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Chapter Text

Nicole had never planned on this happening. She didn’t really want to play soccer in college, but if the opportunity was there she wouldn’t have declined it. She just wanted to get into a good school based on her academic achievements and that was all.

So when the head coach for the UCLA team called her personally and requested that they meet right away, shocked was an understatement for what Nicole had felt.

Growing up in a small town in Canada, Nicole had never expected that she would have been able to receive recognition like this. Soccer was all she ever had. Hours that she could have been socializing or working were spent out on the field training. She could lose herself completely, leave everything else behind the moment her feet touched the grass. The rush she got from pushing herself as far as she possibly could from eighteen-yard box to eighteen-yard box. The burn in her lungs after every sprint. The soccer field was her home for as long as she could remember.

UCLA was Nicole’s dream school. The little free time she had was spent watching and rewatching every single soccer game she could. She only took the hardest, most advanced classes her school offered, and she excelled in them. Every single thing she did was to get accepted into the school, so then maybe she could try out for the team or at best make their club team. Her goal was never to get an athletic scholarship.

But there she was, sitting face to face with a letter telling her that she had received a full ride athletic scholarship to the school she had been imagining getting accepted into since she was ten years old.

She just never imagined she would be all alone.

Nicole was never really confused about her sexuality. She knew she liked girls for forever. She had always embraced it and been more than okay with the person she was. So when she came out to her family her first year of high school, she wasn’t expecting to have a negative reaction. She certainly wasn’t expecting the yelling or the look of utter betrayal on her father’s face when she reached for him and he flinched away like she had hit him. Her clothes being ripped from her dresser and dumped onto the lawn as she sobbed and begged her parents to understand. They didn’t. So, she sat there in front of her house willing time to freeze and rewind. Anything to stop the pain in her heart, or fix the hole that was starting to form in the core of her soul.

That's how Jordan found her, eyes puffy, shoulders hunched, feeling drained of any and every emotion she could feel. Nicole wasn’t sure the order of what happened next, just felt her older sister’s arms help her up, supporting her into the car. She remembers her tears blurring her vision as she watched the houses in her neighborhood disappear. The way the side of her face burned every time she felt her sister stare for just a little bit too long. Until, suddenly, she was sitting in the living room of her sister’s house staring silently at the wall in front of her.

Her position she was in reading the letter mirrored the way she sat that night, getting swallowed in the middle of the unnecessarily large couch Jordan insisted she needed. Nicole had promised not to read the letter that had come in the mail earlier that morning until her sister got home from work. But her sister’s uncertain work schedule at the hospital left her alone until the late hours of the evening, and quite frankly she had just grown far too impatient to wait. She didn’t think Jordan could be angry at her for opening it after she heard what it had said.

Nicole couldn’t believe it. Something had to be wrong, someone somewhere had to have mixed up her name with someone else’s.

Her head snapped up when she heard the front door slam open.

“Nicole I swear to God if you opened up that letter without me!” Her sister yelled, rounding the corner from the front of the house into the living room.

Nicole saw Jordan stop as soon as she saw the opened envelope laying on the coffee table. She could see the hesitation in her sisters gaze, trying to read Nicole’s emotions. She always had been protective of her little sister.

So when Nicole’s face broke into a smile, a real genuine smile, Jordan ran to engulf her in hug. Their watery laughs filled the room, a mixture of complete relief and astonishment.

Jordan pulled back and grabbed Nicole’s face between both her hands, “I fucking knew you could do it Nicky. I never doubted for one second that this is what you were meant to do, where you were meant to end up. Every single time you came home bruised and battered from practice, every all nighter you pulled to pass a test, every call from Mom and Dad trying to push you off course, I knew you could do it. I am so proud of you kid.”

Nicole felt the tears well behind her eyes before they fell, Jordan sweeping at every last one with her thumbs. Her sister was her rock. She opened her mouth to respond, but she couldn’t find the words to tell her sister just how much she loved her. How much she appreciated each and every thing Jordan did for her. Nicole owed everything to her, she picked her up at her worst and stood by her for every second after it. Nicole had never been good at expressing her emotions after her parents threw her out. Instead of verbally telling her sister anything, she grabbed her around her neck and hugged her, trying to communicate everything she wanted to say with the grasp from her arms.

