Post 1x08, but pre 1x09. The timeline of Nicole's recovery after the Jack of Knives incident has always seemed remarkably fast to me, so this chapter takes place in the week or two that MUST have passed before Wynonna's bender at Shorty's (/ Pussy Willows).
OH MY GOD.
This chapter. This chapter took an age. I don't even have a decent reason why, it was just a case of repeated writer's block every few paragraphs. I hope it doesn't feel too disjointed as a result!
Thank you all for bearing with me!
Naps in the middle of the day were not Nicole's thing. Generally, she found them disorienting and avoided them at all costs. However, seeing as disoriented was the current default setting for her condition, today she was making an exception. Realistically, she couldn't have avoided it even if she wanted to. Whether it was the drugs or the continued effects of her ordeal, naps were taking sideswipes at her consciousness all day. The first hint she'd have that she was falling asleep was when she'd wake up at least half an hour later. Obviously she needed the rest. It was just a pity it came with nightmares.
Almost every time she closed her eyes she returned to that spinning world of shadows and and trees and snow. She felt the same paralysed helplessness as she was carried away by a murderer and smelled the same musty smell of spoiled fruit and gasoline. She wasn't sure she'd ever manage to stand in a gas station again.
The only positive thing was that with the nightmares came more memories. More blurry and confusing images that gradually evolved into more coherent recollections of what had happened. She remembered that there had been a second attacker - that he had kicked her in the chest. A brief check-in from Nedley during the hospital's morning visiting hours revealed that the second person had been Dr Reggie from the morgue. Her stomach had turned at the news. Or maybe that was the concussion.
The doctors had told her yesterday that her concussion symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, headaches, amnesia, confusion, dizziness, and more. Nicole thought the explanation was somewhat redundant as she was experiencing every single one already. This was still an improvement on dead, which had evidently been her previous condition. Some twelve hours later and she was at least starting to feel a bit more human. This could have had something to do with the napping, the painkillers or Henry's late-night visit with the news of Wynonna's return to safety. She had to admit, the morning had felt just a bit brighter without the weight of the missing Earp bearing down. She'd heard that Wynonna had been brought into the hospital to deal with minor injuries. Part of her had been hoping that she might have swung by Nicole's room before leaving.
She didn't. Which was a whole new set of questions to obsess over.
Was she angry at Nicole for not doing more during the attack? For not doing her job as a cop to protect her? Or did she simply not care as to whether or not Nicole was ok? Nedley had been no help when she'd tried to ask him questions about Wynonna or what had happened, insisting that none of the answers would help her better rest. On the one hand it was nice to have someone looking over her like that, caring for her wellbeing. On the other, it was frustrating as hell. Yet more unanswered questions and being deliberately kept out of the loop; par for the course by this point. She had been hoping that maybe Wynonna would be able to shed some light on the events of the attack, and fill in the blanks in Nicole's memory. With her daytime naps and traumatic flashbacks at least this didn't look like it would stay a permanent problem.
She blinked awake from her latest unexpected slumber, drenched in cold sweat and heart racing. She hadn't been in the woods that time. She'd been on the road. Stood at the side of her car, aiming her gun at a tall, slender figure approaching with inhuman speed and eyes that burned like fire. She could still smell that musty scent and her hand twitched at the memory of something slicing through her baretta like a hot knife through butter.
She lifted her bandaged hand, inspecting the deep maroon stain from the wound beneath. They'd told her it was a laceration. She'd not really thought about how she'd got it, assuming that she'd cut it on a rock or branch in the woods.
It was the first memory she'd gotten back of the attack that wasn't in the woods. Sure, it seemed like it had been jumbled up with some nightmarish exaggerations from her subconscious, but it was a start. Hopefully she'd stop seeing images of the phantom attacker with glowing eyes, and start remembering the facts instead.
She blinked again and pushed herself up gingerly in her bed with a wince. The ache across her ribs was in full swing now and every breath was excruciating. The doctors had put her on some pretty hefty painkillers, but the injuries still felt fresh. Nicole dreaded to think what it would feel like without a comfy cushion of drugs.
She looked around the room. The nurses had been in again while she slept; they'd taken away her uneaten lunch tray and left a refilled jug of water and a daisy in a mason jar. An odd choice of vase for a hospital, Nicole thought, but she appreciated it all the same. It was sweet and unusual.
She managed to pour a bit of the water into the empty cup on her bedside unit and gulped it back. She awkwardly reached back over to return it to the unit and laid back on her pillows again, frustratingly exhausted from the effort. As the cool water made its way down into her stomach she shivered.
And then she was back in the woods, crawling through the dirt and the snow to the roadside, her fingers numb and the icy air biting at her lungs.
She gasped, causing another round of pain across her chest as the flashback hit out of nowhere. She tried to calm her pulse down again, scrunching her eyes closed and clinging to the rail at the side of her bed for support.
You're not in the woods, Haught, she told herself. It's over. You're safe.
"This a bad time?" came a voice from the doorway.
She opened her eyes to see Tate entering the room, removing his stetson from his head, small duffel bag in his other hand. She blinked rapidly, trying to disappear the tears that had been forming in her eyes.
"No. No, I just woke up," she said, letting go of the rail and forcing a kind of smile onto her face.
"How you doing?" Tate asked, approaching the bed and putting the bag down on the visitor's chair. "Sheriff said you were looking a bit better."
"He did, did he?"
"Yeah. Not sure I'd agree with that, but hey, I'm no doctor."
Nicole smirked grimly. She knew she looked a shocking sight. In the last day her skin had broken out in a technicolour of bruising, everywhere from her head to her legs, her arms to her throat. She was lucky enough not to have been treated to a run-in with a mirror since the worst of it had emerged, but she had a vivid enough imagination not to need one. Still, it probably looked worse than it felt. Probably.
