Chapter Text
Twelve Years Later…
“Wasn’t expecting to run into you out here,” Nick said, to the old man at the diner.
The old man growled. “I’m in the area on unrelated business. I had no idea you were out this way. Pure accident.”
“Accident? Or Destiny?”
Geralt fixed him with a glare. “Don’t tell me you believe in that horseshit now.”
Chuckling, Nick gave a shrug. “I’ve got a magic stick in the back of my car that I brought back from hell. Twelve years ago I fought an army of frost demons returned from the dead because they were after my daughter, and, speaking of my daughter, the thing’s she’s pulled off since are, well…” Nick shook his head. “Let’s just say Destiny seems like small potatoes, after that.”
“Hmph.” Geralt grunted and glanced out the window at the car outside. “That stick from the fight—you found it in hell?”
“Or the pre-historic past. It honestly wasn’t super clear at the time.” Nick shrugged.
“Are you talking about the Iggy Staff?” asked the boy at the table.
“Shh.”
“I’m sorry, the ‘Iggy Staff?’” Geralt raised a bushy eyebrow.
Nick sighed. “We’re still not sure what the Staff is. Wu thinks it might be a kind of Wesen itself, a monkey that transforms. Rosalee thinks it’s the cross from the Bible. Adalind says it’s the core of Yggdrasil, the world tree, hence….”
“…Yggy staff…” Geralt nodded. “Right. Got it.” He raised his mug to his lips and took a sip of coffee. “I was curious about that, at the time. But after our deal was struck…” He shrugged. “…I’ve learned it’s best to leave promptly after invoking the Rule of Surprise.”
“That… was a good call, yeah.” Nick nodded. “After Adalind fully explained what I’d agreed to and what you were after, I nearly called an APB out to make sure the Portland PD shot you in the street.”
“What stopped you?”
“Captain Renard. And Adalind.” Nick grimaced. “They said you’d cut through anyone sent after you anyway. Still might have tried it, but…” he shrugged, “…I guess a part of me hoped that ‘what I had already’ was going to be, like you said, a piece of mail or something.”
“It could be,” Geralt suggested. “You probably got a lot of things in those weeks after. I imagine you don’t remember them all.”
Nick shook his head. “The roads were down for days after that. We didn’t get anything. The only new thing we had was the results of a pregnancy test Adalind had bought the night before but hadn’t had the time to use.”
“Shit.” Geralt closed his eyes.
“For a guy who just learned he got exactly what he asked for, you don’t seem very happy,” Nick observed.
“Because it no longer makes sense!” Geralt leaned across the table. “I asked because that’s what I do. I’m a witcher. Witchers invoke the Law of Surprise. But we did that because we used to torture random kids and inject all sorts of drugs into them in order to turn them into Witchers just like us so that we could kill all the terrible monsters out there.” He gestured. “But the monsters are gone now, and so are the witchers, and even the drugs we used to inject them with are gone, so the whole thing makes no damn sense!”
“You did what?” The boy at the table raised his eyebrows. Geralt ignored him.
Nick just sipped his coffee. “Makes a person wonder why you asked in the first place.”
“We’ve been over this. I’m complicated.” Geralt waved. “Anyway, like I said: I had no intention of actually collecting it. Just like with…”
He stopped, bit his tongue, looked away.
“Like with Princess Cirilla?” Nick asked. “Adalind told me that story. Didn’t seem to work out too well. Or did you mean like with Prince Sean Renard? That one I heard straight from him.”
“Uncle Sean?” said the boy at the table, his face lighting up.
Geralt exhaled loudly, breath hissing through his nose. “The Royals would never have given him up anyway,” he said. “I did them one service and the king in a drunken moment said something stupid. They’d have never given up an heir to the throne.”
“Captain seemed to think otherwise.” Nick shrugged. “He says his family was basically glad to have a prospective way of pawning off the embarrassment. His siblings teased him from age four with the knowledge that he was going to get taken away by the monster-hunters.”
“I suppose that explains certain… points about his behavior toward me.” Geralt snorted. “Stupid thought for them to have, anyway. The old mutagens were lost long ago. I couldn’t make any witchers even if I thought we needed them—which we don’t.”
“Not sure I agree.” Nick rubbed his chin. “Heck, I’m pretty sure we need a lot more Grimms than we do. I can barely keep wesen crime under control just in Portland, and that was before these ice-demons came crawling out of the time-vortex.”
“Last time we beat them, it took several hundred years for them to reappear.” Geralt waved it off. “Your family should be fine.”
“Should be is not enough. My family has enough to do with putting up with all the wesen trying to kidnap my daughter all the time.”
“They should just kill her,” the boy suggested. “That would be easier.”
There was a silence as both men looked at him.
“What? I’m just saying.”
Geralt looked back at Nick. “Not exactly a chip off the old block, this one, is he?”
“Got a bit more of his mother in him, to be honest.” Nick coughed. “Reed, you know that’s not appropriate.”
The boy rolled his eyes. “I’m not saying I want to, I’m just saying it’d be easier.”
“Reed.”
“Fine. Sorry. Sheesh.”
