Nick woke to the faint sound of Clara crying crackling through the baby monitor. He shot up and swung his legs over the bed before realizing it wasn't his own - well, at least, not anymore.
He half stepped and half dropped onto the floor of the guest room, which was, at this point, mostly Clara's. She was, however, Nick imagined, sleeping in the bassinet that was in his and Monroe's room.
He leaned his head over his legs as a bout of nausea washed over him. Thankfully, because he wasn't sure he was up to doing anything for her, Clara stopped crying.
Lacking the energy to get back off the floor, he reached past the nightstand for the wastebasket, hoping he wouldn't need it. He leaned over it with one elbow before beginning to rub at his aching temple, trying to sift through his recent memories. They were patchy.
He thought he remembered Dr. Lehrer saying something to him, or mostly Monroe, about sedating him until his body was done transitioning back to its normal state. He imagined being drugged would account for why he felt like he was getting over, or maybe still had, the flu. Granted, now that he thought about, that was roughly the way he'd felt the first time.
"Nick...?" Monroe said as he tapped lightly on the guest bedroom's doorway.
He made some guttural noise in an attempt to acquiesce to Monroe's presence and simultaneously not open his mouth.
It must have worked since Monroe came up the short flight of steps, holding Clara tightly to his chest and holding a bottle in his free hand. He started walking towards the crib that was opposite the bed Nick had been sleeping on.
Nick waved at him to bring Clara with him.
He felt that he hadn't seen anywhere near enough of her. He'd spent far too much time looking at the back of his eyelids.
Monroe cautiously sank down on the floor across from him, still holding Clara. She was blinking drowsily, clearly half asleep. It was precious.
Nick took a deep breath, and, feeling slightly less nauseous, risked opening his mouth. "How did you get me up here?"
"You walked up here, with me and Hank. You don't remember?" Monroe said. His eyes tilted up to Nick, quirked in questioning concern.
"No," Nick said, shrugging. He thought maybe the memory would come with Monroe's explaining that it happened, but it didn't.
"Well, I guess maybe you wouldn't. We were second guessing how good of an idea it really was when we were halfway up the steps. But at that point, well, we were half way up the steps," Monroe said. "But really, man, this is the most coherent I've had you in nearly three days."
Nick closed his eyes, still trying to sort out whatever he could. "I sort of remember getting in the car. You and Rosalee were having trouble with the car seat?"
"Yeah. Apparently, seat-belts and car seats are a little like oil and water," Monroe said. "Especially if you're trying to get your semi-conscious boyfriend and newborn daughter home in a timely fashion."
"Well thanks for that," Nick said. He looked back at Clara. Her eyes were closed, and her tiny hands were balled into fists.
"Think you're up to holding her?" Monroe asked, guessing what Nick wanted.
"Won't that wake her back up?" Nick asked, though he was already reaching for her.
"Probably. But I'm thinking you bonding with her is more important," Monroe said.
Their arms touched as Monroe shifted her from his arms to Nick's, and, for a moment, they were both holding her.
As they did, footsteps creaked against the wooden floor, and Nick, knowing Monroe was next to him, tensed reflexively and started folding himself protectively over both him and Clara, wondering dimly how helpful that was likely to be if there were someone breaking in.
Monroe, however, shouted for Hank to come on up. Somehow, Clara stayed asleep.
Hank set a bottle of ginger ale and a glass on the bedside table before sitting down on the end of the bed, ignoring the completely rumpled bedspread.
"Did you warn him?" Hank asked.
Nick, initially thinking the question was directed at him, asked, "About what?"
"Not yet," Monroe said edgily. "I was getting there."
"How quickly?" Hank asked with a knowing laugh.
Nick noticed Monroe was now shaking his head violently. "Oh, this is a nightmare. Or is going to be a nightmare."
He threw his head into his hands, seemingly, in defeat.
"What is?" Nick asked.
