A/N: Set post-movie. Minor spoilers.

Death

By: Gandalf158

The smell is what got her, or so Nick thought. He sighed as she emptied her stomach noisily into a trashcan. He had been no stranger to death, having lost his father at a young age, and had even seen his fair share of violent death in his twenty-plus years of life on the street, but the one thing he knew he'd never be able to get used to was the stench.

They had been on patrol when a call came over the dispatch radio, a 187 that just so happened to be less than a block away from them. Being relatively new to the world of law enforcement, Nick had no idea what a 187 was, but judging from the mixture of excitement and fear in his partner's face told him it was something big. He was surprised to learn, Judy having noticed the uncomprehending blankness of his gaze, that a 187 was the standard dispatch code for a murder. Any other officer would probably sighed, resigned themselves to the macabre play of death they were about to enter, but not Judy 'Excited By New Things' Hopps. Her purple eyes shone with excitement that to anyone outside of her circle of friends might've thought was a sign of madness given the circumstance, causing Nick to roll his green ones in an attempt to cover up the half-dread/half-curiosity he felt towards the new case.

When she had thoroughly voided her breakfast into the steel receptacle, she slowly made her way back to Nick's side. All the warmth and joy that her eyes usually held seemed to have gone with the half-digested toast and coffee, blasted away like the chest of the victim that lie splayed out in front of them. He was a tiger, somewhere between Nick and Judy in age, but in life he probably towered over both of them. Whoever wanted him dead had done a very good job in ensuring he wouldn't survive the attack; no less than eleven brass casings littered the ground around the scene, each marked with a little forensics tag. Both of them could identify the casings as standard .45 ACP rounds, Nick from years of living dangerously with murderers and thieves, and Judy from her extensive studies during her time at the ZPD Police Academy.

"You two the detectives on this case?" a koala wearing a green sweater over a white dress shirt asked.

"No sir, we're just here to assist with the investigation." Nick said when Judy failed to answer.

The koala nodded and got back to examining the body, taking notes on a little note pad after shifting parts of the deceased cat's body. Judy didn't understand how they could both be so calm about this, and struggled with an urge to dry-heave again as each movement of the body released more of the smell of death. There was only one word she could attach to it, just one word that her mind repeated over and over in a futile attempt to lessen its significance: decay. It burned her nostrils and filled her mind with unpleasant thoughts about what this poor soul's final moments must have felt like. She sent a silent prayer that she would never become as comfortable with death as the koala seemed to be, but envied Nick his ability to at least keep his meals down in the face of the crimson-stained horror show set before them.

Luckily for both of them, the detectives assigned to this murder arrived shortly after they did, and they waved the pair of patrol officers off. Judy breathed a sigh of relief when they finally got to a point where she could no longer smell the blood and death. Had she been paying attention to her surroundings, she might not have walked headlong into the side of their shared patrol car. Nick rushed over in concern, putting a paw on her shoulder and asking whether or not she was okay.

"I'm fine. Just a little rattled." She said quietly.

His eyes seemed to search her, weighing her response with how she was acting. He had never seen her like this, and the word he decided was best to describe her as she currently looked wasn't 'rattled', it was 'hollow'. Almost as if a little part of her died with the tiger and got left behind, another piece of evidence (though he doubted anyone would find it very helpful) to be bagged away and buried in a case file. He felt nothing short of pity for his friend, she had seen death in all its gruesome glory, and didn't like what she saw.

"I'd better drive, Carrots, you seem a little out of it."

She gave him the keys without protest, wanting nothing more than to get home and try her best to forget what she just witnessed. She climbed into the passenger seat and waited for Nick to turn over the ignition. As he drove off from the scene, he stole a few more glances at his long-eared companion, each one a little more concerned than the last. She stared blankly off into space, no doubt trying to think about anything but death. He remembered his first brush with it; he was fifteen and was in the middle of a hustle involving some…illicit goods, and it went sideways and ended with him in the hospital and his friend in the morgue.

"You can cry if you need to, just let it out. I won't judge." He said sympathetically.

She didn't feel like crying. In fact, she wasn't all that sure what she was feeling at the moment: sadness at the loss of life? Sure. Anger? Maybe, but who was it directed towards? The murderer for ending the man's life? Her own weakness in the face of death? Nick for keeping his cool attitude even when she couldn't? Was it disgust at the horror of it all? Fear of something similar happening to her or Nick or even her parents and siblings back home? She just didn't know.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asked, trying to get her to say something.

"Not really. Nothing to talk about, he's dead, someone killed him, and the detectives are going to bring him to justice." She said, hoping he would drop it.

"It might help you. This is a traumatic experience, Judy. I'm here for you, and you know that I'm good at keeping secrets, so whatever you need to do to get through this, do it. No one needs to know."

In response, she curled into a tight ball and started sobbing softly. She did feel like crying after all, but didn't want to appear weak in Nick's eyes.

"It's going to be alright, Judy. I know one of the guys on the case, he was an old friend. They'll catch the guy who did this, and when they do, he'll pay for what he's done." He said, his face sympathetic and his eyes filled with fury.

"Have you ever seen anything like that before?" She asked, remembering how calm he was in there.

Nick's eyes softened, and for a moment, he was fifteen again.

"Yeah. Long time ago. It doesn't get any easier, you just get better at hiding it."

It was her turn to ask him if he wanted to talk about it.

"It was a few years after I decided to become a criminal. Back then, I wasn't the criminal mastermind you met in Jumbeaux's, and was running with an old dingo who said he could teach me the tricks of the trade. Little did I know that meant he was training me to be a drug-dealer." His lip curled up in disgust at the word, "Anyway, we were making a sale to a gang of badgers over in Savanna Central, and they didn't like the deal they were getting, and started to imply we should drop our prices, or they'd drop us. They started getting aggressive, and my friend pulled a knife. They pulled a gun and put one right between his eyes. The lead badger turned towards me and punched me in the stomach before bringing his weapon to bear. He told me to ask for his forgiveness, and he might give it to me, but he had just killed my friend, and I thought to myself 'I'm not giving this guy the satisfaction', so I spat at him. Earned me a bullet to the chest." Judy shuddered at that.

"That's terrible." She said.

"Yeah, it was. Death sucks, violent ones especially, but you can't dwell on it, or it'll get you dead too. But, if you ever need to cry, or talk, or whatever it is you need to do to cope, go right on ahead. I don't mind." He said.

"How do you deal with it?" She asked, genuinely curious as to how he got over such a traumatic event at such a young age.

"Before we met, I'd probably have just bottled up all my emotions bury it deep under false narcissism and cheesy one-liners, but now I don't know. Maybe I'll paint a picture or something."

She giggled, finally getting a little life back in her eyes. Nick cracked a small smile, feeling a small amount of pride for helping her get through that. He hoped they didn't have to see any more murder scenes for quite a while, but at least he knew she would be okay.

"Who knows," he thought, "Maybe I'll be okay too."

END