Chapter Text
APRIL 18, 2035
“Wyatt Henry Haught, if I come up there and you are still in bed there’s going to be hell to pay!” Waverly hollered up the stairs. “Wynonna and Dolls will be here any minute!”
“Swear jar, Mama!” came the reply, quickly followed by the sound of footsteps in the second floor hallway. Waverly sighed, fishing around in her purse for a quarter as her son emerged from the stairwell, eyes bright with glee and hands shoved in his pockets.
“Besides,” he continued, “didn’t you stop giving a rat’s ass about hell, like, 11 years ago?” Wyatt dropped two quarters in the jar, went up on tiptoes to kiss his mother’s cheek, and skipped out the door before Waverly could reply.
Waverly shook her head, dropping her own quarter into the jar before peeking into the kitchen, where Nicole was preparing sandwiches for their picnic lunch. “Sounds like Wynonna’s gonna be getting her pizza party without cheating this time around,” said Nicole, giving Waverly a peck on the lips before continuing to mix the large bowl of tuna salad in front of her.
“Is it really cheating if she’s just putting a quarter in every time she swears like the rest of us?”
“I don’t know what it’s called if she stands in front of the jar with the stack of quarters, rattling off every swear word she knows, but I wouldn’t call it playing fair.”
Waverly felt Nicole’s shoulders still, then relax as she wrapped her arms around Nicole’s waist, her nose between Nicole’s shoulder blades. “Whatever you say, Sheriff Haught,” Waverly said, grinning at the way the words sent a shiver down Nicole’s spine.
Nicole put the spoon down and turned to face Waverly, jumping at the sound of loud knocking on the front door. “Wynonna,” they said together, but Waverly had scarcely started towards the door when a third voice rang out from the second floor as feet stomped down the stairs.
“Aunt Wynonna!”
There was a flash of dark hair as Nicole and Waverly’s daughter, Astor, bounded through the hallway and threw open the front door.
“Hey, kid, long time no see!” said Wynonna, pulling her niece into a bear hug. “It’s been, what, 24 hours?”
“Would’ve been less if you had come for dinner last night,” said Astor, frowning and crossing her arms.
Wynonna raised her hands in mock surrender. “I really am sorry about that, baby girl, I got caught up with work stuff at Shorty’s. Inventory takes ages! There are mugs--” she poked Astor’s arm, “glasses--” she poked her stomach, “all that whiskey--” Astor burst into giggles as Wynonna poked her nose.
“And I’m an old woman, I move slower than I used to!”
“For Pete’s sake, Wynonna, you’re 47, not 80,” scolded Waverly, peeking into the entryway from the kitchen. “Better you running the place than Gus; she is an old woman.”
“Better not let her hear you say anything like that,” muttered Wynonna to Astor, who laughed again.
Waverly caught Wynonna’s eye as she looked up. “Dolls on his way?” she asked.
“Left the city two hours ago, should be here any minute,” said Wynonna, turning her face slightly to hide her small, excited smile. She had been keeping up the act for decades if she had been keeping it up for a day, but Waverly learned long ago that it was foolish to protest the charade. Wynonna and Dolls were free to care about each other in whatever way they wished.
“Well, get in here while you wait,” said Waverly, tugging her sister towards the kitchen, “Nicole’s working on the tuna sandwiches, you can get started on the cold cuts.”
+++++
“Will Matteo be joining us this year?” Gus asked Chrissy as she dropped a large bag of lemons on the kitchen table with a loud thump.
Chrissy looked up from the sandwiches she was slicing and wrapping. “Matt’s caught up with work in the city,” she replied, “but Bella and Rose are heading over after their volleyball practice.” She peered out the window. “In fact, they should be here any minute…”
“Think fast!” shouted a voice outside the house. The adults in the kitchen laughed at the sight of Rose lobbing a volleyball at an unsuspecting Wyatt, who turned just in time for the ball to hit him square in the chest. Wyatt grinned as he picked up the ball and threw it back to its owner. Rose and Bella dropped their bikes and raced to stand on opposite sides of Wyatt, who jumped up and down in a vain attempt to catch the ball in the twins’ impromptu game of monkey-in-the-middle. Gus snorted and got to work cutting the lemons to be squeezed for fresh lemonade.
“I think he does it on purpose,” Chrissy said quietly to Waverly.
“Hmm?”
“Matt. My husband,” said Chrissy. “I think he misses the picnics intentionally.”
“Oh,” said Waverly, as she turned off the sink and set aside the apples she was rinsing. “Do you want me to say something? I can, you know. I don’t mi--”
“No, no, that’s fine,” Chrissy said hastily, “I don’t think he means anything bad by it. I just think--well--he still doesn’t know the whole story behind the curse, but he knows enough to realize we’ve been through a lot together, and I think he just wants us to have these days for ourselves. To be with each other, you know?”