"Our folks, Nick," Monroe said. "They're here. Well, your mom and my mom. They're in the kitchen right now. Hank, you left them alone down there? Oh god. I have to go back before they start something with the kitchenware."
Monroe, not waiting for any kind of answer, got up and started running down the steps.
Nick, who had not fully processed anything that Monroe had just said, shouted at his retreating figure, "What? How? They didn't even know."
"You guys didn't tell your parents you were having a baby?" Hank asked. "I completely understand if you didn't want to tell them how, but you could have told them the same story you told everyone else that didn't know."
"We did tell them we had a surrogate," Nick said, hanging on to Clara with one arm as he started leaning over the wastebasket with the other. His sinking feeling about the whole situation was not improving how queasy he already felt.
His mother and Monroe's mother had never met each other, but Monroe's mother had wanted to kill him from the moment she knew he was a Grimm. He imagined that desire completely extended to his mother. Consequently, he didn't remotely doubt Monroe's instincts about the women and their proximity to knives. "We didn't tell them when she was due, and we only told them a few weeks ago."
"News travels, Nicky. You know that," his mother said from the stairs. "A Grimm and a Blutbad have a baby together? Everyone knows about it within days. Now let me see that granddaughter of mine."
Nick, too dazed to do anything else, handed Clara up to her.
"You shouldn't be holding her anyway, if you have the flu," she continued. So that was the story they were going with. He could run with that - it felt genuine enough.
Then, because his body apparently felt the need to really sell it, he threw up.
When he was done, he leaned shakily over the wastebasket wishing fervently that his mother wasn't there.
He was grateful when Hank helped him back up to the bed and offered to fill the glass he'd brought up with water. Or, at least, he was until he realized he was essentially being left alone with his mother -to have an incredibly awkward conversation.
"What did you partner mean by everyone that didn't know?" His mother asked.
As he dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a tissue, Nick decided he'd be lucky if he made it through the conversation without throwing up a second time.
She put Clara down in her crib and came over and sat down next to him. "What didn't everyone know?"
"Mom," Nick started, faltered, then finished, "please, I'm begging you, don't ask."
"Okay," she agreed gently, but awkwardly, patting his hand with hers. Then she straightened up, "I really am sorry to have showed up like this, but ..."
Nick waved his hand dismissively. He knew enough of her spiel to guess what she had to say, and he wasn't in the mood for it. Not right now. He felt awful enough physically; he didn't need the emotional stress on top of it.
"Just do me one favor while you're here," Nick said evenly. Then when she gave him an inquisitive look, he continued, "Don't kill Monroe's mom."
"I'll do my best," she said plaintively.
"She's nice enough," Nick said cynically,"once you get past the fact that she wants to kill you."
His mom chuckled as Monroe walked back in with the glass that Hank had left with.
"Hank got a call about a case; he had to go," Monroe said, handing the glass to Nick. Nick stretched for it, a little too far apparently.
He winced and gasped against the pull of his stitches.
Before either of them thought anything about it, Monroe had pulled his shirt up to look. He ran his index finger above the line of them, and satisfied that nothing unto had happened, he pulled the shirt back down.
"I think you're okay," Monroe said. Then they both felt the heat of his mother's gaze falling on them. They looked up warily.
"You don't have the flu, do you?" his mom asked.
Nick, although he had the feeling he didn't really need to provide an answer, shook his head.
"I'm going to make you some tea," she said, definitively, as though that were the solution to everything and headed for the stairs. Nick didn't argue.
"Is your mom still here?" Nick asked, looking back at Monroe.
"Yeah," Monroe said. "I think I probably ought to take Clara back down there. She may only be three days old, but she is an incredibly good weapon when it comes to shielding and distraction. No one wants to hurt her."
"Think we should maybe hide anything sharp?" Nick said.
"Or just start baby proofing," Monroe said. "Fighting to get in our cabinets would probably slow them down."
Nick laughed, then he gave the stairs a dubious glance. "I should probably come downstairs too."
