WARNINGS: More icky puking. Massively massive cliffhanger of doom. Bwahahahaha. Oh yeah, some bad language, hurt/comfort, sickness, blah, blah, blah…onto the Nickwhump!
"Nick. Hey. Nick!"
He squinted vaguely up at the Hank-shaped shadow kneeling over him, rubbing damn sharp knuckles briskly up and down his sternum. "Hey, you awake?" Hank asked.
"Blerg," Nick mumbled unwilling to commit one way or the other.
"Let's get you off the floor."
That was a very bad idea. He was going to tell Hank what a very bad idea that was, but his partner had already hooked him under the arms and pulled him to his feet.
"That was a bad idea," Hank said a second later.
Nick was too busy hanging onto the toilet to do more than nod vague agreement in between heaves.
Hank let him lay back down on the floor afterwards, coming back once to drop a blanket over him. Floor was good. Floor was solid and reliable under him in a world that continued to move even behind closed eyelids. He was certain he'd never appropriately appreciated floors before.
He didn't fall asleep so much as zone out. At least he didn't think he'd fallen asleep, until a tremendous thump from downstairs shocked him awake. Another thump and voices echoed up the stairs. His gun—shit—his gun was on the nightstand. Sluggishly peeling his body off the floor, he crawled to the sink and dug into the cabinet for the knife he kept tucked into a half empty Kleenex box.
It wasn't a big knife—dagger, Monroe would correct—one he'd picked up at a pawn shop to practice his sharpening techniques before he touched any of the family memorabilia, and kept because apparently weapon hoarding was genetic. Pressing back against the bathtub, he listened to footsteps coming up the stairs.
"…just saying it's bordering on paranoid."
Nick relaxed, recognizing Monroe's voice. And then Hank's, "You know what they say: it's only paranoia if they aren't trying to kill you."
"Nick." Rosalee poked her head around the doorframe, reaching over to flick on the overhead.
Nick groaned and hid his eyes against his knees.
The light went off again. "Sorry." Rosalee knelt next to him and put her hand on his wrist. "Nick, why are you sitting in the dark with a knife?"
"Dagger," Monroe corrected. "See the double edged blade. That makes it primarily a stabbing weapon."
He tried to explain over top of Monroe, "There was a noise…."
"That would be me," Hank said from the doorway, "forgetting your new penchant for home safety."
"At least we know the tripwires work," Monroe said cheerfully.
Nick could hear the evil look Hank must be giving the other man. He handed off the knife to Rosalee and let his head sink back down to his knees with a little groan. His brain felt soggy and hot and it was painfully hard to form useful thoughts.
"Let's get him into bed," Rosalee said, standing and edging backwards to clear a path.
"Slowly," Hank cautioned. "Last time…didn't work out so well."
Before he could protest that he could walk on his own, thank you very much, he was pulled to his feet. Hank on one side, Monroe on the other, all three of them turning sideways to squeeze past the sink and toilet. The bathroom had never seemed so small before.
The change in elevation sent a shock of jagged, red pain through his head as his vision grayed out in a slow, tilting wave of dizziness.
"Whoa," Hank said, staggering sideways a couple steps as Nick's weight landed on him.
Nick muttered, "Sorry," and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that walking would be easier if he wasn't watching the world spin in a great heaving swirl of color, punctuated by bright white squares he thought must be the windows.
"Going down," Monroe warned. The bed came up under him and he grasped the covers hard with both hands.
Small, cool hands settled on his arm and his forehead. "Nick," Rosalee said unhappily, "you're feverish."
He was feeling a tad warm. Rolling onto his stomach, he buried his face in his pillow. It still smelled faintly like Juliette because he hadn't quite gotten around to washing it since he moved out. Weirdly, it made him feel a little better.
The bed shifted as Rosalee sat down next to him. "Nick, hey, I need you to tell me what symptoms you're experiencing."
Blinking open watering eyes, he stared at the fabric centimeters from his nose and turned his head an inch for easier breathing. Symptoms….symptoms…sympt—
"He's been having headaches," Hank supplied, apparently deciding Nick was taking too long. "Dizziness. Loss of appetite."
Nick mumbled, "I have not."
