Polaroid - A Wayhaught Fanfiction

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The drive back to the apartment was completely silent. It was a bad day for both of them, through and through.

Waverly's not sure what to say; If what Champ said was true, then... Nicole's father really has died, and Waverly could definitely relate to how it must feel for Nicole-- or maybe not. She remembered the time when daddy died-- she stood there beside the coffin, bawled out crying. She was just a kid back then, but even then she knew that daddy never really liked her that much. She cried because she never found out the reason why; why nothing she ever did for him was good enough-- why he never gave her anything but a scorn everytime she came up to him. He took the answer to that question to the grave and up to this day Waverly never got an answer; momma left before she got the chance to answer it, while neither Curtis, Gus or Wynonna seemed to want to tell her why.

When Curtis died last year, she stood by the coffin in silence. There were tears, a lot of them, even-- but oddly not when Waverly was standing next to his coffin. No, no, no; the tears came in frequent, yet tiny numbers in the following days after his death.

She cried when she returned home, alone in her room. She cried when she remembered how Curtis used to take her around the town in his pickup truck. She cried when his favorite song was played at Shorty's-- though she excused herself to the restroom first so she could be alone. She also cried when she found Gus crying alone in the kitchen. She walked up to her and gave her a comforting hug.

Oh how I miss Gus.

The youngest Earp took a furtive glance at Nicole at the driver's seat beside her and studied her countenance. She did look disrupt, Waverly noted. The creases on her forehead and the tightened jaw and the stiffness of her posture gave it all away way too easily.

"Hey, Waves?" Nicole finally asked, once they entered the apartment's parking lot. It was the first thing any of them has said throughout the drive and Waverly's glad she didn't have to be the one to start the conversation. Nicole shyly looked over at her with heavy, worn eyes. "Are you okay?" She went on, and she sounded so sincere-- tender, concerned.

"Shouldn't I be the one to ask that?" Waverly asked back, careful, gloomy. The car has now found a parking space and Nicole had just switched the ignition off.

Nicole looked at her, bolder now, though she's chewing on the inside of her cheeks. She decided to ignore Waverly's effort to start a banter: "Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Good."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

There was a pause. An awkward one.

"Nicole, are you okay?"

"Wynonna's already upstairs." Nicole said, dodging the question. "You might wanna check on her in a bit."

Waverly's lips parted but she said nothing before she processed the information. "She's drunk, isn't she? That's why she asked you to pick me up."

Nicole folded her lips inwards, silent.

Waverly sighed. "She was supposed to be at work."

"She was." The redhead just looked away to her own lap.

Waverly looked down to her own lap, too, and found herself slightly pissed at the thought of Wynonna, getting shitfaced to escape her problems, again. She tried to not show it, though. Not in front of Nicole. "Anyways... thanks, uh-- for driving me."

"Don't mention it."

Waverly let the silence between them grow for a little while, until she warily brought herself to ask this: