It's dark.

Really dark.

When Nicole was a kid, in the days back before her family exchanged the wide open countryside for a cramped life in the city, there were nights when she was put on trash duty, tasked with dragging the household trash all the way down the long dirt drive out to the paved street where the county would send a truck by once a week to pick it up. While city nights never truly fade into black, hovering instead in this otherworldly deep purple, not day but not quite night, country nights are a different story altogether. They can be beautiful, the stars overhead a twinkling tapestry in the night sky, the steady hum of the cicadas a symphony in the trees, and the lack of civilization nearby creating a feeling of vastness so great it's like being the only person left on the planet. But when the sky was cloudy and the moon was new, the trips down the driveway turned ominous quick, fast, and in a hurry. Once outside the immediate vicinity of her house, the darkness was so complete she felt blind, stumbling towards some unknown destination, and with her sight robbed, her imagination ran wild with worst case scenarios. The rustle of a jackrabbit in the scrub brush, the snap of a twig behind her, the whoosh of an owl's wings somewhere in the sky above, all of these transformed into monsters, lurking on all sides, waiting for her to take one more step closer, waiting for their chance to grab her.

Chuckling mirthlessly, she thinks she might need to revise her worldview a bit on the existence of monsters now with that she's with Bla- but that's where the thought begins and ends, her mind suddenly growing confused, muddled, and she finds herself at a loss, unable to remember why it is that she should believe in monsters now. The darkness around her is suffocatingly thick; it's like floating in molasses. Her senses, her reactions all slow and dulled. Hazy. Thoughts are like haints, a ghostly shimmer in her periphery, but when she turns to face them head on, to chase them down, they've vanished, leaving her standing alone, wondering vaguely if she's going crazy.

A faint crack appears overhead, a pinpoint of light piercing the darkness like a blade, creating a small pool of yellow about twenty feet out in front of her, like the light of a solitary street lamp in the late hours of the night. She finds herself staring at it, the pull too strong to resist. A dull ache begins to throb in her head and in her chest, but the pain is muted and distant, easy to ignore.

A phantom touch sends shivers down her spine, unseen fingers stroking her hair, warm breath grazing her cheek, and without knowing why, Nicole sighs and leans into it. Overhead, another beam of light punctures the darkness, this one closer than the last.

When cool fingers brush her face, slide to the side of her neck, it brings a moment of clarity.

She's checking my pulse.

The thought vanishes like smoke before she can analyze it, though, leaving her with more questions than she had only a minute ago. Another hole, another ray of light. She stands just outside of the latest ring, and while most of her body is still shrouded in the syrupy darkness, her scuffed duty boots and uniform pants are softly illuminated in yellow, and she stares at them, feeling the tickle of memories struggling to form. With the focus, the ache in her head and in her chest grows. Wincing, she grits her teeth, ignores the pain, and wills herself to concentrate. To remember.

It starts off like a murmur, the sound of a susurrant stream in the distance, like the one that ran alongside the place she lived as a kid. She spent hours and hours outside in her grass-stained jeans, the whisper of the stream a constant companion, the soundtrack to her great adventures while she ran around playing make-believe as everything from an astronaut to a knight in shining armor and even a policewoman-

The stream becomes a flood, the whisper a shout.

I know that voice.

Cracks radiate out from the pinholes in the ceiling overhead, fragmenting the expanse like bolts of lightning, and chunk by chunk the darkness crumbles and falls, revealing nothing but brightness above. The smile comes to her face unbidden, and with Waverly's name on her tongue, she opens her eyes.

Jesus...

Nicole's eyes flutter shut again of their own volition when the sensations hit all at once. Her ears ring like she's been locked in a bell tower at high noon, the tolls endlessly ricocheting around her skull, adding another layer of exquisite pain to what can only be described as the worst hangover known to mankind. The pain in her chest, though, brings fresh memories of being told she's the wrong kind, being kicked repeatedly. It brings memories of being left for dead. With her eyes closed, she does a quick inventory.

