Startling awake from a horrific dream of a tall man with blistered and cracked black and red skin and a skull for a head, he looked around trying to orient himself. The beeping of machines, the sterile smell, and prone figure of his dying aunt before him brought him back to awareness. Grabbing her hand, he tried to shake off the anguished feelings that the now fading dream brought. He wasn't sure what it was about anymore. The man, now just a blur in his mind, reminded him of loss, pain and anger.
It wasn't important he decided. He had enough to deal with. His last living relative dying of cancer, dealing with the information she had told him just before they were attacked. He still wasn't sure if he believed her or any of it. But it did bring on memories of the pretty blonde he saw earlier and how her face had transformed into something else completely. He was playing it off as his imagination but knew it wasn't, not after the man that had attacked him and his aunt outside of his home had also transformed into something else, something he couldn't explain.
A Grimm. That's what his aunt had said he was, what she was. Someone that could see the true nature of some people, things no one else could see. This isn't a fairytale…You are one of the last Grimms. Shaking his head, he stopped thinking about it and focused on his aunt. The woman who raised him from the age of twelve after his parents died in a car crash. She said they were killed. By whom?
Footsteps caught his attention as a doctor walked into the room.
"Hello." He greeted.
The woman smiled at him before turning to his aunts IV. She pulled out a filled syringe from her pocket and something about that didn't feel right. He had the sudden feeling of danger and before she could stick it in the port, he grabbed her hand stopping her, a shock like static electricity sparked quickly. Now the feeling had changed to one of comfort and serenity. Strange, he thought.
"What is that?" he asked. She turned to him. Familiarity washed over him. "Do I know you?" he asked.
She looked at him in confusion and then at the needle in her hand and then at his aunt.
"Oh my God." She gasped dropping the needle to the ground. "What am I doing?"
She backed away pulling her hand from his.
"I'm so sorry. This isn't right. I shouldn't… I didn't mean to… I'm sorry." She stuttered out and then ran. Nick got up to follow after her to find out what was going on. He looked down both sides of the hall, but she was gone.
"Excuse me." he stopped a passing orderly.
"Yes, how can I help you?"
"Did you see where the doctor that was just in here went?"
"I don't think so. What did they look like?"
"Pretty, blonde, thin. I didn't get her name."
"Sorry. I must have missed her."
"Okay, thanks."
"Sure. Visiting hours are ending, just so you know."
"Of course. Thanks again."
"Sure. Have a good night, sir."
"You too."
They smiled and continued down the hall. With one last look down the hall he went back into his aunt's room, placed a kiss on her head. He was about to leave when he remembered the syringe the doctor had dropped. Going around to the other side he picked it up and left. It was filled with something, but it didn't look like medication, it was green and swirled in the barrel. He grabbed a glove from the wall and broke off the needle portion throwing in the waste container, then grabbed another and wrapped the rest in it. Pocketing it and leaving.
He parked the car behind Aunt Marie's trailer in his drive. As tired as he was and as much as sleep was calling his name, he was too curious about what Aunt Marie said was in that trailer to actually rest.
The door creaked as he opened it. Stepping inside he shut it firmly behind him and looked around. He felt as if he had just stepped inside of a battle-ready station. Ancient looking weapons hung from the walls, stacks of books with faded spines and worn pages, documents with weird pictures and misshapen letters sat on a table that took up the center of the small room. A bed was off to one side, disheveled. It must be where Aunt Marie was sleeping. He walked towards a closet at the other end and opened it. His eyes widened at the weaponry inside. Axes, swords, crossbows, knives of all shapes and sizes. A small shelf with tiny bottles filled with who knows what in them. Picking one up he couldn't make heads or tails of what it was or what it was supposed to be. The label on it was old and faded and he could just barely make out that it was in a different language, one he did not know.
His mind wasn't able to process any of this right now. He decided that bed sounded better. He just wanted to hold Juliette, his long-time girlfriend, and sleep. Maybe tomorrow would bring about a better understanding. Exiting the trailer, he locked it back up and headed into the house. It was dark and quiet; Juliette must have gone to bed already.
His body agreed with the decision still feeling the aches and pains from the fight early and the stress of his aunt being in the hospital. He took a quick but hot shower, dressed and climbed into bed pulling Juliette into his arms. Again, there was a shock when he touched her, but this one didn't bring about feelings of comfort and serenity. This one was different, and he couldn't figure out what it was.
"Nick." Juliette's sleepy voice called.
"Yeah." he sighed.
"How's Marie?"
"She's… okay for now. But I don't know about the long run. Let's get some sleep, I will tell you about it in the morning."
"Okay." She murmured drifting back off to sleep.
He tried to ignore the weird, unsettling feeling and closed his eyes, sinking into an uncomfortable sleep.
This dream was surreal. He didn't know why but it warmed his heart. The same blonde woman he had seen in the hospital, the doctor. It was still in the hospital but instead of a lab coat she was in a hospital gown, in a room, holding a baby. Her smile was luminescent as she bounced him, staring at him as if he were her whole world.
