Prologue:
Nick snags a carrot from the box between them and crunches it between his sharp teeth. "So, does your family only grow carrots?"
Judy shakes her head, smiling a little but keeping an eye on the road. "Nope! We also grow some berries, mostly blueberries. They'll be ripe next month."
Nick's ears perk up. "Ohh, can we go pick some?" he asks, feeling more excited than it was probably worth. But he had Judy back in his life and she'd apologized and the assholes who caused the whole problem were probably going down soon, and the world was looking a lot rosier than it had been a day ago.
Judy gives him an indulgent look. "Of course!" she says. He grins at her. For the first time in his life everything felt like it was going right.
There is nothing cops hate more than a cop-killer and the frothing, snarling, bloody fox was lucky to be dragged away in a net and not mixing his gore with the red stain and mangled flesh that used to be Officer Judy Hopps. Mayor Bellwether was whittering on and on about the killing. Chief Bogo did not want to listen to her, did not want to hear how his incompetence had ended the life of a good animal. Two animals, because he recognized the fox. He didn't want to listen to the mayor right at that moment so he pawned her off onto Francine and jumped down into the pit. The savage fox had finally been subdued and it was a testament to how tough or insane he was, but it took nearly twice the dose of tranquilizers used for wolves to take him down, and even then it was taking awhile to knock him out. A fox was a mesopredator, not apex. It shouldn't have taken this much.
Bogo forced himself to look at Hopps. At what was left of her, anyway. She'd been ripped open from throat to crotch, eviscerated brutally. Her arms were flung out, paws torn up, nearly chewed off at the wrist. Defense wounds. There is blood and gore splattered everywhere. Bogo hates seeing her like this and the grim I told you so aimed at an imaginary Lionheart had no satisfaction in it whatsoever. He stares at her, taking in everything from the blood-soaked carrot-farm clothing to the make-shift bandage around her leg to the orange pen shaped like a carrot lying just beyond her outflung paw. The pen is incongruous, out of place, and it stands out against the blood-soaked background. Hopps must have been holding it in her hand as she was attacked. Was Hopps using it as a weapon against her attacker? There wasn't any blood on the tip. He kneels down to study it and sees that there is a circle of small holes on it that looks like a speaker. Bogo knows he should leave it for CSI, but he's already fucked so many things up so what's one more? So he picks it up. It's tiny in his hoof, and without meaning to he clicks the top.
"And I'll shoot every predator in Zootopia to keep it that way."
Silence falls in the pit and radiates outward like a tsunami, even the fox feels it and quiets. His officers and the paramedics and Bellwether are staring at him and at the tiny carrot recorder in his hoof. Cold rage has a flavor. It is the taste of winterburnt grass, dry and bitter. Bogo swallows, and swallows again against the bellow of rage fighting to get out. "Arrest Bellwether for the murder of Judy Hopps," Bogo says.
She argues, but he and his officers are deaf to her. No cop likes a cop-killer after all.
"I want to see the security footage," Bonnie Hopps says quietly, her voice as hard as steel. Chief Bogo hesitates. They are sitting in his office and she is demanding answers that he does not have. "I want to see what happened to my daughter."
Bogo bites his lip and stares down at her while she glares back up at him. Despite their size difference he feels small. You killed her daughter, he thinks. And he had, because it was his fault that Hopps hadn't trusted him and gone straight to the fox. "I don't think that's a good idea, Mrs. Hopps," he says.
Something like a growl erupts from her throat. It was the wrong sound for a bunny to make and the shear oddity of it chills him to the bone. Mrs. Hopps leaps from the chair to the desk and stands upright, looking him straight eye to eye. "My daughter is dead Mr. Bogo, and my husband is so grief-stricken he hasn't been able to leave the bed for a month. My other kids..." her voice breaks, "my other kids are in shock. We didn't want her to become a police officer because we knew something like this would happen, but she did, because this is what she believed in and I want to know WHY SHE DIED!"
Mrs. Hopps glares at him and Bogo couldn't find it in him to glare back. He told her what happened already, had given her a copy of the report and kept her up to date on the investigation, but apparently that wasn't enough. She must have seen something in his expression because her ears droop and her tone softens. "Please," she said. "You're going to have to play it in court, right? I don't want that to be the first time I see it. And I need to prepare Stu, and the kids."
Bogo sighs, and slumps in his chair, feeling tired and old. She was right of course. Wordlessly he opens his laptop and angles it so they both could watch it. "I'm not going to show the whole thing to you," he says, because he would not, could not, show a mother her daughter being ripped to shreds by a savage beast. "But I'll show you most of it."
The museum was well-covered with cameras and it made him wonder how Bellwether had intended to suppress them. The rams with her that day were police and security guards so perhaps she intended to have the videos erased before they could be pulled for evidence. Regardless, it didn't matter, Hopps' little carrot pen saw to that, but it was nice to have them. Seeing the action made a much bigger impression to the jury than hearing it.
