Nick POV

I didn't want to wake up I and definitely did not want to go to work. Early morning sunlight cut through a crack in the curtains and illuminated a crisp line across my apartment. It was too bright to ignore.

Even though I didn't want to go to work, I would have to if I was going to kick Finnicks ass. And I was definitely going to do that. He told Judy to come to my apartment, he probably gave her my address and everything. Finnick had told me I should reach out to her and I already told him I didn't want to. Well, that wasn't exactly the truth. I did want to see her, but we both knew why I couldn't.

I groaned and rolled off the couch landing hard on the dirty floor. The pile of clean laundry I had stacked in a chair was becoming much smaller than the pile of dirty laundry sitting on the floor next to it. I would have to wash clothes after work tonight.

I checked the clock and opened the fridge, squinting into the bright light. Great, I would have to buy groceries today too. Slamming the door closed, I splashed a little water onto my face before I grabbed my key, wallet, and phone. My phone vibrated from my pocket as soon as I opened the front door. No doubt it was Finnick telling me to hurry up. Good, he could wait.

The narrow staircase echoed with each step as I trudged my way down to the lobby. How had Judy made it all the way up to the third floor with those crutches? A small smile crept across my face when I thought of her stubbornly making her way up. I knew she was trying to hide the crutches but I saw them in her hands before she shoved them at the wall.

The lobby door creaked when I shoved it open and I blinked as the sunlight hit my face. I could tell it would be hot today which would be good for business. Bad for my already ounding migraine.

"Well, you look like you're in a slightly less grumpy mood." Finnick's voice broke my line of thought and I dropped the tiny smile still from my face. Finnick was leaning against the tire of his van with one foot up against the tire, sipping a large steaming cup of coffee.

"Shut up." I climbed into the front seat of the van as he walked around to the other side. While he settled into his seat, I picked up the other coffee cup sitting in the cup holder and took a greedy sip of the bitter liquid before coughing and setting the cup back in its place. "How did you get my coffee order wrong?"

"Oops." He grinned at me from across the vehicle and started the engine. "So, anyone stop by yesterday to see you?"

I shot him a glare and crossed my arms tightly over my chest. "What were you thinking, Fin, is this a joke to you? Why would you tell her to come see me? You think it's funny to put her in danger or something?" I grabbed the cup again and took another gulp of coffee, wincing at the flavour. Hazelnut? When has he ever known me to drink hazelnut coffee?

Finnick rolled his eyes, using a red light as an opportunity to look over at me. "Oh come on, man, you are being ridiculous. She wasn't in any danger and I thought it would be good for you to see her. You've been kind of a mopey asshole lately." The light turned green and he turned onto a back street before easing the van into an alleyway that was out of sight from the main road.

"Are you being serious right now? How was she not in any danger? Fin, I told you what they said to me at the hospital. What if I lost it and I hurt her again, or worse. I can't see her and the more you push her to reach out, the harder it becomes."

He turned the engine off and jumped out of the van, slamming the door behind him. "Nick, you're not going to hurt her. You've been completely fine since you got home, and you said the doctor told you it's not likely for anything to happen. Even if it does, you have that little bottle of stuff with you, you'd be fine. Besides, I see you every damn day, am I in danger? You gonna go nuts and hurt me?"

I followed him to the back of the van, yanking the doors open and climbing inside. "I might do that anyway if you don't leave it alone." I grumbled under my breath.

He laughed. "I'd love to see you try, man. Anyway, we have shit to do. This is probably the last day we can run this popsicle gig. There's only one more ice cream joint in town that we can reasonably hit up. You'll need to come up with something new for tomorrow, something good."

"Don't worry 'bout that, I have a few ideas in mind. Just focus on the job today." I was glad he changed the conversation and left him at the van to pace the street a few times, keeping the ice cream shop in sight without seeming too obvious.

Any particular business scheme we came up with could only last so long before it became too suspicious. We had been running the ice cream job a little over a week before I was dragged into detective work. We picked it back up a few days after I got back from the hospital. Even with a few shops being naive enough for us to hit them up twice, we had a limited number of 'suppliers' before we had to move on to something else.

