He was more than a little surprised she'd lasted until the group cleared the gravel pathway to the barn back towards the ramshackle house before she'd twisted free of his guided grip to rip his weapon free from his belt despite her still bound hands to level the gun's barrel square between his eyes as a fresh wave of angered tears roll down her cheeks.
"Wynonna." Nedley's voice is heavy with his own guilty grief breaking as he speaks. Mostly because of the warning snarls of the invisible Clanton reapers still scattered around them at the threat to one of their more living kin if Holt hadn't given a low "Don't" in calling them off.
Not that his command stopped the hammer of his own weapon from pulling back in some kind of warning. The gun itself held trembling against his forehead as another pitiful sob escaped the Earp heir's clenched teeth. "My best Frie-" but the words choked off in an angry sobbing gasp when, after pulling the trigger, she found the weapon hadn't been loaded before being slipped into the working sheriff's belt.
"I figured you'd be trigger happy after that." The Clanton man scoffs, mocking her in his voice as his eyes flick around them before coming back to hers. "We need to go, Earp." Holt is more than a little aware of the quiet barn behind them.
"Nic—cole?" a groggy Rachel asks blurrily leaning against Nedley's side to stay standing. "' Nonna, Nic…" the teenager tries to ask, swaying dangerously as she squinted at the sight of Wynonna Earp holding someone at gunpoint.
"Easy, Smalldes," Wynonna warns, tossing the useless weapon into the dirt before reaching out to steady the teenager.
"Ni—col…." Rachel tries again to ask, attempting yet again to look around herself without a bad case of vertigo setting in.
Wynonna can't answer other than hiding a broken sob against the teenager's hair as her yet untied hands smooth down the messy locks with a quieting "She'd want you safe, that's all that matters now." in a low, broken whisper.
"Waverly." Michelle coughs, signaled by the shadow of her dear angel appearing in what remains of Julian attempting to follow their daughter's retreat.
All eyes draw to the darkly dressed angel stalking more than truly walking out of the barn's side entrance. Ashen-colored wings were still on full angelic display as she moved.
"Waverly," Wynonna called out louder now. "Baby girl, come on. We need to-," the elder Earp sister started to say, only to be stopped short by a dead-eyed glare leveled at her from Waverly's tear-stained eyes.
"Leave now, Wynonna Earp." the darkened angel that had become her younger sister says, "You won't be needed for what is to come next."
"Like hell, I'm leaving you—" Wynonna argues, only to be stopped again by a wave of the glaring angel's blood-smeared hand.
With Julian now accompanying them, the group landed seconds later sprawled in a heap on the sawdust and salt-water-stained floor of Shorty's bar.
"Never thought I'd hate seeing this vagina table less than now." An angered Wynonna groaned while with the pool tables as she hauled herself back to her feet while the others untangled themselves behind her.
"Gross Wynonna." Jeremey groaned still cradling the running hourglass tightly during his paced waiting. "Oh, thank the incinerators, Nedley, your back." The ex-BBD worker sighs a half beat later from his guarded place beside the large metal tub holding the more earthy remains of Nicole Haught. "We need to start the reverse incantation soon."
"Beer first." Nedley grunts, getting to his feet on Wynonna's steadying helping hand before heading next to the bar.
"But-" Jeremy argues, still looking between the still sand trickling hourglass in his hand and the seeming retreating ex-Sheriff of Purgatory.
"Jeremy. Just don't." Wynonna answers for him over the hissed cracking of a beer can.
The beverage made it only halfway to Nedley's lips before his shaking shoulders stalled the motion. His eyes drifted back to the glaring metal tub across from the bar, and the thing was dropped to the bar floor, spilling the full amount into the wooden slats. Wynonna reached over the bar in an attempted hug, and Nedley cried openly into her shoulder in his grief.
Michelle, having guided a weak-legged and defiantly caucused Rachel to an open table with the Earp mother now quietly dabbing at the bloodied cuts to the teenager's hands and face with the offered med kit the still invisible Julian had thought to drag over.