They watch the grainy videos from start to nearly finish. He leaves out the subway scene, no reason to let Mrs. Hopps see her daughter narrowly escape a fiery death only to be torn to apart in a pit. It was hard to see in the grainy footage but the rabbit and fox looked happy, like they'd solved the case. They're happy right up until they meet Bellwether and her goons. There's a brief exchange and something tips Hopps and the fox off—they try to leave. Bogo has seen this before so he turns his attention to Mrs. Hopps. He can tell when Hopps trips by the flinch and when the ram butts them into the pit by her gasp. When Bellwether shoots the fox Mrs. Hopps covers her mouth and groans as if she's the one who is shot. Bogo stops the video, freezing it on Hopps leaning over the fox in concern.
"I don't think you want to see the rest," he said.
Mrs. Hopps nods, staring at the screen. "Go back to when she tripped," she says. Bogo scrolls back and they watch as Hopps hits the mammoth tusk, watch the fox turns back to help. "Pause it," she says, and Bogo pauses in on the fox bandaging Hopps' leg. "They really had something didn't they?" she asks.
Bogo looks at the screen. It is hard to put aside his knowledge of what happened and just look at the scene for what it is.
"Yes," he said after awhile. "I think they did."
Mrs. Hopps face tightens. "How's he doing? Nick?"
Not well, Bogo thought, remembering the last time he'd seen the fox. "The antidote was effective, but they decided to hold him in the hospital a little longer to monitor his psychological state. He should be getting out soon."
"You're not filing charges against him?"
"No, Mrs. Hopps. It's not his fault." Not that had ever stopped the DA, but all a defense team had to do was show the video and play the tape, and the jury would probably let him go if the judge didn't throw the case out of court. Wasn't worth the taxpayer's expense.
"Good," she nods. Then she inhales deeply, as if bracing herself. "I know I should go visit him. Judy...Judy was very attached. But I can't. Not yet." She gives him a pleading look, as if he needs to understand how impossible it was for a mother to visit the predator who ate her daughter. Even if it wasn't his fault.
Mrs. Hopps sighs deeply. "When I was nine my brother Terry, who was six, ate one of those flowers. They're pretty, and rabbits eat flowers. Dad told us not to, but he was just a little kit." She holds up her arm and he can see a missing patch of fur over a sizable scar. "Terry was in the hospital for a week before it wore off. Afterward, he was sure embarrassed. Took him years before he stopped feeling guilty." Her face crumples and she pulled a Kleenex out of her purse to wipe her tears. "Could you do me a favor and make sure Nick's okay? It's got to be hard, you know? I can't imagine what he's going through."
The next time he'd sees the fox he'd been lying apathetically in a bed in the mental wing of the hospital, staring at the ceiling. "Come to stare at the crazy savage fox?" he asks. Bogo grunts and the fox flips him off. Bogo can't help noticing how small the fox was. He was, after all, just a mesopredator, caught somewhere between prey and apex predator and, in the old days, just as likely to be hunted as hunter. Society had divided itself into prey and predator, but the fact was the actual relationships were far more complicated. Bogo was a Cape Buffalo; no mere fox had ever hunted his kind.
"You're not crazy or savage," Bogo said, sitting heavily on the floor because all the chairs in the room were fox-sized.
"Ha! Tell that to them!" a negligent paw waves toward the open door. "They let all the other guys go as soon as they woke up but golly!" the fox says with false brightness, "I wonder what the difference is!"
Yes indeed, actually killing someone was the main difference. That and attempting to throw himself off the hospital roof when the fox first woke up got the him confined to the mental health wing, where exits and entrances were guarded, all visitors needed a wrist band like the one currently around Bogo's wrist, and every fixture was designed to prevent hanging. The fox was clearly on some sort of suicide watch and currently allowed nothing but a hospital gown. At least it wasn't one of those ugly quilted suicide-proof vests.
The fox pins his ears and lifts a lip, but Bogo is unmoved. Now that the Night Howler had worn off the fox was all bark and no bite.
"They're going to release you soon," Bogo says, "Do you have a place to stay?"
"Why, you offering?"
Bogo just raises an eyebrow. The fox looks away.
"Yeah I got a place," he says with studied nonchalance. "Same place I've always had." The fox smirks humorlessly. "I'll be fine. I'm always fine."
Bogo doubts this, but the fox is an adult and a civilian and so he had no reason to confront him. He remembers Bonnie Hopps telling him about her little brother's brush with savagery and takes out a business card.
"If you need anything," he says before he could come to his senses. "Give me a call. My personal number is on the back."
The fox sneers and lays back down, ignoring Bogo once more. Bogo takes the hint and leaves, dropping the card on the little table next to the fox's bed.
The next time he sees the fox he should be on his way to the drunk tank.
Bogo gets the call just after midnight. It's on his personal phone and there aren't too many animals who have the number and it wakes him out of a somewhat troubled sleep. Both the number and voice on the other end are unfamiliar. "Hey, you Chief Bogo?"
