A/N:
Hello! Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my next multi-chapter story in the Grimm fandom. This one will be looong, with a prologue, two parts, and an epilogue, so I hope you all enjoy!
That being said, I won't give any specific warnings per say for this story, other than it will have some humor and fluff, many twists and turns, as well as a lot of ANGST and sad panda days for our Grimm Gang. As you can kind of tell from the summary…this is going to be a rough and bumpy ride. If you need more specific warnings, please PM me.
This will be mostly canon through Season 3 with the exception of a few things: Eric is still alive (c'mon do we really believe it was that easy to kill him off?), Nick's powers are back, and there will be no mention of Trubel or Diana. I started writing this in mid-Season 2 and I couldn't figure out an easy way to tie either of them into this story, although I adore them both! (My head canon is that Trubel joined Kelly and Diana after Nick trained her, and that when Kelly eventually pops in this story, Trubel is finally mature enough to watch Diana). Hope that helps explain their absence from this story. I'd say that Part 1 of this story takes place in Season 5 or 6 let's say, with the Prologue and Part 2 being five years after that.
Ok, enough from me. On to the story, please let me know what you think or if I should keep going! Better buckle yourselves in for this one…
~Fictional
Disclaimer: I don't own Grimm. Bummer.
Prologue
"It's Reed's birthday today."
Monroe looked up from the antique cuckoo clock he was painstakingly putting back together to look up at his wife as she leaned in the doorway. Clad in only his favorite flannel shirt with the early morning sun streaming in behind her, she was truly a beautiful sight.
"I know," he smiled, leaning back in his chair and setting down his screwdriver. "I'm going to call Juliette in a little bit and see what her and my favorite godson are up to today."
Rosalee chuckled. "Your only godson you mean. Wow, I can't believe he is five already."
"Me either," Monroe agreed, before his smile slowly fell as he looked back at her.
"It's really been five years, hasn't it?"
Rosalee's brows furrowed seriously as she carefully regarded her husband. "Yea. Yea it has."
Monroe frowned, turning back to absently study the clock before him on the work table. "Nick has really been gone for five years."
"It doesn't even seem possible," Rosalee replied quietly, watching Monroe now with worried eyes. "So much has happened since then. Do you ever wonder how different things would be right now if he was still…" she trailed off with a shake of her head, unable to finish her sentence.
Monroe turned back to her with a pained look clearly etched on his face. "What, if Nick was still alive? Yea, I wonder that all the time." He sighed deeply, taking off his glasses and tossing them carelessly on the table as he scrubbed a hand roughly over his face. "And I wonder all the time what I could have done differently that night, how I could have stopped him…"
"Monroe," Rosalee quickly cut him off, striding into the room and coming to a stop in front of his chair. "We've been over this. What happened to Nick was NOT your fault. There was nothing you could have done."
Monroe looked up sadly at his wife, shaking his head in disagreement. "There are a million things I should have done, Rosalee. I should have had his back, I should have helped him, I should have stopped him…"
Rosalee quickly stepped forward and sat down in Monroe's lap, intertwining her arms firmly around his neck. "Monroe, don't. Don't do that to yourself. There was never any stopping Nick, and you know that. You couldn't have kept him from doing what he did if you tried. And you did what he asked you to do…save his wife and newborn son. Juliette and Reed are alive because you protected them that night instead. You have to realize that."
Monroe nodded slowly, breaking eye contact with Rosalee and staring at the ceiling, letting out a deep breath as he tried to compose his rising emotions. After a long moment, his gaze fell back to her beautiful face. "I know, I know that, it's just…no matter what, Nick still died that night, and there was nothing any of us could do to stop it. It's not right. He should be here, right now. He should be with Juliette, he should be seeing his son grow up, he should be protecting Portland..."
Monroe stopped at that, unable to finish, as he furiously blinked back unwanted tears. Even after all this time, the emotions were still so strong for all of them, still raw and bleeding. Sometimes it felt as though Nick had just been taken from them five days ago instead of five years. It never failed to surprise Monroe like a punch in the gut with how sharp the pain and grief still were, always just bubbling under the surface, until a memory or a moment brought it freshly back up.
