Change of Atmosphere – Chapter 3

Warnings: Ummm…some swearing. That's about it.

Twenty minutes later they were back in Monroe's neighborhood. Nick pulled up in front of his house, shut off the truck, and got out so Monroe got out too.

"Thanks for everything," Nick said coming around to the sidewalk. "Seriously, it helps." He zipped up his coat and pulled on a pair of gloves, showing no sign he was getting back in the vehicle.

"What? That's it?"

Nick frowned. "I'm going to walk the mailman's route and see if I can get some answers to a few very specific questions. If the answers turn out like I want I'll take them to my boss and he'll take it a judge."

"And…."

The frown deepened. "You want to come along?" he hazarded.

Monroe rolled his eyes. "Of course I want to come along. You can't drag me into this and then leave me wondering how it works out."

Nick smiled and shook his head. "I hate to break it to you, but it's not going to be worked out today. This is the slow, boring part of police work they don't show on TV."

"I've got nothing else planned."

Nick gave him an annoyed look and said, "I'm not sure it's a good idea bringing a civilian along—"

"Technically you're a civilian right now too," he reminded, carefully. "Vacation."

Nick stared at him for a second; probably hoping he would change his mind. "In that case you might want to get a warmer coat. We're going to be out for a while."

"This time of day," Nick said once Monroe was suitably dressed and they were walking down the sidewalk, squeaking and crunching the thin crust of old snow under their boots, "most of the people who are going to be home are retirees, stay-at-home parents, or the ones who have jobs they can do at home. The seniors tend either be oblivious or the worst gossips on the block. The parents are either too busy to notice anything that doesn't directly involved their kids or they will tell you everything you never wanted to know about every other parent in their play circle. The work-at-homes are about the same, either they don't notice a thing or they spend the day spying on their neighbors instead of working."

Monroe figured he fell into the latter category up to a point. His workbench sat in front of the big window overlooking the sidewalk to get the best light. It was impossible not to notice what was happening right in front of his house. He occasionally helped out his neighbors to either side, both elderly and thankfully quiet, but that was the extent of his interaction with his neighborhood.

The slow, boring side of police work, it turned out, consisted of a lot of knocking on doors and sometimes getting no answer, a lot of walking, a lot of walking, and listening to old people talk about their grandchildren, pets, and ailments. Not necessarily in that order.

"This is why I don't talk to my neighbors," Monroe grumbled as they finally escaped the clutches of one Mrs. Abraham Pembrooke of 334 Humboldt Street NE.

Nick heaved a sigh that fogged the air white. "Thank God her dog didn't like you or we'd never have gotten out. Do all dogs hate you or just chapoodle…things? What was that anyway?"

"Annoying is what it was. It takes most dogs a while to warm up to a blutbad. Cats generally just avoid us. Or, you know, mock us from a distance."

"So no family pets when you were a kid."

"I had a bird once. African Gray Parrot. Very smart."

Nick had his hands back in his pockets, huddled into his coat against the cold, fiddling with the pill bottle. Monroe could hear the rattle of capsules over the crunch, crunch of their boots.

"What happened to it?"

"My brother ate it. He always did hate Bartholomew. Jealous, you know, because his hamster kept biting him."

The Grimm stopped, mouth open a little in surprise. "Seriously?"

Monroe didn't slow down, forcing the other man to jog a couple steps to catch up with him. He did roll his eyes. Again. It was almost too easy. "No. It died of old age. I think the thing was already a hundred years old when my dad brought it home."

"I can't believe you said that," Nick said, slapping him reprovingly on the arm as he moved past and up the stairs of the next house. "That's terrible. And who names their parrot Bartholomew?"

No one was home and the next was empty as well. Nick marked them down in a little notebook and they turned the corner and started up the next block. He shoved his hands back in his pocket, rattling the pill bottle again. "You're staring."

"No I'm not." He totally was.

"Yes, you are."

Monroe burst out, "It's just weird. You're the first Grimm I've ever met."

"Yeah, you said that."

"It's just…."

"Weird," Nick supplied.

"Kinda disappointing actually."

"Disappointing," Nick repeated dryly.

He'd expected someone bigger. Meaner. Hairier. Dressed in the skin of their kills and assorted pointy weapons. "It's a bit like meeting Superman and finding out he's really Clark Kent."

"Uh, he really is Clark Kent."

"Not even the point, man."

Nick looked at him with improbably adorably confusion. "There was a point?"

Monroe's pretty sure he's faking it. "Shut up."

And damned if the Grimm isn't laughing at him again.

Three houses later they got lucky.

"Oh my, that was a long time ago."

