10. You Should See Yours

“Wynonna, don’t,” Waverly pleaded.

Her sister ignored her. She grabbed Nicole’s arm and dragged her into the BBD office, shoving her to the ground and making her smack her head against the floor hard enough to stun her for a few seconds. Waverly let out a gasp and covered her mouth, watching it happen through the still-open door. Wynonna slammed it and jumped on top of Nicole, holding her down with her hands pressed firmly on her shoulders. “What the fuck is your problem?! If you think you can take advantage of my baby sister while she is in a horrible mental state, you obviously don’t know what I am capable of!” Wynonna pulled out Peacemaker and held it against her head. “At least you’re not a Revenant,” she muttered to herself before smacking her with the barrel of the gun.

Nicole let out a grunt and flipped them over, holding Wynonna down and sliding Peacemaker across the ground. She gave her a good knock across the nose with her still aching hand. “And if you think that I would ever do such a thing, you obviously have never met me!” she screamed back.

Wynonna shook her head and flipped them back over, pushing her neck down with one hand and swinging, hitting her lip, with the other. “Really? Then what did I just walk in on?!” She swung again, nailing her on the cheek right below her right eye.

The stronger officer pushed Wynonna forward and slammed her back into the ground so she was now on top once again. “Obviously not what you thought it was!” Nicole punched her in the jaw, switching hands and punching the other side. “She came onto me, Wynonna. She already liked me before the whole Champ thing,” Nicole said in a much softer tone, letting go of the older Earp’s shirt before standing and walking away. “I would never hurt her like that.” She faced her again, wiping her bloody lip. “Never.”

Wynonna placed a hand on her forehead, finally piecing it all together. “Ohhh . . . so you’re the crush,” she breathed out, and Nicole noticed her attitude had totally changed.

“What?” she asked, rubbing her back of her head where there was a lump.

“She told me that she was breaking up with him and I teased that she had a crush, and she didn’t deny it so just figured . . .- Oh God, Babygirl has the hots for Haught.”

“Seems so,” Nicole sighed. “Wynonna, I already told her I wasn’t planning on moving any further with anything until she gets better.”

“Good,” Wynonna nodded, standing and slowly stalking towards Nicole, grabbing her by the collar. “Because if you hurt her in any way, shape, or form, I will hunt you down and leave you worse than they left that dumbfuck in there.”

“I have no intention to,” Nicole replied with a touch of annoyance, tilting her head and raising her brows, pushing Wynonna’s hands off her.

“Well, I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Wynonna smiled, smacking her back. “Hey, uh, I never really got a chance to thank you for coming over yesterday to help her. So thanks. And . . . Sorry 'bout your face.” She gave Nicole a toothy smile and waved her out the door, and they walked back to the break room.

“You should see yours,” Nicole mumbled with a laugh. 

Waverly jumped up with a horrified look in her eyes, looking at Nicole’s now bruising eye and bloody lip and then to Wynonna’s bloody nose and swollen chin. “What the hell, Wynonna?!” Waverly hissed, stomping up to her.

“Waves . . .” Nicole muttered through her teeth.

“We were just getting to know each other,” Wynonna said, smiling at Waverly and flicking Nicole on the temple. She nodded, elbowing her back before stepping in between the sisters and giving Waverly a look to signal that she was ok. Nicole then pushed her away from Wynonna gently with her hand against her stomach.

Everyone in the room looked completely confused, and Nicole let out a sigh. “Well. I better get back to work.” She turned and left, walking towards her office. When she walked in, she left the door open, knowing Waverly would be in there soon enough. And she was right, for when she sat down, Waverly rushed in, closing it behind her.

She knelt down in front of her and placed her hands on Nicole’s cheeks, turning her head in her hands to examine her. “Oh my God, what happened in there?” She brushed her thumb over her now swelling lip, making Nicole wince.  

“Nothing really. She just thought I was taking advantage of you,” she said softly.

Waverly grabbed her chin roughly, squeezing her cheeks. “You call this nothing!? And all that screaming was just for fun?!”

“She calmed down after a minute or two, Waves. And yes, I consider this nothing. I’ve had worse.” She looked away for a second, then back to Waverly, who had let go of her face. “It just scared her. She wasn’t expecting it.”

“That is no excuse for hurting you,” Waverly defended, voice dropping at the end. “And what do you mean t aking advantage of me?”

“She thought I was using your . . . situation to try and get in your pants or something like that, I don’t really know.”

“Why does she think you would do that?” Waverly asked, pulling herself up ontoNicole’s lap. 