Once I felt pretty confident in our plan to get what we needed today, I returned to the truck. Finnick was sitting on the bumper pulling the last bits of stuffing from a plush hippo he picked up the previous day.

"I thought you would be dressed by now. Hurry up, we're burning daylight." I climbed into the back of the van to check that our jars were clean and ready to go. Once we had the popsicle we would have a very short window before it started to melt all over the van.

"Bite me." Finnick snapped over his shoulder, slipping his legs into the emptied legs of the plushie. He downed the last gulp of his coffee and yanked the soft material over his head.

I laughed and joined him in the back of the van again. Instead of slipping out of the alleyway this time, we rounded the block in order to walk straight down the street. I took a deep breath and fell into the fake father role as we slipped into the ice cream shop.

I finished dividing up our profits for the day and handed Finnick his stack of money. As I thought, with the hot afternoon temperatures we were able to up our prices a little and still sold everything.

Finnick recounted the money in his hands before shoving the bills into one pocket and pulled out his keys from the other. The empty plushie sat on the bumper of the van and he shoved it into a nearby dumpster.

"You walking home today or am I driving you?" He asked. Normally I walk home but I've been making him drive me. Lately, I have just felt better being alone in my apartment if i wasn't at work. Unfortunately he wouldn't drive me anywhere but my apartment and I still needed to get food.

I waved him off and turned in the opposite direction. "I'll walk. I need to stop at the market and pick up something to eat anyway. See you tomorrow."

I heard the engine roar to life behind me. "Have a new plan tomorrow!" Finnick yelled through the open window as he pulled into the street.

The closest market was nearly an hour away from where we ended up today and another hour away from my apartment. I only got a few items since I didn't want to be carrying multiple heavy bags all the way home.

The sun was starting to set when I got back to my building. I pulled the door to the stairwell open with my foot and rested against the cool concrete walls. A slight breeze filtered down from above, likely someone left the roof access door open again.

When I had cooled down a bit from the long walk home I started up the stairs. I'd lived here for a while and the elevator had never worked in that time. I didn't bother looking at floor numbers anymore as I went up. But when I stepped out onto the third floor I stopped and had to double check the number. There was someone sitting on the floor near the end of the hall, close to where my apartment would be. I rarely saw any of my neighbors on this floor so I thought maybe I had gone one floor too high or not high enough.

But when I checked, sure enough, I was on the right floor. I turned back to the hallway and walked towards the figure. A few feet into the dimly lit hallway I realized Judy was sitting on the floor leaning slightly against my front door, her crutches resting across her lap. She appeared to be asleep and her breathing was soft and rhythmatic.

I briefly considered trying to step past her and going into my apartment without waking her but I couldn't do that with the way she leaned on the door. Instead, I gently nudged her leg with my foot until her eyes fluttered open.

She sat up immediately, looking around wildly. "What is… where… oh, uh Nick." She sputtered and quickly attempted to stand, wincing and immediately dropping back to the ground. I shifted the grocery bag in my arms and offered her a hand to get up, pulling it back as soon as she was on her feet.

"What are you doing here? I thought I told you to stay away." I quickly pushed past her to unlock the door while she struggled to get the crutches back into position.

As soon as the lock clicked, I opened the door and slipped inside, swinging it closed behind me. Instead of the smooth sound of the door closing into place there was a sharp clank sound. I glanced around my shoulder to see Judy had shoved one of her crutches between the door and the frame to prevent it from closing.

"I'm not leaving until we talk," she said, matter of factly. She used the crutch as a lever to pry the door open a little bit more.

I sighed and stretched my arm as far as I could to set the groceries on the counter without removing my foot from behind the door. I had no doubt if I let go of the door Judy would have swung it open the rest of the way and walked right in.

I turned back to the door and used my hands to hold it in place instead of my foot. "I need you to remove your crutch from my door so that I can shut it. I already told you not to come back." I motioned to the crutch and gave it a little nudge with my foot for good measure.

