Chapter 9: The Only Good Hexenbiest

Gretel woke with the feeling that her brain was sinking into a giant marshmallow. There was a sharp pain behind her closed eyes, and a mechanical beeping sound buzzed in her ears.

Her eyelids crinkled and the space above her nose between her eyebrows throbbed as she forced herself to open her eyes and take in her surroundings.

White light practically burned into her vision. Was she dead?

No, a blurry but very unangelic figure was materializing above her. A man's shape. His face refused to come into focus.

Her voice as soft and unguarded as it was in her early childhood, she croaked out, "Hansel?" Hansel where am I? I'm scared...

"No, Gretel, it's me. It's Nick."

"Nick?" she heard herself groan.

His face cleared, and so did her mind. Suddenly it all came flooding back to her. The initial separation from Hansel, meeting Ariel, meeting -and becoming friends with- Nick, her less than ideal reunion with her lost brother... The stabbing, so unexpected and painful... Blood...dizziness...disbelief...

"How are you feeling?"

"Like shit," she grunted.

"Do you remember what happened?"

Gretel frowned. "I was stabbed in the side by my brother, who's going to forget that?"

Nick inhaled sharply and raised his brow. "Point taken."

She started to sit up, straightening her torso in the bed, ignoring the painful pull of thick stitches on her side. "Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital," Nick told her.

"Hansel." She glanced around, searching, but Nick was the only person with her in the room. "What happened to him?"

"Nothing," Nick said coldly, his jawline tightening. "Yet." He sighed and folded his arms across his chest, rolling his eyes. "Unless you count the fact that I punched him in the face and broke his nose after he stabbed you."

"Effing hell," Gretel muttered under her breath.

"Gretel, I'm so sorry this..." Nick's voice trailed off. What did you say to a friend who was betrayed by the person they loved most?

Looking for a distraction, a subject changer, Gretel suddenly found one. In one corner of the room were piles of flowers, teddy bears, and cards all the colors of the rainbow, high enough that they almost reached the window. And the little table to the side of this gift pile was full of cakes, pies, mini-muffins, cupcakes, and various other pastries. There were also half a dozen random woven straw fruit baskets thrown in.

"Where did all this come from?"

Nick chuckled. "Bud and his Eisbiber friends have been dropping them off since you were admitted."

"Oh, geez."

"Seems like you made quite the impression."

"Not cutting off his head and saying hi gives me points?" Gretel quipped.

"Surprisingly, Bud tends to really appreciate that," Nick replied with a slight smirk.

Gretel smiled. "How long do I have to stay here?"

"Just until the doctor discharges you," he told her. "You've lost a lot of blood tonight."

"How long was I out?"

"An hour or so." Nick tried to sound casual about it. He didn't mention that each minute had felt like an hour to him, that he'd been inwardly panicking they'd lost her. That the wound was fatal and his friend would never wake up.

The door swung open and Monroe walked in. "Hey, how's she doing?"

Nick waved at the bed. "Ask her yourself."

"Monroe? What are you doing here?"

"Nick called me," said Monroe. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry about what happened. Not exactly the warm, fuzzy family reunion you'd hoped for, huh?"

Gretel shrugged.

"Been there a couple of times myself... Not that I've ever been, you know, actually stabbed..."

Nick cocked his head at him. "Monroe, I'm not sure that's helping."

"It's fine," Gretel said. "It is what it is."

"Where's Rosalee?" Nick noticed she hadn't come in with Monroe.

"I don't know," Monroe said, sounding a little concerned. "She wasn't at the house. She took a lot longer than usual to get back from closing up the shop; I was still waiting up for her when you called."

"Did you try her cell?"

"Of course I tried her cell, man." Monroe rolled his eyes. "It went straight to voicemail."

"I'm sure she's okay," Nick said.

"Yeah, her battery might have died or she could have turned the phone off for a consultation with a a costumer and forgotten to turn it back on..." Monroe sounded like he was trying to reassure himself. "You know what? I'm going to call the landline at the shop, just in case..." He gave Gretel a quick comforting smile and, taking his iphone out of his pocket and scrawling through contacts, left the way he'd come in.

"I'm going to get some coffee," Nick told her, following. "I'll be right back."

