Hello Readers,
As the summary suggests this will be filled with One-shots and bonus chapters for "A Weasel's Watch." The reason I have for not putting these chapters in the story is it would make it too large in my opinion. So enjoy and Criticism always welcome!
-CG
Gregor Snarlov was having a better than he had in months. For the first time in half a year, he was re-partnered up with Alexander Grizzoli. This was the Polar Bear's first day back from rehab and they had been given their normal patrol. The Brown Bear was driving as the arctic ursine sat in the passenger seat. The rehab center that Grizzoli had gone to was the same as Snarlov, and one of the rules was no contact with the outside world. At first it seemed extreme, but over time the veteran officer realized this was to allow mammals to focus on their problems with no negative influences. As a mammal who didn't like opening up, it had been extremely difficult for Gregor. Still he made it through, and so did his partner.
"When is it finalized?" asked Alex. They hadn't had contact for awhile, so Gregor was catching the arctic ursine. They had already caught up on official Police business, and now it was personal business. The Brown's Bear addiction had affected his marriage, and even getting clean wouldn't save it. Gregor and his mate Gertrude were never the best couple, and they lacked communication on good days, still they had made it worked for fourteen years. After the ursine's drinking got out of paw, and he had to take his "vacation", his marriage only got worse. The veteran officer had seen the writing on the wall when he returned. The love wasn't there anymore and last month Gertrude had filed for divorce.
"Sometime next week," grumbled Gregor, "don't ask when though cause I have no idea. Signed the damn papers and let her be." They had met four years into his career. The Brown Bear believed that he could keep his work and personal life seperated, and for thirteen years he had done as good a job as possible. That all changed because of one incident. One moment that seemed to change everything in the veteran officer's life.
Alex hummed in response. There was a moment of silence before the Polar Bear cleared his throat. "So...uh...why don't you come over tonight then? Olivette is cooking Mahi-Mahi in celebration of me coming home, and I know Anthony and Alexis miss their uncle greggy." The arctic ursine chucked at the glare sent his way by the other Bear.
Gregor sighed and gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Can't tonight. I gotta move some stuff out into a motel I'm staying in right now. Gert is letting me keep some of the bigger stuff there till I get a more permanent place...so there's that...maybe tomorrow?" There was silence once again. The Brown Bear always felt uncomfortable talking about his problems. He envied how easy it seemed for Alex to be able to talk. The Polar Bear could talk about anything and everything. It was that quality that always allowed his partner to talk to countless victims and suspects./p
Alex grunted, "Olivette and I have counselling tomorrow." Gregor and Gertrude hadn't even considered counselling, neither one wanted to put the effort into something that had died. Still the Brown Bear was pleased to hear that Alex and Olive were willing to try and make it work. Granted with two young cubs, there was more for the pair to work towards than the other ursine felt necessary.
"I'm so glad we don't have kits..."
"Gregor glanced over at the arctic ursine. He looked much better than the last time they were together. Granted Alex was in the hospital after getting shot, and last time they were on the beat together the Brown Bear was too drunk to remember. His partner looked much better. Alex's uniform and fur looked cleaner. His partner looked relax and his gaze was brighter. He had also definitely lost weight, but still needed to put on muscle. Gregor would make sure he started working out again.
They were in the middle of the Rainforest section of the patrol, the mist turning off and letting a low fog settle just above the ground, when Alex noticed something amiss. "Car on the side of the road," started the Polar Bear, "hazards on." Gregor nodded and pulled up just behind a large mammal white four door that was parked on the shoulder of the road. Alex typed the plate into the console computer, while Gregor checked his duty belt to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. "No bolo's or warrants...looks like it's owned by one Kristen Leeu...hmm sounds familiar..." The Brown Bear froze, paws hovering above the handle of the car door.
"No...please don't be her...please, please, please..."
"Greg, you alright?" Asked the other ursine. Gregor's gaze snapped to his partner. The Polar Bear looked concerned.
