Wow. I don't know what happened. One day I decide to take a short break, and then suddenly it's been nearly 8 months since the last update.

There's not really much I can do, aside from posting this chapter.


IV

Home

Two mammals showed up to the hospital on Saturday to pick up Ace. Coach Buck's appearance was expected; Felix Hemsky's was not. It was a pleasant surprise to Ace, as he had only expected his coach to show up to take him.

"How's it been?" asked Ace. He had not seen Felix since the night they were eliminated.

"Fine, fine," said Felix, keeping his eyes focused on the fish tank in the waiting room.

The snow leopard sighed. "Just… you know, as normal as things can go when your friend ends up as the victim of a crime. Nothing unusual."

Aside from the extremely brief exchange between the two teammates, the time between the hospital and Ace's home was mostly silent. Ace's mind bounced between irrelevant topics in an attempt to distract himself from the immediate concerns over his leg, now that he wasn't being monitored all day.

When they reached his home, Felix helped him into his wheelchair, then pushed him inside. The keypad was too high for Ace to reach; if he was standing, it would be set at about eye-level. There was a series of platforms that smaller mammals could use to reach the keypad, but it was much too small to support his weight. Sparing himself from the difficulty of unlocking the gate himself, he simply told Felix the code for the gate.

"Four, eight, nine, one," said Ace, and Felix entered the digits into the keypad.

There was a soft beep, followed by a click, and Felix pulled the gate open. He exchanged glances with Coach Buck, but their coach simply tossed a set of keys at Felix, which took the snow leopard by surprise. He fumbled with the keys for a moment, but he ended up dropping them anyway.

"You're not coming?" asked Felix, leaning over to pick up the keys.

"You two go," said Buck. "I need to tend to the rest of the team at practice. You have a way to get there, right, Felix?"

Felix nodded.

"Then I'll see you there. When you show up half an hour late, I'll know why."

They went before the door without watching Buck drive off. They could hear as the engine lurched upon startup, and Ace listened as the noise gradually dissipated.

A short passage brought them to the courtyard. It hosted a single tree in the middle of a circular path, which split off in three directions. One of those led to the gate from which they entered; the other two led to the residencies of numerous mammals. Between the two paths, under a roof to protect it from any possible snowfall, was a white table with multiple foldable chairs strewn about.

"I'm in the one on the left," said Ace. "First floor."

Felix gave him his keys, not knowing which specific one to use for the outside door. The doorknob was at about eye-level for Ace, so it wasn't difficult for him to unlock the door himself.

The interior of the building was confined and, compared to the outside, rather dark. To the left was another door, while a velvet carpeted stairway led upstairs to the homes of other mammals, multiple picture frames scattered about. There was a small window at the first landing, which was the only other way sunlight was able to enter, aside from the other window next to the door.

It was rather convenient for him that he lived on the ground floor. That meant there was no need for him to struggle with any stairs to get to his home; it was just two doors, one right after the other.

Felix shut the door behind him and pointed at the other door on the left. "This is yours?"

Ace nodded and unlocked his door.

The inside of his house was rather mundane, not nearly what one would expect from the house of one of Zootopia's more famous hockey players. Granted, he had only played through one year so far, and he was playing with a much smaller contract compared to the older players, but most would expect the interior to be at least a little more ornate.

In fact, none of the decorations in his house were even remotely related to hockey. They were either family photos, posters, or just stock decorations. If anyone were to walk in, it would be impossible to infer that the mammal living here was a professional hockey player.

"It's a bit cramped in here, don't you think?" said Felix, somewhat awkwardly.

"I don't have much of a problem with it. It's got everything I need," said Ace. "Besides, there's plenty of room outside. Neighbors are pretty nice, too. We talk every now and then; they know who I am, but they don't mind unless it's important. To them, I'm just another guy living here, and I'm fine with that."

Felix rolled Ace into the living room. "Is anyone home right now? You know, in this little—I'm not really sure what to call it. A neighborhood? An alcove? You know, these few buildings past that gate outside."

"It's Saturday," mentioned Ace. He looked up to the ceiling, as if he were trying to spy on his neighbors from below. "Remi works on Saturdays, though, so he's probably gone. Haven't heard him stomping upstairs. He's usually pretty noisy when he's at home."

"Noisy enough that you can hear him every time he walks upstairs?" Felix coughed. "Does it ever disrupt your mornings?"

Ace shook his head and began to roll himself to his room. "No. I'm usually already awake when he gets up anyway."

Felix checked his phone for the time, noticing that it was already past noon. "Do you need me to stay, or should I head to practice?"

"I'll be fine for now," said Ace. "Go ahead. If you want to check up on me later, then that's fine." He huffed and turned his head trying to direct his voice back to Felix. "Wish I could play some."

"Sorry."

"Anyway, I'll see you soon," dismissed Ace.

"Watch game one tonight!" called Felix as he left. "Brawlers and Cavies at seven."

As soon as Felix was gone, Ace rolled himself back to his door to lock it, before positioning himself in front of the television in the living room. The remote was placed in a rather inconvenient spot on top of a counter, and he had to reach up to grab it. Thankfully, he was able to get it down without hurting himself further.

He turned on the TV, finding a film adaptation of The Great Catsby playing on whichever channel he was last watching. He grimaced, wondering why he was last here; what kind of show would be on this channel that would capture his interest, anyway?

Finding the movie uninteresting, he decided to change the channel to something he was more familiar with, interested to see how the media was portraying his injury.

It took a while for his name to appear on the bottom bar, which continuously dished out scores and other news about athletes in both Zootopia and elsewhere. He ignored the ongoing show while waiting for his name to appear.

His name did not appear on the bottom bar, but the currently airing program did reveal an injury report throughout the ZHL, which caught his attention. He searched for his name and the details about his injury, even though he already knew the specifics.

