Portland PD's consulting office hadn't changed since my last visit, but my relationship to it had shifted dramatically. I was no longer a desperate Grimm trying to establish cover identity—I was something else entirely, something the department's institutional memory had no framework to process.
Nick Burkhardt was waiting when I arrived.
He stood by the window, silhouetted against morning light, his posture radiating the controlled tension of someone who'd spent days building toward a confrontation. The case file on the desk between us was a pretense—cover for whatever conversation he actually intended to have.
"Cross." He didn't turn. "Thanks for coming in."
"Your message said it was urgent." I closed the door behind me. "What's the case?"
"There is no case." Nick finally faced me. "Not officially. But I've been doing some investigating on my own time."
The silver in his eyes was more pronounced than our last encounter—his Grimm abilities developing faster than expected. Whatever confusion he'd felt at the morgue had crystallized into determination.
"Investigating what?"
"You." He moved to the desk, spreading photographs across its surface. "The forensic consultant who appeared in Portland two months ago. The same consultant who keeps showing up at crime scenes with Wesen involvement. The warehouse fire. The dock battle. The hospital morgue."
[THREAT ASSESSMENT: NICK BURKHARDT]
[STATUS: INVESTIGATING - EVIDENCE GATHERED]
[RISK LEVEL: MODERATE]
[RECOMMENDATION: CONTROLLED DISCLOSURE]
The photographs documented my activities with uncomfortable precision. Surveillance shots near Monroe's house. Timestamps correlating my movements with Wesen-related incidents. A pattern that would be meaningless to anyone who didn't understand what they were looking at.
Nick understood.
"I know what you are." His voice was steady, certain. "I know what I am. What I don't know is whose side you're on."
I considered lying. Considered deflection, misdirection, the dozen techniques I'd developed for avoiding exactly this conversation. But Nick's expression told me none of them would work.
He'd done his homework. He wasn't going away.
"This isn't a conversation for the precinct." I gathered the photographs. "Too many ears. Too many questions."
"Then where?"
"My car. Neutral territory." I moved toward the door. "Unless you'd prefer I leave and never come back."
Nick hesitated. The calculation was visible—weighing risk against reward, curiosity against caution.
"Your car."
We walked through the precinct in silence, passing officers and detectives who saw only two colleagues heading to a meeting. The normalcy of the scene was almost absurd, given what we were about to discuss.
My car was parked three blocks away—far enough for privacy, close enough for escape if things went wrong. We sat in the front seats, engine off, watching Portland's morning traffic flow past the windows.
"Talk." Nick's hand rested on his weapon. "Tell me what you really are."
"I'm a Grimm." I let the silver pulse in my eyes—visible confirmation of what he already suspected. "Same as you. Same bloodline, same abilities, same curse."
"That's not possible. My aunt said we were the last of the line."
"Marie was wrong about a lot of things." I kept my voice level. "She was also dying when she told you most of what you know. Desperate, scared, trying to prepare you for a world she'd barely let you glimpse."
Nick's jaw tightened. The grief was still fresh—his aunt's death, the chaos that followed, the revelations he'd been processing alone.
"How do you know about her?"
"Because I've been in Portland longer than you think. Because I've built relationships with Wesen your aunt taught you to hunt." I met his eyes. "Because I know things about this world that Marie never had time to teach you."
"Like what?"
"Like the Reapers. Have you heard that term yet?" I waited for his confusion to register. "They're hunters who kill Grimms. Two months ago, they sent their best operatives to eliminate me. Der Scharfrichter and der Richter—legendary assassins with centuries of experience."
"What happened to them?"
"I killed them both."
Silence filled the car. Nick's expression cycled through disbelief, skepticism, and something that might have been respect.
"You killed two legendary assassins. By yourself."
"With help. The Wesen I work with, the alliances I've built—they stood with me against impossible odds." I leaned back against the seat. "Your aunt taught you that Wesen are monsters to be hunted. I'm showing you there's another way."
"Monroe." Nick spoke the name carefully. "He talks about you. Like you saved his soul or something."
"I listened when others wouldn't." The memory of our first meeting felt ancient now—a desperate Grimm approaching a reformed Blutbad, gambling everything on an unprecedented alliance. "Monroe was living in fear, hiding what he was, waiting for a Grimm to find him and end his story. I gave him something else."
"What?"
"Purpose. Family. The chance to be more than his instincts."
Nick was quiet for a long moment. His hand had moved away from his weapon—unconsciously, I suspected, his threat assessment adjusting as the conversation progressed.
"You've built something with Wesen." It wasn't a question.
"I've built something for Wesen. And for myself." I turned to face him directly. "Your aunt tried to teach you. You didn't listen—or couldn't, given how little time you had. Now you're stumbling through a world that will kill you for ignorance. I'm not your enemy, Burkhardt. I'm what you could become if you actually tried."
The challenge hung between us. Two Grimms, silver eyes meeting silver eyes, each assessing the other's potential.
"I don't trust you." Nick's voice was flat. "I don't know you, I don't understand your methods, and I'm not ready to believe everything you're telling me."
"That's fair."
"But I'm also not stupid enough to start a fight I can't win." He reached for the door handle. "So here's what I'm proposing: we stay out of each other's way. You handle your cases, I handle mine. If something comes up that threatens both of us, we share information."
"And if our interests conflict?"
"We talk before we fight." His expression hardened. "That's the best I can offer right now."
[RELATIONSHIP ESTABLISHED: NICK BURKHARDT]
[STATUS: DÉTENTE (WARY)]
[TERMS: NON-INTERFERENCE, THREAT-SHARING, COMMUNICATION BEFORE CONFLICT]
[NOTE: SIGNIFICANT POTENTIAL FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT]
I extended my hand. "Agreed."
Nick shook it—a brief, firm grip that committed neither of us to anything beyond the boundaries we'd established.
"One more thing." He paused at the door. "The Key. My aunt's Key. Do you know what happened to it?"
The question struck like a physical blow. The Key sat in a safe house across Portland, one of the most valuable artifacts in the Wesen world, and Nick was asking me about it like he had a right to know.
Which, legally speaking, he did. Marie was his aunt. The Key was her inheritance.
"It's safe." The half-truth came easier than expected. "Protected from people who would use it wrong."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"No. It doesn't." I met his eyes. "Maybe someday I'll be able to tell you more. But not today. Not until I know what kind of Grimm you're going to be."
Nick stared at me for a long moment. Then he nodded—acceptance, or at least postponement of a fight neither of us wanted.
"I'll be watching you, Cross."
"I'm counting on it."
He walked back toward the precinct, shoulders squared, steps steady. A Grimm learning to navigate a world he barely understood, making choices that would define what he eventually became.
I watched him go, feeling the weight of what I hadn't told him.
Two Grimms in Portland. Unprecedented. Unstable. Interesting.
[VARIABLE IDENTIFIED: NICK BURKHARDT]
[ASSESSMENT: SIGNIFICANT FUTURE IMPACT]
[RECOMMENDATION: MONITOR AND GUIDE WHERE POSSIBLE]
The drive back to the Spice Shop took twenty minutes. I used the time to process the conversation, cataloguing Nick's reactions, identifying potential leverage points, calculating how his development might affect my operations.
But underneath the analysis, something simpler pulsed.
Hope.
Nick was confused, suspicious, operating from incomplete information. But he was also willing to listen. Willing to question what his aunt had taught him. Willing to imagine that Grimms could be more than monster hunters.
Maybe—with time, with guidance, with the right circumstances—he could become an ally instead of a complication.
Or maybe he'd become an enemy. That possibility remained.
Either way, Portland had two Grimms now. The game had changed again.
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