AN1: I miss you guys. Sorry I've been away forever, but work and the muse have not been cooperative.
AN2: Takes place after the Season 5 finale; spoilers for everything leading up to that. For rpmaluki, who wanted to see Nick grapple more with Adalind's return to her 'Biestly form. Not sure if it wound up being what either of us intended, but here it is.
%%%%
She woges.
Her face is a mess of rotted, sunken features. Eyeless sockets and corpse-like mien. Silver strands of hair.
He stares, not at her, but at Renard, who's smirking slightly at her response, before Renard's eyes meet his and the smirk deepens.
"Really?" Renard asks mockingly. "You find that attractive?"
Nick frowns, a dark look marring his features. It comes to him, almost too late. He recognizes the taunt. His own words to Renard after Adalind ran to his apartment with a newborn Diana, newly re-hexenbiested.
His own words flung back maliciously at Nick.
After a second Adalind's face morphs back into the pretty features he's come to look forward to seeing after a long day at work. The cerulean blue eyes and bright, hesitant smile, the shiny blonde hair. He's missed them. Her. Terribly.
She's not smiling now, though. In fact, she hardly meets Nick's eyes, and somehow Nick feels even more anger at Renard, if that were possible.
"I'm curious how the both of you think you're going to make this work," Renard continues, sounding amused. "The Grimm and the Hexenbiest. The Grimm and the Hexenbiest who tried to destroy each other and in the process had a baby instead. Let me guess: it's true love. It must have been quite the performance," he remarks casually to Adalind, and she raises angry eyes to Renard. "How you convinced him to find something loveable about you, especially after all you've done, and now, look at you: back to your old self again."
"Go to hell," Adalind mutters and Nick wouldn't have any qualms about being the person who put him there.
Renard nearly smiles, and a second later he's glaring hatefully at Nick, clutching his bloody mouth.
"Get yours and Kelly's things," Nick says to Adalind, staring thunderously back. "We're leaving."
"Nick—" she says hesitantly, glancing between him and Renard, and he knows she's thinking of Diana.
"She's okay," Nick cuts her off, never taking her eyes off of Renard and the captain's—mayor's, he snorts to himself derisively- lips flatten and his eyes sharpen. She nods hesitantly and then hurriedly grabs for Kelly and his carrier, his baby bag, and a couple of other items. Her arms are laden with things for her children, but nothing for herself. He pulls his eyes from Renard to look at her, but she's still mostly avoiding his eyes.
"That everything?" She nods and Nick returns it with a slight dip of his head as she glances at Renard again and slips by them.
"Adalind," Renard says but she doesn't look at him again and Nick makes sure she's out of the house safely before he turns back to Renard and slams his fist in his face again.
"Stay the hell away from her and my family," Nick tells him as he follows in Adalind's wake. He hears Renard cough and sputter and then his voice as he calls after Nick:
"You two really think it's going to last?"
%%%%
It's quiet in Nick's truck as he drives back.
It's the first time he's seen her woge since...since...
Since even before she told him the suppressant wasn't working anymore.
Since before Kelly was born.
Since they've been sleeping beside each other.
Since they've been doing more than that together.
He's not sure what he thinks about it, but for the first time he's aware that she has been very careful and purposeful about avoiding woging around him. Sure, she's demonstrated some of her powers, telekinesis mainly, but even those relatively harmless displays have been limited; like she's trying to hide any and all reminders that she's a hexenbiest he has a long and emotionally bloodied history with.
That she's a monster.
The monster he shares a child with and loves.
He presses his lips together, feeling a surge of emotions swell up in his chest. Anger, revulsion, love, and frustration. He's not sure.
Why does it have to be so complicated between them?
When it's just the two of them, the questions and doubts, the concerns fade away. It's simple.
She's right.
The world won't leave them alone long enough for them to figure it out. And he desperately wants to figure it out. Or disappear. Take her and Kelly and hole up somewhere far away from Renard, and Portland, and the revolution that's threatening to ignite. Just the three of them, where no one knows that a Grimm and a Hexenbiest had a child together and then fell in love.
He's never going to be able to hide what he is, though, and he doubts Adalind could either. And Kelly...Kelly may become something that neither of them are able to hide.
It's never going to be just the three of them either. There's Diana now, and if he wants Adalind, if he wants his son, he's going to have to accept that his family now has four members, not three. As much as she claims to love him, she won't leave her daughter behind, and she's just as hamstrung by the situation they're in as he is.
He's tired of feeling that everything is out of his control. That his life is being manipulated by Renard, and Black claw, and the resistance. That even his own feelings for the mother of his child, a woman he's come to know intimately, might be wrong or another hurdle he has to face in an already exhausting fight.
He can't leave.
He knows that. His responsibilities as a Grimm...running's not going to solve anything. Nothing will change the fact that he's a Grimm and that there's no hiding that. That he can't walk away and leave Trubel and Monroe and Rosalee and Hank and Wu to deal with something as monumental as a Wesen revolution without as many able-bodied people in the fight.
No matter the part of him that wants to. That wants to focus his attention on Adalind, and his son, and this thing between them that won't go away now.
