A/N: This is an addendum to Chapter 117 of my third story in the Sweaters Series: If You Want to Destroy My Sweater.

For it to make sense, don't read this until after you've read Chapter 117! There are a few small spoilers, so if you want to remain completely spoil-free, don't read this until after you finish the book! (It's only 3 more chapters.)

This is a third-person narrative, from Monroe's POV.

After the Zaubertrank was Dispelled: Monroe's Story
(Addendum to Chapter 117 of If You want to Destroy My Sweater)

Monroe pulled out the wooden chair beside the weapon's cabinet. He sat across from Nick at the desk, giving a sideways glance to the trailer bed in disdain. His eyes fixated on the spot where he'd caught Nick and Renée together, the scene replayed in his mind and the anger resurfaced.

"Man, are you okay?" He turned his head toward Nick, who quirked an eyebrow as he locked eyes with the weary Blutbad. Monroe stared back with a fierce, red glare. "So you said you wanted to... talk?" Nick crossed his arms defensively.

The last time Monroe had slept was the nap he'd taken at Rosalee's Spice Shop while they searched for an antidote for Hank. After hanging up with Renée last night, he'd called Reynaldo for a one-on-one, which wasn't as much help as he'd hoped. His friend was confused with the situation, since Monroe couldn't really tell him everything without giving away what Renée was, but he had to hand it to Reynaldo for trying. The dude had listened to Monroe until the sun came up, and with a heavy head, he'd gone home, still pent up with a ton of things on his mind.

Monroe had cleaned some of the house, worked on a few clocks, and when that didn't help, he'd gone out, ending up at his favorite book store. He'd taken Renée there back in February, and the memories of that day rushed through him as he stormed out. He needed to find someplace he could be free of her for a while.

The rest of the day was spent at a farmer's market far across town and then at an antique store where he'd befriended the owner, talking shop. Monroe did some free maintenance on a few clocks the guy had in the store and offered him a fair price on any work he might need in the future. Work kept him busy, and when he was busy he didn't think of her… It hurt too much to think of her right now.

That night, after sitting at a bar for a couple of hours, kicking back quite a few too many glasses of whisky while the music drove him mad, Monroe decided he needed to get it over with and confront the Grimm.

"Yeah, I got some things to say," Monroe replied after a moment. The wolf didn't want to talk. The wolf wanted to finish the fight they'd started in the trailer the other night. But Monroe reminded himself that wouldn't solve anything. Killing Nick didn't make it go away, nor did it really fix anything either. Talking was what fixed things, and with Nick he could talk freely.

"All right, Monroe," Nick said when Monroe hadn't followed that with anything. "I'm listening."

Monroe's eyes settled back to brown. "Okay, dude." He placed both hands on his knees. "I know this isn't your fault, I get that, but..."

"Look, I know," Nick cut in as Monroe stifled a groan. So much for listening. "This whole thing was crazy. If I'd known it was a Zaubertrank I would've tried to have done something sooner. But I didn't know, and I'm sure Renée didn't know or she would've done something, too."

Monroe growled a bit at Nick's mention of her name. He couldn't help it. His instincts were still on fire, wanting to take revenge on this dude for doing anything with his mate. He cleared his throat instead. "I get that you guys didn't know. But, man, going behind my back… That was low even for someone who was Zaubertranked."

"You don't understand what it does to you, Monroe," Nick countered. "I couldn't control it. So, yeah, we went behind your back and Juliette's, too, but most of the time we were debating why we felt the way we did. Renée felt guilty through a majority of it, and I know it was upsetting her. It took a lot to lie to my girlfriend each time, too. Neither one of us wanted to hurt anyone."

"She can't come back here," Monroe said flatly as he folded his arms over his chest.

"Now come on, Monroe." Nick shook his head. "You can't decide something like that."

"Sure I can." He growled as he stood. "I can't handle her and you, like, being in here… together." He shook himself as his red eyes landed on the trailer bed once more.

"The only reason this happened was because of Adalind. I don't see Renée as anything but a friend. I promise this kinda thing won't be happening again." He gestured his hand across the desk. Monroe tried not to imagine him and Renée there, too. "Have you talked to her since the antidote?" Nick asked.

"She called me when she got home last night." Monroe shook his head. "But we didn't really talk much."

"Why not?"

"Dude, I dunno. I mean, I just couldn't…" He stumbled on his words. "I love her, you know that. But between this thing and, you know, her running off to go defend you... Man, that one, like, really hit me right here." He held a fist to his chest as he paced a bit. Maybe he should've brought over some beer for a talk like this. "I mean, the other stuff, you know, once she knew it was a Zaubertrank, I could tell she was, you know, like, trying to fend off the mojo. But then she tells me she's going to the bathroom at Hank's, and the next thing I know she's calling Rosalee and asking her to keep me calm so she can go all Grimm. Dude. Rosalee. I mean, she didn't even have the decency to call me herself. That had nothing to do with a Zaubertrank, man. And then to top it off," he laughed sarcastically as he motioned toward Nick, "you two are doing God knows what out in the woods for your victory party of de-hexing the Hexenbiest." He growled again.