Can I wiggle my fingers? Check. Toes? Check. Any new bullet-shaped holes? Negative.

She feels pressure on her shoulder - hands tugging, checking - and with a sense of urgency, she draws a breath, before quickly regretting it. It's like breathing a lung full of needles, the pain sharp and piercing, and she gasps and sputters her way through it.

"Come here," Waverly murmurs, her voice trembling. Scared.

The hands pull at her shoulders again, insistent, frantic, and she can practically feel Waverly's nerves wrapping themselves around her, scrambling to find purchase. Steeling herself for the pain that movement will inevitably bring, her eyes flutter open, and she tenses her right arm underneath her to help roll onto her back. The action requires her to tighten most of the muscles in her abdomen and in her chest, and as she turns to face the room, the pain leaves her breathless. When she opens her mouth to say Waverly's name, nothing comes out, like some sort of nightmare. Instead, she gasps again, internally screaming in frustration at the lack of cooperation she's getting from her body.

Waverly's face swims into focus. And then back out. Shaking her head a little, and squeezing her eyes shut to see if her vision will clear, she tries again. When she opens them, the room around her is blurry and indistinct, like she's viewing everything through a layer of gauze, lending the scene a surreal dreamlike quality. Backlit by the station's overly bright fluorescent lighting and shrouded in a haze, Waverly is ethereal. Angelic. For a minute she wonders if maybe she really did die, if maybe Willa's aim was a bit sharper than she had thought, and this is what the after looks like. But her eyes clear a little, and she's able to see the terror writ large across Waverly's face, able to trace the tracks of her tears down her cheeks. Heaven wouldn't stand for that.

Intending to comfort her, to let her know she's OK, Nicole starts, "Wav-," but her lungs betray her again, leaving her gasping and wincing on the floor of the station and kicking off a fresh wave of throbbing in her skull.

"I know, I know," Waverly whispers, snaking a hand under the deputy's head, providing a makeshift cushion between her head and the unyielding tile of the station's floor. Nicole feels the soft press of Waverly's other hand to her chest - tender, hesitant. Struggling to get her vision to clear, she lets her eyes fall closed and leans into the touch.

The back of her head hurts like a bitch. There's a vague memory of flight - must have smacked it pretty hard against the wall when the force of the shot knocked her back.

Ugh...Willa.

Although the hand under her head is strong and supportive, the fingers flexing and curling with the weight, it's far more tender than she could have imagined. Where Waverly's thumb rubs steady circles on her scalp, far from hurting the bruised skin, the touch acts as a balm, cooling and soothing on contact. When a finger wraps unwittingly around one of her stray curls, pulling softly, her mind flashes with memories - stolen moments in Nedley's office, not ten feet away, of the same hands in her hair, grasping and pulling, albeit a lot less delicately. She wouldn't call it cooling, per se, but the heady memory does its own part to ground her, and when she opens her eyes, Waverly's face is clear. The edges blur, the effect other-worldly, but her features are crisp. Her earrings frame her face like unshed tears. The eyes looking back at Nicole are wide and anxious, wandering over her body in a frantic circuit, checking and evaluating. Searching.

When it hits her - the why - she wishes she had the energy to kick her own ass.

She doesn't know…she still thinks…

Behind her, Wynonna says something, but she can't quite make it out, the words reaching her ears in unrecognizable shapes. But the ringing in her ears is beginning to fade, downgrading from the initial 'head in the bell tower' level to a more manageable one, kind of like having an annoying gnat continuously buzzing around her head, and when Wynonna approaches, kneeling beside her, her words are clear. "There's no blood." Her tone is dark. Hard. "If my sister joined the dark side and you've been a revenant this whole time I'm just gonna call in sick tomorrow."

Oh. OH. She thinks I'm a…?