Nicole wrapped a protective arm around her, moving her legs over the armrest of the chair.  “She did kinda catch you kissing . . . a girl,” she pointed out quietly.

“Oh, right . . . I forgot about that part,” she mumbled, laying her head against her shoulder, fingers hooking around the opening in the space between one button and another on her uniform. “What’d she say about that?”

“Babygirl has the hots for Haught,” she mocked in her best Wynonna impression.

Waverly laughed. “Well, at least she is fine with it and you're ok. That’s all I care about.” She pulled Nicole in for a very gentle kiss, then snuggled herself into her shoulder again. “Can I stay here? Please?” She gave her some puppy dog eyes.

“If you don’t distract me,” she answered with a sly smile. Waverly let out a happy sigh and gave her a peck on the cheek. Nicole scooted her chair up to her desk and went back to paperwork. Waverly sat there quietly, watching her write, eventually drifting off to sleep once again in Nicole’s arms.

After a while, Nicole had not known how long, for she was so focused, she heard a knock at the door. It opened and Wynonna popped her head in. “Hey, Haught, you wanna-” She stopped when Nicole pushed her finger against her lips and signaled to the sleeping Waverly. Wynonna dropped her voice to a whisper. “Oh, sorry. Shorty’s tonight? I'm buyin'.” Nicole nodded with a small smile. “Ok, see you there. 8 o’clock.” Nicole gave her a thumbs up and Wynonna popped back out the door.

Nicole sat there for a few seconds, reaching up to rub her eyes. She winced when she felt the sting of pain, remembering what had happened earlier. This pain also brought her attention to the headache she now had. She figured someone had some medicine out there somewhere. She went to get up, but then remembered Waverly. She sighed and slowly moved her arm under her legs and behind her back. She stood and carefully set her down on the small couch in the corner of her office.

Waverly shifted, and Nicole’s eyes widened in fear that she had accidentally woken her up. But she didn’t wake up. She just curled her legs up and wrapped her arms around herself. Nicole let out a sigh of relief, walking over to the coat rack and grabbing her oversized police academy hoodie. She gently laid it across her and silently walked out of her office towards the bathroom.

Nicole gasped when she looked at herself in the mirror, seeing the extent of her injuries for the first time. Her whole chin up to her top lip was swollen and purple and there was a scabbing gash down the left side of her bottom lip, leaving dried blood smeared down her chin and cheek. The area around her eye was reddish-purple and swollen, and you could almost see it throbbing from above the skin. Grabbing a paper towel, she wet it and dabbed it along the bottom of her face, removing the blood. She somehow made her lip start bleeding again in the process. “Ugh, stop,” she groaned, applying pressure to it.

She got it to stop eventually and decided to take her hair down, hoping it would ease her headache. She could care less if she was breaking protocol at this point, so she undid her hair from the tight braid and tried to smooth it down with her hand. She walked out of the bathroom and knocked on the BBD door.

“Enter!” Dolls called from the inside after a few seconds.

Officer Haught opened the door and stepped in. “Do any of you have Tylenol, by any chance?”

“There should be some in this medicine cabinet,” Dolls replied, standing and walking over to it. Haught followed. “Here ya go.” He handed her the bottle.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, walking towards the door.

“Haught,” Dolls called before she could leave.

Nicole turned around. “Yeah?” she asked, rubbing the back of her head.

“I need to talk to you about some work-related things. Tomorrow morning?”

“Yeah, that works.” She walked out with a nod, wondering what he needed to talk about. Was it about Bobo? Or maybe about the classified work they were always working on? She didn’t know. But she was sure of one thing: her head was hurting like a bitch.

Nicole walked back into her office, finding Waverly sound asleep on the couch still. Nicole walked to her desk and gulped down a handful of pills. She checked her phone and saw that was almost 2 PM,  which is when she had to go and radar cars. She didn’t want to have to wake Waverly up, but she wasn’t going to leave her there all day. She hesitantly walked over to the couch and knelt down next to her. Placing her hand on her shoulder, she gently shook her, whispering her name. 

After a few seconds, Waverly groaned a complaint and flipped over, pulling the hoodie up to her face. She realized where she was and that this article of clothing smelled just like Nicole.

“Hey, Sleepyhead, it's time to get up or you're gonna get locked in here,” Nicole said softly.

Waverly rolled back over with a sleepy smile. “Mine,” she mumbled, holding the hoodie tightly in her arms. There was no way she was giving it back.  

“Ok, yeah, you can have that, too. But you still have to get up, Wave. I have to go on patrol in a few minutes.”