"You up to that?" Monroe asked skeptically.
"I'm going to have to be," Nick said.
"Anything to stop the inevitable blood feud, huh?" Monroe asked as he wrapped his arm around Nick's waist and pulled him up.
"Well, we do have a daughter now," Nick said, leaning in to kiss Monroe. "We have to set an example for her."
"That we do," Monroe said, wiping at his mouth with his arm. "I think I'm starting her with a simpler lesson than not letting your in-laws kill each other, though. One you apparently didn't learn. It involves brushing teeth."
XXX
Somehow, and Monroe didn't think he would ever know how, he and Nick survived that first week, when neither of their mothers would leave and the tension in the house just never drained.
He wished he could deny that they had been helpful, but he knew he would have been taking care of Nick and Clara if they weren't there. Certainly Hank and Rosalee would have readily lent a hand, but lacking his and Nick's Wesen expertise, Hank had turned to Rosalee for help with a case he was having some trouble with. Monroe figured if he didn't absolutely need them to bother them, he should probably leave them to it.
And while he had read and read about taking care of a newborn, it was nice to have two someones around who had actually done it before.
Unless those two someones disagreed or offered advice that was painfully outdated or clearly following a pack mentality.
The uncertainty of how much stronger their desire to nurture their granddaughter was than to murder the other left him and Nick constantly running interference and wrangling them so they spent as little time together as possible.
It was impossible to say they were anything but polite to one another, but it was a cold kind of politeness that suggested they were biding their time, sharpening knives in dark corners, and planning when best to plant the poison. Nick and Monroe imagined it was only Clara that really stopped them.
Of course, Nick's mother was also stopped by the fact that Nick's wrangling had mostly boiled down to his persuading her, hesitantly at first, to take more care of him than she had in nearly twenty years. He maybe didn't have the flu, as he'd told both her and Monroe, but it certainly felt like he had. And, because of this, Monroe sensed, he felt next to useless with helping with Clara. In a twisted way, his mother being there seemed to help him cope with that feeling. Even though he didn't say anything, Monroe imagined the logic was a little to the effect of, 'hey, I may not be able to help right now, but I'm going to. And, besides, there's no way I'm going to screw up as much as she did.'
At the end of the week, after he and Nick, who was feeling markedly better, had put Clara to bed, they had collapsed, completely exhausted over the kitchen table, thankful that both of their mothers had departed for their respective homes.
"I think they're more work than she will ever be," Nick said.
Monroe lifted the beer he'd been nursing and clinked it against Nick's. "Well, let's hope so. Though with the amount of trouble we manage to get into, I'm not banking on it."
Nick snorted. Then changing the subject, he asked, "Did you switch where the baby monitors were?"
"I thought we were going to keep her in our room for another week?" Monroe said.
"Well, we can. But maybe we should make tonight a trial run for her being in her room? I keep wanting to get up and check on her every time she moves, where she is now. And I know you do too. And we really shouldn't. Both of our moms said that..." Nick said. Then, with a devilish smirk, he added, "Besides, I think we have an opportunity to use our bed properly for the first time since..."
Then he raised his eyebrows, in a way Monroe imagined was meant to be seductive. It just made him want to laugh.
Snickering, Monroe said,"Well, I think we can accommodate Clara's sleeping arrangement accordingly."
"Maybe we don't need to," Nick said, rubbing his toes along the inside of Monroe's leg. As seduction techniques went, this one was considerably more effective. "We do have a perfectly good kitchen."
Nick moved behind him and ran his fingers along the back of his neck. When he leaned down to kiss him, Monroe pulled him into his lap.
"Sturdy counters too," Nick said when they stopped for air. Monroe, deciding that they could put the counter theory to the test - well, for the first time in a while, anyway - threw Nick over his shoulder before setting him down beneath one of the cabinets.
A while later, completely sated, they headed upstairs and tried not to wake Clara.