"Yes," he said, sitting up, "What is it?" He's expecting a crank call but the animal on the other end sighs.
"I found your card in Nicky's wallet," and it takes a second for Bogo to connect the dots. Nicky, Nick Wilde, the fox that ate Officer Hopps. Oh yes, he'd given him his number. "Look, he's drunk as fuck and I just can't handle it anymore." The animal sounds exhausted. "He's a friend and a roommate, but there's limits you know?"
This was a call for detox, which both he and the other animal know. But they also knew facts which are this: detox was usually horrible and shitty and full of horrible and shitty people (ie alcoholics too poor to afford a private hospital or rehab) and if an animal had anywhere else to go, they should go there instead. Bogo sighs, he is tempted to tell the caller to call detox anyway, but Mrs. Hopps' voice filtered through and he found himself agreeing to pick up the fox. It was likely a terrible decision, but as Internal Affairs and the interim mayor were both fond of saying terrible decisions were pretty much his MO these days. He couldn't disagree. Hopps had, actually, been a fine investigator despite her inexperience and lack of resources, and he'd dismissed her out of hand due entirely to her size and species. A wiser chief would have paired her with someone larger and more experienced, to be brawn to her brain and to balance out her raw newness. Instead he'd fed her piece by piece into a woodchipper of a case and the hungry maw of the public. The hand writing was on the wall and was composing his resignation letter.
The fox is under a bridge trying to smash liquor bottles. Sometimes he succeeds, but mostly he fails because the bottles are bottom-shelf plastic. Another fox, a tiny little fennec, is watching him some distance away, leaning against the side of a van and smoking a cheap cigar.
"Finn," the fennec says by way of greeting. Finn gestures toward the drunken fox. "He's been drunk as a skunk since they released him and it's getting on my last nerve."
Bogo looks at him. Finn's fur is cream-colored and soft, perfect for the desert, and there's something like fear and concern in his dark, desert adapted eyes. It occurs to Bogo that Finn is smaller than the fox, smaller even than Hopps. It was something he'd never really experienced, the feeling of being small in a world full of large.
Hopps must have felt that way all her life.
He's not savage, Bogo thinks watching the red fox, but he is drunk, and drunk can be dangerous.
"I'll keep him out of trouble," Bogo says.
Finn snorts. "Better animals than you have tried." He taps the ash from his cigar. "Just get him out of here so I can go to sleep."
The fox smells like a distillery that hadn't been scrubbed for a month. Bogo doesn't bother with niceties, just picks up the fox by his collar and tosses him into his car. The fox curses and spits, yowling in the most horrifying way. He's light, almost too light, and perhaps it's Bogo's imagination but the fox just seems to be fur and bones and hate. Bogo tosses him into the backseat of his personal vehicle. "Stay down," he tells him, adding an authoritative rumble for emphasis. To his mild surprise the fox does, even buckling himself in. His ears are down now, making himself look submissive but Bogo, well, Bogo is not fooled.
"This is kidnapping, you know," the fox says after a few minutes of silence. His voice only slurs a little. Bogo snorts.
"Call the police," he says.
"You are the poooliiice." A lot of slurring emphasis on that word.
"Exactly."
The fox gives him a suspicious look only slightly marred by his inability to focus. "Why are you doing this?" he asks.
Bogo sighs. "I owe Judy." He doesn't elaborate. The fox cringes and falls silent, looking out the window.
Bogo has a house. It used to be a home, but it has been awhile since it was anything more than a place to sleep and store his clothing. He has a dilemma, while there were technically enough beds, they are built for buffalo and all too large for the little predator. He knows foxes like to den. It'll work for tonight, he decides, or until the fox sobers up, whichever happens first. They'll have to work out something else later. Bogo takes the fox to the guest room and dumps him there, but only after he removes the quilt his mother made from the bed and replaces it with a cheap store-bought comforter so that when the fox vomited he wouldn't ruin anything precious. Bogo gets the fox some water as well, served in a bottle cap. "Drink," he says, and forces the fox to drink several more before letting him slump down into the guest bed. "We'll talk when you're sober."
The fox snarls at him but Bogo ignores it.
Bogo checks on the fox in the morning but he's not awake yet so the buffalo leaves a fox-sized bottle of water by the bed and makes a mental note to pick up some painkillers suitable for small canines, he has nothing like that in the house.
Work is work. It is wrapping up loose ends and making sure the payroll is signed and done so the next chief didn't have a pile of left over paperwork to contend with. It is looking Clawhauser and McHorn and Francine and Wolford and Fangmeyer and so forth in the eye and telling them that they have done a good job, and knowing they think he did a bad one. Clawhauser is particularly bad, Judy was his favorite officer and they both knew who's fault it was that she was dead. Clawhauser does not hold grudges, but he does cry silently when he thinks no one can see him. Bogo can't help him, he doesn't have the right to. When the mayor calls to badger him about the timeline for his resignation it is almost a relief. He can see the end of his career approaching like a thunderstorm on the savanna and knows it's far less than what he deserves. "One more week," he tells the giraffe, "And Lucinda from Third Precinct will be ready to take over."
