Confessions of Fangirl

Wynonna stopped in her tracks, sending up a prayer. She didn’t pray often, but she figured that if there were demons and a Hell, then that meant there must also be angels and Heaven. She was still reeling from what Bobo had said about Waverly’s dad being an angel, assuming Bobo was telling the truth. But Wynonna believed that if anyone on the planet had an angel for a daddy, that person sure as shit was her little sister. So she hoped, that for once, a higher power was listening to her prayers and willing to grant a wish or two. She didn’t know how she was going to survive otherwise.

A dark-skinned, darker eyed boy was staring up at her. He was standing on a hill on the wrong edge of The Homestead wearing nothing more than a blanket, one that she was pretty sure had been hanging on her laundry line a few hours ago when she’d left for her makeshift shooting range.

“Please don’t be a revenant,” she whispered to herself. Frantically, she thought through all that she could remember of the research her sister had done over the years, searching her mind for the memory of any children her great-great-great granddaddy might’ve killed as he went around slinging guns and getting cursed by demons. She couldn’t remember any, but considering other Revenants became Revenants because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, she couldn’t swear Wyatt Earp hadn’t killed a young boy. Jesus. She hoped not.

And so she stood, stock still, staring at a boy who didn’t look more than five years old though she wasn’t sure she could be trusted to accurately guess the age of any children. The kid looked familiar. Not so much like she’d seen him before, but in that way that he looked like someone she knew.

God dammit what fresh hell was this?

“Cursing at children isn’t very polite, Earp.” The kid flashed a quick half-smile, and the sensation of familiarity flared brighter.

“Guess I said that out loud, huh? Well, sorry, but it’s been a tough couple of... decades.” It didn’t surprise her that the kid knew her name. Everyone in this town did whether she realized it or not. So this kid must be from around here anyway.

“Is that excuses I hear?”

“What kind of kid talks like that?”

“You really going to let a child stand here in the snow and ice with no shoes?” he asked, studying her with something that looked like fondness and it made Wynonna shift uncomfortably.

“I guess not,” Wynonna sighed. “Follow me then. If you can cross onto The Homestead, I guess you’re all right. Even if you are a weird little bastard.”

The kid said something under his breath that Wynonna didn’t quite catch. It sounded like, “My mom would’ve loved you,” but she didn’t think that could be right.

The kid didn’t complain about not having shoes or the cold or anything else Wynonna thought a kid ought to find discomforting. He did let out a relieved sounding sigh when they stepped into The Homestead. It might be a drafty old place, but Waverly had a fire in the fireplace, and most of the wind was blocked.

“Who’s this?” Waverly asked in a sing-song voice that seemed appropriate for most five-year-olds, but wildly off the mark for this kid.

Wynonna smacked herself on the forehead. Had she even asked for the kid’s name before she’d let him into her home?

“I’m not sure you’re going to believe me,” he answered. His voice sounded young, but his tone sounded far too mature.

“We’ve heard it all, kid,” Wynonna told him, weary and tired and already worried about where this day was going to go.

“I’m not sure we should tempt fate by saying that, but we have definitely seen some unbelievable things,” Waverly added.

The kid inhaled for longer than Wynonna anticipated and wondered just how long this kid’s name was.

“Xavier Dolls.”

Silence descended on them, and Wynonna wasn’t sure how long she stood there staring at a kid who, now that she thought about it, looked exactly like what she imagined Dolls would’ve have looked like as a kid. No wonder he seemed so familiar.

“Dolls didn’t say he had a kid. I’m pretty sure I would’ve remembered if he had a kid,” Wynonna breathed out in a rush.

“A secret kid? Two secret wives in the group and now a secret kid?” Waverly sounded like she wanted to kill Dolls all over again. Or maybe cry. Wynonna hoped it wasn’t that Waverly was about to cry.

The kid sighed again. “No, I’m not his kid. I’m him. I’m...” He waved vaguely at himself. “Resurrected or something. I woke up out on The Homestead.”

