AN: In light of the current mood from that last episode it seemed appropriate to go ahead and post this. A continuation of the "Coming to Terms" series, taking place after "Living with the Decision." Will try to update once a week. As always, your thoughts are appreciated.

Also this whole story idea started out much funnier than what it may presently seem. It still has its moments, I suppose.

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"Excuse me?"

The woman at the desk glanced at her and held up her finger, indicating a moment. She turned her attention back to the conversation she was having with someone on the phone and Adalind shifted in agitation and said again, louder, "Excuse me!"

The woman gave her a look and spoke into the phone before pulling the receiver away from her mouth.

"Yes, can I help you?"

"I'm looking for my husband," she said, voice uneven.

"What's his name?"

"Adalind."

"Hank!" Adalind whirled from the information desk and ran over to him. "Where is he?"

"Ambulance is just pulling up. Adalind…it's bad," Hank warned, looking at her with soft concern and that scared her more than what he had just said. When was the last time Hank had looked at her with such empathy? They had gotten used to each other, and Hank was resigned and even accepting of the fact she was in Nick's life, and that for the long haul, but there had always been a note of distance in any of those friendly interactions, the subtle reminder that Hank remembered what she had done to him (and Nick); had twice tried to kill him all those years ago.

Adalind nodded numbly and looked around, searching for the doors that opened up to the ambulance bay, and spotted them on the other side of the information desk. She was having a hard time keeping her emotions under control. He was supposed to take care of all of them. He was the father, the real one as far as she was concerned, to both her children. Her husband. That meant he wasn't supposed to get hurt, and especially seriously hurt. He was a Grimm for God's sake, and a good one, but she knew as well as anyone the number and types of Wesen that hunted and killed Grimm's. He was a cop, too, and she supposed, distantly, that if she was looking to be involved with someone who might be around for a long time then she probably couldn't have picked a worse candidate than Nick.

Til death do us part. Death couldn't fucking part them six months into their marriage, she thought bitterly. She was always so greedy, but she wanted a lifetime with him. Thirty, forty, fifty years at least. Was that so wrong? Her children to grow into adulthood, have children of their own, with him still beside her.

She heard the doors bang open and then watched as a flurry of medical personnel rushed a gurney through the emergency area. She moved forward trying to get a look before they disappeared from view and then reeled back with a gasp.

Nick, as pale as death, unresponsive with an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, head and body rolling and jerking with each jostle of the gurney. She registered voices, nurses and doctors calling out Nick's stats as they rolled him past, but none of it held any meaning to her. She was frozen on his face, her own heart stopping at the sight of him.

No.

Just, no. They had two beautiful children, and despite everything that they had done to one another, they were happy and content. He had promised to always be there to support Kelly and Diana, who he thought of like his own daughter, and this…this clearly flied in the face of that. They rolled him out of her sight, past the reception area and through a set of doors where they worked to save their emergent cases.

"Oh, my god. Nick," she whispered.

She stared, still trying to reconcile the sight she had just witnessed with her memory of Nick, tired from work but full of vitality and vigor as early as that morning, smiling and teasing her, eyes so alive and bright as they had looked at her, full of love, before kissing her goodbye, and planting a kiss on Kelly and Diana before he left them for work.

"What happened?" She heard herself say, and was aware that she had turned back to Hank, was going through the motions, the semblance of a functioning human being, but she felt anything but functional or human. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to literally hold herself together she supposed, and focused on what Hank was saying.

He was shaking his head.

"I'm not sure. Call came out, suspect spotted at a building in Northwest Portland. We arrived, went into the building and took fire. Suspect got the drop on a patrolman and turned and ran. Wu, Nick and I followed in pursuit. Suspect made it to the roof and jumped the building. Nick was the only one strong enough or brave enough, or maybe crazy enough, to make the jump. He jumped two more with Nick in pursuit. He followed while Wu and I and the other officers tried to cut him off before he jumped the next roof.

"Nick got ambushed," Hank told her. "I don't know what they did. He got the drop on three of them, I saw that, but I don't know, there were five or six of them; well trained, Wesen, I'm sure, but I couldn't see what type, and I think…I think they injected him or stabbed him, poisoned him with something. I couldn't see enough to get a clear shot from where I was, I'm not even sure if I could have made the shot from that far away. Adalind…I'm sorry."

She nodded dumbly. "It's not your fault," she said automatically, mulling over the information but it was too much for her mind to handle. He had pursued the suspect, even when doing so meant he lost his back up. Of course he did. The Grimm and the cop in him pushing him to follow, whatever it was, heedless of the danger he was so certain he could handle.

