Warning: Long conversation ahead. It just kind of developed that way. :)

Hope you enjoy, please let me know what you think, and... yeah. Hope you enjoy. :)

The Spice Shop. The place of answers, and usually of calm, and of good talks with Rosalee. And tea. Always, tea.

Hopefully, today wouldn't be the end of that, too.

Juliette looked at the doorway, willing herself to woge back, or de-woge, or whatever the hell the term was. She'd been so distraught that she'd woged when she was halfway to the Shop. Thankfully, it didn't seem to be the type that regular people could see. Either that, or everybody had been too preoccupied with their own simple, carefree lives, to notice the witch driving and crying in the next lane.

(Note to self: find out how to tell if I'm visible to everybody, or it's the other kind of woge. Without finding out the hard way.)

When she got herself under control, she took one more deep breath and got out of the car.

The bell on the door hadn't even stopped jingling before Rosalee said, "Juliette, what's wrong? You sounded so upset over the phone…"

Juliette took a quick look around. Monroe was looking at her, concerned, from where he'd been stacking shelves. Nobody else was in the Shop. Thank God.

Juliette practically threw herself in the "consultation" chair and buried her head in her hands. "Oh, Rosalee…"

"Umm… should I…"

"No, Monroe," Juliette blurted out. "You should probably stay here for this too. Just… please give me a minute. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to tell you. Maybe I should… use words this time…"

"Use words?" Rosalee asked.

"This time?" Monroe asked, equally puzzled.

"Yeah… I kind of… showed Nick, and he didn't… that didn't go so well."

There was a brief pause, and then Rosalee hesitantly asked, "Uh… what did you show him?"

Juliette sighed, her head still buried in her hands. Might as well get it over with. "My woge."

There was a long silence, and then Monroe said, "what?" at the same time that Rosalee said, "I don't understand. You're a Kehrseite. You don't… have a woge."

"Remember the headaches I was having?"

A brief pause.

"Oh no…"

Juliette finally looked up to see the dread on Rosalee's face. It seemed she hadn't quite figured it out yet, but she'd figured out that she wasn't going to like whatever it was. Monroe's eyes were closed, and she could almost hear him thinking, "Again?"

"Umm… so, a few weeks ago, I got another of those headaches, and I was in front of a mirror, and this headache was… worse. A lot worse. And then I… woged. In…to… a… Hexenbiest…"

Rosalee's eyes got very wide. Her mouth dropped open. Monroe was frozen to his spot for a moment, and then he took a couple steps towards Rosalee, almost protectively. His head ducked down, in a strange posture that Juliette had only occasionally seen, and always in the presence of dangerous creatures that Monroe wanted to keep peace with… because he was afraid of them.

"Oh, no… not you too…" Juliette blurted out, on the verge of tears.

Rosalee visibly shook herself. "Sorry, it's just… it's a bit of a shock. Are you sure?"

"Am I sure? Yes, I'm sure. All the glass in our bedroom exploded, too."

"When did this happen?"

"The night… the night you were kidnapped," Juliette said, indicating Monroe. Rosalee's mouth dropped open again.

There was another long silence, and then Rosalee finally said, "Oh, my God!"

Juliette buried her head in her hands again.

"Oh my God!" Rosalee said again, and then again, "Oh my God!"

"Yeah…"

"You didn't say anything! I was… that whole time… and you were… oh my God, is this why you asked me those questions about Adalind and being made a Hexenbiest, totally out of the blue? You were trying to… oh my God. Juliette, why didn't you say anything?"

"You had more important things to worry about."

"I… wow. That whole time? I was with you for, like, 48 hours, and you were dealing with that, the whole time?" Now it looked like Rosalee was starting to feel guilty, so Juliette hurriedly cut in:

"You legitimately had other things on your mind, Rosalee. Finding Monroe was more important." She looked at Monroe, who was, thankfully, there, and not dead. "Besides… even if it weren't for that, I don't know that I would even have been able to talk about it then. I can barely talk about it now."

"Right. Of course, that makes sense. Well, I don't know what all we can do to get you back to…"

"I didn't come here for that, Rosalee. I've… pretty much given up on that. Henrietta said it's impossible, and I honestly don't know if…"

"Who's Henrietta?" Rosalee interrupted.

"She's the person Sean sent me to for help."

"Wait, the Captain knows?" Monroe spoke for the first time in, it felt like, forever.

"Yeah, I went to him because I thought he might know a way to turn me back. Or that he could call his mother and she would know… I mean, she's the reason I'm like this in the first place."

"Well, her and Adalind," Monroe said.

Adalind, Juliette thought, feeling herself start to shift at the flash of familiar anger. She heard twin hisses of breath, and quickly covered her face quickly and focused on relaxing.

When she uncovered her face, Monroe and Rosalee were staring at her again. "Oookay… I guess you weren't imagining it," Monroe muttered under his breath.

"You thought I was?"

"Not… exactly. More like I had to see it to believe it, you know? Not that I've exactly seen it, but… that was enough, I think."

Rosalee nodded in emphatic agreement. "So the captain sent you to this Henrietta for help, and what did she say?"

