middlefinger | IC Inbox for Penance

( that isn't, no. and there is so much she is missing. )

the ( marriage ) suite.

( his and ray's. the assignment continuing to this island.

she needs to meet him. he can only imagine. )

I will meet you wherever

(she knows there are other things she should ask about -- like cleo becoming the clanton heir, how nicole was doing,how he became human, but right now her heart is ruling over her head, even if she isn't fully acknowledging that.)

the gardens

(they usually aren't as busy as the other parts of the island can be. they can talk there.)

I will be there

( in the outfit he'd returned in, a tight blue v-neck, pants, and, look who now has two hats, doc grabs his device and leaves a sleeping Ray. he answers a few messages from nicole before weaving his way around the passages and down a set of stairs into the gardens. )

(wynonna has to get dressed and tries not to overthink that part, throwing on a pair of leather pants and a shirt she had picked up on the island. she grabs peacemaker and slips boots on and heads out, quickly making her way to the garden.

when she sees him she makes her way over to him, placing her hand on his chest, so she can feel his heart beat, like she had a long time ago, when he was first proving to her who he really was.)

It's true.

(she can't stop smiling, why can't she stop smiling?)

( doc is taking in the garden. again, like it's his first time, after so many months away, that he has to turn when she arrives. he heard her, but only when she'd approached, not when she was near. not like he could before. he has regular hearing now. tracking instincts are still there. but superhuman senses are not.

wynonna wastes no time coming forward.

with her hand on his chest, he just breathes, looking down at her. they have not been this close like this in a long time. not face to face. not while on almost the same page. )

I would not lie.

(the closest they had been before this had been when they came back from mammon's island last time and she found him alive, and that time the atom suit came between them. there is no suit now and it feels nice to be this close. she doesn't want to pull away.)

I know you wouldn't, but I still needed to feel it for myself

( and before that, before they were condemned to be faithful, or Doc was. whatever meaning there is to that, now. the ground has shifted under them again. )

You do find a way.

( to feel him up, that is. and he is not stepping back either, for the record. despite the massive decision he'd been making, the letter he'd been writing, they are both in Hell here and now. )

(wynonna knew plenty of people who didn't stay faithful, had even helped them not do so, but she had understood why it was important doc did. she can't imagine those rules will be upheld with barbas gone. or she hopes, anyways.)

You say that as if you mind.

(her touching him, that is. she has no idea of the letter he had been writing, the decision he had been making, that he would eventually ask her to make with him. all that matters is the two of them, here and now. and he's human again.)

How?

( he hasn't had the chance to ask, and there is no Lucifer to check with. until he knows, he wouldn't want ray punished. Or, wynonna if she who he's with. being this close, he would not deny that he would like to close the gap. but he does not know where she is, emotionally. and he has reached the end. he knows what he wants. he knows the obstacle he ate a chocolate over, and he knows wynonna hasn't admitted it, not as deeply as he feels it.

he never minded. )

Waverly.

(it's not that she hasn't given it thought, especially once waverly point blank asked her if she wanted to be the one with doc, not ray. at the time the question had seemed too complicated, and the rift between them too big to even entertain it.

it doesn't feel complicated, in the moment, and she wants to close the gap as well, but she also doesn't want to put him at risk, especially if he's human now.)

She leveled up.

(oh wynonna has no idea, but that's probably for the best. better she thinks it's something waverly did out of the pureness of her heart than a desperate bargain she had to make with a colder version of her sister.)

( he doesn't want to put her at risk. once again, they're a pair, aren't they?

In a manner of speaking. )

She is our angel.

And you're our cowboy. (again. and just that. no longer the vampire baby daddy. just...the baby daddy. not that he's ever been just that.)

( he smirks. )

I never wasn't, Wynonna.

( he knows becoming a vampire strained that definition, and strained everything beyond that. but he thinks back to what he'd just experienced, being asked to be best man. and the wedding day finally coming. )

It is fortuitous that Nicole is now here. They are each other's soul mates. Perhaps, it was only a matter of time. For them.

I know that.

(or she does now. at the time it had felt like him choosing kate, choosing immortality over them, over her, but she knows his reasons now. still, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't happy to have him human again.)