"Wu was first on scene on the roof. He was incoherent and losing blood fast. By the time I got to Nick he had already lost consciousness. He was—he was pretty bad. He was definitely having some type of reaction beyond a few stab wounds. He's been unresponsive ever since."

"Did Nick have any idea what kind of Wesen you were looking for?"

"He never said. The Wall I think was looking for the same thing. It seemed like there was some overlap with our case and something they were looking into. They might be able to tell us what we were after."

She nodded again and bit her lip, her mind circling round on his words. He got ambushed. Stabbed him, poisoned him. Incoherent. Unresponsive ever since. Unresponsive ever since. Unresponsive ever since.

Nick couldn't leave her. He would have to be okay. He would have to be.

##########

She sat impatiently in the waiting area, chewing on her lip and glancing down the hall, where they had taken Nick for emergency surgery to repair his liver. One of the knife wounds had sliced into it. Another had punctured a lung. Two others had missed anything vital, though one was deep. The doctors were hesitant to say anything on his prognosis, just that his injuries were life threatening and they would know more perhaps when he was out of surgery. Hank was at the other end of the room, on the phone with Sean, updating him on Nick's status, and the case.

One of the nurses had brought her a cup of tea and to the surgical waiting room, and had promised to bring her an update on Nick in another hour if she hadn't heard anything. It had been two hours since they had wheeled Nick in, and in that time she had tried to keep it together, put on a brave face, as her life slowly fell apart.

She felt nauseous, and was reminded she hadn't eaten since breakfast. Didn't think she could swallow anything down anyway, but if she didn't she would most certainly be sick, and she couldn't afford to be anything but okay, not when Nick was anything but okay.

Some crackers would probably help, some juice maybe. Something bland just to calm her stomach. She looked up when Hank approached, finished with his phone call and she plastered a fragile smile on her face, and felt it slide off a moment later.

"Did they catch him?" she asked, and Hank shook his head.

"Still looking. Captain's got every uniform in the city looking for our suspect." She nodded. Messing with Sean's Grimm, even though things had been so strained between them all in the last six months because of Diana and their battle for custody was not something he would take lightly. The decision on custody had long been decided and the details ironed out, but it had left a bad taste in everyone's mouths, and she didn't think Nick's and Sean's working relationship had quite recovered from it. Sean was still Sean, though, and he needed Nick, and he knew that.

"Monroe and Rosalee are on their way," Hank told her and she flashed a weak smile again and nodded.

"Can I get you anything," Hank asked after a long, painful silence.

My husband, safe and sound.

She shook her head. "No," she managed. "Thank you."

The nausea was still eating away at her, the nerves and stress feeding into it, but she stubbornly refused to acknowledge it any further.

"It's been two hours," Adalind said. "Shouldn't they be done by now?"

"Doctor said he had a puncture to the lung? And liver?"

"Yeah," Adalind said, "and two other punctures, but they didn't hit any organs."

"Might just be taking them a while," Hank offered, and they were both silent as they pondered the reason why.

"He has to be okay, Hank, he has to be," she said suddenly, and he looked at her.

"He will. He's strong, he's a fighter. We're not going to let anything happen to him."

But you already did let something happen to him, she wanted to say. And now he's lying on an operating table fighting for his life.

She shook her head and felt a sob rack her body when Hank awkwardly tried to comfort her. She had children with Nick, a son and a daughter who needed their father, like she needed her husband. He was so critical to his family, to their well-being.

The baby, growing inside her now.

She was going to give him another child. Already she was two months pregnant, with what was technically their second, but what she knew they would both consider to be their third child together. She had been so excited to discover she was pregnant again, not even two weeks ago, that she had hardly been able to contain it. She had almost called Nick up on the phone and blurted out the news as soon as she saw the result. Had decided she would surprise him, and had been searching for the right moment and time to share the news with him, wanting to make it special. More meaningful than when she dumped the fact she was already seven months pregnant with his son and needed his protection and his help and hadn't really given him any choice or time to come to grips with it, like she had with Kelly.

She thought he would be excited, happy to be able to experience everything with their new baby from the beginning, go to the doctor's appointments, see the sonograms, hear the heartbeat, find out the sex of the baby with her. He would love it, love her, love the fact that he would be a father again.

He had been tied up with a triple murder and then the Wall, gone until late in the night for nearly a week, exhausted and distracted, and she twisted her lips bitterly at the thought of Eve and that lot putting him at risk, when he was so obviously at risk everyday as a police officer and a Grimm.

