Work Text:
Waverly Earp never broke a bone in her life, but when she was 7 years old, she felt an enormous pain that felt like her arm had been snapped in half. Which was odd, considering she was sitting in a classroom listening to her teacher read a book. Everyone looked at her in surprise when she let out a yell like she'd just been pummeled.
Hundreds of miles away, 10-year-old Nicole Haught had just fallen off her bike after careening down a hill. A crash that left her forearm snapped, quite literally, in half.
Nicole was 9 years old, her head resting on her daddy's lap, watching I Love Lucy, a family tradition, when she felt like she was being engulfed in flames. She ran to the bathroom and stood under the running water until the feeling left. She distinctly remembered the feeling of loneliness overcome her that night, and it never really went away. Even though she wasn't lonely.
Waverly was 6 when her house burnt down, taking her father and oldest sister with it, leaving herself and her sister Wynonna in the hands of their aunt and uncle. Her heart was broken that day, and wouldn't be healed for a long time.
Waverly Earp was looking over herself in the mirror one last time to make sure she was good for work. All of a sudden she was jolted forward by an invisible force, a hazy vision of what looked like a bathroom blurred her sight.
“Holy shit! What's going on?!”
No one was there to answer, but she still asked.
“What? Who was that?!”
A voice answered, the vision moved, the picture in front of her became clearer. It was a locker room. It felt like someone was swinging a camera around and Waverly was the viewfinder.
“Hello? Who's there?” The strange voice came again.
“Oh, my God! What's happening? Am I going crazy?” Waverly spun around.
“Hey! Stop moving! Pretty sure if you're going crazy, I am too!” The voice replied again.
“What is going on?! Who is this? And why am I looking at a locker room?” Waverly was now in freaking out mode.
“I'm uh, I'm Nicole. I'm in a locker room. Are you in a bedroom? 'Cause that's what I'm seeing.”
Waverly paused, gulped the terror down. It was a dream, it had to be. She'd go with it because it was just a dream.
“Yeah. I'm in my bedroom. Um. I'm Waverly. What's going on?”
“No idea. Maybe we're superheroes?” Nicole's voice suggested optimistically.
“Hah! I highly doubt it. Barmaid in a small town? Not exactly screaming superhero.” Waverly had to chuckle at the idea.
“Well, I'm a cop, so I definitely could be.”
“Huh.” Waverly looked at the clock on the wall. Five PM. She had to be downstairs for work. On the off chance that this wasn't a dream, and real life was still happening, she didn't want to be late.
“So, I have to go to work. How do we … I don't know, turn this off?”
Nicole chuckled. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Okay, well I'm just going to stop thinking about this, aaand maybe that'll work?”
“Sure. I have to be at work too, so I'll do the same. Count to 5?”
“Okay. Uh. Bye…?” Waverly wasn't sure how to end this.
Would it happen again, would she talk to this person anymore?
“Goodbye, Waverly.” Nicole went silent, except for the whisper of her counting. And just as quickly as it came, the vision stopped. Waverly looked around. Her room, her bed, her mirror. The locker room was gone.
Before she could think about what had happened, the door to her bedroom opened, her aunt Gus yelled in without entering:
"Waverly, get your butt down here! Tony would like to get home sometime soon!"
"Shit... I'm coming!" The thought of keeping someone else beyond their shift time was motivation enough for Waverly. She hated when it happened to her. So she left the mystery vision behind, resolved to figure the whole thing out later.
Nicole woke in the middle of the night from a restless sleep. She groaned at an unknown light source pouring over her. She looked to see if she'd left her lamp on, but in its place was a window, with sunlight spilling through.
"What the hell..." She mumbled, still half asleep.
"Nicole?" A soft, familiar voice called her name.
"Waverly?"
"Yeah. Is it night there?"
"Yeah. I'm guessing it's not over there." Nicole yawned between words.
"I'm sorry. This must be what a long-distance phone call is like."
Nicole mulled over a question. "Where are you at?"