"So what brings you to the Oakley ward on this fine day?" Nicole asked, eyeing up the duffel bag.
"We figured you'd appreciate a few of your own things while you're here," Tate shrugged.
"We?"
"Sheriff fished your cellphone out of your car and grabbed a few things from your home when he was seeing to your cat."
Nicole raised an eyebrow. She regretted it instantly as the cut on her head flexed with a sharp spike of pain.
"Well," Tate shrugged again, "His daughter went with him anyhow. Apparently he was worried your cat would scratch his eyes out. Chrissy grabbed you a couple of changes of clothes and a phone charger."
"Tell her thanks," Nicole said vaguely.
It seemed like some kind of crazy dream that all this had started with Nicole at the Earp homestead, taking Chrissy's statement about the attack on the house. It hadn't even occurred to her until now that during the time that both she and Wynonna had been missing, Chrissy would have had to bear the weight of being the last person to speak to them. She wondered if she'd been interrogated by Dolls as well.
"You need anything from the visitor's shop?" Tate asked, pulling her out of her thoughts. "Magazine to read, snacks?"
Nicole shook her head. "No, but thank you. And thank you for bringing my stuff." She looked over at the bag. "Any chance you could put my phone on charge for me?" She asked, cringing at the thought of trying to reach around to the power socket herself.
"Sure thing." Tate pulled her phone and the charger from the bag, plugging it in and resting it on the side unit next to the water and the daisy.
He jammed his hands awkwardly into his pockets. "Well listen, you need anything you just give one of us a call, ok?" he said. "I gotta run for now, technically this ain't visiting hours so the nurses'll have my ass if I stay much longer."
"It's ok, you go. Honestly I'm probably gonna fall asleep again pretty soon," Nicole admitted, feeling the familiar fog descend on her head.
Tate nodded and returned his hat to his head. "You feel better now, y'hear?"
"Miss me at the station do ya?" Nicole smiled cheekily.
"Well who else is gonna make coffee every twenty minutes?"
"Good to know I'm appreciated."
"Rest up Haught."
Nicole waved as Tate left the room. She lay in silence for a little while staring at the ceiling, trying to organise the memories in her head.
She jumped at the sound of her phone starting to buzz as it burst into life with a string of notifications. Cursing her jittery nerves, she reached up and collected it from the side unit, looking at the list of missed calls and texts that her newly awoken phone was now compiling.
Several dozen missed calls from Nedley, several dozen more from fellow officers and unrecognised numbers that she assumed were all people who had been involved in the search for her. There were a few voicemails too. She decided to listen to them later, figuring that they'd likely all say the same kind of thing.
An unexpected revelation from this experience was that Nicole wasn't as much of an unwanted outsider as she had previously thought. It turned out that people in town actually did care about her, in perhaps more than just an obligatory human decency sort of way. A line of get well soon cards was starting to form on the window sill of her hospital room, Nedley having delivered them that morning. Most of her colleagues from the precinct had signed their name somewhere in the three separate cards that had evidently done the rounds of the municipal building.
But there were also names and well wishes from a few other folks in town - people Nicole saw regularly on her routine patrols, or who she had started to build rapport with by frequenting their local business. Nicole hadn't even known how to feel when Nedley had handed her the pastel-coloured envelopes. It was a gesture that she hadn't realised how much she needed. Now more than ever, it was nice to not feel quite so alone.
Nicole woke up, having once again succumbed to the delirium and fallen asleep without noticing. The dry feeling in her throat told her it had been a longer nap this time. Her eyelids drooped drowsily for a few minutes before she realised someone was sat in the chair beside her bed. Nedley was reading a newspaper, sipping a coffee.
"Sheriff," Nicole said lazily, her voice drawing a little like she'd had a few drinks.
Nedley looked up as she spoke, his usually gruff expression softening just a little.
"How're you doing there Haught. Good to see you're getting some decent shut eye."
"What time is it? How long was I asleep?"
"Couldn't say. You were out when I got here, so a good while I'd wager. It's just after three."
All sense of time had been momentarily suspended in Nicole's head these past two days. If it wasn't for the window she wouldn't even be able to tell if it was daytime or the middle of the night. Not that it mattered. It wasn't like there was anywhere she needed to be, and she wasn't even awake for most of it.
"Any word from Dolls?"
She asked in the vain hope that Nedley's answer would be different than it had been that morning. He gave her a reproachful look. He knew what she was really asking. She wanted confirmation that the attacker was the serial killer - this 'Jack of Knives'. That the man… the men responsible for mutilating Joyce Arbour and those other girls was dead.
This theory was still officially just speculation. The case had already been claimed by the BBD, so the Sheriff's department had officially passed the point of making legitimate enquiries for info. Nicole knew this all too well, but was ready to fight to bend the rules just once on the grounds of being personally involved in the situation. Dolls would no doubt refuse on the basis of 'classified intel'. Nedley had refused that morning on the basis of not making Nicole feel worse.
Nicole thought nothing would be worse than the news that the sadistic monster that killed those women wasn't her attacker, and was still on the loose. The fact that nobody would confirm it made her feel sick with worry.
"Nothing has changed Nicole, it's a Black Badge case and you shouldn't be worrying yourself with any of that right now anyway."
Nicole sighed heavily. Then she regretted it, the pain in her chest seeming to agree with Nedley. The Sheriff's stern expression softened a little at her wince of pain.
"Have the doctors said anything else about your injuries or recovery plan?" he asked a little awkwardly, clearly looking for something to change the subject.
Nicole blinked through the wave of pain across her body and tried to think about the last time she'd seen a doctor do their rounds.