"We stopped ourselves before anything big happened," Nick reminded him. "If you want to blame someone, blame Adalind. What Renée did has nothing to do with how she feels about you." He ran a hand through his bangs. "So, just go tell her how you feel and everything will be fine."

"Well, maybe I don't know how I feel anymore." That wasn't true. He knew how he felt; hurt, betrayed, and definitely angry. Angry that he loved her, despite everything. Angry that after all they'd gone through, she still didn't trust him. Angry that his emotions were all over the place. And now he was angry at himself for coming back to the trailer. Maybe he wasn't ready to share his feelings like he thought he was.

"She needs you," Nick said, snapping him from his thoughts.

"She needs something, all right," Monroe scoffed out. "She's gonna get herself injured, or killed, or something, and, man, if I can't stop her from running off to save your ass, then how am I gonna stop her when the next thing comes for her? I mean, her dad was warning her about the Verrat in that letter, man. They don't mess around. Reapers were bad enough." He sighed as he slumped back into the chair, holding his head. He should've had more whisky.

"With the things she's shared with me, she's not gonna hide out." Nick shrugged. "Don't you think it's better to be there for her?"

"I just need to take some time and get my head on straight." Monroe dug at his hair as he stood again. "Man, this whole thing has had me wound tighter than a three day clock, which, by the way, is pretty tight."

"What about us?" Nick asked, mimicking Monroe and standing. "So, are we good?"

Monroe shrugged awkwardly. "Yeah, man, we're good." The wolf objected to the statement, but he had to control the urge to rip him to shreds. Like it or not, the Grimm was right. The Hexenbiest caused this. It was her he really wanted to rip to shreds.

Nick breathed out in relief. "If you can forgive me, then you can forgive her."

"It's not that easy. It's just…"

Monroe's cell rang, halting the rest of his sentence. He pulled the phone from his pocket and sighed. Renée was calling him. It was like she knew. He silenced the ringer and shoved the phone back in his pocket.

Nick crossed his arms. "That was Renée, wasn't it?"

Monroe nodded slowly. "I can't talk to her like this."

Nick's phone buzzed on the desk as he turned. "Well, I'd bet that's her, too." He picked up the phone, looking at the display with a nod. "I'm answering it."

Monroe's pressed his lips. "Well, maybe that's not a…" A heat of rage ran through his bloodstream as Nick answered the phone before he could finish his sentence. Why was she calling him anyway?

"Uh, hi," said Nick as he sat on the edge of the trailer bed. Monroe listened to Renée on the other end. Just her voice alone brought on palpations in his chest. She was at his house, and she was worried about him. "He's fine," Nick continued, looking up at Monroe. "He's with me… Yeah, we're just talking things out."

Monroe listened again. She wanted to come to the trailer. Monroe waved his hands adamantly in Nick's direction, mouthing, "No."

Nick sighed. "Now's not a good time, but you don't have to worry." Nick kept watch of Monroe and added, "He's fine, and we're good."

As Monroe listened, he paced while Renée asked to talk to him. There was desperation in her voice. He almost took the phone from Nick, but held back.

"Renée, it's just not a good time right now," Nick replied a bit more adamantly. "Just trust me on this one."

Monroe's heart pounded. Maybe he should just talk to her. But no, the anger and the resentment were still there. He'd just say something he'd regret.

"Fine, okay," Renée told Nick. "As long as he's safe then that's fine." Monroe knew that she was nowhere near fine.

"Like I said, he's fine and… Hello?" Nick looked at the phone. "Okay. Well, apparently she hung up." He looked at Monroe fully as he shoved his phone in his pocket. "So, what are you gonna do?"

"Pilates, Bikram, and helluva lot of thinking," Monroe replied steadfastly as he plopped back down in the chair.

"She's at your house," said Nick. "She wants to talk to you."

Monroe nodded. He'd heard every word. "You remember when you asked me if I still loved Angelina?"

"Yeah," Nick replied hesitantly.

"Well, there was a time I thought I was, you know, falling in love with her… You know, until the lies she told me outweighed the truths. When I caught her in a big one, I told her I was done. She wanted to talk, too. Wanted to tell me how sorry she was…" His hand gripped the back of his neck. "I can't relive another house of lies, man."

"No offense, but I really wouldn't compare the two of them."

"Lies are lies, Nick." He gestured his hands out wide. "It doesn't matter who's telling them, dude."