Nick studied the boy for a moment, then shook his head and took a sip of his coffee.
“Thought your youngest was Kelly,” Geralt observed.
“Kelly’s a poo-poo face,” Reed sneered.
“So this is the new arrival. Certainly hasn’t inherited your sparkling wit. You sure this kid is yours?” Geralt raised an eyebrow.
“No, Diana is the one that’s not Dad’s.”
“Reed!”
Geralt’s other eyebrow joined the first one.
Nick dug into his pocket and fished out a dollar bill. “Look, get me a drink from the vending machine.”
Reed didn’t take the bill. “Why?”
Nick sighed and took out another bill. “Get yourself something too.”
Apparently mollified, Reed stood. “You want anything, geezer?” he asked Geralt.
“I’m fine, thanks.” Geralt waved him off.
Both men watched the boy walk off to the vending machine on the far side of the diner. “He’s got… personality,” Geralt observed.
“You’d think that a boy growing up with a sorceress sister and three half-wolf cousins would know to watch his mouth a bit more.” Nick grimaced. “We’ve driven three different child therapists into retirement. Most of them ended by suggesting we institutionalize him.”
“I hear they can do wonderful things with medication these days.”
“Doesn’t have an impact on him.” Nick shook his head. “He’s got a weird metabolism. Kid’s strong—which only makes the problem worse, really.” He gave Geralt a meaningful look. “They call him a high-functioning psychopath.”
Geralt caught the look, growled, looked away. “What would you even expect me to do with him?” he asked. “I’m no good with kids. I don’t even have a house. You’re really thinking of selling off your kid to a homeless bum?”
“I’ll admit, the idea took a while to grow on me.” Nick looked out the window. “The first few years after his birth, I spent time devising plans to hide Reed, to trap you if you came back. We actually told people for the first year that we’d lost the baby in childbirth.”
Geralt snorted. “And then, what, you got annoyed with the kid and started looking forward to the day someone would take him off your hands?”
“No. Not that.” Nick shook his head and glanced back at where Reed was fiddling with the vending machine, clearly irritated at something. “It’s hard to… Reed is bursting with potential. He’s not as magical as Diana, obviously, but he’s smart, and strong, and quick. He’s two years younger than his Blutbad cousins and he still spars with them every chance he gets. And if he’s not doing that, he’s reading up on Wesen lore. The kid is constantly hounding me for stories.” He chuckled. “I never intended to tell him about you, and yet he got the story out of me by the time he was six, just by asking where Grimms came from and not accepting any half-stories.”
“You told him you’d promised him to an insane homeless bum?”
“Reed loves camping outdoors.” Nick shrugged. “He seemed more hyped by the idea than anything, even though I told him we’d never let it happen. Though even then… I was starting to think, well…”
Geralt looked at Nick. “Don’t you say it.”
“I think you can help him,” Nick said. “Honestly, I’ve about reached the limit of what I can tell him about wesen. I was always an amateur at this, like you said.”
“Talented amateur,” Geralt grunted.
Nick accepted the compliment with a nod. “And I don’t know how to help with the… emotional regulation.”
“I’m not even sure I know what that is.” Geralt looked over at the sound of Reed smacking the vending machine. “If you mean the way he’s a giant prick all the time, then there’s no guarantee putting him through witcher training will do much to help with that. I’ve known many fully trained witchers who were massive pricks. Some have even said I’m a massive prick.”
“Look.” Nick shook his head. “The point is, the more I’ve gotten to know Reed, the more I’m convinced that you and he were made for each other. Destined, if you like.” Nick gave a half-shrug at the look Geralt threw at him. “At this point, is that such a stretch?”
Geralt just shook his head and muttered. He studied Reed as the small boy continued hitting the vending machine, making strategic raps to shake loose the can.
“There’s one last part to the Rule of Surprise,” he said at last. “It’s not just a deal between you and me. There’s a reason we wait until age twelve. The child…”
“Pardon me.” A burly trucker, nearly six-and-a-half feet tall, had stepped up to the table. “Are you Nick Burkhardt? From Portland?”
Nick’s eyes traveled up the man. “I am, yes. Do I know you…?”
The trucker grinned as several more men came up behind him. “Nah. But we heard you were heading out here and, well, given your reputation, we thought we’d arrange a reception for the local Grimm.”
Nick was about to answer when the trucker’s face, and the face of the men behind him, woged into the leathery skin and pointed teeth of haasliches.
Geralt rubbed his eyes. “Trolls. Always with trolls,” he muttered, and then swung up from the table.
“We are so sorry about the damage,” Nick said, some hours later, to a visibly distressed manager, as the men picked their way through the remains of the roadside diner. “I’m a cop, I think these might have been some bikers from a gang I took down a few months ago…”
Reed was not listening to his father. He was staring at Geralt, who was trying to discretely yank out some teeth from the downed hasslich’s mouth. “You use a sword?” he said, eyes round. “And magic? I thought only girls could use magic.”
Geralt raised an eyebrow at him. “Biology isn’t your strong subject, I take it.”