"I don't think there's anything unexpected about my injuries at least," she replied, Nedley seemingly comforted by the news. "But I think I remember how I hurt my hand."
Nedley's eyes narrowed and his face creased into a expression Nicole couldn't place.
"The attacker… He cut through my gun like it was nothing. Sliced it to pieces in my hand, like he had some sort of hot knife." She thought of Dr Reggie's reference to 'lightsabre hot', but it was Wynonna's term that she chose to repeat. "Like hellfire hot."
Nedley cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Right, well anything else about your recovery I should know? We should figure out how much leave you'll need to get back to full health."
Nicole frowned, unsure why Nedley was being so cagey about her most recently acquired memory.
"Sir, was a lightsabre-hot weapon found with the attacker at all?" she pressed.
"Listen here Deputy Haught, don't you go and make me reprimand you for trying to break jurisdictional protocol from a hospital bed," he said waggling his index finger warningly. "The case belongs to Black Badge. You're better off just clearing it out of your head."
Nicole nodded very slightly and decided to drop the subject for now. Perhaps it would be a better conversation to have with Wynonna when she did eventually cross paths with her. If she ever did.
Nedley fiddled with the brim of his hat again. The silence was several different kinds of awkward.
"So I hope Calamity Jane hasn't been giving you too much trouble?" Nicole said eventually.
Nedley's relief was palpable. His shoulders slackened as he relaxed a little. "Well she's not as friendly as a dog mighta been, but she let me pet her eventually. I guess I can cope with checking in on her while you're mending."
"You should feel honoured," Nicole said, managing an almost-smile. "She hardly goes near anyone else."
"Well, I figure the cat just knows what's good for her," Nedley said dismissively. "Knows where her next meal ticket is coming from."
Nicole pretended not to see the pleased expression on the man's face as he turned away.
Time passing in the hospital couldn't seem to make up its mind about whether to crawl at a snail's pace or speed by so fast it seemed like the day was skipping hours altogether. The fogginess and disorientation seemed to have taken up long-term residence in Nicole's head, alongside the worst and most persistent headache she could ever remember having. The doctors increased her painkillers when she told them how she was feeling and the pain subsided a little, but the fogginess got worse and suddenly she was sleeping again. Sleep that was momentarily comfortable, but all-too-quickly made way for another nightmare, or memory, or both.
It went on like this - this hellish cycle of pain and fog followed by unconsciousness and terror - for hours. Every time Nicole opened her eyes she was met with a new wave of pain eased only by the relief at having clawed back another slither of a memory.
The flashback most frequently appearing in her dreams was the recently uncovered one of the attacker speeding towards her impossibly fast, slicing her handgun to pieces with a lunge of his hand. But before that she'd shot him. She'd relived it enough times now to be sure, each time clearer than the last. She'd put four bullets between his shoulder blades as he lifted Wynonna by the throat like she weighed nothing. And he'd barely noticed.
And then he'd sped around the front of the car at superhuman speed, his eyes bright and glowing. One quick swipe and Nicole's baretta had fallen apart as she held it and her hand was on fire.
In her waking moments, Nicole replayed the memory again and again, trying to look past the glowing eyes and the bullet-proof back. Because surely, if she looked hard enough, she'd see the reality that she ought to remember instead. Because it couldn't be real. His eyes couldn't have burned like a furnace and he couldn't have taken four shots to the back without a flinch.
Because that was impossible.
Maybe there's permanent brain damage, she thought to herself as she awoke again in the small hours of the morning, drenched in sweat with the memory of her latest flashback to the highway fresh in her mind.
Or maybe there's a simpler, weirder explanation, said a small portion of her brain. Maybe you actually saw what you think you saw.
No. Nope. Just no. Even if that was possible, which it wasn't, she was not even slightly prepared right now to process it. And it was crazy anyway. And insane. And not possible. And yet...
She couldn't unsee the burning red eyes. They were there every time she started to drift off. Her eyes ached as she stared at the ceiling tiles in the darkness of the hospital room. It wa the middle of the night and she was exhausted. She knew she should sleep, but with the images of the woods and the highway running through her mind again and again, she needed a reprieve of consciousness in which to recover.
"Well you look like hell," said a voice from the doorway, setting Nicole's pulse racing with alarm.
She looked over and saw a familiar brunette silhouetted in the doorway, bottle in hand. It only took another moment for the smell of whiskey to reach Nicole's bed.
"Wynonna?"
The Earp ambled over the threshold of the door, into the dim shafts of light from the street lamp outside the window.
Henry had said she'd been physically unharmed, but Nicole spotted the limp instantly. She also spotted that 'physically unharmed' was an artful way of saying 'mentally broken'.
Wynonna was a mess.
Her eyes were sunken and her gaze distant. The bottle wasn't a surprise, but she held it like a lifeline - something to depend upon, not enjoy. She was pale and looked barely able to stand, her usual presence of attitude completely absent. Haunted. The word was haunted, and Nicole could spot it a mile away because she had had a taste of it herself. That said, she may have paddled in the haunted pool but Wynonna had clearly just crawled out of the deep end.
"I'm glad you're alive," Wynonna declared, a little robotically.
"You too," Nicole replied, at a loss for what else to say. Wynonna scoffed a faint laugh.
The silence wasn't comfortable and it lasted longer than either of them would probably have preferred.
But what else could they say?
"Dolls said you didn't remember much," Wynonna announced eventually. It wasn't a question. Still, Nicole felt the impulse to explain herself. To explain why she hadn't been more help.
"I woke up in the woods. Everything in my head was a mess. Most of it gone."