Goddamn she loved him. She could not, could not, lose him. Her baby needed its father. Her children needed their father, and she needed him. She knew he wasn't invincible, but he was capable, so much so that maybe they had all taken it for granted how vulnerable he really was.

"Hey, hey," Hank said softly, still trying to soothe her. "We just need to be strong for him right now, okay," and she nodded, another sob overtaking her.

You don't understand what's at stake if he doesn't survive, she thought.

"I know," she said instead, her voice barely a whisper.

"Adalind," Rosalee said, and Adalind looked up to find her friend striding quickly to her. Hank released her and stood, Monroe not far behind Rosalee and Adalind caught Rosalee's terrified eyes and began to weep uncontrollably.

"What happened?" Monroe asked Hank, watching as Rosalee embraced Adalind. She felt so very tired, as though she were hungover, and for a moment she just leaned heavily against Rosalee, letting her support her as the stress and worry over Nick poured out.

She heard Hank talk quietly with Monroe, felt Rosalee slide her hand over her hair. "It's going to be okay," Rosalee said. "It's Nick. He's going to be okay," Rosalee promised. "Have you heard anything," Rosalee asked her after Adalind had nodded and pulled away, and Adalind shook her head.

"They took him to surgery a couple of hours ago, but nothing since. They said he was…he was critical," she stuttered, "and his injuries were life-threatening, and that they would know more once he was out of surgery."

Rosalee nodded. "Okay," she said. "What do you know about his injuries?" she asked Hank, looking at him. "You said you thought he had been poisoned?"

Hank nodded. "He wasn't reacting to just some stab wounds. I mean, he was stabbed, multiple times," Hank said, and Adalind wanted to cover her ears. Instead she took a seat behind them, back on one of the chairs. "He wasn't hardly bleeding," Hank said, and Adalind glanced up in surprise. "Not like he should anyway, or you would expect someone with four stab wounds to."

"Did you get the weapon?" Monroe asked. "Was it a knife or something else?"

"I don't know. No weapon was recovered from the scene yet, but officers are still searching. We have a lot of area to cover. Suspect jumped three buildings with Nick in pursuit before he led him right into an ambush."

"Oh my god," Rosalee said, covering her mouth. She glanced at Adalind and took a seat next to her, wrapping her arm around her shoulder.

"No sign of the suspect you were pursuing?" Monroe said.

"No, by the time any of us reached the roof he was gone. Captain has every agency and officer in the city looking for him, but so far no leads."

"Wesen?" Rosalee asked and Hank shrugged and nodded.

"Yeah, pretty sure, but I don't know what kind and Nick never said so don't know if he figured it out until it was too late."

Too late. God, what if it was too late? Adalind bit her lip when she felt it tremble and Rosalee rubbed her arm.

"Hey," she said softly. "He's going to be okay, okay? We'll figure this out. Don't give up on him yet," and she nodded and shook her head again. No she wouldn't give up on him.

"I'm not," she said.

##########

She finished retching over the toilet and held the handle down to flush. She had waited too long. She should have eaten something, and she could hear Nick's voice in her head, admonishing her, telling her it wasn't good for the baby, that she needed to take better care of herself and their child. Her eyes burned and she choked down a sob. What she wouldn't give for that right now. He had had no opportunity, or hadn't cared enough, or had been to overwhelmed to be the worried father with their son. She had been well into her pregnancy by the time he discovered it, and he was still grappling with the fact it was his child she was carrying and how he felt about that. She thought he would take up the worried and protective expectant father easily, a natural fit for him, especially now that his feelings about her and a baby were much clearer.

He would drive her crazy, she suspected. She had already carried two children, but in many ways, this would be his first pregnancy. She wondered how this pregnancy would progress compared with the two she had already had. Diana's had been so painful, partly due to the contaminatio ritualis she had undergone, and her own inexperience with motherhood and not knowing what to expect. She had been terrified on more than one occasion about what was happening with her child, and her body. In retrospect, probably wouldn't try to regain her Hexenbiest powers while pregnant, but then, she had no intention of ever trying to regain them.

Kelly had been so different, so easy, considering she was carrying a Grimm's child. As they were natural enemies of one another, it seemed rather ironic that her body took so well to carrying Nick's baby, but she had had no problems with the pregnancy, no idea she was pregnant even, until Henrietta had told her. He had been every bit a normal baby, no morning sickness, or weird food cravings, and giving his mother only fits when he kept her up at night with his furious kicking, which seemed to intensify those few times whenever Nick had been near her, or the occasional back pain and strain, and the urgency to pee every five minutes as they got closer to the end.