Nick stood and walked toward his desk. "When I go home to Juliette each night, she asks me to share my day with her. Most of the time it's a lot of lies with the truth mixed in." He leaned against the edge of the desk. "I lie to my boss, my partner, and the rest of the force. I lie on my reports. I've been doing this thing less than a year, and lying has become a big part of it. Now, I can't speak for Renée, but she's had to lie about who she is all her life. You said she even lies to her best friend, right? To protect her? Maybe she's just trying to protect you, too."

"Protect herself is more like it." Monroe scoffed loudly, but then softened his tone. "Or maybe she's just too reckless for her own good."

"Maybe it's both?" He smirked. "Either way she loves you, and that has to mean something." Nick bit at his lip. "She told me she loves you, Monroe."

Monroe swallowed hard. "She told you that, huh?"

He nodded swiftly. "She asked me not to say anything, but maybe that secret needs to be out. No matter how much a woman hurts you, a love that deep doesn't just go away." Nick looked down a moment, sighing.

"Man, you know what we talked about," said Monroe. "Just 'cause Juliette doesn't want to marry you right now doesn't mean…"

"Yeah, I know," Nick cut in, "but I know how she feels… keeping things hidden from someone you love. And it's all this that's preventing the love of my life from marrying me." He motioned toward his journals. "It's not something I want to do, but it's who I am, and I feel the need to protect her from it, even if that means we have secrets."

"Man, but Renée knows that I'm in-the-know. We don't need to have secrets. It's like… Well, it's like us." He gestured toward Nick. "We tell each other everyth-" Monroe paused, reaching for his chin. "Okay, well, I didn't know about the key. Are you gonna tell me what that's all about, by the way?"

"Maybe some other time, Monroe. But, you're right. I can't tell you everything, either. So, just because you know about all this doesn't mean Renée isn't still trying to protect you, too."

Monroe let out a huff. "She knows that I'm gonna stop her is why she does it."

"Then you gotta show her that you're there to help her… since we both know she doesn't plan on stopping." He grinned. "If you want her to trust you, you gotta trust her, too."

"So, when Juliette knows, are you gonna stop her when she wants to get involved, or, you know, when she thinks it's too risky and tells you to stay home?"

Nick sat back down behind the desk. "Yeah, well, how about we cross that bridge when we get to it."

"Sure, it's easy to tell me what to do, but when the shoe is on the other foot…" Monroe let out a sardonic chuckle as he trailed off. "You know, sooner or later you're gonna have to open that can of worms, and frankly I don't think it's gonna be anything like what you think it's gonna be when ya do."

"Let's save your relationship first, and we'll worry about mine later." Nick pointed at him. "You like Shakespeare, right?"

"Yeah." Monroe narrowed his brows. The last Shakespeare conversation they'd had didn't go so well. "Why?"

"Well, one the downfalls of the Zaubertrank was that I started reading Shakespeare because Renée liked it." Nick rolled his eyes.

Monroe shook his head, ignoring the obvious mention of that damn Zaubertrank again. "And…?" Did Nick think that learning something was a downfall? He bit his tongue before he said anything rude.

"So, while I was reading," Nick went on, "I ran across a sonnet of his that might help you. It talks about loving someone no matter what the odds. Well, after I used Google to translate it, that's what it told me," he added sheepishly. "I think it's… one-sixteen." He tapped his temple. "Yeah. That's the one. Look it up." He flashed Monroe a wide smile. "I'll give you some book facts for once."

Monroe laughed in spite of himself. "What? The grasshopper is teaching the master, huh?"

"Yeah, right. You're the master." Nick gave him a dismissive gesture as he stood. "It's late, and I need to get home. I promised Juliette I'd only be working for an hour, and I'm already past that."

"Working?" Monroe smirked.

"More lies. What can I say?"

"Yeah, I should probably get home, too." Monroe yawned as he lifted himself from the chair. "Got an early morning ahead of me."

Nick walked toward him. "So, you and I…?"

"Yeah, yeah. We're good. So, did Hank or your sergeant say anything else about what happened yesterday? Or can you not share that either?"

"Sergeant Wu isn't sure what happened," Nick replied, overlooking Monroe's snide comment. "He vaguely remembers me and everyone else in his apartment, but then he thinks he hallucinated a lot of it." Nick grinned. "Hank thinks he was roofied. Wouldn't tell me much else except that he and Adalind are over, and he can't reach her."

"Well, good. Maybe she left town?"

Nick shook his head. "I don't know. But…" He looked up at Monroe. "It doesn't matter." He reached for Monroe's shoulder, nudging him toward the exit. "We'll talk more about it later."

"Yeah, man." Monroe opened the trailer door. "I'm sure we will." He paused then added, "If Renée stops by, don't mention what we talked about, okay?"

Nick gave him a knowing grin. "I won't say a word about it."