"Yeah well," Wynonna said, wringing the neck of the bottle absent mindedly with both hands. "It's possible you're better off." Her voice slurred with the weight of whiskey behind it.
"Some of it has come back," Nicole replied. She thought of the attacker's glowing eyes, and superhuman movements. Did Wynonna remember? Had Wynonna seen it? It could be the reason for the haunted look behind her eyes, or it could simply be a sign that Nicole had hit her head too hard?
"Nobody is able to really say what happened," she continued quietly. "All anyone seems to have are best guesses." These too were statements rather than questions, but Nicole let them hang in the air between them, the implication clear.
Wynonna swallowed hard.
"We were on the highway. You pulled up to give a ride to a hitchhiker. Ass hole blindsided you with a cane through your window."
She spoke evenly and without pause, like she was reading it from a script. Like she hadn't been there experiencing it first hand. Like she didn't feel anything about it.
Nicole reached up to the cut on her head. A cane. Did she remember seeing a cane? The man on the highway must have been holding it. If she had seen it as she pulled up would she have assessed it as a potential weapon? Would she have been prepared for an attack?
"I tried to shoot him, but I uh…" Wynonna paused uncomfortably. "... I missed. He hauled me out of the car and-"
"And I shot him," Nicole interjected. She locked eyes with Wynonna, clear and focused for the first time in days. The memory was there and it was clear, and she knew now without a shadow of a doubt that what she remembered was real. "I shot him four times at point blank range and it didn't even slow him down."
Wynonna dropped her gaze, her knuckles white on the bottleneck. "I guess he must've been wearing a vest," she mumbled.
"Wynonna, he attacked us," Nicole said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "He beat me, drugged me, and left me to die in the woods." A lump started to form in her throat and she felt her eyes burn. "I did… I did die. You could have died. Give me something here. You said you'd help me understand."
Wynonna still couldn't meet her gaze but she heaved an almighty sigh, somewhat defeated, it seemed. The pause felt like a lifetime. When she spoke it was slow and deliberate, like it was the most important thing in the world that Nicole really listen to every word.
"You shot him and he doubled back and took you down." She looked up. "He must have been wearing a vest. It's not like I stopped to check his undergarments."
"Bullshit, Earp," Nicole hissed. "When we got in that car you were ready to talk. What's changed?"
The defeat left Wynonna's eyes in an instant and was replaced with something else. Anger? Rage? Her eyes narrowed.
"What changed is I watched a maniac nearly kill you." Wynonna's eyes looked dark and hollow. Like she wasn't looking at Nicole anymore, but seeing right through her. "And then Jack of Knives and his sidekick Reggie drugged me, paralysed me and stuck me in the hospital ward from hell. And I lay there, unable to move while that psycho wheeled another girl into the next room so his master could play doctor like he did with Joyce Arbour."
Nicole felt her heart start to spin again, her heart rate elevating. Jack of Knives. A weight formed in her stomach at mention of the name. The weight of everything she couldn't remember, the weight of having been so helpless as Wynonna lay captive and the weight of having not even begun to join the dots in Joyce Arbour's murder enough to prevent all if this to begin with.
They had both been stood in that morgue alongside Dr Reggie. They looked down at Joyce Arbour with no idea what had happened, while the accomplice to her horrific murder chewed on a Twizzler beside them. Nedley had said that Reggie had been found dead along with the serial killer, this 'Jack of knives'. Nicole thought that maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.
But apparently they'd got in one last victim before the end. Another girl that Wynonna had to watch being taken away to her death. The thought made Nicole's stomach turn and suddenly it seemed a miracle that Wynonna was even stood upright.
Wynonna took another, slightly sloppier swig from the bottle.
"So you died and it didn't take," she slurred. "How about instead of crying over classified information, you just lick your wounds and be grateful Jack didn't add redheads to his shit list."
With that she was gone. Nicole didn't call after her.
By day four of her stay in hospital, Nicole was starting to get a little cabin feverish. She'd been there long enough now that her room was even taking on the look of having a long-term occupant. Her things were arranged around her in places that had been established enough to be their 'usual spot', and Nicole had even caught herself saying "Oh, that just lives on the chair" to a nurse that had moved her jacket the day before. And the volume of her own belongings was growing.
Tate and Nedley had been by a few more times, dropping off spare changes of clothes, books to read, snacks, more flowers from colleagues, and delivering enthusiastic reports on the wellbeing of her cat. The daisy mason jar had several new additions, the nurses seeming to add more a couple of times a day, and a few more 'get well soon' cards had made their way to her windowsill too. These were from other townsfolk that had gotten wind of the attack, one from Shae and one from Justine who had given her a lengthy speech about communication down the phone when Nicole had finally remembered to inform her of what had happened. There was no further word from Wynonna, but then Nicole hadn't expected there to be. One shared bottle of whiskey and a serial killer attack didn't make them besties, after all.
But there had also been no sight nor sound from Waverly. For four days. Not a word.
Nicole stared up at the now-very-familiar ceiling tiles and sighed. On top of every other thought swirling its way around inside of Nicole's head, she also felt stupid for being so surprised by this. Why should Waverly have sent a card? Why should she have come visit? Nicole was the woman who survived when it seemed like Wynonna was likely to be dead. Nicole was the woman who couldn't remember anything about the attack and who had been all but useless while they desperately searched for the missing Earp.
And they weren't really friends.
They'd shared passing conversation, one ten minute coffee break and brief glances. Nothing more. And yet, for some reason she had allowed herself to hope. For some utterly illogical reason, it felt like she and Waverly had…. Something. A connection? The potential for friendship maybe?
