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This is the kind of event that was made for Waverly Earp. Long, flowing dresses, tuxes, shy glances, and nervous hands on hips. Just the right amount of cheesy, mixed with something ceremonious and sweet. Teenagers, caught in a time when their lives are about to change rapidly, while simultaneously trying to stay in the moment.
It comes about when Nicole is cooking breakfast for everyone, while Waverly and Rachel sit at the kitchen table. Rachel makes a sudden and quiet declaration that takes Waverly and Nicole off guard.
“I’m going to prom with Billy,” she says, looking down at her phone and avoiding eye contact.
Waverly practically slams the book she’s skimming through down on the table, while Nicole turns so rapidly that she nearly knocks the frying pan off of the stove.
“You are?” Waverly asks her. She tries to keep her voice level, but she’s a little shocked. Cynical and ever-so-private Rachel Valdez going to prom and slow dancing with Billy? Color Waverly surprised.
“Yeah … So I guess I’ll need to find a dress.”
“That would make sense,” Nicole says, trying just as hard as Waverly to hide her own surprise. Nicole knows that this is hard for Rachel, who tries so hard to do everything on her own. Just to admit that she needs Waverly and Nicole to take her somewhere, much less to spend extra money on her, makes Rachel feel vulnerable and small. But here she is, asking them to help her go to prom, so Nicole and Waverly are determined to meet her request with as much of a non-reaction as they are able to, as a way to try to make her more comfortable.
“Well this will be fun,” Waverly says, towing the line between too excited and just excited enough. “What kind of dress are you thinking of?”
Rachel seems to relax a bit, going into the details of what she wants to wear and sounding genuinely enthusiastic. Watching Rachel like this, Waverly can’t stop herself from grinning ear-to-ear. It hasn’t been an easy year, and every small milestone, every time that Waverly can sense Rachel letting her walls down, even just a tiny bit, makes Waverly feel elated. Waverly and Nicole are both aware that Rachel has had so much robbed from her, so when she is able to have some semblance of a “normal” childhood, like going to prom, it feels like the stars are aligning. As the three of them sit at the table, eating breakfast and pulling up pictures of dresses on their phones, there is a sense that, perhaps since the first time they became a makeshift family of sorts, everything really will be just fine after all.
Nicole and Waverly hadn’t planned on chaperoning. Instead, they were thinking of a quiet night in, maybe with dinner and a movie. They didn’t want to encroach on Rachel’s special night and invade her privacy. But a few weeks before the big event, Rachel meets them with a request.
“I was thinking that maybe you guys would like to chaperone?” she asks them, a shy face standing at the bottom of the stairs and looking in at them sitting at the couch, Waverly’s feet propped up on Nicole’s lap.
“You … you want us to go to your prom?” Nicole asks, completely taken aback. Nicole and Waverly have made a conscious effort to walk the line between letting Rachel and Billy have privacy, while still keeping an eye on them. Nicole knows that Rachel makes her own effort not to exhibit any public display of affection towards her boyfriend in front of Waverly and Nicole, even though she and Waverly wouldn’t mind at all. So for Rachel to ask them to come, knowing that they will see her with Billy in a way that she had previously been uncomfortable with, feels like so much more than Rachel merely asking them if they would want to chaperone a dance.
“Yeah,” she responds quietly. “I mean, I know you’ll be chaperoning and all that, but you guys could kind of like, go to prom together.”
It hits Nicole how completely sweet this is, Rachel asking them to chaperone as an opportunity for them to attend their own prom of sorts. When the topic of prom initially came up, Rachel had asked both of them if they went to their respective highschool dances. Nicole recounted that while she did go, she was very much closeted at the time and couldn’t risk asking a girl. Instead, she wound up going with a guy that was very interested in her, while she was not at all interested in him. Waverly told the story of going to prom with Champ, who snuck some cheap vodka into a flask, which he subsequently poured into his punch. By the end of the night, he had thrown up on Waverly’s shoes, and she broke up with him, only for them to messily reconcile the next week. In short, neither Waverly nor Nicole had a prom experience that was anything to fondly reminisce about. To be able to rewrite the story, to go to a highschool dance openly, as their true selves, was something that thought would only exist in their dreams.
