Sticks and Skates [Wayhaught]

Let's Clear the Air

Waverly was sipping on the tea she'd managed to make in her hotel room, flipping through the league's rule book, and looking over the last of the notes she'd made over film from the last game. She'd had the book pretty much memorized since August, but wanted to make sure that she had all of it nailed down before the big meeting. This was her first time running point on one of these league conduct meetings and, well, Waverly Earp was never not prepared.

She gently closed the book as she finished the last of her tea, hearing the knock on the door.

"Ready to go?" Dolls gave her the closest thing she'd consider a smile. (Contrary to popular—Wynonna's—belief, Dolls was actually a pretty okay guy to be around once you got to know him, and definitely not a robot alien).

"Yep!" She cheered, dampening down the normal amount of nerves she had in her stomach.

"Perfect, I've got the hotel conference room all set up."

She followed Dolls down the hall, and into the elevator, folder of notes firmly tucked under her arm. They were in Moncton, three games into a nine-game road trip, so they would be conducting the meeting via video conference with the league office in Toronto. Dolls led her into the conference room with the big round table virtually empty, instead a laptop set up and connected to the television on the wall so that she could see everyone who would be on the call as well.

"Alright, I'll leave you to it," Dolls said, turning to close the door behind him.

"Wait," she cut in, "you're not staying?"

"Nope."

"Well why not? I've never done this before."

"Waverly, I trust you," he said, still not moving away from the door. "You are more than capable of handling this. In fact, you might know the rulebook better than I do." Waverly shrugged, but she guessed she couldn't argue. She'd practically read it back to front every night for a month after she'd gotten the job. "You've got this, Earp. Don't fuck it up."

This time, he left the room, leaving Waverly to finish her preparations. It still managed to blow her mind that Dolls could go from semi-comforting to professional, demanding and even a little intimidating like the flip of a switch.

Looking at the clock on the wall, there were about five minutes before the meeting was set to start. She took a deep breath to settle any lingering nerves, pulling out her phone to silence it. The screen lit up with a photo of herself leaning over the bench to give Nicole a kiss (once practice had ended of course)—one of her favorite photos of the pair. The deep breath she took next was a heavy sigh laced with something that wasn't quite uncertainty and teetered on the edge of guilt.

Things between her and Nicole were...complicated.

They weren't actively fighting, per se, but things were definitely off. She guessed she shouldn't have expected everything to be all sunshine and rainbows between them all the time, but she and Nicole shared such a special relationship built on communication and trust and Waverly could tell that she'd impinged on that by the way she acted when Hannah came around.

Nicole had apologized for her ignorance and for her actions, but Waverly had yet to do so. And she truly did owe Nicole an apology. She acted like a jealous girlfriend, yes, but she also acted like a child pouting and ignoring Nicole instead of talking things through like they usually did.

Timing didn't really help the situation either, the team embarked on the current road trip not even a full week after Nicole commandeered her office and apologized to her so sincerely. It felt like they'd made up, but there was this disconnect between them—Nicole was still struggling with what was going on between them and their sudden lack of communication, and Waverly leaving for two weeks wasn't going to help the situation. (Especially not when she was three time zones away and busier than she'd ever been).