Waverly smiled and nudged Chrissy gently with her elbow. “Yeah,” she said, “I know.”
+++++
The anniversary fell on a Saturday that year.
Those were Waverly’s favorite years, when she had no classes to teach, Dolls could drive in from the city, Nicole could take the day off, and the kids didn’t have school. Those years, they could all come together and celebrate.
It really was a celebration; even the first anniversary of Doc’s death ten years prior could hardly have been considered a mournful affair, with three-year-old Astor chasing Ace around and one-year-old Wyatt sitting up gingerly on the picnic blanket. His piercing blue eyes followed his sister’s progress as she and the aging dog frolicked through the open field, Ace’s dark fur and Astor’s dark skin standing out against the bright green grass.
Wynonna and Dolls, Waverly and Nicole had sat there, as they did every year thereafter, drinking beer and laughing at the collection of wild tales that was Doc Holliday’s life. The longer they stayed and the lower the sun dipped in the sky, the easier it became to accept how Doc had lived a long life, a full life, and a life that had come to an end when the time was right, when the man was ready.
Some things had changed over the years. On the second anniversary, once Wyatt had learned to walk and run, he joined Astor in the fields, playing hide-and-seek and tag and make-believe until their mothers called them back to the blanket for sandwiches and lemonade.
On the third anniversary Chrissy and a retired Sheriff Nedley showed up with a bottle of bourbon and a bouquet of flowers. It was only natural; by the final days of the curse the Nedleys had become trusted allies and friends. In the following years they never missed a single picnic.
On the fourth anniversary the two children chased a young puppy with white fur through the meadow and Ace joined the group from her own final resting place beside her old friend’s grave.
+++++
“Guys, do you realize what day it is?” Wynonna exclaimed suddenly, causing Nicole to jump and jostle her bottle of beer.
Dolls sat in confused silence. Nedley shifted in his folding chair and Chrissy straightened briefly before relaxing against his legs. Neither spoke.
“...Yes?” said Waverly, quizzically, gesturing to the picnic blanket, the kids playing in the field, the gravestone inscribed simply with John Henry “Doc” Holliday.
“What? No! I mean, yes, obviously.” Wynonna ran her fingers through her hair. “Ok, so it’s not today, exactly, but this year.”
“This year…” Nedley smiled and snapped his fingers, triumphant. “The black sheep returns.”
Waverly rolled her eyes. “Wynonna, your birthday was like six months ago. And so was the twentieth anniversary of your becoming the Heir.”
“Yeah,” Nicole chimed in, “and you specifically told us you didn’t want to celebrate.”
“Of course I didn’t want to celebrate!” Wynonna shoved Nicole’s shoulder, spilling several more droplets of beer from her bottle and pushing Nicole’s shirt sleeve dangerously close to an open bottle of ketchup. “What kind of Earp likes to celebrate their birthday? Birthdays meant death! And loneliness! For as long as I can remember!”
Wynonna stood up, pacing in the tall grass in front of Doc’s gravestone. Behind her, shouting could be heard as a frisbee flew through the air and into the open arms of Astor, Wyatt, or Bella and Rose, Chrissy’s teenaged twin daughters.
“Birthdays meant loneliness,” Wynonna repeated, “and I don’t give two shits about my birthday. But remember what else happened that year?”
More silence.
Wynonna pointed at Dolls.
“Stuck-up city boy tried to bite off more than he could chew and ended up stuck with the town pariah as his partner in crime--I mean, law enforcement,” Wynonna amended quickly, smirking, then pointed at Nedley.
“Small-town sheriff decided to trust said pariah for reasons still unknown, and said trust turned out to be the right decision, also for reasons unknown.” Waverly opened her mouth to protest, but Wynonna pressed on, pointing at Nicole.
“Town pariah almost got the not-so-naive rookie cop killed, but it all worked out because the cop survived and won the heart of my baby sister with her face and her cop stuff and her top-shelf ass.”
Nedley cleared his throat uncomfortably, but Chrissy laughed as Nicole wrapped her arms around her wife.
“I’ve never celebrated a birthday in my life…” Wynonna frowned. “I guess I have, once or twice,” she conceded, “but I’ve never really celebrated. Never like this,” she gestured with her bottle at Doc and Ace, side by side in the field. “Because Doc’s death--Doc’s life, I mean, is worth a toast or two.” She sat down with a huff. “And so are all of you.”
Waverly raised her bottle. “To Doc?” she asked.
Wynonna raised hers as well. “Yeah. But screw birthdays. Screw the curse.” She clinked her bottle against Waverly’s.
“To twenty years of family.”