A/N: I know, I know. Yawp, you're probably thinking, where the heck have you been? Well, it's been a hell of a few months around here. In the span of about three weeks this fall I 1) became a Wiccan priestess, 2) started grad school, and 3) got my dream job that literally required all of my brain power for three months to get it into any semblance of order/functionality. What they don't tell you about dream jobs is that you can't seem to dream about anything else while you're doing them. It's been amazing, and I'm very grateful, but I also miss thinking up new ways to write Nadalind banter, so I'm happy to be here again!

So, anyway, that's me—how are all of you? I hope you are well, and I'm so excited to be writing for you all again. Thank you for all of your lovely comments and kudos in the interim. It's always motivating to know people still want to read updates.

As promised, this story is not over, and I'm not going anywhere until it is, but as you can imagine, updates will continue to be a bit sporadic from here on out. I can't recommend the subscribe function highly enough to keep up to date on new chapters whenever they come out, and I am very grateful to whoever decides to stick around. I personally think some of the best parts of this story are yet to come.


Nick's on the ground—sitting pretty under the Reaper's scythe, just waiting to be beheaded like an idiot—while the fucking crossbow bolt slips through her fingers, and in one heart-stopping moment of certainty, Adalind knows—knows that she's going to lose Nick just as soon as she found him. Knows she's going to have to bury him and Diana and Switzerland and go back to the life of intrigue that nearly killed her last week and may well finish the job before she ever finds someone else who gets her even half as well as Nick seems to. Knows that all her hopes—all her plans—all her schemes are nothing without Nick and Diana and the future they've been dreaming up together since the impossible happened.

Since they fell in love.

Adalind is moving before she even registers it—tossing the crossbow in the mad scramble down to the floor. She's out of plans and schemes and options, but she's moving anyway, racing for Nick and the killing blow without a single thought of what she'll do when she gets there.

But when she gets there, it's the Reaper who's missing a head and there's a new threat on the scene—a small, lethal looking woman with frazzled dark curls and bags under her eyes and a great big knife dripping dark blood at her side.

"Mom?" Nick gasps—whispers really, like a little kid scared in the dark—and Adalind hears her own gasp from far away, because holy crap.

Mom?


Everything that happens next happens at such a speed that even Adalind's struggling to keep up. Mama Burkhardt is one of nature's generals, and she's been operating without support troops for so long she barely takes a breath between orders. They need to dispose of the bodies, she says, and they need to get to a safe house. This location is compromised, and she's not taking any chances.

Nick is still shaking a little, even as he nods and calls Monroe for backup. Adalind's a little fuzzy on why exactly they need Monroe when they've got a Grimm standing right in front of them, but Nick's mother is brand new to the situation and maybe Nick just needs a familiar face with claws to back him up at this point.

The silence gets a little awkward while they wait, between the shock and the gore and the general unease of their relatively vulnerable position. Adalind shakes herself finally and slides closer to Nick, reaching for his hand. He shudders a little under her touch, but his fingers catch hers and hold tight, drawing her in under one arm, pressing a kiss to her hair.

"I thought I lost you," she says, fighting off a gasp of air in her throat that might even be a sob. "Nick, I thought I lost everything."

"Me, too," Nick says. "Jesus, Adalind—me, too."

Only a few feet away, his mother clears her throat.

"Nicky? Aren't you going to introduce us?"

Nicky? Adalind thinks. His mother calls him Nicky…

Nick clears his throat, too, and his whole posture changes—his shoulders go stiff, his hands clutch her even closer, and his feet shift a little further apart, like they're getting planted to be ready for a fight.

"Right," Nick says. "Right. Um, Mom, this is Adalind Schade."

Adalind doesn't exactly have a hand to offer to shake, what with Nick holding on to her like she could slip through his fingers at any moment, so she just smiles her best innocently dimpled grin at Mama Burkhardt and hopes it's enough.

It isn't—Mama Burkhardt's eyes narrow like she can see through the faux innocence at twenty paces. She probably can. That's what Grimms do, after all.

"You're blonder than I expected," Mama Burkhardt says by way of greeting, and Adalind snorts.

"Yeah," she says, "and you're a whole lot less dead than I'd expected. What's up with that?"

"Actually, yes," Nick says. "What is up with that? If you're alive—oh god, is Dad about to show up, too?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Nicky. Your father died in the crash."

"But you didn't? They found your body!"

"No," Mama Burkhardt says, "they found my best friend. I'd sent them away, after your Aunt Marie came to get you—but the Reapers ran them off the road and killed them—took my friend's head for a trophy. I've been on the move ever since, trying to keep them away from you, but here you are, attracting them to you anyway. How could you be so careless?"

"Me? Mom, I'm not even a Grimm right now, and Aunt Marie didn't exactly get a chance to teach me much of anything before she died. And just how the hell did you find me anyway?"

