"….NO! get me a doughnut!"

Was that Wynonna?

"Seriously, has he met me? A fruit bar? Really? like i've ever eaten a fruit bar in my life"

Yes, that was definitely Wynonna.

Waverly smiled at the sound of her sister protesting about food, but instantly regretted it when the lower part of her face started to hurt. She started to reach her hand up to her face to feel what was going on, but felt extremely weak and it felt like something was stuck to the back of one of her hands. She tried to open her eyes, but that seemed like a struggle too. When her unencumbered hand eventually reached her face she felt …. bandages?

"Hey, hey, baby girl" She heard Wynonna say and a hand touch her arm. She eventually managed to get her eyes open "How ya doing?" Wynonna asked

She blinked a couple of times to get her vision to clear, when it did she saw Wynonna standing next to her looking worried, she reached out and smoothed Waverly's hair.

Waverly looked around to see that she was in a hospital room. To her right there was a door and windows out into a corridor and to her left a curtain pulled half way across the room. At the end of her bed was Doc, standing with one arm in a sling and his other hand on his gun. Wynonna noticed Waverley frowning and waved her hand at Doc

"Knock it off will ya, there's nothing wrong with her" Wynonna said to him frustrated

"We have no proof of that, darlin' " he shrugged with a tilt of his head and concerned smile

"Look, her eyes are fine, she's fine" Wynonna said pointing to Waverly

She looked up at Wynonna who frowned at Doc, but smiled with a hint of worry at her.

"So, how are you feeling?" Wynonna asked again

"I…I feel…erm…" how did she feel? she laid there taking everything in, she could feel that her body ached, her neck and jaw most of all, she had a thumping headache and the back of her hand was killing her. She lifted the hand, which was also the one she thought had something stuck on it earlier, and saw an IV tube taped to the back of it. She winced at the sight of it. "What happened?" she said in a croaky voice

"Well…" Wynonna looked at Doc, then back at Waverly "We don't really know…which seems to be a running theme at the minute" she rolled her eyes

Waverly's mind was a blur, she couldn't think straight with all the aches and pains, but she had a bad feeling, she couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something.

She looked around the room again "Where - where's Nicole?" she asked

Wynonna looked at Doc again then back at Waverly with a sad look on her face "Waverly…" she said softly

Waverly started to worry "Where is she?" she asked sitting up in the bed. She semi regretted it as her head started pounding

Wynonna put her hand up to keep Waverly where she was "Hey, the doctors say you should rest.."

Waverly waved her hand away "What's happened? Where is she?" she asked more forcefully, really starting to panic.

She saw Doc look quickly to the curtain next to the bed and then at Wynonna.

Waverly's heart sank. She got out of the hospital bed as quickly as she could and on rather shaky legs moved to the curtain pulling it open. She wasn't ready for what she saw on the other side.

Nicole was there laying on the bed covered in wires and surrounded by machines. Well, she assumed it was Nicole because of the beautiful red hair, but she couldn't recognise her instantly because her face was covered in tubes coming out of her mouth and nose.

She tried to get closer to Nicole, but the machines were in the way, she moved around to the other side of the bed where she had a better view of what was happening. Nicole was laying flat on the bed, her red hair laying flatly on the pillows around her head. She looked like she was asleep. Except for the tubes in her nose running to one machine, she had a large tube in her mouth connected to a ventilator which seemed to be breathing for her. Waverly's eyes started to fill with tears and she covered her mouth with her hand as she looked further down Nicole's body trying to take in everything. She had a hospital gown just peaking out from under a blanket, Waverly could see the bruise Nicole had received when she was shot, but also on her chest and coming out from under the gown were wires that must have been monitoring her heart rate. Her arms where down by her sides over the blanket and covered from shoulder to fingertips with bandages.

Waverly hadn't noticed the sound before, but all the machines seemed to be beeping or making some sort of noise and it started to overwhelm her. She couldn't hold on any longer as tears streamed down her face.

'What happened to her?" She asked through the tears. The last time she remembered seeing her girlfriend was in her flat when she was recovering from being shot by Willa. Now suddenly she wakes up in the hospital with Nicole seemingly on life support in the bed next to her.

"Don't you remember?" Wynonna asked

Waverly shook her head

"What's the last thing you do remember?"

"Being… with the both of you at the Ghost River Gate…"

"You don't remember anything else? Shooting Doc? fighting me? being…possessed?" Wynonna made a weird face

"Possessed?….Wha….?" Waverly nearly laughed through her tears, but then it was as if it being said out loud opened a door in her mind just a little bit. She suddenly remembered leaping at Wynonna, being held down and screaming, then being in Dolls' office and…Nicole kneeling in front of her and saying…something.

