59. I'm Sure I'll See You There

       “What do you mean they’re gone ?” Ina asked, standing up and walking towards him. 

       “They’re gone,” he repeated. “Nicky’s cruiser and your car are gone.” 

       “ My car?” She pulled the door open, tracing her eyes across the driveway, confirming that her car was, in fact, gone. “Bitch took my damn car,” she mumbled to herself. 

       Waverly quickly walked over to them. “Did you see them leave?” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. 

       “No.”

       She let out a huff, hitting call on Nicole’s contact. She pushed the phone to her ear for about three seconds before spinning around. “ Shit .” Nicole’s broken phone was still sitting on the table. “She wouldn’t do that.” 

       “She wouldn’t do what?” Gus asked. 

       “She wouldn’t leave without telling anyone where she was going.” 

       “I think she just did, Babygirl,” Wynonna said quietly. 

       "Ok, well, I'm gonna go make sure she's ok," she said as she went to move past then. 

       "Woah, Waverly, wait," Jeremy said, placing his hands on her shoulders to stop her. "She probably wants some space. Whatever happened out there most likely didn't end too pretty." 

       She thought about it for a second before shaking it off. "And I'll give her some after I make sure she's ok." She moved past him, grabbing her cost and purse from the hook by the door and pulling it closed behind her. 

       The room was quiet for a second as everyone took the events of the last two minutes in. Gus traced her eyes around the room, landing on Wynonna's face. She had always been a woman to trust her gut. "Go with her."

       "Why?"

       "Because you're her sister. Go with her."

       She went to object, but when her aunt raised her eyebrows at her, she quickly grabbed her coat and jogged out to get in the Jeep before Waverly pulled away. 

       Ina was next to move towards the door. “Jer, I’m taking your car.

       “What?! Why? Where are you going?” 

       “I’m going to go find Sharon before she ends up somewhere she shouldn’t.” And with that, Gus and Jeremy were left alone in the Homestead. 

       He turned to look at her, mouth hanging open slightly in confusion before he closed it, letting out a sigh. “. . . Do you want some help with those dishes?” 

       Wynonna yanked the door of the Jeep open, pulling herself in right as Waverly started to pull away. She slammed on the brakes, looking at her with wide eyes. “Wynonna!”

       “I’m coming with,” she informed, buckling herself up. 

       Waverly furrowed her brows at her as she pressed on the gas pedal again. “Why?” The older girl threw her a knowing look. “Gus?” She didn’t need an answer to know had what happened. 

       They made the drive into town, discussing what could have happened between the mother and daughter. “I don’t see why she’s so pissed about her and Shae, though. She said she was going to be fine with you two.”

       “She sure is,” she mumbled in a sarcastic tone. 

       Wynonna turned to look at her in question. “What?” 

       “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. 

       “No, what, Wave?” She pushed. 

       The smaller girl glanced over at her quickly, pursing her lips. “She gets this look on her face anytime we touch each other. Like when we’re holding hands or if she’s got her arm around my waist or something . . . And I’m pretty sure she gags and looks away every time we kiss in front of her.” 

       Wynonna rolled her eyes. “ Asshole .” 

       “She’s nice and all. She’s got Nicole’s sense of humor. And maybe she is trying, I don’t know. But every time she comes over, I feel like I can’t be myself around my own girlfriend.” 

       Her sister looked over at her with sad eyes, rubbing her leg. “Has Nicole noticed?” 

       “I brought it up last night before we went to bed. And she just shrugged it off, but I know deep down she has. She’s a cop, she has to’ve . . . But she just really wants her back and she doesn’t want anything to get in the way of it . . . That’s why I need to make sure she’s ok because if something really bad happened, I don’t know how she’s gonna handle it. She already lost her once.” 

       Wynonna rubbed her face and was about to say something, but Waverly pulled onto their street. And there was no cruiser sitting in front of the house. “Uhh . . .”

       “She’s . . .”

       “Not here.” Wynonna watched the nerves work on Waverly’s face. Her brows threaded tightly together and the side of her bottom lip got pulled in between her teeth. “Where the hell would she have gone?” 

       “We’re about to find out.” She did a quick u-turn in someone’s driveway and sped off in the direction they had just come from.