"When was the last time you ate?" Rosalee asked.
"Lunch. And I had a snack when I got home." Although he didn't think that really counted. "I sort of threw that back up."
Hank snorted. "Two bites of taquito and half a Coke doesn't count as lunch. And that was yesterday."
"Yesterday?" Nick repeated, not sure he was hearing that right. Every word made his head throb. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw stars, trying to compress the pain into something manageable enough he could wrap his head around the idea that he'd spent all night on the bathroom floor.
"You didn't show up for work this morning," Hank said. "When you didn't answer your phone Renard gave me a call."
Right, Hank had taken the morning off for an appointment. Crap, that reminded him that he still needed to schedule his mandatory counseling sessions. Renard was only going to let him avoid it for so long.
"Monroe," Rosalee said, "will you bring me my bag please." Her hand rested on the back of his neck, cool and comforting.
Monroe's shoes scuffed on carpet for a few steps then echoed on hardwood, thumping hastily down the stairs. Nick could hear him shuffling around in the living room.
Rosalee squeezed the back of his neck gently, drawing his attention back to her. "Is this what you went to the doctor for?"
He made a sound of assent. "They didn't find anything."
"Well," she said, patting his shoulder reassuringly, "I have a few tests I can do for things I bet they never thought of."
Rosalee would have made a great doctor. He wondered how many wesen doctors there were out there. Were there offices and clinics exclusive to wesen? And would they even think to check for something like a potion. Zaubertranks seemed to be looked upon as something like black magic in the wesen world, something talked about in tales and stories but never seen by the bulk of the population. It seemed like something he should remember to ask about…later.
He pulled the pillow over his head and stayed that way until Monroe came thumping back up the stairs with the thermometer. The edge of the pillow lifted and the cold tip intruded into his ear, but it didn't require him moving and at the moment that was a blessing. Eventually there was a beep and the thermometer went away allowing him to doze.
Until a sharp, stabbing pain in his finger woke him. He startled and jerked halfway upright, then slumped back down as the sudden move made his whole body ache. Squeezing his eyes shut, he buried his face in the bed, bringing one hand up to press against his forehead. The other hand seemed to be trapped, gripped at the wrist and his suddenly sore finger squeezed hard.
"Sorry," Rosalee said from very close by. "Blood is the fastest way to get test results."
"M'kay," he mumbled. "Whatever you want." A little warning would have been nice. God, even his joints ached.
"Whatever, huh?" she said archly.
"You know he used to make promises like that to me," Hank said teasingly. Nick hadn't realized he was still in the room. "Usually to bribe me into a donut run."
Ugh, donuts didn't even sound good right now.
"Really? I had no idea he had such a sweet tooth."
Nick worked on summoning up the energy to complain about being talked over while he was right there, but someone laid a cold, wet rag on the back of his neck and he was forced to relax into the sheets with a ragged sigh because damn that felt good.
"I've got to head back to work," Hank said. "Call me if there's any change."
"Of course."
Something nudged his foot on Hank's side of the bed. "I'll be back in a couple hours."
"Mhmmfh," Nick said.
Hank chuckled and patted his calf. "And I'll let the Captain know you'll be out sick tomorrow at least. He's called twice already to check on you."
Nick mumbled vague then focused on not moving until Rosalee came back and prodded him into sitting, pushing the Bottoms Up shot glass he'd gotten in Reno into his hand, and saying, "Drink this." It smelled like kiwis and was slimy like snot but there wasn't much and he got it down in one nasty gulp. She made him follow it up with half a glass of cool water then allowed him to lie back down and bury his head again.
He drifted in and out, vaguely aware of them moving around him. Rosalee came back at least once, sitting on the edge of the bed to poke the thermometer in his ear and make unhappy sounds at whatever the readout said, but it seemed to him everything hurt a little less so he thought the kiwi-snot was working.
The next time he woke it was because Monroe was nearby, talking in what was undoubtedly supposed to be his quiet voice. "Are you sure? I mean, I'm sure you're sure, but…are you sure?"
Rosalee did not sound patient when she answered, "I did the test three times."
"Oh well…I guess you are sure."
"Monroe," Rosalee hissed. "Do it."