Whatever friendship they may have been heading towards, the four day silence after what had happened seemed to speak volumes. Waverly was the sort of person who would go out of her way to help people she didn't even know cross the street. If she hadn't come by, then it was probably a conscious decision not to. They weren't friends before and they certainly weren't friends now. Maybe she was angry or disappointed with Nicole for not being more help, or failing to protect her sister. Maybe it was something else.
Nicole's mind began to wander. Would Waverly have come to visit if I had died? Would she have stayed away for four days if she'd been visiting a grave instead of a hospital bed?
And then it hit her her like a ten-tonne truck all over again. She had died. Maybe only for a moment, but she had stopped breathing. They had brought her back. Back Because she'd been gone. For a moment she was gone.
And she didn't know where.
She felt her heart racing as the whirlpool of memories flooded through her head again, fuzzy and disjointed. She scrunched up her face and clamped her eyes shut. She had no memory of it. She didn't remember going towards a light or hearing heavenly choirs - or even falling into the burning pit of hell. There was just nothing. An empty space.
Maybe it was because she knew she'd been gone, but it felt like more than just being unconscious. More than just a dreamless sleep. They'd pulled her back from nothingness. For a few minutes, Nicole Haught had ceased to be.
She knew she was hyperventilating now, but it didn't matter. Her chest tightened painfully. Her fingertips tingled and she could hear her heart beating in her ears, along with the sound of roaring wind. It was too much. It felt like too much - the sensation of panic, the inability to breathe, the agony in her ribs and her arms. It was too much and at the same time it was comforting. Like she'd rather feel everything than nothing.
She was dimly aware of a nurse coming in. He said something but Nicole didn't hear him. Couldn't hear him. Then there was more of them. Too many of them. It was suffocating.
Nicole tried to push past the first nurse to climb out of her bed, her vision starting to swim a little at the edges. The rational part of her knew this was because of her breathing. She wasn't breathing right and it was messing with her head. The less rational part panicked further. She remembered this feeling before. At the roadside by the woods. Right before she'd blacked out. Before she went away and had to be brought back to life.
The thought made her head swim even more.
It took a good twenty minutes for the panic attack to run its course. The nurse managed to convince her to stay in her bed and by the time it had passed Nicole was exhausted and in agony all over again from tensing every muscle she had. With the aid of another round of painkillers, it wasn't long before she was asleep again.
Yet another unwanted nap.
"I think that's probably everything for now, Chrissy," Nicole said to the girl stood in front of her. "If you think of anything else then make sure you call me."
Chrissy Nedley nodded and headed back towards the Earp house where Waverly had emerged onto the porch, wrapped in a blanket. Waverly was watching Nicole with an intense expression. Like she was waiting. Like something was about to happen.
"So? Any idea why my homestead was targeted?" Wynonna was stood beside her, arms folded and eyes narrowed.
"I don't know," Nicole replied. "You wouldn't tell me."
"You know what, we should get some breakfast. I could murder a stack of pancakes." Wynonna looked her in the eye, unblinking. "Then we'll talk, really talk."
"But how can we talk?" Nicole asked weakly. "You're dead. The Jack of knives killed you."
Wynonna looked down, the incision from her involuntary serial killer surgery just visible above the neckline of her shirt. She looked back up, sad but resolute.
"I'll do my best. Guess you're my ride." Wynonna headed for the passenger seat of the car.
"No, wait," Nicole called vaguely. "I can't…"
"Dont worry," said a calm voice behind her. She turned around.
Her scream was lost in her throat as a lightning-fast hand closed around her neck.
It was him. It was the Jack of Knives himself.
He was tall, unshaven and with dark hair slicked back. His eye sockets were hollow and dark, with a burning fiery glow erupting where his pupils should have been. He tilted his head gently and smiled as he lifted her off her feet.
"Don't worry," he said again, the heat from his burning eyes scorching Nicole's face. "I don't need you. You're the wrong kind."
"Nicole!"
She opened her eyes abruptly, her heart racing. The light in the hospital room was blinding. She squinted and scrunched up her face, suddenly aware that her arms had been flailing, reaching out for something to hold onto. Something which, thankfully, she had found. A hand. Holding hers steady.
She blinked. Her eyes adjusted and a face came into view.
"Waverly…" she murmured.
Waverly hesitated as their eyes locked together, and her hand tightened around Nicole's. The other was still mostly covered with a sling. "You were having a nightmare," she said softly.
For what seemed like a lifetime, neither of them moved, Nicole's fingers tangled with Waverly's, the young Earp waiting patiently for Nicole to calm herself. If anything though, Nicole felt like her pulse was speeding up. This was the closest she'd been to Waverly since the day they met. Since they'd stood inches apart and she'd helped this stunning woman escape a soaked tank top. Since Nicole had risked it all and asked her out, only to be shut down with the explanation that there was a boyfriend in the picture. A boyfriend that, Nicole suddenly realised, was no longer in the picture. And Waverly was here, in the hospital room - visiting her.
Just as Nicole's heart started to beat hard enough that she swore Waverly must have been able to hear it, the young Earp cleared her throat and took a step back. Nicole's hands felt suddenly empty and her throat dry.
"I uh… just stopped by to see how your were doing," she said, twiddling something in her hands. Nicole hadn't spotted it at first, it being mostly hidden by the sling. It was a daisy.
She blinked and glanced at the mason jar containing the other daisies and willed her brain to catch up with what her subconscious had already realised.
"You left the daisies!"
Waverly smiled and it was like a ray of warm sunshine. Nicole's heart thudded a little harder in her chest and a blush started at the tips of her ears.
"I didn't know what kind of flowers you liked. And then I figured… Everyone likes daisies…"
Nicole felt the smile start in her heart and work its way up to her face, where it seemed set to remain. The stretching of her cheeks felt almost strange, like the muscles in her face weren't used to the movement anymore. She couldn't think when she'd last had cause to smile like this. Anything before the attack felt like an age ago.
