I haven't had nearly enough coffee for this.

If Officer Haught's being honest, at this moment it's really more of a 50/50 split between a desire for about a gallon of coffee or the need for two - or possibly six - fingers of whiskey. Her face, however, reflects nothing but genuine concern.

Chrissy Neadley, the boss's daughter, stands before her, arms wrapped protectively around herself. Bless her heart. Standing out here being interviewed isn't doing Chrissy any favors, but it's imperative that they get a detailed witness statement before she leaves the scene. Unsurprisingly, Nicole is tapped to do the honors. Or rather she's the only one on scene to whom the Sheriff trusts the care of his daughter, a nod to her intrinsic ability to juggle the rigors of the physical police work with ardent compassion when dealing with the citizens affected by crime, a quality sorely lacking in some of the more senior members of the team.

Interviewing witnesses, particularly ones who have been exposed to something so scarring as the specter of death, is a delicate dance, one requiring the interviewer to be able to read their dance partner at a glance, to know how to make minute adjustments in their movements to elicit the desired response - to know when to lead and when to be led. And Officer Haught is really good at her job. As Chrissy once more elaborates on a section of her account, one they have been over several times before, albeit from a slightly different angle, the deputy uses the time to do two things: firstly, monitor the narrative for any inconsistencies or any additional clues as to the timeline of events during the night, and secondly, to surreptitiously study Chrissy's eyes and demeanor for any sign of intoxicants or incoherency.

Good news? Chrissy is stone cold sober, and she's being honest about what she's seen (or believes to have seen). The bad news? Well...the bad news is that none of this makes a lick of sense.

It's not little things that aren't adding up, either. Nope. It's the big details, like why is someone posing as a delivery man and conning his way into Waverly's house to attack her? Or why is there a second perpetrator outside who manages to kill HBIC from the other day in the diner when she tried to make a great escape in her car (because of course she'd just leave the others behind...of course she would)? Or why did they decide to wait a couple of hours before calling the attack into the authorities? And would someone, anyone, kindly explain why the actual fuck a guy who has been stabbed in the ear is still in need of being shot MULTIPLE times after the fact?

Goddamn Purgatory.

She breathes deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose. In spite of the gloves, her hands ache with cold. A headache begins to blossom behind her eyes.

I have been out here way too long for this. I need coffee...

It was going on 2 a.m. when Nicole had finally left the station last night (this morning?), her body navigating the desolate city streets on autopilot, leading her steadfastly home. When she pushed open the door to her place, a tiny meow had greeted her from inside the darkened entryway. Flipping the light on, she looked down to see her cat blinking lazily up at her.

"I know, I know, sweetheart. Give me a sec."

It took mere seconds to jettison the stetson and the duty belt and a couple more to shuck her boots. Before the cat could launch into a more vocal plea, Nicole doled out a handful of dry food from the pantry, patting the purring ball of fluff a few times on her head and stumbling toward the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Sleep claimed her within minutes, a consequence of long hours spent studying case files and the last vestiges of the alcohol coursing through her veins. The cat settled into the crook of her arm without preamble, the vibrations from the purrs a lullaby.

But sleep didn't keep her.

When the police band radio on the nightstand beside her suddenly blared to life, Nicole jerked awake, confused and annoyed when the images of her dream evaporated. She ran a hand slowly down her tired face and rubbed the sleep in her eyes. Technically, she was still the officer on call, even with her shift over, which meant this call-out was all hers.

Perks of the job.

The county dispatcher's voice cleared, and the words that came through the airwaves stopped Nicole's heart dead in her chest.

"Earp homestead. Multiple wounded and/or believed dead. Please respond."

It wasn't like having a bucket of cold water thrown on her. That would have been cake. It was like awakening in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, choking and freezing, dread like an anchor around her chest. But then the adrenaline hit, hot, a lifeline that she snatched hold of like a vice. Her muscles moved of their own accord, responding to the adrenaline dump with practiced ease, and she repeated the process she'd undertaken no more than an hour previous, only this time in some sort of grim rewind. The cat skittered under the bed and watched the manic movement with wary eyes. Her stetson on and socked feet stuffed into her boots, she had grabbed her coat and sprinted out the door.