"Oh, God. I think you should ask him."
"Monroe!"
"Alright, alright." The bed jolted then sagged and the pillow was peeled back from his head. "Hey, um, Nick."
He tried to ask what they wanted but it came out more like, "Ngggh."
"Oh good, you're awake. Rosalee wants to know—ouch! I'm doing it!I'm asking!"
Nick roused enough to fix the twitchy man with a bleary look. "What, Monroe?"
"Just wondering if you've been harboring strong feelings for…anyone in particular…uh, lately."
"Monroe!" Rosalee growled.
"Hey, I asked."
Rosalee harrumphed. "Nick, who do you love?"
"See that makes it sound like that song—"
"Shush," Rosalee said. She took a deep breath, blowing it out through her nose. "Are you still in love with Juliette?"
Nicks squinted up at them. "Uh, yeah." They'd woken him up for that?
Monroe heaved an exaggerated sighed of relief. "Well that makes it easier." There was a pause. Then, "Oh no, no, no. That really doesn't make it easier at all."
Rosalee shushed him again. "Nick…" she began.
Shit. That tone of voice never ended in anything good. Aunt Marie had used that particular tone every time she'd told him they were changing states.
"Nick," she said again, squeezing his arm gently, "I've finished the tests."
"Mmhmmph," Nick said. Working a hand up, he pushed sweat-dampened hair off his forehead. "That was fast." He fumbled for the controls for the electric blanket, certain he'd left them on high.
"Actually it took far longer than it should have," she said. "Your symptoms threw me off."
"Symptoms?"
"They're all over the place and frankly confusing as hell. But I've narrowed it down to a type of zaubertrank we're sadly familiar with." There was a heavy pause. "From when we were trying to cure Hank."
He muzzily pointed out, "Hank didn't have the flu."
"No," Rosalee said, "and neither do you. I'm talking about when Hank was dating Adalind."
Monroe, thank God, interrupted with a Cliff Notes version. "You're love sick, buddy."
What?
His brain stuttered, jumping from who to how to what the fuck. What did that mean exactly? Was he going to end up hexed into a coma like Hank? "I haven't been with anyone since Juliette," he said, just to make that perfectly clear. He certainly didn't have any deep and obsessive need to be with anyone…except Juliette. But they couldn't mean….
"It's not the exact same kind of zaubertrank Adalind used," Rosalee explained, emphasizing the important words with a squeeze of her hand. "Just in the same family."
So no creepy, red-eyed coma. "Oh…good." He squinted up at them, frowning at the matching expressions of dismay. "Not good?"
"Normally symptoms would show up right away and grow progressively worse. We would have had a chance to fix it before you got this bad." Rosalee patted his arm. "I think that, because you're a Grimm, you fought it off until you were so worn down it hit you all at once."
Great. Another mark in his mental 'Con' column of Grimmness. It was rapidly outstripping the Pro side. "So I'm sick 'cause of the spell?" Monroe and Rosalee both hated it when he referred to these things as spells, had recited lengthy treatises on how zaubertranks were based on herbs and medicines not voodoo and witchcraft. But it was such a looooong word and his throat hurt.
"The potion," Rosalee clarified, "is making you sick because you've been separated from the other person involved for too long."
"Which is Juliette," Monroe put in helpfully. "We hope."
"Don't worry, I have everything we need for the antidote at the shop and we know who the other party is. We'll have you fixed up in no time." Rosalee patted his arm comfortingly. "I want you to try to rest. I have to go to the shop for supplies. Monroe will be here if you need anything."
"Good plan," he mumbled. Especially the part where he was responsible for nothing but sleeping.
Except Monroe and Rosalee didn't actually leave the room right away and they kept talking in a non-whispering whisper that made it impossible for him to actually do that.
"Did Hank say how long he was going to be?" Monroe asked.
"Not long I hope."
"Yeah, me too," Monroe said fervently. "What are we going to tell Juliette when she gets here? She doesn't even know Nick anymore and we have to convince her to drink a zaubertrank with the guy."
Their voices faded as they finally left, headed downstairs.
"I don't know," Rosalee said. "We'll think of something."
