Clarifying Matters

Disclaimer: I do not own Grimm.

Note: I just don't understand why Monroe forgot to tell Nick all the important parts…

Monroe watched as Nick stared at the picture of Juliet on his cell phone. He really wasn't good at this sort of thing but this had been going on for long enough and so, as one of Nick's best friends, it was his job to try and sort things out.

"Uh, Nick?" Monroe asked, stepping into the room and drawing Nick's attention to him.

Nick looked up at him but didn't say anything.

"So, uh, how are things going with Juliet?" Monroe asked, hoping that didn't sound half as awkward to Nick as it did to him.

Nick's expression darkened. "They're not."

Monroe was afraid of that and he could guess why. "Because of that police captain of yours?"

Nick gave him a 'what do you think' look.

"Look, Nick, it's really not my place so feel free to stop me at any time but I just hate to see you so miserable so it's like I've got to say something and I just…" he trailed off, shaking his head.

"It's alright, Monroe," Nick assured him, looking mildly amused at his rambling. Well that was a good sign. "Just tell me whatever you have to say."

Monroe took a deep breath and said the words as fast as he thought Nick would be able to understand them. "I think you might be being a little hard on Juliet."

Whatever Nick had been expecting, that was clearly not it. "Excuse me?"

"I think you might be being a little hard on Juliet," Monroe dutifully repeated though he was pretty sure that Nick had understood him perfectly well the first time.

Sure enough, Nick said. "I know, I heard you the first time."

Monroe decided against asking why Nick had said that then if he had already understood him.

"I'm just not understanding this," Nick admitted. "You tell me that Juliet was sneaking behind my back with another man and she freely admits it to me and offers no explanation for her behavior but she says she's really sorry and you think that I'm being too hard on her?"

"Well, I-" Monroe started to say.

"I mean, never mind the fact that if she absolutely had to cheat on me with someone else then she could have at least chosen someone who wasn't my boss and thus who could really screw over my career no matter how this works out," Nick interrupted. "I mean, we have to work together! She couldn't have just told me that she was having feelings for someone else and didn't know if she wanted to keep trying to remember or recapture or whatever our relationship before her coma. And I'm being too hard on her?"

"I know all of that, Nick, but you're really not taking into consideration the fact that this wasn't her fault," Monroe protested. "At all."

Nick rolled his eyes at him. "What, is this some chivalric blutbad thing? I know you like her and I don't want to think that it's her fault either but even Juliet admits that it's her fault."

"Juliet doesn't exactly have the whole story," Monroe said pointedly.

Nick froze. "Whole story?"

"Yeah, about the obsession spell," Monroe said, nodding.

Nick's eyes bulged. "Obsession spell?"

"Is there a reason you keep repeating what I'm saying?" Monroe wondered. "Because I feel like there's a reason you keep repeating what I'm saying but I really don't see what it is."

"Monroe," Nick said, his voice tightly controlled. "This is the first I'm hearing about any obsession spell."

Monroe was floored. "Is it? Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure," Nick agreed curtly.

"Well, didn't you wonder why Juliette and your captain just happened to be making out in the store?" Monroe asked, flabbergasted.

"I probably would have if you hadn't just told me that Juliette was cheating on me," Nick replied.

"Obsession spell, Nick!" Monroe exclaimed. "Have a little compassion. It's like what Hank went through with Adalind minus the deathly fever part. I'm actually really impressed at their self-control."

"Their?" Nick repeated.

"Well, yeah. Wait a second, I know I mentioned the couple who came in because of an obsession spell," Monroe remembered.

"You did, I think," Nick conceded. "You just sort of failed to mention that it was the same couple."

"Oh. Well, my bad," Monroe said, shrugging.

"My bad?" Nick really had to stop repeating everything he said. "I had a fight with Juliet and moved out and we may never work through this all because I didn't know the crucial detail about her being under some sort of obsession spell and all you can say is 'my bad'?"

"Well, it was my bad," Monroe replied. "And I'm really sorry, Nick. I thought that I had told you everything."

"Well you didn't," Nick retorted.

"I am starting to see that, yes," Monroe agreed. "You know I wasn't deliberately keeping this from you, Nick."

