For a single moment, Nick couldn't breathe.
He had tunnel vision. His aunt, sitting there. His aunt Marie, sitting there at the table in the bakery as though she belonged there, as innocent as a warhead at a picnic.
This was his world.
This was his life he had built for himself. This was his sanctuary, his home, his peace that he had scraped together.
The Garretts were good people, truly good in a way that made his heart ache after a day of walking the streets, staring for hours at the worst souls on the streets with the deepest scars and the hardest hearts, and then coming home to the uncomplicated light and joy that the bakery offered. Walking in and relaxing into the relief of a pair of kind, unblemished faces and open arms.
And Calyssa. She was good. Purely good. Not in the same way as the Garretts, not with that same sort of tranquility, nor was she as unmarked by her journey. No, Calyssa was a fighter, and the beast within her bore the scars of all the battles she had fought to get to where she was today. But instead of being whipped into submission, beaten down until she could be trodden underfoot, she stood tall and proud, burdened by the causes she had fought for in the past and yet still ready and willing to meet the causes she would fight for in the future.
And his aunt, just sitting there, staring back at him with his own face. His aunt, sitting there staring at him with that little smile on her lips like she belonged right where she was, and wouldn't be budged from her seat.
Nick felt like he was going to throw up.
"Well?" Calyssa prompted, still beaming at him. "Nick?"
He swallowed. Twice, just to make sure that when he opened his mouth, it would only be words that came out.
"Aunt Marie." he tried. Oh, he tried so hard to keep the trembling quaver out of his voice. "You're in town."
He might have intended it as a question. He was pretty sure it hadn't come out as one.
Mr. Garrett's face fell slightly. Disappointment and confusion darted through his expression, and Nick hastily redoubled his efforts to appear as though nothing was wrong.
So long as none of the three of them had any idea what was sitting at the table with them, his aunt would have no reason to bring them into it.
"It's good to see you again!" he forced out, stretching a wide smile across his lips. "How have you been? Wow, you look fantastic!"
His aunt stood, her smile mirroring his own as she pulled him into a hug.
Every cell in his body felt like electricity had just surged through them.
The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. His pulse surged as adrenaline lit up his system like a holiday tree.
"Oh, thank you, Nicky." her voice was light and airy, nothing like how he remembered her ever speaking to him at all. "Time flies when you're seeing the world- and nothing like a little exercise to keep you fit and young. Wouldn't you agree?"
"I wouldn't really know." Nick brushed it off, trying to focus on the conversation through the contact high of the hug. It was starting to make him dizzy.
Marie pulled away at last. Held him at arm's length as if looking him over.
"Oh really?" there was something a lot more brittle in her voice now. "I'm surprised, Nick. Last I heard, you were going to get out and travel."
A spike of annoyance drove through the dizziness, cutting through it like suddenly seeing through a tear in a veil. Grounding him. Supporting him.
It was harder. So much harder than fighting off any other fit like this he'd ever had. Worse than when Wu slung an arm around his shoulders, worse than when Hank was playfully getting in his face, worse than when he had to chase and take down a suspect. Worse than any other time he'd had to restrain himself.
He wanted to just let go. To let go and drift and allow himself to fade, to fall into that dizziness, into the buzz of his aunt's company, her presence, her dominance.
She was trying to make him surrender. And he was losing.
But that single spike of frustration crept into his mind.
What was at first just a little spark of emotion, when he focused on it, flared with every passing thought. Every memory of everything his aunt had ever done that he resented her for.
Every callous word about his hopes and dreams, every careless injury in training that she'd told him to suck it up and walk it off, every night he'd woken up with a nightmare and she'd told him not to be so weak. His indignation when she'd abandoned him on his eighteenth birthday. His fury with her now, for coming to a place like the bakery- somewhere so perfectly light- and thinking to manhandle him here, right in the heart of the place he felt safest.
It almost wasn't enough. Digging up every ounce of emotion, it still almost wasn't enough. The pressure weighing down on him, trying to smother him, was so heavy. So much stronger than he was. So much darker.
But then...
Then, as a last ditch effort, he went deep. All the way down, all the way back to the very beginning.
He went back to the day he'd run away from dinner. To the day when he'd gotten sick of the lies, and asked what the Reaper's scythe meant for the first time, and she had torn up his picture.
He went back, and remembered that feeling he'd had that day. That feeling which had made him want to tear every page out of every book she ever read, to burn everything she ever owned, to take everything she had ever considered to be worthwhile in the world and break it all, all of it, every work of art she ever thought beautiful and every book she ever found meaning in and every place she ever loved to visit and every piece of music she ever considered listening to more than once and every person she ever loved and burn them all to the ground, every single last one of them-
It was tiny. Almost unnoticeable.