Nicole smiles at Rachel warmly, wanting to convey how much this means to her, without embarrassing the young girl. “We’d love to go, Rachel. Right, Waves?”
When she turns to Waverly, Nicole can see that Waverly is totally enamored by the idea. “Family prom!” Waverly yells.
Rachel would never be able to tell them this, at least not yet, but she asked Waverly and Nicole to chaperone because doing anything noteworthy without them is almost unimaginable at this point. Of course, no one will ever take the place of her mom, but she is continuously in awe of how much these two strangers have enriched her life and provided her with a kind of maternal love that she thought had vanished from her life as soon as she discovered that her mother was gone. Rachel is not a difficult person, but she can hear their quiet talks Waverly and Nicole have about how to make her as comfortable as possible, how to respect that she is such a private person, while being able to know enough about what’s going on in her life to take care of her. The truth is that Waverly and Nicole have become a sanctuary for her. Not just the homestead, where they’ve transformed Waverly’s old room into a safe haven for Rachel, but just their presence in her life. Nicole, who is faithful and steady, and Waverly, who is sunny and warm. And both of them together have been so welcoming and loving, never for a second making her doubt her place in their lives. So it seems fitting to Rachel that yes, this would become a family event, because at the heart of it, they are a family.
“Family,” she whispers in the quiet of her room after she goes back upstairs. The word sounds foreign on her lips. She supposes it’s been awhile since she’s thought of herself having any family at all. Now, though, she really does have a family. A whole family, too. With Nicole and Waverly came the support of Nedley, Jeremy, Wynonna, and Doc. She’s inherited a whole crew, and while she hasn’t been able to summon the words yet, she loves them all. Really loves them. It feels strange to love them all like she’s known them for a lifetime, but she’s softened to the idea of embracing her feelings, rather than fighting against them. She knows from losing her mother that life is much too short for that.
When she reaches up to move a strand of hair out of her eyes, she’s surprised to feel wetness against her cheek. It’s a foreign thing for her to cry out of happiness. She’s so young and she knows she has a bright future ahead of her - Waverly and Nicole have assured her of that. But it is so hard not to feel like she’s lost such an important part of her life; the chance to grow up with her mom. Though lately, she’s feeling so much less resentment about it. Instead, a feeling of gratitude is taking resentment’s place in her heart. Gratitude for Waverly and Nicole and this new chance at life she has been given. And also, gratitude for the way in which her mother sacrificed herself for the greater good. Over time, Rachel had come to understand that her mother’s death was not a choice to leave Rachel behind, but rather, to protect her future. She’s learning, albeit slowly, that while she doesn’t want to live without her mom, she can . She can still have a family, she can still have parental figures, she can keep on going and make her mom proud. And through Rachel’s own life, her mother’s will continue on.
It is a sunny, perfect Saturday. Waverly is getting the homestead prom-ready, and it’s reminding her so much of her wedding preparations that she feels giddy. Together, she and Nicole have wound balloons around the porch banister, and they’ve hung a “Purgatory High Prom 2022” banner that Rachel painted above the barn doors. They’re hosting a pre-prom dinner at the homestead, and they’ve all been working diligently to convert the barn into a makeshift dining room. Soon, a group of teenagers will show up, smiley and excited to see what the night holds for them. But for now, it’s just the three of them, quietly putting the finishing touches to set the tone. Waverly and Nicole are arranging vases full of flowers from Nicole’s garden to put on the table in the barn when Rachel runs into the barn, out of breath.
“Hey,” she says, leaning up against the doorframe to catch her breath.
“You okay?” Nicole asks, noticing that she looks red in the face.
“Yeah, yeah. I just … people are going to start showing up in a minute and I … I just wanted to say thank you guys.” She pauses for a moment to really look at them. “For everything.”
