To clear up any confusion
1. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference was made because of Monroe's comments in Episode 1 of the show, when he asked if someone in Nick's family had just died, which implies that the Grimm 'Gift' is passed on with the death (or injury/sickness that will result in death). to the next person in the family line who is able to do the job. This does not mean that there is only one Grimm in exsistance, as canon does state there are different Grimm lines. But, I am taking the view that as the Grimm are the bogeymen of the Wesen world, and while Wesen know something about them, but not everything, it would be an easy assumption for the Grimm to take on such mythical proportions as "There is only One!". Which is the view Monroe in my story has been exposed to, hence the reference he made in the last chapter.
2. The History of the Blutbaden Monroe expresses in this chapter is completely made up, as are his views on the other Wesen. Again, these are things that he has been told by his family, which are the only reality he knows up to this point. These views and his fathers personality are based on how I saw his fathers character in the episode he was on in Season 3.
3. Please continue to enjoy this story, and thanks all those who have reviewed, you've all made me very happy!
Chapter 7
Nick flicked through the book on Blutbaden, his eyes shifting to where Monroe was curled back up on the couch. He didn't know what he'd been hoping to find, but he had a sinking feeling that if he'd read these books before he'd caught the case on the college students murder, or if Aunt Marie had told him about any of this earlier, he didn't think he would have been so inclined to have just arrested that mailman.
The book detailed in graphic phrase, exactly what a Blutbad was, from the translation of the name (Bloodbath), through all of the terrible things they were supposed to have done. More than once there was a reference to an attack made on one of his ancestors, brutal and bloody, the most recent being his grandfather, who had died of his wounds after dispatching a Blutbad.
He couldn't help but wonder how much of the book was true.
He could trace the history of hatred through the book, and it made him ill to think that if he'd seen this earlier, if he'd known before now, would he have been so willing to take a Blutbad into his home, to leave him alone with Juliette. Would he have done what Aunt Marie had told him to? Would he have killed a little boy just to stop him from turning into the monster detailed in this book?
He didn't want to think he was capable of it, but he couldn't say for certain if that was true, and that worried him. It would be so easy to blame everything bad on something else, on some Wesen. To look at a murder and think to himself "A Wesen did this", to assume guilt where there was none. Was that what his ancestors had done? Had they witnessed one Blutbad do something terrible and not bothered to look past that individual? Had they just assumed that all Blutbad were killers?
Had there been instances where they had witnessed something, but instead of finding out why it was happening, had just killed the Wesen responsible? In fairy tales there was never a reason for why the bad guy did what he did. But was that just because no one had bothered to find out.
He found himself flicking back to a page where a Blutbad had been killed for a series of animal mutilations, a young Blutbad, which meant he had probably not been much older than Monroe, no indication of a pack. One of his ancestors had killed him, citing that it had been lucky they'd gotten him before he'd moved onto humans. His eyes were drawn to the rough sketch, and caught the hints of snow in the picture.
Had his ancestor ever stopped to wonder if maybe the Blutbad was hungry and not able to get food any other way? Had the thought that there was something more going on ever crossed his mind?
Nick might be wrong of course; there was every possibility that the Blutbad was a terrible as was written and only a step away from killing humans. But the doubt was there, and Nick couldn't shake it. He didn't want to shake it, because he didn't want to look at Monroe or any other Wesen and just presume guilt. He couldn't let himself.
"Hungry?" he asked Monroe, deliberately closing the book and setting it aside.
Monroe looked up from the book he'd been given in the in the fourth shop they went to looking for the "perfect ticking clock", which turned out to be a rather small little mantelpiece clock, which was sitting, pride of place on the bedside table in Monroe's room. They'd gotten a discount on the clock when the store owner had recognised Monroe from the numerous times he had come in with his grandmother.
They'd steered carefully around the topic of the fire and the death of Monroe's family, and the man had unearthed an old heavy book on clocks, which included the care, cleaning and mending of them, and added it in for free, with the smile of a man who would miss the conversation of a woman he clearly knew very well.