The next morning, the crackle of thunder and the gentle patter of rain against the side of the house woke them up shortly before Monroe's alarm would have.
Nick looked down at Clara's sleeping form, clearly unconvinced that she would be able to sleep so peacefully through the storm. When he started to reach for her, Monroe pulled him back. "Until she opens her eyes or starts crying, she's staying right where she is."
As he did, Clara yawned and blinked, so he let Nick go.
Nick picked her up and held her close to his chest with a degree of reverence that Monroe thought suggested he hadn't yet changed enough of her diapers.
Of course, he was looking at her and Nick exactly the same way.
He folded his arms around Nick from behind, just gazing at the two of them, knowing this was going to be a rare moment. Their lives were never going to easily lend themselves to the peace of the whole family being home and drowsing against a mild morning thunderstorm. Destiny and being chosen for something entirely different was bound to get in the way.
"Do you think she has any idea how unusual her life is going to be?" Nick asked.
"Well, I don't think telling her now would do any good," Monroe said. "But considering she's spent the first week of her life being fought over by two women dead set on the other's undoing, I think if she's aware of any of this, she probably has some inkling."
"Do you really think she's going to be part Grimm and part Blutbad, like it said in that journal?" Nick asked.
"I wish I knew, man. I wish I knew," Monroe said. "But we're just going to have to wait to find out."
Then as he considered what Clara might be, Monroe remembered that he needed to explain to Nick what, to the state of Oregon, she already was, "I have something I need to show you."
"Oh?" Nick said, looking hopeful.
"Don't get excited. It's not anything special," Monroe said. "I just think you ought to know what's on your daughter's birth certificate."
"I'd ask how Rosalee pulled this off, but I have the feeling that I don't want to know," Nick said. "I'd lose my plausible deniability."
Monroe rolled his eyes. Nick's line between police work and Grimm work, and the ethics behind the former, blurred and swayed too constantly for his understanding.
"Yeah, okay. So, were you not in the car when I was driving you to the hospital?" Monroe asked.
Nick ducked his head and pulled Clara in front of him protectively. "Let's not talk about that."
"Anyway," Monroe said as he pulled open the drawer on his bedside table. "This was the best we could do to get both of us on there."
This Certificate is to certify that
Clara Marie Burkhardt was
Born to Nicholas Burkhardt and Edita Monroe
On February 25th at 3:43 a.m.
Weight 7 lbs 6 oz.
"What are we going to do if someone goes looking for Edita ?" Nick asked.
"Well, they'll have a lot of trouble getting in touch," Monroe said. "She died tragically in childbirth."
"I'm not even asking about the paper trail," Nick said.
"All I'm going to say is that it's a good thing Rosalee's not a white collar criminal," Monroe said. "As long as she wasn't under pressure to do it quickly, she'd be really good at it."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Nick said. "Even though I don't think I need any convincing."
Nick ran his finger along the edge of the paper contemplatively, then, looking hollow and serious, he said, "Thanks for not giving me the details before now. I really appreciate it."
"Yeah, I didn't think you would want to know about Edita's demise," Monroe said, reaching for Nick's hand. "But, hey, you're still here. "
"Monroe," Nick said quietly. "I love Clara, I do, but I wish I hadn't had to go through that. Any of that."
"Those are still things you can't equate, Nick. But I'm sorry that you did go through it. I know it was miserable," Monroe said. He kept squeezing at Nick's hand as he did, hoping that hollow look would dissipate. "But, if it helps, I'm pretty sure you'll never have to do it again."
"Yeah, I know I won't," Nick said. Then with a levity that Monroe deeply appreciated, he added, "Because the next time we come across a fertility inducing snake, I'm making sure it bites you."
"Please tell me you don't think there will be a next time," Monroe said.
"There better not be," Nick said, pressing Clara's hand against Monroe's arm. "But really, next time, I'm telling you, this is all on you."
A/N: This is the 2nd to last chapter, though the next chapter is really more of an epilogue.