Rosalee leaned forward then and pulled him against her, enveloping him in a tight embrace. They sat like that for several moments, just clinging to each other in the early morning quiet.
"You did the right thing," she whispered finally into his ear, before pulling back to look at him, cupping his cheek gently. "Because of you, Juliette and Reed are safe, and that's all he ever would have wanted."
"Yea, I know," Monroe sighed, giving her a pained smile. "But that doesn't change the fact that Nick's not here, and now Portland is falling apart without him."
"Yea, things would be so different here if he was still around," Rosalee agreed quietly, running her hands soothingly through his hair. "And ever since Captain Renard went off to Europe, Portland has really taken a turn for the worse."
"As if this place could get any weirder," Monroe replied sardonically, and she smiled in relief as he sounded more like himself again. "If Renard ever does come back, I don't think he'll recognize this place."
Within a few months of Nick's death, Renard had left Portland and returned to Europe to forge an uneasy alliance with his estranged Royal family, who had inadvertently been behind Nick's death, with their orders to the Verrat to eliminate the Portland Grimm. Renard and Nick had been working together to establish order and new world rule in Portland, separate from the Seven Families in Europe.
Of course, the other Families didn't like that. Enter Renard's brother Eric, who was surprisingly still very much alive. Eric, as usual, was always overzealous and eager for bloodshed and turmoil if it further secured his place of power, especially under the direction of his and Renard's father, the king. The Family had decided that it was time to show Renard and Nick who the real power players were, by eliminating the Portland Grimm once and for all and getting their hands on the last two keys, which they had somehow learned Nick had in his possession. The best and deadliest agents of the Verrat had swarmed Portland, but their plan had only partly succeeded: Nick was gone, but with him the keys as well.
After the attack by the Verrat, Renard had sworn to Monroe and the others revenge for Nick and to take down his family once and for all, and that meant getting close enough to them in order to take them out from the inside. So Renard had gone to Europe upon invitation from his brother, and left the fate of Portland into the hands of those left behind while he dealt with a higher political power.
That had been almost five years ago, and Renard still hadn't yet returned, although he had promised Monroe and Rosalee that he someday would once his plan was complete.
In the meanwhile, the Wesen of Portland had begun to run rampant without Renard to rule with an iron fist, or Nick being there to enforce a fair and just order. The Portland PD, not knowing what they were truly up against, had had an incredibly difficult time keeping order in a once fairly peaceful city. Even Hank had left. After Nick's death and Renard's absence, Hank couldn't stomach working at the Portland precinct anymore. He had transferred to a different precinct, remarried (for the fifth time), and moved to the suburbs about an hour away.
If Nick were still alive and Renard still around, Monroe and Rosalee had no doubt that Portland would be a very different place, the same place that they had once loved to call their home.
Monroe was drawn out of his reverie suddenly by the shrill ringing of his phone. Rosalee stood up from his lap so that he could quickly fish the phone out of his pocket. Once he saw the caller ID, a small smile crossed his face as he glanced back at Rosalee.
"It's Juliette," he told her, and she smiled in return as he moved to answer the phone.
"I'm going to go make breakfast," Rosalee whispered, quickly pecking his cheek before leaving the room. "Tell her I say hi." Monroe nodded and then pressed the button on his phone to answer.
"Hey Juliette," Monroe greeted warmly, standing up from his work chair and stretching.
"Hey Uncle Monroe!" a small voice echoed through the phone, and Monroe broke into a wide grin at the sound of his godson's voice.
"Well hey there Reed," he chuckled into the phone. "Aren't you up a little early?"
"Uh, no," Reed answered, clearly taken aback by Monroe's suggestion. "Hey, guess what?"
"What's that?" Monroe replied in amusement at the enthusiasm in Reed's voice.
"It's my birfday!" Reed exclaimed, and Monroe winced, pulling the phone away from his ear. He could hear Rosalee chuckling from the other room, no doubt able to hear everything that Reed was saying as well.
"Hey, isn't that great!" Monroe replied cheerfully. "Happy birthday buddy."
"And guess what else?" Reed continued, sounding out of breath. Monroe imagined the energetic little boy jumping up and down, breathless with excitement.
"What's that?" Monroe asked again, smiling at the thought of Reed running in circles around Juliette while she tried to grab the phone. That was how most of their conversations went.
