I. Nightmares
Whimpers wake him up. In the first moments of awareness, Nick assumes it's Kelly being restless, but the sounds are too close for that. Next to him Adalind lets out a sob and mumbles something unintelligible.
"Adalind" He lightly touches her shoulder trying to rouse her but to not avail. This time he understands what she's mumbling: Diana and Kelly."Adalind, you need to wake up." He shakes her and she shoots up almost head butting him.
"Where? What?" it takes her a moment or two to take in her surroundings. He can tell the exact moment she understands where she is because her emotions retract behind a studied calm expression. Only her eyes betray her as they keep turning towards Kelly. There are tears streaks running down her pretty face.
"You were having a nightmare."
"Oh, I'm sorry I woke you." She untangles herself from the covers with a wan smile. "Go back to sleep." He watches her as she stands and walks with deceptively calm steps towards Kelly. He can see the tension on her slender shoulders. Only when she reaches the crib and caresses their son cheek does she seem to calm down.
She jumps when he touches her shoulder. "I'm sorry for giving you the nightmares."
She shakes her head. "It's my fault I lost her. I signed her away."
"What?"
"I thought you killed my mother and I wanted revenge and for that I needed my powers." She doesn't look at him. "A baby of Royal blood would get you many things with the right people. I thought that I could always trick them afterwards. Even when Stefania made me sign a contract in blood, I thought I had everything under control. I would use Stefania to get my powers back and the Royals to kill you and Stefania. As with most of my plans, it failed spectacularly." Kelly frowns, but as soon as she puts a hand on his back, he quiets down. There's a sad smile on her lips. "I wasn't even sure I wanted to keep her. I never really thought about it, but when Meisner handed her to me-the moment I had her in my arms-everything changed. I never felt like I needed anyone before, like nothing else mattered anymore." He squeezes her shoulder and she finally looks up at him. "Sometimes I think if only I've done things
differently, if Sean had told me what happened to my Mom, if I hadn't gone to Vienna, if I hadn't singed that contract, if I hadn't trusted Sean, if Sean had told me Diana was with your mother, if I hadn't called Viktor, but then..." She turns to look at Kelly again. "I wouldn't have Kelly. So even though I regret all the pain I caused to others and to myself, I wouldn't take anything back. Not if it meant loosing him."
"You shouldn't blame yourself" She scoffs at that. "I don't."
She turns with a start at that. "What?"
"Do you remember when I told you that if someone were to take something that was important to me, I would take it very personally?"
"Yeah" She nods.
"I can't blame you for wanting your powers back, I wanted mine back so badly I didn't really ask about the possible side effects. I didn't really want to know." There is something so liberating about being able to be absolutely honest, about not hiding even the darkest parts of himself. "I can't blame you for wanting revenge, I took mine on Kenneth. I enjoyed killing him." He lowers his hand from her shoulder to her hand. She turns her hand around and their fingers interlace. "And I can't blame you for doing whatever you had to to get Diana back because if someone were to take Kelly, I wouldn't stop until they were all dead. There's nothing I wouldn't do to protect our child." He looks down at the hands and wonders about the turns his life have taken. "I regret many things." Juliette's face flashes in his mind, the way she used to look at him with love and then with so much hate, and now with nothing but indifference as Eve. He remembers his mother coming back and how that's never going to happen again. "But I don't regret Kelly. I wouldn't take anything back if it meant loosing our son."