But the second he mentally shoved the haze away from him, his aunt flinched.
It was even harder to compose himself. To drag himself back up from that abyss, to pull himself back from that ledge. He'd given himself enough fuel that the fire inside of him wanted to burn until it had consumed every last scrap of his anger. But this wasn't a time for rage and careless action. He wasn't some headstrong little brat.
His urges and instincts didn't control him like a puppet. They never had, and he wasn't going to let them start now.
"Yeah, well," he had no idea how he'd managed to keep his voice so calm and collected. He was practically shaking. What was it she'd asked him? -oh, about traveling after she left him, right. "It didn't wind up happening. I might have lost my scholarship opportunity if I took a year off."
"Your scholarship." her hands had pulled away from him. Drifted down to her sides. He hadn't missed that they were trembling, too. "Straight through school, hmm? That's the Nick I remember. Always so dutiful. So responsible." she paused, then- "And after that?"
"The road brought me here." Nick stated. Every second, he was managing to pull himself together more and more. "It's a really lovely place, Portland, and I'm lucky to have a place here. Some wonderful people who've been very kind to me. I see you've already met some of them."
"But you didn't go out." his aunt completely ignored his attempt to point out that he was happy here. "You never saw the pyramids of Egypt, or the palaces of China, or the temples of the Mayans?"
"No, I didn't." he admitted. She was staring at him with such- such dismay on her face.
"Oh, Nicky." she shook her head. "That was your dream, wasn't it?"
Since when, he wanted to ask, was that my dream? Since when was that anything but what you wanted for me, since when did I ever tell you I wanted to travel the world? Did you ever listen even once to my real dreams?
"I suppose I'll just have to be content with the amazing life I have here." it might have just been him, but he got the feeling that the smile on his face was a bit sour. "In this incredible town where I feel at home and at peace."
"Settling down? Nick..." she winced- she actually winced! "If there's something keeping you here, tying you to this place, is it really worth more than your happiness?"
His happiness?
He took a deep breath. His emotions were still tinged by putting his anger on a leash and using it like a tool, that had to be it. That had to be why every word out of her mouth was so grating.
"I am happy here." he explained. His patience was wearing thin, but he managed to still stay polite. "I've got a home, and good friends, and the job I've always wanted-"
Maybe being rude would have been better.
With how she reacted, he might as well have slapped her.
"You what?" she whispered, staring at him as though he had just told her he had contracted leprosy.
Nick took a deep breath. Awkwardly keeping in mind that there were other people in the room.
"Aunt Marie," he began, "Maybe if you want to come up to my apartment- we can sit and have a cup of tea and talk-"
"You actually did it?" she was staring at him with horror in her eyes. "You joined those incompetent hogs? Despite every time I forbade you, despite all I ever did to show you that you had more potential in your left pinkie than those fools did in their whole blundering squad-"
"Aunt Marie, please-" he tried to interrupt, but she had straightened up, her teeth gritted.
And the next words she said drove the wind out of him.
"Nick, it's time." she insisted, stressing the word meaningfully. "It's time for you to go and quit that job, right now. This can't wait until tomorrow. You drive back there and tell them it's done, you're gone, and you do it now."
Nick stared at her, the last of his anger fleeing before the rush of ice that had surged through his veins.
It was time?
Now? Right now? His time was up?
This was it?
No... no, that- that couldn't be right. It couldn't be.
He'd just made friends with Wu. Just bought his new house. It hadn't even been half a year since his promotion.
It couldn't be now. It just- couldn't be.
He had wanted just a little while longer. He had wanted to know how it felt to be more than the rookie, to make his division proud. He hadn't done enough good in the world yet.
His time couldn't be up.
Calyssa had stood up. She was looking between him and his aunt, realization blossoming across her face followed by stubborn determination. He barely heard what she was saying to his aunt, but something of it still pierced through the fog.
"-going to have to ask you to leave, ma'am."
"I'm not going anywhere without my nephew."
"Ma'am, this is a business, and it is after closing time. We're well within our right to ask you to leave."
"Then Nick is coming with me."
"Mr. Burkhardt is a resident here."
Nick felt numb. Every inch of him just seemed to have forgotten what it was supposed to be doing, what it was supposed to be feeling.
But that reminder- that single reminder of Calyssa's kindness, even though the two of them weren't on the best of terms, even though they'd had a bit of an uncomfortable and awkward run of it- was enough to make him realize.
His aunt had just said it couldn't wait until tomorrow.
With meant that his Becoming was happening tonight.
A Grimm being born under this roof, so close to these three bright and kind souls- a Grimm, his Grimm, tearing them apart-
"I'll go."
The words had slipped from his lips before he could think of some excuse. All he knew was that he had to get out of here. He had to get away from this place- as far away as possible, as fast as possible.
