Sticks and Skates [Wayhaught]

The Road to Recovery is Paved With Good Conversation

Nicole had never felt more like death.

Like serious, actual death. Like kick the bucket, six feet under, dirt nap death.

Every single inch of her body ached and she couldn't, no matter how hard she tried, open her eyes. Her eyelids were impossibly heavy, and her throat burned, all kinds of scratchy from...well, she wasn't quite sure why, but it felt like she'd swallowed a pack or razor blades. She tried to move, just her neck at first, but quickly realized that it was, in fact, possible for her pain to get worse. Her head throbbed, worse than the morning after one of the few college parties she had actually attended, but why? Why did her head hurt so much? Why did everything hurt? And why couldn't she open her damn eyes?

She settled on the only logical conclusion. She, Nicole Rayleigh Haught, was dead.

Now the only question was she in heaven, or had she been sent to hell?

There was a weird floatiness and that she felt (sort of like coming out of anesthesia after getting your wisdom teeth out), and the faint scent of a familiar perfume, that told her maybe she was in heaven. But, judging by the amount of pain she was feeling, maybe she was in hell after all. (That would mean that all those bigots she tried to ignore and prove wrong would actually be right, which would've been worse than actually being sent to hell. Oh well, she thought, maybe she'd just haunt them).

She knew there was only one way to know for sure. If she could just open her damn eyes.

Come on Haught, she prodded herself, come on, just open your eyes. You've been doing it every day for twenty-three years.

She could feel her brow furrow, the muscles around her eyelids fighting her attempts. She pushed harder, mind working double-time to push the lids open, until suddenly she felt them lighten slightly, and then the action gradually became easier until...

Okay, ouch. Wow that's bright. Wait—bright and white. Maybe she was going to heaven after all. She figured she was an okay enough person anyway, so it made sense.

She squinted at the source of the light, hoping for it to eventually dim and she could find herself in heaven. Maybe she'd run into an old hockey hero of hers, or that cast of the Golden Girls. But, if she was actually in heaven, the first thing she'd do was find her aunt and uncle and they could talk and catch each other up on everything they've missed over the last five years. She decided that maybe heaven wasn't going to be all that bad. Sure she'd miss her life, and playing hockey, and the Earps—obviously Waverly (she felt her heart clench at the thought that she'd quite possibly left the love of her life behind), but weirdly Wynonna too—but if she had to be dead, at least heaven had some perks.

The light dimmed, and the room she was in slowly came into focus.

Weird, she thought, heaven looked a lot like a hospital room.

She tried to look around again, but seemed to have forgotten how much that hurt.

"Ow." She muttered, voice raspier than she would've liked.

She heard some sort of movement from beside her, but couldn't see the source and really didn't want to hurt her neck more to find out.

Lucky for her, the culprit moved again, and spoke this time.

"Woah," she heard. Nicole would know that voice anywhere. "Hiya Red!"

If she was here, then there was no maybe about it—Nicole was in hell. Definitely, one hundred percent, without a shadow of a doubt, hell.