Bang! Crash!
The noise shattered the calm and stabbed Judy awake. Her eyes jerked open, but that was the most her body moved until the shivers caught up with her. It was cold. So, so cold. Her breath flowed out of her nose in thick clouds as she pulled the thin tarp she was using as a blanket tighter around her. It made no difference whatsoever.
She blinked a few times, trying to bring her surroundings into focus, but the mugginess in her head wouldn't allow it. She could just about make out the corrugated metal of a wall and the bare concrete beneath her, but what they meant evaded her. She tried to put the pieces together again and again, but the answer kept slipping through her fingers, and the frustration only mounted with every attempt. Icy tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. She was alone, feeling ill, with no idea at all where she was or why she was there.
"Look! There they are!"
A torchlight in the distance shone right into her eyes. She squinted, and when the light faded enough for her to open them again a polar bear was leaning into her face. She screamed.
"Shh, shh, it's okay!" he said softly, "It's me, Judy."
He placed a comforting paw on her shoulder, but the fear on Judy's face didn't waver.
"It's me, Judy," the polar bear repeated, "Frank Grizzoli, your colleague at the ZPD. You see me every morning. Remember?"
Judy's eyes rolled upwards as she thought. Her memories were fuzzy, but in the distant corners of her mind she saw something. Sitting on a chair…the smallest creature in the room by far… Morning briefing at the ZPD, that was it…and sitting along the opposite wall was a polar bear…
The tension in her body evaporated on a sigh of relief. Grizzoli smiled.
"You remember," he said. She nodded. "Great, but how long it took you wasn't a good sign. Can we get the paramedic team along ASAP?"
Grizzoli turned away before speaking his last sentence, and Judy turned her aching head as best she could to see who he was addressing. Crouched down not far from her was a tiger, leaning over a fox wrapped in his own tail. She frowned. Had that fox always been there?
"They're on their way," the tiger said, "I sent out the message as soon as I heard you say you'd found them. They should be here in a few moments."
"Great, great," Grizzoli said. He turned back to Judy, "We just need to keep you warm until they come."
Judy was powerless to resist as Grizzoli picked her up and cradled her close. The bliss of his warm fur sent her into comatose, and once again the world slowed down to a confusing version of itself. She registered being handed over to a hyena in a paramedic jacket and being wrapped in layers of thick blanket and foil, and then being carried over their shoulder, but again observation only brought more questions than answers. Where was she? Where was she going? How had she ended up here? And who was that fox she could see bundled in blankets and being carried by a paramedic just like her?
Cool flecks tickled the top of her head, and she realised it was snowing. Suddenly it was everywhere: on every surface and every texture. Her teeth chattered and she buried herself deeper into her blankets, but the chill only lasted a moment as the paramedic carried her into the back of an ambulance. As she was set down on a stretcher the other paramedic arrived and heaved the doors shut.
"Okay," the hyena said, "Just a quick question before we start, sweetheart: what's your name?"
"Judy Hopps," she replied. The medic nodded approvingly.
"Good, good. Now how do you feel?"
"Cold."
"Understandable. Anything else?"
She thought for a moment.
"Confused."
"Confused? Can you explain a little bit more?"
"I don't know where I am, and even if I did I can't remember how I got here. I just woke up feeling really, really cold."
The medic nodded again as she positioned herself directly in front of her.
"That's understandable. Don't worry, all will be made clear to you in a little while, but for now we need to make sure you're okay. I'm going to ask a few things of you and I want you to respond to them as best you can. Don't worry if you can't, just do your best. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Good. Now then, first question: what's five plus five?"
"Ten."
"And what's seventy plus fifty?"
"One-twenty."
"Great. Now, I'm going to reach out to touch your face. When I lift my hand, I want you to stop me from touching you. Understand?"
Judy nodded. The medic raised her hand at a moderate pace, and Judy easily reached out and grabbed it.
"Excellent," she held up a thermometer, "Now just let me put this in your mouth so I can take a reading."
Once the thermometer was in place the medic pulled out a clipboard from the stretcher and began scribbling notes on it. Judy used the lull to have a look at the fox. He was sat bolt upright on his stretcher, glassy eyes reflecting the strip light with the same lifeless glare as the thermometer poking out of his mouth. The medic seeing to him reached out to his face, just like hers had done, but unlike hers the fox's sluggish hand was unable to rise in time to stop it.
"You seem to be doing alright, sweetheart," the hyena said, easing the thermometer out of her mouth, "Just a bit of mild hypothermia. We'll be taking you to hospital just in case, but I don't think you'll be there long." She produced a bottle from her belt, "Here, drink this; it'll help you feel better."