It’s simple, just a small gesture of her appreciation. But Waverly and Nicole know that she isn’t just referring to what they’ve done to get her ready for prom. Waverly feels tears spring to her eyes and it takes her by surprise. She forces herself to push them down, not wanting to embarrass Rachel. Instead, she silently walks to Rachel and wraps her arms around her. For a moment, Rachel feels stiff beneath her, then she softens, wrapping her arms around Waverly.
“Bring it in, Haught,” Rachel jokes.
With Nicole’s arms spanning around them both, they embrace as a family, three hearts becoming full, three futures looking brighter than ever.
Dinner has been served and the small house on the homestead is filled with teenagers, running back and forth frantically to get ready for the night ahead of them. Waverly and Nicole are in their room, getting ready themselves. They’re nearly ready, but they haven’t had a chance to really look at each other yet. So when Waverly turns from the mirror, finished with her makeup, to see Nicole putting on her suit blazer, she feels the same flush of heat rise in her chest that she felt when Nicole waltzed into Shorty’s and asked for a cappuccino to go. They’re matching tonight, with Nicole wearing a simple black suit and white button up, and Waverly wearing a black cocktail dress. They opted for an understated look, not wanting to wear anything that would take attention away from the young stars of the night.
“Did you have fun playing restaurant tonight?” Nicole asks Waverly, grinning and walking towards her.
“Nothing better than serving 16 teenagers and not getting a tip for it,” Waverly jokes.
When they are in arms reach, Nicole hooks her finger under Waverly’s chin, softly bringing their lips together. It’s slow and soft, lips gently brushing together, before Nicole pulls back and wraps her arms around Waverly. She kisses Waverly’s forehead as Waverly clasps her hands together behind Nicole’s back.
“You look so beautiful, Waves,” she whispers.
“You know how I feel about you in a suit,” Waverly whispers back to her, her smile evident in her voice.
Waverly thinks briefly about pulling back to kiss Nicole again, still unable to get enough of her after all this time, when they hear a knock on their bedroom door.
“I think we’re ready!” Rachel says through the door. They both look at each other and smile because they’ve never heard her this excited before and it’s something sacred and precious to them.
Nicole squeezes Waverly’s hand and smiles. “Let’s go see our girl off,” she tells Waverly, and they’re both grinning ear to ear as they open their bedroom door.
The girls have chosen to do a kind of dress reveal for their dates, with each of them coming down the steps one at a time, while Waverly and Nicole frantically snap pictures. They are all young and beautiful, their dresses as unique as their own personalities. They all have a glow and excitement about them, meeting their dates at the bottom of the steps. One by one, corsages are placed on wrists and boutonnieres are pinned to lapels. The last to come down the steps is Rachel, but before she does, Nicole frantically FaceTimes a special someone.
When Wynonna answers the call, Nicole makes the mistake of having the phone pointed at her chest as she tries to swap to the back camera.
“Looking very daddy this evening, Haught,” Wynonna says as a form of greeting.
“Wynonna!” Nicole whisper-yells, “I am in a room full of teenagers!”
“Did I say daddy? I meant to say dapper,” she says, fooling absolutely no one.
“Okay Rachel, we’re ready!” Waverly yells up the stairs.
As she walks down the stairs, everyone is quiet. Perhaps they are all aware that for Rachel, who has gone through hell and back in the past year, this is a special night, a sort of reprieve and a glimpse of her future. Maybe they are thinking about Rachel’s mom, not here to see her daughter, but possibly watching from somewhere far away. Maybe they simply think that she is the definition of beauty in a black sequined gown, her hair falling in waves around her shoulders. She looks timeless, like she walked out of an old Hollywood photograph. Billy is waiting at the bottom of the steps for her, looking so enamored that Waverly feels compelled to take pictures of him watching her walk down towards him.
Wynonna is the first to break the silence. “Well shit, now I need a tissue.”
