Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nicole woke to the mixed sensations of a soft, clean bed and the worst splitting headache of her life. Groaning her displeasure, she tried to sit up, but a firm but gentle hand pushed her back down onto the pillow.

“Take it easy there, darlin’. I know you’ve gotta be tougher than a boiled owl for even still breathin’ after all that, but you’re no Supermutant. Take it slow.” A man’s voice made her blink her eyes open, wincing at the light. Standing over her was a man in a brown suit and a bushy mustache. He looked grizzled, as most people did in these parts, but his eyes were kind. He also wore a very impressive hat. “There you are. Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“Was I dead?” Nicole asked, hating how weak and small her voice sounded.

“Not quite. You’re no ghoul. No revenant either. But you were shot in the head and buried alive, and not a lot of folks survive that. You’re damn strong, and even more damn lucky.”

Faint memories trickled back in, jumbled and out of order. The lonesome road. A letter in the mail. A man in a fur coat. A hole in the ground. A gun pointed at her head. Then, finally, just miles and miles of pure darkness.

“How did I…” She raised a hand to her head, sifting through her long red hair in search of the pain's source. Her fingers brushed a long, fresh scar on the back of her skull, and she shivered involuntarily.

“Victor brought you here, asked me if I could fix you up. I told him not to hold his breath.” The man gave a small chuckle, like he had made a joke. He must have noticed Nicole’s stare, since he elaborated, “Victor’s a robot.”

“Right…” Nicole’s headache was worsening by the second. “Um… when you say ‘here’… Where exactly is ‘here?’ And who are you?” She winced as the pain flared and wondered if the man might have painkillers or other medicine on the premises. Or, barring that, maybe some very strong alcohol. “Not that I’m not grateful.”

“Now, don’t you worry about offending the likes of me. I should have introduced myself at the start. John Henry Holliday, but you can call me Doc. Everyone else does. I’m what passes for a physician here in Purgatory.” He splayed his hands, gesturing to the space around them. “Purgatory being where exactly ‘here’ is. Nice little town, a nice comfortable distance from just about everything and everyone else.”

“They named the town ‘Purgatory?’” Nicole said, rubbing absently at her new scar, which itched and stung now that it had her attention. “Little on the nose, ain’t it?”

Doc shrugged.

“Suits us just fine.” He smiled at her. “Guess when they built the place, they figured it was appropriate.”

“Suppose it is,” she agreed. She tried to sit up again, and this time he didn’t move to stop her. Her head spun and throbbed in protest at being upright, but it was tolerable. As the bedsheet slid off her chest, she saw that she was wearing a man’s shirt, and very little else.

“My clothes…” she started, and Doc grimaced.

“Didn’t reckon they could be salvaged. There was a powerful lot of blood. I had to cut them off in the end, to check for more bullet holes.” His face was serious. “Understand, though, I’m an honorable man. I took no pleasure from the act. It was strictly professional.”

She believed him. Not that she would have been in much of a position to do anything if she hadn’t.

“Don’t worry, Doc. I understand.”

“I’ll try to scrounge up something for you to wear. You’re tall, but I’m sure we can find something.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded easily, shrugging off her gratitude. He straightened his hat, casting his eyes around the room. The room was crowded with tables and chairs, most of which were covered in piles of medical tools and equipment. It was disorganized, but clean.

“You ready to try standing, or shall we wait here a mite longer?” Doc asked her.

Nicole moved each of her limbs experimentally. They all seemed to be in working order. Clearly, the limiting factor was going to be her head, which continued pounding with a fierce intensity.

“Yeah, I’ll give it a shot.” She shifted to the edge of the bed and set her feet on the floor, giving herself a few seconds to prepare before standing. When she finally drew herself upright, it was almost anticlimactic. Her legs held, even as her head pounded dizzily. “Not too shabby,” she told Doc, who nodded.

“Come on into the other room, then. I’ve got a few questions for you before I let you loose.” He started towards another room, keeping his gait slow. It turned out to be unnecessary. To both of their surprise, Nicole’s legs seemed perfectly willing to carry her at a healthy speed. He raised his eyebrows at her, clearly impressed. “Damn. I bet if Victor had left you in that hole, given enough time, you’d have climbed out yourself.”

“Always was a fast healer,” Nicole said with a shrug. He gestured towards a couch, and she took a seat there, one hand absentmindedly rubbing the bothersome spot on the back of her head.

“See, now that’s the kind of comment I’m interested in,” Doc said, sitting across from her in an armchair.

“What kind?”

“A bullet to the head can do a hell of a lot to scramble the mind. I wasn’t sure how much you would remember when you woke.” He eyed her, adding, “If you woke”

“A lot of it’s kinda… blurry,” she admitted, still rubbing at the scar.

“You know your name?” he asked.

“Nicole,” she said immediately. “Nicole Haught.”

He nodded, clearly pleased that she remembered.

“Good to finally meet you, Miss Haught.”

“Nicole is fine,” she said, waving his formality away with a wry smirk. “You’ve seen me naked, after all.”

He snorted, his professional demeanor slipping for a moment, eyes twinkling before he lowered the brim of his hat to hide the expression.

“Fair enough. Nicole, then.” He raised his head, continuing the questionnaire with a somewhat lighter tone. “How about where you’re from?”

“I’ve been traveling,” she said, her voice becoming less and less sure. She remembered being on the road, and she knew that she should remember where she had been before that, but the memories kept slipping through her fingers. All she could remember was miles and miles and miles of endless desert. “Before that, I was… I was…”

“In a town?” Doc prompted. “Or with a caravan?” He seemed to size her up for a moment. “Or maybe even a vault?”

A few of the memories cleared, but it was still like sifting through a big box of photographs, all out of order. But there was a memory of an underground vault, sterile and regimented and claustrophobic in more ways than one.

“A vault, I guess. At least… I used to live in a vault. But… something happened… I left…” Straining for the memories just made her head throb harder, so she left off for a minute, breathing through the pain and letting it dissipate.

“It’s quite alright if you don’t recall. I’m no psychiatrist, but I imagine it’ll come back to you in time.” His voice was reassuring, and she let herself believe him, at least for now. “Is anyone likely to be out looking for you? Friends? Family? A husband?”

Nicole snorted at the last question without thinking.

“No family. At least I don’t think so. And definitely no husband.”

He arched an eyebrow at her.

“You sound pretty sure.”

“I don’t need all my memories to know where my interests lie.” She wondered if she would have to explain further, but after a few beats, he nodded his understanding.

“Perhaps a wife, then?” he guessed. Nicole paused this time, but ultimately shook her head.

“I don’t think so. I wasn’t wearing a ring, was I?”

“No, but you didn’t have much of anything when you showed up. Whoever shot you emptied your pockets first. I imagine if you’d had a ring, they’d have relieved you of it.”

Nicole stared down at her hands, splaying her fingers wide. There was no evidence of a ring. No tan lines or discoloration. No bruise where one had been ripped off her finger.

“I don’t think I was married. I think I would remember that.” She frowned thoughtfully. “If anything, I’m pretty sure I was lonely.”

She abruptly remembered that she was talking to a near-stranger and blushed, turning her head away. She wished she had a hat like his so she could shield her face.

“Nothin’ to be ashamed of there. Happens to everyone now and then. Especially these days. It’s why we all stick together.” Doc’s voice was still kind and nonjudgmental. “What about the attack? Do you remember anything from that?”

It took her a good minute or two to answer that one, drawing the memory out of a nebulous haze of fear and pain. This memory was fresher than the others, but more distorted.

“They snuck up on me. Grabbed me. Covered my face with a sack or something. Tied me up.” She remembered the darkness, the closeness of it, the way it reminded her of drowning. “I think there were four of them, all men, but it could have been more. One was wearing a fur coat, but I don’t know about the others. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see anything.” Her hands clutched the couch cushions in an iron grip, her knuckles turning white and her breathing coming hard. She could feel her mind starting to spiral into panic.

“Take it easy now. Close your eyes a minute. Don’t just think about what you saw. We’ve got more senses than just sight. Think about what you heard, or felt, or even what you smelled. Any of it could be important.”

It was good advice, and Nicole forced herself to follow it. She took a deep breath and tried to remember the hands that grabbed her, the voices that spoke, the terrain she was dragged over, the sounds in the air.

“They dragged me up a hill. A big one. And I think there was a fence or something. They had trouble getting me over it. I'd forgotten about that.” Her captors had struggled, hefting her over something and half-dropping her to the hard ground. “It smelled like… rot. Like rotting meat. And I heard buzzing. Lots of buzzing. Then they threw me in the hole and shot me.” She felt shaky even from just describing it, and Doc leaned forward, offering her a metal flask from his jacket pocket. After a moment of hesitation, she accepted it, taking just a sip to help ground herself. There was whiskey inside, lukewarm and scalding. She coughed once, wincing as the motion set her head aching even harder.

“That’s about what I suspected. Local cemetery is up a hill. No one would’ve noticed you there for some time. There’s a fence around it, and it’s lousy with bloatflies. I’d bet my hat that’s where Victor dug you up.”

Nicole shivered, imagining her corpse rotting slowly in an unmarked grave in a strange town. She took another sip from the flask, then handed it back.

“Is there a town sheriff?” she asked. Doc shook his head.

“Ain’t big enough for all that. Maybe once upon a time, but not anymore. Purgatory’s got two real businesses these days: a bar and a general store. That’s about all we need. Nearest law enforcement’s over in Primm, and they’ve got their own troubles.” He gave a small shrug. “But we’ve got folks who protect the town, and they’ll want to know what to be on the lookout for.”

“I’d be happy to talk to them. Maybe I’ll even remember more after a few days.” Thinking about the attack, Nicole suddenly felt restless and claustrophobic. She wanted to go do something. She didn’t want to go back to bed. She wanted to go investigate. She wanted to explore. Anything would be better than holding still. “You said you thought you could find me some clothes?”

Doc raised his eyebrows at her.

“Fixing to leave already?”

She shrugged.

“I feel alright, and I don't want to keep imposing on your hospitality. I want to find out what happened, and why, and where the men who attacked me went. I won’t be able to figure that out from here.”

Doc tipped his hat.

“As you wish. I’ll go see what I can find.” He left for several minutes, and Nicole paced circles around the room. There were shelves of crumbling pre-war books, miscellaneous medical supplies, and empty liquor bottles all over. She regretted having to leave so quickly, but she could feel that it was in her nature to keep moving. If she stopped, things might catch up to her. Enemies and wild animals, sure, but also thoughts and regrets. “Ah, here we go. I knew I had one somewhere.” Doc strode back into the room, proudly holding a pale pink dress fringed with lace and ruffles. He must have noticed the rictus of horror on her face, because his look of pride instantly faded. “Not exactly your style, is it?”

Suppressing the urge to yell ‘NO,’ Nicole tried to force her expression into something neutral. After all, it wasn’t like she had never worn a dress before. Rarely, on formal occasions, she had willingly done so. But there was a difference between wearing a dress that she had chosen to a fancy dinner or a party versus strolling through the desert in what looked like a frilly nightgown straight out of her nightmares.

“I suppose I’m not in much of a position to be picky,” she hedged awkwardly. Doc gave her a rueful smile.

“I sure hope you weren’t a poker player in your previous life, or that may well explain your empty pockets,” he said, and she blushed. “Give me another minute to look again. I might yet find something more… suitable.”

Nicole returned to her pacing, knocking out another fifteen laps around the room before Doc returned, this time a more cautious look on his face.

“Now I believe these belonged to a local boy who came in with…” He paused, frowning thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, maybe it’s best I don’t explain where exactly they came from. They may be a better fit, though.”

It was a simple blue plaid shirt and a pair of plain brown trousers, and Nicole had never been so relieved.

“These should be perfect. Thank you, Doc. Really.” He turned his back, pretending to be fascinated with one of his books while she pulled the clothes on. The fit wasn’t perfect, but they were a damn sight better than a pink dress, so she would take it. “Alright. I think I’m ready.”

Doc turned back around and nodded in approval.

“That should work. And take this as well.” He held out a small knife, clearly old and used, but still of good quality. “Afraid I can’t spare a firearm, but you ought to have something out there. Even in town, we’ll sometimes get mantises or bark scorpions, and step too far out and you’ll get geckos, coyotes, cazadors…” He grimaced. “Well, best not to wander away from town for now.”

“Thank you. Again. Really. I can’t say it enough.”

“You’ve already said it enough, and you’re welcome to stop saying it.” He nodded her down a hallway she hadn’t taken before, and she followed. “Hope you don’t mind me walkin’ you out. The last gentleman who stayed here robbed me blind, and I’d rather not spend the next few weeks scavenging for replacements.”

Nicole shook her head, slipping her hands in her pockets in hopes of reassuring him.

“I don’t mind. My head’s still a little fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure I’m no criminal. In fact, the more I think about it, I’m pretty sure I’m the opposite.”

“Ah right. That reminds me. This was around your neck when Victor brought you.” He fished in his pocket and handed her a battered scrap of metal that she instantly recognized, with a surprising flash of relief. It somewhat resembled a a sheriff’s badge, although any symbols or writing were far too worn to read. It was attached to a thin, broken chain. “I’d been fixin’ to fix the chain, but you woke up sooner than I’d expected. But you might as well take it with you.”

She’d had the token for as long as she could remember, and the feel of the warm metal in her hand was blessedly familiar. She slid the star into her pocket, running her finger over each point in turn, a lifelong nervous habit. It felt a little strange to not have it hanging from her neck, but she was overwhelmingly grateful it hadn’t been lost entirely.

“Thank you, Doc. For everything. I owe you my life.”

Doc scoffed and pulled his hat low again, briefly shielding his face.

“Now, now, don’t give me any of that. Just look out for yourself. The best pay you can give me would be to never see your dazzling face on my operating table ever again.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“And don’t call me ‘sir.’”

“Doc, then. In the future, I hope to only see you when we’re both upright.”

She held out a hand, and he shook it amicably.

“And I hope the same.” He pointed down a small hill towards the rest of town. “The local watering hole, Shorty’s, is down that way. If you’re lookin’ for information, you’d do best to head there first. And pass on my regards to the proprietors.”

“I’ll do that.” She reached up to tip her hat before remembering she didn’t have one. That was going to bug her. Instead, she nodded to him and gave a small wave as she began descending the hill, listening until the door closed behind her.

Chapter Text

After spending god-knows-how-long indoors, even unconscious, just walking outside in the fresh air was a pleasure. Purgatory looked like most tiny post-war towns— small houses clustered around the overgrown ruins of other buildings. Small patches of crops grew here and there, and an occasional pair of Bighorner cattle stood around, munching on the sparse, spiky grass. At the bottom of the hill, two distinctive buildings stood huddled against each other like drunken friends. One was labeled “Jett’s Jeneral Store” and the other said “Shorty’s” on a flickering neon sign. As Doc had said, those were about the only major features in the town. A few mailboxes dotted what could only in the most generous terms be called a “road,” and even on those lines of packed dirt, weeds and buffalo gourd poked their heads up stubbornly.

The walk down to Shorty’s took barely a few minutes, and yet by the time she reached it, Nicole was already sweating and her head was back to pounding. It was a hot, dry day, and she tried not to think about what the heat would have done to her corpse in its shallow grave if not for Victor and Doc. As she stepped up onto the small covered porch, she wiped her face on her sleeve and wished once again that she had a hat.

With a deep, steadying breath, she pushed open the door to Shorty’s and stepped inside, exhaling the breath in a sigh as the dark, cool interior took the edge off her piercing headache. It looked like just about any bar she had ever set foot in, all dark wood and reeking of whiskey. Rows of scuffed bottles, some labeled, some not, lined a scratchy mirror, and a small radio sat silent on the counter. A few locals eyed her curiously, but no one stopped her as she walked up to the bar and perched on one of the stools.

A moment later, the bartender straightened and turned around, and Nicole was glad she was sitting, because there was a non-zero possibility that her legs would have cut straight out from under her. The bartender was a gorgeous woman, close to her age or maybe a few years younger, with long, wavy brown hair and shining brown eyes. She was wearing a red shirt that was tied up to reveal her midriff, and a well-fitted pair of linen trousers. And more importantly, she was wearing the brightest, sweetest smile Nicole had ever seen in her entire life. Nobody smiled like that anymore. Nobody. Nicole felt drawn to it like a moth to a flame, and she leaned forward over the bar, attempting a winning smile of her own.

“You definitely aren’t tall, but I think ‘Shorty’ is overstating things a bit. If I were describing you, I’d talk about your sunny smile long before your height,” Nicole said, in what she hoped was a flirtatious but charming manner. Judging by the way the girl instantly began glaring at her, it hadn’t worked. But she did hear a cackling laugh from behind her.

“Oh man, that’s the best one I’ve heard in weeks.” Another woman, a few years older, with darker hair and the fanciest revolver Nicole had ever seen, was striding towards the door, but looked back at them over her shoulder. “Waves, I’m heading out. A bunch of mantises have started nesting in the old schoolhouse, and some of them have been wandering into town. Willa’s on her way in to cover for me.”

This was apparently devastating news to the girl with the smile— Waves?— whose annoyed look transformed instantly into a pleading one.

“Wynonna, please, can’t you just have her go out instead?”

The girl with the gun— Wynonna?— just grimaced.

“I would, but last time, she charged folks twenty caps a head to kill the ones on their property, and we don’t need that kind of reputation.” She took a step closer to the bar, a reassuring look on her face. “Look, I’ll go as fast as I can. You won’t be alone with her for long.”

That didn’t placate Waves, but she seemed to realize the argument was pointless. The two women shared a nod, and the gunslinger slipped out into the hot desert, twirling the revolver at her side. Her smile now permanently gone, the barkeep turned her attention reluctantly back to Nicole.

“The bar isn’t named after me, it’s named after the man who first opened it. He died a few years ago and left it to me and my sisters, but we decided to keep the name out of respect,” she explained, sounding suddenly tired. Nicole lowered her head, apologetic.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She scratched the back of her head, wishing she had a hat to hide her face behind. Her head felt increasingly naked without one. “If I’m allowed an excuse, I just had most of my brains blasted out of my skull and then stuffed back in, so I’m not thinking as clearly as usual.”

The girl raised her head from where she was wiping down a glass with a clean rag. Her eyes widened as they scanned her hairline for evidence of such a wound, and Nicole’s wish for a hat intensified.

“Oh, you’re the one Doc’s been looking after!” Waves set the glass down, her previous annoyance apparently forgotten. “I can’t believe you survived! He said he’d never seen anyone lose so much blood!”

“That’s me,” Nicole said, smiling sheepishly. “Always wanted a claim to fame. Never thought it would be ‘has lots of blood,’ but I guess beggars can’t be choosers.”

“But you’re okay?” Waves asked, honest concern in her shining eyes.

“He says so. Still have a killer headache, go figure, but otherwise I feel fine.” Nicole scratched the back of her head again, over the raised scar, which was prickling again. “And while we’re on the subject, I don’t suppose I could trouble you for some water?”

“Oh, right, of course!” Like a flash, Waves pulled a glass bottle from under the counter and emptied it into the glass she’d been polishing before. Nicole’s eyes fixated on the liquid, anticipating its coolness soothing her headache and clearing the dust from her throat. The glass slid in front of her. “That’s ten caps.”

Nicole, already reaching for the glass, froze in place.

“Oh. Right. Um…”

Waverly cocked her head, giving her a worried look.

“You’ve got money, don’t you?”

“Not exactly. The guys who tried to kill me also relieved me of all my belongings. I don’t have much of anything.” She winced, feeling embarrassed and guilty. “I’ll owe you, though. I promise, the first caps I get are all yours. With interest. I swear I’m good for it.”

She waited, the water under her nose torturing her with its promise of refreshment, as Waves seemed to nervously consider the offer. Her face scrunched up in thought, and Nicole had to mentally redefine the word ‘adorable’ to suit this new higher standard. Finally, she came to a decision.

“You know what, go ahead. You look respectable enough. First one’s on the house.” She nudged the glass closer, nodding at her. Nicole could have married her on the spot. Her hand closed eagerly around the glass, raising it to her lips.

“Excuse me!” an angry voice materialized just over Nicole’s shoulder and before she had a chance to react, the glass was snatched from her hand. She whipped around (which made her head throb harder), her hand flying to her belt for a gun that wasn’t there. The woman behind her was several years older than her, with light brown hair and cold, hard eyes, and she held the water back, glaring at her and Waves each in turn. “Waverly, we do not give away the inventory.”

The girl— Waverly, not Waves— shrank under her sister’s glare, but tried to rally an indignant defense.

“She’s the one Doc’s been talking about. She was shot in the head, robbed, and buried. I think we can spare one glass of water for an injured woman.” Waverly had fire in her eyes, but it was no match against the ice in her sister’s.

“This is a bar, not a hospital,” the older woman said, her voice a taunt. Nicole felt herself growing angry on Waverly’s behalf. Her other sister, Wynonna, had seemed tough but not unkind, but this one…

“I had every intention of paying my debt as soon as I’m able,” Nicole said, trying to draw the woman’s attention back to herself, away from her sister. “I’m no thief.”

“Honest people don’t get dragged into the desert by thugs. Animals only do that to each other.” The woman— Willa, presumably— stepped behind the bar, still carrying the coveted water glass as though it were evidence of a crime. “Come back when you have the caps to pay.”

“Willa—” Waverly started to argue, but they were all interrupted by a piercing, crackling spray of static from the radio. Everyone in the bar flinched, but the cacophonous noise was so unwelcome to Nicole’s injured head that she literally clutched her ears with both hands, unable to suppress a whimper of agony.

Her eyes squeezed shut against the pain, Nicole nearly jumped when she felt a soft touch in her hair. She opened her eyes and saw Waverly giving her a deeply apologetic look, one of her small hands resting oh-so-gently on her aching head. For the first time all day, she was glad she wasn’t wearing a hat. The touch was so welcome that she nearly swooned, but almost as soon as their eyes met, Waverly pulled her hand back.

“I’m sorry. It’s been doing that for days,” Waverly explained, nodding towards the radio. Nicole blinked at the ancient-looking device as the pain slowly ebbed, wondering if there was any way she could convince Waverly to put her hand back in her hair. Or anywhere on her person, really. She wasn’t picky.

“Um… want me to look at it?” she asked automatically. Nicole was nothing if not a problem-solver, and ‘Make the shrieking noise machine stop making noise’ was a problem she felt highly motivated to solve. Waverly’s face lit up in an echo of her earlier smile, and Nicole’s heart fluttered in response.

“That’s a great idea!” She turned to face Willa with more backbone this time. “Instead of caps, she can help us fix the radio. It’s a perfect solution.”

Willa looked unimpressed. “We don’t need the radio.”

“It’s good for business. We get more customers in when it’s working. And it gives us something to listen to and lets us find out the news,” Waverly argued, ticking off each point on her fingers. “And it’d be way more expensive to replace it, or to pay someone else to fix it.”

“Wynonna could talk Doc into fixing it for free.”

Waverly put her hands on her hips and gave a sharp, fake laugh that didn’t suit her. Nicole could tell she was either consciously or unconsciously mimicking her sister’s contempt, fighting ice with ice. Still, the contrast was jarring.

“Doc can fix people, but he doesn’t know anything about technology. I’d be surprised if he knew how to turn a radio on, let alone fix one.”

Willa apparently had no argument against this, judging by her silence and her annoyed glare.

“Fine. But only if she actually fixes it. No points for trying and failing.” With that, she stalked off to the far end of the bar, where she brooded sullenly. Waverly, looking relieved that the confrontation was finally over, picked up the heavy radio— Nicole took a moment to admire the surprising swell of muscles in her arms— and plopped it onto the bar. Her face was twisted in apology again.

“I’m sorry about her,” Waverly murmured, quiet enough that Willa was unlikely to hear from across the bar.

“Hard to believe you two share DNA.” Nicole kept her voice low, mirroring Waverly’s.

“Trust me, sometimes it’s hard for us to believe, too.” Waverly watched as Nicole pulled the small folding knife from her pocket and pried the back off the radio, exposing its guts. Dust-caked wires and mechanical doodads tangled inside the case, and Nicole tried to not look intimidated by them.

“I noticed in that whole conversation, nobody got around to asking me if I was capable of fixing a radio,” she pointed out with a teasing grin. Waverly’s face fell.

“You can’t? Then why ask if you could look at it?!” she hissed, shooting a nervous glance at Willa.

“I’ve no idea if I can, but don’t worry. I’ve fixed lots of stuff before. Guns. Wagons. Clothing. How hard can it be?” Nicole smiled cheerfully at a not-particularly-reassured Waverly and thumped the back of the radio, causing a cloud of dust to pour out.

“Fixing a shirt and fixing a radio are not similar,” Waverly pointed out, although Nicole could tell she was biting back an amused smile. Feeling better by the second, Nicole went back to poking through the radio’s innards, trying to get the lay of the land. She blew more and more dust out of it, marveling that it had ever worked while clogged with so much gunk inside. Waverly watched her in apparent fascination, and at one point even handed her a handkerchief, giggling behind her hand, like she was afraid of Willa noticing.

“You just smeared dust all over your face,” she informed her. Nicole rubbed the cloth where she assumed the grime was, but Waverly shook her head. “Not even close. Here, let me.” She took the handkerchief back, licked a corner, and brushed it down the side of Nicole’s increasingly reddening face. After a few passes, she set the cloth down and trailed a few fingers down the same spot, testing for leftover grit. “There. Much better.”

It took Nicole a good ten seconds to remember the word ‘thanks,’ but she did eventually manage it. She wondered if she could blame that on the brain injury, too. She wasn’t usually the type to get tongue-tied around pretty girls, but clearly there was a first time for everything.

She went back to her amateur radio repair, trying to ignore the hot/cold tingling sensation that seemed to exactly shadow where Waverly’s fingers had traced. She was wrist-deep in the machine, brushing one wire out of the way of another when another sudden, deafening blast of static burst out again, and Nicole literally yelped from the accompanying spike of pain. But this time she gritted her teeth against it and did her best to ignore it.

“I think I found it,” she told Waverly, glancing up briefly. To her surprise, one of Waverly’s hands was partway outstretched, like she had been reaching for Nicole again.

“Are you okay? That looked like it really hurt.” Waverly withdrew her hand and held it against her chest.

“Yeah, me and loud noises aren’t the best of friends today. But hopefully if I can fix this, it won’t be quite so bad.” Nicole could see the problem now. One of the wires leading to the speaker had been broken— either bitten through by some vermin or else just fallen apart from age— and was brushing up against some of the others, causing the interference. With assistance from her knife, she trimmed the frayed edges, then stripped a bit of the insulation off with her teeth— over Waverly’s yelped protests— and carefully wound them back together. The speaker crackled and buzzed softly as she worked, but finally everything seemed to be back in order. She closed the case and twirled the knob, and the sound of big band trumpets erupted from the speaker.

“Tell me quick— ain’t love a kick— iiiin the heeeeeeeeead!”

Nicole, even as she winced from the volume, laughed aloud. Waverly quickly pulled the radio away to put some distance between Nicole and the noise. She set it back in its usual place as a few people in the bar clapped and cheered. Their approval was a balm to Nicole’s damaged ego, and she welcomed it.

“Kinda fitting for someone with a head wound, ain’t it?” Nicole chuckled, instinctively rubbing at her throbbing temples as the smooth-talking radio announcer rambled in the background.

“A little on-the-nose for my tastes,” Waverly said, a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face. Nicole couldn’t look away. “More importantly, though, you’ve just bought yourself some good clean water.”

And with that, she marched over to where her sister still stood. Willa looked disappointed that she had succeeded, but handed over the glass.

“Fine. A deal’s a deal.” Even in concession, her voice was slimy and condescending, almost sing-song. It made Nicole’s protective instincts flare. Her hands itched to slap a pair of handcuffs on her and drag her off for a long talk about respect.

Waverly, a relieved and proud smile on her face, set the glass ceremoniously in front of Nicole.

“All yours. Paid in full.”

“Much obliged.” Nicole picked up the glass, raised it to her lips, and— after one final glance to make sure no one else was going to stop her— took a long draw from the glass, letting it quench the sour dryness from her mouth. She sighed happily as she lowered it, and saw Waverly surveying her with satisfaction. “Absolutely perfect. Thank you, Waverly.”

“You’re welcome… um…” She seemed to abruptly realize that they hadn’t yet been formally introduced. Nicole held out her hand.

“Nicole. Nicole Haught.”

Waverly’s eyebrows arched as she shook her hand. Nicole barely noticed, too busy pretending not to be actively reveling in the contact.

“Haught? Really?”

Even with possible brain damage, she knew this was a common reaction to her name. She lifted a hand as if swearing an oath.

“God’s honest truth. And if you think that’s bad, you should hear my middle name.” She cocked her eyebrow for extra emphasis. Waverly gave her a curious look, tilting her head with intrigue.

“What is it?” she asked. Nicole waggled a scolding finger at her.

“Oh no, those two you get for free, but my middle name you have to earn.”

The flirting seemed to hit home this time, and Waverly narrowed her eyes playfully, leaning forward against the bar so there were only a few scant inches separating them.

“And how, pray tell, do I earn the right to that knowledge, Nicole ‘Sneakypants’ Haught?”

Nicole shrugged, grinning haughtily.

“I guess I’ll have to think of something.”

Chapter Text

Nicole made sure to drink her hard-earned water slowly, sip by glorious sip. She could see Willa watching her out of the corner of her eye, and she had the distinct feeling that as soon as she emptied her glass, Willa would oust her from the bar just out of spite. And then Waverly might try to intervene, and it would turn into another confrontation, and nobody needed that. So Nicole sipped. And more importantly, she savored the irritated look on Willa’s face every time she raised the glass only to barely wet her lips.

Waverly walked circles around the bar, chatting with patrons and carrying drinks and empties back and forth between the bar and the tables. Nicole’s eyes followed her automatically, like she took all the light in the room with her wherever she went. She wasn’t the only one. Every person in the bar seemed to have a smile just for her.

That warmth didn’t seem to extend to Willa, who most people approached warily, and only if Waverly was otherwise occupied. The elder sister seemed to play more of a supervisory role, spending far more time marking notes on a clipboard than she did serving customers.

The stream of customers ebbed and flowed as Nicole drank her water one drop at a time. Waverly seemed to thrive in the busy times, when she and Willa were both occupied and forced to cooperate instead of snipe at each other. The trouble came whenever there was a lull. At those times, Nicole tried to keep Waverly’s attention whenever possible, both for her own selfish reasons and because it seemed to keep Willa at bay.

“Purgatory used to be a mining town back in the day, but after the mine dried up, most folks either went out to Sloan’s mine instead or else went to find work in Primm.” Waverly stood at the counter near Nicole, washing glasses and dusting bottles without allotting any apparent attention to the tasks. Her eyes stayed focused on Nicole, in a way that made her heart beat faster and her scar prickle. “Have you ever been to Primm?”

Nicole tilted her head at the question, trying to think. There was a sort of familiar feeling to the idea, but she didn’t have any clear memories of ever actually going.

“I don’t know. I mean, I know the name, obviously.” She rubbed at the back of her head, willing it to leave her alone. “My memory has been a little scattered since the attack, though.”

“You have amnesia?” Waverly asked, leaning forward in keen interest.

“A little. Doc thinks it’ll sort itself out eventually.”

“I hope he’s right.” Waverly’s eyes roamed back to where the scar was hidden under her hair. “Does it hurt a lot?”

“It’s mostly just a headache, but the scar’s starting to bug me.” Nicole forced herself to stop fussing with it, even as it kept itching and burning, and put on a brave face. “I’m a fast healer, though. I’m sure it’ll get better soon.”

“I hope so.” Waverly continued eying her with curiosity, like she secretly wanted a look at the scar, but was afraid to ask. And Nicole wasn’t planning to volunteer anytime soon. “Do you remember what happened at all?”

“Not a lot. A bunch of men dragged me up to the cemetery and dropped me into a fresh grave, then some guy in a fur coat shot me.” Nicole dug her fingers into the wood of the bar as the pain flared again. She blinked it back and took another sip of the water, willing her empty stomach to settle. “Next thing I remember was waking up in Doc’s house with the world’s worst hangover.”

Waverly gave a thoughtful hum, and then a reassuring smile.

“If you’re on your feet now, trust me, it’s not the world’s worst. You’ve never seen Wynonna the morning after one of her legendary benders.”

“That’s your other sister, right? The one who left earlier?” she asked, and received a nod of confirmation. “You’re telling me your sister’s had a hangover worse than a bullet in the head?”

Waverly shrugged lightly, still polishing fingerprints off a smudged glass with practiced motions.

“You don’t have to believe me, but Earp blood is basically half whiskey to start with, and Wynonna’s known for being able to drink anyone in town under the table, up to and including the Bighorners.”

“Sounds like there’s a story there.”

“Tons of them.” Waverly gave a small laugh and shook her head. Nicole waited expectantly, eyebrows raised, but she didn’t elaborate.

“But none that you’re willing to tell?”

Waverly paused in her cleaning, caught off-guard by the request.

“You want to hear one?”

“If you’ve got the time, and if you want to. I don’t mean to keep you trapped here if you have something else you need to do.”

Waverly ducked her head in a laugh and blushed endearingly pink. Her eyes lit up when she laughed, and Nicole felt herself leaning forward, narrowing the gap between them and propping her chin on her hand.

“Nope, nothing in the world.” Waverly twirled the end of her long braid through nimble fingers. “Um... hm...” She squinted her eyes thoughtfully and, seemingly unconsciously, mimicked Nicole’s position, resting her head in her hand. “Okay, want to hear about the ‘demon rodeo?’”

“Do I ever.” Nicole gave an irrepressible grin.

“That’s just what we called it. Some mutated animal made it all the way out here. Personally, I think it was an overgrown nightstalker, but Wynonna swears it was a centaur.” Waverly rolled her eyes and added as an aside, “She’s wrong, though. There’s no way one would make it all the way out here. And it didn’t look anything like one. And she was so drunk you could have set her on fire from ten feet away. I’d be surprised if she really remembered any of it.”

Nicole choked on a laugh, which Waverly seemed to find encouraging.

“So what happened?” Nicole prompted.

“Well, it was dangerous, obviously. Somebody needed to catch it and bring it down before it actually hurt people. And Wynonna and Willa are the best shots in town. Willa thought it was too dangerous, but Wynonna agreed to go after it. Only right before, she decided she needed some ‘liquid courage.’” Waverly rolled her eyes again, but it seemed more affectionate than contemptuous.

“How long ago was this?” Nicole asked curiously.

“Oh, forever, basically. I think she was maybe seventeen at the time? Somewhere around there, at least.”

“That’s pretty young to be taking on a nightstalker alone.” Nicole said, frowning in instinctual concern. She knew it was pointless to feel protective now, years after the fact, let alone to someone she hadn’t even officially met yet, but it was in her nature. At heart, she was a protector.

“Wynonna was a lot wilder back then. She never did anything really bad, but she would cause trouble and the whole town would rally against her. For years, they acted like she was some kind of horrible criminal. So ever since then, she’s felt like she had something to prove. And then there’s all this old family stuff…” Waverly trailed off with a strained smile and an attempt at a casual shrug.

“That’s too bad,” Nicole said, keeping her voice serious. It was clear that the town’s treatment of her sister still bothered her.

“It really is,” Waverly agreed sincerely, gratitude clear in her eyes.

A bell chimed as the door opened, and all eyes swiveled towards the sound. The middle sister, Wynonna, entered with a flourish, smelling of leather and gunpowder.

“Speak of the devil,” Nicole murmured, half to herself and half to Waverly. She nodded a greeting to the approaching gunslinger, silently relieved that there would be a buffer between Waverly and Willa. Waverly clearly felt the same; Nicole could see her visibly relax as Wynonna approached, like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Wynonna circled around behind the bar to stand at her younger sister’s side, squeezing her in a brief sideways hug.

“Everything alright?” she asked, leaving her arm slung across Waverly’s shoulders. Her eyes flitted between her two sisters, as though scanning for signs of conflict.

“Yep,” Waverly said brightly. Nicole had only known her for a few hours at most, but even she could tell it was a little forced. Wynonna must have noticed as well, since she squeezed her in another small hug. Waverly leaned into her side, resting her head on her shoulder and sighing.

At that casual closeness, Nicole felt an unexpected flash of envy. Growing up in the vault, she had been an only child, and she had the distinct feeling that her parents weren’t the affectionate or supportive type. That wasn’t something that would have normally bothered her. She kept busy, kept moving. She didn’t need family. But seeing the sisters interact now, loneliness gnawed at her. She staved it off with another sip of water, trying to loosen the lump in her throat.

“I see you’re still here,” Wynonna said, to Nicole this time.

“This is Nicole,” said Waverly, a smile returning to her face. Nicole held out her hand and Wynonna released Waverly to shake it. Her grip was strong, but not crushing, and Nicole matched it.

“Nicole Haught,” Nicole elaborated. Waverly winced, just as Wynonna’s face lit up.

“Haught? Your name is Haught? Like, literally Haught?” The gunslinger sounded delighted.

“Shouldn’t have told her that. She’ll never let it go now,” Waverly scolded with a good-natured sigh.

“It’s fine. Trust me, I’ve heard them all,” Nicole assured her. She took another tiny sip of water. Wynonna scoffed.

“Challenge accepted,” she said loftily. A cocky smile on her face, she withdrew and poured herself a drink from the bar. “This is great. This is better than B-Train.” Wynonna cackled at the memory. “Remember B-Train?”

Waverly ignored her, moving on.

“Nicole fixed our radio,” she said, sounding proud, almost bragging. Nicole felt her pride heal a little more. Wynonna looked towards the device, her smirk losing its edge and becoming more of a genuine smile.

“Well I’ll be damned.” She twirled the knob experimentally, letting it cycle through the handful of available stations before returning to the original one. “Nice job, Haught-wire.”

Waverly rolled her eyes, but Nicole breathed a small laugh. She met Waverly’s eyes with a small grin, trying to reassure her that she wasn’t bothered by the joke. Regardless, Waverly made sure to knock her shoulder against her sister’s while she reached past her for a fresh cleaning rag. Nicole just smiled at the interaction, wishing she didn’t feel so jealous of their playful affection.

“Say, not to change the subject, but have either of you heard of any work around here that needs doing?” she asked after a minute, her ego taking another small hit in the process. Wynonna, mid-sip, arched an eyebrow at her.

“Short on caps?” she guessed. Nicole tried to keep a light, careless tone.

“That’s what happens when folks leave you in a shallow grave. You wake up with empty pockets.”

She thought she saw Wynonna eye her with approval, but from the other side of the bar, Willa swooped back in to ruin everything again.

“Just like we’re not a hospital, we’re also not a job board.”

“Hey now, let’s be polite. Anyone who brings Mr. New Vegas’s sexy voice back into our lives has earned my respect.” Wynonna cast a fond glance at the radio, where a deep-voiced announcer was warning about gang attacks on the roads.

“She was already paid for that,” Willa insisted, gesturing to the water glass. Nicole felt a prick of indignation.

“I’d have done it regardless,” she said, frowning.

“See?” Waverly gestured towards her, appealing to Wynonna. The middle sister looked from one to the other, clearly trying to get the measure of the situation.

“You’ll vouch for her then, Wave?” she asked after a minute. To Nicole’s surprise, Waverly immediately nodded.

“Sure,” she agreed brightly. Willa rolled her eyes.

“You don’t even know anything about her!” she snapped, loudly enough that Waverly shrank back, Nicole half-stood, and Wynonna held up her gun.

“Alright, everyone calm down before I shoot both of you,” Wynonna said, still holding her whiskey in her free hand. Her sisters both backed down, and Wynonna slipped the gun back into its holster as though this were an everyday occurrence.

Waverly spoke up again, defending herself, this time ignoring Willa and speaking directly to Wynonna.

“She seems… sincere.” She gave Nicole a brief, fond look, and Nicole’s heart gave a sharp thump.

“I’m very sincere,” Nicole agreed, hoping to take some of the heat off Waverly. She glanced at Willa briefly, but followed Waverly’s example in speaking to Wynonna, who clearly acted as some sort of tiebreaker in these situations. “Honest, I’m not here to start any trouble. I just want to get back on my feet.”

“See? Super sincere,” Waverly said, as though her point had been proved beyond any reasonable doubt. Wynonna eyed Nicole hard for a second, but ultimately nodded.

“Good enough for me.” The gunslinger picked up her drink from the bar and drained it. “So, Haught-Shot, are you any good with a rifle?”

Waverly looked ready to chastise her sister for the nickname, so Nicole interjected quickly.

“Yeah, I’d say so.” She kept her tone agreeable, to show that there weren’t any hard feelings. Waverly stayed quiet, and Wynonna continued.

“I go out every week or so, clean up the gecko population between here and the nearest water. Wouldn’t say no to some backup.”

Nicole perked up at the suggestion, but Willa predictably had something to say on the subject.

“You can’t seriously be thinking of paying her for that? This ungrateful town doesn’t even pay us for that.”

“I won’t have to pay her.” Wynonna turned away from Willa, back to Nicole. “You can keep whatever you shoot and scavenge. Gecko hides, eggs, and meat all sell pretty decently around here. Jett next door will give you a fair price. It won’t be a fortune or anything, but it should get you through the week.”

Nicole nodded her understanding, but hesitated before agreeing.

“I’d have to borrow a gun. I have a knife, but I’d rather keep a healthy distance between myself and anything with claws and fangs.” She was worried that that would be a dealbreaker, but Wynonna seemed unfazed.

“You can borrow my old varmint rifle. Just for the hunt, of course.” She seemed to add the last part for Willa’s benefit.

“Of course,” Nicole agreed immediately. “Thank you.”

“Wynonna,” Willa chimed in, in her patronizing tone that made Nicole’s hackles raise. “I really think you should worry more about your own safety, and mine and Waverly’s, too. Handing a dangerous stranger your gun is a good way to get shot.”

Nicole had finally had enough. Her sense of politeness only stretched so far.

“Did I do something to you in a past life or something?” She shot an annoyed glare at Willa, hands clenched under the bar. Willa met her gaze full-force.

“I’m the big sister here. It’s my job to keep my family safe. And you’re a drifter with a hole in your head and a bunch of folks you pissed off enough that they thought you needed to be executed,” she returned imperiously, her voice shot through with cold steel.

“I’d argue that says more about them than it does about me,” Nicole said, not escalating the argument, but refusing to back down.

“Wynonna,” Waverly pleaded, sounding tired. With a groan, the middle sister reluctantly re-entered the discussion.

“Willa, look, she strikes me as harmless, but if it makes you feel better, I’ll ask Doc about her. If she said something off to him, or stole from him, or gave him a weird feeling, he’ll tell me.”

“By all means,” Nicole said immediately. “And give him my regards as well. Tell him I’m still upright. He’ll understand.”

Willa looked unconvinced.

“Wynonna, you know as well as I do that Doc isn’t immune to a pretty face. Especially one as pretty as hers.”

“That’s sweet, but you’re not my type,” Nicole deadpanned. Willa’s eyes flashed with fury, but Wynonna held up her hands again, as though pushing the two of them apart.

“Break it up, all of you.” Wynonna picked up a bottle from the bar and handed it to her older sister. “Willa, take this home. I’ve got like two dozen mantis legs crammed in the oven, and I need you to pour this over them before they dry out. I’ll close up the bar.”

“I can close up,” Willa argued, but Wynonna shook her head stubbornly.

“It’s my day to close. Besides, you’re the better cook, and I’ve got enough mantis in there to feed a Supermutant army. I’d rather not ruin it all.”

Willa eyed her with suspicion, but seemed to finally take her at her word. She primly took the bottle from her hand.

“Fine.” She turned towards Waverly. “Don’t talk to strangers.” And with that, she departed, head held high.

Waverly rolled her eyes.

“We run a bar!” she called at her sister’s retreating back, right before the door slammed shut.

The second Willa left the building, it was like releasing the lid from a pressure cooker. Everyone, from the patrons to Nicole to Wynonna and Waverly themselves, seemed to instantly relax.

“Sorry I took so long,” Wynonna apologized to Waverly, who shook her head in response.

“It’s alright.” Waverly turned her attention back to Nicole. “Sorry about her. Again.”

Nicole raised her eyebrows slightly.

“You don’t have to apologize for her,” she assured her. Waverly shrugged ambivalently.

“Well, she’s not going to do it herself.”

“I’d imagine that’s because she isn’t sorry,” Nicole pointed out, keeping her voice as neutral as possible. Wynonna gave her a long look, apparently evaluating her.

“Did she give you a hard time?” she asked. Nicole shrugged.

“Hardly the worst treatment I’ve had in recent memory,” she said, smiling crookedly. Wynonna snorted.

“That’s the spirit.”

Waverly still huffed indignantly. “Doesn’t give her the right to accuse you like that, right to your face and everything.”

“If the bar belongs to her, I’d say that gives her the right,” Nicole said with a small shrug.

“The bar belongs to all three of us. Equally.” Waverly glared at the door, still burning with righteous fury. On instinct, Nicole reached out and squeezed her hand once, hoping to reassure her. She thought she saw Wynonna’s gaze flicker towards the brief touch before returning focus to her whiskey.

“Is she likely to come back tonight?” Nicole asked, hoping to redirect the conversation onto safer ground.

“I doubt it,” said Wynonna. “She opened the bar this morning, so she’ll be tired.”

Nicole, satisfied with that answer, nodded once, raised her water glass, and drained it in one go. She set the empty glass back on the bar, immediately feeling better. The tiny sips had been torture. Waverly shot her an amused smile.

“I wondered if you were nursing that glass on purpose,” she said, and Nicole flashed a sheepish grin back.

“I got the distinct feeling that she was going to kick me out as soon as I’d finished.”

“She’d have tried, but I wouldn’t have let her,” Waverly harrumphed, shooting another annoyed glare at the door.

“Yeah, I got that feeling, too. But I didn’t want to cause any more trouble between you than I had already.” She caught Waverly’s gaze as it glanced towards her, holding it, trying to convey her total sincerity. The anger seemed to slowly melt away, the fire in her eyes softening into warmth. She leaned against the counter across from Nicole.

“Doesn’t take anything to cause trouble between us. The trouble never goes away. It’s always been that way.” Her face told Nicole that she was long resigned to this fact, even if she’d have given the world to change it.

“That’s a shame,” Nicole said gently.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Wynonna sighed. She absentmindedly patted Waverly’s shoulder, and Nicole felt a surge of gratitude that Waverly at least had one sister who really cared about her.

“You’re the middle sister, right?” Nicole asked her. “I hear that makes you the peacekeeper.”

“You can’t keep what was never there to start with,” Wynonna pointed out.

“Peace-maker?” Nicole corrected. Wynonna snorted.

“Funny you should say that.” She pulled the revolver from her side and showed it to Nicole, who was more than happy to admire it. It was even more gorgeous up close, with etchings on the metal and a shine that made it almost seem to glow. “This is Peacemaker. As in, ‘Make your peace.’”

“She’s beautiful,” Nicole said honestly. Wynonna seemed pleased by the praise.

“Family heirloom,” she said proudly. “I’ve tried a hundred other guns, but nothing packs a kick like this one. A bullet from this gun could send the devil himself screaming back to hell.” She twirled it in her fingers, almost dropped it, and hastily recovered. Nicole politely pretended not to notice. “Good judge of character, too.” Wynonna pointed the beautiful gun between Nicole’s eyes.

“’Nona, come on, leave her alone,” Waverly pleaded, clearly just as uncomfortable as Nicole with this sudden turn of events. Still, Nicole fought to keep her expression and body language calm, even as she started sweating bullets under her shirt.

“You shouldn’t point a gun at someone you aren’t planning to shoot,” she said, her voice steady. “And if you are planning to shoot, you should know that my head is surprisingly resistant to bullets.”

Wynonna choked back a laugh.

“Thick skull?” she asked.

“I’ve never seen it myself, but I’m sure Doc could tell you one way or the other.” She was about 90% sure that Wynonna wasn’t actually going to shoot her (maybe 80%, given the whiskey), but she doubted she was going to stop sweating until those odds had crept back up to 100%.

“Wynonna, that’s enough,” Waverly said, glaring at her older sister. Her voice had taken on a new level of seriousness. Whether from that or from having found what she was looking for, Wynonna finally lowered the gun.

“Alright, fine. My verdict is…” She paused, either for dramatic effect or to give herself another drink of whiskey. “She’s good with me.” Nicole and Waverly both seemed to relax in tandem. Nicole made her hands unclench and rolled her shoulders, trying to shake off the fight-or-flight. “Alright, Haught-stuff, meet me behind the bar tomorrow at noon. I’ll bring the spare rifle.”

Nicole nodded.

“I appreciate it.” She once again tried to convey her total sincerity in her voice. “And this goes without saying, but if you ever need a favor from me in return, it’s yours.”

Wynonna, pouring herself another shot of whiskey in a heavy glass, kept a watchful eye on her through the mirror.

“If it goes without saying, why say it?” she asked.

“Well, to me, it goes without saying. But as your big sister says, you don’t know me very well yet.” Nicole picked up her water glass again and raised it to her lips on instinct, only to find it empty. She set it back down, frowning her disappointment. She hadn’t drunk her fill yet, and her throat was getting dry again.

Waverly must have caught the gaffe, because after a glance back towards Wynonna, she sneakily reached out with the water bottle and topped off the glass with a conspiratorial wink. Nicole felt a grateful, irrepressible smile bloom on her face, and barely managed to stop herself from blushing like an idiot.

Still watching in the mirror, Wynonna raised one eyebrow at the pair of them.

“And why do I get the feeling that that won’t last?”

Chapter Text

As evening slunk its way into night, Wynonna glanced at the clock on the wall and nodded to Waverly.

“You can head home, Waves. I’ll finish closing.”

Waverly— standing near Nicole, broom in hand but not accomplishing much in the way of sweeping— froze in place, not making a move towards the door.

“Oh, uh, that’s okay. I can do it,” she said lightly. She gave a halfhearted sweep of the broom, as though she were still mid-task, and Wynonna shot her a suspicious look.

“You sure? You’ve been here all day.”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’m not even tired,” Waverly insisted, waving off her concern. Nicole, who had clearly seen her stifle multiple yawns over the course of the evening, hid a smile behind her water glass. “Besides, you’re the one who was out hunting all day. You can go home. I’ve got this.”

Wynonna’s suspicion wasn’t so easily allayed, and she watched her sister with narrowed eyes.

“Is it Willa? Did something else happen while I was gone?”

“No, nothing like that.” Waverly attempted a casual shrug, glancing towards Nicole, who was smothering a yawn of her own into her sleeve. “I’ve just been talking with Nicole, and I don’t trust you not to scare her off.”

Wynonna snorted a laugh.

“If a bullet to the head wasn’t enough to scare her away from Purgatory, I don’t think me making a mean pun is going to do the job.”

“She’s probably right,” Nicole contributed. Waverly swiveled to face her direction, and the redhead raised a teasing eyebrow at her. “But do you really wanna risk it?”

Waverly narrowed her eyes at the taunt.

“Who even needs mean puns? You know what ‘Haught’ literally means, right? Arrogant.”

“Ouch.” With great melodrama, Nicole pressed a hand to her chest, miming a devastating wound. “Someone call Doc to sew me up again.”

“Oh, please.” Waverly rolled her eyes, but wasn’t able to repress a smile. Wynonna held up both hands in surrender.

“Alright, that’s about all I can take. You win. I’m out.” She backed away from them, lip curled in mock-disgust, and shrugged into a studded leather jacket on her way to the door. She tugged a lock of Waverly’s hair as she passed. “Have fun, kids. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Now there’s a low bar to clear,” Waverly tossed back. If Wynonna responded, the sound was drowned out by the rattling of the door as it opened and closed, leaving Waverly and Nicole alone in the bar.

Waverly pretended to sweep for another minute or two, before apparently deciding to give up the charade. Instead, she hopped onto the barstool next to Nicole’s, leaning the broom against the bar.

“Finished cleaning?” the redhead asked, an innocent expression on her face. Waverly shrugged one shoulder.

“Close enough. Besides, I’ve worked here long enough to know that it’s always good to take advantage of a lull.” She leaned against the bar and hid a yawn in her palm. Nicole observed her, reading the tiredness in her face and posture.

“You could have taken Wynonna up on her offer, you know. You didn’t need to stay just to keep me company,” she mused. “Not that I’m complaining, obviously.”

“I don’t mind. Besides, she wasn’t totally wrong— the longer I wait, the more likely it is that Willa will already be asleep when I get home.” Waverly rested her head on her hand, propping herself up on one elbow. Nicole fought the urge to mimic her, or even to go a step farther and lay her head down on the bar itself. Her head was still throbbing, and she longed for a soft pillow and a good night's sleep. But Waverly still watched her with a touch of concern, so she made sure to hold her head up bravely.

Still, she couldn’t quite suppress an occasional wince, when the music on the radio swelled, and it was only a matter of time before Waverly caught her rubbing at her temple as the radio blared that something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give.

“Hold on, I’ll turn it off,” she offered, moving to stand, but Nicole halted her with a hand on her shoulder.

“No, it’s okay. It’s not that bad. Really. You don’t have to.” Part of her worried that if Waverly got up and turned the radio off, she would stay behind the bar again, and it was nice to have her so close. Her company was reassuring.

“If you’re sure…” Waverly said uncertainly, and Nicole forced herself to nod, even as it made the pain spike. The concern didn’t leave Waverly’s eyes, but she stayed in her seat. The sweet brown eyes followed her hand as it left her shoulder and traveled back to once again rub at her new scar. “You’re really okay? After being shot in the head?”

‘Okay’ sounded like a slight overstatement, given the relentless throbbing of her skull, but it was probably fair when compared to the state Doc had received her in.

“Somehow, yeah, I am.”

Waverly gave her a keen look.

“You’re being surprisingly calm about it all. Calmer than I would be.”

Nicole shrugged.

“I’ve always been pretty good at taking things into stride.” She smiled. “And I’m grateful to be alive. And here.” She almost added ‘With you,’ but it seemed just a touch too early for such a sentiment, so she left the implication hanging in the air like a dust mote.

“Of course,” Waverly agreed quickly, her eyes darting away for a moment, glancing towards the radio as it crooned, I’ll try hard ignoring those lips I adore… but how long can anyone try?

“And don’t get me wrong, I do want to get some answers about what happened to me and why it happened and who did it, but first I’ve got to get my feet back under me.” Nicole glanced towards the door. “It was nice of Wynonna to let me tag along tomorrow.”

The mention of Wynonna seemed to break the rising tension between them, and Waverly relaxed slightly.

“People here may try to give you the wrong idea about her, but she can actually be kinda sweet when she wants to be. But don’t tell her that or she’ll never speak to you again.” Her voice was soft and fond as she talked about her sister. Nicole smiled at the thought and then feigned a slow, solemn nod.

“Duly noted. So what should I expect from a hunting trip with her?”

Waverly shrugged.

“She’s a good shot, but those geckos are fast, and she’s not exactly the quickest draw. You’ll want to make sure she doesn’t let them get too close.”

She sounded sure, and Nicole wondered if that advice came from first-hand experience. She liked the mental image of Wynonna and Waverly out adventuring together.

“Do you ever go with her?” she asked. To Nicole’s delight, a small, proud smile quirked up on one side of Waverly’s face.

“When she lets me. I love getting to go out and help, and I’m pretty darn good with a shotgun, but, you know.... big sisters.” She rolled her eyes as though those two words explained everything.

“Insanely overprotective?” Nicole guessed, based on what she’d seen already.

“Totally.” Waverly shook her head derisively, clearly thinking about Wynonna and Willa. “Do you have siblings?”

“No, it was just me. They have to maintain population balance in the vaults, so-”

“You’re from a vault?!” Waverly interrupted, raising her head from her hand in shock. Nicole jumped slightly at the sudden change in volume.

“Yeah.” She settled again, smiling nervously. “Is that surprising?”

“I don’t know, kinda. I always think of vault-dwellers being all fussy and twitchy outside. No offense.” Waverly seemed to watch her more carefully, as though expecting her to start acting agoraphobic all of a sudden. “Why did you leave? Surely ‘everything is better when experienced in a vault?’” She mimicked the radio announcer’s deep voice, which made Nicole laugh.

“It’s really not,” she mused, rolling her water glass between her hands to keep them occupied. “Don’t get me wrong, vaults can be great. Very safe, great schooling, everyone has a job, everyone has a space, there are rules for everything...”

“Sounds kinda... stifling,” Waverly said as she trailed off.

“It is. It totally is,” Nicole agreed.

“Is that why you left?”

“I...” Nicole blinked, frowning. It was a fair question, which deserved a fair answer, but she found she wasn’t sure. Even considering the question made her head ache faintly. “Uh, I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t remember much about leaving. Everything’s kind of fuzzy. Plus, it was a really long time ago.”

“How old were you?”

“Pretty young. Ten or twelve, maybe. Something like that.” She rubbed absently at the back of her head, trying to ward off the increased throbbing sensation. Waverly frowned at her.

“Why did you leave? Did your parents want out or something?” She sounded oddly troubled by the idea. Distracted, Nicole answered more on instinct than memory.

“Hm? No, it was just me.”

“What?! You mean you just ran away? Alone? That young?” The open shock in Waverly’s voice caught her attention, and she looked up to see her wide eyes and stunned expression. “Your parents didn't go after you?”

“I...” Nicole frowned, like she was only now realizing that this was strange. “No, but...” She trailed off, trying to think of an explanation.

“But they’re your parents.”

“I think... There was...” Nicole’s frown deepened, then she shook her head. A deep ache, way deeper than her scar, was starting to spread, and she barely suppressed a groan of pain. “I don’t know.” She let the memory drift back away, taking the pain with it.

“You don’t remember?” Waverly looked worried, but Nicole attempted a reassuring smile.

“It’s okay. It’s probably just the head wound. I’ll remember later.” She shrugged. “I don’t think we were close anyway. I’m pretty sure they never wanted to be parents.”

Waverly didn’t seem satisfied by this explanation, and continued looking affronted on Nicole’s behalf.

“Then why have a kid in the first place?”

“In the vaults, you have to always maintain population balance, so I guess they felt obligated to or something.” Nicole waved a hand dismissively.

“Obligated?”

“Sure. If the vault gets too crowded, it can burn through resources too fast. If the population falls too low, the gene pool can bottleneck and there aren’t enough people to do all the jobs. If we were low on people at the time, they might have felt pressured, or thought it was their duty to have a kid.”

“Seriously? So if you’d stayed, could they have forced you to have kids? Or forced you to marry someone?” Waverly sounded shocked and appalled at the thought. Nicole frowned, as though she’d never considered the possibility before. She wondered if they really could have pressured her into marrying some guy, including sex and raising children, all for the good of the vault.

“Uh... hmm… I guess I don't know for sure. They usually just offer incentives first. Perks. Better housing, better jobs, whatever. Usually that’s enough.”

“That’s so… creepy.” Waverly said, before hurriedly tacking on, “No offense.”

“None taken. Whatever nice things you can say about the vaults, nothing beats the freedom of finally getting out of one.”

Waverly gave a small, almost bitter laugh

“Yeah, freedom. That’s the one thing we’ve got out here. In spades.”

Something in her voice sounded so dismayed that Nicole nearly asked her about it, but her question was cut off by the door opening with a kick and Wynonna re-entering the bar, carrying something under her arm.

“Uh oh, our chaperone’s back,” Nicole joked, causing Wynonna to fake a sneer at her.

“Play nice or you don’t get any,” she warned, her voice lightly taunting.

“Any what?”

Wynonna dropped her burden on the counter, near Nicole’s folded arms. Heat radiated from the bundle, but Nicole didn’t think much of it until the scent of roasted meat hit her nose. At the smell, her entire body seemed to lock in place, narrowing her focus to one immediate need— food. It had spent days knitting together sinew and bone, manufacturing new flesh and blood to make up for what was lost. And now, it was hungry.

Waverly unwrapped the package, revealing a dish containing a few giant mantis legs in some kind of sweet-smelling wine sauce. The fragrant steam wafting up was literally painful to Nicole’s pinched stomach. The water had been a good start, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Her whole body seemed to be coming alive just to remind her how famished she was. Her mouth began producing saliva at an almost alarming rate, and her head spun as though she’d been drinking. Her limbs felt weak. She could feel sweat beginning to bead on her skin from the effort of feigning disinterest.

“Hey, are you okay?” Waverly asked, and her voice only barely caught Nicole’s suddenly divided attention.

“Hm?” Nicole asked, a little afraid to open her mouth.

“Your face just went white as a sheet,” Waverly informed her, sounding worried again. “Nicole, have you eaten anything today?”

Nicole blinked away a bout of vertigo, and swallowed to clear her mouth.

“Uh... not really,” she admitted. Wynonna scoffed, walking past them and circling back behind the bar.

“Yeah, I stopped by Doc’s on my way home, and he asked about you. Said you left in a big hurry this afternoon, and asked how you looked.”

“What did you tell him?” Nicole asked, curious in spite of her distraction.

“Like six feet of bad road.” She pushed the dish closer to Nicole, who nearly swooned as the steam rose into her face, torturing her. “He asked if we’d fed you, because blah blah blah blood loss and iron and electrolytes and all that. And I said no, because you hadn’t asked, because you’re an idiot, and he said we’d better do that before we have to scrape your stupid corpse off the floor and bury you for real this time.” She waved an arm. “I’m paraphrasing, by the way.”

“Nicole, you should have said something,” Waverly scolded, nudging her shoulder.

“I got distracted,” Nicole mumbled, still using every drop of her willpower to not just bury her face in the bowl like an animal. She wasn’t a Jackal or a Fiend, after all. She could maintain her dignity. Probably. Maybe.

“Well, here. Eat.” Wynonna gestured at the dish. Nicole gritted her teeth.

“I don’t have any-”

“Yeah, I remember, empty pockets. I don’t care. You’ll make it up to me somehow. Get creative. But first, eat.” Wynonna pushed it closer, until it was bumping up against her arms. It was still warm from the oven, radiating heat, and its proximity made Nicole’s stomach pinch desperately.

And sure, Nicole could be proud— yes, sometimes even to the point of arrogance— but she wasn’t stupid. She could feel the weakness in her body, the gnawing hunger, the tremble in her limbs, the pounding in her temples. Her resistance was token at best.

“Thank you.” As she said it, she had to rub shamefully at her eyes, pretending the sudden moisture there was a product of the steam, not of the kindness.

“Just remember— creative.” Wynonna had begun rifling through the bottles in search of more whiskey, and Nicole took the opportunity to surreptitiously wipe her face on her sleeve. When she raised her head a few seconds later, she found a fork and a soda bottle had joined the dish in front of her. Wynonna was pointedly ignoring her, inspecting a square-capped brown bottle in her hands as though it were the most fascinating thing in the world. Conversely, Waverly’s eyes watched her, and they were so tender that Nicole couldn’t even meet her gaze without everything suddenly going blurry again.

People. If there was one thing Nicole always put her faith in, it was people. This wasn’t the first time she’d been rescued by the kindness of strangers, and it might not be the last. She always heard that the world was a cold, hard, unforgiving place, but she could never quite believe it. After all, how could a world be so bad if it had people like this in it?

“You can go on home, Waverly,” Wynonna said, still turning the bottle over in her hands. “Willa’s asleep, and you should be, too.”

“No, it’s okay, I-”

“You should go home,” Wynonna cut her off. They met each other’s eyes and exchanged a look that must have conveyed some deeper meaning, because Waverly immediately and unexpectedly backed down.

“Sure,” she agreed, sliding down off the bar stool. Nicole felt a warm touch on her shoulder.

“Nicole, I’ll see you tomorrow?” Waverly’s voice was hopeful, and it made everything inside her twist exquisitely.

“Yeah,” she answered, horrified by how raw and shaky her voice sounded. She coughed to clear it. She knew that this was the part where she was supposed to say something sweet and flirtatious and clever, but she felt tired and ripped open. “Um... Thank you. For... everything.” Words tangled in her head. “If I had to turn up six feet deep in some town’s graveyard, I’m sure lucky it was this one, huh?”

The hand on her shoulder squeezed gently before letting go, and she kept her head down as Waverly’s light footsteps echoed in the quiet room, followed by the quiet swing and soft clatter of the door.

Wynonna finally poured the contents of the bottle into a glass and swirled it around, pointedly avoiding looking at Nicole, who had given up on keeping her face dry and now merely tried to keep her tears as silent and unobtrusive as possible.

“It’s going to get cold,” Wynonna said after a minute. “And salty.”

“Don’t judge me,” Nicole grumbled, even as she obediently picked up the fork.

“I will judge you,” Wynonna countered childishly. “I judge you as unexpectedly human. Who’d’a thunk it?”

Nicole gave a wet laugh. Then, finally, she began to eat, breaking apart each of the mantis legs to get at the meat inside. She was sorely tempted to just grab them and crack them open with her bare hands, but she was also keenly aware of the fact that she only had one set of clothing in the world, and she wouldn’t do herself any favors by spilling food all over it.

Grilled mantis was common enough desert fare, and Nicole was sure she’d eaten similar dishes dozens of times before, but after the day she’d had, on her miserably empty stomach, she’d have sworn it was the best thing she’d ever eaten. Across the bar, Wynonna drank her whiskey in silence, seeming unconcerned with anything else. It wasn’t until Nicole was sitting next to an empty pile of green exoskeletons that she spoke up.

“You seem to be making friends with my sister awful fast,” the gunslinger said, a low note of accusation in her voice. Nicole glanced up at her.

“One of them, maybe,” she agreed.

“Look, Waverly’s sweeter than a box of Sugar Bombs, and she makes friends like it’s her job, but if you’re just passing through...”

Nicole picked up on the warning and kept her voice serious.

“I’m not just playing with her until I take off, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m not asking anything.”

“Of course not.”

A tense silence reigned. Nicole watched her, and Wynonna met her eyes for barely a second before looking back towards her whiskey.

“Just… be careful, okay?”

“Look… I like Waverly a lot. She’s sweet. And she’s done a lot for me today. You both have. I won’t do anything to hurt either of you. And if I do, you’re free to put Peacemaker back against my head and blow my brains back out again.” Wynonna snorted at the mental image, but Nicole pressed on. “But until then, I’ll do whatever I can to repay her kindness. And yours. I swear.”

She saw a glint of respect in Wynonna’s eyes, but it was masked almost instantly as she feigned disgust.

“Ew,” she said, wrinkling her nose for a few seconds before giving into sincerity. “And also, good. You’d better.”

Nicole held out her soda bottle, and Wynonna reluctantly clinked her glass against it.

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

Nicole stepped out of the bar into the dry night air. The breeze was cool, but the ground still radiated heat from the day. She could feel Wynonna watching her out of the corner of her eye as she looped a chain around the door, but she didn't ask her anything or make any comment, which Nicole appreciated. They exchanged a nod as they parted ways.

Strolling aimlessly through the streets of the town, killing time, Nicole tilted her head back to look at the sky. A few dim lamps lit the windows of some of the houses, but it was still dark enough that the cloudless sky was an ocean of stars. Only a sliver of the moon hung in the sky, but there was a faint glow out to the east, where the neon lights of New Vegas polluted the darkness.

She weighed a few options. She could explore a little more, continue getting a feel for the town. She could try to look up that robot Victor and get some answers about what he saw. Or, the option that was becoming more and more tempting by the second, she could just find a place to bunker down and sleep.

The thought of imposing on Doc's hospitality again was tempting, but her pride had taken a lot of hits over the course of the day, and groveling on a stranger's doorstep in the dead of night felt like one blow too many. The town seemed littered with abandoned buildings and somewhat-sheltered patches of ground. She would make do. It wouldn't be her first or last time sleeping rough.

With slightly more purpose, she began evaluating her surroundings for any reasonably safe spot to settle down for the night. Most of the abandoned buildings had been boarded up to discourage both human and animal squatters, and she didn't have the time, the tools, or the energy to pry them open. The next closest alternative she found was a tiny trailer, tucked between two sections of fence, not clearly attached to any other building. She had to squeeze between the fences and clamber up through the open space where the door used to be. It was cramped and narrow, with a low ceiling, and a bare mattress was its only furnishing, but it was sheltered and only had one entrance. It wasn't perfect, but it would do.

The mattress was threadbare and bore suspicious stains, and Nicole grimaced, weighing the relative safety and comfort granted by the makeshift bed against the likelihood of waking up covered with some kind of irradiated mutant bedbugs. She had skipped nights of sleep before, but tonight, that wasn’t an option. The renewed throbbing in her head told her that in addition to the food and water she had managed to give it, she still desperately needed rest. And if that meant sleeping on a filthy abandoned mattress in a filthy abandoned trailer, then so be it. At least it had a roof and some walls. Sort of.

By her measure, sleeping on a sheltered (albeit potentially rad-bug-infested) mattress was still ever-so-slightly preferable to sleeping on the exposed ground and getting stung by scorpions and bloatflies and cazadors— or worse, being found by someone with his heart set on finishing what the man in the fur coat had started.

She sank into a crouch with a tired sigh, inspecting the mattress more closely for signs of danger. Her face was mere inches from it, squinting at it in the darkness, staring it down, when the sound of a nearby throat being cleared sent her rocketing to her feet, her hand scrabbling at her hip for a gun that still wasn’t there. She immediately decided that her top two priorities, above finding a permanent place to sleep and hunting down the men who tried to kill her, would be acquiring a good hat and a good pistol, in that order.

Her hand plunged into her pocket in search of the knife, but she quickly realized it wasn’t necessary, because the person standing at her “door” was none other than Waverly, her form barely backlit in the glow of a nearby porchlight. Nicole clutched her chest theatrically with one hand.

“God, Waverly, you’re lucky I don’t have a gun, or Doc would have to stitch you back together, too.”

“Sorry, was I supposed to ring the doorbell?” she asked, arching a sardonic eyebrow and gesturing at the lack of door.

“I guess not.” Nicole stood awkwardly, half-crouching because of the low ceiling. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, first, you can not lie down on that. God knows what’s living in it. Or what’s dead in it.” She wrinkled her nose at the offending object, and Nicole couldn’t disagree with the sentiment.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she mused with a shrug, then conceded, “Though it wouldn’t typically be my first choice.”

“Lucky for you, it doesn’t have to be. Come on. You can stay with me.”

“I can what?” She straightened instinctively, banging her head on the low ceiling and nearly blacking out from the sudden, overwhelming agony. Waverly gave her a concerned look, moving as though to climb up into the trailer, but Nicole waved her back, one hand clutching the injured spot. Her knees threatened to unhinge, but she barely managed to keep her feet under her. “I’m fine. Kinda. Go on.”

“I asked Wynonna, and she told me you weren’t headed towards Doc’s, and I know you don’t know anyone else in town, so I thought I’d find you out here camping out somewhere stupid.” She gave Nicole an exasperated look, like it was a personal affront that she was out here sleeping rough. “Obviously Willa can’t find out, but I think Wynonna would be okay with it. You’re clearly still healing, and you’ve been decent to me and my family. Not everyone around here is.” Her voice took on a softness there at the end, an edge of vulnerability that chipped at Nicole’s defenses.

“Haven’t you and your family done enough for me today? I’d hate to feel like I’m taking advantage of you.” she argued halfheartedly, still rubbing at the sore spot on her head. Annoyed by the pain and grouchy from tiredness, part of her, albeit a small part, wondered if the offer wasn’t born out of genuine kindness, but out of pity and secondhand embarrassment from her waterworks display earlier. Shame simmered deep inside her, hot and heavy, and her pride surged up to counter it. “I’ll survive a few nights outside, trust me. I don't need any more charity.”

Waverly shifted onto her back foot, clearly a little confused by Nicole’s sudden defensiveness.

“Oh.” She gave her an odd look, like she hadn’t expected her kindness to be rejected and wasn't sure how to proceed. A beat of terse silence hung between them, and Nicole felt her warring pride and shame cool into mild guilt. Chagrined and penitent, she knelt on the floor again so that she could meet Waverly's worried eyes through the empty doorway.

“Sorry, it’s been a long day and my head really hurts and I’m really tired, and it’s making me kind of a dickhead,” she apologized. Clearly caught off-guard by the swift about-face, Waverly choked out a laugh, and Nicole thought she looked a little relieved. She leaned a little through the doorway, as though to get a better look at her in the darkness.

“That’s why you should come with me. The first part, I mean, about being tired and hurting and stuff. Not the other thing.”

Her voice was sweet and sincere, and Nicole let the last of her token resistance dissolve. Not wanting to run back to Doc with her tail between her legs was one thing, but being sought out and offered a warm bed and soft pillow directly was a different matter.

“You really want me to stay at your house?” she asked, giving her a last chance to withdraw the offer.

“Yes. Unless you want to sleep on that mattress?”

Nicole’s eyes slid to the mattress briefly, then back to Waverly.

“No, thank you. I may be proud, but I’m not that proud.” She straightened and took a grateful step away from the filthy mattress. “Lead the way.”

Waverly led her through the darkened, barely moonlit night. Nicole’s night vision was good, but she still stumbled over the unfamiliar ground as they strayed farther from the sparse lights of the town. After her second time stumbling over a small cactus and hissing pained curses, Waverly took pity on her and grabbed her hand, leading her almost step by step to one of the larger houses, set a healthy distance away from the others. Nicole hadn’t planned it that way, but wasn’t unhappy about the turn of events. Waverly’s hand was smaller than hers, and surprisingly soft, and the grip of her fingers eased the chill of loneliness that lived in her chest.

Either this crush was going to be the death of her, or it was going to be the thing that brought her back to life.

They approached the one-story wooden house, Waverly carefully leading her towards an open window. She finally released Nicole’s hand and climbed in. After a moment of hesitation, Nicole followed. They entered into a small bedroom. One wall was covered in bookshelves, and a patched armchair in the corner was piled with stuffed animals. And in the center of the room was a small single bed.

Nicole stood awkwardly while Waverly shut the window. One hand scratched at her new scar, while the other grasped the sheriff’s star in her pocket for dear life.

“It’s nice,” she said, a little awkwardly. Waverly looked around the room, as though imagining how it must look to fresh eyes.

“Thanks. I know it must look a little… girlish, or something… but it’s home.”

“No, it’s cute. Or… pretty. It, uh… suits you.” Nicole barely suppressed the urge to crawl back out the window just to escape the tense atmosphere. “So, uh… what should I do?” she asked. Waverly tilted her head slightly.

“Bed’s right there,” she said, gesturing towards it. Nicole nodded, wondering if there were three more ominous words in the universe.

“Right. Um… are you sure this is okay? I mean, I’m fine sleeping on the floor.” The floor was reasonably clean, and she was exhausted enough to probably fall asleep anywhere, but it was also worn and uneven, and she didn’t relish the thought of laying her aching head on the hard surface all night. As if reading her thoughts, Waverly shook her head at her like she was being ridiculous.

“I didn’t just rescue you from that gross mattress just to put you on the floor for the night. The bed’s big enough for both of us.” From the looks of it, Nicole thought that was a laughable exaggeration, but she didn’t say so. “Besides, if I left you on the floor, I’d have to give up some of my blankets, and there’s no way that’s happening.”

Nicole huffed a small laugh at that, tacitly accepting the argument with a tiny rush of relief. She knelt down and removed her boots, then paused again.

“Um… I don’t…” she began awkwardly, then just gestured at her clothes.

“You don’t have nightclothes?” Waverly guessed.

“I don’t really have much of anything,” Nicole admitted.

“I figured. It's okay. You can borrow some of mine.” Waverly pulled an extra nightshirt from her dresser and handed it over. Nicole thanked her quietly, then turned her back to unbutton her shirt. She shrugged out of it and into the borrowed clothing, which was softer and more comfortable and even smelled nice, like desert flowers. It was also slightly small, and more than slightly short on her. When she turned around, she saw Waverly surveying her bare legs with some amusement. “Well, like you said, beggars can’t be choosers.”

“You know, I’ve been saying that a lot lately,” Nicole sighed, smiling wryly. “And it’s been true every time.”

“Well, go on, then.” Waverly nodded towards the bed, and Nicole climbed in, her heart pounding. She stared pointedly at the ceiling while Waverly finished changing and climbed in next to her. The bed was narrow and short, almost a child’s bed, and Nicole’s feet practically hung off the end of the mattress. It would have been cramped even for one person, let alone two. In deference to common decency, Nicole tried to shift as close to the edge of the mattress as possible, giving Waverly the maximum space the tiny bed allowed. Waverly smothered a quiet giggle at her attempts.

“Good thing you’re not some guy, or this would be really awkward,” she whispered.

Nicole nearly groaned. Instead, she agreed, “Yeah, good thing.”

She could feel Waverly’s eyes, shining in the darkness, peering at her.

“Is this okay?” the soft voice whispered from the far side of the single pillow. Nicole only had her head on a corner of it, but the soft cushion was an almost dizzying relief after so many hours holding her aching head upright. As if reading her mind, Waverly pushed the pillow a little more towards her, and Nicole didn’t bother arguing; she just nestled further into the cool fabric, letting it ease some of the throbbing in her skull. It smelled faintly sweet and floral, like the nightshirt.

“Perfect,” she sighed quietly. She thought she saw the corner of Waverly’s lips twitch up, but it was hard to be sure in the darkness.

“Goodnight, Nicole,” Waverly murmured. Nicole returned the sentiment, and listened as Waverly drifted off almost immediately, her breathing growing slow and even. Nicole didn’t find sleep nearly as easily. Exhausted though she was, she lay awake, thoughts percolating in her head. There was a lot she needed to do over the next few days: earn money, buy supplies, gather information, explore the area. She was lucky that Waverly and Wynonna and Doc seemed to be on her side.

Once Waverly had been asleep long enough that it felt safe to move, Nicole shifted from the edge of the bed, rolling onto her stomach and settling a little more comfortably. This brought them into contact, but not so much as to be indecent. One of her arms brushed up against one of Waverly’s hands, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when Waverly’s fingers reacted by curling around her bicep. Her face flushed, she hazarded a glance at Waverly’s face, but she looked sound asleep and oblivious to the turmoil she was causing.

Nicole was torn. On the one hand, it was just a small, innocent touch, and honestly, a friendly touch felt really nice after her traumatic day. She had forgotten how good it could feel to not be alone at night. On the other hand, Waverly was asleep and therefore hadn’t exactly decided to touch her, and might in fact be uncomfortable were she to wake up and discover the touch. Back on the first hand, if Nicole were to pull away, it might cause Waverly to wake up, which would be rude and unnecessary. After all, she had touched her a few times in the bar and hadn’t seemed to think anything of it. And there was surely nothing inappropriate about just touching her arm. It was harmless, really.

She continued debating the issue even as her whole body relaxed into the contact, her limbs and eyelids growing heavy. Just as she was on the edge of sleep, she thought she felt something warm and solid press against her shoulder, but by then it was too late. She drifted off to the soothing rhythm of Waverly’s soft, even breathing.

Chapter Text

Nicole woke up in a strange bed for the second day in a row, but this time instead of disoriented and aching, she felt deliciously warm and well-rested. Clearly, at some point in the night, she and Waverly had both shifted position, and they were now tucked together front-to-back, like two spoons in a drawer. She would have normally felt scandalized, but Nicole was nothing if not practical, and this was obviously the only practical way they could both fit comfortably on the small mattress.

And wasn’t comfortable a great word for it. Nicole couldn’t remember ever being so comfortable. Tangled in the faded flower-patterned bedsheets, she felt warm and cozy and relaxed. Even the ache in her head felt distant and easy to ignore. In a perfect world, she would have snuggled up and fallen back asleep for at least another week while her body finished healing. Unfortunately, the world was far from perfect, weak rays of sunlight were filtering through the window, and Nicole knew she had to be gone before Waverly’s sisters discovered her. She had to get up.

But she didn’t. Not right away. She was only human, after all.

She closed her eyes and held perfectly still, drifting in and out of a light doze, taking comfort in the warmth of Waverly’s body against hers.

Some time later— Nicole had no way of estimating how long— Waverly stirred in her arms, a breath becoming a sigh. For just a second, she pressed her body backwards into Nicole’s, tugging on her arm so it was wrapped more securely around her. Nicole’s heart nearly melted in her chest.

Another moment passed, and then Waverly shifted, rolling partway onto her back and squinting up to gather her bearings. She made no attempt to put more distance between them.

“Hey,” Nicole greeted, her voice still hoarse from sleep.

“Hey… Woah,” Waverly murmured, blinking in the direction of the window.

“What’s wrong?” Nicole briefly followed her gaze to the window, but didn’t see anything worth commenting on.

“It’s… morning,” Waverly said, sounding mystified by the realization.

“That’s what usually happens when night’s over.” Nicole shifted a little to give Waverly more freedom to move, but she seemed content to stay put.

“No, it’s just… I don’t remember waking up at all earlier.”

“You came and got me ‘round midnight,” Nicole reminded her, surprised that she had forgotten the encounter despite seeming perfectly awake and lucid at the time. Waverly shook her head, frustrated.

“No, of course I remember that. I just mean… Usually, I wake up all through the night, every hour or two. I get cold, or I hear a noise, or I have a dream… But I don’t think I did last night.” She looked at the window again, where sunlight streamed in.

“That sounds like a good thing. It can’t be healthy to wake up that much.” Nicole frowned in concern. “If I slept like that, I’d still be tired in the morning.”

“I guess sometimes I am.”

“How about this morning?”

Waverly propped herself up on her arms, apparently evaluating her physical state.

“Nope, not tired at all.” She blinked and tilted her head thoughtfully. “Kinda feel like I slept for a whole week.”

“Well, if you’re used to waking up ten times a night, I’m not surprised.”

“I guess so.” Waverly had a pensive look on her face as she shifted down a little on the bed, pulling the blanket back over her shoulders. Aiming to help, Nicole untangled herself from the sheets and tugged them more completely onto Waverly’s side of the narrow mattress, sitting up a little in the process. Waverly murmured a quiet thanks.

“I guess it’s easier to not get cold at night when there’s someone else there,” she mused absently, then glanced up at Nicole with a line of concern between her eyes. “That didn’t bother you, did it? Sleeping close like that? Wynonna used to complain sometimes when I would stay in her bed.”

With a rush of relief sweeping through her, Nicole innocently shook her head.

“No, not at all. If anything, I wanted to apologize for taking up so much of the bed.” She sat up a little farther, rolling her neck and shoulders to loosen them. “But I can’t complain. I slept like the dead.”

“Like the dead,” Waverly murmured, reluctantly smiling at her dark joke. “Does your head still hurt?”

“Not half as bad as yesterday,” Nicole admitted, instinctively reaching back to feel for the scar. There was still a faint ache and a vague itch, but it was tolerable. She had certainly felt much worse.

“Good. That’s good.” Waverly stretched, yawning, but stayed under the blankets. “Ugh, I should get up, but I don’t want to. The bed’s so warm.” She wrinkled her nose, grumbling half into the pillow, and it was just about the cutest thing Nicole had ever seen. She was sympathetic, though. While she was normally an early riser, this morning she was reluctant to leave the small sanctuary of the bed. But there were things— and people— besides themselves to consider.

“Do your sisters usually wake up early?” Nicole asked, half an eye on the door. The house was still silent, but that could change any minute, and it was occurring to her that she should probably get dressed, in case she had to leave in a rush.

“Not really. Willa can, if she’s opening the bar or going out to look for plants, but Wynonna likes to sleep late.”

Nicole gave a vague, noncommittal hum, digesting that fact.

“Guess I should get up, then,” she sighed after a minute. With great reluctance, she slid off the side of the bed and crossed the room to where her clothes sat neatly folded on the side of the armchair. The floor under her bare feet was cool and warped from age, and she felt a surge of gratitude that she hadn’t had to spend the night on it.

She pulled the trousers on first, before shrugging out of the nightshirt, trying to keep as covered as possible. She turned back towards Waverly as she finished buttoning her shirt and tucking it in. Her host was sitting up in the bed, legs crossed and the blankets still clutched to her chest.

“Do you need to borrow some other clothes? If those are the only ones you have?” Waverly asked, watching her roll her sleeves up into neat cuffs. Nicole shot her a smile.

“You're sweet to offer, but I don’t think any of yours would fit me.” She nodded towards the nightshirt as an example.

“No, but some of Wynonna’s might. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d stolen her clothes.”

She said it without an ounce of repentance, and Nicole chuckled at the image it conjured.

“After we go hunting today and I have a few caps to my name, I should be able to buy some at the general store. At least that’s the hope.”

Waverly seemed to accept this answer, nodding through another yawn. Then, with a last wistful look back at the pillow, she rose from the bed and walked, stretching, towards her wardrobe. Eager to find something else to occupy her attention while Waverly dressed, Nicole crossed over to the bookshelf and began intently looking over the titles as though she had never seen anything so fascinating in her life. She had almost never seen so many gathered in one place, and began counting along one shelf before losing track.