       Wynonna grabbed onto her arm, gripping the handle above the door with her other hand. “Hey! Chill out, Babygirl!” 

       She shook her hand off but slowed down a little bit, still taking the corners a little too sharp. They passed Shorty’s and Waverly scanned her eyes across the lot, but she didn’t see any cruisers there. She let out a huff, deciding on her last resort. 

       The brunette stopped in the station’s parking lot, quickly climbing out and rushing inside. She looked into her office, but the lights were off. She continued on, heading into the Sheriff’s office. “Nedley.” 

       He looked up at her, his brow furrowing at the concerned expression on her face. “What’s wrong?”

       “Has Nicole come by here in the last 30 minutes?” She asked, leaning forward onto the back of one of the chairs in front of his desk. 

       “No . . . Why?” 

       Waverly looked over at her sister worriedly. “We can’t find her,” Wynonna explained. 

       “What do you mean you can’t find her ?”

      “She got into a fight with her mom and then took off. We don’t know where she went.”

       Nedley tutted, clicking around on his computer. He grabbed the radio off his shirt. “Haught, come in.” He waited a few seconds as he continued typing away, but the line stayed silent. “ Haught , come in.” He waited some more. “ Officer Haught, answer your radio, that’s an order .” 

       An eerie silence filled the room as they all waited with bated breath for something . But nothing came. Waverly stood up straight, crossing her arms, covering her mouth with one of her hands. Nedley waved them over to his side of the desk, so they both walked around, looking down at his computer screen. There was a satellite image with a red point on it. “It says her cruiser is parked there. Is there any reason she’d be in the middle of nowhere?” 

       As Waverly leaned in, reading the roads around it and examining the buildings that were nearby, Wynonna cocked an eyebrow at him. “How do you know that?”

       “We have trackers on all of the cars. In case one gets stolen or a hostage situation comes about, things like that.” 

       “Well there goes my plan for April Fools Day next year,” she huffed. The Sheriff looked at her, blinking a few times. 

       Waverly gasped, grabbing her sister’s arm. “I know where she is. We’ve gotta go. Now.” She quickly began dragging her out of Nedley’s office. “Thanks, Sheriff!” 

       He watched their trail of dust dissipate, rubbing his hand up and down his face. He leaned back in his chair, looking up at the stained ceiling tiles as he lifted his radio once more. “They’re gone, Nicole.”

       He didn’t expect her to answer. He figured she had either turned her radio off that was on her person or that she was just ignoring him. But his ears perked right up at the fizz. “Leave me alone, Randy,” the hoarse voice called over. 

       He sat up, leaning his elbows onto his knees. “What’re you doing, Kid?” 

       “What I should have done earlier.”

       Nedley pursed his lips, sighing through his nose. “Be careful, ok? I don’t know what it’s like up there.” 

       “Mm.” 

.  .  .

       Waverly skidded to a stop outside the garage, shoving the car in park and jumping out. Her cruiser was sitting in the driveway, but she wasn’t in it. She rushed up to the door, pushing it open and flicking the light on. 

       Her heart did a nosedive into the floor. 

       In the middle of the floor where the convertible usually sat was an empty space. Nicole was gone. And there was no way any of them could get a hold of her. “ Fuck !” She cried out, her voice echoing off of the metal walls. She turned to face her sister, who had just walked in. “Nonna . . .” 

       Her face softened up, seeing the tears threatening to pour out of her sister’s eyes. “I . . .” She was at a loss for words. If there was anything she had learned about Nicole in the time that they had known each other, it was that she was a fighter. She would fight through whatever was thrown at her. She wasn’t one to give up, even when everyone around her had. 

       But this time she ran. 

       She ran . 

       Wynonna didn’t know if she was just going to be taking a drive to clear her head or if this was going to turn into something really ugly. 

       But it didn’t matter. 

       She left. Without telling anyone anything . 

       And if there was a type of person that Wynonna hated more than anything, it was a selfish person. Some would say that she herself was selfish. But she couldn’t care less about what other people said about her. 

       But right now? 

       Nicole Haught was being a selfish person. She knew Waverly’s worst fear was people leaving her. And they didn’t know the circumstances of this. She could return within an hour and everything would be fine. 

       But that wasn’t the point. 

