AN: Many of you have been waiting impatiently to get back to our favorite couple, so here we are again. Posting this before I road trip 11 hours for vacation. Feedback is always appreciated (and will make the roadtrip go faster if I have lots to read).

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"This is it?" Adalind asks, and she didn't mean to sound so skeptical.

"Home sweet home," Nick replies, holding the door open for Diana as she passes under his arm to follow behind her. Nick shuts the door and she hears the lock click in place.

"It's..."

"Functional," he supplies.

Well, that's one word for it, she thinks. The loft, the loft was functional. This...this is...

"How long do you think we'll be here?" she asks him, shifting the weight of Kelly and his car seat awkwardly on her forearm.

"This is it," Nick says, looking at her, brow furrowing. "What? You don't like it? It's not like we had a lot of options, Adalind."

She nods, trying to soothe the defensive ire she can sense brewing underneath his words. Though everything seemed to go okay, both her and Nick's nerves are shot after partaking in a risky drive back west to gather the things they'll need to make this new life work.

"I know," she says, she takes a few steps over to him, and slides a hand on his arm, trying to appease him and looks around the place again.

Another cabin in the woods, and this one makes the other one seem like a lover's palace. There's not even furniture, and she wonders where Nick had planned on them all sleeping, much less sitting and eating. It's bigger than the last place, though, actual rooms and a loft overhead. A huge fireplace on one end of the cabin, and a smaller one on the other, more like a coal stove, and she gets the feeling that they are the cabin's main source of heat. There's a kitchen, in the loosest sense of the word, but it's an actual space to prepare meals, with full(er)-sized appliances, but, as she noted before, no furniture or stools to eat them on.

Even the place where Diana was born in Austria was cozier than this, certainly had more creature comforts, and that was saying something, while giving birth.

"We'll need to get some things," she tells him and Nick frowns, but nods. He can't honestly expect them to sleep on the floor forever, but then again, maybe he does. She knows he's concerned about cash flow, and it's a valid one at this point: they're rapidly running out. Both the car and the documents needed to start their new lives cost more than either anticipated, and after paying a deposit and rent down on this place, finding a job now is imperative to their survival.

Nick offers a hand for Kelly and his car seat and she passes him to him, glad to have the heavy weight off her arm.

"Well, let's take a look around," Adalind says, smiling at her daughter. She and Diana begin a meandering tour about the place, opening doors, investigating closets, and she's absurdly pleased to see there are a couple. Not that they have anything to fill them, but, still.

"Two bedrooms, and the loft," Nick says, trailing behind. "I figured the kids could take the rooms and we could take the loft, or Diana could take one, and Kelly and us could take the other one."

We. Us.

The idea of sharing a room, a bed, with him again makes her warm, even if all it amounts to is sleeping beside each other again. These last few weeks on the run have been defined by sharply observed boundaries, especially with Diana with them, and she glances at her daughter worriedly, wondering what she thinks about the proposed sleeping arrangements.

She's also wrestling with the uncertainty she feels about having Kelly sleeping so far away from her.

Really, she's not sure about Diana, either, but Kelly's still so little, and she looks at the high narrow steps and imagines herself running down them, trying to answer one of his cries in the night.

"Maybe Kelly should still stay with us for a little bit," she says. "He might need me."

"I need you, too, Mommy," Diana pipes up and Adalind smiles, though it's strained. Diana seems to need Adalind most when it looks like Nick might be trying to get close to her.

"That's okay. You and the kids can take the loft and I can take one of the rooms, or vice versa," Nick says, without any inflection and Adalind tries to hide her disappointment.

More lines and division, and days spent sleeping apart.

"There's an actual bathroom," he says, and both she and Diana exchange excited looks and peer in at the door he indicated. "Shower works; apparently, the tub leaks though."

She frowns, all the images of a warm, relaxing bath dissipating.

"But there's hot water," Nick adds, and Adalind brightens considerably.

"Thank goodness," she says. "Just the one bathroom?" she asks him and he nods.

"Well, we've all gotten used to sharing," she remarks, and she wonders if she and Nick will share any showers. They shared a couple at the loft, but of course they only had Kelly then. Still the possibility makes her blood hum and she smiles softly at Nick as she moves by him.