She had raced through the county roads at speeds that would make even Wynonna blanch. Honestly, she was damned lucky she didn't hit any lingering ice patches in her squad car, but there was no way in hell she was going to take her foot off that gas pedal before she reached the scene.

The entire drive there, only a few concrete thoughts entered her mind.

I should have been there.

I could have protected her.

I should have fucking been there for her.

While she may have set the land speed record racing out to the scene, for Nicole it was the longest drive of her life. Her thoughts added torture after torture with every fresh mile on the odometer.

They say the hour before dawn is the darkest, but with two of Purgatory's finest department-issued vehicles on scene, the Earp homestead pulsed with flashing reds and blues like some sort of macabre mood lighting. When Officer Haught arrived, the Sheriff himself stood on the front porch, involved in conversation with Wynonna. Her friend, Henry, was standing off to the side, rubbing a spot near his shoulder. Wynonna had eyed her as she approached and gave her a small nod and tight smile. Sheriff Neadley turned, gave her instructions on securing the scene, and then he ushered the witnesses inside the house. While the door was open, Nicole caught a fleeting glimpse of Waverly in the distance, safe, alive...the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, before the door fell shut. With that one question answered, the anchor weighing her down loosened its grip, giving the deputy the impetus she needed to get to work.

The crime scene boys had arrived shortly after that, and Officer Haught had her hands full assisting their understaffed crew. When they finally rolled out just a little while ago, multiple black body bags weighing down the back of their van, the sheriff had gone ahead and left as well, but not before asking Nicole to stay and finish things up.

"And then I heard shouting...and more shots, but I didn't see anything. Waverly's friend...he told me I should stay inside, away from the windows. I'm sorry…"

Chrissy sniffles, her composure starting to peter out, and Nicole snaps her attention back guiltily to her witness, taking in the girl's tired features once more.

"You did great, Chrissy. Really great. Your dad will be proud, OK?" At this, a pained smile appears on Chrissy's face, and Nicole's heart breaks a little at the sight. She seems like a sweet kid. To see the ugliness of the world start to chip away at that, the seeds of self-doubt and anxiety trying to take root…well. Without thinking, she reaches out to touch Chrissy's arm, an offer of comfort, a reminder that there's good in this world, too. So much good. The front door creaks, and in her periphery, Nicole sees Wynonna stomping across the snow-covered yard toward her.

"Why don't you go on inside and warm up?" she suggests. Chrissy nods meekly before turning toward the homestead.

Waverly steps out onto the porch in the distance, a heavy blanket draped around her shoulders to ward off the cold. Nicole allows herself a second to look at her from under her lashes, a surreptitious survey. This is the third time she's caught a glimpse of Waverly since the call-out, and since she hasn't actually gotten to speak with her, to hear directly from her own lips that she's alright, a fact that is absolutely killing her right now, Nicole can't seem to stop herself from at least verifying each and every time with her own eyes that Waverly is, in fact, in one piece. Maybe a little wrung out and subdued, but safe. Nicole thinks she might be favoring her left arm a little, but with limited data she can't draw any solid conclusions on that observation.

Turning to Wynonna, Nicole gets right to the point. "Your sister OK?" She's a little shocked at how light she manages to keep her tone. This question has been clawing at her throat ever since she first got the call a couple of hours ago. Hell, it's a wonder she isn't spitting up blood with every word she speaks. Half a dozen times she almost gave in, the temptation to abandon her assigned post and check on Waverly in person, face-to-face, burning in her veins. But there's a job to do - and boundaries. The kicker is that it's just not her place, no matter how much she wishes it was. So instead she's here, still outside in the winter dawn, latching on to the next best thing.

She tastes iron on her tongue.

"Yeah, well...she's being Waverly," Wynonna responds, somehow managing to find a happy medium between nonchalant and annoyed. It's the perfect big sister answer.

A nod of her head, a quiet exhale, and the deputy's heartbeat calms immediately in response. Some of the anxiety ebbs away, the tide finally turning. Wynonna's face is turned aside, and Nicole studies her in profile briefly, noting the stress lines around her eyes and the exhaustion in her movements.