"How does he not remember!"
"I'm fine." The Brown Bear responded gruffly, and before Alex could say more he opened the door and climbed out of the cruiser. He walked cautiously towards the parked car. Even if he knew who was behind the wheel didn't mean he could be less cautious. Too many officers had been injured recntly, and two dead in the past month meant that "extreme caution" was normal procedure now. He heard the passenger door of the cruiser open and close, and then the heavy steps of his partner. Gregor glanced over to Alex to see the Polar Bear trying to look everywhere at once. One ambushed seemed more than enough for the arctic ursine.
The Brown Bear knocked gently on the tinted window of the driver's door. It slowly rolled down to reveal a young lioness. Gregor knew her to only be twenty five, with one cub of six years of age. She slowly turned to look at the Bear with honey colored eyes. An untrained observer may have missed the little clues to the mental state of the feline, but having eighteen years on the job allowed for the ursine to know what to look for. There were bags underneath her eyes and a puffiness around them that told the officer that she had recently been crying. While her dress was designer, the wear around the edges of the straps on her shoulders as well as the fading of the original sapphire blue told of the age of the dress. If Gregor was a betting mammal, than he would say over a year since it was new. The car itself was new four years ago, but with the quick glimpse inside that the ursine had it looked like a mess. Tissue boxes and used tissues lying about, with old coffee cups stacked one on top of the other after being finished. All of these put together told the Brown Bear of a wife who was used to a certain way of life, but was thrust into the working world after a tragic event that she still hadn't recovered from. Gregor didn't need all these clues to know this fact.
"Officer Snarlov," said the Lioness, "I'd hope to never see you again."
"Mrs. Leeu...I...wasn't planning on running into you any time. My partner and I saw a car off to the side and came to see if assistance was needed..." A dry chuckle left the Big Cat, "We both know I haven't been 'Mrs' for awhile now." The pain in the felines eyes were evident to the Bear, but he didn't dare comment. "As for my situation, I already calle and they should be here soon enough."
Gregor nodded, he was torn between asking a question on the tip of his tongue and letting the past stay that way. "I'm not fine, if your wondering," started Leeu, "I can tell you wanted to ask."
"I'm sorry to hear that." The Brown Bear responded softly, a paw resting on the open window.
"Things haven't been the same since Leo died," she continued, not even acknowledging the Bear's words, "I had to pick up a second job to keep the bills paid...but it was too much..." The feline looked forward, her paws going to rest on his lap as she closed her eyes. "I sent Theo to my parents place in the Savannah. He'll be surrounded by other Lions that way...I'll be joining them once the house is sold." Tears started rolling down the feline' s cheek. Gregor moved to his paw to place it on her shoulder to comfort Leeu, when her eyes went wide and she shifted away from his grasp. "I think..." she started, wiping the tears away with the back of her paw, "you have done enough Officer Snarlov. I do not need your assistance."
The words stung and Gregor withdrew his paw slowly. The feline stared forward once more, her paws going to the steering wheel. The Brown Bear sighed, "Stay safe, Ma'am." With that he walked back towards the cruiser, not even bothering to look at Alex. The ursine collapsed into the driver's seat. His eyes closed and paws rubbing the side of his head. Gregor was doing his best to suppress the grief that simply wanted to explode out of him. The ursine was so focused, he didn't hear Alex enter till the Polar Bear spoke.
""I realize who that was now..."
The Brown Bear tried to speak, but felt his voice crack before the words even came. Clearing his throat, Gregor tried once more. "Yeah..." was all he was able to utter. The ursine opened his eyes and looked at his partner. It seemed that their expressions mirrored one another. "Z A A is on its way she said, so nothing for us to do here." The Polar nodded in agreement. The Brown Bear turned back towards the front of the car and started the ignition. The cruiser hummed to life as the ursine's paws gripped the wheel tightly. "How does lunch sound?" asked Gregor, wanting any excuse to leave. The Polar Bear next to him chuckled, "You never have to ask me twice." The Brown Bear smiled slightly, but his thoughts were on the past.