"Sure." Gretel waited until they were both gone, and then, looking into the dark reflective glass of the nearest monitor, went into a woge.

It really was no wonder Hansel had tried to kill her, siblings or not. It had always been his way to destroy anyone with a trace of Hexenbiest rot in their face on first sight, ask questions and scruple with morals later. She'd always been the one who required proof and closer examination of the situation first.

When they'd been a team, they had balanced each other out. He'd been firm and decisive where Gretel might have been too lenient, and she'd made him stop and think every once in a while, considering each situation more individually.

Together, they were an idealistic pair of Hexenbiest-killing Grimms. Apart, they were monsters, almost worse in some ways than the ones they fought against. Hansel was a Wesen murderer with no conscience (he wasn't a bad person, but Gretel had always been his conscience, so much so that he'd never truly developed one on his own, leaving almost all mortality traits entirely to his sister's judgment); and she, Gretel, was just some traitorous Hexenbiest offspring masquerading as the complete Grimm she so badly wanted to be.

Nick was coming back from the coffee machine with a paper cup full of some liquid vaguely like actual coffee in texture but rather like hairy ass in taste. Oh well, at least it had real caffeine in it...

Monroe, still in the hallway outside of Gretel's room, was talking into his iphone. "Yeah, hang on, Rosalee, he's right here." He held out the phone to Nick. "She wants to talk to you."

"She's still at the shop?" Nick asked.

"Apparently, yeah." Monroe shrugged and dangled the iphone a little closer to him.

"Rosalee," Nick said into the phone. "Where've you been? Monroe was-"

On the other end, Rosalee clutched the spice shop's phone a little tighter and interrupted him. "Nick, listen, there's something-"

"One, two, three, clear!" A catatonic man with almost no pulse was being wheeled by on a stretcher while two paramedics tried to zap him back into consciousness with a defibrillator, slamming the paddles down onto his bare chest.

"Sorry, what was that?" Even with his enhanced hearing, Nick was having a hard time figuring out what Rosalee was saying over the noise. "You're going to have to talk a little louder. I'm in the hospital."

"CLEAR!"

"The hospital..." Nick repeat-shouted into the iphone. He plugged his ear that wasn't next to the iphone's speaker with his index finger. "I said-"

The man's stretcher was further along the hallway now. But before Nick could stop shouting and listen to whatever it was Rosalee was trying to tell him, Hank appeared, a little breathless, coming down the same end of the hall as the paramedics had a second ago.

"Hey, Nick, how'd you know to come here?" Hank asked, confused. "I was just about to call you."

"Hold on," he said into the iphone, taking his finger out of his ear and putting his hand over the receiver. Looking up at Hank with a lowered brow, he blurted, "What are you talking about?"

"Bianca Snowlight's been poisoned again," Hank told him. "They just admitted her into the ICU a few minutes ago... That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"What?" Nick gasped, blinking at his partner in shock. "I had no idea... I'm here because Gretel got stabbed."

"What?" Hank's jaw dropped slightly. "When did this happen?"

"Like an hour and a half ago."

"Is she going to be all right?"

"The doctors think she'll pull through," Nick told him. "She'll just be a little weak from the blood loss for a couple days."

"Who stab-" He stopped. "No, I got a feeling this is going to be a long story, and we've got a job to do. We can talk about this later. Come on, Nick."

Taking his hand off the receiver, Nick quickly said, "Sorry, Rosalee, this is going to have to wait, the Snowlight girl's been poisoned again. She's back in the hospital."

"Nick, wait, I have to-" Rosalee tried as the line went dead.

"What did he say?" Carl, leaning against the counter, wanted to know.

"He hung up." She put the landline back in place.

Carl gritted his teeth. "I knew trusting the Grimm was a bad idea."

"Carl, it's not his fault," Rosalee said gently. "He's really busy right now."

"Not his fault?" snapped Carl, woging out of rage. "That damn Grimm's probably just blowing you off because he's a-"

"Bianca's back in the hospital, Carl." She watched as the fire went out of him and he blanched, his normal face returning. "She's been poisoned again. You know Nick's the detective assigned to her case; he's doing his job."

"Jesus." Carl stumbled backwards and almost fell, just barely gripping the edge of the counter again before he did so.

