Chapter Text
Nicole had been having a good day.
Truly, she had.
She had a nice morning of…activities…with Waverly.
She had a delicious breakfast.
She made it to the station extremely happy to see that all of her new recruits were settling in nicely.
She’d had a quiet morning with minimal criminal activity (it sounded like the worst that had happened was an attempted robbery that had been stopped very easily).
And now she had her favorite sandwich from Shorty’s that Waverly had brought her.
Except all she could feel was nausea.
At first she thought that her breakfast was a little too big, and she wasn’t overly hungry at the moment, but she had to spit out her first bite before the taste made her breakfast come back up.
It started around 10:30. She had been filling out paperwork when she got extremely hot and sweaty. She just figured she was getting her period soon and it was a hot flash.
Only a half hour later some head and neck pain began to kick in. She thought maybe she had been hunched over her desk and staring at files for too long so she made her way outside to check on the other officers. Sadly, the head and neck pain just got worse over the next hour.
Then at noon, Waverly placed the sandwich in front of her and she added nausea to the list.
Finally, she decided enough was enough. She’d had a hard time calling in sick in the past out of guilt, knowing Nedley needed all the help he could get, but now, knowing she had many, very capable officers at her disposal, she was happy to go home if she was feeling like this.
She slowly and carefully made her way out of her office, walking over to her deputy, Adam Turner.
“Hey Turner. Listen, I’m not feeling so good so I’m gonna take off. You think you can hold down the fort?” Nicole asked.
“Yeah, of course sheriff,” Turner replied, “Do you want me to get Waverly from the BBD office?”
“No, no it’s fine. I don’t want her to worry.”
“Do you need someone to drive you?” he asked.
“No, I'll be okay. Thank you though,” Nicole said as she made her way out of the station.
“Alright. I hope you feel better.”
“Thanks.”
By the time Nicole made it to her car, she did feel present enough to drive herself back to the homestead, luckily making it back without any incident.
However, the moment she stepped out of the car, she doubled over and threw up.
With that out of the way, she made her way into the homestead, stripping off every piece of her uniform until she collapsed face first into the bed, no covers on her, no clothes, and still feeling too warm.
She woke up about an hour and a half after she had passed out, extremely confused and not entirely sure what was going on. The one thing she did know, however, was she definitely did not feel good. She forced herself out of bed and into the bathroom, spilling her guts into the toilet.
After a few minutes of that, she remembered she hadn’t been feeling good at work and made her way downstairs to grab a bucket before making her way back to the bedroom.
She continued to wake up, throw up, and pass out intermittently for the next couple of hours. After a while, it even became difficult to fall asleep because the pain in her head and neck had become so excruciating.
She stumbled into the bathroom to empty her bucket after a while, and stumbled back into her room, passing out the moment she fell into bed from the exhaustion of simply walking to and from the bathroom.
After a while, Nicole finally awoke to a soft hand rubbing soothing circles on her back.
“Hey baby. I stopped by your office and Turner said you weren’t feeling good,” Waverly said.
Nicole looked up to look at her wife, but immediately shut her eyes in pain when she saw the light spilling into the room from the hallway. She groaned and pressed her face into her pillow.
“The light hurts,” she said.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Waverly said as she quickly got up to shut the door, “Is that better baby?” she asked as she returned to the bed and sat down beside Nicole.
“Yeah,” Nicole responded.
“I wish you’d told me you weren’t feeling good, I would have driven you home.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay baby. You feel pretty warm, is it okay if I take your temperature?” Waverly asked, receiving a nod from Nicole.
Waverly went to the bathroom to get the thermometer. She returned to the bathroom and gently placed it in Nicole’s mouth. When she went to look at it, she audibly gasped.
“It’s 100° honey. I think if it goes any higher we should take you to the hospital.”
“Okay,” Nicole said.
“Now, Rachel’s at a sleepover so I can put my focus on taking care of you sweetie. What can I do?”
“I’m okay for now,” Nicole said, her speech slightly slurred.
“Okay baby. I’m gonna be downstairs. Holler if you need me?”
“Yeah okay.”
Waverly made her way downstairs, extremely worried about her wife. She had never seen her so sick before. She had no idea what could have possibly happened to make her feel so awful.
She figured it might have just been something she ate and it would pass through the night, so she sat down on the couch and put the TV on, ready to help Nicole with anything she may need.