"Chrissy said she-," Nicole pauses while deciding just how she wants to phrase this, "-scissored a stripper."

Yeah, OK, she'll admit that's purely for Wynonna's sake, and judging by the barely contained smirk on her face, the joke hits its target with pinpoint accuracy. For the first time in hours, Nicole feels a small grin tugging at the corners of her own mouth, a mirror of the one threatening to break free on Wynonna's face. At the station last night, before things devolved into heated accusations and childish insults, they had found some common ground.

Sharing a whole bottle of whiskey will do that to you, apparently.

The point is - she knows that under that shit-kicking tough girl exterior, Wynonna is eaten up with worry (and probably a good helping of guilt) about her little sister, and seeing her attacked like this must have the older Earp spinning off-kilter something fierce. So in the absence of whiskey, a little levity will have to suffice.

Out of the corner of her eye she catches movement - Waverly is reaching up and wrapping her arms around Chrissy, a gesture so effortless and pure, and just so...Waverly...that it makes Nicole's heart ache.

And with that, Nicole turns serious. "So. Any idea why your homestead was targeted?" she starts. "I mean besides the fact that it was yours?" Her voice grows harder by the time she's done with her question, the teasing smile from before vanishing as quickly as it came. Well, even levity can't last forever, and Nicole needs some answers.

Weird and Wynonna seem to go together. Man in the mirror murders people? Yeah no, she's not ready to let that one go just yet. The Sheriff seems more than willing to turn a blind eye, to let everything slide. And if this was just Black Badge stuff, just Deputy Marshall Dolls and Wynonna and their X-Files, she might have more patience herself.

But it's not.

She just has to look back to the porch, to see Waverly up there in her party dress, bruises beginning to bloom on her neck, comforting a shaken Chrissy, to steel her resolve. This attack wasn't on Wynonna. It wasn't on Dolls.

It was on Chrissy. And Stephanie.

And Waverly...

Forget the coffee. She feels her blood heating in her veins, and the chill of the winter morning recedes.

Wynonna eyes her, catching the change in tone and takes a moment to decide on a course of action. "You know what, we should get some breakfast. I could murder a stack of pancakes." She continues, subdued, "And then we'll talk. Really talk."

There's a chance Wynonna's being genuine, but Nicole is reluctant to take her at face value. When she pressed for information last night at the cop shop on the types of cases Black Badge takes on, Wynonna had parried and deflected like a pro, turning the discussion into a series of base accusations against Nicole, which had left the deputy feeling wrong-footed and pissed off - and still completely without answers. So no, at this point, she's not incredibly inclined to let anything slide. It's five in the goddamn morning, her throat still raw. Bitterness and frustration cover her face like a shroud.

"OK," Nicole bites out, nodding her head patronizingly. "You gonna help me understand why some of these cases are too complex for local flatfoots?"

If this shit is going to keep happening, if she's going to get drawn into these bizarre crime scenes and continue to see the effect it's having on Purgatory's citizens, then she needs to know what's going on. Read her in, make her take an oath - hell, make her pinky swear, it doesn't matter. Waverly's firmly wrapped up in this thing now, and if that's how it's going to be, then she needs to know. Nicole is determined to protect her as best she can, even if it's on the periphery - if that's how Waverly wants it - but she can't hope to be worth a damn if she doesn't know what she's up against. She can't plan a defense (or an attack, for that matter) without knowing the terrain, without knowing your enemy. Well, she [ITALICS]could, but she'd fail, and failure isn't an option. Not when the stakes are so high.

She feels the weight of the Colt 1911 on her right hip, the scratch of the polyester uniform pants on her legs, the pressure of the standard issue stetson atop her head. They pale in comparison to the real deal, though. She's a cop. It's what she does; it's who she is. She's sworn an oath to protect the people of her jurisdiction - with her life, if need be. Whether it's Chrissy, or Wynonna, or yes, even Waverly, she's sworn to protect them all. There are days when her job is easy, but here lately? Things are happening in this town. Weird things. Cruel things. And she can't seem to protect her people like she's supposed to. Sometimes she feels more like Atlas, muscles shaking, sweat dotting her brow, trying to hold back the sky. The situation is untenable - something has to give.