"She said I was too powerful, and I couldn't be changed back. And… to be honest, I'm not totally sure I want to anymore. I would have died, like, three times, in the last few weeks, if I weren't a Hexenbiest."

Monroe's mouth dropped open. "Really? When?"

"Well, the first time was when we were rescuing you. I went into the woods after this one guy – he looked almost like a teenager, and he was a Blutbad…"

"…Yeah, I know the guy you mean…" Monroe muttered under his breath.

"And he came at me, and I tried to fire my gun but he knocked it out of my hands. And then he knocked me down, and he was on top of me, and that's when he woged. He looked like he was going to rip out my throat, and I woged… not on purpose… and I screamed, and his head, kind of… exploded."

"Good," Monroe blurted out, then when Rosalee shot him a look, he shook his head. "…but probably not really the point, is it? So… what else happened?"

"Well, then this guy… I guess he was a Manticore… he was after Nick. He broke into our house and told Nick, on the phone, that if he wanted to see me alive again, he'd better come alone. Then he told me to behave, but I… I didn't. I was really fed up right then, you see – Henrietta had just told me that I was going to be like this forever, like, twenty minutes before that happened. Anyway, he woged and came at me, and I… stopped him. I'm not sure how, but I stopped his stinger from reaching me, and then I redirected it and forced it into him."

"Woah," Rosalee muttered.

"And then a couple of hours ago Adalind paid me a visit."

"WHAT?" Monroe and Rosalee chorused. "She's back?" Monroe added.

"Yeah, she's back. And she paid me a visit, and…" Juliette couldn't stop a small smile from forming, "…she regretted it."

"Oh! Wow. Is she…"

"She's still alive. She ran." Now Juliette couldn't help it – she smiled. The memory of Adalind's face just before she ran, was, by far, the one high point of an otherwise very, very bad day.

"Wow," Monroe said, a little nervously. "So… you're thinking this may be a good thing?"

Juliette sighed. "I don't know. I honestly don't, right now. I did think so, when Adalind ran. And the other times. But now…" the memory of Nick's face when he saw her, the anger and danger emanating from her boyfriend, hit her all over again, and she felt tears prick her eyes.

"Juliette?" Rosalee prompted gently.

"Nick. He…." She couldn't continue.

Monroe and Rosalee looked at each other.

"Oh," Rosalee said, to him.

"Ohhhh," Monroe replied.

"What? What?" Juliette asked, panicking at seeing the looks of dread in their faces.

"Maybe I should…" the word call was noticeably on Monroe's lips when he suddenly looked at Rosalee, then Juliette. He swayed back and forth for a couple seconds, visibly torn between going somewhere to call Nick, versus not leaving Rosalee alone with Juliette. It hurt Juliette to see it. Doesn't he trust me? I'm still me…

Rosalee said, "I'm guessing it would probably be a good idea to wait anyway, Monroe."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're probably right. He's probably not up to… yeah."

Rosalee turned back to Juliette. Carefully, she asked, "So, you said earlier that you showed Nick?"

Juliette nodded. "I'd… kind of been putting it off, since I killed that Blutbad Wesenrein guy in the woods. I was kind of afraid to tell Nick after that. But Adalind and I kind of destroyed the house during our fight, so when Nick came home and saw it… and I knew I had to tell him. Plus, it was time. It wasn't like I was going to be able to keep it a secret from him forever…"

"Keep that a secret from a Grimm that you're living with, forever? No, you definitely were not going to be able to do that…" Monroe muttered.

"…and… it was just time," Juliette finished. "I really thought… but…he was so…" tears started to prick her eyes again.

"Scary?" Rosalee prompted gently. "Oh, Juliette," she sighed.

Monroe looked at Rosalee, and Rosalee looked back at him. They had a long, silent conversation through a series of looks, then Rosalee turned back to Juliette. "Do you want the good news first, or the bad news?"

"I really, really need some good news right now."

"The good news is, Nick loves you."

"A lot." Monroe piped in. "Trust me, I was there when you were in the coma, and when you couldn't remember him… and… there's nothing that guy won't go through for you."

"And I have… almost… no doubt, that even if you don't ever go back to being a Kehrseite, the two of you will find a way to work out… being together."

"Eventually."

"Right… eventually."

"Eventually?" Juliette asked, torn between hope and despair. 'Almost no doubt'?

"Eventually," Rosalee repeated, sighing, "which… brings me to the bad news." She paused, waiting for Juliette to prompt her to continue. "Juliette…" she turned to Monroe, who gave her a little nod, then turned back to Juliette, speaking slowly and compassionately. "There's no easy way to say this…

"The thing is… there are a lot of very, very powerful instincts – genetic instincts – that have served Grimms – and Hexenbiests too – really well, for thousands of years, that are working against you."

"What?" Juliette breathed.

Taking pity on her, Monroe hurriedly interjected, "but, then again, there are a lot of really powerful genetic instincts that have served Grimms, and Blutbaden, for thousands of years, that say that Nick and I can't be friends! And yet, here we are."