"Oh, um ... Canada. You?"
"Mm. Montana."
"Hm. Never been there. Well, I've never been anywhere except here." Waverly was hesitant to say the name of her town, understandably. Nicole didn't blame her, she was hesitant as well.
"If you could anywhere in the world, right now, no charge, where would you go?" Nicole sensed that staying put wasn't Waverly's ideal choice.
"Oh, wow. Um. I mean, almost anywhere in Europe. Oh, India! Honestly, I can't think of a place I don't want to go." Waverly laughed at her own indecisiveness. Nicole laughed at Waverly musing at herself.
"You should go sometime."
"Yeah. I know."
They conversed easily for nearly an hour before Nicole reluctantly informed Waverly that she had work in 4 hours, and needed a little more sleep to be effective.
Over the next couple of weeks, they discovered how to communicate more efficiently. What allowed them to "see" each other, that it was definitely best if they didn't talk while either was at their place of work (because they'd just look crazy), the best times to talk considering their time distance.
And they talked as often as the could.
Nicole found Waverly's voice enchanting, calming.
And Waverly didn't feel so lonely.
Waverly looked down at her outfit. A floral blouse, blue skinny jeans, brown platform heeled boots. Not bad. Decent. Right? She couldn't remember the last time she was this nervous.
"Hey, you ready?" Nicole's voice came over the intercom in her mind.
She gulped. "Yeah. Just uh... just nervous. You?"
"Little nervous. Excited to see who the voice in my belongs to." Nicole laughed softly to herself.
"Okay, so... on go?"
"On go," Nicole replied quickly.
"Ready - set -- go."
Both women stepped in front of their full-length mirrors, effectively allowing the other to see what they were seeing: their own reflections.
Nicole gazed over Waverly for the first time, as Waverly gasped when she laid eyes on the tall redheaded woman in front of her.
Maybe it was the amount of time they'd spent talking beforehand, but Waverly had never seen anyone so beautiful. Tall, striking features, long, fiery red hair. Nicole told her she was a redhead, but Waverly hadn't expected such a beautiful shade.
Nicole looked over all of Waverly, taken with every inch. Every woman she had ever dated, fallen for, had that unrequited crush on, faded away. All of them paled in comparison to the woman she stared at in her mirror.
She smiled into the mirror. "Hello, Waverly. Nice to meet you."
Waverly's stomach flipped at the sight of Nicole's smile, her enormous, beautiful dimples. She smiled back. "Hello, Nicole. Very nice to meet you, too."
Both stood enraptured at the sight of the other.
Then a realization struck Waverly. Could it be...? No...
"Hey, when you were little, did you break your arm?"
"Yeah, I was - 10, I think. Riding a bike. The bone snapped in half. Why?"
"I think - I think I felt it. I remember my arm felt like..."
"Like someone ran over it with a tractor?" Nicole finished her sentence.
"Yeah. Hm. Weird."
"Oh, my God. Were you in a fire?"
"What?" Waverly looked at Nicole's reflection, surprise, and what seemed like pain, in her eyes.
"A fire? Or something really, really hot. I felt like I was burning." Nicole tried to describe how it had felt, all those years ago.
Waverly walked away from the mirror, Nicole was left looking at herself, and seeing glimpses of other parts of Waverly's room.
"Wave? Hey, I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me, it's okay." Nicole regretted asking the question.
"My house burned down. My daddy and sister died." Waverly's voice was distant, far away.
Nicole remembered the heartache she felt that night. That was why. "I think I felt that, too. I think I felt..." She gulped at courage for words, "I think I felt your heart."
Waverly put a hand over her heart, as if Nicole would be able to feel that too. "I think I might have felt yours, too, Nicole." Waverly's voice was shaky.
"Yeah? What'd you feel?" Nicole had an idea of what she was talking about.
"Like I was stabbed in the back. Like I needed a hug, but all that happened was... it just kept hurting worse."