"Yes please." Monroe answered.
Nick gave himself a shake; he'd need to stop drifting off into his own thoughts so much. He was due back at work first thing in the morning to start looking into the case files on Monroe's family, never mind all the other cases he and Hank had on their desks. "Anything in particular you want?"
Monroe shook his head, so Nick scrounged together enough for ham sandwiches. He sent Juliette a text to pick up some more groceries. She had gone into work to let them know she needed some more days off, just until they'd either managed to get in touch with someone else from Monroe's family, or something more permanent could be arranged. They hadn't talked about it, but Nick had the feeling that Juliette maybe wanted that permanent to be with them. Which was insane, because they'd never talked about kids.
The ring he'd gotten her was still in his sock drawer, waiting for the perfect time to ask her. He'd had the whole thing mapped out before Aunt Marie had arrived, but in a way it felt almost right that things had happened the way they had. Already Monroe had become a part of his life in a way he just couldn't explain. He wondered if that was supposed to happen, is that how things with children worked? Did you just get attached? And once you were, was there any way to get unattached?
If not, it was going to make things difficult. Especially if he and Hank found someone from Monroe's family willing to take him in.
Suddenly a thought struck him, and he quickly fished two bags of chips from the cupboard to go with the sandwiches, collected the plates and went back into the living room. "Monroe." He said voice serious.
Monroe looked at him, suddenly nervous looking, and Nick did his best to not look intimidating, handed him his food and retook his seat on the chair.
"Monroe, I need to ask you some questions about the fire." Nick said gently. "Is that ok?"
Monroe poked at his sandwich. "I guess." He said.
"You said you smelled someone different?" Monroe nodded. "And you said it might have been a Wesen?" Monroe nodded again. "Do you know what sort of Wesen? Can you describe it? Have you ever smelt anything like it before?"
Monroe's face scrunched up in thought, then he shook his head. "No. I don't think I ever met a Wesen with that smell before." He said. "I haven't met very many, dad always said Blutbad shouldn't mix with other Wesen."
"Why?" Nick couldn't help but ask, curious, and maybe he might still get the answers he was looking for.
"Because Blutbad get blamed for everything!" Monroe told him. He looked at Nick then, and set his plate aside so he could lean forward, and Nick had a sudden vision of him as an adult, a teacher or something, ready to impart some all-important knowledge. "A long time ago, back in Germany, maybe hundreds of years ago, when the Grimm's first appeared, there were a lot of Blutbaden, hundreds of them, more than all the other Wesen combined. Blutbad means Bloodbath, did you know that?"
Nick nodded, not willing to interrupt Monroe's history lesson.
Monroe nodded in return. "They got called that because they were the most fierce of all fighters and the kings and queens they fought for always sent them into the hardest battles. Blutbaden were the best, and they never lost, every battlefield they left was a Bloodbath. Not all Blutbaden were like that, lot's weren't, but when some of the Blutbaden who came back from the wars they started doing bad things. Tthings that made the Grimm come.
"But it wasn't always a Blutbad who did bad things though, sometimes it was another Wesen, but everyone knew about Blutbaden, everyone knew that if you went into a Blutbaden's territory without proper warning you'd get attacked." Monroe told him seriously, and Nick made a note of that in the back of his mind. "So when the Grimm came looking for the Wesen who did something bad, other Wesen would blame the Blutbaden who lived close by, because they knew the Grimm wouldn't know the right way to enter the territory, so the Grimm would get attacked.
"So sometimes the Grimm would be killed, and the other Wesen didn't need to worry about being found out. And sometimes the Grimm killed the Blutbad, and the other Wesen was still safe, because the Grimm always took being attacked as proof the Blutbad was guilty." Monroe was still looking at him very seriously, like he was willing Nick to understand something. "Dad always said it was better to stay away from other Wesen as much as possible, because if the other Wesen didn't know about us, then they couldn't blame us if something bad happened, and the Grimm would have no excuse to come for us. He said that was what happened to Great-grandfather."
"Oh." Nick said faintly, eyes drifting to the book beside him, and all the words within going back hundreds of years, filled most likely with cases just like this.
