Hello all! Next chapter is up! Woot!
So as always, thank you to my lovely readers for clicking on this fic and continuing the journey and thank you to everyone who decided to leave a review, they really mean so much to me!
Also a giant thank you to my amazing beta Marie Allen, who is just as obsessed with Zootopia as I am XD
And now, please enjoy!
Chapter 2
Nick opened his eyes, the scent of singed fur warring with the acrid, thick black smoke that filled his lungs and blinded him.
Finding himself laying on his right side, a crushing weight upon his body, he instinctively tried to move, to get away from the burning heat that roared around him, but his body refused to obey him as the slight movement sent shooting pain tearing through him.
He wasn't able to take a proper inventory of his injuries; everything hurt. His head throbbed dully and as he continued to lay there, he found his thoughts were becoming hazy and indistinct. He couldn't seem to catch his breath, his sight was blurred with the sting of tears from the smoke and heat and his ears rang with near agonizing intensity.
Able to move the arm he was currently laying upon, he scraped it an inch across the mouldy carpet. This caused his body to shift ever so slightly and his left arm to slide forward sending a mass of frenzied pain receptors into overdrive.
He couldn't even scream.
Gasping for air, his lungs attempted to expel the smoke which caused his entire torso to seize in agony. His watering eyes slammed shut as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness before the wave of black oblivion that rolled over him dissipated.
Taking short, panting breaths, he squinted against the bright wall of hungry flames and tried to remember what had happened.
Ever so slowly, it all came back to him in horrifically graphic detail: the ocelot, the drycleaners, the explosion, and…Judy.
Six months ago he had taken a vow to uphold the law -to serve and protect the citizens of Zootopia- but more than that, he had sworn to protect his partner and best friend with his life, and he had failed.
He had allowed her to pursue a suspect alone and in doing so she had been caught up in an explosion that had sent a shockwave of fiery destruction that had torn through the derelict building.
He knew he wasn't dead -he hurt too much for that- but a blast that powerful, that devastating…
Judy would not have been able to survive being at ground zero when the explosion had gone off and at this point, Nick was surprised that he had; though he had a sneaking suspicion that this particular happenstance was soon to be rectified.
Trapped beneath what felt like a pile of debris and without any backup or partner to save him, he knew he was going to die and he found that this prospect was not as terrifying to him as it should have been.
After all, surviving would mean that he would have to walk into the hallowed halls of the ZPD, look into the faces of his comrades-in-arms, and accept the anger and disgust leveled upon him for his failure to keep Judy Hopps, the hero, the bright light and the beacon that lit the way and inspired them all, alive.
This debilitating burden was only surpassed by the knowledge that surviving meant that he would have to exist and live each and every single day afterwards without her and this was something he found he could not bear to do.
His heart was breaking into a thousand jagged fragments of tortured agony and his soul disintegrating into a fine dust; both organ and spirit forever broken beyond repair.
Nick Wilde, ex-conman, cop, predator, and fox, had spent his entire life protecting his heart from everyone, but somehow, Judy Hopps, cop, prey, and bunny, had stolen his heart.
Deep down, he had known his feelings for Judy had moved beyond the bounds of close friendship and the professional respect that he had for her, but he had chosen to steadfastly ignore this very poignant knowledge because to acknowledge his feelings would be to break his own heart.
They could never be together.
A relationship between them was something that would have been impossible, even if -and this was the biggest if- Judy could have returned his feelings, because romantic predator/prey relationships just didn't happen.
Interspecies relationships between animals of the same genus were still looked down upon and though attitudes were changing…
No one would have accepted them: Zootopia and friends and family alike.
And though he would have hated every moment of being in her presence and not able to express his feelings for her, especially when she moved on and left him behind -because she was too brilliant and ambitious not to- and found a mate to love and marry, he would have been able to console himself with the knowledge that he had stayed silent because he wanted for her to be happy.
For once in his life he was willing to be selfless and let her go.
But now…
Nick closed his eyes in despair.
Now she had no future at all and neither did he, because even if he managed to make it out of the warehouse alive, she had taken his heart with her when she had been killed.
