Ok guys… the update! Sorry to keep you waiting… hadn't been feeling very well. I thought it would take until the end of the week to get this together but pieces slotted together this evening and I've decided to expand one scene over into the next chapter. So, here we are!
Thanks for all the really lovely reviews on the last chapter. Really gave me a boost. Cookies for all of you!
X x X
Monroe slammed the car to a halt at the bottom of his front yard and opened the door a fraction. There was an extended, lupine scream of rage from out back of the house that made him slam the door shut again immediately, fearing imminent cardiac arrest from the cleaving of loyalties. "Oh… crap."
Sweating heavily all of a sudden, Nick pulled his tie off.
"You alright?"
"Fine. Your car heating's a little high. How do you want to play this?"
Monroe risked another look past Nick and saw his Ma and his fiancee swiping at each other under his own awning, each vying for their permanent place in his pack. He'd seen Rosalee fight: he wouldn't go up against her voluntarily. He'd also seen his mom, so many years ago, scrapping and snarling against the woman that invaded his father's property to go after his gramps: she'd fought Marie Kessler a good five minutes, Grimm skills and all, before playing fainted and accepting that she couldn't do any more to save her father in law. His Ma was no pushover.
God, panic. Panic panic panic… panic panic panic... DECISION! "Ah, Nick? I'll grab the lupine, you get the vulpine."
Nick looked appalled. "You want me to hold Rosalee back? She's got a lot of anger to get out of her system."
"Yeah, and if I hold her back, she'll think I'm siding with mom. No, fox-curbing duties are all yours, dude." Monroe watched the love of his life pin his mom down on the decking of the porch while his Pa watched anxiously from inside the kitchen window. "Look, you know I said 'release your Grimm'?"
"Changing your mind?" Nick looked at him seriously. "You're allowed. It's ok."
"No... no, just... I'm just thinking that if you Grimm them right off the bat, it'll be like this huuuuge, biggest-change-of-topic ever about how the hell we're buddies, and I think we need to prioritise—"
"—the ladies need to resolve things first. I get it. Let's go."
They leapt out of the car together and over to the gate, Monroe locking his Beetle up with a backwards snick of his keys as he ran. Monroe tugged at the rusted latch with sweaty frustration until Nick got bored and vaulted over single-handedly, totally unencumbered by his boot, tossing his peaked cap to one side as he stomped up the path. The hell with it. Monroe yanked the damn gate off its hinges and followed the Grimm, tossing the gate right on top of the cap. His superb hearing picked up the crunch of dead cardboard. Oops. Then Nick's white belt came off, tossed over his shoulder and right into the path of Monroe's muddy boot. Oops. Nick peeled his jacket off his shoulders and down his arms just as he strode up the porch steps, and threw it over the baluster, tearing open another couple of buttons.
The ladies took a quick break from their wild struggling to join Monroe in wondering what the frick Nick was doing, giving Nick the chance to scoop an arm under Rosalee's waist and haul her to the other side of the porch, holding on steadily even as she struggled and thumped him.
"You stay out of this, Nick!"
"Ease down, Rosie..."
"GET OFF! WE'RE NOT DONE HERE!"
Her feral rage shook Monroe so badly that he nearly missed his Ma as she leapt to her feet to steam after the hauled-off Fuschbau. Over-reacting, he grabbed her by the shoulders, whirled her round and slammed her against the wall, feeling like the worst son ever as she thumped into the planking and growled up at him.
"Whose goddamn side you on, Eddie?"
"The side of calm and common sense!" He growled deep in his throat, reminding his mom what he was holding back, then loosened his grip on her shoulders a little. "Ma, what in God's name's wrong with you?"
"She pushed me over by my face!"
"I'm really not interested in the whole 'who-did-what' game, here." That was something of a lie. He glanced back and met Rosalee's eyes as she quit struggling with Nick, stuck her chin up, folded her arms and shifted back to human. Totally hot. Maybe she'd be happy to shove him onto their bed, sometime. By his face. "Did you really, honey?"
"I did. After she'd ground her heel into my foot."
Oh man… "Ma… why!?"
"YOU'RE MARRYING A FUSCHBAU!"
He sighed heavily. "You scream that like it's self-explanatory."
"Well, it kind of is! How'd you feel if Bruno went off to college, then came home and said he was moving in with some bitch of a catfish and wanted a loan to buy a three-bedroomed tank in the country?"
Rosalee's homicidal lunge was so fast that Monroe almost let go of his Ma in fright, but thankfully Nick was faster, getting his arms around Rosie and pressing her down on the deck as gently as he could manage, quietly apologising the whole time, until she quit swearing and struggling and threatening, loudly, to shred his sixteen jackets and dye his warrant badge pink.
"Your piss-artist buddy's a cop?" his Pa yelled from inside. "What the hell you getting him mixed up in this for? He's got no idea what he's dealin' with!"
"Yes I do!" Nick called back over his shoulder.
Monroe huffed a sigh, turned to the kitchen window, and gave his Pa the red glare. "He knows what we all are."
"Well, what is is? Cause he ain't wogeing. Did you adopt your own pet Slichkennen?"
"I'm a little more than that," Nick called back, letting Rosalee up once she'd settled down.
Monroe saw his Pa absorb this, scratching his head and walking to the door of the kitchen at least, instead of hiding inside. He finally let go of his Ma, once it looked like she'd caught her breath, and walked over to Rosalee, helping her to her feet and folding her in his arms. A show of solidarity with his loved one was needed, here. She nestled against him, her rigidity slowly loosening up. Nick backed up a little, giving them room.
"Let me make something clear, while we're all calming down a little. Rosie is not a bitch."
"Or a catfish!"
"Or a catfish," Monroe amended hurriedly, "and, as you've seen, not a Blutbad either. But she is here to stay, much like your grandson—"
"It's just all so upside down," his Ma whimpered, massaging her face with her fingertips and laquered nails. "You're seriously marrying halfway down the food chain?"
