A/N: This double post goes out to reTTa. Please enjoy.
Chapter 23 Adalind
"Nick, don't hate me anymore. For our son's sake, we can't go on like we were," she couldn't help saying while she watched father and son bonding. Adalind never thought she would ever wish for a relationship with a Grimm, yet here she was hoping against all odds that they could make this work for their son's sake. She had witnessed compassion and a gentleness in Nick that she didn't know existed in the last few days, and the look on his face as he held their son made her heart beat a little faster.
Sitting down on the bed next to her, Nick faced her with the most elated and handsome smile she'd ever seen on his face. "You forget, I don't remember how we were. All I know is you made me value being a Grimm by experiencing life without it, you revealed to me and everyone else the monster that Juliette could become, and," he continued with a loving look at their sleeping son, "you gave me a son. I could never hate you." Then to her utter astonishment, Nick leaned over and kissed her slow and deliberately. His lips were softer and warmer, more inviting, than she would have imagined. Adalind's eyes must have been as big as saucers and mouth agage with shock, because he chuckled. "I've been wanting to do that ever since you showed up very pregnant in the captain's office," was Nick's explanation with a smirk on his face. "Do you have an idea for a name?" He asked her as if nothing had happened.
Blinking over and over again, Adalind finally took a breath, mind reeling from the last few moments. "I...I...," stuttering stupidly, Adalind swallowed and tried again, "I thought we should name him Kelly, after your mother." Then with a shake of her head and her fear of his reactions completely gone for the moment, Adalind blurted out, "Nick, What the hell was that kiss?"
He shrugged, "I only have wonderful memories of you, no matter what other people have told me." Then, his eyes darkening for the first time since she had showed up at the precinct that day, he continued, "Unfortunately it was Juliette pretending to be you so I'd become a Grimm again, without my knowledge I might add. She did that even after I mentioned to everyone I wasn't sure if I wanted this life back." He finished with a look close to what Adalind remembered when he had looked at her in the past. "I'm glad I didn't bring you home with me last night, because Juliette was waiting for me. She didn't get on that helicopter like I thought. I lost it at first and almost choked her to death, and she told me to kill her, but I couldn't. Then she Woged and attacked me, throwing me against a wall across the room. I landed near Trubel's machete, and when she lunged at me again, I had to use it to kill her." Nick swallowed and Adalind saw his regret plainly.
Her hands had an urge to touch his face, rising up, when she sharply came to her senses and dropped them back down. This was Nick, her mortal enemy. True she had called a truce, to make peace for the sake of their baby, but they both had tried to kill each other more than once. Still he seemed to be in pain, so Adalind laid it all on the table. She was all in, committed as she finally reached up her hand to his cheek feeling his stubble as a shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with fear. From her heart she confessed, "That's what I did to you before, Nick. I tricked you, like Juliette did, to sleep with me. I'm sorry about that. I'm so sorry you had to kill her." Adalind found her statement was true. She no longer hated Nick, no longer wish anything to happen to him like she had caused over and over again in his life. Shame, real shame overwhelmed her as tears threaten to spill from her eyes. Blinking furiously and looking down, she had no desire for him to see that. She didn't deserve his sympathy, ashamed of receiving that from him.
Nick wouldn't let her retreat as he lifted her face with a gentle hand. "I can understand now more than ever why you did it," he stated simply looking down at his son. "Kelly's a good name. I know it's only been minutes since I met my son, but if anyone EVER tried to take him away, I'd kill them," Nick said Grimmly reminding Adalind of who he really was and for once she knew what it felt like to truly be under his protection.
Against all her instincts, all the instincts of their ancestors aggression towards one another, Adalind leaned over and kissed his cheek. Nick gave her a devastatingly gorgeous smile and her breath caught in a lump in her throat. She was in danger around Nick alright, but not bodily. The realization scared her more than all his other threats and actions from the past. Was she that weak? That starved for affection that all it took was kindness freely given without resentment of any form and she melted? Petrified, she was with comprehension. Adalind was falling for a Grimm.