It was just one of those days for Adalind. Her boss, Harrison Berman wouldn't stop needling her over some contract deadlines. The summer heat made Kelly uncharacteristically restless and he refused to be mollified during one of her meetings with a very important client, who claimed they didn't mind at all but Adalind knew better. It's one of her conditions upon her return to Berman, Rautbort, and Associates. Adalind wanted to have Kelly close to her after the Royals dealt Nick a fatal blow, coming after his mother and her Diana. Berman had been so desperate for a Hexenbiest he was ready to give Adalind one of his kidneys and parts of his liver and lung among other things just to get her back on board. Adalind settled on a very healthy six-figure salary and substantial compensation packages.

The firm hadn't recovered their "loss" against the queen Mellifer from years ago. Still, Adalind rued the return of her powers, considering what she lost in exchange but work was work. Her old firm was the only place that opened their doors without hesitation, any other firm; she'd need to jump through too many hoops to establish herself after three years without any practice. For that, she was appreciative towards old Harrison welcoming her back with open arms.

However, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. She was a great lawyer but she wasn't an idiot to think it's why she got a very plush package in her old stomping ground. In addition, Adalind could sense the open resentment, like the insufferable summer heat, from some of her co-workers blaming her for usurping a long awaited promotion no longer up for grabs. She didn't know which would drive her up the walls first, Berman asking her to use her abilities to either secure big clients or fudging the numbers "just a little," or Janet Mullen and Wilhelmina Strong staring daggers at her at the water cooler while putting her private life on blast for the office gossip. She needed to escape and the park was the perfect place. She grabbed Kelly and strolled down the passage, head held high out of the office, "I'm taking an extended lunch break," she declared without so much as a goodbye. That's right Addy, let's add more fuel to the fire for those hateful wenches, she thought as the elevator closed behind her and Kelly.

*/*/*

Laurelhurst was bustling. The blazing Summer heat had brought people out in numbers, much to Adalind's chagrin. There was a particular couple on a picnic blanket at a distance to her right, staring saccharinely in each other's eyes, making her sick to the stomach and to her annoyance, all benches looked occupied, making Adalind regret even coming out in the oppressive heat. She spotted a seat opening in front of the children sandbox, and made a beeline towards it where a blonde woman already sat, alone. She determined she'd readily suffer the company of a complete stranger than return to the office for another helping of misery.

"Is this seat taken?" she asked the woman before her. Please, say no…please, say no. "Not at all," replied the woman, dressed casually but very high end for a day in the park. Adalind could spot a Stella McCartney's vintage blouse a mile away, paired with washed D&G jeans and open toe leather ankle boots…a kindred, Adalind thought wryly. Satisfied with what she saw, she secured Kelly's stroller on the vacant side of the bench and took her seat.

"Which one is yours?" she asked her companion.

"Excuse me?"

Adalind pointed towards a merry band of toddlers playing in the dirt before them.

In response, the woman gave a delightful laugh, "Oh goodness me, no, none of them actually, but I am on babysitting duty, that one…the girl in the blue."

"Ah, she looks like she already has the boys wrapped around her cute little finger."

"My brother says she takes after her aunt and I have to agree wholeheartedly," the stranger gave a knowing smile.

Adalind reciprocated with her own smile before tending to a fussy Kelly still in his stroller. For several minutes, they battled for dominance as she tried to calm his rambunctious state. The open skies clearly hadn't helped his state of unease. Adalind lifted him to her lap, hoping it would do the trick.

"The little guy's having a bad day, I can relate to those."

"His mother's not having it any better at this stage."

"Rough day at work?"

"Something like that," said Adalind while bouncing Kelly over her knees.

"I don't know how anyone does it. I love me niece to pieces but I know I could never do what Cindy; my in-law does twenty-four-seven. I can babysit to my heart's content but at the end of the day, I hand her over and I'm happy to be relieved of any further responsibilities."

"Oh it's hard, sometimes, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I love this guy too much to imagine my life without him in my life." She gave Kelly a quick peck over his fading blonde streaks.

"What about his father or is it 'mother'? Never mind, don't answer that. How embarrassing, sticking my nose too far into your business and we don't even know each other's names. It's just…looking at you, the way you're dressed, you don't strike me as—"

"As the motherly kind? Yeah, I kind of get that a lot these days so it's no biggie. We're a team, me and Kel."

"The father?"

"Oh, my son. Kelly's his name. I think he's feeling so restless today because of the stress at work. I'm a lawyer."

"Ooh…my condolences." She grimaced.

"I get that a lot too," laughed Adalind. "And the name is Adalind, that's me."