"I can still kick your ass!" Rosalee snapped.
"You caught me off-guard!"
"Foxes are cunning, remember? And as for that 'pissy' strength you were going on about? Who was just sanding the porch planks with her butt? Was it me? No, I think it was YOU!"
Monroe gave Rosalee a light squeeze, hoping she'd pick up on the gentle 'shut up' in the gesture. "Ok, honey, you'll have noticed my mom's an old-church blutbad. I can't change that. Mom, you'll have noticed that I've fallen in love with this woman, and I have no plans to change that, which is why I'm standing over here, with her, and not over there with you, watching her pack. Now... like I said, Rosalee's a permanent fixture and you're going to have to wrap your head around that somehow. NICELY."
"You're asking a hell of a lot, Eddie," his mom growled, betrayal in her eyes.
"Mom..." As she put her hand over her face, he thought she was going to sob, but then he realised she was peeking out between her fingers.
"Oh... How the hell can I get my head wrapped round anything while he's doing... that? Young man, you cut that out!"
"I'm really hot!"
"That's beside the point! Put yourself away, for God's sake!"
Monroe glanced back to see Nick urgently yanking off his now fully-open shirt. What...? Ok, he kind of got the introductory phases of the stripping were necessary: dress uniform wasn't exactly ideal to fight in. But now... Rosalee was staring too, he noted, but more in concern than anything else. Monroe kissed the top of her head and disentangled himself lightly. "Uh Nick... a word, please?"
They met at the bottom of the steps, still close enough to the ladies to bound back up and separate them if they needed to. The ladies settled for scowling at each other. Monroe scratched the back of his head and murmured softly.
"I know I told you to reveal your Grimm, but this so, so far from what I had in mind."
Nick wiped sweat off his forehead. "I'm still a little warm. Besides, the distraction helped, didn't it? Without me... doing anything... hugely topic-changing?"
He hated it when Nick looked unjustly hurt. "Eh...Yeah, but..."
"Anyway, it's been useful to confirm something that's been occurring to me, lately."
"What?"
"Rosie's right, I'm changing. I didn't take any anti-pheromone pills yesterday. Or today. But... despite your dire warnings about catnip on the phone earlier, Jan only had eyes for Denny. And I've gone a full 48 hours without being jumped." Nick gave him a brilliant, unfocussed grin, drying himself off with his balled-up shirt. "I think my days of pill-popping may be over."
Monroe pinched the bridge of his nose. "Dude... that is awesome news. Really. I am very, very pleased for you. Yet... conduct your half-dressed experiments in your own time, will you? Family crisis, here!"
"Eddie! We've got this under control! Send that under-dressed little fairy home and bring the girls indoors!"
Nick's brows raised. "Little fairy?"
Monroe's toes curled in his shoes. "Pa, may I politely and sincerely recommend shutting the fuck up?"
"You watch your damn mouth, boy! You ain't too old or big to get a kicking!"
"Am I still allowed to Grimm him?"
Monroe made himself a barrier between his buddy and his Pa, blocking Nick's apparent desire to stride to the door and prove who the real fairy was. As he'd found from Nick's restless, drunken sleep-talking, his buddy had a real complex about being an inch shy of six foot. And it appeared that his one-time snark about Nick being about as weighty as a baby new potato had gone a little deeper than he'd thought.
"Nick, don't rise to it. You are bigger than this... rats! Bad expression... sorry. Just stay focussed on what we need to do here, getting the girls to talk, peacefully... "
"I am focussed, but I'm not taking that crap, either." Nick kept his gaze averted but yelled round the side of his restraining right arm. "Eddie doesn't want me to go, so you just carry on being a cowardly asshole, and I'll carry on being everyone's favourite 'clock-sucker'."
"Say what? Come over here and call me a cowardly asshole!"
"I'd love to!"
Monroe pulled Nick back with real effort. He'd totally thought he wanted Nick to storm in there and smash through his Pa's ignorant, hardass exterior, but Rosalee and his Mom were still circling each other and that had to stop, first and foremost. Then he felt Nick's heat under his hands and realised he was swaying a little. "Ok, Nick… total change of priorities. Are you sick?"
"Don't feel sick. Just mad."
His Pa wasn't done. "Whoa… hey... you heard me call you a clocksucker? That's some serious hearing you've got there. You a Gefrierengeber?"
Monroe turned his head quick enough to crick his neck and glared at his Pa through a galaxy of white spots in his vision. "A Santa? In PORTLAND? Is this a good time for an extra-weird theory?"
"Makes sense! He gets really emotional, can't take heat over freezing, and let's not forget the insane hearing... the 'gebers can hear a kid bein' rude from 200 miles away."
"Joe… what if he's a small Siegbarste?" His Ma backed up a few paces. "That fits, too.. sweat problems, holdin' a grudge over a little remark, really short temper…"
Monroe heard Nick growl, looked down and saw an almost feral expression of wrath on his buddy's face. The sweat had reappeared. Jeez. He put his fingers to Nick's carotid and a pulse smacked frenetically under the skin. "Holy crap! We got to get you sitting down, or lying down, or chained down... or something!"
"You a pygmy Koninglowen, kid?"
Nick inhaled sharply and straightened up, clenching his teeth so hard that his jaw muscles almost hardened into balls in front of his ears. His sudden calm was horribly eerie. "A… what?"
"Oh... that's done it," Rosalee mumbled, echoing pretty much Monroe's precise thoughts.
"Excuse me, Monroe." Nick pushed his arm away lightly and walked steadily towards the kitchen door, his fists bunched. It wasn't a thing that Monroe chose to notice, but while all tensed up, Nick suddenly looked a hell of a lot bigger. Apparently also noticing this, just as unhappily, his Pa backed away hastily with his palms up.
"Whoa, hey…. I've got nothing against Koninglowen... of any size! They're right at the top of the... STAY BACK!" He picked up a chair and held it out in front of him, waving it wildly. "YOU STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!"
