Chapter 16

Inside the FBI branch office in Portland

"Everything is bigger, better and classier" was the thought of Nick when he walked inside the FBI office. It was every human's instinct to compare that which they have with the ones their counterparts have and Nick was no different from it.

"Have a seat" said Garry as he led Nick inside one of the visitor's rooms. After yesterday's fiasco Garry who had his interest piqued on Nick asked his trusted aide to investigate the man's background and without much surprise the search led to a name 'Marie Kessler' who was registered with the FBI's database as Grimm. Since she was Nick's Aunt from her mother's side then one could easily guess what Nick was and looking at the way Nick fought those group of Balam Garry was more certain that Nick was one of the strongest Grimm he had ever come across. 

With this thought in mind it was easier to guess what Garry's plan is and it had little to do with interrogation. Nick felt the cold air from the air conditioner so much that even him with his full hand shirt and a blazer over his body felt cold. This made Nick sit a bit crouched. Nick had other things in his mind like how he was going to leak the news about Dell Santos who is likely to be getting treatment from Paramount clinic so he was not concentrating nor was he thinking about the questions which Garry Barnes would be asking him so when Garry started with the words "I missed to thank you yesterday but to be honest those were some nice moves Mr.Grimm" startling Nick in the process. 

Nick's thought process was broken by the sudden and unexpected question and he looked at the man who sat opposite to him with an open file which contained his photo. 'As one would expect from the FBI, they work pretty fast and it seems like they know that I have a Grimm heritage from my mother's side'. 

Nick had plans, plans that ran for a long time. Though in canon the series finished after season 6 his life will not and him being a Grimm will automatically put him at odds with the Black claw. So the only way to hunt, without being hunted every single day is to have an organization supporting him and what better place would it be other than Hadrian's wall. The best place to get recruited to HW would be as far as Nick knew was from the FBI afterall the only other personnel which was introduced in the canon was Agent Chavez and she was from the FBI. 

Without much change in his expression Nick neither accepted nor denied the term used by Garry and just stared at him. This stare continued for a minute which left Garry unnerved. What was unknown to Garry was, Nick himself was a bit tense but did not in any way try to move his gaze and continued to stare at Garry.

This staring contest continued for minutes which felt like hours and Garry was the one who pulled back his gaze ending this what felt like a never ending staring contest and broke the silence by offering a card which contained the name and a number of a person called Nathan Jefferson by sliding it across the table and tapped on it while saying "Give this number a call after you leave this place".

Nick who had been staring at Garry with his right leg over his left and his back against the chair, just reached out and took the card and looked at the person's designation to be FBI- special division head and tucked it inside his coat.

"Anything else?" Nick asked with a soft smile on his face. Garry just stared at him while unconsciously wiping the sweat at his brows. "Nothing".

"In that case I'll take my leave" said Nick as he stood up and proceeded to walk out of the door, however paused for a moment and turned towards Garry and asked how Kaniger was doing?

This question left Garry a bit confused as they were talking about a completely different subject and his mind was filled with matters related to that. Like when Nick entered, the question asked by Garry broke his thought process and now the same happened to Garry himself, leaving him to think in a hurry before telling about Kaniger's situation including the hospital she was admitted to. 

"Thank you" said Nick while cooly walking out of the office with his hands inside his coat pocket. 

Walking inside the elevator Nick waited till the door closed before exhaling. The hand inside his pocket shivered a bit but with it hidden inside his coat no one but Nick himself knew of it. Though Nick had initiated and even won the staring contest with the FBI senior investigator and team leader Garry Barnes it didn't mean he didn't feel any pressure. The pressure of someone who had interrogated hundreds of high profile criminals and possibly even terrorists was nothing to scoff at. If the staring contest had continued even for 10 more seconds Nick would have lost.

"It's alright, feeling pressure is fine but I cannot escape from it. I should subject myself more to such pressure and train my mental capacity and its ability to handle pressure situations. I should endure and overcome it". Nick whispered these words to himself as if giving himself the motivation to improve. 

Inside Treeview hospital, inside the room Kaniger was assigned Nick walked towards the door with a bouquet of flowers which he had just bought from a flower shop nearby. Just as he was about to open the door he heard a scream come from within the room making him barge in quickly only to see a rather disheveled Kaniger holding both her hair both hands and grabbed and pulled it. Her eyes had black circles indicating that she has been having trouble sleeping. 