"Yeah. Pretty accurate." Nicole paused, Waverly didn't speak, just waited for Nicole to continue when she was ready. "That was my parents kicking me out of the house. Someone saw me with my girlfriend, told them. And I was no longer acceptable. I lived with an aunt until I could support myself."
Waverly stood and walked back to the mirror, Nicole had sat on the floor. Waverly sat. They stared at each other.
"I'm sorry, Nicole."
"I'm sorry you had to feel that." Nicole's eyes were downcast.
"No, hey. I'm not. Because ... I know. You know how I hurt, and I know how you hurt. I've never had a friend like that."
Nicole looked up into Waverly's warm, hazel eyes. The way she was looking at Nicole made her feel like they were the only two people that existed.
Two months passed, and not a day went by when Waverly and Nicole didn't talk. Nicole learned about Waverly's love for language and everything historical, her family, her bucket list.
Waverly learned about Nicole's secret love of puzzles, the reason she got into law enforcement, and how many kids she wanted one day.
When one shopped, the other was there to make sure they chose the right watermelon or pair of socks. When getting ready for a night out, they approved (or disapproved) of each other's outfits. They finally told each other their full names, and where they lived, they considered it a science-fictiony version of pen pals.
Waverly tried her damnedest to come up with a play on her name that Nicole Haught had not yet heard.
They celebrated together when Waverly quit her job as a barmaid and was hired at Purgatory College as a linguist professor, at the mere age of 21. They laughed at the fact that college students her own age, and probably older than her, would be calling Waverly Earp "professor."
Nicole was fully aware that she was falling head over heels for Waverly. She couldn't not fall for her. Waverly was the kindest, gentlest, most beautiful, and yet most full of fire woman she'd ever met. Barely a moment passed when she wasn't thinking of her.
Waverly knew something was happening, too.
But, because she'd never been with, or fallen for, a woman before, she was more confused about it all.
Like the scholar she was, she took out a pad of paper and wrote down all the reasons one dates another person, and the reasons why she would be attracted to someone.
Nicole fit a hell of a lot of those qualities. Actually, all of them. So, Waverly was only able to deduct that she was absolutely attracted to this woman.
And she would definitely date her - if she had the chance.
But how the hell would she do that?
Nicole was a police officer in Montana, Waverly was now a teacher in Purgatory. Waverly couldn't leave now. She'd just been hired.
Plus, her sister, Wynonna, blew in and out of that town like the fickle winds. She never knew when she'd see her next.
Nicole wanted to be near Waverly. Waverly wanted to be near Nicole. Neither had said it. Both knew it.
But doubt lingered in the back of both of their minds.
Nicole lay on the right side of her bed, Waverly lay on the left side of hers.
Their hands were up, they could the other's, and their own. So if they positioned them just the right way, it looked like they were holding hands. And it felt like it, too.
"Wave?"
"Yeah?"
"Come see me..."
Waverly breathed heavily. She wanted to, so badly.
But she couldn't bring herself to move out of the little town that held her family home, even if it was burnt to the ground, her daddy, her sister, everything she'd ever known and loved.
"I – I can't. I can't leave."
"I'm not asking you to stay, just... I want to meet you, in person."
"Nicole, I just got a job here. Plus I've never left Purgatory, I don't know anything else."
"You know me..." Nicole was almost pleading now.
Waverly huffed, she wanted to go, but she didn't know how she could.
"Wave, I need to tell you something." Nicole paused and took a breath. "I've never met anyone like you. I mean, besides seeing out of each other's eyes and feeling each other's feelings. Even if that never happened, even if I just ran into you in the street one day, I'd just know..." Nicole didn't finish, let her words hang in the air.
Waverly whispered, voice shaking, "Know what?"
"That you're my soul mate." Nicole's tone was convicting, sure. She spoke as if she'd never been surer of anything in her life.
Tears were rolling down Waverly's cheeks. Nicole heard her sniffle.
