A/N: This weekend is going to be bonkers for me IRL, so you folks are getting an early chapter. Happy Juneteenth and summer solstice to you all!
"I'm more interested in your intentions," Nick says, just as Adalind's waking senses come back online. Who is he talking to? The cat?
Then she hears it—the voice that makes her sit up so quickly, she nails her forehead on Nick's chin.
"My intentions?" Catherine starts, only to find herself cut off as Adalind and Nick both start cursing and rubbing at their various points of contact while the cat meows in protest and jumps off the couch, looking for a bed with a little less flailing and a little more sunlight.
"Why the hell is your jaw as hard as a rock?"
"You like my jaw," Nick says blearily, still struggling with the earliness of it all. "You think it's hot."
Adalind rolls her eyes. It is hot, but right now it's giving her a very literal headache.
"Mom, what are you doing here? What time is it even?"
"Early," Nick says. "Way too early."
"It's a perfectly reasonable time," Catherine says. "It's you two who are abed at an unreasonable hour."
"Yeah, well, it's been a long couple days," Adalind says. "Mom, could you go make coffee or something? We need a minute to wake up."
"And talk about me?" Her mother's eyes narrow.
"Yes," Adalind says with a sigh, "that, too. Coffee, please."
Catherine sniffs and rises from her seat with all the dignity of a queen deigning to do a task well beneath her station.
"I'll be back," she says. "Be ready."
Adalind watches her mother stalk into the kitchen—head held high—heels clicking as she goes—and Adalind can't help the snort that escapes her. Nick joins in—a low chuckle that vibrates through her and makes her feel warm all over. As one, they sink back into the couch, curled up tightly with their faces just inches apart. The morning breath should bug her, probably—she's never exactly been a morning after type of girl—but it doesn't seem like much of a problem now, what with everything else going on.
"So," Nick says finally, pushing hair out of his face and then hers, "what do you want to do about your mom?"
His eyes are still dark, but this morning they look lighter—happier maybe—and Adalind wonders if she's part of the difference. If the weight of hiding himself and his true nature was starting to make him darker—less happy, more grim. Adalind can understand that—trying to be someone other than yourself for someone else is something she has a lot of experience with, and one of those someones is currently in the kitchen, struggling with a french press for the first time in years. Her mother has a very expensive espresso machine at home—Adalind's not sure why the french press should be any more trouble—but that doesn't stop the sounds of frustration filtering out from the kitchen.
"I don't want to hide anymore," Adalind says. "Not from my mom—not from anyone close to me. I just want to be me—as much as I can. I'm not sure I even know who that is, but I don't want to be a queen anymore—I don't want to be a pawn, either—and I don't want to make myself into someone that other people could love. I want to be loved for myself, whoever that turns out to be."
Nick's eyes are darker now—not less happy, just more focused—boring into hers with a molten kind of heat that makes her wonder if launching herself at his lips would be worth getting caught by her mother.
"Say something," she says instead, and Nick's eyes crinkle up with a smile and he kisses her, morning breath and all.
"I want that, too," he says, so softly, she almost can't hear him. "I want that for you, and I want that for me. This is all really new—we're going to be figuring out who we want to be while we're figuring out how to be together while we're figuring out how to be parents while we're figuring out how to make Portland just a little more livable for everyone here."
"Plus we also need to figure out where to live."
"Right."
"That's a lot of figuring out."
"Yeah."
"I guess we better get up then."
Nick raises one eyebrow. "Or we could stay here and make out until your mom gives up on the coffee."
Adalind snorts again, tuning her attention in the direction of the kitchen and the muffled sounds of her mother considering a hex on the pre-ground beans.
"We should probably help her. I don't want her to poison us—by accident or on purpose."
Nick lowers the eyebrow with a sigh. "You know what? Why don't we go out for coffee?"
"Find some neutral ground, you mean? Somewhere public where she can't hex us on a whim?"
"Yeah," Nick says. "That."
So they get up and Adalind braves the kitchen, where she finds her mother glaring at a bag of coffee grounds.
"There are cockroaches in this," Catherine says by way of greeting. "They get into the beans during transport and storage, you know, and then they get ground up and bagged with the coffee for the unsuspecting consumer to take home and brew. Do you enjoy drinking cockroaches, dear?"
Adalind sighs and takes the bag out of her mother's hands, dropping it into the trash. Another victim of her mother's exacting standards.
"Let's go out for coffee," she says. "You can choose the place."
"An excellent choice," Catherine says.