“Wow, I’ve never seen this many books,” she commented after a minute, hoping the admiration was audible in her voice.

“Don’t look at those!” Waverly said in a rush. Nicole immediately turned away from the shelf, both hands raised as if at gunpoint. Waverly stood— dressed, thankfully— a few yards away, but her face had flushed red from embarrassment.

“Sorry. I didn’t know they were off-limits,” Nicole said.

“They’re not. It’s fine. I just… I don’t know, it’s embarrassing.” Waverly’s hands twisted together nervously.

“Reading?” Nicole asked, eyebrows knitting in confusion. Reading was something smart people did. Smart people with the luxury of books and downtime. She couldn’t think of anything less embarrassing.

“No, just… I mean, some of them are all about history and language and mythology and stuff. I love books like that.” Waverly blushed harder. “But some of them are just… stories. Romances, really. I know they’re kinda silly, but… I like that everything always works out in the end.”

Charmed, Nicole attempted a reassuring smile.

“That’s not silly. We could all use more stories like that.” At her words, Waverly seemed to relax slightly, although her cheeks remained pink. “Is it okay if I look at them? I promise I won’t judge.”

Waverly bit her lip, considering, but finally nodded.

“Yeah. Okay.”

Nicole turned back to the bookshelf and perused the titles more carefully. She pulled the biggest one off the shelf and read the title out loud.

“‘The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’” she read slowly. She had learned to read in the vaults— if anything, her education there had included an overabundance of books. But those days were long in the past. These days, it was rare that she had to read much more than a billboard or a packaging label. She flipped through a few pages of the heavy tome, but the text was dense, and she closed it after only a brief scan. “Well, here’s hoping Bulshar’s Legion goes the same way as their idols.”

The Legion, bane of all the decent, civilized settlers of the Mojave, had built themselves around their ideas of the ancient Roman civilization, with their leader Bulshar playing the part of Caesar. Secretly, Nicole had always assumed (and hoped) that it was harsher, more violent, less moral version of that society.

“It took Rome three hundred years to fall,” Waverly said grimly. “At least according to the guy that wrote that.”

“You’ve read all this?” Nicole weighed the brick of a book in her hands, then eyed Waverly, as though she should be able to see that many words packed into one small person. Most wasteland dwellers could barely read a magazine, let alone a complex academic text like this clearly was.

“Yep. It’s one of my favorites,” Waverly said with a small shrug. Nicole looked at it again, trying to estimate the number of pages it might contain, but she couldn’t even guess.

“It’s huge,” she said instead.

Smiling shyly, Waverly approached and took the book from her, flipping through it slowly.

“You’re right, though. It’s nice to imagine the Legion falling. I mean, I know there’s no reason for them to want to come here, and the NCR trooper guys usually keep them back, but… I sometimes worry they’ll show up someday. I’ve heard stories about what they do to women. Stories that definitely don’t come with happy endings.”

Her protective nature kicking in, Nicole felt herself drawing up to her full height on instinct.

“They’d never make it this far, not with the NCR camped out everywhere like it is.” Nicole put a hand on Waverly’s shoulder and rubbed gently. “Besides, nobody’s getting past Wynonna and that gun of hers. This town is tough as nails. They’d drive them back.”

“Yeah,” Waverly said quietly, although she didn’t seem entirely reassured. It gave Nicole the crazy urge to go dismantle Bulshar and his Legion single-handedly, just to put her mind at ease.

Hoping to change the subject to something a little more upbeat, Nicole instead took the smallest book off the shelf, this one a thin, faded paperback. On the cover, a cowboy on a dappled white horse smiled down at a woman in a simple dress. He wore a dashing Stetson, and Nicole envied it. She was about to comment as much when somewhere in the house, a door slammed, and the sound of footsteps seemed to echo closer and closer. She and Waverly both jumped, and Waverly rushed to the window.

“Quick, you’ve got to get out of here! That might be Willa!” She heaved the window open— inadvertently giving Nicole another lovely view of her arm muscles— and gestured for her to exit. Nicole obeyed in an instant, nimbly slipping out the window as though she did it every day.

“Thanks for a nice night, and an even nicer morning,” Nicole whispered on her way out, before jogging several steps away, putting distance between her and the house. She didn’t realize she was still holding the paperback until she was halfway to town and it was far too late to turn back. Hoping she’d get a chance to return it later, she slipped it into her pocket.

Chapter Text

With nowhere in particular to be before noon, Nicole planned to spend the morning exploring the town. That plan went slightly awry about a half hour into her exploration, when she realized she had already explored every inch of Purgatory she could, short of breaking into some of the buildings. All the houses that weren’t occupied were boarded up or torn down, although a handful of hollowed-out trailers lay open behind the general store, including the one she had almost spent a terrible night in. A red schoolhouse sat behind a fence, but Nicole recalled the mantis infestation of the day before and opted not to go inside unarmed. At the top of a hill, there was an abandoned gas station, but the door to the interior was locked— not just boarded up, but properly locked with a chain. She left that well enough alone as well.

Over the course of this exploration, her stomach took several opportunities to inform her that making new blood was hungry work and that just because she had eaten some food yesterday didn’t mean she didn’t need more today. As she walked, she picked up some buffalo gourd seeds from the vines growing wild on the ground, but they were dusty and tasteless and just made her mouth drier. She told herself that she just had to wait for noon, and then she and Wynonna would doubtlessly acquire both fresh meat and water. It was only a few hours. She could hold on until then.

In the meantime, she had to get out of the sun. She didn’t dare risk Willa’s ire by sitting on the bar’s porch, so she eventually found herself in the shadow of the old gas station, cobbling together a makeshift seat out of some old tires and a few wooden planks.

Then, for lack of anything else to do, she pulled the thin paperback novel out of her pocket and began reading. Nicole wasn’t much of a recreational reader— few people were when books were scarce and proper education scarcer— but she wasn’t dumb. Even being out of practice, she was more than capable of powering through a pocket paperback over the course of a lazy morning.

The book told the story of an innkeeper’s daughter and a ranch hand. The innkeeper’s daughter was sweet and innocent, but had a streak of independence and adventurousness that reminded Nicole a little of Waverly. The ranch hand was strong and courteous, and Nicole coveted his Stetson hat and liked how he would talk to his horse as though they were best friends rather than beast and master.

Pages turned, and the sun slowly crept up the sky. Nicole’s stomach growled more emphatically, and she tried to ignore it. Harder to ignore was the dryness in her throat, which made her choke on the dust in the air, each cough setting off a sharp spike of pain in her head. An old soda machine— Sunset Sarsaparilla— stood a few feet away, near the door to the gas station, but Nicole hadn’t bothered checking it. After all, this was a populated town in a desert. It had no doubt been looted at some point in the two centuries since the Great War.

But as the coughs became more frequent, she found herself peering at it with a more critical eye. It wouldn’t be the first time she had broken into one of those ancient machines only to find it mysteriously restocked. A particularly strong gust of dusty air left her hacking into her sleeve, eyes watering and headache spiking, and the decision was all but made for her.

She searched the ground around the base of the machine and came up with a bobby pin. She was only an amateur at picking locks, but the soda machines were a cinch. She popped it open within seconds, and there at the bottom, not even dusty, sat a single sealed bottle. Without wasting time marveling at her good fortune, she wrenched off the cap and drained half of it in one go, gasping as she lowered it from her lips to catch her breath. It was syrupy and so sweet it made her teeth ache, but it was cool and liquid, and that was more than enough to quench her thirst. She pocketed the bottle cap (one wouldn’t be enough to buy anything, but she had to start somewhere), returned to her makeshift seat, and settled back more comfortably now, holding the book open with one hand and sipping from the bottle as she read. All things considered, it was about as lazy and relaxing a morning as she had ever had in the Wasteland, not that that was saying much.

She reached the end of the bottle before the end of the book, but kept reading to kill the time. The innkeeper’s daughter, on a rebellious streak, had “borrowed” a horse from the ranch and injured it while jumping a fence. The ranch hand took the fall for her theft and was given the choice of either being fired (and thus having to leave town) or giving over his own horse as compensation. Nicole hadn’t really expected to care, but it was surprisingly wrenching, and it made her want to find Waverly and ask her if it had hit her as hard. The innkeeper’s daughter came clean in the end and threw herself at the ranch owner’s mercy. This, too, was a surprisingly touching scene, with the daughter full-throatedly voicing her love for the ranch hand and laying out his virtues— kindness, decency, self-sacrifice— until the ranch owner agreed to keep him on and make a deal with her regarding the horse. All the ends tied up neatly, the innkeeper’s daughter returned to the ranch hand and they had a long, heartfelt talk and also a short interlude in the hayloft that Nicole mostly skipped, wrinkling her nose slightly at the lurid descriptions of his body.

By the time she finished the book, it still wasn’t quite noon, but it was close enough that she could at least entertain the idea of walking over and waiting for Wynonna. The soda had revived her somewhat, but she still craved solid food and clean water. She also craved a bath, but she imagined that was a much farther-off possibility compared to that of food and drink. The new scar on the back of her head still itched, and she thought it might benefit from a good washing.

Deciding she might as well walk over, she rolled to her feet. She slipped the book back into her pocket as she walked towards the bar, yawning in the heat of the day and absentmindedly rubbing at her prickling scar. The sun was blinding, and she deeply regretted not having a decent hat. Wynonna had said to meet her behind the bar, but the thought of standing out in the sun was not a pleasant one, so instead she entered the building, hoping that Willa wouldn’t be there, but Waverly and/or Wynonna would be. In the end, it was a mixed bag— as she walked in, she saw Waverly standing behind the bar, but Willa disappearing into a back room.

She attempted a small wave at Waverly, whose whole face seemed to light up as their eyes met.

“Nicole! Hey!”

“Long time, no see,” Nicole joked. “I know I’m a little early, but it’s like an oven out there today, and I wasn’t sure how Wynonna feels about punctuality.”

“She’s probably heard of it, but I wouldn’t say they’re well acquainted.”

“Ah.”

“But you’re welcome to wait for her here,” Waverly said. Nicole couldn’t help her eyes wandering to the doorway where Willa had disappeared. “Don’t worry about Willa. Wynonna already told her it was okay for you to be here, and it’s two of us against one.”

Her eyes were bright, and she seemed more relaxed than the previous day. Nicole wondered if the good night of sleep had helped, and if so, if she would be welcomed back for a second night.

“Well, thank you for coming to my defense.”

“Of course, anytime.” Waverly glanced back towards the door where Willa still hadn’t reappeared. Then she leaned forward across the bar, staring intently until Nicole nearly shivered from the attention. Waverly seemed to be contemplating something, so she didn’t prompt her. Instead, she took a seat at the bar, as the radio played an energetic song about a showdown between a ranger and an outlaw. The morning passed so quickly, it was time for them to meet. It was twenty past eleven when they walked out in the street. “So I’ve been thinking all morning…” Waverly said, recapturing her attention.

“About what?” Nicole asked. After all, she knew what she had been thinking about all morning— the feeling of waking up in a soft bed with Waverly in her arms. Waverly let a moment of anticipation drag out.

“Eunice,” Waverly said, letting the strange word sit between them while Nicole stared back in befuddlement. “Or Agnes. Bertha. Hepzibah.”

Nicole blinked at her, her brain not making a connection.

“What…?”

“Your middle name,” Waverly said, and Nicole felt a wave of realization wash over her. “You said it was really bad, so I’ve been wondering what you meant by that. And I thought maybe it’s because it’s really old-fashioned.”

Nicole just laughed, picturing Waverly stocking the bar all morning and thinking up old, out-of-fashion names.

“No, none of those. Trust me, you'll never guess it.”

Waverly leaned forward against the bar, bringing them into closer proximity

“You won’t just tell me what it is?” she wheedled, fluttering her eyelashes. Nicole couldn’t repress her broad smile.

“You know, normally I would, but I feel like it’s going to be funnier to wait and see what you come up with,” she admitted, a small challenge in her voice.

“Oh, so it’s going to be like that, is it?” Waverly gave a playful huff and stepped back as another customer motioned for her attention.

Late morning seemed to be a reasonably busy time for the bar, although only a few dedicated patrons were actually drinking alcohol at that hour. More seemed to just be hanging around, chatting and catching up on news. Willa mostly stayed in the back room, only popping out occasionally to check on this or that behind the bar.

Starved for entertainment, Waverly and Nicole inadvertently made a game of dodging Willa’s attention, with Waverly surreptitiously sliding her shot glasses of water or sarsaparilla, then hiding them whenever she emerged— including one particularly close call in which Nicole, startled by Willa’s sudden reappearance, hastily slipped the shot glass down the front of her shirt, much to Waverly’s amusement.

“What’s so funny?” Willa asked, narrowing her eyes at her giggling sister while Nicole feigned abject boredom, one arm crossed lazily over her stomach to hide the bulge of the glass under her shirt.

“Nothing,” Waverly said, entirely unconvincingly. Willa shot Nicole a suspicious look, but Nicole just faked a yawn and looked back with disinterested eyes.

“Whatever,” Willa sighed, before withdrawing once again into the other room.

Once the coast was clear, Nicole awkwardly fished the glass back out, while Waverly laughed into her hands until she was nearly crying.

“Probably lucky there was just water in that one,” Nicole observed, rolling the glass to the other side of the bar, where Waverly expertly caught it.

Nicole had a suspicion that Willa might be ducking in and out of the back at least in part to keep an eye on her specifically. She suggested as much to Waverly, who rolled her eyes.

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” she agreed with a resigned sigh. “She does seem to have some sort of weird vendetta against you.” She frowned at the doorway Willa had disappeared through. “I don’t know why she even cares so much. She usually doesn’t pay any attention to new people.”

“Well, maybe she’ll come around,” Nicole said optimistically. Waverly shrugged, looking skeptical.

“She never came around to me.”

The words were casual, but Nicole could sense an underlying pain in them, and was about to respond with something sympathetic, but the door opened with a bang and Wynonna walked in, gun in hand, decked in some sort of lightweight leather armor.

“You’re late,” she said to Nicole.

“I’ve been here for over an hour,” she countered, as Waverly rolled her eyes at her sister.

“Well, let’s go. It’s already hotter than Satan’s ballsack out there, and it’s only gonna get worse.”

Nicole rolled her eyes.

“Right. Sorry I kept you waiting. It was very irresponsible of me.”

“You’re excused. This time.”

Nicole turned to offer Waverly a goodbye.

“Thanks for keeping me company. I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“Yeah. Stop in when you get back. I want to know how it went.”

“I will,” she promised, before Wynonna ushered her outside with an impatient shove.

Wynonna eyed her as they stepped outside and circled around to the back of the bar.

“You should get a hat. Your eyes are going to boil out of your head.”

Nicole scowled, the comment rankling. She “should” get a lot of things, like food and water and a second pair of underwear, and yes, a hat. If only she had literally any means of getting one. Wynonna herself had produced a short, black Desperado hat apparently from thin air and pulled it low over her eyes to block out the sun. She then began lining up an array of chipped glass bottles atop a fence as Nicole watched, squinting in the blazing sunlight, waiting for an explanation. Once she seemed satisfied, Wynonna leaned down and picked up a small bolt-action rifle where it had been leaning against the fencepost. She tossed it to Nicole without looking, leaving her to lunge and catch it mid-flight. Then, she marched a few dozen paces out and dug a line in the sand with the heel of her boot.

“Stand there and shoot the bottles,” she demanded. Nicole raised an incredulous eyebrow at her.

“Seriously?”

“If I’m going hunting with you, I want to make sure your aim doesn’t suck. Especially with a fresh head wound. It’s not personal.”

Nicole forced herself to swallow her pride and admit that it was a reasonable request. Wynonna had never seen her with a gun, and neither of them could say for certain that the fur coat man’s bullet didn’t blow out the part of her brain that remembered how to shoot.

“It’s fine. I get it. You don’t want me to accidentally put a bullet in you instead of a gecko.” She huffed. “I just haven’t shot bottles since...” She frowned, her memory failing. She knew she had done it before, when she was younger, but surely she wouldn’t have shot bottles in the vault. “...a really long time.”

“Then I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

Nicole looked over the gun as she strode towards the line. It was old and had obviously seen a lot of use, but it was still in good condition. She squared herself behind the line, raised the scope, and popped off four shots one after the other, her whole body acting on fine-tuned muscle memory. Four bottles exploded in a shower of glittering glass. For about a second, Wynonna just stared at the display with raised eyebrows, but she recovered quickly, a mask of nonchalance covering her features.

“Okay. I guess you’ll do,” she said off-handedly, with a careless shrug. Nicole smirked.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want you to worry for your own safety,” she taunted, leaning the rifle against her shoulder. Holding a gun in her hands felt familiar, felt right. She could tell that the rifle was longer than she would have preferred, and she would have happily traded it for something one-handed, but as she kept saying, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“Nobody likes a show-off,” Wynonna said, sounding a little put out.

“Want me to miss a few times so you feel better?” Nicole asked, grinning uncontrollably. Her ego had needed this boost, and she felt a hundred times more secure with a gun in her hand than she had unarmed. She had slept as well as she ever had in her life the night before, she was going to see Waverly again after the hunt, and they would return with fresh water and meat and hides to sell for caps. All in all, life was looking pretty good.

“No,” Wynonna said reluctantly. “Save the ammo. I think I’ll survive the trip.” She drew her own revolver and began leading Nicole downhill, heading out of town. “But you’d better not let this go to your head. I swear, it’s big enough already.”

“It is hard to find a hat that can contain it,” she joked, and laughed as Wynonna shot her a disgusted look.

“This is going to be hell, isn’t it?” the gunslinger groaned.

Chapter Text

“This is going to be hell isn’t it,” the gunslinger groaned as they trekked off towards the spring. And yet, it seemed obvious to Nicole that her casual disdain was all just an act. After all, she had seen the real thing in her older sister. Compared to Willa, Wynonna’s brand of caustic wit didn’t pack any real heat.

If Waverly was all sunshine and Willa was all darkness, then Wynonna was something in between. Moonlight, maybe. Dusk. Shade. Not full dark, but not full light either.

“You’re being too quiet,” Wynonna said, interrupting her musings. “We’re not just hunters, we’re bait. We want the geckos to know we’re here. So talk.”

For one wild moment, Nicole entertained the idea of telling Wynonna that she had just been thinking about how she was like moonlight, and the thought of her reaction was enough that she had to smother a fit of laughter.

“Okay, what do you want to talk about?” Nicole asked, her voice shaking with repressed mirth. Wynonna shot her a suspicious look.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I’m just in a good mood.” She tilted her head back and called ahead, “Hey, geckos! Over here! Come and get us!”

Wynonna eyed her for a moment longer, but must have decided it wasn’t worth her time to probe further. Instead, she fired a shot into the air, the crack of the gun echoing off the red rocks like a thunderclap. Nicole heard movement near them, her senses honing in on instinct.

They both turned and aimed in unison.

“Got it,” Wynonna said.

“You can’t call dibs,” Nicole protested.

“Watch me.”

The hip-high lizard charged at them on two legs, hissing furiously. Wynonna fired a single shot into its neck, and it tumbled to the dusty ground, motionless. Nicole resisted the urge to whistle. She had never seen a handgun fell a creature that big that fast.

“You weren’t kidding about that gun,” she murmured. Wynonna smirked over her shoulder, pride evident in her eyes.

“Peacemaker is basically a 20-gauge shotgun dressed up like a .357.” She polished the barrel on her sleeve. Nicole started to agree, but a flash of movement nearby triggered her reflexes, and she wheeled to the left, raising the varmint rifle. With a series of neat cracks, she peppered a few shots into the incoming gecko’s head, dropping it fast and saving the meat and hide from a bunch of lead-filled holes. Next to her, Wynonna chuckled.

“Not bad, Haught-Shot.”

“You used that one already,” Nicole said as she reloaded. The last thing she wanted to do was run low on ammo while one of the beasts charged at them.

“It still fits. I’ll think of more later.”

They approached their kills, Nicole kicking hers over to get a better look at it. It was mottled green, with a frill around its head. It would make an attractive hide. Grimly, she pulled out her knife.

Their small talk stayed fairly banal as they walked down the sloping hill, winding around the red, craggy boulders where the geckos could hide, unseen until they charged. At first, they mostly just talked about guns. Both favored handguns and scoffed at energy weapons.

“What’s even the point?” Wynonna groused when Nicole brought up plasma rifles. “It just vaporizes everything. You can’t even hunt with it.”

“Unless you like the taste of ash. Or that gross glowing goo.” Nicole paused to take a shot over a distant rock, where a flash of movement had given away a gecko’s position.

“Gross,” Wynonna echoed. “And real guns don’t run out of batteries in the middle of a fight!”

“Yeah,” Nicole agreed wholeheartedly, shooting the gecko’s legs out from under it, then reloading. “Ridiculous.” And then, because she literally couldn’t keep her mind from circling back to the same place over and over again like a broken record, “Waverly favors shotguns, doesn’t she?”

Wynonna gave her an odd look.

“Yeah, she does. She told you that?”

“Just in passing.” She tried not to sound too proud of that fact, but was pretty sure she failed. “I asked her what to expect from today, and she mentioned she hunted with you sometimes.”

Wynonna grunted vaguely, distracted by a movement in a nearby bush that turned out to be the wind. The geckos had become scarcer and scarcer as they felled them one by one, and Wynonna seemed disappointed to be out of targets.

Nicole, for her part, was starting to regret that they had chosen to come out in the heat of the afternoon instead of the cooler evening. The sun was relentless, and too high in the sky to cast much shadow, even among the plentiful rocks, leaving her to blink sweat out of her eyes and squint through the blinding sunlight. Without a hat, she was pretty sure she could feel her skin slowly burning. She just hoped the damage wouldn’t be too bad.

Wynonna finished her inspection of the bush (mostly consisting of kicking it a few times) and reluctantly nodded up a small incline, towards the looming mountain that sheltered the town on one side.

“It’s just up here. Come on.” She led the way up the rocky incline, leaving Nicole to follow. At the top was a flat space, marked by a metal contraption with a faded blue flag at the top, hanging listlessly in the still air. At the base were a set of pipes, with a spigot attached to one. Wynonna gestured to it with mock-grandeur. “Behold, our water source. It’s called the Styx.”

“Sticks?” Nicole echoed, peering down into a bucket under the spigot, where some water still pooled in the bottom. The water looked clear and didn’t offer any clues about the name. “Why? Does it taste… woody, or something?”

“No, not that kind of sticks. It’s like…” Wynonna tried to think of the story, but ended up shaking her head. “Ask Waverly. It’s some joke on the town name involving some old story.”

That rang a slight bell, and Nicole brightened at the thought of having a legitimate excuse to talk to Waverly when they returned. She might enjoy relaying the story.

“Right, she reads about history and mythology a lot, doesn’t she?” Nicole said. Wynonna shot her another odd look.

“Yeah, she does. She told you about that, too?” she sounded a little surprised.

“Is that weird?”

Wynonna shrugged.

“Hell if I know. She just usually doesn’t bring it up much with strangers.”

“Well, she and I talked quite a bit yesterday,” Nicole said, trying to sound nonchalant about that fact and failing.

“Clearly…”

They took a break at the spigot, much to Nicole’s relief. Her spit was about the consistency of Wonderglue, and she could tell that if they went much longer, it would start getting hard to talk. But more importantly, this much time spent under the afternoon sun— without a hat— made her head feel like the inside of a campfire. Wynonna, still in the lead, turned the spigot and cupped her hands under the stream, splashing her face a few times and shaking herself off.

“All yours,” she said, stepping back and gesturing for her to go ahead. In an uncharacteristic lapse in dignity, Nicole sank to her knees and dipped her head under the gushing stream, mildly surprised that it didn’t produce a sizzling sound on contact. The water was slightly cool, and she let it run over her head for a few merciful seconds before pulling back and actually making an effort to drink. The cool water running over her burning scar was basically heaven, and she regretted that she couldn’t just sit there all day letting it soothe the spot.

Wynonna, bored by a lack of stimulation, wandered circles around the small flat space, staring out at the rocks hopefully for signs of more wayward geckos.

Nicole looked up from the water after a moment, wiping her face dry on her sleeve. The sun still blazed down, making her squint, but the quick rinse had refreshed her. With some reluctance, she twisted the spigot off and stood, letting the water trickle down her shirt. It would be dry again in minutes anyway.

“So now what?” she asked, recapturing Wynonna’s wandering attention. “We walk back, catch any of the stragglers?”

Wynonna didn’t answer for a moment, as if weighing the question.

“I thought maybe we’d go a little farther down. If you’re up for it.”

Nicole nodded gamely.

“Sure, but why?”

“Well first off, there’s a fire pit down there, and I’m starving,” Wynonna said offhandedly. Nicole tried not to look too eager about the mention of food. “Plus, there’s some gang from down around Primm, and the radio keeps saying they’re setting up camps along the road. I want to make sure they aren’t creeping up on us.”

“A gang?” Nicole echoed, the fact sounding vaguely familiar. The radio had been playing all of yesterday while she was at the bar with Waverly, although she hadn’t been paying much attention to it. Wynonna gave a vague grunt, already leading the way further down the hill.

“Call themselves Revenants, or something. Bet they think that makes them sound badass.”

“They seem dangerous?” Nicole asked, making sure to keep a solid grip on her rifle as they descended.

“Sounds like it. I don’t know why they would want to come to Purgatory, but if they start this way, I want to know about it.”

The path down the hill ended in a campsite, where two fire pits lay alongside two hollowed-out trailers, with empty cans and broken bottles littering the ground like carpet. Wynonna began scoping out the clearing, making sure they didn’t have any company, while Nicole went to each fire pit in turn, putting her hand to the ashes.

“They’re cold,” she announced. “Not even an ember. No one’s staying here.” She dusted the ash off her hands with a frown. Wynonna finished her inspection of the trailers and returned with a nod.

“Looks like it.”

“That’s good, then,” Nicole said. “It means they haven’t gotten this far yet, right?”

“Could be moving towards Sloan instead,” Wynonna said thoughtfully. “Not that there’s anything worth doing there except getting ripped apart by deathclaws.”

Nicole shivered instinctively at the thought.

“So now what?” she asked after a moment. Wynonna shrugged and knelt beside one of the fire pits.

“You’re in luck, Haught, I’m going to teach you the fine art of cooking gecko steaks.” She unburied a few dry logs from the ash and grabbed some dried vines from a nearby rock.

“Pretty sure I’ve done it before,” said Nicole. Wynonna shot her an annoyed look, and she held her hands up. “But I’m sure my technique could always stand some improvement.”

“That’s more like it.”

Their small talk exhausted, Nicole paced the length of the campsite, keeping an eye out for stray geckos or Revenants, trying to keep out of the sun when possible. The sun had shifted just enough to cast a few shadows, and she was taking full advantage of that fact. Wynonna crouched at the campfire, prodding several chunks of gecko meat into cooking.

“Kebabs would be faster,” Nicole pointed out after a few minutes. The sight of the food was making her stomach riot again, hunger pains gnawing at her relentlessly.

“Steaks are better,” Wynonna countered, and Nicole didn’t argue. It was too late now anyway. The steaks were sizzling quietly over the campfire. Nicole squinted back towards the town, halfway up the long, sloping, rocky hill. Behind the town was another hill, marked by a derelict water tower.

“Is that the graveyard up there?” Nicole asked, wiping sweat from her forehead and shielding her eyes as she looked up towards the water tower. Wynonna stood briefly and followed her gaze before nodding and kneeling again.

“Yep, that’s it. Not the most romantic destination in the world. Unless you’ve got a thing for scorpions and bloatflies.”

“That’s where Victor dug me up,” Nicole explained, unsure if she would have heard the story already from Doc. Judging by the look on her face, she hadn’t.

“Oh. Shit. They buried you in a graveyard?”

“Guess they thought no one would look there.” Nicole shrugged. “What’s one more dead body?”

“No kidding.”

Nicole gazed up at it thoughtfully for several seconds, then glanced down at Wynonna. It was probably fair to call Wynonna the town’s protector, but she definitely wasn’t the law, and Nicole couldn’t be sure how much interest she would have in investigating Nicole’s near-murder.

“I kinda wanted to check it out sometime. See if they left anything behind,” she said carefully. Wynonna looked unfazed.

“Like your stuff?” she asked, absently flipping one of the steaks. Nicole shook her head a little.

“More like their stuff. Something that would help me figure out who they were, or why they did it.”

Wynonna glanced up at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Are you some kind of cop or something?” she asked. Nicole slid her hand in her pocket, to the sheriff’s star, and gripped it, letting the points dig into her palm.

“Something like that, I think,” she said. “I’m not totally sure. My recent memories are still kinda fuzzy.”

“Huh. Weird. Wonder why,” Wynonna deadpanned.

“Yeah, can’t imagine,” Nicole joked back with a slight smile. “I’ve been wondering about Victor, too. Doc said he’s a robot, right?”

“Yep. Securitron.”

“Right. What’s his deal?”

“He just lives here. I mean, you know, not ‘lives.’ But, he’s got a shack on the edge of town. He’s been here for years.”

“Huh. A Securitron…” Nicole mused, picturing a large, armored robot, like the kind guarding the gates to New Vegas. “All the way out here? You don’t usually see this this far from the Strip.”

Wynonna shrugged.

“Yeah, weird, I know. But he’s always seemed harmless enough. He freaks some of the townsfolk out, though. Willa hates him.” Nicole’s opinion of Victor rose at this fact.

“I haven’t seen any Securitrons rolling around since I got here. I think I’d have noticed,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, he disappears sometimes, but he’ll be back. I can show you his place when we get back to town.”

“Sure, thanks…” With a final look towards the graveyard where she was almost buried forever, she turned her attention back to the matter at hand. It wouldn’t do her any good to dwell on it now. There was plenty of time to investigate. But for now… “What, are you cooking those steaks down to charcoal or something? If we wanted to eat ash, we could have just brought a laser rifle.”

“Keep your skirt on, Haught-Potato. Perfection takes time.”

Nicole sank down next to her, on one of a few rocks obviously set there for that purpose.

“Well, how long does ‘technically edible’ take?”

Wynonna eyed her sideways.

“Less time.” She checked one of the steaks, lifting a corner and letting it drop. “You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?”

“No promises.”

“Well I’m not carrying you back to town. You pass out, you’re on your own until Victor gets back.”

Nicole chuckled.

“Fine, but you’re the one who gets to tell Waverly that you left me to get eaten by coyotes.”

Wynonna frowned at the thought, processing it for several seconds.

“Damn, you’re right. Waves would have me drawn and quartered.” Wynonna sighed, as if in regret. “Oh well. It was a nice thought, but I guess we’ve got to keep you alive a little longer, eh?”

“Yep. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

Wynonna shrugged, returning her attention to the steaks.

“Could be worse, I guess. At least you’re not some creepy dude.”

“You know, weirdly, I get that a lot.”

Chapter Text

Nicole and Wynonna tromped back into Purgatory dusty and sweaty, but in high spirits, Wynonna leading them directly back to Shorty’s.

“I know you probably want to get those sold and get some caps in your pocket, but I want to stop here first and make sure Willa and Waverly haven’t strangled each other,” Wynonna said, and Nicole immediately nodded her agreement. She’d promised Waverly she would stop in afterwards anyway, and she was embarrassingly eager to see her again.

“No argument here. I’d like to be sure of that, too.”

As they entered, Nicole made sure the varmint rifle was slung securely across her back, alongside the bag of gecko parts. Willa and Waverly were standing behind the bar, facing each other as though squaring off, but they had both fallen silent at the sight of Wynonna. There was a palpable tension in the air, like the air before a lightning strike.

“Turns out Haught here is a real ‘Haught-Shot’ with the rifle, so we’re back early,” Wynonna announced, eyes swiveling between her warring sisters, trying to get a read on the situation. They came to a halt on Waverly. “Everything alright, baby girl?”

Willa rolled her eyes at the nickname.

“We’re both fine, ‘Nona,” she said, a little pointedly. Waverly just shrugged in half-agreement and walked to the far end of the bar, putting as much distance between the two of them as possible. She began wiping down the counter with a rag. Her posture, slightly hunched in on herself, radiated stress, and Nicole wondered what Willa had been saying to her before they arrived. Leaving Wynonna to deal with the eldest sister, Nicole moved a few stools down, next to where Waverly was polishing needless circles into the same spot on the bar.

“Hey,” she greeted, keeping her voice light and gentle. Waverly’s eyes flickered up to her, softening slightly as their gazes met.

“Hey,” she echoed tiredly.

“You alright?” Nicole asked, soft enough that Willa wouldn’t overhear.

“It’s… how it always is,” Waverly sighed with a shrug and a shake of her head. Nicole took a moment to decide on her approach. She could try to cheer her up, try to comfort her, or try to distract her, but she didn’t know her well enough yet to know which was right. She started by covering Waverly’s hand with her own, stilling its motion. She didn’t pull away, which was encouraging.

“So Wynonna took me to see the town water source. She said it was called the Sticks, but not the kind I was thinking of. I tried asking her about it, but she said you could explain it best.”

Waverly seemed to perk up with slight interest at this. The darkness in her eyes lightened ever so slightly.

“She did?” There was a tiny, hopeful waver in her voice, and Nicole latched onto it.

“Yeah, she said you’re smart— like super smart— and you know all the stories behind stuff like that,” Nicole ad-libbed, hoping Wynonna wouldn’t mind the slight exaggeration. “And having seen your bookshelf and talked with you, I don’t doubt her for a second.” She glanced over to where Wynonna and Willa stood. Wynonna had a hand on Willa’s shoulder, but they appeared to be having a low, serious conversation. “So what’s the deal with the name? If it’s not literally about twigs or whatever?”

Waverly worried her lip for a moment, but she must have decided to take Nicole at her word, and so she took a deep breath and began the lecture.

“So… the Styx— S-T-Y-X, by the way— was a river in ancient Greek mythology. It was in their underworld, the place you went when you died. The River of the Dead. It’s a joke on the town name because, well, Purgatory. Another kind of afterlife.”

Nicole nodded. The name kind of rang a bell, now that she mentioned it. It was the kind of thing she had probably read about in a vault classroom, a lifetime ago.

“Isn’t it a little… ominous, to name your drinking water after the River of Death?” she wondered out loud. Waverly tilted her head back and forth, considering the question.

“Well, the water in the Styx wasn’t poisonous, necessarily. In fact, in some stories, like the one with Achilles, it made you invulnerable.”

“Invulnerable enough to survive a nuclear blast?” Nicole asked thoughtfully.

“I guess that’s the idea. Or just… to survive the desert itself.” Waverly shrugged.

“Clever.” Nicole eyed her for a moment. She seemed to have relaxed slightly, now that her attention had left Willa and turned to one of her favorite topics. The tension had left her face, and she leaned lightly against the counter. So far, she hadn’t moved her hand out from under Nicole’s, and so Nicole dared to leave it there. It felt good, to be able to give that comfort. “And you read about all that in books?”

“Mostly. Or sometimes people passing through will know a few stories.” She said it off-handedly, like it meant nothing, but Nicole was charmed by the idea of Waverly plying patrons for old stories and legends, then committing them one by one to memory.

“That’s kind of amazing,” she said. Waverly gave her a confused look.

“What’s amazing?”

“That you care. That you keep learning.”

Nicole was sincere, but Waverly eyed her with some instinctive suspicion.

“Are you making fun of me?” Her tone was wary, and in spite of herself, Nicole felt slightly wounded by the accusation. As though she would poke fun at anyone, let alone someone she liked as much as Waverly. As though she would mock someone right to their face. Her face dropped into a frown, her eyebrows knitting together.

“No, of course not. Did I sound like I was?”

“No, just… usually when people say stuff like that, they’re teasing me.” Waverly was blushing and looking chagrined, and Nicole felt the sudden urge to find those people and clock them in the jaw. Unable to do that, however, she quirked her lips up into a hopefully reassuring smile. She couldn’t make up for everyone else’s stupidity, but she could at least try to be better than them. At least she could give Waverly the respect she deserved.

“No, I mean it. I think it’s incredible that you’ve learned about all that, and remember it all. I mean, sometimes I’ll see an odd word or phrase in an old ad or something, and I’ll have no idea what it means, and I’ll wonder if anyone even knows what it means anymore, or if it’s just been lost forever. It’s nice to think that someone might still know and care about that kind of thing. You’re a rare breed, Waverly Earp.”

Waverly’s face had softened over the course of her speech, and she tilted her head, a strange, intrigued look coming over her.

“I don’t think I’m the only rare one here…”

There was a charged moment of intense eye contact between them, ruined by the sound of another voice.

“Hey, Waves—” Wynonna appeared at her sister’s side, breaking the moment. Waverly started at her surprise approach, instinctively pulling her hand out from under Nicole’s, much to her disappointment. “You doing okay?”

Waverly nodded, a slight blush in her cheeks.

“I’m fine. It was nothing.” Her voice sounded tired at even the mention of the fight. Wynonna didn’t look entirely convinced, but didn’t press the matter.

“Willa’s just going to finish balancing the books in back. You know, unless it gets really busy. You two think you can keep the peace until closing?”

Nicole saw Waverly’s gaze drift back to the door to the back room for just a moment, but then she seemed to rally herself and force a smile.

“Yeah, it’s fine. No problem.”

Visibly skeptical, Wynonna lingered for another moment, crossing her arms. She turned towards Nicole.

“Haught, you sticking around?” It was said flatly, but Nicole suspected that she was hoping the answer was yes. Waverly seemed interested in her answer as well, and Nicole grimaced apologetically.

“I wish, but I’d better go next door before our trophies start to smell.” She gave a tiny kick to the bag of gecko hides at her feet. “But if there’s time when I finish there, I’ll stop back.”

She was actually rather cheered by the disappointment in both their eyes. It felt nice to be wanted somewhere, even if it was just as a pleasant distraction from family drama.

“In that case, I’d better get that rifle back home.” Wynonna held out a hand, and Nicole quickly unslung the gun from her back and handed it across the bar. Wynonna hung it from her shoulder and gave Waverly a departing hug. Waverly let her, but shoved her back after a second.

“And take a bath while you’re at it. You smell terrible,” she said, wrinkling her nose in mock-disgust.

“Love you, too, sis,” Wynonna called as she walked out from behind the bar and slipped out the back door.

Waverly sighed as the door closed behind her, picking her cleaning rag back up and wiping down a few bottles in front of her.

“So you’re leaving, too?” she asked, enough disappointment bleeding into her voice that Nicole nearly changed all her plans on the spot.

“I can stay for another few minutes, maybe.” She glanced down at her sack of trophies and screwed up her face in pained apology. “But I do sort of need to go sell this stuff before the general store closes.”

Waverly nodded, a little resigned, and Nicole felt the weight of guilt on her shoulders.

“That's alright. You don’t have to stay.”

“I wish I could,” Nicole said honestly. “But if you need a break from Willa, I’ll just be next door.”

Waverly nodded once, nonetheless seeming appreciative of that fact.

“You’ll probably feel better with a few caps in your pocket,” she said understandingly. “Go ahead. Then maybe you’ll actually be able to pay for a drink next time.” Her eyes were teasing, and Nicole gave an answering grin.

“I’ve probably racked up quite a tab over the past day or two, but I’ll see what I can do.” With a little regret, she stood from the barstool and picked up her bag of spoils. Then, feeling like she didn’t want to just leave it at that, she fished her single bottle cap from her pocket and set it on the bar. Waverly raised a questioning eyebrow at her. “As a down payment,” Nicole explained. “So you know I’m good for it.”

After a second, Waverly picked up the single cap and eyed it with amusement.

“I guess it’s a start.”

Nicole departed from the bar and made her way over to the general store, a cluttered one-room space with shelves of knick-knacks lining the walls and a tiny desk in one corner. A bell dinged as the door opened and closed, and by the time she had walked up to the counter, a young man was emerging from the back room. Compared with most desert dwellers Nicole had met, he was unusually clean, and even clean-shaven.

“Afternoon,” he greeted in a friendly voice. “Buying or selling?”

Nicole hefted the sack off her shoulder.

“Hopefully some of each,” she said. “Selling first.”

She began unloading the gecko hides, then eggs, then the wrapped steaks. She would have liked to keep a few to eat later, but she worried about them spoiling or attracting bloatflies without a safe place to store them.

“Haven’t seen you before,” the shopkeeper commented, as he tallied up the goods and calculated a fair price. “What brings you to Purgatory?”

“Wish I knew,” she said absently. “Just sort of woke up here.”

“Oh, are you the one Doc’s been talking about?”

“I see my reputation precedes me.” With a wry smile, she stuck out a hand and he paused his tally to shake it. “Nicole.”

“Robin. Jett, obviously. Welcome to town.” He had a slight, charming smile and a calm, easygoing manner. “What all do you need?”

Nicole shrugged, letting her eyes roam over his shelves of wares.

“A little of everything, I guess. Clothes. Food. A canteen. A gun or two.” A memory sparked in her mind, and she looked at him eagerly. “Hats. Where are your hats?”

Half of Robin’s face scrunched in a brief, apologetic expression.

“Sorry. Fresh out.” Nicole nearly groaned, her hopes crumbling. “Haven’t gotten any caravans through in awhile. I’m expecting one any day now, though.”

“Well, let’s just focus on the rest of it, then,” she sighed with regret.

“That we can do.”

He continued sorting through the trophies and marking tallies on his clipboard. He tucked the pencil behind his ear when he was finished and set the clipboard on the counter.

“How many caps does that come to?” Nicole asked, trying not to dread the answer.

“Not enough for everything you mentioned, sad to say. You’ll have to choose between the gun and everything else.”

Nicole sighed in impotent frustration, running a hand through her hair and scrubbing at her scar, which was still stinging and itching, especially after her time in the sun. Finally, she shrugged. There was nothing to be done for it.

“What kind of guns do you have?” she asked, without a whole lot of hope.

“In this price range? Let’s see…” He flipped a few pages on the clipboard, checking an inventory sheet. “On the low end, a BB gun.”

Nicole was unamused.

“To protect myself against what, mosquitoes?”

“Right, then we’ll skip over the .22 as well,” he said, and Nicole nodded in agreement. “I think I just got a nice plasma pistol in—” He saw the unhappy look on Nicole’s face and broke off. “Right, sorry I even brought it up.”

Nicole sighed, rubbing at her scar again and willing herself into a better mood. After all, it wasn’t Robin’s fault that she was broke and stranded.

“Sorry, nothing against your inventory. I’m just not a fan of energy weapons,” she said, trying to lighten her tone. He shrugged easily.

“Lots of folks aren’t. Myself, I like them. But I’ll admit that I have unusual tastes.”

Nicole shook her head with resignation.

“Forget the gun. I’ll wait on it. What about the rest?”

“The rest is easy. Clothing is all in a trunk over there. You’re welcome to look through it. Food’s on the shelves. I can get a canteen out of the back.”

“Thanks.” He disappeared, and she knelt by the trunk, rummaging through the piles of mixed clothing. Most of the women’s clothing wouldn’t fit her height, but she wasn’t in much of a position to be picky. Robin returned within a minute and took a seat in the corner, listening to the radio sing about heartaches by the number and not attempting any further small talk, which suited Nicole fine. He seemed nice enough, but her mind was churning, trying to figure out how to get enough caps to buy a gun without first having a gun to hunt and protect herself with.

She had set aside a few sets of decent enough clothing— simple travelers’ clothes, mostly— when the bell on the door jingled and she looked up automatically.

“Evening, Waverly,” Robin greeted from the corner. “What brings you here?”

Waverly gave him a friendly, if slightly sheepish, smile.

“Uh, nothing. I mean, I don’t need to buy anything. I was just looking for Nicole. I wanted to ask her something.”

Instantly, Nicole felt her mood brighten.

“Willa driving you crazy already?” she asked, grinning up from where she was seated on the floor by the clothing trunk. Waverly walked over, peering into the trunk curiously.

“No, she’s been staying in the back room. But I didn’t want to say too much in front of her.”

Waverly absentmindedly reached into the trunk, looking through the clothing herself. Nicole noticed Robin slipping into the back room again to give them some privacy and felt a rush of gratitude towards him.

“About what?”

But Waverly had gotten distracted by something in the trunk. She grabbed onto a light blue sleeve, pulling on it until a full outfit emerged from the tangle of fabric.

“Hey, look— it’s a vault jumpsuit,” she held it out to Nicole with a slightly teasing smile. Nicole took it, a rare wave of nostalgia rolling over her. The jumpsuits were somewhat rare outside of the vaults, but she had run into them before on occasion. Some folks even collected them.

“You know, they’re actually kind of practical,” she murmured, turning it over to check the number on the back. Certain vaults were more common than others— Vault 3, Vault 21. But this one had a large yellow 7 on the back, and Nicole felt like her whole body had suddenly frozen solid. Vault 7. The yellow number burned itself into her mind, drawing other things out with it. Things she hadn’t thought of in years. In her mind, she could picture a sea of yellow sevens— lounging in a cafeteria, sitting in a classroom, walking down a hallway… sprawled on the floor, sprayed with red. Without conscious thought, she turned the uniform back to the front, bowing her head over it to inspect the fabric. Reddish-brown stains muddied the yellow piping over the chest, and she felt her stomach lurch and her head spin.

When she felt the touch on her shoulder, her instinct was to jump up and wheel around, but her reactions were sluggish and her body felt limp. Instead, she blinked up and saw Waverly now crouched beside her, looking worried. Nicole set the jumpsuit down and tried to breathe through the nausea and the hot-and-cold flush of her blood.

“S-sorry,” she murmured, trying to shake herself free of the mental images, which were already fading. She let them fade, pushing them farther and farther away, taking the fear and nausea with them.

“Are you okay?” Waverly murmured, her voice as gentle as her touch.

“Yeah, just… nothing, I guess. I’ve never seen a Vault 7 one out in the Waste before.” She tried to recover her previous good mood, the pleasure she’d felt from seeing Waverly walk through the door, the relief of finally getting some supplies of her own, but it was an uphill battle.

“Was seven yours?” Waverly asked. Nicole nodded slowly, her head suddenly aching terribly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.” She felt the memories threatening to encroach again and threw the jumpsuit back into the trunk, closing the lid solidly over it. She forced a smile. “Weird coincidence, huh? Wonder how it got all the way out here.”

Waverly’s concerned expression didn’t lessen, and she didn’t move her hand from Nicole’s shoulder.

“We get caravans from all over. You’d be surprised the kinds of things that can turn up.”

“Yeah,” Nicole responded vaguely, still fighting for a grip on herself. It was getting easier now, blinking the image of the yellow 7 out of her eyes, dragging herself back into the present. “But, uh… you came here to ask me something, right?”

“Oh. Right.” Waverly seemed to remember suddenly that she was there for a reason. “Um… if you wanted to stay over again... tonight, I mean... you can.”

That thought was warm and pleasant enough that Nicole managed to banish the last of the coldness in her chest, and her smile melted from fake into genuine.

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Good.” Waverly looked a little relieved, either by her change in demeanor or by her answer. “Willa and I are both closing, so she’ll be up late. Her room is all the way on the eastern corner. Once she turns her light off, if you come to my window again, I’ll let you in. She usually goes right to sleep.”

“Okay. It’s a plan,” Nicole agreed. Waverly smiled.

“Great.” She glanced back at the door. “Um… I should get back to the bar, but… are you sure you’re okay?”

Nicole waved her off.

“I’m fine. Just an unscheduled trip down memory lane. But it’s nothing important.”

“Okay…” she stood, removing her hand from Nicole’s shoulder— which caused a small pang of loss. “I’ll see you later, then, right?”

“Absolutely. Wild centaurs couldn’t keep me away.”

Chapter Text

As Waverly and Willa finished closing the bar, Nicole found herself at the gas station again, perched in her makeshift chair. The high vantage point afforded her a view of the Earp homestead, including one particular window in the corner. Willa’s window. She loitered there, one leg swinging impatiently, until the universe finally took pity on her and the light in the window went dark.

With a sigh of relief, she hopped to her feet and set off. She had memorized the path to the house earlier in the day, noting where the cacti lurked, waiting to trip her up, and so this time she managed to arrive unscathed. She walked up to Waverly’s window, dimly lit by the flickering light of a candle, and knocked gently.

Even in the dim candlelight, she saw Waverly practically leap from her bed and rush to the window to open it. As soon as it was high enough, Nicole slipped through.

“Hey,” she greeted softly, unable to keep the smile from her face. Waverly was already dressed for bed this time, and Nicole had barely been in the room for five seconds when a nightshirt was thrust into her hands.

“God, I thought she’d never go to sleep,” Waverly whispered, clearly simmering with frustration. Nicole touched her shoulder reassuringly.

“It’s fine. It’s not that late,” she said.

“Did you have to wait around for a long time?” Waverly seemed restless, her hands twisting in fidgety patterns. She marched over to the bed and began straightening the sheets, and Nicole took advantage of her distraction to withdraw to a corner and disrobe.

“Not too bad. I just went back to the old gas station.” She unbuttoned her shirt and shrugged it off, frowning at the streaks of dust all over it. “Why’s it locked? Does the town use it for something?”

“I think Robin used to use it for storage.”

“The guy from the general store?”

“Yeah. Back when business was better, he’d store extra inventory up there. But I doubt he uses it anymore. Why?” Waverly sounded curious.

Nicole pulled the nightshirt over her head and then removed her trousers. She went to fold them, but a lump in one of the pockets stopped her. She suddenly remembered the book.

“Oh, wait, I forgot. Here. This is yours. I had it in my hand this morning when I had to bolt.” Nicole fished the paperback out of her pocket and handed it to Waverly, who had apparently finished fussing with the bed. “I didn’t mean to run off with it. I would have given it back to you at the bar, but I thought you might not want Willa to see.”

“Oh. Good thinking.” Waverly accepted the book, flipping through it absently. “Sorry you had to carry it around with you all day.”

“That’s okay. Actually, it came in handy. I didn’t have anything else to do this morning, so I read it.”

Waverly paused, her hands freezing mid-page-turn.

“You… read it?” She looked up at Nicole with puzzled eyes, like she didn’t quite believe what she had heard.

“Yeah.” Nicole continued folding her trousers, annoyed to find them equally dusty from their hunting trip. At least now she had replacements.

“The whole thing?”

“Yeah. It was good. I liked it.” Finished sorting out her clothes, Nicole made her way over to the bed. Her jaw stretched in a yawn, and she absentmindedly rubbed at the back of her head, where the scar prickled, irritated from the heat of the day.

“Really?” Waverly seemed strangely skeptical at such a simple statement, and Nicole raised an eyebrow at her.

“Is that so hard to believe?” she asked, perching on the bed. Waverly didn’t respond right away, so she elaborated. “I thought they were cute together. And when the ranch owner said he was going to take Trigger, I think I might have gasped out loud. I’m lucky there wasn’t anyone else around at the time.” She attempted a self-deprecating laugh, and some of the doubt evaporated from Waverly’s expression. She closed the book and returned it to its place on the bookshelf.

“I always do, too. Even though I already know how it ends and everything,” she confessed shyly. She ran a finger along the spines of the books. “I’m glad you didn’t have it out in the bar. Willa was being a real… Willa today. I’m sure she would have said or done something.”

Nicole was a little surprised she had even brought it up, but it was clear that the restlessness hadn’t quite left her yet. It at least seemed worth considering that maybe she wanted to talk about it, so Nicole took the gambit.

“You two looked like you were about to start shooting when Wynonna and I got back from the hunt,” she said carefully, testing the waters. Waverly was still standing by the bookshelf, her face hidden as she perused the titles, but the stress was visible in her posture. She stood a little too stiff, her shoulders a little too high, like she was bracing for an impact. “What was she saying to you?”

Waverly shook her head, still facing away, and Nicole resisted the urge to close the distance between them. They were on their way to something— maybe friends, maybe more— but they had only known each other for a few days, after all. She would give Waverly the space to come to her if she wanted to. That was the least she could do.

“It was nothing.” Waverly’s voice was flat, tired, and entirely unconvincing.

“It didn’t look like nothing. You seemed upset.”

Nicole watched her shoulders slump, like even the memory of it was weighing on her.

“She just… She’s always known exactly how to get under my skin, whenever she wants. It’s like a superpower. I know I should just ignore her, but she makes it so hard.” Her voice was shaking now, but without a clear view of her face, Nicole couldn’t tell if it was from anger or tears. Either way, her instincts screamed at her to walk over and pull her into a hug. Only a modicum of propriety had her resisting.

“Hey…” she murmured instead, her heart aching. “Come here…” She patted the space next to her on the bed. She wouldn’t close the distance between them without an invitation, but that didn't mean she couldn't offer one herself. Waverly finally turned, her arms crossed and her face tense. Nicole waited a beat, and with a small sigh, Waverly approached and sat next to her on the bed. Her arms stayed crossed, her posture rigid, and Nicole didn’t make an attempt to touch her yet. “What kinds of things does she say to you?”

Waverly shook her head, as if dismissing the question.

“Just… anything she thinks will get to me. Things about me, or Wynonna, or our parents.” She sighed and uncrossed her arms, instead using them to grip the mattress on either side of her. Nicole tracked the change, noting that one of Waverly’s hands was scant centimeters from touching her leg, and decided it was close enough. She raised her arm and rested a hand on Waverly’s back, just beneath the nape of her neck. At the touch, Waverly seemed to relax minutely, leaning just a little bit forward. Nicole took that as encouragement, and gently rubbed back and forth along her tense shoulders.

“Your parents?” she prompted gently. Waverly had closed her eyes under the ministrations, and so Nicole kept up the slow, steady rhythm.

“Yeah…” Waverly  breathed out a sigh. “Daddy always favored Willa, and Wynonna was Mama’s favorite. Mama ran off when we were pretty young, so I don’t remember her much, but I think she loved me. At least, I like to think she did. But Daddy… I don’t know. The way he looked at me… I always wondered…”

She trailed off, her expression tired and resigned.

“Wondered… if he didn’t like you?” Nicole guessed. She kept her touch soft, but began rubbing circles on either side of her neck, where the muscles were tight. She kept an eye out for any sign that Waverly was uncomfortable, or wanted her to stop, but it never came. On the contrary, she finally released her death grip on the mattress and shifted an inch or so closer to Nicole, until their knees barely touched.

“More like… maybe I wasn’t his,” she said finally. Nicole’s eyes widened in surprise, and Waverly attempted a wry smile. “I know, it sounds weird. But he was different with Willa and Wynonna, and some of the things Willa has said over the years… It would kinda make sense…”

It wasn’t a possibility that had occurred to Nicole, and she wondered how likely it was. The Earp sisters were hardly carbon copies of one another, but there was a passing resemblance. And just because a parent was distant didn’t mean they weren’t blood-related— Nicole herself was proof enough of that. But Waverly had an entire life’s worth of memories and interactions to draw from, and Nicole could tell that she hadn’t come to this theory lightly.

“Wouldn’t Wynonna have told you?” Nicole asked after a few seconds of thought, and Waverly shook her head again.

“I don’t think she’d even know. We were both pretty young when he died.” She shrugged, a little dismissively, forcing her expression into something lighter. “And anyway, it’s just a guess. There’s no way of finding out one way or the other.” Her smile strengthened a little, and she gave a small chuckle as she seemed to think of something new. “Besides, Wynonna would go nuclear if she heard me say we weren’t real sisters.”

Glad that she seemed to be feeling better but still feeling the need to counter the statement, Nicole finally spoke up in earnest.

“Even if you’re right about your father, it doesn’t mean that you and Wynonna aren’t real sisters. Trust me, you’ve got the real thing. Seeing you two together makes me sorry I'm an only child.” She gave Waverly’s shoulder an extra squeeze. “And it didn’t give your father the right to treat you worse, either. That just makes him an ass.”

Waverly gave another small chuckle, but didn’t argue back. She was quiet for another minute, apparently content to just relax into Nicole’s soothing touch.

“Thanks,” she said finally, the word soft in the quiet room. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever actually told anyone about that. I always thought Wynonna would freak, and this town has so much baggage with my family already…”

“I’m glad you told me. And I’m glad you felt like you could tell me.” It was a relief, really, to know that her instant fondness for Waverly might be reciprocated, even a little.

“You just seem so…” Nicole held her breath as Waverly searched for a word. “Trustworthy.”

Nicole huffed a laugh, but she supposed if that was the best she was going to get, she would take it and be grateful.

“And super sincere,” she added, a little teasingly. Waverly laughed a little.

“Yeah, and that.” She sighed and, with visible reluctance, stood, leaving Nicole’s hand behind. “Well… anyway… Are you ready to go to sleep?”

“Yeah, sure.” Nicole withdrew from the bed and folded the covers back, and there was a moment of awkwardness as they both lay down, Nicole once again trying not to let her long frame take up the lion’s share of the mattress. She felt especially guilty today, feeling the layer of dirt and dried sweat on her skin left over from the day spent in the sun. She remembered Waverly’s teasing comment to Wynonna about needing a bath. “Sorry if I smell. I didn’t get a chance to wash up after today.”

Waverly, still arranging the blankets so that she was fully covered, glanced over.

“You smell fine. I guess a little sweaty, but it’s not bad.” A slight flush of color appeared in her cheeks, enough to be clear even in the candlelight. “Actually, you smell kind of… sweet. It’s nice.”

“Oh.” Nicole wasn’t sure anyone had ever accused her of such a thing before, but it was somewhat cheering to hear, especially given the alternative. “Well, that’s a relief. I’ll still make sure to wash up tomorrow.” She glanced towards the nightstand. “Want me to get the light?”

Waverly murmured an affirmative, and Nicole leaned over and blew out the candle, leaving them in sudden darkness. It was somehow less awkward in the dark, and Nicole felt herself instinctively relax. It felt safer, to not be able to fully see each other’s faces.

“You said, this morning…” Waverly said after a minute, then paused. Nicole tried to fill in the end of the sentence, but fell short. They had said lots of things to each other that morning. “You said you didn’t mind if…” she trailed off again, but this time Nicole was able to fill in the gap. She shifted closer to Waverly and wrapped an arm around her middle, trying to not feel smug about the invitation. “Yeah… Thanks…” She felt Waverly’s hand touch down on her arm, as though holding it in place or checking that it was really there. “Goodnight, Nicole.”

It sure is, isn’t it?, she wanted to say, but resisted. For now.

“Sleep well.”

Chapter Text

Nicole, accustomed to waking with the sun, once again woke before Waverly, once again holding her from behind in a cozy embrace. In the back of her mind, a voice whispered, God help me, I could get used to this.

She didn’t mind waking first, especially since it gave her time to savor the experience. Her head felt better today, no doubt a side-effect of a few decent meals and two nights of incomparable sleep, but the scar itself was burning again, aggravating her. But rubbing at it would have meant removing one of her arms from Waverly, and that wasn’t about to happen. So she fought to ignore it, distracting herself by focusing on the girl in her arms instead.

It had been a long time since she had shared a bed with someone— the last person she had regularly slept with was Shae, and that was ages ago— and she was a little surprised by how much she had missed it. There was something steadying about another warm presence in the bed, and the sound and feeling of someone else’s breathing. It made it so much easier to tune everything else out, from the nighttime sounds of the desert to the intrusive thoughts of her own mind. Or, in this case, the rather grating irritation of her healing gunshot wound.

It only felt like a matter of minutes when Waverly shifted in her arms, squirming back deeper into her embrace and pulling the blankets up to her chin before she opened her eyes.

“Hm…” she hummed after a moment, blinking in the washed-out dawn light. “Morning again.” She didn’t sound surprised this time, but she did sound a little impressed.

“Sleep well?” Nicole asked, loosening her grip in case Waverly wanted to get up. But like the day before, she didn’t seem in any hurry to leave the warmth of the bed.

“Yeah. God, it’s so weird, not waking up all the time.” She rubbed at her eyes for a moment before settling again.

“Good weird, though, right?” Nicole checked.

“Of course it’s good.” Waverly’s hand found her arm again, hidden beneath the floral-print sheets, and held it in place. “Most of the time, after a day like yesterday, I’d have stayed up half the night thinking about what Willa said, or worrying about what we would do today. And then this morning I’d feel like I’d been dragged behind a Brahmin all night.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure the Brahmin don’t sneak through the window and drag you away,” Nicole promised, laughter in her voice at the mental image of one of the big, clumsy two-headed cows attempting to clamber through the open window. Waverly nudged her reproachfully with her elbow, but even she had half a smile on her face at the thought.

“Seriously, though, thanks for last night. I don’t get a chance to talk about that kind of stuff very much. And you were really sweet about it.”

Nicole was about to respond with some comment about not needing to be thanked for common human decency, but there was the sound of a door creaking in the hallway, and they both froze.

“Should I go?” Nicole whispered after a few seconds of tense silence. She was still only wearing the too-short nightshirt, and would have to grab her clothes on the way out and somehow put them on between here and the town. It wouldn’t be easy. But Waverly shook her head. Now fully awake, she slipped out from under Nicole’s arm.

“Stay here and don’t move. I’ll go see who it is.”

Nicole nodded, and Waverly exited the room, closing the door behind her. If she strained her ears, Nicole could just barely hear her footsteps in the hall, and then voices, muffled by distance and walls. It was going to kill her to just lie in the bed, exposed, waiting to see what would happen. Her instincts would sooner have her crouched behind the wardrobe or under the window, better hidden from sight. But Waverly had told her to stay put, and Nicole was willing to follow orders. She held perfectly still on the bed as the minutes crept on, although now that her hands were free, she did make one concession to silently chafing her scar again, hoping to calm its stinging.

There was the sound of another door opening in the hallway, then shutting more forcefully, and Nicole froze even that motion. Her instincts identified Willa, although she realized even as she thought it that Wynonna was just as prone to kicking doors open and shut and making a commotion. She watched the bedroom door with hawklike intensity, waiting for it to open and reveal a startled-looking Wynonna or an angry-looking Willa, but it didn’t. Instead, muffled voices and the clanging of pots and pans came from the kitchen as, presumably, the sisters cooked and ate breakfast, with two of the three blissfully ignorant of the interloper in their youngest sister’s bed.

It felt strange to lie in someone else’s bed and listen to them in the other room, but it wasn’t like she had much of a choice. Leaving would be more conspicuous than staying, and besides that, she didn’t like the idea of leaving without saying goodbye.

Without anything else to do, she pulled the blanket back over herself and closed her eyes again, not quite sleeping, but not fully awake, still holding completely still. It was the same way she would rest overnight in the desert— half-dozing in a shelter or by a fire, but still aware enough to snap to her feet at the first sign of danger.

Eventually, the door creaked, and Nicole’s eyes flew open, zeroing in on the entering figure and relaxing when she saw that it was just Waverly.

“Okay, they’re on their way out. It’s safe,” Waverly said after closing the door behind her, her voice still slightly lowered. Nicole sat up in the bed, yawning and absentmindedly rubbing the back of her head, maybe with a little more force than necessary. Waverly seemed to track the movement with her eyes, and cocked her head slightly. “Does your head still hurt?”

“Not really,” she admitted, although she continued fussing with the scar as it prickled stubbornly. “It’s just the scar. It’s been bothering me a little.”

Waverly eyed her with keen interest.

“Did Doc tell you anything about it? Like if it was supposed to start feeling better, or to watch out for signs of infection or anything?”

“No, I didn’t think to ask,” Nicole said. She forced herself to drop her hand and leave it alone, but it kept burning. “I don’t think it’s anything that serious. For all I know, it’s just healing. It’s more annoying than painful.”

Waverly approached the bed and perched beside her.

“Can I look at it?” she asked. She had tempered the eagerness in her gaze, but Nicole could still sense her rampant curiosity. On the one hand, she hated the idea of anyone, even Waverly, seeing the scar. On the other hand, it might be nice to have an objective eye look at it and make sure nothing was wrong. She had expected the discomfort to lessen over time, but that didn’t seem to be happening. Even now, it was taking a not-insignificant amount of her focus to just ignore it.

“Sure, okay,” she said finally. She shifted on the bed, first half-bowing, then straightening awkwardly, trying to find the most dignified way to offer the back of her head to someone. Finally, with a glint of amusement in her eye, Waverly just sat cross-legged on the mattress next to her and patted her lap. Attempting to quell a blush— and not succeeding— Nicole shifted over and obediently rested her head in her lap. She closed her eyes as fingers began carding through her hair, brushing lengths of it out of the way. The sensation was an almost primal pleasure, and she had to force herself not to sigh and slump into boneless relaxation. It only took a few seconds before she could feel the slightest touch of cool air on the burning skin of her scar.

“Oh, ow,” Waverly murmured sympathetically, no doubt inspecting the damage.

“Yeah,” Nicole mumbled her agreement. “I’m not sorry I don’t remember getting it.”

“No, I wouldn’t be either.” The soft touch of a cool finger sliding down the length of the scar made every hair on Nicole’s body stand on end, and a shiver snaked down her spine. “Sorry, did that hurt?”

“No,” she rasped, her voice strained from the effort of holding still. She cleared her throat in an attempt to remedy it. “No, it, uh, doesn’t really hurt that bad most of the time. Just stings a lot. Or itches, kinda.”

Waverly made a thoughtful noise at this explanation, and the finger traced the scar again. This time, Nicole couldn’t suppress a visible shiver. Then, she felt a fingernail scrape along the edge of the scar, bringing both pain and relief, and an involuntary, humiliating noise escaped her throat.

“That’s where it hurts, right?” Waverly asked, needlessly, as Nicole was already tilting her head to grant her better access. With another hum, Waverly rubbed the pad of her thumb over the same spot, almost experimentally, soothing it.

“How did you know?” Nicole asked, once the pain had died back down.

“Blood,” Waverly murmured. “It looks like there’s still dried blood around the wound. And something else, like glue or something. I’m not surprised it’s been bothering you.”

In hindsight, it seemed obvious. There would have had to have been stitches or surgical glue to hold the wound closed. And it wouldn’t have been easy for Doc to get all the blood out of her hair while she was unconscious on his bed. And of course dried blood caked on the already sensitive damaged skin would just make it more irritated.

“Well that explains a lot,” she said lightly, even as her brain began agonizing over the logistics it would take to get it properly washed. “I’ll have to take a trip down to the Styx.” It would take forever to wash out. She knew from experience that dried blood was stubborn, and that scrubbing plain soap into her hair would make it feel dry and brittle. And that being rough with the scar would probably make it even more sore and irritated, at least in the short-term.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You won’t even be able to see what you’re doing,” Waverly said bluntly. “How will you know if you actually get it all?”

Nicole fought the urge to squirm under her gaze.

“I’ll just have to keep trying,” she mumbled.

“See, that’s stupid. Just stay here. I’ll do it.”

Nicole wanted to protest, if only for the sake of propriety, or so as not to inconvenience anyone, but it was hard to argue with the logic of it. And it was harder to argue with the appeal of an excuse to have Waverly’s hands in her hair.

“Here?” she asked after a moment, her voice slightly higher than usual.

“Yeah. We have water. You wouldn’t want to drink a lot of it, but it’s safe to wash with. And much as I hate to admit it, Willa makes really good soap out of the desert plants.” Her thumb traced over the scar again, the cool touch soothing against the sting, and Nicole felt her resolve weaken.

“Are you sure?” she offered one last chance for Waverly to bail. She didn’t take it.

“Of course I’m sure.”

And that was how Nicole found herself ten minutes later, her head back in Waverly’s lap, albeit on a folded towel this time. Her hair was wet from the bathroom sink, and a bowl of heated water and a cloth sat on the nightstand next to them.

“Is this alright?” Waverly asked.

“Is it alright with you?” Nicole countered incredulously, feeling that that was the far more relevant question.

“I’m the one who offered.” The accompanying eye-roll was audible in her tone, even if Nicole couldn’t see her face from this angle. “Besides, you have no idea how many times I’ve had to patch up Wynonna and Willa over the years. They’re tough, but they forget they’re not invincible.”

Waverly began combing out her hair with her fingers, and Nicole felt any remaining resistance leave her. She closed her eyes and let herself relax into the feeling. Within a minute, her scar was exposed again, and Waverly chose a small glass bottle with a handwritten paper label from the nightstand. She poured a measure of the creamy-looking liquid onto her palm and rubbed it between her hands.

“This is a shampoo Willa made, I think from… prickly pear pulp? And some other plants. I forget what’s in it exactly, but it should be gentle enough to not aggravate the wound. I hope.”

Nicole debated asking how sure they could be that it wasn’t poisonous if Willa had in fact made it, but that train of thought derailed immediately as Waverly began applying the liquid over the scar and massaging it into her scalp. She had planned to play it cool, but the relief was so stark that she couldn’t suppress a small moan. As though startled by the noise, Waverly’s hands paused for a second.

“Was that a good sound or a bad sound? Did I hurt you?” she asked, sounding a little worried.

“Very good sound,” Nicole clarified, glad that her face was mostly hidden by the towel and her hair, but feeling the heat of a blush. “Sorry. I, uh… wasn’t expecting it to feel that good.”

“Oh,” Waverly sounded rather pleased with herself. “That’s okay then.” She recommitted her hands to their motions, rubbing the soap in and scrubbing with her fingertips. She was gentle enough to not further damage the healing wound, but Nicole still had to suppress the urge to sigh or even groan.

“Why do Wynonna and Willa need to be patched up a lot?” she asked, hoping for something— anything— to distract her and keep her from melting into a boneless puddle in Waverly’s lap.

“Oh, just the usual. They help protect the town. Sometimes just from animals, but every so often, some gang or something will take a whack at us,” Waverly said, sounding very matter-of-fact.

“They don’t go to Doc?” Nicole prompted when she fell silent.

“Wynonna will sometimes, if it’s something major or if she feels like it. Doc’s one of the few people in town she actually trusts. And I think he really cares about her, even if they’re both too stupid and stubborn to say it out loud.”

“Doc and Wynonna?” Nicole echoed, a little surprised. She had thought that Doc had seemed older, and his polite friendliness was a contrast to Wynonna’s sharper, more ambiguous variety. But maybe they worked because of that, not in spite of it. Waverly just hummed an affirmative.

“Yeah. But Wynonna acts like there’s no wound that can’t be cured by enough sleep and whiskey. And Willa’s not much better. She doesn’t trust proper medicine, so she uses herbal remedies for everything. I’ve seen her just dab crushed-up plants over a knife wound before. But it did heal eventually, so who knows. Maybe she’s right.”

“Probably ground-up xander root and broc flowers. I hate that stuff.” Nicole wrinkled her nose in distaste, remembering how the powder stuck unpleasantly to the wound, like an artificial scab. It was a popular traveler’s remedy, easy to make and carry, but it didn’t hold a candle to real medicine. She’d take a stimpak over healing powder any day of the week. “It works okay, but it feels weird, and it always makes my vision go all blurry. But I guess it’s good to keep some around if you’re out in the desert, just in case.”

Waverly was quiet for a moment, taking the time to dab warm water over the wound with a washcloth.

“There, it’s already looking a little better,” she murmured encouragingly. Then, a little more guarded, she added, “It sounds like you’re starting to remember a little more.”

“Some stuff, yeah,” Nicole agreed. “But still not everything. I still don’t remember much about being shot, or what I was doing before that.” She closed her eyes as Waverly applied another dose of the soap and rubbed it in.

“I think I should let that sit for a minute,” she murmured, and Nicole mourned as the hands pulled away. But then, to her surprise and delight, they returned, massaging the shampoo into the rest of her scalp. It was basically heaven. As the dexterous fingers rubbed smooth circles into her temples, where the last dregs of the headache lingered, Nicole felt a long sigh pull itself from her chest, low and slightly rumbling, almost a purr. It felt like just what Doc would have ordered, had he thought about it.

“That feels better,” she murmured, hoping to encourage her to continue, possibly indefinitely.

“I thought you said your head had stopped hurting.” There was a hint of teasing accusation in Waverly’s voice, but her hands continued their rhythmic motions.

“Compared to when I first woke up in Doc’s house, it had,” Nicole tried to explain, although her brain felt distracted and slightly muddled. “But it still maybe hurt just a tiny bit.”

After a minute, Waverly returned to the scar, gently scrubbing with the warm cloth.

“It’s almost clean,” she announced, sounding a little proud and a little relieved. “Maybe one more coat.”

Nicole resisted the urge to tell her to take her time, no hurry, if she wanted to do thirty more coats, that was fine, too. But she had already made enough of a fool of herself.

“Does it look like it’s healing okay, or do you think I need to go back to Doc?” she asked instead.

“It’s a little red, but that’s probably just because you kept fussing with it,” Waverly said, with just a hint of scolding in her voice. “If you leave it alone, I think it’ll be fine. It doesn’t look like anything’s wrong with it. But Doc would know better than me.”

Nicole hummed thoughtfully, weighing her options.

“If it doesn’t feel better in a few days, I’ll check in with him. But I think after this, it should feel fine.” She already felt like a million caps, perfectly calm and relaxed in spite of everything crazy that had happened to her in the past few days. “And thank you, again, for this. I feel like I’m just digging myself deeper and deeper in your debt by the minute.”

“You really don’t need to talk like that. I like you, I like helping people, and I especially like helping people I like. I don’t have a secret scorecard somewhere.” Waverly dabbed the final coating of soap from the wound. “Okay, it looks clear.” She dropped the washcloth back into the bowl, and Nicole mourned the end of the ministrations. “Um… if you want to rinse off, or wash up a little, you can use the bathtub.”

The thought of actually getting to get clean was deeply tempting, but she was wary of the fact that Waverly wasn’t the only one who lived here.

“Are you sure Wynonna and Willa won’t come back?” she asked, imagining the horror of Willa bursting in on her while naked. Like she needed more nightmares in her life.

“Yeah, they should both be at the bar. And Wynonna probably wouldn’t care. But I’ll keep an eye out and make sure they aren’t headed this way.”

Nicole weighed the benefits and risks, but it wasn’t much of a debate.

“I’ll be quick,” she promised. She took one of her new changes of clothes out of her new rucksack and disappeared into the bathroom. Usually a bathtub was a novelty reserved for her rare stays in hotel rooms, but she didn’t have time to savor it here. She dowsed herself with tepid water, making sure to rise her hair multiple times to make sure the last of the shampoo was out. She also used a little of an unlabeled bottle of what she hoped was soap, which smelled like sage and did a more than adequate job of stripping the sweat and dust from her skin. She emerged minutes later, her hair braided at the nape of her neck, buttoning up a tan brahmin-skin vest over a red shirt. The only pants she had found that would fit her were khakis, which was unfortunate, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, so if that was her lot in life, then so be it.

She walked into the kitchen in search of Waverly and found her standing at a window, apparently keeping watch. She had changed clothes as well, and now wore a faded yellow dress patterned with little blue flowers, and Nicole allowed herself a few seconds to appreciate the sight of her. It really was a beautiful sight.

“I’m done,” she announced after a moment, quietly. Waverly looked over from where she was leaning on the windowsill and seemed momentarily startled by the sight of her.

“Are those the clothes you bought?” she asked, brown eyes sweeping over her with an interest that left Nicole feeling rather pleased with herself.

“Yeah. Disappointed it’s not a jumpsuit?” she teased back. The corners of Waverly’s mouth pulled up in a reluctant smile.

“No, it’s just different. I like the vest. But the braid makes you look so… serious. Like you’re a woman on a mission.”

“Only if the mission is to keep it out of my face until I find a hat,” Nicole joked. “I don’t want to get in a fight out there and have it suddenly blow over my eyes like a blindfold.” Every few years, she caved and cut it short for that reason alone, but now that it was long again, she remembered both how much she liked the look and feel of it and also how annoying it could be.

“Are you planning on starting a lot of fights today?” Waverly asked her, raising a teasing eyebrow. Nicole chuckled and shrugged.

“I almost never plan to, but sometimes it happens anyway.”

“That’s what Wynonna always says.” Waverly gave a small, affectionate roll of her eyes. “But I think in her case, she is sometimes planning to.” She shook her head, stepping over to the kitchen counter and reaching for something. When she turned around, there was a fresh, red apple in her hand. “Here. You kind of missed breakfast. Sorry you had to wait so long.”

Nicole accepted the fruit and resisted the urge to have the ‘deeper in your debt’ discussion again. Instead, she just said a quiet ‘thank you.’

“What are you going to do today?” Waverly asked her, which was a reasonable question that Nicole didn’t have much of an answer for.

“I don’t know… Maybe some prospecting down by the Styx,” she said, although she didn’t relish the thought. ‘Prospecting’ was just a slightly more polite word for ‘scavenging,’ and she didn’t like to think of herself as a scavenger. But without a gun, her options were limited. “Or I might go up and check out the graveyard. There might be evidence up there about what happened to me. Until Victor gets back into town, that might be the only way for me to find anything out.” She didn’t relish the idea, but it was preferable to spending an entire day accomplishing nothing.

“Are you sure?” Waverly brow furrowed in sudden concern. “It can be kind of dangerous out there. Maybe you should stay in town until you get a gun.”

“Trust me, I know, but I think the fastest way to get a gun is if I go find some things worth selling.” Nicole raised a hand to the back of her head, almost reflexively, even though the scar had stopped stinging. “Do you think Wynonna would let me borrow her rifle again? I have a few caps now, I can pay her for the trouble.”

Waverly still looked slightly worried, but didn’t try to argue.

“Probably. She never uses the thing anymore. She’d probably give it to you if she didn’t think it would make Willa explode.” She rolled her eyes, looking like the thought of it made her tired.

“Well, I’ll figure something out. But I’ll try to stay safe,” Nicole promised, hoping to allay her worries. Waverly gave her a reluctant smile.

“Good,” she said. “I’m kind of getting used to having you around.”

Chapter Text

This time, there was no need for Nicole to sneak out the window, since Wynonna and Willa were already gone, and even if they did happen to double back, she would look a hell of a lot less conspicuous walking out the door than clambering out Waverly’s bedroom window.

So she exited through the front door for once, squinting in the sun as the day simmered around her.

She turned her options for the day over and over in her head. Scavenging. Hunting. Exploring. Investigating.

Any one of them would be dangerous unarmed. She was capable with a knife, but there had been more than enough talk of scorpions and cazadors to make her wary. Fighting a mantis or even a coyote with a knife was one thing, but with something as poisonous as a cazador, the goal was always to kill it before it got close enough to sting. And if it was close enough to be stabbed, then she was close enough to be stung. As fun as dying in the desert filled with cazador venom sounded, she wasn’t in a hurry to take that risk. Even if a cazador poison gland would net her a pretty nice number of caps at most stores. She had to have her limits.

She mulled over the question as she walked down the dusty street into town, using her knife to cut bite-sized pieces out of the apple. She was about as hale and healthy as could possibly be expected after her ordeal— well-rested, tolerably well-fed, and now clean— and now that the bare essentials of survival were more or less settled, she was ready to take the next step— finding out how the hell she got there.

And because sometimes the universe had a really wacky sense of humor, it was right about then that she saw the jarring, out-of-place sight of a lone Securitron rolling down the dirt road, his hulking metal form a strange contrast to the dusty old-fashioned surroundings offered by Purgatory.

Before she had seen it with her own eyes, she wasn’t sure she had really believed that there was an honest-to-god Securitron in Purgatory, of all places. But here it was. In the flesh… so to speak.

“Victor!” she called, feeling a little silly to be calling it— him?— by such a normal name. But it worked. He swiveled around on his single wheel to reveal a display screen, currently showing a cartoon cowboy’s face. That in itself was strange; most Securitrons showed a soldier or a police officer. She had never seen a cowboy before. The strangeness only compounded when he spoke, not in the harsh, metallic command she expected, but with a gregarious, lilting drawl.

“Well butter my butt an’ call me a biscuit, look who’s alive an’ kickin’!” he crowed. Nicole hesitated before approaching, her instincts advising caution. Even knowing that it would be perfectly useless in a fight, she kept a tight grip on the knife in her hand. But there was nothing openly threatening about Victor— unless you counted the sheer fact that, as a Securitron, he was potentially armed with anything from Gatling lasers to machine guns to actual missile and grenade launchers.

“We haven’t formally met. My name’s Nicole Haught. You must be Victor.” In deference to her instincts, she left a few yards of road between them— not that that would make any difference if he actually did draw his weapons. ‘Bringing a knife to a gunfight’ didn’t even begin to cover it.

“That I am. Howdy, pardner. It’s nice to see you all up on your own two feet.” He didn't move towards her. Hoping to ease the tension in the air, she shifted her shoulders and loosened her stance a little, returning to her casual carving of the apple.

“And it’s nice to finally meet you. Doc says you’re the one that pulled me out of the ground. If that’s true, I owe you my life.”

“It’s true, sure enough, but don’t you go worryin’ about any life debt nonsense. I was happy to do it. I’m always happy to lend a helping hand.” His ‘hands,’ a pair of metallic three-pronged claws, dangled at his sides.

“Well, either way, I’m grateful.” Nicole watched him for signs of danger, but he appeared harmless for now, his cowboy face smiling and his voice cheerful. “How did you even know I was out there?”

“Happened to be out for a moonlight stroll and thought I heard some kinda commotion up at the old bone orchard. Figured I’d lay low till all those rascals skedaddled, then go see what all the damage was. Saw some fresh digging there, so I reached in, and there you were! You looked like you were still breathin’, so I hauled you off to Doc right quick, and here we are.”

Nicole’s instincts were burning with suspicion, even if she had no real justification for it. She had never known a robot to lie, or to even be capable of lying. But his explanation just didn’t feel right. Since when did robots go for moonlight strolls? What Securitron would ‘lie low’ when it heard a commotion?

“Huh... how about that...” she murmured slowly. “Guess I’m lucky you were walking by and happened to overhear.”

“You betcha. Heck, I can smell trouble a mile away.”

She thought about making a sarcastic comment about his ability to “smell” trouble, but let it be. Nobody ever laughed at her jokes anyway, and a robot was hardly the ideal audience.

“I don’t suppose you saw anything while you were up there? A man in a fur coat, maybe?” she asked instead. That was the one memory she still seemed to retain from the ordeal, and it seemed both too clear and too bizarre to be anything but real. Who would wear a fur coat in the Mojave?

“Sorry, pardner. Those hoodlums had already scampered off by the time I got there.” Victor's slightly metallic voice sounded sincerely disappointed, but Nicole wasn’t placated.

“That’s a shame...” She raised her head up towards the graveyard, shielding her eyes from the sun with her forearm.

“You oughta get yourself a hat, friend. It’s a scorcher out here.”

“I’m working on it, okay?” she ground out testily. “Do you remember which grave it was? Where they buried me?”

“I can do you one better’n that. If you’ve got the time, why don’t I show you where it all went down?”

All of Nicole’s instincts roiled at the thought of letting this strange, suspicious robot lead her, alone and unarmed, to the spot where she had nearly died once already. And yet... what better way to really get an idea of what happened that night? She tried to weigh the potential danger against her own burning curiosity. The debate warred inside her, but in the end there was only one decision.

“I’d appreciate that, Victor.” Her mind methodically listed ways to make the trip safer. “But I have a stop to make first, if it’s all the same.”

“Go right ahead. I’ve got nothin’ but time.”

She promised to be back in a matter of minutes and left him standing eerily still, perfectly balanced on his single wheel as she backed away. Her nerves rankled at the thought of turning her back to him, but she made herself calmly depart, feeling his presence behind her as she made a beeline for the bar. It took everything she had not to turn around and keep eyes on him, but she forcibly reminded herself that she had no reason to suspect him, no reason to doubt his sincerity, and that Wynonna herself had even vouched for him.

But there was nothing wrong with being cautious, after all.

She braced herself as she strode down the road to Shorty’s, blinking in the late morning sunlight. Victor had been right, it was another “scorcher,” and she felt like she was stepping from the proverbial frying pan into the fire. Because she was walking into the Earps’ bar knowing that both Wynonna and Willa were present— and worse, she was going there to ask for a favor, still with very little to offer in return.

Standing on the bar’s small wooden porch, she dug deep into her reserves, scraping the sides of her memory for her formative years among the Followers. She had learned in her wandering days that not every problem could be solved with smiles and earnest offers of help, but damned if the Followers didn’t try. She would need that diplomacy today. After all, Willa was Waverly’s sister, and they would at least need a stable détente if they wanted to all coexist in the not-even-one-horse town.

Her pep talk complete, she pushed open the door to the bar, the dimness inside making her squint after the bright outdoors. Strains of music flowed from the radio— once again, the story of the ranger and the outlaw and their showdown in the street. Nicole rounded the bar, and her worst fears were realized. Willa stood behind the counter, stirring something in a mug and handing it off to a customer with an expression that barely passed for a friendly smile.

Nicole wasn’t actually scared of Willa, annoying as she was— after all, she had faced down nightstalkers, centaurs, and cazadors, and once even survived an encounter with a deathclaw (albeit barely). She hadn’t backed down from Jackals, Fiends, Scorpions, or Vipers, and she wasn’t about to start with a mean girl like Willa Earp.