It was only a few minutes later when she heard Nicole throwing up. She was tempted to go upstairs, but she knew how difficult it was for Nicole to accept help. She didn’t have to wait long however.
“Waverly!” Nicole shouted. Waverly quickly ran upstairs and peaked into the bedroom.
“You okay honey?” she asked.
“I threw up on the bed,” Nicole said with a sob.
“Oh honey,” Waverly said, coming into the room and shutting the door behind her.
“I tried to get up to throw up in the bucket but I didn’t have enough energy. I’m sorry,” Nicole said.
“It’s okay. Stuff happens. Here, let me help you over to the love seat,” Waverly said. She practically carried Nicole over to the seat next to the bed, slowly lying her down.
Waverly stripped the bed and did her best to rinse off the vomit before putting the sheets in the washing machine. She remade the bed and made her way over to Nicole.
“Okay baby the bed is ready,” she said.
“Okay,” Nicole said, lifting her arms up so Waverly could try to lift her up from the love seat.
It took some time, but Waverly finally managed to get Nicole situated comfortably in the bed.
“Should I put clothes on?” Nicole asked, earning a confused look from Waverly.
“Only if you want to sweetie,” Waverly said.
“I don’t want to be going to the bathroom and pass by Rachel.”
“But she’s at a sleepover baby, remember?”
“Why is she at a sleepover?” Nicole asked. Waverly was getting confused.
“I texted her to tell her you were sick and she suggested the sleepover so she could be out of the way,” Waverly explained.
“She shouldn’t be at a sleepover,” Nicole said, her speech slurred. Waverly assumed she was a little delirious and maybe didn’t know what she was saying.
“Why not honey?” Waverly asked out of curiosity.
“It’s a school night.”
“It’s Friday.”
“Oh,” Nicole said, seemingly completely unbothered, “Can I have some saltines?”
“Of course. I’ll get some right now.
Waverly was extremely confused as to what could have possibly gotten Nicole so delirious, but she figured it was just the exhaustion of feeling sick.
Once she made it back to the room, she sat down next to Nicole and offered her the bowl.
“No, I’m not hungry,” Nicole said quietly.
“But it’ll be good for you to get something in your stomach,” Waverly encouraged.
“No thank you.”
“But you just said a couple minutes ago that you wanted some,” Waverly said.
“No I didn’t,” Nicole responded.
“Nicole, will you just eat one? Or not even a full one. Just a bite? To see how you feel?”
“Fine,” Nicole said, sitting up slowly and taking one of the saltines from the bowl. She took a small bite before instantly grabbing her bucket and throwing up once again.
“Oh sweetie,” Waverly said, holding Nicole’s hair back and rubbing her back.
“This sucks,” Nicole sobbed once she stopped throwing up.
“I know baby, I know. What can I do?” Waverly asked.
“Will you just hold me?”
“Of course. Let me just empty out the bucket really quickly,” Waverly said.
Once Waverly came back she very quickly opened up her arms, which Nicole gratefully fell right into.
“Maybe I pissed off Wynonna so she poisoned me,” Nicole said, earning a laugh from Waverly.
“Although that does sound like Wynonna, I’m not so sure how she would do that all the way from Miracles,” she said.
“What’s Wynonna doing in Miracles?”
“Um…what do you mean honey? She’s going to get Alice.”
“Who’s Alice?” Nicole asked groggily.
Waverly would have responded, but she could tell that Nicole was drifting off to sleep already. She would have been concerned as well, but she was sure that Nicole was just tired from feeling so sick. So, she just held Nicole, rubbed her back, and slowly fell asleep along with her.
She was suddenly awoken a few hours later by the feeling of Nicole beginning to shake. Given that she was extremely tired and out of it, her immediate assumption was that Nicole was having a nightmare.
“Shhh, you’re okay baby, you’re okay,” Waverly said, gently rubbing Nicole’s back. However, it didn’t take her too long to realize that Nicole was shaking far too much to be simply having a nightmare.
“Nicole?” Waverly asked, sitting up, “Oh my God!”
Nicole was having a seizure.
Waverly knew enough about seizures to know the basics: stop them from hitting themself, turn them on their side, don’t let them swallow their tongue.
“You’re okay honey, you’re okay,” Waverly said as she followed the steps. She quickly grabbed her phone and dialed 911.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“My wife is having a seizure!”