They continue the tour, looking at the two bedrooms on the main floor Nick mentioned, small, but, as Nick pointed out earlier, functional. They would be perfect kids' rooms. They all traipse upstairs, even Kelly, held tightly in his carrier by Nick and look at the loft space. It's not much, but it would fit a double bed nicely, maybe a couple of small night stands on either side of it. There's another small closet up here, and she agrees with Nick that it would be a great space for the two of them, except for the complete lack of privacy. It's open to the living area it overlooks. The kids' rooms have doors, so she supposes if she and Nick want to be alone she'll just have to make sure they're closed.

And that they stay closed.

That's if they can even manage to be alone.

Both children, but especially Diana occupy most of her attention and Nick's been more and more distant as the time passes. The sweet and playful Nick of the last cabin they stayed in a few weeks ago has retreated and the brooding, pensive Nick has retaken his spot. She knows the next few weeks are critical, and are weighing heavily upon him. This cabin is merely the first step in starting a new life, under new identities, and making a go of trying to raise their family quietly, out of the pall of the uprising and the Wesen world they've known, most of them all their lives.

She's still skeptical that Nick can just stop being a Grimm. He's tried before and admitted he'd missed it. Why else would Juliette be Eve now? She's even more skeptical that their family can hide what they are.

He's started to wear sunglasses everywhere they go out in public, careful to hide his eyes from any unexpected Wesen encounters, and Adalind's gotten some practice explaining her husband has an eye condition necessitating them when people give them strange looks indoors or as so bold as to ask about them.

Calling Nick her husband has gotten only slightly easier. She detects a small frown and confusion whenever she does within Diana's hearing, which has been twice now, and the first time Diana nearly blew their cover.

She thinks the man who witnessed the incident thinks Adalind and Nick are posing as husband and wife only to their daughter because they don't want her to know they're not married and with children and she was only too glad to let him believe it.

The second time, both she and Diana had prepared, though she thinks Diana held some disapproval as Adalind went about her spiel. She's worried there's some dissension already in the ranks.

"Where are we supposed to sleep?" Diana asks Nick.

"You and your mom will have to go to town and pick out some things," Nick tells her, and Adalind wonders where the closest thrift store is. Even with money, they're not going to get everything they need stuffed into the car. Beds, and mattresses, take up space and she sighs, realizing they have a long road ahead of them.

Still, the loft hadn't been much to look at, but after a few months, it had felt like home. It felt like them, she thinks, and she misses it unexpectedly. Their fome. They had made the space their own, minimalist and survivalist though it seemed. She and Nick had been surprisingly content and even happy there, in their little bubble with Kelly.

A little love, a little elbow grease, and they could be happy here, too, she reminds herself firmly.

"Let's make a list," Adalind says to Diana.

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She and Diana and Kelly head into town in their new(ish) car, armed with a list of the barest essentials, while Nick stays behind to do some things around the cabin to get it ready for them.

Their 'new' car is a mid-eighties model Jeep Cherokee that still surprisingly runs, she hopes anyway, because she's about to drive it twenty miles through some remote forest to make her way back into town and she doesn't fancy being stuck on the side of the road with it. Cell service is spotty here, too, especially with their burner phones and getting in touch with someone's not likely either.

She darkened her hair a few weeks ago, while they were in Seattle, a mousy brown color and she can tell Nick's not a fan but there's not much he can say about it. She's too recognizable with her blonde locks and they need to make sure they're not drawing any attention to themselves.

They're after a bed for Diana and a crib for Kelly, everything else for her and Nick can wait they both agree. She doesn't think they'll be much room in the car for much else, even with the back seat folded down and a mattress strapped on top.

"Be careful," Nick advises, as though she wasn't already planning to be. This is the first time since Seattle they've been separated from each other, and she doesn't like it any more than he does.

They finally ditched his Land Cruiser in Washington, risking a circuitous route back west to obtain the documents Adalind spoke of from her source. While she was working her magic (literally) on that, Nick was wiping down the Land Cruiser and dumping it north of the city so that if it was found at least then maybe everyone would think he'd fled to Canada. She would have preferred to sell it, they needed the money after all, but Nick parked it deep somewhere in the woods, hoping that if it was ever discovered, it would be months, if not years after the fact, while she went about securing the documents they'd need to start this new life together under new names.

No longer Nick Burkhardt and Adalind Schade. No chance now of ever being Adalind Burkhardt she reflects, though she doubts there was much of one anyway.

They are now David and Addison Johnson, complete with a fake marriage license between them. "People call me Addy," Adalind adds when she first tries out her new name, and Nick wrinkles his nose slightly at that as well.

