"This can't be happening," Nick says firmly, even while he sits on her couch and stares off into space with dead, glazed eyes that have nothing to do with his Grimm powers and everything to do with them going missing.
"Right," Adalind says, squeezing his hand again. She has no idea how they ended up holding hands, but it's happening now, and she's committed. They're both in shock, she knows. They've both lost the most powerful parts of themselves, and they did it together. That should bother her more, she's sure. She should probably be able to blame him for everything right about now, but she was there. She knows what they did and why. Not the rational why—they may never know that—but the primal why had been clear. In that forest they had been equals—two killers in the night who met their match—and some biological, magical imperative had said fuck yes. Let's do this. Let's make the ultimate predator. Together.
Thank god she has an IUD. She shudders to think what evolution might have had in store if it had its way. If it mixed up the best and the worst of both of them and gave it human form. If it gave them a child on top of all the other nonsense they'll have to deal with next.
"Adalind?"
She blinks up at the source of her name and finds the pretty little fuchsbau bending to meet her eyes.
"You are Adalind, right?" the fuchsbau asks. "You're a hexenbiest?"
"Yeah," Adalind says, and then on a sob: "No. I was a hexenbiest."
"Oh. The blood—"
"Yeah."
"Is that what took Nick's powers, too?"
"No clue," Adalind says, blinking away tears and finally registering that she's home, in her apartment with total strangers. "Sorry, who are you?"
"Oh," the fuchsbau says, "of course, sorry. I'm Rosalee, and that's Monroe." She gestures back towards the overgrown hipster currently maneuvering a now slightly more dressed Hank into a more comfortable position on the ground.
"Howdy," Monroe says, snatching one of her throw pillows to support Hank's head.
"We're friends of Nick's," Rosalee says. "We help him with wesen stuff."
Adalind blinks again. A Grimm with wesen friends? What the hell is going on in this town?
"We're trying to figure out if it's safe for us to all stay here tonight? I think it's pretty clear that none of you should be alone right now, but do you think anyone else might try to find us here?"
"Mom," Adalind says, "and Sean. We should go."
"Okay," Rosalee says. "You stay here and make sure Nick doesn't move. We'll go get the cars started."
It doesn't seem like Nick is at all likely to move. He's still staring into space, holding Adalind's hand like it's his only tether to reality. Adalind gets that. She's pretty sure holding on to him is the only reason she's still upright.
Eventually Monroe and Rosalee come back. There are three cars to deal with—Nick's, Hank's, and Monroe's, and it would be better if they left Sean and her mother as few clues as possible. Adalind agrees to drive Nick's car, figuring if she totals it, it still won't be the worst thing either of them has done to each other in the last twenty-four hours. He barely notices the change of locale as she guides him into the passenger seat—he stares out the window of the car the same way he was staring into the middle of her living room.
They have to break contact for her to close the door and get to the driver's seat, and that does seem to shake him. It shakes them both, actually. It feels like there's a sucking whirlpool opening up between them in the space where they should be touching—a vortex that threatens to drain the last of their energy reserves and drag them down to some unknown abyss.
"It's okay," she tells him, knowing that it's not. She slides into the driver's seat quickly and grabs his hand again in a rush. "I'm not going anywhere."
He holds her hand the whole way to wherever Rosalee is leading them in Monroe's car out in front. Monroe is bringing up the rear in Hank's car, and Adalind is suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude for these two strangers who walked into a nightmare tonight and didn't run away.
Their destination turns out to be a craftsman on the wooded outskirts of Portland.
"Where are we?" Adalind asks under her breath, not expecting a reply from Nick, but he surprises her with a sigh, shifting to peer out of her window at the cozy little place.
"Monroe's house."
"Cute," Adalind says. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," he says, "sort of. Less numb."
"Good. Think you can make it from here to the house?"
He snorts and shakes his head. "I'll try."
They both open their doors, and then they realize they're still holding hands.
"Count of three?"