"Vera." The woman responded. "It can't be all that bad, you have him," she said as she pointed at Kelly.

"Yeah but his father's a cop so he kind of had no choice in the matter."

"Ah, cop and a lawyer, kismet!"

If only….

The stranger flushed a fiery red. Adalind had voiced her thoughts aloud, revealing a little more than she'd intended, embarrassing them both.

Her handbag began to vibrate, followed by the ringing of her cell phone, saved by the bell, literally.

"That's my cue," said the stranger as she picked up her purse, bid Adalind goodbye and left her to answer her call.

It was Rosalee. "What are you doing for lunch?"

"Having it with you!"

"Perfect answer." Rosalee told Adalind where to meet for their luncheon before hanging up, a bistro on 13th Ave, SE.

"Alright Kel, playtime is over, not that you did much of that since we got here." Adalind packed up immediately and turned towards her car, had she spared a second more, she'd have noticed the little girl in blue still rolling about in the dirt, her "aunt", nowhere in sight.

*/*/*

They met at a quaint little teahouse not far from the Spice Shop. Rosalee's continuing presence in Adalind's life had become a source of relief and a piece of joy in the Hexenbiest's life. It was unexpected but no less appreciated now that she needed someone by her side, no strings attached.

"You seem a little more weathered since the last time we spoke. Is Harrison on your case about using your abilities again?" the Fuchsbau asked, concern written all over her face.

"I swear if I didn't need a job as quickly as I did a couple of months back, I'd tell him to shove it. I can't quit now, at least not for the next several months without burying myself into a deeper hole that the one I started with and B.R.A. can't fire me and risk a wrongful termination suit. Despite all my resistance, I've worked harder than during my prior employment at that company or any of his current associates. We're both sort of stuck together until my probation period/contract expires, after which, I'm gone."

"Have you thought of maybe going out on your own, starting your own firm? At least that way, you'll get to dictate the cases you take on and work ethic."

"Ha! My work ethic…" Adalind laughed mirthlessly. Rosalee couldn't miss the derision in her friend's voice.

"Why do you keep doing that, knocking yourself down so much?"

"I don't…." she lied.

"Yes you do, I know because I used to do the same thing too and for the longest time, until I realised couldn't let my past mistakes dictate my present…and future."

Adalind shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She knew exactly where Rosalee was heading with this line of conversation. They've been down this road countless time before and Adalind had always successfully shut it down before it got far.

"So when are you and Monroe going to start trying for your own?"

"Oh, is that how it is, trying to deflect by throwing shade my way." Rosalee responded with surprise.

"I'm sorry, that was uncalled for. It was rude of me."

"I'm a big girl Addy, I can take it. And to answer your question, yes, we are trying but it's a roll of the dice. You know how it is. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't. We just don't now at the moment."

"Now I really feel like a royal Class A 'bitch' for that thoughtless barb, Rosalee, I'm so sorry," apologised Adalind sincerely.

It wasn't difficult to grasp the unfairness of her friend's situation. While Adalind loves both her children to death, the circumstance around their conception oftentimes leaves her rankled. Although she had tried to fall pregnant with Diana, it was for selfish reasons, like getting her powers back after her tussle with Nick in the Bremen Ruins and ultimately, she'd lost Diana because of her actions. Moreover, so much pain, vengeance and deception surrounded Kelly's conception but he was her little miracle. Somehow, she and Nick managed to move past some of the destruction her actions wrought, not all but some. It gave her some peace knowing Kelly would never suffer for her countless mistakes.

"It's not your fault Monroe's a Blutbad and I'm Fuchsbau, so close yet so far." Rosalee's voice brought her back into the present.

"These things have a way of working themselves out." She said with understanding.

"I know. I'm just running out of patience. Monroe says we'll be fine…"

"And he's right, you both managed to get this far, you may as well go the distance," said Adalind as she tried to cheer Rosalee.

"I could say the same about you and Nick." Rosalee segued back to Adalind's least favourite topic.

"No, that's not…we are nothing like you two." Adalind pointed out deprecatingly.

"Who says anything about being like us? You're you and he's…Nick."

"Exactly my point! For one thing, you didn't try to destroy Monroe and almost succeed."

"'Almost' being the operative word here. Nick is doing fine…." Rosalee dragged the last syllable suspiciously.

"His mother and Juliette beg to differ."

"I knew you would say that."

"Well, it's the truth."

"Only a part of it but you're so set on making yourself miserable that you are missing the forest from the trees, or however that saying goes."

"Yeah, what's that?" Fine, she'd humour her friend for the day and maybe after, they'll drop whatever this was and move on from talks about her and Nick.