And it was his fault.
He should have been faster and he never should have allowed himself to be caught beneath the wooden pallets.
More importantly, he never should have let her chase the ocelot by herself.
Tears that had nothing to do with the smoke that grew thicker around him dampened his fur as he focused upon what it had felt like to hold Judy -his Carrots- in his arms as they curled up together on her rickety bed.
He might have smiled at this remembrance; he wasn't sure, he couldn't really feel his face -or much of anything- anymore.
But he didn't really care.
His mind was contentedly recalling this one moment, this minute, single instant in time that he found to be his most precious memory. It was the one time in his life that he had felt completely content, happy and at peace with himself and the world.
Letting out a final breath, his lungs finally ceased their futile struggle and Nick Wilde waited patiently to die.
Judy Hopps, the first and still only bunny cop of the ZPD, had never wished to be any other animal than what she had been born as. She was proud of everything she was able to accomplish on her own merits and strengths, but right now, she wished she was a mammal -any mammal- that was bigger and stronger than what she was as she desperately tried to move the shattered door and broken beams off of her fallen partner.
"Nick!" she cried out desperately pleading with him to wake up and help her, because she couldn't do this by herself.
Wiping the slime and stagnant water from her eyes, she found tears had begun to fill them, clouding her vision and causing her throat to close up in terror.
Hearing an ominous creak, the already compromised ceiling groaned threateningly as the fire greedily ate through the dry timbers.
Biting back a sob, she tried in vain to move one of the heavy beams from atop Nick's inert form.
Panic seized her frantically beating heart as she heard the distinctive crack of wood beginning to give way.
Refusing to leave Nick, even at the cost of her own life, she darted beneath the broken door, closing her eyes tightly and shielding her partner's head with her body as part of the ceiling that had not been destroyed during the initial explosion, collapsed down upon them.
Taking in gasping breaths as she choked on the thick, black smoke, she slowly opened her eyes.
She knew that more of the ceiling had fallen down and around where Nick lay, pinned beneath a pile of broken wood and debris too heavy for her to move, but she was terrified of what she would now find.
Pulling herself from beneath the door, she shook off the dust that coated her fur and she felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach at the large timber that now lay across the top of the already impossible mound of rubble until she realized that the beam had caused the load to shift just enough that she could see space between the door and Nick's body.
Giving a strangled cry of relief, she slipped her paws beneath Nick's shoulders and with a rush of adrenalin fueling her movements and giving her strength she could not believe she possessed, she pulled him free.
"I'll get you out of here, I promise," she whispered into Nick's ear as she slung his arm over her shoulder and ignored the heat that was so intense, that steam was rolling off her wet fur and clothing.
"You're going to be fine," she soothed as she dragged his limp body towards the thankfully clear exit, her eyes watering so badly she was barely able to see, her lungs burning painfully as she valiantly tried to ignore her growing panic at Nick's continued unconscious state.
She stumbled clear of the building gasping for air and coughing heavily as she fell to the ground, exhausted and unable to move any further.
Forcing herself to sit up, she looked around, desperately seeking help and was shocked to not see a single living soul.
Reaching into her back pocket, she pulled out her cell phone in a desperate attempt to call for help, but it was nothing more than a useless chunk of waterlogged plastic, metal and glass.
Able to hear the very faint sounds of fire trucks in the distance, she knew that they were still a long way out and she turned her full attention back to her partner and gasped in at his condition in horror.
Protruding three inches out from his left shoulder was an inch thick chunk of splintered wood.
Staring at this horrific injury, her instinctive response was to leap forward and immediately pull the offending object from his body. Paw hovering over the wood, she managed to stop herself because it suddenly struck her that removing it could cause more damage than leaving it in.
Dropping her paw, she instead focussed back upon her partner's face, blocking his impaled shoulder from her mind.
Gently reaching out, she placed her paw on his uninjured shoulder. "Nick," she said a little too sharply in an attempt to take the quaver of fear from her voice. "T-this isn't funny. W-wake up," she stammered before her voice broke and it was then that her traumatized mind finally caught up with what her eyes had already noted but her brain refused to acknowledge.