"Sure," he says. "One—"
"Two—"
"Three." They say the last number together, and then they don't release each other's hands. Their fingers are laced together, holding tight and threatening to cut off circulation, but Adalind can't make her fingers relax. Can't bear to let him go.
"It feels like you're keeping me going," Nick says in a hushed tone. "Like your energy is propping me up. That's not possible, right? We don't have our powers any more."
"I don't know," Adalind says. "Blood magic is old. Older-than-hexenbiests-as-a-species old. We evolved to be conductors of magical forces that were already present in the world. So my powers might be gone, but the magic between us and our shared blood? I don't think that's going anywhere."
"Okay," Nick says. "How do we get out of the car if we're both propping each other up?"
Adalind sighs and unbuckles her seat belt.
"I guess that means I'm going over the top."
"That's what got us into this mess in the first place," he says, huffing a laugh while she shifts and stretches one leg over his lap, and then she's straddling him again, captured by his dark, grey eyes that whisper to her like a siren's song.
"Nick?"
"Yeah?" He's breathless, too. There's not a lot of breathing going on in general right now.
She's leaning down, and he's reaching up, and their lips are about to touch again when Monroe pops up on Nick's side of the car and squeals.
"Oh my god," he says. "What the hell, guys?"
"Sorry," Nick says. "We were trying to get out of the car."
"Is that what we're calling it these days?" Monroe asks, his whole forehead lifting with the force of his skepticism.
Adalind sighs and blows her hair out of her eyes. "We're not calling it anything right now, but we can't seem to let go of each other either, hence the awkward exit. Can you help pull me out?"
"Sure." Monroe grabs her other hand and then freezes as though struck in the face.
"Monroe?"
Adalind drops his hand, and he shudders, looking pale.
"Whoa," he says, "I just got a wallop of power off of you two. I don't know what's going on, but you guys are just pulsing with magic right now."
"Yeah," Adalind says, "I think we're getting that. Take my arm please, don't touch the skin."
They extricate themselves from the car with Monroe's assistance and hobble together towards the porch. Rosalee is at the open front door, watching their progress with a look of worry on her face.
"What's going on? Were you okay in the car?"
"We're fine," Nick says, on autopilot, and Adalind rolls her eyes.
"We are not fine," she says. "We're magically linked by sex and blood, and I'm fresh out of hexenbiest mojo. We're going to have to get some help tonight, because I don't know about you, but I need to pee, and I'm guessing you'd like to talk to Juliette at some point without me practically in your lap."
"Fine," Nick says, closing his eyes and swaying into the support of her shoulder. "Fine, fine, fine."
"Brandy," Monroe says, reaching out from behind to help prop Nick up. "How about I get us all a big glass of brandy?"
They all end up in the living room—Hank sprawled out on the couch, fading in and out of consciousness, Rosalee in the chair with Monroe hovering over her shoulder, and Nick stretched out on the floor, still holding Adalind's hand while she's propped up against the wall, next to the fireplace.
Adalind gulps her brandy and considers her options. Somehow she can't think her mother would be too willing to help in the current circumstances, but they are going to need to talk to another hexenbiest tonight. It's a risky move—she knows just how much she can trust her former colleagues now that she's not one of them, and it's significantly less than she trusts the man who was actively trying to kill her two hours ago.
"I have to make a call," she tells the group. "We need help. Hexenbiest help."
"Your mom?" Rosalee asks.
"Absolutely not," Adalind says. "She's working with Sean, and neither of them are going to forget about the key anytime soon."
"Oh god," Monroe says, "remember the key?"
"I'm trying not to," Adalind says, fishing out her phone and trying to remember the number her aunt made her memorize years ago. The number for the only other hexenbiest on the ground in Portland who could have helped during her mother's rough patch in high school. "And let's not speak of it again until the hexenbiest I'm calling has come and gone. If you know where it is, forget it. You never know what a hexenbiest can pick up from a room."
"Great," Nick says, sounding strangled. "And just who exactly are you calling?"
Adalind finally remembers the last digit and grins down at him, triumphant.
"I'm calling the only other head-bitch in town."