"Wynonna?" Jeremy asks, "What the heck-"
"Don't Jer. P-, please." An equally crying Wynonna begs, her voice creaking as she rubs her free hand against Nedley's back in an attempted comfort none of them would ever be able to have. The wolf-skinned hat falls completely from Randy's head, and he cries even more against the Earp woman's shoulder.
The hard breaking of police-grade tires has both Wynonna and Nedley reaching as one of a few known weapons tucked under the bar top.
"When in doubt, check the closest bar." The newly arrived man chuckles after pushing open the double doors. "Good to know something's never…." Holt's attempted teasing words cut off as he ducks twin bullets from Wynonna and Randy's taken guns. A panicked but loyal Jeremy stands defiant at the end of the sault-watered 'death tank,' the still-running hourglass held as if in defense in front of him.
"For Christ's sake, Earp, I'm trying to help you here," Holt growls from the direction of the floor, his hands still raised in defense of his head even as he lays more on his side rather than completely belly down.
What she could see of the man's offered back looking an all too tempting target for the Earp heir's next bullet as Holt attempted to raise his hands in offered surrender. "Like you helped Nic….like you helped her?" Wynonna snaps, racking another round into the shotgun's doubled chamber. The first shot was still smoking in the wall just shy of splintering one of the swinging doubled doors.
"Her?" Holt scoffs from the floor. "What can't even bother saying her name -" but this time, the Clanton man's words are stopped by the angered Earp mother's hard grip on his throat.
A growling, Julian helped drag the man back to his feet, Michelle's hand still held tight to his neck during the movement.
"That woman is a far better sheriff a far better person than you can ever dream of being," Michelle says, casting a pitying glance to the body still floating just under the sault watered surface of the tub beside them. "Now, thanks to you and that stupid grudge-carrying family of yours, I'll never get to thank her for everything she'd done for my girls.". Her voice was low, but the respectful venom of her words was unmistakable when she added a threatening "So, you best keep her name from your lips, boy, or I'm having my angel here rip your tongue from your pathetic mouth, Clanton or no."
Holt dropped his eyes, singling his understanding and earning his release as Michelle rocks back on her heels. Julian returned to his shadowed place a step behind her.
"Th-th-" Holt tries to say, but the ache in his throat sidetracks his attempted speech. Spotting a few not-yet-used ice bags, the Clanton man scraps a few water chips from the closest, popping them into his mouth to dull the throbbing ache of the attempted strangling. "That's what I've been trying to tell you." He says once he'd regained his ability to talk.
"Well, talk fast. Times are almost up." Jeremy huffed, holding up the nearly spent sand trap as a reminder. Nicole needs us for that reversal."
More fast-breaking tiers stall attempted conversation.
"Holt?!" The painfilled heartbreak in Cleo Clanton's voice has even Wynonna pausing in sympathy as the sounds of a car door slams closed. "Holt, dammit, where are you?"
"Clo?" Holt asks in puzzled anticipation as his sister charges heels, clicking fast into the bar. The heavy treads of Billy's boots follow behind her as the reaper-turned-boy lumbers in after her.
"They killed her, Holt," Cleo sobbed, stumbling hard into her more alive brother's arms. "Mama. Mama, they…." She sobbed, "That stupid Gibson bitch she…. She killed her."
"What?" Holt gaped in shock at the news.
"Oh please. After what she did to…." Wynonna jumps in
"Screw that ginger she made her bed by coming to us to get you and yours back from whatever stupid garden whatever she said you were stuck in." Cleo argued fresh angry tears sliding down her cheeks from the wrapping of her brother's arms. "and what thanks does she get?"
"She killed Nicole. Twice if you count being the reason she was frogged to begin with." Wynonna counters
"Dammit, Earp, Haught's not dead." Holt roared through his own fresh sliding of tears at the loss of yet another member of his family.
First Billy, now his mother. When will the killing stop?