Nick tugged the chair easily out of the elderly alpha's grip with one hand and dropped it lightly behind him on the floor. He was still staring at the floor as he walked. "Stay away? I thought you wanted to know what I am. Let me help you to guess. I'm of the one of the oldest species there is."
Monroe met his mom's eyes: Nick's voice was quiet, but it carried outside from the kitchen. She clearly recognised the echoey, dead-end quality of it and the colour went out of her face like someone just vacuumed it out from just beneath the neck. Her hand went to her mouth and she watched through the window, eyes huge, as Nick closed the gap between himself and his Pa, nudging chairs out of his way, cornering him by the cabinets. Monroe ran in after Nick, Rosalee and his mom in hot pursuit. She gibbered at him, pulling hard on his shirtsleeve.
"Ohmi... Ohmigod. Your friend's a... Gr... he's a Gri...? EDDIE, HOW DID YOU MAKE FRIENDS WITH A GRIMM?"
Nick turned back, his face a weird kind of metallic colour under the reflected glow of silver burning from his eyes — blazing more fiercely than Monroe had ever seen them. Maybe this, this was the Grimm that everyone was so scared of. Nick just hadn't evolved into one... yet. Monroe caught his breath as he gazed into the centre of the silver vortex, wondering if his buddy was still even in there. He got the tiniest nod of reassurance and exhaled hard, feeling dizzy. Rosalee held his hand, hard.
"I'm many things." Nick's voice echoed round the room, making his inner fur crinkle with dread. "I'm Nick Burkhardt, first. I'm a hunter, sometimes a killer, sometimes a releaser. I'm a god-father to four little wesen and a human girl. And I'm a cop."
As Nick turned back to His Pa, the old man went almost to full woge, protruding snout, snapping fangs, a growth up to 6-2... the lot. And yet he quailed before Nick, dropping before him on his knees and whining.
"I'm Marie Kessler's nephew, I'm Reed Burkhardt's son, I'm your son's best buddy, and yes... I AM A GRIMM!"
His Pa shook like a drill out of control and clamped his hand to his chest.
"Eddie, stop him! He's going to kill your father!"
Monroe rolled his eyes. "Mom... don't be a schmuck-ette. He's just mad at all the mocking. Of course he's not going to kill—" then he saw his Pa point with a shaking hand over at his jacket, suck a deep breath in and tip face-down on the floor. Oh God. He sprinted over and shook his Pa's floppy shoulder. "Hell! Hell, hell... ROSIE, HELP!"
: : : : :
Rosalee tipped Monroe Senior onto his back and took his pulse. It was high, but rhythmically steady. His breathing was a little over-rapid, but not with that half-suck hitch that came with a heart attack, and she peeled an eye-lid back to see the white ring of a syncope round his iris. Alright, so he was a drama Queen. That, or he'd done a lot of shit in his life and had a genuinely huge shock. Suppressing a sigh, she moved him into recovery and crossed the kitchen to dig a little pot out of his jacket pocket. She read the side. Angina medication.
"What's wrong with him?" Martha demanded.
"He fainted." Rosalee looked into desperate eyes and for a second, just shoved their differences to one side. If Monroe dropped on his face in front of her like that, she'd be scared crapless. "He'll be fine. I'll get him some water for his tablets."
She got up and went over to the sink, filling a glass. Monroe had dragged Nick off to the bathroom on a non-con chill-out exercise to see if throwing him into the shower and icing him would do anything for the blaze coming off him. From the sound of the enraged hammering on the shower wall, the violent protests and the stream of alarmed 'DUDE!'s, it didn't seem like this caring treatment was improving Nick's mood. Rosalee took the glass back over to Joe, who'd woken, and who was being firmly hair-stroked by Martha. Rosalee folded her legs and sat by them, waiting for Joe to feel up to sitting and taking his tablets. Martha's face was pinched so she went into patient mode, determined not to rise to anything. They'd done the yelling and the hitting and now they had to reason. Hostile eyes dug into hers.
"So... our Eddie's befriended a Grimm. A Kessler Grimm."
"There's probably no point in me saying that he's a pretty sweet guy, really."
"None."
"Thought not. So you won't approve of him being Bruno's Godfather."
"He's WHAT?"
"It's probably best that we get all the shocks out of the way early." Rosalee nodded at Joe's shuddering form. "Instant relapses are easier to deal with than delayed ones."
"How did they meet?" Martha barked.
"Nick leapt on him and accused him of child abduction. All water under the bridge, now. Monroe's not stupid. He sees how Nick works and he's happy to help him find a balanced way to deal with his Grimm abilities."
Joe coughed and sat. "That raging, glaring nightmare act back there? That was balanced? "
"His little Gladiator lecture was unnecessary," Martha said primly. "I was waiting for him to add '...and I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next'. 'I am a Grimm', would've done the heart-attack job, since that seems what he was aiming at."
Rosalee gulped back the urge to smack the woman round the face with the onion string hanging down from the side of the carbohydrates cupboard. Martha hadn't been that brave a minute ago.
"Oh, don't talk such... crap! He came round here to help Eddie to stop us from taking chunks out of each other. It was you and fainting beauty here that set off the Maximus Nickiness Deridius reaction!"
"Didn't know he was a Grimm, did I?" Joe folded his arms petulantly.
"But you did know he was one of your son's friends. And you didn't seem to give a damn that you'd be humiliating Eddie by constantly badmouthing his buddy right in front of him. Do you really not give a crap about how he feels?"
"Oh girl... for someone fighting for a place in the family, you really don't care about working to endear yourself, do you?"
"Martha, I tried that and it achieved squat, didn't it? Actually, I'd rather be friends with you, if possible. It'd make things easier all round. But I'll be damned if I try simpering my way into your good books. Because it can't actually be done anyway, can it?"
"There's a lot of ground between cursing and giving me sass, and 'simpering'."
"How much time would you have for me if you didn't think I could defend your grandson with my life?"