Her mother's choice is a high end brunch place in the most fashionable part of town. Adalind takes one look at the silver and gold script above the door and knows she's about to be on the hook for the most expensive hot beverage of her life. Three days ago that wouldn't have given her a moment's pause, but she's quit her big law job since then and taken up with a cop on a city salary. She looks to Nick, feeling something like panic boiling in the pit of her stomach—it's too much—she's too much—her mother is definitely too much—but he just squeezes her hand and leads her through the door.
"I knew you got your expensive taste from somewhere," he says softly in her ear while they wait to be seated. "It's my treat. You didn't even get to enjoy your birthday ice cream, you were too busy plotting with Rosalee. I don't know if you'll get to enjoy this either, but we'll keep trying, yeah?"
Coffee turns into mimosas pretty quickly, and Adalind lets it because she figures some bubbles might take the edge off her mother. She figures incorrectly.
"So you were trying to kill him three days ago and instead you fucked him," her mother says by way of an ice breaker, and Adalind chokes a little on her champagne and orange juice. Some bubbles threaten to come out her nose, and she's mortified. Nick pats her back, which doesn't help with the choking situation but does something to reassure her and help her find some measure of calm.
Catherine turns her cold eyes to Nick next.
"You must be very good. My daughter's no blushing virgin—she wouldn't give up a crown for just any Tom, Harry or Dick. You must have something very special."
"What an unpleasant thing to say," Nick says mildly, meeting her mother's gaze head on, and her mother sits up a little straighter, looking at him with something just a millimeter closer to respect.
"It was, wasn't it?" She sounds almost thoughtful.
"Very."
Catherine nods, like she's learned something new and it hasn't quite sunk in, but she'll think about it.
"So, it was something special then, whatever brought you two together? Sean didn't give me too many details, but it must be pretty important if he's willing to make a deal."
Nick looks to Adalind, deferring to her now that the tone of the query has entirely changed, and Adalind stares at him and wonders what magic he just worked on her mother.
"Yeah," Adalind says slowly, still looking into Nick's eyes with wonder. "It's pretty special."
"Yes, but what was it?" Catherine wants to know. Adalind snaps out of her daze, and turns back to her mother, ready to get down to business.
"Old magic," she says. "Earth magic of some kind. We were rolling around trying to kill each other, and then we were rolling around very much not trying to kill each other. Henrietta says there's a greater force at work—something ancient and wild trying to work its will through us. We've been given a choice—to make a super-powered baby together and get our powers back, or to go our separate ways and try to live a kehrseite life."
"Well, that's not an option," Catherine says with a scoff, like it's obvious, and Adalind guesses it is. Neither she nor Nick have given much of a thought to trying to live outside of the wesen world instead. It holds no interest for them, and it's probably a good thing they're on the same page about that.
"I can't believe you called Henrietta instead of me," her mother says. "She'll never let me hear the end of it now."
"That's what you got from that? Mom, you're going to be a grandmother to a magic Grimm baby. Priorities, please."
Catherine waves this away with a delicate hand in front of her face. "Any child you had would be a magical child. I'm talking about my reputation as a witch dear. From now on, you call me."
"How about we call both of you?" Nick says. "The more witches the better."
Adalind turns to him in incredulity. "Since when?"
"Since our daughter started shooting purple fire out of her eyes in our dreams. We're going to need all the help we can get."
"Purple fire?" Catherine muses on that, sipping at her mimosa. "That is interesting."
"Why?" Adalind asks, feeling a new wave of anxiety swell up around her heart. "Why is that interesting?"
Catherine shrugs. "It's a very unusual color. Not a common natural color. Most witches work with earth magic—lots of greens and browns, some reds and yellows. Even those who work with celestial energy generally only manifest blues and silvers, maybe golds. Purple is very rare. Our ancestors thought it was so rare that it became the color of royalty and magic and luck. It was quite literally otherworldly to them. I've never heard of a witch with purple magic. Not outside of fairy tales."
Fairy tales, Adalind thinks. Aren't we all?
"What kind of fairy tales?" Nick asks.
"Hmmm?" Her mother looks up, startled out of her slightly dazed gaze into the middle distance. "Oh, the usual nonsense. A princess or a witch with purple magic saves the world from death and destruction."
Adalind's mouth goes bone dry.
"How?" Nick sounds like his mouth took a turn for the Sahara, too.
"She burns it, of course," Catherine says, like she's telling a perfectly normal fairy tale and not confirming some of Adalind's worst possible fears. "And from that fire, the world is reborn."
Nick sighs and reaches for Adalind's mimosa, downing the rest of it in one gulp before meeting her wide eyes with his own.
"Wonderful," he says. "Do you think it's too late to name her Smokey after all?"