"Nick!" Mrs. Garrett was calling out from behind him- "Nick, you don't have to-"
"I'm sorry." he apologized. Sorry for thinking he could do this, he could stay here- him- a Grimm- in close proximity to people like them, good people. Sorry for thinking he might be able to absorb some of their light and it would do anything more than momentarily abate his darkness. Sorry for putting them at risk just so he could indulge himself by pretending to be normal. "I need to go. Goodbye."
He ran.
x
He was six blocks away when his aunt finally caught up with him.
"Where are you going?" she asked, faintly. "Nick, this isn't something that should be done out in the open. You're going to be weak, vulnerable. Your apartment would be much better than-"
"I have a house." he stated, quickly. "It's more private."
"And you didn't think to take your car because...?" she wondered.
"I need to- move. To think." that really was the best excuse he could think up. "Isn't there some way to- delay it? Just another year. Just a few more months?"
"Nick..." his aunt was keeping pace with him, watching him sadly. Finally, she hesitantly shook her head. "You've already put it off to an almost inexcusable point. I'm sorry- I'm so sorry I'm late- I got caught up on business in Croatia- but I thought I was going to get here too late. I thought you would already have risen through your Becoming by the time I got here."
"Well I haven't." despite all evidence to the contrary- the headaches, the pressure, the change in how he saw things, the sudden homicidal urges-
"You haven't." she agreed, softly. "Oh Nick. This must have been so hard on you, I can't believe... if I could have come sooner, I would have. Please, believe that."
Nick hesitated. Then, he nodded, looking down at his feet as he walked.
"I believe you." he mumbled.
A hand landed on his shoulder.
When he looked up at her, she was watching him tentatively.
"You really do?" she wondered. "I... thought you hated me."
What?
"Why would I hate you?" he was legitimately confused. "You're my aunt, you raised me, took care of me."
"If you didn't, why did you reject the bond?" she sounded so sad. Nick couldn't have been more lost, and his nervous agitation wasn't helping.
"What bond?"
"The- Grimm inside of you." she averted her eyes. "It saw the Grimm inside of me as- I've never felt that before. I never... for a second, you reacted to me like I was your mother. Your real mother. But before the bond could connect, and cement itself, it- you snapped it. By hand."
...oh.
Nick's stomach lurched as he ground to a halt. He stared at her for a long moment before managing to force a watery smile onto his lips.
"That was a bond?" he whispered. "I thought you were trying to force me to-"
To what?
To stop thinking, was that it? To attack his friends? To hurt someone?
What was it she'd nearly forced him to do, which had made him panic so badly?
"To...?" she was watching him, watching his eyes carefully, waiting.
He finally found the right word for it, beginning to walk towards his new house again. His legs were long enough that his aunt nearly had to jog to keep up, but she didn't seem phased.
"To surrender."
Her eyebrows shot up.
"Nicky-" she began, hesitantly. "Why would you use a word like that? You make it sound like I was attacking you."
He realized belatedly that he should have really thought through his next words before letting them escape his lips.
"You showed up out of the blue after I haven't seen you in years, after the way we parted was- not what I would have chosen. I come to one of the few places where I feel safe to find you playing friendly with some of the only people I really, truly care about, and then I felt this- overwhelming pressure to submit. To give in. I didn't think you were being friendly. I thought you were threatening me."
His aunt jerked away from him like he had burned her. But there was the pressure- the wound- the pain inside of him- he had caused his soul an actual injury by tearing himself away from her so viciously, he realized. Had he caused her one, as well?
He took a deep breath. Steeled himself. There was pressure- he wanted to scream at her, to offload on her, to insist that she wasn't allowed to just swoop in after abandoning him and then expect him to still treat her like he would his mother- for her to insist that he had failed in his dreams when he had done everything he wanted to and more- to deride his job when he had worked so hard to get to where he was and do as much good as he had-
It wouldn't help. None of it would help. Not one bit of it.
"I've restrained it thus far." he insisted, finally managing to drag himself back on topic. "I can keep restraining it. I'm strong enough. I won't give in."
"Nick..." Marie was watching him, and for the first time in his life, there was undisguised grief on her face. She was looking at him the same way that someone side-eye appraised someone they thought might have some kind of mental illness. "No, I'm sorry, Nick- that's not how it works. It's going to happen. It'll happen tonight. Neither of us have any say in the matter."
"Then if I can't stop it, tell me how to control it!" he was in no kind of mood to be getting these kind of condolences from her.
"You'll learn." she promised, grabbing his hand. "I swear to you, I will teach you, Nicky. You'll learn. It's going to be okay."
It took him a long moment to collect himself. Regain his composure. They were nearing his house.