Wynonna wasn’t sure how long she stood there looking between the young boy claiming to be her dead friend and her sister while her sister looked between Wynonna and the kid. This was all a lot to take in.

“Who put you up to this?” Wynonna asked. “Someone pay you to say that? I mean, you look just like him so where… I know you probably thought it was just some dumb prank--” Wynonna couldn’t finish. The tears were welling up, and her throat was tightening and, Goddammit she couldn’t do this. How the fuck was she supposed to deal with this?

“It’s not a prank. Earp--”

The front door swung open again, and Doc seemed to be already talking. “I know what you said, Wynonna, but this is important and I… Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch. Don’t he look just like Agent Dolls?”

“Says he is Dolls,” Wynonna responded.

Doc stared at the boy and blinked a few times. Said-he-is-Dolls gave a quirk of his lips so unnervingly like her Dolls, Wynonna had to turn her back on the boy.

“Look, I know this is really tough to believe, but I am Xavier Dolls. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I’m guessing it had something to do with the experiments the government did. I… woke up in a pile of ashes and a fire that was sputtering out.”

“There’s no way. We cremated Dolls. We did cremate Dolls, didn't we?” Waverly’s confused expression held a dash of hope.

Wynonna’s bruised heart was bleeding openly again. How was she supposed to cope with losing Dolls all over again? Christ, she was barely holding it together as it was.

“I don’t know how this happened, okay? But would you at least get Jeremy to a DNA test or something? Please, Wynonna. I know this is hard. I know. I knew I was going to die at twenty-nine years old, and I had accepted it, but then I woke up in the middle of nowhere, on my own grave covered in ashes and soot and surrounded by fire. I was the size of a three-year-old. I’ve grown since this morning. I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m me. I know. I swear to you, I do. Please, Earp. I’m still me.”

“Well, it sort of sounds like him. But you ever heard Dolls string together that many sentences in a row?” Doc asked.

“I will punch you in the kidneys.” It was weird seeing a five-year-old deadpan threaten Doc Holliday, but Wynonna decided that was just par for the course when it came to her life.

Wynonna sighed. “Okay, I guess we’re going to go see Jeremy.”

“We can ask Nicole to look up Amber alerts while we’re at it,” Waverly suggested.

“I’m not a missing kid,” the kid interjected, sounding both highly put out and a lot like Dolls. Jesus, if this was all a joke, it was a cruel one.

“Yeah, well, I’m not taking that chance. And I’m not calling you Dolls. We’ll call you X for now.”

“Fine.”

*****

Jeremy always reminded Wynonna of a Jack Russell Terrier. Where he got the energy to be so hyper, so much of the time, Wynonna couldn’t imagine, but she really wished he’d share. She felt so weary and worn down most of the time, that it was a struggle to put on clean clothes and shower. Hell, there had been mornings she’d only managed one of those two things. The only reason she currently had clean clothes because her mother was on a tear to make up for the years she’d spent locked away from them, doing things like dishes and laundry nearly constantly. Wynonna knew she should talk to her mom, but that was not something she had the energy to handle.

She didn’t have the energy to face this situation with the kid either, but at least she could sit down and let Jeremy run wild with blood tests and saliva analysis.

It took a while. Jeremy wasn’t your average CSI unit, but there was a limit to even his miracles. Whoever the kid was, he grew three inches in height while they were waiting. Wynonna didn’t want to admit it, but the fact that he did seem to be growing rather quickly gave her hope that he wasn’t lying.

“This is fascinating!” Jeremy was measuring the kid and enthusing. “Can you believe this? You’ve grown six point eight six centimeters since you came in here! Wow. I can’t wait to get the results from your blood work. You’ll let me run some more tests right? The diseases I could cure with the information in your blood. Amazing. So amazing. Do you remember--”

“Jeremy, seriously?” Wynonna interrupted him. There was only so much that she could handle.

