Thanks to everyone who read and to Scififan33 for reviewing.


"Well, you look reasonably unmauled," Monroe greeted when Roddy answered the knock at his door. "I take it that means that Nick's latest run of insanity wasn't a complete failure?"

"Ha ha. I'm fine. What's up?" Not that Monroe wasn't always welcome, obviously, but he didn't normally stop by the trailer on random Sunday mornings. "Do you want to come in?"

"No, actually I need a favor. Or Rosalee does, and I figured I'd swing by and see if you were willing come along since I think you're a little better suited for it than I am."

"Better suited for what?" Roddy asked, although he also grabbed his jacket from the hook by the door and pulled it on. He couldn't think of very much that he wouldn't do if Monroe asked it of him—Monroe or Rosalee either, especially with how much she'd helped right after Dad had died—and it wasn't like he had any other plans for today anyway.

"She's been cleaning out a bunch of old stock that Freddy had stuck in various corners of the shop and the basement, and apparently she found a crawlspace with at least two more boxes in it earlier this week and needs some help getting them out. I'm not built very well for crawlspaces."

That was an understatement, and Roddy grabbed his key off the hook and stepped out onto the porch. "Sure." He hesitated, hand still on the knob. "Crawlspace like I should bring my violin, or no?"

"Violin?"

"Are there any rats to evict?" Not that he necessarily needed his violin for that, but made getting their attention a lot easier.

"I doubt it. If there were, they'd probably have gotten into the rest of the shop by now and she'd have seen plenty of signs. But why would...?" He tilted his head. "You're a mesmer?"

"Yeah." Roddy looked up at him. "You didn't know that?" He wasn't surprised that Monroe knew the term even if most Wesen didn't, Monroe knew a lot of things that most people didn't, but while it had never come up between them, Nick absolutely did know and he'd been the one to send Monroe to his house. "I figured Nick would have told you."

"No, he never mentioned it."

"You're not going to freak or anything, right?" Roddy asked after a moment.

"Nah," Monroe said, squeezing his shoulder lightly and then nudging him around towards the passenger side. "It makes sense, I guess, it just never occurred to me. Although you can do me a favor and never invite any rats into my house."

Roddy snorted. "It'd be more trouble than it's worth to get them to cross Blutbad markers anyway." He ducked into the car, pulling the belt down across his chest. "But Nick might still lose a tire or two."

Monroe grinned as he climbed in as well. "He probably deserves it most of the time. How did the meeting with the Jagerbar cub go, anyway? Lack of obvious mauling aside."

"Cub, hell, he's taller than you are and probably weighs close to twice what I do. It was all right, though, I guess. I mean, once we got away from Nick and Barry's dad and their attempts at conversation."

"Conversation? The horror."

"They talked about clouds for ten minutes; what would you call it?" And the sad part was that that had still been better than the attempted discussions about TV shows and movies. "Playing video games was okay, though."

Monroe chuckled. "So does that mean that you will or won't be returning the invitation?"

"Well, I can't. Or I could, but he couldn't accept because he's got one of those electronic ankle monitor things and has to stay at his house. Because of the whole attempted evisceration thing."

"Nick didn't mention that either."

He didn't look amused anymore, and Roddy shrugged. "Yeah, he's kind of good at that. But anyway, we swapped numbers. Barry and I, I mean. So I guess I might go back sometime."

That got a raised eyebrow.

"I said might." A pause. "Oh, and if it ever comes up, you might not want to play darts with Nick. He's a little scary."

"Huh. You know, I never thought about it before, but I can see how he'd have an advantage. He's pretty good with a knife, too."

And there was something that Roddy had never needed to know about the local Grimm and would have been just as content never hearing. Not that it was surprising.

Monroe made a quick stop for coffee and doughnuts before finding a parking space near the shop, and Roddy followed him in to find Rosalee already at work unpacking boxes. She took a break to join them for said coffee and doughnuts—she and Monroe both seemed to like the plain cake kind which was just ridiculous when frosted ones were available, but whatever—and then all three of them headed for the basement.

Roddy concentrated a little once they were down and heading for the back wall, but it seemed like Monroe had been right because while he could vaguely sense rats in the vicinity, none of them were in this specific building and it would take a lot of work on his part to summon them. Which, since everything seemed to be sealed up, pretty well made sense. As did the sealing...some Wesen didn't use their noses any more extensively than a human would, but others including Reinigen did, and he was pretty sure that Fuchsbau were towards his end of the spectrum. Rosalee and her brother before her would have had to have everything closed up unless they wanted to be sneezing continuously from the contents of their own shop.

"There were barely even inventory lists for the crates in front of the door so I have no idea what's actually shoved back in there," Rosalee said as she reached up and tilted one of the lights towards the corner where there was a small opening. "I'm guessing it'll be more of the same, teas that are more dust than anything else, but I'd rather get the boxes out and close it up."

"Why is it even here?" Monroe asked as he examined the entrance. "It's such a weird space."

"No idea, I'm guessing it's a quirk from back when they were dividing up the building between shops. Maybe they were trying to run plumbing next door or something. Anyway, you can see the boxes, and I can mostly get to them, but I haven't got any leverage for getting them out."

"Hm." Monroe crouched and was able to get into the crawlspace—barely—but it was pretty obvious that he wasn't going to be able to get any leverage either. Heck, in his case it was a bit of a struggle for him to get himself back out, and he winced and rolled his shoulders as he stood. "All right, that was fun. I guess if we had to we could try to break open the crate from the side and get stuff out that way, but Roddy, why don't you give it at try?"

Roddy, at least, wasn't worried the size of the entrance, and a quick check told him that there was nothing lurking in there except crates and dust and a few spiders. Not that that had been a major concern with both Rosalee and Monroe having gone in first, but habit and such.

Unlike Monroe's, his shoulders fit through the opening easily enough, and with a quick check for how high he could lift his head without risking a concussion he scooted forward to check the first crate. It was in pretty tight without much room for a grip on either side, but not much room wasn't the same as no room, and he slipped his fingers around the edges cautiously. It was heavy, but not enough so to stop him from moving it—it sure as heck wouldn't have bothered Monroe if he'd been able to maneuver enough to get a grip, and probably not Rosalee either—and he started to scoot backwards. At which point he realized that he wasn't going to be able to keep his grip, and he scowled and grabbed the crate again and then woged enough to bring his claws forward. He didn't want to put them through the wood, but some purchase would help.

Now the crate came with him as he backed up cautiously, and when he'd backed nearly to the entrance a hand scruffed him lightly. "Okay?" Monroe asked.

Roddy checked his grip on the box and then ducked his head. "Okay."

Monroe pulled him clear, the box dragged along with him. "And that's one."

Rosalee wrapped an arm around Roddy's shoulders. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Let me grab the last one, too." At least Roddy was pretty sure that there was nothing else behind it, but they'd know soon enough. He scooted back into the crawlspace and they repeated the process, and then Roddy pushed himself to his feet, batting the dust off his clothes and out of his hair. "What's in them, anyway?"

Monroe took the crowbar Rosalee handed him and pried up the lid. "Books, it looks like."

The couple on top were big, old hardcovers, and Roddy didn't think that he'd have been able to move the box the way that he had if it was entirely full of things like that, but before he could say so Rosalee lifted one out. And those definitely wasn't books underneath.

"Freddy, what the hell were you into?" Rosalee asked.

Roddy nodded. "Now is when we call Nick, right?"