She can feel the laugh bubbling up in her throat, but one look at Wynonna's face cuts it off at the knees. Instead, she gasps, struggling to talk, needing to explain to her. To both of them. Talking hurts, though, and her voice is airy and feeble when it comes out, "No, I'm-"

But Wynonna moves with a speed that surprises her, the motion nothing but a blur, cutting off her words and leaving her head spinning. And then her shirt is ripped open, a handful of buttons ripped out of their stitches and sent flying around the station. Admittedly, there have been times when she's imagined an Earp ripping off her shirt, but the universe seems to have a sick sense of humor because this is definitely not the one she had in mind.

"-wearing a bulletproof vest."

She's not sure if it's a gasp or a laugh that issues from Waverly, but her features transform when the corners or her mouth lift into a smile, albeit a small one. It's still reserved. Disbelieving. When Waverly doesn't speak, when neither of the Earps speak, Nicole finds herself starting to ramble, feeling the need to fill the silence, to break the tension and regain some semblance of normalcy in this ridiculously abnormal situation.

"It's kind of standard operating procedure when we've got a 404 on our hands," she explains breathily, casually extracting the bullet from the kevlar where it had come to rest. When the bullet is free, its weight resting lightly in her fingertips, she finds she can't take her eyes off of it, and as she scrutinizes it, turning it and twisting it in her outstretched fingers, her sight becomes jarringly clear.

This isn't the first time she's faced death since coming to Purgatory. The last time death came for her in a big way - sharp and piercing, bloody and brutal, the kind of outsized death that might lurk in a nightmare. It left her in a heap in the snow, utterly alone, the darkness creeping in where she lay in the bright Purgatory countryside.

But she didn't stay there.

She looks at the bullet in her hand, its tip mushroomed from impact and its length compacted, the metal still warm. This tiny thing. This insignificant scrap of metal could have been the end of it tonight. Death disguised. She knows full well the damage it can do. What it could have done. God knows they watched enough video at the academy, heard enough horror stories.

But it didn't work.

Maybe this is the norm here in Purgatory. Like, "Hey, it's Tuesday, time to cheat death again!" At this rate, she'll be dodging bullets and sidestepping graves without even breaking stride before too long.

Flicking the bullet away, she thinks, "What else you got?"

When she raises her eyes, she catches sight of Waverly, her head bowed, her eyes closed, looking for all the world like she's deep in prayer. And maybe she is. But her face is still drawn, her mouth tight. Shifting, she looks over at Wynonna, whose face is hazy, like Nicole's looking at her through a camera that's pulling in and out of focus, but she can read the confusion clear enough.

Thinking back to what she had just said, she clarifies, unable to suppress the snarky tone, "Bunch of crazy hicks off their rockers?" Her mouth tilts up in a grin. It's automatic.

Waverly laughs. There's a vein of deliriousness to it, but it's so goddamn beautiful to hear. With the laughter comes a smile. Heartfelt, judging by the way her eyes crinkle at the edges. It's the kind of smile that lights up a room, and with her head still spinning and her vision still blurry, it acts like a lighthouse, a beacon in the fog guiding her home.

Nicole can't stop staring.

Above her, Wynonna speaks softly, "Finally picked the smart one." Waverly's face is transformed. The terror that had filled her eyes a second ago gone, relief flashing like a neon sign, bright and clear. Electric. If her ears weren't still ringing, Nicole's pretty sure she'd hear the buzz coming off of her.

So that's out of the bag now...thank god.

They'd both been living under this cloud for weeks now, Wynonna still somehow oblivious to their relationship. In the beginning, sure, things were a bit more intentionally clandestine, mainly because this was so new for Waverly, and Nicole was content to be quiet, to be a secret while Waverly got her feet under her, so to speak. Even though all she really wanted was to walk down Main Street holding her girlfriend's hand, everyone else be damned. But hell, by this point, everyone but Wynonna knew. Dolls and Doc. Nedley. Even the damn rodeo clown figured it out, and that boy's only got one oar in the water. When Waverly had kissed her earlier at the hotel, plain as day and surrounded by half the town, she couldn't have been more proud of her.