The dark hoodie she had given him earlier in the day had been shredded and torn, the uniform beneath not faring much better. There was a great gash in his side, various other lacerations and cuts peppering his body and his exposed and usually brilliant orange fur was now covered in soot and blackened in places where his fur had burned down to the skin.
Though horrific, these injuries were not what caused her paws to cover her mouth in an attempt to stop the strangled cry that squeezed past her lips, her mind screaming at her that Nick had given no signs of life since she had pulled him from the building; his prone body lying much too still upon the ground.
"No," she shook her head as her shaking fingers buried themselves into his neck trying to find a pulse as she frantically searched for help, the empty street eerily silent.
"No, no, no," she whispered her blood turning to ice, her stomach filling with thick bile, and her heart twisting in brutal agony as a wave of black horror washed over her.
She laid her head gently upon his chest, refusing to believe her shaking fingers and their inability to find a pulse.
A moment passed followed by another, her heart beating within her head so loudly, the blood rushing through her ears with near painful intensity that she wasn't sure if she would even be able to hear Nick's heartbeat even if he had one.
Judy felt numb as she lifted her head slowly from her partner's unmoving chest, her mind completely blank. Time seemed to slow and everything became muted and drained of colour and life.
Suddenly slammed back into her body, every sense became heightened; the fire that raged behind her was so hot, so loud, so crisp and clear, that she felt as if electricity lit her blood and jumpstarted her mind.
Grabbing hold of Nick's head, she tipped it back and placed her paws upon his chest.
She could barely see through the tears that clouded her vision, but she remembered her training; remembered how to resuscitate a mammal, but never imagining that she would have to use the technique to revive her partner and best friend.
It was too much.
It was too great a task, even for her, because if she failed…
Her mind couldn't even accept this, shying away and forcing her to regain her focus by viciously shoving all of her self-doubt away.
Determination roared through her, giving her the strength she needed to push down upon Nick's chest with enough force to hopefully restart his heart.
Counting in her head, she finally pulled her paws away, grasped his snout and making sure her paws encircled his muzzle, blew through his nostrils.
His chest expanded and fell as she pulled away and she again began chest compressions, counting in her head, clinging to the procedure that had been drilled into her head, believing beyond all hope that she could, with the very strength of her considerable will, bring him back to her.
Again she breathed into his nostrils and again his chest fell and did not rise, but she refused to give up; she refused to let go and she told him so, with broken sobs, whispered threats and dire promises.
"Nick," she begged as she pumped his chest, right over his heart. Her muscles shook with fatigue, but she refused to stop, because right now, she was Nick's heart. "You don't get to die on me," she bit out, her voice shaking pitifully. "You hear me, Nicholas Piberius Wilde?! Y-you," her voice broke. "You don't get t-to leave me," she told him in a wretched whisper that was barely audible, even to her own sensitive ears.
She moved her paws back to his face, blowing air into his lungs and hoping that her breath would become his breath and that he would open his eyes and tease her about being an emotional bunny and she would laugh and he would gather her up in his arms and she would wish that she could stay within that warm embrace forever.
Straightening, she let go of Nick's muzzle and placed her paws upon his chest, but this time, they rose of their own accord. It wasn't much, just a tiny movement so small she could have imagined it, but she hadn't; a short hitch of breath from between Nick's lips causing her own breath to catch in her throat.
"Nick!" she wailed as he gave another wheezing intake of air. Quickly she placed her head right over his heart, the sluggish, dull thump within his chest sounding in her ear.
She wasn't a doctor, but she didn't think his heart was supposed sound like that.
Her eyes shot to Nick's face as she lifted her head from his chest. His eyes fluttered open and she felt hope rise within her only to be crushed a moment later when without any apparent recognition or acknowledgement of her presence, his eyes slid closed again.
"Nick?" she whispered, her battered heart feeling as if it couldn't take anymore and would, at any moment, cease beating altogether if he didn't give her some kind of sign that he was okay.
But Nick remained heart-wrenchingly silent but for his laboured, gasping breaths.