Beside her was a broken glass jar and judging by the way she was reaching her hand towards one of the pieces of broken glass Nick hurried beside her and pulled her arm away from the broken glass only to have Kaniger flail and try to escape his grip earning a tight slap across her cheek from Nick in a bid to wake her up. The shock treatment seemed to have worked as she calmed down a bit and started crying in Nick's arms saying that she couldn't sleep and all she sees were nightmares. She even babbled about there being monsters inside this hospital and they should be checked thoroughly through interrogation and physical inspection. 

It didn't take long for the nurse to come inside the room and try to calm her down only to have her being shouted at. Nick quickly calmed Kaniger down and brought the nurse out with him after asking them to clear the broken glasses.

"Has this been happening frequently?" Nick asked the nurse who attended Kaniger.

The nurse nodded and explained how she had been having panic attacks yesterday night and even in the morning and had only calmed down after taking sleeping pills. The last 4 hours had been quiet but now that she was awake she might be having yet another panic attack.

After sending the nurse away Nick walked back in and sat next to Kaniger who just sat in her bed while looking outside the room creating a weird silence between them. 

"Would you like to have an apple. I have bought some. In any case you look like you haven't eaten anything for a while. As an FBI agent you of all people should know how important it is to maintain a good eating habit to have a healthy physique, especially for an agent like you". 

Nick didn't want to sound like a nagging boyfriend and just said some straight up facts to make her eat some healthy snack to get her physique going. Being already in a weird mental space after seeing stuff which is outside normal humans perception such as existence of monsters and their cruel way of dealing with humans would make anyone experience trauma, after all existence of such monsters were supposed to only be in fairy tales.

In such a condition one should at least try to maintain a healthy physique and eating timely and healthy meals are a must. In fact overcoming trauma which scares someone can be done in two ways.

What Nick suggested was a straightforward and fastest method and that was to get stronger so that the next time you see them you can beat the fear with brute force. The other was by developing a higher mental capacity and tough spirit and this is not something people can train themselves in. 

The mention of her being FBI agent brought her back to reality and as she looked downwards at herself and her face which looked like she was contemplating on something before her eyes sharpened.

Looking at her expression Nick felt that she had reached a conclusion and seeing as to how she reached it quite quickly and how she is at present Nick knew that it wasn't anything good, so before she could attempt to say those words Nick stood up and walked towards the fruit basket to pick an apple and moved towards the table to cut it while saying "Giving up isn't exactly an option at this moment, in fact it could be the worse of all. Don't try to run away from your fears just because it allows you to feel safe. In fact you aren't safe and the trauma and fear left within you will continue to be a ticking time bomb. Just because you become unaware and close your eyes to the truth about the world doesn't mean that this part of truth will stop existing. No! It will continue to exist, just you would be in the dark and one day when it bares its fangs on you, you might not even know what had hit you. Even if you do try to run away from the truth, you who have been infected by the truth would continue to suffer because of the truth and your life would only become more miserable until it ends up eating you from the inside".

Finishing his piece Nick brought the plate filled with 8 pieces of an apple and placed it before Kaniger who had a shocked look on her face.

"But I am scared, I have been having nightmares all day and after what had happened yesterday I doubt I can perform my duties as an agent. Even if I am not scared I don't know how to fight against such strong monsters. They are not something humans can fight against".

There were tears on Kaniger's face as she said that.

"It's alright to feel scared after all this is an entire new world to you but the thing about them incapable of being defeated is a lie and a misconception which you had created for yourself".

"What! You are saying that I am lying to myself? Then what about the FBI agents who got killed despite being armed".

"You guys were ambushed and the FBI agents who transported Dell Santos were not those who were privy of the Wesen world. So, of course when they met monsters they panicked and got killed. I am not saying that killing them is easy but what I am telling is that you need a calm heart while fighting the wesens and you should remove the limiter you have put on yourself. As a Police officer and as an FBI agent we have all been trained to take down the suspects and while using force to subdue we make sure to not to injure the suspects as well to keep ourselves from using excessive force. In reality we are constantly being subject to psyche evaluation and internal investigation in order to make sure we aren't using excessive force during our job as a way to stop us from getting personal with the suspects. We who have been trained to have a limit set should remove this limit when we fight against the Wesens and go for the kill. 

Well the question of how to fight and capture Wesen can be thought in detail in the future. If anything you should focus on the present and try your best to recover. Well, I have said whatever I wanted to say today, the rest is up to you. Whether you come out of this trauma or you sink in it all depends on you".

Saying his piece Nick with his hand inside his coat pocket stood up and left the room.