And then what? What, after he learned? What would she expect of him? How would he be changed?
Would he even be capable of being a detective anymore, after he'd undergone his Becoming? Would he even want to be?
"Nearly there." he muttered, quietly.
"Good." His aunt nodded. And then- "We'll need your handcuffs."
x
Less than an hour ago, Nick remembered. Less than an hour ago, the biggest problem on his plate had been trying to figure out a way to direct an investigation towards realizing a Blutbad had committed the crimes.
Less than an hour ago, he'd been looking forward to seeing Hank and Wu again tomorrow.
It was funny, how fondly he could look back at less than an hour ago as if it was a whole other lifetime.
The house that had always felt comfortable and spacious to him now felt hollow and ominous. The lack of furniture made him feel as if he was trespassing, even though he had been here a dozen times.
His aunt had taken him down to the basement and cuffed his wrists behind his back to a heavy pipe that stuck out of the wall. He was in jeans and a t-shirt. She'd warned him only that this process tended to be messy, and he shouldn't wear anything he didn't want to burn tomorrow.
And now, they sat. And waited.
He felt a bit like a werewolf. Chained up, waiting for the moon to change him. It wasn't the moon, his aunt had explained, but a convergence of forces that were calculated based on the day, hour, and minute of birth of the Grimm child, which stars looked over them in the night sky, how the planets aligned, where they had been born and where they were presently residing-
He'd nodded along, pretending to be interested.
His life as he knew it was about to come to an end. His world was about to fall apart. Everything he'd worked for was about to collapse around him.
He really wasn't that focused on astrology at the moment.
But there they were now. She was standing, he was kneeling, waiting for... whatever it was to happen. There they were, waiting for him to become someone else. Something else.
His heart still ached from where he'd burned himself with vindictive fury in order to burn her, too. He still resented her, but he had managed to reconcile with it being irrational, at last.
In another hour, this moment might feel like another life, as well. He might look back on it and regret his choices.
He didn't want to regret anything. Not right before what might be the end.
"Aunt Marie?" he spoke up, softly.
"Hmm?" she looked up at him, stony faced and solemn.
He hesitated. Embarrassment warred with the uncomfortable feeling of being alone, even as his headache throbbed behind his eyes.
He'd been alone. For so long, he'd felt so alone. When he was very small, when they lived off the grid, when he was going through high school, when nobody at the station could remember his name...
He'd gotten spoiled. Spoiled for people who knew him, lately. Who knew enough about him for him to call them friends.
The idea of going back to being alone again, of having all of that torn away- it was the worst feeling in the world.
In less than an hour, he might have lost it all. Every one of those people might become his enemy. Or his prey. No longer capable of relating to him and his alien thoughts and feelings.
But there was someone right in front of him who could.
"The bond." he stopped. Licked his lips. Took a deep breath. "If... now that I actually know what it is. Would you still be willing? Even after I burned you?"
At her silence, he cursed himself for getting his hopes up. For putting her on the spot like that.
"Or not." he hastened to add. "If... if you don't think- it's fine. If you don't think we have enough time, or- if it would be too much."
There was a small noise, and he finally looked up.
She was standing there, a broken smile stretched from ear to ear. There were unshed tears in her eyes.
Marie walked forward. Knelt in front of him.
"Oh, Nicky." she whispered, drawing him into a hug, careful not to put too much strain on his arms trapped behind his back.
At the touch of contact, that feeling lit up again. Hesitant, wary after already being broken once.
This time, though, he opened himself up. Instead of fighting it off, or pulling away, or lashing out, he just let himself fall.
And he fell.
It was as though a warm blanket had been wrapped around his shoulders. Around his heart.
Acceptance. Protection. Safety.
That was it. That was the feeling he had been missing.
Feeling safe.
He had overreacted. She might be pushy, but she really did try to make sure she did the best for him. She had never really gotten how much his dream meant to him, yeah- to her, being a Grimm was work. She had wanted him to travel, to relax and have fun before he needed to shoulder that cruel burden. The fact that he hadn't had only made her disappointed because she felt like it was the same as being denied a childhood.
He didn't know how he knew that, but he did. And when she finally pulled away from the hug, and he met her eyes, he knew that she had understood his reasons with the same sort of intimate acceptance.
He knew because she was crying for him.
He managed a pained smile. Leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together.
"Oh, my precious little boy." she whispered, her voice strained. "All this time?"
All this time? All this time what?
All this time, he had been trying so hard to do good because he felt like he was evil?
"Since before I can remember." he replied, softly.
She shook her head in despair, opening her mouth to rebuke him, to reassure him.
The pain within his head exploded.
His back arched. He would have screamed if he'd even been capable of drawing in the breath he would have needed.
And the world went white.
