Work Text:
this isn't oliver twist
So I'm trying to put it right
Cause I want to love you with my heart
All this trying has made me tired
And I don't know even where to start
Maybe that's a start
- "Song for You" by Alexi Murdoch
Nicole doesn’t notice it at first. The way that food seems to go missing like the sleeve of crackers from the brand new box that she bought over the weekend. Or the last bagel from the cupboard. She figures it’s Waverly taking snacks into the office for Alice and Belle on the days that Gus can’t look after them.
She doesn’t notice that food keeps disappearing until Lonnie barges into her office holding the brown sack lunch that she knows his wife puts together for him every morning.
“Lonnie,” she drawls, looking up from Price’s recent report on vandalism at the high school.
(Apparently, drawing penises on school property never gets old.)
“What have I said about knocking?” Nicole leans back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest and leveling her best authoritative glare.
“Uh, that we should knock if the door is closed because you’re a busy person? Unless it’s an emergency?”
She had tried to have an open door policy once she was promoted to sheriff. She wanted her officers to feel like they could come to her with any questions and concerns they had on or about the job. She wanted them to understand that she was still the same Nicole, just with a different title and more responsibilities.
Of course, the open door policy lasted less than a week because Wynonna believed that an open door meant free to talk about anything and everything not related to protecting the everyday, ordinary sorts of citizens. So, her office door remains steadfastly shut whenever she’s working in the station.
The confounded look on Lonnie’s face only confirms that decision, as well as making her wonder again how he had made it through the academy at all.
Nicole sighs and shakes her head. “What do you need, Officer Stuckley?”
“Right, well,” he starts before holding up the brown paper sack. “Somebody keeps stealing food from my lunch.”
“Are you sure it isn’t Wynonna?”
Because Wynonna would steal Lonnie’s lunch. Only because it’s him and she knows how much he grates Nicole’s nerves. And she thinks he keeps taking her powdered jelly doughnuts.
“Does Earp know there are other food groups besides whiskey and donuts? Because whoever it is, they’re stealing the fruit that Margaret packs for me. It was an apple last week and this week it’s been a banana and an orange.”
And Nicole frowns at that because if Wynonna took anything from Lonnie, it’d be the dessert that his wife always includes.
She doesn’t see the bigger picture, see all the little puzzle pieces fitting together, until the following evening.
“Nicole?” Waverly calls to her as soon as she’s through the front door. “Can you c’mere for a second?”
There’s concern in her voice that makes Nicole leave her duty belt on instead of going to their bedroom to lock up her service weapon as per her usual routine. It isn’t that sort of a problem, she knows. Belle is safe and on the sofa looking through a picture book from the library, and Waverly has demonstrated that she can handle herself time and time again. Still, sometimes she worries that their life now is just a dream, that she’ll wake up and they’ll still be fighting for their lives in a war against souls damned to hell.
(It isn’t a dream. She has love and security and a family that always has her back.)
“It’s nothing bad,” Waverly says when Nicole finds her in the kitchen, rolling a can of chickpeas between her hands. “Well nothing bad-bad. Not like the world is ending bad.”
“That’s… not reassuring baby,” Nicole murmurs as she moves to rest her hands on her girlfriend’s waist. “What happened? Are you okay? Is Belle okay?” And Nicole starts to move away at that, wondering if she should go check on the little girl in the living room.
“Belle’s fine.” She pauses for a moment before tacking on, hesitantly, “Mostly?” Waverly’s shoulders sag and she drops her forehead to Nicole’s shoulder, giving the sheriff pause.
Nicole knows not to push, that she doesn’t need to do so. That sometimes Waverly just needs a moment to make sense of the thoughts in her own head before she expresses them aloud.
“We went grocery shopping this afternoon. I wanted to make falafel for dinner.” She pulls back, gesturing to the can of chickpeas that she’s still holding. “Everything seemed okay. Everything seemed better . When Mr. Harrison said hello to her, she didn’t look absolutely terrified. And she asked if she could pick out a box of cereal.”
And that is better. Because Belle has been with them for two weeks going on three and she’s been hesitant to ask for anything and reluctant to talk to anybody but Waverly.
(Even Nicole, and goddamn it.
She won’t be jealous of her girlfriend getting more attention than her from a four-year-old.
She won’t .)
