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It’s dark.
It’s dark and she’s alone.
She had been so close to the light, the others gathered in the middle, looking out at her. She was close enough that it had cast a faint glow across her face, leaving her features set in shadow as she had taken another step forward. But before she could step fully into the ring of illumination, the door had closed in her face, leaving her in darkness once again.
She’d fumbled blindly until she found another bright spot. But this time her face had lit up because of what she had seen rather than because of the light itself.
She was there.
Smiling and beckoning her closer.
But as she had drawn nearer, the face had twisted, sunken eyes swallowing up the light.
She had tried to stop it. Called for help. But the help had snarled and shoved her aside, forcing her to watch from the corner as both of them had dissolved into the shadows.
It’s dark.
It’s dark and she’s alone.
She reaches out into the void, searching for a wall or a switch or the handle of a door.
Instead she finds only empty space, stumbling forward, barely keeping her feet under her. Her heart races, the adrenaline setting her veins on fire. She can taste it mixing with the bile in the back of her throat.
She tries to call out, but her voice is stolen by the silence pressing in against her. She finds she’s on her knees, struggling to breathe, and then she feels the cold floor pressing against her cheek.
But just when she believes she will fully succumb to the darkness, there’s a hint of warmth on her other cheek.
A featherlight touch. Stroking. Caressing. Dancing gently along her clammy skin.
A soft breath in her ear. Calming words, whispered in a steady cadence, forcing her racing heart to fall into step.
The pull of the siren’s call draws her in, either to her salvation or to her death.
Maybe both.
The darkness begins to fall away as she drifts, weightless, toward the light. The chill that was seeping into her bones, turning them brittle, is replaced by something soft and warm. It wraps around her like a cocoon, pleasant and secure and safe.
The touch against her cheek becomes more solid and the soothing voice continues, previously abstract words finally taking shape in her mind.
“Shhhh, baby. You’re okay.”
That voice.
She knows that voice.
She knows that touch.
She breathes deeper, her lungs working properly again, and recognizes the scent of springtime on a warm day after an afternoon rain.
She knows where she is now.
No longer in the dark. No longer alone.
“I’ve got you,” Waverly’s voice promises.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t stir. Doesn’t open her eyes or hum in acknowledgement or turn into the touch.
She just continues to puff out soft breaths, feeling the blanket tickle against her chin as it rises and falls with her chest, one side of her face pressed into the pillows on Waverly’s bed while Waverly is pressed against her back.
“I’m sorry,” Waverly murmurs as her fingertips gingerly trace the laceration on her cheek, puffy and discolored.
Nicole wonders for a moment if Waverly knows she’s awake.
“I’m so sorry,” she continues, so softly Nicole can barely hear it, and she knows in that moment Waverly thinks she’s still asleep. “You didn’t deserve this.”
The fingers brushing along her cheek drift farther up, slipping into her hair, and begin stroking through it. The sensation is so pleasant, it stands in stark contrast to the distressing words, and it’s all Nicole can do not to react to either.
“It’s all my fault. It’s because I…” Waverly stands at a crossroads, and even in the quiet of her bedroom with no one to hear her speak the words and make them true (or so she believes), still she struggles to commit to one path or the other. After a long moment of hesitation and a deep breath, she squares her shoulders and takes a tentative step forward. “Because I love you.”
Nicole fights the urge to tense up. To roll over and take Waverly into her arms. To kiss away her fears and replace them with the things she’s wanted to say since the day Waverly confessed her feelings in Nedley’s office. But Waverly seems to need this. A stolen moment to speak the words aloud with no outside pressure. A confession made behind the veil of anonymity with no penance required.
So instead, she squeezes her eyes shut just the slightest bit tighter and hopes that Waverly doesn’t notice.
“You think my family has a curse. My last name,” Waverly says on the tail end of a humorless laugh, her weight shifting briefly behind Nicole before her fingers begin to trail through coppery locks once again. “It may not even be my last name. But I am still cursed, make no mistake about that.”