       Because in this moment, her sister was terrified . She could see it on her face. She was terrified of the worst: The slim possibility that she might not come back. 

       It didn’t matter how many times that Nicole had said she would never ever leave her. That fear was always in the back of her mind. And Wynonna knew this. She had gotten a handful of calls at three in the morning from her when she either one, couldn’t sleep because she kept thinking about it. Two, had a nightmare about it. Or three (Three had only happened once), had a mixture of one and two and now was a sobbing mess, having a panic attack on the floor of the bathroom. The redhead had been quite confused when her alarm for work went off at four and, while searching for the brunette that was not in bed, found the duo sitting in the bathroom curled up together as Wynonna tried to calm her down. 

       Wynonna knew that Nicole loved Waverly more than the air she breathed. And she knew that she’d never intentionally hurt her. So maybe she hadn’t been thinking straight when she decided this was what she wanted to do.

       But that didn’t mean she wasn’t pissed. 

       “C’mere.” She pulled her sister into a hug, squeezing her arms tightly around her as the gut-wrenching sobs tore through Waverly’s chest. Wynonna’s heart wrenched, for all she could do was hold her as her tears soaked through her shirt. “She’ll be back, Waves,” she whispered. “Give her time.” The younger girl shook her head, bringing her hands up to cover her face. Wynonna moved her hands to her shoulders, pushing her back. She pulled her hands away, cupping her cheeks. “She wouldn’t leave you, ok? Let her figure it out.” 

       “She j-just did.” More tears spilled out of her eyes as she looked up at her sister helplessly. 

       “No.” She shook her head. “She didn’t.” She wrapped her arm around the back of her shoulders, walking her towards the door. Wynonna got her into the passenger’s seat of the Jeep and climbed in the other side, pulling away from the garage. “Do you want to go back to the Homestead?” 

       Waverly wiped her face with a shaky hand. “No . . . Our house,” she mumbled, curling her knees up onto the seat. “That’s where she’ll go if she comes back.” Her voice broke at the end. 

       “ Ah .” She looked towards her with a sharp eye. “ When she comes back,” she corrected.

       A couple of stray tears fell down her cheeks. “But what if she doesn-”

       “ Waverly , she will.” 

       The brunette hugged her arms to her chest, turning sideways in her seat and staring out the window as they drove past the snow-covered fields. She cried silently the whole way back to their house. Wynonna helped her out of the car and walked her inside, sitting her down on the couch as she walked off to the bathroom to “pee”. 

       “Hello?” The voice on the other end answered.  

       “Hey, Gus. Do you guys got anything yet?” 

       “Jeremy is on the phone in the other room with his mom now, so I should know something any second now . . . What about you? Did you find Nicole?” 

       She let out a heavy sigh. “She ditched her cruiser for her Corvette, so now we have no idea where she is.” 

       “Lord,” Gus sighed, stress tugging at her voice. “How’s Waverly?” 

       “. . . Probably how you’d expect her to be.” She was quiet for a second. “Gus, if that asshole doesn’t come back, Waves is go-”

       “ Wynonna ,” she warned. “You know she would never do something like that.”

       She huffed. “Yea, well, I never expected her to do this either.” 

       The older woman sighed. “She’s got-” She paused and Wynonna heard Jeremy’s voice in the background. 

       There was movement and it sounded like she got put on speaker. “Hey, Wynonna,” the man mumbled. 

       “Did she find Sharon?” 

       “Yea,” he confirmed. “And she told her what happened.” 

       “Did she tell you?” 

       “Why do you think I’m talking to you?” He questioned. 

       She pursed her lips, walking out of the bathroom. “Hold on a sec.” She pulled the phone away from her ear as she sat down next to Waverly. “Ina found Sharon, Babygirl . . . Do you wanna hear what happened?” 

       The brunette slowly nodded, pulling the blue blanket she had wrapped around herself closer to her face. Wynonna switched her phone to speaker, setting it on the back of the couch between them. “Ok, Chetri, go ahead.” 

-  -  -

       “Mom,” she said with a nervous laugh. “I would have told you about Shae eventually, it just never came up.” 

       “No, Nicole,” she huffed. “I’m not mad that you didn’t tell me about Shae.” 