But standing her ground didn’t always mean fighting. Today, she would be taking another tack. Rallying all her self-control and emotional stability and inner strength, she walked up to the eldest Earp and forced an affable, apologetic smile onto her face.

“Hi there. It’s Willa, right? Obviously you and I got off on the wrong foot the other day,” she said, summoning the deepest reserves of her mild, non-threatening, vault-bred, Follower-ingrained politeness. “I was still injured and maybe not feeling quite like myself. But I’ve had a little time to recover now, and I’d love to start over. I’m Nicole. I don’t think we formally met.” She stuck out her arm for a handshake.

Willa seemed honestly thrown by the full-force charm offensive, and for a moment she seemed almost perplexed, like she wasn’t sure whether to capitulate and take her hand or not. In her years of travel with the Followers, Nicole had often found that most people had great difficulty turning their ire on genuine, polite kindness.

Unfortunately, Willa was not “most people.” It took a few seconds for her ambivalence to pick a side, but after a moment, she crossed her arms, her face hardening.

“That was a nice apology, but my concern isn’t that you’re not nice.” She said the last word with a hint of contempt. “Listen, my family protects this town. My daddy was Purgatory’s last sheriff, and I’m not going to spit on our family name by letting some thug with a target on her back wander around my town with my sisters, just waiting for some gang to come finish killing her, with us as collateral damage.”

The criticism was a little on-the-nose, and Nicole gritted her teeth behind the still-polite smile. She tried to imagine her former mentor Julie, and what she might say to reach someone like Willa. An appeal to her sense of community? An offer of payment? A strategic retreat? But Nicole had never had Julie’s patience— or, frankly, her way with words. Or her ability to pull off a mohawk, although that point was less relevant here.

“Is there anything I could say or do to prove that you can trust me, and that I only want to help?” she asked, knowing that it was a longshot.

“Sure.” Willa eyed her imperiously. “You can leave.”

Nicole held her ground for another moment, heart pounding with the vague worry that she had just gotten herself into deeper trouble, and that she might actually be barred from the premises this time.

Luckily, their staring contest was broken by Wynonna walking out of the back room, an empty mug in her hand, and pausing, confused, between them, like they had caught her in a tractor beam.

“Did I miss something?” she asked, looking back and forth at each of them in turn.

“Nicole was just leaving,” Willa announced. Nicole made no such move in that direction, turning half her attention to Wynonna instead.

“I just stopped in to apologize to Willa. We had kind of a rough start the other day, and I’d hate to just let that fester. I thought I might extend an olive branch.”

“And I told her it’s not necessary,” Willa said, only a hint of coolness in her voice. It could almost have passed for polite neutrality if Nicole hadn’t known better. “After all, it’s not like she’s going to live here or anything. She’s just passing through. So I’m sure in a few days she’ll go back to wherever she was headed when she got shot, and then in a few months, we won’t even remember her name.”

If Willa had been trying to take a shot at Nicole, it worked. The words and the sentiment both hit her like a bullet, and she felt the forced smile slip from her face. Especially because she didn’t have much of a counterargument. Did she plan to stay? She liked it there, and she liked Waverly and Wynonna very much, but she couldn’t hide in Waverly’s childhood bedroom forever. She did need to figure out who had shot her, and why, and where they went afterwards, and what they planned to do next. And sure, she didn’t remember really having a home anywhere, but with the gaps in her memory, nothing was impossible. At the very least, she owed it to herself to fill in those gaps.

Wynonna gave her a long, expectant look, as though asking for confirmation or waiting for a rebuttal.

“I’m not... I’m not leaving yet. I’m staying for now.” She didn’t like the uncertainty in her own voice, and she tried to force confidence into it as she continued. After all, she was Nicole Haught. She had been in more dire straits than this, and faced down enemies far scarier than Willa Earp. “Look, I still don’t know where I was going before I was attacked, but I don’t think I have anywhere to go back to. So even though I don’t know how long I’ll be here, as far as I know right now, I’m not going anywhere.”

Willa didn’t look pleased with her answer, but Wynonna nodded slightly, accepting it.

“Alrighty then,” she drawled, clearly intent on moving the conversation onto safer ground. “Guess that’s settled. So what brings you this way, Haught-Ticket?”

“I was looking for you, actually. Can I ask you something?”

“More favors?” Willa asked, skeptically, but Wynonna shot her a look and she held up her hands in mock-surrender. “I’m just saying we need to make sure we’re not being taken advantage of. We run a business here— one of the only ones that has managed to stay open in this hellhole— and we can’t afford to keep giving handouts.”

Nicole usually would have felt defensive at the accusation, or even guilty, but in this case, there was also a slight sense of smugness as she thought of all the kindnesses Willa’s sisters had “handed out” without her permission or even knowledge— everything from food and water to beds and bathtubs. It was gratifying to imagine how horrified she would probably be if she got close enough to smell the sage on her skin or the prickly pear in her hair— Willa’s own unknowing contributions to Nicole’s wellbeing. So rather than attempt a defensive comeback, she just ignored her.

“It’s about Victor. He’s back in town,” she told Wynonna. Unsure of how far to elaborate, she first waited for her reaction, burying her hands in her pockets and instinctively gripping the sheriff’s star like a good luck charm.

“Oh, right. See, I told you he always wanders back eventually.” Wynonna tipped the mug Nicole’s way, as if to say there you go. But Nicole shook her head a little, keeping her tone low and serious.

“He told me a little about what he saw that night, and he’s offered to show me up to the graveyard.”

“Huh. Well, that’s good, right? You’ll get the whole story that way.” Wynonna shrugged a little.

“Yeah…” Nicole hesitated, releasing the star and raising her hand to the back of her head, feeling for the scar. It was still a little sore from being cleaned, but the irritated stinging had blessedly calmed. “He just gives me a feeling like something isn’t right. Like he isn’t being totally honest. You know?”

Wynonna gave her an odd look, frowning.

“You think he’s… what, lying?” Her voice was less skeptical than just plain confused, and Nicole couldn’t blame her.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if he can. I don’t know if he would. But I’ve never seen a Securitron like him before.” It sounded paranoid, even to her, but Nicole thought that someone with a fresh hole in her head and grave dirt under her fingernails had the right to be a little paranoid. “I know it’s a big ask, but I’d feel better with a little backup.”

Wynonna’s expression cleared, like the direction of the conversation finally made sense.

“Up to the graveyard?” she asked, her hand instinctively checking the gun on her hip.

“Yeah. He’s going to show me which grave he pulled me out of.”

“Sounds like a fun party, but unless you’ve got a pocket full of pulse grenades, I can’t imagine why you’d decide to go anywhere with that thing,” Willa interrupted in a warning tone. For once, her voice sounded serious, but not overly contemptuous. She looked at both Nicole and Wynonna in turn. “It’s not a person, no matter how everyone around here treats it like it is.”

It was clear that Willa was leery of the lone Securitron, and Nicole felt almost nauseous at the idea of actually agreeing with her on something.

“You think Victor is dangerous?” Nicole asked her seriously, watching her face for the answer. Willa just shrugged, as if it made no difference to her.

“Look, you can do whatever you want, but if I were you, I wouldn’t trust that robot any farther than I could throw it.”

Nicole processed that for a moment, wondering if it was sincere advice, and whether it made any difference if it was.

“It’s not that I think he’s out to get me or anything. It’s just… something about his story rubs me the wrong way. It doesn’t feel right.” She appealed to Wynonna. “I’d kind of like a second opinion, if you’re willing to tag along. I don’t think it’ll take long.”

The two sisters had a charged but silent exchange with their eyes, but Wynonna finally set her mug on the counter.

“Sure.” She sent a placating glance in Willa’s direction. “If someone was attacked up there, I’d like to know more about it anyway. For the safety of the town.”

Nicole’s sense of relief was greater than expected, sweeping over her in a rush, and she managed a confident smile.

“Great. Whenever you’re ready, then.”

Chapter Text

Nicole’s hands flexed restlessly as she and Wynonna walked out of the bar together. Unarmed and unarmored, she still felt far too vulnerable, but at least she was moving now. She was taking action, moving forward. Getting answers. Chasing bad guys. That counted for something.

Wynonna eyed her sideways from under the cover of her Desperado hat, while Nicole squinted in the sunlight, her eyes having to readjust after their short time in the bar.

“You said you were, uh… buried, right?” Wynonna asked after a few seconds, her voice softer than Nicole had been expecting.

“So they tell me,” she sighed in return. She remembered being tossed into the pit like a sack of garbage, but she thankfully didn’t remember shovelful after shovelful of dirt slowly burying her alive. The gunshot had come first, and with it, total oblivion.

“So I don't suppose you're bringing a shovel?” Wynonna continued.

Nicole pretended to pat down her pockets with whatever the body language equivalent of sarcasm was.

“Do I look like I have a shovel on me?” she asked, splaying her empty hands. With her backpack of new-to-her clothing safely stowed away in Waverly’s wardrobe, all she had on her person was Doc’s old knife and a handful of caps. “Where would I possibly be keeping one? My sock?”

Wynonna glared back as though it hadn’t been a ridiculous question after all.

“How the hell should I know? You've obviously been sleeping somewhere. Maybe you left one there.” She gestured vaguely to the town as a whole, and meanwhile Nicole committed every fiber of her being into keeping a neutral face. She hoped it worked, but the odds were against her. She was a terrible liar.

“No, no shovels,” she said quickly, hoping to blow right past the logical follow-up question of where exactly she had been sleeping as of late and its follow-up answer of with your baby sister. “Too rich for my blood. At least until I can save up for a gun. And speaking of guns, shouldn’t I be armed, too?” One hand traced the outline of the knife in her pocket, sorely wishing it was a pistol. Wynonna glanced at her askance.

“Hey, if there's anything up that hill that Peacemaker and a fully armed Securitron can’t take down, I don't think you having a varmint rifle is going to save our sorry asses.”

Nicole deflated slightly, feeling chastised.

“Yeah, probably,” she admitted, with just a touch of reluctance. Logically, she knew that Wynonna was right. If Victor really was their ally, then any other weapon was superfluous. If Victor really was their enemy, then any weapon would be powerless. But it was one more psychological blow, that extra vulnerability on top of everything else. That if a bark scorpion did scuttle their way, she would be stuck cowering behind her companions, instead of protecting them herself. It grated.

She loved that so many people were good at heart and were willing to help her in her time of need, but goddamn did it hurt to actually be in this much need. She had spent most of her adult life dedicated to winning herself as much independence and freedom for herself as possible. She wanted to be the kind of person others could rely on, the kind that others came to for help. It was harder to be on the other side of it.

“The shovel, on the other hand, we might want to make a detour for,” Wynonna continued, rousing Nicole from her surly silence.

“You have one?” she asked, perking up just a little.

“Nope, but Jett does.”

They backtracked a few steps and Wynonna walked into Jett's Jeneral Store like she owned the place, kicking the door out of her way as she walked in, boots clomping heavily on the ground. Robin was seated at the counter, and he looked at them oddly as they entered.

“Wynonna,” he greeted a little warily, as though Wynonna showing up unannounced in his shop wasn’t an everyday occurrence. But his gaze lightened as he shifted his gaze. “And you said your name was Nicole, right?”

“That’s right,” Nicole agreed. “Nice to see you again.”

“Likewise.”

“Geez, get a room already,” Wynonna groaned, and it was hard to say whether Nicole or Robin looked more horrified by the suggestion. Wynonna seemed oblivious to their open disgust, though, and carried on without even looking for a response. “Jett. Robin. We were wondering if we could borrow your shovel for a few minutes. We need it for the graveyard.”

“The graveyard?” Robin said, forehead creasing, his eyes flitting behind them as if checking for a dead body. “That shovel is for gardening. I don’t need someone’s dead body anywhere near my potatoes.”

“We aren’t digging a grave for a dead person, we’re digging up one that contained a live person,” Wynonna explained. Robin’s frown deepened.

“How is that better?”

“What Wynonna is trying to say…” Nicole said, shooting her an exasperated glare. “Is that I was attacked and buried at the graveyard the other night, and we just wanted to see if anything was left behind in the grave. But we can’t do it without a shovel, and neither of us has one.”

“You were buried alive?” Robin says, looking faintly green. Wynonna nodded solemnly.

“Just like a potato,” she agreed. “So we would like to borrow your potato shovel and see if there’s anything left behind in the empty grave they put her in. Honestly, you won’t even miss it.”

“Are you okay?” he asked Nicole, in a tone that seemed to encompass both her gunshot wound and her burgeoning friendship with Wynonna. She nodded to both.

“Fine. Thanks for asking. But she’s right… more or less.”

“Um… Sure, okay. I guess. Just… be careful with it.” He left the room for a moment and came back with a well-used but well-cared-for shovel. Wynonna reached for it, but he held it out for Nicole, who took it and thanked him.

“I’ll have it back to you by the end of the day,” she promised, and waved to him a little as she and Wynonna departed.

Nicole shouldered the shovel, and the two of them made their way back to Victor, who was waiting right where Nicole had left him. His metallic body flexed in something like surprise when he noticed Wynonna.

“Well howdy do, Miss Earp? I wasn't aware that Miss Haught and I required a chaperone,” he said, his twangy voice lighthearted.

“I… I’ve been thinking that Wynonna might want to along when I went up there,” Nicole said, justifying it to herself that it was almost sort of true. Luckily, Wynonna jumped in with a much more convincing tone.

“She mentioned it while we were hunting yesterday. I told her I wanted to come with. Hope that’s okay.” Her voice was casual, but Nicole could tell that she was watching for Victor’s reaction.

“The more, the merrier!” he said cheerfully. “Look at us! It’s like we’re puttin’ together our own little caravan!” Victor swiveled on his wheel. “Well now, we’re burnin’ daylight. Are you ladies ready to head out?”

“Lead the way,” Wynonna said shortly, gesturing to the road with a jerk of her head.

Victor obediently began rolling up the road, whistling. Nicole had never heard a robot whistle before. There was something vaguely disconcerting about it. It just didn’t seem right.

The scrubby desert plants grew wilder as they walked farther out of town, and Nicole caught herself eyeing them for geckos or scorpions on instinct. She nearly rolled her eyes at herself. If any source of danger did come scuttling into their path, she would be the least capable of doing anything about it.

It was only a few minutes’ walk up the hill to the graveyard, and as they approached, the low hum of bloatflies coalesced into a droning buzz, and the air took on a faint scent of decay, both of which perfectly lined up with her scattered memories of the attack.

“This is the place,” she murmured. The cemetery was fenced in, but the fence was haphazardly constructed, and some of its slats had clearly been repurposed into grave markers. There were only a few dozen graves at most— or at least only that many marked ones. Wynonna and Victor were about to enter ahead of her, but she stopped them on instinct. “Wait.”

“Somethin’ wrong?” Victor asked in his cowboy drawl, and Wynonna looked at her expectantly.

“No, just… I want to look around first, before we mess anything up.” Anything could be evidence, and the idea of a massive Securitron spinning his wheels over what could be fresh evidence nearly made her shudder. She handed the shovel to Wynonna and began walking the perimeter of the fence, eyes drinking in the scene. She didn’t need Victor to point out which grave it was— only one was openly disturbed, with loose dirt strewn around it as if some fracas had taken place there recently.

She scanned the ground around the fence, crouching when she spotted a cluster of plants that looked like they had been crushed flat— as if from a falling body, perhaps. The ground was too hard and dry to have retained much in the way of footprints, but there did seem to be vaguely boot-shaped impressions around it, and the plants were flattened towards the interior of the graveyard, consistent with her body being dragged in that direction after the initial fall. She paced the rest of the fence line just to be sure, but she felt like that must have been the place where they had entered. It was on the eastern edge of the graveyard, and it stood to reason that they had ambushed her somewhere in that direction. She would need to see what lay to the east of the graveyard. Maybe someone in town would have a map.

“I think I found where they jumped the fence,” she called over to her companions as she walked back to the cemetery entrance. They looked up at her, and then, as if in slow motion, Victor raised his arm, its metal “hands” retracting to expose the barrel of a machine gun, pointed right at her. She heard Wynonna start to call out in warning, but she was already diving behind the wholly inadequate cover of young Joshua tree as the roar of rapid gunfire exploded into the air. She crouched as flat as she could, bracing for the worst, but the gunfire stopped after only seconds.

“Got ’im!” Victor’s voice called brightly. “Can’t stand those varmints. All those legs give me the creeps.” He chuckled. “’Course, any legs are a lot of legs by my reckoning.” He paused, apparently realizing that Nicole hadn’t yet emerged. “Hey, where’d ya go?”

Still trembling from the adrenaline, Nicole peeked out from behind her cover. The other two were just standing there calmly, as if Victor hadn’t just opened fire on her, and she warily stepped back into the open. On the ground where she had been previously standing was a very dead bark scorpion. Its exoskeleton had been scattered over half the graveyard, and whatever was left was riddled with what must have been literal dozens of 9mm bullet holes. Talk about overkill. She almost felt bad for it.

“Aw, come on now, pardner, you didn’t really think ol’ Victor was takin’ a shot at you, did ya?” he asked, sounding genuinely disappointed. Nicole swallowed back an irritated retort, forcing her voice into something more neutral, breathing through the adrenaline rush and willing her thundering heart to settle.

“Just a little jumpy,” she said, making herself walk back towards them. She cleared her throat and jerked a thumb towards the half-open grave. “So I’m guessing that’s it?”

“Right in one,” Victor said.

“And you said you were out for a walk when you heard the commotion.”

“That’s right,” Victor agreed.

“Where?” she asked.

“Just here and there, around the town,” he said vaguely.

“And you heard them digging? All the way from town?”

“Ears like a jackrabbit,” Victor claimed proudly, and Wynonna snorted a laugh.

“Are there any gangs or tribes around here?” Nicole asked, changing the subject.

“Not really,” Wynonna said with a shrug. “Maybe a Jackal sometimes, or a Khan. But the Khans don’t usually mess with us.”

“Jackals wouldn’t bother kidnapping and burying me,” Nicole said. “They’d just kill me and leave me there, or maybe burn the body. But this took work. Whoever did this wanted to hide it.” Nicole knelt down next to the grave. To her surprise, there was a marker there, clearly a broken slat from the fence, the edges still ragged from where they had broken it off. It had been shoved haphazardly into the ground and slumped to one side, and at the top, someone had roughly carved three letters.

L A W

Nicole’s hand went to her vest pocket, where the old sheriff’s star rested. Was the inscription for her? Did the letters stand for something? Or was she “the law?” She had memories of guarding caravans and doing occasional grunt work for the Followers or NCR, but… the law?

She ran her hands over the displaced dirt scattered around the grave. For the most part, it was indistinguishable from any of the other dirt, but she sifted it through her fingers anyway, searching for anything out of place.

“What do you think?” asked a voice over her shoulder, and she jumped instinctively before realizing that it was just Wynonna, watching her with a slightly perplexed look.

“What do you make of that inscription?” Nicole asked, nodding to the slapdash grave marker. Wynonna squinted at it.

“Law?” she said. “I don’t know. Maybe it was left over from someone else.”

Frowning, Nicole pushed at it with her palm and it instantly toppled over. She shook her head.

“I don’t think so. I think they put it there. I just don’t know what it means.”

She took the shovel back and began unearthing the grave, keeping the dirt all in one pile to sift through later. There was nothing obviously notable except a bunch of cigarette butts and an empty matchbook. She couldn’t tell anything from the cigarettes, but the matchbook had a logo on it.

“What… or who… are Vikki and Vance?” she asked, frowning at it.

“Why, they were the second most famous bank robbin’ couple in the old West,” Victor said promptly. Nicole shifted her gaze instead to Wynonna, hoping for context.

“There’s an old casino in Primm named after them,” she clarified, waving her hand in a vaguely southeastern direction.

“Right…” Both Victor and Wynonna seemed somewhat bored as Nicole knelt by the grave and sifted back through the dirt.

“What are you looking for?” Wynonna groaned after several long minutes of silent dirt-sifting. She had paced the length of the graveyard and found one bloatfly big enough to be worth shooting, but otherwise things had been quiet.

“I don’t know yet,” she murmured back, just as something caught on her hand. Something delicate, and not quite dirt. She held it up to her face, sniffing at it. “Does this look like burned paper to you?” she asked, holding the blackened scrap out for Wynonna to look at. The gunslinger shrugged.

“I guess so,” she said. “Why?”

“Because why would they be burning paper? Unless it was to hide what it said?”

“Like what?”

“Like a letter, maybe. Something personal, or something business-related, like a contract. Or maybe a threat, or a bribe.”

“Well, I don’t think we’re going to be able to find out at this point,” Wynonna pointed out.

“I guess so,” Nicole murmured back, frowning. Wynonna had clearly expected more action and looked eager to leave the quiet graveyard behind, so Nicole pulled herself to her feet, clapped some of the dirt off her hands, and did a final cursory search of the ground around the grave.

Besides some of the old detritus that looked to have been there for years, there wasn't much. Dirt. Rocks. The only thing notable was a jumble of scrap metal, not particularly distinct from the rusty tin cans that littered the ground on the north side of the graveyard, by the water tower. But this one had wandered a ways and was surrounded by more of the cigarette butts, so she picked it up to peer at it.

From above it had just looked like a crumpled tin can, but up close it was more— it was one that had been crumpled in a very specific way, with other pieces of metal crushed into it— bullet casings and wire, and maybe some fragments from other cans. Whoever did it must have been strong, or at least had a real knack for metal.

“Well?” Wynonna prompted her, as she stood there staring at it.

“I think someone made this,” she said, holding it out so Wynonna could see. “I mean, I’m sure you’ve noticed that it’s kind of boring to just watch someone dig a grave. Whoever was standing here might have gotten bored and started shaping this.”

“Are you sure?” Wynonna asked. “It doesn’t look like anything.”

Nicole shook her head, disagreeing.

“No, it does. See, it looks like…” She squinted at it, the shape scraping at some familiarity in the back of her mind, like a picture from a book. “A bird.”

Wynonna leaned over, trying to look at it from a different angle, and raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“What the hell do birds look like where you come from? Because that looks nothing like a bird.” As if to demonstrate, she gestured at the water tower, where a murder of crows hunched in the scaffolding. “Those are birds.” Nicole rolled her eyes in frustration.

“No, not that kind of bird. It’s like…” She nearly groaned. “I can’t remember the name. They’re white, with black eyes, and they swim.”

“Like… fish?” Wynonna eyed her critically. “So is this it? Is this the brain damage finally kicking in?”

“No, it’s a real— Never mind, forget it. It probably doesn’t matter.”

“Whatever you say,” Wynonna shrugged. Nicole gathered up her ‘evidence,’ including the metal whatever-it-was.

“Okay, I think that’s all we’ll find right now,” she said. In a way, she was disappointed to have not found more. But they hadn’t found nothing. There were still things to consider. A burned letter. Law. Primm. A bird.

Maybe she could get to the bottom of this after all.

Chapter Text

Nicole stared at the shaped metal as they headed back, Victor trundling along ahead of them, whistling an old cowboy tune.

“Well that was way more boring than I thought it would be,” Wynonna grumbled a little, carrying the shovel on her shoulder so that Nicole could hold her ‘evidence,’ such that it was.

“Yeah, the way everyone talked, I thought it was going to be actually dangerous up there,” Nicole said, still absentmindedly turning the bird (she didn’t care what Wynonna said, she could clearly see wings, a long neck, and a flat beak) over in her hands.

“Maybe your friends scared everything off,” Wynonna guessed with a shrug. Then, glancing at Nicole’s face, her voice softened a little. “Did you at least find what you were looking for?”

“Maybe,” Nicole murmured back, feeling the empty matchbook in her pocket. “I’m not sure yet.”

It was tricky, because anything they found could have been left there before the attack, or after, or even blown there on the wind. But it was still more than she’d had to go on before, so it was at least worth thinking about.

Burnt paper. A casino in Primm. L-A-W. A bird.

“You really think that looks like a bird?” Wynonna asked, looking at her oddly as she surveyed the metalwork.

“Yeah. I don’t know if they’re around anymore, but I think I’ve seen pictures…” The memory seemed to buzz just out of reach. Had there been a picture on a sign somewhere? Or in a magazine? Or maybe even in a book? Books… “Do you think Waverly would know?”

Wynonna looked surprised by the suggestion.

“Waves?” She seemed to ponder it, adjusting her hat absentmindedly. “Huh… Maybe? I mean, she reads those old books a lot. If it was something that was around before…” She shrugged. “Maybe she’d recognize it. If it’s a real thing.”

When they reached the bottom of the hill, on the fringes of the town, Victor swiveled on his wheel to face them.

“Well it sure was good to see ya again, pardner. I hope you find what you’re lookin’ for,” he told her. Nicole resisted the urge to take a half-step back, instead holding her ground.

“Me too,” she said.

“Now don’t be a stranger. If you ever need ol’ Victor, you just shout nice and loud, and I’ll come a-runnin’. Got it?”

Nicole wasn’t sure how to answer, still wasn’t sure if Victor was friend, foe, or something else entirely.

“Got it. Thanks for the tour, Victor,” she said after a few seconds’ uncomfortable silence.

“Y’all take care now,” he said, waving his claw-like hand as he rolled away. Nicole watched him go with a furrowed brow until he was far enough to be out of earshot (probably).

“So what do you think about him?” she asked Wynonna, who was brushing dust off her leather jacket with a frown, apparently unconcerned.

“Victor? I guess he seemed fine,” she said with a shrug. “For a robot, at least.” She raised an eyebrow at Nicole. “Why? You get a weird vibe from him again?”

“I don’t know,” Nicole mused. “He seems nice enough. I just can’t make his story make sense.”

Wynonna looked like she wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she fell silent, and they walked back towards the Earp house in relatively companionable silence. Nicole caught herself instinctively angling towards Waverly’s window, and quickly straightened her stride, aiming for the front door instead. Wynonna didn’t seem to notice, which was lucky, because Nicole had serious doubts about her ability to come up with a benign and convincing justification about why she would be walking up to her sister’s bedroom window.

Wynonna leaned the shovel beside the door before walking inside, calling out as she entered.

“Hey, Wave! You here?!” Her voice echoed off the walls of the small house, and Nicole winced instinctively, raised one hand to her head as if to ward off an incoming headache. Wynonna noticed, and tempered her voice. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“What?” came Waverly’s exasperated answer, and seconds later she emerged from her room. In spite of her distraction, Nicole still felt a small thrill when she came into view. She was wearing the same yellow dress as before, but the skirt was slightly rumpled, and Nicole imagined her curled up in her room with a book. “Oh. Nicole, you’re ba— um, here. You’re here, too. Both of you. Together. That’s good, right?” Nicole winced as she clearly almost said ‘you’re back,’ but if Wynonna caught the slip, she didn’t react in any perceivable way. “Um… where have you two been?”

“Graveyard,” Wynonna grunted, tossing her hat onto a chair and heading into the kitchen. “We need you to settle a bet.” Nicole followed her into the kitchen, and Wynonna waved Waverly closer. She approached curiously, eyeing the crumpled metal in Nicole’s hands.

“What is that?” she asked. Nicole produced a handkerchief from her pocket and spread it on the table, then set the tangle of metal on top.

“I found it near the grave,” Nicole explained.

“Huh. Yeah, there are always old cans up there,” Waverly said.

“Right, but this one looked like someone made it. See how the wings are folded?” Nicole gestured to where the metal swept back to resemble feathers.

“Wings?” Waverly echoed, peering closer.

“Haught here is all Haught-and-bothered because she says it looks like some kind of bird, whereas I think she’s full of Haught-air, because really, it just looks like a tin can that somebody stepped on.” Wynonna looked delighted and proud to have managed to use two different puns in the same sentence. Nicole suppressed an urge to roll her eyes.

“It does look like a bird,” Nicole argued, annoyed. “Look, someone clearly curved the neck like this. That couldn’t have happened accidentally.” She traced a finger along the graceful arch of its neck, while Waverly looked on with interest. “I think there used to be a type of bird that looked like this. But white, with black eyes. But I can’t remember what it’s called. And I can’t think of what it would mean. We thought you might recognize it.”

“You did?” She looked at Nicole with soft eyes before feigning nonchalance, as though people frequently consulted her with pre-war research questions. “I mean, yeah. Of course. Totally. Can I look at it?”

Nicole nodded, and Waverly picked it up and peered at its shape, tracing it with her fingertips. Nicole just sat back and enjoyed watching her face change in small, subtle ways as she considered the makeshift sculpture. A tiny, thoughtful scrunch of her eyebrows. A slight, intrigued tilt of her head. And finally, a quick, excited widening of her eyes.

“Oh! Wait! Hold on. I think…” Without finishing the thought, she rushed out of the room. Wynonna and Nicole exchanged a glance, but she was back within seconds, a very worn-looking book in her hands. The cover was so faded it was barely legible, but Nicole saw the word Fairy Tales on the front, the rest obscured by Waverly’s hand. Waverly dropped the book on the table and flipped through until she found what she was looking for. “The Ugly Duckling,” she read, pointing. The first picture for the story showed a number of fuzzy baby birds in some grass next to a pond.

“Those don’t look anything like that,” Wynonna pointed out, and Waverly rolled her eyes impatiently. She flipped a few pages, to the end of the story, where there was a large, full-color picture of a white bird with a long, graceful neck, black markings over its eyes, and a flat orange beak, floating on a lake. Nicole gave a sharp laugh of triumph.

“That’s it! I knew it!” She faced Wynonna smugly. “Who’s brain damaged now?”

“Still the one whose brain got blown out,” Wynonna said, a bit grumpily. “Congratulations, you recognized what you think is a… whatever that is.”

“Swan,” Waverly said immediately. “It’s a swan.”

Nicole nodded, the word slotting into place neatly in her head. She picked up the twist of metal and held it next to the picture. She thought it matched up pretty well, if she did say so herself. Whoever had made it had known what they were doing.

“You can’t tell me that doesn’t look like a swan,” Nicole challenged Wynonna, holding the two side by side. Wynonna squinted at them.

“There’s… a passing resemblance. Maybe,” she admitted, grudgingly. Nicole sank back in her chair, smiling and feeling rather satisfied with herself. “But what’s the point?”

That was the part Nicole didn’t quite have an answer for.

“I don’t know…” she breathed out slowly, deflating, and closed her eyes for a second. Her scar still felt better, but she could feel a headache threatening from the press of too many thoughts. She considered undoing her braid, just to take some of the pressure off. A sudden touch on her shoulder made her jump, before she realized it was Waverly’s hand.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she said immediately, straightening a little in her seat. “Just… a lot to think about. That’s all.” She fished the rest of the ‘evidence’ from her pockets and laid it out on the handkerchief. The scrap of burnt paper, the matchbook, and a few half-smoked cigarettes. “That’s all we found at the grave,” she said grimly. Waverly looked at it a bit dubiously, and Nicole couldn’t blame her. “I know, it’s not much.”

“And you don’t remember anything else?” Waverly asked. Nicole shook her head.

“Not really. Just that the one who shot me was wearing a fur coat. But the matchbook is from Primm, so…” she trailed off, uncertain. Waverly’s brow furrowed.

“You said you’d never been to Primm,” she reminded her.

“I don’t think I have,” Nicole admitted. “But there must be some connection there…” She picked up the matchbook and stared at it, hoping that some spark of familiarity would come to her, but nothing did.

“Are you going to go check it out?” Wynonna asked. Waverly looked up sharply at the suggestion.

“What?” she asked her older sister, suddenly looking distinctly worried.

“Maybe,” Nicole said reluctantly, and Waverly turned on her instead.

“You can’t go there alone. You don’t even have a gun, and there are gangs all over the roads, and somebody there probably wants you dead, remember?” Her hand on Nicole’s shoulder had tightened, bordering on painful, and Nicole reached up to cover it briefly with her own.

“I know, I know. I didn’t mean today, and I definitely didn’t mean before I get a decent gun,” she said, hoping to reassure her. “But I think I’ll have to check it out eventually. I mean, I might have been heading there when I was attacked, right? Stands to reason.” She could feel the outline of the metal star in her pocket. “And if someone there wants me dead, I want to know why.”

Waverly still looked worried, but her hand had relaxed a little under Nicole’s.

“Much as I hate those assholes, the NCR has a post in Primm now,” Wynonna mentioned.

“They do?” Nicole asked, perking up a bit. She didn’t have any direct affiliation with the New California Republic, but she had worked with them occasionally over the years, and they seemed to like her well enough for it. “Maybe they’d help me.”

“Sure, they’ll help. You just have to sign over all your land and all your money and then your soul while you’re at it,” Wynonna growled. Nicole raised an amused eyebrow at her.

“You mean taxes? In exchange for services? Yeah, how ridiculous.”

Wynonna shot her a disgusted look.

“You want them here? Sticking their power-hungry noses in everyone’s business?”

“Can we just not talk politics?” Waverly asked, clearly trying to head off a full-scale argument.

“I may not be a flag-flying Californian, but I’d rather have them here than anyone else. At least they’re trying. They want order. And justice. And to take down the Legion. I’m not going to fight against that.”

“They want their version of justice. By their laws. Not ours. They just want the whole West under their goddamn boot heel, and—”

“Okay! Enough!” Waverly interrupted, releasing Nicole’s shoulder to slam her hand against the table. Wynonna and Nicole both jumped and fell silent. “Both of you, stop it.” She gave them each a hard look, for once towering over them both as the only one standing in the room. Nicole bowed her head shamefacedly. Wynonna mumbled a final ‘NCR lapdog’ before an extra glare from Waverly shut her up. “There. Are you both done?” Nicole and Wynonna nodded in unison. “Good.”

An eerie silence fell over the kitchen, until Wynonna stood and faked a nonchalant stretch, like she’d been planning it all along.

“You know, this has been fun, but I think I’d better go give Jett his shovel back before he thinks we really are burying someone with it. Waverly, Haught, I’ll see you later.” She scooped her hat off the chair and disappeared with a rattle of the door.

“Well, she called me ‘Haught’ and not ‘sneering imperialist,’ so she’s probably not that mad,” Nicole said absently.

“I’m not sure she can pronounce ‘sneering imperialist,’” Waverly admitted, sinking down into Wynonna’s vacated chair and picking up the metal swan again. “But no, I don’t think she’s really mad at you. She just has a sore spot when it comes to them.”

“I understand,” Nicole promised. Waverly turned the swan over in her hands, seeming to admire it. “You can keep that if you want,” Nicole told her. “I don’t think I’m going to get anything more out of it.”

“It’s kind of cute,” Waverly said. “In kind of a weird way.” She tilted it to look at the arch of its neck. “I always liked the ugly duckling story. The idea of growing up into something different than how you started.”

Nicole shrugged a little, watching her.

“I think you’re pretty great now,” she said. “But I think you could be any way you wanted to be.”

Waverly lifted her gaze and met Nicole’s eyes across the table.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Chapter Text

The rest of the day lacked somewhat in excitement.

After her trip to the graveyard, Nicole loitered in the Earp’s kitchen until Waverly went to take her shift at the bar— at which point, she pressed the book of fairy tales into Nicole’s hands and sent her on her way.

Not wanting to overstay her welcome by immediately following her to Shorty’s, Nicole retired back to the gas station and sat, half-sprawled, on her makeshift tire chair to flip through the book and mull over the events of the day.

Some of the stories were vaguely familiar, like she had read them decades ago in a vault classroom, but others were new to her. She skimmed through them with mild interest, watching tortoises race hares and boys cry wolf, but she kept returning to The Ugly Duckling, and in particular the picture of the swan. It really was beautiful. The long, arched neck. The flat beak. The wings sticking out the back. The more she looked at it, the more certain she was that she was right about the crumpled metal. It had to be a swan.

But besides that, she also couldn’t stop thinking about what Waverly had said about the story. The idea of changing, becoming something different, something better. Growing. Defying low expectations.

As Nicole sat there, one heel tapping restlessly against the ground, it occurred to her that for a lone wanderer from the endless, empty wasteland, she sure did find herself getting bored and lonely now when she was by herself. Purgatory had spoiled her. She was starting to get used to being around people again. Even after only a few short hours alone, she was already thinking about popping back into the saloon to say hello.

And if she told herself that maybe it was just that the desert was dry and she was thirsty, then that was harmless. And if she maybe also wanted to ask Waverly’s opinion about what kind of princess would willingly put her lips on whatever a ‘frog’ was, well, then that was just a side bonus.

She delayed for about as long as she could stand, but in the end she did wander back into the bar. It was busy. Half the town must have been there, some trading caps for drinks, others just trading gossip. Nicole squinted in the sudden dimness as she entered, but if the Earps were there, they were busy at work and not immediately in sight.

She self-consciously brushed any loose dirt from her clothes and, for the first time, slid into a booth near the pool tables instead of sitting at the counter. The other patrons didn’t even look sideways at her anymore, now that she had been around for a few days.

Tucking the book out of sight, she sat in thoughtful silence and inwardly debated the veracity of Victor’s account, while a crooning voice on the radio warbled that it’s a sin to tell a lie. The cool interior of the bar was a relief after the heat of the sun, and she rolled up her sleeves and unfastened her shirt’s top button to let her skin breathe a little. After a minute, she even tugged her hair free from its braid, combing her fingers through it to achieve some level of straightness. She wasn't planning to go back into the sun, and it was liable to give her a headache if she left it all day.

Eventually, and to her great delight, Waverly strolled into view, distributing fresh beers to a group of locals before looking around and finally noticing Nicole’s presence. As their eyes met across the room, her whole demeanor seemed to lift and brighten, and a smile stretched across her face as she came over to say hello.

“How long have you been here?” Waverly asked, absentmindedly drying her hands on a cloth. Nicole smiled sheepishly.

“Not long. I guess I just… wanted to stop by.” Nicole felt oddly self-conscious, like she had been found hiding out in the saloon, which was silly. She brushed her hair back from her face, trying to smooth out the stubborn waves again.

“Your braid’s gone,” Waverly noticed, with an amused smile. “Does that mean your mission’s over?”

“I guess so. At least for today,” Nicole said, biting back a small laugh.

And so the rest of the day passed in sarsaparilla and intermittent conversation, and afterwards Waverly snuck her back into her bedroom, and just like that, they were in bed again, Nicole’s feet toeing the end of the mattress and Waverly buried in as much of the blanket as she could possibly manage.

Nicole tried to rest, but she couldn’t stop sifting through her thoughts like piles of grave dirt.

What had the burnt paper been? A letter? A contract? A bribe? A threat? Or something else, something personal? A letter, maybe? From Julie or Shae or another friend or acquaintance? But then why burn it?

And what did Primm mean to her? Nothing. She didn’t think she knew anyone there, and she didn’t even think she had ever been there, but then why did it feel vaguely familiar? Why did it seem so plausible that she was heading there to begin with?

And what was Victor doing that night? Why was he out there? Did he really go on ‘moonlight strolls?’ Could he really have seen or heard anything from all the way down the hill? But if it wasn’t an innocent coincidence, then what was it? If he wanted to hurt her, there had been plenty of opportunities today. And whatever suspicions she had of him, he certainly wasn’t the one who shot her. However addled her memories were, she was positive that a man had shot her. A man in a long fur coat. Not an eight-foot-tall metal robot who talked like a cowboy.

Nervous energy crackled in her limbs, making her fidget. She longed to roll over, in case a change of position might help her settle, but the bed was small and crowded. She didn’t want to disturb Waverly by tossing and turning. Sleep was a precious commodity in this room, after all.

As a sort of compromise, Nicole pulled back her arms and used them to slowly, carefully pull herself upwards, inch by inch, until she was sitting up against the bedroom wall with its faded floral wallpaper. Waverly shifted in her sleep, pressing back to make up for the lost contact. As some form of apology, Nicole lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder and patted gently until she settled again with a light sigh.

Sitting up felt better, but only a little. Questions still ticked away in her head. Swans. Why swans? Why “law?” Why Primm?

Suppressing a groan of frustration, she rolled her neck and flexed her arms, trying to shake the twitching restlessness from her muscles. She wished she hadn’t left her lucky star over in her trouser pocket; she missed rolling it between her palms, the sharpness of the points grounding her in the moment, keeping her thoughts focused. In search of a replacement, her fingers found a stray lock of Waverly’s hair, fine and brown and loosely curled, and toyed with the very end of it, brushing it over the pad of her thumb idly as she thought.

Swans. Brush. Guns. Brush. Papers. Brush. Fur coats. Brush. Victor. Brush.

She had hoped that the heavy darkness of the room and the steady cadence of Waverly’s breathing would lull her to sleep, coaxing the nervous energy from her limbs and emptying the thoughts from her mind. Instead, the moonlight called to her from the window, luring her back outside. After all, didn’t she want to see what the graveyard looked like at night? And didn’t she want to see if Victor really was out taking an evening constitutional? Wouldn’t it be good to stand out in the town and see how much she could see and hear from the cemetery in the dead of night? No sun, no distractions. Just like it would have looked that night.

She watched the window, debating. Her fingers teased the lock of hair, looping it around like a ring. She didn’t want to leave the bed. Obviously she didn’t. It was lunacy. She was literally in bed with the girl of her dreams and here she was thinking about leaving just to stand in a graveyard of strangers’ bones in the dead of night? Lunacy.

And yet...

And yet…

Cursing herself furiously, she gave in, easing sideways on the bed, sliding the dangerously short distance to the edge of the mattress. She consoled herself with the thought that if she just walked up and then back, she would really only be gone for, what, an hour at the absolute most? Waverly wouldn’t even know she had left. Nicole would get to stretch her legs and satiate her curiosity, and then she would come back calm and steady and ready for sleep. Easy as pie.

Unfortunately, any plans she had of slipping away silently, without Waverly ever noticing, were dashed as soon as she left the bed. She had barely gone five feet, reaching for her folded khakis on a chair, when there was a small, vaguely annoyed-sounding murmur from the direction of the bed. Nicole tiptoed back in time to see Waverly rolling over towards her vacated side of the bed. Remembering her tendency to get cold overnight, Nicole folded some of the blanket back over her to make up for the lost heat.

With a sharp twinge of guilt, she finished pulling her day clothes back on and crept over to open the window. As she pulled it open, it fought back, stubborn and heavy, and Nicole had an entirely new appreciation for Waverly’s upper body strength. Still, she was victorious in the end, wrenching it up and sticking her head out to breathe deeply.

She took a moment to bask in the cool, dry air of the desert at night. It had probably been awhile since she had spent so many consecutive nights indoors, and while she wasn’t the least bit mad about sleeping in a real bed under a real roof, she could feel herself getting a touch of cabin fever.

“What...?” Waverly murmured, and when Nicole looked over, her head was slightly raised, her eyes squinted reluctantly open. The guilt redoubling, Nicole padded back over to the bed and crouched so they were at eye level.

“Hey, it’s alright, go back to sleep,” she whispered, brushing a lock of brown hair away from her face.

“What’re you doing?” Waverly asked blearily, blinking at the window in sleepy confusion. Nicole smoothed the blanket a little, until Waverly lay her head back on the pillow, clearly only barely awake.

“I can’t sleep, so I’m going to walk up to the graveyard and back, just to see what it looks like at night. I’ll be back in a few minutes, I promise.”

Waverly’s expression remained slightly troubled, but when Nicole tugged the blanket to cover her more evenly, she closed her eyes again, drawn back to sleep. If she had any further response, it was lost in a vague grumble directed at the pillow. Nicole felt a small flash of relief as Waverly settled again. The last thing she had wanted was to cost her host any of her well-deserved sleep.

She crept back across the worn wooden floorboards and eased the window sash the rest of the way up, then slid through it, tumbling rather gracelessly out onto the desert ground. She brushed herself off as she stood, savoring the cooler, fresher air of the outdoors.

In the inky darkness, the wasteland looked empty and abandoned, but Nicole had spent enough time wandering to know not to trust her eyes. Without the benefit of some Cateye, or even just a lantern, all she could see was a panorama of different-sized shadows, cast in the dim light from the moon and stars. But it was enough. After all, she would rather see than be seen, and so she had an advantage in the darkness if someone with a lantern or, say, a big glowing display screen happened to wander by on a moonlight stroll.

She turned herself towards the graveyard, senses alert for unusual sounds or sudden movements, and began to walk towards it, her steps quiet in the dusty ground.

In a perfect world, she might have asked Wynonna for her accompaniment again, or at least the use of her rifle, but the middle of the night was hardly the time to ask such a thing. And besides, in their entire time in the graveyard earlier, their only adversary had been a single bark scorpion, which Victor had reduced into a fine powder via machine gun. As long as she kept her ears open and started running at the first sign of danger, there was no reason to assume she was really at risk. She had spent most of her adult life wandering the wasteland— day and night— and had survived everything from skittering radroaches to hulking deathclaws. She wasn’t afraid of a ten-minute walk within sight of a civilized town.

Just to sate her curiosity, she kept half an eye out for Victor, and half an ear out for the sound of his whistling, or the distinctive crunch of his wheel over the ground. But there wasn’t another soul out in Purgatory that night. “Moonlight stroll, my ass,” she grumbled under her breath as she summited the hill.

Nicole had wanted to see what the graveyard looked like at night. Well, as she determined when she reached the top, dark, was what it looked like. Even with the moon high in the sky, she couldn’t see a thing until she had reached the opening in the fence. Even then, the cemetery was just a lumpy mess of shapeless shadows. There was nothing to see.

“So how did Victor…” she murmured to herself, but her mind was already supplying alternatives. If the thugs had been carrying lights, they would have been visible from farther off. At the very least, they had cigarettes, and the flicker of the lighters and burning paper would have been visible from a distance. But even then, with the curve of the hill…

She passed through the opening in the fence and walked over to her own grave, judging more by feel than by sight. When she found the hole in the ground, she stepped gingerly up to her makeshift grave marker and reached out to trace the L A W.

“Law,” she breathed to herself. Was that her? Did someone think of her that way? It did give her an oddly warm feeling to think so. Something like pride, or honor. A sense of purpose. She could be the Law.

She tried to imagine her attackers, burying her on this spot in the dead of night. The desert was quiet up here. Aside from the dull hum of bloatflies and the whisper of the wind, it was nearly silent. The sound of shovels in the gravelly dirt would be almost explosive in the night.

But would it be loud enough to hear from town? What about for a robot to hear from town? Nicole had no idea what a Secuitron’s hearing range was like.

Setting that aside for the moment, she returned her attention to the grave. She worked backwards, imagining the scenes playing out in perfect reverse. The thugs un-burying her, then dragging her from the spot in the fence she had pinned down earlier. She followed the path, the invisible trail left by her body in the dirt, to the fence and peered out into the darkened wasteland.

She leaned against the fence, her eyes tracing the faint features of the landscape, barely visible in the darkness. In the distance, out east and to the south, she could see the a smattering of city lights— Primm, probably. Sloan was closer, but it was just a tiny mining town, half-swallowed by the quarry and lacking the neon lights of a bigger city. She looked over her shoulder and eyed the water tower briefly, itching to climb to the top of it for a better look, but the idea of climbing it for the first time alone in the dark was something less than appealing. She regretted again that she hadn’t been able to bring Wynonna along as backup.

Instead, she hopped the fence, her eyes sweeping the ground for anything that stood out— footprints would be nice, or maybe some more dropped evidence. But there was nothing immediately obvious, especially in the dark.

She continued a few steps down the hill and knelt to check a patch of grass to see if it had been recently flattened, but it was hard to tell. A few steps more brought her to a depression in the dirt— the impact of a stomped boot or a fallen body? Or just an old bark scorpion burrow? Again, there was no way to tell. Frustration mounted in her, and she wished she had more to build on than a few cigarettes and scraps of metal. But she didn’t.

Her spirits rallied as a glint of moonlight led her a few steps further, and she hoped for something more conclusive— an abandoned gun, a bullet casing, a knife, a badge, anything— but it was just some old tin cans that had rolled down the hill. Regardless, she found herself crouching beside them, picking up each one in turn and looking it over for any signs of shaping. A few of them looked bent, but not in any meaningful way. No swans here.

She was so caught up in her inspection, her usually sharp senses dulled by her faux-domestic days in Purgatory, that she only looked up when she heard rustling movement from about ten feet downhill. She expected the flutter of a departing crow, or maybe just the wind blowing at a tumbleweed, but she raised her head on long-honed instinct— just in time to see the numerous, beady, glistening eyes of a giant radscorpion, its stinger raised high as it crept towards her.

For a charged moment, the two of them just stared at each other, frozen. Nicole’s instincts flipped between a desire to take off at a run and a certainty that if she did, it would charge her on eight spindly legs. At roughly the size of a pack brahmin, she didn’t love her odds in hand-to-hand combat against it, and her eyes naturally fixated on the venomous stinger, suspended in the air, curled over its exoskeletal back. She barely breathed.

If she could run up and hop the fence in time, she might stand a chance. Scorpions could be fast, but it would have difficulty climbing and was too big to squeeze between the slats. If she could reach the fence before it reached her, she could still make it out of here alive. Maybe.

She counted down in her head, ready for a surprise burst of speed, a wild sprint for her life.

Three… two… one…

The night was split open with a blast of noise, and for a second, Nicole was certain she’d been killed. But the radscorpion reeled back, and a second thunderous blast sent it tumbling, legs curled in on itself, down the hill into the darkness.

Nicole’s breathing was still coming hard, adrenaline shivering in her limbs, as she stumbled up to her feet.

“Victor?” she called uncertainly, her voice hoarse but loud in the night. It was the only explanation she could think of. Maybe his claim of a ‘moonlight stroll’ wasn’t so ridiculous after all.

But there was no flicker of a display screen in the darkness, only the crunch of a boot on gravel.

She blinked as the shadowy figure stepped closer, until she could clearly make out the exasperated features of Waverly Earp, still in her nightshirt but with a pair of jeans and boots thrown on over it, and a shotgun braced against her shoulder.

“Are you done playing sheriff? Can we go back to bed now?”

Chapter Text

Nicole, still flushed with adrenaline from her near-death experience, could only answer Waverly’s question— can we go back to bed now?— with a hesitant nod.

“Good, then let’s get out of here before another one comes along.” Waverly reloaded the shotgun with an easy, practiced motion, waiting for Nicole to catch up to her. As Nicole got closer, she could see that the hard determination in Waverly’s face was tempered by concern. Her brown eyes, rendered black by the darkness, swept over Nicole’s face for signs of pain or injury. “You’re okay, right? It didn’t sting you, did it?”

Nicole shook her head.

“No, I’m okay.” Her voice was smaller and quieter than she would have like, but Waverly just nodded, a flicker of relief in her expression. Her grip on the shotgun tightened as she snapped the barrel back into place with a little more force than strictly necessary.

“Good. Then let’s go.”

Nicole followed her with her eyes as well as her feet as Waverly led the way back to the Earp home, down the hill from the cemetery. Her head was held high, her hair was a little wild, and her grip on the shotgun was steady. For a moment, Nicole tried to imagine what Waverly could have been like if she had grown up with the stability of a supportive, loving family behind her. With parents who cared for her. With only Wynonna as a sister. How fearless and formidable would Waverly Earp be then? How much of her personality had been stifled under Willa’s boot heel? And from losing her mother so young? Her father’s unfair treatment of her? Her life in a dwindling small town? How much of her was just waiting under the surface, for the chance to finally break free?

“What is it?” Waverly interrupted her rumination with a question, and Nicole realized she’d been caught staring.

You’re incredible, Nicole’s brain supplied, but she held back the words on instinct. It was too much, too early. It would tip her hand before she had a chance to explain, and it wasn’t like they were even necessarily on the same page—

“You’re incredible.”

Well, no one had ever accused Nicole of being a good liar.

Waverly ducked her head and looked to the side, hiding her face from Nicole’s view.

“If you’re just trying to get out of trouble, it’s not working,” she said, although her tone of voice made Nicole think otherwise.

“Sorry,” Nicole murmured, although it was hardly a sincere apology. Waverly shoved her shoulder, gently and without malice, but with plenty of good-natured exasperation.

“You can’t just wander out of town, alone, unarmed. You realize how stupid that is, right?” she demanded.

“Yes.” Nicole hung her head in chagrin. “But I wasn't about to go wake up Wynonna in the dead of night and ask her to come. And I wanted to see if Victor was telling the truth about walking around at night, so I couldn’t get him.”

She thought this was a reasonable enough explanation, but the silence between them went tense in a way that she hadn't expected, as though she had said something wrong. She had the sudden urge to apologize again, but wasn't sure for what.

The silence stretched and sharpened until Nicole finally gave in and asked, “What?” She tried to catch Waverly’s eyes, but she evaded her.

“Nothing.” Waverly shook her head and picked up her pace. Nicole matched her stride easily, trying to get a better view of her face.

“No, really, what is it?”

“Just…” Waverly seemed on the verge of saying something more, but backed off at the last minute, shaking her head again. “Nothing. Really. It doesn’t matter.”

They were almost to the house now, and Nicole worried that once they reached it, she would lose the opportunity to push the issue. The walls were sturdy, but their voices would carry in the silence of the night. After a moment’s internal debate, Nicole reached out and caught Waverly by the arm. Her grip wasn’t forceful, more of a suggestion of a stop than a literal restraint. Nevertheless, Waverly halted under the gentle touch, and they both stood there in the moonlight for a moment, the cool wind blowing dust around their ankles.

Nicole thought she was going to have to prompt Waverly again, but before she needed to, the smaller woman wheeled on her, eyes flashing in the darkness. “You could have asked me.”

Nicole froze in place, pinned by her gaze— a little indignant, a little hurt, a little accusative, a little resigned.

Underestimated. The baby sister. The ugly duckling. Never the first call. Always in someone else’s shadow.

Even now. Even with someone who should have known better.

“You’re right,” Nicole said. Simple. Honest. No excuse. No artifice. This seemed to catch Waverly a little off-guard, and she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. So Nicole repeated it. “You’re right. You told me you were a good shot. I should have thought of it. I’m sorry. Next time I will, I promise.”

The tension seemed to drain from Waverly’s stance, and the hurt seemed to drain from her eyes.

“Next time?” she asked, tilting her head and arching an eyebrow.

“Or next time, I just… stay in bed?” Nicole tried again, offering a winning smile. Waverly breathed a laugh.

“Better,” she said, then plucked at Nicole’s sleeve, tugging her towards her bedroom window. “Come on. It’s freezing out here.” The desert was never cold, per se, but the air was cool and Waverly’s nightshirt looked thin. Only Nicole’s deeply over-active sense of propriety kept her attention focused on prying the window a little higher to make entry easier.

Waverly stepped forward to climb through, but Nicole halted her with another touch on her arm.

“Wait. Just… thank you.” Waverly looked up at her, their eyes meeting in the darkness. “For coming after me. And for saving me. Really, thank you.” Their bodies were close, crowding the window, and Waverly’s arm was warm under her hand. She raised her hand and traced down the side of Waverly’s face, her fingertips tingling at the touch. “My hero.” She said it half-joking, but the air between them became charged with electricity. Nicole had never wanted to kiss anyone so badly in all her life.

And maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t completely off-base about it being reciprocated. Because Waverly’s eyes, already black in the darkness, still seemed to darken and deepen somehow at the touch.

This was usually the point where something or someone would interrupt them, but this time, there was nothing. The desert wind ruffled their hair and the dust settled on their boots and there under the moonlight, Waverly leaned in.

Nicole felt arms wrap around and grasp her in a hug so tight and heartfelt, she couldn’t even really be that disappointed it wasn’t a kiss. She tried not to think about how long it had been since anyone had held her like that, like she was something worth holding onto. Instead, she slid her arms around Waverly and returned the hug full-force, squeezing her eyes shut.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Waverly said, the words muffled by Nicole’s shoulder.

Waverly pulled back after what felt both like an eternity and barely a single heartbeat, and Nicole released her immediately. She was glad it was dark, because she could only imagine what her face was giving away.

“You…” Waverly started, but her voice drifted off uncertainly. Nicole waited with bated breath, but whatever Waverly had been about to say, she must have lost her nerve. She gestured slightly to the window. “We should go back to bed.”

“Okay,” Nicole agreed, and helped her clamber through the window before following after. She changed back into her nightclothes while Waverly manhandled the window back into place and placed the shotgun back on a rack in the wardrobe, and they both retreated back to the bed.

Drained by the adrenaline rush from earlier, Nicole barely had time to pull a shivering Waverly against her and bury her face in her hair before drifting off in the scent of fresh air and desert flowers.

Chapter Text

Nicole woke up with her face buried in the pillow. The fabric helpfully blocked out the bright daylight she found streaming through the window as she raised her head. Blinking groggily, she reached for the other “side” of the bed (if the bed was indeed big enough to have “sides”), but it was empty. Her searching hand found the far edge of the mattress without finding another warm body in the process. This was enough to make her finally sit up, rubbing her eyes against the glaring sunlight.

A quick glance around the room confirmed that she was alone, but on the table beside the bed, the metal swan was now weighing down a folded sheet of paper with “Read Me” written on top in a neat, loopy script. Nicole obeyed, retrieving the note and opening it up.

Nicole—

You must be really tired from your adventure earlier, because it’s morning and you barely even moved when I got out of bed. Well, you did roll over and steal the entire pillow. Isn’t it uncomfortable to sleep face-down like that? Doesn’t that make it hard to breathe? You do still seem to be breathing, but it doesn’t look comfortable.

Anyway, I’m writing this because Wynonna and I are helping out Easy Pete today, down by the Styx. I’m sure you would offer to help if you were awake, which is why I’m not waking you up. You must have been up half the night, and I’d rather let you sleep. Willa’s already gone for today, so the house should be empty. I don’t know when we’ll all be back, but if I don’t see you today, I’ll still see you tonight.

And if you don’t show, I will assume you’re doing something stupid and come looking for you.

—Sweet Dreams,

Waverly

Nicole felt a smile tugging at her lips as she read down the sheet of paper. Her mind made a delighted note that she now knew what Waverly’s handwriting looked like. She scanned through it twice more for good measure, then rolled to her feet and began dressing for the day.

As promised, the house was silent with that hollow emptiness she always felt in abandoned buildings. The soft rustle of each of her movements felt amplified as she pulled on her clothes— today, a green plaid shirt that had obviously seen heavy mending over the years. By the angle of the sun outside, it was sometime mid-morning. Late, by Nicole’s standards, but not unforgivably so.

She debated for only a moment before deciding to exit out the door rather than the window. If Waverly was wrong and the house wasn’t empty, leaving out the door would be bad. But if the house was empty and someone outside saw her climbing out the window, that would be even more difficult to explain away. Between the two, the second seemed more likely. On her way out, she passed by the kitchen, and her stomach gave an audible growl at the very idea of food. Being awake half the night hadn’t done her appetite any favors.

Unfortunately, Waverly’s note hadn’t included any mentions of food, and her sense of honor wouldn’t allow her to take anything without permission.

Stupid honor.

She exited the house into the desert. Some of the heat had finally broken, and the morning sun was bordering on comfortable, for a novel change. She tried to appear as casual and ordinary as possible as she left the Earp house, like it wasn’t strange at all that she was walking on that road. Nothing to see here, folks.

Eyes scanning around her, she made her way into the town proper, aiming first for the general store.

She still had enough caps left from her hunting trip for a few meals, but she needed to be frugal. Guns weren't cheap. At least, good ones weren't. Against her better judgement, she caught herself wondering if it may be worth buying something cheap and flimsy, like a laser pistol or a BB gun, just to have something. But a gun like that wouldn't have saved her last night against the full-grown radscorpion.

Gun or no gun, she hopped up onto the creaky wooden porch of the general store and entered, sending the bell jingling. The radio in the corner was speaking with a deep, smoky voice. Nicole didn’t often listen to the radio, but as it was the only sound in the room, it was hard to ignore.

“Whoops, better put on my newsman fedora here,” said a voice she vaguely recognized as Mr. New Vegas. “Troubling news from Primm as merchants report a large presence of armed, unsavory figures—”

“Can I help you?”

At some point while Nicole had been distracted, Robin had materialized behind the counter, a steaming mug in his hand.

“Yeah, but… Were they just talking about Primm?” Nicole asked, jerking a thumb in the radio’s direction. Robin followed her gaze.

“Probably,” he said. “He’s mentioned it a few times lately. I guess they’ve been having issues with the NCR prison out that way. Something about a riot.” His expression told Nicole that her interest was more obvious than she’d intended. “That was just the top-of-the-hour news. He’ll repeat it at the half-hour if you want to wait around,” he offered.

“He does? I never noticed…” Nicole said, furrowing her brow thoughtfully. She had listened to the station before, of course, but never closely enough to discern a pattern. Radio was radio. Robin’s ears blushed pink, and he chafed the back of his head in a faux-casual motion.

“I listen to him a lot. Like, a lot,” Robin admitted with a chuckle. “Who could resist that voice?”

“I guess…” Nicole said, a little dubiously. She gave the radio a hard look, as though she could prompt it to repeat itself through will alone.

“But I’m betting you’re not here for the radio,” Robin prompted, as said device transitioned into a particularly annoying song about one’s spurs going jingle jangle jingle, and Nicole turned her attention back to him, shaking her head to remember why she was there in the first place.

“No, I was looking to buy some food. And maybe check gun prices again.”

“The food I can do,” Robin agreed, although his expression was apologetic. “But I haven’t gotten any new guns since you were last in. Caravan traffic’s been way down with those gangs camping out on the roads.”

Nicole processed this new information, absently threading a hand through her hair to rub at her scar, even though the stinging had long since abated.

“Do you think that has anything to do with what’s going on in Primm? With the prison?” she asked, trying to organize the information in her head. “Wynonna said the gang was called something weird…” She frowned, straining her splintered memory for the word she had used. “Revenants?”

“Yeah, that sounds right,” Robin mused, already pulling a variety of packaged foods off the shelves. They were a familiar sight, and reminded her of poking around inside abandoned gas stations and office break rooms. A box of Fancy Lads snack cakes, some InstaMash, a tin of Cram, some potato crisps, a box of Sugar Bombs cereal. All junk food, really. She was tempted to argue for something fresher and less irradiated, but the caps in her pocket felt dangerously light. As though reading her mind, Robin continued, “I usually start getting fresh stuff in just before lunchtime, so you might have to make do with some junk food unless you want to wait around for a few hours.”

Biting back a sigh, Nicole picked up each item in turn, trying to imagine which would make the least disgusting breakfast.

“Do have any apples?” Nicole asked hopefully, after turning over the box of potato crips to scan the advertisement on the back.

“Not really. I mean, I think I have some Dandy Boys, but they’re in the Bad Vibes Box.”

Nicole wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly.

“Bad Vibes Box?” she echoed, raising an eyebrow.

“My lead-lined cabinet where I store anything that makes my Geiger counter a little too excited. But they’re yours at a bargain if you want them.”

Nicole was shaking her head before he was done with his first sentence.

“No thanks, I’m good.” A caravan trip that strayed a little too close to Camp Searchlight (and the medically mandated radiation purge that followed) had left her with a healthy suspicion of anything glowing. She reluctantly narrowed the offerings down to the snack cakes and cereal, then pushed the rest back towards Robin. “I guess the Sugar Bombs, then.”

“Excellent choice!”

He charged her a suspiciously low number of caps, but before she could question him about it, he was bustling with the register and clearing his throat, as if to cut off any rising protests.

“Want to borrow a bowl and spoon, while we wait for my future husband Mr. New Vegas to get back to the news?”

After a brief, considering silence, Nicole accepted the offer, and counter-offered Robin some of the cereal in return. And so they sat around the store like a couple of children, eating sugar cereal and waiting for the radio to cycle back around. Nicole perched on top of the clothing trunk while Robin sat atop his counter, both of them ignoring the chairs. The cereal took on a cloying, overly sweet taste after only a few bites, and Nicole could have sworn that her heart was racing from the sugar rush, but Robin seemed mellow and unaffected.

They chatted about food and the desert and the radio, and Nicole couldn’t quite help herself from asking what Robin knew about Waverly, but eventually, Frank Sinatra’s Blue Moon faded out and Mr. New Vegas was putting on his newsman fedora again. They both fell silent to listen.

“Troubling news from Primm as merchants report a large presence of armed, unsavory figures patrolling the town, following the recent NCRCF riot. Residents are encouraged to avoid anyone who looks like they’ve done time and report any suspicious activity to the NCR.”

That seemed to be all he had to say, and the radio faded back into an energetic instrumental number without further ado.

“Did that answer your question?” Robin asked from atop his counter. Nicole slumped back against the wall.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like a good sign, though, does it?”

“Not particularly,” Robin admitted. “Are you from Primm or something?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, and she could almost feel the vault jumpsuit taunting her from within the trunk. “But I might have business there.”

Robin seem to process this in thoughtful silence.

“And that’s why you’re looking for a gun?” he asked.

“Part of it, at least.”

He nodded.

“Well, if one does come through, I’ll try to let you know before anyone else can scoop it up.”

Nicole looked up at him and gave a weak smile, her mind still preoccupied with the thought of armed prisoners and matchbooks and still, inexplicably, swans.

“Thanks. I really do appreciate that.”

“It’s no trouble,” he said lightly. “But if you do want to pay me back, could I ask you to run something next door for me?”

Nicole hesitated. Her brain helpfully filled in the knowledge that if Wynonna and Waverly were both helping a neighbor today, then the only one left running the bar would be Willa. And that… wasn’t ideal.

But it had always been hard for Nicole to say no if someone asked her for help. And she did owe Robin, after all.

She put on a smile that only felt slightly fake.

“Sure. No problem.”

Chapter Text

Nicole hefted the crate as she pushed through the door out of the general store, making the bottles inside clink. Apparently, Robin had a side business fermenting the potatoes from his garden into vodka for the bar, but didn’t like leaving his shop unattended to deliver it. Also, the crates were annoyingly heavy and awkward to carry.

But the box’s weight wasn’t what made Nicole drag her feet as she carried it the short distance to the bar; rather, she was bracing herself for Willa’s sneering voice and judgmental gaze. She consoled herself with the thought of the letter in her pocket— Waverly’s note, and the promise of seeing her later. Snippets of it played on a loop in her head. I’m sure you would offer to help… I’d rather let you sleep… I’ll still see you tonight… I will come looking for you… Sweet Dreams…

She paused for a moment before entering Shorty’s, even though the day was warming and the crate was heavy.

I’ll still see you tonight… Sweet Dreams…

Then, finally, with a final deep breath, she entered. Eager to shed her burden, she set the heavy box on the closest part of the counter before looking up to see what Willa was up to, an explanation for her presence and the crate on the tip of her tongue.

But the person behind the bar wasn’t Willa.

“Doc!” Nicole exclaimed, surprised (and relieved) to see him. His hat hung on a hook at the end of the bar, and his head looked oddly naked without it. His hair was slicked back neatly, and his sleeves were rolled up to the elbow.

“Pleasure to see you again,” he greeted, flipping a dishtowel over one shoulder. His smile was hidden under his mustache, but she sensed its presence nonetheless. “Glad to see you're still upright.”

“Me too,” she agreed, leaving the box behind to approach him. She perched atop a bar stool and leaned against the scarred wooden counter. The bar was only sparsely populated today, with only a handful of locals milling around. “And feeling pretty alright, I think. All things considered.”

“Any pain?” he asked, professionally. She shook her head.

“Not too much. I did have to clean up the scar a little, but it's been better since then.”

“And your memory? Is it clearing up at all?”

“Most of it, kind of.” She ran a hand back to the scar and traced it with her fingertips. It had been bothering her considerably less since they cleaned the blood from it, but touching it had become a habit that was hard to break. “I’ve just still been trying to figure out exactly what happened to me that night. And why.”

“And? Have you found your answers?” he prompted. Nicole shrugged.

“All roads lead to Primm,” she said, with a wry smile. “Although by ‘all roads,’ I mean one matchbook, a radio show, and a wild hunch.”

Doc tilted his head thoughtfully.

“I suppose I’ve heard of folks riding off with less,” he said. Nicole gave a humorless laugh and shook her head a little.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked. He seemed perfectly at home behind the counter, but it seemed like an odd side gig for a doctor.

“Once in every great while, I lend my considerable talents to the Earp family and stand in, to give them a bit of a rest from the place,” he said, spreading his hands to indicate the bar around him.

“That's nice of you.”

“As I suspect you've found out, they can be hard to refuse,” he said.

“Some of them,” Nicole agreed sardonically. Doc looked slightly amused by this, his eyes twinkling.

“I take your meaning.” He tapped the counter with his hand. “Now, lest I neglect my bartending duties entirely, can I get you anything to drink?”

Nicole glanced at the bottles that lined the mirror, but shook her head a little. Her mouth was dry, but still overly sweet from the Sugar Bombs, which left her feeling anything but picky.

“Surprise me.”

Doc raised one bushy eyebrow at her.

“Now that’s a dangerous request.”

“Not if you’re a man of honor.” She challenged, grinning at him. “Which I think you are. And I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character.”

“Well, I guess we shall see.” He took a step back, towards the bottles, then turned his back to her, blocking her view of the bottles with his torso.

“I haven’t been wrong yet,” she claimed brashly.

A minute later, he turned back towards her, a short, heavy glass in his hand, nearly opaque from scuff marks but clearly filled with an amber liquid.

“It only takes once,” he said, a bit ominously, sliding it across the bar to her. As if to prove her point, she raised the glass to him and, without breaking eye contact, downed half of it in one motion.

It was clearly some manner of whiskey, and clearly out of their nicer stock, because it was smoother and richer and lacked some of the scalding burn of what she had drunk there in the past. She still gave a small cough as she set the glass down.

“See? I knew you were one of the good ones,” she said.

Doc laughed quietly, shaking his head a little.

“That’s not something I’ve been called very often.”

“Well, maybe it’s overdue.” She downed the rest of the glass. It still didn’t burn, but warmth seemed to suffuse out from her stomach, and she propped her elbows on the bar, resting her head on her arms. “Have you always lived here, Doc?”

He got a slightly distant look in his eyes, and absently picked up her empty glass, rubbing at its scuffed exterior with a cloth.

“No, I have not.” He said it heavily, like a sigh. “Like yourself, I was quite the wanderer back in my younger days.” He set the glass down in the sink. “They were some of the finest days of my life, but no one can wander forever. Nor should they.” He eyed her as he said it. Nicole wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so she didn’t, and after a minute, he returned his attention to the bar. “And where might you be wandering to next?”

“Primm, I guess,” she said, as he slid her a fresh glass. “If only to find out who put that bullet in my head and why.”

“Looking to take some revenge?” he asked, his face unreadable. She felt a small prick of indignation at the suggestion.

“Looking for justice,” she corrected him, pointedly. “And not just the frontier kind.”

He turned to face her more completely, revealing a thoughtful look on his face. He looked about to speak, but the louder-than-usual rattle of the door caught their attention. Nicole turned towards it, half-expecting Wynonna to crash through in her distinctly violent way, spinning Peacemaker in one hand. It was funny how quickly she had gotten used to the rhythms of the town.

Instead of Wynonna, the person who tumbled through the door was a man. The stranger had fine, wavy hair and basset-hound eyes that made him look on the verge of tears. He was wearing ill-fitting gray-striped pants and a pale blue shirt, with a darker blue jacket over the top, all three of which bore ominous black stains, as though they had been scorched. There was even a spot on the front of his jacket, near the left pocket, where something had been torn away, leaving loose threads. Nicole’s instincts prickled at the sight, and Doc eyed him warily as well, but the man didn’t even look up at them. He stumbled over to a nearby barstool and half-collapsed into it, then pulled out a cigarette and matchbook.

He fumbled the matchbook onto the counter, spilling matches everywhere, and Nicole’s attention sharpened at the sight of the now-familiar logo of Primm’s Vikki and Vance casino. She froze in place, staring at it.

It didn’t necessarily mean anything. There were probably hundreds of identical matchbooks in the area.

And yet…

Still oblivious to their attention, the man recovered the matches and tried to light his cigarette with shaking hands. Nicole forced her shoulders to relax and raised her whiskey glass to her lips, but ultimately set it back down without drinking. She didn't want to dull her senses any further just now. Not until her instincts told her it was safe.

Doc, too, seemed to be keeping half an eye on the twitchy stranger. The man had finally succeeded in striking a match, but he was just holding it in his hand, staring at it as the fire crept lower and lower.

“Howdy there,” Doc addressed the stranger when the flame was almost halfway down the match. “I don’t recognize your face from around town. What’s your name, friend?”

The man barely looked up, apparently still in his own little world.

“Levi,” he mumbled.

“Well then, Levi, is there something I can assist you with?” Doc asked him, keeping his voice neutral. “A cool drink, perhaps?”

Levi finally looked up at him, then stood back up and took a step back, towards the center of the bar.

“You can empty that register,” he said, his voice still oddly dull. “Every cap.”

Nicole tensed. Her eyes scanned Levi for a gun, but she couldn’t see one. But something about him still seemed dangerous.

Doc didn’t seem nearly as concerned. If anything, he gave the man a skeptical, almost patronizing look.

"Now, I don't think you really want to do this,” he said, his usually kind voice going low and dangerous.

But Levi fumbled in his pocket inside his jacket and pulled out a reddish bundle, which Nicole recognized with a jolt of alarm. Dynamite.

“I said empty that register,” Levi choked, finally raising his voice. He sounded more desperate than angry. All around the bar, there was the sudden rustling of nervous patrons, but Nicole only had eyes for the explosives. The explosives whose fuse hung mere inches away from the lit match. “I mean it. NOW! Or I blow this whole place to smithereens.”

Doc appeared unmoved, although his face hardened and his eyes went cold and steely. Nicole slowly, silently slipped back off her barstool, hoping to stay out of Levi’s line of sight, fading back like a shadow. By some miracle, he didn’t seem to notice.

“Now, Levi,” Doc continued in his ominous drawl. He picked up Nicole's glass from the counter and took a drink, as though fully unconcerned with the pending explosion. “I myself am a great admirer of dynamite and its ability to solve all manner of problems. But friend, you are making a grave mistake, and you clearly do not understand who you are threatening.” Nicole, whisper-silent, stepped into place behind Levi, blocking his view of the door, where customers were already slipping out in mild panic. Nicole motioned for the stragglers to keep moving, but held her ground behind the man with the dynamite. Doc, much to his credit, kept his eyes focused on Levi, not giving away her presence. “Set the dynamite down and we can settle this like civilized men. That is a one-time offer, and one you will regret refusing.”

Nicole glanced behind her, as the last customer slipped out the door. They were alone now. She met Doc’s eyes over Levi’s shoulder, and an understanding passed between them.

Doc held up his hands as if in defeat. He pulled a small metal key from his pocket and held it up for Levi to see.

“This is the key to the register. But I would have preferred that it didn’t come to this.”

He tossed it to Levi, who fumbled his match in order to catch it. In that instant, Nicole surged forward, her whole body acting on reflex. She whirled in front of him and hurled her fist into his shocked face, catching him clean across the jaw. He stumbled back, stunned by the blow, and she let her momentum carry her forward, this time seizing his jacket by the collar and yanking it down and twisting until his arms were pinned behind him. His grip on the dynamite loosened, and there were twin impacts as the bundle hit the ground and Nicole slammed its owner face-down onto the bar. And there he stood, pinned in place and whimpering, his arms locked behind him.

Nicole stood behind him, breathing hard, one hand holding his arms in place and one on the back of his neck, pressing his face into the scarred wooden counter. She blew her hair out of her face, wishing she’d had the foresight to braid it again this morning, and finally looked up at Doc. His eyes were twinkling again, and he was smiling under his mustache.

“When I told him he did not know who he was dealing with, I had meant myself,” he said. He walked around from behind the bar to retrieve the dynamite from the floor. Levi whimpered against the bar, but Nicole didn’t dare relax her grip. “Now what exactly shall we do with him?” Doc asked, scooping up the bundle and examining it with interest.

“Is there a jail in town?” Nicole asked, without much hope. As expected, Doc shook his head.

“I am sad to say there is not. Not since the town lost its last sheriff.”

“Then can you get me the lock and chain for the door?” she asked.

“Wait—” Levi protested, his voice muffled by the bar. He squirmed, but he didn’t have either the strength or the leverage to break free from Nicole’s grip.

“I want to keep him secure until Waverly, Wynonna, and Willa get back. It’s their bar, and Wynonna seems to be about the closest thing to the law around here. They should get some say in what happens to him,” she explained, ignoring Levi’s weak attempts at escape.

“No, don’t, I can’t stay here,” Levi moaned, as Doc returned with the length of chain. Together, Nicole and Doc half-marched, half-dragged him into the back room, chaining him to a large water pipe that stretched from floor to ceiling. He protested tearfully the entire time. “Look, I don’t care what you do to me, but don’t just keep me here. You don’t know what he’ll do if he finds me.”

“Who?” Nicole asked, securing the padlock and pocketing the key.

“Bobo,” Levi whimpered, and Doc and Nicole exchanged a glance over his head before both snickering. Nicole had heard some pretty dumb names in her time, especially from the various gangs and tribes scattered throughout the Mojave, but Bobo was in a class of its own. “It’s not funny!” Levi snapped indignantly. “Just let me go. I’ll leave and never come back, I swear! You can keep everything I’ve got!”

In this case, “everything” consisted of a few more sticks of dynamite (which Doc happily took possession of), a few packs of cigarettes (which Doc also happily took possession of), the box of matches (which Nicole kept to compare against the one from the graveyard), a packet of bubblegum (which they both ignored), and a scant handful of bottlecaps.

“We’re not keeping you here forever,” Nicole told Levi, less for reassurance and more so that he would stop complaining. “Just until the bar’s owners get here. What happens next is up to them.”

Levi slumped against the pipe, looking miserable.

“In the meantime, I think we could both use a stiff drink,” Doc said to Nicole, clasping her shoulder and leading her back out to the bar. “I get the feeling we’ll need it for when the girls turn up.”

Chapter Text

“I think this calls for a drink,” Doc said, stepping behind the bar as Nicole slumped back onto her original bar stool, her head still ringing from adrenaline.

“No kidding.” She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, and gratefully accepted the very full glass of whiskey that Doc pressed into her hand. She swallowed the first mouthful without even tasting it, then chased it with several more, until her whole mouth felt numb and tingly.

The fight had left her jumpy, and she shifted restlessly in the chair, wishing more than ever for a gun at her hip.

“That was some pretty fancy fighting you did,” Doc said. Nicole nodded absently. Even unarmed, her movements had felt familiar and automatic, and her muscles seemed to hum with memory.

“I’ve done a lot of guard work, and some odd jobs for the NCR. Rangers get lots of hand-to-hand combat training, and sometimes if you do them a favor, they’ll show you.”

He was filling a glass of his own, and she pushed hers towards him. He obligingly topped it off.

“Most people would have just run.”

“Wouldn’t be right.” Nicole shook her head, feeling suddenly drained as the alcohol began to take effect, washing away the last of the adrenaline in a wave of warmth and numbness. “He was going to hurt people. Blow up the Earp’s bar. Blow up you and me. Blow up a lot of folks. I couldn’t let him do that.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

And they both did.

By the time the door burst open, some unmarked minutes later, neither of them were feeling any pain. The radio was playing a cowboy lullaby about stars of the midnight ranges, and the whiskey bottle had grown impressively light.

Doc was slumped back against the wall, his hat drooping over his eyes, and Nicole was resting her head on her arms on top of the bar, wishing she had a hat to pull over her own eyes. The room would probably keep spinning, but at least she wouldn’t have to watch it.

At the CRASH of the door’s violent opening, Nicole raised her head to blink in that direction, hoping it wasn’t some other stranger with dynamite and ill intentions.

“How’s that door even stay on its hinges,” she mumbled to herself, rubbing at one eye.

Willa, Wynonna, and Waverly stood just inside the doorway, all three of them looking windswept and frantic. Nicole felt a dumb grin tug at her lips at the sight of Waverly.

“What the almighty fuck happened here?” Wynonna asked loudly, looking around. “People were talking about dynamite?”

Doc seemed to still be blinking his way awake, so Nicole tried to explain, although her tongue felt clumsy and her brain was having trouble picking out words.

“Someone tried to rob the bar. Or blow it up. Both. Or... either. He said Doc had to give him all the caps or he’d blow it up.” Nicole nodded sagely, thinking that was a pretty complete explanation of events.

“... And?!” Wynonna half-shouted after a beat.

“Where’s the body?” Willa asked calmly. Nicole blinked a few times in confusion, then scowled at her.

“We didn’t kill’m,” she slurred. “I’m not a killer.”

“The perpe... perpetu... perpet....” Doc, still slumped against the wall, stumbled on the word ‘perpetrator.’

“Asshole,” Nicole suggested in its place.

“The scoundrel is tied up in back, awaiting your sentence.” He nodded, clearly pleased with himself, either for the decision or for managing to say the entire sentence.

“Are you both drunk?” Waverly asked, stepping closer.

“And more importantly, did you pay for those drinks?” Willa added, pointedly. Abruptly remembering that she hadn’t, Nicole began fumbling in her pocket, before emptying it handful by handful onto the counter. Caps skittered across the surface of the bar. She tried to count them, but she kept losing her place, and everything seemed doubled anyway, her vision swimming. She only gave up when Waverly appeared at her side, seemingly out of nowhere, and gently stilled her hands.

“Stop that. It’s alright.” She pressed her own hands over Nicole’s gently, and Nicole immediately relaxed. “Are you okay?”

Nicole looked up into her face. There was a smudge of dirt by her eye, from whatever work they had been doing, and Nicole wanted to wipe it away, but her hands were pinned and her arms felt far too heavy. Waverly’s brown eyes looked confused, and a little concerned. Nicole leaned a little closer.

“You’re so pretty, and I like you so much,” she whispered conspiratorially. Waverly shook her head, unable to fully hide her smile.

“That’s very sweet, but you’re very drunk. I’m going to get you some water, and then you can tell us what happened.” She gave Nicole’s hands a final pat, and then circled behind the bar to find a clean glass.

While she did that and Nicole watched her, Wynonna dropped noisily onto the bar stool next to Nicole’s.

“You tied him up before you got totally wasted, right?” the gunslinger asked, looking still perturbed.

“Yep. With the chain. Locked him up,” Nicole agreed. She tried to nod, but it made the whole room spiral unpleasantly. She groaned and buried her face in her arms.

A steady, reassuring hand touched down on top of her head, and she felt her whole body sink in relaxation. It only stayed for a few seconds before its owner took it away, and, a minute later, she heard the sound of a glass sliding towards her from across the bar.

“Drink that,” Waverly said, pushing the water towards her. Between the water and the hand on her head, she would have preferred the hand, but she obediently picked up the glass and began drinking. “So… someone tried to rob the bar with dynamite, and you stopped them and tied them up?” Waverly prompted.

Nicole lowered the glass and wiped her face on her sleeve. The water was cool, and cut through the heaviness of the whiskey, bringing the world into slightly sharper focus.

“Yeah,” she answered. “First he just sat down like he was gonna order a drink, but then he told Doc to give him all the caps from the register, and pulled out this big thing of dynamite.”

“An’ a struck match,” Doc added.

“Yeah,” Nicole agreed. “Doc kept him talking while everyone else got out the door, and then I jumped him. Levi, I mean, not Doc.”

“Levi?” Wynonna echoed.

“The scoundrel,” Doc clarified.

“He said he needed the caps to get away from a guy called Bobo,” Nicole added. The name tickled her again, and she smothered a fit of laughter by burying her face in her folded arms.

“He threatened to blow up the bar, and you didn’t just shoot him?” Willa asked, sounding both annoyed and incredulous.

“I don’t have a gun,” Nicole groaned, her head still buried in her arms. The lack of a holster at her hip was especially grating after a fight, and she didn’t need Willa rubbing it in.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Willa said, now sounding doubly annoyed.

“We had the situation well in hand,” Doc said, and Nicole realized that Willa had been addressing him. “And I suspected that shooting him might cause him to light the dynamite on accident, or reflex.”

“Obviously it all worked out and the bar didn’t blow up,” Waverly said, her voice placating. At the sound of it, Nicole raised her head again to look at her. “So why don’t we just focus on what to do next?”

“I agree with Waves,” Wynonna said, and slid back onto her feet, pulling her gun from its holster. “I want to talk to this Levi guy. Come on.”

Obediently, Nicole stood up on long, wobbly legs, forcing herself upright. Her first step was more of a stumble, and Waverly seized her arm, as though to keep her from falling.

“I’m fine,” Nicole assured her, despite making no move to dislodge her hand. She did feel a lot more stable with it there, although that probably had less to do with the drink than with her frayed nerves. The water had cleared her head a little, and although the room did seem to be swaying from side to side, she could compensate for that.

“This guy tries to blow you up, so you stop him, you get him tied up, and then... your next move is just to start drinking?” Waverly asked incredulously, steadying her as they walked.

“See, now that part I actually understand,” Wynonna interjected.