"Has anyone ever called you Addy?" he asks her.

"No," she admits, "but this is going to be hard enough as it is." It's a chore retraining herself to call Nick David, and she can tell Nick is struggling to replace her old name with the correct one. At least the new one is close enough in sound to her old one that he can remember it, though Nick had argued against it.

"It's too close to your old name. And I don't think it's a good idea to go with it," he had said when she suggested it, and Adalind had frowned. Addison is her mother's maiden name, and despite their messy mother/daughter, love/hate relationship, it makes her feel close to her to have it. She's not sure why all her most important relationships have to be so complicated, but though her mother wasn't a good mother, she still loved her despite everything that happened between them. She had half-heartedly suggested Kessler as their new last name, knowing it was Nick's mother's and aunt's, but Nick had nixed it immediately, afraid any sort of connection to their past could jeopardize their future and she had to concede his point that it was too risky.

Still, after trying a couple hundred names out, each one sounding impossibly foreign to their own, they finally agreed on those and Adalind set about getting the papers they needed to make them legitimate. Or as legitimate as false documents could make them.

In a few days' time, they'll find out if the quality of them is up to snuff when Nick gets the results from his background check for the game warden job he applied for at the state park, which requires a full background check. She wonders if maybe they should hold off on the decorating in case they have to go on the run again, but she told Nick she's confident they'll hold up under scrutiny and even Nick, with his cop eyes and background, was impressed with the quality.

Trying to convince and train two small children to use and answer to new names would be impossible, so they didn't even try to adopt different names for them, though Kelly was young enough that he would never remember his old one if they did decide to christen him with a new name. She was glad the names she had chosen for her son and daughter had stuck; both, especially Kelly, had deeply personal meaning that she didn't want to erase.

"Remember, don't give out too much information," Nick adds, bringing her thoughts back to the present and she nods.

"I know."

Nick smiles grimly and holds the car door open for her, Diana and Kelly already strapped in, Kelly in his car seat in the back and Diana beside her in the front seat.

"You remember how to get back and find this place, right?" he asks her seriously.

"Yes," Adalind replies, as though the question is ridiculous, though, in fairness, the turn is easy to miss, and she can see why Nick found it another plus when he decided to rent this place.

"Okay, I'll see you in a little bit," he says and Adalind slides into the driver's seat with a nod of her own. She wishes they'd embraced, or kissed goodbye, but Nick shuts the door and steps back, and any thought of a romantic goodbye is put aside for the moment. He watches her fumble to move her seat forward and adjust the mirrors and then she and her children are driving down the bumpy lane back to the highway.

"So, what's first on our list?" She asks Diana, who pulls her eyes away from the scenery going by and looks down at a piece of scratch paper she's been put in charge of safe-keeping.

"Crib and mattress for Kelly, and a bed for me," Diana reads and Adalind nods.

"Okay, time to get our thrift shopping on. This should be fun," she enthuses, but she's not one-hundred percent feeling it. "It takes a certain kind of skill to spot a real find."

It takes longer than she anticipates to find something safe enough and cheap enough for Kelly. There's cribs in the shops, but most are so old they make her nervous as to their safety. She reminds herself both she and Nick slept in some that looked just like what she's trying to decide on, though she doubts theirs had as much rust on the springs. She finally finds what she needs after another patron notices her scrutiny and her two children and tells her about a local church that helps underprivileged families get the things they need. She finds a bed for Diana there, and a crib for Kelly, and a couple of small bureaus for both. She finds much needed winter clothes, too, and soon both her children are outfitted in jackets appropriate for the weather, as well as hats and gloves and boots. She grabs a pair of boots for herself, and some gloves, but holds off on a heavier coat for the time being. There's still blankets and other things to buy, not the least of which is food and the plates to eat it on, but she buys a couple more outfits for each child and hopes she can get the rest when Nick gets paid. His first paycheck is already spent, and she fervently hopes that everything goes through with the background check and he gets the job, because they desperately need it. One of the clerks helps her load the car, and after another stop for a mattress for Diana and Kelly, and some groceries, she's heading back down the highway, looking for the turn she told Nick she could find.

It's darker now, so she drives a couple of miles past it before she realizes she's missed it. She makes a careful U-turn, making sure no cars are following, but their cabin is located quite a ways up the mountain and the road is literally one that is less traveled. She creeps along the highway making sure she doesn't go past it again. She still almost misses it a second time and she hears the load shift as she abruptly makes the turn and hopes she's not going to have to pick up mattresses from the ditch or the trees. By the time she makes the slow, laborious trip up the lane back to their cabin, it's full dark out and Nick's waiting outside. She gives him a smile in relief, and realizes he was worried as his eyes travel over her and the children carefully, before eyeing the laden down jeep.