"I understand, Mrs. Norman," Nick said and Monroe figured he must have practiced that look and that voice to get that perfect note of concern and sympathy and understanding. "Anything you can remember would be helpful."

"I think," Mrs. Norman said going for the calendar hanging on the wall next to the kitchen table, "yes, that was a Tuesday. Yes, yes, my mail was late that day. I only remember because I was expecting a letter from my son. His second daughter had been born two days before and he was mailing pictures to me. No computer, you see, so we do it the old fashioned way."

"Oh," Monroe said, "I know what you mean. There's nothing like holding the pictures in your hands."

Nick shot him a what the hell look and Monroe gave him a what look back. He was just making conversation, warming up the witness, playing the good cop.

"Isn't that the truth. Young people. If they can't email it they don't bother."

"Kids these days," he tisked.

"Back to the mail," Nick interjected a little desperately.

"Sorry," Mrs. Norman giggled. Which was a little disturbing in an eighty year old. Giving Monroe's hand a pat she resumed her seat at the table. "Now that I think about it, I'm fairly certain my mail was late that day. Only about an hour but they're usually right on time. Poor dear had a flat tire that day."

"You spoke to him?" Nick exchanged significant looks with Monroe.

Monroe had no idea what the look meant but it was…really significant. He supposed Nick's cop partner would have known what it meant.

"Only in passing. I was heading out to run my errands and he handed me my mail instead of putting it in the box." She patted Monroe's hand again. "Such a polite young man." Her face went pensive. "Kind of creepy though. Wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him."

Nick, in the middle of taking a drink of Mrs. Norman's surprisingly good coffee, choked.

"Oh dear, too hot?"

"No, no, it's fine," Nick said hoarsely. He set the coffee cup down and wiped his mouth smothering one last cough. "Coffee seems to be out to get me today," he muttered. "Is there anything else you can tell us, ma'am?"

"No, I think that's all. I have the pictures here somewhere, would you like to see?"

"Yes, that would be nice," Monroe said just as Nick said, "No, we really have to get going." Nick glared at him and added, "More interviews to finish today."

"What was that?" he demanded as they left the house.

"What? I was sympathizing with the witness, getting her to talk. Catch more flies with honey and all that."

Nick looked a little white around the eyes. "Never let them show you pictures of their children, grandchildren, or pets."

"It was just a couple—"

"No! It starts out with a couple pictures. Then it's videos and cute little You Tube clips and before you know it they've got the slide projector out."

"Wow," Monroe said. "You have a real phobia going on here."

Nick shuddered. "You have no idea."

Monroe was about to propose they call it a day because it was already past lunch time when Nick stopped and pointed up the block.

"There's the school. Robin would have come right past here on her way to her Grandfather's house. Hank thought she probably cut through the park rather than go all the way around."

Yeah, he could see that. As the crow might fly, they were almost directly across from his house where the mailman would have parked that day.

"So our mailman walks this route twice a week," Nick said. "He's probably seen Robin before, maybe even stalked her before, so he knows she likes to take a shortcut through the park. He follows her, grabs her near where we found the backpack, hides her in the mail truck while he finishes his route, then transfers her to his own vehicle and takes her….where?" He rubbed his eyes wearily. "Fuck, I don't even know anymore."

"Home," Monroe said. "If he had this planned, if he's done this before, he'd take her back to his den. Keep her for a while, fatten her up."

Nick grabbed his arm, pulling him half a step sideways and around so they were face to face. "Do you think she might still be alive?"

God, he hated to crush that hopeful look. "Unlikely. A week or two, maaaybe. If the other kidnapped girl was his work, that means he had the space."

The man looked so…heartbroken, resigned, hand slipping off Monroe's arm.

"I mean—I could be wrong," he tried, but even he wasn't buying it.

"Probably not." Nick started walking again. "I keep hoping, you know, but realistically…." He trailed off with a forlorn little shrug.

Monroe didn't know. He'd never been on this side of it, never thought about what it was like to be the one wondering what had happened, where they had gone, had they suffered. He didn't say that out loud.

The Grimm headed into the park. The cold, empty, silent park. There were a few footprints but for the most part the snow was pristine. Monroe wondered if people were avoiding the place because of the weather or if word had gotten out it there was something hunting here. Nick seemed to have an idea where he was going, choosing each path without hesitation.

"This," he said after a few minutes, "is where Sylvie Olster died," and looked at Monroe as if this should mean something.

Monroe looked around but there was nothing to see. "And?"

"I don't know. Was kinda hoping you could smell him or something?" He looked embarrassed, like a fifteen year old caught out believing in the tooth fairy.