"Waverly. If you don't feel the same way, tell me, I'll leave you alone." Desperation leaked through Nicole's words.
"No! That – that's not what I want."
"What do you want, Waverly?"
Waverly paused. "You."
"But you won't come see me."
Waverly was silent.
"Wave. I can't do this."
Nicole didn't have to explain what she meant. Waverly knew.
"Neither can I."
They didn't speak anymore, just laid next to each other in silence, looking up at the others ceilings, into the others room, holding the others hands, for what they knew to be the last time.
They awoke the next day, in their respective time zones, to their own bedrooms. No voice in their heads, no sight of the others view. Both hearts, broken.
Neither knew if they were feeling the others pain, or if their connection was so deep, so strong, that the severing of it just hurt that bad.
Two more months passed. Waverly became a favorite among both her fellow professors and the students at Purgatory's college.
She enjoyed teaching, immensely. And she was good at it, she made even the most stubborn and obnoxious of her students actually enjoy and take interest in what she taught. She couldn't be more satisfied with her job.
But every time she unlocked the door to her new apartment and entered, alone, she couldn't help but feel the heartbreak all over again.
She'd cried herself to sleep almost every night since her last night with Nicole. She wondered daily how Nicole felt - if she cried herself to sleep at night.
Probably not. Nicole Haught was strong, confident. She was a cop, a damn good one.
After school one day, she opened her refrigerator to find that she was completely out of wine, and that was not okay.
She'd become - not addicted - but somewhat reliant on it to calm her nerves. Sighing deeply, she grabbed her keys from their hook on the wall and made her way back to her red jeep.
As she walked out of the store, a bottle of wine in hand, Waverly noticed a police cruiser in the parking lot of the store.
Before she reached her jeep, she heard a loud "thud." Just in case someone had fallen, she turned to see if anyone was in need of her assistance.
The bottle of wine fell to the ground and shattered.
On the driver's side of the police cruiser, an officer who had clearly run into the car, stood, staring at Waverly.
Tall, fiery red hair.
"Nicole," Waverly murmured under her breath.
Nicole rounded the car and took giant strides towards the brunette, as Waverly herself ran towards to the officer.
And they collided with such a great force that it physically hurt them, but they didn't even care. Waverly buried her face in Nicole's neck, as Nicole gently lifted the smaller woman off the ground, burying her own face in the long, soft brown hair.
Nicole set her down, holding her face in her hands, looking at her like she was looking at the whole universe.
"Waverly Earp..." She whispered.
Waverly wove her fingers into Nicole's braided hair. "Nicole Haught..." She whispered back.
Their eyes darted over the other's lips. Waverly swallowed a gulp. Nicole looked into her eyes.
"I couldn't do it. I had to come here. I couldn't even sleep," Nicole confessed her misery to Waverly.
Waverly let out a happy sob, she knew what that meant. Nicole Haught had moved here, to this silly little town called Purgatory, for her, Waverly Earp.
"Me neither! I was getting wine, because I'm so sad all the time!" She smiled her enormous smile, facial features scrunched, eyes in the shape of crescent-moons.
Nicole ran a thumb underneath an eye, wipe a tear. "Moon eyes..." She kissed where the tears fell, attempting to kiss away any remaining sadness.
Waverly pulled her face away, held Nicole's face in her hands, stared into the brown eyes intensely. "You came here."
"I had to."
At that reponse, Waverly pulled Nicole down to meet her height. And she pressed their lips together.
After what seemed like years of anticipation, waiting, and desire, their lips met in perfect harmony. They moved more gracefully than a conductor's baton, waving a symphony into place. If a person didn't believe in soul mates, they'd never met Waverly Earp and Nicole Haught. When they kissed, they became one, not two. Together, they were a rare work of art.
They held each other in that parking lot, pressing tightly together. They'd tell their children and grandchildren it was for hours, that the world stopped spinning until they came up for air. Everyone believed them.
Because if one spent time with Waverly and Nicole, the notion didn't seem far-fetched.