Martha's glare stepped down in degrees, moving from annoyance at being backtalked again to a reluctant, irritable recognition of the truth in that. Eventually, she gave a reluctant kind of half smile. "Well... I'll say one thing for you. You'll be good to have around if the Verrat come sniffing by."
"Which they will." There was no point in bullshitting about that. "Nick and his partner have been investigating attacks which are almost definitely Verrat-organised."
"And your being with Eddie exposes him to the risk of attack. I thought you loved him?"
"I think you underestimate your son," Rosalee said coldly. "He's not one to let other people dictate who he's loyal to. Not even the Verrat."
Joe pushed himself up against the cupboards and took the glass of water from her, knocking the pills back with them. There was quiet in the background as the ruckus in the bathroom died out, to be replaced by an indistinct conversational mumble. Monroe emerged, gave an unconvincing thumbs-up, and then trotted up the stairs. He was back in the bathroom within moments, throwing in a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of black shorts before joining her on the floor with his Ma and Pa. Martha glared holes in him.
"Your friend has a lot to answer for," Martha muttered. "I haven't seen your father go that colour since Adele Gardner brought little Freddie round to play with Doug so he couldn't see the remains of his father being removed from the garage."
"Yeah... that was pretty horrible," Monroe agreed. "But to be honest, if Nick hadn't broken loose and admitted his Grimm, you'd have been removing Pa's remains from my garage."
"Eddie!"
"No, don't even try that shocked voice, Ma. I cannot tell you how mad I am at you guys right now, so don't push me." Monroe's face switched from wrath to concern as their eyes met. "You alright, sweetheart?"
"Son... I've always told you what'd happen if you brought other blood into the family. Look at me, now. Don't think I'm jerking around here."
"I crap on your ultimatums," Monroe said cheerfully. "Don't bother with them."
"Is this you breaking away from the pack, son?"
"No, this is me telling you to stop being such a monumentally small-minded, short-sighted, ignorant, embarrassingly unpleasant cockwipe!"
Rosalee had to get up and get a glass of water so that she could smirk into it secretly. She loved it when Monny was like this: it was almost as if he were getting his own Grimm on, and the effects were just a joy to discreetly watch. His parents were on full-stare duty, sharing responsibility equally for gawping and gaping. Seeing them all together like this, she could see where her honey got his flabbergasted facial repetoire from. They were still displaying the black fillings of acute disbelief when she returned with her own drink, sat down, and tried to bring the social temperature down a little.
"Martha, Joe... this is a sincere question, alright? What is your biggest problem with all this? That I'm Fuschbau in particular? That I'm not Blutbad? Or that Bruno's gemischt?"
Monroe put his hand on her shoulder. "Honey, I'm not sure that giving them a Smorgasbord of stuff to complain about is really the way to progress."
"I think you're forgetting about the universal social shame of marrying low," Martha muttered, but appeared to consider the offered issues properly for a moment. "But if I stick to your narrow little multiple choice, it's mainly because Bruno's mixed. It's going to make his life so…hard. The illnesses! The social exclusion! The involuntary woges which may or may not be seen by humans…"
"We work with two really amazing scientists who've made huge advances with gemischt medicine. And puurwesen get sick too, don't forget. As for social life, there's a school for him to go to, full of other mixed kids," Rosalee reassured. "And by the time he's ready to move on, if I know Jan, there will be a primary school for wesen kids by then, and then a secondary school."
"Who's Jan?"
"A Koninglowen. A very wealthy one. He sponsors projects like this."
Joe gave her a sceptical look. "Most noteable Koninglowen are very wealthy, usually by being not-so-nice. I can name some."
"Don't bother. I'm sure you can also name quite a few noteable Siegbarstes, too, but I don't care. Don't you get it? All those profiles that Grimms use... they're just write ups of personal experiences, taken from wesen legend as much as anything else. It's not just Grimms that have profiles, wesen have them too. They're called urban legends, yet wesen groups use them as an excuse to not mix. And you wonder why there aren't enough puurwesen left..."
"It's because people keep mixing it up!"
"No, it's because stubbornness is killing us!" Rosalee felt like pulling her hair out sometimes. "Exclusive groups like the puur Blutbaden have no idea how to help themselves when they get into trouble, because they won't mix. Not with other wesen, not with humans. And by the way, so many of those profiles are wrong. The other 'clock-sucker' you met? He's half Siegbarste, and one of Nick's best buds."
Joe paled satisfyingly. "Oh my god... I called a Siegbarste a queer..."
"And you lived to tell the tale, which just goes to show how murderous he is. He's a paramedic, he's a sweetheart, he's one of Bruno's favourite hugs, and he delivered Bruno while injured."
"But he is actually queer like the rest of 'em, right? I'm not going to get pounded for—"
"You let a Siegbarste… deliver your BABY?"
Rosalee totally enjoyed horrifying Martha with that one. "With a good deal of support from a Hexenbiest, who will start working for me on Monday."
"You… are nuts." Martha looked so appalled she nearly went green. "What are you thinking? You have a child! You have a duty to protect your child — MY GRANDCHILD — and you are risking his safety to demonstrate your fricking bleeding-heart liberal opinions!"
"Ma—"
"It's ok, honey." Rosalee stood up. "Is this truce over already? Do you want round two outside? I'm ready for it."
"HEY!"
They broke off to see Nick emerge wearily from the front room in shorts and hawaiian shirt, looking really colourful but totally exhausted. He held Bruno on his forearm and towelled his hair with his free hand. "I heard him snuffling, but I think he's working his way up to a howl."
"He's afraid of you!"
Nick rolled his eyes, chucking the towel to one side and giving Bruno's tummy a light tickle. Bruno stopped whimpering and spread his toes happily. "Actually ma'am, I think he's scared of Eddie's shirt."
"Of course." Rosalee took Bruno from him. "My baby has taste."
Nick gave her a crooked smile, bent over and put a hand down to pull Joe up from the floor. Joe took the hand suspiciously but clearly didn't want to set the Grimm off again by refusing the help. Monny made coffee while they took seats round the kitchen table, staring at each other uncomfortably. Nick eventually broke the silence.
