wynonna' things.)

Nicole is one of those things, maybe the best of them, and - at the very least - she's the one of those things that's not actively trying to kill her.

Though Waverly's not sure she can say the same for her own mouth.

Nicole's not saying anything and Waverly is to silence like nature is to a vacuum and she knows if she keeps going, if she keeps rambling, sooner or later those possibilities are gonna head down roads - weddings and anniversaries and babies and play dates and kids off to college and oh shit what if their kid's the next heir - and those are roads she can't travel back but it's like gravity's got a hold of her tongue and she can't break free.

So she doesn't even try to. "I just can't help it," she says (meaning the imagining, not the talking, but really, it's both), "it's like every fantasy I had growing up, every daydream I ever dreamt." And there were a lot of those, a lot of visions of things that could never be (or so she thought) that took up so many lonely afternoons and boring evenings and restless nights. They were abstracts, flitting images of Hallmark cards and Rockwell paintings. "It wasn't the family I'd lost," she says softly, and no, those aren't tears pricking at her eyes. They're not. "I didn't lose cause I'd never really had and I didn't think…" Waverly keeps her eyes - the ones that aren't tearing up - glued firmly to Nicole's legs or the couch or the wall or out the fucking window, anywhere that isn't her girlfriend's face.

She's terrified to look there. Terrified she'll see terrified staring back.

Waverly thinks Nicole wants all that too, she thinks that's what those four little words meant, but she's so tired of thinking but she's so afraid of knowing cause if knowing turns out to not be the same as thinking -

"Two."

"What?" Waverly's mind races, like she must have missed something.

She feels Nicole's arm tighten around her (a good sign, right?) and the gentle nod of the other woman's head. "Two," Nicole repeats. "I want two kids. That way they'll both always have someone and there will never be a middle child cause, God, does that suck."

Waverly lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding but Nicole doesn't seem to notice.

"And I'm pretty sure we'd have a dishwasher," Nicole says, her arm sliding up along Waverly's, her fingers tangling in the loose hanging strands of her girlfriend's hair. "But you can't get mad if I don't scrape them first, cause dishwasher," she says. "That's what it's for."

No scraping? That's a tough one but Waverly thinks she can manage.

"And if you really want to we can get a dog," Nicole says, trying to sound all put out, like she's making the sacrifice here. "But it has to like my cat and my cat has to at least sort of like it, so it's gonna have to be a girl." She thinks for a moment. "And not one of those fluffy little stick it in your purse and carry it around with you things either."

A Lab. Or a Shepard. Or a Saint fucking Bernard with a jug of whiskey for Aunt Wynonna strapped round it's neck.

Waverly sits up - she has to, she has to see now - and she's still half expecting to see…well… something… some kind of fear or concern or worry on Nicole's face, but there's nothing there but a smile. A smile and and this… this look. It's familiar, not unlike the one Doc gets right before the first poker hand is dealt or the one Wynonna's always rocking right before she knows she's gonna get to punch someone in the face.

Anticipation.

"What about the bed?" Waverly asks, like it's make or break, the be all and end all. "Which side?"

Nicole just shrugs, totally non-committal. "Does it matter?" she asks. "We both know you're gonna sprawl all over the damn thing and I'm gonna wake up with you on top of me every morning."

She has a point. A good one.

"And are you complaining?" Waverly asks, scooting closer, sliding back into her spot - and that's what it is, her spot - on Nicole's lap.

Wrapping her arms around Waverly's waist, her hands slipping back down, Nicole shakes her head. "Not even a little," she says and then she's kissing her and Waverly's thinking of things again - a lot of things with roaming hands and kissing lips and so much less clothing - but mostly?

She's thinking of time.

All the time. All the time they're going to have to do all those things. And then do them again.

That door's still kinda heavy. But together? They'll keep it open.

And together is good, together is helpful, together is going to be so needed once they notice, once they're done with those… things… and they're not so distracted that they don't hear the soft whir-whir-whir of Waverly's cell, vibrating its way across the kitchen counter, signaling the first call and then the next and then the next, finally, the text, the words that change it all.

Y: Willa's gone