When she's eight—or at least, when she looks eight, feels twelve and has actually been in the world for five years—she almost gets expelled. If the school had a choice, she would be expelled, but then where would she go? There was nowhere else on earth that she could study and even the headmistress could see that was a problem for the world at large, one way or another.
But still, the headmistress thought everyone could use a break, and it would take a bit to fix the small black hole in the kitchen anyway, so Diana sits in the headmistress's office, kicking her feet and waiting for her parents to come take her home.
But it isn't her mom or dad that comes to get her this time. It's Nick, and he doesn't look nearly as amused as her father would have or as worried and sympathetic as her mother tended to get. He looks...grim.
"Are you here to behead me?"
The headmistress gasps a little then, but Nick just sighs and looked down at her with those stupid big eyes that seem to make her mother go gushy and dumb.
"Do you think I could?"
Diana thinks about that for a moment. "No," she says, " I don't think so."
"Then I guess I better take you home. Your mother's worried sick." Then Nick smiles, a small smile just for her, and Diana understands a little bit of why her mother goes gushy and dumb for him.
"Let's get your stuff."
"I sent it home already. I didn't feel like carrying it."
"Right. Of course. Let's go home."
"Do you want me to send us home too?"
Nick gives her a long, unreadable look, and then he holds out a hand for her to grasp. "You know what, kid, let's take the long way home."
So they do.
They go to the park, where the sky is sunny and lovely, and she chases the ducks and sends them flying with little sparks out of her fingers. Nick laughs, but he also says, "Kid, how would you like to be chased?"
And then she remembers, she really hadn't liked it—being on the run with his mother. Kelly had always been looking over her shoulder and saying, "Sweetheart, be careful," and "Honey, I need you to be quiet," and "Diana, please don't levitate anything right now." Some days she misses Kelly, but she never misses the look she'd get every time they had to leave town.
On their way through the park, they find a Shakespeare production just starting and stop for a few scenes. It's Macbeth, and when they move on to the playground, she wants to know why the witches were so ugly.
"Mommy's not ugly. Eve's not ugly. Don't they know any real witches?"
"Probably not. Sometimes they make characters look ugly because their actions are ugly."
"All they did was an answer his questions! They didn't tell him to kill anyone."
"No, but that's this thing about information. Everyone makes different choices about what to do with it, and you can't control their choices. Sometimes you can't even control the information."
"I could," Diana says darkly.
Nick stops then, and she has to turn around to see him. He crouches down to meet her eyes head on, and she isn't sure if that's a nice feeling or not.
"You probably could control people, Diana—you have the power. But you'd have to do it every second of every day for the rest of your life. And they would be your responsibility every second of every day for the rest of your life. And if you ever forgot for a moment, they would do everything in their power to be free. And if you ever wanted to take a break for even a moment, you would be in danger. And you're tough, kid, and brilliant, but that sounds exhausting to me."
Diana scowls at him. "Is this supposed to be a teachable moment, or something?"
Nick laughs and pats a strand of hair back behind her ear. "Or something. But the truth is I've made a lot of decisions for a lot of people since I became a Grimm, and I've never made an easy one, Diana. I don't recommend it as a lifestyle, if you can help it."
"Are you worried about me, or are you worried about everyone else?"
"I worry about everyone. That's what happens when you take on a responsibility like mine."
"That doesn't sound like fun."
"Not always."
"I'm not a Grimm."
"No, you're not. But you have a powerful gift and that's your responsibility. Only you can decide how to use it."
"I'm only a kid."
"I know. But you'll be thirty before any of us know it, so you might as well start thinking about it now."
"Can we get ice cream, while I think about it?"
"Definitely."
They go to the ice cream shop around the corner and sit in the sun outside the shop in companionable silence. Diana spells the air around her cone to stop the ice cream melting, and Nick watches her shiver a little while goosebumps break out on her hand. Eventually, she gives up and the ice cream melts, running down her fingers.
"There's no right answer, is there?"
"You're smart, kid."
"I don't like it."
"No one does. It's part of being human."
"Human is overrated."
"So is magic."
Eventually the sun sets, and Nick bundles her up into the front seat where she promptly falls asleep for the ride home. She wakes up as they pull into the garage, but stays quiet and still. It's kind of nice to be carried up to bed by a man who chooses not to behead you on a daily basis.
He tucks her into bed while her mother hovers in the background, bursting with questions and happy to have her home and safe and just there. It feels good to be loved like that—wholly and without question—but it's also good to be loved by Nick, who worries about everyone, all the time, including her.