Whilst everyone was still coming to terms with Nick and Eve's sudden reappearance Hank's phone went off.
"This is all lovely and everything but I'm afraid duty calls. We have a body across town."
"I know," Nick murmured quietly, taking a stronger hold on the staff. It was whispering to him. Voices of Grimms long past, convincing him to take up the crusade.
"What do you mean you know?" asked Wu.
"I mean I can see it, sort of in my mind." His head jerked.
"I can see Wesen crime happening right now!"
Everyone rushed towards him in concern their voices overlapping until they were abruptly thrown backwards as Nick struck the floor with the staff.
Nick was gazing into space clutching the staff so hard his knuckles were turning white. A potential homicide was happening several streets away, an abusive Klaustreich boyfriend with his hands about his girlfriend's throat. The staff leapt lightning and the image went away. A robbery across state, another flash.
He looked at his friends who were slowly gathering themselves, staring at him in horror. "Don't you see? I can stop the killings; I can stop the bodies racking up, we don't have to wait for the next death to catch the perpetrator."
"Nick!" cried Trubel, "that staff gives you the power of life and death, it brought me back, why not use its good side instead, revive those who are killed?"
Nick explored his new powers but found only righteous anger at the injustices of the world, the generations of crusades that his bloodline had waged against the Wesen world. A philosophy of decapitate first and ask questions later and a valorisation of martyrs to the cause had no use for resurrection and redemption and his more conciliatory approach couldn't even begin to override thousands of years of prejudice.
"I can't. They won't let me."
"Who…?"
"Did you just…?" asked Renard cutting across her.
"They won't be hurting anyone again," said Nick letting go and relaxing into the energy, even with the voices urging for greater violence he could still do good as he saw it.
"No, good, law-abiding Wesen will be harmed, only those who choose to do harm to others; see, nothing has really changed I can simply speed up the process."
"But that's not being a cop, Nick," put in Hank, "that's being a vigilante, Grimm or not you can't take the law into your own hands."
"We do it all the time! There have always been creatures we couldn't take in legally but were far too dangerous to leave out on the streets. How is this any different?"
"Because we don't give out a death sentence for all crimes, not even all violent crimes, and because you can't tell the context just by looking at the actions. We have seen so many horrifically gruesome crimes which later turned out to be legitimate self-defence."
"Nick!" cried Monroe holding up his hands placatingly, "Nick, before I met you, I believed Grimms to be a terrifying story for Wesen parents to scare their children and that if I ever did meet one I'd be decapitated on the spot. But you didn't, I mean, sure, you beat me up a bit, but… but you're good, you protect Wesen, you've probably saved more of us than you've killed so that's got to be a plus, right?" he knew he was babbling, something was definitely wrong with his friend and it was obviously connected to the staff.
"What about the Spinnetod?" he argued, "or that poor Genio Innocuo boy, many Wesen struggle to come to terms with themselves even more than regular humans do; some have mental illnesses, some are driven by pure instinct, like it's a compulsion not something they choose to do."
"People still wind up dead!"
"Would you have killed me then?" he demanded.
"I used to hunt Kehrseite. I killed. I'm not proud of that but I make no bones about it either," he winced slightly at the unintentional bad pun but carried on.
"But I changed, how many of them could change too?"
"But they don't change, do they!" Nick yelled.
"Half the people we go after get killed in self-defence endangering our lives never mind anyone else's, I highly doubt they'd be receptive to any yoga classes or mindfulness seminars."
In the course of working out their motives or to see if they could be taken down peacefully or not many innocent people had been killed. Maybe his ancestors had had the right idea, they'd just applied it too broadly, the ones he went after as a cop had chosen the path of violence, he was almost always required to shoot them in the line of duty. He owed far more to their potential victims than he ever did to them. With the power of the staff, he could see crimes in progress and be instant judge, jury and executioner. Better to put them down now.
Monroe saw the look in his eye and recognised the expression from hundreds of drawings littering dozens of books showing the wholesale slaughter of his kind.
"Monroe's right, Nick," said Rosalee also noticing the look on his face, "we all deserve empathy and the chance to be helped, none of us are evil, just flawed."
"Zerstorer was evil though, pure evil. I watched him kill you. He killed you all. I nearly gave him what he wanted in exchange for him bringing you all back, but my mom and aunt came to me and told me to remember my blood heritage. Between us and Trubel we defeated him and I got you back, I am never letting you go again," he felt the weight of the staff in his hand, "and with this I can protect not only you but everyone else."
"By committing murder," put in Renard bluntly who got a few glares from the others, this needed handling gently.
Adalind stepped forward hesitantly with a cloth wrapped round her hand. Her voice was quiet and soothing, "Nick, it's alright whatever happened in the Other Place we're all safe here. You can let go of the staff now, just give it to me."
He snatched it away and held it protectively to his chest.