"Yeah, okay, yeah, we'll think of something. Because that's what we do. We think of things. We are the thinkers of things."
"Try to get him to eat something. And, Monroe, call me if he gets worse. I'll be as quick as I can but with the rain and the traffic at this hour it may take awhile."
"Drive safe," Monroe exhorted. "It's not going to help if you get into an accident."
"I'll be careful."
Nick heard the front door open and close. He shifted restlessly trying to find a cooler spot on the sheets or, failing that, get rid of the blankets they had pulled back to the end of the bed. When he stretched out completely they kept touching his toes.
The sound of kitchen drawers and cabinets being rummaged through kept him on the edge of sleep, jerking him back every time he almost slipped over. Hot and hurting and restive he tried to burrow his entire body under the pillow.
Juliette was not a quiet early morning riser. It had taken him months to learn to sleep through the muted sound of the blow dryer, the clatter of makeup cases, and creak of the floorboards as she tried to sneak around in bare feet. Monroe's noises were just different enough he couldn't tune them out and his booted feet were twice as loud, thumping back up the stairs and over to the bed.
Nick groaned when the thermometer intruded on his ear once more.
"I know, I know, but it will just…take…a…second. There we go. All done." The thermometer went away and Monroe redeemed himself by replacing the warmed compress with a fresh, cold one.
A phone went off, shrill and drilling into his brain with every ring. Nick wrapped his arms around his head and curled into a miserable ball.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry." Each word grew progressively softer as Monroe moved away from the bed, taking the dreadful ringing with him. "Hey, Hank. Tell me you have good news…."
() () ()
He knew he was losing time. Moments, minutes, possibly whole hours. When Monroe shook him awake with a mug of soup in his hand and said, "Let's try this again," he couldn't remember the first attempt. He wasn't sure when Rosalee came back either, but when strong, remorseless hands pulled him out of his lovely, dark pillow cocoon, she was sitting on the bed.
"There he is," Monroe announced cheerfully and promptly stuffed one of the pillows behind his shoulders.
"You need to drink this," Rosalee informed him, holding a tea cup to his lips.
It wasn't the kiwi-snot drink, thank God. This one was bitter beneath a heavy flavoring of honey and apple, sticky sweet on his tongue. When the cup was removed he sagged into the pillow, sweating and shaky and weak, just breathing for awhile.
"Hopefully it will help with the fever," Rosalee said, smoothing the hair back from his forehead and leaving her hand there. It was comforting. Grounding. Also her fingers were ice cold and that felt really good.
Eventually he asked, "How bad is it?" Twin silences lasted long enough he could assume the answer. "That bad huh?"
"Not that bad," Rosalee reassured him. "But…Hank is still looking for Juliette. She's not at home, not at work, and she's not answering her phone. We need her to take the antidote at the same time."
No, of course she wasn't at home, he should have remembered that before. "Christmas. They moved Christmas to Everett's this year. She wouldn't be back yet." Everett's wife Regina was due this week with their first, and under strict orders not to be more than an hour from her midwife. "There's no cell service on the farm."
"Who's Everett?" Monroe asked from the other side of the bed.
"Juliette's little brother."
"Do you have his number?"
He'd always gotten it out of Juliette's address book when he needed it. "Hank can look it up."
Regina was one of those freakishly nice people who remembered everyone's birthday and anniversary and made chicken noodle soup for sick neighbors. Everett was... He liked Everett but the younger man had always been nervous around him and he'd never been able to figure out why. They lived far enough away it was rarely an issue, but he'd always wondered.
Juliette blamed it on him being a cop. Everett had a record for several juvenile acts of vandalism and shoplifting back when the family had lived in the city. The way Juliette got quiet and tried to avoid the subject, Nick figured there had been a lot more to it but nothing that ever made the arrest record.
"We'll find her," Rosalee said. "Try to rest."
The next time he woke up there was an IV in his arm and Rosalee was wiping his chest and stomach down with an icy cold cloth. "He's burning up," she said to someone hovering just out of sight. "If it gets worse we're going to have to take him to the hospital."
The time after that he was in the bathroom.
In the shower in the bathroom.
With Hank and Monroe.
Monroe was kneeling, trying to work Nick's pajama pants off one leg. Which was weird.