Monroe hovered at the door. "She can still come over… I mean… just to work on the books, though."

"That's all I'd want to do if she came here," Nick replied. "Believe me."

"Just don't, like, sit on the trailer bed." He grimaced as his eyes flared red. "Not together."

"Got it. No bed. Good night, Monroe."

"Night." Monroe stiffly nodded and headed to his VW as Nick shut the trailer door.

(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)

As his VW slowly crept onto Hamilton Street, Monroe rolled down the windows and listened. He took a few whiffs when he didn't hear anything. Renée wasn't around. As he drove closer, he didn't see her car anywhere. She must have gone home. While part of him was relieved, the other part wanted his mate there with him tonight. He sighed as he pulled into his driveway and made his way inside.

He still had some cleaning to do. After finding Renée and Nick together, he'd torn the place apart in a fit of rage. The house had looked worse than when Nick and his fellow cops had turned the place over in search of the kidnapped little girl. He glanced down at one of his destroyed cuckoos he'd swept off to the side last night. Damn, that one was irreplaceable. He picked up the pieces and sat them on his workroom table. Maybe he could rebuild it, or he could use it for parts.

It took an hour, but he'd managed to finish putting his home back in order. There were a couple of lamps he'd thrown out, but he could purchase new ones tomorrow. A vase that had belonged to his nana was shattered to pieces, which he felt bad about. His mom would chew him out if she ever found out about it.

"Nana, you gotta forgive me." He looked up at the sky as he held the remnants in a garbage bag. "You had a bad temper too, you know? So, just know it wasn't on purpose, I swear."

Surprisingly, the rest of the house had come out unscathed. He put away a few more books that had made it under the couch. Ironically, one of them was his Shakespeare's book of sonnets.

Monroe chuckled as he held the black book in his hands. With a shrug he flipped the pages until he landed on sonnet one-sixteen.

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

"Well, whad'ya know." Monroe chuckled softly. "Nick actually gave me something useful after all."

He looked over the words again, trying not to smirk that this sonnet was meant for two people who were considering marriage. Maybe Nick hadn't caught on to that. Regardless, Shakespeare made a good point… that dude knew better than most. Monroe loved Renée more than anyone he'd ever been with. That love was ever-fixed like a lighthouse in a storm, or like the North Star up above. No matter what, the love he had for her was embedded in his heart, despite their obvious differences, or the Zaubertrank, or even that she'd lied to him. The lying still hurt, but he hadn't been all that truthful lately, either. They could talk it out, figure it out. Their ships would collide again, and maybe he'd get permission to come aboard and they'd sail as one… well, perhaps someday. Monroe smiled. He was just as poetic as Shakespeare. He shook his tired head. Nah, he just hadn't slept in two days and was slightly buzzed from the alcohol. Thankfully Renée wasn't here, listening to him go on like a blathering idiot.

He closed the book and slid it back on the shelf. Debating with his thoughts, he sat on the couch. He could go over to her house tonight. Maybe he should? No, it was still too soon. Before Monroe could do any colliding, he needed a few days to clear his head. When he saw Renée again, there couldn't be any lingering anger pumping through his veins. A hearty dose of his routine and some calming teas would cure what ailed him. It had to be done right.

Just thinking about the upcoming time apart ripped at him. Even his wolf wanted to howl in protest. But this cleanse would center him, and then he'd be able to say everything with clarity. He wanted to tell her so many things, but above all else, he still had to tell her he loved her. Those words needed to be the first things out of his mouth. But how? He'd tried picnics at night, art museums, and waterfalls. His romantic repertoire was tapped the hell out.

He glanced over at his cello as his face brightened. He still had an ace up his sleeve, but he'd have to practice… a lot. Another yawn escaped him, so he headed upstairs. Right now he needed a good night's sleep, and tonight he'd be able to do it peacefully.

A/N: Okay! A little Monroe/Nick dialogue from the aftermath of the Zaubertrank. A little less creepy Monroe inner thoughts, haha!

So, I think that's all the Monroe POV's I'm gonna do on this story. Hopefully this gives a better insight into Monroe's mind on a few things. So, he wasn't being mean when he avoided her for a few days. It was necessary.

As I write story #4, I'm getting stuck due the first-person POV. There's quite a bit of important things that are happening away from what Renée can see, so I'm tempted to alternate between first-person and third-person within the story. What do you guys think? I'm torn, since I wanna stay true to my first-person format, (since the last three stories have been that way) but I don't want to lose a big part of the action because our protagonist can't see what's going on to "tell" you. I'll leave it up to you, dear readers. If I sway from true first-person, will that feel weird?

Thanks for your input and thanks as always for reading! (:

Stay tuned for more Monroe and Renée in Story #4: Sweaters are Better to Love you With. (Coming out by the end of fall, *hopefully*!)