"And is she competent?" the mayor asks, and Bogo thinks Of course she is, more than I. Lucinda is a laughing hyena who in his opinion had been passed over for promotion for years because of her species. She will be an excellent Chief of Police. She has good attention to detail and excellent managerial and detective skills, and knows exactly how to get the best out of all of her people. She hates him of course, hates that he was promoted time and again over her head, and hates that she's only getting this position because there is no one else capable enough to cover for him. But that doesn't matter. Lucinda was very good at not letting her personal opinions and prejudices get in the way of her job.
He wishes suddenly, that Lucinda and Hopps had met. They would have bonded, he thought, over being overlooked and disregarded. Lucinda could have taught Hopps a thing or two about how to get ahead in the police force. They were kindred spirits, after all.
Too late for regrets.
He leaves early, only stopping long enough at a grocery store to buy some canine aspirin and some fish steaks and vegetables for grilling. The fox has moved from the bedroom to the living room and is curled up asleep on an armchair under an afghan. In the background the clothes dryer softly rumbles. He also smells better, and Bogo is slightly relieved that this is one more thing he doesn't have to deal with. Bogo drops the tiny bottle on top of the fox, waking him up. The fox pokes his head out from under the afghan and gives him a blood-shot glare.
"Aspirin," Bogo says, taking the rest of the groceries to the kitchen. There is a grill on the deck beyond the French doors next to the oven and he does more cooking out there than he does in the kitchen. Bogo does his prep inside though. He keeps the fish carefully separated from the vegetables and washes his hands every time he touches it. The flesh is dark pink and it smells fresh, like the sea, and not really fishy at all. He hears a rustling under the blanket and the sound of the bottle opening.
"And how was your day, Honey?" the fox asks, his sarcasm as sharp as his teeth.
Bogo grins as he slices the vegetables and loads them up on the kabobs. He also has a load of timothy hay and alfalfa in the garage which will make the bulk of his diet, but the vegetables and sprouted grain salad in the fridge will be dinner. Grazing took too long when sharing a meal with a non-grazer. "It was fine, Sweetheart," he shoots back. The fox makes a grumbling sound as the dryer shuddered to a stop. Like most prey Bogo has a wide field of vision so he sees the fox slip out from under the afghan. He's naked, and thin. Very thin. His belly is tucked in and his shoulders and hips are sharp and Bogo thinks he can see the fox's ribs through his scruffy coat. It looks like Nick has been drinking his calories lately. Bogo doesn't say anything, he just takes the food outside and starts the grill. It's gas, so it doesn't take long to get going. This isn't the first time he's cooked meat, not by a long shot, years of hosting precinct cookouts meant grilling for predators and he thought he was fairly good at it by now. At least, no one had ever complained.
"Dinner's ready!" he calls out when the food is done.
Nick, now fully dressed, pokes at the fish but doesn't eat it. Bogo watches him carefully, the fox scrapes his fork along the pink flesh and then takes a nibble from the quinoa stuffed red bell pepper before going back to moving the fish around his plate. Not much actual food is consumed. "Nauseous?" Bogo asks. The fox shrugs. "Eat the quinoa, at least," Bogo tells him. "It will help settle your stomach."
"Yes Mother." But the fox digs in anyway, and manages to eat another couple bites of food before stopping. Bogo makes him drink more water, then puts him to bed.
The next day Bogo comes home to find the fox curled up on the armchair like usual, but with a photo on the end table beside him. It was a picture of him, five years younger, and a male lion standing in front of a impressive waterfall, soaking wet from the spray and grinning. He thought he thrown all those photos away.
"Where did you get that?" he asks, picking the photo up. The fox stirs and stretches, arching his back and yawning. He smacks his lips and blinks the sleep out of his eyes.
"Get what?" he asks blearily.
Bogo shows him the photo and gives him an accusing look.
"Oh, well, I am a fox. We're sneaky, sly, untrustworthy, always snooping around where we don't belong, ready to stab you in the back the moment you have it turned..." Bogo rumbles a warning and the fox's bitter tone fades into something else. The fox shrugs. "I was cleaning under my bed. You really need to vacuum down there more often, I nearly lost and arm to a dustbunny. Those things are savage."
Ah. Bogo straightens and turns to leave, but the fox's voice stops him.
"Hey, who is that anyway?"
He turns back. "Ex-fiance," Bogo says shortly.
The fox gives him a bright, all too knowing look. "'Ex'?"
Bogo contemplates the photo a moment longer, feeling memories he'd long suppressed stir. "I was already married," he said, quoting Jordan, "to my job." In his mind he could see the lion, angry, hurt, snarling after yet another night spent at work. "My mother is dying," the lion in his memory said, "I need your support!" and he'd been stupid, so stupid and tried to explain that it was a murder investigation and this was only for a short time and he'd have time for them real soon. Jordan's mother had been dying for a long, long time, what did it matter if he skipped a few nights? Except, of course, it did.