"No, you just somehow accidentally failed to mention the most important and only mitigating piece of information," Nick said dryly.

"Next time I'll write it down before I tell you just to make sure I've got it all!" Monroe exclaimed.

Nick started. "Wait, next time?"

"Maybe not something exactly like this," Monroe amended. "But come on, buddy, we both know that there's going to be a next time."

Nick looked like he might argue for a moment before abruptly deflating. "Yeah, probably. So do you know how Juliet came to be under an obsession spell?"

Monroe shrugged. "I couldn't tell you. But unlike with Adalind it's quite mutual so I don't think it was on purpose or if it was he severely underestimated how potent it would be."

"If you knew all of that then why did you tell me that you weren't sure whether I should know who she was involved in an obsession spell with?" Nick demanded.

"Well, he seemed pretty keen on getting rid of it and so I thought that maybe if he hurried up and did it then things could get back to normal and there would be no need to worry you," Monroe explained.

Nick stared at him. "But then I would have still thought that Juliet just up and cheated on me without even telling me that she was feeling unhappy."

"Yeah but then you could have worked through it when those obsessive feelings were gone and…yeah, I really should have told you. But I did tell you. So I shouldn't have hesitated is what I'm saying," Monroe replied. "If it makes you feel any better, Juliet doesn't understand what's happening or anything about wesen and she was still willing to come here in hopes that I – though she didn't know it was me, obviously – could fix it so she's not happy about this either."

Nick took a deep breath. "You know what? That does help."

"It can't be a coincidence that after Juliet mysteriously woke up for no apparent reason when all we could do was stop her memory loss and stabilize her she developed this two-way obsessiveness, can it?" Monroe asked.

"It could be but it's doubtful," Nick replied. "You know, I didn't even know that Renard knew about this stuff but I guess he does. I've never seen him wogue out and I've never spent so much time with a wesen without seeing it."

"That you know of," Monroe pointed out.

Nick looked momentarily discomposed at that. "Right, that I know of."

"He was being very sneaky, wouldn't give me a name and wouldn't even bring Juliet in at first," Monroe told him. "He's probably trying not to let anybody know that he's a wesen or at least a human that knows about us."

Nick nodded, looking thoughtful. "Monroe, you know how I sometimes ask a question and it's completely ridiculous but I have to have asked it because it could be right and otherwise I just won't know?"

Monroe nodded. "Oh, yeah."

"Well this is one of those times," Nick informed him. He took a deep breath. "In fairytales, true love is what wakes someone up from a coma but it's also always a prince. Could that be the case here?"

"A royal?" Monroe asked, taken aback. He considered it and then went to his bookshelf where he'd left a book he'd borrowed from the shop and quickly flipped through it.

"I'm going to take that as a 'maybe'," Nick declared.

"Hold on," Monroe said, waving him off. "Back when Juliet first got scratched I'm pretty sure that Rosalee said something about…Ah, here it is. Yeah, according to this a royal is the only one who can break the curse but he must also be pure of heart."

"Pure of heart?" Nick asked skeptically.

"That's not so common nowadays but there's potions you can take for that nowadays. Only hexenbiests can brew them but we know that Adalind's mother, at least, was working with the royal and Adalind knew who it was so the royal would have access to it," Monroe told him.

Nick was quiet for a long moment. "Monroe, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking about how much I wish Rosalee would hurry up and come back," Monroe admitted. "So probably not."

"No," Nick agreed. "I'm thinking that maybe Renard was the one to wake Juliet up and either the kiss or the purity potion caused this obsessive spell. If you're really pure of heart maybe you would only ever kiss your true love so it forced a love connection between the two of them."

Monroe nodded slowly. "Yeah, that does make sense. Kind of weird that the royal would end up being your boss but I guess he'd know about you and want to keep an eye on you so it's not such a coincidence after all."

"Renard is probably the royal," Nick reiterated. "But how do we prove it? And where do we go from there? And how do I fix things with Juliet and save her from this extremely disturbing and probably dangerous obsession?"

"I'd suggest calling and apologizing, maybe sending flowers," Monroe offered. "Or call Rosalee. She's probably better at this sort of thing than I am."

Nick narrowed his eyes at him. "This is all your fault, you know."

Monroe held up his hands. "I said I was sorry!"

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