This isn't a request for information. There's nothing polite in her question. This - this is a demand. And there's only one acceptable answer.

Wynonna looks Nicole straight in the eyes before responding, "I'll do my best."

The lack of hesitation catches Nicole off guard. Maybe Wynonna is realizing she could use the help. Maybe after that bottle of whiskey she's starting to see Nicole as less of a country bumpkin and more of a comrade in arms. Whatever it is, her gut is telling her that this is the real deal. Just like that, the frustration ebbs, the heat in her veins abating in equal measure.

The deputy searches Wynonna's face for any hint of deception. She finds none.

Instead, she reads worry on the oldest Earp's face, her brow creased, her eyes anxious, her head bowed. Wynonna is fidgeting, staring at the phone in her hands like she's trying to will it to life with the power of wishful thinking.

"Your boss gonna be OK with that?" Soft concern replaces the frustration in the deputy's voice. When Wynonna had shown up at the station last night, well on her way to drunk, one of the first things she did was crack a joke about Deputy Marshall Dolls possibly being dead. She had tried to play it off as a joke, but c'mon, Nicole's not an idiot. Wynonna won't drop the badass routine long enough to be vulnerable, so instead she cracks jokes, wrapping herself in sarcasm like it's armor. But Nicole knows how to read people, and what she read in that joke last night is what she's reading on Wynonna's face right now - real concern.

"Boss isn't here." The words are meant to sound nonchalant. The unflappable Wynonna Earp. But her face betrays her, her smile empty. The words "I'm scared" might as well be written in sharpie on her forehead.

The cop in her wants to pry, to question, to search for leads. But that can wait. Hell, maybe they can solve all the world's problems over these pancakes. For now, the friend in her says simply, "OK."

"Guess you're my ride." With that, Wynonna turns and begins to walk around to the passenger side of the squad car, leaving Nicole with nothing between her and the front porch but empty space.

It's kind of like gravity. That's the only way Nicole knows how to describe it. She can feel it - the pull of it, and she can't seem to gather the strength to fight it.

She doesn't want to.

So when Wynonna walks away, Nicole's eyes do what they always do: they gravitate to Waverly. Always. But this time, when she seeks her out, when she goes to reassure herself that, yes, Waverly is in fact OK, her heart stutters in her chest like it momentarily forgot what it was supposed to be doing.

Because Waverly is watching her.

When their eyes lock, it's as if Waverly is embarrassed to have been caught, and she offers a bashful wave and a hint of a smile before averting her gaze, suddenly finding something very interesting to look at on the porch. That day in Shorty's, the first time they had met, Waverly had tripped over all of her words and rambled right into a puddle, which turned out to be the most endearing introduction Nicole could have imagined. Her wave, her bashful smile just now - they feel like the non-verbal version of that conversation, all adorable and awkward and radiant. The smile that blooms on Nicole's face is an automatic reaction, but it's only a fraction of the warmth she feels in her bones. It's the beach in August all over again, the snow reimagined as white sand, and her own personal sun standing self-consciously on the porch in the distance.

When Waverly pulls her gaze back, there's no sign of embarrassment or bashfulness. Instead, her smile is slow, deliberate. Direct. It's like she's harnessing the full force of the sun and channeling it directly at Nicole, who feels her blood boil and rush in return, her heart hammering in her chest.

Shit.

The pull has never been stronger.

It's like the forces of nature are all conspiring against her, compelling her to place one foot in front of another and stride up to that porch. But she can't She can't. It's just not her place...right now. And it's not the right time...yet.

But damn wouldn't it be so easy, to throw herself into the sun, into warm oblivion?

By some miracle of mankind, Nicole's muscles snap to attention and do what she isn't sure she can - they strain against the natural order, forcing her to turn, to move, to break the gravitational pull. Without a second glance, she climbs into the squad, breathes deeply, and starts the car. She's Atlas, settling the sky atop her shoulders once more.

She keeps that image - Waverly Earp, smiling at her from her front porch - for the next time the weight on her shoulders feels too heavy, for the next time the cold tries to force its way in, her own personal sunshine.