“What?” Jeremy asked, oblivious as usual.

“Centimeters?” she asked.

“The metric system is a far more efficient and logical system of measurement than the US customary system,” Jeremy argued.

Wynonna closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She was glad that Doc was dosing with his hat tipped over his face and Waverly was working through Missing Persons cases with Nicole. Wynonna didn’t think she could handle anyone else at the moment.

“Jeremy,” she warned.

“I’m just saying. Anyway, these results are fascinating. So far his results are consistent with Dolls. They have the same blood type, and it’s reacting similarly to what Doll’s used to before the degradation started.”

“What are you telling me, Jeremy?”

“I think he’s undergone the same experiments Dolls did.”

“So either this is Dolls, or they’re experimenting on children. Great.” Wynonna's head hurt just thinking about it.

“I suppose he could be a clone. Though that wouldn’t explain the accelerated growth rate.”

“I have all of my memories. How would a clone of all of the original person’s memories? This isn’t multiplicity!” the kid huffed. Wynonna still called him a kid in her head, but in the handful of hours since he first appeared, he’d grown a lot. Now he was starting to look like a teenager. And he was looking more and more like Dolls all the time.  

“How much longer until we have the DNA results back?” Wynonna asked.

“Why don’t you just ask me questions only Dolls would know? I can prove who I am,” X insisted.

“Black Badge was able to uncover all sorts of information they weren’t supposed to have, stuff that was personal. There was no way they could’ve have known some of the stuff they, but they did. I can’t trust that this wouldn’t be another of the same situation all over again. Now, how much longer do we have, Jeremy?”

“Yeah, is there any chance we can hurry this along? I’m starving,” X added.

“You just ate a box of donuts!” Wynonna scoffed.

“I need real food, Earp.”

“He is a growing boy,” Jeremy cut in. “Or something.” Jeremy coughed and cleared his throat. “It should be done soon. You should be grateful. Most labs would take a couple of days to tell you, but you have me.”

“We’re all delighted we have you, but could we order a pizza or something?” X asked.

“I need a drink,” Wynonna grumbled.

*****

Wynonna didn’t get her whiskey, but they did get pizza. Waverly had curled into Nicole’s side as they sat on the floor propped against one of the desks and Nicole had her arm slung over Waverly’s shoulder. No one was speaking, except Jeremy who muttered quietly to himself about how amazing and incredible everyone was. X was on his tenth slice of pizza, and the resemblance to her Dolls was getting downright uncanny when Jeremy finally shouted.

“No! Way!”

“What is it, Jeremy?” Wynonna tried to tell her heart to calm down. She really did. But her lungs were frozen in her chest, and she couldn’t breathe. The beating against her ribcage was thunderous and strong, and she couldn’t swallow for the lump in her throat. It was him.

“All the tests indicate this is Dolls. Or a clone that’s undergone the same experiment and also died thereby triggering what I’m guessing was an unintended side effect of the DNA editing they did, I guess. I think that’s unlikely.”

Before anyone could say anything else, Waverly had hopped up and raced to throw herself at Dolls. He was looking more and more like himself all the time, and Wynonna couldn’t do anything about the tears streaming down her face. She didn’t even realize what she was doing until she had wrapped her arms around her sister and Dolls and was squeezing the life out of them.

A couple of moments later and Nicole and Jeremy had joined.

“I’m glad you’re all right and everything, Dolls, but I ain’t hugging you.”

Wynonna couldn’t see Dolls’s face, but she suspected he was smiling when he replied, “I’m glad you’re still kicking, Doc.”

Nicole let go. “Good to have you back,” she said, smiling and wiping a tear. Then she grabbed Doc and pulled him out into the main office and away from the BBD office.

“Don’t you ever leave me like that again,” Wynonna fusses.

Dolls rested his forehead against Wynonna’s, and now she could see his smile. “I’ll do my best, Earp. I’ll do my best.”