"The Resistance," Mama Burkhardt says. "They put out a call for muscle to protect a threat to the Royals in Portland. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be my kid!"

"Yeah," Nick says, hackles rising, "well, imagine mine. You were dead!"

"Okay," Adalind says, doing her best to sooth him with a pat to his side. "Okay. So your Mom isn't dead. And I know that's confusing, but it's good too, right? I mean another grandmother in the mix couldn't hurt?"

But then she remembers her own mother—she of the very volatile hexenbiest persuasion—and Adalind winces. On second thought, more grandmothers are almost certainly going to mean more problems.

"Nick, I brought the shov—"

Monroe's voice cuts off abruptly, followed by a growl, and when they turn to find him in the gloom of the plant, he's woged and stuck in a half-nelson hold under the arm of a very rugged looking man with some of the most impressive stubble Adalind has ever seen.

"I tracked the blutbad to your location," the man says in clipped, efficient tones. "Shall I kill him?"

"Of course," Mama Burkhardt says, while Nick and Adalind yell, "No!"

"Oh, come on," Monroe says and flips the newcomer over his head, panting with exertion and woging back as his opponent rises from the ground, silent and deadly as a snake. "Do you want the goddamn shovels or not?"

Nick breathes a sign of relief and releases Adalind to move between his friend and his mother and the unknown threat, which is dumb since he doesn't have a weapon or Grimm strength, but Adalind's a little too overwhelmed to even process that.

"Monroe—are you okay? Jesus, who the hell is this guy?"

"Meisner," Mama Burkhardt says. "He's with me on your protection duty for the next nine months."

"Protection duty?" Monroe asks.

"The Resistance," Adalind says, more for herself than anyone else. She wonders if any of them are actually able to keep it all straight at this point. "I guess Ian came through."

"Yeah, well he could have briefed the cavalry," Monroe says, rubbing at the red marks around his neck. "Man, that really hurt."

"Suck it up," says Mama Burkhardt, and Adalind makes a note about future conversations to be had about acceptable comforting tactics for her future granddaughter.

"Who the hell is this bitch?" Monroe asks Nick, and Nick sighs and shifts his feet awkwardly against the concrete.

"Oh, uh, Monroe, um—this is my mom. Kelly Burkhardt. Mom, this is my friend, Monroe."

"He's a blutbad," Kelly says, clearly radiating hostile confusion, but Monroe just snorts.

"You think that's bad? His future mother-in-law is the wicked witch of the west."

Kelly's eyes turn slowly back to Adalind, and even though she can't woge right now, she could swear that they turn pitch black.

"She's a hexenbiest?"

"Not…exactly?" Nick shifts awkwardly again. "But also yes, exactly. It's a…whole thing."

"A whole thing that can wait," Adalind says. "If we're all done trying to kill each other for the moment? Yes?"

She looks around the little ragtag group, Kelly and Meisner and Monroe, all looking wary and dangerous and not a little pissed, with Nick in the middle looking like a teen who just got caught making out with his girlfriend for the first time by his mother, which would be kind of cute, but they didn't even manage a real kiss before this all kicked off.

"Good. In that case, can I suggest that we deal with the bodies currently staining this lovely concrete and get the hell out of here?"

"Right," Nick says, coming closer to survey the two beheaded Reapers. "What do you think? Should we send a message? Return to sender?"

"Couldn't hurt," Monroe says. "And you know what they say—why bother with one head when you could send two?"


The hardest part of disposing of the bodies is finding the right packing supplies. Adalind finds herself at a late night Staples, of all things, with Mama Burkhardt standing guard while the boys bury the bodies and Adalind attempts to pick out a heavyweight shipping box and heavy duty plastic for wrapping up two heads, wondering all the while when exactly her life took a turn for this particular moment.

"Just pick a damn box," Kelly says. "It's not like they're going to be judging the presentation."

"You never know," Adalind says, eyeing up a box covered in yellow smiley faces and wondering how it would hold up to potential blood leaks. "My mother always says murder deserves a decorative touch."

"She sounds delightful."

"Hmmm," Adalind hums, considering a rainbow colored box next. That would be nice and inclusive. "I expect you're a lot more utilitarian about it."

"It's killing," Kelly says with a huff, "not a flower arrangement. Just slit their throat and get it over with."

"Yeah, you and my mother are going to have a lot to talk about," Adalind says. "How about the paisley? Those red swirls should disguise any leaks if they have to."

"Fine," Kelly says. "Can we go?"

Adalind shakes her head. "Tissue paper," she says. "Something with a shit ton of glitter."

"Oh my god," Kelly says, looking like she might just be tempted to grin for the first time all night. "You really are evil, aren't you?"