"This is weird," he told them earnestly.
"You have no idea," Monroe muttered. "Lift your foot."
They held him up in cold water until he was shaking from it, dried him off, and bundled him into sleep pants and a freshly made bed. Rosalee came at him with the thermometer again, pronouncing his fever, "Still high but better." She hung a new IV bag on the headboard.
The background check they'd run on Rosalee back when her brother was murdered showed a long expired phlebotomist certificate and almost two semesters of nursing school. She might be a little rusty but she put the IV needle back in like a pro.
The next time he woke up, he had an oxygen mask strapped on his face. Rosalee was entirely unwavering on the topic of removing it. He tried the pitiful look that always won Hank over, but Rosalee was made of sterner stuff and remained unmoved. She did lift the mask long enough for a drink of water though, which almost made up for it.
Tilting his head an inch, he saw Hank sitting in a chair borrowed from the kitchen table, scattering crumbs from half a sandwich, feet up on the bed. Monroe was pacing with one of Rosalee's books in his hands, saying, "We are all thinking the same thing here, right? It had to have been Adalind."
"She is the only one we know with the means," Hank added. "And she certainly has the motive."
"Revenge can be a powerful thing," Monroe said.
"I don't know," Rosalee said. "What would be the point of it?"
"There is that," Monroe agreed. "Why use a love spell on two people who are already in love?"
Hank corrected, "Were in love. Juliette doesn't even remember him."
Nick winced, not appreciating the reminder.
"Assuming the other person is Juliette," Monroe pointed out. "We don't know for sure yet."
Hank snorted. "As the guy riding in the car with him, trust me, it's Juliette."
Nick frowned. He didn't think he'd been that bad.
"There was moping and pining," Hank continued. "And all of his case notes have little Juliette doodles on them. He hasn't done that since they were first dating."
There had been two incidences of doodles. Two!
He'd erased the others thoroughly before adding his notes to the permanent case files.
"What if this wasn't done recently?" Rosalee interjected abruptly, sitting bolt upright. "I mean, I assumed the zaubertrank was presenting oddly because Nick's a Grimm, but that might not be the only reason." There was the thumping sound of a book being abruptly shut. "Maybe it's acting like this because it's been around a long time."
"Nick and Juliette started dating about three years ago," Hank put in. "Right before he made detective."
Monroe asked, "You think it's that old?"
Rosalee nodded. "It could be."
"Someone wanted Juliette and Nick to get together," Hank said skeptically, "badly enough to dose them with a wesen potion. Why?"
Rosalee shrugged. "I don't know."
"We're assuming," Monroe said hesitantly, "that Juliette is innocent in this."
"Assumptions like that usually come back to bite me in the ass," Hank muttered. "But she doesn't know anything about wesen or Grimms. Nick said she didn't even believe him when he told her about it."
"Wesen aren't the only ones who can mix up a zaubertrank," Rosalee told them. "It's just like baking. All you need is a recipe and the right ingredients."
Juliette wouldn't, Nick thought, squeezing his eyes shut against the very idea. She wouldn't. There was no reason she would and that was assuming she even could. Except…except he kept remembering the way Juliette's mother had looked at him the first time they'd met. How her dad had been almost…guilty. The whispered conversations that had just stopped when he'd walked into a room. He had written it off as initial parental disapproval. Of him. Of his job. Of his lack of family ties.
It wouldn't be the first time he'd scared someone off because he failed to fake his way through the mystery that was a normal suburban family. His usual experiences with normal suburban families tended to show up on the news.
"Well," Hank said slowly, "we'll just have to ask her when she gets here."
He was pretty sure it wasn't too long after that he opened his eyes to see Juliette leaning over him with a stricken expression. She managed a smile when she saw he was awake, eyes wet and bright. "Oh, hon, I'm so sorry. I thought I'd ended it. This wasn't supposed to happen."
He could scarcely wrap his mind around her words. That—that wasn't confusion about why she had been asked to drive four hours for a man she didn't even know anymore.
That was the tone of someone who knew what was going on and knew why.
TBC
Author's Note: I know! I can't believe I ended it there either. Such a bad, bad squirrel. Hee, hee.