“I would have preferred that your first reaction would be either of you coming to get us,” Willa said, her voice tense. “Rather than helping yourselves to our inventory.”

“We were the ones that saved your inventory, darlin’,” Doc pointed out. “If it were not for our intervention, you would be missing far more than one bottle of whiskey.”

“I don't care about the whiskey,” Wynonna said flatly, cutting off the argument. “And I literally can't believe that those words just came out of my mouth.”

“It does sound very unlike you,” Waverly agreed, still clutching Nicole’s arm. Nicole leaned into her a little, just enough to keep her gait steady. Once they had entered the stock room where Levi was tied up, they all automatically formed a half-circle around him.

Nicole absentmindedly drew Waverly close, tucking her into her side. She told herself it was to help her stay upright as the room spun, and almost believed it.

“Hey! Levi, is it?” Wynonna said sharply, looming over him in her leather jacket, Peacemaker in hand. Levi looked nonplussed, like he had already resigned himself to whatever would happen.

“Yeah,” he answered dully. “Can I go now?” He said it without hope, and Nicole would have felt bad for him if he hadn’t just threatened to kill a bunch of people, her included.

Wynonna took up a menacing stance in front of him, rolling her gun back and forth between her hands.

“Well, let's see, Levi. You come to my bar, you pull out your stick—” Everyone else in the room gave her an odd look. “Of dynamite,” she reluctantly clarified. “And threaten to blow up my bar, my booze, my friends, and my customers.”

“Our,” Willa corrected in a low voice. Wynonna shot her an annoyed look, looking unhappy about having her speech interrupted.

“That's what I meant.”

“But why?” Waverly asked him, cutting off both her sisters. “Why here?”

“It wasn’t personal,” Levi said bitterly. His stringy curls fell in his face, but his arms were pinned helplessly at his sides. “This was just the first actual business for miles. And I thought the town was too small to have any lawmen around.” Apparently (and maybe correctly) identifying Waverly as the least threatening member of the group, he seemed to make an appeal directly to her. “If you just let me go, I’ll never come back. I don’t care about this place, it was just on my way out of town. I swear, you’ll never even see me again.”

Waverly frowned at his unconvincing argument. Wynonna and Willa locked eyes.

“What do you think?” Wynonna asked the eldest sister. Willa’s expression was grim. She gave a small shrug.

“We obviously can’t trust him. He already tried to kill half the town. I think there’s only one realistic option here,” she said firmly. Wynonna seemed confused, waiting for her to elaborate, until she notice Willa’s pointed glance at Peacemaker.

“You want me to kill him?” Wynonna reared back incredulously. Willa rolled her eyes.

“Well, we can’t just let him go,” she snapped. “He could just come back with more dynamite, more weapons, more friends. What else are we supposed to do?” She gestured around her. “It’s not like when Daddy was alive. There’s no sheriff here. No jail. Do you want us to keep him locked in this stock room forever?”

Wynonna’s jaw worked, but she didn’t say anything right away.

“Just give me a second to think,” she said, holstering Peacemaker and pacing the narrow width of the room.

“There’s law in Primm,” Nicole spoke up into the tense silence. “I was probably going to have to go there anyway. I could take him—”

“No!” Levi yelped, raising his voice for the first time. He pulled against the chains desperately, looking at them each in turn. “Look, do whatever you have to do, but don’t take me back there.”

“Why?” asked Wynonna, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

“Because of Bobo?” Nicole asked. For the first time, she managed to not laugh at the name, although it did still take some effort.

Levi nodded quickly, looking jumpy and scared.

“He’s crazy. You don’t even want to hear about what he has them do to traitors.” He shot a nervous glance at Willa. “I don’t want a bullet, but even that’s better than what they would do to me.”

“Who’s ‘they?’” Nicole asked, her whiskey-dulled senses perking up at this fresh information.

“The Revenants,” Levi said.

“The gang?” Wynonna prompted. And that’s when Nicole recognized the ill-fitting clothes Levi was wearing.

“From the prison,” she murmured.

“Yeah.” Levi shifted uncomfortably under the heavy chains. “Bobo was the one who organized the riot. He’s their leader.”

“Their leader?” Nicole asked, a little curious that he would be ‘their’ leader, not ‘our’ leader, judging by Levi’s prisoner getup and familiarity with the group.

“Look, I wasn’t a part of all that. I was just doing my time, minding my own business, and then suddenly, boom, half the inmates are throwing dynamite and attacking guards. And then it’s all over, and Bobo is standing on a pile of dead troopers, saying he’s freed us from hell, and now we’re all Revenants, and we’re going to rule the Mojave. What was I supposed to do?”

Nicole was finally starting to see how Levi could be intimidated by someone named Bobo.

“Keep talking,” Wynonna said. “If he was so scary and he was on your side, then why run?”

“My side?” Levi laughed bitterly. “Half the guys there were monsters already. Killers and rapists and arsonists. Prison just made them worse, and then Bobo went and riled them all up. Talking about freedom, and revenge for the NCR, and all the guns and dynamite we want. But I didn’t want any!” He yelled it defiantly, and Nicole almost believed him. “I got tied up in something I shouldn’t have, and sure I broke the law, but I’m no monster. I’m an artist. I just wanted to finish out my time and go home.”

On the word ‘home,’ his voice sounded small and broken. Nicole felt Waverly lean a little into her side.

“So that’s where you were trying to go when you stopped here?” Waverly asked him. “Home?”

Levi hesitated, and Willa noticed.

“He’s lying.”

“I’m not,” Levi insisted. “It’s just… I wasn’t going straight home. I was… looking for someone.” He hung his head, looking miserable again. “I had a… friend… in the prison.” His basset-hound eyes glanced at Nicole a little too knowingly, and she was suddenly very aware of her arm’s continued presence around Waverly. “I couldn’t find him after the riot, but nobody found his body either. I think some folks just ran away in the chaos. I’d have run with them— with him— if I’d known. I just want to find him again, but if the Revenants find either of us…” He trailed off, his eyes watering pathetically.

Against her better judgment, Nicole felt a tug of sympathy. It sounded like a hopeless situation from all sides. She couldn’t just forgive him threatening the whole bar, but it wasn’t as clear-cut a crime as they often got in the Wasteland.

She looked up at Wynonna, trying to see what she was thinking, but her brow was furrowed, her expression conflicted. The gunslinger glanced up and caught her eye, then nodded at the door.

“Alright, sounds like we’ve got a lot to think about.” Wynonna turned on her heel of her boot and led the way out of the room, shoving Doc on the way, startling him from his nap against the wall. “And you two better have left me some of that whiskey.”

Chapter Text

The entire group (sans Levi) retreated to the main part of the bar, Wynonna snagging the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the way and taking a swift drink from the neck.

Nicole let Waverly herd her towards a table and push her down into a chair, her grip firm but not painful. She hovered at her side rather than claiming the seat next to her, and thus that was soon taken by Wynonna’s feet as she dropped into the chair across from it. Willa took up a position at the head of the table, like a patriarch, and Nicole wondered if it was so she could loom more effectively over the rest of them. Doc dropped down next to Wynonna, although he still seemed a little too loose-limbed, his eyes a little too heavy-lidded, from the lingering influence of the whiskey.

Wynonna took another swig from the bottle, then set it on the table and rubbed her face with both hands.

“Okay, so we have him. Now what are we supposed to do with him?” she asked, then immediately held up a halting hand in Willa's direction. “Besides kill him.”

“I’m just saying, I think it's too dangerous not to,” Willa said, her voice authoritative and just a little patronizing.

“And I'm saying, I still have to live with myself after this, and I'm not signing up to shoot some unarmed moron when he's already tied up in our back room,” Wynonna said. Nicole gave her a small, agreeing nod.

“Where we can't just store him indefinitely,” Willa countered, her voice increasingly testy.

“Those aren't the only two options,” Waverly snapped back from just over Nicole's shoulder. Nicole tried to crane her head back to look up at her, but tilting her head just made the whole room lurch dangerously, so she gave up.

“Then what's your solution?” Willa asked, turning her full, icy attention to Waverly. Nicole felt a pair of hands inch their way under the cover of her hair to grasp her shirt collar, as if for reassurance.

“Isn't that what we came out here to talk about?” Waverly asked back sharply, her hands tightening in the fabric and making Nicole especially glad she had left the top few buttons of her shirt undone.

“It is,” Wynonna agreed. “And whatever we decide to do, I think we should all agree on it. Right?” She leveled her gaze at each of her sisters in turn. Waverly nodded immediately, and Willa mirrored her after a few tense seconds.

“Fine.”

Nicole somewhat lost track after that, as suggested punishments seemed to ricochet across the table.

“We could leave him tied up for a few days, like he was in jail,” Waverly suggested awkwardly.

“And what, then we have to give him food and water and take him to the bathroom, all while a bunch of violent criminals come here looking for him? That sounds more like a punishment for us,” Willa countered.

“Well, then we don’t leave him tied up. We could… make him help out somehow! Like, around the town,” Waverly tried again, a little more enthusiastically.

“And what's stopping him from running off the second we untie him?” Willa shot back.

“One of us with a gun?” Wynonna suggested, half her face screwed up as though she found the thought distasteful.

“Which, again, seems like just more work for us. And then he decides to run, and then what? If you're so opposed to shooting him?” Willa said, her tone daring anyone to answer.

“I don't know,” Wynonna sighed, pushing back her hair and furrowing her brow in frustration. “But there has to be something, right? I refuse to accept that there's no middle ground between killing him in cold blood and just letting him go like nothing happened.”

Nicole let the suggestions pass in one ear and out the other, ruminating on the issue as well as she could.

“Nicole, you said you could take him to Primm, right?” Waverly asked her, making her look up and pay more attention. The hands on her collar had loosened their grip, but she could still feel the absentminded tapping of fingertips against her neck and shoulder, and it was incredibly distracting. And incredibly nice. It was hard to resist the urge to lean her head into the touch.

“Yeah, but it doesn't sound like he'd go quietly,” she murmured, dragging her attention back to the matter of hand. Wynonna was right— there had to be a middle ground. There had to be a way for justice to be served, not just punishment. She didn't relish the thought of dragging an unwilling prisoner down an already dangerous road, possibly staked out by the very group who most wanted him dead. And all that for the dubious benefit of sticking him in a jail cell for a few days. How would that be justice? “I don't suppose there's another NCR outpost around here? Maybe in the other direction?”

“Nope,” Wynonna said, offering a resigned shrug. “Not unless you want to drag his ass all the way to McCarran.”

Nicole suppressed the urge to groan. She only had a loose idea of where exactly Purgatory was in comparison to anywhere else, but she felt perfectly safe in assuming that it was nowhere near Camp McCarran and the other bases that clung to the fringes of the New Vegas Strip.

Not that the NCR was necessarily a solution regardless. They were a military, not a police force. Things like this were exactly why towns needed local law enforcement, and the chaos of not have any made Nicole want to scream.

“So there's no sheriff in town. What about a mayor?” Nicole asked, grasping at straws. The Earps all exchanged a look.

“Also none. I mean, there used to be a family called the Gardners who ran things, but they all left after the mine closed,” Waverly explained.

“Which is a real shame,” Wynonna said ruefully. “Mercedes was a bitch, but she was a fun bitch. And sometimes we got to take turns being the town pariah. It was a nice break.” She looked legitimately saddened by the memory.

Nicole resisted the urge to scream. It was like Purgatory wasn't even a real town anymore, it was just a collection of buildings. There was no law, no jail, no government. This was her nightmare.

And yet, this was where she was. And where Waverly was. And Wynonna. And Doc. And Robin. And they deserved better.

“I don’t blame them,” Willa claimed, chiming in. “Without the mine, the land here is practically worthless. They could have bought out the bar and the general store, but everyone was leaving town anyway.”

“Not everyone left,” Waverly disagreed, quietly but defiantly. She released her grip on Nicole’s shirt collar and leaned forward to snag the whiskey bottle from the table. “And Purgatory isn’t worthless.”

She took a sip from the bottle and set it back on the table, in front of Nicole. The scent of the whiskey wafted into the air, and Nicole felt her head begin to throb in response. The alcoholic haze was gradually dissipating, and the dull beginnings of a hangover loomed.

The dim lights and dark wood and smoke-fogged glass of the bar, usually a pleasant break from the outdoors, now felt cramped and close, and the whiskey-rich tang of the air made her stomach roll. She tugged at her shirt collar, readjusting it where Waverly had inadvertently pulled it tight. The air was tinged with whiskey and smoke, and it sat heavily in her lungs.

“I need some air,” she said, abruptly, only realizing as she said it that she had interrupted Willa mid-sentence. Fantastic. Just what she needed. “Sorry.”

Her body resisted her order to stand, but she overruled it and dragged herself upright. The room wasn’t swaying anymore, but her legs still felt clumsy and unbalanced.

Willa was glaring at her, and Wynonna just looked startled by her sudden announcement, but Waverly’s eyes peered into her face with concern.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Nicole promised her quietly, brushing a light touch down her arm as she stepped away from the table.

Nicole slipped out the door, and the rare desert breeze caught her full-on, ruffling her clothes and tousling her hair. The sun was, just for the moment, tucked behind a lone cloud, and her aching head was grateful for the respite.

The air outside wasn’t much cooler than it had been inside, but it was dry and clean, and she breathed it in like an antidote.

She didn't go far. She didn't have anywhere to go anyway. Everyone she knew was already here. Under the small shelter of the bar's porch, she sank down and dangled her long legs off the porch, stirring up dust with her shoes.

Trying to shake off the stuffy, claustrophobic feeling, she stretched out, propping herself back on her arms, and turned her eyes out to the stretching wasteland around her: the rocky hills to the east and the lone road to the south, winding down and down and down towards Primm and Sloan. The sight of the sky, blue and endless, seemed to do as much as the fresh air to ease the throbbing in her temples and settle the nausea roiling in her stomach.

The door creaked behind her, and she didn’t even need to turn around to know who it was. There was only one person in that room, possibly even in the town, who was capable of opening a door slowly and gently.

“I’m sorry. You were right, I shouldn’t have had the whiskey,” Nicole said, as light footsteps closed the distance between them and Waverly sank down next to her.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it was just starting to feel a little… crowded in there,” Nicole said, struggling to find a fitting description.

“Aren’t most vault-dwellers agoraphobic, not claustrophobic?” Waverly asked, a hint of teasing in her voice. Nicole turned her eyes from the desert to the woman inches away from her. Waverly was wearing a ruffled white blouse over some dust-speckled jeans, and if Nicole had drunk even one more shot of whiskey, it might have been impossible not to cast off the last of her inhibitions and just kiss her.

Smiling wryly to herself at the thought, she looked back at the desert.

“I guess that depends on whether or not they liked it underground,” she said finally.

“But it was home, wasn’t it?” Waverly asked.

Nicole mulled over the question. Her memories of the vault were vague and unremarkable, but tinged with a hint of something dark. She could barely even picture her parents anymore, and any recollection of friends or mentors had long been overwritten by her life with the Followers of the Apocalypse.

“I guess so,” she said, although even she could hear the skepticism in her own voice. “But not like this place is to you.”

Waverly seemed to accept that answer. One of her hands reached out and traced along one of the boards of the porch, the touch fond and familiar.

“I can’t believe someone tried to blow this place up,” she said, giving a humorless laugh. “I mean… I don’t even know what I would do if it was gone. Willa’s kinda right; there’d hardly even be a town left.”

Nicole reached over and clasped the hand that still traced the floorboards, stilling it. She was half prepared for Waverly to pull back, but instead, the younger woman turned her hand over, lacing their fingers together.

“I don’t think he was really going to go through with it,” Nicole reassured her, her thumb absently stroking Waverly’s hand. “I mean, when I first saw the dynamite, I thought he might, but now… I don’t know. I kinda believe his story.” She appealed to Waverly with a half-hopeful, half-apologetic look.

“So what do you think we should do?” Waverly asked.

Nicole thought for a moment, ruminating on the question.

“I think…” She paused, working up the nerve to give her real answer. “Doc and I already took everything he had on him. He didn’t have any other weapons or anything. If we take him at his word, that he really is just running home and looking for his friend…” She shook her head a little. “Maybe we should just let him go. Willa’s right, if you try to hold him here, it’s just more time and money and danger for you. And shooting him or hurting him… just doesn’t feel right. Feels like revenge, not justice.”

Nicole watched Waverly’s face as she said her piece, waiting for a sign of approval or disgust. Relief or horror. Praise or condemnation. Waverly seemed to mull over her words for a long moment, her eyes still fixed on the floorboards.

“Daddy used to call revenge a balm for the soul,” she said finally. She raised her warm, brown eyes to meet Nicole’s gaze. “I don't think he was a very good sheriff.”

Nicole gave a surprised, relieved laugh.

“I don’t think he was a very good father,” she added, remembering Waverly’s story about how he favored her sisters. Waverly gave a surprised laugh of her own, then sighed.

Then, slowly, naturally, wonderfully, she leaned sideways, tucking herself into the curve of Nicole’s body.

The breeze kicked up again, ruffling their clothes and sending a tumbleweed bouncing across the road, rolling to a halt in front of the town sign.

Welcome to Purgatory-- You’ll Never Want To Leave!

The universe sure thought it was funny sometimes.

“So we just… let him go?” Waverly asked, her head resting against Nicole’s shoulder.

“Well, maybe not just,” Nicole mused, shifting a little to make them both fit together more comfortably. “After all, he does have one thing we want…” Waverly tilted her head up a little, curiosity in her eyes.

“And what’s that?” she asked. Nicole turned her gaze from the town sign back down the road, towards Primm.

“Information.”

Chapter Text

Waverly and Nicole reentered the bar together, Nicole being intentionally gentle with the much-abused front door. It creaked ominously as she pushed it closed.

“Everything alright?” Wynonna asked, eyes flitting between the two of them.

“Fine. Just needed some air,” Nicole said, pushing her hair back from where it had been blown astray by the wind. The churning feeling inside her had settled, and the throbbing in her head had died down to a tolerable level. There was still a phantom warmth along her side from where Waverly had been leaning into her, and a significant part of her missed that connection.

But they had business to discuss.

“Well, you haven’t missed anything important,” Wynonna sighed as Nicole reclaimed her chair. The chair beside her was currently occupied by Wynonna’s feet, but Waverly yanked it back from the table, sending her sister’s feet clunking to the floor. “Hey,” the gunslinger protested.

“As we were saying…” Willa tried to regain the room’s attention as Waverly brushed off the seat and sat down. Doc, looking half-drunk and half-hungover, sat up straighter in his chair.

“I say this with no disrespect, but we do appear to be simply talking ourselves in circles,” he appealed to her. It was clear that there hadn’t been any new ideas since Nicole’s abrupt departure. “I fear we have reached an impasse.”

Willa made a frustrated noise and set to pacing a tight line along the head of the table. Wynonna slumped back in her chair and kicked at the table’s legs, making the whiskey bottle rattle on the tabletop.

Waverly turned her head and caught Nicole’s eye, and Nicole imagined a silent conversation where they decided who should speak up first. On the one hand, Nicole was the outsider, so her opinion counted for less. On the other hand, if one of them was going to draw Willa’s ire, she would rather it be her.

Nicole had just decided to raise her own suggestion when Waverly beat her to it, clearing her throat for everyone’s attention.

“Actually, Nicole and I were talking about it when we were outside,” she began. She seemed to have tensed, preemptively bracing for impact, but she didn’t look scared.

“Nicole,” Willa said with obvious disdain in her voice. “Doesn’t get a say in what happens to the man who robbed our bar.”

“But I do,” Waverly countered, glaring defiance at the eldest Earp. Nicole could practically feel her temper simmering from the chair next to her. “And I— we— think you’re right.” She said the last part lightly, and Willa froze, blinking in surprise. That had caught her off-guard.

They had her attention now.

“At least about some of it,” Nicole amended, in the brief silence that followed. “Trying to lock him up or make him work would just be more work for all of you, and if he’s telling the truth, then keeping him here could even be dangerous.” She slid her gaze over to the other side of the table. “But Wynonna’s right, too. Killing him, or even injuring him, wouldn’t be right. That’s the kind of shit the Legion does.”

Beside her, Waverly gave a small shiver, and Nicole touched her knee under the table, just in brief reassurance.

“So what does that leave?” Willa asked, crossing her arms. Her voice was more neutral now, but still wary. Not ice, but stone.

“We already took everything he has that’s worth anything,” Waverly said, her voice a little more careful now. Her eyes flitted to Wynonna, as if preemptively seeking her support. “He doesn’t have any weapons, and no one else has come looking for him yet, so he can’t be traveling with anyone.” She took a deep breath, and glanced once at Nicole, who nodded at her encouragingly. “Why can’t we just let him go?”

Willa rolled her eyes, turning away from the table like she couldn’t even look at them anymore. Wynonna, on the other hand, seemed to be mulling it over. She pulled the whiskey bottle back towards her and took another sip, keeping hold of it afterwards.

After a few seconds, Willa turned back to face them, bracing both hands against the table.

“Because he tried to blow up our property,” she said, as though it had been the dumbest question she had ever heard.

“Look, there are only a few reasons to do something to someone when they break a law,” Nicole argued, thoughts spawning thoughts in her head until she was almost bursting with them. “There’s punishment. Which, we did smash his face into the bar and tie him up and take all his stuff. That sounds like punishment to me.” She ticked off one finger, wondering why she had put so much thought into this. “There’s rehabilitation, which, if we believe his story, isn’t necessary. If he really isn’t normally a violent person, then he probably won’t try this again. And by letting him go, he won’t have a reason to come back here looking for revenge.” She ticked off another finger, feeling stranger and stranger the longer she spoke. “There’s deterrence, but no one in town would ever try to blow up the bar, and if he really is traveling alone, then there’s no one to deter. No one would even know about it.” She ticked off another finger. This all just seemed obvious to her, even as she barely knew where the thoughts were coming from. “And there’s restitution, which we can get by keeping all his stuff and selling it to help fund the bar, and by making him give us information about the Revenants that we can use to protect the town.”

She could feel the whole room staring at her, four pairs of eyes under four pairs of raised eyebrows, fixed on her in varying degrees of surprise or confusion. She cleared her throat awkwardly, unsure of how to follow that. She almost wished Wynonna had left the whiskey on the table, so she could take another sip.

“So… you are a cop?” asked Wynonna slowly. Nicole shook her head slightly, although if she was being honest, she was starting to wonder that, too.

“No, I just… work with them sometimes,” she said uncertainly. Waverly was giving her a deeply curious look, and she wished she had a better answer to give in response. “There was…” she trailed off, losing the end of the sentence after barely starting it. “I don’t know. I’ve just thought about it a lot, I guess.”

Uncomfortable, she buried her hands in her pockets, and one of them found the metal star in her pocket, with its worn inscription and sharp points. She frowned down at the table, troubled by the avalanche of words that had just spilled out of her. Her time with the Followers had left her with a distaste towards unnecessary violence, and her time guarding caravans had left her with a level of pragmatism about dealing with outlaws, but this was more than that.

“Well, that was… weird,” Wynonna said. “But convincing.”

In spite of her distraction, Nicole felt a small rush of relief.

“Indeed,” Doc rumbled his agreement. He was giving Nicole an oddly calculating look that she wasn’t sure how to interpret.

And so all that left was Willa.

Willa was silent now, piercing Nicole with a sharp gaze. There was a hardness in her eyes, but not the cold fury Nicole had expected. The silence had an edge to it, but not a calm-before-the-storm edge. This was something different.

“We can keep him locked up until morning,” Nicole suggested, mostly to Willa, unable to tell what she was thinking. “And if anyone thinks of a better idea before that, we can still change our minds. And if not…” She broke Willa’s gaze to glance towards the back room where Levi was chained up. “We get whatever information we can from him and let him go.”

When she returned her attention to Willa, she could tell her eyes had narrowed.

The unsettling silence stretched out for a few more beats.

“If he ever comes back, we shoot him on sight. I won’t have him bringing his problems back to our doorstep,” Willa spoke finally, quietly but firmly. Nicole looked at the others. Wynonna shrugged.

“I can live with that,” she said, holding both hands up in mock-surrender. They all turned to Waverly.

“Okay,” she said after a moment. She didn’t look thrilled by the caveat, but if that was what it took to get a unanimous decision, then they didn’t have much of a choice. As it was, Nicole was surprised that the issue had been resolved without a knock-down-drag-out screaming match.

“Well then it sounds like we have come to an accord,” Doc said, his eyes twinkling.

The rest of the discussion was just a matter of logistics. Willa wanted Levi out of their storeroom before the customers came back in, and Nicole brought up the gas station. Wynonna and Doc departed to get Robin’s permission and the key to the gas station door, and Willa and Waverly returned to their regular duties— Waverly cleaning up the mess left by the fight, and Willa unloading and inventorying the crate of vodka Nicole had carried from the general store, back before this all had started.

Nicole stood awkwardly, unsure of where she fit into the process until finally, with another eye roll, Willa pushed the empty crate towards her.

“Take that outside with the others,” she said. As much as she resented being bossed around by Willa, Nicole was relieved to have some sort of direction.

She nodded and hefted the empty crate, exiting out the bar’s back door into the alley between buildings. She immediately found a pile of identical crates stacked against the side of the general store, just waiting to be filled. She stacked her crate on top of the others and dusted her hands off on her pants.

When she returned to the door, Willa was blocking it, arms crossed. Waverly and Wynonna were nowhere in sight.

“Something you want to say to me?” Nicole asked after a tense few seconds. It had already been a long day, and the last thing she felt like was a fight with the eldest Earp. She had already tried being diplomatic and didn’t relish the thought of trying again so soon.

“I know what you think of me,” Willa said shortly.

Nicole chewed on her answer for a minute. She could say I know you seem to hate me, even though you don’t know me. She could say I know you don’t respect Waverly, even though she’s your sister, and even though she’s smart and brave, and she has just as much ownership of the bar as you. She could say I think you’re an asshole who isn’t willing to help people unless you’re getting something out of it.

She could say those things. But where would that get her? Was that what Willa wanted to hear? Or was it the excuse she wanted to use to leverage something else?

“And?” she said, simply, finally. If Willa had a point to make, then let her make it.

“I’m just looking out for my family’s best interests. I agreed today because I think it’s what will keep my family safest.” Her stance continued blocking the entire door. “But my opinion about you hasn’t changed. The safest thing for my family will be when you move on from here. Understand?”

Nicole met her eyes, feeling suddenly tired.

“Thank you for the clarification,” she said dully, and Willa’s eyes flared.

“Listen, I don’t care if you want to swan around acting like some kind of holier-than-thou sheriff, but do it in someone else’s town.” She leaned closer. “Because I don’t want me and my sisters around when whoever put that bullet in your head finds out it didn’t take.”

And with that, Willa stepped back and shut the door in Nicole’s face.

“Well, that was a productive conversation.” Nicole tilted her head towards the sky and sighed. She debated circling back to the front door and just reentering that way, but if Willa wanted her gone, then that was just asking for trouble. After a moment’s debate, in which her head’s throbbing began to make itself known again, she shrugged and began circling around to the front of the general store instead. She caught Doc and Wynonna exiting and gave them a small wave.

“Hey,” Wynonna greeted. “We’re going to grab Levi and get him moved over. Robin says the gas station should be basically empty. Can you get it opened up and make sure it’s clear?”

“Yeah, no problem,” she agreed immediately, eager for something useful to do— and preferably something a nice, comfortable distance from Willa. Wynonna tossed a key at her, and she snatched it out of the air.

Wynonna, with Doc following, strode up to the back door of the bar and tugged, apparently puzzled to find it locked. Not feeling up to an explanation, Nicole just set off towards the gas station, blinking sunlight out of her eyes.

She felt strange, the events from the day weighing on her in the same way the heat of the sun did, making her limbs heavy and her thoughts sluggish. But this wasn’t the first or last long day she had lived through. She pushed through. Just like always.

The breeze became more distinct the higher she climbed on the hill, and when she reached the top, she leaned against one of the long-defunct gas pumps, closing her eyes and letting the cool wind blow over her, carrying away some of the stress of the day in a dusty gust of desert air. It was rare to get a day-long breeze like this in the Mojave. They might have to watch out for heat lightning that night.

She took a few breaths to rally herself, then continued on to the front door to the gas station, which was chained and locked. One turn of the key had the chains falling away, and she opened it into a small, enclosed room, with no other windows or doors. There were a few shelves, almost all empty except for a few damaged boxes of Abraxo cleaner and what must be some very stale boxes of Potato Crisps.

Propping the door open with a small rock, Nicole performed a cursory investigation of the room, finding it free of weapons. The cash register on the counter was long empty, and the safe in the floor was securely locked. It should be safe to stow someone there overnight.

Still, for lack of anything else to do, she gathered up the stray boxes and cans of long-expired goods and tossed them into the dumpster outside, cleaning the place out until the sound of voices caught her attention. Wynonna and Doc were frog-marching a still-chained Levi up the hill to the gas station.

Nicole stood outside and waiting for them, wishing that she had thought to grab a spare bottle of water from the bar before she left. Behind the uncomfortable trio followed another form, and Nicole’s whole mood lifted instantly at the sight of Waverly following behind them, bringing up the rear.

Levi’s head was bowed, but Wynonna gave her a grateful nod as they herded him into the gas station.

“There’s a cot behind the counter,” Nicole told them as they entered. “And a bathroom in the back corner. But nothing that could be used as a weapon.”

“Thanks, Haught,” Wynonna said, fussing with Levi’s chains. However, Nicole’s attention was pulled away by a warm presence appearing at her side.

“You disappeared,” Waverly told her, something between a confused appeal and a tentative accusation in her voice. Nicole tugged a corner of her mouth up apologetically, and reached out to touch her arm.

“Sorry. Willa had a few choice words for me. I thought I’d better make myself scarce.”

Waverly slumped against the wall next to her, groaning theatrically.

“I really hoped that her agreeing today meant she was coming around,” she sighed. Nicole shook her head.

“I think she just thought it was practical,” she said, her voice a regretful sigh. She wondered how many hours were left in the day, and how she would have to spend them. Waverly peered into her face with soft eyes.

“You look tired.”

And Nicole was. A night of midnight wandering, followed by a surprise altercation, followed by a half a bottle of whiskey, followed by an uncomfortable conversation, left her feeling drained and wishing that she and Waverly could just crawl back into bed, even with the sun still in the sky. A long nap with a warm companion sounded like the best medicine in the world for a day like today.

“A little,” she admitted, her only vocal concession to the feeling.

Waverly looked like she was about to say something, but Wynonna’s raised voice caught both of their attentions, and they looked over as she and Doc emerged from the gas station.

“We’ll be back in the morning to ask you about this ‘Bobo’ guy and the other Revenants, okay? And if you tell us the truth, you’ll be free to go. But you can’t ever come back here. Understand?” Wynonna said through the open doorway. Levi must have nodded or responded, because Wynonna shut the door and gestured to Doc to chain it. She walked over to where Nicole and Waverly stood, and slumped against the wall next to her sister, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Well, at least that’s taken care of. For now.”

Waverly leaned into her, laying a head on her shoulder.

“Yeah. Sounds like he’s going to stay put.” She glanced up. “You do think it’s right to let him go, don’t you?”

Wynonna let out a long breath, making a sound like a tired horse.

“I don’t know. But I think it’s our…” She seemed to search for an adequate word. “Least worst option. Whatever that counts for.”

Waverly nodded against her shoulder.

“I think so, too.”

With a sigh, Wynonna reluctantly pushed off from the wall.

“Ready to go, baby girl?” she asked her sister. Waverly nodded, following her lead.

“Yeah.” She turned and gave Nicole a final look. “Nicole, I’ll see you later?” An innocent question, but full of secret meaning. Nicole gave a weary nod, already dreaming of soft bedsheets and fluffy pillows.

“Yeah. I’ll see you later. Promise.”

With a final wave, the two Earps trekked away, back towards the bar, leaving Doc and Nicole standing by the abandoned gas station.

Chapter Text

Doc and Nicole both watched silently as their respective Earps descended the hill down towards the saloon.

“Do you think one of us should stand watch?” Nicole asked, once the women had climbed up the porch, out of their sight. Doc looked over at her, then at the heavily chained door behind them.

“In case he breaks out?” He pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and lit it with a flick of a metal lighter. Nicole shook her head slightly. Levi was hardly in danger of picking the chain’s lock from the wrong side of the door.

“More… in case someone else breaks in.”

Doc took a long drag on his cigarette, leaning against one of the empty gas pumps.

“Like this Bobo character?”

“Maybe,” Nicole said, reluctant to say her real thoughts. “You don’t think…” she began, then cut herself off. She checked his face before starting again. “You’ve known them longer than I have. Would Willa…?” She trailed off, leaving the heavy implication hanging like a storm cloud in the arid air. Doc took a moment to think before answering, tapping ash from the end of his cigarette.

“I don’t suppose anyone can ever know for sure what’s going on in the mind of an Earp, except perhaps herself. But I surely don’t believe that she would go against her sisters’ wishes for such an unsavory thing,” he said at last, and Nicole relaxed minutely.

“I don’t either. I just… I wish I felt more sure.” She felt a little guilty for even having to consider the possibility, but Willa had been pretty emphatic that she would do anything to protect her family, and that she considered Levi’s very existence a threat. “Do you think they would agree to let you hold the key to the door?”

“If I asked, Wynonna would likely let me take it for safe keeping,” he said. “But that would mean placing a great deal of faith in me.”

“She obviously trusts you,” Nicole said immediately, and he smiled under his mustache.

“I was referring to you,” he corrected her. Nicole resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and instead responded truthfully.

“Well, you saved my life. And I know I didn’t pay you for it. And I’m guessing Victor didn’t pay you for it. And I can’t think of anything else you could have gained from it outside of just wanting to help if you were able. Why shouldn’t I trust you?”

He chuckled at her answer.

“In my experience, trust usually works the other way around. The question is always why you should trust someone, not why you shouldn’t,” he said.

Nicole shrugged.

“Well, I did kind of grow up with the Followers,” she told him. Now that she was thinking about it, she wondered if they were the ones who had taught him medicine in the first place. If they did, he didn’t say so.

“I suppose that could explain it,” he said simply, with only a hint of skepticism in his voice.

“We don’t see eye to eye on everything, but I think they have the right idea about trusting people.” Nicole watched him through the smoke curling upwards from the end of his cigarette.

“Which is?” he prompted her.

“That most of the time, it’s best to trust people until they give you a reason not to.”

Assuming trust over distrust was considered a dangerous approach in the desert, but Nicole considered it a fine way to make allies, as long as you weren’t stupid about it. And as long as you were a quick draw and a good shot when things went south.

“Well, if that’s the case, then I think we can trust even Miss Willa to hold her fire long enough for some dinner. Wouldn’t you agree?” Doc said, tossing the stub of his cigarette down into the dust, where it smoldered out.

“I would think so,” Nicole said, a small frown tugging at her face. Her hunger had returned, and she wondered if another trip to the general store was in order. Doc heaved himself upright from where he had been resting against the gas pump.

“Well, come on, then,” he said, setting off towards his house. Nicole blinked after him.

“With you?”

He half-turned, tipping his hat to her.

“If you are so inclined.”

Nicole only hesitated for a second before jogging to catch up and then following at his side.

“Okay. Sure. Thanks.”

He nodded.

“Just don’t set your expectations too high. I am no great hand at cooking. My skills lie elsewhere.”

“Like bartending?” she half-joked.

“Among others…” He lowered his hat and seemed to lengthen his stride as they walked.

She found his house exactly as she’d remembered it— clean, but with every available surface crowded with medical equipment, half-empty glass bottles, and various knick-knacks.

While Doc puttered around his kitchen, Nicole circled the other rooms, smothering yawns and trying to stay alert.

“Where did you learn medicine?” she called between rooms, her eyes roaming over surgeon’s tools and different measuring implements.

“Back in my halcyon traveling days,” he began, with a hint of sarcasm in his tone. “I found myself spending a few weeks in a Great Khan encampment. A Khan there named Rosita was quite the accomplished chemist, and she had me assist her in making medicines for the camp, as well as a few more profitable substances…”

Nicole resisted the urge to groan. It was a constant lament to the Followers of the Apocalypse that their attempts to teach medicine to the Mojave’s gangs and tribes often just led to an even-more-thriving market for drugs and chems.

“Of course…” she sighed.

“I told you, I am not often described as an honorable man,” he said. “However, once I moved on from that camp, I did cease those particular activities. But then when I was looking to stop my wandering and settle down, remembering those times gave me an option I hadn’t considered.”

Nicole crouched down to peer at a low bookshelf, and saw that it was filled with medical texts— some of them extremely basic, but others more advanced.

“So you’re self-taught?” she called over her shoulder.

“You might be surprised how much practice you’re able to get when you’re the closest thing in town to a physician.” He entered the room to see what she was looking at, and caught her holding a thick booklet labeled D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine. “And I have taken to collecting books on the subject, now that I have four walls and a roof and a shelf to keep them in.” He eyed her. “There are some benefits to settling down, after all.”

“I’m starting to see that,” Nicole murmured, sliding the journal back into place on the shelf.

Dinner consisted of an odd stir-fry of coyote steak, carrots, and a perhaps larger quantity of jalapeños than would normally be advised.

Beggars can’t be choosers, Nicole reminded herself, even as the heat made her eyes water. Doc apparently caught her expression, and got up, producing a bottle of whiskey from the counter.

“Something to take the edge off?” he offered. “I did warn you in advance about the quality.” She shook her head, suppressing the urge to cough.

“It’s fine. Really. And I think I’ve had all the whiskey I can stand for today.”

“Fair enough.” He set the bottle back down and went to his fridge instead, producing two bottles of Nuka-Cola. “You look like a jolt of caffeine might do you good.”

“Well, if it’s what the doctor orders.” Nicole accepted one of the bottles, clinking it against his in thanks before drinking.

They tried to keep their talk on lighter subjects, but kept wandering back to Levi and the Revenants and what would come the next day. Evening cooled into night, and Nicole eventually took her leave, thanking Doc profusely for his kindness. He waved her off and shut the door on her before she could embarrass him by thanking him further.

And just like that, she was briefly alone again, just her and the desert at night.

She and Waverly hadn’t talked about when and how she should make her way over to the house, but the buzz from the caffeine was fading fast and she didn’t want to wait. Her breath caught in a yawn as she followed the crest of the hill back past the gas station and back down the other side, towards the Earp’s property.

There was a dim light coming from Waverly’s window, which had been left open for a change, letting the rare desert breeze breathe in and out of the room.

Nicole tapped on the windowsill before sticking her head in, and caught Waverly looking up from where she was curled on the bed. The electric lamp was glowing on the nightstand, and she was holding a book, her fingers trapped between pages as a bookmark. She looked relieved to see her.

“There you are,” Waverly said, keeping her voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “I couldn’t figure out where you ran off to.”

“Doc invited me over for dinner,” Nicole explained, ducking her head to avoid the window sash as she slid into the room.

“Aww, he must like you.” Waverly smiled almost teasingly at her, apparently cheered by the thought.

“Or he feels sorry for me,” Nicole said, although she wasn’t sure she really believed that. She retreated to the corner by the wardrobe and began unbuttoning her shirt.

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive. But I think it’s mostly just that he likes you.” Waverly’s voice was followed by the rustle of paper on paper as she presumably picked her book back up.

“He hasn’t always lived here, has he? Doc, I mean.” Nicole shrugged out of her shirt, draping it over the chair, and began pulling on the too-short nightshirt.

“No. He settled here… hm… I think I might have still been a teenager then. More than five years ago, but less than ten?” she guessed.

Whatever generic reply Nicole had been planning was lost in an enormous yawn that interrupted the lengthy removal of her boots. She heard a chuckle from the bed.

“Okay, I think you need to go to sleep immediately,” Waverly told her, her tone slightly scolding. “And no more midnight trips to the cemetery, right?”

“Mm. Promise.” Nicole managed to successfully kick off her boots and stack them next to the chair, then removed her khakis and folded them over the chair’s back.

Another yawn stole her attention as she joined Waverly on the bed. She found herself not trying as hard to avoid incidental contact as she had on her first few days. It seemed silly now that they had spent so many nights curled together like kittens in a basket.

“Is it okay if I leave the light on for a little longer, or will it keep you up? I just wanted to finish this chapter.” Waverly was still sitting up, leaning back against the wall with the blanket covering her lap and the pillow taking up the narrow space beside her, where Nicole was now trying to arrange her long frame.

Nicole glanced up from where she was trying to keep her feet from falling off the side of the mattress.

“Right now, a double dose of Jet wouldn’t keep me up,” she promised sincerely. “Besides, I won’t even see it if I do this.” She rolled herself over on her stomach, nestling face-down into the pillow, arms crossed underneath it. Her feet ended up sliding off the end of the mattress, but she stopped fighting it and just let them. It also caused her shoulder and arm to nudge slightly into Waverly’s side, but either the smaller woman didn’t have enough room to move over or else she didn’t want to, because she stayed in place, leaving them both squeezed together in the narrow space.

“Still seems like that must make it hard to breathe, but if you say it’s okay…” Waverly said.

“ ’S fine,” Nicole said, her voice thoroughly muffled by the pillow.

She felt Waverly’s soft laugh as much as she heard it, and then felt a hand and arm settle on her back, just resting there along the curve of her shoulder. It was almost certainly just a consequence of the bed being crowded and her body making for a convenient armrest, but the warm weight was comforting nonetheless.

She meant to go straight to sleep, but found herself resisting. Waverly’s arm would move occasionally, lifting away to flip a page before resettling, and the movement was distracting.

After the warm weight vanished and returned for a third time, something changed— Nicole felt the hand stir against her back, fingers absentmindedly tracing patterns over the thin nightshirt.

She found herself staying awake just to better appreciate the feeling, as the light touch raised goosebumps from her buried head to her dangling feet. But eventually, the patterns deteriorated into a constant light, circular stroking. The gentle rhythm seemed to drain every lucid thought from her head, and apparently no force in the Wasteland was enough to keep her awake through that. She slipped away into welcome oblivion.

Some unknown time later, she was half-awakened by the odd sensation of a warm spot on her back going cool again. The space next to her on the bed was empty, but still warm. She raised her head, blinking, and found Waverly on the wrong side of her, kneeling next to the nightstand to turn off the lamp there.

Waverly looked over at the sound of her movement and screwed up her face in an apologetic wince.

“You were supposed to stay asleep,” she whispered. Nicole just blinked at her drowsily. “Lie back down. I’ll be there in a second.”

After a moment of processing, Nicole rolled onto her side and pushed the pillow back into its usual place at the head of the bed. She was settling back down just as the light winked out, leaving them in a disorienting darkness while their eyes struggled to adjust.

She felt Waverly’s hand bump into her, seeking the edge of the mattress to use as a guide, and heard her circle around to her usual spot on the opposite side of the bed. Nicole helpfully tugged the blankets back to leave a space for her.

“Thanks,” Waverly murmured as she climbed back onto the bed and shifted back until they were in what had become their usual position, Nicole holding her close with an arm around her middle.

“G’night,” Nicole murmured into her hair, already half-asleep again.

Just like previous nights, Waverly’s hand found her arm under the blanket and settled there, as though holding it in place. Only this time, Nicole felt her thumb absently stroking back and forth near the crook of her elbow, reminiscent of the hand on her back from earlier.

The small affection was like a gift, and Nicole silently vowed to find a way to repay it.

Deeper and deeper in your debt.

“Good night, Nicole,” was the last thing she heard before sinking back into a much-needed sound, restful sleep.

Chapter Text

When Nicole woke early the next morning, it was still dark. She could hear the nighttime sounds of the desert wafting in through the open window— shifting sand, whispering wind, the distant howl of a coyote. She spent her first bleary moments wondering what had woken her, until she felt a violent shiver against her front. She blinked in the darkness, but she didn’t need sight to feel Waverly’s body trembling against hers.

As awareness bled through the hazy remains of her dreams, she could feel a slight chill in the air, and realized that the pre-dawn breeze through the open window had dropped the temperature of the room several degrees below normal. Nicole was used to sleeping in all kinds of conditions, but Waverly huddled back against her like the desert had turned into a tundra overnight.

“It’s alright,” Nicole murmured. Under the covers, she chafed Waverly’s arm, hoping to convey warmth and reassurance, but the shivering didn’t abate. Nicole turned her head towards the window, resigning herself to the obvious solution. “Alright, I’ll go close it.”

With outrageous reluctance, she slipped out from under the warm covers and into the brisk open air. Even if she was used to a wider range of temperatures than Waverly, the sensation of the cool floor under her bare feet quickened her pace as she crossed the short distance to the window. She heaved it shut as the pre-dawn breeze raised goosebumps on her arms and legs.

Closing the window successfully stopped the incoming cool wind, but she could tell it was too little too late— the room was already a refrigerator.

She heard movement from the bed and saw that Waverly had shifted to the middle of the bed and curled in a tight ball under the blanket, which was clearly not enough to take the bite out of the chill air on its own. Nicole did a quick check of the wardrobe and under the bed, hoping for some spare bedding, but there didn’t seem to be any.

There was, however, a blanket draped over the couch in the living room, mere steps away. She had seen it the past two mornings, when she had been lucky enough to leave the Earp house via the front door instead of Waverly’s window.

Nicole had a rule about tempting fate. The rule was: “Don’t.” You could trust people, usually, if you were brave enough, but trusting the universe was a different story. On that front, the line between brave and stupid was surprisingly thin.

But Waverly was shivering miserably in her sleep, and Nicole had certainly crossed the “brave-stupid” line for lesser reasons than that.

Listening hard and holding her breath, she eased the bedroom door open just enough to slip through. The hallway was the kind of dark that made Nicole think of life underground. She trailed one hand along the wall to guide her as she crept along. Every sound— the muffled creak of the door, the faint groan of the floorboards— felt amplified in the night, but nothing loud enough to wake a sleeping person through a closed door.

She made it to the living room and struggled to gather her bearings in the shadowy darkness. Her hands drifted out into the space around her, seeking out landmarks and finding none.

And then, of course, came the one sound she had been dreading— a door opening. And not a tentative, sneaky opening like Waverly coming after her— just a door being shoved open like it wasn’t a big deal at all.

She really had to learn to stop crossing that line.

Reacting quickly, she attempted to slide further into the room, further out of sight of the hallway. Unfortunately, as fate had it, her unsuspecting toes found the couch where her searching hands hadn’t, causing a tiny, almost inaudible thud of impact and a much, much louder squeak of surprise pain.

Nicole pressed a hand over her mouth to prevent any other unwanted sounds, but internally, she was screaming. How many fights had she been in over the years? How many injuries had she suffered? Grazed by bullets, blasted by energy weapons, burned by explosives, bruised and bloodied by all manner of blades and blunt objects, and of course one literal gunshot to the head— all of which she suffered with stoic dignity— only to be brought down by a stubbed toe.

There was the sound of a footstep pausing in the hallway, as Nicole stood on one leg, eyes watering… followed by a bleary, half-awake “Go back to bed, Waves” in Wynonna’s voice. And then, mercifully, the sound of the bathroom door closing.

Eager to not waste her one brief window of opportunity, Nicole seized the blanket from atop the traitorous couch and limped back to Waverly’s room, shutting the door behind her with a rush of relief. There was no lock on the door, and no way to guarantee that Wynonna wouldn’t attempt to follow up on her go-back-to-bed command, but it was as safe as she was likely to get.

Something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give, Nicole thought, as she leaned back against the door and rested her bruised toes. They were going to have to sort out this sleeping situation, before it blew up in their faces. There was only so long they could avoid notice. If she was being practical about it, she really should have been out finding other accommodations the past few days.

And yet…

As soon as she heard Wynonna return to her own room, Nicole left her post at the door. She spread her hard-won prize over the curled body on the bed, then tried to nudge her way back onto the mattress.

“It’s okay, it’s just me, just let me…” Nicole tried to ease back into her previous spot, but with Waverly balled up against the cold, there wasn’t enough room. For a few seconds, it seemed hopeless, but eventually, Waverly’s sleeping body must have realized that its heat source was trying to sneak back under the covers, because it uncurled, straightening back out and giving Nicole just enough room to settle back in behind her.

The closed window and the second blanket helped. The room was still cool, and Waverly still huddled against her, but within a few minutes, the constant shivering had faded away to nothing.

Nicole drowsed on and off while she waited for the sun to rise. Her toes throbbed where they had become acquainted with the couch, and she vowed to never again explore in the dark barefoot.

Then again, bruised toes were about the smallest casualty she could have hoped for. Sleeping in the Earps’ house without two-thirds of the house knowing about it could lead to, at best, probably a real doozy of an argument between Waverly and her sisters, and at worst, possibly a bullet.

But when she imagined giving it up and finding another place in town to bunker down alone, the thought of it left her cold— and not the kind of cold that could be solved by an extra blanket.

The sun rose over the desert, and slowly its rays brought a flicker of warmth back into the room.

“Hey,” Nicole whispered, as the room grew steadily lighter and warmer. Waverly stirred at her voice, but didn’t wake, and Nicole propped herself up on one arm, leaving the other draped across Waverly’s side. “Waverly,” she whispered a little louder.

Waverly blinked her eyes open in the morning light and shivered once, reflexively.

“God, how come it’s freezing in here?” she grumbled, pulling the blankets higher and pressing back into Nicole’s warmer body.

“Cool night, open window,” Nicole offered as an abbreviated explanation. Waverly looked across the room to blink dubiously at the closed window. “Oh. I closed it. And got another blanket. From the other room. Is that okay?”

Waverly, apparently noticing the extra layer for the first time, ran her hand over the loosely-stitched fabric, almost tentatively.

“Of course it is.” She had that look on her face again, that distant, thoughtful look that made Nicole suspect that Waverly had known a disproportionate number of inconsiderate shit-heads in her life.

“Well, I didn’t want you to freeze,” Nicole added after a few beats of silence had passed. “Um, anyway, I just… I was thinking, I should probably pop out now, before your sisters are up. I mean, it’ll be harder to sneak out if we’re all meeting up at the same place. And you can see this house from the gas station, so… I should probably leave first.”

Waverly took a moment to sleepily process Nicole’s explanation before admitting, “Probably,” sounding about as enthusiastic as Nicole felt.

Nicole gave herself a few extra seconds to work up the motivation— it was even harder to leave than usual, knowing that Waverly would miss the warmth— then slipped out from under the covers.

After retrieving her clothes from the chair in the corner and dressing, she paused by the window, her eyes seeking out the gas station as she fastened the last buttons on her shirt.

“Shit.”

“What is it?” Waverly sat up in the bed, looking worried.

“Someone’s already up there. Doc, I think.” She could only judge by the color of his clothing and the hat he was wearing, but she was pretty sure it was him. And then something that her initial glance had assumed to be a gas pump swiveled to the side. “And Victor.”

She ran a frustrated hand through her hair, pausing to instinctively chafe at her scar, even though it had mostly stopped hurting. She should have left earlier in the morning, while it was still dark. Maybe she should have even spent the night up by the gas station, keeping watch, instead of indulging herself in another lazy night in Waverly’s bed, where she’d almost gotten them both in trouble.

“Do you think they could see you from there?” Waverly asked. Nicole nodded grimly.

“It’s the highest point in town, besides the graveyard. They’d both see me climb out the window, if they were looking this way. And they would definitely see me walking up the hill from here. There’s no cover.”

She could try to circle the town and approach the gas station from the other side, but if they spotted her, it would be very difficult to explain away.

Waverly got off the bed, pulling the throw blanket with her and wrapping herself in it like a cloak. She joined Nicole at the window and looked out.

“Unless you have a Stealth Boy lying around, it’ll be hard for them to miss me,” Nicole sighed, gesturing towards the largely empty, cactus-dotted land between the house and the gas station.

“Well, you could go out the front, and pretend you were just here for an early breakfast,” Waverly offered. Nicole kept her gaze fixed on Doc and Victor, wondering what the lone Securitron was even doing up there.

“Maybe. But then your sisters might see me.”

“We pretend you were here for a really early breakfast?” Waverly suggested, a bit dubiously.

Nicole felt the press of time on them both. They had to act fast. The longer they waited, the worse it would be. More people could gather at the gas station. Waverly’s sisters could wake up. Her brain tried to balance all the scenarios, picking whatever was lowest risk.

“You’re right, though. I’d better go out the front. Now. Before your sisters are up. As far as Doc or Victor will know or care, I’ve just been sleeping on your couch.” She eyed Waverly sideways. “Or having a very, very early breakfast.”

Waverly rolled her eyes in playful exasperation, then gave her a push towards the door.

“Okay, go, I’ll follow you out in case they hear the door.”

Nicole grabbed her boots, which she had yet to put on, and carried them as they snuck out of the room, leaving her feet silent in socks. It wasn’t as dark as it had been overnight, but she was still careful to give the furniture a wide berth just in case.

She paused by the front door to pull her boots on.

“We’ll be up there soon. I’ll make sure Wynonna and Willa wake up as soon as you’re gone, okay?” Waverly whispered.

“Okay,” Nicole agreed, her voice barely a breath. “I’ll see you then.” She reached out and tugged Waverly’s blanket cloak more securely onto her shoulders. “Stay warm.”

She turned the doorknob, but paused as Waverly said “Wait,” and with no more notice than that, she found herself the lucky recipient of another rather forceful hug, albeit a very brief one. She had barely closed her arms around Waverly in return before she was pulling back away and pushing Nicole out the door.

“Thanks for the blanket,” was the last thing Nicole heard as the door clicked quietly shut behind her.

Yep. This crush was definitely going to kill her. No two ways about it.

She set off at a brisk pace towards the gas station, keeping to the road in hopes that it would seem less conspicuous. She wished again that she had a hat. With her hair and face covered, at a distance, they might have assumed she was one of the Earps leaving the house. As it was now, red hair blazing in the sun, she would be instantly recognizable. Not ideal when sneaking.

She turned up the road to the gas station and jogged the rest of the way up the hill. The air was still cool by Mojave standards, but the breeze had died down, and the desert sun was promising that their brief break in temperature was coming to an end.

“Hey,” she called to Doc as she got within earshot. He and Victor were standing near the still-chained door to the station. Doc was smoking a cigarette, and Victor was sitting idly on his wheel. She slowed to a stop at Doc’s side, and he tipped his hat in greeting.

“Well howdy there, partner!” Victor greeted cheerily. “I hear you two had quite the dust-up yesterday!”

Doc nodded, then turned to Nicole to elaborate.

“I had a word with Victor here about our situation, and he kindly offered to keep an eye on the door here while we were all sound asleep.” She thought she detected a mischievous twinkle in Doc’s eye as he said ‘sound asleep,’ but discounted it for the moment— that first part seemed far more important.

“Victor, you were guarding the door all night?” The thought wasn’t a comforting one. No matter how friendly and benign the robot seemed, she was still nettled by a seed of suspicion about him.

“You bet!” the robot said with enthusiasm. “Nobody gets past ol’ Victor. Fastest draw in the New West.” One of his 'hands' whirred as it retracted and a 9mm submachine gun emerged in a series of clicks. Doc chuckled at the display.

“Had anyone felt the need to pay Levi an unannounced visit last night, I presumed the presence of our friend here would dissuade them,” he explained.

And it was hard to argue with that.

“Well, if that’s a job well done, then I’d best skee-daddle!” Victor said, the gun retracting and his hand clicking back into place. “Just holler if you need a hand with anything else!” With a tipped hat from Doc and a murmured goodbye from Nicole, he waved his three-pronged claw and trundled away.

Nicole followed his progress with her eyes as he navigated the dusty Purgatory roads down to a shack by the schoolhouse, then disappeared inside. When she looked back up at Doc, he was watching her.

“You trust Victor, right?” she asked.

“As much as I trust most residents of this little town. And more than some. I’m surprised you don’t, as you’re the one he pulled out of the ground. And particularly given your perspective on trust.” He gave her a questioning look, and she lowered her head, shamefaced, wishing she had an ironclad explanation.

“I know. He just gives me a weird feeling. I can’t quite figure him out,” she said, trying to justify the feeling, even to herself. So his story seemed suspicious. So what? So did hers. He had never been anything but helpful to her. So why did she still feel like he was something worth worrying about?

“His presence here is a bit mysterious,” Doc admitted. “But he’s never done the town any harm, and he’s awfully useful to have around at times.”

“He is,” Nicole sighed, before casting an eye at the locked door again. “And he didn’t see anything suspicious?”

“Nope. Silent as the grave.”

“I thought the grave was what we wanted to avoid,” Nicole said, trying not to find the phrase too ominous.

“Merely a figure of speech.” Doc finished his cigarette and tossed it to the ground, crushing the embers under his boot.

Nicole didn’t answer, but intentionally turned her attention away from the door. She walked a few paces away and found her gaze drifting instead back to the Earp house. It was… distressingly visible from this high up. She glanced over her shoulder at Doc, who stood in the partial shade of a gas pump, apparently contemplating whether to light another cigarette. “You didn’t…” she began, but was unable to think of an innocuous way to ask if he (or Victor, for that matter) had seen her leaving the Earp residence.

Letting the matter drop, Nicole took to pacing wide circles around the concrete lot until the glare of the sun became too irritating, at which point she retreated to the half-shade and resigned herself to the wait.

Fortunately, it was only a matter of minutes until the homestead’s door swung open and all three sisters filed out, en route to the gas station. Nicole emerged from the shade and rejoined Doc, waiting as the Earps summited the hill and met them at the top.

“So the plan is still to question him and then let him go?” Wynonna asked, after a very brief round of pleasantries. Nicole nodded.

“Unless anyone came up with a better idea overnight?” she prompted. The rest of the group was silent, and after a few seconds, Willa rolled her eyes.

“Let’s just get this over with.” She looked at Wynonna expectantly, and Wynonna in turn looked towards Doc, who produced the key from his pocket and unlocked the chain from the door. When he unwound it and swung the door open, revealing Levi apparently alive and well on the other side, Nicole felt a dread weight lift from her shoulders, and she released a slow breath of relief.

“You okay?” came a quiet voice from her side, and she looked over and saw Waverly standing next to her.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I was just… worried about nothing, I guess.”

With a gesture from Nicole, they rejoined the rest of the group, who had sat Levi on the concrete step leading up to the gas station door.

“I don’t know much about them,” he claimed. “Bobo and the other Revenants. They didn’t like me much. I was never really one of them.”

“Anything you can tell us will help,” Wynonna insisted. “Just… Start with the prison. What was the deal there?”

Levi seemed to pale at the thought, hunching his shoulders in misery.

“Hell,” he said darkly. “Bobo wasn’t wrong about that. A lot of the inmates had be shipped here from California for physical labor. Keeping the railroad tracks clear, mostly. And clearing land to make new tracks, so the NCR trains can bring in supplies.” He shook his head. “They taught us how to use dynamite to break up boulders and stuff. Shoulda known better. Folks must have started pocketing the stuff and sneaking it back to the bunks.”

“But you didn’t?” Wynonna checked.

“I…” Levi looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t usually have to do that part,” he said, awkwardly. “I was educated. I could read, write, draw. I never started trouble. So they had me work in the warden’s office most of the time, helping out with the inmate records. It was a hell of a lot easier than hauling rock, and a hell of a lot safer than being out with a bunch of armed guards and pissed-off thugs with dynamite.”

“So you got to see everyone’s records?” Nicole said, eagerly. Levi shrugged.

“Sure. Whenever someone new came in, they’d take their name and what they did and everything, and had me sketch their face, and any tattoos and stuff. That part wasn’t so bad. I thought if I just kept my head down, I’d get out in a few years and never have to think about it again.”

“But then this Bobo fellow kicked off a riot,” Doc prompted.

“Yeah. The other inmates treated him like some kinda god. He was ruthless. If he thought one of his men had betrayed him, he’d have the others beat them within an inch of their life, then drop them in the dirt to die slow. And he said anyone who tried to help them would get the same.” Levi shuddered. “I just stayed out of it. I just wanted to serve my time and leave.”

“So what happened during the riot?” Nicole asked, her voice automatically a bit softer. She was already starting to regret laughing at Bobo’s name the day before. Stupid nickname or not, it sounded like he wasn’t someone to mess with.

“It came out of nowhere,” Levi said. “I was sleeping, and suddenly it was like the whole building was on fire. I thought, ‘This must have been what it was like when the bombs dropped.’ Back in the Great War, you know?” He looked pale and shaky at the memory. “Half of us had no idea what was going on, but the others started pulling out weapons and charge powder, and they went straight for the guards. Killed them all. Was barely even a fight. I mean, the guards had guns, but they were outnumbered, and it wasn’t even close.” He shook his head miserably. “That must’ve been when people started running off. I should’ve run, but I didn’t know…”

Nicole could sense an uneasy feeling permeating the group, listening to the story. Wynonna was watching the ground with crossed arms, while Waverly hovered close at her side and Doc frowned hard under his mustache. It sounded like something out of a nightmare, and it was hard to hold both the image of Levi as a cowering prisoner and Levi as a mad bomber in her head at the same time.

Nicole wondered what it must have been like as an NCR guard, to see that many prisoners charging at you, knowing you wouldn’t survive. She suppressed a shiver.

“Then what?” she asked after a moment.

“Then they piled all the guard’s bodies in the yard, and Bobo climbed on top. He was carrying the warden’s head. It kept… dripping.” Levi shuddered again. “He gave this big speech about how the NCR didn’t see us as human anymore, and they’d stuck us in hell to watch us burn, and now we’d all broken out, and he’d given us our freedom, and it was time to take our revenge. Said that we were all Revenants back from the dead, and this was our second chance to live life the way we should— ruling the desert with all the guns and dynamite we wanted. Most folks were cheering. But I just wanted to leave. I should have just left…” He buried his face in his hands, and the questions came to a momentary pause.

“So Bobo wants all the prisoners to be some kind of gang, and start taking over territory,” Wynonna murmured.

“Starting with Primm,” Nicole added. “Levi, what else do you know about him?”

Levi emerged from his hands, sniffling.

“Who, Bobo?” He gave a helpless shrug. “Nothing. Just that he’s crazy. And that everyone’s scared of him.”

Doc made a low, contemplative noise.

“It seems strange that a man that… distinctive… wouldn’t have more of a reputation,” he said.

“Maybe he does, just not here,” Nicole suggested, although Doc didn’t look at all convinced. “If it was an NCR prison, then why haven’t they taken it back yet?” she asked instead. “They’ve got troops in the area, don’t they?”

“The main prison walls are still up,” Levi said. “Barbed wire and everything. The place is like a fortress. It’s impossible to get in, and almost that hard to get out. The whole place is locked down, and the only way in is the front door. Bobo sends groups go out to raid caravans and stuff, but even the NCR can’t get in there after them.”

“Then how did you get out?” Willa asked, her eyes narrowed.

“I hid a fire axe in an outhouse. Chopped out the back of it, then through part of the fence, where no one could see. They were having some sort of party, so they couldn’t hear either. Then I just ran like hell.”

Nicole almost asked if they'd seen him running away, then realized it didn't really matter. They would have known he was gone within hours, or even minutes. Someone would have looked for him and not found him, or seen his empty bed, or found the hole in the outhouse and the fence.

“What kind of weapons do they have?” Wynonna asked. “Lots of dynamite, I’m guessing. Anything else?”

“Some guns, from the guards. Some other stuff— shovels, axes, sledgehammers— that we used to clear the tracks. Plus whatever they get from the raids.”

“Fucking great...” Wynonna sighed, and she and Nicole exchanged a grim look. The situation was worse than they’d hoped.

“Terrific…” Nicole echoed, re-evaluating her previous plans regarding the Revenants. She’d hoped that they could just ignore them or take them out piecemeal if they needed to, but now… heavily armed, holed up in a fort, jonesing for a fight… If they were the ones who wanted her dead, then she might be in more danger than she had initially thought.

She might need to go to Primm, or talk to someone from there, find out how bad it was, and then re-evaluate. Getting a gun was going to have to become her top priority.

“Is that it?” Levi asked. Nicole looked up, distracted.

“Huh?”

“The questions. Can I go now?” Nicole realized that they'd all been silent for almost a minute.

“Oh. Uh…” she looked at the rest of the group. Waverly shrugged and looked at Wynonna, who shrugged back. Willa crossed her arms and shook her head, looking like she was just ready for this all to be over with. Doc gave his head a tiny, negative shake.

“Um… yeah. That’s all. Just… don’t come back,” Nicole said, feeling almost sheepish about the caveat after his whole traumatic story. Levi stood from his seat on the step, then paused and looked back at Nicole.

“Do you have any paper?” he asked, apropos of nothing. Everyone blinked at him.

“Paper?” Nicole echoed. He nodded. She had no idea what this was leading to, but it seemed like a harmless request. “Okay…” She entered the gas station and pulled an old inventory clipboard and a stub of pencil from the shelf under the cash register. Levi accepted them gratefully and began sketching something on the back of an inventory spreadsheet.

“I know you don’t owe me nothing, but if you see someone who looks like this pass through town, will you tell him I’m looking for him? And, uh, if he doesn’t believe you… call him ‘Fish.’ He’ll understand. Just tell him I’m looking for him, and that I’m going home. Will you tell him that?” He drew quickly, in long, bold strokes, like he had drawn it a thousand times, and then handed over the sketch. A man with a swirl of short, dark hair, a stubbly beard, and a charming smile looked up from the page. The word Ambrose was written below.

“Um… Yeah. Sure,” Nicole said, and Levi smiled for the first time, looking like he could have cried. But as she looked down at the impressively lifelike drawing, another thought occurred to her. “Wait… Levi… Before you go… Could you sketch Bobo? So we know what he looks like, in case he comes here.” She passed the clipboard back. He seemed surprised by the request, but not unwilling.

“Sure, I guess.” He flipped to a new page and began tracing shapes onto the paper, almost absentmindedly at first. “But if he comes here, trust me, you’ll know. Bobo’s a lotta things, but subtle he ain’t.”

This sketch seemed to take him longer and require more of his concentration, but finally, he seemed to finish. He stared critically down at the page, judging it for a moment, and must have found it worthy, because he held it out to Nicole. Her eyes honed in on the long face, the prominent forehead, the half-shaved head, the scraggly beard. It set the scar on her head stinging, just from the memory.

“I recognize him,” she said, and at the same time, heard Doc’s voice saying exactly the same thing.

Chapter Text

Nicole turned to face Doc, who was glaring down at the drawing with furrowed eyebrows, as though the sketch itself had personally challenged him.

“You know him?” she asked, wanting an explanation. From Doc’s face, it sure didn’t look like they had been friends.

“I know of him,” Doc clarified, tapping the picture with his finger. “Only he didn’t used to call himself ‘Bobo.’ Levi, the man whose face you just drew is named Robert Svane.”

Levi looked surprised. “Uh, yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, that was the name on his record, but I never heard a soul call him Robert.”

Wynonna was looking at Doc with a puzzled frown.

“Doc, how do you know him?”

“Years ago, not long before I settled here, Robert Svane was a rather notorious outlaw. Notoriously violent. And notoriously unhinged. The NCR had one hell of a bounty on the man. There was a time I even went after him myself.”

“Who did he run with? Fiends? Khans?” Wynonna asked.

“None of them. Rumor was, he was trying to put together a tribe all his own. Collecting strays and runaways from the other gangs and getting them to follow him instead.”

“Well it sounds like he finally managed it,” Nicole murmured. “Although maybe not in the way he’d planned.”

“And you? You said you recognized him, too?” Wynonna asked her. She nodded grimly. “I’m guessing not from your knitting circle?”

“He was the one who shot me. I remember his face.”

Levi visibly startled at Nicole’s words, suddenly looking very afraid.

“Bobo came for you? Himself?” he asked.

“Must have,” Nicole said. “Him and a few others. Do you know why?”

“They didn’t talk to me about those kinds of things. But if I knew he was gunning for me, I sure wouldn’t be standing around here.” He looked at her like she was out of her mind as he inched away from them, like he couldn’t flee fast enough. “I’m outta here. If you had any sense, you’d run, too, while you still can.”

And with that, seeing that no one had moved to stop him, he began running down the hill, towards the road. Nicole watched him until he was out of sight, curving north away from Primm and the prison.

“You think he’ll make it home?” Waverly asked, close at her side. Nicole shrugged.

“Maybe.” He was headed north, which Nicole’s hazy mental map had labeled as Great Khan territory. The Khans could be brutal, but they didn’t always attack on sight. It wasn’t a good route, but there were worse ones. “I hope he does.”

She looked at the clipboard again, re-memorizing Bobo’s face, comparing it with the one in her memory. Waverly held a hand out in silent request, and Nicole passed it over for her to see.

“He’s the one who did that to you?” she murmured, frowning down at the picture. Nicole reached back to rub at the scar hidden under her hair.

“He didn’t succeed,” she offered as a small consolation.

“Well, we’ve all heard the saying…” said Willa, her voice cool and flat. “If at first you don’t succeed…”

Nicole looked up at her, noting the sudden tension in the air.

“There’s no reason for him to ‘try, try again.’ He doesn’t even know I’m still alive,” she said, praying even as she said it that it wasn’t a lie. “As far as he knows, they shot me in the head and buried me and that was the end of that.”

Willa looked unimpressed by her defense.

“You’ve just been walking around town here for days. Everyone in town’s been talking about the woman with the gunshot wound to the head that Doc was looking after. Anyone could have said something. Word gets around.”

Willa’s eyes were stony and brooked no argument, and Nicole wasn’t sure she could come up with one if she tried. In this case, at least, Willa probably had a point. She couldn’t guarantee that word couldn’t have somehow filtered back to the Revenants. But they couldn’t prove that it had either.

“There’s no reason to assume that,” Waverly said, jumping into the argument. “It’s not like any of us have been sitting around playing poker with Revenants. If their only contact with the outside are the caravans they rob, how would they hear she was alive?”

“Waves has a point,” Wynonna said, although she didn’t sound entirely convinced. Willa refused to give up her ground.

“Even if they don’t know yet, it’s only a matter of time,” she said firmly.

“So what do you want her to do about it? This isn’t her fault,” Waverly insisted. Nicole touched her shoulder in thanks, but then stepped forward, trying to draw Willa’s attention back on herself. The last thing she needed was to give Willa more things to bully Waverly over.

“I already know,” she said, staring Willa in the eye. “You want me to leave, right?”

Willa stepped forward herself, almost like they were facing off, only a few short steps apart.

“There’s no reason for you to stay here. This isn’t your home. We aren’t your people. By staying, you’re putting everyone in this town at risk. If you actually care about anyone, you should want to leave.”

From the gas station, up on its hill, they could see practically the whole town, from the Earp house, to the general store and the bar, to Doc’s home and Victor’s shack. Nicole had only been in the town for a few days, but it was already burned into her mind.

Welcome to Purgatory— You’ll Never Want to Leave!

That damn town sign was right.

But so was Willa, in a way. Not completely— Nicole knew when she was being manipulated, and this was a classic guilt trip— but she was right that Nicole’s presence did make the town more of a target. The real problem was that none of them knew how much more of a target.

“Now hold on,” Wynonna said, somewhat reluctantly reentering the fray, but Nicole shook her head at her.

“It’s okay. Or at least… it doesn’t matter.” Nicole stood tall, her mind and her conscience clear. “As soon as I can get enough supplies put together, I’m going to Primm,” she said. She heard Waverly inhale quickly behind her, and anticipating an argument, she plowed ahead. “I’m not planning to stay there, but I at least want to check the town out and check in with their sheriff and the NCR outpost there. I can report what’s happened and get more of an idea of what the danger is. But then I’d like to come back and tell you all whatever I learn.”

She wanted to look over her shoulder to see Waverly’s face and her reaction, but Willa was still staring her down, and she didn’t dare show weakness by turning away. Wynonna was still in her line of sight, though, and she looked conflicted, her hands flexing and boots kicking at the dust on the ground restlessly.

“It makes sense,” Wynonna was the first to respond. She didn’t sound thrilled about it, but she didn’t look mad either.

“I’d rather she left now, since now we know how dangerous this Bobo character is,” Willa said.

“It’s not safe for me to travel yet.” Nicole’s hands grasped her belt, right around the empty space where there should be at least one holstered gun, if not two. And besides a gun, she would need other basics— some food, some medical supplies, extra ammo. “As soon as I can scrape enough caps together to get what I need, I’ll go.”

Willa looked like she wanted to argue more, but Wynonna-the-Tiebreaker had already chosen a side, so she seemed to have decided there wasn’t much of a point.

“Fine. Just don’t drag your feet on your way out.” She looked around the circle, then sighed. “I’m going to go open the bar.”

Willa left, and with her went most of the tension in the air. Nicole felt Waverly step up to her side, and in the process their hands brushed against each other. On pure, mindless instinct, Nicole closed her fingers, catching Waverly’s hand in her own, craving the contact in light of all the talk about leaving. The touch was like an anchor, tethering her to Purgatory, however briefly.

“Fuck, I don’t like the sound of any of this.” Wynonna’s voice broke her sense of reverie, and she jolted slightly, instinctively separating their hands, even as Waverly’s fingers were beginning to curl around hers.

“Nor do I,” agreed Doc. His head was tilted thoughtfully. “Waverly, may I see that clipboard again?”

He held out a hand, and Waverly passed it to him. Again, his eyes traced over the sketch. Wynonna came to look over his shoulder.

“Man, he looks like a piece of work,” she said, raising her eyebrows at the image. Nicole silently agreed. Levi was a good artist, and he had managed to capture the feral gleam in Bobo’s eyes, and the hulking power of his movement, even in just a grey-and-white sketch.

“He certainly was. Or… is, I suppose.” Doc said. “Truth be told, I was under the impression that he was long dead.”

“Why?” asked Nicole, curious. Doc shook his head.

“Rumor was, Bulshar’s Legion had gotten hold of him.”

Nicole felt her eyes widen in surprise.

“The Legion?” Waverly murmured, echoing her confusion.

“What was their beef with him?” Wynonna asked.

“Oh, could have been anything. Maybe he poached a few of their legionaries. Maybe they just thought he was some kind of degenerate, in Bulshar’s opinion,” Doc said. “Either way, the rumor was that Robert Svane got himself hung up on a cross.”

All of them blanched at the thought, and Nicole automatically reached out, finding Waverly’s shoulder. The Legion’s crosses weren’t exactly a secret, but they weren’t often seen on this side of the Colorado. And above all else, that kind of death certainly wasn’t a pleasant thing to imagine.

“Well that’s a hell of a way to go,” Wynonna mumbled, unknowingly echoing Nicole’s sentiments.

“And I suppose it is a slow way,” Doc said. “Perhaps he survived the experience.”

“Or maybe someone cut him down and turned him in for the bounty,” Nicole guessed. If the reward was as high as Doc implied, a bounty hunter finding their target already strung up and waiting for them would seem like one hell of a lucky break.

Doc tilted his head as though the idea was worth some merit.

“Perhaps so. Or perhaps it was all just a rumor after all.”

“It would make sense, though,” Waverly said, her voice low and pensive. “The name. The idea of the Revenants. If he’d almost died, but survived at the last minute and recovered… In his mind, it could be like returning from the dead.”

Nicole thought that was probably the smartest thing that had been said all day, and that was saying something, because there had been an awful lot of talking that morning.

“You may be right,” Doc said, nodding thoughtfully. “I suppose it’s hard to know for sure without asking the man himself, which is probably best avoided.”

“Let’s hope,” Nicole agreed, although she wasn’t sure she actually had much hope on the subject. Bobo might not know she was alive yet, but there was no reason to assume it would stay that way forever. “But I’d rather be ready for all outcomes.”

Doc met her eyes and nodded in something like approval.

“Well, on that fun note, give me that picture,” Wynonna said, reaching out and claiming the clipboard from Doc’s hand. He relinquished it without protest.

“What do you want it for?” Waverly asked her, curiosity in her eyes.

“Might as well show it around at Shorty’s, make sure everyone knows to keep an eye out for him. We don’t need someone blabbing stuff around without knowing any better,” Wynonna said.

“A fine idea,” Doc agreed, and Nicole nodded as well. Wynonna looked at the picture, curled her lip at it, then flipped the top sheet down so that the less-intimidating sketch of Ambrose was on top.

“Uh, Doc, I can take the key back to Robin if you want. I ought to check his stock anyway, if I’m going to be buying supplies soon,” she said, already dreading the experience. Not that she didn’t like Robin— quite the opposite— but she didn’t look forward to seeing the prices on what would no doubt be essential goods for her journey.

“Much obliged,” he said, handing over the key to the gas station. He tipped his hat to them. “Ladies.”

It wasn’t a long walk down to the general store and the bar, but Nicole appreciated even that brief extra time at Waverly’s (and, she supposed, Wynonna’s) side. They were an uncommonly quiet trio— whereas she and Wynonna usually made jokes, and she and Waverly usually made easy conversation, the morning’s revelations had left them all rattled and subdued.

They parted ways at the door to the general store, Nicole giving a quiet promise to check in at the bar later.

Inside, Robin was perched near the radio, apparently performing some minor repairs to some piece of machinery.

“Hey,” she greeted. He raised his hand in a wave, and the whole thing collapsed into a pile of screws and wires. “Uh, sorry about that.”

“Not your fault,” he said, pushing the whole mess to one side. “I’m not a great hand at electronics. What can I help you with?”

“Just pricing out some general supplies. I got most of what I need the other day, but it looks like I might be leaving a little sooner than I’d planned.”

In the end, the news was about as bad as she’d supposed. She was resourceful enough to get by with a bare minimum of supplies, but even if she limited herself to a gun, plenty of ammo, a hat (yes, it was essential), and a stimpack or two, the caps really started adding up.

She exited the shop in dwindling spirits, wishing she had better news to pass along, and nearly walked straight into Doc.

“Whoa— Sorry, Doc.”

He tipped his hat in greeting, and Nicole raised her arm instinctively to do the same, only remembering she didn’t have a hat when her hand never found the brim. Awkwardly, she lowered her arm and tucked her hand back into her pocket. He chuckled.

“Quite alright. Did you find all the supplies you need for your journey?” he asked. She laughed dryly.

“Finding them is one thing, affording them is another. I really can’t leave until I can scrape enough caps together for a weapon.” She shook her head. “I’ll figure it out. A few odd jobs. Some scavenging. It’ll work out.”

She started to step down from the general store’s porch, but he spoke again, drawing her attention back.

“I was actually looking to have a word with you, if you can spare a moment.”

“Oh. Sure, of course.” Her mind flashed back, trying to figure out what he wanted to talk about. Something about Bobo? Something about Victor? Something following up on their conversations the night before? “What’s on your mind?”

He followed her down and together they walked a few steps into the alley between the general store and the bar. The narrow space was piled with boxes and flanked by a pair of communal workbenches, but more importantly, it was shaded from the sun.

Doc’s expression was serious, but otherwise hard to read. He leaned against one of the workbenches, and she stood several feet away, silently waiting for him to speak.

“In some ways, you remind me a great deal of the man I was before I settled here. But in other ways… important ways… I believe we are very different.” His eyes seemed to carefully watch her reaction as he spoke. “I told you my name when we first met. John Henry Holliday. I don’t suppose that name means anything to you?”

Nicole paused to think, but shook her head after a second.

“No, I don’t think so. Have we met before?” The largest part of her memory had solidified over the last several days, with only a few dark spots left over. Her childhood was still murky in places, and there was still an amorphous blur leading up to her recent execution, but she didn’t think his face was familiar.

Doc lowered his head, chuckling.

“No, I don’t suppose so. I just thought my name might ring a bell. I was quite well-known back in my heyday. John Henry Holliday.” He gave her another inquiring look, as though recognition might have only come to her after the third time hearing his name. When it obviously didn’t, he cleared his throat, seeming to shrug off any disappointment in his current lack of fame. “Perhaps it was before your time. But there was a day when I was a gunslinger of great renown. There was no quicker draw in the Mojave, and no sharper shooter this side of the Colorado.”

Nicole suddenly remembered his words to Levi during the attempted robbery. You clearly do not understand who you are threatening.

“What kind of gunslinger?” she asked slowly, recalling the dark glint in his eye as he stared Levi down.

He offered her a wry smile from under his bushy mustache.

“You’re already ahead of me, I see.” He removed his hat and set it on the worktop next to him. “I suppose I fancied myself a lawman, in a sense. Chasing down criminals and turning them over to authorities. But the line between lawman and bounty hunter was awful blurry to me back in those days, and a few shots of whiskey and a few dozen caps could wipe it away entirely.” He shook his head ruefully. Nicole just listened, and waited. “To make a very, very long story into a very, very short one, I was a great gunslinger, but not a particularly good man. Ten years ago, I would have shot Levi dead where he stood and not lost a moment’s sleep over the matter. Do you understand?”

Pinned by his gaze, Nicole nodded slowly.

“But that’s not the man you are now,” she said. She may not yet know him well, but she had seen enough of his actions to believe that the Doc that stood before her now was very different from the man he was describing.

“Indeed not. The day came when I decided I had broken enough bodies for one man’s lifetime. When I settled down, I made it my duty to fix as many as I’d broken, even if it took the rest of my days. I’m a better man now than I was then. And as you say, a very different one.” He paused for a long moment. “And the man I am now… shouldn’t have need for a gun.” He reached down, unfastening his gun belt and pulling it free. Nicole watched, stunned, as he gathered it up in his hands. “So if you’re willing… I’d like to loan my best one to you.”

She stared at the gun in blank astonishment, not even reaching for it.

“You… what?”

“I said you reminded me of myself, but it’s perhaps more accurate to say that you remind me of what I thought I was. And I get a feeling you’ll do more good with her than I ever did.” He held it out closer to her, gesturing for her to take it.

“Are you sure? I mean, this is…” She finally reached out and gingerly took the belt into her hands.

“She’s a .44 Magnum, and her name is Calamity. She was a gift from my best friend, and she’s seen me through more firefights than I care to remember.” His smile at this was fond, but there was still regret in his eyes. “She’ll be good to you if you take care of her.”

“Doc… John Henry…” She blinked up at him.

“Just Doc now,” he said. “Believe me when I say that Doc is a far better man than John Henry ever was. I’ve got a lot of broken bodies to make up for, and not all of them needed to be broken.” He heaved a long, world-weary sigh, his eyes on the revolver. “I’ll feel better if she helps tip that balance at all, even if it’s in someone else’s hands.”

Nicole pulled the gun from its holster to look at it. It was a little heavier than most pistols she had used, but it felt solid and steady. Most guns of its type had wooden grips, but this one was ivory, and it felt cool in her hand.

“It’s gorgeous,” she said. Part of her wanted to keep arguing, to say that she couldn’t accept it, or that it was too much. But the bigger part of her just felt relief and gratitude. “I’ll take good care of her. And I’ll, uh…” She stumbled a bit, trying to articulate what she wanted to say. “I’ll try not to let you down.”

“That’s all I can ask.” He reclaimed his hat and repositioned it on his head. “I’ll let you carry on with your day. I’m sure you have a lot of plans to change. Just make sure you stop by to say goodbye before you leave.”

Nicole looked up from where she had been staring at the gun again. Her gun. Calamity.

“I will. I promise.”

Chapter Text

Nicole was still partially in shock when she walked into the bar. She felt like her circumstances had shifted around her in the blink of an eye, and the hypothetical timeline she had been imagining days or even weeks in the future was now pressing at her toes. One more step forward, and she would be on a road leading her away from Purgatory, away from the Earps, and away from the tiny bed with the floral sheets. And for someone who considered herself a wanderer, she sure was reluctant to take that one step.

As she entered the bar, she saw that Levi's sketch of Bobo had been stuck up on the bar's mirror, with two messages scrawled on either side of it in heavy marker.

Talking to this man = CUT OFF FOR LIFE.

Info about this man = FREE DRINK.

Well, that was one way to get the locals involved. She wondered if anyone would take them up on it.

Wynonna was behind the bar, and Waverly was seated at the counter, by the radio. They both looked over as she entered. Waverly’s eyes found her face and crinkled at the corners in a smile, but Wynonna’s eyes fell on her new sidearm and widened in surprise.

“Talk about a ‘Big Iron,’” Wynonna said, and gave a low whistle. The radio was, fittingly, singing about a ranger and the ‘big iron’ on his hip. Doc’s belt was thicker and wider than she usually wore, and the gun was heavy at her side, but the weight felt good. Familiar. Protective. Grounding.

“What?” Waverly asked, confused. She glanced over at her sister as Nicole approached and climbed onto the stool next to hers. Wynonna nodded towards her, and Waverly took a second look and gasped.

“Whoa, where did that come from?” she asked, craning her head to the side for a better look. Nicole accommodatingly unholstered the gun and set it gently atop the bar. “Did Robin sell it to you?”

Before Nicole could answer, Wynonna snorted a laugh.

“Not unless she ran off to the Strip and hit a couple jackpots in the last ten minutes. This isn't some little six-shooter. This is…” She paused, her brows furrowing as she looked down at it with sudden recognition. “Doc’s?”