"I'm five!" Reed exclaimed, and Monroe heard a thud that meant he had no doubt dropped the phone in his eagerness.
"Reed?" Monroe asked, as he heard scrambling and voices in the background. "Hello?"
"Hi Monroe," Juliette's voice floated over the line then. "Sorry, Reed got a little excited."
Monroe laughed at that, leaning back against his work table. "I figured as much. He's a real ball of energy today. And he's up this early?"
"Yea, I know," she chuckled knowingly. "Five is a big birthday."
"Indeed, it is," Monroe agreed. "Do you guys have any big plans today up there in Seattle?"
"Well," Juliette hesitated, and Monroe stood up straight, immediately sensing something in her tone. "That's actually why I called."
"Is everything ok?" he asked worriedly, his heart skipping a beat at the thought that something had happened. He had promised Nick that he would protect Juliette and Reed at all costs should anything ever happen to him, and it was a promise he was taking to the grave.
"Yea, yea, everything's fine, it's just…" she trailed off, sounding as though she was vainly trying to gather her thoughts.
"What is it?" Monroe urged, desperately trying to hide the worry in his voice. "Juliette, what's going on?"
"How would you feel about some visitors?" she finally replied, causing Monroe to scratch his head in confusion.
"Visitors?" he replied, sounding dumbfounded. "Are you guys coming to Portland?"
Juliette had taken Reed and moved just outside of Seattle shortly after Nick's death, at Renard's instruction and urging. They had all together agreed it would be safer for Juliette to relocate somewhere that no one knew that she had been involved with a Grimm…or that her son would likely grow up to be one someday. Portland just wasn't safe for them anymore, and she hadn't been back since.
"Yea, we are," Juliette pulled him out of his wandering thoughts.
"Really?" Monroe asked in complete surprise. "Why? When?"
"Well, we're about to leave right now, actually," she replied hesitantly. "I hope that's ok."
"Of course," Monroe quickly replied in reassurance. "You guys are always welcome here. It's just…is this a good idea, Juliette? I know we all agreed it was safest for you and Reed to leave Portland…and things are even worse here now, you know that."
Juliette was quiet for such a long moment that Monroe thought the connection was lost. "Uh, hello?"
"Sorry, I'm here," she replied quietly, and Monroe could clearly hear the sadness and longing in her voice. "It's just…five years. He's been gone for five years, Monroe. I can't believe it."
Monroe swallowed thickly, fighting down another surge of emotions as he struggled to keep his voice steady. "I know. Honestly, sometimes it still feels like it just happened."
"It still hurts," Juliette let out a shaky breath through the phone, "like it just happened. I miss him so much."
"We all do," Monroe replied sadly, a million old memories of Nick coming to the forefront of his mind. "Things haven't been the same without him."
"They never will be," Juliette replied quietly, and he heard her clear her throat, no doubt trying to keep her composure in front of Reed. "I just wish that Reed would have had the chance to know him."
"Nick would have been such a great dad," Monroe agreed, smiling at the distant memory of the one and only time Nick had gotten to hold his son, on the night he was born, before losing his life that same night in order to protect him. It seemed that Reed was already following in the sad and lonely footsteps of his ancestors, named for a grandfather he would never know and looking exactly like a father he would never remember. "Reed reminds me so much of him already."
"He looks just like him," Juliette replied, nearly reading Monroe's thoughts, and he nodded absently in agreement, although he knew she couldn't see him. "It's unreal."
"He's going to be just like Nick," Monroe agreed, his heart swelling with pride at the thought of Nick's son turning into the same kind of man his father had been. Nick would have been so proud of Reed, Monroe had no doubt about that. It was so unfair that Nick couldn't be around to see it for himself.
"I know," Juliette said, but Monroe sensed her hesitating again, and waited patiently for her to continue. "That's actually why we're coming to Portland."
"What do you mean?" he asked in confusion, concern evident in his tone.
"He can see them, Monroe."
Monroe froze at her words, almost dropping the phone in the process. It wasn't possible, it just wasn't. Reed was too young, it couldn't happen yet, it would take more time…
He finally found his voice again and replied.
"Juliette, do you mean…"
"Reed can see Wesen."
TBC