"Alright, so my outburst was a conversation-killer, but let's move on. Do you know what I was doing this evening, before coming here with your son to spoil the smack-down?"
"Uh… delivering a catnipped, gay lion king to the clinic?"
Rosalee had to hand it to Joe: he could be a jerk, but he paid attention to what was going on around him.
"Before that." Nick rolled his eyes. "I was at a bravery awards night, watching a lot of humans and a lot of wesen pick up gongs for some pretty awesome Good Samaritan acts. Humans saving wesen and vice versa, and wesen helping other wesen that should be their deadly enemies. I've seen the Maushertz share potato chips with the Lausenschlange. A Jagerbar who's not even 20 yet risked his life to beat off a Blutbad to protect a baby Bauerschwein."
"Don't expect me to approve of that," Martha shuddered.
"You'd be happy to see a guy take a chunk out of a toddler just because he's Bauerschwein!?"
"Well of course not, but—"
"—but your instant reaction was initially 'that's just how it is', wasn't it? To hell with what that Blutbad was about to do to that poor kid, let's all pity the Blutbad who was just following his biological imperative!"
Joe snorted. "You Grimms work off profiles that are hundreds of years old, and you're hackin' on Martha for being traditional? Get outta here!"
Rosalee felt super-proud of Nick for just leaning forward and slowing his voice right down, rather than cutting Joe in half with a well-deserved insult. If Joe hadn't figured out that Nick was a little different by now…
"I use the profiles so I know what the hell I'm looking for as a cop. Eddie helps, because half of those old books are in German. Since I don't use the profiles as an excuse to slay wesen when I find them, I think I do reserve the right to 'hack' on people who cling to tradition."
"This translation service, son… is that all you do?"
"No." Monroe folded his arms and remained calm. "I have also been of great assistance in sending reaper heads through the international mail."
Rosalee kept a straight face as Martha added to her repetoire of horrified expressions.
"And why would a Grimm need help with that?"
"Nick can't be trusted with bubble wrap."
"How can you be flippant about this shit, Eddie?" Joe looked genuinely perplexed at the change in his son. "Marie Kessler killed my father. YOUR GRANDFATHER."
"Pa... you said as much yourself that Gramps Monroe beat Gramma black and blue every other week for about fifteen years. She wasn't the most open-minded of Grimms, I realise, but she wasn't necessarily a representative sample of their population, either."
"So where were you when your aunt was on killing spree?" Joe demanded.
"What year did your father die?"
"1995."
"I was in Vermont, probably on a sleepover at Laurie's place, rewriting all his English homework for him."
"Who was Laurie?" Rosalee asked, but it took Nick a moment to answer from round the outside of a cavernous yawn.
"German exchange student. Looking back on the way he acted most of the time, I'm pretty sure he was a Siegbarste."
Quiet fell for a few moments while coffee was sipped and eye-contact was avoided. Nick yawned again.
"This is just… surreal," Martha whispered. "We're sitting around a table… talking."
"Isn't that better than being chased through the woods with a crossbow for no obvious reason?" Monroe flipped his hands up. "Warm coffee versus pointless chase… complete no-brainer, if you ask me."
Rosalee took a risk and put her hand on Martha's. "Look, in light of the 'brave new world' of chatting over coffee, can we start again? I'm not out to defy your every word. I just want to bring up Bruno in safety, peace and quiet. With your support."
Monroe kissed his Ma's cheek. "It would mean a lot."
"You need to understand that I have to get my head around you not being with a Blutbad, and how I explain Rosalee to the rest of the universe of people I know. It's tough. Some people won't take it and what am I supposed to do? Abandon all my friends, or just never mention my family to them again?"
Rosalee sighed. She had a fair point, there. And it was the first time she'd said anything she could actually grasp as a genuine personal issue.
"Mom... a Blutbad partner was never going to happen," Monny pointed out. "Not in a happy, permanent relationship, at least. Look, I met Rosalee 18 months ago, which means that I had 42 and a half years of my life to fail to find the right she-wolf to settle down with. And I never did. Why? Because there weren't any. Packs keep to themselves so much that there are hardly any 'eligible girls' left, and the ones that are still around… well. You never liked Angelina anyway."
"No-one said you had to end up with Angelina! God!" Martha pulled a face. "She was a walking nightmare. We were just hoping that you would find a happy medium between Angelina and marrying outside a pack!"
"I've got more than a happy medium. I have Rosalee. I have Bruno. I have friends who will fight off Hundjagers to protect them. I have, if anything, an ecstatic medium."
"She's the best thing that's ever happened to him," Nick mumbled, rubbing his eyes.
The old she-wolf pulled a reluctant face, then a gooey one, then took Bruno from Rosalee and cuddled him. "I'll take this little one back to bed. You and I… we'll give peace a chance, girl. But I can't say there ain't going to be culture shocks. Oh… Lord, Eddie, what do we do about Doug and Marcie? Tell 'em to stay away, or…?"
"No, I'd like to see him, Marcie and the kids, but there's a big summit meeting tomorrow and we're not missing that. So, Monday morning, no earlier. Ok?"
Rosalee had forgotten the summit meeting. "Hell… we're going to have to take Bruno with us. He's still feeding."
Monroe grinned. "All the kids are going. If they don't, Denny will be annoyed. He has their UFRS gear all made up already. Black babygros with silver trim. Where the hell does he even get black babygros?"
"UFRS?" Joe asked.
"United Federation of Rare Species." Monroe raised his coffee to the name. "Used to be a bit of a joke, but now it's a proper movement. Most members are mixed-wesen, many of them wesen-human. The Verrat are on the march but we don't intend to let them get a stranglehold in Portland. Nick and Jan have been working way too hard to bring everyone together."
Martha met Rosalee's eyes in genuine worry. "All of you together… doesn't that make you a target?"