Things were so strained between them then that she doubted how well she would have taken any gesture of concern or desire to take part in the pregnancy from Nick. Surprised wouldn't have been the half of it, if he had suggested something of the sort. He had never touched her, or tried to touch her or make any other connection with the baby since that day in Renard's office when she had held his hand to their son, alive and well, and excited to hear his father's voice, as though he had known it was Nick and who Nick was.

She wondered now if he had had any desire to, or had been too repulsed or too scared to ask her if he could, or maybe just too busy still trying to wrap his head around the fact it was real and that she would bear him a son in a matter of weeks, not to mention everything else that had gone on. Probably the latter, and going from mortal enemies to sharing in raising a baby was a difficult transition to swallow, though he had done it. Over the weeks he had expressed general concern about her well-being, a blanket approach that included the welfare of their son, though he never specifically asked about the baby, until that fateful day when she had gone into labor and he had shown up at the hospital, looking out of place, overwhelmed, and as the labor progressed, worried for her and their child.

He had been there, when it had counted, despite whatever feelings he had had about her or their situation, and the baby. And once he had held Kelly, there had been no going back. He had loved his son from the moment he had laid eyes on him, held him in his arms for the longest time, a range of emotions flitting across his face, and Adalind thought something might be able to be had that they might get through it together without killing each other or trying to destroy each other.

"Adalind? Are you okay?"

Rosalee.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "Just needed a moment," she said after a pause, and stood up from the stall, sure Rosalee was wondering why she was sitting on the floor of the bathroom. She didn't know Adalind was pregnant again. She had lost her and Monroe's second baby in a miscarriage four months ago and had been devastated.

It seemed wrong, somehow, to mention her own baby growing inside her, pregnant so easily by Nick, while her friend mourned the loss of another baby. They had been trying for a long time, her and Monroe, to have a child of their own, and it didn't seem as though they were going to.

Besides, she still hadn't told Nick, and it was still early in the pregnancy, not even through the first trimester. Something could still happen.

She opened the stall door and gave her friend a watery smile, aware she was looking pale and sweaty. "Nerves finally got to me," she explained, and it had the benefit of at least being partially true. She turned on the water and splashed some on her face, feeling her stomach start to churn again and hoped she wouldn't betray herself with another hurried visit to the commode.

"I think maybe I just need a little something to eat," Adalind said, "maybe that would calm it, you think?" She met Rosalee's eyes through the mirror and looked away, splashing more water on her face. "Still nothing from the doctor," Adalind remarked.

"No," Rosalee agreed. "But maybe that's good news. He's still fighting," and Adalind nodded. True, had he—had it—she bit her lip again—if he had died then they probably all still wouldn't be here.

"He's got a lot to live for," Rosalee reminded her, and Adalind nodded.

"Yeah," she agreed with a whisper, "he does."

"Come on, we'll get something to eat," and Adalind shook her head. "I need to stay close, in case…" she trailed off and Rosalee nodded.

"I'll bring you something," she offered. "A sandwich?" My prenatal vitamins, but she would have to do without for the time being.

Adalind shook her head, "Maybe just some crackers and some water. Something bland, I think."

"Okay," Rosalee said. "I'll see what I can find."

###########

Surprisingly, she was hungry. She devoured the sandwich and half of the soup, Rosalee had brought her. Sean had shown up with Wu about thirty minutes earlier and he and Hank had conferred quietly out in the hall while Wu took a seat across from Monroe and went through some of the same questions Monroe had with Hank. Adalind was so tired of hearing it all, and wished everyone would just shut up for a while. She didn't need to keep hearing about Nick getting stabbed, Nick being unresponsive, Nick looking so cold and dead lying on that gurney as they had rolled him into emergency.

She knew her emotions were heightened due to the surge in hormones from her pregnancy, but she honestly wished she could scream at everybody to just stop.

"Mrs. Burkhardt? I'm Dr. Javier," and Adalind looked up after a second when she realized they meant her. She was still getting used to the name change, and most everyone at her work still knew her and called her by her maiden name. Rarely did anyone she knew referred to Adalind by her married name, though perhaps because so few people knew who she was married to, and she realized the doctor standing before her was Nick's surgeon.

"Yes," Adalind said, slowly and shakily getting to her feet. Rosalee stood up beside her, and Hank and Sean quieted and came into the room, as Monroe and Wu closed ranks as well.