Is that something you believe in, soulmates?

(if there are two people who seem to fit that description, it is nicole and waverly.)

( it did not feel like she ever knew that. it felt like a line was drawn. they were finding their way back, and then she'd shot sheriff holt. and then they lost it all. now he does not know what they are.

the tension is thick, their words they share hold this insurmountable weight.

he always has. he is the romantic out of the two of them. )

I do.

(she had begun to understand them, after bulshar trapped them in that nightmare version of groundhogs day, but then he lost control, and she didn't have peacemaker, and then both he and waverly were gone. and when they were finally finding their way back...she shot sheriff holt. and it cost her more than she could have imagines. she doesn't know what they are either.

does he believe they are soulmates? does she dare ask? or is that opening pandora's box?)

Even in hell? (where you can be forced to get married to a virtual stranger?)

Would soulmates not span other worlds. Our souls travel with us.

( His use of our seems ... pointed this close to an embrace, but he doesn't regret it. )

Nicole's did.

(it does feel pointed, but not in a bad way. wynonna doesn't believe in soulmates, but for a moment, she wished she did. that she wasn't so fatalistic. in any case, he's still married, and they don't know if he still has to honor that. better not to say anything too specific about the two of them.)

She did. I know how much Waverly missed her. It can be hard, feeling alone here.

( he doesn't even know if wynonna would want him to. if they are there. if they will ever get there. he will always hope (until he lets himself let it go), but this doesn't feel like that. )

I know that, with my marriage, my change in living arrangements, the world changing, my staying behind... ( He survived. ) I am always here. Even if I don't say it. No matter where I end up.

( it's the subtle nod to what he'd been thinking, how dust-covered his spurs feel after his new lease on a new life. which, he should be there for her now. he should check in. )

How has it been having Willa around?

(maybe someday they will get there, maybe someday she'll let herself get there, she'll stop being such a coward when it comes to him, when it comes to love.)

I know that. At least, I do now. For a while you felt so far away from me and it felt like everything was trying to tear us further and further apart -- but it doesn't anymore.

(her expression sobers, becomes more sad at the mention of her wayward older sister.)

Hard. She knows what I did to her -- I think it would be easier if she hated me for it. I already lost her twice...I just...I want to help her this time around, if it's possible.

Considering I arrived after your month imprisoned.

( And as nice as they were, as they'd been without defining anything, jealousy and all, they caught up to their shared history. And nothing was the same. )

You had reason for what you did to her, the monster she was trying to unleash.

( Bobo Del Rey's influence aside, it was her or them. )

I know that does not make the difference. How is she acclimating?

And I was so behind the times when you arrived.

(but she eventually tried to move past that, and then they were painfully on the same page -- he's ahead again but the gap doesn't feel so wide this time around. maybe she's grown. maybe they both have)

Dolls shot her first -- that monster would have killed her -- I was just beating it to the punch. To try to end her suffering.

(and yet since wynonna arrived in hell she had expected to see willa or her dad here, wanting answers from her. after over a year she had let that go, and then one of them finally shows up and she's felt spun around again. but at least she's not alone. she feels bad talking about this too much with waverly...given how complicated it all is, so it's good he's asking)

She's adjusting as well as anyone....I think she doesn't know...how to just be Willa, who that even is after everything Daddy, Bobo, Constance Clootie did to her....maybe she'll have the chance to be someone else without all those influences.

( A few months, yes. )

For a long time, she was the girl in that cult.

( And by the time she'd returned, the damage was already done. )

With you by her side, she has a fighting chance. Being there for her, that is no small thing.

She was. Also named Eve.

(seemingly just a coincidence, but weird all the same.)

She's my sister -- I owe her that much. (and pragmatically)

And we know how dangerous she can be if she falls under the wrong influence.

No relation.

( He says it with a hard edge, but also with a deadpanning air.

He might argue she doesn't owe her anything, not from where her actions led, but she was taken as a small child, assimilated, and brainwashed. Wynonna should feel a concern for her, a responsibility. For Wynonna, it has always been family first. )

Do you think you've taken her under your wing because of the influences around us? ( More than anything? ) She spent years away from you.

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