He found his name eventually and read, braced for any surprises in case there was something important that he forgot or was never told.

As expected, though, the brief summary of his injury was just that: brief. The report contained no more information than what he already knew, although the time for his recovery did catch his eye.

At that moment, he remembered his expected recovery time, and only wished that he would be able to enter rehab sooner. He wished his leg would heal faster, cursing at the untimely nature of injuries.

He changed the channel. October could not approach any slower.

Ace checked the clock again. It was only three, but he felt like he had been sitting there forever. He suspected that practice must be over by now, so he was tempted to call one of his teammates, but he withheld.

He was growing bored waiting. The neighbors weren't home, so there was no point in going out to the courtyard to see if anyone would notice that he was now home. That would have to wait until evening, and while he didn't expect a ceremony for his return from the hospital, he did expect at least some acknowledgement.

The phone, which he had left on the couch, began to ring. The upbeat tune caught him off guard—there was no reason for him to be expecting any calls right now.

It took him too long to reach his phone. The distance between his room and the couch was just too far, and the phone stopped ringing before he could reach it.

He picked up his phone and checked the call which he had just missed. Whoever called wasn't on his contacts, as there was no name attached to the number given.

Despite that, he still decided to call back.

Whoever was on the other end must have been ready, as the response was almost immediate. The ringing stopped as soon as it had started, followed by a masculine voice.

"Hey Ace. You doing well?" it said.

Ace grimaced upon hearing his voice. Clearly, he was missing something. If someone who knew him had his phone number, then surely he should have theirs, so why wasn't this name on there?

It embarrassed him a little bit that he didn't know who was calling him, when he clearly should have known. The voice, slightly distorted through his phone's speaker, was unfamiliar. He wondered if the unfamiliarity of the voice was because of the distortion, or if he simply did not know the mammal speaking from the other end.

"Who is this?" asked Ace.

"Sorry. It's Orson," said the voice.

Now, he knew who it was. Orson Lynch was a second-year defenseman who played for the Cavaliers, based in the Meadowlands—on the north end of the Rainforest District. He had met Orson at a tryout camp last July, when he was still searching for a team to take him in. Being a second-year, that meant Orson's first year in the ZHL was the lockout year, as Ace remembered—last year, when the playoffs were cancelled amid the Night Howler scandal.

Ace managed a weak grin. "Hey. Haven't talked in a long time. How'd you get my number?"

"You gave it to me at tryouts," said Orson. "I just never figured to contact you till now. Haven't had too many breaks over the season. Never really wanted to inconvenience you in case you were doing something."

It made some sense, but Ace thought Orson had been too frugal in trying to find a time to call without disrupting him. "So why are you calling now?"

"Well, you guys are out, so you can't be too busy right now," he tried to explain.

Ace sighed at that explanation. There were a few seconds of silence, as he was expecting Orson to say more, but the clarification on what he meant did not come for several seconds.

"Okay. I'll be honest. It's because you're hurt and are probably sitting at home with nothing better to do," Orson stammered.

"Well, what about you?" Ace retaliated. "It's not the most convenient of times for you either. You're playing in three hours."

"You're right, it's not. I'm calling because of your leg. Are you going to be good to go for next season?"

Ace shrugged, even though Orson couldn't see him; it was a habitual response, and he didn't realize he had done it until he started speaking. "I don't know. If I'm lucky then yeah."

There was a knocking at the door, disrupting his thought process. "Someone's at my door," said Ace. "I need to go. Do call me back tonight, though, if you can."

"Okay," said Orson. "Just one more thing, your team needs to get its whole ownership situation sorted out."

He tucked his phone between his neck and shoulder, so he could continue to listen to Orson while he used both paws to roll himself to his door. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know too much," admitted Orson, "but Coach Pine doesn't really like your owner—whatever his name is, Theo, I think. I don't know, considering what he did last year and the striking similarities between what happened last year and what's happening now, I understand that everyone's a bit paranoid. I don't know enough about this to take a side, but if I were you I'd investigate the whole ownership situation and try to sort it out before it gets ugly. Ask Buck. Pine seems to like him."

The sudden influx of information was a lot for Ace to comprehend. He didn't play in the ZHL last year, so he couldn't relate to Judson's antics as well as some other players, but he was aware about the details of how last year's fiasco played out.

"I'll be careful," Ace said hurriedly, before ending the call.

He opened the door—the peephole was too high for him to reach—to find his muskox neighbor waiting at the door, tapping a hoof impatiently.

"Remi!" stammered Ace.

"How are things?" asked the muskox. "I heard you were back and I figured I'd drop by to see you. Mrs. Thornton was worried sick on Wednesday."

Ace shrugged. "Glad to see everyone's concerned about me," he said. "I'll do fine, though. I think I just need some rest. Though, do you think you can ease up on the stomping every morning? Sometimes I'm afraid you might break the floor."

Remi's eyes widened. "You mean I'm that loud?"

The wolf nodded.

"Sorry, man. I'll see what I can do about it." Remi started toward the stairs. "No guarantees, though!"

"Hey, as long as you don't fall on top of me, then we'll be good," Ace laughed, reaching for the door handle. "How about we leave it at that?"

"Deal."

After closing the door, Ace realized that everyone now seemed to be paying attention to him more. It made sense, since he had just sustained a major trauma, and it was just common courtesy for others to check on him to make sure he was okay. But after Felix's generosity—the snow leopard wasn't under any obligation to help him—and Orson's sudden call interrupted by Remi's knocking, it was beginning to get annoying.

He didn't expect the calls and checkups to stop anytime soon, either. There were still so many mammals he could think of who would either call or visit him.

"Well, at least it's nice to see that mammals care," said Ace as he rolled himself back to the living room.