       The Officer’s face grew confused as her arms fell limply to her sides. “Wh- Then what?” She asked softly.

       “What do you think ?” 

       Her eyes traced confusedly over her face. “What, that I was stupid and got married in Vegas? Yea, I realize that, thank you. That’s Waves and I are waiting because I know how big of a step that is now.” 

       Sharon crossed her arms, looking away from her and shaking her head. “I can’t believe you.”

       “What?! What did I do?!” 

       She snapped her head to meet her eyes. “You’re gonna marry her!” 

       The Deputy’s head jerked backward, eyes shooting open in surprise. “I’m sorry, do you have a problem with that?” 

       She swung her arms out. “ Of course I have a problem with it, Nicole! You’re not marrying a woman!” 

       Her mouth fell open in utter confusion. “You told me you were going to be ok with us, what the hell do you mean I’m not marrying a woman?!” 

       “No, no- I said I was gonna try and be ok with you two dating ,” she corrected. “ Marriage is a whole new rodeo.” 

       “Well, I’m sorry , maybe you should have clarified that, Mother!” She turned around, pushing her hands through her hair, quickly pivoting back towards her. “What? Did you think that we were going to just date forever?” 

       “Well, I sure as Hell didn’t think you were going to try and marry her!” 

       “That’s the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” she scoffed. “Why? Why would I want to be in a relationship without that as the goal?” 

       “Well, your kind of people shouldn’t be allowed to get married for one. T-” 

       “Woah! My kind of people?! Did you seriously just say that?!” 

       “What do you want me to call you?! Gays , homosexuals , fa -”

       “ If you say that fucking word, I’ll arrest you for harassing a police officer ,” she warned, jaw clenching firmly as her face flushed with anger. 

       Sharon’s eyes widened and she took a step back from her. Her lip hitched as she stared into her eyes. “You disgust me.” 

       “Oh, I hope I do.” Her voice was still low. 

       “You and Waverly both.” 

       “ Don’t you bring her into this,” she growled, closing the gap between them again. 

       “I’m taking your name off of my will if you marry that skank .”

       Boiling hot tears began to roll down her cheeks as her body trembled with every drop of self-control. “ Get the fuck off of this property .” 

       “I hope you burn in Hell,” she spat. 

       Nicole sucked in a deep breath, lungs burning with emotion. “ I’m sure I’ll see you there,” she quipped. “ Now go . Before I make you. ” 

       As if she hadn’t just told her child to go to Hell, she gasped in offense. Her face twitched with anger as she stormed past her, climbing into Ina’s white SUV and pulling away. 

-  -  -

       “My mom said she’s at the airport, getting on the first flight back to Dallas,” Jeremy ended quietly. 

       Waverly curled her fingers around Wynonna’s shirt, trying to lessen the sound of her sobs by pushing her face into her neck. The older girl wrapped her arms around her as she tried to keep her own emotions in check. “If that bitch comes near any of us again, Peacemaker and I are going to have a little talk with her,” she glowered. 

       “She used to be such a nice person. I would have never pictured her saying something like that. Especially not to Nicky . . . You guys still haven’t heard anything from her?” 

       “No,” Wynonna sighed, pushing her fingers through her sister’s hair. “Do you have any idea where she would have gone? I know you guys are soul sisters or whatever.” 

       “Uhmm . . . No. No idea. Nope.” 

       Waverly lifted her head from Wynonna’s neck, narrowing her eyes at the phone as she picked it up. “Jeremy,” she warned with a sniff. “Where is she?” 

       “I don’t know,” he mumbled. 

       “Jeremy,” she repeated. “Don’t make me introduce your Pokemon cards to my paper shredder.” 

       “I- I can’t! I swore to her that I wouldn’t tell you guys. And I don’t even know for sure if that’s where she went, ok?!” 

       The sisters looked at each other in question. “ Jeremy ,” they both said at the same time. 

       “Ican’tI’msorry.” The line went dead.

       Waverly dropped the phone, pushing her face back into her neck with a whimper. “Nonna, I can’t do this.” 