For a moment he could see Jordan's hurt amber eyes and hear his heart-broken words, but when he blinked it was only the fox, whose heart was broken for other reasons.
"Ah," the fox shakes his head in feigned sadness. "And now you're getting a divorce," the fox's tone was mocking, but there was something angry and half-feral behind it.
"Exactly."
The fox leans back, eyeing him knowingly. "Any chance you can get him back?"
Bogo snorts and rips up the photo. "No. He moved on a long time ago."
"Too bad," the fox says. Bogo shrugs. Jordan is much happier with his current mate than he ever was with Bogo. He drops the photo in the trash as he walks out of the room, feeling the fox's green eyes drill into his back until the door closes behind him.
They settle into a routine over the next couple days. Nick sleeps or watches TV while Bogo works. At some point this segues from a hangover to depression, the only real difference between the two that Bogo can see is that the fox stops taking the aspirin. Bogo has to prod him to eat and a pattern quickly emerges. Protein was a problem. Any form of meat was simply a no-go, fish, shellfish, and insects went untouched, but other forms of protein were also an issue. It comes to a head one night when Bogo brings home some pad Thai made with fried tofu, Nick eats the vegetables, picks at the noodles, and shoved the tofu aside. Bogo has had enough.
"You are a carnivore," he says, pointing at the forgotten tofu. "You need to eat protein, or you will get sick."
Nick sneers. "Don't you think I've had enough protein for the rest of my fucking life?"
They glare at each other for a minute before the fox jumps down from his seat. "I'm tired," he says, "I'm going to bed."
Bogo finishes his own meal and waits a half and hour before checking on the fox. At first glance the room looks empty, but the closet door is cracked open and Bogo can hear someone gasping or choking inside. Fear grabs his heart and he shoves the door open the rest of the way, half-expecting to find the fox hanging from the clothes rack by his tie. It takes a second to realize that the sound is actually coming from the floor where the fox is curled up, face down, holding his stomach. He's panting, hyperventilating, choking on nothing but air but he isn't actively trying to kill himself. Relief makes Bogo's legs weak and he slides kneels down next to the fox—no, Nick—and places a hoof on his back. Nick flinches from his touch, but he drags in one ragged breath, and then another.
"I can taste her," the fox says after several minutes of breathing. "Every time I bite into something with the right texture, I can taste her." He shudders under Bogo's hoof. Bogo can feel every bone through his fur. "Her flesh. Her blood. Her."
Nick gags again. Bogo picks him up and holds him, letting the fox curl up against his chest, cradling him in his arms. He doesn't say anything. Having a diet that is not compatible with modern, civilized life is not something he understands, so he does the only thing he can, which is to listen.
"They had to pump my stomach, you know?" Nick says. His ears are pinned back and his claws dig into Bogo's thick hide. "To get her out." He shudders in Bogo's arms, a thin whine of distress etching itself out into memory. "And do you know what the worst part is?" Nick asks. Bogo shakes his head. Nick yelps, as if in pain, and then says, "The worst part is that she tasted good." The sobbing yowl that Nick lets out mirrors the sound of Bogo's own breaking heart. "I liked it. Savage-me liked it!" Guilt and self-hatred clogs his voice.
"I'm so sorry, Nick," Bogo says, resting his cheek along the fox's back. He can feel Nick's narrow chest heaving with every breath. "I failed you," he said, remembering the first time he'd seen the fox. Seen him, and dismissed him. There was evidence up on the platform of the jaguar's attack. Fresh scratches and marks on the lightpost from the pawcuffs Hopps had used to capture him. There was even security video of the entire incident, but Bogo did not know about any of this until later, after the asylum had been found and Hopps had written her report. He did not know about this because he had not sought it out. The evidence was there, easily obtainable, but he was too blinded by his own prejudices to see it. All he saw was an over-eager bunny playing at being a cop and a con-artist fox pushing her along. "I failed Judy, and I failed you. None of this was your fault."
Nick let out a barking, humorless laugh. "Didn't you hear what I just said? I killed her, and I ate her, and I liked it. I liked it."
"You helped her." Nicks lets out a bark of derision at that, but Bogo continues on. "You helped her as best you could, for as long as you could, and it's not your fault you were poisoned." Nick flinches in his arms, but his ears are twitching. He is listening. "And that's the difference between you and me," Bogo says. "I did not help her. The standard procedure for new recruits is to team them up with a more experienced partner. I didn't do that. I didn't take her seriously, and I wanted her gone. I couldn't fire her, but I could make her quit. So I put her on parking duty, a job that usually goes to a third-party contractor. I told her and the other officers that she was not a real cop. I didn't give her a chance to prove herself the way my other officers proved themselves. You were right about me, I undermined her every step of the way until she proved me wrong, but even then I didn't give her any guidance. By the time she had an actual breakthrough in the case she didn't trust me enough to go directly to me. Instead she turned to the one person who hadn't let her down."