Nick entered the room after having a muffled conversation with someone in the hall.
"You, okay?" he asked her.
"Better now." She sighed looking up at him. He stepped further into the room sighing.
"I wasn't sure you'd want to be here… I don't know. Maybe you don't want to be here." She rolled her eyes.
"But at least you are here." She attempted to smile but it fell flat.
He looked at her, not saying a word.
He got the sense he was angry at her.
"Don't hate me anymore, Nick." She pleaded.
"For our son's sake, we can't be like we were." She told him.
He felt shocked. Son. He had a son. With her?
"I don't want to raise him by myself. And he's as much of you as he is me."
"I don't know if that's good on either side." He told her.
"Well maybe he won't be like either one of us." She said with a self-deprecating smile.
"I know I can't force you to be there for him."
"I will be." He promised her.
"Want to hold him?" she asked.
Nick suddenly felt overwhelmed. He wanted to go to her, needed to go to his son. To hold him. But another part of him didn't understand what was happening. Why he felt like his actions weren't his own. It was a dream, he knew. but it didn't feel like a dream. It felt real. It felt like something he had already done. He felt himself move toward them. Arms ready to take the baby. Want to hold him?
Nick shot up in bed, gasping for breath. He could feel the chill on his damp skin and shivered. Looking over he saw he had not wakened Juliette. Lying back down he scrubbed a hand over his face and turned on his side away from Juliette. It was just a dream. It may have felt different, but it was just a dream. Then why did he suddenly feel as if a big part of him was missing.
Want to hold him?
*GRIMM*
Adalind left the hospital shaking. What did she just do or didn't do. It was a simple task. Just inject her with the serum and leave. She could have gotten it done. She could have just said it was medicine to help with her cancer. She could have. But him grabbing her stopped her. Why? She could have just jabbed him with it before running. She had thought about it briefly but even that thought made her feel sick.
She made it to her car after discarding the lab coat in a nearby trashcan. Her head was clouded, and her emotions were all over the place. This was supposed to secure her place by the side of the man she loved, or could love, maybe. She was to be his queen as soon as they secured the key, and he took the throne from his father. But now even that felt wrong. Suddenly she didn't want that. She didn't want to kill a woman she barely knew on orders from someone else, even if it was a Grimm. And why did she have to be the one to do it anyway. Why couldn't he do it? It would have been easy for him as a police officer, the captain at that, to go in there under the guise of checking on the victim and done it easy peasy. Why did he want her to do it? Was it to prove to him that she was loyal to him?
Shaking herself out of her ruminations she started her car and made the journey home. It wasn't long, she had a flat in an upscale downtown neighborhood which was only about fifteen minutes from the hospital. But her mind still wondered to the Grimm sitting by the bed. She remembered seeing him earlier in the day outside of a jewelry store. She remembered woging in front of him and then the fear as she recognized him as a Grimm. She had never met one before. In her learnings she was taught that Grimm's were the boogeyman, the monster under the bed. Their meant to kill any wesen for any or no reason. She never questioned it. She had heard enough stories growing up and read enough books to have a healthy fear of Grimms.
Now, she wasn't so sure. In the room, she didn't fear him. When he grabbed her hand, it wasn't fear she felt it was… longing. She felt at peace and happy for a split second and so much longing that her heartbeat stuttered. There may have been a bit of lust as well. He was cute, the hair didn't fit him but still he was easy on the eyes.
"Finding a Grimm attractive? Get it together Adalind." She scolded herself as she pulled into the garage.
With a sigh she exited her car and made her way to the elevator only to be startled by Sean Renard, her sort of boyfriend and the man who sent her to kill a woman already on deaths door, coming out of the shadows near it.
"Jesus, you scared me." she told him pressing a hand to her racing heart.
"I'm sorry. That was not my intention." He told her.
"Well, it happened anyway. What can I do for you Sean?" she asked, her voice not holding the usual affection she had for him.
"I'm just curious on how it went."
"It didn't." she said pressing the up button.
"It didn't. You didn't inject her? Why?"
"No, I didn't. And that would be because of the Grimm by her bedside, he stopped me."
"You mean Nick? He was there?"
Nick. That was his name. Why did her heart pound at hearing it? Shaking it off, she answered him.
"Yes, he was there, sitting right beside her. He saw I was going to inject something and grabbed my hand stopping me and making me drop the needle. I ran after that."
"Damn, I was hoping he would have been gone by then."
"Who is he anyway?"
"Nick Burkhardt. A detective in my unit and her nephew."
She snorted looking up at him.
"He's her nephew, she's in the hospital and you didn't think he would be there?"
"Visiting hours should have been over by then. He wouldn't have been able to stay."
"Except he's a cop and her nephew and she was in there because she was attacked. Gives him a bit of leeway, don't you think." She snarked and was surprised at herself.
"Fine, fine. So, we try again tomorrow."
"No, I'm done. You want her dead you kill her. I'm not going back there. Besides I dropped the needle, so I don't even have the serum anymore."
"You dropped it and didn't think to grab it before running out."