Nicole nodded.

“He stopped me outside, offered to loan it to me for the trip.”

“No shit?” Wynonna looked impressed.

“That was nice of him,” Waverly said, although her tone was too flat to be entirely convincing. She looked troubled by the sudden turn of events. Nicole could relate. She tried to smile at her, to reassure her that it was fine, and that everything would work out, but the smile felt like a lie.

“He said he thought I could do more good with it out there than he could do with it here,” she explained.

“Well, that solves your weapon problem, right?” Wynonna smirked at her, seemingly attempting to share in the celebration. “The rest should be easy. If you're half as good with that thing as you were with the rifle, food won't be a problem. You can get clean water at the Styx, or here. Jett's has dirt cheap surplus ammo. That's basically it, right?”

“Basically,” Nicole echoed hollowly, still not sure how she felt about the situation. In some ways, this simplified everything. With the gun, she could go wherever she wanted.

The problem was that she didn't want to go anywhere.

Sure, she wanted answers, and she felt the obligation to go seek them out. Going to Primm, even just on a fact-finding mission, made sense.

But then? She didn't really have anywhere to go back to.

Over the years, she had had a handful of favorite haunts— a barstool at the Mojave Outpost, a bunk at the Old Mormon Fort in Freeside, a handful of friendly ranger stations and caravan camps throughout the desert— but she couldn't call any of them a home, nor did she want to.

“So... is that it?” Waverly asked her after a moment. Nicole blinked up at her. “That means you leave soon, right?”

Nicole could hear the sound of bricks stacking on bricks in her voice, a wall rising between them. She didn't like it.

“I guess…” she answered, weathering a jumble of thoughts and emotions. Relief, at having the gun and the freedom it gave her. Disappointment, at the thought of leaving. Maybe a tiny ripple of fear at the thought of Bobo and his prison fortress and his Revenant army.

“That's good, though, right?” Wynonna asked, clearly not understanding why the two of them looked so depressed. Nicole tried to rally enough enthusiasm to grin back at her, even if the thought of leaving made her stomach ache. Her mouth curved up halfheartedly.

“Yeah. I mean, it's great of Doc to let me borrow it, really. It's just... sudden. I wish I didn't have to leave so soon. But the sooner I go, the sooner I can get the lawmen down there on the lookout.”

She restlessly scratched at the back of her head, where the scar tingled again. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but with Bobo’s face up on the mirror, his wild eyes seeming to watch her from the sketched page, she felt more aware of the healing wound than she had been for days. She could remember his face, his burning eyes glaring down at her from above the barrel of a gun, and could imagine a flash of pain before the darkness fell.

“I know,” Waverly said. “It’s just... we'll miss you. All of us.”

She touched Nicole’s arm, and Nicole let her hand drop back down to the bar, leaving the scar alone again with a slight shake of her head.

“All of you? Even Willa?” she asked Waverly, with a gently teasing smile. Waverly smiled wryly back.

“Okay… maybe not all of us. Most of us, though.” She shot Wynonna a pointed look, but her sister just raised her hands, as if in surrender, and didn’t confirm or deny the accusation. Nicole chuckled.

“Well... You all—” She playfully emphasized the word for both sisters. “—won't have to miss me for long. I'll be back before you know it.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Waverly sighed, quiet enough that Nicole was pretty sure she wasn't supposed to hear it.

“Are you going to test it out before you leave?” Wynonna asked, her attention back on Calamity. She picked the gun up and examined it for a moment, then looked back up at Nicole with curious eyes. “Or are you leaving today?”

Waverly seemed to jolt at the suggestion, sitting up straighter, her eyes widening.

“Today?” she repeated incredulously, sounding almost horrified by the prospect. Nicole began shaking her head on instinct— of course she wasn't leaving today.

But why not? If she didn't really need anything else?

“I… no,” she said, if only to take the stricken look off Waverly’s face. “But… I guess… tomorrow, I should.” Well, that was a grim thought. “You're right, though, Wynonna.”

“Now there’s a sentence you don't hear every day,” Waverly joked, although her face still looked tense. Wynonna threw a dirty rag at her, and she ducked towards Nicole to dodge it. “Right about what, though?”

“Taking it out for a test run.” Nicole took the gun back from Wynonna and rubbed invisible fingerprints off its ivory grip. “It might be good to get a feel for it before I go.” She looked back up at the two sisters. “What do you think? You guys want to be my backup? We can go pick off some more geckos.”

Wynonna perked up instantly, clearly warming to the idea.

“Hell, between the three of us, we could take on more than geckos,” she said eagerly. “You know, I've seen some of those giant radscorpions coming closer and closer to town from up north.”

Nicole recalled the image of Waverly standing in the moonlight with her nightshirt and her shotgun, and shared a surreptitious smile with her.

“Yeah,” she said confidently. “I’ll bet between the three of us, we could take on a radscorpion or two.” Not to mention, their poison glands would be worth more caps than gecko hides, which meant more money for last-second purchases before her departure.

“Cool. Just let me check with Willa and make sure we're covered here.” Wynonna stepped backwards towards the back room. Nicole breathed a wry laugh at the thought. If Willa thought it would get her out of Purgatory faster, she would probably push them all out the door herself.

She could feel Waverly’s eyes on her from inches away.

“You’re, um… not going to leave today, are you?” Waverly asked her quietly. “I mean, you said you weren’t, but… you’re really not, right?”

“No. I mean, I guess I could if I had to…” Leaving today would probably mean traveling overnight, which wasn’t a pleasant thought. Although it might be safer than walking the road in broad daylight, if the Revenants really were raiding travelers. Unless she didn’t take the road. If she walked through the desert instead, parallel to the road, she could stay out of sight of most people. But that would leave her at the mercy of the desert wildlife and all its various claws and fangs and stings…

“Don’t leave today,” Waverly blurted out, interrupting Nicole’s heavy thoughts. “I mean, I get it if you have to, but if it doesn’t matter that much… wait till tomorrow.” A silent ‘please’ seemed to hang on the end of the plea, and Nicole nodded immediately, a little relieved to have the excuse to stay a few hours longer.

“Okay.” That simplified the decision. If Waverly wanted her to stay one more day, she would. It was that easy.

“Okay.” Waverly looked reassured by the promise.

Nicole wanted to ask her why, but Wynonna was striding back towards them, around the front of the bar, followed by a vaguely annoyed-looking Willa.

“Alright, first one to take down a radscorpion gets a drink on the house,” Wynonna declared. Willa looked like she was about to argue, so the middle sister yelled a quick, “Joking!” over her shoulder before grabbing both Waverly and Nicole by their shirts and pulling them towards the door.

“Hey!” Waverly protested the manhandling, although she was smiling at her sister’s antics. Nicole just barely managed to grab Calamity off the bar before Wynonna dragged her away.

After swinging by the Homestead for Waverly’s shotgun, the trio trekked back up to the cemetery. Nicole kept drawing and re-holstering the gun, trying to get used to the balance of it, the feel of it in her hand and at her hip.

“How does it feel?” Waverly asked her on their way up the hill, as Nicole drew it again, trying to quicken the motion.

“Good, I think,” Nicole admitted, tossing the gun in the air and catching it by the grip. “A little heavy, but that’s not bad. Kinda makes it feel more stable.”

“Forty-fours pack a hell of a kickback,” Wynonna advised. “Try not to knock your teeth out when you shoot it the first time.”

“I think I’ll be fine,” Nicole told her, smirking.

Once at the top of the hill, Nicole crossed over to lean up against the water tower, eyes sweeping the landscape for signs of the scuttling radscorpions. Nearby, Wynonna seemed to be fishing some of the rusty tin cans up from the ground and setting them up in a line atop the fence.

“Is this it?” Waverly called from behind them, and Nicole turned to find her crouching next to the open grave. Nicole abandoned her watch post and joined her, peering down reflexively into the dark hole.

“Yep, this is where they— he— shot me.” She crossed to where she thought she remembered Bobo standing and planted her feet in the same place as his, raising the gun towards her imaginary self in the hole.

“God,” Waverly breathed. “I mean, obviously I knew he shot you and buried you, but… seeing it like this… it’s amazing you survived.”

“Yeah…” Nicole shook her head and lowered her gun, looking up at Waverly instead. The youngest Earp was watching her with soft, sympathetic eyes that threatened to crumble all her defenses.

Nicole forced herself to look away, absently rubbing the scar again at the memory.

“Hey, Red-Haught!” Wynonna had apparently finished her makeshift shooting gallery. “All yours!”

Nicole grinned at the long line of cans on the fence.

“Stand back, Earp!” she told Wynonna, as she leveled Calamity at the fence line.

Without moving closer or changing the angle she stood at, Nicole took aim. She took in a deep breath and fired on the exhale, clipping a can from the end of the line as the gun bucked violently in her hand. Nicole frowned at the shot. The gun’s sights were true, but Wynonna had been right about the kickback. Her shot had gone an inch or two wide of her aim.

She squared her feet and added her free hand to the grip for stability, then shot again. And again. And again.

Each can fell from the fence one by one and tumbled down the hill, clattering as they went.

“You were right about the recoil,” Nicole admitted as she reloaded the chamber.

“Of course I was,” Wynonna said breezily.

On instinct, Nicole looked to Waverly for her reaction, secretly hoping she might be impressed.

And sure, she wasn’t exactly swooning, but surely nobody could say that she didn’t look wonderfully interested. Her gaze was locked onto Nicole, and there was an intrigued glint to her eye that made Nicole instinctively stand taller.

“How did that look?” Nicole asked, allowing a hint of a tease into her voice and a cocky, borderline flirty smile onto her lips. To Nicole’s delight, a flush of pink appeared on Waverly’s cheeks, and she stumbled for a moment on a response.

“I, um… I’ve seen worse,” she managed finally, before rising to her feet with a nervous giggle and brushing dust from her hands. Nicole let her smile widen.

“Hey, are we killing some radscorpions or what?” Wynonna called from the fence line, disrupting the moment. Both of them turned towards her, and then back towards each other.

“Shall we?” Nicole asked.

The rock-strewn hills beyond the cemetery were steep and full of enough blind spots to keep Nicole on edge, even with all three of them armed. It didn’t help that the noonday sun was bearing down on them, making her squint in the brightness.

They took out two bark scorpions early— both small ones, the size of jackrabbits— but Nicole kept her eyes peeled for something bigger. Radscorpions were big, but they were also low to the ground and fond of burrowing into crevices during the heat of the day. The last thing she wanted was to miss spotting one until it was already charging at her… again.

She was wiping sweat out of her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve when a noise pricked her ears. She held up a hand to stay the others.

“Did you hear that?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

“Where?” Wynonna asked, sharp eyes scanning the area around them. Nicole shushed her, straining her ears. It hadn’t been a scuttle, like a scorpion’s legs, but it had set her nerves on edge. Not a scuttle, but a… buzz?

Recognition hit her like a frag grenade.

“Cazador,” she barely breathed. Wynonna’s face went blank, but her calm demeanor was belied by the way she scrambled to get Peacemaker cocked and held ready. Nicole’s eyes flashed to Waverly, who was gripping her shotgun tightly and looking pale but determined.

“Are you sure?” Waverly asked her, her voice barely a whisper. Nicole nodded grimly.

“They usually aren’t this close to town,” Wynonna grumbled. The buzz came again, and the flutter of an orange wing behind a rock. Nicole leveled Calamity, waiting for it to emerge completely.

“Wait,” Waverly whispered, kneeling down and picking up a rock from the ground. When she straightened, she gave the others a nod. “Batter up.” She took aim well off to one side and hurled the rock as far as she could. It soared though the air and clattered against a distant boulder.

The low hum crescendoed into a roaring buzz as not one, but four cazadors emerged from behind the boulder, orange wings catching the light of the sun. Three of the vicious, mutated wasps were about the size of large crows, but the fourth dwarfed them at nearly Waverly’s height.

“Shit,” Wynonna cursed. Nicole concurred. One cazador was bad enough, but a group like this could swarm, and a poisonous sting from the full-grown one could be deadly. Wynonna waved her arm towards the boulders. “Scatter!” she shouted, backing away and taking a few shots at the frenzied bugs.

“Aim for the wings!” Nicole advised. Her instinct to stay in the group and protect her friends grappled with the knowledge that Wynonna was right— the only way to fight a group like this was to spread out. She allowed herself a single annoyed growl and a worried glance towards Waverly before taking a few shots of her own and trying to circle around, away from Wynonna, closer to the cazadors.

If the cazadors were startled by Waverly’s rock or Nicole and Wynonna’s bullets, they seemed to rally themselves in a matter of seconds, swiveling and swooping towards the sound of the gunshots.

“That’s right, over here!” Nicole tried to lure them in her direction, shooting to cripple the wings of the younglings. Two of them took the bait, swooping towards her as she reloaded. She backed away and shot again, trying to keep what distance she could between her and their stingers, but there were two of them, and they had the benefit of flight, even if their wings were big and clumsy. They managed to get on either side of her, the buzzing almost deafening in her ears, drowning out the sound of even the others' gunshots.

She tried to duck out from between them and fired point-blank at the closest one, blowing one of its wings to smithereens. It dropped to the ground, still flapping pointlessly, and Nicole swiveled towards the other. It was closer than she had realized, and she tried to back away, but her foot caught on a rock, sending her tumbling backwards. This turned out to be almost lucky, as the unexpected lurch meant that the cazador’s stinger, instead of sinking into her torso, only grazed her arm. It immediately began to sting painfully, but she ignored it.

Without time to stand, she took aim from the ground, bracing the gun with both hands, and emptied its cylinder into the cazador’s body. It jerked backwards with each shot, then dropped like the badly overgrown fly that it was.

Wincing, Nicole pulled herself to her feet and put one final bullet into the grounded youngling, ending it.

As she reloaded again, she took the opportunity to catch her breath and glance down at her arm. The cut wasn’t deep. She’d been fairly lucky. Even if the young cazador’s poison wouldn’t have killed her, a direct sting would have hurt like hell. She wasn’t sorry to have avoided it.

She could hear other gunshots nearby, and broke her momentary respite to jog towards them. Wynonna was being thoroughly harassed by another of the young cazadors, and Waverly was… nowhere to be seen.

“Waverly!” Nicole called. No voice called back, but the bark of a shotgun was answer enough, and she broke into a run. She spotted Waverly taking cover on higher ground, atop a low mesa. There was a honey mesquite— a low, shrubby tree— between her and the cazador, and the cazador seemed tangled in the thorny branches. But Waverly was kneeling and panting, her shotgun held limply at her side.

There was a gradient leading up the mesa on the far side, which was presumably how Waverly and the cazador had gotten up there in the first place, but Nicole had no time for that. She holstered Calamity and charged straight up the steep side of the mesa, finding handholds and footholds in the craggy rock, years of climbing experience guiding her path. In seconds, she was up and scrambling to her feet, albeit with freshly abraded palms and bruised knees.

And not a moment too soon. The cazador was freeing itself from the branches of the mesquite and aiming towards its quarry, buzzing like a jet engine. With a burst of raw instinct and adrenaline, Nicole dove between the monstrous wasp and Waverly, sliding across the dusty ground. Calamity spat bullets first at its thorn-torn wings, then straight into its head. Once her cylinder was empty, she fumbled to reload, but the mesa had gone quiet. The buzzing had stopped, and now there was only the sound of her and Waverly’s heavy breathing, and the creak of the mesquite’s branches under the dead weight of the cazador.

Nicole let herself crumple backwards, but rolled to keep Waverly in sight.

“Are you okay?” she panted. Her palms were burning where they’d been scraped on the rocks, and her arm was burning where it had been grazed by the cazador, but she could barely feel them.

Waverly sat up with a groan.

“Yeah. I just fell. I couldn’t reload fast enough, and it got my leg.”

“It did? Are you sure? Did it inject the poison?” Nicole scrambled up onto her bruised knees, and found the stinger’s wound on Waverly’s leg, just above the knee. It was bleeding, but not badly, and if Waverly had been poisoned, then she was taking it better than most NCR Rangers Nicole had met.

“No, it just made me trip. I’m okay. I mean, ow, but I can walk.” Waverly used her shotgun as a crutch to push herself up to her feet, and Nicole followed suit, suppressing the urge to groan as she dragged herself upright over her body’s protests. Waverly gave a tiny chuckle, looking between Nicole and the dead cazador. “My hero,” she joked.

Nicole grinned, wildly and dumbly, from both relief and amusement.

“I guess we’re even now,” Nicole said.

“For now, maybe,” Waverly said. “But don’t let it go to your head.”

“Who, me?” Nicole pretended to scoff. “I would never.”

“WAVERLY!!!”

They both jumped at Wynonna’s panicked shout, then approached the edge of the mesa to look down.

“Up here!” Waverly yelled down. “We’re fine!”

Wynonna clutched at her chest melodramatically.

“Jesus, kid, give me a heart attack, why don’t you?”

“Be right down!” Nicole called down to her, then turned her attention back towards Waverly. “Is your leg okay?”

“It’s fine. No big deal,” Waverly said lightly. Indeed, it didn’t seem to be bothering her much. Nicole could tell she was favoring her injured side, but otherwise she seemed steady.

“Are you sure? You can lean on me if you need to,” Nicole offered, adding a bit of mock-chivalry to her tone. Waverly seemed to consider this, biting back the start of a smile.

“Well, I guess it does kinda hurt,” she admitted with an air of reluctance. Nicole nodded sympathetically, still playing along (or at least she was pretty sure they were playing).

“I thought it might. Here.” She positioned herself at Waverly’s side and let her lean into her, taking some of the weight off her injured leg. It wasn’t the most graceful way in the world to walk, but the good company more than made up for it.

“Are you two taking the goddamn scenic route or something?! Get your asses down here!” Wynonna’s voice echoed up from below. They both rolled their eyes.

“Maybe next time we stick to geckos,” Nicole sighed.

Chapter Text

The Homestead was closer than either Doc’s house or Shorty’s, so Waverly and Nicole were deposited there while Wynonna fetched Doc. Waverly sat on the living room’s couch with her leg propped up, and, after some time, managed to coax Nicole to stop pacing long enough to sit in an armchair.

“And here I thought loaning you that gun might keep you from grievous injury,” Doc said as he walked in minutes later, eyes smiling.

“I wouldn’t call it grievous,” Nicole protested, glancing down at the stinging cut on her arm. “And trust me, grievous wouldn’t even begin to cover it if I hadn’t had Calamity.”

“She’s right,” Waverly agreed, then tilted her head as if considering another perspective. “Although we were only out there in the first place to test out the gun, so technically…”

“Technically, we would have only been on the other side of town shooting geckos if it weren’t for Wynonna wanting to go radscorpion hunting,” Nicole pointed out, a bit defensively.

“Hey!” Wynonna said, entering the room with a beer bottle in her hand. “How was I supposed to know there’d be a cazador nest so close to town?”

“With fewer caravans on the roads, I’m sure all kinds of desert creatures are making themselves comfortable in our little stretch of desert,” Doc commented, as he began unpacking a doctor’s bag onto the coffee table.

“Well, you’ll be happy to know that Calamity was great,” Nicole told him.

“I am positively delighted,” Doc said, a note of humor in his voice. “I see she’s already done some good for Purgatory. The fewer cazadors within spitting distance of town, the better it is for everyone.”

Nicole nodded her agreement.

“And that’s just the beginning. Tomorrow, I’m heading south.”

There wasn’t much to be done besides a heavy bandage on Waverly’s leg and a few doses of salve for Nicole’s myriad of scrapes.

“Well, I do believe you’ll both survive,” Doc told them afterwards, as he repacked his bag. “Although I would advise leaving the bandage on for a few hours to make sure the wound closes entirely.”

“I know the drill,” Waverly replied, giving him a bright smile. “Thanks, Doc.”

“You’re very welcome.” He held his hand out to Nicole before he left. “In case I don’t see you before your departure, I hope you have good luck and safe travel to and from Primm.”

Nicole stood and shook his hand.

“Thanks, Doc. So do I.” He tipped his hat a final time before withdrawing into the kitchen with Wynonna.

Nicole stretched, trying to roll the kinks out of her joints. Doc’s medicine had done its job, but she would still probably be sore the next day if she let her muscles go completely cold.

“Are you okay?” Waverly’s voice interrupted her as she doubled over to touch her toes. Nicole looked up and grinned sheepishly before straightening.

“Never better,” she said. “How’s your leg?”

“It’s fine. I’ve had worse,” Waverly said, shaking her head slightly. Nicole didn’t find that as comforting a statement as Waverly probably meant it to be.

“Hopefully not much worse,” she said, her eyebrows knitting together. Waverly shrugged.

“I’ve definitely never been shot in the head, so I think you still win that one. But especially when I was a kid… There was this stupid thing with a beam way up in the old mine tunnels.” Waverly shrugged and shook her head. She tapped the bandage on her leg. “But this? This is nothing.”

Nicole’s brow furrowed deeper. It sounded like there was a story there, but Waverly didn’t seem eager to elaborate, so Nicole stored the reference away for the future.

“Well… just make sure to let it rest.” Nicole picked up the satchel from the floor and shouldered it. “I’m going to make a last run to the general store. Are you going to stay here, or go to the bar?”

Waverly seemed to pause at the question, and gave it far more thought than seemed called for. Nicole raised a questioning eyebrow at her, and she shook her head.

“No, I was going to…” she trailed off, then seemed to correct herself. “I’ll probably go over to the bar in a little while,” she said finally, still seeming oddly pensive.

She seemed thoughtful, but not in a noticeably troubled way, so Nicole let it go for the moment, in spite of her curiosity.

“Okay…” she said, dragging the word out. “I’ll meet you there afterwards, then, alright?”

“Yeah…”

With a final smile, Nicole left her on the couch, with her head resting in her hand and a calculating look on her face.

When she emptied the satchel onto Robin’s counter a few minutes later, his eyebrows crept almost all the way up to his hairline.

“Are those… cazador poison sacs?” he asked, leaning forward gingerly to inspect them.

“They sure are,” Nicole said, nudging one back from where it was rolling dangerously close to the edge of the counter.

“There’s a lot of them,” he commented, rummaging around for a moment under the counter. He emerged with a pair of thick gloves.

“It was an exciting afternoon,” Nicole said dryly.

“I’ll bet.” He pulled a mechanical scale out and began very carefully weighing them one at a time. “Caps or trade?”

“Depends. I need as much .44 ammo as you can sell me, and I really, really, really need a hat. Please tell me you have one. I will pay anything.” In spite of her pleading tone, Robin only offered her an apologetic grimace. “Robin, no, come on, don’t do this to me. Don’t make me walk all the way to Primm without a hat.”

He held up his empty, gloved hands.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and sounded sincere. “It’s not my call. I only have what I have. If I had one, I’d sell it to you, but I just don’t. The regular caravans haven’t been coming this way since that whole mess with the prison break.”

Nicole nodded, and forced herself to quell the self-pity.

“It’s fine. It’s not your fault. I’ll just have to keep an eye out.” Maybe if she was lucky, she’d be ambushed by some Jackal or Revenant in a nice cowboy hat and she’d be able to take it off of them— hopefully without getting lots of blood on it in the process. Or maybe she would just pass by a traveling merchant and buy one. But she wasn’t holding her breath. “Just the ammo, then.”

He ended up giving her a good deal on the ammo and a couple of stimpacks that she hopefully wouldn’t need. They chatted about her plans and the weather while the radio rather fittingly warbled “what’s the use in buyin’ a car if ya don’t buy gasoline” in the background. When the transaction was complete, Nicole offered him her hand.

“Thanks, Robin. And take care of yourself.”

He was still wearing the heavy gloves, so he settled for bumping their fists together.

“I always do. Watch your back out there.”

From the general store, Nicole easily hopped next door to the bar. Her satchel was heavy with ammo, and it would only get heavier when she added her clothing and canteen, both stashed safely in Waverly’s room. The weight was oddly reassuring, a reminder that she now actually had some possessions worth carrying around.

As she slipped through the front door to the bar, she hoped to find Waverly at the counter, but only Wynonna was there, looking no worse for wear after their rather harrowing afternoon. She nodded a greeting as she approached the counter.

“Is Waverly here yet?” she asked.

“Is she supposed to be?” Wynonna asked.

“She said she was coming over here in a little while. I thought she might have beat me here.”

Wynonna shrugged.

“Nope, you’ll have to settle for me instead.”

Nicole settled easily onto one of the bar stools, setting her satchel at her feet.

“Well, technically none of us actually shot a radscorpion, so I’m going to have to actually pay for my drink tonight.”

“Them’s the breaks,” Wynonna said with an ambivalent shrug. Nicole forked over a few caps for a bottle of very mediocre beer and watched as Wynonna absentmindedly dusted off a few bottles. She kept throwing odd glances Nicole’s way, like she wanted to say something, but the moment stretched longer and longer without a word. Finally, Nicole grew tired of the charade.

“What is it, Wynonna?” she asked, injecting a little playful exasperation into her voice. Wynonna cast a wary glance towards the office door, where Willa had presumably cloistered herself away, then leaned over the counter, towards Nicole.

“It’s your last night here, right?”

Nicole nodded.

“For now. I’ll be back after I get the information I’m looking for,” she said, as much for her own reassurance as for Wynonna’s.

“Yeah, I’ve just been thinking… You protected my baby sister today. That means something, you know?” Wynonna looked serious on this point. Nicole didn’t really feel like she needed credit for such an obvious decision, but she nodded anyway.

“Sure. I mean, she probably would have been okay, if she’d gotten another few shots off.”

“Still, though.” Wynonna’s eyes glanced to the office door again, as if making sure they were still in the clear. “Look, it’s none of my business where you’ve been sleeping since you got here, but I know it’s not Doc’s, so I assume you’ve been camping out somewhere in town.”

Nicole went very still, trying to hold her face in a perfectly, stonily neutral expression. Blank. Innocent. Guiltless. Vacant.

Don’t react. Don’t blush. Don’t laugh. Don’t flinch.

Wynonna continued, “But you did our family a solid today, and it’s your last night here and all, you should probably get a decent night’s sleep. If you wanted a roof over your head, we could make up our couch for you, just for tonight.”

Nicole blinked a few times, fighting to keep a grip on herself and not give anything away. Someday, she needed to actually work on cultivating a real poker face.

She tried to channel the thoughts of things that were still and featureless. Rocks. Mountains. Cloudy skies. Petrified trees. Brick Walls. Metal siding.

“Oh. Um… That’s… really nice of you, but… um…” She took a hurried swig of her beer to buy for time and nearly choked on it. She could feel Wynonna’s confused gaze on her as she sputtered and caught her breath. “I, uh… I’m fine, really. And, uh… I know Willa would probably hate that, and I’d hate to cause trouble between the three of you. Um… I’m okay, but… thanks, though.”

Wynonna, her eyebrows arched, held her hands aloft in something like an apology.

“My bad. Sorry I brought it up.” She sounded more puzzled than offended, but Nicole felt guilty all the same.

“No, really, it’s a nice offer, I just… I’m all good.”

Wynonna gave a single nod.

“Got it. Moving on, then.”

To Nicole’s relief, the conversation drifted to other topics, and Wynonna offered her advice about traveling the road down to Primm. Nicole nodded along, although she kept half an eye on the door, waiting for Waverly to make her way in.

It was nearly an hour later when she finally showed up, sweeping into the bar with a faint smile on her face. She circled around the bar to stand with Wynonna, who gave her a sideways hug and a suspicious side-eye at the same time.

“Where have you been?” she asked. Waverly shrugged.

“I had an errand to run,” she said simply. Wynonna’s sideways glance narrowed in deeper suspicion.

“Where? This town has like five buildings in it.”

“None of your business,” Waverly chided, shoving her playfully with her elbow. Wynonna released her, but still kept a puzzled gaze fixed on her until Waverly rolled her eyes.

This being Nicole’s last night in town, Wynonna seemed primed for a last hurrah, and Nicole lost track of how many drinks were pushed her way. She kept pushing them back— the last thing she needed was to be deeply hungover during her possibly-super-dangerous fact-finding trek across the desert, even if it wasn’t a very long trip by her standards.

The conversation was easy and full of laughter, and Nicole practically ached with the thought that she would be leaving the next day. Before she left, claiming tiredness, Wynonna forced her to partake in a final toast goodbye. Nicole couldn’t think of enough words to adequately thank her for everything she had done in the past several days, and she figured the thanks wouldn’t be welcomed even if she’d found them. She settled for a meaningful nod as they clinked whiskey glasses, and that seemed to get the point across as well as anything.

Within an hour, she and Waverly had snuck back into the house. Nicole had checked and double-checked her satchel— a courier’s bag with lots of straps and buckles— to make sure everything was packed and accessible and ready to go.

Waverly sat cross-legged on the bed, a book in her hand, but her eyes were watching Nicole pack and unpack and repack the bag, seemingly on a loop. Finally, after she’d finished repacking it for the second time, Waverly cleared her throat, making Nicole glance up.

“You aren’t going to keep doing that all night, are you?” she asked, eyebrow quirked. Nicole shook her head sheepishly and closed the bag, buckling it shut.

“Sorry.” She dropped the bag by the window and crossed over to the bed.

“Are you nervous?” Waverly asked her. Nicole shrugged as she climbed onto the mattress.

“A little, maybe,” she admitted. “It’s weird, not knowing exactly what I’m walking into. I mean, I must have been headed there for some reason.”

“Maybe when you get there, it’ll be totally obvious,” Waverly offered hopefully. The corner of Nicole’s lips curled up at her optimism.

“Yeah, maybe,” she sighed.

She tucked herself under the covers, and Waverly, clearly giving up on the idea of reading, took her book back to the bookshelf before joining her. Nicole clicked out the light and settled into their usual position.

As always, things felt a little less awkward in the darkness. Waverly’s hand held onto her arm, and their breathing synced up instinctively. Nicole tried to remember if it was always like this, sharing a bed. Granted, the beds she’d shared in the past tended to be bigger, and actually allowed two bodies to each have their own space. Here, the narrow space was both a blessing and a curse. While she missed the option of lying flat on her own side of the bed, the proximity here… had its compensations.

“It’ll be weird not having you here,” Waverly said after a long, quiet moment. Their thoughts were clearly on the same wavelength. “I’ve kinda gotten used to you, you know?”

“Yeah…” Nicole breathed. “Well, at least you’ll have more room without me taking up the whole mattress,” she tried to joke.

“I don’t mind. I mean, it’s been kinda nice. I don’t think I’ve ever slept as well as I have the past few nights.” Waverly sounded sincere, and Nicole both hoped it was true (for her own sake) and hoped it wasn’t (for Waverly’s).

“It’ll only be for a few days. I’ll go to Primm and ask around— see if anyone knows about Bobo, or if any of them know if or why I was headed there in the first place.”

“I’m sure somebody will know. Or that you’ll get there and it’ll be totally obvious.”

Nicole smiled, glad that Waverly couldn’t see her face from her current position.

“Yeah, and then I can just turn around and come back immediately.”

Whether or not she could see her, Waverly clearly heard the undercurrent of a laugh in her voice, and she pushed one of her elbows back, catching her in the ribs.

“Hey, it could happen,” she grumbled, sounding a little defensive. Nicole just shifted and adjusted her grip, pulling her closer and (not coincidentally) making it more difficult to drive elbows into her stomach.

“Sure, maybe. And trust me, nobody hopes more than me that it’s that quick and easy. But something tells me it won’t be.”

Waverly gave a soft hum, but didn’t argue. Instead, she seemed to relax back into the tighter embrace. Nicole wondered briefly if the room was too cool again and she was pressing close for warmth, but it felt warm enough to her, and Waverly wasn’t shivering.

Maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe Waverly, like her, just wanted to be closer for their last night together.

Deciding to stop questioning it, she just leaned her cheek against the top of Waverly’s head and closed her eyes. Part of her was tempted to try to stay awake and memorize the feeling, to appreciate every minute of the warm touch… but her sense of logic prevailed, and she would need to sleep if she wanted to be at her best tomorrow.

She fell asleep quickly and slept deeply, dreaming of the road, and of buzzing, and of letters in the mail, and of warm embraces.

They both woke early but lingered in bed as the sun rose, not doing anything in particular except delaying Nicole’s imminent departure.

Even when Nicole felt pressed to get up and get dressed in her traveling clothes, she still returned to the bed afterwards, trying to think of more reasons to stay an hour, a minute longer.

“So you’re just going to leave straight from here?” Waverly asked eventually.

“Yeah, pretty much. I got everything I needed yesterday from Robin’s. Well, almost everything.”

Waverly nodded.

“In that case, before you go... I got you something. For the trip.”

That caught Nicole’s attention.

“You got me something?” she echoed, surprised. She imagined food, or a canteen, or something else small and practical that would be on-hand, but Waverly walked over to her wardrobe. Nicole, her interest piqued, tried to follow, but Waverly motioned for her to stay put, and she obeyed.

“I mean, it’s not anything huge.” She opened the wardrobe and fished something out from behind a curtain of clothing, keeping it first shielded from Nicole’s view by the door, and then hidden behind her back. Nicole craned her neck, trying to peek behind her, but Waverly swiveled to keep the gift hidden.

“Okay, so what is it?” Nicole laughed, feeling a small thrill. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been given a present, especially a surprise one. Her life hadn’t been chock full of the fun sorts of surprises.

Waverly stretched the anticipation out for several more seconds, her face scrunching as if she was considering holding out, but finally, with a theatrical sweep, she revealed the gift and held it out.

Nicole couldn’t suppress an almost childish gasp of delight.

“You got me a hat!” She accepted it reverently in both hands, turning over and looking at it from every angle. It was a Stetson like the one the cowboy wore on the book cover, white and clean and stiff with a wide brim.

“You like it?” Waverly asked, smiling as she watched her fawn over it.

“Are you kidding? I’ve been trying to find one since I got here! Robin said he hasn’t had any in stock in weeks!”

“Yeah, but I have… other sources. I figured someone in town had to have one they could spare, so I went asking around, and…” She gestured to the hat. “Is it okay?”

“No, this is great! I love it!” She placed it on her head and immediately felt like the world had set itself right and her head was no longer too small and too naked and too vulnerable to the world. But Waverly was frowning slightly at her. “What?”

“Is it too big?” she asked, eying the, admittedly, very wide brim.

“No, it’s perfect,” Nicole insisted. Waverly shook her head stubbornly.

“It looks giant on you. That can’t be right.”

“No, see, the band size is right or else it wouldn’t stay on. It’s supposed to be wide like this. It gives more protection from the sun and wind that way. It’s perfect.”

Waverly’s face still showed a hint of skepticism, but Nicole could tell her enthusiasm was winning her over.

“You’re sure? You don’t hate it?” Waverly checked a final time.

“Do I look like I hate it?” Nicole challenged.

“No,” Waverly admitted.

“Because I don’t. Seriously, this is the best. Thank you. Really. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for.”

“You’re welcome.” In light of Nicole’s beaming face, she seemed to finally accept that she actually liked the gift, and returned to sit on the edge of the bed. “You mentioned a few times wishing you had a hat, so I thought it would be a nice goodbye gift.”

Nicole couldn’t stop smiling.

“You didn’t need to get me anything. I’ll only be gone a few days. But I’m glad you did. This is perfect.”

Waverly gave her a long, appraising look, then finally nodded.

“You know, it kinda suits you. Wearing a hat, I mean. It makes you look... professional. Authoritative.” Nicole puffed up, her ego inflating with the compliment. “And, annoyingly, even taller than you were already.”

“Thanks.” She tipped the hat in acknowledgement, and Waverly giggled. “I’ve missed being able to do that.”

There was a beat of silence, and her gaze drifted reluctantly to her satchel under the window. Waverly clearly caught the glance, because her expression turned more serious.

“Is it time?” she asked. Nicole tried to think of some reason to prolong her departure, but there was nothing left. With great reluctance, she nodded, heaving a disappointed sigh.

“Yeah, I think so. Better to leave before the sun gets too high.”

“Right.” Waverly watched as she rolled to her feet and hefted the courier bag in one hand. “Hey… Be careful, okay? The radio keeps talking about the Revenants. And Bobo might still be out there. And if you turn the wrong way, there’s deathclaws out by Sloan, and—”

“Hey,” Nicole murmured, stepping towards her. “Don’t worry about me. I took a bullet to the head and woke up with a hangover, remember? I’ll be fine. I’m a good shot, and I’m not stupid.”

Waverly gave her a dry, skeptical look.

“I know you’re this lone wanderer badass and all that. I just… I get the feeling you’re too brave for your own good, and you’re going to do something reckless and go running into some dangerous situation.”

Feeling far more called-out than she had expected, Nicole fumbled for a retort, but in the end just blushed and scratched at the back of her head, which was getting hot under her new hat.

“Well... I’ll try to keep the ‘running into burning buildings’ down to a bare minimum. For your sake.”

“Good.” Waverly seemed satisfied enough with this answer, whether she believed her or not. “And you’ll be back soon, right?”

“Yep. As soon as I can be.”

“And what if you don’t find what you’re looking for?”

Nicole shrugged, unconcerned.

“Then I’ll come back anyway. Regroup. Come up with a new plan.” She attempted a charming smile. “Maybe you can help me with that part. Two heads are better than one, especially if the second one is yours.”

This prompted a reluctant smile, and Nicole was grateful. If this was the last view of Waverly she would have for awhile, she wanted a clear memory of her smile.

“Deal.” Waverly held out a hand, and, bemused, Nicole shook it as though they were coming to some business accord. Then she felt a tug and felt herself pulled into a hug. She dropped the satchel momentarily to return it with both arms. And if the embrace lasted several seconds longer than a conventional hug between new friends, neither of them paid much thought to it. As they finally pulled back, Nicole took the opportunity to trail a few fingers down her jawline.

“See you in a few days, yeah?” she said. Waverly nodded.

“Yeah. Just a few days.”

Nicole picked up her bag again and took a step backwards towards the window.

“Bye…”

Nicole slipped out the window, and her boots hit the desert ground with a sense of finality that she didn’t like. Against her better judgement, she leaned her head back in for one final look, one final smile, before pulling back.

She began walking towards the road, years of honed traveling instincts already blurring everything behind her. She adjusted the hat on her head, blessedly keeping the burning sun off her face and the blinding light out of her eyes. Her feet found their stride, a steady rhythm, and as she passed the town sign— Welcome to Purgatory- You’ll Never Want to Leave!— she made herself not look back.

She had a task in front of her now.

But she would be back.

For Purgatory. For the Earps.

For Waverly.

She was sure about that.

Chapter Text

Waverly didn't sleep well that night, unsurprisingly. Right out of the gate, she had trouble falling asleep because of the cold, and even once she finally settled, curled up in a tight ball late in the night, she woke what felt like seconds later from a bad dream— a vision of Bulshar's Legion breaking down their door and smashing in her window and dragging all three of them out into the night while the Homestead burned. In the dream, Wynonna tried to shoot the invaders, but the bullet hit Willa instead, leaving her bleeding out into the desert dust.

She woke in a rush, breathing hard and shaking all over and missing Nicole fiercely.

It was stupid, to miss her when she had only been gone for a few hours, and had only actually been in town for a few days, but now that she knew how nice it could be to not be alone all night, it was hard to not miss the warmth of another body, the reassuring sound of deep breathing next to her, and especially the protective weight of an arm wrapped around her.

But it was more than just that, she thought. More than just having someone next to her, an arm around her. She specifically missed having Nicole there. Nicole, who in addition to sometimes being stupid and reckless, was always kind and strong and brave. There was a comfort to knowing that anything that might befall her in the night, from a literal attack like the one in her dream to the fear of the dream itself, Nicole would protect her from it. And maybe that would mean throwing herself bodily at an attacker, and maybe it would just mean pulling her in closer and murmuring a few soothing words in her ear.

Sweating and shivering, Waverly sat up and gathered the blanket around her. She felt jumpy and restless after the dream, and was sure it would take her forever to settle again.

She reached for the lamp, then changed her mind and pulled out a box of matches instead. The cold, artificial light powered by the patchy HELIOS electric grid wasn't what she needed right then. Instead, she struck a match to her candle. It didn't provide much light, but it was enough to take the edge off the chill of fear, at least for the moment.

As soon as she felt brave enough, she slid out of bed, her bare feet freezing on the wooden floor, and crept across the room in search of a book to calm her nerves. Being scared by a dream made her feel silly, knowing that elsewhere in the night, Nicole was either awake and prowling the desert alone or asleep in some ruined building, barely sheltered from the elements, let alone wild animals or human attackers. She shivered at the thought and prayed that wherever Nicole was, she was as safe as the wasteland allowed.

Once back in bed, book in hand, thoroughly ensconced in a nest of blankets, she began to read. She had chosen one of her favorites, a book so over-handled that the pages sometimes fell out and the spine was cracked at all her favorite scenes.

It was these she flipped to now, rereading the familiar words and paragraphs. The heroine was a waitress who had never left her hometown, and the hero was a new cop from the big city. She skipped the parts of the book where they circled each other slowly, interest and antipathy giving way to attraction and love, and went straight to the climax of the book.

The heroine had been kidnapped by a gang of criminals and was rescued by the hero, and in their moment of reunion, he held her close, and the book described the feeling in sprawling detail— he arched around her protectively, and she nestled against his chest, breathing in his scent, listening to his heartbeat, feeling warm and safe and cared for. Feeling loved.

It was this last scene that she hungered for now, her brain drawing some inexorable comparison between the lovers in the book and something from her real life. A pair of arms encircling her, warm and protective. A faintly sweet scent. Warm breath stirring her hair. A steady heartbeat thudding against her own.

Warmth. Safety. Belonging.

Friendship?, her brain asked, but Waverly wasn’t stupid, and she owned thirty-seven pre-war romance novels, thank you very much. She was, if anything, probably the Mojave Wasteland’s eminent expert on cliché romance, and ‘Lone gunslinger arrives in town, is nursed back to health, is sweet to local barmaid,’ was a tale as old as time, and it sure wasn’t a friendship tale. Especially not when she added ‘shares bed with local barmaid’ to the equation.

Not that Nicole had made any indecent move— far from it. She was as polite and respectful as anyone Waverly had ever met. But each morning they had woken in the same position, with Waverly tucked back in the curve of Nicole’s body, Nicole’s arm solid against her front. And Waverly missed that. She missed it far more than she would have thought possible.

Rereading the book calmed her, but she still felt far, far too awake to sleep. She cycled through a few more books, treating herself to a few more scenes— couples embracing, or curled together in bed. Hugs. Caresses. Cuddles. Innocent stuff, but sweet. Reassuring. Tantalizingly familiar.

At some point late in the night, she finally did drift back off into a fitful sleep, a book slipping from her hand and tumbling off the mattress in a flutter of pages. But even asleep she was restless, waking at every small noise and repeatedly rolling over in search of a warm body.

The bed, barely big enough for Waverly and laughably undersized for Nicole, let alone both of them together, now felt massive and empty, like a wasteland of its own.

She tossed and turned in half-sleep until the light in the window was too bright to ignore, at which point she dragged herself, yawning and groaning, out from under the covers.

It wasn't the worst night of sleep she'd ever had, but it was poor even by her low standards, and after several nights of deep, uninterrupted slumber, it felt like torture.

Wherever Nicole was, she couldn't get back soon enough.

Cold and exhausted, Waverly kept a blanket wrapped around herself like a robe as she stumbled her way to the kitchen. It was too early for her sisters to be awake, unless Wynonna was still up from the night before (which was unlikely, but not impossible).

She slumped into a chair at the kitchen table, intending to decide what to make for breakfast, but her eyes felt hot and itchy with tiredness, and she lay her head down on the table’s cool surface and pulled the blanket over her head like a hood.

She slipped in and out of an exhausted doze until she awoke to the sound of pots clattering and the feeling of someone nudging her shoulder. She grumpily pushed the blanket out of her eyes to glare at her attacker.

“What's with you?” Wynonna asked curiously, withdrawing her hand. A few feet away, Willa was setting a pan on the stove. Waverly yawned and rubbed at the massive crick in her neck.

“Ugh... Couldn't sleep,” she groused. Wynonna frowned, like she wasn't sure whether to be concerned.

“Need to switch shifts? You could go back to bed.” The offer was well-meaning, but Waverly shook her head. She had first woken up that morning feeling depressed, but now she just felt annoyed— at Nicole for leaving, and at herself for caring so much.

“Doesn't matter. I still wouldn't sleep worth crap.”

Wynonna’s frown deepened into actual concern, and something like curiosity.

“Something wrong?” she asked. Waverly just heaved a sigh and tugged her hair back into some semblance of order, not answering.

“She probably misses her girlfriend,” Willa broke in, a touch too coldly to just be good-natured teasing.

“Girlfriend?” Wynonna echoed softly, looking confused. Waverly glared across the room at Willa’s back, and something must have triggered for Wynonna, because her expression suddenly cleared. “Oh, shit, that's right, Haught took off yesterday.”

“She's not my girlfriend,” Waverly snapped, seething with anger at both of them. She didn't like Willa even thinking about Nicole, let alone their relationship to one another, let alone saying things like that about them in front of Wynonna.

“Sure, but you two were getting to be pretty good friends,” Wynonna said, once again planting herself between her warring sisters. “It's okay to miss her.”

“She'll be back,” Waverly said, defensively. Even as she said the words, she hoped they were true. She hoped that Nicole hadn't lied, that she wouldn't get hurt or killed on her journey, that she wouldn't lose interest in this one tiny speck of a town in the middle of nothing and nowhere.

With a pang, her anger swung back into sadness. She folded her arms on the table and lay her head on them wearily. She could feel Wynonna’s eyes on her. It made her want to pull the blanket back over her head, but she resisted the urge.

Determined to block them both out, she closed her eyes, letting her brain drift right to the edge of sleep, where a seductive fantasy tried to lure her onto the other side. She drowsed in a dream, half-memory, half-imagination, of Nicole’s hands on her shoulders, rubbing gently with slow, soothing motions, easing the pain from her neck.

She was jolted awake for the third time that morning by a bowl of oatmeal being set in front of her.

“You sure you don't want to go back to bed, baby girl?” Wynonna asked. Waverly nodded, sitting taller and letting the blanket fall from her shoulders.

“Yeah, it's fine. It's my turn to open.”

She kept herself busy opening the bar, filling each minute with invented and nonessential tasks like sweeping cobwebs out of the corners and reorganizing the inventory shelves in the back room. Holding still gave her too much time to think, and to worry.

And Robert Svane’s eyes glaring down at her from the mirror didn’t help.

She spent her breaks sitting on the porch, perched on the low bench by the railing… which happened to be the one spot with the best view of the road to the south. Not that she expected to see anything. Nicole had only been gone for a day, after all, and even if she had promised to come back soon, one day was pushing it. But Waverly couldn’t help but keep an eye on the road, marked by the town sign. Just in case.

Welcome to Purgatory— You’ll Never Want to Leave!

What a joke. To Waverly, it sometimes seemed like the only thing people did in Purgatory was leave. The tiny handful of them who had stayed behind were the exception, not the rule. People left. And left. And left. And they didn’t come back.

She just had to hope that Nicole would be an exception, too.

After her shift, Waverly was exhausted, but it was too early to sleep, and she didn’t want to go home to the silent house. She felt inexplicably lonely for someone who had just spent her entire day around other people. If Wynonna had been the one closing the bar, Waverly would have probably stayed just for the companionship, but it was Willa’s turn to close, and Waverly was still smarting from her ‘girlfriend’ comment that morning.

Instead, she walked next door to the general store, where she found Robin listening to the radio with a box of what looked like assorted cutlery in front of him. The bell jingled as she entered, and he smiled when he saw her.

“Waverly! Here to pick up the vodka order?” he asked cheerfully.

“No. Well, yes, if it's ready. But I just realized I hadn’t seen you in awhile, and thought I might… pop in.” She still felt twitchy and tired from her sleepless night and her long day, and she could hear the strangeness in her own voice. Luckily, Robin seemed unfazed.

“Sure. It’s been quiet in here all day.” He gestured towards a chair by the counter, and she sat there, across from him. The radio was playing a low, jazzy song, annoyingly on the nose: Sleep, go to sleep. Just lay down your weary head. Dream, sweetly dream. Dream about tomorrow instead.

The song made her drowsy, and she rested her arm on the counter and lay her head on it, just watching Robin methodically straighten and polish what seemed like an endless supply of forks and spoons. Whatever he was shining them with smelled sharp and metallic, but when he finished each one, it was gleaming. It was oddly satisfying to watch.

She was almost on the verge of drifting off when the radio’s lullaby ended and Mr. New Vegas’s voice took over, his gravelly baritone practically oozing out of the radio’s speaker.

“If you like news, then you’re gonna love our next segment. NCR sources say that there’s an ongoing hostage situation in the Bison Steve hotel. Attempts to find out more failed, due to the fact that everybody in town is in hiding.”

Waverly frowned.

“The Bison Steve?” she echoed. “Isn’t that in Primm?”

The radio answered her before Robin could.

“Today’s headines were brought to you by Primm. Primm: the other New Vegas!”

“Nicole’s in Primm…” Waverly said, her stomach rolling over.

“Oh, right. She mentioned that she was headed that way.” Robin frowned slightly. “Hopefully she’s not getting involved.”

Waverly had only known Nicole for less than a week, but the thought of her ‘not getting involved’ felt a lot like wishful thinking. It made her feet itch to follow in Nicole’s footsteps, tracking her down in Primm and then dragging her back to Purgatory by her ankles.

The radio moved on, giving some update about a New Vegas casino with a fancy restaurant, but Waverly had stopped paying attention. Robin, on the other hand, hung on every word, with a slightly dreamy look on his face. Waverly thought back to various conversations they had had over the years— about how Robin thought the radio announcer’s voice was sexy, and about how sometimes the program’s flirtatious introductions melted him into a puddle. Words like celebrity crush were occasionally thrown around. He had never been secretive about it, and she had never batted an eye. But now she wondered…

“Robin… can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” he said simply, dropping another polished spoon into a pile.

“Um… it's a little personal,” she said, scrunching her face in an apologetic wince.

“That’s fine.” He looked curious, but not alarmed. Waverly sat up, her hands beginning to fidget with one another, twisting in her lap.

“I, um… just wanted to ask... I mean, you're the only person I know... ugh, I'm sorry, I'm not saying any of this right.” She felt her face flushing with embarrassment. They had been friends for practically their entire lives, but this was uncharted territory.

“No worries. Take your time. It’s not like there are any customers I need to take care of.” He offered another kind smile, and Waverly felt somewhat reassured. With effort, she rallied her bravery.

“Robin, you... like men, right?” she asked, haltingly. She half-expected him to get wary or defensive at the mention of it, but if anything, his grin widened.

“Love 'em,” he agreed instantly.

“Yes, exactly.” She nodded quickly, reassured by his casual tone. “So how… how do you know if…” She stumbled on the end of her sentence, unsure of how to finish. “Okay, so let's say a guy came in here and was being super friendly and saying a lot of really nice things, and maybe making a lot of really intense eye contact with you.” She watched his expression to make sure he was following. “How would you know if he was just being friendly, or if he was... you know, interested?”

Robin chuckled.

“If you ever find an answer to that question, be sure to let me know. I'll pay good money,” he joked. Waverly deflated slightly, her hopes waning.

“So there isn't a way to be sure?”

“Nope,” Robin said, without a hint of doubt in his voice. But then he tilted his head back and forth, as if considering something else. “There are clues, though. Like, if we're joking around and he touches my arm or something, that might tip me off. Or if he says a lot of flirty things straight off. Like complimenting me. Me personally, not just that the shop is nice.” He shrugged. “But it's different for men. If you were asking about a woman…”

He trailed off meaningfully, and Waverly nearly groaned.

“Is it that obvious?” she asked, suppressing the urge to crawl under the nearest table and hide for the rest of her life. Robin continued, undeterred.

“And if you were maybe asking about a very specific red-haired woman who was in town in the past week…”

Waverly did groan this time, laying her head back down on the counter.

“Oh, balls. Does everyone know?” she asked miserably. Robin shook his head.

“I doubt it. I didn't even know for sure until just this second,” he reassured her.

“But you guessed?”

Robin gave another half-shrug.

“Well, I guessed more about her than about you,” he said. Waverly perked up, raising her head from the countertop.

“You did? So you think that maybe she…” She gave a small, meaningful nod in place of the sentence’s end.

Robin feigned puzzled innocence.

“Do I think she what?”

Waverly resisted the urge to throw something at him.

“Robin…” she pleaded. He shook his head, smiling at her.

“No, come on, say it. It'll be good for you,” he insisted, a hint of a laugh in his voice. She glared at him momentarily, trying to rally the courage to say it out loud.

It wasn’t even that she was that embarrassed about the idea of liking a woman; it was just that she had never even had to think about it before. Romance and love were things that happened in books, not real life. Almost everyone left in Purgatory was from her parents’ generation, so until Nicole and her flirtatious comments and her adoring eyes and her gentle hands, there had never been a reason to wonder…

“Do you think she... is interested?” she said finally. “In women?”

She almost added ‘or in me,’ but even without it, she could feel the heat in her cheeks, and fought to ignore it. It wasn’t embarrassing. Really. It was just a question.

“And what do you want the answer to be?” Robin asked, his eyes crinkled into smiles.

“Nothing,” Waverly said quickly. Too quickly. “Just... the truth.”

Robin’s smile widened.

“Nothing? Really? You have no dog in this fight? None at all?” he asked, his voice slightly teasing.

“No… Why would I?”

“I don't know. Maybe the same reason you're here asking me about it.” He gave her a knowing look over his grin. “Wave, if you feel something for her, it’s okay to admit it. I know it's not easy. I've been there.”

Waverly shook her head, torn between wanting to argue with him and wanting to agree with him.

“It’s not that. I just… I’m not even sure what I'm feeling. It's just really freaking confusing, you know?” She braced her head on her hand, leaning into the counter for support. Robin reached over and patted her arm.

“Trust me, I know,” he said, and this time his voice was sympathetic

"So... how do you know for sure? About yourself, I mean?” She envied him for how sure he was, how comfortable he seemed with the knowledge. “Or is that something else you want me to tell you once I figure it out?”

“No, that part usually sorts itself out pretty quick.” He chuckled to himself, then turned sincere again. “Just... think about her,” he said simply. “How it would feel to see her again. How it would feel if you thought you’d never see her again. Think about her acting more friendly to you, or less friendly. If she touched you, or if she always kept her distance. Think about how you would feel if she told you she liked you, or loved you, or that she didn't. Or if she held you. Or kissed you.” He smiled. “Like I said, it should sort itself out pretty quick.”

Well, if that was his advice, then she was well past the point of no return, because she’d already spent the whole previous night worrying about never seeing Nicole again and wishing that she were there to hold her. There wasn’t any confusion at all on that front.

But, for the first time, she let herself really imagine Nicole kissing her— not just a chaste peck on the cheek or forehead, but like one of the kisses from her books. Hands cupping her face or threaded into her hair or grasping the back of her neck, her face dipping closer and closer, and finally, her lips touching down. Softly. Questioningly. Eagerly. Adoringly. Once, twice, over and over.

Waverly swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly parched and her insides aching.

“Okay…” she breathed, her voice a little shaky. Robin was looking at her questioningly, and she gave an awkward chuckle. “I get it.” She sighed. “I guess I just… I felt like she really saw me, you know? Like, in a way that no one ever has before. And some of the things she said… Or the way she…” She remembered Nicole’s hands and how they seemed to gravitate towards her, sometimes touching her arm or tugging her sleeve, patting her knee under the table when she mentioned the Legion, holding her close at night as they shared her small bed, rubbing her back while she told a difficult story. Nothing overtly romantic. Nothing that would have been wildly out of place if Wynonna had done it. But… it was still somehow different. It felt different. “But... you did say you thought she was... you know…”

He looked slightly pained, like he could feel his loyalties being torn.

“Look, Waverly… You’re my friend, and I want to help you, but I don’t want to say too much. She and I only chatted a few times when she would stop in.” He paused, seeming to have an internal debate about saying more. “But if I’m right, I don't think she would have any problem whatsoever with you thinking about her that way. And I don't think she would have a problem with me saying so,” he said finally.

“Okay…” Waverly relaxed slightly. “That's good to know…”

He shrugged helplessly.

“I wish I could give you one clear answer, but it doesn't always work that way.”

“It's okay. You've helped a lot. Thank you. Really.” She reached over the counter and squeezed his hand once, gratefully. “And, if you wouldn't mind not mentioning this to anyone else…”

“Wouldn't dream of it.”

“Thanks. Again.”

“Now, you want to pick up that vodka order?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

That night, before falling asleep in the empty bed, she lingered over Robin’s advice. She thought about Nicole never coming back, and it made her shiver. Or coming back with a husband or wife at her side. Or coming back, but acting distant and aloof. Or coming back, only to lose interest and leave again. Each one left her with a pang of misery.

But the other thoughts— Nicole coming back and being happy to see her, Nicole coming back and saying she wanted to stay, Nicole coming back and settling into the town— those left hope twisting in her chest. She imagined Nicole holding her close again in the night, but less chastely. She imagined her hands and her lips tracing new paths on her skin.

And she imagined herself, unafraid, making the first move, pinning Nicole to the bed or against a wall and just—

She finally drifted off to sleep, into dreams where all the best heroes of her romance novels, one by one, were replaced by one red-haired wanderer with kind eyes and a touch like fire.

Chapter Text

Nicole, exhausted but determined, plodded back towards Purgatory under a boiling late-afternoon sun.

In the process of storming the Revenant-infested Bison Steve hotel, she had been grazed by far more bullets and bruised by far more fists than she was really comfortable with, and even after a few meal breaks and injecting both her stimpaks, her whole body was begging her to just lie down and sleep.

She could have stayed another night in Primm— now that it was safe and empty, the Bison Steve was nothing if not a big building full of beds. But sleeping alone in a rundown hotel hadn’t been so appealing when she knew that a relatively short jog could bring her back to Purgatory, and, more importantly, back to Waverly.

Although relatively short jog felt like a bit of an misestimation now.

But no matter the distance, if her choice was between a strange bed in Primm and Waverly’s bed in Purgatory, well… that wasn’t a choice at all, really.

Halfway up the long, long, long slope to Purgatory, drained and out of breath, Nicole stumbled into a clearing in the red rock landscape and found herself half-collapsing beside an abandoned campfire. It was the same campsite where she and Wynonna had cooked gecko steaks— only a week or so ago, but it already felt like months. So much had happened since then.

She eased herself onto a strategically placed rock, briefly indulging her bruised body’s determination to rest. Fanning herself with her treasured hat, she downed an entire bottle of water, and emptied part of a second over her head and neck, letting rivulets trickle down under her shirt.

A metallic hum sounded over her shoulder, and she turned and glanced back.

“We’re almost there. Just a little farther,” she told it.

In her time away, it had proven impossible to keep either Waverly or Purgatory out of her thoughts. It was like someone had fitted a filter over her eyes and ears, and everything she saw and heard was framed by wondering what Waverly would think of it. She constantly imagined what it would be like to see her again, to see the look on her face and hear the sound of her voice, or her laugh.

The thought pulled her back to her feet. With a sigh, she dusted herself off and continued her march towards Purgatory.

After climbing uphill for what felt like hours, her nerveless, exhausted legs tripped over the steps leading up to Shorty’s. With the last of her energy, she heaved herself up onto the wooden porch and then pushed through the door. Before the bell over the door had even stopped jingling, she was already searching for a familiar face behind the bar.

She found one. Sort of.

“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged— What the flying fuck is that?!” Wynonna leaped back, her revolver drawn in a flash, as ED-E followed her through the open door. Nicole glanced over her shoulder, where her new metal companion hovered quietly.

“Oh, that’s… ED-E. He’s… uh… he’s with me. Is Waverly around?” Nicole’s voice was a little breathless and practically slurred with exhaustion, and she slumped against the bar as though she had already drained half the bottles herself. Wynonna ignored her question, inching closer to the Eyebot, wariness and curiosity warring on her face. ED-E was about the size of a spare tire, round and covered in antennas, and, more notably, floated about five feet in the air, trailing at Nicole’s shoulder.

“Is it… dangerous?” Wynonna squinted at it.

“Don’t think so,” Nicole mumbled. “He’s just carrying some stuff for me. Is Waverly around?”

“Where the fuck did you get a flying robot?”

“Primm,” Nicole answered simply. Wynonna didn’t look particularly satisfied with that, so she elaborated. “Ruby and whats-his-face had it, but it was broke, and I helped fix it, and they let me borrow it so it could help me carry some stuff.”

Wynonna pushed it with her hand and it made an annoyed whirring noise.

“Is Waverly around?” Nicole asked, interrupting her experimentation. Wynonna shot an exasperated look over her shoulder.

“You already asked that. Twice.”

“Oh,” Nicole screwed her face up, trying to remember. Her brain felt like it was smoldering. “Did you give me an answer either time?”

“No. Are you drunk right now?”

“Stone cold sober. Really tired, though.”

She was almost regretting her decision to not stay overnight in Primm. When she had first set off, she had still been wired and twitchy from storming the hotel, but hours of uphill walking later, any leftover energy or adrenaline had long since abandoned her, and she was running on sheer willpower.

“Jesus. I’ll say.” Wynonna shook her head at her. “Hold on a sec. Let me make you something.”

Too tired to argue, Nicole could only watch as she threw her towel down on the bar and ducked into a back room, where some brief clattering and a strange whistling sound occurred. A few minutes later, she returned with a white ceramic mug. She set it on the bar, pulled a flask from her pocket, and emptied the flask’s contents into it. She gave it all a cursory stir, then slid it over to Nicole.

“What is it?” Nicole mumbled, blinking down at the dark brown, almost black steaming liquid.

“Irish coffee. Old family recipe.”

“What’s in it?”

“Roasted coyote tobacco and honey mesquite steeped in water. And then an Earp-sized helping of whiskey.”

Nicole raised her eyes at the combination, but gamely picked up the mug.

“I’ll be sure to brace myself accordingly.”

“That would be wise.” Wynonna eyed ED-E again. “Does it… he… drink anything? Motor oil, or…”

“Don’t think so.” Nicole raised the mug to her lips. It smelled strongly of burned plants, but somehow in a good way. She took a long sip, scalding her tongue, and coughed at the bittersweet taste coupled with the burn of whiskey. “Smooth,” she hacked, hoping that Wynonna could sense the sarcasm in her voice behind the coughing fit. Wynonna snorted a laugh.

“Don’t be such a wuss. That stuff’ll wake you up, at least a little. Maybe take the edge off.” She wiped off her hands on a towel. “Hey, hold down the fort for a second. I’ll be right back.”

Wynonna returned as Nicole was draining the last of her coffee. As promised, it had revived her at least a little, although the bitterness made her empty stomach churn. Nicole heard the door swing open and shut, but didn’t look up right away, distracted by the vaguely burnt taste in her mouth that didn’t seem to be going away. Therefore, she only really started paying attention when she heard a voice call, “You’re back!” She turned at the sound, just in time to be half-tackled in a hug from none other than Waverly Earp.

In the rare pockets of downtime in her journey to Primm and back, she had occasionally indulged herself in imagining their reunion. But she had never been so bold as to imagine this.

“Couldn’t stay away,” Nicole managed, after a few stunned seconds. In spite of all her bruises, it felt shockingly good to have Waverly back in her arms after days apart, like rain in the desert.

She awkwardly returned the hug, unsure of how familiar to be with her in front of Wynonna. Thankfully, the elder Earp didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, walking past the embracing pair to snag Nicole’s empty mug without a second glance. Waverly released her after a moment, and Nicole let her retreat to a safer distance, still slightly bemused by the surprise affection.

“I, uh... kinda missed you,” Waverly said, blushing and twirling the end of her braid.

“Yeah, I caught that just now,” Nicole said, unable to keep the smile from her face. She checked for Wynonna over her shoulder, but the gunslinger was on the other side of the room, cleaning the mug. “I kinda missed you, too.”

ED-E hummed, and Waverly jolted back against the bar in surprise. Nicole lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder, nevertheless shifting so that she was between Waverly and the robot.

“It’s alright. He’s with me. He won’t hurt you.”

“What— Why is he with you?”

“Oh, that. I needed his help carrying some stuff.” Nicole glanced over to Wynonna once again, but she was now occupied sorting something in the cash register, so she leaned closer to Waverly and whispered. “Your presents were really heavy.”

“My… what…?” Waverly looked bewildered. Nicole just grinned.

Wynonna offered her a refill on the coffee, but Nicole already felt faintly buzzed, and her thoughts felt scattered. Waverly tried to ask her what had happened in Primm, and she couldn’t think of a straightforward way to summarize it. Everything felt disconnected— talking with Lieutenant Lucado in the NCR camp, meeting the Primm residents hiding out in the Vikki and Vance, sneaking and fighting her way through the hotel to find that idiot sheriff’s deputy.

“The radio said there was a hostage situation going on there,” Waverly said, with obviously feigned offhandedness.

“Yeah, there was…” Nicole said, intentionally vague. “At the hotel. Some of the Revenants have been harassing the town.”

“And were you… involved at all… in that?” Waverly asked, her voice still purposefully casual.

“Um…” Nicole felt her face grow hot and tried to think of something that was technically true, but de-emphasized her part in the fighting. She recalled promising Waverly she wouldn’t do any ‘running into burning buildings,’ and if Waverly challenged her on that, she didn’t think she had the energy to defend herself. “Only… kinda?”

“You kinda got involved in a hostage situation?” Skepticism and accusation both effortlessly slipped into Waverly’s voice, making Nicole wince.

“It wasn’t that bad…” she mumbled, as defensively as she dared. Waverly looked more than willing to press the issue, but Nicole tried to put on her most pleading, pitiful puppy-dog eyes, silently begging for forgiveness.

It seemed to work, and Waverly’s expression softened. Nicole knew she would eventually have to tell Waverly— and probably Wynonna, too— what she had learned in Primm. But first, she was dying to just crawl into the tiny bed with the floral sheets and fall asleep— preferably with Waverly curled in her arms.

In the meantime, she wanted to stay alert and attentive, but there seemed to be entirely too much gravity in the world. She capitulated to it, folding her arms on top of the wooden surface of the bar and laying her head there.

While Waverly and Wynonna exchanged jokes and talked about the day, their voices blurred with the radio playing in the background: I can see that lone star from a thousand miles away, calling me back home though I’ve ventured far astray. When I see that beacon shining for me all alone, it calls me back to Texas and to home.

The next thing she knew, there was a gentle touch on her shoulder and a soft voice in her ear, and an ever-more-familiar smell of whiskey and desert flowers.

“Last call,” Waverly’s voice warned her teasingly, as she blinked her way back awake. “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

Nicole raised her head from where it had been pillowed on her arms and rubbed at her cheek, where she could feel the wrinkles from her shirt imprinted on her skin. There was a conspicuous wet spot on the bar that was hopefully just condensation from a drink but, with Nicole’s luck, was drool.

“How long—?” she tried to ask, but was cut off by a yawn. Waverly giggled, presumably at her.

“I told Wynonna to go home about an hour ago, to let me close up,” she said. She had a mop in hand, and all the chairs in the bar had been stacked on the tables, with the conspicuous exception of the stool Nicole was perched on.

Nicole shook her head, trying to rouse herself.

“You should’ve woken me up, I’d have helped,” she mumbled through another yawn. Waverly shook her head.

“You’re obviously tired from your trip,” she said, not incorrectly. “Besides, when Wynonna came and got me from the house, Willa was still awake, so it would have been hard to sneak you in. Especially with your… companion.” She shot a skeptical look at ED-E, who was hovering near the radio, awaiting further instructions. “I think it’ll be safe now, though.”

“You think we’re pushing our luck?” Nicole asked. It was all too easy to imagine Wynonna walking into Waverly’s room unannounced some night and finding them, or Nicole slipping out Waverly’s window only to find Willa doing some surprise early morning gardening on the other side. Waverly gave a soft sigh.

“Probably,” she admitted. “Why? Do you want to start staying somewhere else?”

“No,” Nicole said quickly— probably way too quickly. “Just… What do you think would happen, if your sisters found me there?”

Waverly leaned the mop against the counter and fidgeted with a cleaning rag instead, halfheartedly dusting off the cash register.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “I don’t think Wynonna would care, except that she would worry what Willa would say. And Willa…” she trailed off, shaking her head, as if even just her name were enough of an explanation.

“She’s not going to be happy that I’m back,” Nicole said, forcing her lips into a wry smile.

“Well, she can just freaking deal with it,” Waverly huffed, and Nicole felt her smile turning softer and more genuine. “Because I’m happy that you’re back.” The smile crept wider. “Now, are you going to sleep on top of the bar all night, or do you want to go to bed?”

“Oh, bed, please.”

Waverly’s plan had worked— the Earp house was dark when they arrived, and silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the creaking of the eaves. Given that its occupants were all safely asleep, Waverly brought Nicole in through the front door for once, leaving ED-E hovering outside by the bedroom window.

As Waverly closed the bedroom door securely behind them, Nicole approached the window and shoved it open, allowing the small robot to float in.

“So is he just going to… stay here?” Waverly asked, sounding nervous.

“No, I’m going to send him back. I just needed his help to carry some stuff.” Nicole tapped softly on the Eyebot’s metal case. “Open up real quick,” she told it, and it obediently popped open a latch. Waverly watched, jaw slightly agape, as she began pulling something out of its storage compartment. “Okay, so here’s the first thing.”

She held a pile of fabric in her hands. With a small flourish, she unfurled it, revealing a large decorative blanket, thick and heavy, with tassels lining the edges. Waverly just stared at it, a stunned look on her face.

“It’s a blanket. I know you get cold at night, and I saw this and thought maybe you’d like it.” Nicole spread it so Waverly could see the design in the colorful threads. “It’s got a buffalo on it, and I don’t know if you like buffalo or not. Not that I think you hate buffalo or anything. And anyway the other side’s got mountains, and they’re pretty, so you can pick which side faces up. If you want it, that is. You don’t have to—”

“Nicole,” Waverly interrupted her increasingly incoherent ramble, stepping towards her and taking the blanket in shaky hands. Nicole handed it over, falling silent for a moment while she looked at it. Waverly held it close to her face, eyes roaming over the pattern, the weave, the lines and colors. “Nicole, it’s beautiful. I can’t believe…”

“So it’s okay? You like it?”

“It might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

Nicole frowned.

“Well I hope that’s not true.” She watched as Waverly took it and draped it over her bed, mountain-side-up. It was almost too big for the small mattress, and the fringe draped down until it brushed the floor, but it gave the room some much-needed color.

“It’s perfect,” Waverly murmured. “Thank you. Really, you didn’t need to bring me anything. It’s nice enough just to see you again.”

“It’s nice to see you, too. I’ve missed you. And I thought about you a lot, hence all the presents. I just kept seeing stuff I thought you’d like,” Nicole said, then realized she had only gotten out the blanket so far. “Oh, right! The other presents. There’s more. Here.” She reached back into ED-E and began pulling out book after book. “You wouldn’t believe how many books were in that hotel. They were all over the place!” She handed a bewildered-looking Waverly a handful of books. “A lot of them were burned up or rotten, but I found a bunch that weren’t.” She placed a few more on top of those, creating a growing stack in her hands. “No books about myths, but a couple of them are about history, and it was a goldmine for romances. I don’t know if they’re any good, but I figure at least they’re something different, and then if they’re no good or if you don’t want them you can drop them somewhere else or give them away or whatever. I don’t mind.” Waverly stared down at the growing pile in disbelief, until Nicole finally ran out of books and pulled out a bundle of clothing. “Oh, these are mine. Okay, I think that’s all of them.” She closed ED-E’s latch and gave him a fond pat. “Okay, bud. You can go home now. I’ll come get you if I need you.”

The small robot made a cheerful whirring sound and began floating off towards Primm.

Nicole yawned, her body feeling outrageously heavy and her mind already half-asleep. The temporary buzz from the coffee had long since faded, but the heavy warmth from the whiskey still seemed to linger. She dropped the clothing to the ground, where it thudded audibly— a thing that clothing didn’t typically do. She gave it a bewildered look, then remembered.

“Oh yeah, last one. I don’t know what it is, but it looks cool when you shake it.” She fished the glass bauble out of the center of the clothing pile and, seeing that Waverly’s hands were still full of books, shook it and set it on the nightstand. Fake snow swirled around the glass dome, over the tiny model cityscape on its base.

Fully spent and now having completed her gift-giving tasks, she stumbled towards Waverly’s bed, the only open seating in the room, and flopped down on top of the new blanket. Getting off her feet felt so good that she immediately stretched out, heavy-booted feet dangling off the end of the mattress. She propped her head on the pillow so she could watch Waverly kneel on the floor and pile the books around herself, turning them over in her hands one by one, her eyes wide with astonishment.

“Do they look okay, too?” Nicole asked, hoping that the shock on her face was that of pleasant surprise, not distress.

“You… I just… There are so many… I can’t believe you brought me all these.”

“But it’s okay?”

“Nicole, it’s amazing. I don’t know how to thank you.” Waverly looked overwhelmed, like she couldn’t decide which one to look at first.

“Don’t have to. When I saw them, I knew I had to bring you some. At least the ones I thought you’d be interested in. I don’t know how often you get new books up here, but I figured it probably wasn’t too often.”

“No, almost never. Robin sets them aside for me if he gets any, but it’s rare.”

“Must’ve taken you years to fill that bookshelf up,” Nicole mumbled. It was getting hard to keep her eyes open. The blanket underneath her was soft, and Waverly was near, and there weren’t any Revenants around, and she was safe inside, and she had been awake for ages.

“Yeah. I’ll almost need a second one for all these. Nicole, thank you. Really. I can’t believe…”

“Well, believe it. You deserve it. And more. Tons more. Everything.”

Waverly didn’t respond, or if she did, Nicole didn’t hear it. The exhaustion was dragging her beneath the surface, into the blissful darkness of sleep, lulled by the soft sound of turning pages. Without meaning to, she drifted off, watching Waverly flip through her new gifts, savoring the look of wonder on her face.

Chapter Text

Nicole woke up to the luxurious sensation of fingers combing through her hair, paying special attention to the still-sensitive area around her scar. Waverly was already awake, sitting up against the headboard with an open book in her hand, and Nicole’s head was tucked against her thigh. Nicole imagined that if there really was a Heaven, it would probably be something like this.

She took advantage of the moment to stare up at Waverly, watching her eyes flit back and forth over the page, tiny echoes of emotion showing on her face as she read. She looked peaceful, maybe even happy. Waverly gently scratched her nails over the scar, and Nicole let out a sigh of perfect contentment.

“You awake?” Waverly murmured, eyes glancing up from the book only briefly.

Nicole hummed her assent. “Barely.” She made no effort to move from their current position, and Waverly didn’t either. “Whatcha readin’?”

“A romance. One of the ones you brought back.”

“Mmm.” It was nice to know that Waverly was already making use of her gifts. “Is it any good?”

Waverly looked down at her, with a glint in her eye that Nicole didn’t quite recognize. She seemed to consider the question for several seconds, her thumb brushing a few stray locks of red hair off Nicole’s forehead.

“Yeah, it’s good.” Waverly resumed stroking her hair and running her fingertips over her scar, and Nicole had to make an effort to not drool all over her new bedspread like a pampered hound. “It’s about a girl in a small town who doesn’t have a lot of things going for her. And then a wandering stranger comes to town and sweeps her off her feet by being sweet and thoughtful and brave and honest.”

Nicole smothered a smile against her leg.

“Totally unrealistic. Can’t imagine such a thing ever happening in real life,” she murmured, half a laugh in her voice. Waverly gave an exasperated sigh and flicked her in the forehead as retribution, which just made her laugh in earnest.

“You fell asleep before I could really thank you.”

“No I didn’t. You thanked me. I remember.”

“Not really. I could barely get two words out.” Waverly grimaced, but Nicole shook her head against the self-deprecation.

“You didn’t need to say anything. You seemed to like them. That’s all I needed to know.” She clumsily patted Waverly’s arm, and was gratified to receive a small smile in response.

“I love them. Really, Nicole, no one’s ever done anything like that for me before.”

“Gotten you presents?”

“No, it’s not just that…” Waverly shook her head. “It’s that… you listened. I mean, you really listened. I’ve gotten gifts before, but these were so thoughtful, and you were doing all those important things in Primm… I’m just surprised you were even thinking about me.”

It had the weight of a confession, and Nicole reached up and gently turned Waverly’s head to face her with a finger under her chin.

“Oh, I think you’ll find I think about you an awful lot, Waverly Earp.” Nicole gave her a warm, lazy smile, and Waverly looked down at her with soulful eyes.

“I… thought about you a lot, too. I was worried you’d forget all about us, or that you wouldn’t come back.” She faked a laugh at the end, but Nicole shook her head at Waverly’s uncertainty.

“It wasn’t even a question,” she murmured sincerely. “I thought about staying there one more night, just to rest, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to get back as soon as I could.”

Waverly’s expression softened.

“I’m glad you did. It’s funny, but it’s been weird the past few days… and nights… I know you weren’t here for that long really, but…” She trailed off, and even in the dim light, Nicole could make out her slight blush.

“No, I know what you mean. I kept thinking about things I wanted to talk to you about during the day. And then at night… it was hard to fall asleep. It was like I had way too much space.”

She had camped out on a queen-sized mattress on the ruined second floor of the old Mojave Outpost building, and it had felt ludicrously extravagant to not have her feet hanging off the end of the mattress and not having to police her limbs to keep them from falling off the sides.

This bed, small as it was, with both of them tangled together and crowding each other’s space, somehow felt exactly right.

“Nicole…” Waverly’s voice was serious, and her eyes were serious, and there was a sudden serious tension in the air. “You… like women… don’t you?”

Well wasn’t that an interesting question? Apparently, in her absence, Waverly had been ruminating on some things.

“What’s not to like?” Nicole joked, partially as a stalling tactic. Her brain was cloudy from all the hair-stroking, and she would need to be fully awake for this conversation. Sure enough, Waverly flicked her forehead again.

“I’m serious.”

“I know, I know.” Nicole reluctantly pulled herself up into a sitting position, rubbing her forehead and gathering her thoughts into some semblance of cohesion. “Yes, Waverly, I’d imagine that’s probably pretty obvious by now. Both that I like women and that I like you in particular.” She gave Waverly what she hoped was a reassuring look. “And it’s okay if you don’t. Or if you’re not sure.”

The last thing she wanted to do was pressure her, or make her uncomfortable, or make her feel some sort of obligation to—

“And what if I do? And I am?” Waverly asked quietly. Nicole’s heart halted in her chest, then restarted in double time.

“Well, then that’s another story entirely.” Nicole licked her lips, suddenly parched. “Have you ever…”

“No.”

“I didn’t finish my question.”

“Trust me, it doesn’t matter. I’ve never done anything.”

“That’s okay.”

The air in the room felt charged with electricity, like the moments before a heat lightning strike in the desert.

“So… what happens now?” Waverly asked at last, breaking the silence.

“What do you want to happen?” Nicole asked gently.

“I don’t know.”

“Okay… Then we wait until you do know, and then whatever it is, we do that.” Nicole kept a careful eye on her expression. “And until then, we can just keep doing what we’re doing. Okay?”

“That simple?” There was wavering hope in her eye, and Nicole nodded.

“If we want it to be.”

Waverly toyed with the corner of her book for a moment, like she was working her way up to something, and Nicole let her. She looked shy, but there was a crinkle in the corner of her eyes that suggested a smile.

“Do you… want to sleep some more?” Waverly asked finally, eyes still on her book. Nicole, as if on cue, released a yawn she might have otherwise suppressed, making Waverly giggle and breaking some of the tension in the room.

“Yeah, I could use another hour or two,” she said. It was barely dawn yet, and the light in the room was muted. Nicole was still wearing yesterday’s day clothes, although she must have either woken up enough to remove her boots and belt, or else Waverly had done her that mercy while she slept. “Mind if I change first?”

Waverly shook her head, so Nicole got up and went to her corner of the room, already pulling off her shirt as she went. She heard a small gasp behind her and froze.

“Oh… sorry, should I have—” she started to instinctively apologize, but when she looked over her shoulder, Waverly didn’t look scandalized, she looked… concerned.

“You’re hurt,” she whispered, and Nicole realized what she was seeing— the bruises and cuts from her time in the Bison Steve.

“Oh… Uh, it’s not that bad. They always look worst the morning after. They’ll clear up in no time.”

Waverly crawled down to the foot of the bed, as if for a better look, and Nicole accommodated her by stepping back, more into the light.

“Are they… painful?” Waverly asked, eyebrows knitted. Nicole shook her head, hoping to reassure her.

“No, not really.” They ached a little when she moved in certain ways, but she had certainly had worse injuries (including a bullet to the head), so in comparison, a few nicks and bruises felt like small potatoes.

Waverly’s scrutiny was starting to make her itch, so she picked up the nightshirt from the chair and pulled it on, letting the light fabric fall like a curtain over the injured spots, hiding them from view.

After shucking off her pants and leaving her day clothes draped over the chair, she returned to the bed and stretched out in her usual position, rolling onto her side expectantly.

Only this time, instead of lying down with her back to Nicole’s front— the only way they had slept together thus far— Waverly slowly, carefully lay down facing her, and then inched forward until they were pressed together. Cautiously, Nicole wrapped her arms around her, and she snuggled her head under her chin.

Nicole didn’t have words for how nice it felt, although she thought if she flipped through Waverly’s entire collection of romance novels, maybe she could at least come close. While sleeping spooned together was wonderful in its own right, there was something different and special about this.

It was softer. She wouldn’t have called any part of Waverly hard, but trading the smooth plane of her back for the softness of her breasts and stomach was… different. Special. Nice. She could see Waverly’s face (or at least glimpses of it), and feel her warm breath against her neck. One of Waverly’s arms snaked over her to hold her, and the other lay against her sternum, fingers grasping at her shirt.

It was almost too much. Too nice. Too sweet.

And yet, she wouldn’t have moved if Willa or Bulshar or God herself had busted in and held a shotgun on her.

She pressed her face into Waverly’s hair and pulled her in tighter, and Waverly responded by nuzzling against her neck and inhaling deeply, like she was trying to breathe her in. Nicole recalculated her previous definition of Heaven to include this new height.

Nicole had every intention of staying awake and drinking in this experience for as long as possible, but the exhaustion of the previous day still tugged at her, and the comfort of the moment drew her back into the warm darkness.

When she woke again, she could tell it wasn’t much later, but the sleep had helped. She felt more settled, and between the feeling of Waverly in her arms and the tickling sensation of Waverly’s fingers playing with the hair at the nape of her neck, she felt prepared to take on the entire world if the day called for it.

“You awake?” Waverly’s voice whispered against her collarbone. Nicole gave an affirmative hum. She had the urge to stretch, but it was outweighed by her desire to not unseat the woman in her arms, and the desire to not aggravate any of her injuries.

“Sorry if I haven’t been the best company. Primm really took it out of me.”

“I don’t mind,” Waverly murmured. “Turns out you get really cuddly when you’re tired. It’s very cute.” Nicole felt heat creep into her ears and cheeks but was powerless to stop it. “What happened in Primm, anyway? How did you get hurt like that?”

Waverly’s hand brushed over her shoulder, where a large, mottled bruise lay hidden under the nightshirt, and Nicole had to suppress a shiver.

“Some idiot Sheriff’s deputy named Champ got himself kidnapped by some of those Revenants. They were all holed up in the hotel there. The NCR wouldn’t go in unless the town invited them, and everyone else was hiding in the old casino, so I had to go in and break them up and get him out.”

“Isn’t that the Sheriff’s job?”

“They don’t have a sheriff right now. They lost theirs some time ago and there’s been a bunch of arguing about who should be the new one. They’ve had four or five since then, all dead or run off.”

Waverly made a low, thoughtful noise.

“Oh, right. I remember hearing on the radio that they’d had some trouble. I guess I thought they’d figured it out by now.”

“I asked the deputy after I got him out. He says their last real sheriff, a guy named Nedley, contacted someone about the job recently. Someone he hand-picked.”

“Who?”

“Um… He couldn’t remember the name. And no one in town seemed to know. Whoever it was never showed.” Nicole hesitated, her hand craving the feel of the metal star. As she had been there, speaking with the idiot deputy and the townspeople, theories had begun percolating in her head, and she wasn’t sure if it was too early to share them.

“You think something happened to him?” Waverly asked.

Her decision made, Nicole pulled back a little and pushed herself up on one arm, leaving the other draped across Waverly’s side.

“I think…” she began, tentatively. “Maybe she was on her way there, but someone stopped her and shot her in the head and buried her in an unmarked grave.”

Waverly stiffened under her arm, her eyes widening and eyebrows arching.