"They're perfect, thank you. But when did you leave them? Have you… Have you been coming to visit?"
Now it was Waverly's turn to blush. She dropped her gaze and looked down at the daisy in her hand.
"Well of course I was gonna drop by and see how you were doing," Waverly said as if it were obvious. Nicole couldn't even find the words to express how not-obvious it was to her. "And you we pretty much asleep every time I came by."
"Pretty much?" Nicole raised her good eyebrow.
"Well… mostly. Sometimes you seemed to be just drifting off and I didn't wanna disturb you, because clearly you needed the rest, so I figured I'd do a lap or two of the floor and a couple of times I swung by the geriatric ward to say hi to Mr Compton and Mrs Beaterly - she's just had surgery for her cataracts - and whenever I came back around you were out for the count. And much as I would have lov- liked, to stand there and wait for you to wake I figured that was one step too close to creepy." She paused and smiled breathlessly, as if she hoped that last part hadn't fallen too far short of the light, joking tone she'd been aiming for. "I guess I just didn't want to bother you."
Nicole almost laughed.
"Waverly, you're not bothering me at all. It's really sweet of you, thank you."
Waverly beamed and popped the daisy in the jar with the others. Her whole disposition was bright and enchanting, like the last time they had spoken hadn't ended with a woefully inadequate apology and Waverly bolting from the room in a flood of tears.
Nicole sighed, her chest tightening anxiously. She propped herself up in the bed a little better. "And thank you for coming by at all. Honestly I… I wasn't sure whether you'd be mad at me."
Waverly's brow knitted in confusion. "Mad at you?"
The question hung in the open silence for a moment, but Nicole couldn't find the words to articulate what she was thinking. How could she begin to explain?
"When you came here with Dolls, asking for information and I…" Nicole trailed off. Maybe her head was still foggy from the painkillers, but she just couldn't seem to find any words that would do the trick.
Waverly frowned gently. "Nicole… you helped us find Wynonna. We wouldn't have a had a clue where to look if you hadn't remembered what you remembered. What on Earth do think I'd be mad at you for?"
For not remembering more, Nicole thought. For not protecting Wynonna the first place. For being the wrong kind and being the only one who got a free ticket out of the serial killer zone.
The memory of Waverly's devastated sobs from the hallway echoed around Nicole's head. She dropped her gaze.
"I just wanted to do more," she said eventually. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more."
And then suddenly Waverly was stepping forward and her hand was back on Nicole's. The contact was like an electric shock, shooting up Nicole's arm. Her breath hitched reflexively and she prayed Waverly hadn't noticed.
"Nicole, Wynonna had been taken to an old prohibition smugglers' tunnel system. Sour fruit and gasoline. That's what led us there." Nicole forced herself to meet Waverly's gaze. "Nicole, they got to Wynonna just in time. Because of you. Thank you."
Nicole blinked, trying to join the dots between the description of the smell and Jack's hiding place. It seemed to her like the two were unconnected, her brain still lagging several steps behind where she wanted it to be for this conversation.
"You… You're welcome," she mumbled eventually. It wasn't right, she realised too late, as Waverly then dropped her gaze, cleared her throat and turned away, giving Nicole's hand an awkward little pat as she did so.
Nicole opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, trying to conjure up something to revive the conversation from this sudden dead end.
"Wynonna came by," she blurted out suddenly. Waverly looked up.
"She did?"
"Briefly. How's she doing?"
Waverly scoffed and hugged her arms around her middle as best she could, considering the sling. "She's… well, she's Wynonna. She's Wynonna-ing her way through it."
I dread to think what that looks like, Nicole thought to herself.
"I'm… I'm worried about her, obviously," Waverly continued, chewing her lip anxiously. "She's always worked through stuff on her own before but… I wish I could help more with this. She's been…. Extra Wynonna-y lately."
"I'm sure it's a help just knowing you're there," Nicole offered. "She's smart. She'll know she can come to you when she's ready to."
The corner of Waverly's mouth twitched ever so slightly, the smile lurking just under the surface. Nicole's heart beat a fraction faster as the Earp sat down in the seat beside her bed. She bit back the smile that wanted to emerge as Waverly made herself comfy, clearly intending to stay for a bit.
"Well," Waverly said with a sad smile. "Wynonna's never really come to me before, why start now?" Her eyes then widened, like the words had escaped without her meaning them to. She cast her eyes down, embarrassed. "I just mean, uh… Wynonna's tough. If anything, I'm the one that usually needs her help." She lifted her injured arm for emphasis.
"Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that," Nicole said, gesturing to the sling. "Did that happen during your party at the homestead? I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to speak to you before…" She trailed off. What was the best way to finish that sentence? '...before your sister and I got abducted by a serial killer?' Possibly not.
"Before you left," Waverly finished, her expression a little haunted. "So much for staying close by," she said, echoing Nicole's words to her in the kitchen of the homestead. How had she remembered that, after everything else that happened? She blinked and cleared her throat again. Suddenly, cheerful and upbeat Waverly was back in the room. "But, uh… yeah I hurt my wrist that night. Fighting off the attackers."
Nicole felt her chest tighten again.
"Are you ok?"
Waverly nodded dismissively. "Oh yeah, there's no broken bones or anything. I only have to wear the sling a couple more days and maybe have a little physio."
"No, I mean..." Nicole replied, turning in her bed as much as her achy ribs would allow. "How are you doing? After… everything. Are you ok?"
Waverly stared. "Am I ok? Nicole… You were attacked. You're in the hospital. Forget how I'm doing, how are you doing? Nedley said you had… in the woods…."