Oh, he wanted confirmation, proof, even if it wasn't something that could ever end up in court. "Of course I can smell him. It's fainter here. He hasn't been here for a while. But before that…." He poked around, sniffed a bit. "The scent is overlaid, like he's been here more than once, not recently but sooner than two months. He came back here afterwards. Several times."

Nick's face went tight, jaw clenched. He took a couple steps away, resting a hand against the nearest tree when he slid a little in the snow.

Monroe gave him a minute before he prodded the Grimm back onto the trail. He could smell the storm coming off the mountains. They had a couple hours before it hit, but the air it was pushing was cold and he was hungry.

They walked in silence for a couple minutes, concentrating on making their way through the deeper, crusted snow. "Fainter than where?"

"Uh, the street where we were just walking." Duh.

Nick gave him an amused grin. "You really aren't good with people, are you?"

Monroe glared at him. "I'm blutbaden. We're not supposed to be good with people."

Nick snorted. "If you say so." And continued on with the tour of crime scenes of the greater Portland area.

"You're taking this pretty well," Monroe commented after they had stopped by where Terrie Clark was found. It was pretty much the same as the other crime scenes, snow-covered and clean, strips of crime scene tape here and there, except this one was recent enough he could still very faintly smell the blood. "The Grimm thing. I expected more weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."

Dark eyebrows climbed. "Gnashing of teeth?"

"It happens," Monroe defended.

There was silence for half a dozen steps. "I spent the first month going to every doctor I could find. Specialists, homeopathic, whatever. I thought maybe I had a brain tumor or schizophrenia or God knows what. They did MRI's, CT's, tested for poison, drugs, chemical exposure, Parkinson's, and a dozen things I can't even remember. Found out I need more Vitamin D so, you know, that was useful."

"I could have told you that for free," Monroe said helpfully. "You should try Cabo. Get a tan."

Nick gave him a cockeyed looked and said, deadpan, "I burn."

"Might want to stay away from the nude beaches then," Monroe snarked back and had to grin when the other man just cracked up.

"So," Nick said, wiping at his eyes, "the doctors found nothing. There were a lot of big words and sympathetic explanations but basically there was no medical reason for me going nuts and seeing monsters." He laughed a little, trying to make a joke of it, but the sound was flat and strained.

"I went to a psychiatrist. He said it was stress, depression, lack of sleep. Take your pick. All I had to do was convince myself that it wasn't real and it would go away." He turned the bottle of pills over in his pocket again. "I think I'm just so relieved that someone else can see what I'm seeing that….well, I don't think the whole generational destiny of blood and death has really sunk in yet."

"Er," Monroe said awkwardly, "sorry about the whole crazy comment earlier. I didn't realize—"

"That I thought I was too?" Nick shrugged and scuffed the snow a little harder. "Not like you knew."

"Do the meds help?"

He huffed a strained laugh. "They let me sleep."

"Not very well, obviously."

Nick ran a hand through his hair and wearily agreed, "Yeah."

And damned if there's not a part of him that wants to take the Grimm—the Grimm—home and put him on the couch, tuck his softest blanket around him and feed him hot chocolate. Hey, the guy hadn't shot him yet, he was grateful. Either that or his mom was right and his biological clock was tick, tick, ticking away with the need to nurture…something besides an herb garden. Yeah, going to have to stick to grateful on that one, if only for the sake of his sanity. Maybe he should get a fish.

"Are we done?" he asked finally because Nick showed no sign of movement.

"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's nothing more we can do out here."

All that walking had gotten them within a few minutes of his house. "You could stick around if you want," he said as they crossed the street. "I was going to make sandwiches for lunch."

Nick grinned. "Tofurky?"

TBC

Notes: Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed. I doubly appreciate everyone who comments anonymously since fanfiction makes it a little more difficult than other sites, but since you don't have an account I can't reply to you directly. Accounts are super easy and you can totally lie like a dog about all your info except your email but no one can see that anyway and then I can reply to your lovely comments.

I've heard from a lot of people are glad that this story does not contain slash and a lot of people who are sad for the same reason. I've deliberately tried not to go too far either het or slash with this story but I encourage everyone to choose your own adventure, and by adventure I mean kink.

My Nick and Juliette are in a stable, committed relationship and I don't see that changing. That said, for those of you who want some Nick/Monroe action. Monroe is a wolf and a wolf in a pack (you know who his pack is going to be) is very touchy/feely and also sniffy, lickey, bitey, and cuddly (and spell check says some of those are not words…but who cares!). Without giving too many spoilers Monroe is going to get a little protective of his Grimm and there will be sniffing and licking and worrying. Also, by the time the story ends Monroe and Nick will have only known each other for, like, three days total. I just don't see Monroe being that smooth.

Keep up the reviews, I love hearing from everyone. You guys have been great.