Thanks to everyone who read and to Scififan33 and 1983Sarah for reviewing.


There was a light knock at the door, and Roddy looked up from the piece of gibberish in front of him, startled. Monroe hadn't approved of most of the food he had on hand—which, okay, maybe he had leaned a little heavily on the ramen when he'd made a quick run to the grocery store in between other errands yesterday, but whatever, he wasn't even hungry anyway—and had left on a trip to the store himself, and Roddy wasn't expecting anyone else anytime soon. He'd made the horrible call to Aunt Sophie who'd assured him that she'd handle telling the rest of the family, something that had almost made him like her, and while some of them were bound to stop by eventually, he hadn't figured that it would be until his uncles drove back from their job. All of them coming over in one swarm to try and browbeat him into cooperation would be about par for course, even if he had no intention of going along with them.

Unfortunately pretending that no one was here wasn't going to save him, and with a sigh and a quick scrub at his eyes Roddy put the paper down and pushed himself up from the table and the papers stacked in haphazard piles and went to let them in.

There were no relatives standing in the doorway when he opened it, though, just a pretty woman that he didn't recognize, and he hesitated. "Hello?"

"Hi, my name is Rosalee. Monroe called me."

"Oh. Right. Hi," Roddy echoed. Monroe had said that she was going to come by right before he'd left. A whole fifteen minutes ago. If his mind was that far gone, it was no wonder that he couldn't make sense of any of any of the fucking paperwork. He stepped aside. "Sorry, please come in. I'm kind of...I didn't sleep too much last night."

"It's okay, I understand." She stepped inside. "I'm sorry about your dad."

A lump rose in his throat, and he forced it back down. "Thanks. I'm sorry about your brother."

"Thanks." She hesitated. "Monroe and I only talked for a few minutes, but he said that you two were trying to sort through some paperwork and getting a little stuck. I just had to do all of that for Freddy, and he thought maybe I could help."

"I'd appreciate that. I mean, if you don't mind. I'm not even sure what I'm looking at for some of this." There were basically two separate sets of things that he had to deal with, the more immediate being about Dad's...about Dad...that he couldn't even think about without tearing up. He'd been trying to avoid a total breakdown in front of Monroe, but he wasn't going to be able to keep that up for much longer.

And then there was the stuff that came after, the part that was selfishly almost scarier because even if he had a scholarship to cover his last year of school tuition, there were still plenty of other bills to pay and it wasn't like he and Dad had a lot saved. He knew what his relatives' response would be, and it was one of the major reasons that he didn't want to deal with them, but he was a little scared that their 'solution'—quit school, sell his violin, go work for one of his uncles and put up with all of the shit that came with it—might end up being his only option.

"I'd be happy to help." She gestured at the table. "Is this what you're working on?"

"Yeah. Um, please." He waited for her to take a seat and then started to sit down again as well before remembering basic manners. "Sorry, would you like coffee or water or anything?"

"I'm fine, but thank you. Why don't you show me what you've already got?"

With Rosalee's help he managed to make a little more sense of the various forms, and it turned out that Dad had actually done a lot more than Roddy had realized when Mom had died. He'd not only gotten the plot beside her at the cemetery, but also prepaid a bunch of other stuff as part of a weird and Roddy thought creepy burial package and generally hadn't left a lot for Roddy to do except make phone calls. Which was...Roddy couldn't imagine having to deal with figuring out payments and services and all of that himself right now so he was a little grateful, but the fact that everything was already written down still didn't make making those phone calls any easier. Rosalee was even better than Monroe at rubbing his back and pretending that he wasn't sniffling hopelessly the whole way through, but it was still awful.

Monroe made it back with way too many groceries at about the same time that he was getting off the phone with the funeral director after confirming the graveside service, and Roddy went to help him unpack and put stuff away—as best he could, anyway, since Monroe had seriously brought back things like a bag of beets and damned if he knew what he was supposed to do with most of it—when the dam finally broke.

He didn't even like orange juice, Dad did, and now there was a whole jug of it sitting front and center in the fridge.

He made it to his room and got the door slammed behind him before the tears came, and he flung himself down on his bed and buried his face in his pillow. It wasn't fair. Other people got to keep their parents, but he hadn't even been a teenager when Mom had died. And now Dad was gone too, and Dad had been everything.

There was a light tap at the door? "Roddy?"

Roddy didn't even try to answer, gripping his pillow tighter and keeping his face buried.

There was a sigh and then the bed dipped behind him. "Cub..."

"I want my dad!"


His eyes hurt. His face hurt. His throat hurt. Everything hurt. And Dad wasn't here, and he wasn't sure why he should even bother—

Raised voices from the other room identified what had woken him, and he scrubbed at his face and listened for a moment. And fuck, that was Uncle Joseph. Just about last on the list of people that Roddy wanted to talk to, especially since it meant that the swarm of relatives that Roddy had been expecting had finally arrived. Putting off dealing with them wasn't going to make things any better, though, even if Monroe was making it pretty clear that he wasn't going to let anyone shake Roddy awake.