"No, I didn't. Being in the same room as not one but two Grimms, even if one is bedridden, I wasn't thinking about picking up a needle full of poison before running out of there."
"Adalind." He sighed exasperatedly.
"Whatever Sean. I'm tired, I'm going up to my place and going to bed. You can do your own dirty work." she said as the elevator dinged, and the door opened.
"Okay, wait. I'm sorry." He said grabbing her arm as she stepped into the elevator. Another shock, but this one wasn't the same. It felt wrong and for some reason she felt a surge of anger at him.
"Maybe that wasn't the best plan, but we can come up with something else. I'll come up with you, and we can talk it out and then I can help you relax a little, hmmm." He grinned cockily.
Prince charming bastard, literally and figuratively, she thought.
"No thanks. I'm tired and I just want to go to bed… alone." She told him when he opened his mouth. He looked taken aback and let her go. She pressed the button for the fourth floor while he stood staring.
"Goodnight Sean." She said, giving a little wave, as the doors closed.
As soon as she opened the apartment door she groaned. She could smell her mother's, Cathryn Schade, expensive perfume before she got to the living room.
"You're back. Good. How did it go?" her mother smiled delightedly.
"It didn't and I don't want to talk about it, I just want to go to bed."
"It didn't. Why ever not." Her mother asked hands planted on her hips, her lips in an angry line.
"Because it didn't. Like I said I don't want to talk about it. If you want a debriefing, go call Sean." She told her, heading to her bedroom. Of course, her mother followed after her, already ranting.
"It was such a small task. How did you screw this up?"
"Enough mom. I'm going to bed you know how to let yourself out." Adalind told her, kicking off her shoes and unzipping her skirt.
"Adalind you are such-."
"Such a what?" Adalind whipped around to face her mother, her anger at Sean making her voice sharp. "A disappointment. You should be used to it by now. You have been telling me such since I was a kid."
Her mother jerked back in shock. Adalind had never spoken to her quite like this before and she didn't know where it was coming from.
"I am in no mood to be belittled by you right now. It's been a rough night and I want to go to bed. If you still feel the need to cut me down tomorrow, then come back after I have had my coffee. Now I am going to bed. You know how to let yourself out. Good night." she said with finality.
Her mother gaped at her trying to figure out what had just happened. Finally with a dignified straightening of her back she scoffed.
"Fine. I will leave but we will be speaking about this later."
"Can't wait." Adalind answered sarcastically.
Her mother left and Adalind spelled the door so it would lock and then spelled it again so her mother couldn't use a skeleton key to get in. dragging herself to the bathroom she ran through her usual routine and decided she was too tired to take a shower and it would have to wait until morning. She collapsed in bed and fell into a deep sleep.
The dream was just as surreal as Nick had experienced, feeling more real than fake but Adalind snuggled into her covers and smiled.
Adalind walked up the stairs of the loft, fear clogging her throat. She knew he had to go but didn't want him to. She was scared he would not return, and he would never know.
"Look I know you're worried." His voice said as he followed her into the bedroom.
"Yeah, I am." She said with her back to him. Her eyes teared up.
"You're probably right. It's probably nothing." He said from right behind her.
"What if I'm wrong?" she said turning to face him.
Adalind felt surprised as she came face to face with the Grimm from the hospital, the detective. he looked different. More rugged with shorter hair and stubble lining his jaw.
"What if what they buried is something evil, something they never wanted found, and for good reason?"
"Well then, they wouldn't have made a map. They would have just destroyed it."
"What if it couldn't be destroyed?" she asked.
"Then they would have just buried it."
She sighed heavily, closing her eyes.
"I know I can't keep you from going. It's something you have to do."
Opening her eyes, she looked into his, her feelings bubbling to the surface, and she knew she couldn't let him go without telling him.
"But I also know there's a chance that you won't come back."
"Adalind-."
Steeling herself she cut him off.
"And I can't let you go without you knowing how I feel about you."
Confusion crossed his face along with a certain awareness. Taking a chance, she stepped closer to him and leaned in to him for a kiss. It had been over a week since she had kissed him before, and she missed the feel of his lips against hers.
Her fingers slowly worked the buttons of his shirt, opening them one by one, giving him the chance to stop her but praying he wouldn't. He didn't take the chance but instead stared at her, warring with himself it seemed.
"And I don't care if this is a mistake… I love you." she told him.
Adalind was startled to hear herself say those words to the Grimm and even more startled to know she meant them from the bottom of her heart, she loved him.
She didn't wait for a response just kissed him again. He took the initiative and took off his shirt while she took off hers. He kissed her again pulling her in close and wrapping strong arms around her. Falling onto the bed he really touched her for the first time in what felt like years to Adalind.
Adalind sat up ram rod straight in her bed, shaking. What was that? Why did it feel so real? And why could she taste him in her mouth, feel him on her lips? Why did her body suddenly ache to be with him? Her fingers traced her lips as she remembered the kiss, the passion, the need. Her heart hammered in her chest as she thought about the things she had said.
I don't care if this is a mistake… I love you.