"Yeah, and all we saw how well that worked out."
"You were poisoned, Nick," Bogo says. "Bellwether poisoned you to cover up her murder of Judy. There was nothing you could have done to stop that. You are a victim, just like Judy, and I failed you both."
The fox let out a derisive laugh that morphs into something so filled with agony that Bogo can't really describe it. The eerie sound raises the hairs all over Bogo's body. He hadn't convinced the fox of course, Bogo didn't expect he would. That wasn't the point. Bogo wants Nick to understand that there is at least one person who does not think he is at fault, and who believes in him.
Because Judy had believed in him. Bogo remembers that. She'd talked about him, some essential need of hers to talk out her confusion and her own guilt over hurting him. Bogo knew she'd be devastated if she could see the fox now, knowing that her death was the cause of his distress.
So he holds the fox while Nick howls and rages and tears himself apart with guilt and grief. When he eventually sags into exhaustion Bogo carries him to his own bedroom, placing him carefully on the pillow next to his, the one that used to be Jordan's. If Nick notices he gives no indication. Bogo tucks him in under a fox-sized blanket and lies down carefully on his side of the bed. His heart is sore and he is tired and tomorrow is his last day at the job he loves, and he knows whatever grief and guilt and pain he feels it does not equal a tenth of Nick's.
It is a long time before he goes to sleep.
The next morning he is up bright and early. It is his last day at work, but that is not what Bogo is thinking about at the moment. He is thinking about what Nick told him last night, about the fox's inability to eat. Clearly that was a matter to be discussed with a therapist, but in the meantime they had to find a way to work around the problem. A sudden thought sends Bogo digging through the pantry. In the far back buried under ungulate supplements was something a bit different, left over from the days a carnivore lived here. As he finishes making it Nick stumbles out of the bedroom and climbs up the chair he had taken to using. Bogo realizes that if Nick is going to be a permanent house-guest he needs to get some fox-sized furniture.
"What is this?" Nick asks when Bogo sets the glass down in front of him.
"A milk shake," Bogo replies. It is mostly a pale blue. Nick eyes him and it doubtfully, but takes a sip from the curly straw anyway.
"That's not a milkshake," the fox says.
"Sure it is!" Bogo says cheerfully. "It is milk other ingredients added to it and shaken! A milk shake!"
Nick gives him an annoyed look. "With a space in the middle, yeah I get it." But he takes another sip, and then another.
"So," Nick says when the milk shake is half finished. "Vanilla flavored protein powder and blueberries?"
"Yes."
Nick grunts, and take another sip, appearing lost in thought. "I thought I missed blueberry season," he comments idly.
"I think you did," Bogo says. "These were frozen."
"Ah. Well. There's always next year."
"True." Bogo's phone buzzes an alarm. "I have to go," he says.
Nick nods, his eyes still distant. "Wouldn't want to be late for your last day of work." He finishes off the shake, and Bogo shows him the canister the protein powder came from. It's formulated for carnivores and probably expired, leftover from Jordan's gym-going days.
At the door Bogo pauses and looks back. Nick was staring out the window with his tail curled around him, contemplating something. The emotional storm of the night before had seemingly passed, but it left a shadow that made Bogo uneasy. If he didn't have a press conference and final meeting to get through he might have just called it in and refused to return, but Bogo wants to end things correctly.
"Give me a call if you need anything," he says. "Or for any reason."
The fox's green eyes flicked toward him. He gives a mocking salute that Bogo remembers from his own stint in the Ranger Scouts. "Sure thing Boss!"
It did not exactly reassure him but there was nothing for it. He had a press conference in about an hour.
….
The mayor professed to be sad to see him go, but everyone, from the interns holding the umbrellas over their heads to the media sticking microphones in their faces, knew just how much of a lie that was. The only one who genuinely looked unhappy was, surprisingly, Lucinda, who kept giving him sympathetic side-looks the entire time his made his statement. Perhaps she didn't hate him as much as he thought. Among the officers lined up to see him off was a gaping rabbit-hole that felt outsized for its actual dimensions. Just like Judy Hopps had been.
"And so I am tendering my resignation," he finishes, "Replacing me is Lucinda Hasson, who has been a captain at Third Precinct for the last five years. She is one of the best leaders and police-mammals I know and I feel confidant that she can restore faith with this office."
There was a polite scattered applause and he stepped back, gesturing for the hyena to step forward. Lucinda smiled, sharp teeth in a jaw strong enough to break a bowling ball gleaming in the gray light of the early autumn rain. She is half his height and when she passed him she reaches up and pats him on his arm.
"I'll write you a letter of recommendation," she says, with only a hint of smugness in her voice.
"Thank you," Bogo says gravely.
She shakes her head slightly, but pats his arm again.
The rest of the day is something of a blur. He packs up the few things in his office he has left, a couple of the nicer pens and a house plant that used to belong to his mother, then his officers take him out to a 'going away party' at a local taphouse. Being tipsy while Clawhauser cries a waterfall of tears over him is not one of his more brilliant moments. The whole time, during the awkward toasts and the singing and the cake and the stories he keeps an ear cocked toward his phone, waiting for the ring or buzz that would indicate a call or text. None came through.
