A Few Glasses Down (Title by Silver Dust)
Chapter 1
Bogo pushes the flimsy door to the seedy bar open and steps in, the bar's air hazy with the heavy cigarette smoke. His chest heaves out a heavy cough as the acrid air fills his lungs and stung his eyes. He perseveres, however, eyes darting around until he spots a small gray bunny that is sitting in a wheelchair at a table in the most remote corner of the bar. Bogo frowns when the icy touch of a radiating sadness spread in his chest. He finds himself stopping dead in his tracks, seeing what used to be his star officer and an inextinguishable ray of energy and sunshine: Judy Hopps.
Regarding her for a moment, unsure of what it is that he is doing here, even thinking of turning around and leaving when he hears her voice: "Didn't expect to see you here chief..."
"Wilde told me I'd find you here." He says, his voice gruff, even when he was trying to sound gentle. He comes around the table and sits himself across from her, grimacing when he sees that she was already well into her nightly ritual. That is, if the many empty shot glasses and a half empty wolf-sized bottle of whiskey on the table was any indication. When he looks up, he could see that her normally sparkling violet eyes were void and blank, almost like she has given up on life.
"Come here to judge me, kick me while I am down? Hell, maybe even give me parking duty?" She says wryly, downing another of her shots. He flattens his ears back, forcing himself to keep that gruff expression of his on his muzzle, if only to keep others from eavesdropping on them out of fear of angering the buffalo.
"Hopps...What are you doing here? This isn't you." He says, watching her. A year ago, she would not even go near a bottle of liquor, let alone spend her night in a bar and getting drunk. However, after the accident, that all changed rather quickly.
"Is now..." She says, shrugging. Making him snort lightly in irritation but making sure to bite his tongue, fighting the urge to snap at her. Instead, he lets out a sigh and forces his voice to stay calm.
"The old Hopps would be at the precinct, most likely causing me a mountain of paperwork by dismantling some corrupt official's regime." he replies, his expression unchanged.
"Yeah, well the old 'Hopps' would still have her legs." She grumbles, thumping one of her stumps against the table to accent her point, which admittedly made him jump lightly. He opens his mouth to speak, but is cut off when she starts speaking again. "You know...It's funny...I still feel my legs...I'm wiggling my toes right now and I can feel them." She says, eyes watering as glances down to where her legs have been amputated below the knees. "I can feel them and they aren't there." She whimpers, on the verge of breaking into sobs.
He let out a tired sigh, carefully mulling over his words. "Hopps...Many officers have been hurt in the line of duty, or made one mistake to bring them to drown their sorrows here...God knows I have-" he starts, only for her to cut him off again.
"With all due respect, chief...This isn't a fucking bullet to the shoulder or being unable to talk a jumper off a ledge...I highly doubt that any other officer had to deal with getting their legs ripped off by a polar bear like they were twigs." She snaps, pouring another drink and downing it quickly.
He could only stare at her, a knowing expression on his face as he could remember that day all too well. He was working in his office as usual, mostly handling some of the day-to-day paperwork when Clawhauser burst into his office with a loud crash from his door, the cheetah's normally cheery demeanor replaced with a pale look, almost as if he were sick. The first instinct that hit was to yell at the unofficial mascot, but before he could, he had been cut off by the news that Officers Wilde and Hopps are down.
All he was able to get out of the frantic report was that after a blow from a suspect knocked out Wilde, Judy ran after him to try to take him down with a Taser. Unfortunately, the bear managed to grab her by the ears and proceeds to rip the bunny's feet off with his bare paws, dropping her bleeding on the sidewalk. Thankfully, the backup she requested managed to get to her in time to stop the bleeding and to call an ambulance.
In his decades of service to the ZPD, he's been exposed to things that have left him hardened, emotionless, and even cynical, but even he couldn't deny the utter heartbreak and the feeling of helplessness when he was sitting by her bedside, watching the look of horror and then anguish spread across her features when she ripped the blankets off of her to look at what remained of her legs.
He let out another sigh, his normal scowl disappearing and his visage changing into one that he has never let anyone else see before: sadness. He notes the look of surprise the bunny gives him when she watches his face visibly soften, no doubt seeing the wrinkles around his eyes and the graying of his muzzle much clearer.
"You're right Hopps, you may very well be the only one who had to go through that. However, you are not the first Officer maimed in the line of duty. He tugs up his shirt, showing her the long scar that runs along his side, one given to him as a patrol officer. He nods at her wide-eyed expression. "I got this when I was a rookie, two years out of the academy in fact. Got a call about a rabid tiger and we had to deal with it. I was young, foolish even, I wanted to show off to my superiors and went after him by myself and got this to show for it. The paramedics had to stuff my entrails back into me and I was lucky to survive." He lowers his shirt again and interrupts her when she opens her mouth. "Did you know that Delgato got into a fight with a rhino and had to have his skull reassembled with steel plates and has a glass eye? Wolford had a shot go through his spine and should be paralyzed from the waist down. Higgins had one of his legs blown off with a shotgun and has to walk with a prosthetic… You know what we all have in common Hopps?" He let his expression become more stoic when she shook her head. "We all had injuries that should have ended our careers right there, but we picked ourselves up and said: 'Fuck the odds.' and we worked hard to heal ourselves."
He watches her as she stares down into her glass, letting her process this. He doesn't react when he sees the tears well in her eyes as the shame starts to cross her face. "I-I had no idea… but I don't know if I can ever come back from this… I mean, what is it that you want from me?"
He sighs and mulls it over for a minute. "I'll make you a deal Hopps. Give me one year. Just one year of working hard and proving to yourself what I already know. If you are not fit for duty after the year, I will never bother you again and you will be free to sit on your ass and drink away your pension. Think about it and if you agree, call me tomorrow at my office." He says, standing up and shoving his chair under the table. He turns to walk out, but stops, looking over his shoulder, "And Hopps…just remember this… you have family at the ZPD, we all share in your pain and we all miss you dearly. It just isn't the same without you there…" With that, he turns and walks out, pretending not to hear Judy's meek 'Thank you chief.' He takes a much-needed breath of clean air and clears his throat, pulling out his phone to check the time as he walks to his car. He takes one more look at the door of the bar and lets out a sigh. "She'll call…" he says to himself before starting his car to drive off into the night.