"I'm not leaving until we talk. Give me ten minutes, at least. Please Nick." Her lilac eyes were damp with tears that were threatening to spill over. I didn't want to see her cry but I really couldn't have her here. I felt a panic rise in my chest the longer I was with her.

"I can't, Carrots, I'm really sorry but it isn't safe for you to be here. You really need to leave, now. If Finnick asked you to come over again, I will tell him to leave you alone." I tried to use my foot to push the crutch out of the door frame but she held it firmly in place. "Judy, this is just how things have to be, stop making it harder."

She pushed the crutch a little bit further in, twisting it slightly to force the door open more. She was surprisingly strong. "Why is this how things have to be? What do you mean it isn't safe, NIck? Why would it be unsafe for us to talk? Are you in some kind of trouble? Nick, give me ten minutes, that is all I am asking, and if you really truly want me to leave after that I will."

I sighed. She was going to be stubborn and I was not going to put her in danger. But maybe there was a way I could talk to her and be sure I couldn't hurt her. "Do you have handcuffs with you?" I asked, almost regretting it as soon as the words left my mouth. I should have just kept insisting she leave. I could threaten to call the police but I wasn't sure what good that would do since she is a cop.

She stared at me with her mouth slightly agape. I probably could have shoved the crutch out of the door while she was distracted and been done but I didn't. If I didn't give her the ten minutes she would just keep coming back.

"Not on me right now. I wasn't at work today, but Nick, why would I need handcuffs to talk to you?" She kept glancing behind me, trying to see into my apartment.

"Well, I won't talk to you without them. It's a bummer, maybe next time." I used her still obvious shock to kick the crutch back and slam the door closed. It was already late and I knew she wouldn't drive to work or home or wherever her gear was and then all the way back here. I was sure I could expect to see her tommorow though.

I pressed my back to the cool metal and pinched my eyes closed. My growling stomach quickly drew my attention away and I turned to the bag on the counter. Laundry would have to wait until tomorrow but I put most of the frozen box dinners away, leaving one on the counter. I pulled back the plastic film and tossed it into the microwave.

The sun had fully gone down and the only light in my apartment came from the glowing microwave window until it beeped and the light clicked off. I pulled the pathetic looking meal out and sat down on the edge of the couch to eat.

I just finished the tray and was about to throw the flimsy plastic away when there was a light but confident knock at the door. When I swung it open, Judy was standing there again. But this time she had a pair of handcuffs in one hand. It looked like she had left her crutches in the car and was leaning heavily on the wall.

"I do keep most of my gear in my car. Okay, lets talk." Despite her obvious exhaustion, there was a defiant gleam was in her eyes. She didn't wait for me to let her in, instead she pushed past me and made her way into the apartment. A small panic rose in my chest as I scanned he messy room. I really wasn't expecting her to come back tonight so I hadn't bothered to pick up. Judy didn't seem to notice as she sat down on the edge of the couch where I had been just minutes before.

"Fine," I sighed. "You really want to talk that badly then give me those first." I reached my hand out for the cuffs.

She clutched them close to her side, making no motion to hand them over. "Why do you need them?"

I rolled my eyes and snatched them out of her hands. "If you want us to talk then we do it on my terms. And these," I held the handcuffs up and shook them so the metal clicked together, "are my terms."

The metal seemed to burn my hands but I walked over to the the radiator anyway. It was a good distance from the couch and if I was cuffed to the metal bar I would have no possible way of reaching her on the couch. Settling down on the ground, I ran my thumb over the metal before snapping one side onto the bars and the other onto my wrist. I gave it a hard yank before turning back to face her.

"Okay," I finally said, "what is it you want to talk about? You get ten minutes."

She didn't say anything, only stared unblinking at my cuffed hand. Finally, she took a deep breath. "What the actual heck, Nick."

I laughed a bit in the back of my throat, the sudden and vague response catching me off guard. "You're going to need to be a tad bit more detailed than that."