"…That Nick, yes, that Nick, is in love you," she said emphatically, as if there was another Nick between them.

"How many of these mimosas have you drunk since we got here because you're clearly smashed to even think that?"

"Oh, I am as sober as a judge, I'll have you. I know what I'm talking about even if you refuse to see it."

"If that were really the case, don't you think I'd be the first person to know this?"

"Not as long as you keep shutting Nick off, you wouldn't"

"You forget, I sort of know what a Nick in love looks like, I saw him with Juliette."

"Yeah, well I can't deny that but it still doesn't change the fact that that man's in love you. Think of it this way, the man that loved Juliette years ago, is not the same man that love you today."

Adalind smiled with derision, not buying what Rosalee was selling.

"You remember when you were young and all you worried about was little Tommy from next door giving you a kiss. You thought of nothing else but what that would feel like, you nearly passed out with excitement."

"It was Ronnie, but continue…."

"Okay, Ronnie. You practically dreamed of that kiss every single day until one day, you woged for the first time and suddenly little Ronnie is a snack in more ways than one."

"Wow Rosa, that's not helping me see things differently at all."

"Let me finish. I have known Nick relatively since the beginning, around the time he got his Grimm sight. I know what it was like for him and Juliette. For a while everything was like that innocent…hopeful but then he'd already experienced his first woge and that changed everything."

Adalind nearly spat her drink as she choked. "Excuse me…sorry," and gulped down hard.

"Are you okay?" asked Rosalee, concerned. Her little allegory abruptly ended. Relieved Rosalee was oblivious to how closely she'd hit the mark; Adalind cleared her throat of the drink that went down the wrong pipe. Outside of Nick, she and Sean, nobody else knew she was Nick's first woge.

"No matter how hard they tried, Nick and Juliette could never go back to that innocent time of their relationship before this happened," she made a circling gesture with her finger between the two of them. "I'm sure you remember what it was like at the beginning. I know it was tough for me, trying to hold on to some kind of 'normal,' something familiar only to discover the world beneath my feet had shifted so much and there was nothing I could do about it, other than to go with the flow and discover a new kind of 'normal.' It took me years to finally be comfortable in my own skin, some doors closed around me while others, and better, opened. I imagine it being the same for you too, so why not Nick?"

"Nick isn't a wesen though."

"Isn't he? He's a part of our world as much a Fuchsbau, or a Hexenbiest or a Bauerschwein. He just doesn't 'woge' like you or me but we see the 'real' him in a way the humans never can. Those eyes of his make him more a part of us, than the Kehrseite." She argued. "Nick's world shifted the day he became a Grimm, and I have watched him learn and I've also seen him buckle under the weight of unmet expectations, great disappointments and colossal mistakes yet he's still standing because like you and me, he too had to adjust to a new 'normal.' To be comfortable with what he was, what that meant in this world and Juliette couldn't stand beside him, no matter how much they wanted it, tried and failed."

"Yes, Juliette became a Hexenbiest. She left him—"

"Because she never gave him a chance, so caught up in her feelings she let a good things slip right through her fingers. Don't repeat her mistakes."

"She left because it would never work out between them. A Grimm with a Hexenbiest, a true joke of the century! Nick loved Juliette and it still didn't work out, what makes you think it will, this time, knowing all that I did with my powers before?"

"It's different now. I know it is. You are both so afraid to live your lives because of past mistakes, instead of taking a leap of faith that maybe this between the two of you was always supposed to happen, Grimm and Hexenbiest be damned.

"And before you stop me once again, let me say my peace and I promise I will never bring this up ever again. You (and Kelly) came along into his life, shoring up the very pieces Juliette couldn't, not for want of trying mind you, but simply because it wasn't meant to be for them but perhaps, it is with you. Whatever's gone on between you two, you've managed to set it aside; Nick has put it past him I know he has. Just talk to him. Give him a chance to prove it to you," she pleaded.

"You're both so miserable without each other when you could have it all. You walk around like two wilted flowers because you're missing a big part of yourselves, each other. Look, for a while, Juliette was a fantastic vase of water and you're the rich and fertile ground in which Nick's roots get to grow deep and wide."

Adalind turned beet red at the imagery if Nick doing deep….

"Maybe it's something deeper, like your shared blood or something, I don't know. I do however know that I'm not blind. There's something 'special' between you two, don't throw it away because Nick can't find words to express himself clearly. There, I'm done! I'll say no more on this matter." Rosalee exhaled as if she just finished a mile sprint and took a sip of her latte.

Adalind felt tiny tendrils of hope grip her caged heart and the fear that came with it.

Please, don't….

*/*/*