"You'd be surprised at how good we've become at defending ourselves," Monroe answered for her. "Though it's pretty reassuring to have a Grimm on our side." He looked down at the dozing Grimm. "Don't rush to thank me for the compliment."
Nick snored gently, and Rosalee noticed that Joe almost chuckled.
"Have to say... he looks less fearsome that way."
"Dude! You have such a terrible attention span…" Monroe prodded Nick into some form of reasonable wakefulness and marched him to the couch. Then found a blanket. Then pushed Nick sideways, pulled his feet up and stuck the covers round him before snapping the front room light off. Then snapped up straight in paranoia. "Hell, I've just tucked in the Grimm. How did he talk me into that?"
Nick's flop-out was contagious and they all trudged off to various beds. Martha said goodnight to her, which was definite progress. As Monroe trotted up to their room, Rosalee paused at Nick's side by the couch and ruffled his hair lightly. "Thank you."
"You're welcome."
She damn near jumped a foot off the ground. "Nick! I thought you'd dropped out asleep!"
"I was trying to get them to go to bed while they were still being reasonable! You know what they say about infectious yawning? Didn't work. So I went for 'contagious coma'."
"You have the weirdest peace strategies… ever. Was your dad that weird?"
Nick shrugged. "I'd like to think so. I'll have to ask Freya."
"See you in the morning. Blood test first thing… I want to find out why you nearly burned up on the spot."
"Me too. That was uncomfortable."
"First time that's happened to you?"
"To that extent, yeah. And now I'm cold. I can't be pleased. Sorry."
"Goodnight, Nick." She passed him an extra blanket and watched him bury himself under it until all she could see of him was black hair. He gave her a lazy sort of wave from under the side of the blanket and zipped his hand back under.
Something was definitely going on with him. But he was still 'Nick', thank God.
X x X
"Mr Hendricks?"
Stef pulled himself out of sleep at the sound of the light voice that didn't match his dream, and at the feel of an equally light hand on his shoulder. It took him a moment to screw the sleep out of his eyes with his knuckles and sit properly after God knows how long he'd been dozing on the side of Livvy's bed.
The guy in front of him was in his early sixties, had thick dark silver hair cut close and a kindly face. And a very crumpled suit. Stef realised that a hand was being put out for him to shake and he stood automatically to greet him. And then towered over him. The guy was really small, about 5-2 or so, but his grip was warm and strong.
"Mr Hendricks, I'm Dr Chris McBride."
"Are you the neurological specialist?"
The Doctor unexpectedly hit himself on the forehead with his unoccupied palm in self-exasperation. "I must remember not to introduce myself like that in a hospital. Sorry, yes, I'm a doctor, but in this case, the patient's my daughter."
"Oh! Right... Hi." Stefan woke up a little more. He'd been texting the guy updates since yesterday morning. "Sorry, Jan gave me the number for a 'Christopher', but I didn't really put two and two together. I'm still a little bleary."
"Understandable. I'm sorry it took me so long to get here. There wasn't an affordable flight from Fort Nelson to be found, so I had to settle for a ruinous one." Chris wound round him and tucked a rogue strand of Livvy's hair behind her ear. "She hates an itchy face. Has she woken since this afternoon?"
"No." Stef tried not to sound as shattered as he felt by his good-news false alarm. "It was just for a few minutes, while they were changing her plaster. I over-celebrated, told everyone she'd be fine, and then she dropped back off, and... "
"And hasn't stirred since." Chris snifffed hard, but turned a bright and false smile at Stef that seemed more borne of optimism than observation. "Well, no one can blame you for wanting to share your little flare of hope. You'd better take a break. You look wiped out."
"I didn't want to leave her."
"Thank you. That's good of you."
The guy was reacting so calmly to the whole situation that Stef didn't quite know whether he really understood what was going on. "Sir... what it says on her obs board? It's not the whole story."
"I know. It's an 'Andersen' thing. Livvy over-did the empathy, whether she meant to or not, poor darling. Tuvé called me last night to fill me in. She was ready to come over from Montreal, but was highly unamused to be banned from visiting by 'the Grimm'."
Stef snorted. "That was completely the right call, as far as I'm concerned. Your ex is unbelievably callous. She made her own daughter sound like some kind of slut."
"Tuvé has an unhappy talent for making her logic sound cold, I'm afraid. But she's not my ex."
Oh, bloody hell. Huge faux pas. Stef scratched the side of his nose and stared at the floor. "I'm very sorry, Sir."
"Thank you. Sometimes I do wonder if a split would be more relaxing." He frowned. "What made you think we were separated?"
"Because you live on the opposite sides of Canada!?" And because in the very, very little Livvy had told him, she'd never mentioned her parents together in the same anecdote.
"No, we're still happily married, so long as we don't see much of each other. It's a long-distance thing. Being miles from Tuvé keeps my love alive."
"I can imagine," Stef rubbed his temples. As far as he was concerned, being many miles from Tuvé was all that was keeping her alive. Ghastly woman. His head hurt. "If you don't mind, Sir, I'll get a little food and some fresh air."
"Of course. I'll text you if you need to come back."
Stefan found himself meandering his way down to the canteen, wondering if Livvy actually had any kind of proper parental or even adult support when she was growing up. Christ. Her dad seemed a nice enough guy, but... was he even there to deflect the worst of her mom's negativity when Livvy needed him to? He was well aware that he'd been spoiled with his own mum. And that he didn't have any kids of his own and didn't really know the continual stresses of parenthood. He was probably judging from a warm, high-up place, but he couldn't help how he felt about wanting to shield Livvy from any more crap.
He was glad for the respite. Every muscle in his back seemed to be on a rota to go into cramp and his mouth was completely dried out. He grabbed a bottle of water and a coffee. He hadn't thought he was hungry, but the smell of the goulash encouraged him to actually eat the food he ordered. He paid up and took his tray to a table, then recognised a nervous, stammering voice a few tables behind, telling some kid, politely, that ketchup was for eating, not for the re-staging of a crime scene.