As Judy sipped on the drink the ambulance door creaked open, and the tiger and polar bear from before stepped onboard. From a distance she recognised the Police uniforms they wore, and also that the tiger was more familiar than she first thought.
"Andy Fangsworth," she said. The tiger tipped his hat to her.
"She recognises me; that's a good sign."
"Correct," the hyena said, "She's mostly fine. A bit shaky and confused as is common with all hypothermia patients, but it's nothing severe. A couple of days rest and she'll be back to normal."
"Good to hear. How's Wilde?"
"Not so good, I'm afraid," the other medic interjected, "It seems like he got the worst of the cold. His reactions are slow and he's having trouble moving his extremities. Mentally he's not too bad, but otherwise it's signs of moderate hypothermia."
The two officers winced. Judy did too, but for a different reason. Wilde. She knew she recognised that fox. That was Nick, her partner. He'd been caught up in this too? And he was in a worse state than her? Her heart shuddered.
"Will he be okay?"
"Eventually. His core temperature is below normal, but not far enough for it to be an emergency. He'll make a full recovery, but he'll require more treatment than Hopps will."
Judy heard rustling beside her. She looked across with ambulance, and her eyes locked with Nick's. There were no emotions on either of their faces – no smiles or tears, just pure calm and neutrality, but the telepathy between their eyes shared much needed comfort that eased Judy's head.
The two officers sat down on the bench between their stretchers, a hand each on either's bedside.
"Hey," Grizzoli said, "Do you guys feel better?"
Nick said nothing, so Judy piped up.
"A little. My memory's starting to come back. I couldn't recall anything when I woke up, but I remember a little more now."
"Good. Can you remember where you are and why you're here?"
Judy shook her head.
"Then allow me to explain," Fangsworth said, "You're in Tundratown; the Icepacking District, to be precise. You and Wilde were sent out here last night to deal with a noise complaint at a boat repair shop, and to put it lightly the owner didn't take well to the Police knocking on his door."
"We don't know how he did it exactly," Grizzoli continued, "But one way or another you two ended up locked in the boathouse, and bearing in mind you're two grassland mammals stuck in an unheated shed in the middle of Tundratown I think you can guess that's not good."
"After you'd been gone for two hours and radio contact repeatedly drew a blank, we sent out a search team. It took us a few hours, but luckily we managed to find you before it was too late. Oh, and don't worry – we've subdued and arrested the shop owner. One of the neighbouring businesses reckons they may have the incident on tape, so we're currently looking over their security footage. If it comes good, I get a feeling he's going to go away for a long time."
The two officers chuckled to themselves, but the patients remained silent. Judy didn't even register their joke at all. Hearing the story had opened up new pathways in her mind, and from them came memories. So many memories. Memories of jumping out of the car and into the snow; memories of knocking on the boathouse door; memories of the shop owner swinging his fists at them. And, most prominently, memories of being inside the boathouse.
She saw it all again: the initial wake-up with a sore head and the horror of realising they were locked in the cold. She saw the two of them banging on the metal and scraping the concrete to no avail, and then Nick pulling a sheet of tarp from a boat once he'd realised the effort was in vain.
Her pupils shrunk as the biggest memory yet flooded into her brain. The tarp. She remembered it vividly. Not just its paltry size, the shape it lay in and its various oil stains, but the conversation they'd had about it.
"Suppose this will have to do for a blanket. Better than nothing, I guess." Nick had said.
"Hmm, it's not very big. I don't think this'll cover both of us."
"You use it then. I'll manage without."
Her eyes widened. Had he really said that? Her mind nodded firmly before continuing.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah. I'll just hug my tail. Not ideal but it'll do."
"Don't be stupid and get under here. We're going to share this blanket."
"I'll be fine."
"Nick, stop it. This isn't the time for chivalry or whatever. Both of us need to stay as warm as we can, and we're both going to use the one blanket we have whether you like it or not."
"Well...if you insist."
Alarm bells started ringing in her head. They'd agreed to share the tarp? Then why had Nick woken up a distance away from her, hugging his tail? She definitely didn't have the strength to push him away in her sleep, so…He hadn't, had he?
"Anyway," Grizzoli said. He stood up and made his way to the door of the ambulance, Fangsworth not far behind. "We need to get back to HQ to start questioning the psycho who did this. We'll come visit you in hospital tomorrow – until then you two focus on keeping warm and getting better. Understood?"
The two patients nodded.
"Good stuff. Take care!"
With a wave goodbye each the officers stepped out into the snow. A bitter draft seized the opportunity and blew into the wide-open doorway, but the two paramedics blocked its path before it could go too far.