The fire trucks were closer now, something her had ears told her but which her mind was too occupied with heartbreak, worry, and recrimination to pay much attention to.
Gathering Nick up in her arms, she hugged him close, stroking his cheek gently. "Help's coming," she told him in a soft voice that shook brokenly as she spoke.
Her tears, which had abated momentarily when Nick had opened his eyes, again freely flowed as a phantom paw seemingly crushed her heart in a brutal and unrelenting grip while she drowned in a sea of black suffocating guilt.
Nick had been hurt- No. Nick had died because she had run off and left her partner, the one whose back she was supposed to have at all times.
In her self-righteous zeal to continually prove her self-worth, she had pursued the suspect alone and with no other thought than catching the ocelot.
She had left her best friend behind.
And Nick was the one who suffered the consequences of her selfishness.
"I'm sorry," she choked out as her tears continued to fall, dampening Nick's soot covered cheek. "I'm so, so sorry."
If she had only waited, helped Nick extricate himself from the fallen pallets, they could have engaged the suspect together and the ocelot may not have had a chance to escape after she had tackled him -drycleaning and all- to the ground.
They had tussled for a moment, the ocelot gaining the upper hand by landing a blow to the side of her jaw that stunned her for long enough for him to slip from her grasp, grab the drycleaning, and dart away.
"Bye, bye, bunny," the ocelot had said as he pulled a small remote from his pocket. He had brandished the device with enough of a theatrical air before he had gleefully pressed the button that she knew whatever was about to happen was going to be bad.
She had heard it, her keen ears picking up sudden multiple beeps coming from all around her.
Eyes swinging towards the closest sound, she spotted what looked to be a bomb taped to the side of a support beam.
Her quick thinking mind had processed this, along with the realization that there were more than just one, the ocelot running for the back door, which meant the bombs were delayed, by how long she wasn't sure, but taking into account the ocelot's hasty movements, she suspected not long.
Closer to the entrance than the exit, Judy had turned and run as fast as her fatigued legs could carry her towards the front of the building.
The length of time between each beep of the bombs was shortening and she had realized that she wasn't going to make it.
Not willing to give up and allow herself to be blown up, her eyes had fallen upon an old trough-like sink hidden behind some old boxes with a dripping tap and a clogged drain. The sink was overfull, water dripping down the sides, the inner surface caked with mould and algae; the stagnant stench repulsive, but salvation had never smelled so good.
Leaping into the sink she had thought of Nick but only in the thankful and mistaken belief that he hadn't been in the building.
The explosion had torn through the warehouse just as her body hit the frigid water, the shockwave dampened by the water and the porcelain, which protected her before shattering.
Pulling herself from the wreckage, she was able to see through the heavy flames the spot where she had been only a moment before, most of the ceiling, with its thick beams and metal roof, caved inward. Had she still been there, she would have been crushed if the bombs hadn't ripped her body to shreds first.
The heat and smoke had been unbearable, her fur only protected by the thick layer of water and muck as she ran; only thinking of escaping the building before it collapsed completely.
Darting through the open doorway, she had stopped dead in her tracks when she had caught sight of Nick, buried beneath fallen debris, unmoving.
She may have abandoned her partner, but he had not treated her in kind. He had her back and because of this he had been caught up in the explosion that, had he been at her side, he would have walked away from unharmed.
Instead, he was now lying in her arms, most likely dying.
"Miss?"
Judy, in a daze, lifted her head from where she had rested her cheek upon the top of Nick's head and looked up into the face of an elephant, his helmet marking him as the Chief of the ZFD, the Zootopia Fire Department.
"Are there any other mammals inside?" he asked and Judy stared at him blankly for a moment, unable to understand his words. She might have answered, she wasn't sure. She felt as if she was seeing things through a very long and dark tunnel.
The Chief shouted orders and talked into the radio strapped to his shoulder which seemed to center her, throwing everything back into loud and brilliant focus as she noticed the lights from the fire trucks, the blare of the sirens and the movement of the firefighters.
"We have-" the Chief paused as if catching sight of something, a new urgency filling his voice. "We have an officer down, I repeat, an officer down."
