"It's done," Meisner says, handing Adalind a tote bag with two severed heads in it. The tote bag is Juliette's—a reusable shopping bag that'd been left in the back of the Land Cruiser when they'd broken up so spectacularly last week. It's aqua and insulated and covered in sloths wearing little scarves, and it's rising to the challenge of transporting body parts surprisingly well.

Adalind peers in the bag and nods before pulling out her packing supplies and getting to work. Nick scans the area for cameras—they're in a dimly lit corner of the Staples parking lot, but that doesn't seem to phase her, and since she's keeping low between three cars and four people, Nick figures no one is going to spot the heads currently being cling wrapped on the ground like barbeque leftovers.

"The bodies are buried?"

His mom asks the question, but she's also scanning the area. So is Meisner. It's only Monroe who's watching Adalind with an expression somewhere between discomfort and admiration.

"Six feet under," Monroe says. Adalind moves on from the heads and starts assembling the shipping box. Nick is watching her now, too. The box is covered in decorative swirls—it's going to look like a gift by the time she's done with it.

"Good," his mom says. "How are we sending the package?"

"Fedex," Adalind says. She's fluffing tissue paper now—something unbelievably sparkly that's going to be shedding glitter from here to Vienna and be a bitch to clean up all on its own—and Nick might love her just a little bit more. "I'll drop it off in the mailroom at my old firm tomorrow, and they'll ship it out. No one ever tells the mailroom when staff leave. It's an administrative nightmare, but in this particular case, I'll take it. Nick, pass me the confetti."

Nick stoops and looks in her bag from Staples. There's a massive bag of rainbow colored confetti with even more glitter in it, and Nick has a whole new appreciation for the capacity of pain Adalind can achieve when she really sets her mind to it.

He passes her the confetti. The box is full with tissue paper and heads, but Adalind gently lays the bag of confetti on top, like she's setting a bomb, and Nick gets a feeling that's exactly what it is.

"What's with the confetti?" Monroe asks, too kind to see where this is going.

"It's pressurized," Adalind says, struggling with the top flaps of the box and the tape. Nick crouches down to hold it for her, figuring his mom and Meisner can handle the perimeter, but they're all screwed if the confetti booby trap goes off before the box is secured. "The Reapers will cut open the box—maybe even with a scythe—and boom. The whole room will look like a unicorn blew up."

"Oh man." Monroe takes a step back, then another. "Remind me not to piss you off. Assassins are one thing, but this—this is horrific."

Adalind finishes with the box and grins up at Monroe. "I know, right? Learned from the best. Say what you like about sorority life, but those bitches don't play. Anyway, we're all set here, but we're going to need to scrub the hell out of these sloths, Nick, and even then, I don't think they should be joining us on the grocery run."

Nick shrugs philosophically. He's feeling kind of fond of the little scarf-wearing xenarthrans at the moment.

"It can be our regular body bag. Or body part bag, I guess."

"Aw," Adalind says, "our first joint asset."

"Actually, I think it was Juliette's."

It's Adalind's turn to shrug philosophically.

"So were you, and yet here we are."


They've packed away the box in the car, and now it's just a question of where to go next. Monroe's voice is low next to Nick, trying not to broadcast his words to the whole group.

"Nick, you know you're always welcome at mine, but I'm thinking it's going to be a little crowded with Mama Grimm and the robot of death over there."

Meisner doesn't twitch, doesn't take his eyes off the parking lot, but Nick would bet anything that he's heard that loud and clear.

Adalind certainly has. She slips into his side so naturally, he barely even registers the press of her arm and the way that her hips sort of just slot in against his.

"I have an idea," she says, "of where we can go that'll be safe until we get the house and get it ready for us to move in. But Nick—I don't think you're going to like it."

He hates it, but they're out of other options, and that's what he has to remind himself of when they arrive at the curb in front of a dark Victorian that looks Halloween haunted even in the height of spring.

Catherine Schade is on the porch when they get there—a rare honor, he's sure. It's late already—almost gone two in the morning—but she's still immaculate in pearls and heels, and Nick knows exactly where her daughter got her penchant for shift dresses fit to kill.

"Thank you for having us, Mom," Adalind says, little-girl polite, and Nick wonders if the safety her mother can offer is worth letting Adalind make herself smaller to fit into her mother's house again.

"Of course," Catherine says, that same politeness wielded like a weapon. "Introduce me to your new friends, dear."

"Uh," Adalind says, and looks at Nick, and he thinks of her turning to Meisner in the Staples parking lot, saying You're too pretty and too powerful—don't you dare let my mother seduce you, we have enough problems as it it—all of which is true, but Nick's pretty sure the warning was meant for him, too.

"This is my mother," Nick says now, squeezing Adalind's hand, even as he turns to his mom. "Kelly Burkhardt. Mom, this is Catherine Schade."

"The wicked witch, I presume," his mom says with a little smirk, and Nick closes his eyes briefly and wonders if this is it—if this is where the whole thing falls apart.

"Oh, now—" Catherine is glowing with her own deadly smile, "—I've always preferred Snow White's Evil Queen. Who ever wanted to rule a bunch of munchkins, anyway?"

"Spend a lot of time in front of your mirror, do you?"

"Well, I could hardly spend less than you, my dear. Do all Grimms have baggage below the eyes like that?"

"Only ones who've killed enough witches to keep on living," his mom says, all but growling, and Nick thinks Adalind didn't need to worry about him or Meisner at all—her mother's barely glanced at either of them since she started sparring with his mom.