"That's a very good point," Rosalee added, visibly relieved to be able to say it. "Nick is no stranger to putting his instincts in their place. He does it all the time. He does it every time he sees Monroe, or I. He does it every time he sees a Wesen and chooses not to kill them. I'm guessing, he sometimes does it as many as… hundreds of times in a day."

"He's just never had to do it with you, before."

"Exactly."

"And, actually, I'm not totally sure that he knows he's doing it," Monroe muttered.

"…Right. And… that's probably for the best," Rosalee said, pointedly, to Juliette. "Anyway, all we're saying is, don't expect him to totally recover from this overnight. And, frankly, as long as you're a Hexenbiest, it's never going to be exactly the way it was before. Because even though he may eventually get used to putting his instincts aside with you, it's not like they'll ever really go away."

"…because they can't. They're part of him. Just like my instincts are a part of me, and Rosalee's instincts are a part of her..."

"…and, I'm guessing, you are probably going to notice some instincts that you didn't have as a Kehrseite, too, now that you're a Hexenbiest."

"…but like we were saying, Nick's instincts are never going to go away. In fact, they'll probably get stronger, because he's a Grimm, and that's what happens with Grimms…"

"…which you can never, ever tell him, by the way!" Rosalee suddenly said. Juliette blinked at her, her mind reeling from the barrage of information, some of which had gone over her head.

"Wait… this almost sounds like Nick is…"

Rosalee and Monroe had another silent conversation, which ended with Monroe looking down, putting his hands in his pockets, and blowing out a long breath. Rosalee turned to Juliette. "Juliette, you said you woged for Nick. What did he look like to you?"

"He… I don't have words. It was like… like…"

"Death?" Rosalee prompted gently.

"Yeah. Why didn't you ever say what it was really like?"

"Right," Monroe said. "'Hey, Nick, you know, when we look at your eyes when we're woged, we see ourselves reflected within the depths of Hell.' Juliette, Nick sees himself as, you know, a person. You don't mess with that. That's really not something you mess with. What we told him was true… we just didn't tell him, you know, everything. Because if we'd told him everything, that could… that could really mess with his head. We all need to see ourselves as people, you know? And he is. A person, I mean. He's a really good person, and no amount of… being a Grimm, changes that."

Juliette stared at him, wondering if he knew just how much he sounded like Nick, whenever Nick talked about "good" Wesen. Suddenly, the world twisted, turned inside-out, then laid itself out again in a completely new configuration. Suddenly, she saw a world where Nick was no more human than the Wesen he sometimes hunted. A world where he didn't just manage the Wesen around him, including his friends, when it was necessary… but they sometimes had to manage him as well.

This was a world she'd never seen before. It made sense, though. And, oddly, it made her feel a little better. When Nick had seemed so dangerous… that was just because he was a Grimm, and apparently, that's how he always seemed to Wesen who woged in front of him. And when he'd seemed so angry… he must have been fighting instincts he didn't really understand. The anger wasn't really at her… or at least, most of it wasn't. It wasn't all that different, really, from that time she'd lashed out at Henrietta, when she wasn't really "angry," so much as "confused and scared."

We're on equal ground. It wasn't like Nick was a superhuman and she was some inhuman creature, the way she'd seen the two of them for… weeks. No, neither of them were really… human… exactly… anymore. But they were both still people. That was definitely a new way of looking at it. In a way, they were the same, in a way they hadn't been since, well, since they'd both been human.

Nick can never hear me say that. Monroe's right… he'd have an identity crisis or something. At the very least, he'd be hurt. But this is ok… I don't have to tell him. It's enough that I know.

We're going to be ok. Well, depending on him, partly, of course. But he's still Nick, and I'm still me. We'll be ok.

"Ok," she said aloud, a small smile coming to her face.

"Okay?" Rosalee asked, confused.

"You're right. I think we're going to be ok. I… don't really know what to do next, but we'll get there."

"Okay!" Monroe said, smiling nervously.

Juliette got up and started putting on her coat. "I should go. Lots of cleaning up to do, you know. Our house really got trashed when… when that woman came over. I don't know if I ever told you guys this, but you guys are great to talk to. You can clear things up so much, and I really, really needed that… Nick probably needs it too." She looked at Monroe, pleadingly.

"Umm… happy to help…" Rosalee said, still confused. "Juliette, are you sure you're…"

"No, I'm good. Really. Well, more or less. Thank you guys. Really… thank you."

With that, she left the Spice Shop (and the confused couple inside), got in her car, and started driving. She had a lot of cleaning to do. She still wasn't exactly sure what would happen when Nick came home… it largely depended on him, but Monroe and Rosalee were right… whatever else, Nick loved her and she loved him, and they were more equal now than they'd been in a very long time, and they'd figure something out.

There was just one worry, as she kept hearing Rosalee's warnings in the back of her mind:

"Don't expect him to totally recover from this overnight. And, frankly, as long as you're a Hexenbiest, it's never going to be exactly the way it was before. Because even though he may eventually get used to putting his instincts aside with you, it's not like they'll ever really go away."