“Wait, you think you…”

“I don’t know,” Nicole said quickly. “It was just a weird feeling I got when they were talking about it. Like… it was… familiar.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why anyone would hand-pick me, I’d never even been to Primm before. But… Something about it feels… right. And I keep thinking about that burned paper in the grave. I think it was a letter. I don’t remember what it said, but what if…”

“What if it was a job offer?” Waverly finished for her.

“Yeah… But I don’t know why they would pick me. Or how they’d even know who I was.”

It almost sounded silly when she said it out loud. There was no reason for anyone in Primm to know her, except by reputation. And it wasn’t like she had that widespread a reputation. A few good deeds for the NCR, some friends in the Followers, a smattering of caravans… Why would any of that matter to Primm’s old retired sheriff?

“That might explain…” Waverly trailed off thoughtfully, apparently still mulling over the idea. “If Bobo knew you were about to be the new sheriff, that could explain why they went after you. He wouldn’t want Primm to have a sheriff, especially not a good one.”

In spite of the heavy implications of their conversation, it still gave her a little thrill for Waverly to call her a good sheriff. Even if it was all just theories and implications, there was something deeply appealing about the thought of a shining sheriff’s star pinned to her chest, and a heavy sheriff’s duster hanging from her shoulders, and a proud sheriff’s hat perched atop her head. The thought of it made something inside her ache.

“I told Champ to go through their records there and try to find out what he could. He’s supposed to send word here if he comes up with any answers.” She didn’t have extraordinarily high hopes on the subject. The deputy had admitted to acquiring the position via nepotism (being the nephew of Primm’s last ill-fated attempt at a sheriff), and didn’t seem particularly well-informed about anything.

“What about the Revenants?” Waverly asked. “Do they know you’re alive now? Did they recognize you?”

Nicole’s heart sank at the thought.

“I honestly don’t know,” she sighed. “That… might be something I need to talk about with everyone. Or at least with Wynonna.”

As of right that moment, all the Revenants from the hotel were either dead or locked up in Primm’s one (now very crowded) holding cell. The people in town seemed to think they were a group that had split off from Bobo and his lackeys, but the evidence for that was sparse, and Nicole didn’t know what to believe.

It was hard to imagine that Bobo wouldn’t hear what had happened there. The real question was, would her name make its way to his ears? Or even just her description? Would he make the connection? Would he come looking for her in Purgatory? Or did he still think she was safe and cold underground?

“Hey…” Waverly’s voice, and the touch of her hand on her cheek, penetrated Nicole’s spiraling thoughts, and she pulled herself back to the current moment. Waverly’s brow was furrowed in concern. “Do you want me to go get her? Or we could go down to the bar now and wait for her.”

Nicole shook her head, using the movement as an excuse to nuzzle her cheek more completely into Waverly’s hand.

“Maybe just five more minutes…”

Chapter Text

Eventually their five minutes ran out, too much reality leaking into the room via the bright sunlight in the window. Nicole (and, as far as she could tell, Waverly, too) could have happily spent the whole day in the tiny bed, but real life was calling to them both. Reluctantly, the two women left the little sanctuary of the bedroom in favor of the kitchen.

Waverly flitted around the kitchen, clearly intent on the two of them having one meal to themselves before calling in the cavalry. She rummaged through the cabinets, pulling out glass jars of herbs, a few potatoes, and a knife big enough to gut a yao guai.

“Can I help?” Nicole asked, feeling more than a little useless sitting at the table.

“You can sit there and rest. You’re like one giant bruise,” Waverly said firmly, tossing the first of the potato slices into a waiting skillet, where they made a very appealing sizzling noise.

She wasn’t wrong. Nicole’s injuries were still smarting— they always hurt the worst on the second day— and the chair seemed to magically find all the sorest spots to dig into. The sleep had helped, but it would take a few good meals and a maybe a couple of long naps before she was completely back on her feet.

… Physically, at least.

Emotionally, she couldn’t have been brought down by anything short of another gunshot to the head. She had returned from Primm in one piece, she had laid open her heart, and Waverly had done the same. And it hadn’t been a disaster.

With only a hint of reluctance, Nicole obeyed Waverly’s orders and resigned herself to at least keeping a steady conversation going while Waverly cooked. If she couldn’t help cook, the least she could do was keep her entertained. She talked about Primm, about the big hotel with the crazy wooden roller coaster track wrapping around it (although she skipped telling Waverly about the snipers on the track who took potshots at her as she bolted from building to building), about the Protectron in the casino who talked a little like Victor, and about the little Eyebot, ED-E, that she had fixed up and subsequently borrowed.

Her tale came to an abrupt end as the pan of still-sizzling potatoes was set on the table, and she only barely waited for a fork to be passed her way before loading her plate with fragrant slices. Her mouth was already watering with anticipation.

“Are you ever not hungry?” Waverly asked, her voice somewhere between incredulous and amused. Nicole looked up from her plate, smiling sheepishly.

“Um… Side effect of traveling so much,” she said, and added a quick, “Sorry,” for good measure.

“I wasn't trying to make you apologize,” Waverly said, shaking her head. “Wynonna is that way, too. She’s like a bottomless pit. But Willa, on the other hand… she must soak up the sun like plants, or something. She barely eats.”

“When I'm on the road, any chance to eat or drink might be my last chance for awhile,” Nicole explained. “I’ve learned to not take them for granted. Especially when they’re as nice as this.”

Unable to wait any longer, she nibbled an edge of one of the potatoes and was rewarded with a burnt tongue. This wasn’t enough to deter her, and she blew on it and tried again.

“Isn't that a hard way to live?” Waverly asked, although there was an edge of wistfulness in her voice. “I mean, it must be exciting, too. Seeing all those places.”

“It can be exciting,” Nicole admitted between scalding, delious bites. “But yeah, sometimes a little too exciting. It’s nice seeing so many places and meeting so many people, but it can get exhausting, too.”

“What do you do when you want to stop?”

“So far, I’ve never stopped for very long. Sometimes I’ve stayed at NCR camps, or with the Followers up at the Old Mormon Fort.” She poked thoughtfully at her potatoes. “Doc says there’s a lot to be said for settling down, though.”

The words were simple, but the implications were heavy, and a sudden frisson gripped the room. Waverly’s eyes seemed to scan her face for whether she was implying what it sounded like she was implying.

The electric tension was so complete that when the silence was broken by the front door opening, Nicole’s hand darted to her belt on reflex. She paused halfway to her feet, stopping when she saw that Willa was standing in the doorway, a look of surprise on her face.

“Oh… You…” Willa’s face was hard to read, but Nicole guessed that it was somewhere between disappointed and annoyed. “I didn’t realize you were back.”

Nicole eased back into her chair, moving her hand away from Calamity and picking her fork back up instead.

“Yeah. I’m back. I found out some of what I was looking for, and… wanted to regroup,” Nicole said.

“Does that include information about the Revenants? And whether or not they’re still looking for you?” Willa arched a suspicious eyebrow at her.

Nicole didn’t back down, but she didn’t have any great news either.

“Unfortunately, not really. The Revenants there in Primm had split off from the ones in the NCRCF. It didn’t seem like they knew much about Svane. And they didn’t seem to recognize me at all. At least not that I could tell.”

“Well, it doesn’t sound like you learned very much then,” Willa sighed.

“I did. I can tell you about it, if you’re willing to listen. Although it would be easier if Wynonna were here so I only had to say it all once.”

“Wynonna’s manning the bar,” Willa said, crossing her arms. “Someone has to.”

“We can ask Doc to cover,” Waverly suggested tentatively. “Just for a little while, I mean.”

Nicole was about to offer to go fetch Doc herself, but as she started to rise to her feet, it occurred to her that said feet were not encased in boots. Which wasn’t a big deal, per se, except that she hadn’t really thought ahead to this scenario enough to move said boots to the front door. No, they were back in Waverly’s room, along with her satchel.

And wouldn’t that be a difficult thing to explain…

A gecko ripped one and Waverly was helping me patch them up.
I got scorpion venom on them and needed to rinse them off. They’re just drying now.
Waverly thought they were Wynonna’s and moved them. It was an honest mistake.
I was just dropping off a couple of books I found for Waverly, so I was just back there for a moment.

Nicole snapped her attention away from her boots as she felt a sudden presence over her shoulder. Waverly had come to stand behind her chair.

“Willa, do you think you could grab Doc and have him trade off with Wynonna?” Waverly asked. Willa looked like she was about to argue, but Waverly continued quickly. “I was just making some lunch. I can have some ready for you and Wynonna by the time you get back.”

Apparently this was a tempting offer to the eldest Earp, and Nicole couldn’t blame her— the potatoes tasted as good as they smelled, even if her mouth would be burned for days.

“Fine,” Willa said shortly. “I’ll go get her. I won’t be long.” It sounded more like a warning than a reassurance.

When the door closed behind her again, both of them relaxed, and Nicole felt Waverly’s hand find her shoulder.

“Everything okay?” Nicole asked, covering Waverly’s hand with her own.

“Yeah, I just wasn’t expecting her,” Waverly sighed. After a moment, she pulled her hand back and returned to the stove to prep more food.

“Me neither. Hang tight for a second, I’ll be right back.” Nicole stood and jogged back into the bedroom, scooping up her belongings and relocating them to the front door. Waverly watched her curiously as she arranged the boots and satchel as though they had been there the whole time. “That was a close one.”

“Maybe you were right last night— maybe we are tempting fate,” Waverly said regretfully.

“We’ll figure it out,” Nicole reassured her. “We just need to be more careful.” She watched Waverly slice potatoes for a few seconds, listened to the thud of the knife against the counter. “Unless… you want me to stay somewhere else? Because I can. I’m sure if I scouted out the town, I could find somewhere.”

Waverly turned on her, the broad knife in her hand making her look far more intimidating than usual.

“What? No, of course not.”

Nicole held her hands up in mock surrender.

“Okay, just checking.” She grinned to herself as Waverly returned to her cooking.

Waverly was just setting the refilled, still-sizzling skillet back on the table when the door swung open and Willa and Wynonna entered.

“Haught,” Wynonna greeted. “Still in one piece?”

“Yup,” Nicole answered. “You?”

“More or less.” Wynonna plopped down at the table and filled her plate without further ado.

“Alright, we’re here,” Willa said. She remained standing imperiously at the front of the kitchen, near Nicole’s artfully scattered belongings. “You said you have information about the Revenants? Fine. “Let’s hear it.”

Nicole, whose focus was torn slightly by the desire to sneak more potatoes onto her plate, snapped back to attention.

“Right. Sure. Get comfortable, it’s a long story.”

Wynonna obediently kicked her feet up on Waverly’s vacated chair, her boots shedding sand onto the seat. Rolling her eyes at her sister, Waverly instead hopped up to sit atop the counter, her feet dangling high off the ground. Willa didn’t budge.

Nicole cleared her throat.

“Well, you see…”

Sand-colored tents and old wooden picnic tables had been dragged out and set up between the ruined buildings. A fire burned in a metal barrel, either for warmth or for cooking, and Nicole knelt next to it for a moment to collect herself. The trip from Purgatory had been longer than planned, as she bypassed the Revenant-infested road in favor of the (unfortnuately) gecko-infested crags that ran alongside it. And while a few geckos were no match for her and Calamity, they had numbers on their side, and a few had got the jump on her. And her boots had the bite marks to prove it.

She rose after a moment, steadier, and continued towards the tents.

“Knock knock,” she joked, pushing the tent flap open. A younger soldier jolted and reached for his weapon, but his superior, a middle-aged blonde woman wearing lieutenant stripes, waved a placating hand at him.

“Who are you and what do you want?” the lieutenant asked her. A patch on her chest read Lucado.

“My name’s Nicole Haught,” she said, and waited to see if there was a flicker of recognition. She wasn’t disappointed.

“I’ve heard that name,” the lieutenant said. “Lenk up at Foxtrot said you were supposed to be running new comms passwords to the ranger stations, but you bailed halfway through.”

It was said with some casual annoyance, but Nicole just blinked at her blankly for a moment, searching and reshuffling her memories.

“Um… yeah, I guess so.” She remembered agreeing to the run. It hadn’t been anything special— one of the NCR camps had been suspicious about eavesdroppers listening in on their secure lines, so they wanted her to run fresh passwords out on foot. She remembered being up in the forests by Jacobstown when something made her stop in her tracks… “Did Lenk say what happened?”

“No, just that you doubled back and told them you couldn’t finish the job. I assume they just got someone else to go on in your place.” The lieutenant had a scathing look in her eyes. “I hope you’re not here to collect your payment, because we don’t pay people who shirk their duties.”

“No, that’s not why I’m here. I just…” Nicole trailed off for a moment, wondering if mentioning her gunshot wound and hazy memories would help or hurt her reputation. She shook her head a little. “I was about to head into Primm, but I know they’ve been having trouble with the Revenants lately, and thought I’d check in here first to get a read on the situation.”

Lucado scoffed.

“The ‘situation’ is that some of those Revenant yahoos kidnapped the town’s only deputy and are holding him hostage in the Bison Steve hotel.”

“What about the sheriff?” Nicole asked immediately, trying to imagine why they would kidnap the second-in-command but not the real law in the town.

“There is no sheriff. The last one was killed by Revenants. He’d only lasted a week. The one before that ran away a few days in, when he realized what he’d gotten himself into. The one before him lasted two whole weeks, but got torn up by a feral ghoul and had to turn in his resignation. Before him, I don’t even know.”

Nicole mulled over this for a moment, something scratching at the back of her mind. Primm didn’t have a sheriff. That sounded… important.

Primm needed a sheriff. The thought rolled over and over in her head, weighty and oddly familiar.

Finally, she shook her head, focusing back on the topic at hand.

“Okay. What’s your plan to get him out?”

Lucado barked a short, sarcastic laugh,

“There is none.”

“What?”

“The stubborn hicks who live in this town want it to stay ‘independent’. As if that’s even an option anymore. So our ‘plan’ is to wait here for them to come to their senses.” The lieutenant smiled slightly. “I don’t expect it will be much longer now. Half the town’s run off already, the other half is all holed up in the old casino. They’ll get tired of being cooped up eventually.”

“Isn’t the NCR going to take back the prison from the Revenants?”

“Eventually? Maybe, but look around. Does it look like we have the numbers here to take back the prison? It would be a suicide mission.”

Nicole's brow furrowed.

“Wouldn’t they send backup? Like from McCarran?”

“There is no backup. The whole army is spread so thin over this desert that the second you try to move anyone around, suddenly there’s a Legion camp there. Or, here, a Revenant camp. If Primm let itself be annexed, then the NCR would have a reason to defend it, as a useful trade city, but until then…” The lieutenant shrugged, looking tired, and Nicole wondered how long this problem had been needling her. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Still, this take didn’t sit right with Nicole.

“So you’re basically blackmailing them. Protection, in exchange for taxes.”

Lucado gave another short laugh.

“Congratulations, you’ve just come up with the definition of a government. Welcome to bureaucracy.”

Nicole hesitated, planning her next move.

“Fine then… Where did you say the townspeople were holed up?”

Wynonna looked disgusted.

“Of course. Why would they ever help anyone unless they got something out of it,” she sneered.

“I know,” Nicole sighed. “She’s kind of right, though. Service rifles don’t grow on trees. They need the tax money to keep their troops paid and fed.”

“Yeah, right, only that money gets shipped straight back to California, or stuffed into some general’s pocket, and everyone here is left—”

“Can we please not talk politics,” Waverly interrupted, practically begging. Nicole nodded quickly, eager to not launch into another ‘sneering imperialist’ argument.

“Right, it doesn’t matter. So I went and found everyone hiding in one of the town’s casinos, and they told me a little more about the hostage situation in the hotel.”

“And you decided to storm the place alone?” Waverly said, her voice distinctly displeased. Nicole attempted an apologetic and placating smile.

“No, I’d planned to sneak in and get him out without anyone noticing. That’s just… not quite how it worked out.”

After talking to everyone at the Vikki & Vance, Nicole spent the night on the roof of the Mojave Express building, intermittently sleeping on a huge mattress that had been laid out under the stars. It looked like it had been a hangout spot, or even a sniper’s nest. There was a small radio up there and a little electric lantern.

When she wasn’t sleeping, she was watching the Bison Steve for signs of activity, and occupied her hands by fiddling with the broken Eyebot she had found on the Nashes’ counter. The Mojave Music Radio played quietly in the background.

(Waiting… watching the stars above…)
(I’m so blue… without you…)

Mr. Nash had given her permission to work on the robot, and she wasn’t the worst in the world at fixing things, but she had never seen anything quite like this one. It was small for a robot, and didn’t have any arms, although it was covered in antennas. She found some kind of energy weapon embedded in its hull, and a large empty space behind a hatch, as though for storage.

It was hard to imagine its purpose. It lacked the utility of a Mister Handy, and didn’t have nearly as much weaponry as a Securitron or Protectron, or even a Mister Gutsy. All it had was a big loudspeaker at the front, some long, thin antennas stretching back, and what seemed like a fairly small, rudimentary programming drive— not that Nicole was any kind of expert on the subject.

She gave the programming chip a wide berth and instead focused on the burned out circuit board, slowly replacing bits of it with pieces and wires from the scrap electronics she had found downstairs.

It had mostly just been a task meant to keep her awake. She hadn’t expected it to work.

So she nearly had a heart attack when, without warning, it flickered to life. There was a metallic hum, and it tugged free of her hands to instead float untethered in the air.

“Well, you don’t see that every day…” she murmured to herself as it hovered in place. She waited to see what it would do, but it seemed to be waiting on her. “Uh… Right… Okay… Can you hear me? What kind of robot are you?”

It immediately made a whirring sound, but didn’t speak.

“Right…” She tried to think of something to tell it. “Can you talk? Do you understand me?”

It made a lower, somehow disheartened-sounding beep.

“Interesting…” It was unusual for a robot to lack the ability to speak, especially when its whole front was taken up by a speaker. It made her wonder what it was actually built for. She pointed towards the bed. “Can you wait over there for me? I don’t want the snipers to see you.”

She hadn’t been positive it would understand her, but it gave an affirmative whirr and floated off to wait beside the mattress. She watched it for a long moment, thoughtful.

“Huh… Well, at least I won’t have to go in completely alone…”

Chapter Text

“So let me get this straight…” Waverly said, a hint of warning in her voice. Her seat on the kitchen counter gave her the illusion of height, making her just a touch more intimidating than usual. “You spied on them all night, and then in the morning, you just stormed the hotel full of Revenants with absolutely no backup?” Her eyes demanded an explanation, and Nicole attempted a reassuring smile.

“Again… In my defense, I hadn’t planned to storm the hotel. It was supposed to be just a quick run, in and out. I was going to climb up onto the balcony and sneak in, free the deputy, and then the two of us could maybe get some backup and start to clear out the building room by room.”

“And the little robot,” Wynonna added helpfully.

“And ED-E would help,” Nicole agreed. That ‘little robot’ had been worth ten of Champ in a fight. They ought to have deputized him instead. “Honestly, it sounds worse than it is. I’ve had to do that kind of thing before. The NCR is always hiring folks to clear out Fiend dens or old vaults, and I’ve been on a couple of raids like that. It’s really not as dangerous as it sounds. Because of the close quarters, you’re never fighting more than a few people at once.”

Waverly’s face said she didn’t believe her.

“Okay… so what went wrong?”

She made her move right at dawn, after activity in the hotel had seemed to die down. Her hope had been that the building’s squatters would be still sleeping off their hangovers at this hour. Unfortunately, the snipers on the roller coaster track were more diligent in their duties than expected, as evidenced by the bullets pinging off the dumpster she was crouched behind.

“Great…”

She had thought that it would just be a matter of sneaking up to the hotel and breaking through a window or a back door, or maybe climbing up onto the balcony via the roller coaster track or the uneven wall. But getting that close to the building meant running through quite a bit of no-man’s-land. Plus, it probably didn’t help that her sneaking abilities were somewhat hampered by the robot floating behind her, glinting in the early morning sun.

Under pressure, she made a split-second change of plans— she would charge through the front door instead.

After bolting across the open ground, she burst through the double doors leading into the hotel lobby and was met immediately by some kind of barricade, where a pair of Revenants sat holding single shotguns. In her one lucky break of the day, they clearly hadn’t expected her to come barreling through the door, and were still dropping cigarettes and fumbling for their weapons as she raised Calamity and took them out. Her new robot played something like a battle hymn through his speaker. She shushed him.

She tried to find her way to where the deputy was being held, but her progress through the ground floor ended up being agonizingly slow. It seemed like every time she was able to shoot or knock out one guard, the noise attracted another. She was starting to feel like she was carpeting the floor with them.

She tried to shoot to incapacitate, not kill, but her ED-E didn’t seem to have any such compunctions, and sent sizzling energy bolts at anyone she missed. He may not have a Gatling laser gun like the Securitrons, but whatever he had certainly seemed to get the job done.

She paused at a small side room labeled “Gift Shop”— not because she thought anyone was in there, but because something had caught her eye. Inside, a stack of books spilled down a row of shelves, all looking largely intact. She thought of the bookshelves in Waverly’s room and had to resist the urge to duck in just for a moment to grab her a present. After all, now was hardly the time. She vowed to swing by on her way out, time permitting.

Another pair of Revenants were waiting in a run-down kitchen, and almost succeeded in getting the drop on her. She barely ducked their ambush, knocking one to the ground with her elbow and wrestling a police baton away from the remaining one. He refused to let go, and jerked the weapon to the side, sending her slamming shoulder-first into a table. But she held fast, despite her new, throbbing bruise, and managed to wrench it away and knock him in the head with it. He crumpled to the floor like a house of cards. Meanwhile, there was a zap next to her as his partner was reduced to a pile of ash.

“Thanks, bud,” she told the robot, panting. She waited a few seconds while she caught her breath, to see if more guards would show up.

“Um… hey… Are you here to rescue me?” asked the hogtied man in the corner. Nicole shushed him, holding her hand up to tell him to hold still.

“Just hang on. This place is swarming with Revenants.” She listened for another few seconds, but didn’t hear any footsteps. The only sounds in the room were her heavy breathing and a quiet, constant whirring from the robot.

“Could you untie me? These ropes are really tight, and I’ve had this itch on my nose for the past—” he whined, until Nicole shushed him again, moving towards him in an effort to placate him. She was there to rescue him, the least he could do was not make a commotion that would bring more Revenants running.

“You’re the sheriff’s deputy, right?”

“Yeah. Well, I mean, I was. Sort of. My uncle was the sheriff for like a week, but these Revenant guys killed him when they got to town, and then the new sheriff never showed, so—”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said quickly, not wanting to seem callous, even though this was hardly the time or place to be sympathetic. “But you know how to shoot a gun, right?”

“Um… sort of? I mean, I know which end you point at the bad guys, and which button makes it shoot, if that’s what you mean.”

Nicole dropped her vigilance for a moment to stare incredulously at him.

“Didn’t you have… training?” she asked, her voice strangled. “How the hell did you become a deputy?”

“I told you, my uncle was the sheriff,” he said, as though it were obvious and she was being intentionally obtuse. “Before that, I worked at my dad’s Bighorner ranch. But I didn’t need to shoot anyone there. We just had to wrangle the cattle. But then my uncle got this job, and being a deputy sounded kinda fun…” Nicole covered her face with her hands and groaned softly. “Can you please untie me now?” he whined.

With a sigh, Nicole pulled out her knife and sliced through his bonds. He flopped on his back briefly, then sat up, rubbing at his nose.

“Uh, thanks.”

Seeing him up close, he certainly looked the part of a deputy. He was clean-shaven and scrubbed-clean, with a muscular build that was probably a testament to his ranch days. She wondered how many Revenants it had taken to bring him down.

Maybe he wouldn’t be completely useless after all.

“You’re welcome. Now let’s get you up and armed, this is a big building, and it won’t be easy to clear.”

“W-wait, what?” Champ stuttered. “Um… can’t we just go? I mean, I’ve been tied up a long time, and I ought to go out and… uh… protect the townspeople!” he said the last part too quickly, as if it had only just occurred to him.

Nicole frowned at him.

“From what, Champ? The Revenants? Because they’re all in here. If you want to protect your town, then this is how. We’ve got to get them all out of this building. Right?”

“Well… maybe…” he said reluctantly. “But they took my gun. I don’t have anything to fight with. We should probably go back out and join up with the others, and then we can make a plan…”

Nicole grabbed one of his huge arms and began to drag him over to the guards she had already dealt with. Rummaging through their fallen bodies turned up a 9mm pistol— a pea-shooter, in Nicole’s vaunted opinion— and a short length of metal pipe that looked like one of the convicts had simply yanked out of the wall.

She placed both in his hands, and he gazed at them miserably.

“Do we have to?” he asked.

“Champ, you’re the closest thing this town has to a sheriff. Unless all of Primm changes its mind and lets the NCR in, we’re the only things standing between them and the Revenants, right?” He didn’t answer, but he did look appropriately guilty. “So yeah, Champ, we have to.”

“What a tool,” Wynonna commented, as Nicole explained how she had to drag him almost every step of the way, floor by floor and room by room. It was only marginally better than having to clear the whole building alone.

Nicole sighed wearily, her cuts and bruises throbbing even at the memory of it.

“He just didn’t know what he was doing. And he was scared,” she said, cutting him some reluctant slack. Unfortunately for everyone, being a lawman in the Mojave was no job for a coward. “Honestly, ED-E would be a better deputy than Champ, and I’m not even sure his brain is more complicated than a toaster.”

“Champ’s brain or the robot’s?” Wynonna asked.

“Maybe either.”

“But you did get them all out of the building, didn’t you?” Waverly asked, her expression still somewhat worried.

Nicole nodded.

“We did. Or, really, I did.”

Nicole wrestled the last Revenant to the ground and forcibly knocked his head against the dusty wooden floor until he went limp, unconscious. She rolled off of him, panting, and looked up to find Champ waiting for her in the doorway, as usual, holding his gun like he expected it to bite him.

“You couldn’t have helped?” she grumbled, standing up and stretching. Her body was a mess of throbbing bruises, but she could barely feel them over the rush of blood pounding in her veins. She didn’t look forward to the adrenaline wearing off, when she would actually have to feel all these injuries. Hopefully by then she’d be resting somewhere, preferably with a snack and a stimpak or two. Or maybe even back in Purgatory, with Waverly fussing over her.

“I didn’t want to miss and shoot you,” he said in his defense. She shook her head.

“It’s fine, Champ. Just grab him and put him with the others,” she commanded. “I’m going to do one last sweep of the floor, and then I’ll meet you downstairs.”

He obeyed, holstering the gun and picking up the unconscious Revenant like he was a sack of potatoes, hefting him onto one muscular shoulder and carrying him away. For all his uselessness in a fight, at least the deputy was saving her the trouble of dealing with their bodies herself.

She walked the length of the hallway, checking each room for any Revenants they might have missed… and also rummaging around for possible presents for Waverly. She didn’t find any Revenants, but she did find a number of books, and the best ones got tucked away into the Eyebot’s storage hatch for safekeeping.

Once her final check was completed and she was satisfied they hadn’t missed any Revenants, she jogged back down to the ground floor. She paused just briefly in the hotel gift shop, first perusing the row of books and selecting two more that sounded like they might be to Waverly’s taste. On her way out, a sparkle of glass by the cash register caught her eye. It was some kind of small glass globe on a pedestal, with a miniaturized version of Primm sitting inside, coated in white fluff. Nicole picked it up, and the fluff floated off the buildings and began fluttering back down. Snow.

It was odd (particularly since the city of Primm had probably never seen snow outside of a nuclear winter), but it was kind of pretty, too. And she doubted Waverly had taken many trips to Primm before, or seen real snow. She pocketed it for later.

When she made her way to the lobby, she found Champ standing beside a pile of (she had to admit) expertly hogtied Revenants. Whatever his faults, clearly his cattle-roping days had left him with some relevant skills.

“The building’s clear,” she announced.

“Oh. Good.” Champ looked visibly relieved. “Um… What do we do with these guys?”

“Well, you’re the deputy sheriff, so you’re the law. It’s up to you.” He continued looking at her with a pleading expression, as though he would much rather just be told what to do, rather than make his own decision. Nicole sighed. He really would make a terrible sheriff. Primm deserved better. “If they’re dead, make sure they’re buried. If they’re alive, put them in the town jail. Or better yet, turn them all over to Lieutenant Lucado in the NCR camp and let her deal with them. They’re escaped NCR prisoners anyway.”

“And then what?”

“I don’t know, Champ, find the town a new sheriff? I’m sure there are a lot of people out there would would jump at the opportunity.”

“I think you’re wrong about that. There was supposed to be one coming, but he never showed. He probably heard about what happened to the others and decided to scram.”

Well that was interesting. Primm had been expecting a sheriff, but they never made it there.

“Who was it?” she asked. Champ shrugged.

“No idea. After my uncle died, they asked the town’s old sheriff, Sheriff Nedley, and he said he had someone in mind. He made it sound like a done deal, but I guess whoever he picked chickened out.”

Nicole frowned.

“They just never showed? No word, no explanation?” The scar on her head began to sting, and she lifted a hand to rub at it. Champ shrugged.

“Nuh-uh. Why?”

Nicole felt the outline of the scar with her fingers, where Svane’s bullet had almost killed her.

“Nothing…” She glanced up, a nearby wall hanging catching her eye. “What do you think of that blanket up there? Does it look warm to you?”

“So then what?” Wynonna asked. Nicole shrugged.

“Then we handed the Revenants over to the NCR.”

Wynonna made a face, and Nicole rolled her eyes at her.

“Without a sheriff and with Champ as the deputy, I doubt they would have even survived in the town jail,” Nicole said. “He probably would have forgotten to feed them or something.” She shook her head. “It’s better for everyone if they’re off in a prison in California, far, far away from here.”

“And far, far away from Svane,” Waverly pointed out.

“Exactly.” Nicole nodded. “Lucado says they were from a group of convicts that splintered off after the riot, but if Bobo took them back… well, that would be… bad.”

In addition to giving the Revenants more warm bodies to loot towns and rob caravans with, if any of them gave him her description, it could tip him off that she wasn’t actually six feet under a makeshift cross in Purgatory’s graveyard.

“So you don’t think they have information about the other Revenants?” Wynonna said, using her feet to tip the empty chair back and forth. “That seems weird.”

“So the whole trip was pointless,” Willa summarized. “And by coming back here again, you might still be leading them this way.”

“That’s not fair,” Waverly said, giving her eldest sister a frustrated glare.

“Willa, come on, it’s not like this town wasn’t a target already,” Wynonna argued. “They’ve been getting closer and closer for weeks, even before Haught-pepper got dumped here. It was only a matter of time.”

The sisters argued back and forth, and Nicole took the opportunity to stealthily slip more potatoes onto her plate. She thought she had gotten away with it, but Waverly caught her mid-bite and shot her an amused, affectionate look. It made Nicole feel like someone had lit a candle in her chest, bright and quiet, warming her from the inside. She harbored a momentary fantasy of pushing both Willa and Wynonna out the door and pulling Waverly back into her arms.

They still had things to talk about. Things to explore. Things to try.

But now wasn’t the time or the place. Not with her sisters fighting loudly in the same room.

“Anyway,” Nicole said loudly, interrupting Wynonna and Willa mid-argument. “I had Champ send a courier to the old sheriff, Nedley, to find out more about who he picked for his replacement. So we can find out what happened.”

“Didn’t he say the guy chickened out?” Wynonna asked, confused.

“He said that whoever it was supposed to be on their way, but they never showed up. But it made we wonder…” She slid a hand into her pocket. It emerged holding the old, worn-smooth sheriff’s star, and she set it on the table. Nicole looked Wynonna in the eye. “What if it was me?”

Chapter Text

There was a brief, confused silence as the two elder sisters blinked down at the old star-shaped badge.

“You?” Wynonna glanced up at her, then picked up the badge curiously.

“It would explain why I was headed to Primm when I got shot,” Nicole elaborated, one hand thumping the table in a tell of nervous energy. “The last thing I remember doing for sure was making a run for the NCR up north. Lieutenant Lucado says the last record they had of me was bailing on a job up around Ranger Station Foxtrot. If I headed straight from there to Primm, that would take me right by Purgatory. If Svane knew I was coming from up north, it would have been easy to set a trap to intercept me.”

“How would they know?”

Nicole shrugged. She had guesses, but nothing in the way of concrete proof.

“The prison was NCR. The Revenants might still have access to the radios and comms, if they didn’t trash them. They could have overheard chatter.”

“Or they could have spies in Primm,” Waverly said, catching on. “If someone there knew the old sheriff, they could have found out he was offering the job to you.”

“Or if they intercepted the letter on its way to you,” Wynonna added. “Or followed the courier.”

“Right,” Nicole agreed, relieved that they were taking the possibility seriously.

“If they have spies in Primm, they would know you survived,” Willa pointed out, her voice crisp and her eyes wary.

“It’s possible,” Nicole admitted. “If they knew what I looked like.”

“You aren’t the most subtle person in the world,” Willa deadpanned. “You’re tall, and your hair stands out like a red flag.”

“I was wearing a hat,” Nicole defended herself, a little halfheartedly. Her eyes darted to Waverly briefly. “A very nice hat.”

Willa looked unimpressed. Waverly looked away, rubbing at her cheek to hide a light pink blush.

“All I’m hearing is that you being here puts Purgatory in more danger than ever,” Willa said.

“You can stop saying that already,” Nicole snapped back. “I know.”

“And you aren’t even counting the good she’s done for the town,” Waverly defended her. “She didn’t bring Levi here, but she protected the bar and everyone in it. And she’s helped with the geckos and cazadores. And if the Revenants were coming this way anyway, wouldn’t you rather have her on our side?”

“I’d rather have a talk with Mr. Svane and make a deal with him to leave us alone.”

Nicole frowned. She didn’t love that idea. She remembered the man’s face as he stood over her grave. The wildness in his eyes.

“He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you reason with,” Wynonna pointed out— very fairly, in Nicole’s opinion.

“And a gang of criminals loaded down with dynamite doesn’t seem like the kind of group you challenge to a fair fight,” Willa countered— probably also fairly.

“Maybe.” Wynonna sighed, then rubbed at her face and groaned in frustration. “I give up. I need a drink.” She plucked at Waverly’s sleeve. “Come on, you and me are opening today. It’s inventory time, and there’s no way in hell I’m doing it by myself. We can talk more about this later.”

Waverly looked like she wanted to argue, but Wynonna was already dragging her down off the counter and towards the door. Her eyes met Nicole’s, and it felt like a silent, instantaneous conversation between them

I’d rather stay.

Me too.

I’ll find you later.

I’m counting on it.

Nicole wouldn’t have minded staying, but Willa was retreating back to her room, and so Nicole considered her invitation to the house well and truly revoked— at least until that night.

And if she wasn’t following Waverly to the bar, and she wasn’t staying at the Earp house with Willa, there were really only so many places she could go…

Nicole walked out the front door and into the already simmering day. The wind was blustery, and she had to pull her hat low and blink swirling dust out of her eyes at every step, while the sun cut through the wispy clouds like a knife. Any half-baked plans she had to hunt or prospect went right off the table, and instead she ducked into Jett’s Jeneral Store to get out of the weather.

“Windy out there,” Robin commented from behind the counter, sounding amused by her windblown appearance. He was weighing something on a small metal scale, while the disembodied voice of Mr. New Vegas drawled from the corner.

“I noticed,” Nicole said dryly, beating some of the fine sand off her clothing with sweeps of her hand. The floor was already sprinkled with a thin layer of grit, as though she weren’t the first that day to do so. “Usually you don’t get wind like that except at Hidden Valley.”

“Never been,” Robin said. “I’m a bit of a homebody. Not really one for nature, besides some gardening. I had a bad experience with a Joshua tree once, never quite got over it. Since then, I let the caravans do the traveling for me.”

Nicole wondered what kind of ‘bad experience’ one could have with a tree. She decided not to ask.

“You’re not missing much. Not in Hidden Valley, at least. Old empty bunkers, lots of scorpions, and nonstop sandstorms.”

Robin chuckled.

“Sounds scenic, but I think we’ve got enough empty buildings around here as it is. No real need to travel for them,” he said lightly.

“Yeah,” she agreed absently, giving up on the sand that still clung to her, instead sinking into a chair in the corner. Her long legs splayed in front of her, still tired and rubbery from the previous day’s travels. “No shortage of those.”

Robin seemed to watch her for a long moment. There was some sort of interest to his gaze— something too playful to be called suspicion, but too focused to be idle curiosity.

“Is that where you’re staying? One of the abandoned buildings?” he asked.

“Uh…” She paused, her brain scrambling for the least lie-like answer that would still deflect suspicion. “Pretty much. Yeah, just… around. There are… places. Houses. And… um… other places.”

The amusement already in his eyes piqued at her vague, stumbling answer. She rubbed at her face, as if brushing away dust, hoping to camoflage a blush. God, she hated being such a terrible liar.

“Right. Places.” He chuckled again. “Well, if you ever need somewhere to lie low, there’s always the old Poseidon station up the hill.”

“Really?” She remembered the place from when they stowed Levi there overnight, but she hadn’t put any thought into staying there herself. Imagining herself there in the dark, enclosed, windowless room made bile rise in her throat— it would be almost like being underground.

“Well, a friend of Waverly’s is a friend of mine. You two are friends, right?” She could hear the slant of insinuation in his voice, somehow backed up by the radio playing in the background, where a resinous voice had begun singing, love me as though there were no tomorrow…

“Yeah. We are. Friends.” There was an involuntary twist to her lips as she said it that she was sure gave her away. Teach me… all that a heart should know…

“Right. I thought so. So she must trust you. So I bet I can trust you, too.” He shrugged a little. “You’ve seen the inside, there’s not much to it. My dad used to store surplus inventory up there, but it’s been empty for years now. But the door locks, and there’s a cot in there, and shelves. In case you don’t want to carry everything around with you all the time.”

“Are you sure?” Nicole asked, tempted in spite of her claustrophobia. Her courier bag was starting to feel a little heavy, and offloading a few things for later would be a literal weight off her shoulders. But the space was Robin’s. But he shrugged like it didn’t weigh on his mind in the slightest.

“Sure I’m sure. I’m not using it for anything. Someone might as well get some use out of it.”

Nicole watched him again for signs of uncertainty, but he looked like it was a legitimate offer, like he really didn’t care one way or the other.

“Well, I can hardly say no to that. But at least let me pay you for it,” she insisted. Robin shrugged.

“If you like. But it’s no imposition to me. Like I said, it’s been sitting empty for ages.”

He fished a key out from under the desk and tossed it her way. She caught it in mid-air, the brass of it cold in her hand.

“Thanks,” she told him again. He chuckled.

“No problem. Waverly and I have been friends since forever, and it’s been nice seeing her so happy lately. If you’re part of that, then we’ll just have to keep you around, right?”

There was a warm tug deep in her chest. “Right,” she agreed.

They exchanged farewells and she braced herself as she stepped back into the windy day. As soon as she stepped out onto the porch, her gaze drifted to the side, where Shorty’s Saloon sat just scant steps across the alley. She felt this instinctive need to close that distance, to find Waverly and share the news with her. But they had just seen each other less than an hour before— too soon to justify even a brief drop-in visit, surely.

Instead, she pointed herself in the opposite direction, towards the gas station. She might as well scope it out again. With her luck, something else might already be squatting in the empty building, having snuck in after they let Levi out— scorpions, maybe, or mantises. Or radroaches— she shuddered at the thought.

She trekked up the hill with one hand clapped to her hat, holding it in place as the blustering wind tried to unseat it. When she reached the door, next to the old Sunset Sarsaparilla machine, she huddled a little against it, using the vending machine as a windblock. The key ground a little in the lock, like it hadn’t been used in a long time, but it turned smoothly, and when she shoved the door with her shoulder, it swung open.

It looked the same as it had when they had locked up Levi there. The interior was small— even smaller than it had looked from the outside. Even after her previous cleaning attempt, everything was blanketed in a fuzzy layer of dust, which stirred as the wind blew in from outside. An old cash register sat on the counter, and one of the shelves that had presumably once held inventory now sagged into its neighbor, empty and broken. The interior was dark except for the light streaming in from the open door.

“Well, at least no radroaches,” she sighed to herself. It wasn’t the Ultra-Luxe, but it was four walls and a roof and a door that locked, which was pretty good by her standards. Robin was right, it would be a good place to lie low if she needed to, or store things she didn’t want to carry all day. But when she tried to imagine Robert Svane coming back to town looking for her, she couldn’t picture herself just hiding out in this dark room while her friends outside might be in danger.

But there was still an appeal to having the space. If there were ever a night when it felt too dangerous to try to sneak in with Waverly, this would at least be a safe place to bunk down, if she really needed one. So as the afternoon stretched on, she set herself to cleaning it.

She pushed the falling shelf back up until it stood mostly upright, against her body’s protest. A modicum of the old inventory seemed to have survived underneath— a faded old magazine here, a leaking box of Abraxo cleaner there. An old crate with a few empty bottles. Some old posters advertising products that no longer existed.

The work wasn’t hard, but the exertion and the dust and the sweat left her cuts itching and her bruises throbbing, and she longed for a drink and a bath and a bed, in that order. But with Waverly presumably still at the bar and Willa unaccounted for, she couldn’t just go back to the Earp house to wash up. Instead, with a long-suffering sigh, she headed out towards the town’s water source, the Styx.

The wind had finally died down by the end of the day, so she didn’t get quite as sandblasted on her way out over the red rocks. A few stray geckos tried to take a run at her, but luckily Calamity packed enough of a punch to knock them clean off their feet, so by her standards, the journey was short and uneventful. Still, it wasn’t as much fun as it would have been with Wynonna there, cracking jokes and fighting her for first shot at the geckos.

She really was getting spoiled by spending so much time in one place.

When she reached the Styx, she drank deeply from the spigot, the cold water washing the stale, dry taste from her mouth. Then, with a sigh, she pulled over a metal washbasin and began to fill it up.

Scrubbing herself clean with what amounted to a large bucket was decidedly harder than it would be in a real bathtub, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and this was what she had access to. Idly, as she rinsed her skin over and over again, she wondered if, as Doc said, settling down did have redeeming features (for instance, bathtubs). It wasn’t something she had considered much before now. There had never been a place she liked enough to entertain the thought.

But now…

Sneaking herself into the Earp house at night wasn’t really sustainable in the long-term. Nor was sleeping on the floor of the gas station a good long-term solution. But anything else would be a commitment— a major life change. And there was still so much she needed to figure out first— her attempted murder and potential previous job offers most of all.

She tipped the basin over, letting the dusty water spill down the rocks and sink into the thirsty soil. Then, with a groan, she stood and trekked back towards town.

The obvious thing to do would be to go back to the bar, find Waverly, have a drink, kill time, and figure out a new way to smuggle her into the house that night.

But as she stood on the edge of town, bone-tired and scrubbed-clean, the last thing she wanted to do was put on a friendly face and spend hours in the bar. Her head was swimming and her eyes stung. Her body ached. She just wanted to go to bed.

Heaving a long sigh, she made her decision. She crept back to Waverly’s window as the sun set over the red rocks of the desert. It was still early, sort of, but she felt twitchy and was craving the gentle wind-down of the night.

It felt dangerous, being there before Waverly had returned, but it was a relief, too. She could already feel herself relaxing, some of the tension and vigilance required in the wasteland fading away. This room, with its books in the corner and faded wallpaper, had started to feel like safety to her. Wary of creaking floorboards or mattress springs, she instead crept soundlessly to the chair in the corner, where she settled in to wait for the room’s owner to return.

The rattle of the doorknob startled her out of a light half-doze, and she barely had time to hope that she wasn’t about to be discovered when Waverly ducked into the room. She jumped when she saw Nicole in the corner, then pressed a hand to her chest. She closed the door quickly.

“God, you scared me,” she said, her voice a laugh of relief.

“Sorry,” Nicole shrank down a little guiltily. “I just… got tired early, I guess, and didn’t want to wait outside. Is that okay?”

It was good to see her again. In all the time she had spent away that day, there had been a sort of slow, aching anticipation building in her chest, and now the same spot flushed with satisfaction.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’d wondered where you’d wandered off to.”

“I was going to just wait at the gas station, but the window was open…”

“Nicole, I said it’s fine. Actually, it’s kind of nice, having you already here. Not having to wait.” Waverly’s eyes peered into her face, seeing through her, reading her. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah. And no. I guess I’m not sure.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. It’s just a weird feeling. Everything with Primm, and the sheriff, and the Revenants. What if Willa’s right? If the Revenants came here looking for me, and one of you got hurt…”

The thought made her stomach turn, and her heart twist.

“Hey…” There was the slightest, softest, gentlest touch on her cheek, and she looked up into Waverly’s sympathetic eyes. “Why don’t you let us worry about that? We’re all perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves.”

Nicole thought of the shotgun that hung mere steps away, in the wardrobe.

“I know that, but—” The fingers that had been stroking her cheek slipped down to her chin and tipped it up, shutting her mouth with a tiny click of her teeth. She didn’t fight it.

“But nothing,” Waverly said firmly, looking her in the eye. Somehow, the touch still felt impossibly gentle. The desert was such a hard place— all rocks and cacti and bullets— and such a soft touch felt like the pinnacle of luxury. “If they want to come take you, they’ll have to go through all of us. Especially me.” Nicole wanted to argue, but it seemed like Waverly could sense that, and shook her head preemptively. “I know you don’t like it, but you and Willa will both just have to deal with that. Everyone in this town knows how to handle danger. Even if that Svane guy were handcuffed to you, I’d still rather have you here than anywhere else in the Mojave.”

Her gaze was achingly sincere, and Nicole felt her heart swell in her chest, pushing the breath from her lungs in a silent sigh. She felt undeserving of such words, of someone else trying to protect her for once.

“I don’t think he’d fit in the bed with us,” Nicole said, the joke having to squeeze past the emotional lump in her throat. She could see Waverly biting her lip to hold back a giggle. “Okay. Well, I’m not going anywhere right away. I’ll have to go back to Primm soon to follow up about the sheriff situation. But… I like staying here.”

“And I like having you here.” Waverly’s thumb grazed her cheek. “I didn’t see you all day after lunch. Where were you?”

“Robin gave me the key to the old Poseidon station. In case I need somewhere to lay low.”

Waverly nodded approvingly.

“Good. I’ve been meaning to ask him about that.”

“So I spent all afternoon cleaning it out again.”

“And you must still be tired from yesterday,” Waverly added, perceptively. She tugged on the collar of Nicole’s shirt, apparently to better inspect the bruise on her shoulder. It was healing fast, but still mottled and dark. She brushed her thumb over it gently, and Nicole tried to pretend that even that simple touch didn’t make her whole arm erupt in goosebumps. “Does it hurt?”

“Not really,” Nicole said, half-truthfully. Her tolerance for pain had climbed over the years, and bruises barely ranked. But there were a lot of them, and it had been a long day, and she was tired. So, collectively, they did hurt. A bit. Or just a smidge more than a bit.

Waverly didn’t look entirely convinced. Her thumb stroked again over the bruise, featherlight and painless. Her brow was furrowed like she was contemplating something. Nicole didn’t dare interrupt.

Then, as if a decision had been made, Waverly’s hands went to the first button on her shirt, unfastening it. Nicole abruptly felt her pulse skyrocket. Waverly’s eyes flitted up to meet hers.

“Is this okay?” Waverly asked, her hands pausing on the next button down.

“Yes,” Nicole answered, almost hypnotised by the weight of Waverly’s hands on her sternum. And thus the hands continued, button by button, the cloth folding back to reveal more and more of the torso underneath. “I hope you’re into scars,” she joked, as Waverly’s gaze seemed to take a long, leisurely trail down her body. Nicole wondered if she was thinking about scenes from those books on her shelf, making comparisons. Nicole wondered how she measured up against the cast of cowboys and firemen.

“I think I might be…” Waverly murmured, tracing a long scar with her fingertip. Nicole closed her eyes, trying not to arch off the chair. “Although for your sake, I wish you didn’t have so many.”

The last button came loose, and the shirt slid back. The cool evening air whispered against her heated skin. And Waverly’s hand, fingertips gliding over her stomach now, stroked over another bruise.

Nicole’s body had a brief internal war— the part of her that would have given anything for Waverly to continue, against the part of her that was just sore and sleepy. In this case, neither won, because her brain rudely butted in with logic, of all things— they had gotten away with a lot so far, but there was no way that Waverly’s sisters wouldn’t hear that from the next room.

“Wait—“ she breathed, covering Waverly’s hand with her own, stilling it. “We can’t— not here—”

Waverly gave her a mildly puzzled look.

“Can’t what?” Apparently she was able to find the answer in Nicole’s incredulous expression. “Oh, that. No, of course not.”

Nicole couldn’t hold in a tiny, strangled laugh. Oh, that.

“Well you can imagine how I’m getting some mixed signals here.”

Waverly blushed, stifling a laugh herself.

“Sorry. I just… I don’t know. I wanted to see you. Is that okay?”

“It’s more than okay,” Nicole assured her, her heart still hammering from the sensation of Waverly’s hand on her bare skin. “But you’re going to give me a heart attack if you keep touching me like that.”

Waverly slowly drew her hands back, fingertips brushing against Nicole’s sides and making her want to moan.

“In a good way?” Waverly asked, her voice curious, with just an edge of smugness.

“In an amazing way,” Nicole clarified. A way that would make both of your sisters want to shoot me on sight.

Waverly took a half-step back.

“I stopped by Doc’s this afternoon and he gave me some salve for you. Not quite Med-X, but it should help with the pain.” She produced a small jar from her pocket and held it out towards Nicole. “I thought you might need some help applying it, but I’d hate to give you a heart attack,” she said, a teasing lilt to her voice. Nicole accepted the jar with a wry smile.

“Well…” she reconsidered, shaking her head. “Maybe I can survive just a little more…”

Chapter Text

Nicole opened her eyes while it was still dark, unsure of why she had woken up. She blinked at the ceiling, registering the feel of the blanket on top of her, and the feeling of Waverly curled against her, her head tucked against her shoulder, her breathing slow and deep in sleep.

She had been dreaming— nice ones, for a change— some chaotic but indulgent mash-up of real life and fantasy, where she and Waverly had woken up in a different bed, in a different room, in a different house. Their house. Alone together. With privacy. No one to burst in on them, no need to hide that they were there in the first place. Accepted. Home.

She thought back to Doc’s words, about settling down having its compensations.

Her ruminations were interrupted by the thing that had probably roused her in the first place— a dull, distant rumble.

Thunder. In the desert.

Her pulse quickening, she tried to ease out from beneath Waverly without waking her, slowly and gently sliding her shoulder out and replacing it with the pillow. Once free, she padded over to the window and leaned against the sill, peering out into the darkness.

The stars were only visible in flashes as black clouds gathered in the sky, obscuring them. Faint electric lights from the town filled the gaps, making the landscape outside just barely tangible in the dark.

“If you’re sneaking out to the graveyard again…” came a sleepy but warning voice from across the room, before it was cut off by a yawn. Across the lightless room, Waverly on the bed was barely a lump of shadow in the darkness, but Nicole looked over at her with an almost childish grin.

“I’m not. It’s about to rain.”

There was the faint creak of the mattress as Waverly sat up in bed, her eyes brightening from half-asleep slits to wide awake and curious.

“Rain? Are you sure?” Rain in the Mojave was a rarity, to say the least.

“All that wind yesterday must have blown in a storm.” Nicole nodded outside, and Waverly stood up from the bed, bringing the mountain blanket along with her, draped over her shoulders like a cloak.

Thunder rolled again, louder this time. Closer. Waverly reached her side and leaned into her as they both watched out the window. Nicole slid an arm around her. Outside, the first heavy drops plopped onto the dusty ground, harbingers of the downpour still to come.

“Mama used to say that storms meant change,” Waverly said quietly. “The floods wash away the old and make room for the new.”

“Huh,” Nicole mused, imagining what in Purgatory the water would wash away. Old memories, maybe. Old troubles. Thunder growled again in the distance.

“When we were kids, Wynonna and I would always sneak outside during storms,” Waverly said, a bit wistfully. “The whole town looks different in the rain.”

Nicole tried to imagine the Earps as kids, still in this same house, dripping wet from playing in the rain. There was no equivalent memory from her own childhood— there was no weather in a vault, just the endless, constant sameness of recirculated air.

“Yeah? Sounds like fun.” For Waverly’s benefit, she added, “We didn’t have rain underground. Unless you count leaking water pipes.”

The rain started to pick up, pattering against the roof and darkening the ground outside. Thunder rumbled again, louder.

After a long, pensive moment, Waverly gently pulled free of Nicole’s encircling arm, creeping over towards the wardrobe. The darkness shrouded her once she was a few steps away, but Nicole heard the creak of the wardrobe opening. Nicole stared uselessly that way in curiosity, just shy of incredulity, as the sound of rustling fabric reached her ears, the sound of someone getting dressed.

“You aren’t thinking about going outside in that,” Nicole said.

“Why not?” Waverly’s voice was a ghostly taunt from the darkness. Nicole squinted across the room and could just make out the sight of her buttoning a shirt.

“Because you get cold under two blankets, indoors, with a roof over your head.”

“We won’t stay out long.”

“We?”

“You just said you never got to play in the rain as a kid.”

“Okay, yeah, but I’ve been in rain plenty since then,” Nicole laughed. She could easily recall memories of trudging through the rain alongside a caravan, soaked to the bone, and pouring a river of water out of her boots afterwards. “Sometimes storms come on fast, and if I’m not close to a town, there isn’t always a good place to take shelter.” Even the sparse trees in the desert were no good for shelter, as her experience crouching miserably under a honey mesquite could attest. Sometimes, she was lucky enough to find an outcropping of rock, or a cave or old train tunnel, but that was the thing about the desert— there was an awful lot of flat, open, empty space. “Trust me, I’m plenty familiar with being rained on.”

Her objections were interrupted with a soft whump as a tangle of fabric struck her messily in the face and fell to the floor at her feet.

“Get dressed,” Waverly ordered.

Nicole dropped down from the window sill, landing in the muddy earth, her boots sinking slightly into the softened soil. Waverly, already outside, tilted her head skeptically at her, her hands on her hips.

“What?” Nicole asked. Waverly reached up and swiped the hat from her head. “Hey—”

“It doesn’t count if you wear a hat,” Waverly scolded her playfully, tossing the hard-won accessory back through the open window. That accomplished, she pushed the window mostly shut to keep out the weather.

Raindrops plopped down on Nicole’s uncovered head, their coolness startling as they sank into her hair, gradually flattening it to her head.

“This sounded more fun in my head,” she commented a little ruefully, as a drop struck her cheek.

“Well standing around isn’t really the fun part. Come on.” Waverly took her hand and tugged, pulling her towards the town.

Waverly had been right— the town did look different in the rain. The roads turned into winding, muddy rivers, coursing down every hill and pooling in any flat space it could. Waverly led them alongside one of these mini rivers, past yards full of thirsty crops and some unhappy and soggy-looking Bighorners mooing their disapproval. The rush of water kept catching Nicole’s attention, the churning rapids giving her a strange, cold twist in her chest that she couldn’t quite attribute to the rain alone.

Still, any cold feeling, either from the weather or otherwise, was easily banished by looking at Waverly, who despite being completely drenched and probably freezing cold, looked rather pleased with herself. Her hair looked even longer than usual, the weight of the water pulling it straight down her back, except for a few loose locks that still swung forward to frame her face. Nicole felt herself carefully stowing away these new images, these new sides of Waverly that she had the privilege to witness.

“You were right,” Nicole said, as Waverly used a wooden crate as a stepping stone to cross the impromptu river, heading for where the saloon and general store huddled together, their neon signs lighting up the night. Nicole followed her step for step. “Everything looks different in the rain.”

Water poured off the roof of the general store, forming a curtain around the small porch. Nicole stuck her hand through the curtain, chuckling at the contrast. Waverly gestured towards the saloon, and once again touched her hand, the feeling warm even in the cool rain. Drawn inexorably by the gentle touch, Nicole followed her lead, even as the mud sucked at her boots with each step and water soaked her from hair to socks. Nicole’s longer legs had her arrive first, and she hopped onto the wooden porch, reaching a hand back through the curtain of rain to help Waverly up as well. Her body tired but her mind wide awake, she sank down and watched water rush down the main road towards Sloan like a river, the sight twisting in her chest again. Waverly wrung some of the water from her hair, then dropped down next to her, visibly shivering. Bringing her focus back to the present, Nicole chuckled and scooted behind her, letting her huddle back into her warmth.

“I knew you’d be freezing,” Nicole murmured, absently rubbing her arms.

“A little,” Waverly agreed. “But worth it, right?”

“Right.”

Lightning flashed out in the distance, down towards Primm, and thunder rumbled. Rain rattled against the tin roof, and hissed as it hit the ground. The desert had never seemed so loud, so full.

“Wait here a second,” Waverly told her after a minute, and Nicole let her stand. She watched as she unlocked the saloon door and disappeared inside with a jingle of the bell. Nicole sighed and scooted back until she could lean against the exterior wall of the saloon, letting the old wood prop her up. It smelled like cigarette smoke and just a little like stale beer, the scent intensified by the humid air.

Waverly returned a few minutes later with a pair of dishtowels in one hand and a pair of mugs in the other, held with the expertise of a lifelong bartender and waitress. She handed Nicole one of the towels and set both mugs next to her on the porch, not spilling a drop. Nicole looked at the undersized towel with a hint of amusement.

“Thanks.” She used it to dry off her face, while Waverly settled back in front of her and picked up one of the mugs, holding it to her chest. Nicole picked up the other mug and sniffed at the contents. It smelled familiar, like the same thing Wynonna had served her when she had showed up bleary-eyed, back from Primm. Cautiously, she sipped it, enjoying the burnt-plants taste more this time around, and enjoying the heat of it more than anything.

Together, they sat, tangled together, each holding a steaming mug, watching the storm blow itself south.

“Hopefully that storm ruins things for those Revenant camps along the road,” Nicole murmured, watching lighting flash again.

“I hope it washes all their stuff away. All the way to the Colorado,” Waverly agreed.

“Probably soaks all their dynamite, anyway. Safe travel on the roads tomorrow,” Nicole mused. She hoped it ruined Svane’s day. She bet a fur coat was an awful thing to wear in the rain.

Slowly, the rain began to lighten as the storm meandered south. The curtain of water around the porch parted in gaps, still dripping down in uneven streams.

In front of her, Waverly sighed.

“The bar’s gonna be a mess,” she said, hazel eyes glancing back towards the door in dismay. Nicole arched her eyebrows.

“From what?”

“Old roof. It leaks when it rains,” Waverly said, grimacing.

“I’ll help clean it up,” Nicole offered.

“You don’t have to…” Waverly said, somewhat unconvincingly.

“I’m already here. Besides, it’s the least I can do to earn my keep.” With only a little reluctance, she stood, stretching the stiffness her long limbs. Her clothes were still soaked through, and the swollen fabric felt rough and heavy. She’d be pouring water out of her boots later.

Waverly let them in, and she and Nicole set themselves to mopping up the dusty puddles of water, and angling pots and buckets under the still-dripping spots. Waverly turned the radio on, and Heartaches By the Number seemed to mock them— for each spot they cleaned, another seemed to pop up across the room.

As Nicole rubbed at a stubborn water stain on a table, she realized that the song had changed, and that Waverly had started singing along. Made up my mind a long time ago, when the right one came along, somehow I’d know…

She had a beautiful voice— which Nicole had always known, but was now appreciating anew. It was a voice that could have broken hearts up and down the New Vegas Strip if she’d wanted to (unlike Nicole’s singing voice, which was more suited to breaking things like eardrums and spirits).

Waverly paused, apparently noticing Nicole’s riveted attention. Her cheeks turned slightly pink.

“What, you don’t sing along to the radio?” she challenged. Nicole shook her head slowly.

“I don’t. And trust me, it’s for the good of the world.”

Waverly’s eyes crinkled in a smile.

“That bad?” she asked, a playful glint in her eye. Nicole nodded mock-sorrowfully.

“Worse.”

Waverly giggled.

“Well now you’ve got me curious,” she teased. Nicole gave up on her stained table and moved on, tossing the wet rag into a nearby bucket.

“Then I’m very sorry, but you’ll have to stay curious.”

Waverly huffed a laugh at her.

“You’re quite the woman of mystery, aren’t you?” she said.

“You never did manage to guess my middle name,” Nicole pointed out. Waverly scoffed.

“It seems impossible, unless you’re going to give me a hint.”

“I’ll think about it,” Nicole said, smiling slyly. “You might have to… convince me.”

“Convince you?” Waverly’s eyes darkened a shade, and her smile widened just a fraction. “And now how would I do that?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Nicole said loftily. “Word has it you’re very smart.”

And a smile as wide… as the western sky…

Later, when the bar was about as clean and dry as it was likely to get, they went back to the porch. Dawn had broken while they cleaned, and the sun was creeping up. There were still muddy puddles dappling the ground, but high points were already starting to dry.

Nicole dragged two chairs outside and they sat there. Nicole half-unbuttoned her shirt to facilitate drying, and Waverly rolled the cuffs of her pants up and kicked off her socks and shoes. Nicole shook water out of her boots. And together they both sat in the morning sun as it hit the porch from the east, drinking another mug of the hot coffee (sans whiskey, Nicole realized as she sipped).

It all felt incredibly… domestic. Playing in the rain, cleaning the bar, sitting on the porch with coffee. She wondered if the house in her dream the night before had had a porch.

She pushed the thought away. She and Waverly were barely anything yet, they certainly weren’t married, or anything like it. But the thought was a stubborn one, and it kept creeping back up on her. After all, life was long, and she’d only been in town for a short while yet. Anything could happen. Maybe. Someday. Once she was really ready to settle down. Whenever that happened. Maybe.

Beside her, Waverly sipped her coffee and hummed absentmindedly, the sound of it clear as a bell.

Let’s ride into the sunset together… stirrup to stirrup, side by side.

Chapter Text

The cool, wet morning warmed as the sun rose, but Nicole noticed that Waverly stayed close, their chairs pressed side by side, their legs knocking into one another’s as they sat and yawned their way through the daybreak.

Halfway through the morning, Wynonna stumbled up the porch steps, still in yesterday’s clothes and blinking curiously at Nicole and Waverly, who sat tucked up together as the desert dried around them.

“You two look like a pair of drowned coyotes,” she had said dryly, eyeing their damp clothing. She looked tired, or possibly hungover (with Wynonna, was there much of a difference?). “Why are you here so early in the goddamn morning? Even the sun’s barely awake yet.” She stumbled up to the bar’s door and fumbled with the lock for several seconds before apparently realizing it was already unlocked. She rested her head against the wood, looking defeated.

Nicole hesitated, her terrible lying skills failing to come up with a innocuous answer.

“We were waiting for you,” Waverly said matter-of-factly, mercifully saving Nicole from having to invent something. Wynonna grunted in response.

“Why?” she grumbled. She lifted her head and shoved the door open, wincing at the bell’s friendly jingle.

“It rained last night. Bar’s a mess,” Waverly told her, just as she got a view of the inside. Wynonna looked blearily at the dripping ceiling, the pots and pans strewn out on every surface, and the pile of soaked cloths in the sink.

She blinked at it once, stepped inside, closed the door behind her and yelled, “FUCK!”

Nicole and Waverly met each other’s eyes, and Nicole raised her eyebrows. Waverly smiled as if to say, Well, that’s my sister for you.

The door opened again, and Wynonna reappeared, as though nothing had happened.

“Move your asses, I’m not cleaning this up alone,” she said, kicking Waverly’s chair petulantly.

Hours later, the bar had been scrubbed clean, the door propped open so the desert air could suck all the moisture from the old wood. Nicole sat at the bar, so buzzed on the bar’s bottomless mugs of coffee that she was pretty sure she could see space and time. This seemed to particularly amuse Wynonna, who clearly saw the coffee as her one refuge of the morning, and had consumed enough of the caffeinated beverage to power the New Vegas Strip. Nicole bet if she pressed her ear to Wynonna’s chest, her heart would sound like a buzzing cazador.

Patrons had trickled into the bar as the morning approached afternoon, and many hung around, chatting in the booths or shooting pool. The radio played Big Iron so many times in a row that Nicole thought about shooting it just to hear something different.

Now the stranger started talking, made it plain to folks around… Was an Arizona ranger, wouldn't be too long in town…

“Can we change the station?” Nicole asked, rubbing the bridge of her nose to ward off a headache. She could feel the missed hours of sleep burn behind her eyes, hot and dry like a desert wind.

“In the middle of Big Iron?” Wynonna asked, as if Nicole had asked her to burn the bar down. “It’s only the best song on the radio. Why would I turn it off?”

“Because this is the fifth time we’ve heard it in the past hour?”

“And what, you’d rather hear Johnny Guitar five times in a row?”

Nicole considered this briefly in silent contemplation. “No. Sorry I even suggested it.”

“You should be,” Wynonna assured her, albeit without heat.

Waverly was serving customers, still bright-eyed in spite of an occasional yawn. Nicole watched her, her eyes drawn instinctively to her every movement.

During a lull, as Wynonna fought to un-prop the door she’d jury-rigged open, Waverly leaned against the bar next to her, looking as tired as Nicole felt. Her long brown hair was starting to dry, the ends of it curling wildly in every direction. Nicole was tempted to run her hands through it, but resisted in the crowded room.

“Starting to regret being up half the night?” Nicole asked, as she saw Waverly smother a yawn in her sleeve.

“No,” Waverly said, her voice softer than Nicole had expected. “Are you?”

Nicole blinked at her for a moment, weighing the thought of sleeping in versus their midnight adventure and their quiet morning on the porch.

“No,” she agreed sincerely. Waverly smiled at her, and as she pushed off the bar to return to work, her hand brushed Nicole’s leg.

Waverly returned to the bar’s daily tasks, and Nicole nursed a glass of water, ruminating over the options that lay before her over the next few days. She still needed to return to Primm, to follow up on her previous leads. She wanted to talk more with the NCR troops around the city, to get their take on the Revenants. She wanted to work on fortifying Purgatory against attack, in case her presence there really did put everyone else in danger. She wanted to keep sitting in the bar and making doe eyes at Waverly. She wanted them both to crawl back into bed and sleep.

The jingle of a bell interrupted her ruminations as the bar’s door swung open and shut with a rattle. An old man, short but broad, with a bushy mustache and a large hat, entered the bar, casting his gaze around the room. He settled heavily on a barstool a few seats down from Nicole and gestured to Waverly.

“A beer, when you get the chance,” he said, already lining up caps on the counter.

“Sure thing!” Waverly said quickly, gracing him with one of her bright smiles. She produced a bottle from under the bar, uncapping it with help from the counter. As she handed it over, she gave him an interested look, her eyes studying his face. “I don’t recognize you. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Nope,” he said shortly, then took a pull from the bottle. Nicole eyed him sideways, instincts pinging to life. Waverly was right, he wasn’t a Purgatorian. But there was something oddly familiar about him regardless. It itched in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“Then what brings you to Purgatory?” Waverly asked him, her tone still light and conversational— all friendly neighborhood barkeep and sugar-sweet girl-next-door. “We don’t get very many visitors these days.”

The man glanced into the bar mirror, as the radio whistled something upbeat and instrumental.

“I’m looking for someone,” he said finally. “Maybe you’ve seen her. Bright red hair. Brown eyes. Stubborn as a Bighorner. Tough as a two-headed bear.”

Nicole kept her head bowed, wishing she had her hat to shield her face. The lighting in the bar was dim, but certainly not so dim that he couldn’t make out her hair color. She fingered the hood of her wasteland wanderer’s jacket, wondering if she could pull it up slowly enough to not draw his attention. Her heart pounded.

She didn’t dare raise her head for a closer look at him, but he didn’t sound much like a Revenant. In fact, there was something vaguely familiar about his voice. Deep and resonant. Gruff, but not unfriendly. It made something tingle in the back of her mind.

Waverly faked a careless shrug.

“We get a lot of folks passing through these parts.” She picked up a rag and started wiping at a wet spot on the counter. “Why are you looking for her?”

“Heard she was looking for me.” He raised the bottle and drained half of it. Nicole slowly, casually stopped reaching for her hood and instead let the hand drift towards her gun. If this was one of Bobo’s men, then this day was about to take a dangerous turn. She hoped Waverly would have enough instinct or sense to take cover if a firefight broke out. “In regards to the sheriff of Primm. And how there isn’t one.”

Waverly’s glance flickered towards Nicole, not subtly enough. The man’s gaze met hers briefly in the mirror, his eyes brightening. With something between a grunt and a short laugh, he glanced between her and Waverly, eyes still sparkling.

“How about it? You seen anyone by that description?”

Wary but intrigued, Nicole raised her head a little, letting the mirror catch her face.

“Sounds a bit familiar,” Nicole said dryly, drawing his full attention. The man’s face creased in a smile as he took her in, scrutinizing her with something that felt like familiarity.

“Damn, I reckoned you’d end up tall,” he said with a chuckle. Nicole felt an uneasy twinge in her chest.

“Have we met?” She tried to pick his face out of her memory, but she couldn’t place him. But his voice...

“It was a long time ago. I’m not surprised you don’t remember,” he said. “You were just a kid.”

Kid. Kid.

The word in his voice triggered something in the back of her mind.

Come on, kid.

Easy, kid.

Hang in there, kid.

She squinted at him, trying to imagine him with a younger face and darker hair.

“Who are you?”

“Name’s Randy Nedley, but I doubt it rings any bells.”

Nicole shook her head a little. It did ring a bell, but a recent one. Too recent.

“No, I’ve heard that name. In Primm. You were the sheriff there, before all this.”

“I was.”

“We can’t have met there. I’d never even been to Primm until about a week ago.”

“No, we didn’t meet there.” He raised his gaze to Waverly, who had moved closer, hovering in Nicole’s orbit, almost protectively. “You her friend?”

“Yeah, I’m her friend.”

“Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of her,” Nicole said, picking up the thread of the conversation. Waverly looked surprised by the endorsement, then beamed with pleasure.

“Alright.” He finished his beer and gestured to Waverly for another. “You might want to get one for her, too. It’s a hell of a story.” He stacked more caps on the table. Waverly looked to Nicole for confirmation. She shrugged, so Waverly handed her a matching bottle, which seemed to earn them both Nedley’s approval. “Now... Where should I start?”

“At the beginning, it sounds like,” Nicole said, letting the drink sit for the moment. “If we didn’t meet in Primm, then where did we meet?”

“The Colorado,” he said. Nicole and Waverly both gave him a startled look.

“The river?” Waverly blurted out, then blushed. “I mean, obviously the river. Right?”

“Right.” Nedley paused to sip his beer, and Nicole gave him a strange look.

“I don’t remember that.” She had occasionally seen the Colorado from a distance, the smudge of it lingering on the eastern horizon as she traveled up and down the Mojave. But she had never had a reason— or a desire— to see it up close and personal. After years traversing the desert, lakes and rivers made her feel uneasy.

“That’s not surprising,” he said. “You were unconscious at the time.”

“Unconscious?” Nicole repeated, frowning.

“In a boat.”

Nicole nearly echoed him again— in a boat?— but felt a spike of annoyance from his half-answers, and from her own inability to pick up the thread of the conversation.

“Keep talking,” she said seriously, her brow furrowed. He sighed and seemed to settle into his seat for a longer story.

“I was fishing. If you know how to avoid lakelurks, the Colorado actually has some decent meat in it. Hell of a lot easier than shooting those damn geckos. And the water protects them from the radiation, so they’re clean.”

“I’m sure it’s great,” Nicole deadpanned, her patience waning. He gave her an amused look, then sobered quickly.

“So as I was saying, I was out fishing in the Colorado, out around Blue Paradise, and saw what sure looked like an empty boat run aground. I went to have a look, and there you were, lying inside. Nearly gave me a heart attack. I thought for sure you were dead. You were red from head to foot— hair, sunburn, blood.” He shivered and took a long drink from his beer. “But I pulled you out and you were still breathing. Even opened your eyes long enough to take a swing at me before you conked back out,” he chuckled.

“Where did I come from? Why was I in the river?” she asked, although before he could answer, Waverly jumped in with an equally critical line of questioning.

“Wait, what was the blood from? Was she hurt?”

Nedley considered the question, then directed his answer back to Nicole.

“Some, but I don’t know that all of it was yours. There was a wound like you’d been grazed by a bullet. Straight as an arrow, and deep, but nowhere near deadly. But you weren’t in much of a condition right then to say what it was from. You probably still have a scar from it.”

Nicole tried to think of an old mark or scar that would line up with what he was saying, but she couldn’t think of anything.

“No, I don’t have any scar like that…” she said, a bit warily.

“You do, though,” Waverly disagreed. “On your left side, near your shoulder.” She pointed, and even though it was surely covered by her shirt, Nicole instinctively craned her neck to look for the spot. “It’s probably hard to see yourself, because of the angle.”

This was news to Nicole, and she took a moment to narrow her eyes at Waverly.

“How do you know it’s there?”

Waverly flushed, but didn’t back down.

“I just… happened to see it one day,” she said, with forced lightness that was somewhat belied by the color in her cheeks.

“Did you, now?” Nicole felt a teasing laugh bubble up in her throat, but she quelled it. After all, this was a serious subject, and the question of whether Waverly had been peeking at her while she changed clothes was one that would be better answered in the privacy of her room. With reluctance, she turned back to Nedley. “Does that sound right? Left shoulder?”

He nodded and gave an affirmative grunt.

“Just about,” he agreed.

“Did you ever find out who did it?” Nicole persisted, trying to imagine who would shoot a child and why she would be on the river.

“Bulshar’s Legion.” The words came out heavy and dark, like a cloak, and all three of them shivered. “Although I wouldn’t be all that surprised if you had a few run-ins with the local wildlife on your trip down, too.”

Nicole nearly jumped as something touched her hand, until she realized that it was Waverly, reaching out to comfort her. She slid her pinky finger up to hook the hand in place, but kept her eyes on Nedley

“What did the Legion have to do with it?” Waverly asked softly. Nedley’s eyes turned misty.

“Everything. That first day, I wasn’t even sure you could talk. You were in pretty rough shape. And scared as hell. Never been out in the open before, I figured. But eventually you managed to give me the short version. The Legion raided your vault. Vault 7. I guess it was useful to them, being near the dam.” He fussed with the bottle for a moment, then made himself meet her eye. “There were no survivors. Except you.”

“Oh my god,” Waverly breathed. Nicole couldn’t speak. It wasn’t shocking, not exactly. It felt like having a bad suspicion confirmed, and she nodded accordingly. Distantly, she could imagine the lurching motion of the boat, surging with the current and knocking against rocks. She could imagine the unrelenting scorch of the desert sun, unbearable to her after a life spent underground, scalding her already injured body. She could imagine the disorienting lack of walls and doors leaving her feeling shaken and exposed, even as the canyon walls towered dizzily on either side of her, tall as mountains. But she felt oddly disconnected from the memory, as though it were a book she had read or a song she had heard, not something she had lived through. She could imagine it, but that was different from remembering it. It didn’t sound entirely real.

Her family. Her parents. Her friends. Everyone she knew at the time. All dead. Slaughtered. Except for her.

“How’d I get the boat?” she asked, her voice dull. Maybe the least important detail, but that was as far as she was willing to process for the moment.

“No idea. I figured it was probably one of theirs, but you never said for sure. You must’ve got out in the chaos, managed to get into it before you passed out, then just floated downstream.” He shook his head. “You didn’t wake up a lot the first day. Someone or something must’ve clocked you something fierce.”

“Seems to be a theme in my life,” Nicole mumbled, scratching along her gunshot scar and wondering if there was a matching one somewhere, hidden under her hair— maybe a souvenir from one of those river rocks, or a glancing blow from a Legionarie’s axe or a lakelurk’s claw. Maybe she would ask Waverly to check sometime. The thought of her hands combing through her hair was a soothing one, and it grounded her somewhat. “And then what?” She tried to guess, based on what she logically knew happened next. “You brought me to the Followers?”

Nedley gave an affirmative grunt.

“Ran into them while heading towards civilization. They had medics with them, and I knew they were good folks. I knew they would look after you.”

“They did.” Nicole raised her eyes to Nedley’s and just for a moment, a hazy outline of a memory flickered, like those old sun-faded photographs. The sight of his face, through the smoke of a campfire in the darkness. Sitting, sunburnt and shivering, scared and miserable and hurting and mad as hell, across from a man who was telling stories about life as a lawman. And her next clear memory, a woman in a doctor’s uniform fussing over her in the back of a caravan wagon. And then her arrival at the Old Mormon Fort with the rest of the Followers, and being shown a bunk in a tent that would be hers. Her tongue felt thick with thoughts and feelings that words couldn’t even begin to express. “Thank you.”

He shook his head.

“It was my pleasure, believe it or not. You sure made a hell of an impression. Scared out of your mind, no doubt hurting something awful, but you weren’t about to give God or Bulshar or anyone the satisfaction of quitting. Tough as nails and running on pure righteous fury, even at that age.”

“The Followers said I was a handful at first. Sneaking out of the camp, tagging along on caravans where I wasn’t wanted.”

“They may have mentioned that,” Nedley chuckled. Nicole shot him a questioning look. “Whenever any of them would pass through Primm, I’d ask after you. Told them to let me know if you ever needed help, but you never did.” He shrugged. “Last time I talked with them, they told me you’d been doing guard work, and here Primm needed a new sheriff. I thought, what the heck. Sometimes God does play dice, and sometimes they all come up boxcars.” He pulled something out from his pocket— a well-worn scrap of paper. “I sent you a letter. Long sucker, too, all about the troubles Primm was having, and how they needed someone with a strong backbone and a stronger moral compass to set the town back on track. Talked about how the people were scared and needed someone to look to for help. Asked if you’d be up for the task.” He set the paper down on the bar and pushed it towards her. “You were on the road at the time, somewhere dangerous up north. Sent a verbal message back with the courier, that you’d come down in person as soon as you could. But you sent this, too, in case he forgot.”

Nicole picked up the scrap, saw three words in her own handwriting, above a hasty scribble of her initials.

“‘I’m all in,’” she read aloud.

“Yup,” Nedley said.

“Do you remember it?” Waverly asked gently. Nicole shrugged, and absentmindedly handed her the scrap.

“I don’t know. I mean, it’s fuzzy, but I remember a courier running me down while I was making a supply run for the NCR— for one of the ranger stations way up north. Foxtrot, I think. There must have been Khans in the area. We couldn’t hold still.” She tried to reach for the memory, but it was like there was a layer of static on top, like trying to remember a dream after waking. She pictured the courier catching up to them, calling her name. The beginning of a headache set roots in the back of her skull, and she automatically rubbed at her scar. “He gave me these papers. I read through them and… I don’t remember the specifics, but I knew that it felt right. It felt like something I was meant to do.” It was just a flicker of an image, but she could see herself tear off the blank half-page at the end of the letter to scribble a quick response and send the courier back to safety. “As soon as we finished the run, I didn’t even go back for the other half of the payment. I just told Foxtrot to find another runner and turned around… heading towards Primm…”

A path that would take her right by Purgatory.

“Bobo must have heard you were coming,” Waverly said, connecting the dots just as fast. “He must have thought you were a threat.”

“Yeah, must have…”

“Offer’s still good,” Nedley said. Nicole felt Waverly’s hand tighten reflexively on hers, and she absentminded covered it with her own, leaving Waverly’s hand sandwiched between both of hers.

The sheriff. She could be Primm’s sheriff. With a shiny star on her chest and everything.

“I’ll need some time to think about it,” she said. “Things have changed.”

What an understatement. In the past few weeks, she had gone from an unattached glorified caravan guard to… whatever she was now. Someone with a bullethole in her head and a girl in her heart and a relentless pull to find her purpose in her life.

Nedley glanced down at their joined hands and nodded once.

“Take your time,” he said. “I can hold the town together for a little longer.” He took a final sip from his bottle. “Just wanted to make sure you had all your options on the table.” He pushed the empty bottle back across the counter and stood. “Well, I’m sure you have a lot to think about. Sleep on it. I’ll stop by in the morning before heading back to Primm.”

“Right…” Nicole’s overtaxed mind only finished processing his last words as the door was swinging shut behind him.

“Are you okay?” Waverly asked gently.

“I… have no idea,” Nicole admitted. “You heard all of that, too. So… what do you think?”

“I think…” Waverly picked the scrap of paper back up and looked at it again. She sighed thoughtfully. “That if these are your initials, then your middle name must start with an R, which really narrows down my options.”

Nicole had needed that laugh more than all the water in the desert.

Chapter Text

Nicole sat in the bar after Nedley left, her head buzzing, her hands shaking. As a consolation, Waverly kept close to her, seemingly magnetized to her side. She didn’t say much, apparently not wanting to further disturb Nicole’s creased brow and troubled silence, but she rested a hand on her shoulder, on her arm, on her hand, and that helped more than words.

Predictably, Wynonna had no such compunctions.

“Yeesh, who pissed in your sarsaparilla?” she asked when she returned from the back room, raising an eyebrow at Nicole’s pensive frown.

Nicole wasn’t sure how to answer. The Legion was as good an answer as any, but it was an answer that just called for more questions, and she wasn’t in the mood to give her a lengthy recap of Nedley’s words. Her brain was still processing them for herself. How could she possibly explain…

“Just ran into an old friend passing through,” Waverly said. The words themselves were innocuous, but they came packaged with a meaningful look with slightly arched eyebrows that Wynonna seemed to intuitively understand, at least enough to not ask follow-up questions.

“Riiiiiight,” she said, still eyeing Nicole with curiosity and a hint of concern. After a minute, she pulled a glass down and poured a few fingers of whiskey into it. She slid it expertly down the bar so that it sloshed to a gentle stop just at Nicole’s hand. Nicole closed her fingers around it slowly, then raised it to her lips and knocked the whole shot back with an eye-watering cough. The whiskey burned down her throat, all the way to her stomach. She breathed out as the heat spread through her.

“Thanks,” she said hoarsely.

“You looked like you needed it,” Wynonna said dismissively. She poured another heavy splash into the glass and set the bottle next to her. Nicole pushed it back, the heavy bottle scraping against the wood of the bar. Tempting as it was, her brain was still spinning with the information, stirring up the detritis in the deepest depths of her memory, and she didn’t know what would happen if she stopped it now. Besides, the whiskey and the emotions and the smell of myriad alcohols that always hung in the air inside the bar had her stomach roiling. She couldn’t do anything about the emotions or the air, but she could minimize the damage of the whiskey.

Wynonna shrugged and picked the bottle back up, slotting it into place behind the bar with a clink and a “suit yourself.”

A soft touch at her shoulder nearly made her jump, but when she turned her head, her brown eyes met Waverly’s hazel only a scant few inches away.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Waverly asked gently. Nicole hesitated. She liked it at the bar— it had formed a homey, comforting sort of place in her heart— but given the noise of thoughts and half-formed memories buzzing in her head, the background noise of its patrons drinking and shooting pool and fiddling with the radio were starting to grate on her. She was tempted by silence. And privacy.

“Is Willa…?” Nicole started. Waverly blanched slightly.

“Home? Probably.”A sour look crossed her face as she confirmed Nicole’s suspicion. “But she might not bother us. Or we could go somewhere else. Find somewhere quiet.”

Nicole nodded slowly. She picked up her glass and drained it a final time, then stood from the barstool, boots feeling heavier on the ground than usual. Waverly drew her towards the door with a hand on her arm, Nicole following her almost mindlessly.

After the stuffy dim lighting of Shorty’s, the blazing afternoon sunlight was nearly blinding, but the fresh air was welcome. She could still smell last night’s rain in the air— a faint, earthy scent. The wooden porch creaked beneath their feet as Waverly led them away from the bar, casting her eyes around as though in search of a suitable place to settle. Nicole instinctively followed suit, her gaze sweeping across Purgatory— its vacant, boarded-up buildings, its dusty roads and ramshackle fences.

Her eyes wandered up towards the cemetery, looming on its hill high over the town. Usually, when she felt this uneasy, it made her want to climb. The height, the view from above, gave her an odd feeling of safety. She had always chalked it up to just a weird personal quirk, but now she wondered… was it just the opposite of being cornered underground?

“We could go to the Poseidon station,” Waverly said. “You said Robin gave you a key, right?”

It was a fair suggestion. It would be quiet there. And private. But the thought of the windowless, enclosed space made bile rise in her throat. She shook her head.

“Not there,” she murmured.

“Okay,” Waverly said. “Then where?”

Nicole bit the inside of her cheek for a second, considering the question. Considering whether her answer was fair. Finally, she took in a breath.

“How do you feel about heights?”

Nicole took Waverly’s hand and pulled her up the last rung, helping her clamber onto the metal ledge, behind a thin criss-crossed railing. Wiping a bead of sweat from her face at the exertion, Waverly took a seat next to her, both their legs dangling off the edge, knees bumping gently against each other.