But leave it to Willa to force her hand with Wynonna. It's not that Waverly was explicitly not telling her. Not really. But Wynonna, bless her heart, is about as observant as a doorknob when it comes to things that don't really affect her. As the past few weeks passed, she watched Waverly's fear grow, watched her worry and fret as the anxiety mushroomed in the echo chamber of her thoughts, until they'd grown far out of proportion.

Waverly's "kind of," spoken so off-hand, had surprised her almost as much as walking in and finding herself at gunpoint, but it really shouldn't have. Fear is a powerful thing. It whispers. Insinuates. Sows doubt where doubt shouldn't be able to grow. Of all the people in the world, for Waverly, Wynonna's opinion is the only one that matters. Hers is the one with the power to make her or break her.

But watching this exchange between the sisters now - the easy approval, the cheeky wink - there's no trace of hesitancy, no half-assed apology or self-conscious cover-up. When Waverly breaks their gaze and turns to look at Nicole again, her face somehow burns brighter than before.

Her sight clouds again, and she wants to scream in frustration, but while the cop side of her is starting to ring the alarm about what's possibly (OK, obviously) a concussion, the thought doesn't manage to capture her attention, instead floating back down into the dark from whence it came. But when it occurs to her that Waverly - her head backlit in fluorescence like a corona, light catching the silver of her earrings, catching the thousands of sequins on her gown, leaving them shining and twinkling like stars - is surely a celestial being, too beautiful, too blinding, she can think of nothing else. She sees nothing else.

It isn't until Waverly leans down, one hand settling on the rough kevlar of her vest, the other reaching out to lovingly stroke her hair, that the fog thins a little, that she can pull her thoughts out of the stratosphere and begin to focus. Her girlfriend's hands ground her. They're real. They're solid.

She's here. Alive.

"I'm gonna get you to the hospital, OK?" Waverly's voice is soft, but even with the drone still buzzing her ears, Nicole has no problem hearing the tension, the rawness, the tightly controlled tears. The hands are still tenderly stroking her hair, and where the fingertips touch her skin, they radiate warmth. And calm.

She remembers the hammock they had out back on their property in the country when she was a kid, how sometimes when she couldn't sleep, she'd stuff her sock-clad feet into her favorite cowboy boots, snag an extra blanket off her bed, and climb out the window, doing her best to keep quiet and avoid waking up the rest of the house. Her parents had set it up no more than fifteen feet from the back door, and to her, it was just on the outer ring of what felt safe in the vast darkness of the country night. When she'd climb into it, which always took a couple of tries, her boots more often than not swinging wildly off the sides, she always pulled her blanket tight around her like a shield, the warmth and the closeness giving her a child's illusion of safety and invincibility. Wrapped up tight, she'd watch for shooting stars and search for constellations, whispering the names her dad taught her under her breath when she found one she knew, until finally, mesmerized by the lazy twinkling overhead and lulled by the gentle rock of the hammock, her eyelids would droop, and she'd drag herself back inside to her waiting bed.

Looking up at Waverly now, a constellation so bright she can see nothing else, the feeling that overtakes her is the same one from childhood, and she finds that all she wants to do is pull Waverly close, to wrap up in one another and sink into this feeling.

But she can't. There's too much to do. There's a town to save, a sister to track down. Maybe it's the lingering sense of invincibility from being held by Waverly; hell, maybe she's learning to follow Nedley's example and selectively ignore protocol in certain situations. Whatever it is, gathering her breath, she responds the only way she can, "No, no - I'm just a little bruised. You've gotta go with Wynonna and stop your sister." Her breathing is noticeably labored, in spite of her effort to hide it.