Gregor didn't know why he felt the need to come, but that impromptu meeting with Ms. Leeu led to the Brown Bear heading to a place that he hadn't visited much before. He walked towards the plastic dividing window, no other visitors were present in the room. The ursine settled into an old, wooden chair that creaked under the large mammal's weight. In front of the officer was a counter in a cubicle like space that was separated by thick plastic. On the other side of the plastic was another chair that at the moment was empty. To the right of the Brown Bear was a phone attached to a dividing wall. Another hung on the wall on the opposite side of the plastic.
Gregor was bundled up in a heavy winter coat wearing civilian clothing. This wasn't official Police business, so it would have been against protocol to have worn it. Still the ursine wished that he had, as it felt more comfortable to him than the jeans and long sleeve he was wearing. What made the experience at least manageable was the weight of his badge in his pants pocket. It gave him the support necessary to step though the doors and past the metal detectors.
At last a buzzing noise echoed through the empty room and the ursine could hear an unseen door swing open. Heavy pawsteps and the jangling of metal now reverberated in the cold space. Two figures stepped into view, one a an Elk wearing the uniform of the correctional guards, the other a Tiger wearing the bright green jumpsuit of the Tundra Town Regional Correction Facility. The feline sat across from Gregor, only inches of plastic separating them, and lifted the phone off the wall. Gregor did the same.
"Officer Snarlov," started the Tiger, his words barely above a whisper, "I haven't seen you since my trial."
"Mr. Stripeson...you are looking rather well..." It was a lie. At his trial the Big Cat was massive, a young feline in the prime of his life with the physique to back it up. Now though, the still young mammal looked decades older. His fur had no sheen to it, looking duller than it should have been. What muscles existed seemed to have disappeared and a shell of a Tiger existed in front of the Bear. Green eyes that once looked at the ursine in horror and shame now held no emotion at all.
"Is there something you need?" asked Stripeson blankly. The Brown Bear sighed and rubbed his eyes with a free paw. "This isn't official Police business. I just wanted to see how you're holding up."
The Tiger blinked slowly, expression never changing. A silence settled between them before the feline switched the phone from his right paw to his left. He then brought up the now free paw and placed the palm on the plastic. Finally a large claw peeked out of a middle digit on the plastic. "This is the only claw I have left."
Gregor was stunned. De-clawing was only done for the most aggressive predators and the restrictions on it were so numerous that the Brown Bear had only seen it twice before. Even still mammals called for the act to be considered illegal in Zootopia, so to see the feline in front of him missing claws stoked the coals of the ursine's anger. "Who did this to you?" Gregor growled.
The Big Cat seemed unfazed by the situation and removed his paw. "The doctor in the prison." He calmly replied. Stripeson turned his paw towards him and simply stared at the fully extended claw.
The Brown Bear was bristling with rage. He had looked into the prison record for Stripeson and there were no negative reports on his behaviour. In fact they all read of a model prisoner. So why had he been de-clawed? "They couldn't force you to do it." Gregor leaned forward, "Tell me who did this to you and I promise I'll arrest them and get you protection."
"Nobody forced me to do this," responded the Tiger, placing his paw back on the counter and looking at the Bear once more, "I asked to remove them...all but one." Stripeson tapped the digit that Gregor assumed still had a claw on the counter. "This is the one that changed everything for me."
The Brown Bear was stunned by the information. He had never heard of any mammal emvolunteering/em to be de-clawed and didn't even know it was possible. The ursine's mind simply shut down, and the only question that kept coming up was the one he whispered into the phone. "Why?"