So she's a hexenbiest again. So what? Not like he didn't know what she was, or what she would become again once the suppressant wore off.
Not like he didn't know the suppressant was only a temporary solution.
Not like Renard's not partly right; that it's easier, so easy, to forget what she is underneath when he's hyper aware that she's a beautiful woman parading past him in his shirt and little else, or a towel, warm and wet from the shower, or when he's holding her close to him, when he's gently teasing her, running his fingers absently through her soft, silky hair, or when he's making love to her. When she's humming a song while rocking his son asleep, or smiling that proud little smile as Kelly reaches another milestone.
She's a complex, beautiful woman. Strength and humor and sadness and vulnerability, masquerading as a petite blonde with the most gorgeous blue mischievous eyes and a sweet smile he's ever seen.
And he reminds himself she's more that than she ever is or was the snarling, angry hexenbiest. That he truly knows her now; knows what drives her, what she's been through in her life to arrive at this point. She's not nearly so one-dimensional as he thought when he first met her. She's changed a lot and with it his understanding and opinion of her.
Because he's changed, too.
Where maybe once he might have found it absurd that he would ever love something as horrifying as someone who could transform into the literal beast within, he finds it more absurd now that he would let that deter him from having a relationship with someone. Monroe was an otherworldly beast, too, and he didn't let that sway him from becoming friends with a Blutbad. Best friends with a Blutbad. It just took some getting used to, but now he hardly bats an eye at some of the things he's seen, and honestly despite her corpse-like alter-ego, Adalind's one of the less stranger things he's laid eyes on.
So, it shouldn't matter what she is.
And mostly, it doesn't.
When she woged, his reaction was more at Renard and what he did to make her woge, than her actual face morphing to a skull.
He glances at her, but her face is turned away from him, still avoiding him, watching the scenery pass by out of the passenger window. She looks apprehensive and tired, and his hand reaches out to brush against her cheek, unable to remain stoic in the face of her anxiety.
"Did he hurt you?" Nick asks her gruffly. She glances at him in surprise and shakes her head.
"I'm okay," she says.
He wants to tell her he doesn't give a shit what Renard said. That Renard doesn't know anything about what exists between them. That he finds her beautiful and what she is now no longer matters to him.
That he loves her, too, and what they share between them is consuming him, but she doesn't give him the chance.
"Diana?"
"She's with Trubel…and Eve," Nick says, pulling his hand away.
"Eve?" Adalind intones, sounding alarmed.
"She's okay," Nick says, but Adalind doesn't look like she's mollified by that admittedly feeble assurance. He doesn't know any more than that, so he doesn't offer any more platitudes and silence falls between them again. Adalind bites her lip and looks down at her fingers fidgeting in her lap and Nick frowns in the darkness.
"It doesn't matter to me," he says the lights of an oncoming vehicle illuminating the cabin of his Land Cruiser, and he sees her turn to him in confusion. "What you are," he clarifies. "I knew what you were and what you'd be again when the suppressant wore off. It doesn't change the way I feel about you," he says. He can see from his peripheral vision that she's staring at him, as though trying to convince herself to believe him, and he wants to turn to her and look her in the eye but the road they're on is demanding his attention as he navigates the bends and the curves.
He's been reticent, he knows, though, on what it is, exactly, he feels for her. He wishes, for not the first time since she left him, that he had been more articulate with how he felt for her. She's the one who's been putting herself out there, confessing her love for him, and initiating most of the intimacy between them.
He wishes it didn't take her leaving him for what, exactly, those feelings for her were to materialize. He thinks that she might already have some idea how he feels for her. Given their history, he wouldn't just sleep with her, multiple times, because she was warm and willing.
"What is it you feel for me?" she asks him. "Does the Grimm really love the Hexenbiest who did her best to try and ruin him?" she asks philosophically, and he thinks there might be a derogatory note in her voice as she pronounces her Wesen nature.
"Yes," Nick says and Adalind jerks her head in surprise. Okay, so maybe she didn't have any idea how he felt about her, or after, really, fairly, months of practically nothing from him, that he would be so glib with the answer. She shakes her head slightly and he remembers her confession to him, on top of the other one—the really big one, that the suppressant had worn off and her powers were back—that she was scared when he found out what she was again that he would get rid of her. Get rid of her and Kelly. The idea seems so ludicrous.
"Really?" she says disbelievingly. "You find this so attractive now?" she asks him and woges in seat beside him. He hears her breath hiss, and catches sight of her morphed features in the streetlights as they head back into Portland proper. He sighs and pulls to a stop on the side of the road. He looks at the hexenbiest staring (eyeless) back at him, and finds himself cataloguing what is before him now with what was before him years ago, before Adalind lost her powers—before he took them from her.
It's different now, he notes.
She looks different now; not quite herself, which is ironic really, but before when she woged, she still looked like Adalind, a corpse-like Adalind, but Adalind. The cheeks look fuller now, more irony while looking at the skeletal bones of the biest, but the Adalind of before—the hexenbiest of before—definitely had Adalind's delicate bone structure. The hair's different, too, still silvery gray, but somehow it doesn't seem quite the same either.