"Sorry," she says, as she gets out. "We're okay. We just had a harder time than I thought we would finding what we needed until someone pointed us in the right direction."

She tells him about the church's "store" as he helps them unload the car, and as she and Nick awkwardly haul the bureaus and Kelly's crib in. He manages the headboard for Diana's bed and the mattresses by himself, and a couple of hours later the kids' beds are made, and Kelly is napping in his newly made crib. Diana's is a full-size bed that Adalind will share with her daughter while Nick sleeps upstairs in the loft on a sleeping bag they procured during their travels, and though she's not happy with the sleeping arrangements, she wants to be close to her children.

Diana bounces on her new bed and Adalind smiles wryly at her.

"You like it?"

"Yeah," Diana says, although anything has to be better than the cruddy hotel rooms and blankets on the floor. She's been trying to make it seem like it was all some big adventure, and now they can finally settle in somewhere and make a home.

"Let's not break it the first day we have it," Adalind says, looking around at the bare, pine log walls, and the overall sparseness of the room, despite the two pieces of furniture. "Maybe we can draw something to put on the walls," she suggests. Or start filling in the blank surfaces as money starts coming in. She hopes it starts coming in, anyway. She's thinking their situation would be better supplemented with another income, but Nick's hesitant to agree, worried about their children and the precarious situation they're in and so, for the time being, she's a stay at home mom again.

In a log cabin.

Out in the middle of the woods.

In the middle of nowhere.

With two small children.

Neither of which is enrolled in a school or daycare of any sort.

While Nick goes to work every day.

Or at least that's the plan.

She sighs and goes about scrubbing down every inch of the cabin with the cleaning supplies she and Diana purchased.

They spend the next few days cleaning and fixing things, Nick getting his handy man on, although it turns out he's not that handy with anything more complicated than a screwdriver and hammer, though he does his best. She finds this absurdly amusing, and maybe it's just the stress of being on the run over the last couple of months. Give him a cross bow or an axe blade though and watch out. It's almost funny to watch him try to do some of the repairs, and Diana's taken to helping him, whether out of pity or a genuine want to assist.

She's reserved around Nick, Adalind notes, and Adalind thinks that now that she's seen her mother's affection for Nick, particularly as they experiment with their new identities and roles, she's not as okay with their relationship as she hoped her daughter would be. She still worries about what Diana's feeling about Nick could mean for him, especially as she's starting to realize what life on the run with her mother means for her, so she's careful not to leave him alone with her.

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They eat on the floor that night, their fourth night in a row at the cabin, having an "indoor picnic" for their dinner, which Diana seems to buy into, and Adalind thinks a table and chairs are next on the list of wants and needs. There's still the matter of having a place to sit when they're not eating or sleeping, and Nick's been without so much as a mattress for himself for weeks now, putting the children's and Adalind needs long before his own.

She thinks of the sacrifices he's making, later that night, lying awake in bed. She and her children asleep in relative comfort, both on beds, and under warm blankets while he's upstairs in a sleeping bag on the floor.

She thinks if he's making sacrifices for them, then she should be too, and she slides carefully out from under the covers beside Diana and tiptoes up the stairs.

He's awake and alert, she finds, when she reaches the top. He's sitting up, obviously having heard her get up, hair sticking up adorably in all directions in the faint moonlight.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing," she says and she can see even in the dark his muddled face. It's freezing cold in the cabin, one of the repairs Nick has yet to master, and she thinks he's going to be forced to call a professional out, something they don't have money for, and don't want to take the risk of inviting more people out to where they are. Despite the adage about heat rising, it's not any warmer upstairs in the loft. She hurries to his side, trying to suppress a shiver as Nick tracks her movements with confusion as she comes around beside him and fumbles with the zipper on his sleeping bag.

It's going to be a tight squeeze, she notes. There's really not a lot of room in there, for two.

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" she retorts, getting irritated with the zipper that won't budge. "Why should you have to sleep up here alone on the floor, while we're all tucked in our beds."

"The kids need you," he says and Adalind frowns, wishing he'd admit to needing her, too. Or that it's okay for her to need him.

"They're okay. They're asleep."