At least he'd tried.

Roddy braced himself and ignored the heads that swiveled in his direction as he left his bedroom, taking a minute to duck into the bathroom and wash his face. It didn't do much to clear his red-rimmed eyes, but it was better than nothing.

Monroe and Rosalee at least smiled at him when he entered the main room, and Aunt Sophie attempted it, but neither Uncle Michael nor Uncle Matthew would meet his eyes, and Uncle Joseph scowled. "Done lounging around?"

At least Roddy could count on his uncle pissing him off enough to keep his sorrow choked down. "Turns out sitting around in the hospital waiting for your father to die is tiring. Who knew?" He didn't wait for his uncle's response. "I suppose there's a reason you couldn't get along with your own brother long enough to give him a ride back?"

Uncle Joseph's hands curled. "I suggest you watch your mouth. Are you at least packed, or are you going to waste more of our time?"

"Packed for what?"

"You're coming to stay with us," Aunt Sophie declared.

"No, I'm not."

"It's not your decision," Uncle Joseph snapped.

"Yeah, it is. I'm eighteen." Again, tattoo, although it'd be nice if his relatives were at least marginally more aware of his age than total strangers.

"And you'll do what? Live here alone? Go to school? Graduate?" He sneered. "It's a waste of time. If you had any brains you'd sell this place, sell that stupid violin, and be grateful that you've got family who'll put up with your lazy ass."

Roddy ignored the insults. "Yeah, I'm going to go to school. And yeah, I'm going to graduate. And no, I don't know what's going to happen after that," because he sure as hell didn't feel like dealing with the derision that mentioning college to his uncles would bring, "but at least I'm going to try."

Uncle Joseph stepped forward, and Roddy stepped back automatically, only to bump into Monroe.

"And now that that's all settled, I think I heard you saying that services will be on Tuesday?" Monroe asked, a hand landing lightly on Roddy's shoulder. "Is that right?"

"Tuesday at 11," Roddy confirmed. "Graveside, next to Mom." They were Dad's brothers so as much as they annoyed him they deserved to know that.

"Shouldn't we have a say in some of this?" Uncle Matthew asked.

"Dad set it all up when Mom died. I just made the phone calls." Uncle Matthew tended to be an echo chamber for Uncle Joseph, but that was at least a reasonable question, and if Dad hadn't done anything it might even have been relevant.

"Mm." Silence hung for a moment before Uncle Joseph spoke again, looking between Monroe and Rosalee. "I think it's time for you to leave. We need to have a...family discussion."

Monroe tapped Roddy's shoulder lightly, raising an eyebrow when Roddy looked up at him.

"I'd rather they left," Roddy liked Monroe, and Rosalee was nice too. And he sure as hell didn't want to be left alone with his relatives when they were all riled up, especially since his mouth tended to escalate rather than diffuse those situations.

"No one asked you."

Monroe looked back at Uncle Joseph. "I did, and it's his house."

Uncle Joseph snarled and woged.

"If that's directed at me, I suggest you rethink. If it's directed at him, rethink."

While the first sentence had sounded vaguely amused—which, Blutbad versus Reinigen, so yeah—the second had not, but since Monroe hadn't actually woged yet Roddy's uncles didn't seem to get the message. Uncle Matthew and Uncle Michael woged as well, and Aunt Sophie's eyes shined.

"Really?" Monroe tugged lightly on Roddy's shoulder, and since Roddy had no interest in being between a Blutbad and anyone he did like Monroe wanted and stepped back. Rosalee put an arm around his shoulders, and he suddenly wondered if she was another Blutbad because she didn't look particularly concerned about his uncles either.

The fact that he'd rather be next to a mostly-strange potentially-Blutbad rather than his relatives was just more confirmation that his life was fucked up.

"You're just going to stand there?" Uncle Joseph sneered.

"You'd probably prefer that," Monroe said. He did woge then, and all three of Roddy's uncles jumped back with varying expressions of shock on their faces while Aunt Sophie snapped into a full—terrified—woge. Monroe sighed. "Now I suggest that everyone stops being stupid before this does get ugly."

There was a light tap at the door before anything else happened, and then Nick stuck his head in. "Hey, I picked up some—"

"Grimm!" There was no doubt that if there had been anywhere to go Aunt Sophie would have bolted, although considering Roddy's first response to meeting Detective Grimm he probably shouldn't throw stones.

Nick's sigh was an echo of Monroe's. "No, I picked up some dinner. Italian." He looked at Monroe. "Is everything all right here?"

"These are Roddy's relatives, but they were just leaving." Roddy wasn't woged and had no interest in doing so just to see creepy eyes, but Monroe didn't look particularly affected as he looked at Nick. "Since he's not interested in dropping out of school or any of that nonsense."

"Ah." Nick stepped aside and gestured to the door. "Please, don't let me stop you."