"It's high time we set off as well," the hyena said to their companion, who gave an affirmative nod. "I'm afraid we'll have to leave you two back here," she said to the bundles of blankets, "But don't worry, we'll both be on the other side of that wall in the driver's cabin. If you have any issues at all just bang on it or shout at us, we'll hear it. Otherwise, just relax. We'll be at the hospital soon."
The medics jumped to the ground and slammed the doors shut. Judy reclined as best she could in the stretcher, wriggling her arms until they were free of their tight padding. She drummed her fingers and twiddled her thumbs, doing her best to keep her trembling lips shut, but as her head tilted to the side she caught a glimpse of Nick's curled up figure, and she couldn't help herself.
"Nick, can you hear me?"
The fox nodded. He rolled on his side to face her, expecting Judy to do the same, but instead she sat up so she towered over him.
"Do you remember last night at all?" she asked quietly, seriously. Nick gave a faint nod.
"Do you remember arguing over that piece of tarp, and how I forced you to share it with me?"
Another nod.
"Okay, then why when I woke up did I have the tarp to myself, and you were hugging your tail?"
Nick's lips didn't move, but a droop of his ears betrayed his guilt. Judy's eyes hardened, with what emotion she couldn't tell, but it was oppressive and impossible to contain.
"Do you not realise how dangerous that was?" she barked, doing her best to keep her voice down. "This part of town is permanently below freezing, and even moreso at night. We were already in danger and you deliberately put yourself in even more, and for what? Chivalry points? Even when I told you otherwise you put your personal pride before survival? I'm…I'm…Why? Just why?"
Nick maintained his silence. He looked at her with a mixture of apology and humiliation, but refused to lift his snout from above his blankets.
"I'm so angry at you right now," Judy continued, her eyes burning, "You probably think that what you did was a great act of generosity, well it wasn't. It was an act of selfishness. You risked dying so you could feel good about how much of a gentleman you are."
She leaned in closer, close enough so he could see the tears forming in her eyes.
"You know what's a gentlemanly thing to do, Nick? Think about how the lady feels about it. I offered to share the tarp because I wanted us both to survive. Did you think about how much it would have hurt me to wake up and find you, my partner and best friend, dead?" Her voice softened, "I didn't offer you some of the tarp because I had to. I did it because I wanted to keep you warm. That tarp wasn't big enough for the two of us; if all I cared about was myself I wouldn't have argued with you. But I shared it, because I couldn't bear the thought of you sleeping in the open like that. I would never, ever put you in danger for my sake, Nick."
Nick's eyes started to water. His blankets rustled as he inched them upwards to cover his face.
"No, don't you dare look away!" Judy roared, grabbing the fabric and pulling it back down. As they locked eyes tears began to creep down her face. "You mean so much to me," she sobbed, "Look at me and see that. You're making me cry – not because I'm angry, but because I hate seeing you suffer. You've got hypothermia because of me; you know how much the whole 'predator equals savage' thing tore me up inside, and right now I feel exactly the same. I hate seeing you in pain, and I hate, hate, hate seeing you in pain because of me."
Without warning she leapt onto Nick's stretcher, grabbed him in a tight hug, and cried into his shoulder. The burn of her searing tears against his cold fur was too much for the fox, and the dam in his eyes burst.
Tears and sobs came out in a torrent, but both rocked one another and rubbed each other's back with greater vigour, determined to put the comfort of their friend above their own hurt. Judy squeezed him for all she was worth, her face damp from a sodden patch she had created on his shoulder, and with every guilty thump of his heart against hers the pain loosened. Slowly but surely, until the only sounds were their exhausted breathing and the creak of the stretcher as they rocked each other.
The ambulance's engine growled to life. With a squeal of a siren it set off through the snow, but all the duo heard was one another's gentle breathing. Judy unravelled a portion of her blanket and wound it around Nick's back. This time he didn't object, and snuggled into it gratefully. Judy shuffled closer to him, burrowing her head into his neck.
"Please don't ever do anything like that again," she whispered, nuzzling his fur. Nick upheld his silence, but a nuzzle of his own gave a stronger answer than any word could.
I'm on a roll and it feels good! :D Awful title and summary aside, of course. Meh, I'm a writer, not a promoter.
I think one of my favourite things about Judy Hopps as a character is her inbuilt sense of fairness. Sure, she's not perfect, but she tries her best to be fair to everyone around her and consider their needs as well as hers. She's cares about more than just herself - she doesn't want people screwing themselves up for her sake, she wants to share. They're a team, and whether it be happiness or suffering they'll do it together. She doesn't get glassy-eyed over someone doing something nice for her if deep down she knows it's wrong, and that's where I was going with this one.
So yeah, I love Judy. She's a great character and a great role model. Be more Judy, folks. ^_^
Reviews are always appreciated!