Waverly groaned, opening her eyes. She gasped and sat up, staring right at Nicole. “Oh, your face! I’m so sorry.” She pulled Nicole into a hug.

“Waves, it's fine. I'll be ok.” Nicole stood, holding her hand out for her. “C’mon, I'll drop you off at the Homestead.”

She took her hand and stood, stretching for a second. “Ok,” she yawned.

“You sure do sleep a lot,” Nicole chuckled.

“I think you are just comfortable- Wait, how did I get there?” she asked, suddenly very confused as to how she had gone from Nicole’s lap to her couch.

“I had to go get some meds for my headache and I didn’t want to wake you.”

Waverly still looked confused. “So how did I get there?” she asked again, pointing to the couch.

“I . . . moved you . . . I picked you up and moved you so I could get up,” Nicole answered, trying to hide her laughter.

Waverly’s eyes widened in realization. “Oh. Ok, that makes sense now.” Her face flushed with embarrassment and she looked down at her feet with a laugh.

“Waves, you just woke up. I don’t think your brain’s fully working yet.” Nicole said with a smile, placing a hand on her hip and using the other to tilt her chin up.

Waverly looked up at her with a little grin on her lips. “Mm, maybe you can help me with that.” She cupped her face, pulling her into a gentle kiss. Nicole moved closer to her, slowly sliding her hands down to her ass and giving it a squeeze. Waverly smirked into the next kiss, moving her hand to Nicole’s cheek. Nicole pulled back and winced. 

“Oh my God, I forgot! I’m-”

“It's ok, Waves, it’s ok. Really,” Nicole assured with a soft chuckle. “That might’ve just saved me from getting yelled for leaving late anyway. Let’s get going.” Nicole gave her a smile and grabbed her hand.

“Wait,” Waverly said, pulling from her and dashing to the couch. She picked up the hoodie and hat and put them on before rushing back to Nicole. They walked out of the station together and got in Nicole’s cruiser.

“Why’re you guys so worried about speeders when you have Bobo to deal with?” Waverly asked when Nicole pulled out of the station’s parking lot. She hated Bobo. It didn’t matter that he had protected her so many times. She knew the things he did and the kinds of people he socialized himself with.

“Nedley has to log a certain amount of patrol hours a month or something like that,” Nicole answered, obviously annoyed at the fact.

“Oh,” Waverly mumbled. Nicole made a turn and slipped her hand under Waverly’s on the console, and Waverly interlocked their fingers. She quickly noticed a slight difference, though. She looked down and noticed the obvious bruising and swelling of Nicole’s knuckles. “Dang, how hard did you hit her?” she asked, bringing her hand closer to her face.

“Pretty hard,” Nicole smirked. She brought her and Waverly’s hand back down to the console. “That’s not just from her, though,” she mumbled.

Waverly quickly looked up at her. “You hit him today? This looks like all recent bruising.” Her brow furrowed in concern. “Why?”  She knew Nicole wouldn’t have hit him for no reason.

“He was just, uh . . . being a jerk,” she shrugged, glancing towards Waverly.

She narrowed her eyes a bit. “What’d he say to you, Nic?”

“Nothing- Look, you don’t need to worry about it, Wave. He is the last thing you need to be thinking about right now.”

“Nico-”

“Waverly.” Nicole’s voice was sharp. “Don’t worry about it, ok?” She calmed it down at the end, but she was still making it clear that she wasn’t going to talk about it.

Waverly pulled her hand away, crossing her arms and looking out the window. “Fine.”

Nicole pursed her lips. She hadn’t meant to make her mad, she just didn’t want her to worry about it. Now, though, she was kicking herself for saying anything about it in the first place. 

After a minute or so, Nicole gently placed her hand on her thigh. “I’m sorry for snapping at you like that,” she mumbled. 

Waverly looked towards her with soft eyes for a second but quickly back out the window. “It's ok,” she mumbled. She was sincere with her response, even though she tried her best to make it sound as emotionless as possible. Nicole rubbed her thumb up and down, hoping to release some tension between them.

A few minutes later, she pulled into the Homestead. She got out and opened Waverly’s door for her, giving her another sorry smile. Waverly stepped out, grabbing her things. “Thanks for the ride,” she said quietly. “Have a good afternoon.” She gave Nicole a peck and made her way into the house.

Nicole watched her go with a clenched jaw before letting out a puff of air. “Great. Now I’ve made two Earps mad.” She let out a heavy sigh and climbed back into the car, shaking her head at herself before pulling out of the driveway.