       “Hey,” she said softly, turning her body so she could lean them back on the arm of the couch. “It’s ok . . .” She heard her sister’s breathing speed up to a jagged rate. She slipped her off of her lap, kneeling on the couch in front of her. “Wave, look at me.” She tipped her head up. “She’ll be back before you know it. And if she isn’t, then I’m gonna force it out of that Green Bean and haul her long-legged ass back here myself . . . But she’ll be back. I know it . . . Deep breath, Babygirl. It’s ok.” She cupped her cheeks, wiping her face as she pulled in a shaky deep breath, letting it out slowly. Wynonna got her to repeat the action for a few minutes until she calmed down. 

       The sun was set now, and a clouded darkness covering the sky at time ticked closer to 10 PM. Wynonna walked away from the window after shutting the light off and climbed back on the couch, pulling her sister back on her lap. “You need to try and get some sleep, Waves,” she mumbled, drowsiness pulling on her voice from her draining day of Revenant hunting. 

       “No.” 

       “You do. You’re exhausted.” 

       Waverly knew she was. She had bussed tables all day at Shorty’s and barely had time to change before heading to the Homestead. And now all of this? “No.” 

       “Wave,” she said, almost in a begging tone. “She’s not going to come any faster with you watching the door, you know that.” 

       She watched as tears gathered in the brunette’s eyes and she let out a sad sigh, pulling her head to her chest. 

       She could tell it was going to be a long night. 

.  .  .

       Wynonna held the orange cup under the tap, eyes threatening to close as she watched it fill up. The retch from the other room brought her back to alertness, along with the water overflowing onto her hand. She turned the faucet off, walking to the bathroom and handing Waverly the cup, just as quickly walking back out. 

       The baby had a thing for not liking anything to do with vomit. She had learned that an hour ago. 

       She almost dozed off again, leaning against the wall, but Waverly walking out woke her up again. “You ok?” She asked the blotchy faced girl, who wiped her nose with her sleeve. 

       “Mm.” She wandered back to the living room, sitting down on the couch and pulling her knees to her chest. She looked at the door with nothingness filling her eyes. Wynonna grabbed the blanket that was in a pile at the end of the couch and set the throw pillow at the end up to rest against the arm. She wrapped her fingers around her sister’s ankles and pulled her feet out, pressing down on her shoulders to get her to lie down. “Noo,” she whined, going to sit back up. 

       “Mm-mm, lay down.” She tossed the blanket over her, tucking it in around her body and giving it a pretty fold at the top. She sat down on the floor in front of her, picking her phone up off of the table. “It’s 4 in the morning , Wave. Please? Just try for me?” 

       It wasn’t just that she was tired and wanted to get some sleep herself. In fact, that was the least of her worries. Yea, maybe her body had other ideas, but she would stay up for a week straight if she had to. 

       She just couldn’t watch her cry anymore. She got that she was scared, but god damn. She was sure she was about to shrivel up from dehydration at this point. 

       And how she hadn’t managed to pass out from overexertion, she didn’t know. 

       Cause when that girl sobbed, she sobbed hard . 

       Any other person might think that Waverly was being a little over-dramatic about the whole ordeal. But if your biggest fear was water and you accidentally fell in the deep end of a swimming pool, you’d probably be freaking your ass off, even though anyone else would be able to shake it off and climb out with a laugh. And this exact situation was her biggest fear. 

       But could you blame her?

       Name one person she loved that didn’t leave for one reason or another. 

       Ward, Michelle, Curtis, Wynonna for a little. Hell, you could throw Champ in there if you wanted to get deep with it. 

       “But-”

       “Shhh.” She brushed her hand through her hair. “Ima tell you a story. You ready?” 

       “Nonna,” she said in a quiet complaint. 

       Wynonna cleared her throat, looking down at her phone to read the story she had pulled up. “ Once upon a time, there was a bunny rabbit named Smiley. Smiley had big teeth, long ears and a little cotton-ball tail. The reason she was named Smiley is because she loved to smile. Every day, Smiley would go hopping through the fields, eating clover. She was very quiet, but if her motions made a sound, they would sound something like hippety-hoppety, hippety-hoppety, hippety-hoppety, and so on, all the day long. This made Smiley smile, to think about how her motions might sound if they did in fact make a sound.” 