"What?"
Wynonna, Nedley, Cleo and Michelle's echoed asking does little to cool the sizzling back and forth of the standoff.
"Enough blood has been spilled over this vendetta. I couldn't let hers be added to it." Holt argued, tears still sliding thick and fast down his cheeks in angry mourning of his now dead mother. "But I didn't know how to reverse what Margo-Jean had done. Not yet, at least. The only thing I did know was that Nicole didn't deserve to suffer like that. Not because of who she loved."
"Where is she?"
Wynonna and Cleo again talk in tandem in the ask.
"Where the hell is Peacemaker?" Holt demands, his eyes finding Wynonna's across the bar space. His anger triggers a rumbled growl from a quietly watching Billy as he locks eyes with the equally angered Earp heir. "You must know where that stupid gun ended up."
"Like I'd give…."
"Like you still need it anyway if the Earp curse is over." Holt argues, "One last trade." The Clanton heir offers, his tone dropping now as his eyes land on the gleaming metal of the tub. "Nicole's soul, if you will, for the gun that killed our…." He bargains, pulling a battered but croaking frog from his shirt pocket.
"Wyatt didn't kill any of yours. Otherwise, they'd have been reavs with the rest of them." Wynonna argued back, her eyes now glued to the frog in Holt's palm.
"Doesn't matter. Give me Peacemaker and I'll give you Nicole." Holt bargained holding the frog higher for her to see "and I'd hurry up is you want to get her unfrogged in time." he warns eyeing the nearly spent hourglass in Jeremy's hand.
"How do we know that's even her?" Michelle argues, still attempting to put herself between a groggy Rachel and the rest of the fighting. "Could just be a switched one for the one Nicole was really…."
"Sure, you want to risk it either way?" Cleo steps in. "This is only the currently living soul of the woman your angel daughter loves, after all." She sighs. "And your best friend, if word around town is any good." She adds, eyeing a glaring Wynonna as she crosses back to her brother's side.
"Nicole isn't some bargaining chip." Wynonna snarls, "God first, Willa, then the Widows, now you, Clanton's God, just leave her in hell…."
Cleo laughed humorlessly at this, choking off Wynonna's words with a sigh. "Sure, as hell seems like a chip right now."
Again, the sudden bursting of the saloon's double doors makes only a dozing Rachel and a jumpy Jeremy start in surprise. Rachel's surprise might have been the ghostly stroking of a hand against her hair from an unseen hand.
Julian's ghostly fingers carded through her hair or Billy's. The teenager couldn't tell, but she leaned into it all the same. Her curiosity kept her awake after the manhandling the other Clanton kinsman had given her in the earlier attempted rescue of her kind of boyfriend.
"Hey everyone, remember me?" Rosita grins, the glinting of the ammolite necklace clasped around her neck with matching bands around her wrists as she wanders into the tense standoff. "Waverly got me off 'inside out island' no thanks to you, Earp."
"They had Nicole, Rosita, and Rachel. Okay, I wasn't going just to abandon her. Even to get back Peacemaker." Wynonna argues in remembrance of leaving Doc with the newly found revenant survivor once she'd gotten the call about what her ginger pop tart of a best friend had done.
"Well, sorry, Earp, but now you need to get back to finding that big gun of yours." Rosita fires back, seeing to be ignoring everyone else entirely as she holds the Earp heir's eyes. Waverly said she'll go after the foolishly taken book, whatever that means, but besides tracking down Wyatt's gun, you also gonna need to return her father's ring…."
"Julian's ring? I already dropped that on the way out of that hell garden," Wynonna scoffs. "And as for Peacemaker, don't you think I've tried looking…."
"Waves has that covered, but you need to return with me." Rosita says in a way that Wynonna almost tugged her across the bar top to kiss away that snarky grin. "Not all of Wyatt's victims went poof once the curse broke. They guard Peacemaker, but only the garden's Champion can take it back."
