No one noticed Matt as he stretched his hand out and grabbed the call button. His fingers shook as he frantically pressed the button. He could hear some hurried footsteps headed toward his room and he felt relief begin to seep into his body. Once the nurses arrived, they would call security and the three strangers in his room would be thrown out or arrested. He preferred the latter. He didn’t notice Alexa’s sweeping glance or her frown when she found his frantic button pressing. She could hear the flurry of movement outside of the room and she quickly put herself between the Guardian and the Grim Reaper. Roderick glared at her.
“Alexa, what is the meaning of your treachery?” He growled; his anger flared from his form and Alexa felt it in the very core of her being. She shivered slightly before she squared her thin shoulders and narrowed her eyes on her darkened mentor.
“Humans are coming because he’s calling for help” Alexa pointed at Matt as the door to the room suddenly flew open with a loud thud. Before Matt could say anything, the three strange figures in his room simply vanished. The lingering mist they all seemed to leave behind was the only evidence he hadn’t been alone this entire time.
“Are you alright?” A young nurse asked as the supervising nurse followed closely behind her. Matt didn’t answer as he let out a slow, shuddering breath.
**
Alexa and Roderick appeared in the front foyer of the Grimm Manor. It was a vast estate in the Otherworld where Reapers could stay and it was Roderick's permanent home. Alexa sighed as she looked around. She hadn't been to the Manor in over twenty years. She had found it easier to live in the human realm. She quickly followed her superior to the den as a harried servant disappeared after a quiet order from Roderick. Alexa had no doubt that the servants feared Roderick. Hell, she was certain a few of them feared her. She quickly shook her head of the thought. Roderick paced the floor in front of the fireplace. His eyebrows were scrunched together in the middle of his flawless countenance as he lost himself in his thoughts. Alexa sat in a nearby plush chair with her legs crossed in front of her. Her eyes followed Roderick and every little move he made. Though her eyes followed her superior, her thoughts were filled with Mathias Cole. She had been fighting it ever since they left the hospital several hours ago. Much to her chagrin, his face hadn’t left her mind.
“Why would a guardian protect a boy who was meant to die?” Roderick asked as he turned to his companion who looked deep in thought. He frowned. Alexa’s body was rigid and she heard herself as if the two of them were being formal. Roderick had always them to be close; well they were closer than him and some of the other Reapers. At this, he thought back to their very first meeting.
***
December 15, 1803:
Roderick had been summoned to a trading post about twenty miles outside of a town known as New Orleans. Alexa hadn’t been more than eleven when Roderick appeared in the shack her family called a home. The hovel had two rooms and both were filled with sick, dying people. All except Alexa. She was immune to the disease that had swept through her small community. She had been diligently caring for her kin and neighbors for days. What had surprised him about her was that when she looked at him the first time, she smiled. It was a bright smile; it was the kind of smile that could warm even the coldest heart.
“You’ve come then?” She asked as Roderick had instinctively nodded, still surprised she could see him to begin with.
“Then please, ease their pain. I can do nothing else for them. They are lost to me,” she remarked as tears pricked the corners of her large green eyes. Roderick could only stare at the young girl in front of him. She was wrapped in a thick blanket of fur, but still she shivered.
“Have you eaten recently?”
“No. I did not want to waste food on my healthy body when they are the ones who need it more than I,” she replied. It had been a long time since Roderick’s stone heart felt anything more than a slight tremble. However standing in this dirt-filled hovel, surrounded by dying souls, his heart shattered for this little girl. She watched him with a peaceful expression full of acceptance as he led each one of her family members and neighbors to the Otherworld for judgment.
“Are you going to leave?” She asked, once he was finished.
“I must, yes,” Roderick replied as he turned to face her.
“Will you come back for me when it’s my time to die?” Alexa questioned innocently. Roderick nodded solemnly, dreading it already.
“Ok. I will wait for you, mister angel, sir,” Alexa responded brightly with a soft, warm smile. And for ten years, she waited.
***
“Why did you wait?” Roderick suddenly questioned the present-day Alexa Winters. She looked confused for only a brief moment before that same soft, warm smile slipped across her face.
“Because I knew you’d save me from all of the pain and misery that I had experienced in my human life,” she answered honestly. Roderick sighed as he knelt down in front of the woman. He collected her small hands into his larger ones and he smiled at her.
“You know, you’re always going to be my favorite,” He remarked as Alexa giggled. It was a light sound that eased the painfully tattered parts of his being.
“I know, Grimm.”
**
Matt stared blankly at the wall in front of his bed. He kept replaying the night before in his head over and over again. His memory lingered on the woman. He had never met anyone so intense before. She was alluring. However, he couldn’t forget that it was because of her that he was in the hospital right now. He frowned. How could he have been so stupid to get into a car after he supposedly drank so much? He had been to parties out at the cabin before. He had never driven back on the same night.
Never.
How in the world had she convinced him to do it? Matt racked his brain for something from that night. He groaned in frustration when he saw nothing but blurred figures and exploding lights. A knock distracted him as he turned to see his parents walk into the room with a bag of clothes.
“Ready to head home, sweetie?” Madeleine Cole was a sweet, gentle woman. She had ash blonde hair that she kept cut just above her shoulders and dark brown eyes. She had freckles. But since she spent most of her days outside gardening, her tanned skin hid most of them. Matt could see the dirt beneath her fingers from where she had been gardening already.
“Yeah. I’m just waiting for one of the nurses to take out the I.V.,” Matt informed them as his father scoffed. Richard Cole was a hard man to love. At nearly six feet, he almost dwarfed his wife, who stood at a petite five foot two. His hair was gray with flakes of dark brown, but he kept it cut close to his head so Matt couldn’t really tell. His blue eyes almost matched Matt’s, but Richard's were more greyish blue. His face was set in a semi-permanent scowl. If Matt hadn’t met the mystery man last night, he would’ve said that his father was the scariest man he ever met. Richard Cole was an ex-Marine and lived by their rules, even in retirement.
“Don’t coddle the boy, Madeleine. He’s a grown man now. Let him fend for himself,” Richard remarked when he noticed that his wife was fretting over Matt’s unhealed bruising. Matt pressed his lips into a thin line.
“She’s allowed to worry, Dad,” Matt replied sourly as Richard scowled at his son. Matt watched his father’s eyes sweep down his injured form before scoffing.
“I’ve seen men without body parts whine less than you, boy,” Richard grumbled as Matt rolled his eyes.
“When I was in the Marine Corps, in the war, I saw boys, some younger than you, losing limbs and lives to fight for freedom. What did my son do? Got drunk at a party and drove into a tree,” Richard reminded the room.
"Rick!" Madeleine gasped and slapped her husband’s arm in anger.
“Don’t say things like that, Rick. He could’ve been killed,” Madeleine remarked as Matt sighed.
“Oh, excuse me,” an eerily familiar voice interrupted Matt’s parents before they could really start to argue. Matt looked up and stared wide-eyed as the man and woman from the night before walked into his room. The large man had his arm wrapped around the smaller woman’s shoulders protectively.
“Who are you?” Richard asked gruffly. He moved to stand in front of his family as he folded his arms across his chest.
“My name is Roderick Grimm. I was one of the first responders to his accident. I wanted to just check up on him. That accident was pretty bad. One of the worst I’ve seen in a while,” The man lied, but Matt didn’t care. His eyes met the woman’s and his entire world suddenly shifted.