Bogo didn't know if it is reassuring or worrying that he doesn't hear anything.
He'd taken a cruiser home the night before knowing that he would be dropping it off at the station forever, so it wasn't any problem for Fangmeyer to drive him home. On the way back he checks his email and that's when he gets Nick's note.
Thanks Big Guy, Nick writes, I'll see you around.
Just that. It's not even ominous, not the words of someone about to harm themselves, but it still fills Bogo with foreboding. But Wilde is a grown adult who can, actually, fend for himself and Bogo has no right to interfere in his life. So he responds back with Let me know if you need anything, and please keep in touch and lets worry cycle and circle through his brain.
The house is empty when he gets back and all of Wilde's things are gone, even the canister of protein powder. Bogo tries to feel relieved. It means Wilde had taken it with him, which means he intends to take care of himself. Bogo decides to give him a day before he officially Becomes Concerned. Its times like these that he regrets leaving the safety of his herd. He'd gotten used to being alone after Jordan left, but he is just now realizing just how much he didn't actually like it. Wilde had filled a void, but now he is gone and his house was very empty.
And he has nowhere else to be.
Three days later the County Commissioner for Deerbrooke gives him a call and invites him to an interview.
The next time he sees Wilde it's at Bellwether's sentencing. Bogo will give Dawn Bellwether this, the ewe is smart enough to realize when she has lost. She pleads guilty rather than drag herself, her victims, and the city as a whole through the traumatic experience of a trial. Bogo is grateful for small mercies.
But there is still the victim impact statements.
It is an agonizing trawl of predators who had been poisoned into savagery and the prey they attacked. There is tension in the courtroom as a polar bear and the caribou she had attacked avoid eye-contact even as they sit side-by-side. Nearly half the chairs in the audience are taken up by Hopp's family, and that still isn't enough. Bogo had heard there was an over-flow room set up just for them. Predators stood at the podium and talked about their fears, their sleepless nights, their nightmares of being overcome by the hostile terror of savagery. Prey spoke of their loss of trust, pain and injury, the sudden reemergence of ancient fight or flight instincts that were hard to put aside. They all spoke of loss of time, of injury or nightmares, and of social isolation. The attacks had raised tensions within Zootopia did not just disappear. There had been a backlash, predator against prey, when it was revealed just how easy it was to turn prey against predator. Such a rift is not easily healed.
Through it all Dawn Bellwether sits calmly, looking almost bored. There is no remorse in her expression as she listens to their stories and curses and rants. Bogo remembered how sweet she could be, how manipulative. How utterly typical of a sociopath.
The last predator to speak was Wilde. Through some incredible luck, he was the only predator to have actually killed someone. Nick looks thin, but not emaciated, tired, but not haggard. He looks better than he had been, but not truly well.
"So," Wilde begins. "I didn't even know if I was going to show up today." He's looking directly at Bellwether, staring at her with the intensity that only a predator is capable of. He's calm and focused, predatory rather than aggressive. "But I wanted to see you get locked away. You murdered Judy." He pauses. Swallows. "You used me to murder Judy. She was the first person in a long, long time to look past my sly fox exterior and to see something more. Oh, not at first. She wasn't perfect. But she acknowledged her screwups, and tried to learn from them. Which is more than a lot of people ever do. She was smart, and brave, and creative with limited resources, and a million times better than a backstabbing ewe with a genocidal agenda."
The audience is quiet. Hopp's parents and siblings are listening, her father quietly sobbing.
"I suppose I should be talking about...," Wilde's voice hitches. His gaze does not waver from the small ewe in front of him. She stares back, impassive. "I should be talking about how this city makes me sick, and how I can't eat solid foods anymore and how all I want to do is sleep, how I remember every detail of what happened in that pit, and how I don't have my old hustle anymore—when I woke up in the hospital it was just gone. Part of me is gone. But the fact is, you don't care. You'd be happy if all of me was gone. If every predator was gone. If every prey cowered in fear and mindlessly obeyed you. But guess what, you don't get that." Wilde leans over the podium "And you know what? That's not going to happen. Judy Hopps made sure it wasn't going to happen. People keep talking about her like she was your victim. She was not your victim. She was not your anything. She never belonged to you. Judy Hopps is a hero who made the world a better place."
Nick's chest is heaving like he's running a race. "She defeated you. Beat you out at your own game. Yeah, you killed her, but you didn't kill her dreams. Those are still alive." Now his gaze cuts around to the rest of the room. "And it's our job to keep them alive."
The room was silent. Bogo notices the polar bear and caribou were holding paws. Stu Hopps has stopped crying.