"No! It's dangerous but I can handle it, only I can handle it." He felt the power flow through it and through him, all those who had held it before; Moses, Jacob, David, Judah, maybe it had been passed down from ancient Grimms until the fear of it falling into the wrong hands was greater than the benefit to the righteous.
"It's my legacy, our legacy. I can use it for the cause of good."
Meanwhile Renard had been making a few calculations in his head and was watching Nick carefully.
"You really have that power? Use it then! Be a God!"
"No!Renard what are you doing?!" there was a clamour of dissent but Renard didn't take his eyes off Nick.
Nick looked at him and nodded, that was the only real permission he wanted. He attuned himself to his new senses and the staff shot lightning in quick bursts.
"But this is only one state, what about the rest of America? The rest of the world? To be God you can't play favourites."
The images suddenly began coming thick and fast, too fast; the sheer cruelty of the world was too much for one man, even a Grimm to keep up with and he clutched his other hand to his head.
"No, make it stop, make it stop! It must stop!"
Rosalee had some idea what Renard was trying to do but knew it could backfire about as badly as anything could.
"Renard! If he gains control of this he could become something almost as terrible as Zestorer."
"More terrible I should think since he's acting on righteous impulses which can be far more destructive than sadistic ones. But the world is a very big place. He won't be able to cope."
"What will that do to Nick!?"
As if in answer Nick let out a heart-wrenching scream; there was such suffering on Earth and he could hear and see all of it. It seemed as if he was floating out in space looking down as the planet itself cried out in pain. He could end that pain though, he just had to think a bit bigger.
The staff stopped firing out lightning bolts and instead seemed to start generating power with a sound like a nuclear reactor overloading.
"Nick?" asked Eve cautiously, "what are you doing?"
"You're right I can't stop them all individually, but I can do better than that, I can end the anguish of the whole world; no-one need be separated from their loved ones ever again, just one brief instant and it will all be over."
"No Nick, you can't!"
"Don't you see? This way there will be no more perpetrators and no more victims. No more violence, no more war in either world, Human or Wesen, everyone will be at peace. You, of all of us in your old line of work, know all about putting creatures out of their misery, it'll be just like that, going to sleep."
"But we aren't miserable and we don't want to die!" protested Adalind.
"Not you perhaps and not right now but it's only a matter of time for everyone. Just taking the people in this room, especially in our line of work, the day will come when one of us is gravely injured or killed in the line of duty, causing such pain to those left behind. Even if we somehow escape that fate there will be other things, illnesses, accidents and the same is true of all people all over the world. This is the final destination for everyone anyway why not just skip to the end?"
The power coming from the staff was palpable by now, glowing a bright white that hurt to look at, however Monroe stepped forward regardless.
"Look, Nick, I know you're angry and hurting and none of us have any idea what you've seen and done in there but there is so much joy in life too; I long to hold my babies in my arms and watch them grow, I love Rosalee with all my heart. I enjoy helping you with your cases and playing my cello and fixing my clocks and cooking and fine wines and spending time with my friends and although these things may seem insignificant to you right now they more than make up for the bad times however bad they may get."
"Don't you ever worry about what may happen to them? Complications in the birth, hooded blood purist cultists, hell it doesn't take that, anyone of us could be hit by a bus tomorrow."
"Yeah I worry. All the time; about things not even you could imagine and, yes the anxiety of the next few weeks will give me nightmares. I don't know what I'd do if the worst happened but hopefully I'd have all of you to help me get through it. And I know that even if all goes to plan, for the next few years I won't get nearly enough sleep and I'll probably get cross and irritable, but there'll be birthdays and Christmases and Halloweens and days out at the park and I wouldn't give any of it up for anything in the world."
Rosalee moved to his side and held his hand with tears in her eyes.
The staff stopped getting brighter but didn't dim.
"What about when the next prophecy comes along unleashing some new evil?" he was starting to sound tired, his conviction that this was the right and most humane course of action had been sustaining him but that conviction was wavering.
"Then we'll be ready for it," said Hank.
"And the next, and the next?"
"Whatever it takes," added Wu.
"No, no no no no! That's the point! That's why I have to do this; we will never be able to stop fighting!" he looked at Trubel.
"One generation after the other all fighting a completely unwinnable war!"
"But we win the battles," she said, "and we will keep winning the battles, that's more than enough," she said.
"Forever?"
"Forever!" her tone was triumphant not despairing.
But it did nothing to reassure Nick who instead crumpled to his knees as the staff rapidly powered down but he didn't let go of it and the light degenerated into pure darkness.
Everyone rushed to help him but Renard stopped them with a shout.
"No! Wait!"
Now what was going on?
"Nick?" probed Adalind.
"No!" it came out as a strangled cry.
"There's no way forward, no way back, I went too far, I deserve to have to live with what I have done but I can't forget what I've seen. The futility of it all, I don't want to fight forever. I want it to be over."
"Nick, you may never ultimately win but you won't have to fight alone, you've got Trubel, and the rest of us to help you and Kelly when he comes of age."