"Granny said things were different now though. That other Wesen couldn't go blaming us like they used to, and that we couldn't go blaming other Wesen if something happened to us." Monroe shrugged, and picked the plate back up and started eating at last.
"Are there more Blutbaden in Portland?" Nick asked.
Monroe gave him a suspicious look, before apparently remembering that Nick was not a 'proper Grimm', and then he nodded. "Some." He said.
"Why didn't you go to them? After the fire. Why did you stay by yourself instead of finding someone who could help you?" Nick pressed.
Monroe looked momentarily stunned; as if this was the first time he had actually considered the possibility. "I…" Monroe's face suddenly closed off, upset creeping into his expression. "I… I didn't…"
Nick set his own plate aside and moved over beside Monroe, there was moment of awkward fumbling before he managed to tug him into his side in a half hug. "I'm not saying…" he began, only to stop when he realised he didn't know how to finish. "It's just; we need to know if you have any family. And you were by yourself Monroe, for three weeks. We need to know why."
Monroe fumbled with his plate. "I just… I was scared. I went outside after Dad told me not to, and then the fire came. And I thought I… I thought it was because I… And I didn't want…"
Nick just pulled him in closer when the crying started; thinking back over everything Monroe had told him. Bart Lasseur seemed like a paranoid man, and he had clearly done his best to instil the same in his children. Nick could understand, in part, what with everything he'd been told, if he had truly believed the threats he told his son about to be real and waiting. Some of that had stuck with Monroe, despite the clearly more level headed influence of his grandmother, and he'd done exactly what his father had expected him to do.
Hide and keep himself safe in the only way he knew how.
"Do you have any family in Portland, or anywhere else?" Nick asked gently when the crying faded out.
Monroe was quiet for a long while and Nick was almost sure he wouldn't be getting an answer. "Uncle Rolf. Maybe Aunt Angelina? But I don't know if they live here. Uncle Hap lives somewhere close. He used to come and visit sometimes. Mum always said she wouldn't trust him to look after us though, because he could hardly take care of himself."
Nick nodded. "Ok." He said. "Want to watch some TV?"
Monroe nodded, but made no move to get the remote himself, instead he stayed pressed against Nick's side, so Nick snagged the remote and found something bright and cheery, turning the volume right down when Monroe flinched a little at the noise.
xoxox
When Monroe gave into exhaustion not long after Nick dug his phone out of his pocket and called Hank. "Hey, I need you to look up some people." He said.
"Yeah?" Hank asked, and Nick could hear him shifting for paper on his desk.
"Rolf, Hap and Angelina Lasseur. Monroe says they're his uncles and aunt. Maybe you can find them." Nick told him.
Hank was quiet for a long minute. "Are they…?"
"Blutbad? Yeah, I think so." Nick replied.
"Huh." He heard Hank's chair creak. "Thing's going ok with the kid? The Captain said he was going to arrange an emergency placement with you. I told him it was maybe better than putting him with someone else. I told him that it was in case whoever did it heard there was a witness, but… well, you know…"
"Yeah." Nick said. "I know." And he did, because it was the same reason he'd not wanted to take Monroe to the hospital at first. He would need to have another proper talk with Hank, because he really didn't want him to start looking at Monroe's family like they were monsters. That wouldn't go down well.
"You back in tomorrow?" Hank asked him.
"Yeah. We can go tracing down leads then." There was another moment of silence before they said their goodbyes.
Nick wondered, after he'd put the phone aside, and found himself absently stroking Monroe's hair, if these Uncles and Aunt would be as paranoid as Monroe's father had been. He didn't hold out much hope though, he just hoped they wouldn't decide to eliminate the potential Grimm threat on first meeting.
Was it bad, he asked Juliette later that night, that he sort of hoped they didn't want Monroe?
She laughed at him. "That depends on why you want that to happen."
He dreamed that night of a snowy field, and Monroe being hunted for something he hadn't done. And when he woke, unease had settled hard into his stomach and he couldn't shake it.