"Judy's not here anymore. She's dead. I know that better than anyone. So its up to us to make the world a better place for her, in her absence. Judy wanted a world in which people did their best to make it better, and learned from their mistakes when they failed. That's all. That's not that hard to do. It just takes empathy, compassion, and self-awareness." He looked back a Bellwether. "Hell, even though you're missing two out of three it's not too late for you." Wilde grins nastily, showing every knife-like tooth. "You'll have plenty of time for self-development in prison."
"So, fuck you Bellwether. I hope you rot. As for the rest of us, we have work to do."
He hops down from the podium as the courtroom rises. Judy's parents stand as well and make as if to go to him, but the fox is too fast. He darts through the crowd with surprising speed and is out the court doors in a blink of the eye. Bogo catches Bonnie's eye and shakes his head slightly before heading out after him. The rabbit halts, holding her husband back, and nods.
Bogo finds Nick sitting on a bench not far down the hall from the courtroom. He's leaning over, panting, but he straightens when Bogo sits next to him.
"Her parents were right there," he says. "Looking at me." Nick is shivering. They both look down the hall to the courtroom doors, half-expecting the Hopps' to follow them out into the hall. After a moment the fox blows out a breath and relaxes.
"So," he says. "What's it like being sheriff of some podunk cow-town after a life in the big city?" Nick flashes his teeth, which gleam sharp in the florescent light of the hall.
"Sheriff is head of county law enforcement, Podunk has a chief of police," Bogo says. Amusement flashed over Nick's face so fast Bogo almost didn't catch it. The fox's eyes softened briefly as he stared off into the distance. "I took a position as sheriff for Deerbrooke County, yes. It's... quiet."
That was an understatement. He wouldn't call the rural county peaceful, per se, but the majority his work was dealing with speeders, drunks, domestic violence and car accidents, with occasional interludes to deal with chicken rustling and monitoring hawks to keep them from preying on smaller mammals. Really, only that last was something new. He'd really never had to deal with actual predators, creatures that readily killed and ate mammals if given half a chance, before.
"Sounds nice," Nick says. He sounds like he means it.
"We do have room for another constable."
"Ah. And there it is, the pity-hire," Nick says. He leans back and crosses his arms, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling.
"Well, yes," Bogo says. "You're pitiful enough for one."
"Geeze, just say that out loud why don't you."
Bogo chuckled. "I mean it. I'm sheriff, I can hire who I want."
Nick sighs deeply, his ears drooping. "I can't." He's looking away from Bogo, down the hall toward the courtroom doors. It sounds like things are wrapping up in there. "I just... don't have it in me to be a police officer. Not anymore."
Bogo thinks he understands. "Then we find you something else to do," he says.
"Like what? A—a berry farmer? Or a raising chickens?"
"Why not?" Bogo asks, "Farming is a good way to make a difference."
Nick wrinkled his nose, but he looks like he's thinking about it. Down the hall the courtroom doors swing open and the audience starts to filter out. Nick's ears pin back as the first of many rabbits appears. Hopps' family.
"Let's get out of here," he says. "I don't want to talk to them." He hops off the bench but Bogo doesn't move.
"Well?" says the Cape Buffalo.
"Well what?"
"Well, are you going to move out with me to a podunk cow-town and become a berry farmer?" Bogo says in a sing-song voice.
Nick's chest heaves with an exasperated sigh. "Yeah, sure. Not like I'm doing anything else with my life."
Bogo smiles and stands, "Then let's get a move on, Fox."
Epilogue, five years later
Nick was out in the fields when the truck pulled up. It was the right size to be driven by a fox or a rabbit, not like Bogo's giant-ass four wheeler. This was borne out by the driver's side door opening and a rabbit stepping out.
It takes a moment for Nick to recognize her, and the moment he does panic freezes him in place. Bonnie Hopps.
She's older, of course, and looks more careworn, but her ears perk when she sees him and she waves a little before picking her way through the rows of blueberry bushes. The berries aren't ripe yet, they're small and green and still have a month to go, but he knows from past experience that they'll giant and juicy, packed with flavor. The varietal Nick was slowly replacing the fields with didn't travel well, but made up for that defect with flavor. They tasted like the blueberries in his dreams.
And sometimes like the ones in his nightmares.
He felt trapped in one now.
Bonnie stops in front of him. "Hi Mr. Wilde," she said, smiling a little. "Sorry for the surprise visit, but I was in the area and decided to pop in."
"Nick," he said. His throat is dry and is comes out as a bark. He swallowed and gave her a tight smile. "Mr. Wilde was my dad."
She chuckles at that, and looked away, examining the field. "Good crop this year," she said.
"So far," he said, with a farmer's pessimism. "We'll see in a month, when they're in season."
Bonnie nods, and he remembered that, according to Judy, the Hopps grew blueberries too. His heart squeezes painfully, but to his surprise it's old pain. He can think and feel past it, even with her mother standing right there.
"It's good to see you," he said, and to his surprise he meant it. So he holds out his arms and Judy's mom hugs him. She's strong, it's easy to see where Carrots got it from. "Hey, we still have half a pie in the fridge, let's go get a slice."
"That sounds like a good idea."