"But you all deserve a normal life, not one full of threats and danger."
"Almost no-one gets to play the hand they want in life, they just have to play the hand they get given to the best of their ability," commented Renard somewhat pompously.
"None of us were going to live a normal life for one reason or another even before you came along," said Rosalee.
"Except Juliette…"
"I told you Nick, you did me a favour I much prefer being Eve, you have nothing to apologise for."
"Without you we wouldn't have got together," added Monroe putting his hand around Rosalee's waist.
"The cases we take these days are a lot weirder but a lot more interesting and exciting," put in Wu.
The love of his friends covered him like a blanket but the images were still too vivid, how could he possibly cope with this knowledge?
Baby Kelly gurgled from his cradle and Nick got up unsteadily as if in a trance and stumbled over to him. He looked down at his innocent face, blissfully unaware of the trials that he would be faced with as he grew up. He had to be there for his son.
He started to cry and though it didn't fall far the staff shattered into a million pieces as it hit the ground and mysteriously turned to ash.
Rosalee, Monroe and Adalind rushed to comfort him.
"We'll do everything we can to help you through this," said Hank putting his hand on Nick's shoulder.
"No! You should arrest me, lock me up for ever and ever, I'm a worse threat to than the Wesen we fight, I gave into the temptation of power, killed so many people… nearly killed everyone…" he curled into a ball away from them sobbing hard.
"Then you came back, you destroyed the staff for good, you weren't in your right mind it wasn't your fault," implored Adalind.
"But that's not true, I knew exactly what I was doing; I saw people being hurt and wished their attackers dead and they died, it all seemed so simple, but I did know better, I should have resisted the voices. They were just so persuasive."
"What voices?" asked Monroe.
"The other Grimms, they were so insistent that they were right, that that was the only sure way to keep everyone safe."
The Wesen in the group shared knowing looks; that made things a lot easier to explain, certainly better than the idea that one of their best friends had spontaneously decided to become the arbiter of good and evil in the world.
"I'm sure it did seem easy to them," said Rosalee quietly, "but even under their influence and all that power you didn't choose to kill all Wesen indiscriminately, you used your own morality and you restrained them, that's how I know you're still good and trustworthy and our dear, dear friend."
He uncurled slightly to see if she was sincere.
"I still don't understand, if it's that irresistible and my ancestors were in possession of it for millennia how come there are any Wesen in the world? Surely they'd have used it as you suggested," he was starting to sound a lot more like the Nick they knew and loved.
"Maybe it had never truly been complete before and no-one had noticed, maybe Zestorer getting hold of all the bits was just a hands-down worst case scenario but it would be catastrophic whoever had it?" suggested Monroe.
Nick slowly scrambled to his feet trying his utmost to pretend like everything was back to normal but failing miserably.
Renard regarded him and was reminded of the zombie incident, he had about as much light in his eyes right now.
"I'll find you a Wesen therapist I trust to explain enough to; you take as much time as you need," said Renard.
"That won't work," he blurted defensively, if he couldn't convince them to convict him he could at least try to atone through his work. "I can't take time off; you need me on the force as a Grimm."
"I can do it," said Trubel.
He was going to argue but she gave him a look that would have frightened even a Siegbarste and said nothing, she had helped him defeat the devil himself she could probably handle the thugs around Portland.
"Nick."
He looked at Adalind and then to baby Kelly, he loved them both with all his heart but after what he'd experienced he wasn't sure he could cope with not knowing if they'd be alright from day to day. No, he'd be there to protect them. It scared him to think that he might be too late to save them but what frightened the hell out of him most was the idea that whatever he did it wouldn't matter, that they'd die anyway. One day.
But it was much worse than that; the staff, though it could resurrect and heal had also forced him to confront head on the most fundamental existential threat that had fascinated and plagued artists and philosophers since probably the very beginning of humanity; the certain knowledge that whatever he did it wouldn't matter, that one day everyone he had grown attached to would die anyway. That there'd be some kind of accident or illness, something unpredictable. He couldn't help but hope that he would go first.
His gaze flitted from one face to another and still saw the numerous ways they might die and, vividly, the ways he had actually seen; Wu trying vainly to speak, Adalind just about able to implore him to save her children before succumbing, Monroe choking on his own blood as Nick held his hand and watched as he breathed his last. He wasn't sure he would ever be rid of those memories.
He knew he had to struggle on for the sake of his family and friends but right now he wasn't at all sure how he could.
He sat down heavily on the floor feeling exhausted to his very bones and ran his hands anxiously through his hair before burying his head in them.
"What if I can't live with it? I mean I'll… I'll try but it's just so much!"
Rosalee looked at him and knew what he needed but also knew that it wouldn't go down well with almost anyone else.
"Might I just talk to him alone for a while?"
The look in her eye made Monroe see that the best course of action was simply to do as she said and helped usher everyone else away.