part 1 &
part 2 &
part 3/3.
Title: Grimm & Nix.
Author: Keenir.
Fandom: GRIMM.
Summary: Juliette has escaped the hospital. Her sister wants vengence. Renard wants to save Juliette. As does Nick.
Coda to the season 1 finale.
Note: IMDB.com says the Captain's name is "Sean Renard."
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers for: s1 season finale, Let your hair down, and Bears will be bears.
Thanks to: Special thanks to Swanpride and Macx_Larabee for their help with the German.
Any and all remaining errors, in language or elsewhere, are entirely my own.
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'and he was so frightened he didn't know whether to stay or run. But she spoke to him in a soft voice, called him by name, and asked him why he was so sad.'
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Juliette awoke in hospital, eyes consumed by her pupils, and a salient question trapped behind her lips: Am I Different ? as her hands flexed with newfound power and feet itched to move.
Her ears perked up at the nigh-imperceptible pitter-patter of someone coming down the corridor towards her room. She held perfectly still, unmoving...except her head, which looked at the tubes and wires hooked up to her. A feral smile graced her lips.
***
Captain Renard nodded to the duty nurse as he made his way to the room the receptionist had told him he could find Juliette resting in. I need to find out what Adalind did to her. Juliette wasn't supposed to have been a casualty. It bristled to have found out that she had been admitted here, and through secondhand information at that.
Renard paused at her door, listening to see if she already had visitors - particularly those who hadn't checked in downstairs - or was even awake yet. He heard nothing, so he opened the door and took a step inside.
Instantly hands grabbed his arms and slung him to the floor, where Juliette's full weight pressed down on his chest. Inhumanly broad all-black eyes stared down at Renard, who waited to see what she would do.
"Tell Nick," she said, her voice clipped like choppy waves. "Tell Nick."
"Which part?" Renard asked. The part about him being a Grimm, or the part about him being about to marry into one of the oldest Families in society?
"You gave me your word, Renard," Juliette said, the weight properly applied behind those words was enough to make even Renard's blood run cold.
A mad idea dropped into his mind: to grab her arms, perhaps roll over and pin her down or lasso her with the various machines in the room.
Juliette fled the room.
Renard called for backup and to have everyone keep an eye out for one Juliette Silverton. Then he made the call he had hoped to never have to make.
***
When Renard returned at last to the police station, he was handed an envelope with no note; just a simple message written on the inside. He obeyed it, which was why he was up on the station's roof right now. Looking at a loner standing a dozen feet from the edge of his building.
Not normally up high, you or your family. "A bit out of your element, aren't you?" Renard asked.
"This may be your canton, but it is my family's territory," was her reply. "You lost my sister. By rights, I could skip the flogging, and strip the meat from your skin."
"I didn't know you were a traditionalist, Vera."
Vera Silverton turned her head to look at Renard, her body turning after. "You were always calm under pressure, Renard. That was your saving grace. But we have moved beyond your desire for my sister. Who you witnessed escape from a hospital."
"I have every available officer out looking for her," Renard said.
"You could deputize every human in the state, it wouldn't matter. We taught her how to avoid trouble. And speaking of, it isn't just myself and my family about which you need be concerned."
"The Grimm isn't a problem."
"You're speaking in the singular. That's no longer the case."
"Who?" Who else is new in town?
"A Grimm who hates Wesen, Renard. Axiomatic as it is, it is true, and a woman on the hunt."
"I'll deal with her."
"No."
"No?" Renard asked.
"Correct. You will continue leading the search for my sister. You will not stop until you find her - or until you die."
Renard knew better than to question that - her kind didn't use hyperbole, particularly not when giving orders. And that was an order. "And may I ask what you will be doing?" Renard asked.
"Separating the Grimms. And leaving Burkhart only one choice to make."
"And if he makes the wrong choice?"
She produced the same feral smile that Juliette had worn. "Then we win."
***
Nick hung up and pocketed his cell phone.
"Good news?" Monroe asked, glancing over briefly.
"Hank promised to save me a spot on the front lines," Nick said. He said he understood when I said I had to be the one to let Juliette's sister know what was going on. I didn't mention to Hank that Monroe had shown up at my house, telling me that Vera Silverton is at his house. Also omitted mentioning that there was a woman explaining how she could be my mother - my supposedly dead mother - when Monroe arrived. Nick sighed. "It ever get easier?"
"What, being a Grimm? Like I would know?" Monroe asked lightly.
"No, I mean dealing with one crazy thing after another."
"Oh right, that. Also don't know that. I've always tried to avoid that, and just work on my pilates, and build birdhouses. Well, not always, but ever since...you know."
"No, I don't think I do."
"Its not important. Definately not important now."
Nick nodded. "So, why is my future sister-in-law in your house? You were a little vague on that before."
"That's because that 'before' involved your dead mother wanting to put my head on the wall," Monroe said.
"Yeah, sorry about that."
"Not your fault. Anyway, Rosalee knows her, and she said a member of the Silverton family needed somewhere safe to meet you."
"'Safe'...Before, you said something about neutrality."
"Umm..."
"Monroe?" Why would you and Rosalee use words like 'safe' and 'neutrality' when I get along fine with Juliette's family? Vera's a botanist. I'm a cop. I'm a Grimm. "Wait, are you saying the Silvertons are Wesens?" Nick asked.
"Sure...like how ninjas and atom bombs are good anti-theft devices."
"Superwesens?" Nick asked as they pulled up in front of Monroe's house.
"Let me just say they aren't the sort of people you expect to show up for tea," Monroe said as they got out of the car. Unless you're about to dance with the devil anyway, in which case they step in.
"So when you came over for dinner...?"
"Nick, look, I swear to you, I had no idea your fiance was - well, one of them until Rosalee told me. Most Silvertons are nice, normal, human, and things like that."
"Fine," Nick said. I suppose this explains why Monroe's 'seeing red' never kicked in when he was around Juliette. "One thing, though - when you say 'them' like that, who're we talking about?"
"Nixes - formally, though, it would be Nixen," Monroe said. "Some say they're part of the Nocks. Course, some say they're kissing cousins of Kappas. Not that anyone says it outside a beer stein. Not that I go in those sorts of pubs. Much. I don't drink there," he said as he and Nick reached the front door - and Rosalee opened it before anyone else could. "Um, hi," Monroe asked. Should I ask how much of that you overheard?
"She's inside," Rosalee said to Nick and Monroe. "And now she has a prisoner." I let slip who we believed was responsible for doing this to Nick's fiance, and now she's here too.
"A prisoner?" Nick asked, entering the house.
"Well that's not good," Monroe said, following him. Monroe had barely done more than poke his head in the room where Vera was, before he felt compelled to say, "Aw come on, not on the carpet."
tbc.