Chapter Text
The roads are eerily empty as Nicole’s heart hammers from her chest to her foot, still pressed down on the gas. She can’t help but imagine how beautifully ironic it would be if she were to get pulled over at the moment. I backed out of regionals because I wanted to be a cop, and that would be the exact reason I couldn’t go see my girlfriend in it.
And there it is. Girlfriend. She hasn’t exactly been dreading the words, but every time she brought the mere notion up to Waverly, it was whisked away and hidden under kisses and moans Nicole was entirely too enamoured by to say anything about.
10:54. Nicole feels a jump underneath her foot, and then a pop as the gas releases, and then the car shudders to a stop as steam plumes from the hood. “Piece of shit car,” she hisses as the the key turns fruitlessly in the ignition. “Fuck. Fuck!” Her hand collides with the steering wheel and then buries itself in her hair, pulling haphazardly until tears prick at the back of her eyes, either from the pain of her hair or the pain of something else.
At 10:56, she tucks her keys into her pocket and starts to run.
When the buzzer for 11:00 goes off, it becomes strikingly clear to Waverly. Nicole isn’t coming. It was stupid to think that she would.
The note goes forgotten in her chalk bag as she pushes it down and buries it, much like she attempts to do with her own emotions. Falling in love with Nicole was dumb, and thinking it would have a happy ending was even more of a fairytale than anyone else could have composed about her.
It still doesn’t stop her from taking a moment to turn around now that she’s allowed to and scan the crowd of smiling faces, aching for a glimpse of red hair. Instead there’s Wynonna, whose smiling sadly and shaking her head. I’ve looked, babygirl. She’s not here.
The climb is exactly Waverly’s style—a smattering of crimps interlaced between small, powerful moves. It plays perfectly to her height disadvantage, a rare gambit in any climbing competition she’s ever been a part of. Her fingers close around the starting hold, allowing it to ground to back to reality, until her heart calms down enough.
The first few moves are simple enough, no odd beta that leaves her more tired than she should be. Breathe, Waverly. After the third clip she can start to feel exhaustion wear down on her limbs from the strain.
Relief comes at the fourth clip in the form of a finger pocket, while positioned at a weird angle that she has to center herself oddly to rest on, provides enough of a rest that she can let go with one hand and shake out. Her head swivels over to check out the clock, a bright blue sign with ticking seconds, when a flash of red from the window outside appears.
She switches hands and holds her breath, fingers once again scraping against the note at the bottom of her chalk bag, only this time it weighs a hundred pounds more as Nicole—Nicole, flings the doors open and scans the room, eyes wide.
Her face is red from the cold and her chest is heaving, and she seems to move with a fluid sort of grace, as though her limbs have been replaced with jelly. Did she run here?
Nicole’s eyes travel up the wall until they meet Waverly and she waves frantically until Waverly nods and smiles. She came. Nicole makes her way over to where Wynonna is standing, who pulls her into a side-hug without tearing her gaze from Waverly.
Waverly refocuses on the climb at hand and shakes out one more time before moving off the hold. The next one is a bitch to catch, but she feels oddly reinvigorated. Two more clips and she’s topping out, she tells herself, and she moves to catch the next hold when her foot cuts.
She feels herself drop a few inches before the instincts in her left hand catch and tighten, holding her in place. A shriek pours from her mouth as her body swings out but manages to hang on, and it’s the fatal flaw. Wherever she goes from here, it’s drained the rest of the energy in her left arm.
She rebalances her foot and trusts it, springing off the catch the next hold. Her hand sticks, slips, and then she’s plummeting until the rope goes taut and catches her. The audience is still halfway in between a gasp and a cheer when she lowers.
Despite not finishing the climb, she’s smiling ear to ear.
Nicole feels her breath catch in her throat at the foot cut, and then feels it sink all the way down into her feet when Waverly falls. She’s lowered to the ground and Nicole can’t help herself from jumping forward over the rope barrier. She pulls Waverly into a bone-crushing hug before she’s even able to untie herself. “Waves, I am so so sorry times a million, I never meant to hurt you like that, I just knew how important regionals was to you and I wanted you to win because I knew you wanted to, and if you never forgive me I completely understand, I am so sorry—”
“Hey,” Waverly laughs and pulls herself out of Nicole’s grip. She keeps her hands firmly on Nicole’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go get some coffee? You were up late last night.”
Nicole frowns. “But the competition. You didn’t win and it’s my fault—”
“Trust me.” Waverly’s grinning ear to ear as she rests her forehead against Nicole’s and allows herself to get pulled back into a hug. “I won.”
“So, Calamity Jane?”
“Absolute garbage. You were right,” Nicole laughs. Her hands cradle her coffee cup, stealing the warmth instead of actually drinking it. She has a specific memory of sitting in that exact spot weeks ago when Wynonna first came to get her, and the thought of it sends a warm tingle down her spine. Her face suddenly goes red. “I left a note in your chalk bag, you know. Did you ever get around to reading it?”
“Oh! No, I completely forgot about it, I’ll do that now.” Waverly spins to shuffle around in her climbing bag before a hand on her forearm stops her.
“I can just tell you what it said,” Nicole says, and Waverly turns to see Nicole’s face only inches from hers. She closes her eyes and sinks into the kiss, wrapping her arms around Nicole’s shoulders.
“That was a wonderful note,” she whispers. “I’m sorry, too, for losing my shit on you. You were trying to help, and you did try to tell me, and you tried to talk to me, and honestly, it scared me. You scare me.”
Nicole blanks. “I scare you?”
“Yes. Because I don’t want to be friends. I don’t want to be just more than friends. But it scared me to take that step and it especially scared me because I didn’t want to compete against my girlfriend when it was dumb. You’re more important to me than some competition you would’ve kicked my ass in anyway.”
“Girlfriend?” Nicole repeats slowly.
“Girlfriend,” Waverly agrees.
3 MONTHS LATER
A small note, covered in chalk despite being a few months old, that reads, I’m sorry with a heart next to it sits on Waverly’s empty dresser, next to a slightly more faded one that says Dyke. Beautifully ironic, she thinks, how they were both written in hatred yet brought her closer to Nicole. Her girlfriend. Her girlfriend.
“Hey, babygirl.” Wynonna readjusts the box that sits against her hip. “You coming or what? College won’t wait for you.”
“Yeah, I’ll be down in a second.” She knows Nicole is waiting in the driver’s seat of the truck downstairs where the rest of her things sit, ready to move into a dorm. She takes one last look around the room before carefully folding the notes into her pocket and wishing the Homestead goodbye.