"It's not a crime scene, Uncle Bud, it's a bus!"
"It's a m-mess!"
Stef turned at Theo's unmistakeable little voice, piping clear and just a tiny bit laced with Dutch, despite his total abandonment of his mother tongue. He joined Bud, Theo and Matty at their table, making Bud leap with stress, and the kids leap with glee. Stef returned the slightly wild hug Theo gave him and looked at Bud in concern.
"What are you guys doing here? Everything ok?"
"Booberry," Matty said.
"Pardon?"
"Matty put a blueberry up his nose." Bud looked really tired.
"Oh." Stef couldn't see the entertainment value in that. "Why?"
"Because he's one-and-a-half, I guess." Bud seemed to remember that he'd shown up at hospital without his full babysitting complement because he suddenly looked stricken. "C-Carianne's home with Janie and my three. She's probably asleep right now. I just thought it would be easier on Matty if I brought Theo with me to keep him calm. We were just going to get some fries and head home, now. That's ok, isn't it? I mean... Jan and Denny won't be mad that he wasn't in bed hours ago, or anything like that?"
"Of course not. Don't worry."
Matty had a slightly bruised left nostril, but otherwise seemed chirpy and looked really, really... neat. Polo teeshirt collar was straight. A napkin frequently re-tucked into that collar. The bottom of his teeshirt haphazardly but determinedly tucked in. A waft of aircon lifted one of Matty's tufts of hair and he instantly splatted it flat with his little palm and smoothed it.
Stef couldn't help chuckling. "Are you going out somewhere special after this, little man?"
"Tie-deee Grimm!"
"Heh?"
Theo sighed. "Daddy and Nick were in their police-at-a-funeral-or-police-at-a-party uniforms when they dropped us off and now Matty wants to be all tidy, like Nick."
Stef grinned and made some progress with his dinner, not minding when Matty stuck his little plastic spork in it and had a taste. When Matty decided that goulash was better than fries, he pulled back a little from the table so that the tot could tuck himself into his lap and help himself without spilling any.
"M-Matty... leave some for Mr Hendricks. There's lots of him to feed."
"Are you coming to the grand-day-out meeting tomorrow?" Theo suddenly asked.
"Only if Livvy's well enough to be left. Her daddy's here, though. So... maybe."
Bud rounded Theo and Matty up, wiped down their faces and lifted them down. "Um... Mr Hendricks?"
"It's 'Stefan', mate."
"Give Livvy my best, ok? What she did with Janie's mom was... life-changing. I'll never forget it."
"Nor will I. I'll make sure she knows how you feel. I'd better go back."
He gave Theo another quick hug, and his nephew seemed keen to cling on. He ruffled the little head, noticing the wide eyes as he pulled back. He hunkered down for a moment, his hands draped over the little shoulders. "You ok?"
"Yeah."
Unconvincing. But Theo went off to chase after Matty, leaving Stefan to make a mental note to tell Jan that his little man was out of sorts. He headed back to Livvy's room, checking his mobile for any missed calls. His vibrate setting tended to be a bit of a let down at times. One message from Monroe to let him know that Nick was staying at theirs overnight, and asking him to call Denny before eight in the morning.
The lift trudged up to the second floor and as he got out, he heard the distant, rapid ping of an ECG monitor going into overdrive and just as he was trying to work out which direction the sound was coming from, his phone rang. Chris McBride. Stef snapped it off and sprinted for Livvy's room, finding the man trying to hold his daughter onto the bed as she thrashed in his grip, struggling to get away and trying to wipe at her face at the same time.
His heart did a triple beat in his chest: face wiping was what he'd woken up doing nearly every time he'd had a bad dream since he'd docked a month ago, convinced he'd gotten some of that gunge in his eyes.
"HELP!"
Chris' yell bringing him suddenly back to life, Stef lunged forward and got both arms round Livvy, pressing her against him. Her arms were trapped between them and she struggled in furious panic.
"THEY'RE COMING UP THE HATCHWAY! LET ME GO, WE'VE GOT TO GO!"
Doctors and nurses swarmed the room and yelled at him to back off, but he couldn't — yet. They'd only slam a bunch of sedatives into her and risk trapping her in his nightmares. Because she was definitely having one of his nightmares. Taking a huge risk, and ignoring the hands trying to haul him off, despite Chris's vigorous protests, he changed his grip to take Livvy by the shoulders and yelled back in her ear:
"YOU'RE ON THE ULYSEES, YOU'RE SAFE!"
Her eyes snapped open and she stared unseeingly at him for a long moment, shaking violently under his hands and then her face crumpled as she looked around, confused.
"This isn't the..."
"No, I'm sorry. It's not. It's just a hospital. But I'm not lying about being safe. It's over." Stef pulled her against him again, much more slowly this time, and she slid her arms under his jacket, holding on fiercely. The nurses who'd tried hauling him back let him go, but security staff continued to hover.
Chris coughed slightly. "If you could put her back down, they can reattach the saline."
"Alright." He didn't know who was more shaken: him, or Livvy. He gave her a small squeeze. "I need to put you back in bed before they taser me."
She turned a wet face up at him and gave him half a smile, letting him help her, rather than beating him round the head, as she'd done before when he'd tried lifting her out of the fight zone at the fair. She looked completely confused as lines were reattached, vitals taken, and more blankets appeared. Furious notes were scribbled on her obs board, and then the medical contingent left. Throughout, she wouldn't let go of his hand, so he hopped up on the bed with her. Then she finally seemed to see her father, her eyes focussing in shock.
"Dad?"
"Hey there." He stepped forward moist-eyed and kissed her on the head. "Before you ask, no, your Mom's not coming."
"Good." She dropped her head back on Stef's shoulder in relief as she met her father's eyes. "I don't want to be mean, but... I just don't have enough energy for her."
"The Energizer Bunny doesn't have enough energy for your mom," Stef muttered.
"What's happened to me?"
"You've been very poorly."
