Chapter Text
Wynonna sat bolt upright in a panic. Her stomach lurched as she came to clutching her head, Christ she had a pounding headache. Wynonna swallowed thickly, her mouth so dry she almost choked on her tongue. Slowly her eyes began to focus, not that it really helped with the intrusive confusion swirling round her head and gut. Why was it so bright? Why was it so warm? Why was it so…dusty? Wynonna gingerly pushed herself to her feet, she wiped her dirty hands on her jeans and looked around. Nothing. There was literally nothing in all directions as far as she could see. Shit. Her hand fell instinctively to her hip, the peacemaker was safely holstered, nestled tight against her right thigh. Well at least she still had Wyatt’s gun. That was something.
Wynonna shrugged off her jacket. From the relentless heat of the sun she guessed it was around midday. Great. The perfect time to wake up in the middle of god knows where with no water or recollection of how exactly you got there. Wynonna stumbled groggily towards what looked like a narrow dirt road. Really everything around her was just dust and dirt, but what seemed to set the road apart from the dirt she had woken up in was the absence of shrubbery and rocks. Rocks like the one that had been wedged against her spine when she had woken up. Wynonna stretched as she looked left and right. Which way to go?
“Eeeny, meeny,” she said aloud as she pointed left, then right with her finger, “miny,” Wynonna pointed left again, “oh fuck it!” She threw her hands in the air and set off to her right. Something was pulling her that way anyway. Hopefully she’d find civilisation or the highway or something in that direction. Hopefully by the time she got there she would remember how the hell she had ended up in this mess in the first place.
“Are you ok?” Nicole extended her hand and gently pulled Waverly to her feet.
Waverly nodded as she tried her best not to get lost in Officer Haught’s big brown, concerned eyes, “I’m fine,” Waverly blinked a few times in rapid succession and shook her head a little, “dandy.” She was aware that her hand was still in Haught’s long after it was necessary.
Nicole was the first to let go, frowning as she retrieved her hat from the ground and dusted it off, “What the hell just happened?”
Waverly rubbed at her temple as she tried to piece together what she could remember, “We had that revenant cornered in the old cannery,”
Nicole nodded as she watched Waverly pace the alley they had woken up in.
“He opened some, some sort of portal, I guess.” Waverly stopped pacing and shrugged, “I didn’t know they could do that. Or maybe it’s just him, that’s his revenant thing. Some of them have things.” Waverly started pacing again, “Last thing I remember was grabbing a hold of Wynonna as that shit-ticket pulled her towards his swirly purple portal thing.”
“And I grabbed a hold of you.”
Waverly blushed, she could still remember the feeling of Officer Haught’s arm wrapped protectively round her waist, “I somehow lost my grip on Wynonna or she let go of my hand,”
“But I held tight to you,” Nicole said as she checked the action on her service pistol, wherever the hell they were she wasn’t getting caught off guard again.
“Thanks,” Waverly could feel a blush heating her cheeks again.
Nicole holstered her gun and tipped her hat in response.
“I suppose that explains why we stayed together but Wynonna’s not here.”
“Which is where exactly?” Nicole looked around. The alley they had woken in wasn’t paved, it was just a dirt track wedged between two wooden buildings, “I know the streets of Purgatory fairly well and I don’t recognise this.”
Waverly hopped up on an upturned crate and peered over the wooden fence at the end of the alley. When she turned back round, she had visibly paled, “You might want to take a look at this Officer.”
Nicole shook her head as she stepped closer to the fence, standing on her tip-toes to peer over, “How many times do I have to tell you to call me…” She trailed off as she tried to comprehend what she was seeing. There were horses, a lot of horses. On hitches outside more wooden buildings, or with people on them, pulling stagecoach type horses. And a thoroughfare. As in an old timey, non-paved, muddy as all shit thoroughfare, “I’m gonna ask again,” Nicole said as she turned to face Waverly, “where the hell are we?”
Waverly tried to remain as calm as she could, but she knew her wide eyes were a dead give-away, “I don’t think it’s a case of where,” she turned her attention back to the busy main street, “but rather when.”