Nicole tried to unpick the expression on Waverly's face. It was like there was a conversation going on inside her head and each side of it was wrestling for the opportunity to get the next sentence out loud first.
"They said you had to be resuscitated," she said eventually. She dropped her gaze, picking at a loose thread in the arm of the chair cushion.
"Yeah," Nicole said quietly. She cleared her throat and forced a half smile onto her face. "I guess Purgatory's not getting rid of me that easy. Maybe I should get some daisies for the EMTs, as a thank-you."
"I think we all should." Waverly looked up again, wearing that warm smile that filled the room so effortlessly.
Nicole allowed herself a somewhat contented sigh. Perhaps friendship with Waverly wasn't off the cards after all. At the very least she could relax in the knowledge that Waverly wasn't mad at her - that she was grateful, even. Grateful that Nicole remembered what she did, and that she was actually alive to remember it. If she had given up in the woods - if she hadn't made it to the roadside to flag down the vehicle for help - if she had died would they have ever found Wynonna? Maybe not. Maybe Waverly would have lost them both.
Lost us both? Nicole mentally reprimanded her own runaway thoughts. Get over yourself Haught. You're not in the same ballpark as her sister. She's glad you're alive because you helped find Wynonna and because she's a good person, not because she wants… more. Right?
But there was something in Waverly's expression that planted a seed of doubt in Nicole's mind. Something about the Earp's gentle smile and the way she chewed her bottom lip that gave Nicole pause.
"Y'know, Purgatory isn't always like this," Waverly said suddenly, leaning back in the chair and making herself comfy. Her tone had changed again to a much chattier, upbeat one, clearly aiming to lift the mood. Again, she managed to do so effortlessly. Feeling brighter around Waverly Earp was as easy as breathing.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, normally it's a real nice, quiet town. You've kind of arrived during a… busy patch. I wouldn't want you to give up on us all too soon and go running for the hills."
"Well, I wouldn't worry too much about that, I don't think I'll be running anywhere just yet," Nicole replied with a smile, gesturing to the hospital bed. "Besides, I don't scare quite that easy." She'd shot Waverly a friendly wink before she'd even really thought about whether or not it was a good idea to.
Waverly either didn't mind or didn't notice the mildly flirtatious gesture. "Well that's good to hear. It'd be a huge blow to Purgatory's Finest if they lost the bold and brave Officer Haught."
Not as bold and brave as maybe you think I am, she thought to herself, aware of all the things she knew she wasn't saying to the young Earp.
"Besides," Waverly continued with a grin. "If you left, who would help me get the aspirin from the top shelf at the station?"
"Ah, the truth comes out!" Nicole said, in mock offense. "You only want me around for my height!"
"Hey don't sell yourself short." Waverly cringed. "Uh… no pun intended. I just mean there are a lot of reasons why it's handy to have a friend who's a cop."
Nicole tried to ignore hear heart skipping a beat. Friend. Waverly thought of her as a friend.
She cleared her throat. "A lot of reasons, huh? Do tell."
"Better chance of talking my way out of a parking ticket?"
Nicole smiled. "Don't count on it Earp, I already told you I'm not afraid to issue tickets and lose friends."
"Ah, well you've never had to issue a ticket to the Waverly Earp smile and wave before," Waverly said, demonstrating the wave as she had done the day they met. It was every bit as adorable now as it had been then. A flood of self-awareness seemed to hit her suddenly, and she dropped her arm awkwardly and lowered her gaze with an embarrassed little cough.
"I'll bet it's impossible to resist," Nicole offered warmly. She was rewarded with a bashful smile from Waverly.
"Ok, well what about free rides home if I ever drink too much at Shorty's?"
"Is that something you do often?"
"Well… no." Waverly paused thoughtfully for a moment, and then sat upright and leant forwards excitedly. "Ooh, I bet you can skip lines or get into all the cool restricted places."
Nicole couldn't help but laugh. "Waverly, the idea is to uphold the law."
"Oh come on, you're telling me you've never flashed your badge for a non-emergency before?"
Nicole chewed her lip. She must have been imagining the slightly suggestive tone with which Waverly said the phrase 'flashed your badge'. "Well, there was one time, back in the city… When I was still at the academy… And I blame my friend Justine for this, by the way."
Waverly leant forward on the arm of the chair, resting her chin on her palm, waiting expectantly for the story.
"We'd all just had our exam results and wanted to celebrate, so we were… blowing off some steam in town one night. Justine wanted to go to a particular club but there was a line down the street." Nicole paused. She looked up at Waverly guiltily. "We said we were plainclothes officers responding to a report about drug dealers in the club restrooms."
"Did it work?"
"Yeah, a little too well," Nicole admitted. "The bouncer got so worried about it he called the manager down and we had to do a fake sweep of the rest rooms."
Waverly laughed. The sound was enchanting. "That's terrible! What did they say when you didn't find anything?"
"Well that's the funny part, we actually kinda caught a dealer in the act so we had to call the local precinct and get them to come down and make a formal arrest. We had to come clean about it all, but Justine managed to talk us out of it and we got to stay in the club for the rest of the night. Now, Justine could talk her way out of a parking ticket no problem. She could probably talk her way out of anything."
For a moment, Nicole had almost forgotten that she was laying in a hospital bed because she'd been attacked and nearly killed. She hadn't felt this at ease since… She cast her mind back and realised it was more or less since her coffee with Waverly so many days before. If she really tried, she could almost pretend that they were still there, having a relaxed, carefree conversation over coffee.
"Sounds like you were lucky she was there," Waverly said, her voice a little quieter than before.