"The Tiger either didn't hear the Bear or didn't care to respond. Instead the feline sighed and looked up. "I plan to escape." That caught the veteran officer's attention, who sat straighter and focused on the convict. "It's foolproof. Soon enough I'll be free of these walls, Zootopia, and all of my problems. Nothing can stop me."
"The guards will stop you Stripeson," started Gregor in a hoarse whisper, "You can't get out of here, and talk like that will simply get you solitary confinement and only an hour out at a time. Is that what you want?" Stripeson only responded with a bittersweet smile before hanging up the phone. Gregor watched with phone still in paw as the Elk collected the Tiger and left the Bear. Finally the ursine placed the phone back into its holder and let his head fall into paws, elbows resting on the counter. The ursine breathed several deep breaths, trying to calm down his conflicting emotions, when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Quickly grabbing it and glancing at the device, Gregor saw that it was Alex calling. Just like the Brown Bear, the Polar Bear was off the day as well. Unlike the grizzly, the arctic ursine was using the day to spend it with family and not digging up past mistakes. The ursine hit the ignore button and stood up. Replacing the phone in his paw with his badge, Gregor moved to find the nearest guard.
Stripeson was free and Gregor was drunk. It had been two days since his fateful visit to the Tiger and in that time important events happened. First the divorce had been finalized that day and he had found out that he would have to pay Gertrude a quarter of his salary a month until she either remarried or made more than him. Since she was in line for a promotion at work the latter seemed more likely. The Brown Bear didn't care about the payments since he barely used his income for anything other than food and living space. Even though he knew it was coming and supported the idea, with the divorce being finalized it crushed what small hope that he didn't realize he had in saving his marriage.
The second event was a phone call from the Warden of the Tundra Town Regional Correction Facility. After telling a guard about what the Tiger had said to the Bear, and backing it up with the recording of their conversation, the prison had decided to move Stripeson into solitary confinement. This seems to be what the feline had been waiting for.
At 0700 this morning and the morning rounds for the early shift guards beginning, Jerimiah Stripeson was found in bed with his throat slashed open. The guards didn't notice this at first simply because his head was away and a blanket pulled up to his chin. They were alerted when one of them noticed a small pool of blood forming just underneath the bed. Preliminary autopsy confirms that the Tiger had done it with his one remaining claw. It shocked the staff and even some of the prisoners since he didn't seem to show any signs of being suicidal. Gregor though, now saw their conversation in a completely different light. Stripeson was free and Gregor was drunk.
The Brown Bear found himself in a familiar bar, the emFrozen Flower/em, one that Alex and him used to visit regularly. It had been at least six months since he had stepped inside the Bar, yet it didn't seem to change at all. Even the Wolf who was serving him had done so many months ago...or at least as far as he could remember. Gregor didn't even play coy with his intetions. No hemming and hawing over whether or not to eat or to drink beer first. The Brown Bear went for straight whiskey and bought the bottle just to be safe. He had been pounding them down ever since.
Apparently six months of sobriety had done something to his tolerance because he wasn't even halfway through the bottle before Gregor started seeing double. He swayed a bit as he brought the glass back up to his lips. Eyes drooping but pain still persisting, the Brown Bear wondered if any of it was even worth it. All the sacrifices he had made training his body and mind to become a Police Officer, only to miss the obvious signs of depression from the Tiger. The Z.P.D. didn't need him anyway. There were plenty of better officers on the force. One's who wouldn't collapse after one event like he did. Gregor tipped the glass up and let the room temperature whiskey slide down his throat, the burn disappearing a long while ago.
He brought the glass down heavily, and leaned his elbows on the bar looking at the wall length glass behind the bottles lining the wall. Gregor was a mess, and even with his blurry vision, he could see the mess that his uniform was. The Brown Bear had kept his badge in his locker, not wanting to see the piece of tin and what it stood for.
Integrity. Trust. Bravery.