       She looked up at her sister’s annoyed, yet bored, some would even say sleepy expression. “One day, Smiley found a clover field she had never seen before. Something seemed different about this field. Smiley entered the field slowly, cautiously, sniffing around here and there, hither and yon, near and far, back and forth, side to side. She wondered if the field was magic or enchanted or something like that. But no, it was just an ordinary field. However, this got Smiley to thinking. Maybe there was a magic or otherwise enchanted field somewhere. There must be. She talked to her bunny rabbit friends, actually, wiggled her nose at them since bunny rabbits can’t talk, and they all agreed that there must be a magic or otherwise enchanted field.  Smiley was determined to find it. So she set off early the next morning, wearing only the aforementioned smile, plus her bunny hair, teeth, tail, ears and whatnot, and tried to find the magic or otherwise enchanted field.”

       She glanced up again, grinning with relief as she saw her Boring Bedtime Story was working. The smaller girl’s eyelids appeared to be becoming heavier by the second. “Instead of hopping along the so-called bunny trail, Smiley hopped along any trails she happened to find, including but not limited to deer trails, goat trails, sheep trails, snail trails, walrus trails, people trails, hippopotamus trails, cow trails, pig trails, dog trails, elk trails, llama trails, alpaca trails, did I mention goat trails already, kangaroo trails, and so on. But Smiley didn’t find any magic or otherwise enchanted fields. She was starting to wonder if there really was a magic or otherwise enchanted field, or if this was just a story she had read once upon a time. She was getting tired of this quest. “It’s hopeless,” Smiley thought.” 

       “She decided she would take one more trail, and if it didn’t lead to the magic or otherwise enchanted field, she would give up. That would be so embarrassing to admit to her friends that her quest had been for nothing. Smiley sure hoped this last trail would lead to the magic or otherwise enchanted field. Smiley hopped down the next trail. She could tell it was a sheep trail because there was a big sign written in a language that only sheep could understand saying “Sheep Trail.” Smiley briefly wondered how she could read the sign if in fact it was written in a language that only sheep could understand, but she wasn’t the kind of rabbit who wastes time pondering imponderables. For example, she had never spent much time calculating how many angels could hop on the head of a pin, or the median amount of wood the average woodchuck would chuck.” 

       Wynonna looked up once more, seeing her eyes closed. She smiled, continuing on, more for the fact that this story was probably the stupidest thing she had ever read and she wanted to see how it ended. “Anyhoo, Smiley hopped down the sheep trail, until finally she came to a big white fence. She didn’t see any sheep, but she could tell they had been there because there were fluffy white clumps of wool here and there on top of the fence. The wool smelled just like sleep. Hoppy, or whatever her name was, laid down for a minute because she was tired from a long day of hopping down the non-bunny trails. She closed her eyes and imagined what it would be like to watch all those sheep jumping over the fence. She could see them in her mind’s eye. She started counting them: one, two, three, one, two, three. Hoppy could only count to three, so she kept having to start over: one, two, three, one, two, three. It was easier that way, Hoppy rationalized, not having so many numbers. Hoppy yawned. She wondered if she would ever find the enchanted waterfall. It didn’t matter. Look at all the-” 

       The darker brunette stopped abruptly at the sound of the front door slowly opening behind her. She snapped her head around, hand coming to rest on the butt-end of Peacemaker. 

       And if her eyes weren’t already wide enough, the sight of a familiar Officer easing herself into the house made them pop out of her head. 

       She jumped to her feet, and Nicole’s eyes shot towards her, going just as wide as the pair staring at her. “Wynonna, what’re yo-” 

       “Shh!” She rounded the coffee table, marching silently towards her as her body was halfway-in-halfway-out of the house. “I just got her to go to sleep not even five minutes ago! Don’t you fucking wake her up!” 

       “Why was she still awake?” She asked in a confused whisper.

       “Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe cause you left and she was terrified because she’s Waverly !” 

       Nicole looked out the half-open door, quickly back to the older Earp with pursed lips. “I . . . She . . .” She sighed, rubbing her tired eyes with her hand. “Can we not do this right now?” 

       “No! Where the hell were you?! You scared the shit out of all of us!” She shoved her right shoulder. 

       “Wynonna,” she complained, looking out the door again.

       She grabbed the door handle, pulling it completely open. “What are you looking a-” Her voice stuck in her throat as her face paled.  

       “D-Doc?”