Dragging her eyes away from Waverly, she looks to Wynonna before continuing. "Sorry, but she's kind of a dickhead." That's old news to Waverly and Nicole, of course, the number of tears Waverly's shed because of her oldest sister practically innumerable at this point. But to Wynonna? She's the one who needs to hear it.

"Wish Doc and Dolls were here."

Oh. Oh yeah. Black Badge.

When she had heard Waverly's ringtone earlier, her first reaction had been relief, honestly. After being officially welcomed to Black Badge an hour before, and trying unsuccessfully to reach Waverly on her cell, she had left the station on her mission, managing to track down Nedley, who was doing his best to maintain some sort of peace amongst the townspeople. Well, maybe peace is the wrong word. Contain the chaos is probably a little closer more accurate. Anyway, he hadn't seen any of the Earps since they made a run from the hotel, and when he saw the concern on her face, he sent her off. At first, she had hesitated. After all, he was looking pretty green around the gills, and there was no telling how much longer he'd remain vertical. Or sane. But standing there, sweat beading on his forehead, his eyes bloodshot, he gave her that look - it's a hybrid boss/dad look, and there's absolutely zero use arguing at that point. So, nodding, she left him to it. Pulling out her phone, she had tried again to reach Waverly. When it rang long enough to go to voicemail - again - she hung up and sent a text. With Nedley seen to, she needed to find the Earp sisters. All of them.

Before heading to the station, she decided to detour by her apartment. For one, she needed to change - saving the town is a hell of a lot easier without the dress and the heels. But secondly, part of her wondered (OK, hoped) Waverly had thought to use her apartment as a safe place to escape to, and the disappointment had set in immediately when she found it dark and empty, save for the cat. Again, she pulled out her cell and tried to call Waverly. Still no answer. With each text sent, each call to voicemail, Nicole's worry grew. Worry is a treacherous thing. Left unanswered, it grows teeth. It began to eat at her, to gnaw at her nerves. It was ravenous. Trying not to let her imagination run wild with worst case scenarios, she headed to the station, using the time to shortlist options for tracking down the Earps.

But ever since the moment she heard Waverly's ringtone and rounded the corner into the squad room, coming face to face with the barrel of Willa Earp's gun, she hadn't spared another thought for her new gig or anything else, really. Between the alternating iterations of "don't shoot me" and "don't shoot her," there wasn't a lot of room for much else.

Pulling a deep breath, or as deep of one as she can muster, she responds to Wynonna. "They went to raid Shorty's. Something about an antidote."

"See?" Waverly says, her voice choked and raw. "Super smart."

Nicole thinks the tone coloring Waverly's words might be pride. She thinks it might be love. And then Waverly leans in to kiss her, and she stops thinking altogether.

A warm hand slides against her neck. Cradles her jaw. The touch is delicate, almost reverent.

She's vaguely aware of Wynonna getting up, muttering something, but to say that she cares enough to pay attention is a gross exaggeration. Honestly, it's a minor miracle that she's even capable of remembering anyone else is in the room outside of this cocoon they've created for themselves.

For all outward appearances, this kiss was normal. By the book. But for Nicole, this kiss is world-shifting, a kiss to tilt her off her axis. It's all encompassing, awakening every atom, reshaping every molecule, refining her entire being until everything is in perfect alignment, her entire self captured in an intimate gesture. It's a heady feeling, like having one's feet on the ground and head in the atmosphere, occupying two worlds at once. She reaches up and grabs Waverly's forearm, a reflex she can't seem to stop. Some people pinch themselves to make sure they're not dreaming, others close their eyes and count to ten. But Nicole, Black Badge Agent and Purgatory Sheriff Department Deputy, can't manage to get through a kiss without grabbing onto her girlfriend's arm for strength. It grounds her, keeps her from floating away.

With the touch comes clarity. The droning white noise that's been ever-present since she returned to consciousness vanishes, the silence in her mind total. Heavy. So when the thought manifests, she has nowhere to hide.

I love her.