“Well… can’t argue with the view,” Waverly said, her voice still a little breathy from the climb.

From the top of the water tower that rose up over the cemetery, they could see out for miles and miles. All of Purgatory sprawled below them like a child’s toys— tiny houses and buildings with tiny mailboxes. Stubby miniature cacti and little ant-sized people.

The height, and their solitude up there— too far up for the townsfolk to really see them— calmed some of the anxiety in Nicole’s chest.

“You’ve never been up here before?” Nicole asked her, a little surprised. If she had grown up in this town, they wouldn’t have been able to keep her off the water tower. It was too tempting a climbing target. A ladder still hung down most of the height of the water tower, aside from the first fifteen feet or so that had to be free-climbed.

Waverly’s lips curled in a frown.

“Only once,” she said. “When I was four or five.”

Nicole raised her eyebrows, trying to imagine a tiny, four-year-old Waverly climbing up the rickety, rusty water tower.

“Four?” she echoed. Waverly rolled her eyes a little at the memory, looking chagrined.

“It was stupid. Willa made me. She’d caught me pouring one of Dad’s whiskey bottles down the sink. I thought if I could empty out his stash, he’d stop drinking and wouldn’t be so mad all the time.” She shook her head and covered her eyes, cheeks red from embarrassment at her past self. Nicole felt herself frowning.

“That’s not stupid. Besides, you were four.”

“But Willa caught me. She said she’d tell him what I did unless I climbed the water tower.”

Nicole felt a rush of righteous anger on behalf of four-year-old Waverly Earp. It was one thing for them to climb it now— two capable adults, within shouting distance of medical help. But the thought of a kid climbing it, let alone little Waverly, made her shiver.

“That’s way too dangerous for a kid that age. You could have really gotten hurt.”

“I know…” sighed Waverly. That being said, they sat in relative silence for a little longer. The wind had died down after the storm, and now it was barely a whisper. Nicole kept her eyes on the horizon, searching out familiar shapes— the huge cross of the Yangtze Memorial, the distant Black Mountain, the skeletal roller coaster in Primm, the little dip that marked Sloan, the old machinery of Quarry Junction. Streaky white clouds bent towards the sinking sun.

“Do you want to talk about it? What he said?” Waverly asked gently. Nicole shook her head slowly.

“I don’t think I can,” she said flatly. She could still feel his words percolating in the back of her mind, dredging up things she hadn’t thought about in years. It felt… messy. As confusing as it was clarifying.

Waverly shifted closer, bringing their bodies more into contact— pressed together from hips to knees, Waverly’s shoulder bumping against her arm. The warmth was more soothing than she had words for.

“Okay…”

That night, by the time Waverly snuck her back into the Earp house, Nicole was dead on her feet. Even though she hadn’t done anything physically tiring, she felt like she had spent the whole day running in circles, dragging a whole caravan behind her.

She fell back into Waverly’s small bed, still fully clothed except for her boots, her head swimming. She was almost asleep before Waverly even climbed in next to her.

She was roused from nine-tenths of the way to sleep by Waverly’s fingertips stroking down her arm, so gentle it almost tickled.

“Nicole?”

Nicole hummed to prove she was still awake.

“You really… didn’t remember any of that? The Legion attacking your vault, and Nedley taking you to the Followers, and everything?” Waverly asked. Her voice was quiet in the darkness, still gentle, but Nicole felt a rising defensiveness in her chest. She tried to force it back down.

“It’s not that simple,” she said, not sure how to explain it. “It’s like… I never wanted to remember it. Because I knew if I let myself think about it… I’d just… be scared. All the time. It would never go away.”

It was dark, but she could see Waverly’s eyes watching her, catching the dim light from the window.

“You? Scared?” Waverly’s voice was bemused, and a little skeptical. Nicole even wondered if she heard the faintest beginnings of a laugh in it, and the thought felt like a knife slipping between her ribs.

“I get scared. I have feelings, Waverly. I’m not a robot.” The words came out too sharp, too loud in the quiet room. She felt Waverly pull just the tiniest bit back, and guilt and regret cooled her blood.

“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” Waverly sighed, clearly frustrated with herself. “I’m not saying any of this right.”

“You really think I don’t get scared? I woke up in this town hurt and missing half my memories and not knowing why.”

“I know. But you never… acted scared.”

“Because I don’t want people to see me that way. I don’t want them to think I’m weak, or that I can’t handle things.”

“Nobody thinks that.”

“Exactly. That’s the whole point.”

Waverly went quiet, but Nicole could feel her eyes on her— watching, thinking, feeling. The silence yawned between them, until Nicole felt a hand slide up over her ribs, over the imaginary knife wound, coming to a rest over her heart.

“But you remember some of it now. So… were you right? About being scared?” Waverly asked, in a voice so gentle that Nicole nearly started crying. Instead, she didn't answer. The thought of talking about it, the fear and loss and confusion, tightened her throat. The weight of the hand over her heart was the one thing keeping her steady. “Nicole… I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk to me. I shouldn’t have said that, about you not getting scared. But I can’t know what you’re feeling if you don’t show it and you don’t tell me about it.”

“I know,” Nicole said, and was alarmed by how raw and shaky her voice sounded. Like the crunch of loose rock just before the avalanche.

“So… Will you tell me?” The hand over her heart rubbed gently, and Nicole felt her carefully constructed defenses start to crumble under this relentless onslaught of gentleness. It was like watching the Hoover Dam itself crack from the caress of a feather. She wanted to say something strong and reassuring, but she couldn't make a sound. “Do you feel… scared? Or… sad? Or… something else?”

Her throat began to ache with the effort it took to control herself, to not fold in and let all the toxic fear and distress come pouring out. She didn't want that. All that darkness and ugliness was like radioactive waste— sometimes all you could do with it was bury it deep in a mountain and hope that was enough to keep it from spreading. But apparently even mountains could crumble, even just from the purr of a kitten. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to take in a deep, stabilizing breath, but it came out shaky and ragged. And the whole time, Waverly’s hand rested protectively over her heart. Waverly let out a low shushing sound. “Hey… it’s okay. I promise. You can talk about it. You aren’t alone anymore.”

The words fell on Nicole like a battering ram. Like the shout in a canyon that makes the rocks shift and fall.

You aren’t alone anymore.

An impossible concept. And yet…

The avalanche broke. Words started falling out of her, rocks in a landslide, more and more by the second. At first they were jumbled, almost nonsensical. Waverly still nodded along like she understood.

Because Nicole was scared. Of plenty of things. She was scared of the Mojave being overrun by the Legion. She was afraid of Robert “Bobo” Svane and the other Revenants coming for her. She was afraid of either group finding Purgatory and sinking their teeth into it. She was scared of the town being in danger because of her. She was scared of failing them. Failing Waverly and Wynonna. Failing Doc and Nedley. Failing herself.

The final words, the final fears, poured out into Waverly’s shirt, as she stroked her hair from root to tip, listening and occasionally murmuring encouragements when Nicole’s words failed her.

By the time she ran out of words, she felt completely drained. But not necessarily in a bad way. She felt like she had purged herself of a poison, or drained a festering wound. Something unpleasant, but cleansing. Healing. She had already started the night exhausted, and now felt almost delirious from it. Her eyes burned and crossed when she tried to keep them open.

“It’s okay…” Waverly whispered. “I’ve got you…”

With that final thought, Nicole’s willpower ran dry, and she plunged deep, deep into the darkness of sleep.

The dreams came, hard and fast.

The sight of the Legionaries in her vault had been impossibly surreal. Their ancient-style skirted uniforms, the mask-like helmets that hid their faces, the archaic throwing spears held alongside submachine guns. The first sight of them was like something out of a fever dream. There had been a commotion first, and an alarm sounding, but that was normal. False alarms happened all the time. It had never meant anything before. There had never been a reason to be scared until the man with the wolf’s head stepped into the room and shot her aunt and uncle in the chest so fast she didn’t even have time to cry out.

Once the adrenaline hit, everything seemed to blur in a long smear of red— blood and uniforms and gunfire and screams. A spray of bullets tore through the room. There had been pain— more than she had ever experienced, but less than she had expected from a violent death. Paralyzed with a pure terror that blocked all else, she fell to the ground and lay still, playing dead. The man in the wolf helmet made small talk with two of his compatriots as they circled the room, checking for survivors.

“Ugh. I hate it when there’s kids, you know?” One of them said, toeing her with a sharp boot to check for a reaction. She didn’t even dare breathe. She could feel his eyes on her.

“Bulshar says the vault-dwellers are too soft. Living in a cage turns them into animals. They wouldn’t even make proper slaves. It would be like keeping a pet,” said the wolf-man, disgust in his voice.

“I know,” the man with the boot said quickly. She felt him step away. “That’s what I mean. It’s like drowning a bag of kittens.”

They kept up their casual repartee as, apparently satisfied in their total death and destruction, they left the room. Nicole lay paralyzed for a minute longer, soaked in her own blood and the blood of her family.

Out.

She had to get out.

Run.

She staggered to her feet, heart hammering, the air so heavy with the scent of blood and viscera that it was hard to breathe.

She started to run.

She never stopped.

Chapter Text

Nicole woke in a panic, drenched in sweat and panting like she’d just run ten laps around the Ivanpah race track.

“Shh, it’s okay. You were just dreaming. You’re okay.”

She jumped when she felt hands on her, tried to yank herself free, started to brace for a fight… then calmed when she realized it was Waverly.

“Sorry,” Nicole panted. Waverly shook her head, rubbing gentle circles on her shoulder.

“It’s okay. It was just a nightmare.”

Nicole, emotions roiling, felt a sudden flash of anger— not towards Waverly, but to herself and Nedley and Bobo and Bulshar. Anyone and everyone involved in dredging these memories back to the surface, where it would take them ages to settle again.

“I knew this would happen,” she growled, shoving herself upright, her hand clenching over the pillow, frustrated by the images and the dreams and her own fear. Waverly looked startled by her sudden anger, and Nicole felt it fade away as quickly as it had started. “Sorry,” she said again, drained and embarrassed. She rubbed at her face with still-shaking hands. The sleep had done nothing to help her exhaustion. If anything, it was worse. She was tired down to her bones. Down to her soul.

She dropped back onto the pillow, staring through the darkness at the ceiling. The blankets were loose and tangled around her legs, but she didn’t move to fix them. Waverly didn’t say anything for a long time, and she didn’t either. But she could tell that neither of them were going to fall asleep anytime soon.

“Can I ask you a question?” Nicole asked, long minutes later, still staring at the ceiling.

“Of course. Always,” Waverly said.

“About a myth?”

“A myth?” Waverly sounded— understandably— puzzled. “Um, sure. Of course. Why? Which myth?”

“Do you know the story about the Labyrinth?” Nicole asked.

“Yeah, that’s an easy one. Greek,” Waverly said. Her voice was still bemused.

“Could you tell it to me?” Nicole asked, her voice raw.

“Um… Sure. Of course.” Waverly sounded equal parts confused by the request and relieved to have something concrete to do. She shifted up in the bed and leaned back against the headboard, tugging the pillow partway into her lap, Nicole’s head following. It felt safer there, Waverly’s hands steadying her, surrounded by her body. “Hm… it’s hard to know where to start. I mean, everything in Greek mythology kind of gets tangled up with everything else.” Waverly took a few seconds to pick a starting point, then began. “So the Labyrinth was made to hold the Minotaur. The minotaur was like a human-bull monster.”

“Yeah,” Nicole agreed, the story sounding familiar. She imagined the Labyrinth— a maze and a home and a trap at the same time— as a vault. And she pictured the man with the wolf helmet who carried Bulshar’s standard, a yellow bull on a red background. The bull-man. The monster in the Labyrinth.

“King Minos commissioned it from Daedalus, of course— presumably before the whole wings incident. The Minotaur was, like, Minos’s step-son, kind of. He fought with his brothers about who would rule their island— Knossos— and he asked Poseidon for his blessing— because, you know, island— so Poseidon sent him this giant white bull. Minos was supposed to sacrifice it, but he liked it so much he just kept it, which pissed Poseidon off, of course, because it was supposed to be his. So Poseidon made Minos’s wife fall in love with the bull, and then she commissioned Daedalus to make her, like, a fake cow suit to trick it into having sex with her.” Waverly said this part with a small laugh in her voice, and Nicole found it disproportionately soothing. She settled a little more completely in Waverly’s lap, closing her eyes as one of Waverly’s hands combed through her hair and the other stroked long lines up and down her back. “And because this is Greek mythology, it worked, and she got pregnant and, in what I’m assuming was the worst childbirth ever, had the Minotaur.”

She paused there, so Nicole prompted, “So they put it in the Labyrinth.” Her voice was barely a mumble, sleep slowly encroaching again as Waverly’s gentle touch and voice calmed her ragged nerves.

“Yeah. So it lived in there until Theseus went in after it. He wasn’t really involved, but a lot of the heroes in Greek mythology were just sent to do a lot of kind of random quests, just to prove how heroic they were. So it was kinda like that. So he…” Waverly continued, but Nicole stopped listening to the words itself, instead just focusing on the cadence of her voice, letting it wash over her like a balm to her senses, drowning out every other thought.

If she had more dreams after that, she mercifully didn’t remember them when she stirred in the early morning, as the barest gray light glowed in the window. Waverly was still propped up against the headboard, now resting back against the pillow while Nicole sprawled directly in her lap. As Nicole lay there peacefully, she heard Waverly rouse in a sudden intake of breath.

“Oh, balls, where was I?” she murmured, sounding annoyed with herself. Her voice had a slight hoarseness to it, as if from overuse. “Uh, right, so Odysseus decides to go to his own house, which… I mean, bold move, right? And his wife doesn’t even recognize him. Which, to be fair, he’s in disguise and has been gone for like ten years, so why would she? His dog does, but it literally dies of excitement when it sees him, and may I just say, how messed up is that? Why did that have to be part of the story? Anyway, one of his servants recognizes him, too, but…”

Nicole, momentarily baffled, realized that Waverly had probably been up half the night telling her this story, knowing that her voice and her touch were keeping the nightmares at bay.

“Wave…” she murmured, and heard Waverly’s voice stutter to a halt.

“Oh, hey, you’re awake!” It returned, softer and sweeter. “How do you feel?”

“Fine. Good.” She blinked up at Waverly’s tired face. “Grateful. You didn’t need to stay up all night.”

“I didn’t, really. It hasn’t been that long, and I kept falling asleep anyway.” She smiled bashfully. “But you seemed to sleep better while I was talking, so I thought…”

“Thank you.”

“It was no big deal. I almost never get a captive audience like that.”

Nicole thought about moving out of her lap, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. It was her last tiny sanctuary, and she would stay there until she absolutely had to get up.

Waverly didn’t move to evict her. Her hands still stroked gently, aimlessly. They sat in quiet peace for several more minutes.

“Are you going to talk to Nedley again?” Waverly asked finally, breaking the silence as the gray, wispy dawn turned into yellow sunlight pouring through the window.

Nicole hesitated at the thought of spending still more emotional energy on her past, but realized the answer was obvious.

“Yeah. I think I have to. If nothing else, we still have to figure out the sheriff situation in Primm.”

“Do you think you’ll take the job?” Waverly asked. She said it quietly, and Nicole couldn’t read in her tone what answer she was hoping for.

“I don’t know,” Nicole hedged, unhelpfully. “I mean, I kinda already agreed to it. Back when he first sent the letter. But... Like I told him… things have changed since then.”

She didn’t bother specifying which things. The gunshot. The memories lost. The memories found. Purgatory. Waverly.

“Primm’s not so far,” Waverly said, although she didn’t sound entirely thrilled.

“Yeah, it wouldn’t be so bad. I’d have to live there, though. I don’t trust that idiot deputy of theirs. And the NCR is just waiting for an excuse to annex it.”

“Vultures,” Waverly murmured, then blushed. “Sorry, I’ve lived with Wynonna for too long.”

Nicole sighed.

“No, you’re not totally off-base. Don’t get me wrong, most of the NCR folks are alright. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. But I don’t fully trust them either. Especially that Lucado.” Nicole rubbed her forehead wearily. “Maybe I could make a deal with them. Partial jurisdiction, or something.”

“Or if you got a better deputy, one you could trust to leave in charge sometimes.”

“Yeah, maybe…” Nicole murmured. “I’d probably have to go somewhere else to find one. No one else in Primm is qualified, or they would have been press-ganged into service already.”

“It’s a big wasteland. I’m sure there’s someone out there,” Waverly said, her tone optimistic. Nicole just hummed a vague agreement.

And even though she knew she was burning daylight and ought to go have that talk, she didn’t quite yet. For just a few more precious moments, she closed her eyes, lay in Waverly’s embrace, and just breathed.

It was a tip from Wynonna that eventually led Nicole down towards the Styx, Calamity helping clear her path of geckos as she picked her way down the rocky hill in the late morning. And as Wynonna had promised, there at an old campsite, just before the road forked, was Nedley, sitting at a crackling campfire. Something sizzled on a spit over the flame— gecko, she assumed, though there were coyotes in the area, too.

“Hey!” she called out, her boots sliding in some loose rock as she stumbled down the last bit of incline onto the flat campsite. Reddish dust billowed up around her feet.

“Howdy,” Nedley said, tipping his hat— a rawhide sheriff’s Stetson. Nicole tipped her own.

Nicole hesitated on the fringes of the camp, feeling uncharacteristically shy and awkward.

“I remember you,” she said finally. “Not everything. But… flashes.”

Nedley gestured beside him, to a makeshift chair made from an overturned barrel. Tentatively, Nicole approached and eased herself down onto the sun-warmed metal. She fussed with her hat, angling it to keep the sun out of her face.

“You really kept tabs on me all these years?” she asked him, eyes darting towards him before turning back to the flames of the campfire.

“You made an impression,” he said. “You were scrappy, and brave. A little fighter, out in the world for the first time. I wanted to know that you were okay. That you were finding your way out in the wasteland.”

“I did alright for myself.” Nicole watched as he rotated the spit, causing the meat to sizzle harder.

“You did,” he agreed.

“I’m not sure I can take the sheriff’s job in Primm,” she said finally. “Or at least not the way it is now. Primm needs law, but it’s not the only place around here that does. None of the little towns around here have sheriffs. They don’t have protection. And the towns are too independent to want to let the NCR take over.”

“Interesting,” Nedley grunted, eyeing her sideways. “So what’s your proposal?”

“I want to travel around to some of these outlying towns. Purgatory, and Sloan. Maybe Nipton or Novac, if they want it.”

“And Primm?”

“Especially Primm.” Primm was the largest town in the area, and by far the most populated. “I’d need someone I could trust to stay there while I’m away. A deputy. Or a co-sheriff.” She looked up at him. “I don’t suppose you’re interested?”

He pulled off his hat and ran his hand through his gray hair, clearly considering the question.

“Not for the long game,” he said finally. “I can hold down the fort for a little while, but I retired for a reason. That job ain’t for the faint of heart, and it can take its toll on you over the years. You need some younger blood than me. These days, all I want is to fish in the river and visit my daughter in Arroyo every once in awhile.”

Nicole felt a flicker of disappointment, but couldn’t blame him. He looked old, especially by Mojave standards, and sheriff was a physically demanding job. It was impressive enough that he’d survived as long as he had. It was only fair that he got to enjoy a safe retirement— especially with the Revenants running rampant over the area.

She picked up a stick and poked at the fire, stirring it up until the flame jumped higher.

“Do you think it’s a crazy idea?” she asked him. “Trying to cover a wider area like that?”

He seemed to ruminate over the question for several long seconds.

“Far from it. I’d say it’s just what this part of the desert needs. But that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy.” He chuckled a little. “But if anyone could make it work, it’d be you. If you think you’re up to it.”

Nicole drew in a long breath and blew it out slowly.

He was right— it wouldn’t be easy. She would need to find someone qualified and trustworthy to work with her in Primm, and covering all the little outlying towns would mean lots of travel. But it would keep her close to Purgatory. Close to the Earps and Doc and Robin. Close to Waverly. It would expand her jurisdiction to encompass Purgatory, to let her protect the little town and its few residents.

“Well then… I guess I’m going to have to find myself a deputy…”

Chapter Text

Waverly woke up disappointed, but at least this time not surprised to find the bed still empty. Nicole had been gone for four days in search of a deputy, and for Waverly stuck in Purgatory, sleep was proving elusive. She couldn’t help lying awake, wondering where Nicole was, if she was safe, and if she was on her way home. The bed was cold without her, although did take comfort in the blanket Nicole had given her after her first visit to Primm. Its weight and warmth at least reminded her that wherever Nicole was, she at least probably thought of her sometimes— or, if Nicole was to be believed, constantly.

Waverly groaned and curled deeper under the blanket, feeling ridiculous. In the grand scheme of things, four days was nothing. She had survived years of sleeping alone in her own bed, and it had never seemed like a problem before now. It shouldn’t matter that she didn’t have Nicole’s warm body breathing next to her. It shouldn’t matter that she didn’t have her to talk to at the end of the day, before they both fell asleep.

She could tell she wasn’t hiding her distress as well as she had hoped— Wynonna kept giving her knowing looks and acting uncharacteristically soft with her. It was as sweet as it was annoying.

Instead, she found herself spending more time with Robin in the general store, slumped morosely on his counter while he hummed along to the radio and lent a sympathetic ear. Unlike her sisters, he understood her roiling feelings, and if he didn’t outright know about her relationship with Nicole, he at the very least suspected plenty of the truth.

So once she had coaxed herself out of bed, she headed that way again. In the quiet morning, the radio played in the background of the dimly lit shop, as she helped him catalog his inventory, sorting out different sizes of low-quality surplus ammunition into a row of buckets.

“You look tired,” Robin said, just as she was yawning— which made it difficult to argue with him.

“I didn’t sleep well,” she admitted. She silently hoped that wherever Nicole was, she was sleeping better, and that the nightmares weren’t plaguing her in the night. “But I’m fine. It’s nothing, really.”

Robin made an unconvinced hum and returned to his task, taking apart a broken toaster into scrap metal.

Once the toaster was a pile of wires and fuses and Waverly was nearly cross-eyed from distinguishing 10mm from 9mm bullets, Mr. New Vegas’s usual broadcast was rudely interrupted by a metallic clang from just outside. Robin stood from his stool, heading for the door.

“Probably a courier with the mail,” he explained, answering her curious look. “I’m expecting a delivery from the 188.” He ducked outside, presumably to check the Mojave Express drop box on the shop’s porch, and returned a minute later with his arms full of a few small packages… and one envelope. The packages must have been the ones he had expected, since he deposited them easily behind the counter with barely a second look. But the envelope he eyed curiously.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” he chuckled, sounding amused and intrigued as he tapped it against his hand.

“What is it?” Waverly asked, wiping her grease-streaked hands on a rag. With a grin, he handed it over to her. She took it, and when he didn’t offer any further explanation, she flipped it over and scanned the back of it. Printed there, in a neat, tall script, was her name.

Waverly Earp
Shorty’s Saloon
Purgatory, Nevada

She didn’t recognize the handwriting directly, but her heart still leapt, because, really, there was only one person who would be writing to her. She slid a finger under the flap and ripped the envelope open. Inside were a few pieces of paper, wrinkled and a little stained. And at the very bottom of the final page, the one word she wanted to see more than anything.

Nicole

“What’s she say?” Robin asked. Waverly, already halfway through the letter, flicked her gaze up only briefly to eye him.

“Who?” Waverly said, feigning ignorance. Robin gave a short laugh.

“You can’t possibly be telling me that that isn’t a letter from a certain redhead.”

Waverly considered continuing the charade, but it was too tempting to talk about the letter in earnest.

“She’s in Novac,” she said, eyes skimming back to the beginning of the letter and starting over.

Dear Waverly,

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Novac. The owner is charging me an arm and a leg, but the room is actually pretty nice. The townsfolk here are weird. I’ll tell you about them once I’m back. No Securitrons, at least.

“That’s… what, northeast?” Robin said, sounding unsure. He called himself a homebody; neither of them had ever traveled that far outside of Purgatory. But even if she hadn’t seen it all with her own eyes, she did like looking at maps whenever she found them.

“Southeast,” she corrected. It wasn’t far, but none of the roads to Novac were very direct, so it would be either a long, safe journey by road or a short, dangerous one by the wasteland. Waverly could guess which route Nicole had chosen. “She says she’s met some interesting folks there. A Ranger. And…” Her mouth fell open a little.

“What?” Robin asked, his eyebrows furrowing as he tried to read her shocked expression. Waverly read the paragraph again to make sure she hadn’t misunderstood.

I have to tell you before I run out of paper— There’s a woman here that everyone calls Old Lady Gibson. She owns the local junkyard and helps people repair their broken stuff. She was helping me fix some stuff, and I told her I had just come from Purgatory. She said her family was from there, and she knew you and your sisters. She wouldn’t tell me much, but she seemed glad to hear that you were all doing well. I hope it’s okay that I told her a little about how you all still ran the bar and everything. She seemed nice. Tough, but fair. I told her she should visit, and she said she might.

“I think she met Gus,” Waverly said, hands shaking.

“Gus, as in… your aunt Gus?” Robin’s eyebrows went from furrowed to arched in record time.

“In Novac.” Waverly shook her head a little, still a little stunned from the news. “I never knew she was so close. When she moved away, I thought she was going to California.”

“Small world,” Robin said, giving a low whistle.

Nicole’s letter continued on— she clearly didn’t realize what a bombshell the news about Gus would be. She mentioned an ex-NCR soldier she was trying to pry more information out of, she talked a little about the town’s strange ‘guardian,’ and she teased that she’d already picked out a present to bring home.

Waverly was grateful for the letter, but it also made her feel Nicole’s absence all the more keenly. Reading her words was almost like talking to her— she could imagine Nicole’s voice saying them, maybe as they both lay in her bed at the end of the day. But she couldn’t talk back, couldn’t see her face, couldn’t hear her laugh. It was hard not to miss her even more.

“Do you think I can write back?” Waverly asked. Robin shrugged.

“Probably, if she’s still there. The mail couriers are pretty quick. And they’d stop in Novac. I mean, they must, if she sent the letter from there. I think I’ve heard of them having a dropbox there, in the motel. And the traders always stop there when they go that way.”

Waverly nodded, already composing in her head. “Do you have a pen I could borrow?”

A few hours later, Waverly dropped her own letter into the Mojave Express dropbox, the envelope labeled Nicole Haught, Novac, Motel. Inside, she thanked Nicole for the letter and urged her to keep writing home. She told her that ‘Old Lady Gibson’ was her mom’s sister— her aunt, who she hadn’t seen since she was a teenager but had helped raise her and run the bar when she had been younger. And, most importantly, she said that she hoped she found what she was looking for there and came back soon.

The reply came the next day.

I can’t believe she didn’t tell me she was your aunt! In that case, she really does have to visit.

I’m still working on Dolls, the ex-First-Recon I told you about. It’s a little hard to get a read on him, but he seems like a good man. Has a real hatred for the Legion, which is always a good sign in a person. I have a good feeling about him, but I need him to warm up to me first. I’m trying to talk him into traveling with me for a little while. It sounds like there’s a scuffle between the NCR and the Legion over in Nelson, and I bet I can talk him into coming with me to give them a hand. Maybe after that he’ll be more receptive.

Waverly winced, wishing Nicole was in front of her so that she could tell her No, she should not go intervene in any “scuffle” (definitely a cute euphemism for an ugly situation) between the NCR and the Legion. The last thing Waverly needed was to lie awake at night (alone, no less) wondering if Nicole was off being nailed to a cross or thrown to a pack of hungry dogs. If, or rather when Nicole returned to Purgatory, Waverly would definitely have some words for her about her ‘charging into a burning building’ tendencies. As much as she didn’t mind Nicole’s scars, she didn’t like to imagine the specifics of her acquiring more of them.

Nicole must have suspected as much, because the letter ended with so many assurances that she would be very careful and everything would be perfectly fine and it really wouldn’t be that dangerous, that the whole thing backfired and it just made Waverly worry more.

“Well?” Robin prompted, as she skimmed back through the letter a third time. By this time, Waverly was supposed to be at the bar, helping out Wynonna during the afternoon rush, but this felt infinitely more important.

“It sounds like she’s found someone she thinks is promising. But as a bonding activity, she’s taking him to fight a Legion camp.”

Robin’s eyebrows crept up slightly.

“Ah. She couldn’t have just bought him a beer? Maybe played a few rounds of Caravan instead? Some checkers?”

“Right?!” Waverly agreed wholeheartedly, trapped between annoyed-and-fuming and scared-and-concerned.

“Well, I’m sure she wouldn’t be so cavalier about it if she didn’t think it was going to turn out fine,” Robin assured her, squeezing her shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll be okay. And hey, if it works and that guy turns out to be good deputy material, maybe she’ll be home soon.”

Waverly let out a breath and sank back down into the wooden chair by the counter, feeling exhausted.

“I really hope so…”

Chapter Text

Nicole stood back as her companion leveled a sniper rifle at the distant radscorpion and expertly peppered several shots into its stinger. It turned and started to charge towards them, but another volley of gunfire seemed to change its mind, and it went scrambling, limping, back over the rocks, away from their path.

“Nice one,” she said, tucking Calamity back into her holster as she saw she wouldn’t be needed.

“I hate those things,” he said flatly, reloading the rifle with practiced efficiency. It clicked as he snapped it back to position, and he adjusted the red beret on his head. “Better to not let them get close.”

“No argument here,” Nicole agreed as they set off walking again, picking their way over uneven ground and craggy rocks. She sighed. “They probably wouldn’t stray so close to the road if the caravans were running normally. This area really needs to be cleaned up so everyone can start trading again.”

“So you keep saying,” Dolls said, the smallest hint of an amused smile playing at his lips. “And as I keep saying, I don’t know that I have any part in that.”

“Maybe not. But maybe it’s worth thinking about. I mean, it didn’t seem like you were having a great time there in Novac. Wouldn’t you like to get out of that dinosaur’s mouth and do something more with your life?”

Nicole had pulled Dolls out of the Novac sniper’s nest and convinced him to travel with her for awhile. After taking out some Legionaries in Nelson, he had warmed to her considerably, and agreed to at least go look at Primm before agreeing or disagreeing to anything.

“I already did something with my life,” he said, not for the first time. “I’m retired.”

“What, at your ripe old age?” she said, her breathing hard as she clambered over a gray boulder. “You really think you won’t get bored standing in that sniper’s nest twelve hours a day for the rest of your life?”

Dolls didn’t answer that, but Nicole knew she had scored a point.

“We’re getting close,” she said instead, letting him off the hook. She could feel herself pushing their pace faster as bit by bit, Purgatory came into view through the piercing red-orange light of the setting sun. First, she had just spotted the water tower over the cemetery. Then the cemetery itself. Then the neon sign for Shorty’s and the gas station on the hill. And finally the other smattering of buildings could be seen, piecemeal, through the rocky terrain they were still crossing.

“You’re can’t tell me that speck of a town needs two sheriffs,” Dolls said a little skeptically, surveying the boarded-up buildings and bored-looking Bighorners chewing on scrub grass. It looked like a ghost town.

“No,” Nicole said. “That’s Primm. We’re heading there next. This is Purgatory.”

He nodded knowingly.

“Home of the famous Waverly Earp, I take it?” he guessed. Though she had tried to control herself, Dolls had certainly heard the name ‘Waverly’ mentioned several hundred times over their days of traveling together.

“Yes,” Nicole admitted. “And just a decent place to stop overnight so we don’t have to travel to Primm in the dark.”

“I’ve traveled in the dark before,” Dolls said indifferently.

“Me, too, but in this case we don’t need to.”

Their feet met what passed for a road into town, and Nicole bounded up the porch stairs to Shorty’s Saloon, her heart leaping as she reached the door.

The bell jingled over her head as she stepped inside, her eyes already sweeping the room for a familiar face. At first she came up empty, but then, like a dream, Waverly swept in from the other half of the bar, a tray of drinks balanced expertly on one hand.

Nicole stopped her by snagging her arm, and she wheeled, a stern look in her eye and the beginnings of a protest on her lips. Until she saw who it was who had grabbed her. Then, instead, her face lit up, first in surprise and then in excitement. The tray of bottle rattled ominously, and Nicole suspected that only her years of experience working in a bar kept Waverly from dropping the tray outright. Instead, she hurriedly set it on a table, her other hand already reaching out, and they met in a tight hug.

“Hi,” Nicole said into her hair, her mood so high she was nearly laughing. “Sorry I was gone longer than I expected.”

Waverly pulled back a little, her eyes roaming up and down Nicole’s arms and over every inch of bared skin.

“You didn’t actually fight Legionaries, did you?”

Nicole first wondered how she had known, then belatedly remembered mentioning it in one of her letters. In hindsight, she probably shouldn’t have— Waverly worried about her enough even without knowing that she was once again running into a knowingly dangerous situation.

“We did,” came a deep voice from behind her. Waverly jumped slightly, and Nicole’s arms tightened around her instinctively. She moved slightly so Waverly could see her traveling companion towering in the doorway.

“Waverly, this is Xavier Dolls, First Recon. Dolls, this is Waverly.”

“Ex-First Recon,” Dolls corrected. Despite his protest, he didn’t look ‘ex’ military. He still wore the red beret of his division, still carried a well-maintained scoped hunting rifle, still had the physique of someone keeping up with their physical training. Only his civilian clothes— a beige v-neck shirt and green cargo pants, gave away that he might no longer be on-duty. Regardless, he nodded a greeting. “And I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Nicole felt a flush of heat creep up her neck as Waverly cocked an eyebrow at her.

“I’m taking him on to Primm, but I thought we’d stop here first, just to catch our breath,” Nicole said.

“Well, welcome to Purgatory,” Waverly said, offering him a bright smile.

“Nice saloon,” he commented, stepping inside and looking around, at the long counter of bar seating, at the pool tables in the next room, at the tables and booths scattered everywhere. “Much nicer than the one in Boulder City or the Mojave Outpost.”

“Thanks,” Waverly said, seeming cheered by the compliment. “You can sit down if you want. This is our busy time of day, but there’s plenty of room.”

He nodded his thanks and strode over towards the back corner of the bar, where he could sit against the wall and keep a watchful eye over the room. Meanwhile, the radio once again played Big Iron, the familiar guitar setting the scene.

To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day… Hardly spoke to folks around him, didn’t have too much to say…

Waverly sighed a little as they were left semi-alone, still standing near the door. Nicole’s arms were still in a loose circle around her.

“I was hoping you’d change your mind about fighting the Legionaries,” Waverly sighed.

“I didn’t go in alone. Dolls and I went in with an NCR ranger and some soldiers. It really wasn’t that bad.” Admittedly, she was understating things a bit. There had been plenty of gunfire and a few angry dogs— one of whom had latched onto Nicole’s leg and tried its damndest to tear it off before Dolls managed to take it down with a clean shot. It was healing well, but the wound still throbbed sometimes after walking or running, and she could tell it would take a few more days to stop.

“And you’re both okay?” Waverly asked, meeting her eyes as if daring her to lie.

“We’re both fine,” Nicole insisted, holding the eye contact. Waverly seemed to weigh her words for a long moment, then seemed to relax.

“You know if you’re lying, I’ll just find out later, right?” Waverly said, shoving her gently away so that she could return to work. Nicole felt her smile pull up automatically.

“I know.”

Nicole glanced over at Dolls, who was still seated in the corner, then took a seat at the bar. It felt good to sit down— they’d been traveling all day, and her leg was throbbing under the bite marks. She rubbed her hand over it absently. In between serving other patrons, Waverly slipped her a Sunset Sarsaparilla and a few smiles, and Nicole counted the seconds until they could slip away to bed.

“Oh, now he’s new to town,” came another familiar voice from across the bar, about an hour after she had arrived. Nicole turned to find Wynonna pouring a glass of whiskey.

“You think?” Nicole asked sardonically, a smile spreading across her face. She had missed Waverly the most, but it was good to see Wynonna, too.

“I would remember that ass,” Wynonna said immediately. Nicole rolled her eyes a little, chuckling. “Oh. Welcome back to you, too.” Wynonna pushed the whiskey glass over to her, and Nicole accepted it, taking a small sip.

“Thanks,” Nicole said, only a little sarcastically. Wynonna eyed Dolls again, narrowing her eyes a little at him.

“Are you sure you want your sheriff to be the kind of guy who wears sunglasses indoors? Isn’t that disqualifying?”

“He takes them off sometimes,” Nicole said. “Besides, we’ve been traveling together for almost a week now, and I think I have a read on him. He seems cold at first, but I think underneath it, he’s actually kind of a puppy.”

“Uh-huh,” Wynonna said skeptically. “Is ‘traveling together’ a euphemism for ‘boning?’”

Nicole choked so hard on her whiskey that it shot into her sinuses and burned like nuclear fire. She coughed and spluttered wordlessly, her eyes watering. She tried to shake her head.

“No? Well, your loss, somebody ought to lock that fine ass down,” Wynonna said indifferently.

Waverly appeared at her side, apparently summoned by Nicole’s sudden choking spell.

“What’s going on?” she asked, clearly trying to get a read on the situation. She rubbed Nicole’s back as she coughed helplessly.

“I was just asking Haught about her apparently tragic sex life,” Wynonna said flippantly.

Nicole felt Waverly’s hand freeze on her back.

“You were… what now?”

“Hey, if she’s not going to hit that, fine. More for the rest of us.” Wynonna shrugged, jerking her head towards Dolls, who Nicole hoped was mercifully unaware of the conversation.

Nicole managed to finally clear the whiskey from where it didn’t belong and suck in a much-needed breath.

“I… never… want to have this conversation… again,” she panted. Wynonna ignored her.

“I’m here for the night shift,” Wynonna told her sister, paying no attention to Nicole’s affronted glare. “You can go home if you want. Unless you want to hang around.”

Nicole’s annoyance towards Wynonna evaporated in an instant. She and Waverly exchanged a glance, both equally eager to retreat somewhere private, where they could really talk and relax.

“I’ll take Dolls over to the Poseidon station,” Nicole murmured, too low for Wynonna to overhear.

“Okay. I’ll meet you at my window after?” Waverly whispered back.

“Wild brahmin couldn’t drag me away,” Nicole said as agreement. With a subtle squeeze of her hand under the bar, Waverly called a goodbye to her sister and waved to a few customers as she headed out the door. Nicole watched her until the door swung shut behind her, then meandered back to where Dolls sat.

“Ready to turn in?” she asked him, leaning against the wall next to his table. He shrugged.

“Sure, I guess. You have a place in town?”

“So to speak,” Nicole hedged. “Old Poseidon station up the hill. Used to be used for storage, but they set it up for me if I need a place to lie low. It’s not much, but the door locks and there’s a cot.”

“Works for me,” he said, though Nicole could detect a question in his voice. “Why the old gas station, though? It looks like there’s no shortage of empty houses around town. You stay here enough, you haven’t cleared one out yet?” he asked. Nicole paused. It was a reasonably question.

“I guess I’ve been thinking about it,” she admitted hesitantly. “Hasn’t been much of an issue yet. I have another place to stay.”

“I can camp nearby if you don’t want to share,” Dolls offered, an appreciated but unnecessary attempt at chivalry. Nicole shook her head.

“No, it’s all yours. I’m staying with… a friend.” She didn’t go into specifics, but she could tell that she didn’t need to.

“Oh, a friend?” He asked, his stoic face giving away a hint of an amused smile. Nicole rolled her eyes.

“Shut up.”

“You make it sound so mysterious,” he mused, as he stood and they headed towards the door. “I wouldn’t dare guess who you’re staying with.”

“Leave it, or I really will make you camp outside,” she snapped back, playfully.

He chuckled, a rare sound, as he followed her out the door.

Chapter Text

With Dolls left safely at the old abandoned gas station, Nicole crept the familiar path down to the Earp house, down the dusty hill, towards the window where a light still shone yellow in the night. She held her breath as she approached, her senses reaching out just in case today was finally the day Wynonna or Willa would be out on a moonlight stroll and catch her at their sister’s window. But all she could hear was the rustling wind and the distant howl of a coyote. She leaned against the wooden frame of the window and tapped her knuckle softly against the glass. Waverly appeared almost instantly, framed in the glass like a portrait, and lifted the sash for her.

Nicole hopped up onto the sill and slid into the room, landing softly on the wooden floor and immediately pulling her boots off to soften the sound of her footsteps. Waverly heaved the window closed again behind her. The room looked the same as it had when she had left for Novac— the wardrobe, the chair in the corner, the lamp glowing on the nightstand. The bookshelf in the corner was a little fuller than it had been on her first visit, and the decorative blanket was spread over the bed. Deep down, the sight of her gifts on display warmed her.

“Do you want your present now, or do you want to wait till morning?” Nicole asked, as she caught Waverly yawning.

“You really don’t have to keep getting me things,” Waverly said, though she didn’t quite succeed at looking disapproving.

“I know I don’t have to,” Nicole said. “But I want to. Especially if I see something I think you’d like.”

“Well, this time it can wait till morning. I’m exhausted,” Waverly sighed. She was already wearing a nightdress, and Nicole retreated to the corner to change into her own nightclothes. “Which is your fault, by the way. I’d sleep better if I didn’t have to keep worrying about you running headfirst into Legion camps.”

“Sorry,” Nicole said, sincerely. “I wasn’t thinking when I wrote that. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“I mean, if you were going to do it anyway, I’m glad you told me. I’d rather know that you’re at least telling me the truth and not hiding when you’re about to do something reckless.”

Nicole padded over to the bed and took her usual side, almost chuckling to herself as Waverly scootched over to make room for her— while she was gone, she had wondered if she was misremembering the bed being too small for both of them, but that part of her memory was fine. She settled on her back, taking up at least half the bed, but extended her arm for Waverly to curl herself into. Waverly did, seeming perfectly comfortable with the closeness. The warmth was cozy and welcome. The hotel in Novac had been comfortable, but nothing beat this.

“You know, I don’t think I could lie to you or hide something important like that, even if I wanted to,” Nicole mused. She had never been much of a liar anyway, and Waverly seemed to somehow instinctively draw truths out of her.

“Good,” Waverly mumbled into her shirt, her face tucked into Nicole’s side. In the warm, dark room, Nicole felt herself fully relax for the first time since she left Purgatory a week ago. The sound and feel of Waverly breathing beside her was a balm to her senses, and her eyes slid shut automatically. “Are you still having nightmares? About your vault?” Waverly asked, and Nicole blinked her eyes back open.

“This is one of those times I really wish I were able to lie to you,” Nicole murmured, raising her free hand to rub at her face. She wanted to understate them, but there didn’t seem to be a point. “I’ve had some. They don’t usually last all night, but they wake me up.”

Waverly made a sympathetic noise, her hand sliding up to rest on Nicole’s stomach.

“If you have one tonight, wake me up, too, okay?” she said. “Promise me.”

Nicole disagreed, frowning. “I don’t want to wake you up all the time just because I have a bad dream.”

“Not every time, then,” Waverly conceded. “But tonight. Okay? Just for tonight.”

Nicole hesitated, but didn’t have the will to keep fighting it. She didn’t like the idea of waking her, but even she could admit that it was a soothing idea. It would no doubt help her calm down and fall back asleep.

“Okay. Just for tonight. I promise.” She placed her own hand over Waverly’s, holding it in place, as the dark room lulled her to sleep.

The promise turned out to be unnecessary— Nicole slept like the dead and only woke when the sun was already streaming through the window, making her burrow her head into the pillow to block out the light. This squirming apparently woke Waverly, who make a sleepy noise of confusion at the disturbance.

“What time is it?” Waverly asked through a yawn.

“No idea,” Nicole answered, her voice severely muffled by the pillow. “Morning?”

She felt Waverly shift around and sit up a little, propping herself up on one arm.

“Can’t argue with that,” Waverly mused. Nicole felt a hand brush down her back, so nice that she nearly arched into it like a cat. “Still tired?”

“A little.” Nicole wouldn’t have said no to another few hours of sleep, but as daylight continued to encroach, she at least had to admit that she had slept well. Her desire for more sleep was more a desire to stay cuddled up in bed, and to not have to return to the world of responsibilities and logistics.

The bed shifted again and the floorboards creaked softly as Waverly got up. Nicole, her head still under the pillow, gave a muffled grunt of protest. Staying in bed held less appeal if she was going to be there alone. Blinking, she rolled onto her back and let the morning light drag her fully into wakefulness.

By the time she had roused herself enough to fully sit up, Waverly was halfway through buttoning her blouse, and Nicole watched in mild disappointment as her collarbones disappeared beneath the floral fabric.

Once her senses returned to her, she eased herself out of the bed and over to where she had deposited her courier bag the night before. As she knelt to fish out some day clothes, the tables turned, and Waverly eyed her from across the room.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice the bandage on your leg,” Waverly said, her voice stern. Nicole’s gaze drifted down to where a linen bandage covered the still-healing bite from the Legion mongrel.

“Dog bite,” Nicole said quickly. Waverly arched a skeptical eyebrow.

“A dog bite?”

“Yep. No bullets. No cazadors. Just a dog.”

Waverly looked her in the eye, as if gaguing whether or not she was telling the truth. In Nicole’s own defense, it was the truth, she just didn’t go into the gory, Legion-related specifics.

“You should still probably let Doc look at it,” Waverly insisted.

“I will. Later. First, I have a present for you from Novac.”

Waverly tilted her head, her eyes going soft.

“I guess I should just be glad you didn’t need a robot to help you carry it this time.” She crossed the room and lowered herself to sit next to Nicole on the floor.

Nicole grinned, pulling her prize from out of the courier bag. Waverly just stared at it curiously for several seconds.

“What is it?”

Nicole handed it over.

“I know it’s silly, but it’s cute. Novac is lousy with them. I think it’s named Dinky the Dinosaur.”

Waverly took the small, stuffed toy with a slightly bemused smile. It was shaped like a green T-rex, reared up with its mouth open in a roar. It had fluffy spikes along its back and non-threatening fabric teeth.

“It’s a little version of the huge statue they have in front of their town. It’s as tall as the water tower. They turned his mouth into a sniper’s nest. It’s crazy. You should see it someday.” Nicole gestured to the toy. “I knew I couldn’t describe it, so I thought he was the next best thing. Plus, he can keep you company when I have to take Dolls to Primm.”

Waverly smiled down at the fluffy toy, brushing her fingers down its plush scales.

“That’s sweet.” Waverly stood, carrying the stuffed dinosaur over and setting him on the bookshelf, where he seemed to loom overhead, guarding the books. “You may not realize it, but you got me a much better present than that.”

“I did?” Nicole said blankly.

“Gus. My aunt. You found her.”

“Oh. Yeah. You really didn’t know she was there?” Nicole asked. She never would have suspected that the old woman with the junkyard of old machinery was related to the Earps, outside of a general outer toughness and inner softness that they all seemed to share (Willa possibly excluded. If Willa had a soft center, Nicole figured it would take a jackhammer to find it.)

“She and my mom had a falling out,” Waverly said, perching on the edge of the bed. Her smile had turned slightly wry. “Over my dad. Gus didn’t like him.”

“From what you’ve told me about him, she had a point.”

“Yeah. She wasn’t wrong. But I guess my mom didn’t want to hear it.” Waverly shrugged. “I haven’t seen her since I was a teenager. I thought she’d gone off to California, or somewhere like that. I had no idea she was just a few towns away.”

“Small world…” Nicole murmured. “I could take you out there to see her, if you wanted.”

Waverly seemed to consider this, biting her lip.

“Not yet. I want to write her first. I don’t even know if she’d still want to see me. Or us. Wynonna and Willa.”

“Okay,” Nicole said. “For what it’s worth, she sounded really happy to hear about you.”

“I’m glad to hear about her, too,” Waverly said, reassuring her a little. “It’s just been a long time.” Waverly shrugged. “I can write something today and drop it in Robin’s Mojave Express drop box. I ought to head down to the bar anyway, before Wynonna or Willa come looking for me.”

Nicole nodded.

“I should check in with Dolls, too.”

Waverly seemed to freeze.

“Are you leaving again today?”

Nicole paused herself, midway through pulling a clean shirt out of her satchel.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’d rather wait another day or two if we can, but we don’t want to drag our feet for too long. Nedley and Champ are holding down the fort in Primm, but we don’t know what Svane and his lackeys are doing over at the correctional facility. Or what they’re planning.”

“I get it.” Waverly looked at her a little sadly, her arms crossed in front of her. “Just let me know once you know when you’re going, okay?”

“I will,” Nicole promised sincerely, reaching out to grip her arm reassuringly. “As soon as I know, you’ll know.”

Chapter Text

While Waverly left to tend the bar, Nicole dressed (in a paisley button-up shirt, denim jeans, and her white Stetson) and made her way over to the Poseidon station. Dolls was already up, leaning against one of the long-empty gas pumps and surveying the town from above.

He didn’t move his head, and she couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, but she knew he saw her picking her way up the hill. He radiated awareness of his surroundings.

“What do you think?” Nicole asked him, as she reached his side. The sun was already high, baking the town and making Nicole pull her hat low over her eyes.

“The way you described it, I was expecting… more,” he said. Nicole followed his gaze. Down the hill sat the saloon and the general store, huddled together, with boarded-up houses sprawling in all directions around it. Aside from the old unused schoolhouse, none of the other buildings really stood out as landmarks or offered the town any additional resources to recommend it. Nicole shrugged a little.

“Maybe it’s just me. I’ve been a lot of places, but this is the first one I’ve really wanted to come back to,” she said sincerely. Purgatory might not be that much to look at, but it was home to Wynonna and Waverly and Shorty’s and Robin and Doc, and those facts were enough to give it a shine in her eyes. “But I know, it needs some… fixing up.”

“Is that your plan?” he asked her. “To fix it up?”

Nicole didn’t answer right away.

“Suppose that depends. Right now, I’m not so sure I’m not doing it more harm than good.” She sighed, leaning on the shady side of the gas pump. “First thing I need to worry about is getting those Revenants taken care of. After that…” She shrugged. “After that, anything’s possible.”

He gave a slight nod, and the two of them sat in a reasonably comfortable silence for a minute.

“When are we headed out to Primm?” he asked finally, breaking the silence. Nicole closed her eyes for a moment, wishing away the answer.

“We should leave today,” she said heavily. “But I’d really like to stay until tomorrow.”

“If you want to stay longer, I can always head out without you,” he offered. It was a tempting thought.

“Maybe,” she conceded. “But I want to talk to Lieutenant Lucado there again. The NCR camp there is our best bet for backup if we’re going to take on the Revenants.”

“I’ve heard of her,” Dolls said. “She was climbing the ranks back when I was in First Recon. She’s ambitious. And competent. But slimy. You should be careful about trusting her too far.”

“Good to know,” Nicole said, making a mental note of that advice. She kicked the dirt a little, her internal debate making her feel frustrated. “I promised Waverly I would have the local doctor look at my leg before we go. After that, we can decide when to leave.” She nodded over toward Doc’s house. “I can meet you back at the bar afterwards.”

He nodded shortly.

“Fine. I could use some water anyway.” He pushed off from the gas pump and started heading downhill towards the general store and saloon. Nicole watched him for a moment, considering warning him about Wynonna, or telling him to go easy on her. But in the end, she let him go. He was a grown man— he could figure out how to play nice.

Instead, she headed in the other direction, towards Doc’s house. She knocked on his door when she reached it, hoping he was around. She would feel silly if he was down at the bar already and she would have to immediately follow in Dolls’s bootprints. Luckily, she heard movement inside, the thunk of riding boots on a wooden floor, before the door swung open. Doc’s bushy mustache bent with the arc of his smile as he saw her on his doorstep. He opened the door wider.

“Well, look who has wandered back already. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

She followed him in, kicking dust off her boots before she stepped inside. Once in the darker interior, she removed her hat and hung it on a hook by the door, sweat already cooling on her forehead.

“I just got back last night. I thought I’d come say hello,” she said. “And Waverly made me promise I’d ask you to check on my leg.” The last part was said a little sheepishly, but Doc didn’t call her out on it.

“Did she now? And what exactly have you done to your leg?”

“It’s less about what I did to it and more about what the Legion’s attack dog did to it.” She pulled up her trouser leg, revealing the bandage. Doc’s expression cleared a little, his eyes taking on a more professional, thoughtful cast.

“Well, that is a different story. Come sit down and I’ll take a look at it.” He nodded her into the next room, and she followed the gesture, entering the living room and taking a seat on his couch. She rolled up the pant leg and unraveled the bandage from the healing wound. He trailed her in, pausing to pick up a bag from a shelf against the wall before kneeling next to her.

The bite was scabbed over, but anyone could see where the mongrel’s sharp teeth and powerful jaws had torn at her calf.

“It doesn’t really hurt that bad anymore,” she told him, mostly just for something to say as he looked it over in silence. “The NCR had a field medic there who cleaned it and offered me some Med-X, but I didn’t take it.”

“A good instinct,” Doc said. “You best be careful with that stuff. Advice I can give from experience.” He stood. “That bite is deeper than most I see from the wild coyotes around here. It looks clean, but it might be best for you to come back in a few days so I can make sure it is healing properly.”

“You miss my sparkling personality that much?” she joked, as he handed her a fresh bandage and supervised her as she re-wrapped it.

“I am glad to see you back in town,” he said, eyes gleaming. “But I do hope you can avoid tangling with the likes of Bulshar’s Legion in the future.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. At least not for the next few days or weeks. I’m headed back to Primm.”

“In that case, I also hope you do not find yourself on the wrong side of a stick of dynamite on your journey.”

“You and me both,” Nicole agreed fervently. “But don’t worry too much, my new traveling companion is ex-First Recon. If one of Bobo’s men wants to come at us with some dynamite, they’ll have to get within fifty paces of us first, and good luck with that.”

“Those are indeed impressive credentials,” Doc agreed. “But for your sake, I hope he is also a good man.”

“I think he is,” Nicole said, thinking back over their past few days of traveling together. He had started out taciturn, almost grim, but had started to soften a little, hour by slow desert hour. He had even started making dry jokes and teasing her, though not enough to feel mean. It felt more like camaraderie, like they were soliders serving together in the trenches. “I hope so, at least. I’ve got a lot riding on that.”

“I would be honored to meet this new companion,” Doc said. “Though I would appreciate you not mentioning my full name to him, if you would be so kind. I made many enemies in my past life, and NCR snipers were not exempt from that designation.”

“I won’t say anything to him,” Nicole promised. “But I sent him down to the bar to wait for me. So you’re welcome to come along if you want to meet him.”

Nicole fetched her hat and she and Doc made their way down to Shorty’s, chatting idly about Calamity and how she had been serving Nicole in her travels. (Very well, Nicole assured him, drawing it with a comfortable spin.)

It was a bright, cloudless day, and hot enough that you could set a tin plate on the ground and sear a brahmin steak in it. Nicole could already feel her shirt sticking to her by the time they reached the saloon. She half expected to walk in to find out that either Wynonna or Dolls had killed each other, so it was a surprise to find them shooting a game of pool in the dim room. Dolls had even removed his sunglasses, and they dangled from his shirt collar, tugging it down into a wide v-shape. He was lining up a shot on the old, worn table, and Wynonna was leaning on her pool cue, trying to pretend she wasn’t staring at his ass as he leaned over. His shot sent two striped balls spinning into the pockets.

“Not bad,” Nicole said. Dolls looked up from the table and nodded a greeting.

“Not bad, but not good enough,” Dolls said, straightening and surveying the table. Nicole followed his gaze and saw that the table was populated almost entirely with striped balls.

“You’re sharking him?” Nicole asked Wynonna, grinning at her.

“Hey, it’s not my fault I grew up in this bar,” Wynonna said with a shrug. “He should get on my level.”

Dolls paced the length of the table, looking for his next shot.

“Game’s not over yet,” he told her.

Wynonna walked over to stand next to Nicole and Doc.

“He says you two shot up some Legionaires the other day,” Wynonna said, half statement, half question.

“We did,” Nicole agreed. “Well, us and a platoon of NCR recruits.”

“Good. Fuck those guys.” She eyed Nicole sideways. “They didn’t get any shots in on you, did they?”

“I’m fine, Wynonna,” Nicole said.

“Good. I mean, Waves would be pretty out if you got yourself shot up, you know?”

“I know. Not that you were worried about me, right?” Nicole teased, fishing for a reaction.

Rather than answer, Wynonna rolled her eyes and retreated to her table, picking up her beer bottle and downing the last of it.

“I’m grabbing another. Who needs a refill?” she asked.

“Water,” Dolls said. Doc and Nicole just shook their heads. Wynonna heading back to the other room and Nicole trailed her, hoping to spot Waverly behind the bar. Her luck held, and she caught sight of her turning the dial of the radio, apparently switching between stations. It came to a halt singing, When an irresistible force such as you meets an old immovable object like me…

Nicole sat herself on the closest barstool and waited to be noticed. Wynonna slid behind the bar, passing her sister with a light hand on her shoulder.

Waverly glanced back at the touch and seemed to notice Nicole seated at the bar.

“Hey,” she said, beaming as though they hadn’t just seen each other earlier that morning.

When an irrepressible smile such as yours warms an old implacable heart such as mine…

“Fancy meeting you here,” Nicole joked. “Doc says my leg looks fine. He wants to look at it again in a few days, but it looks like it’s healing fine.”

“Good. And it doesn’t hurt?”

“Not really,” Nicole said honestly. It had hurt the day before after she’d spent all day walking on it, but today it felt all but normal. Wynonna emerged from behind the bar with a beer in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. “Wait up a second.”

Nicole trailed her back to the other room, where she had planned to introduce Doc and Dolls, but by the time she and Wynonna crossed into it, they already appeared to be in conversation. She heard the word ‘Nelson’ and intuited that Dolls was telling him about their rescue mission from the other day.

“Sorry, I meant to introduce you two. Dolls, this is Doc, the local doctor. Doc, this is Dolls. He was helping protect Novac from raiders, but I’m trying to poach him for Primm.”

The two men nodded in acknowledgement. They both stood tall, as though they were still wary and sizing each other up. Nicole wondered if Doc saw Dolls as a threat to his relationship with Wynonna— or if their relationship was even formal or exclusive enough for that to matter.

Wynonna pushed the bottle of water into Dolls’s chest until he reached up and took it.

“Alright, time to finish you off,” she said, picking the pool cue back up and lining up a shot. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle.” She lightly tapped the cue ball and it sent another solid rolling slowly into the side pocket.

Shaking her head, Nicole thought about retreating back and talking to Waverly again. On the other hand, she was morbidly curious about how Wynonna and Doc and Dolls would interact all in one room, and she was leery of leaving them unsupervised.

A jingle of the bell over the door distracted her from her decision, and she glanced back just in time to see Willa entering the saloon, carrying a basket of what looked like herbs or desert plants.

“Well, this is a lot of business for this early in the day,” she commented, glancing at the small crowd around the pool table. With that, she disappeared into the other half of the room, and Nicole’s decision was made for her. Nicole followed her, unwilling to leave Waverly alone with her eldest sister if she could avoid it. Between the two rooms, she trusted Wynonna and the two men more than Willa Earp.

Crossing back into the bar half of the saloon, she took a seat by the cash register, where Waverly stood counting caps.

“I see you’re back in town,” Willa said breezily to her, a silent ‘unfortunately’ implied in her tone.

“With hospitality like yours, how could I possibly stay away?” Nicole asked, her voice low and dry. Waverly shot her a warning look, but Willa ignored her, beginning to sort the plants from her basket on the counter. Nicole slid a few caps across the counter. “A sarsaparilla, when you get a chance,” she said to Waverly. Ordering a drink would give her an excuse to hang around if Willa felt in the mood to challenge her presence.

“Did you talk to Dolls about when you’re leaving?” Waverly asked her, adding the caps to the ones she was already counting.

“Not yet, he seems pretty happy to hang around for now,” Nicole said, instinctively glancing towards the other room. Waverly fished out a bottle from a refrigerator under the counter and popped the cap with a hiss before sliding it over to Nicole. She took a drink from it. “Besides, there’s no huge rush. Nedley is watching things in Primm for now, and I haven’t heard anything new about Svane or the Revenants since I was there last. Maybe things are finally calming down.”

“Knock on wood,” Waverly recommended, and Nicole cracked a smile. She tapped her knuckles against the bar. The light tapping was overshadowed by heavier thuds from the direction of the door, the slam of heavy boots against the porch. Nicole’s hand went to Calamity on her belt before her mind had time to think about it.

They both turned towards the noise, just as the door burst open, nearly knocking the bell off its hook. There, falling down in the doorway, sweat-soaked and panting, was deputy Champ Hardy.

“They’re coming,” he gasped, falling to his knees in the doorway. “The Revenants. They’re on their way.”

Chapter Text

The bar went from bustling with noise to deathly, eerily silent. Even the radio lost its reception in a dull roar of static.

Nicole’s blood ran cold.

For a moment, everything seemed frozen in time, crystalized, except for Champ panting loudly on the ground after his announcement. The first one to shatter the stillness was Willa, who reached under the bar and emerged with a sawed-off shotgun, which she racked with an echoing clack. The noise seemed to awaken everyone else, and the bar went from still and silent to a flurry of noise and activity.

After a glance to Waverly, Nicole went to Champ’s side and knelt beside him.

“Champ, where are they now? How much time to we have?” she asked. He tried to answer, but the words were lost in a coughing fit. Nicole looked up and met Waverly’s eyes, and Waverly pulled a bottle of water from under the bar, tossing it to her. She handed it to him, while adrenaline made her heart pound so hard it felt like she had taken a dozen hits of Jet. As he took the bottle from her and chugged it down, time crawled by in slow motion.

“The NCR scouts heard them talking and radioed ahead," he sputtered, water dripping down his chin onto his already-soaked shirt. "Lucado told Nedley, Nedley told me to run all the way here. They had only just left the prison. Fifteen, maybe twenty of them.”

Nicole ran a quick calculation in her head, mapping the distance between Purgatory and the prison.

“We might have an hour,” she said. “It’s slower to travel in a group like that.”

“And we’ve got higher ground, we’ll see them coming,” Wynonna added. She looked as serious as Nicole had ever seen her, grim-faced with one hand instinctively on Peacemaker.

“Why are they coming now?” Waverly said, her eyebrows knitted together. She looked less scared about the attack and more like she was trying to puzzle out their motivation.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Willa said. She turned towards Nicole, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “They found out she’s alive. And that we’ve been harboring her here. It was only a matter of time.” Her voice was cold and matter-of-fact. Not angry, just resigned.

Nicole’s breath caught in her lungs. The thought of it, of the Revenants coming to Purgatory with their dynamite and guns and tearing the place apart, endangering all these people she cared about, made bile rise in her throat and nausea turn her stomach.

“I could run ahead and meet them before they reach town,” she said immediately, the idea more instinct than plan. “If they’re coming for me, I could turn myself over. Maybe they would stop.”

“No,” Waverly said, slamming her hands down on the top of the bar, her voice so full of fire and determination that Nicole nearly quailed. “We don’t know that they’re coming for you, and even if we did—” she paused to glare at her eldest sister. “—we have no way to know that they’d even stop once they had you. They could keep coming and we’d just have to fight them off without you.”

Wynonna stepped forward, interceding.

“Waverly’s right, but I’m going to say what she’s too nice to: that’s a stupid fucking idea, Haught, and we don’t have time for stupid ideas. If they’re coming, we need to get ready. Now. Come on.” She pushed out the door and stepped out onto the porch, her eyes down the long, dusty road towards Primm.

“She’s right,” Dolls said, speaking up for the first time. His voice was calm and authoritative. “If we know they’re coming here, that gives us an advantage. Let’s not waste it.” He surveyed the area. “We need cover. Sniper nests. Mines, if you have them.”

“Oh, we have them,” Wynonna said, her grim expression giving way to something a little more wild and manic. “Doc, go get Robin. We need crates. And weapons. Armor. Explosives. Whatever he has.” She turned back to where Waverly still stood, half-frozen, behind the bar. “And for the love of god, somebody put on Big Iron, because these outlaws are after Texas Red over here.”

“That’s not how the song goes,” Nicole said, arguing for the sake of arguing. Her head was still spinning. Usually she was great in battle. When she and Dolls had charged into Nelson the other day, straight into a firefight with Legionaries, her mind had been completely clear. No fear. No hesitation. But now it was buzzing like radio static, panicky and numb. The difference was that in Nelson, the only life she was risking was her own (plus a handful of NCR soldiers who knew what they were getting into). Now, it wasn’t just her and Dolls. It was Waverly. And Wynonna. And Doc and Robin. Hell, she didn’t even relish the thought of Willa being in danger, especially on her behalf.

Around her, people scrambled, unearthing weapons and armor, dragging Sunset Sarsaparilla crates and potato sacks to form barricades in front of the saloon. She felt useless.

“Haught, you with us?”

Nicole turned to find Wynonna looking at her. She had donned some lightweight leather armor and had what looked like a motorcycle helmet under one arm.

“Barely,” she said, a little too honestly.

“Well, I need you here. More specifically, I need you to get Waverly out of here. I’m not afraid to fight a bunch of shit-ticket convicts, but if they hurt her…”

Nicole started to instinctively agree— getting Waverly away from the danger sounded like a fantastic plan— but her senses caught up to her, and instead she shook her head regretfully.

“I can’t do that. This fight is my responsibility. I can’t just cart her off to Freeside for tacos,” she said firmly. She couldn’t sit this fight out, not for anything. In all likelihood, they were coming for her. “Besides, she’s as good a shot as anyone here. We need her.”

Wynonna sighed, but didn’t argue.

“Dammit, Haught, you picked the wrong time for your brain to start working again,” she grumbled, kicking the ground. She looked annoyed, but not angry. Not really surprised, either.

“I know,” Nicole agreed wholeheartedly. “You should have asked me five minutes ago.”

“Too late now.” Wynonna shook her head, squinting down the road again. “I really want eyes on that raiding party.”

Nicole latched onto the idea of actually having something useful to do.

“I’ll climb up and try to get a look,” she said immediately. With barely a glance to read her options, she stepped up onto the saloon’s porch and then climbed up onto the railing. With a hop, she grabbed onto the roof of the porch and heaved herself up, legs dangling. The wooden slats of the overhang creaked ominously beneath her, clearly not meant to be load-bearing. She kept her hands splayed wide, trying to keep her weight as evenly distributed as possible.

“Nicole, what are you doing?” came Waverly’s worried voice from below. Nicole looked down and saw her unloading a crate, handing something up to Dolls, something flat and metal like a tin plate. Frag mines.

“Getting a better view,” Nicole called down. “Dolls, can you toss me your rifle?”

Without questioning her about it, he stepped closer and tossed the rifle up to her. She caught it and slung the strap across her body. She clambered back, to where the exterior wall of the bar continued up to the building’s actual roof, the neon sign that marked it as “Shorty’s Saloon” mounted and glowing just above her.

Only years of experience let her climb the rest of the way to the roof without falling to her death. The wood of the saloon’s walls was rough and made for good handholds, but it was also old and weather-beaten and prone to breaking under her hands if she placed her weight on any weak spots. But inch by inch, she climbed higher.

Finally, she pulled herself up onto the flat roof of the saloon itself. Seated there, her legs dangling, she unslung the rifle from her back and aimed the scope downhill, using it like a telescope. She panned it slowly down the road, tracing its downhill wind. It was still clear. They hadn’t reached the fork yet. That was good. She swept the scope back towards the NCRCF, trying to spot a group of fifteen or twenty men in blue-gray prison uniforms, and maybe one with a fur coat in the burning desert.

In moments like this, the flat, featureless stretches of the wasteland were a blessing. It meant that even from so far away, miles in the distance, she could just barely make out a small crowd of people, a blue-gray swarm against the red-brown of the desert, as they inched down the road, closer and closer.

“I can see them!” she called down, raising her voice so they could hear her all the way on the ground. “They’re almost to the Long Fifteen!”

Reassured and freshly galvanized, she downclimbed back onto the porch roof and then jumped the rest of the way to the ground, landing in a tumble as she heard Waverly yell, “Careful!”

She went to return Dolls’s rifle to him, handing it over as he supervised the laying and camoflaging of the frag mines. He held his hand up, stalling her before she could walk away.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “It might make more sense for some of us to attack them from behind.”

Nicole frowned. It would be a clever move— the red rocks on either side of the road created plenty of nooks and crannies to hide in, and the idea of a pincer attack was appealing. Except…

“With this few people?” she asked dubiously. Splitting their already small attack party into two wings felt like it would spread them dangerously thin.

“I could take that idiot deputy to spot me and lay down cover fire. We could block off their retreat. He and I have never been to this town before, so it’s not an advantage to us to be up here with everyone else. We don’t know the layout.”

On the one hand, she wasn’t sure. It felt like a gamble, and not the fun kind where afterwards you got to party with your winnings in the high roller suite. On the other hand, Dolls had more group-on-group combat experience than everyone else in Purgatory put together, and it wasn’t even close. In something like this, she just had to trust him. After all, that was why she had gone looking for him in the first place.

“Okay. Have Wynonna show you the best hiding place. She knows this area inside and out.” They had only known each other for a week, but she liked Dolls. She hoped he made it through in one piece. She clasped his arm briefly before he walked towards the general store in search of Wynonna.

Nicole’s nerves were electric, but she felt useless, like the sun was cooking her brain. It felt like there was too much time to worry, but not enough time to prepare for the fight. She was used to being the one running into danger, not the one waiting around for the danger to show up whenever it felt like it. The former was easier.

She finally gave into her screaming instincts and sought out Waverly. It looked like everyone in town was scrambling. She walked past guns and grenades and boxes upon boxes of ammo as they were stacked up behind the makeshift barricades. Willa was standing the middle of the action, calling out orders and directing traffic. Much as Nicole wanted to complain about it, somebody needed to do it, and she seemed to be doing a capable job for the time being.

She found Waverly in a back room of Shorty’s, seated on the floor, a box of shotgun shells beside her, fussing with the straps on some kind of leather armor.

“Here, let me help,” Nicole said, glad for something concrete to do with her hands. Waverly was a little pale, but she didn’t look scared. She looked ready. Part of Nicole regretted that she didn’t do what Wynonna asked by spiriting her away, but her rational side knew she had made the right call. Waverly wouldn’t have forgiven them for treating her like a child and trying to send her away, and they’d be losing one of their best fighters.

She knelt beside her and took over the task. The armor was clearly borrowed, not fitted to her, so Nicole set to adjusting it, tightening and loosening various straps until it hung properly.

“The barricades are looking just about ready,” she said, feeling a little silly as she said it. It was small talk. Inconsequential. Not the kind of thing she wanted to say right before both of their lives were laid before a firing squad. But what did you say to someone you cared about right before you both got dynamite hurled at you?

“I’m just hoping it’ll be over fast,” Waverly said.

“These things usually are,” Nicole assured her. They sat there together, on the old wooden floor of the storeroom, surrounded by half-rusted metal shelves, brooms, mops, buckets, and empty bottles. It smelled like wood and alcohol and dust and metal. They were both armored— Waverly in the borrowed leather, Nicole in some repurposed NCR fatigues. The room felt close, and dark, and safe, a jarring contrast to the upcoming battle under the desert sun. “Once it starts, it’ll be over in minutes. It’s this waiting part that’s killing me.”

“I’m surprised you’re worrying about it,” Waverly said, her eyes bright in the dark room. “I thought you’d be used to this kind of thing.”

Nicole pushed loose strands of red hair back off her face. She had tied it back, but it was already coming loose again, sticking to the sweat on her face and neck.

“Fighting? Sure, I’m not worried about that. I know how to take care of myself in a gunfight. But the thought of you getting hurt? Or Wynonna? Or Doc? Or Robin? That gets under my skin. I’m not worried about me, but I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Waverly’s expression softened, her hazel eyes going almost liquid. In the already close quarters, she shifted closer, squeezing into the narrow space in front of Nicole and resting a hand on her bent knee. Nicole nearly shivered as her warmth radiated through the tiny distance between them. Even though she was already sweating under the weight of the armor, the warmth was welcome.

“Well… now you know how I feel when you tell me you’re running into Revenant hotels or Legion camps, then, don’t you? Turnabout’s fair play.”

Nicole gave a dry, reluctant chuckle.

“I guess I do. Sorry I keep making you worry.”

“It’s okay,” Waverly sighed lightly, almost singsong. She shifted closer. “I have a feeling I’m going to have to get used to that. You’re not about to stop running into burning buildings anytime soon, are you? It’s just who you are.”

Nicole felt her face warm, half from the accusation, half from Waverly’s proximity, so close that when Nicole breathed in, all she could smell were desert flowers and leather.

“Maybe.”

Waverly reached out and touched her cheek, and Nicole closed her eyes for a few seconds, savoring the moment of solace. From the other room, she heard the low sound of the radio: Love me, as though there were no tomorrow… Take me out of this world tonight…

“Please try not to get shot today, okay?” Waverly said. Nicole leaned her head forward, gently resting her forehead against Waverly’s. The contact was comforting— close, and safe. Her hands found Waverly’s arms and gripped them, grounding herself with the contact.

“I promise,” Nicole said. She could feel the shock of the upcoming fight, the flashes of adrenaline, start to fade. Her head cleared. Her pulse slowed. The whole world shrank into that one closet in the back of the bar in the middle of the desert.

Kiss me, as though it were now or never…

She felt Waverly’s nose brush against hers, their faces gravitating just the slightest bit closer, and then just a breath closer still.

They both shifted their heads the last inch, and there in the safe darkness, their lips touched. Nicole felt her heart spiral into the sky like a rocket, leaving her chest flooded with giddy warmth in its wake.

Unable to stop herself, she leaned hungrily into the kiss, as endless days of sheer, unbridled wanting finally gave way. Waverly’s hand reached up to cradle her jaw, tilting her head as the kiss deepened. Nicole heard an unfamiliar sound wrenched from her own throat— something sweet and pleading. The kiss went on, Nicole drinking in the taste of her lips over and over until they broke apart in a rush of feverish panting.

Nicole felt like she’d been struck by a bolt of heat lightning out of an orange-colored sky. She didn’t know how long they’d been kissing— seconds, maybe, or maybe long, expansive minutes. Maybe it had been so quick that nobody had even missed them, or maybe they were an instant away from the herald of gunfire outside. All Nicole knew that Waverly had ended up in her lap, and their foreheads were leaning together as they both breathed hard.

“I didn’t want to go into the fight without doing that first,” Waverly said, her voice husky in a way that sent a roar of heat down Nicole’s body.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since you first smiled at me,” Nicole countered. It felt like years ago, stumbling into a small-town bar with a monster headache and being met with a sunny smile and a broken radio. Her whole world had shifted that day, turning on a new axis.

Oh my darling, love me, don’t ever let me go…

She knew they were out of time, that they needed to separate and go out into the blinding light of the outside world, to face danger and defend their home. Home for Waverly being Purgatory, and home for Nicole… at this point, mostly being Waverly.

She pulled back a little, her hands wanting to touch Waverly’s body but somewhat hampered by the armor. So instead, she checked the armor again, tugging the straps to make sure they were secure.

“When the shooting starts, try to keep your head down,” Nicole told her. “And if you need to run, run. You know this town and they don’t. That’s an advantage. Just… keep yourself safe.”

“I will,” Waverly promised. She reached down and picked up Nicole’s discarded hat and set it on her head. Then her hands cupped Nicole’s face for just a moment, thumbs stroking over her cheeks. “Are you ready?”

“After that? I think I’m ready for anything.”

Nicole reached up and squeezed her hands and prayed that after the fight, they could revisit this moment, free of armor and adrenaline, in the privacy of a quiet room, and a small bed, and a starry night. That was her idea of home. That was something worth fighting for.

Chapter Text

Nicole and Waverly emerged from the bar into the controlled chaos of battle preparations. Dolls and Champ were nowhere in sight, presumably already secreted away among the red rocks and scrubby plants. Wynonna noticed them and strode over, clearly too distracted to wonder where they had been or what they had been doing.

“There you are. Come on, it’s game time,” she said, her voice determined. She stood tall, her eyes blazing. “This ain’t our first rodeo. We’ve fought Fiends and Jackals before. Coyotes. Cazadores. These shit-tickets won’t know what hit them.” She pointed behind the farthest barricade. “Waves, you’re with Robin. If they get past us and into the barricades, run. Both of you. Haught, you’re up front with me.”

“Why—” Waverly started to protest, but Wynonna held up a hand.

“Because I said so, and because I can’t have you on the front lines, okay? I can’t keep you out of the fight, but you’ve got to at least give me that.” Her usual bravado, her devil-may-care attitude was gone, and her voice had an air of desperation. Waverly looked like she might keep arguing, but capitulated at the last instant— maybe there wasn’t time, or maybe she understood her sister’s terror, but she nodded. She stepped forward and gave her sister a tight hug— one that Wynonna reciprocated with a relieved gust of breath— and took her place behind the barricade, where Robin already stood with a rifle.

Wynonna grabbed Nicole’s arm and hauled her towards the front, her nervous energy contagious.

“Dolls mined the road, but once the first ones go off, they’ll know to go around,” she said, talking fast. Peacemaker spun in her hand as she changed grip over and over. “We’ve got to take as many out as early as possible. They might not know we’re expecting them.”

“Right,” Nicole agreed. “They have numbers on their side, so when you shoot, don’t focus fire, make sure to sweep their whole group. A few injuries will really slow them down.” She had been in enough gunfights to know that shooting five people non-fatally could beat shooting one or two dead, if the odds were against you. Someone with a bullet in the leg had a lot more trouble running uphill into the fray

“Don’t worry about that,” Wynonna said. “I’m shooting every one of those fuckers. In the dick.”

Nicole laughed, anticipation making her feel nervous and punchy.

“You can start with that, but eventually you’ll need to aim a little higher,” she said dryly.

The front line, like the other barricades, was contructed of Sunset Sarsaparilla crates piled into a low barrier, topped with potato sacks, leaving only just enough space to aim a gun. They both crouched there, each lining up a shot down the long, sloping road. Nicole wanted to use Calamity, but the pistol didn’t have enough range for their first volley, so she was borrowing a cowboy repeater for the occasion, the lever-action rifle standing a better chance of reaching their distant targets. The group of Revenants was visible now, blue-gray against the desert dust.

Nicole heard someone step up next to her, a flicker of motion making her turn her head. To her surprise, Willa Earp was kneeling down next to her, leveling the barrel of a shotgun over the barricade.

For some reason, Nicole hadn’t thought about what Willa would be doing during the fight. Part of her had even expected her to hide indoors, letting everyone else do the dirty work.

“What?” Willa said, a little haughtily. “I’m the best shot in town. I didn’t want it to come to this, but if everyone’s so damn determined to fight it out, I’m sure as hell not going to let us lose.”

Nicole didn’t know how to respond, which was just as well, because her opportunity to say anything evaporated in the sound of an exploding frag mine and the shout of startled Revenants.

“They better have all made their peace before taking us on,” Wynonna growled, taking the first shot down the road. Nicole followed suit, peppering off shots from left to right into the swarm of convicts. They were still too far off to see clearly, but she could tell by their reaction that some of them had hit home. The group scattered, and two more mines exploded. The sound of cracking rifles echoed from behind Nicole as more of the townsfolk fired off rounds.

As the Revenants scattered and reformed like a swarm of angry cazadors, the ping of bullets hitting the road in front of them heralded the convicts returning fire. Nicole hunkered down, making sure she wasn’t leaving any part of herself vulnerable before firing back, sweeping through the crowd again. At this distance, shooting for accuracy was all but pointless anyway, so she focused on her spread, trying to hit as many Revenants as possible. She could hear Wynonna muttering curses beside her. Unwilling to trade her favored weapon, she was wielding Peacemaker, and even at this distance, against all odds, Nicole believed that some of her shots were hitting home. She wanted to turn back, to try to catch sight of Waverly behind them, but they couldn’t afford to lose these precious moments before the Revenants rallied and organized themselves into a proper counter-attack.

It looked like the frag mines had taken out a few of them and caused some much-needed confusion and chaos. One more mine exploded, but then they had cleared them and the group was swarming uphill, no more traps to slow them down, no more surprise on their side.

But the closer the got, the more the Purgatorians had a chance to actually aim, and the difference made itself known in the cries of Revenants falling mid-stride— some clutching arms or legs or stomachs, some never getting a chance to even do that.

At the same time, the Revenants, now fully aware of them, began shooting back. They were too far away to hurl dynamite at them, but they hadn’t come unarmed. A few carried varmint rifles, a few single shotguns, a few pistols. They weren’t exactly powerful firearms, but Nicole heard the nearby whizz of bullets and felt the impact as they struck the barricade. In the end, the size of the bullet didn’t seem as important as the sheer existence of the bullet.

As battles tended to go, at first things looked promising. Revenants were falling, others were scattered, breaking away from the group or doubling back. But as the remainders got closer and closer, and others took cover to fire back, it became more and more obvious— there were just too many of them. They were going to make it to the barricades.

Wynonna must have realized it at the same time Nicole did, because she heard her mumbling “fuck, fuck, fuck” all of a sudden.

“If it gets bad…” Nicole started, ducking briefly as a shotgun shell blew shrapnel out of the wooden crate she crouched behind. “Get as many people as you can to run. I’ll lay down cover fire.”

“Like hell,” Wynonna growled, firing downhill with more determination. “You really think I’d leave you behind?”

Nicole was touched, but had to admit that they might not get a choice in the end. The decision might be made for them. In the meantime, she swapped the cowboy repeater out for Calamity— the convicts were close enough now that she didn’t need the added range— lined up another shot, and knocked another Revenant back, sending him tumbling down the road in a bleeding heap.

Then, suddenly, the Revenants seemed to lose all their momentum in one fell swoop, their progress halting, their semi-organized lines splitting back into chaos. Nicole and Wynonna glanced at each other fleetingly, unsure of what had changed.

Revenants who had taken cover broke it, running back into the road, towards the barricades… or… not really towards the barricades. Maybe just away from something else. They started falling forward instead of back, and Nicole suddenly realized what it was— a flash of bright red down the road, the red beret of a First Recon sniper.

“Dolls,” Nicole breathed.

“Oh shit,” Wynonna said back, sounding surprised. “Tight-Ass came through.”

The Revenants’ ranks were scattering again, and Nicole’s instincts told her to press the advantage while they had it. The battle was turning, and it was much closer to her comfort zone. If she could drive them back towards Dolls, they would be pinned down, kept in disarray, with much less of a chance to shoot back.

“I’m going in,” she said.

“What?” said Wynonna, as Nicole stood. She vaulted the barricade and charged towards their opponents, firing off a volley of wild shots. In the thick of things, it was somehow easier to let instinct take over. In these closer quarters, her shots began hitting their mark with even more of a punch.

She paused shooting to draw the one extra she had “borrowed” from Robin’s inventory— a frag grenade. She released the lever, yanked out the pin with her teeth, and lobbed it into the fray. Immediately after, she dodged behind a boulder, flattening herself against it an instant before the sound of the explosion ripped through the air. A Revenant rounded the boulder after her, and she quickly kicked at his leg before she could raise her gun to shoot. As she leapt to her feet, she used the momentum to slam her knee up as she yanked him down by the shirt, kneeing him soundly in the stomach and dropping him to the ground.

She leaned out from behind the boulder to read how the situation had changed. The grenade had done its job— three Revenants lay, smoking and limbless, on the ground. She juked back out from behind the boulder, back into the fray. As she dodged bullets and fired her own, she saw Wynonna had joined her, Peacemaker even more lethal fired at close range. Together, along with the ongoing gunfire from the other Purgatorians, she felt the tide turning, as they pushed the Revenants back down the road, away from the town. At the same time, the danger was more keen out in the open, the near misses uncomfortably close. An explosion sounded alarmingly nearby— dynamite, maybe, or some clumsy Revenant setting off another frag mine as they fled downhill— and Nicole recoiled as the force and heat slammed into her and left her ears ringing.

More Purgatorians entered the fray. Nicole couldn’t tell if Waverly was among them. She hoped she had stayed safely behind the barrier, but it didn’t seem likely.

Most of the pack of Revenants were in retreat now, the Purgatorians shooting at their backs as they fled down the road. Nicole knelt and lined up another few shots. She didn’t like the idea of them getting away. There was nothing stopping them from fleeing back to the safety of the prison, rallying an even bigger group, and coming back.

Nothing stopping them… except… apparently a line of NCR soldiers who now stood on the I-15, intercepting the group and surrounding them. Nicole stared downhill, almost incredulously, at the camo-clad platoon as they rounded up the last of the Revenants and took them into custody.

And just like that, the fight was over. They had survived.

Wynonna looked down at the soldiers, then back at the impromptu Purgatory milita, then over at Nicole.

“So… now what?”

Chapter Text

“Where the holy fuck did they come from?” Wynonna said, suddenly at Nicole’s side.

