a/n: Thanks for all the reviews! This chapter is unedited, I apologise.

Moment 23

There are certain people you just don't expect to run into at a police station and that list certainly included his own mother. Least of all because, last he'd heard from her, she was somewhere in Europe seeking out a way to destroy the coins. He could have gone into a long list of reasons that eventually would come to include the fact that she was supposed to be dead and that even after all this time he was a little unclear, legally speaking, where she stood in the world.

Also, because he'd been all set to have a nice lunch with Adalind and last his mother had seen his wife she'd been far from his wife and he'd been taking a knife in the shoulder to protect her moments after his mother had killed her mother.

Also, there was the whole rather obviously pregnant thing.

Later, when Hank oh so helpfully set the scene for Monroe and Rosalee, he would describe the moment Kelly Burkhardt came looking for her son with a suspicious amount of glee. Nick had been leaning back in his chair, Adalind leaning against his desk, standing between his knees and he'd just leant forward again to press a tender kiss to Adalind's belly when his mother had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and said his name in a sharp reprimand that had startled him enough he'd sent his chair flying back on its rollers in his haste to stand up.

To be fair to him, he hadn't heard his mother use that tone of voice since he was a kid and it seemed he was still hardwired to respond to it. Also, to be fair to him, he recovered from the strange urge to apologise for doing something wrong before he'd managed to get a word out. Which didn't help him face down his mother in any case because she was eyeing him with one eyebrow raised in sharp question and even if he was standing somewhat protectively in front of Adalind (much as he had been the last time his mother had seen her) it was a little hard to disguise the fact that she'd interrupted him kissing a pregnant woman's belly.

Which really begged the question why he hadn't yet gotten around to first telling his mother he'd broken up with Juliette, second married Adalind and third, she was soon to be a grandmother. And maybe that might have had something to do with her complete lack of motherly behaviour over the last twenty years.

He wasn't bitter. Did he sound bitter?

'Hi,' he said when the surprise wore off an he remembered he was a grown man, a homicide detective. And a grimm. A big axe wielding (sometimes a stolen scythe wielding) terrifying to lots of wesen grimm.

His mother completely ignored him and glanced over his shoulder at Adalind to say, 'Daughter-in-law?'

'Carrying your grandchild,' Adalind added helpfully. 'Please don't try and kill me again.'

His mother sighed. 'I suspected when he took that knife for you this was going to happen.'

'You did?' Nick found himself asking.

His mother rolled her eyes. 'You took a knife for her, Nick, subtlety wasn't exactly part of that exchange.'

He nodded. 'Fair point. Why are you here? Is someone trying to kill you again?'

This time his mother looked a little sad when she said, 'No. I thought it was time I came home.'

'Home,' Nick repeated incredulously. 'What home?'

'The one where my son and daughter-in-law are going to be raising my grandchild. Evidently.'

Nick studied her carefully, looking for any hint she might be covering something up. He wanted to believe her, wanted to believe she truly was coming home for good because he would like the chance to get to know her again, to show off Adalind and watch his daughter getting to have a grandparent, but he couldn't shake the feeling that his mother's return to Portland was heralding something big and bad.

She hadn't known about her grandchild after all. And she'd never given him any reason to believe he himself was reason enough for her return.

Adalind seemed to be of the same opinion because she huffed, 'There's going to be murder and mayhem and I am just too pregnant for this.' Her next words were directed at his mother and although they were sharp and unforgiving, they likely served to earn her points in his mother's eye. 'You kill whoever you have to but either you do it before my daughter is born or you get the hell out of Portland.'

His mother looked to him but he was inclined to agree with Adalind on this one. 'We have enough to deal with. Without you bringing something else down on our heads. If you really did come here for family and a home that's great but the second you start putting my family in danger I'm putting you on the next bus out of here.'

She studied him for a moment before she gave a final sharp nod.

He smiled. 'It's good to see you, Mom.'

She smiled back.