The gentleness with which such unnerving words are spoken makes them sound foreign and Nicole struggles to reconcile the juxtaposition. Waverly seems completely unfazed by it, continuing to murmur in Nicole’s ear, still trying to soothe her in her apparent sleep.
“Everyone I’ve ever loved has fallen to my curse. I put them down with my heart like Wynonna puts a Revenant down with Peacemaker.” Nicole’s eyes sting, but she manages to keep them closed. “Mama left us when I was little. My first casualty. Wynonna left as soon as I was old enough for her to go. She’s back now, but she’s a hollowed out shell of the person she was when we were kids.”
Nicole longs to reach behind her. Tangle her fingers with Waverly’s. Show her that those things were not her fault.
“Uncle Curtis. Shorty. Hell, even Willa. She was terrible, but she was still my sister and I used to love her once. But they’re all gone now. Every one of them.” Waverly’s fingers trail down out of Nicole’s hair to trace along her bruised cheek again. “And now you. Willa shot you. But this… God, Nicole. This was me. I hurt you.”
Waverly sighs heavily, rolling onto her back to stare at the ceiling and Nicole instantly mourns the loss of the comforting warmth pressed along the length of her body. Waverly’s hand drifts away from Nicole’s cheek, beginning to rub circles on her back instead.
“I told her, you know. Wynonna. Told her I loved you and begged her to save you. But all it did was trigger my curse. Not five minutes later you were crumpled on the floor with two broken ribs, pulling a bullet out of your vest.”
Nicole bites the inside of her cheek to keep from speaking. So hard she can taste the copper on her tongue.
“I told Wynonna, but I chickened out of telling you. Thought maybe if I stopped myself – took it back – it might undo the curse. That maybe you’d be safe again. I caught the words on my tongue at the last minute, but I still ended up throwing you across the barn. I guess it’s called a curse for a reason.”
Waverly goes silent for a long while, the only sound in the room her fingers sliding over the fabric of Nicole’s sweatshirt under the blanket that covers them both. Nicole’s chest is aching far more fiercely than her injured head. She’s just about to casually change her position to close a bit of the distance between them when she feels Waverly begin to shift behind her again.
“You should run,” she says quietly. “Get as far away as you can from Purgatory and its demons. From me and my demons. But if you’re really going to stay…” Waverly moves back onto her side, draping herself over Nicole’s back again, her arm sliding across to wrap around Nicole’s waist and pull her closer. “If you’re going to stay, and we’re going to face this curse down together, then I have no reason to keep from saying the words.”
She feels Waverly’s breath ghost across her neck as she nuzzles closer, and Nicole shivers. Mistaking the reaction for Nicole being cold, Waverly pushes herself up enough to reach the extra blanket at the foot of the bed and layers it over the other one, tucking both of them up under their chins.
Once she’s settled back in, holding Nicole again, she tilts her face up enough to whisper in Nicole’s ear.
“I love you, Nicole Haught. Maybe someday soon I’ll be brave enough to say it when you can hear me.”
It’s the last words she speaks, and they lie in silence for a long while before Nicole feels Waverly’s breaths begin to even out, her arm relaxing around her waist. She carefully entwines their fingers, pulling Waverly’s hand up enough to brush her lips across her knuckles just before she feels sleep begin to pull at the edges of her consciousness.
When Nicole wakes up in the morning, her arm is completely numb and Waverly’s hair is in her mouth. Sometime during the night, she had rolled over, and Waverly is curled into her chest, her head resting on Nicole’s shoulder and her face tucked under her chin.
She manages to spit the hair out of her mouth and carefully uses her other hand to smooth it away off of Waverly’s forehead. She pulls her closer and lets herself get lost for a long moment in the sound of their hearts beating together as one. She presses a kiss to Waverly’s forehead and closes her eyes, breathing in the scent of the spring rain again.
“I love you, too, Waverly Earp,” she whispers as she begins to drift off again, and just as she’s hovering on the edge of sleep, she wonders if she feels the curve of a smile against her throat.