“When we were in the checkout queue, the bagger saw Belle put a chocolate bar in her coat pocket.”
Nicole casts a glance over her shoulder into the living room — not that she can see the little girl on the sofa from here. She looks back to Waverly and she wants to come up with a million and one excuses for why Belle would do that. Maybe this and maybe that, but all of them are farfetched and illogical.
Because Belle might be quiet and shy and a little withdrawn but she’s clever and smart . She hangs on Waverly’s every word and she looks at picture books but she also reads them aloud when she thinks they’re out of earshot. She practices her words and sounds things out, and those precious moments are the few times that Nicole actually gets to hear her voice.
(She’s confident when she reads. Like she knows there’s something special in the bindings of the books. Whole worlds beneath her fingertips.
Nicole tries not to wonder if part of Belle’s comfort with fictional characters is because they can’t hurt her.)
And smart and clever Belle knows that taking things that aren’t hers is wrong. She knows that she should ask for things and she knows that things in the store need to be bought. She knows that food in the grocery store…
Oh.
The crackers.
The bagel.
Wynonna’s doughnut.
Lonnie’s fruit.
“You haven’t been taking snacks into the BBD office for the kids, have you?” Nicole asks, though she thinks she knows the answer.
And Waverly’s brow scrunches because it’s an odd question after she just told her law enforcement girlfriend that their foster child is stealing sweets from the supermarket.
“No…” she answers, drawing out the syllable to signal her confusion.
“Babe, I think Belle has been…”
Nicole is hesitant to say stealing because she knows there’s more to it than that. She’s seen the way that the little girl pulls her plate closer at breakfast and dinner. How she sits up on her knees in the chair so that she can lean over her meals protectively. How she scarfs down her food even faster than a hungry Wynonna but never dares to ask for more.
“I think Belle’s been sneaking food from the cupboard and stealing Wynonna’s doughnuts and Lonnie’s fruit at the station.”
She closes her eyes and presses her forehead to Waverly’s because she should’ve known . She should’ve put the pieces together and recognized that they should have been doing something. Should have been doing more because this little girl wears her broken home on her thin frame. She shoulders it when she makes herself small and tries to become invisible. She shows it in her wary eyes and suspicious looks.
“I should’ve recognized the problem,” Nicole whispers.
And Waverly presses a kiss to Nicole’s lips, solid and reassuring, and she puts the can of chickpeas on the counter with a self-deprecating sounding laugh. “I forgot I was holding those,” she mumbles. She circles her arms around Nicole’s neck and draws her closer, fingers threading through red hair that’s getting just a bit too shaggy.
“You know that you don’t have to be perfect all the time, right?” she asks softly. “It’s okay if you don’t see everything all the time. You’re allowed to be human, Nicole.”
“I saw the signs, though, Waves,” Nicole protests. “The books talk about food insecurity in foster children.”
“Nicole, baby, stop. Stop with the should have talk that I know is your default process when you think you’ve done something wrong. Stop beating yourself up, okay? And let’s figure out how to fix it. Together. Because we’re in this together, Nicole. You and me, remember? Where you go, I go.”
Nicole exhales, an audible sigh that makes her shoulders drop. Some of the tension falls away.
“Okay,” she says.
And together they walk back into the living room where Waverly sits on the sofa beside Belle and Nicole settles on the coffee table and they talk about what it means to be afraid of going to bed hungry. They talk to her about the crackers and the bagel and Wynonna’s doughnut and Lonnie’s fruit and the chocolate bar at the grocery store. They speak in soft and comforting tones and they ask her what they can do to make sure that she knows that she doesn’t have to worry about food. That there will always be enough to go around. That they promised to take care of her, and that means three meals a day and maybe some maltesers every now and then, too.
They decide on a snack basket reserved just for Belle and they decide on keeping a bowl of fruit in the Black Badge office and they decide that ice cream for dessert tonight sounds like the very best idea.
Together they walk into the kitchen and Waverly talks about chickpeas and falafel and together they make dinner. Together they sit down for dinner at Nicole’s old wooden table, and when Belle’s plate is empty, she asks for more.
Hesitantly, reluctantly, she asks for more.
But she asks.
And Waverly shares a smile with Nicole and answers, “Have as much as you want, Belle. There’s plenty for all of us.”
One step and then another. Slowly but surely. Forward.