He's not sure if his ability to dissect what she is now with what she was then is some way of compartmentalizing any latent horror he may feel at looking at her and knowing he's shared more than just a few thrills with her.
"This does it for you, now?" she asks pejoratively.
"No," he says, admitting what they both know is the truth. "But it doesn't repulse me, either."
She rolls her head slightly and her human features slide back into place. He's not sure if the Hexenbiest in her ever did repulse him. Scare the hell out of him, initially, yes. Fascinate him, certainly. Infuriate him? Definitely. Horrify and disgust him?
Maybe, but that could be attributed to the behavior Adalind was exhibiting at the time, and to which he had to take a good hard look at his own behavior before he could slight Adalind completely on that. He's done some things that horrify and disgust him.
"Wow, what every girl wants to hear," Adalind quips, trying to affect a dry, callous tone, turning away from him again and looking out at their surroundings.
"I'm never going to need to see it to put me into the mood, but weirdly enough seeing it doesn't put me out of the mood," Nick says and Adalind turns her attention back to him reluctantly. He reaches for her face again, fingers and thumb brushing against the smooth warmth of her cheek. "It's just one facet of who you are; there are many others," he continues, aware her blue eyes are locked on his.
"It's a pretty significant one," Adalind counters. "Sean's right. Do we really think this is going to work?"
"The hell he is," Nick snaps reflexively, but she's right. He's right. The odds are stacked against them, Kelly, or no. That doesn't change the fact, that somehow after everything, inexplicably, he badly wants it to work. That somehow, he wants them to find the way. He's the first Grimm who's befriended a Blutbad, and a Fuchsbau and an Eisbiber. Why can't he be the first Grimm who falls in love with a Hexenbiest and lives happily ever after with her?
"I don't want to be like how I was," she whispers. "I love you," and his heart does a flip inside his chest at the admission. He believes it this time, where before he wasn't sure, or he was too quick to cast if off to the heat of the moment. "I want this to work, and if I go back to that—what I was before…"
"You won't. You're not that same person anymore, Adalind," Nick says quietly, thumbing stroking along her cheekbone.
He's not the same person either. There's so much more at stake here, with Adalind, with his son, if he gets this wrong. He knows he made a mistake with Juliette; trying to come to grips with what she was—is now. He also doesn't know why, but it's different with Adalind. It's easier, and he can only guess it's because he's always known and accepted what she was.
"Every time I woge, I feel like I'm putting myself one step closer to losing myself to that person I was again. You don't understand how much the Hexenbiest controls you. It takes over," she confesses, eyes watering. "I'm scared I'll do something that will hurt you. I've already hurt you," she says hoarsely and Nick silences her by leaning over and placing his mouth over hers. The kiss is tentative and, for a moment, one-sided. Then her mouth opens up under his and he deepens the kiss, feeling desire pool in his stomach. She returns the kiss and he pulls away a moment later, rudely reminded of where they are when a semi blows past them, rocking the vehicle violently in its wake.
"I understand why you did what you did," Nick says and Adalind opens her mouth to rebut. "It had nothing to do with the Hexenbiest, and everything to do with the situation Renard and Black Claw put you in. The decisions you made were to protect Kelly and Diana and I don't blame you for those. Hexenbiests are attracted to power, you said so yourself, but I noticed you haven't jumped on the chance to be Mrs. Mayor of Portland. You've already shown you can control the Hexenbiest side quite well. I don't expect you to subvert yourself to the point of risking yours or Kelly's health and safety. You don't have to hide what you are just because you think my seeing it will drive me away. I'm not going anywhere."
Adalind stares at him for a long moment, eyes searching.
"I wish we could go anywhere," Adalind says. "Far away from here."
"I know," Nick says, sighing. "So do I. You don't know how badly I just want to grab you and Kelly and Diana and run and let everyone else figure this mess out."
She looks at Nick, lips curling slightly, before sobering.
"Diana?" she says, and Nick shrugs imperceptibly.
"I don't expect you to be without your daughter. And I'm not spending another night without you or Kelly."
Her mouth is on his again a moment later. Really, it's not like he didn't know that she wasn't going to go anywhere without both her children, although he has some misgivings about the arrangement he's proposing with what little he's been able to glean about Diana. Adalind pulls away, a little abruptly.
"Nick, Diana—she's—"
"We'll figure it out," Nick says, hoping he's right. Diana's a potentially uncontrollable handful, and Renard's been trying to use her to further his agenda. Nick glances back at Kelly, still sound asleep and Adalind follows his gaze. He'll be living with two—possibly three—Hexenbiests (well, one would technically be a Zauberbiest—a Zauberbiest in fleece monster footie pajamas, he notes, and he remembers Rosalee gifting them with those). An instinct, the Grimm in him, reacts to the potential threat, but Nick quashes it. Like her, he's not ruled by what he is, either. He's able to control it; how he reacts. He can show her that just because you're labeled something, doesn't mean you have to live by the rules long associated with it.
"We'll figure it out," Nick says again, looking at her for a poignant moment before putting his truck back into gear and driving on into the night.
%%%%
Feedback is always appreciated.