"Just lucky that she can charm people around her little finger. I mean, she got me to go along with it in the first place after all." It was then that Nicole spotted the hint of a conflicted expression on Waverly's face. Through the course of their conversation it had felt like she had been growing gradually more relaxed. She had curled into a comfy ball on the chair and had lost the conscious tension from her shoulders. But in the last minute something had changed.
Now she had stiffened and seemed to be avoiding prolonged eye contact. The comfortable air that had settled between them was starting to stir with unrest.
Nicole frowned. Had she done something wrong? Was it something she'd said?
"It sounds like you're good friends. You must miss having her around." The cheeriness in Waverly's voice was more noticeably forced now, and she had dropped her gaze completely.
A thought suddenly crossed Nicole's mind that she hardly dared allow herself to consider. A thought about what could have changed Waverly's mood so suddenly. A thought about what might have triggered her withdrawal. Nicole decided to put it to the test.
"Yeah she's a great friend, but she can be hard work." She took a breath. "I don't envy her boyfriend Bobby the job of being the one wrapped around her finger twenty-four-seven."
Waverly's breath hitched almost imperceptibly. Nicole might not have noticed at all if she hadn't been looking for it. Waverly looked up. The genuine smile was back. Nicole let out a slow sigh of relief.
"So how about you? You got a partner in crime to talk you in and out of trouble?"
Waverly smiled broadly and laughed. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she said, feigning innocence. "I, Waverly Earp, never get into trouble."
"Is that right?" Nicole teased.
"That's right. Nobody wants to tangle with the girl that can cut them off at the bar."
"Is that the secret power of the bar-keep? Get cut off if you cross her and maybe get a free drink if you can get on her good side?"
"If you play your cards right." Waverly's eyes widened once the words had made their way out of her mouth and she quickly looked away, her cheeks flushed. Nicole was sure she hadn't imagined the tone that time. Was…was Waverly flirting with her?
A silence - she wasn't sure if it was the uncomfortable kind or not - threatened to loom so she cleared her throat again.
"So have you been doing much cutting people off, or did you at least take some time off work for yourself these past few days?"
"Time off, definitely," Waverly replied, clearly grateful for the conversation rescue. "It's been… it's been a crazy couple of weeks. Gus has been really good about me taking a little time to allow my hand to heal and to, uh… avoid some of the regular crowd at Shorty's."
"Any particular reason why?" Nicole asked although she already had a pretty good idea.
"Well, Champ and I actually broke up," Waverly said, a little coyly, eyes down, twisting the loose cushion thread around her fingers. "That is, I broke up with him. So… we're broken up."
There was a pause.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry," Nicole offered.
"I'm not." Here, Waverly looked up and her stare was so earnest that Nicole honestly didn't know what to say.
They stayed, eyes locked for a moment that felt like an eternity. Nicole could feel her heart crashing against her ribcage because now she was certain; there was something there, between them.
Waverly broke eye contact first. Fueled by a newfound hope, Nicole took a shaky breath and tried to muster up all the cool she could.
Round two Haught, let's do this.
"So listen," she said, cutting through the rapidly forming silence. "I don't want you feeling like you're disturbing me by dropping by, so why don't you take my number so you can text ahead next time?" Waverly looked up and Nicole flashed her warmest smile. "Y'know, so I can make sure I'm awake."
Waverly looked a little flustered and twisted her fingers together nervously. "I uh, I actually already have your number." Nicole blinked. "You gave me your card. The day we met, remember?"
She kept it. She kept your number. Nicole smiled breathlessly. "Oh, yeah! Of course, I totally forgot."
"But," Waverly said, suddenly bright and eyeing up Nicole's phone on the side unit. "You don't have mine. May I?"
Nicole nodded wordlessly and reached up for the phone, unlocking it and handing it to Waverly.
"Aw, cute! Is this your cat?" she asked, looking at the wallpaper.
"Yeah," Nicole replied with a smile. "My hair-ballin' housemate, Calamity Jane."
Waverly chuckled as she proceeded to type her number into the phone. "I'd love to have a cat, but I don't think Wynonna would agree. She never really saw the point in any of the pets I had as a kid."
"You had lots of them?"
"One or two." Something about the reply made Nicole suspect that this was an understatement.
Before Waverly was done with the phone, she held it up and shot that gorgeous smile of hers to the camera as the shutter sound effect rang out. She handed the phone back to Nicole, which now contained both her cell and home number, email and social media links, complete with a breathtaking contact photo.
Nicole looked up and Waverly was beaming. "Now you can let me know when you're gonna be awake too. Although," she reached into her bag for her own phone with a smirk. "I do still need a contact photo for your number."
Nicole immediately held up her hands to shield her face. "Not looking like this, I'm begging you! At least wait until I look a bit more human."
"You look just fine, Nicole," Waverly chided lightly. "But remember, you owe me a photo."
"Don't you worry, I won't forget."
There was another pause of silence but this time there wasn't a hint of discomfort or awkwardness.
Eventually, Waverly looked at her watch and rose from the chair.
"I guess I'd better get outta your hair," she said. "Which, by the way, looks really nice. I mean, it always looks nice, but you usually always wear it up in your braid. It's nice like this, too, down I mean."
Part of Nicole wanted to rescue Waverly from her second-guessed compliment ramble, and part of her found it so endearing she couldn't bear to interrupt.
Part of her seemed unable to register that any of this was even happening.
"Thank-you," she said kindly, when Waverly opted to stop speaking. "And thank you for coming by and for the flowers."
"Maybe I'll come see how you're doing again tomorrow," Waverly murmured.
"You know where I'll be. Don't be a stranger."
Waverly nodded and with one final smile and a little wave, she skipped away into the hall.
The goofy grin stayed on Nicole's face for hours after Waverly's visit and the next nap she had was nightmare-free.