She narrowed her eyes at me before trying again "okay, well let's start with the fact that you think you need to be handcuffed to a radiator in order to talk to me."

I let my eyes follow hers to my hand but didn't turn my head away from her. "I said it wasn't safe for us to talk and I meant it. I am handcuffed here so that I cannot possibly hurt you again."

Her expression instantly changed from annoyed to pained. She stood and started to move toward me. I put a hand up to stop her. "Nick, I'm not worried about you hurting me. What happened before was not your fault, it was because of the serum. But you're fine now, you don't have to worry about that anymore."

I shook my head. "You don't understand. The antidote they gave me wasn't completely effective. I am dangerous."

"How was it not affective? You seem like yourself for the most part." She started to get up again but sat back down before I had to remind her.

"I do, don't I? Which is what makes this so hard because I do feel like myself, minus a whole lot of guilt, but I'm not and I can't risk anything happening." The tears had disappeared from her eyes and she went back to looking annoyed at me.

"Nick, I don't understand. If you feel like yourself and you are acting normal, mostly normal, than what do you think is going to happen?" This time she stood very intentionally and took a few steps toward me.

I knew I wasn't explaining the situation very well, I was caught off guard. I wanted her to understand how important it was for her to keep her distance while also not scaring her any more. I hated that look on her face. But, maybe scaring her was what I would have to do do.

"Carrots. I am fine right now but the doctor said I could snap and go back to how I was at any time. Do you understand why I can't be around you? I don't want to hurt you, or kill you, and quite frankly I can't look at you without thinking about how scared you are of me and I hate it! I hate remembering the look of terror on your face that night, its the last thing I remember clearly before I woke up in the hospital!"

I tried to raise my voice but it caught in my throat. I wasn't planning to say that last part, it just slipped out and I didn't sound nearly as angry as I wanted to. But I drew my lips up, revealing my teeth as much as I could and it seemed affective enough. Judys eyes were wide, her expression almost identical to the one I saw in my head every time I closed my eyes.

"It hurt when I saw you were afraid of me before, after the press conference, when you didn't have a reason to be. But it was a hundred times worse when you DID have a reason to be."

Despite her wide eyes and twitching nose, she still moved a little closer to me so her face was less than a foot from my own. Too close for my comfort. I would need to wrap this up quickly.

"Nicholas Wilde. Listen carefully. Yes, I was afraid when I saw you that night after you were shot. I was absolutely terrified." I tried to interject but she put her hand up to tell me not in speak. "I was scared but I wasn't scared OF you, Nick, I was scared FOR you. I was scared that whatever had just happened couldn't be fixed and I might lose you."

"Carrots I…" She reached out and rested one hand on top my cuffed hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her pull a key out of her pocket. She wanted to unlock the handcuffs. I pulled my hand back, "don't."

"Nick, you don't need to be handcuffed. What did the doctor tell you to do if something happened? Because I know there has to be some sort of safety measure. I helped fill out out paperwork for one of our officers who was shot a few days before you. If he could just go savage at any moment with nothing to do about it he wouldn't be allowed to come back to work. But he is returning to duty next week."

I pulled the small pill bottle out of my pocket with my free hand. "I have these. I'm supposed to take one if I feel anything." I put the bottle back into my pocket.

She seemed to consider that answer for a second before pulling her hand back slightly. "How many times have you had to take them?"

"I haven't had yet. I think it's been over ten minutes. You should leave." I lifted my wrist a little to allow her to now unlock the cuffs.

"Nick please," she removed the one from my wrist first and then the one on the bar. "Don't make me leave yet."

I rubbed my wrist a little and held the hand up. "Carrots, you really need to leave. But, if you wanted to stop by again tomorrow, I wouldn't complain." I lifted my gaze to meet hers, a small smile creeping across my face. "But, you still need to bring these." I stood and led her to the door.

"Tommorow then, I will be here." She stepped out of the apartment and leaned against the wall in the hallway. "Good night Nick."