“Primm, I think,” Nicole said, a little numbly. She began walking downhill towards the soldiers until, squinting, she could make out faces enough to identify Lieutenant Lucado off to one side, and next to her… “Nedley?”

“They sent in the cavalry,” came another voice, as Dolls emerged from his hiding spot and stepped onto the road. His clothes were covered in reddish-brown dust, camoflaging him against the rocky terrain.

“Just in time…” Nicole breathed. She couldn’t quite relax yet— injured Revenants still littered the ground, and there was still a thin but never-impossible chance of the convicts overpowering the soldiers. All it would take was one perfectly-timed bundle of dynamite…

“Well they took their sweet-ass time,” Wynonna said, with unconvincing nonchalance.

Nicole dared to finally look back over her shoulder, uphill where the rest of the townsfolk were still scattered, most of them still behind the barricades, but a surprising number had joined her on the road— including Waverly, as she’d suspected. She looked unharmed, her shotgun still in hand, and Nicole let herself revel in the relief of that fact.

“Uh, Haught?” Wynonna asked, giving her a strange look.

“Yeah?”

“Did you know your shirt is on fire?”

“Huh? Oh.” She glanced down and saw smoke curling from just above her left hip. “I think it just was on fire,” she corrected, patting it to make sure it was out. It stung, but adrenaline kept her from feeling the worst of it. “Wonder when that happened,” she mused, before remembering her close call with the dynamite blast. “It’s okay for now. I’m sure I’ll feel it tomorrow.”

She was torn between wanting to go down towards Lucado and Nedley and discuss what happened next, versus walking back up towards Waverly and Purgatory and letting the NCR handle the rest.

The decision was blessedly taken away from her as instead of going to Waverly, Waverly came to her, following her the short distance downhill.

“Are you okay?” Waverly asked her. Nicole nodded.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Nicole assured her. Waverly didn’t look convinced.

“Your shirt is smoking,” Waverly pointed out, raising a skeptical eyebrow. Nicole glanced down again.

“Everyone’s so worried about my shirt. It’ll stop in a minute,” she said dismissively. “Are you okay?”

Waverly looked sweaty and disheveled, but all her limbs were in place, and there was dust on her face, but no blood.

“Yeah. I think I just got grazed.”

Alarm bells rang in Nicole’s head.

“Grazed? What, where?” she demanded, at the same time Wynonna echoed “Where?”

Waverly showed them her arm, where her sleeve was torn and a handkerchief had been placed over the wound. It couldn’t have been too bad, if she could still move and use her arm, but the thought of it— of the bullet coming that close to her, the bullet cutting into her— made Nicole lightheaded. She lightly touched Waverly’s arm, beneath the wound, as much for her own reassurance as for Waverly’s.

“If I find out which one did it, I’m taking their damn head off,” Wynonna said with a scowl. She glanced at the bodies of the Revenants that littered the ground around them, as though she could tell who had done it by look alone.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Waverly said, looking downhill to where the soldiers had the last of the Revenants in handcuffs. “Where did those NCR guys come from?”

“Primm,” Nicole said. “That’s Lieutenant Lucado down there with them. Nedley must have told her about the Revenants heading this way.”

“Surprised they bothered coming this far,” Wynonna said, still a hint of disdain in her voice.

“They know it’s in their interest to take the prison back,” Nicole said. She sighed. “I should go talk to Lucado and Nedley.” She turned to Waverly. “I’ll meet you back up here in a few minutes, okay? Have Doc look at your arm.”

“What about you?” Waverly asked, eyeing Nicole’s side, where her singed shirt was sticking to the wound in a way that ominously suggested it might be bleeding after all.

“I’ll check with him after,” she said. Waverly gave her a stern look.

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Nicole assured her. “Wynonna, can you check on everyone else? Make sure no one’s too hurt?”

“On it,” Wynonna said, already walking back uphill. “Come on, Waves. You heard Sheriff Haught over there.” Wynonna slung an arm around her sister’s shoulders and started marching her back towards town. After one long, wistful look, Nicole reluctantly turned away and started walking downhill. By the time she reached the soldiers, they had secured the Revenants with handcuffs and zip-ties and were preparing to march them to Primm. Lucado and Nedley stood off to the side, apparently supervising. Nicole raised a hand in greeting as she approached.

“Thanks for the backup,” she said, the words sincere. “We might have been in pretty hot water without you.”

“Happy to be of help,” Nedley said, tipping his Sheriff’s hat, the star on its front gleaming in the sun. “Scouts sent a heads-up about the attack over the radio. I sent Champ ahead to warn you, but it sounded like a pretty big group.”

“More importantly, these are escaped NCR prisoners,” Lucado said, her voice a little less friendly. She wore sunglasses against the bright sunlight, and the wind pulled wisps out of her blonde bun. Her mouth was set in a firm line. “Their recapture is part of my assignment.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have enough bodies to take on the Revenants,” Nicole pointed out, remembering their last conversation in Primm in full clarity. Lucado didn’t seem fazed by her testy tone.

“We don’t have enough to take back the prison just because we got some wild hair up our ass about it. But this was just one splinter group. Not using the most sophisticated weaponry in the world, either.” From behind the sunglasses, she seemed to eye the soldier that had disarmed the prisoners and was stowing all the weapons in a canvas bag. Dynamite, a single shotgun, a varmint rifle, and a couple .357 revolvers. All small arms, besides the dynamite.

“So you aren’t going to try to take back the prison?” Nicole asked. She was still full of adrenaline and imagining Svane sending a second group towards Purgatory in place of the first. Then a third. A fourth. How many men did he have in that prison complex? Surely enough to keep Purgatory busy for weeks. And their luck might not hold another time…

“Look, you can believe me or not, but we don’t have the manpower for that,” Lucado said, matter-of-factly, interrupting Nicole’s panic spiral. “The best we can do is try to keep chipping away at their raiding parties. They have a limited number of men at their disposal. They can’t hold out forever.”

“I know you’re raring to take them out,” Nedley said, looking up at Nicole from under his Sheriff’s hat. “But it’s a long game. Holed up in that prison, they’ve got an advantage over us. But what they don’t have is fresh blood.”

“I guess…” Nicole murmured.

One of the soldiers walked over, saluting Lieutenant Lucado.

“Ma’am, we’ve gathered up all the ones who are ambulatory. We may have to double back for the others.”

Lucado looked at Nicole.

“Can you hold the injured ones here until we can collect them?”

Nicole grimaced, thinking about their last attempt at keeping prisoners.

“Not for long, no. There’s no jail in town. Best we can do is lock them in an empty building,” she said. Lucado didn’t look thrilled, but nodded.

“Fine. I’ll try to send a group back once we’re back in Primm, but it might not be until morning.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Nicole said. She looked back uphill. “I need to get back. I don’t think anyone was hurt that bad, but I didn’t get a chance to check. And I guess we’ll need to deal with the injured Revenants.”

“You can borrow Champ to help out,” Nedley offered, and Nicole fought an urge to roll her eyes and say something sarcastic about his magnanimity. But before she could, Lucado gave her a nod.

“You should feel good about what we did here. It could have gone a lot worse,” she said, by way of farewell.

“Trust me, I know,” Nicole sighed. She rubbed her forehead and met Nedley’s eyes. “Nedley, thanks for sending Champ. If it weren’t for his warning, we wouldn’t have had any chance to prepare. They probably would have overrun us.”

“Least I could do,” Nedley said, a bit gruffly. “Besides, running was probably the best use of him. He’s not much of a deputy.”

“I’m working on a replacement,” Nicole assured him. She glanced uphill, looking for a red beret. “I’ll bring him by soon. Once things settle down a little here.”

“Looking forward to it.”

They tipped their hats to each other, and Nicole started back uphill.

Post-adrenaline rush, her body protested the uphill hike, but she spurred herself on with the knowledge of what she was marching towards— namely, Waverly. And Wynonna and Doc and the rest of Purgatory. But mostly Waverly.

By the time she reached the top of the hill, panting and sweating under the heavy armored fatigues, the town was already trying to reset back to normal. The crates that were intact had been dragged back to the general store, and the broken ones were piled together into what looked likely to become a victory bonfire. She nodded gratefully to the villagers she passed, including Robin, who looked pale but rather pleased with himself. When she saw Champ, she waved him over and told him to start gathering up the injured Revenants and piling them in the old Poseidon station. To his credit, he nodded without question and scooped up the nearest one like a sack of potatoes, hefting him easily over his shoulder. Relieved to be free of that unpleasant task, Nicole left him to it. The Earps and Doc were nowhere in sight, so she aimed herself at the saloon, assuming they would be inside.

When she reached the bar, she ascended the stairs onto the porch, wincing at the smattering of bullets embedded in the wood of the bar’s exterior. She would have to apologize for that, and help with repairs. As she swung the door open, the bell jingling above her head, she had to blink for her eyes to adjust to the darker room.

Inside, Wynonna was pouring rounds for what looked like everyone in town. Willa was nowhere in sight, and Waverly and Doc were seated at a table, Doc wrapping a bandage around Waverly’s arm. Nicole beelined to that table.

“How’s the arm?” she asked, and Waverly looked up at the sound of her voice. Doc continued carefully winding the clean gauze bandage in neat circles.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” Waverly said, although the crease in her forehead meant that Nicole didn’t quite believe her. “You need to have your side looked at.”

Nicole shook her head a little, although doing so made her feel a little woozy. As the world tilted ominously, she took the opportunity to sit heavily in the nearest chair. She shrugged off the heavy, armored jacket and vest she had been wearing, blinking furiously in an attempt to keep her vision from tunneling.

“Hey—“ “Woah—“ “Easy now—“ A flurry of familiar voices buzzed around her. Waverly and Wynonna and Doc, though she had squeezed her eyes shut to keep the room from spinning and couldn’t tell who was saying what.

She felt a soft hand on her cheek and didn’t even have to open her eyes to know that it was Waverly. She leaned her face into Waverly’s touch, the fingers caressing her cheek and finally cutting off the stream of adrenaline from the earlier battle.

She heard Doc clearing his throat and blinked her eyes open. Now that she was sitting, the room had steadied. Waverly was standing directly in front of her, eclipsing the rest of the room, one arm in a makeshift sling, the other cupping Nicole’s face. Nicole’s shirt was drenched in sweat from the sun and the exertion and the heavy armor, and she shivered once in the cooler room.

“Looks like you had a bit of a run-in with some dynamite,” Doc said to her, his voice gentle. “Let’s see if we can take care of that…”

After some clean water and some stinging antibiotic (during which Waverly let her squeeze her hand almost to breaking point), a bandage was taped over the scalded wound on her side.

As her adrenaline faded, and things around her started to return to normal, the pain became more obvious. She did her best to ignore it— walking around, helping the town reset itself, taking part in some impromptu celebrations. The busted crates that had served as barricades became a roaring bonfire outside the saloon, and Wynonna brought out bottle after bottle on the house (over Willa’s increasingly halfhearted objections). As the sun set over the town, everyone seemed to sit around the fire. Robin shared a bottle of vodka with Dolls, Wynonna and Doc kept finding more and more fuel for the fire, Willa paced the perimeter of the celebrations, and Nicole and Waverly sat on the edge of the saloon’s porch, both lightly wounded, both tired, huddled together against the night as the crackling fire warmed them from a distance, leaving them cast in flickering glow and shadow.

Waverly leaned against Nicole’s uninjured side, watching Wynonna pile dry buffalo gourd vines onto the fire and splash it with moonshine.

“Well, we did it,” Waverly said. Nicole glanced down, and caught the dancing firelight reflected in Waverly’s hazel eyes.

“Yeah. We did,” Nicole agreed. They had survived Nicole’s personal ‘worst case scenario,’ the Revenants attacking Purgatory to get to her. But the town had fought with her, and they had won.

Some time later, Wynonna staggered over to them, a half-empty whiskey bottle in hand. She pressed it into Nicole’s hand as she flopped down next to them. There was a slightly wild grin on her face.

“Heyo, Haught Potato!” she said, her voice bright and slightly slurred with whiskey. “Cheers. We kicked their stupid Revenant asses.”

Nicole shook her head and passed the bottle back. She was still slightly lightheaded from the wound on her side, and she knew alcohol wouldn’t help.

“Thanks, maybe tomorrow.”

Wynonna shrugged, uncaring.

“Anyway,” she said. “I’ve been thinking…”

“Well that’s dangerous,” Waverly said under her breath, and Nicole smothered a laugh. Wynonna shushed her.

“I’ve been thinking,” Wynonna continued, louder. “It sucks brahmin balls that you have to keep camping out around town all the time. After all this… you should crash with us. We don’t have a guest room, but there’s a couch with some blankets, and that’s got to be better than the floor of the old gas station. Especially if we’re stuffing the injured Revs in there.”

Nicole froze, alarmed at the prospect. It was such a well-meaning offer. And if she had been crashing on the floor of the Poseidon station, or in some other abandoned building or campsite around Purgatory, it would no doubt be a welcome one. But she was already crashing at Wynonna’s house. In her little sister’s bed. Without Wynonna’s knowledge. Which made the offer… complicated.

“Uh…” Nicole started, trying to think of an argument against it.

“Waves, back me up,” Wynonna insisted, gesturing with the bottle. “She should crash with us, right? The couch isn’t so bad. It’s got to beat a camp mattress on the floor.”

Waverly opened her mouth, but couldn't seem to find any words either.

“Well… I mean… O-of course she could stay with us.” She winced apologetically at Nicole. “But, um… would’t Willa be mad?”

Wynonna waved a dismissive hand.

“Pshhhh. I’ll talk to her. Besides, she was worried that Haught here would make the Revenants attack Purgatory. She can’t really worry about that anymore, right? Been there, done that.” Wynonna must have noticed Nicole grimacing, and shoved her lightly, a little too close to Nicole’s wound for comfort. “And everyone was fine, see? Kind of exciting for a change. Livened the place right up.”

“Um… well…” Nicole said, not sure she could avoid answering. “I was thinking about… staying up to guard the prisoners,” she lied. It didn’t sound convincing. “Um… or maybe heading back to Primm to check in with Nedley and Lucado.”

Wynonna waved her hand again. “That can wait. Besides, you ought to sleep. Doc says you got a little blown up.”

“Um…”

“Doc already offered her his spare bed,” Waverly said suddenly, in one burst, apparently having finally thought of a passable lie. “Since she’s hurt.”

Nicole met her eyes, and she shrugged slightly. One of them would have to catch Doc and ask him to back up the story later. Nicole didn’t like that, but Wynonna was nodding her understanding.

“Riiiiiiight, he’s got one, doesn’t he? That’s probably better.” To Nicole’s surprise, she sounded almost disappointed. She wondered if Wynonna had liked the idea of her staying at their place. It was an odd, warm thought.

“Some other time,” Nicole assured her. “And thanks for the offer.”

“No prob.” Wynonna dragged herself back to her feet with a groan. “Fire’s getting low. I’mma find some more stuff to throw in it.”

The fire was not getting low, but Nicole and Waverly both watched affectionately as Wynonna staggered away in search of more flammable materials. Waverly sighed and leaned further into Nicole’s side.

“It was sweet of her to offer,” Waverly murmured.

“It was,” Nicole agreed. They were both quiet for a second. “Do you think we should tell her?”

“Hm…” Waverly hummed. “Not yet. But soon, maybe.”

“Okay.” Nicole was happy to defer to Waverly on the issue. She knew her sisters best— she would know how and when it was safest to introduce the idea to them. “How’s your arm?”

“Just a little sore,” Waverly said. “Not so bad. How are you feeling?”

“Not so bad,” Nicole echoed. “Stings a little.” The wound burned faintly, aching sharply any time she moved, and her ears were ringing, but she had certainly had worse injuries. It hardly held the sting of a gunshot to the head, or even the battering she had received at the Bison Steve.

“Are you tired?” Waverly asked her. Nicole could feel how closely Waverly was tucked against her— was she slumped sideways in tiredness, or was she seeking out the comfort in the contact? It was hard to tell.

“Sure,” Nicole said, figuring that was the correct answer either way. She was having a good time watching the town celebrate its victory, but she would never say no to sneaking away early to bed. She swept her eyes over the crowd, making sure Willa was otherwise occupied and wouldn’t notice them slip away. Wynonna was inadvertently helping them out, forcing her bottle of whiskey on the eldest sister instead, closer to the fire. “Ready to go?”

Waverly nodded, and Nicole eased herself to her feet, careful not to pull at the bandage that covered her side. One of Waverly’s hands rested, feather-light, on her back, guiding her gently as they slipped down the alley between the saloon and the general store, out of sight of the revelers, and headed towards the Earp home.

The evening was growing dark and still, slightly chill now that they were away from the bonfire. She tilted her head up to take in the stars. The mountains formed an impenetrable western border of the town, and they meant that the sun tended to disappear early. Today, the sky was a lake of pink and pastel blue, with only the smallest pinpricks of stars visible.

“You think they’ll notice we went missing?” Nicole asked. Waverly shrugged.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Wynonna’s about a half a bottle away from not even remembering the gunfight. I don’t think she’ll come looking for us.”

Something about the prospect set Nicole’s heart racing. With everyone else at the bonfire, the house was empty, and they would have something resembling actual privacy. For a little while, at least.

What a day it had been. And what a night it would be.

Chapter Text

Alone, with Wynonna and Willa safely preoccupied with the bonfire, Nicole had the rare pleasure of entering the house through the actual front door, instead of clambering through the bedroom window. Inside the house, things were still in mild disarray, evidence of its occupants frantically ransacking it for weapons and supplies. Cabinet doors in the kitchen were still flung open, drawers still out, chairs askew, empty boxes of ammunition littering the counter.

They didn’t stop to tidy them up. Instead, Waverly towed her through the house, pulling her along by the hand as if she didn’t know the way. Nicole still felt a little hazy from the events of the day, the whole world fluid and dreamlike, and so she was happy to let her. As they passed the bathroom, Nicole’s eyes caught on the bathtub, and her steps faltered. Waverly noticed the sudden resistance and followed suit. She raised her eyebrows at Nicole expectantly, waiting for an explanation.

“Um… Do you mind… Do you think I could wash up first?” Dust and grit itched on her skin everywhere, from the grime under her fingernails to the dried sweat under her shirt collar— not to mention the dried blood, both her own and others. No matter how tired she was, she didn’t like the idea of defiling Wavelry’s clean bedsheets with the dirt and detritus of the day.

“Sure. Of course,” Waverly said immediately, releasing her hand. Nicole felt a pang at the separation, but her desire to be clean was fierce enough to tolerate it.

“I’ll be quick,” Nicole promised.

“Take your time. Knowing Wynonna and Willa, they’ll probably be out half the night, at least. They might not stumble in till dawn if things stay festive out there.”

Nicole nodded, flooded with gratitude, and ducked into the bathroom.

Inside, she turned on the water and peeled off her clothes. They tried to stick to her, adhered with sweat and dirt and dried blood, and the burn on her side flared with pain as she carefully peeled off the bandage, but she barely noticed. She clambered into the tub on sore, tired legs and slumped back, her head lolling against the rim as lukewarm water crept higher and higher over her body, setting the fresh scrapes and burns stinging even though the water was cool. She hadn't turned the light on, so the only illumination filtered in from the hallway and the small, smudgy window near the ceiling.

Sighing, she picked up each of the amber-glass bottles sitting beside the tub and uncorked each, sniffing the contents, before emptying one into the water. The scent of sage and lavender rose up so strong it stung her eyes and burned in her sinuses, but it was the first thing all day to chase out the scent of blood and gunpowder, so she welcomed it. She dowsed herself with the water, feeling the grittiness wash away. Once she finally felt clean, she sank back, enjoying the silent stillness of the moment, the house sighing around her, the dust motes floating in the thin beams of light.

What a day. Revenants. Dynamite. Stuffed dinosaurs. Stolen kisses in a small, dark room. Her mind replayed the moment, Waverly in her lap, their lips locked. The feel of her. The taste of her. The rushing adrenaline. The fear. The relief. The soaring feeling.

The light expanded as the door crept open a bit.

"Hey," Waverly's soft voice came through the opening. "I thought you could use a change of clothes."

Nicole stirred, lifting her head as if waking from a trance. "Yeah. Thanks." She shook her head a little, blinking. "I'll only be another minute."

"It's okay, you can take as long as you need.”

“No, I’m done.”

She expected Waverly to set the clothes down and retreat, but instead she stood leaning against the door frame, the clothes still draped over one arm, her hazel eyes fixed on Nicole.

Too exhausted to be either embarrassed or modest, Nicole dragged herself out of the water, borrowing a towel from the wall and drying off. She barely dabbed at the burn on her side, which stung sharply in protest. She would need to re-bandage it, or it was liable to start bleeding again in the night, but for now, the cool air on it felt good.

Finally, Waverly handed her the clothes— a button-up shirt and a pair of cotton shorts— watching with a sort of detached curiosity as Nicole pulled them on, one piece at a time. She looked as tired as Nicole felt. It had been a long day, full of bullets and dynamite and dust and sun. Once Nicole had shrugged on the shirt, most of the buttons still undone, she instinctively stepped closer and pulled Waverly into a hug. Waverly went nearly liquid in her arms, slumping wearily against her chest.

“You know, you scared the hell out of me when you jumped the barricade,” Waverly told her, the words spoken into her collarbone. “Right in the middle of everything, my heart just stopped.”

“Sorry,” Nicole said instinctively.

Waverly gave a breathy laugh, which tickled against Nicole’s skin and made goosebumps break out across her body.

“No, you’re not,” Waverly accused, and Nicole winced, then smiled wryly.

“I’m sorry it scared you,” she clarified. “I just knew I had to press our advantage.”

“I know,” Waverly said. Her fingers reached through the gap in Nicole’s shirt to gently trace her burn, and Nicole shivered reflexively. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

The burn ached at the touch, but Waverly’s fingers were cool and soft, and Nicole didn’t stop her.

“Are you okay?” she asked instead.

“I think so,” Waverly said. It wasn’t as definitive as Nicole might have liked, but she understood. “I think you had the right idea about cleaning up, though. I was sweating like crazy under that armor.”

“You can take a bath if you want. I can bring you some clothes,” Nicole offered.

“Maybe,” Waverly murmured, though she made no movement in that direction. She was still tucked up against Nicole’s body, their breathing synced up. Nicole was exhausted, but she could scrounge enough energy to hold Waverly close, even if her arms were about to fall off. She leaned her face into Waverly’s hair. It smelled like fresh air and flowers and sweat.

With a reluctant groan, Waverly slowly pulled back from the embrace, Nicole’s arms falling away to dangle uselessly at her sides.

“I’ll be quick,” she promised, echoing Nicole’s words from before.

Nicole, feeling stripped of purpose, stepped backwards out of the room and went to the bedroom to fetch Waverly a change of clothing. The bedroom was mostly intact, aside from the doors of the wardrobe, which were thrown wide, some of its contents spilling out. Nicole could imagine Waverly digging through it and grabbing her shotgun as they all scrambled to prepare for the gunfight. She took a minute to set it right, folding the clothes back into place, fixing some dresses that were askew on their hangers, and finally pulling out a nightgown. Her own shirt was mostly hanging open, letting the burn on her side breathe. After the events of the day, she still felt flushed and overheated. But after long consideration, staring blankly into the wardrobe, she still chose a warm-looking nightshirt for perpetually-cold Waverly.

By the time she got back to Waverly, she was already out of the bath and wrapped in a towel, shivering.

Nicole handed her the gown, and in one heart-stopping second, Waverly shed the towel and pulled the nightshirt over her head. The image of her body— even in the dim lighting, even though it was only visible for the space of one sucked-in breath— seared itself into Nicole’s mind, chasing out some of the chaos of the shootout and replacing it with a new, crystal-clear focus.

“Ready?” Nicole asked, her voice lower and breathier than she had intended.

“Yeah.” Waverly grasped her arm, once again towing her towards the bedroom. Bemused, Nicole let her. Maybe it was a way of feeling in control after the shootout. Maybe she just wanted to touch her. Whatever the reason, Nicole wasn’t complaining.

They made it to the bedroom, where Waverly kicked the door solidly shut and pushed Nicole gently towards the bed. Nicole sat on the edge of it, then let herself fall backwards, flopping wearily into its softness. The mattress felt like heaven after the long day.

“We need to re-bandage your side,” Waverly said, and Nicole blinked her eyes back open, only then realizing she had closed them. She thought about protesting, but though she was sometimes reckless, she was decidedly not stupid.

“Okay.”

Waverly slipped back out the door and returned holding what appeared to be a Vault-Tec lunchbox. Nicole looked askance at it, but when Waverly popped it open, there was a roll of gauze and other first-aid supplies inside.

“You’ll, um… need to unbutton your shirt,” Waverly said, a slight flush in her cheeks giving away her nerves. Nicole obediently unfastened the few secured buttons, and the sides of the shirt parted, revealing both the wound and plenty else besides.

They were surely beyond modesty at this point, but the moment still felt heavy and significant. There was a slight metallic rattle, and Nicole realized that Waverly’s hands were shaking.

“Are you okay?” Nicole asked gently.

“Yep. I’m going to do this. Just…” Waverly took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Close your eyes?” There was a subtle plea in her voice, and Nicole nodded. She let her eyes fall closed again, breathing slowly, trusting Waverly.

It must have helped, because she heard Waverly rummaging through the first aid kit, then a soft warning, “This might sting a little.”

She twitched instinctively as a salve was gently dabbed onto the burn, but it didn’t hurt as much as she had expected. After the sting, Waverly’s fingers traced alongside the wound, feather-light, like an apology. Then a gauze pad, and a little medical tape to secure it, and then the sound of the lunchbox being re-latched.

“Can I open my eyes yet?” Nicole asked, after a minute of stillness.

“I guess so,” Waverly said, a joking lilt to her voice.

Nicole blinked her eyes back open, taking in the ceiling above her. Waverly had turned the lamp on, since sunset had finally tipped over into night outside. Only the faintest glow of the distant bonfire danced in the window, and the faintest strains of music and shouting could be heard over the desert wind. Waverly stood beside the bed, looking abnormally hesitant.

“Do you want me to button my shirt back up?” Nicole followed up. The flush returned to Waverly’s cheeks, and a smile played at her lips.

“Not really,” she admitted.

Taking that into stride, Nicole sat up a little and glanced down at the fresh bandage on her abdomen before scooting back on the bed, towards the headboard. Waverly still hesitated next to the bed. She brushed some hair away from her face and Nicole notice a tremble in her hand.

“Does your arm hurt?” Nicole asked.

“Not really. And you can stop asking. It’s barely a cut,” Waverly huffed, sounding a little more like herself. Nicole held her hand out, beckoning her closer. Waverly followed her gesture, sitting next to her on the bed and letting her take hold of her arm with careful hands and inspect it.

“I don’t like the idea of a bullet getting that close to you,” Nicole murmured, her eyes tracing the line of her arm, checking for signs of pain, for sign of a break, for signs of anything that could be wrong besides the graze of the bullet.

“And I don’t like the idea of an explosive getting that close to you, but these are the situations we keep finding ourselves in,” Waverly countered, eyeing Nicole’s bandage. Nicole smiled wryly.

“At least the parts where we patch each other up aren’t so bad,” she pointed out. Waverly gave a slight chuckle.

“But still… aren’t there so many better things we could be doing?”

“Yeah…” Nicole brushed her lips over the bandage on Waverly’s arm, the lightest kiss, before settling back, leaning against the whitewashed bedroom wall. Waverly tucked herself into Nicole’s uninjured side, but couldn’t seem to quite settle there, shifting restlessly. Nicole wondered if her arm really was hurting her, despite her protests. “Do you think the townsfolk blame me? For the attack?” she asked after a long few minutes of silence. Waverly huffed.

“Nobody even got hurt. Not bad, at least,” she disagreed.

“This time,” Nicole said.

“Knowing the people here, they probably enjoyed the change of pace.” Waverly rolled her eyes a little, affectionately. “The only ones really mad about it are probably the Bighorners.” She reached out and gently squeezed Nicole’s hand. “So you can stop beating yourself up anytime.”

Nicole didn’t respond. She tried to push the worries aside for now. If the town blamed her, they could do it tomorrow. Tonight, the day was done, and she was alone with Waverly.

“How are you feeling?” Waverly asked, peering into Nicole’s face like she was trying to read her.

“I don’t know. Good. Bad. Tired.” Nicole rubbed her hands over her face, hiding it momentarily.

“The full range of human experience,” Waverly joked. “Do you want to just sleep?”

“No. Not yet.” She did want to sleep, but it was too nice to be there in the room, in the bed, together. She wasn’t ready to leavet this moment yet.

“Then what do you want to do?” Waverly’s eyes felt like they were burning into her.

“I want to do… whatever you want to do.”

“That’s not an answer,” Waverly scolded her. “Really, Nicole. What do you want to do?”

“I want…” Nicole breathed for a second, emotions still simmering under the surface. The battle already had a dreamlike, surreal quality to her memory. But the moments before it, sequestered in the dark supply closet, just the two of them, were crystalized in her mind. “I want to kiss you again.”

She heard Waverly take in a breath, a little deeper and quicker than the one that preceded it.

“Good… because I want that too.” As though she had been just waiting for that go-ahead, Waverly swiveled, her knee touching down in the space between Nicole’s splayed legs, bringing them face-to-face. Nicole reached up, her hand stroking down Waverly’s jaw, feeling her heartbeat leap in her throat. Waverly leaned her face into the touch, and steadied herself by grasping Nicole’s hips.

For one shaky breath, Nicole thought of everything they’d been through, from their first meeting at the bar, to Waverly first bringing her home, to this moment now. Radios. Books. Blankets. Swans. Sarsaparilla. Shotguns. Dynamite. Family. All bringing them right here.

Nicole surged upwards, her lips finding Waverly’s, her hands sinking back to thread through her long, brown hair. A soft, happy sound hummed from Waverly’s chest, and she tilted her head, deepening the kiss. Her fingers grasped at Nicole’s hips, as if trying to drag her closer.

Nicole was forced to break away after a too-short minute by the grin threatening to split her whole face in two.

“What?” Waverly asked, a matching smile in her voice.

“Nothing. I just…” Nicole was cut off by her own laugh. “Have I told you how much I love this bed?”

Waverly’s giggles joined her own laughter, before she pinned Nicole down to said bed and kissed her soundly, both of their laughter fading back out. And for as long as they knew, from then until the moment sleep finally pulled them under, their mouths were too busy to talk.

Nicole woke up from a coma-like sleep the next morning, not from the sun, but from a noise. Her shirt was off, abandoned on the floor, though the bandage still covered part of her abdomen. The air was cool against her skin, but pleasant. The chill of the morning was mitigated by the warmth of Waverly curled against her, her head on her chest— though Waverly herself had managed to keep her nightshirt on. Nicole yawned.

Then she realized what noise had woken her.

A door.

A door opening.

The bedroom door opening.

She discovered this as she sat up and locked eyes with Wynonna Earp, standing in the doorway with wild hair and a slack jaw. Nicole slowly pulled up the sheet to cover herself, instinctively trying to not make any sudden moves, as though Wynonna was a rabid Bighorner liable to charge.

She saw Wynonnna suck in a deep breath.

“I FUCKING KNEW IT!” With one brisk shake of her head, Wynonna slammed the door between them, still talking out loud to herself, saying things Nicole could barely follow. Fucking of course— sneaky— thirsty bitch— first set eyes— fucking knew it— my baby sister—

Her shout and the slam of the door startled Waverly awake, and she sat up slightly in Nicole’s arms.

“What—“ she mumbled, in sleepy confusion. Nicole rubbed her back gently.

“I think—“

The door burst open again and Wynonna entered this time, shutting the door behind herself.

“You sneaky little jackrabbits. I knew there was something going on. I knew it!”

“Wynonna—” Waverly started, but Wynonna shushed her, waving her hand energetically.

“No, no, I’m not done. You sneaky fuckers—”

“Wynonna—” Waverly tried again. “It’s not—”

“Say it’s not what I think, I dare you. Haught Stuff over there is giving the whole world a peep show. In your bed. With you.”

“Wynonna. I know you’re having a moment, but could you please do it quietly. Please.”

“Willa’s already at the bar, and this deserves a raised voice. Are you fucking kidding me—”

Waverly flopped back onto the mattress, rolling over and pulling the sheet over her head, curling back into Nicole’s uninjured side.

“Wake me up when she stops short-circuiting,” she grumbled, and Nicole’s lips curved up automatically. At least it sounded like Wynonna wasn’t mad, and Willa was out of the house, and yesterday had been such a long, long, long day. She flopped back onto the pillow and laughed.

Chapter Text

It was almost an hour later, after Wynonna’s shouting had fizzled out into indignant grumbling, that they reconvened, fully dressed this time, in the living room. Nicole and Waverly sat side-by-side on the frayed couch, while Wynonna paced back and forth in front of them like a woman possessed.

“Okay, explain this to me and Peacemaker in a way that doesn’t make us want to put a second hole in Haught’s thick head.”

Waverly rolled her eyes, and Nicole felt her lean into her (uninjured) side.

“I’m not a kid, Wynonna.” Two seconds in, she already sounded tired of the conversation, her voice full of hard-tested patience. Nicole absentmindedly stroked her fingers down her back, in what she hoped was a soothing gesture. “She had just been shot in the head. She’d almost died. She was hurt. She didn’t know anyone here and didn’t have anywhere to stay.” There was a tiny pause, and Waverly’s eyes flitted over to Nicole for just a moment. “Besides, she seemed nice.”

“And exactly how long did it take her to talk her way into your bed?” Wynonna asked, eyes narrowed at Nicole.

“Hey, I didn’t talk anyone into anything,” Nicole protested indignantly. Whatever her feelings, she didn’t want Wynonna thinking of her as a sleazy manipulator.

“What, a bullet in her head and I was supposed to make her sleep on the floor?” Waverly defended herself. Wynonna covered her eyes with her hand.

“So her first— HER FIRST—” she cut herself off with a snarl. She approached the couch, and Nicole instinctively leaned away, bracing for a punch, as Waverly began an indignant protest. But Wynonna just shoved them both a little to the side and dug something from under the couch cushions. A dented, tarnished steel flask, which she took a quick sip from. “Emergency whiskey,” she said in explanation. Nicole and Waverly both relaxed slightly.

“It was just sleeping, Nona,” Waverly said. “She was hurt. And exhausted. She couldn’t have done anything to me if she’d wanted to.”

“And I didn’t want to,” Nicole added swiftly. “I want that on the record, okay? I was just grateful I didn’t have to sleep on a gross mattress outside. I wasn’t about to take advantage of her kindness beyond that.”

“And so, every night.” Wynonna lowered the flask to look at them both in disbelief. “EVERY night?”

“Not every night,” Waverly disagreed. Nicole cocked an eyebrow at her, wondering if she was about to lie. “I mean, she had to go to Primm and Novac for awhile.”

Wynonna gave her sister an exasperated look, and Nicole resisted the wild impulse to laugh.

“That doesn’t—” Wynonna groaned like she was being tortured, dragging a hand down her face, making the skin stretch like a ghoul. Waverly rolled her eyes again, standing up and grabbing her sister by the arms.

“Stop being so dramatic, will you? You like Nicole, remember?”

Wynonna’s eyes cut over to the suddenly-amused redhead.

“She’s okay, I guess.”

“Then just… get over it!” Waverly shook her slightly. “Besides, you can’t pretend you’ve never slept with someone right after meeting them. And not just sleeping with them either.”

Wynonna narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“Who have you been talking to?”

“Seriously?”

Wynonna huffed a final dramatic sigh and pulled free of her sister’s grasp.

“Okay, fine.” She sank down into a patchy armchair in the corner of the room, shedding her frenetic energy like a jacket. She took a final sip frop the flask, then shoved it deep into the armchair cushions, to await the next whiskey emergency. “I assume the fact that Haught’s still alive means Willa has no idea.”

“And I’d like it to stay that way,” Waverly said quickly. Wynonna shook her head.

“I’m not gonna snitch, but baby girl, you know you can’t keep that a secret forever. Eventually she will notice.”

Waverly sank back into the couch, looking defeated. Nicole’s hand found hers and squeezed gently.

“I know,” Waverly admitted, eyes catching on their joined hands. “And we need a plan.”

“Well, you’re the planner of the family,” Wynonna said. “I’m just the pretty face.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Nicole said slowly. “There are a lot of abandoned houses around Purgatory. If nobody’s coming back for them, I could probably get into one, fix it up a little, and call it mine. If I stayed there, then she couldn’t catch me here.”

Waverly’s eyes brightened at this.

“Really?”

“Sure, why not? It might be nice to have a place to call my own. More than just a bunk somewhere.” It would be a novelty in her life. She was always welcome at the Old Mormon Fort, but it wasn’t a home, not really. She hadn’t really had a home since the Legion had stormed into her vault and painted the walls with her family’s blood.

Wynonna nodded in agreement. “I can point out a few places where I know folks aren’t coming back. The last of the Joneses had a run-in with a radscorpion nest a few years back.”

“Poor Steph,” Waverly murmured sadly.

“‘Poor Steph’ hated our guts, and you never should have hung around with her,” Wynonna countered. “But their place shouldn’t be in too bad of shape. Maybe the old Perley place. Or the Yorks’. We can check them out sometime, get the boards off the windows.”

“That’d be great,” Nicole said sincerely.

“In the meantime…” Wynonna said, and her face looked unusually serious. “If you don’t want Willa to catch you, it’s probably not the best idea for you to stay here.”

“Hey—” Waverly protested, sounding wounded.

“It’s okay,” Nicole said, though in her heart there was nothing she wanted to do less than leave Purgatory and Waverly and Waverly’s bed behind. Especially now that she knew what it felt like to kiss Waverly’s lips and feel her fingertips on her skin. “Truth be told, I ought to escort Dolls down to Primm anyway.”

“Nicole, you’re still hurt, and we all could have died yesterday,” Waverly insisted, one hand reaching out and hovering over the aching wound on Nicole’s side. Irrationally, Nicole almost did want her to lay her hand on it— against all reason, her heart believed that her touch couldn’t hurt— it could only help it heal. “Don’t you think you should stay in town and rest for a few days? You only just got back.”

Nicole grimaced a little.

“Trust me, I’d like to stay.” If nothing else, another rest day spent with Waverly, lying in bed and eating snacks, letting their wounds heal, would be a pleasant way to speed their recovery. But that never seemed to be a luxury they could afford. “But the sooner we get Dolls down in Primm, the safer we’ll be. Besides, we can’t just leave those Revenants tied up forever. Lucado will want to question them.” She sighed. “It won’t take long, at least. Probably just a day. Two at most. Then I’ll come back.”

The disappointed look on Waverly’s face was like a papercut to the heart, sharp and stinging. Every time Nicole left, it got a little harder. The gravity between them pulled harder with each day (and each night) they spent together, and the wasteland looked more desolate and unappealing by the second.

It made her wonder if someday the pull would be too strong. If she would really put down roots. If she would really get four walls to call her own. If the road would stop calling her by name.

Until then, she had at least one more journey ahead of her.

Nicole found Dolls at the saloon, apparently engaged in an intense game of Caravan with Doc. A sizable pool of caps sat to the side, awaiting the victor. She took one of the empty seats at the table, tracking Willa out of the corner of her eye.

“Who’s winning?” she asked, trying to read the lay of the cards on the table. Caravan had never been her game of choice. It was designed to be played by travelers with whatever loose cards they had to hand, and it made the strategy hard to follow.

“I am,” Doc and Dolls both said in unison. Nicole chuckled.

“Would you care to play the winner?” Doc offered. Nicole shook her head.

“I can’t stand Caravan. Never made sense to me.” She tipped her hat at Dolls. “I thought we should head down to Primm soon.”

His eyes flitted up from the game to meet hers briefly.

“Are you good to travel?”

Her wound stung under her shirt, and she wasn’t looking forward to sweating into it the whole way to Primm, the salt scalding the wound, but there wasn’t anything more to do for it.

“Good enough,” she offered grimly.

Dolls put down another card.

“In that case, just say the word. Once I’m done fleecing this old cowboy, anyway.”

Doc’s mustache twitched.

“Who exactly do you think you are calling old,” Doc growled, his voice low and ominous. He put down a card on one of his stacks.

Doll’s eyes glinted, a confident smile transforming his face from that of a grim soldier into something softer.

“If you don’t want me to call you an old man, stop playing like one.”

“Listen here—” Doc started, but he was interrupted by the jingle of the bell above the door.

Everyone looked up to eye the unfamiliar young man in dusty military fatigues who now stood, uncertain-looking, in the doorway.

“I’m looking for Nicole Haught?” he said, shifting from foot to foot. Nicole stood, and he nodded to her. “Lucado sent us with a wagon. For the injured prisoners. We’re bringing them back to Primm.”

Nicole shared a glance with Dolls. It looked like the decision was already made for them— they were leaving today, whether they liked it or not.

“I’ll take you to them,” Nicole offered, to allow the men to finish their card game.

“They were all still stable when I checked on them this morning,” Dolls said, returning his attention to his cards.

They exited into the hot desert air, the sun already sizzling above them. As promised, a sizable wooden wagon hitched to a pair of bored-looking brahmin stood by the saloon, accompanied by a handful more NCR soldiers.

“Here, lead them up here.” Bowing her head so that her hat could block more of the blazing sun, Nicole led them up to where they had locked the rogue Revenants in the gas station. She passed the solidiers the key and let them go to work. They assured her that it would take awhile to get them all settled and for the medic to give each one a quick evaluation, and she promised to come back in time to accompany them to Primm.

In the meantime, she dragged her feet back down the hill to deliver the bad news to Waverly, that they wouldn’t have one last night of peace before she had to leave again.

In preparation for her leaving, Waverly pulled her back into the bedroom, on the flimsy pretense that they ought to change her bandage one more time. Which is how Nicole ended up, once again, shirtless on the bed. Waverly pulled the bandage away as gently as possible, though Nicole still winced as the adhesive pulled at her burned skin.

“I think it looks a little better,” Waverly said, though Nicole couldn’t tell that it looked any different from the night before. Either way, Waverly meticulously re-applied the burn salve and placed on a fresh bandage. Then, the pretense dispensed with, she sighed and lay next to Nicole on the mattress, tucked up against her in the narrow space.

Nicole absentmindedly picked up one of Waverly’s hands and tried to memorize the look and feel of it, the soft skin of her palm, the curl of each joint, the length and taper of each finger.

“Your arm doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?” Nicole asked, eyeing the slight cut that marked where the bullet had grazed her. Waverly had foregone a bandage, but the cut had scabbed over and seemed to be well on the way to healing without issue.

“No, not even a little. Not unless I bump into something and it hits it.”

Nicole reached down and ran her thumb over it, then returned to her study of Waverly’s hand.

“I won’t be long this time,” Nicole promised. Waverly half-rolled onto her side to face her.

“I kinda hate it when you leave,” she said, clenching her hand so that it captured Nicole’s in a loose grip.

“I kinda hate it, too,” Nicole admitted.

They were quiet for a moment, breathing in the quiet of the moment.

“Did you mean it, about clearing out one of the old houses and maybe living there?” Waverly asked, breaking the silence. “I mean, did you mean actually living there, not just… crashing, or squatting.”

“Yeah, actually,” Nicole said. “Never thought I’d want to, but… well, what can I say. Something about this place is just…” She traced a fingertip down Waverly’s cheek, reveling in how she leaned into the touch. “Irresistable.”

Chapter Text

Waverly woke up alone, shivering, and still tired. She had come to hate that feeling. Especially now that there was a new memory in her head— the feeling of waking up with the feeling of Nicole’s warm skin under her cheek, her heart beating right in her ear, chasing away all the busy thoughts that could spiral at night. When she knew that waking up to that was an option, how was she supposed to accept waking up cold in an empty bed?

She really needed to find a way to talk Nicole into staying in Purgatory more long-term.

In the meantime, she had a saloon to run.

She dragged herself out of bed, rubbing her bloodshot eyes, and dressed quickly. She could hear footsteps creaking in the kitchen, and suspected that Willa was already up. Since the gun battle, Willa had ironically been in a better mood, and had been noticeably less critical than usual. But who knew how long that would last, especially if she found out about Nicole. Wynonna was right, they couldn’t hide it forever— whatever “it” was, whatever exactly was going on between the two of them.

She slipped through the kitchen, snagging a handful of prickly pear fruit for her breakfast on the way, exchanging a quick “good morning” with Willa as she passed. It was early for her to start her shift, but if she went early, she could keep Wynonna company, and that was a more palatable idea than staying in the house alone with Willa.

It was an abnormally cool morning, with a lone, puffy cloud blocking the sun. She wrapped her arms around herself as she walked and tried not to shiver in the breeze.

On her way in, she paused at the Mojave Express dropbox by the general store, hoping that Nicole had already made good on her promise to write. She was delighted to find a letter with her name on it in Nicole’s neat handwriting, and surprised to find a second envelope in there, with ‘Willa, Wynonna, and Waverly Earp’ written on it in an unfamiliar hand.

She was curious about the unfamiliar letter, but still couldn’t resist opening Nicole’s first. It was long, filling several pages, and she read it as she walked the rest of the way to the bar, nearly tripping down the general store steps in the process.

Dear Waverly—

Her heart fluttered a beat, seeing her name in Nicole’s handwriting, pretending she could read the affection in each curve and stroke of each letter. She tried to imagine Nicole writing it, from some dingy room in Primm, squinting in the evening light, but smiling as she wrote her name.

—Bad news.

Waverly’s heart froze, then fell as she scanned down the rest of the letter. Apparently, Nicole’s quick trip to Primm was turning into something longer and more elaborate, with Lucado wanting to drag her to Fort McCarran to talk to the NCR top brass about the Revenants and Robert Svane.

The letter was peppered with apologies and promises that Nicole would be back as soon as possible, but it was still a hard blow to Waverly’s spirits. She had been looking forward to Nicole returning within a day or two, with some kitschy present and an adoring smile just for her.

The bell jingled overhead as she entered the saloon, still studying the letter.

“Who pissed in your Sugar Bombs this morning?” Wynonna’s voice caught her attention, and Waverly glanced up to meet her gaze over the bar.

“Nicole’s going to be gone longer than she thought,” Waverly said, wishing that the desolation weren’t quite so clearly audible in her voice. “Lucado wants her to talk to some muckity-mucks in McCarran about the Revenants and Svane.”

“Bummer,” Wynonna said, a weak but sincere attempt at sympathy. Waverly took it for what it was.

“Yeah,” she agreed. Her thoughts still preoccupied, she set the letter down on the counter, only belatedly remembering the second letter that had arrived. She held it up so Wynonna could see their names scrawled on the front. “You weren’t expecting a letter, were you? This came for us.”

“For us? What ‘us?’” She snatched up the letter and squinted at the handwriting, then shrugged and ripped it open. “Oh. Holy shit.”

Waverly rushed behind the bar to read over her shoulder, curiousity burning at her.

“What? What is is? Who’s it from?”

Wynonna tilted the letter towards her so she could read the short paragraphs. “Gus. Aunt Gus.”

Waverly felt a jolt of surprise.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you write to her a little while ago?”

“Yeah, after Nicole met her in Novac.” Waverly shook her head a little. “It’s so weird to think that this whole time, she hasn’t even been all that far away.” Waverly tried to push Wynonna’s hand out of the way so that she could read the letter, and Wynonna shoved her back playfully. “What did she say?”

“She wants to visit.” Wynonna turned over the letter and stepped away to give her some room. She rolled her neck and stretched— her night shift was almost over, and she looked exhausted.

“You can go sleep if you want. I can take the bar now,” Waverly offered. Wynonna grunted noncommitally.

“ ’S fine,” she mumbled around a yawn. Waverly could relate to her tiredness. In the background, the radio crooned low. In the shadow of the valley, I would like to settle down… It made Waverly’s tired eyes itch. Wynonna added, “It’s been quiet. I think everyone’s still all partied out from the bonfire night.”

“Probably,” Waverly offered. She rounded the bar and hopped up onto a barstool and rested her head on her arms.

I have wandered many places, but they’re all the same to me…

“I’m making some coffee before I fall asleep standing up. You want some?” Wynonna asked, holding up a pair of mugs.

“Desperately.”

As Wynonna busied herself with the rather involved process, Waverly scanned back down Gus’s letter, then Nicole’s. She sighed, wishing she could talk to Nicole face-to-face about Gus’s plan to visit. She could talk to Wynonna about it, but their respective relationships with Gus had been very different— at the time that Gus had been in town, Wynonna had been wilder, and Gus had always taken a firmer hand with her, a tougher love than she bestowed on Waverly. It would be strange, having her back around.

She jumped a little as Wynonna clunked the mug down in front of her.

“Drink up, baby girl.” Wynonna said, clinking their mugs together once in solidarity. “I’m guessing you’ve got some letters to write.”

It was only three days later that Gus arrived in town, gray-haired but spry, and followed by a pack of three dogs. Waverly and Wynonna met her on the road, and Waverly was struck by how similar she looked to the way she remembered from the last time she had seen her, when Waverly was barely a teenager. She hadn’t expected to get emotional over it, but she felt her eyes well up, the dusty road going blurry.

Their mother had died when Waverly was so young, she barely had any memories of her, but Gus had been a fixture in her childhood, over their father’s objections. Gus, their mother’s sister, had been best friends with the saloon’s original owner, Shorty, and had taken it over after he died from radiation sickness. She had taught them everything they knew about running the bar, and had been the closest thing to a healthy parental figure that Waverly had ever known.

“Howdy.“ Gus greeted them from a slight distance, though her dogs were already approaching, sniffing at their boots curiously. They were slightly larger than coyotes, with mottled coats and pointed ears. One began wagging its tail as it sniffed Waverly’s offered hand.

”Gus,“ Wynonna answered, her voice giving away no emotion in particular. Her arms were crossed, her eyes still slightly wary. It was a decade later, but she clearly remembered Gus’s less warm-and-fuzzy treatment from their childhood. “Long time no see.”

Gus gave a dry laugh.

“And I see you haven’t learned manners since I’ve been gone. You’re going to let an old woman carry her own bags?” She had a rucksack over one shoulder, and Wynonna reluctantly walked up to take it, looking the part of a surly teenager. Waverly had all three dogs gathered around her, whining for her attention.

“When did you get dogs?” Waverly asked, experimentally petting one. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth in appreciation.

“It got a mite lonely after Curtis passed,” Gus said. Waverly’s heart twisted at the memory of their uncle, a loving, good-natured man, whose death had been part of why Gus had left town in the first place. “And a little dangerous, too, living alone. They helped solve both problems.” At her voice, two of the dogs scrambled back to her side, though the one Waverly was petting stayed put. “Now why don’t you show me what you’ve done with Shorty’s old bar?”

Things got a little less awkward after a few heavy pours of whiskey, and even Wynonna relaxed. Waverly sat close at her side, ready to show her support in case Gus leveled any criticisms her way. But conversation kept to other topics— mostly, stories about their mother, Gus’s sister.

“So Michelle hops right onto the Bighorner, and he starts stompin’ and hollerin’, but she just holds on until it gets so tired it just lies right down in the middle of the damn road!” Ice clinked in the glass as Gus emptied another splash of whiskey into it. Wynonna was listening with rapt attention. Gus shook her head. “Your mother sure was a wild one. You all come by it honestly.” She sighed and shook her head, as the radio played in the background.

Mad about the boy… I know it’s stupid to be mad about the boy…

“If only she’d been a little more picky about choosing who to ride off into the sunset with.”

Willa looked like she wanted to protest, to stand up for their father, but she must have known she was outnumbered, and instead busied herself counting the cash register. Waverly was glad— their father had gone easiest on Willa, but none of them had escaped their childhood unscathed. They largely didn’t talk about it— it only caused fights and hurt feelings, which never solved anything.

“It’s late,” Willa said instead, her voice tense. “You must be tired from the trip. Wynonna, why don’t you and Waverly take her back to the house?” She made eye contact with Wynonna for a long second, then Wynonna nodded and rose to her feet, groaning as her knees popped.

“I suppose you’ve got a point,” Gus admitted. Her dogs were dozing in a pile on the ground, having been given a dinner of table scraps. She clapped her hands, and they scrambled to attention.

The sisters had decided already that Gus would sleep in Waverly’s bed and Waverly would double up with Wynonna. (“There’s no way Waverly’s bed could hold two people, they’d have to be on top of each other,” Willa had argued, and Wynonna and Waverly had exchanged a glance behind her back— Wavery’s guilty, Wynonna’s smug.) Waverly wasn’t totally certain about having the dogs in her room— she imagined them mistaking Dinky the Dinosaur for a chew toy— but they seemed well-behaved, and fell asleep on the rug instantly.

Meanwhile, Waverly was stuck sleeping in Wynonna’s bed for the night. It was weird, not sleeping in her own room. But after a few nights tossing and turning in an empty bed, it was actually a small comfort having Wynonna next to her. It was different from having Nicole there– Wynonna’s bed was bigger, and they weren’t crowding each other’s space, but it was still better than being alone. (Plus, Wynonna kicked like a mule in her sleep, so it was safer to have some breathing room.)

The night was quiet, everything still except the sigh of the wind outside. Wynonna was right— the town had seemed to settle a little after the fight with the Revenants and the subsequent party, and things had been calm. But Waverly’s mind refused to be similarly quiet.

“How did you know about me and Nicole?” she asked finally, breaking the silence of the dark room. She hadn’t been sure if Wynonna was still awake or not, but she could hear her sister’s head flop sideways to squint at her through the darkness.

“What do you mean?” Wynonna’s voice was thick and half-asleep.

“You said— shouted, really, over and over again— ‘I knew it, I knew it,’” Waverly reminded her. “How did you know?”

“Oh, that.” Wynonna blew out a slight laugh. “Well, I knew she thought you made the sun rise every morning. She’s not subtle. But I thought it was one-sided. But then you… You were… different, after she came to town.”

“Better rested?” Waverly joked, remembering what a revelation it had been, waking up warm and energized for a change.

“Sure. But more than that. The second she entered a room, you’d light up like one of those glowing ghouls. I didn’t notice that much at first— I mean, you smile at everyone. But then when she left, and you stopped doing all that…” Wynonna shifted, eyeing her through the dark. “Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think she was sleeping here every damn night. But I knew something was going on with you two. I wasn’t even sure you knew it.”

“Maybe I didn’t, at first. I mean, I knew I liked her, and liked having her around, but…”

“And liked having her in your bed, and you still didn’t know—”

Waverly elbowed her in the side.

“It wasn’t like that. At least not at first. I mean, it’s not like we could do anything, with you and Willa just down the hall, even if we’d wanted to.” Waverly sighed. “It was just… nice. Having someone there. And then, it turned into… being nice having her there. She was easy to talk to. So… sweet. And she listened— really listened. Having her around made me feel… more like me, somehow. Like it was safe, to just be me.” Just thinking about it made her insides ache.

Wynonna watched her from the other side of the bed.

“You didn’t feel that way before?” she asked, her voice gentler than usual. Waverly shrugged, even though it was probably invisible in the dark.

“It was different before. Everyone here has known me me whole life. They have this picture of me in their heads, and sometimes… it feels like… they’ll be mad, or disappointed, if it turns out I’m not like that picture.”

“That’s their problem, not yours,” Wynonna said, her voice firm. In spite of herself, Waverly cracked a smile at her emphatic tone.

“I know, but… I can still feel it.”

Wynonna shifted closer to her in the bed, like she was offering support. Waverly leaned her head against her shoulder, accepting it.

“But not with her?” Wynonna asked.

“No. Not with her.”

“Huh.” Wynonna sounded thoughtful. “Well, good thing I didn’t shoot her the other day.”

Gus’s visit was equal parts good and bad, surreal and nostalgic, awkward and heartfelt. They all had to learn to be around each other again. In the end, Gus had to get back to her scrapyard, and Waverly was elected to walk her out of town.

“You’ve really grown up since I left,” Gus said as they walked slowly towards the road. The three dogs ran ahead, chasing each other around and barking at the Bighorners. “All three of you, but I think you most of all.”

“We have. We had to,” Waverly said. With their mother having fled, their father’s death, and Gus herself leaving, they hadn’t had a choice in the matter. For their own survival, they had to grow up. The wasteland didn’t leave another option.

“Well, I’m proud of you all. For keeping the saloon in one piece and looking out for each other. It’d make your mama happy to know that you were all doin’ so well.”

“I hope so,” Waverly murmured. Gus had talked about their mother a lot during the visit, and Waverly still wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Unlike her sisters, she barely remembered their mom. She was more a feeling in her head than a person.

Gus continued, “And for what it’s worth, I think Nicole’s a good choice for you. She’s tough, but she’s got a soft heart.”

Waverly missed a step, her boot scuffing in a patch of dried-out buffalo gourd. She tried to recover, but her voice stuttered.

“What— um, what do you mean? Nicole and I are just…” She wanted to say they were just friends, but it tasted too much like a lie on her tongue, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to finish. She let the end of the sentence sit there, empty and conspicuous.

“Don’t bother,” Gus dismissed her attempt either way, a bit of a laugh in her voice. “I half raised you, you think I couldn’t tell if you lied to my face?”

Waverly winced. “Did she tell you? Nicole? When she found you in Novac?”

Gus shook her head.

“She didn’t have to. I could tell by her voice when she talked about you. It reminded me of how I used to talk about Curtis.” Gus smiled, fond and sad. “Besides, there’s red hair all over your pillow, and Willa wasn’t wrong— that bed is too small for two people unless they’re real close. Not the friend kinda close, either.”

Waverly felt her face flush, hot in a way that had nothing to do with the sun. But she didn’t bother arguing.

“I really like her. I keep hoping she’ll come back and stay.”

“You can’t always chain a person down. Look at your mama, after all.” Gus clucked her tongue disapprovingly, like she could scold their mother for running off, decades after the fact. Waverly’s heart fell a little. “But I could tell the girl thinks the world of you. Could be you’ve already got a lasso around her heart.” Gus chuckled. “Give her a little time, and give her her head on the reins, and I bet she’ll come back to you.”

They exchanged a hug at the road, and Waverly felt tears prick at her eyes.

“Now you keep writing, you hear?” Gus instructed. Waverly nodded, her throat tight. Gus kissed her forehead once, like she was a child, and Waverly watched through blurry eyes as she headed back up the road, dogs trotting at her side.

Chapter Text

“Hey, could we maybe slow down? Just a little? Or not. Not’s okay, too,” panted a voice from behind her. Nicole looked back and saw the scribe from the 188, Jeremy, stumbling after her, still a dozen paces back, his Brotherhood robes damp from sweat. She checked her pace and realized that she was practically running as they got closer to the town, anticipation lending her fresh energy. She made herself halt, leaning in the shade of a nearby boulder for a brief rest. The sun was close to setting, so the shadows stretched long across the dusty ground. They had just crested a hill, and now the reddish rocks were about to rise up on either side of them, forming a claustrophobic valley. But that meant they were close.

Jeremy joined her, sinking into a crouch and breathing hard. She passed him her canteen, and he grinned good-naturedly up at her.

“Somebody’s eager to get back to Purgatory,” he teased. She didn’t even attempt to deny it. As they caught their breath, her eyes sought out the horizon, spotting Purgatory’s water tower, reaching up to the sky like a beacon.

“I feel like I’ve been gone for months,” she murmured.

“How long has it actually been?”

“Almost two weeks, maybe? It’s hard to keep track exactly. Lucado sent me to three different forts, it’s ridiculous.” She could feel herself getting antsy again and made herself take a slow, deep breath. The desert air was heavy with heat, but it smelled clean and natural, unlike the vague sulfurous tang of ash that still hung around Boulder City. (Or what was left of it.)

She had only picked up Jeremy a few days before, while stopping for supplies at the 188 on her way back to Purgatory from whatever godforsaken corner of the desert the NCR had sent her to. The robot, ED-E, had been accompanying her since Primm, but a close call with a radscorpion had damaged one of his antennae, and his shots had been pulling to the left ever since. Jeremy, a stranger drinking a sarsaparilla at the 188 bar, had leapt to his feet at the sight of him, calling him an “Eye-bot,” and eagerly offered to fix him up. While he worked, they had gotten to talking, and in the end, he had asked to tag along. As a Brotherhood scribe, he was expected to go out into the world and find old technology, but he admitted to only being an amateur shot (at best) with his plasma pistol, which made traveling the Mojave… problematic. Having left Dolls in Primm, Nicole appreciated the company.

“Do you think they’ll be okay with me being there?” Jeremy asked, as he passed the canteen back.

“Sure, why wouldn’t they?” Nicole said. Jeremy shrugged awkwardly.

“Not everyone out here is crazy about the Brotherhood.”

“Well, your past doesn’t have to be anyone else’s business unless you want it to be,” she said, thinking about Doc and his own shadowy past. Her hand checked Calamity at her hip, reassured by its weight.

“No, but I’m a really bad liar, and sometimes I’ll just start talking about something and I won’t be able to stop, even if nobody knows what I’m talking about, and—”

“You know, I’ve noticed that once or twice,” Nicole said, interrupting him before he could spiral further. Jeremy’s face fell, and she nudged him gently. “And I don’t mind. Neither will most people. Plus, you’ll be with me. And the town mostly likes me. I think. And I’m with Waverly, and everyone loves Waverly. And she’ll like you, too. I know it. She won’t let anyone give you a hard time.”

“And if she doesn’t like me?”

“She will. But if you don’t feel welcome here, we don’t have to stay. I can take you over to visit my friends in the Followers over in Freeside. They accept everyone.” Nicole scratched the back of her head. “I even saw them take in former Brotherhood members who wanted to join their ranks. You might fit in pretty well with them.”

“I don’t need to fit in,” Jeremy said after a moment. “I just need to be accepted. As me. And not forced to be something I’m not.”

“You will be,” Nicole assured him, quietly and seriously. “You can be whoever, whatever, however you want to be.”

Jeremy stood and brushed off his clothes, clearly intent on shifting the conversation somewhere lighter.

“Then it’s all good.” He grinned again. “So let’s go find your girl.”

They set off again, Nicole taking care to keep a reasonable pace this time. Jeremy rambled a bit as they walked, mostly in the kind of science jargon that made Nicole’s eyes glaze over, but she forced herself to at least pay enough attention to follow the gist of it. He was talking about which desert plants and salvage could be best used to fashion explosives.

“I prefer guns,” Nicole contributed after awhile. “Guns don’t have a minimum safe distance. I can shoot a gun point-blank.”

“But it’s easy to miss with a gun. With explosives, you get ‘area of effect’ damage, and lots of it. Way more efficient!”

“Sure, maybe if you’re being swarmed, but I’d still rather have my gun. I trust it more.”

He glanced at her revolver critically.

“You could at least switch to something stronger, like plasma,” he suggested. Nicole shot him an offended look, placing a hand over Calamity like she could cover its ears and shield it from the insult.

“Bullets have worked just fine for the past several centuries, thank you very much.”

“Bullets are antiques. Microfusion is where it’s at—”

Nicole cut him off, heading off the start of a new lecture, by grabbing his arm.

“We’re here,” she breathed. They had rounded a red rock outcropping, and all of a sudden Purgatory sprawled before them, the road rolling down into the outlying Bighorner pens and an old abandoned railroad track. Nicole’s eyes were already on the lookout for a familiar form. Just in case she happened to be out for a walk or something. It wasn’t impossible.

“Looking for something?” Jeremy asked her.

“Someone,” she murmured. “Come on, let’s go.”

She led him through the town and climbed the steps up to Shorty’s Saloon, only belatedly looking down at herself. She hurriedly brushed reddish dust from her clothes and attempted to smooth back her hair where the hat had mussed it. (It didn’t help, but the attempt made her feel better.)

“She works here?” Jeremy asked curiously, as Nicole pushed the door open, the door jingling familiarly overhead. It was so much darker inside that she had to blink repeatedly before her vision would adjust.

“Owns it. Well, owns a third of it. She and her two sisters own it.” She didn’t see Waverly anywhere, but Doc was seated at a booth, and he tipped his hat to her when he saw her. “Doc, do you know who’s manning the bar today?”

“I believe I saw young Waverly go into the back room just before you walked in,” he informed her, eyes twinkling. “And it is a pleasure to see you, too.”

Nicole smiled sheepishly, tipping her hat to him.

“Of course it’s nice to see you again, Doc. I just… I’m going to go see if I can surprise her.”

“I understand. Just don’t surprise her too much, or you might find a shotgun pointed at your head.”

“Good point. I’ll be careful.” She looked over her shoulder and saw Jeremy watching them with curiosity. “This is Jeremy, by the way. He’s traveling with me for a little while. Be nice to him.” Jeremy gave a small, awkward wave. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be right back.”

She walked off towards the back room, hearing Jeremy’s voice say “That is an amazing mustache” as she left him to chat with Doc. She crept back towards the room they called ‘the office,’ and sneakily glanced inside. Waverly was marking something on a clipboard, her brow furrowed in thought, and hadn’t noticed her yet. Her hair was down, falling in lush waves that made Nicole’s fingers itch, and her cropped shirt drew Nicole’s eyes to the smooth skin it revealed. She forced her eyes back up and cleared her throat noisily.

“Wow, the service in this place has really gone downhill since the last time I was here,” she said, leaning against the doorframe. Waverly looked up, startled, and Nicole watched surprise turn into joy on her face, before she was all but tackled in a hug.

“Where the hell have you been?” Waverly exclaimed, her voice muffled by the fabric of Nicole’s shirt. Nicole could feel the clipboard digging painfully into her ribs, but didn’t even mind. “I was worried about you.”

“I’m sorry,” Nicole said, sincerely, wrapping her securely in her arms and resting her chin on top of her head. “I got pulled into more stuff with the NCR, and it took longer than I thought it would. I wanted to come back sooner, but they had me running laps around the desert.”

“You’re okay, though?” Waverly pulled back just enough to scan up and down her body. The light was dim, but tiny beams of sunlight shot through the gaps in the wall, attracting dust motes and forming patterns on the floor.

“Yeah, no harm done.” As always, there had been a few run-ins here and there— radscorpions, or Fiends, or cazadores, but nothing she and Calamity hadn’t been able to handle.

“Good.”

They stood there another minute, Waverly still held in the loose circle of her arms. It felt good to hold her again, to have her so close, to see her face, to hear her voice.

“You know, this is really the only good part about leaving,” Nicole murmured after a minute.

“What is?” Waverly asked.

“This part. Coming back. Getting to see you again.”

“You’re just saying that so I won’t get mad at you for being gone for so long,” Waverly accused, shoving her lightly, though a slight smile gave her away. Nicole let the shove rock her back on her heels, only to step closer on the recoil, until they was only a sliver of daylight between them.

“I am not,” Nicole argued back, grinning. Their faces were so close that she could feel the warmth from Waverly’s skin. She ducked her head just enough to bring them eye-to-eye, and Waverly closed the last of the distance between them, catching Nicole’s lips in a kiss. Nicole sighed into the kiss, one hand slipping into Waverly’s soft hair. It felt just as good as she had imagined. She only pulled back when there was a noisy crash and laughter from the bar. They both glanced that way, then chose to ignore it. “God, I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Waverly said. “Just another reason to hate the NCR.”

“They aren’t always so bad,” Nicole argued reflexively, thinking of her meandering but overall fruitful journey. “Oh, come on out for a second. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

She tugged Waverly’s hand towards the door, and Waverly let herself get towed back towards the bar proper, though her brow was furrowed.

“Who? Someone from the NCR?”

“No, just a friend I found on the way, up at the 188. I think you’ll like him, and he’s sick of me talking about you all the time.”

When they emerged, Jeremy was showing off ED-E to Doc, who appeared to be listening politely, though without much comprehension.

“Jer,” Nicole called, and he stopped mid-sentence, looking up. He grinned at them, his eyes on Waverly.

“The famous Waverly, I presume?” he guessed. Waverly shot Nicole a curious look.

“I wouldn’t say ‘famous,’” Waverly disagreed. “But it’s nice to meet you, um…”

“Jeremy,” Nicole filled in.

“That’s me,” Jeremy agreed.

“He helped me out at the 188. He’s a great mechanic.”

Waverly leaned against the counter and listened as Nicole and Jeremy recounted some of their journey— including running from a cazador and Jeremy getting his robes caught on a barrel cactus. (“Not always the most practical outfit for running,” he admitted with a sheepish smile.)

Eventually, Nicole caught him yawning one too many times and asked Doc if he could donate his spare bed for the night.

“It would be my pleasure,” Doc said. They made plans to meet up again in the morning, and the two men retired, Jeremy following at Doc’s heels like a puppy, and ED-E following at Jeremy’s shoulder.

As the bell jingled behind them, Waverly leaned against the counter, looking tired.

“You stuck here all night?” Nicole asked. Waverly nodded.

“Wynonna offered to take the shift, but I haven’t been sleeping well anyway,” she said with a sigh. Nicole grimaced.

“Sorry. Guess that’s kinda my fault.”

“Not just you,” Waverly admitted. “There’s been a lot going on. Seeing Gus again really felt weird.”

“Weird good or weird bad?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it was great seeing her. But it made me think about when we were growing up. Mom leaving, and Gus leaving. Then half the town leaving. I’m a little sick of everyone leaving all the time.”

A heavy weight of guilt pulled Nicole’s gaze to the ground.

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t,” Waverly cut her off. “I know you don’t want to leave. But that still doesn’t make it easy.”

“I know,” Nicole said quietly. “But maybe… maybe someday soon, I won’t have to leave as often. If Dolls takes to Primm, and we set up a place for me in town.”

“Yeah?” Waverly said, hope and skepticism warring in her voice.

“And maybe then… you could come with me, when I do have to leave town. If you wanted.” Nicole swallowed, wishing she had ordered a drink to wet her throat. She raised her eyes to once again meet Waverly’s hazel ones. “Have you ever wanted to see the world? Outside of Purgatory?”

Waverly bit her lip. The radio crackled in the background.

I’ve wrangled, and I've rambled, and I've rodeoed around
I never once thought of settlin' down
But darlin', the moment I laid eyes on you
I knew my ramblin' days were through…

“I used to. When I was younger, I’d dream about traveling out and seeing New Vegas in real life. And the Colorado River.” She shook her head. “But after awhile, I could tell it just wasn’t possible. I couldn’t go alone, and if Wynonna came with me, Willa would be the only one left to run the bar, and she couldn’t do it all by herself.” She sighed, the breath blowing a lock of hair away from her face, and sank a little more into the counter. “Plus, after awhile… I guess I just got used to things here. Quiet life. Books. The bar. The people. Thinking about going out into the world… scared me.”

“Of course it would. It can be a scary place out there.” Nicole covered Waverly’s hand with her own, stroking over her fingers with her thumb. “But it can be beautiful, too. Sunlight reflecting off of Lake Mead. The moon rising over Black Mountain. Freeside’s neon lights at night. They’re worth seeing. If you want to.”

Waverly looked down at their entwined hands, then up into Nicole’s earnest eyes. She looked like she wanted to believe her, but wasn’t sure if she could.

“I haven’t really thought about it in a long time, but…” She squeezed Nicole’s hand back. “Maybe I still do.”

Chapter Text

It was full light when Willa arrived to take over the bar, and Nicole and Waverly were both yawning as they emerged from the dark saloon into the bright, hot day. It had been a pleasant night, the two of them talking without too many interruptions from other customers, but Nicole’s eyes were dry and itchy with tiredness.

Still, even as they lay in Waverly’s narrow bed minutes later, the daylight pouring through the window kept Nicole awake. She made a mental note to find some curtains, or shutters, for days like this.

Waverly clearly had no such concerns, and immediately fell asleep with her head tucked against Nicole’s side, her body blocking out the light. Nicole stared at the ceiling, absently stroking long lines down Waverly’s back as she slept. It felt good to be back. She didn’t mind camping under the desert moon, didn’t mind bunking with the soliders at the NCR forts, but there was nothing sweeter than lying in bed next to Waverly Earp.

Despite the sunlight, Nicole must have drifted off, because she was startled awake some time later by a noise— the sound of the bedroom door being thrown open. She jolted up, hand flying to her hip even though her gun was off in a pile of clothes on the floor. Waverly sat up as well, bleary-eyed and blinking in the light.

Framed in the doorway, Wynonna shot them an exasperated look.

“Really? Again? Still?” she asked, as though the thought pained her.

Waverly and Nicole both rolled their eyes and fell back onto the mattress in unison.

“What do you want, Wynonna?” Waverly groaned.

“Willa told me that Haught was back, and I wanted to see if she was right, and if you were still… here.” Wynonna sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Look, Haught, if you’re going to stick around, we really need to find you somewhere else to crash.”

Waverly’s hazel eyes flashed. “This is my house, too, and my room. She’s allowed to be here.”

“Sure. Fine. But this is getting ridiculous.” Wynonna leaned against the doorframe, her arms crossed. “Either you need to talk to Willa about her moving in, or we need to find her a place of her own. She’s not a stray cat, you can’t just keep sneaking her into your room forever.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Nicole asked, more curious than defensive.

“Only if you’re agreeing with me,” Wynonna allowed. Waverly scoffed.

“I am. But only sort of.” She shot Waverly an apologetic look and received a baleful one in return. “Waverly’s right, it’s her house, too. But you aren’t wrong. It wouldn’t hurt for me to find somewhere more private to hang my hat.”

“Good. Then get dressed. It’s house hunting time.” Wynonna turned her attention to her sister. “Waves, you stay and sleep, I know how long you’ve been up.”

Nicole thought about protesting— she had been up all night, too, plus traveling the day before— but it didn’t seem worth the fight. They shooed Wynonna away, and she closed the door, leaving them alone again.

Waverly yawned. “Aren’t you tired, too?” she asked Nicole, who shrugged.

“Yeah. But I can last till tonight, I think.” She got up, stretching. Yesterday’s travel still ached in her muscles, but it was tolerable.

“Make her make you some coffee or something,” Waverly suggested, still curled under the blanket. She yawned again. “She’s not wrong, I am tired, but I can still come with you if you want.”

Nicole shook her head, pulling on a paisley button-up shirt but not buttoning it yet.

“It’s okay. Why don’t you get a few hours of sleep first? Then you can catch up with us.” She sat on the edge of the bed again and stroked a lock of Waverly’s hair between her fingers. Waverly sighed and relaxed back into the pillow, murmuring her assent. She rolled over, facing away from the window, and settled back down.

Nicole lingered another few minutes, wanting to make sure she got back to sleep as quickly and pleasantly as possible. After disappearing for so long, it felt like the least she could do. So she sat next to her on the bed, rubbing circles into her back until all her muscles relaxed and her breathing deepened into sleep.

Then, with only one small sigh of regret, Nicole rose, finished dressing, and went to meet an impatient Wynonna in the kitchen.

“She’s asleep,” Nicole said, half as explanation. The annoyance seemed to evaporate from Wynonna’s expression, and she nodded with something like satisfaction.

“Good. I’ve heard her awake almost every night since Gus was here. A few more days and I was going to have Doc sedate her.”

“I know Gus’s visit kinda rattled her,” Nicole offered.

“Kinda rattled all of us,” Wynonna admitted, her voice low. “Can’t believe she’s still alive, let alone a few towns over.”

Nicole glanced at her sideways, curious. “Do you think you’ll see her again? I mean, do you want to?”

Wynonna didn’t answer right away, her gaze distant.

“No idea,” she said finally. “Gus wasn’t as warm and fuzzy with me growing up as she was with Waves, but when she visited this time… things seemed different. We aren’t kids anymore.”

“You’re all adults. You should all be on equal footing now.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe now, after everything, it might be nice, having her around more again. We don’t have a ton of family left.”

Nicole sighed. “Yeah, I know the feeling.” Her family was probably still a pile of skeletons in a blood-soaked vault. If there had been other survivors of the attack, she had never run across them.

Wynonna blanched. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Nicole just shook her head.

“It was a long time ago. I don’t think about it much anymore.” It was only half a lie. “But hey, maybe I’ll make myself a new home here. That would be something.”

Not just a bunk with the Followers, not just a room in a vault, not just a rented hotel room in Freeside. A place that was all hers.

Wynonna clapped her on the shoulder and headed for the door.

“Well then… let’s go find you one.”

Purgatory was short on a lot of things— crops, entertainment, any sort of law or government— but it was emphatically not short on abandoned buildings. Wynonna gave vague recommendations for and against each house they passed.

“Skip that one— the Clooties lived there, and they did not leave on good terms. There might still be some bones in there— and not animal ones.”

“Oh, that one was… shoot, what was his name? Perry? I heard he struck it big in New Vegas, we ain’t seeing him here anytime soon. Call that a maybe.”

“Ew, forget about that one, some Bighorn ranchers used to live there. Strong, but dumb as a sack of rocks. One of them chased Waves for years. I think they ran off with the Khans.”

Finally, they paused by one a few houses down from the Earp home— close enough to be neighbors, but far enough for a little privacy. The walls looked like they had once been painted blue, though years of sand and sun and wind had faded its vibrancy. Some of the walls needed patching, but the roof looked solid and the windows looked largely intact. A patch of prickly pear flowered in one corner of what passed for a yard, outlined by the slumped remains of a fence.

Nicole stood in front of the dilapidated house, and for the first time, let herself imagine it being hers. She could fix it up. She could put things in it— own things, more things than could fit in a satchel, for the first time since she was a child. It was a scary thought. Intimidating. She didn’t know how to patch walls or rebuild fences. She didn’t know what she would do with all the space.

But the thought of having a place that was hers… that she couldn’t be kicked out of… that she didn’t have to pack up at the end of the day… where she could just… exist. And where Waverly could stay with her, and they wouldn’t have to watch the door, bracing for an interruption or attack. A safe place. A sanctuary. A home.

Nicole took a step towards it.

“This one.”

Wynonna yelped as the board came loose from the window and she flew backwards, landing hard on her ass.

“Fuck!” she grumbled, easing onto her feet and rubbing the affected area.

Nicole looked up from where she was disassembling the lock on the door with a slightly crooked screwdriver. They had broken into the house and brought in tools and “supplies” (mostly beer), but it was becoming clear that when you broke into a place, sometimes things got broken. “You okay?”

Wynonna scowled at the window like it had attacked her out of spite. “My ass might never be the same.”

“Well, that’s a darn tragedy,” Nicole said, noticing even as she said it that her lips were looser than they would normally be. The crate of beer bottles that Wynonna had brought (“supplies,” she had insisted) had proven useful— it was thirsty, dusty work, clearing out an abandoned house, and the box made for a handy trash can— but it had also left them… slightly impaired, in other ways.

“Right?!” Wynonna exclaimed. “Gotta protect my best feature.”

“I mean, your ass is…” Nicole groped for the right word. “It’s… it’s just top shelf, man.”

“Thanks. I agree.”

There was all kinds of detritus from the house’s previous occupants— furniture in various states of disrepair, pointless knick-knacks mixed in with useful items like plates and spoons. There were also a few bottles of vodka in the kitchen, which Wynonna insisted they crack open, on the argument that it would be an excellent cleaning solution. (To no one’s surprise, the only thing it cleaned was their teeth as they sipped from it on and off.)

Wynonna eventually turned up a slightly smashed countertop radio in the back of a closet (“Jackpot!”). Even with her eyes refusing to entirely focus, Nicole made quick work swapping out a fuse from the toaster, and it hummed back to life.

Lone star shine down
On my hometown
Fill my memory
Light my way…

Adding music seemed to speed their progress, and at one point, Nicole found herself rocking back on her heels, looking around the room in amazement. The boards had been pried off the windows, and sunlight streamed in, clouds of dust motes drifting through the beams. Wynonna had flipped the circuit breaker, and a few of the lights had flickered on— others would need the bulbs replaced, or their wiring repaired. They had carried away a dry-rotted table, but salvaged a smaller one from another room. It was starting to look… real.

“You okay?” Wynonna asked her, breaking her reverie. It was only then that she realized her eyes were wet. She rubbed at them.

“Yeah, just dusty,” she lied. “Come on, back to work.”

Waverly showed up close to noon, apparently following the sound of the two of them moving furniture and breaking down boards.

“Wow, I didn’t realize how dusty it would be in here,” she said, coughing and fanning her hand in front of her face. Nicole, covered in said dust and elbow-deep in a pile of abandoned knick-knacks, just grimaced.

“I might need to borrow a broom from the saloon. Unless someone can lasso me a tornado or something.” She stood, and swayed a little on her feet as the room tilted around her.

“Whoa, hey, are you alright?” Waverly stepped forward as if to catch her, but Nicole had already stabilized, bracing against the table hard with the flat of her hand.

“She’s fine. We’re both fine. Super fine,” Wynonna drawled, her voice a little too rounded, like the edges had all been sanded down and thoroughly lubricated. Waverly’s eyes narrowed.

“Have you two been drinking?”

The two tried to protest at the same time. “It’s dusty in here.” “The vodka’s for… disinfecting.” “Plus, we needed to free up the crates.” “And I was thirsty.”

Waverly rolled her eyes at the pair of them.

“I can’t leave you two unsupervised for five minutes,” she grumbled.

Wynonna departed to fetch a broom from the bar, and to offer Willa a short break, and Waverly took her place, surveying the detritus left in the abandoned house.

“So you’re pretty sure this is it? This is the one you want?” Waverly asked, looking around the dusty room.

“Yeah,” Nicole said. “See, this will be like the living room. And then there’s a kitchen over there—” she gestured vaguely towards a doorway. “And then a bedroom there. And some other room I haven’t decided yet.”

“Which one are you making the bedroom?” Waverly asked. Nicole walked towards the doorway, and she followed. The future bedroom was empty except for more dust and a large, mostly-intact wardrobe. It didn’t have a bed, but that would be solvable— they could take one from another abandoned house, or even build one, if they had to.

To demonstrate, Nicole flopped onto the ground where the bed would go. Waverly watched her with an expression somewhere between pity and amusement.

“You’re going to be so hungover in a few hours,” she sighed, but joined Nicole on the floor, sitting against the wall and pulling Nicole’s head off the dusty ground and into her much-more-pleasant lap. Her fingers carded through Nicole’s hair, combing it straight where the sweat had made it stick up. Nicole could feel her eyelids getting heavy.

“You should quit that before you put me to sleep,” she mumbled, her voice muddled with exhaustion. “If I fall asleep on you, you’ll be trapped here.”

Waverly chuckled.

“I’m already trapped here,” she sighed, so quietly that Nicole wondered if she had even meant to say it out loud.

“You’re trapped?” Nicole echoed. The hazy influence of the alcohol left her a little confused, but she could tell it was important.

“I mean, kinda. In Purgatory. Here, I have my sisters. And the bar. And everyone. I’ve never been anywhere else. I don’t even know what it’s like to travel. What you do. How you survive.”

“Where do you wanna go?”

“Nowhere. It doesn’t matter.” Waverly shook her head dismissively, and Nicole felt a fierce protectiveness rise up in her.

“It does matter,” she disagreed, with as much force as she could muster in her tipsy, sleepy state. “If it matters to you, it matters. Wherever you want to go, we can go there.”

Waverly shook her head again, like Nicole wasn’t understanding the problem. “There’s nowhere in particular. Besides, Wynonna and Willa and Doc would have to cover for me, it wouldn’t be fair to them.”

“Sure it would. You know if you asked them, they would tell you it was fine. You know if they asked you to cover for them, you would tell them it was fine.”

Waverly didn’t seem to have an argument against that. With a sigh, she slumped back against the wall. Her fingers still absently stroked through Nicole’s hair.

“It’s not like I want to leave. Just… there are all these things I’ve never seen. But… it’s scary, thinking about being out there. Away from home. Away from everyone.” Her hazel eyes grew distant, like she was trying to picture it. Nicole reached for her spare hand and squeezed it.

“It can be scary. But it’s beautiful, too. It’s so quiet out there, in the Wasteland. And dark. You can see so many stars at night. And no matter how far away you are, you can see the New Vegas lights in the distance.” She could see the longing in Waverly’s eyes, and kept going. “Have you ever seen snow? They have it up in Jacobstown sometimes, in the mountains. Or there’s Lake Mead. There’s nothing like watching the sun rise over the lake.”

Waverly sighed again. “What about New Vegas?”

“Oh, it’s worth seeing, too. Different, though. It has an energy that isn’t like anything anywhere else in the world. More people than you’ve seen in your whole life, from all over, all in one place. And the casinos are amazing inside. But they’re also a good way to lose a lifetime of caps in ten minutes.” Nicole chuckled, thinking of all the stories she could tell about her travels, then turned serious again. “But Waves, you aren’t trapped here. Just say the word, we can go anywhere you want. I’ve been everywhere, I can take you. You’ll get the hang of it in no time.”

Waverly met her eyes searchingly. “You really think so?”

“Of course I do. You’re Waverly Earp, I think you can do anything you set your mind to. Someday everyone’ll see that.”