"Adalind, no, go back downstairs. I'm fine. It's too cold for you up here."

"Exactly."

She finally gets the zipper open.

"Move over."

"Diana will be looking for you, go back downstairs. I'm fine, Adalind."

"I'm not," she retorts. "Scoot," and after a moment, Nick reluctantly complies.

It's a ridiculously tight squeeze, and Nick finally has to turn on his side in order to allow her enough room to squeeze in. He's surpringly warm, despite a cold nose that brushes against her face.

"There's not a lot of room in here."

"So I see," she says, and there's finally a little wriggle room when she turns on her side to face him. The floor is so hard against her hip, it's painful, even after a few minutes, and she can see why Nick winces as he struggles to get up every morning, though he never says anything in complaint.

"First thing we're going to do with your paycheck is get us a real bed." she says to him, revising her mental list, and Nick sighs.

"I'm fine. Go back downstairs."

He's sporting a decent beard now, and it brushes against her face when he talks. He looks outdoorsy, handsome and gruff, and very, very, sexy.

She figures the easiest and best way to shut him up is to kiss him, so she does, giving in to the part of her that has been clamoring for his attention and affection since they reunited in Portland.

The kiss turns out to be a lengthy one and by the time they're done, Nick is half lying on top of her.

"Still want me to go downstairs," she asks cheekily when they break apart for air, and she feels one of Nick's hands slide through her hair. They kiss again, another long one as they enjoy the feel of one another. She touches his face, fingers enjoying the bristly facial hair when they break apart, and Nick leans forward and captures her mouth again and her hand slides from his face to his hair and she can feel him start to harden against her.

"I've missed you," she confesses, and Nick half smiles in the darkness. Sex in this thing is going to be a process, because despite the physical proximity needed for sex, there's just really no room to work. That doesn't stop her from trying though, as she wiggles about, suddenly up for a furious coupling, right here and now.

Nick doesn't seem opposed to one either, it's been so long, and she struggles to get a hand between them, to try to push Nick's pajama bottoms down as he fumbles with her own.

"Mommy?" she hears a voice below call and Nick breaks away from her mouth suddenly. "Mommy?"

Diana. Of course.

"I'm here," she calls down, trying not to let the frustration show in her voice. "What's the matter, sweetheart?" she says wearily, knowing whatever was about to begin here has died just as suddenly.

"I woke up and you were gone," Diana says, and she can hear her start to ascend the stairs. "I got scared." Adalind struggles to put some distance between her and Nick, laughable in the space they occupy, and Adalind manages to wiggle enough free to sit up, as Nick frees both arms from the confines of the sleeping bag and uses one to prop his head up on his elbow with a quiet sigh.

"Everything's fine. You're okay," Adalind tries to soothe her daughter.

"What are you doing?" Diana asks them when she reaches the top of the stairs and spies them in the darkness, and Adalind rushes to explain before Nick can say anything. It occurs to her only after she opens her mouth that he probably wasn't going to offer anything at all.

"Nick was just cold," she says, and Nick has the audacity to laugh, though he wisely covers it as much as possible with a bout of coughing. "I was just… checking on him, trying to keep him warm." The propane space heater a few feet away comes to life, as Diana uses her powers to activate it, and Nick looks at it as Adalind forces a smile at her daughter.

"We didn't want to waste fuel, but thank you," she says.

"Are you coming back to our room?" Diana asks, and Adalind mentally corrects her. Our room is this one right here, the space she shares with Nick, but it's Nick who answers for her.

"Yeah, your mom will be right down. I'm plenty warm now," he manages to say with a straight face, and Adalind has to fight a snort of her own. I'll bet, she thinks. She's a bit hot and bothered, too. "You can go back downstairs with Diana," he says.

She looks at him, slightly hurt by the dismissal, but there's nothing she can really do but follow Diana back down the stairs to her bedroom.

"Thanks," he adds pointedly to Adalind, and then smiles a little more sincerely at Diana. "I'm warm enough now, you can turn off the heater. We'll save the fuel for another day," and Diana complies wordlessly and waits for her mother to descend the steps with her.

Adalind stifles her frustration at not being able to have another moment alone with Nick, however brief to at least apologize to him for their little interlude being cut so rudely short. He reaches over her to unzip the side and she crawls out, feeling the chill hit her like a slap in the face.

"Goodnight," he says to them, settling back down with a poorly suppressed sigh.

"Goodnight," Adalind says woodenly.

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