"He's helping her," Rosalee continued, as soon as she saw he'd gotten himself stabilized. "And if you care about her as much as you say you do, then you'd swallow your pride and help her too."

"What, just like barge into that hospital and be all, 'Oy, you, Grimm, this is going to sound crazy but I think one of Bianca's uncles might be the one trying to kill her'?"

"Sounds like a start." She folded her arms across her chest and shrugged.

Carl snorted in disbelief. "I thought I was nuts to even think that could be a possibility. They'll just haul me off to a mental house someplace."

"You told me," Rosalee pointed out.

"You're different," Carl mumbled, more to the counter-top than Rosalee herself. "I thought maybe I could trust you. Because we've been through the same kind of thing."

"You can trust me," she insisted. "And I know you don't think so, but you can trust Nick, too."

He scratched nervously behind his neck. "Yeah, right."

"Look, do you want to save her or not?" Rosalee grabbed her keys. "Because I'm locking up the shop and I'm going down to that hospital. And I'm going to tell Nick what you told me. Because if there's even a small chance you're right, there's every chance speaking up now could save her life. So I'm going. But you have a choice, Carl. You can come with me, or you can stand on the sidewalk outside and watch me drive away. Your choice, but you have to make it fast."

"I don't have any proof," Carl huffed, agitated. "Who's going to believe me?"

"I believe you," She started walking to the door, looking back at him over her shoulder once she reached it. "So... You're coming?"

"Gretel?"

She looked up to see Hansel poking his head into the room. Gretel would have been lying to herself if she didn't admit that she felt some mild satisfaction at the sight of the bandage over Hansel's nose. Even though, paradoxically, just looking at it for too long made her own nose ache, tingling with phantom soreness. Even though, regardless of what he'd tried to do to her, she still loved her brother so much it almost frightened her.

"Did you come back to finish the job?" She arched an eyebrow challengingly.

"You look like shit." He arched an eyebrow right back, approaching her bedside. "You know that?"

"So do you," Gretel sighed, a smile slowly spreading across her face. "There's the Hansel I know. I missed you."

"You realize I still have almost no idea who you are?" Hansel reminded her. "Ariel -the Daemonfeuer- says I scream your name in my sleep, but I have..." He closed his eyes, looking pained. "Gretel, I don't know you." His eyes opened and he shook his head at her. "I have these instincts that are coming back to me, about how to talk to you, about how wrong trying to kill you was, but I don't have any of the memories to back those feelings up." Swallowing, he added, "You're a Hexenbiest and I can't make myself try to kill you again. Stabbing you tonight made me feel like I was hurting myself. Being around you clearly makes me too weak to do my duty as a Grimm."

"What are you saying?" Gretel could hear the faint quiver in her voice.

"I'm saying whatever bizarre, unnatural friendship existed between us before, it's over. I'm a Grimm and you're a Hexenbiest."

"I'm a Grimm too, Hansel." She could hear her voice cracking now. "I'm your sister."

He took a few steps away from the bed, looking somewhere between hurt and enraged. "No." His head shook rapidly. "You're an effing liar."

"There are good Hexenbiests in the world," Gretel murmured.

"The only good Hexenbiest is a dead Hexenbiest," Hansel snarled.

"You don't mean that," she said quietly.

In a flash he had strode back to her bedside and put his hand around her throat, curling his fingers around her windpipe threateningly. "I wouldn't bet on that, witch."

Gretel forced herself to hold in her tears. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction, not when -so ironically- he was the one who'd taught her to be strong. "Go ahead." She choked down an awkward swallow and glared straight into her brother's eyes. "Do it."

Hansel tried to make himself, he really did, but he kept remembering the horrible feeling that had come over him when he'd stabbed her. He imagined his own windpipe closing along with hers; his own life intertwined so tightly with this monster's that if she went out, he followed shortly. It was that painful, overwhelming sense that if Gretel died, he could not bear to live. And his hatred towards her was all the more passionate for it. Some voice in the back of his mind kept screaming, Don't! Don't do it! It's Gretel! It's not a monster, right now she's just Gretel!

He released her throat. "I can't." Dammit...

She didn't say anything, just stared at him.

"Now, I let you live," Hansel said, finally, after a long pause. "Because I don't think I have a choice. But I don't want to see you ever again."