“Do you ever use a gun? Dad has a gun but he won’t let me get one. Or a crossbow? Sometimes they let me use the crossbow. You must be really strong from the way you threw that punch. I’ll bet you could take one of the triplets arm-wrestling. Even Kelly can’t beat them.”
“You talk a lot.”
“How do you know my dad? My dad knows all sorts of people but he never tells me where from. Do you know a prince? I know a prince. He works as a police captain. I like him but Mom and Dad tell me not to talk to him too much. Are you a prince?”
Geralt sighed. “This is going to take some adjusting to.”
The manager’s startled squawk came floating to them. “What is that man doing!?”
“Collecting… uh… evidence. Look, check on your staff and just call your cops and I’ll give a full statement once they arrive.” Footsteps hurried off, and Nick approached. “Could you wait to collect your creepy trophies for five minutes?” he hissed.
“I was.” Geralt did not look up. “Teeth are useful but pretty commonplace. The real useful ingredient here is the troll’s tongue.”
Nick’s eyebrows lowered in a flat line. “The…”
There was a wet sound. Nick winced. Reed looked fascinated. Geralt continued to saw with the knife.
“Why haven’t they woged back, anyway?” Nick grumbled, looking away. “Usually wesen, they woge back when they die.”
“It happens sometimes with me.” Geralt shrugged. “Something to do with the silver sword probably. Not sure.”
Nick groaned and massaged his forehead. “Oh, this is going to be great. How are we going to explain this to the cops?”
“Why explain anything?” Geralt looked at him, mystified. “This won’t take more than another minute. We’ll be long gone by the time they get here.”
“We’re material witnesses! I’m a cop!” Nick insisted. “It’s literally my job! We need to…”
“Glad I’m not a cop.” Geralt gave a harsh tug and pulled out a dripping mass of flesh, which he dropped into a trash bag next to him. “That sounds like a hassle.”
“It causes Dad a lot of trouble.” Reed nodded eagerly. “So are we leaving then?”
There was a pause. Geralt and Nick both looked at Reed.
He shrugged. “What? This is the guy you told me about, right dad?”
“I told you we’d never let him actually take you…” Nick answered.
“Why?” Reed exploded. “He’s so much cooler than you, Dad!”
“Hey.” Geralt shot the kid a warning glance. “Don’t talk to your father that way.”
“Why not?”
Geralt advanced a step further. “Because he’s your father, and he deserves respect, and because if you don’t, I’ll slap your face so hard it’ll make your teeth rattle,” he snarled.
Reed’s eyes got wide.
Nick held out a hand. “Wait…”
“No.” Geralt raised a finger. “The last part of the Rule of Surprise is that the Child of Surprise needs to agree to it.” Again Geralt stepped forward, eyes fixed on Reed. “If this kid thinks it’d be so fun to be on the road with me, eating out of trashcans, walking for weeks at a time, he needs to learn differently, now. I’m a very very old dog, and I know exactly one bag of tricks for keeping kids in line, most of them from a previous century.” He stared back at Reed, yellow eyes burning. “You’re a Grimm, so you can probably take it without dying—probably. But I’m making no promises, not to you, nor your father. Most kids I raised died horribly before they saw eighteen. You get your throat ripped out by a Blutbad, I’ll leave your body to be covered by snow in a ditch.”
Reed scoffed. “I’ve fought Blutbad before. They’re not that tough.”
Geralt slapped him across the face, once, twice. Nick grabbed his hand before he could get to a third. “Enough,” he said.
“He needs to know what this will be.” Geralt’s eyes were still fixed on Reed, who was feeling his jaw with his spare hand, his eyes alight. “And I don’t care how many monsters you’ve fought. You get sloppy with one, it costs you, so you never underestimate them. Clear?”
Reed nodded, slowly.
Geralt relaxed his hand, and Nick let it go. “Right.” Geralt nodded. “Now you know the stakes, and the school. But I’m not taking you anywhere unless you want to go. So you tell me, kid. You staying here for the police, or leaving with me?”
Reed looked, uncertainly, at his father. He gazed back at the gleaming yellow eyes of the white-haired bum.
He looked at the bloody garbage bag. “…what’re you going to use the troll tongues for?”
Geralt’s mouth twitched. “Come along and maybe I’ll show you.”
“Can I carry the bag?”
“Of course you’re carrying the bag. I’m sure as hell not. Go and start pulling out some of their teeth, why don’t you, we can use more of those.”
Reed leapt to grab the garbage bag, peering in delightedly at its gory contents, even as Geralt bent over another troll.
Nick sighed. Geralt looked up at him a moment.
“I’ve got one further stipulation,” Nick said. “He spends Christmas with us.”
Geralt considered this. “Can’t make promises about the date, but we’ll try to be in the area during the season.” He shrugged. “Honestly, I’ve been keeping tabs on Portland anyway, just in case Eredin and his lot ever came back.”
“I appreciate it,” Nick said quietly.
Geralt just grunted. “Again, no guarantees,” he said, looking over at where Reed was pulling mightily on a troll tooth. “But… he seems promising.” A smile touched his lips as he looked back to Nick. “I think he’ll be all right.”