Waverly looked Wynonna in the eye "Oh god" she started to cry again "Is it my fault? Is it my fault she's like this?" Waverly asked through sobs.

Wynonna rushed to her and enveloped her in a hug "Ssshhh! baby girl, it's okay.." she tried to comfort her sister, but could feel her shaking her head.

"Can you tell us what happened in Dolls' office?" Doc asked from behind Wynonna "How did the two o'you get hurt?"

Wynonna waved at Doc to stop, she didn't want Waverly getting more upset. "Hey come and sit down" Wynonna said moving Waverly to a seat in the corner of the room. It was a large padded hospital chair which her, Doc and Dolls had been taking turns in watching over Nicole and her from.

"I don't remember, I don't remember what happened, I just remember Nicole in front of me in the office.."

"That must have been when I left the room" Wynonna said kneeling in front of Waverly "I left the room to talk to Dolls and Doc about …. well, about you being possessed by a tentacle monster, the next thing there was a bright white, kinda blue light, pretty blinding actually, coming through all the windows of the office, then you… you were screaming, before we could get to the door there was an almighty flash and bang and the light disappeared, when we got there you were unconscious on your back still tied to the chair with your face burned and Nicole…." She looked up at Doc

"The officer was on the floor by the door," Doc continued "it looked like she'd been thrown clear across the room, Dolls said she had stopped breathing and started… CCP…D…?"

Waverly looked up at him "CPR?"

"Er yeah, I still don't know what that is, but Dolls did it until the ambulance arrived…"

"She wasn't breathing?" Waverly said distraught, on the verge of tears again

"The doctors think both of you must have been electrocuted in some way" Wynonna said "you must have been touching at the time, that's why her arms…"

Waverly couldn't concentrate on what her sister was saying, her mind raced with questions and possible memories that didn't seem right. She remembered the white blue light from Dolls' office and she knew exactly what it was. Nicole must have tried to heal her, that's the only reason for the light, to get whatever this possession thing was out of her. But Nicole had always said she wasn't able to heal other people. And surely healing someone wasn't the same as getting rid of some sort of possession? But if what Wynonna and Doc were saying was true and she had somehow been possessed then somehow Nicole had succeeded. But at what cost?

"…and all around the walls was this ring of black…goo…" Wynonna was saying

This sparked another memory in Waverly, a puddle of black shiny goo, at the Ghost River Gate and her kneeling in front of it. Maybe this really was her fault.

Waverly got up and walked back to Nicole, she put her hand gently on her arm and looked up and down it. She wanted to see what exactly had happened to Nicole's arms, she'd seen her heal herself before and all that did was drain her energy, which was obviously why she was unconscious, but what could have caused her to need bandages covering her right up and over her shoulders?

She had to try to work out what had happened, to figure out if these wounds had been caused by an electrical accident or by Nicole, but if she couldn't see Nicole's wounds she had to try to see her own. Without really thinking too much about it she started to pull at the bandages on her face and neck.

"What are you doing? you have to keep those on…" Wynonna protested getting up and rushing over to her sister

"No, I have to see…" Waverly said starting to pull them off and look for a mirror, luckily there was a small bathroom in the room. She opened the door and stood in front of the large mirror as she carefully peeled off the final layer of protection.

She winced when she slowly raised her chin and saw the damage. It looked like her face had been blistered or burned, the skin was red and raw and looked like it might be weeping. But as she looked she could see that the burns were loosely the shape of hands, she could clearly see the shape of thumbs coming away from the rest of the wound.

Waverly got a flash of memory. She saw Nicole in front of her kneeling down, looking her straight in the eye, looking worried and then determined. She then stood and placed her hands of Waverly's face. It slowly sunk in that Nicole had done this, that she had removed whatever it was that was inside her, but in doing so had risked her own life. She couldn't have known if it could even be done or what the consequences would be, but she had risked her life to save Waverly and it had nearly killed her.

"Nicole…" She whispered, then turned back to Nicole and walked back over to her again, she stood over her in awe. She couldn't believe it, she couldn't believe what Nicole had done. She leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "What did you do?" she whispered softly, not as an accusation, more as a loving acknowledgement, the way her mother did when she would lift her onto the kitchen counter and fix a grazed knee.

"Waverly?…." Wynonna asked "What's going on? Do you remember something? Do you know what happened?"

Waverly lied and shook her head, not taking her eyes off of Nicole.

Wynonna regarded her suspiciously, but let it go for the time being "Come on, you need to get those bandages replaced…"