“All right Nicky, let's take a closer look at this letter and figure out where we start,” Jordan said, untangling herself from Nicole’s embrace.

They sat together on that couch for hours after that, Nicole grasping onto everything the older girl was saying, making sure she understood every part.

This was the beginning of the rest of her life, and Nicole was ready to get it started.

Chapter Text

It was hot. Nicole had been on campus for two months, and the temperature difference between Los Angeles and home was certainly an adjustment she was facing. However, she wasn’t expecting this change to be so drastic. This summer heat was something that Nicole never had to face.

The move had been hard. Leaving her sister and her hometown behind was something that Nicole had never pictured being so tough. But she’s always been able to morph into her surroundings, laying down the foundation to some sort of life wherever she went.

Having something like her team helped her too. She never really had time to feel any sort of homesickness between the two a days and team bonding time and review film from practices. Nicole had been busier than she knew possible since she arrived in the states in late June. And she was loving every single second of it.

Nicole was enjoying the break after morning workout laying on her bed in her room. Her whole body ached from the intensity of the program, and she was soaking up every second of rest time she could have. That was until her roommate decided that she had had enough of a nap and decided to come barging into the room.

“Haught get your ass out of that bed, this morning wasn’t even that hard,” Wynonna said. She moved over to her side of the room stripping off her sweat stained shirt from Nicole could only assume was her after practice run.

Nicole rolled her eyes, “Sorry, Earp, I wasn’t aware that all of us had the stamina of a god and could go on five mile runs after having the conditioning practice from hell.”

Wynonna scoffs and turns around facing Nicole in just her sports bra, the usual look she sports after any sort of workout. Nicole sighs and throws her pillow at the brown haired girl, “Christ Wynonna put a shirt on for once.”

“What Haught? See something you like?”

“Do not make me throw another pillow at you I’m not going to have any left.”

Wynonna sighed and slipped on the closest shirt she could find. Nicole watched her take slow heavy steps over to Nicole’s bed before she collapsed into the extra space face first. Nicole never really believed in the “your roommate will become your best friend” cliche that everyone always told her. Except for the moment that Nicole met Wynonna she knew that she was something special. The two clicked right from the start, and are a force to be reckoned with on the field together. They complimented each other, Wynonna’s outgoing, rough demeanor and Nicole’s reserved, gentle nature. The two just knew how the other played, every pass, every run. And off the field they knew when to give the other space, or when they maybe needed a bit more love. Two months into their friendship and Nicole knew she wanted Wynonna in her life for good.

Nicole looked down at the girl, worrying for a second if she could even breathe with her face smashed up against the mattress like that. She knew that Wynonna ran with her girlfriend Erin after practice, and usually she would come back into their room with this impossibly large smile on her face. That smile, however seemed to be missing. Nicole sighed and started to pull on Wynonna’s shoulders, trying to turn her around so they could talk. “Earp, come on, you know I lack in the upper body strength department, turn yourself around before I pull something and Nedley rips you a new one.”

Wynonna huffed out a breath of air, “Really Haught its nothing, couples fight it sucks thats all.”

Nicole rolled her eyes but dropped the conversation, she wouldn’t be able to coax anything out of Wynonna anyway. Nicole rolled over Wynonna ignoring her grunt of protest and lands on their floor. She stood at the edge of her bed, hands on her hips, “All right Earp get up, we aren’t gonna stay in this room and mope.”

Wynonna groaned but stood up, hunching over. She looked at the red haired girl with a pout, “Where are we going Haught? I’m really not in the mood.”

Nicole scoffed, “Really?” she asked sarcastically, “I truly never would have been able to tell.” Wynonna glared at her, but made no other move to retaliate. Nicole grabbed the other girl by her arm and started to drag her out. She stopped by their soccer bags on the way out and grabbed both of them.

Wynonna seemed to catch on at that point yanking her arm out of Nicole’s hold, “You’re dragging me out to the field before afternoon practice.” Wynonna stood her ground arms crossed over her chest.

Nicole sighed, “Look I know you’re fighting with Erin, you didn’t come back with that stupid, ridiculous shit faced grin you normally do, so we’re going to go down to the field and you’re gonna kick some soccer balls until you feel like all the anger in your body has been transformed into something that doesn’t make my best friend the worst person to be around. And then you’re gonna go fix things with your girlfriend after practice or so help me God I will lock you out of this room, you got it?”