"The ambulance is a minute out, Miss- Officer Hopps," he corrected.
Dressed as she was in dark clothing, soaking wet, and covered in grime, it was apparent that it had taken a moment for the Chief to realize that the bunny with the fox, his ZPD uniform burned and torn, but his badge on display, had to be Judy Hopps.
She and Nick, in the months that had passed since ex-Mayor Bellwether had been arrested, had become the face of the ZPD both as partners who were predator and prey, as well as the pinnacle of success for the mammal inclusion initiative implemented by former Mayor Lionheart.
They were heroes to Zootopia and comrades in arms with the other emergency departments that served and protected the city.
Frequently crossing paths with the fire department, and paramedics, the ZPD officers had great respect for the essential first responder services they provided and the respect was mutual.
Paws were suddenly attempting to take Nick from her grasp and her automatic response was to not let him go.
"It's okay," a paramedic soothed, the snow leopard slowly easing Nick from her loosening hold and laying him flat upon the ground.
Quickly assessing Nick's condition, the leopard's features appeared grim as she listened to his heart through her stethoscope.
"Ray!" the leopard called out to a black jaguar that was running towards them with a backboard. Placing the backboard on the ground, the jaguar scooted forward and knelt on the ground in front of Judy.
First responders now swarmed the scene, firefighters were fighting the blaze that had spread to the buildings on either side of the one she and Nick had escaped from and police officers, her fellow members of precinct one, were cordoning off the area; lit up with the bright flashing lights of emergency vehicles, and the echoing wail of sirens.
"Don't you worry," the jaguar said as he placed a heavy blanket around her shoulders which seemed to be shaking uncontrollably. "We'll take good care of your partner," he soothed as he quickly shone a light into her eyes. "Signs of mild shock," the jaguar said over his shoulder to his partner. "The lacerations to her cheek will need stitches as well," he said, radioing in to dispatch that they 'required another ambo' before placing a white compress upon her cheek.
Ray moved to Nick's side, the leopard finished with her examination.
"Let Mt. Royal know that we have a police officer involved in an explosion coming in with burns, contusions, lacerations, probable pneumothorax, smoke inhalation, and impalement through the left shoulder causing possible arterial damage," the leopard ordered as she quickly placed an oxygen mask over Nick's muzzle before rustling through her bag as Ray began wrapping the hunk of wood that had been driven through Nick's shoulder with padding and bandages to stabilize it during transport.
At the leopard's words Judy felt herself become faint, the blood draining from her face.
Putting a neck brace around Nick's throat, the large cats shifted Nick upon the backboard and strapped him in.
Standing upon shaking legs, she questioned in a small voice, "I-is he going to be okay?"
"We will do everything we can for him," the female leopard answered with a non-answer as they lifted Nick up and placed him on a stretcher, wheeling him to the back of the ambulance.
Swallowing roughly, she followed.
"The other ambulance is just pulling up," Ray told her as they placed the stretcher into the ambulance, the leopard hopping up into the back. "They will take you to Grey's hospital and-"
"No," Judy said with a shake of her head, panic filling her at the thought of not being at Nick's side and being taken to a completely different hospital. "I'm staying with Nick," she told them.
"Emerge at Mt. Royal is too busy to-" Ray began.
"I don't care," Judy shot back, not backing down, "I'm going with Nick," she snapped fiercely.
After a quick nod from the leopard, Ray helped Judy into the back of the ambulance where she sat opposite the female paramedic.
"Hopps!" Chief Bogo's voice called to her, stopping Ray from closing up the rear doors.
The Cape buffalo appeared at the rear of the ambulance and took a quick assessment of the situation. "Go," he said gruffly, closing one door while Ray closed the other before the jaguar ran to the driver's side and hopped into the cab.
In the back of her mind she knew that the Chief was going to want a full accounting of everything that happened, but right now, all she could think of was Nick.
Reaching out, she clasped Nick's hand in her own while the paramedic opposite her did what she could to stabilize him as the ambulance sped towards Mt. Royal hospital.
Again, I am so cruel...
But I hope you enjoyed this chapter and if you did, feel free to let me know:)