Gretel rolled over onto her side (the one without the stitched up stab wound) and closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see him leave and he wouldn't see how it was getting harder and harder for her not to just give in and cry.

"So first I lose my boyfriend to my stepmother and then I get my stomach pumped," Bianca said, smiling blithely at Hank and Nick as they entered the room she'd been moved from the ICU to after her life was out of immediate danger. "It's been a rough few days for me, hasn't it?" She was trying to sound sardonically cheerful, but her voice was faint and her eyes weary and unfocused, rendering the whole tough-girl display pointless. Kind of pathetic, really.

"Do you remember what happened?" Nick asked her. "Was there anyone besides your uncles in the house?"

She shook her head. "It's all a bit hazy, really, but, no, I'm pretty sure it was just me and my uncles."

"Another pie?" Hank guessed.

"Chicken pot pie this time," Bianca said tiredly.

"So your would-be killer's mixing it up a bit," Hank noted dryly. "Either that or he ran out of fruit."

"Cute." Bianca stared down at the gray-white blanket thrown over her lap.

"Look, we just need any information you may have so we can catch this guy," Nick tried.

"What's the point?" There was a new tone of bitterness in Bianca Snowlight's voice that hadn't been there before. "It's not like you caught the jerk the last time they did this to me. What makes this time so special? Whoever they are, they'll only try to kill me again." She turned her head. "I have nothing to say."

Hank thought for a second, then mouthed, "I got this," to Nick. Taking a step closer to Bianca's bedside, he said, as coolly as he could, "You know, your Uncle Asher is convinced it's Carl, especially since this happened not long after you found out about his little affair with Mrs. Applesmith. We're almost inclined to follow up on that lead. We have no hard evidence, but it's the only one we've got right now."

"No," said Bianca slowly, "it's not Carl."

"You sound pretty sure," Nick said.

"I am." She looked back at them. "Sure, I mean."

"So what do you say," Hank pressed, "you wanna help us out, or do we have to waste time bringing your ex-boyfriend in for questioning again?"

Bianca sighed. "I just don't know how much there is to tell you."

"Start with what happened tonight," Nick suggested. "Tell us everything you remember."

"I remember arguing with Uncle Asher... We were downstairs, all eight of us about to have a sit down family dinner, when we got into a really stupid fight. I tried to deal, but after everything that happened, I don't know, I just wanted to be alone, so I said I'd take my food upstairs. My pot pie was still in the oven. It must have been almost done, I think, cuz I just reached in and grabbed it..." She lifted up her right hand. "I burnt my thumb."

"Who was doing the cooking?" Hank asked next.

"I don't remember," she said. "We usually take it in turns and I was too upset to pay attention."

"But not too upset that you wouldn't have noticed someone else there?" Nick pointed out. "Someone who might have had a chance to put some kind of poison in your food?"

"I don't know," said Bianca, suddenly a little unsure. "Maybe there was. I don't remember anybody else, though.

"Anyway, next thing I know, I'm upstairs -I've only eaten like half of my pie- and holding my stomach and gasping... Everything went dark after that."

There was a knock at the door, followed by a nurse's head. "Detective Burkhardt?"

"Yeah?" Nick looked up.

"There are two people waiting to see you in the lobby."

"Tell them I'm busy," he said, offhandedly.

"I'm sorry, Detective, but they said it was urgent."

"Hank, would you mind staying here with Bianca?" He walked to the door, following the nurse out of the room. "I'm going to find out what this is about."

Rosalee and Carl were waiting for Nick when he walked into the lobby.

Carl had been sitting in a chair by the magazine table, cracking his white knuckles nervously. He stood up when he saw the Grimm walk in. His hands were shaking so badly he thought they'd experience time travel, but this time it wasn't from Jay withdrawals.

"Rosalee?" Nick sounded surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"There's something I think you need to hear, Nick." Rosalee looked over at Carl. "But since we got cut off on the phone, it's probably best if you get it straight from the Daemonfeuer's mouth." She nodded at him reassuringly. "Go ahead."

"Um..." Carl's mouth went dry. He swallowed hard and forced himself to go on, looking straight into the Grimm's impatient face, feeling as though he was staring directly into the mouth of hell itself. "It's...it's about Bianca..."

"I'm all ears," Nick assured him.