"Yes, I'm Mrs. Burkhardt," she said, taking a deep breath, and her voice sounded so far away she wondered if she was dreaming.

"I'm the surgeon who worked on your husband. We were able to repair his lung and his liver, and sew up his other two wounds." Adalind breathed out carefully. "Do you know what he was stabbed with?"

"We're not sure," Sean spoke up. "We've been unable to recover the weapon that was used," and the doctor nodded.

"The cuts were very smooth, similar to a knife, but not like any knife wound I've seen. While we were attempting to repair his wounds your husband's heart stopped for eight minutes," and Adalind sucked in another breath and reflexively grabbed a hold of Rosalee's arm, hands grasping at her sweater.

"We were able to resuscitate him, but he has not regained consciousness and we are concerned about an infection that appears to have started in one of the wounds," the surgeon continued.

"An infection?" Rosalee said in a trembling voice, "What kind of infection?"

"We haven't identified it yet, but we have him on IV antibiotics and he remains in critical condition."

"Can I see him?" Adalind whispered.

"He'll be wheeled down to intensive care in a few minutes. I'll have a nurse come get you when he's settled, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to limit the number of visitors to just yourself, and for ten minutes," Dr. Javier informed her, and she nodded numbly.

"What's his prognosis?" Hank asked.

"If he survives the night—" and Adalind jolted and stuttered. If?

"If?" Rosalee echoed, and distantly she was grateful to her friend for being able to put a voice to the jumble of emotions that were filling her mind, clogging her throat.

The doctor nodded gravely. "If he survives the night, and we can stop the infection from worsening and spreading…His chances will increase greatly and it's possible he could make a full recovery."

"Possible," Monroe said.

"We'll know more in the morning," the doctor said. "I'm on call until midnight, if you have any questions," and Adalind gave a stunned nod.

"Thank you, doctor," Sean said quietly and the doctor offered a tired smile and left. Adalind gasped shakily, trying to draw in a breath and became aware that everyone was crowding close around her in concern.

%%%%%%%%

"You can go in. He's under heavy sedation. There's a tube in his throat helping him to breathe, okay?" Adalind nodded and wiped the moisture from her face.

"Okay," she whispered, and the nurse patted her hand and gave her an encouraging smile. Adalind drifted slowly through the doorway, her eyes frozen on Nick. He had a dozen machines hooked up to him, including a ventilator. The tube was large, bigger than she expected it to be.

"Oh my god, Nick," she whimpered, reaching his side.

He still looked horrible, as dead as he had looked when he had first entered the hospital. There was a cut above his eye, and a bruise on his chin, but other than the pallor of his skin, there was nothing wrong with his face. She looked at his chest, heavily bandaged where he had been stabbed in the lung, and his side where they had sliced into his liver. There were two other bandages near the liver one where they had made contact with him. He was bruised heavily on his torso, where either the blows from his attackers landed, or from the stabbing itself. Probably a combination of the two.

"Nick," she whispered, and the tears that had been pooling at the corner of her eyes spilled over. "Nick, you have to wake up, you have to get better, okay? I need you, the kids need you. Please just open your eyes."

Of course he made no response, nothing, not even a flicker of eye movement.

She slid her hand over his, careful of the wires and tubes around it.

"Please, Nick. I need you. Wake up, please. I know I look great in black, but you can't make me a widow six months into our marriage," she whispered. "You promised me you spend a lifetime telling me how much you loved me, how much I mean to you, you have to be alive…and awake…to do that. I'm holding you to that promise, do you hear me?"

Again, nothing, and she ran her fingers over his, surprised how cool they felt under her touch. She noted with surprise he wasn't wearing his wedding ring, a staple of his everyday life since they had said their vows. The medical staff had probably removed it, along with everything else he was wearing and had on him, and she wondered absently where his gun and badge were, also staples of his everyday life, or at least as long as she had known him.

"Mrs. Burkhardt?" she had just slid her fingers between his when the nurse appeared. "I'm sorry, but we need to let him rest," she said and Adalind sniffed, and wiped her eyes with her other hands.

"Okay," she said, nodding. "I'm going to see you in a little bit, and when I do you're going to be awake, because I have some pretty important news to share and you have to be awake to appreciate it." She squeezed his fingers, hoping to feel something in the embrace but she was disappointed. She leaned over him, placed a kiss on his icy cheek, half-hoping this was some twisted version of sleeping beauty and she would awaken him with true love's kiss.

Of course he had the tube over his mouth, keeping her from being able to kiss his lips, so maybe that was why it didn't work.