Wynonna stood there silent, but nodded her head and reached to grab her bag from out of Nicole’s hand. The two left the room together, heading out to the front of their dorm building to start the short walk to the practice field. The two didn’t say much but Nicole knew that Wynonna wasn’t mad at her for snapping. She just seemed to have a lot on her mind.

Once they reached the field they both dropped their stuff and laced up their cleats. They both still felt pretty loose from morning workout so they just took a jog across the complex to get their legs warm again before stretching out.

Nicole stopped stretching before Wynonna so she went to their bags to get the two balls she brought. She turned around and threw them over to where Wynonna was still stretching. Nicole was genuinely worried about her friend, she never got his quiet.

Nicole started tapping the ball around a bit waiting for Wynonna to finish. They didn’t do much of anything with the soccer ball that morning focussing on core and running for their workout, and she had missed the way the ball felt on her foot.

Nicole started to dribble a little bit, touching the ball on every part of her foot, cutting left and right until she was in front of the eighteen and shot the ball with her right foot hooking it into the top left corner.

“Well look at that Haughtshot never misses that damn upper corner,” Nicole heard from behind her. She looked over her shoulder and rolled her eyes.

“Sorry Wynonna not all of us have the honor of simply needing to out run the backline to get a clear shot of an unattended goal, some of us have to work for out shots,” Nicole quipped back, teasing the girl for her striker position.

“And not all of us have the honor of laying back and relaxing in the middle of the field being a ball server for every other person on the field,” Wynonna said, sticking her tongue out for good measure.

Nicole was a defensive midfielder, had been her whole life. She loved it, the running, the mental aspect. Having to have the mindset of not only an offensive but also a defensive player tested Nicole each and every game, it was never played the same way twice. A new job every game.

The two girls took turns shooting, mixing it up every now and then with Nicole defending Wynonna or working on their left footed kicks (or right foot for Wynonna). They spent their entire break between morning and afternoon workout just enjoying being on the field with a ball on their feet and no one else around to bother them.

When Dolls showed up with the equipment for their afternoon practice, Nicole realized she had forgotten her protein bar back in the room and needed to go back and get it. She yelled across the field to Wynonna that she would be right back, but the Earp girl was already talking to Dolls about what he had planned for the practice. Nicole shook her head but took off jogging toward her dorm building.

She made it back just in time for their warm up lap, everyone else showing up while she was gone. There afternoon workouts tended to be lighter after an intense morning of cardio and core, Dolls didn’t want them to be overworked.

Most of the practice was spent on ball handling drills, little things to keep their touches progressing and improving. Nicole didn’t mind it, her touch was one of her best qualities and she strived to only keep getting better.

After a half hour or so of the ball handling they moved onto some shooting drills. The keepers were working on their timing for breakaways so it wasn’t an intense drill or anything to difficult just a short sprint to the box, a move around the keeper, and a touch in.

Practice started wrapping up right around five, the hot August weather cooling down to something that was almost tolerable to anyone that hadn’t grown up somewhere where it snowed for more than half the year. Nicole was drenched in sweat.

Dolls gathered the girls up in a circle to talk like he normally did at the end of the workouts.

“Listen,” he started, “I know these drills are basic and you’ve done them thousands of times since you were four years old but our opener is next week and Stanford won’t just be easy competition. We have to fine tune every little kink from now until then. Understood?” Everyone nodded their heads yes. “Alright then, hydrate and eat a good meal. I’ll see you all bright and early tomorrow.”

Dolls left the circle and took the cleaned up equipment with him. A senior, Rosita, took to the middle of the circle. They always broke after practice. “Team on three. One. Two. Three.”
There was a deep chorus of “team” before the girls all stepped away and started to take off their gear and either head to get food or back to the dorms.

Nicole sat next to Wynonna, unlacing her cleats and staring at the girl next to her. Wynonna looked up like she had felt her stare, “I know Nicole, I wasn’t avoiding her during practice she was doing her keeper thing. I’m gonna head to her dorm right now and talk to her.” Nicole smiled and nodded her head, watching her stand up with a wave and head out.

Nicole decided to head back to her dorm and look up some footage from some of Stanford’s past games.

One google search of Stanford Girl’s Soccer had articles popping up left and right of some new freshman that they had recruited.

Waverly Earp.