It doesn't surprise her or scare her the way it had earlier in the evening when the novelty had been a shock to her system. Thinking it now, it's more like an affirmation, an acknowledgment of a law of nature.

I love her.

The kiss is different. It feels different. Electric, almost. She can feel it humming where Waverly's hands touch her head, where they bury in her hair. It purrs where their lips meet. It trills and surges, intoxicating, when the thought repeats again.

I love her.

And then the kiss is broken, and Waverly pulls back. Nicole stares, her eyes wide. She wants to tell her, to say it, and opening her mouth she starts, "I-"...

A fur coat slams into her head, and the laugh that erupts from her throat is immediate and full. Because of course this is how it goes. Of course it is.

"Time's up, let's go!" Wynonna shouts as she runs by, her footsteps echoing on the tile floor, marking her progress out of the room.

She could stay here. Could hold her here. There's zero doubt in her mind that if she asked, if she made the request, Waverly would stay with her. But that's not how this is supposed to go. For the second time in as many minutes, she does the hard thing. "Go!" she urges, making her voice forceful and sure, before gathering her strength and surging upward, stealing one more searing kiss from the woman above her.

When Waverly pulls away this time, she does it swiftly and completely, standing abruptly and charging out of the room in a swirl of sequins and fur, as if any hesitance, any sign of weakness, no matter how minute, would anchor her here irrevocably. Nicole feels her breath stolen, pulled away on the current and trailing Waverly out of the room and down the hall as she makes her way out into the morning sun. Not that it matters. Nicole watches the departure with such rapt adoration that breathing isn't a primary consideration, and her lungs burn unnoticed. Her vision is remarkably clear at last.

She loves me?

Is that what she heard? From the second she had walked in and that gun swiveled towards her, she felt like her senses had been compromised. Adrenaline poured into her veins, the fight or flight response urging her into action that she couldn't afford to take. Her heart had lodged firmly in her throat, and blood pounded furiously in her ears. Time moved slowly or at warp speed; her thoughts had been frantic or jarringly normal; sounds came and went, sometimes at a whisper and sometimes at a shout. There was no in-between.

I swear to god if I hit my head and created some fake memory or some bullshit like that I'm going to go after Willa myself.

It seems so improbable, being loved in return, that her brain is already hard at work trying to come up with excuses, grasping for reasons why this can't possibly be true. But when she thinks about it, when she strips out the self-doubt and really thinks about it, there's only one possible conclusion. There were moments tonight - on the staircase at the hotel and here, a few minutes ago over the barrel of the gun - flashes where their eyes met, where all pretext and distractions fell away, and it was just the two of them, even if only for an instant. They're moments that etch themselves in bone and brand themselves on skin, truths laid out in a shared gaze. Nothing can explain away those looks. No, even with the altered perception and the horrible circumstances, she silences her anxious brain and trusts her first impression.

"She loves me," Nicole whispers, as if in prayer.

She laughs. It's a bark of laughter, really - sudden and boisterous. It can't be helped. The thought makes her inescapably giddy, and her happiness rings loudly off the hard floor, echoing in the room like church bells.

But after a moment the laughter morphs into a pained wheeze. Her smile slides into a wince.

Oh. Right. That…

With Waverly gone, it's time to do what she couldn't do with her girlfriend here: check her wounds. It's not any lingering sense of modesty or anything like that that kept her from evaluating her injury before now, but more of an awareness that if Waverly saw the real, physical impact of her sister's bullet then there was no way she would have walked out that door, and the last thing Nicole wants to be is an obstacle. But with the room to herself, she figures now's as good a time as any.

Her attempt to stand is met with dizziness and darkness, so back on the floor, she channels her inner kindergartener and simply scoots across the tiles until she reaches a desk. Her desk. Getting out of her now-buttonless shirt is as easy as a shrug (thanks, Wynonna), and it's the work of only a few moments to release the straps holding her vest in place, although the awkward twisting that accompanies its final removal pulls and strains uncomfortably in her chest.