"Kelly's here to help protect us," Adalind cuts in, "and the baby—you know—your granddaughter to be? You do want to be grandmothers, right? Because the first rule of being a grandma is you can't kill the other grandma."

"Pity," his mother says.

"Such a shame," Catherine agrees. "And who is this? Your manservant, dear?"

"This is Meisner," Nick jumps in before they can start again. "He's also here to protect us. The Resistance sent them both."

Catherine hums, looking Meisner up and down in an appraising kind of way that makes even Nick blush. Meisner doesn't even blink.

"Delightful," Catherine says. "If I knew the Resistance was recruiting young men like that, I would have given up on the Royals years ago. Tell me dearest, how would you like to be my new Huntsman?"

"I'm not your anything," Meisner says. "I don't fuck hags, and I don't kill for them either."

"My, what good taste you have," his mother says under her breath, while Catherine rears back like she's been slapped, and Nick wonders not for the last time how the hell they're going to survive their enemies when even their allies can't manage a civil conversation.

It's going to be a long nine months.


They get into the house eventually. It involves a lot of groveling on Adalind's part, and some cajoling on Nick's side, but eventually they convince Catherine that Meisner will be safe and silent enough confined to the daybed in the den on the first floor that she can ignore him for as long as it suits her. For his part, Meisner doesn't seem phased at all by his exile from the bedrooms on the second floor, and Nick can kind of see his point. Knowing Catherine Schade could be cooking up any number of revenge spells only two doors down the hall is enough to have him on edge, and he's pretty sure he's somehow still on her good side.

His mother is across the hall—not exiled to the first floor, but still in the farthest room from the master suite, and Nick's sure that arrangement will suit both mothers perfectly for the rest of the time they're stuck together in this house.

"That was awful," Adalind says. She's spread out on the bed with her face buried in her hands. The bedspread is black and purple with silver sequins, and Nick has a hard time imagining the expensive Catherine Schade picking out something quite so—shiny. Not if it didn't involve carats, anyway.

Nick takes a moment to look around the room—it's as pristine and high class as the rest of the house—full of exquisite dark wood furniture and lush velvet curtains that could keep a vampire quite happily pale even on the brightest of days. But there are touches here and there that hint at the former occupancy of a teenage girl with something of a gothic flare. The bedspread—the Tori Amos poster tacked up over the bed—the Jagged Little Pill album prominently displayed on the otherwise restrained bookcase full of law books and spell books in equal measure. If he'd thought of it, Nick might have pegged Adalind as more of a Britney kind of girl, but clearly he would have been wrong. Clearly she's always been a little more dangerous.

"Nick, what are we going to do? Our moms are going to kill each other."

Nick sighs and moves to join her on the bed, stopping first to slip off her shoes, then his, before helping her scoot to one side so he can slip into the space beside her and gather her into his arms.

"They're not going to kill each other," he says, managing to sound twice as confident as he actually is. "Your mom is going to say shitty things to my mom, and my mom is going to say them right back, and the two of them are going to enjoy the hell out of it. Did you see the banter out there? I don't think my mom's had that much fun in years."

Adalind snorts and snuggles in closer, her nose pressed into his neck. "You're right. My mom was practically gleeful. I don't think she's had someone talk back to her like that since I was a teenager."

"Well, she's terrifying," Nick points out. "I'm not surprised. But then so is my mom. So, who knows? Maybe they'll be friends?"

"The Odd Couple," Adalind says. "Which one do you think is Jack Lemmon?"

"Yours," Nick says—not a doubt in his mind—"but that makes my mom Walter Matthau, and that just seems like a stretch."

"Does that make Meisner the hot young thing that moved in across the street?"

"That's Grumpy Old Men," Nick says, "but yeah. Let's hope he's got the good sense to not to get involved with either of them. Man, what a strange day."

"I can't believe we survived two Reapers without our powers."

"I can't believe my mom's alive."

Adalind sits up abruptly and looks down at him, eyes wide and concerned.

"I can't believe I forgot that. Oh my god—Nick—"

"It's fine." Nick runs his hands up her side, looking to sooth her and be soothed as well. "I'm fine. I mean, it's a surprise, but then not being dead was also a surprise, so the two short of balanced each other out."

"But she's been alive and out there in the world all this time," Adalind says. "You thought you were an orphan for almost twenty years. That's not okay."

"No, it's not. And if she'd turned up six months ago, I would have been pissed. But then I met a girl, you know, with another face, and I've killed a lot of wesen since then, and I've learned that I know sweet fuck all about the world that my mother brought me into, and—well, it's nice to get a good surprise for once, I guess. It's nice to have a mom again, even if she's a lot scarier than I remember her. And it's nice to get to have you—to get to know you and to share this life with you—all of it, even the scary parts. It's nice not to be alone anymore."

Her eyes are bright and watery above him and her smile is a little wobbly, but it's there, and it's real, and it's her, so he tugs her back down and kisses her, and lets all his worries about the world outside of her childhood bedroom fade away until it's just him and her and nothing in between.


A/N: This chapter spent way more time gift wrapping decapitated heads than I thought it was going to, so if you're surprised, can I just say, me too! Also, I spent zero time double checking the physics on the confetti bomb or whether or not such a thing exists in the way I theorized here, so, you know, your mileage may vary and sorry if that bothers you. Thank you everyone for returning to this story with me and reading and reviewing. You guys rock!