"Yeah, Yeah, the Celtic sisters, whatever. But I'd go anywhere with you," Wynonna argues. "I still haven't forgiven you for trying to steal my daughter…"
"Wynonna, please." Rosita pleads. "I was just trying to survive."
"You stole my daughter." Wynonna repeats, but then her eyes land on the glinting of dulled metal behind the somehow remaining rennet woman, and she takes a deep, ragged breath. "but fine." She agrees, more angry tears wetting her eyes.
"Then pinky swear you won't kill me when this is over." Rosita bargains, holding out her hand, little finger extended across the bar top. "Doc's already promised, but I need to hear it from you, too."
"Seriously?" Cleo scoffs, reminding everyone of the Clanton siblings' presence. "How old are you?"
"My thoughts too, actually." Wynonna almost laughs in agreement.
"Pinky swear." Rosita bargains again.
"Guys need I remind all of you that we're risking very serious brain damage goofing around like this?" Jeremy barks as a little more of the slow-moving sand drops into the almost-filled bottom half of the hourglass.
An hourglass was soon shattered to bits by Holt's well-aimed bullet. "I'm done waiting, Earp." The Clanton man barked, only to be thrown with surprising power across the room. Cleo followed a half beat later, making the Clanton siblings land in an unconscious heap beside a toppled and splintered pool table.
"B-Billy?" Rachel asks as all eyes land on the growling specter of the youngest of the surviving Clanton members slowly turning to face them. A proud kind of smile twisting his growling lips.
"Not quite, kiddo." Another voice answered, "He's still in here. He's still alive, but he just let me take the driver's seat for a while." She backtracked in her attempted explanation.
"Nicole!?"
"Dammit, Nic, you said you'd stay in the frog."
The Billy Nicole hybrid seemed to snarl low at the reminder. "They took Waverly, Jer, and Rachel too. Like I was going to stay put and let them hurt her," the ghostly reaper tells them now, stalking in treat towards a cowering Jeremy. Frog or not. Dead or not, Waverly is still my girl, and Rach is my kind of bratty teenaged daughter."
"Please don't punch me."
Only a low, rumbling growl answers the ex black badge agent's plea.
"Nedley, grab a drink, then start the reversal spell," Nicole instructs, rocking back on her bootclade heels. "I'm not going to last long like this."
"o-okay." Randy agrees, reaching blindly for another unopened beer can under the bar.
"Where is Waverly?" Michelle asks.
"Cleaning up loose ends." The reaper hybrid answers in a tone is so matter-of-fact that none thought to question it as the specter lingered a little longer beside the saltwater tub. "Jolene, for one. Seems she slipped through the cracks. Causing problems." They offer, looking down at Nicole's floating body. "The rest of the Clanton minions for another." As they talk, what seems to be a spiral flock of black and white-winged birds flies in a low arch past the bar's front window.
As she spoke, Julian's growling remains vanished in a flash, replaced by a richly white feathered dove cooing softly, now perched close at Michelle's shoulder.
"First things first. Help me get these two down to the basement for a while." Wynonna says, eyeing first the pair knocked away by the pool table, then to the revenant still standing close across the bar. "you two. I want my best friend back." Wynonna finishes, turning her gaze toward Nedley and Jeremy.
"Hate you two, Earp." Nicole rasped out in the reaper growl.
"Top shelf, Haught sauced frogger." Wynonna smiles weakly, hefting Holt's bulky body as Rosita shifts his other side as they make their unsteady way to the bar's basement stairs.
By the time they returned for Cleo, Nedley had already started chanting, and Jeremy was bending to attempt to clean up the sand and glass shards from the smashed hourglass. Michelle and the softly cooing Julian were quietly tending to Rachel.
As soon as the two finished dragging the slot machine back in front of the door, a hazy green glow glimmered into being.
"Humm. Shortcut crossing." Wynonna snickers
"Shall we?" Rosita asks
"You beat your sweet ass we are." Wynonna agrees.