A quick breath, a minuscule nod of reassurance, and she looks down to survey the damage.

The hem of her tank top is low cut, and the bruise sits just above the neckline, an angry palette of reds and purples, blues and yellows, sunset on her skin.

"Shit," she mutters under her breath.

OK. So she lied to Waverly when she said she was "just a little bruised." Well...lie isn't entirely accurate - it was more of an understatement, really. Turns out getting shot hurts a bit more than she may have let on. Who knew?

In the academy, they'd watched training videos where officers caught bullets in their vests - jarring, horrifying videos. It's not Hollywood. Someone can't take a handful of rounds in the chest and keep on walking like the Terminator. When a bullet makes contact with a bulletproof vest, the impact energy of the bullet disperses within the network of kevlar fibers, spreading the damage out laterally rather than straight forward. At best, the result is a mean bruise. At worst? Fractured ribs, internal bleeding. After all, it's still a bullet. Not just any bullet, either.

She had plenty of time to gauge the revolver Willa held in her outstretched hand, plenty of time to do the math. A gun like that? She'd have .357 magnum bullets unless she's an idiot, and although Willa may be many, many things, she's not stupid. Not by a long shot. And that's when she started to worry. That type of round really gained ground in the Prohibition era as an early armor piercing bullet, capable of piercing a gangster's steel car doors and stopping them in their tracks. Thank god technology has advanced since then. She expected the punch. She expected the pain. She did not, however, expect to be knocked smooth off her feet like she got caught in the vicious winds of a tornado. The only way she can think to describe the feeling is like being hit square in the chest by a baseball bat at full tilt.

Note to self: see if Nedley will let me trade out my duty weapon for one of those. Goddamn.

Looking down again, somehow the bruise looks like it's spread, the purple deepening, the sunset turning to twilight.

Waverly is going to kill me.

But she couldn't let her check it out earlier. If Waverly had seen this, come hell or high water they'd be going to the hospital, taking them both out of the game when the clock is counting down to the final seconds. It'd be like putting a band-aid over a trickling leak on a sinking ship...instead of helping to pump out the rising water. Now, though, Waverly is off, going after her sister. Going after Bobo del Ray. Doing what she's supposed to do, not stuck in a doctor's office while Nicole gets an x-ray.

Not that she doesn't understand the concern. Hell, she wishes more than anything that she could jump to her feet and go after her girlfriend, the urge to protect almost overwhelming in its intensity. But if there's one thing she's learned in the last few months is that Waverly should never be underestimated. Maybe she's a little biased, but the youngest Earp seems to be every bit as capable of taking care of herself as her sister is, maybe even more so, considering how cool she is under pressure. Not to mention her affinity for her trusty shotgun.

Breathing deeply, Nicole does her best to suppress the worry trembling in her stomach. It's Waverly. She's got this - she'll take care of herself. And Wynonna. And vice versa. Because that's what sisters do.

Except for Willa.

Spread out on the floor beside her is her vest, the small indention in its center mass looking implausibly insignificant. Her fingers trace the frayed edge where the bullet came to rest, feeling the responding ache above her breast like a phantom limb. The material around the damage gives. It flexes. Only it's not supposed to. Could the vest take some more rounds if need be? Sure, probably. But never again with the same assurance or confidence. It's compromised. She starts to pick it up anyway, figuring a dinged up vest is better than nothing, but then she stops short, reconsidering, an idea forming in her head. When she ran into Dolls and Doc earlier, when they deputized her (the thought still brings a smile to her face), she may have scoped out the supplies in his office.

OK...she definitely scoped out the supplies in his office.

Amongst his mountain of weaponry he had some extra body armor, and as the newly-inducted Agent Haught, she figures she's not out of line in thinking that she's got clearance to snag one of those for herself.