All traits that Gregor had once believe he had, only for that to change after one bad day. Integrity? How many times had the Bear gone to work drunk and simply looked the other way on petty crimes because he didn't feel like moving? Trust? Mammals trusted him with their safety and he couldn't even guarantee his own right now. Bravery? Yeah sure, nothing braver than running away from the past and crawling into a bottle. The Bear's head fell onto the counter. He had never been a sad drunk, but right now tears were welling up and there was no stopping them.
"I thought I'd find you here," said a familiar voice, one that had the Bear raising his head and looking towards the voice. Even through the double vision and wet eyes, Gregor recognized the large figure standing next to him as Alex Grizzoli. The Polar Bear pulled up a stool and sat next to the Brown Bear, waving away the bartender. "I also knew something was wrong with you as well."
"Oh yeah?"Gregor slurred back defensively, "how's that?" His partner flashed a familiar toothy grin, "Oh come now Snarl, I've been your partner for twelves years now. If I didn't know when you were in a bad mood, than it would have been a waste of time. Besides," Alex continued while placing a heavy paw on the Brown Bear's shoulder, "you skipped your workout and you were eyeing up every liquor store we passed today." Gregor looked away from the heavy gaze of his friend as it was too much to bear. "I'm fine Alex. Go home to Olive and the little ones and let me be." The lie didn't even sound believable to the sloshed mammal, and he doubted it sounded any better to the sober Bear.
"Nope Greg, your coming with me." The Polar Bear stated. He put both paws on Gregor's shoulders and tried to lead him away from the bar. The drunken ursine reacted by swinging his arm behind him with a growl to ward off the other Bear, only to fall sideways off the stool face first. Gregor tried to stand, but the world was spinning too much and he only succeeded in getting onto his paws and knees. "Just leave me be," shouted the Brown Bear, his emotions finally getting the best of him, "I don't want your pity." He spat out the last word with complete disgust.
Alex sighed and put a paw under Gregor's arm. "This isn't about pity Greg," started the Polar Bear as he struggled to bring the larger mammal, "this is about my friend and partner struggling during a rough patch that needs some help. No pity." The Brown Bear glared at the Polar Bear, but didn't respond as Alex moved Gregor's arm over his shoulder. The sober ursine pushed the drunken one along towards the exit. "Now, my very blasted friend. You are coming home with me where you're going to sober up enough to not have the hangover of all hangovers and then pass out in the guest room." The Polar Bear pushed opened the door with some difficulty while guiding the other Bear.
The cold air smacked Gregor in the muzzle and stung his still damp eyes. He was guided to a large mammal van that was a dark green. The ursine knew it was the family automobile for the Grizzoli's from seeing it many times before. He was led to the passenger side where he struggled but eventually made it in. After what felt like minutes, more than likely only thirty seconds, Alex entered the driver's side and situated himself behind the wheel. Gregor watched the other ursine with a glazed gaze. "How do you do it?" He asked, "how can you just walk in and out of a bar without any temptation?"
The arctic ursine sighed heavily, "The temptations still there Greg, but Olive said if I come home drunk one more time that she's gonna take the kits away." He then turned towards the drunken Bear and gave a predatory grin, "If I had my way I would have been right there with you! Painting the town red like we used to." Alex laughed boisterously for a brief moment before quieting down, a grin still present on his muzzle. "I was selfish and I hurt my family" he grabbed the steering wheel, "I can't afford to do that again..."
The Brown Bear simply stared at his partner, not saying a word as the other ursine spoke. He was jealous of the Polar Bear for having something or someone to go back too. Gregor had felt empty for so long that it had become normal. Alcohol only filled that void slightly and he simply replaced it with the job. The ursine needed to change. He had gone through rehab and done the steps enough to leave, but the Bear realized that he never embraced them. "Alex..." began Gregor, feeling drowsiness start to set in, "I think I need some help." He blinked slowly and heard his partner chuckle. "Don't worry Greg...we're going to help each other." The Brown Bear nodded as he leaned further back into his chair. "Good."