Livvy kept her tone neutral. "Yes, I can tell. Why am I having everyone else's nightmares?"
Chris sat heavily on the other side of the bed, failed to find anywhere to lodge without sliding off and gazed over at Stef irritably. "You have an enhanced talent for taking up space."
"Have you met my brother?"
"Not as yet…"
"Share space with my brother, then have a moan."
"You always did like them sarcastic, didn't you, love?" Chris settled for the chair again. "Alright, your notes say that you've had a mini-stroke—"
"What!?"
"A clot broke off and lodged in the back of your head. It's been dissolved, you'll be fine. But to prevent a recurrence, your entire leg's been debrided, re-wrapped and the plaster's staying off. You've just got a backslab now with breathable gauze. Your blood pressure went through the floor, so they're treating you for shock. They'll probably let you go with a lifetime's supply of aspirin once you've shown normal obs for a couple of days." He sighed hard. "Did you know that you could empathise, Livvy? I have a suspicion… that you did. Because your face says to me that you don't buy the mini-stroke explanation one little bit."
She shuffled down under her blanket, looking half cross, half mutinous. Despite the situation, Stef had to bite his lip at her expression.
"You did know, didn't you, darling?"
"I didn't know it would do that. I handled it last time. Graham's mother passed away and I spent a long time hugging him and wishing I could get him to feel better and say something. And then he seemed to move past the worst of it within the week. I felt a little fluey afterwards, but… nothing like this."
"Your mother seems to think you tried taking on too much at once, but I think there's a simpler theory."
"I'm not going to like this, am I?"
Stef put his hand up before Chris could go on. "If you're about to say something blunt for the sake of being 'honest', keep it to yourself. Or we may as well have her mother here."
"Mr Hendricks… you're clearly a good man and my daughter is just as clearly very, very fond of you. But just shut up for a minute, will you?"
"Dad!"
"Well, really! I haven't flown from Fort Nelson to have a finger waggled at me by a not-quite-yet-boyfriend. The point I'm trying to make is that I think you got a false indication of the results of empathising with Graham. He was probably pretending to be bereaved, and even managed to convince himself for a couple of days. Or perhaps he knew he'd been cut out of his mother's will, and you picked up on that stress… which wasn't that much. So when you tried to help several people all with genuine stress…"
"I couldn't handle it," Livvy finished for him. Then she went wide eyed and her breathing picked up again. "The worst dream is the one with the hurricane-like rain, and it wasn't one of yours, Stef."
Stef felt cold. Sounded like one of Jan's, maybe. "Can you remember what you saw?"
"Not really, it's all too scattered. It's like a lot of incidents being scrambled together, but the only image I kept seeing was a tilted bench in the pouring rain in a back yard, and hearing struggling and coughing. And someone hammering hysterically on a window from the inside."
He felt sick. "Will you excuse me… for a moment?"
He sprinted to the men's room and retched for a few moments but nothing came out. Not one of Jan's dreams, then. One of Theo's. He'd seen his father waterboarded. And had kept all that terror locked inside silently, for at least six months. How? How could he keep that kind of memory a secret? The little guy wouldn't even be four until September. He didn't even know whether he wanted to tell Jan or not. The thought of his kid seeing that, for all his efforts to protect him from the Hildegaards' violence, would turn Jan inside out. He would try talking to Theo himself, first. It took him a good ten minutes to calm down and walk back to Livvy's room.
Chris raised his brows, handing him a cup of water. "You alright?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
"Total bullshit, but I'll listen sometime if you would like me to. Look, I need to book into my hotel before the receptionist denies all knowledge of me. But you need to sleep too, so…" Chris indicated a fold-out bed in the corner. "You still need to sleep. I managed to convince the resident doctor that Livvy is not to be left unattended."
"Thanks." Stef shook the man's hand with a little more genuine feeling this time. "See you in the morning."
"See you in the afternoon. You'll be staying with Livvy. You're good for her. I'll be going to this big meeting instead of you. You'll just have to send me the meet-up details."
"You're… what?" Livvy spluttered. "Dad, it's for wesen and Grimms… not Andersens."
"Well, they'd better start getting more inclusive, hadn't they? I'm sure Nick won't complain. I'll just latch onto him. Besides, I'm technically a Slichkennen, I'll have you know. I'm a lot more au fait with Grimm and wesen lore than you or Tuvé give me credit for."
Livvy stared at him. "How did… how do you …"
"My first girlfriend turned out to be a Siegbeste. She had a panic attack when she found a spider in her bed and the wogeing and furniture-smashing involved in killing it was quite hard not to notice. Poor girl. She was so embarrassed. I did some rapid research after that incident. Right… got to go. And Stefan… send me those meet details or I'll phone you and email you every five minutes until you wish me dead."
"I'll do it tonight, then," Stef muttered, but smiled as the guy disappeared down the corridor. He had a feeling that the arachnophobic Siegbeste was probably a more relaxing partner than Tuvé Andersen. "I think your dad's a little bit nuts."
"People have called him worse." Livvy lay down as he unfolded the bed and took his shoes off. She looked a little lost. "Stef…"
"Yeah?"
"Do you have to sleep down there?"
He vaulted over onto her bed and got himself far more comfortable. "Nope."
"Thanks."
He felt a soft glow of happiness spread around inside as she nestled up against him, pulled his hips back in case specific parts of him (with no sense of occasion) decided to get even happier. Then other dangers occurred to him. "Wait, wait… is this safe? I don't want you absorbing any more of my stress."
"The only thing you're stressing about right now isn't polite to mention in conversation," she mumbled against his chest.
He reddened. "I'm never going to be able to bullshit you, am I?"
"Nope."
"Good." He reached over to snap off the overhead light and spent a few minutes pondering which side of the not-quite-boyfriend line he was on before tiredness caught up with him and he drifted off on her pillow.
X x X
TBC… in which the summit is held, Jan is unamused by Sean, Sean is unamused by Wu, and Portland's Grimm contingent expands…