It makes Waverly laugh, and she’s grateful for that because she needs a tissue too.
“You look beautiful, Rach,” Billy whispers to her, and Waverly and Nicole smile at each other because they see a flush rise to Rachel’s cheeks from the compliment. They both know what it’s like to be called beautiful by someone that means it in every sense of the word.
Doc steps into the video frame holding a wiggly Alice and everyone gathers around to watch Rachel pin the boutonniere onto Billy’s lapel, meanwhile Waverly is snapping pictures so rapidly that Nicole expects to see smoke rolling off of the camera.
“Hey!” Wynonna shouts, a yelling figure on the screen of Nicole’s phone. “Someone hold the phone and let me see my favorite lesbians!”
Rachel laughs and grabs the phone, turning it around so that Waverly and Nicole are in the frame.
“Ya’ll make me sick, looking like a gorgeous gay power couple or some shit,” Wynonna says rolling her eyes and fake gagging.
Everyone laughs, including Alice, who has started to copy everything Wynonna does, something that Doc is only mildly worried about at this point.
Things are a little hectic, so the call with Wynonna doesn’t last long, with Waverly telling her that she promises to call her back later.
“Enjoy the dance, darlin’,” Doc tells Rachel, his smooth drawl soothing a room full of teenagers that are nervous and rushing to make sure they have everything together before they get in the limo that has just arrived.
While the group slides into the limo, Waverly and Nicole stand on the porch, waving the rowdy crowd off.
As the car takes off, dust flying around the homestead, Rachel rolls down the window to loudly proclaim, “family prom, here we come!”
They arrived at the decorated school gymnasium shortly after Rachel and her crew did, and since then, they’ve spent the time swaying to music and making sure that nobody gets too handsy. They do their best to not focus too much on Rachel, wanting to give her space, but it’s been impossible for Waverly and Nicole not to occasionally glance her way. When they do, they’re met with a young girl smiling wider than they’ve ever seen, dancing in a way that’s completely uninhibited. A few times, they’ve seen her cuddle close to Billy, the two of them wrapping their arms around each other and gently dancing to a slow song. When Waverly sees Billy whisper into Rachel’s ear, telling her that he loves her, she has to bite her lip to keep from smiling too ridiculously.
As the night comes to an end. Waverly and Nicole still haven’t danced together, and Nicole realizes that their opportunity is closing. Of course they’re there to chaperone, but once dance won’t hurt anything. And if one dance turns into a few, well that’s okay too.
“Can I have this dance?” Nicole asks Waverly, looking at her through long lashes.
“Of course,” Waverly says through a grin.
As Nicole grabs her hand and leads her to the dance floor, she sees Rachel dart off to the DJ. Nicole knows that Rachel’s up to something and she wonders what it is, but she doesn’t have to wonder for long.
Soon, they hear the beginning of a pop song, one they know well. When Wildwood starts playing, they smile into each other, and they recall their wedding day, when Rachel gave them the sweetest gift. As they sway together, they think of bubbly champagne, of Doc eating entirely too much cake, of the bliss that comes with a truly perfect day. They think of Dolls’ empty seat, of Rachel’s mom, of the months Waverly and Nicole spent apart. And they thank their lucky stars that the universe brought them all together, despite all that they’ve lost.
As they dance together, Waverly with Nicole and Rachel with Billy, they all know love and they all know peace. Even if only for the length of one song, each of them finds the peace of belonging, the peace that comes with finding a family. The dance will end, Rachel will go to college, Waverly and Nicole will continue to experience a sort of marital bliss that they thought was for fairytales, Alice will grow up and be just as wild as her mother. Time will go on and the seasons will pass over the homestead and they will all change in one way or another. But as they dance in the highschool gym, they know one thing for sure - they would go to the ends of the Earth for each other. Just as Nicole promised Waverly, “where you go, I go,” they will always have each other. It’s this knowledge that sends them into the night, faces hurting from smiles and hearts overflowing with love. They are one small, happy family.