Gritting her teeth and taking as deep a breath as she can, Nicole puts her hands flat on the floor and gets her feet under herself, somehow managing to leverage herself up until she's fully vertical. Black spots dance in her periphery, but they don't encroach any further, so she stands still for a moment, leaning on the desk for support until the spots are gone and all that's left is the thrumming fluorescence of the station's overhead lighting.

Leaning over her desk, she snags a hair tie out of her desk drawer, and slinging her uniform shirt and her duty belt over her shoulder, she takes a few cautious steps, making sure her legs are good to go. For the first few feet, she's like a newborn foal, her limbs ungainly and shaky before her muscles begin to cooperate, and she walks through the squad room's doors into the hallway, every step bringing a return to normalcy. Slowly she walks toward the Black Badge office, her arms flexing, pulling her hair back as she goes, her fingers working quickly by rote. When the braid is complete, her hair tucked up and off her neck, she's all business, her thoughts shifting, turning analytical.

With the Earps located and off to take care of Bobo Del Ray and Willa, with Doc and Dolls handling the acquisition of the antidote, Nicole's next move is clear. Purgatory's sheriff is pretty much single-handedly trying to keep the rest of the town in check, and there's no telling how much longer he'll be able to stay vertical. He needs backup, and that is definitely something she can help with. She's got her assignment; she knows what needs to be done. They all do.

As she reaches for the Black Badge door, the brass knob cool in her hand, Nicole spares one more thought for Waverly before she gets to work, "Good luck, baby. See you soon." The knob turns easily, and the door opens without resistance.

EPILOGUE

Waverly scans the text on her screen before hitting 'send' on her response. They've been checking in regularly in the hour or two since they parted ways, but after leaving the cabin, after Bobo said - well, after all that, she had fallen silent, and Nicole's texts had grown increasingly anxious. On her way to meet Wynonna, though, she reached out, and the latest round of texts brought a measure of relief, news that the people of Purgatory are safe, doped to the gills on antipsychotics while the government works on mass-manufacturing an antidote from the one recovered by Doc and Dolls. Nicole passed along news that she had just left Nedley and Chrissy, both of whom will be fine, and she's fixing to head back out in the squad car to look for any more stragglers in need of help.

She takes a deep breath when Willa's gunshot still echoes in her mind, and looking at her phone once more, she scrolls through their conversation, needing the reminder that her girlfriend is safe, that she's really OK.

When her heart calms a little, she slips the phone back into her coat pocket and moves toward the rock wall denoting the boundary line, her boots crunching in the snow. But instead of relief, instead of calm, a new soundtrack takes up residence in her brain.

Not an Earp. Not an Earp. Not an Earp.

It echoes with each step like a skip on a record and leaves her feeling disoriented. Lost. It's almost ironic that they end up here in this spot, a place where their mom would sometimes bring them to play beneath the canopy of trees. They were good days, marked by a sisterhood that was missing from much of their time on the homestead with their dad. There was this one tree they used to climb as a team. Wynonna would go up first, always the first in the face of danger. It was a point of pride with her, and Waverly used to watch her scale the tree trunk with unabashed awe. When Wynonna was in place a few branches up, Willa would wrap her arms around Waverly's waist and hoist her up until she could latch onto the lowest branch, which although it seemed so far off the ground at the time, couldn't have been more than six feet off the ground. And then Wynonna would be there, helping her up, making sure she got her legs up on the branch before leading the way to the big V of the trunk, where all three of them would sit. Together.

The normally sunny memory brings no warmth or comfort. Willa's gone. Wynonna - she's tough, but she's the heir, and she'll survive.

But Waverly? She's not even an Earp.

She pulls up short a few feet shy of the gateway, eyeing the black puddle at her feet, a strange sight in the sea of snow covering the rest of landscape. Her mind still stuck in the past, the majority of her attention inward, the little voice that tells her to step back, to beware, goes unheard.

Not an Earp. Not an Earp.

Squatting down, she removes her glove and reaches forward.