Nick's breathing tube was removed two days after he'd woken up. An abundance of caution had been the motivator for Ramos in keeping it in a day longer than expected. Judy had been made to leave the room while the tube was pulled, although the glass wall did little to mute the gagging that she could hear in painful clarity.
Judy hadn't heard his first words; she had been taken to a different room to get her leg checked out. To her delight the stitches had been removed and she was downgraded from crutches to a mere cane with very strict instructions against running, jumping, or walking more than needed. According to her father Nick had muttered something incomprehensible and had sounded 'like he'd just swallowed a chain smoking toad'.
While Nick hadn't been able to talk, he still proved able to communicate. Judy had assumed Nick had been insane when he'd flapped his paws in random seeming patterns while they were sneaking into Cliffside Hospital. She had only come to learn later that Nick was fluent, if rusty, in sign language. According to her impressed father, Nick had managed to communicate to a nurse also fluent in sign the exact pain he was feeling and where so he could be given the proper help.
She'd asked him where he'd learned sign, and in typical Nick fashion he'd never quite answered her. It was just another in a long list of games he played with her, feeding the rabbit just enough clues to keep her guessing but never quite offering answers. Judy had to admit there was a certain maddening fun to his antics, she did love a good puzzle after all, but at the same time it did drive her insane.
It had been a disappointment to her to see him asleep again, but not a surprise with how much morphine they were pushing into his veins. That said it had been a joy to see him breathing without a tube down his throat, yes, but still a disappointment to miss the moment. Judy had found herself living in far too many of those disappointing moments of late.
While Nick slept Judy busied herself with the case files Bogo had left her. Before long her legal pad was half full of observations, drug busts, and notations. Her pen scratched out every detail she thought relevant, matching case records to evidence files in her laptop for later analysis.
Starting three months ago was a seemingly random case of a mammal in Sahara Square becoming aggressive and violent. Officers on the scene had made a point that the camel had not displayed signs of Nighthowler induced savagery and was at least coherent enough to communicate with them. He had been arrested and put in the drunk tank to sober up. Tests performed afterwards had shown heavy doses of Nip in his system and charges were levied accordingly.
A month later another case had been called in with eerily similar circumstances. This time the mammal in question was a lioness. Judy wondered why no charges had been filed against her; at least until she discovered that the girl had been the daughter of a semi-prominent city councilwoman. No doubt Nick would have a snide comment or two about that when she told him.
There were more cases, but none seemed to bear any connection aside from Nip and agitated mammals. A bad batch of Nip was something that happened from time to time. But that usually correlated with an uptick in mammals visiting urgent care clinics. Correlation, however, was not causation, and there was a difference between thinking and knowing. Judy rubbed her eyes and set the file aside.
"There's gotta be something," she mumbled. With a sigh she leaned back in her chair and let her gaze drift to the somnolent fox. A sad smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. "Wake up, partner, I could use your help about now."
A knock on the door drew her attention away from Nick. Delgato waved to Judy as he walked in. "Hey Hopps, how's it going?" He paused for a moment to look around the small room. "Your parents leave?"
"Hey Ed. Yeah, they went to get some sleep." Judy's ears drooped when she looked at Nick. "Nick hasn't woken up since they pulled the tube."
The wolf nodded and took a seat next to the bunny. He smirked wickedly and carefully nudged Nick's shoulder. "Wake up, Wilde, your girlfriend is getting worried."
Heat rushed into Judy's cheeks so fast Judy was sure that it was visible through her fur. "He's not my boyfriend!"
Getting the reaction he'd wanted, Delgato burst out laughing. "Cripes, Hopps, your face!"
"Just wait till I can walk again you overgrown mutt," she crossed her arms and scowled at him."
Delgato started to reply, but his words were lost to a soft gasp. Judy was confused at first, then she looked to Nick where she saw those beautiful green eyes half open. He was glancing around the room, confused and slow, but awake.
"Nick? Oh my God, Nick!" Judy leaned over, gently stroking Nick's cheek with her hand. He shifted at the touch and Judy's heart skipped a beat. A grin spread across her face from ear to ear when Nick's eyes found her.
His lips moved making barely more than a breath for sound. Judy's ears perked yet despite her excellent hearing she had not been able to make out a word of it. She leaned closer, getting her ear near to his muzzle. "I couldn't hear you, Nick."
"I'll go grab a nurse," Delgato said, darting out of the room quick as his feet could carry him.
Nick kept trying to speak. All that Judy ever could make out was bits of vowels or sharp coughs. Delgato came in a moment later with a nurse in tow. She held a large paper cup capped with a plastic top and a straw. Judy reluctantly moved away from Nick so the nurse could elevate the head of the bed and guide the straw to his parched lips.
"Mr. Wilde, I want you to take a couple little sips for me," the nurse said in a warm, but strong voice. "Not too fast now."
He complied, drawing a bit of water from the straw. No sooner did he swallow it than he cringed and almost looked to be resisting the water at first. Judy tried not to flinch. She could only imagine the discomfort he was feeling. She remembered having her tonsils removed when she was younger. Judy thought she'd been drinking razor blades when she'd finally been given some water to drink.
Nick persevered through the pain, and after a few swallows he sank back into the pillow. He panted and coughed again, an action that made him cringe visibly.
"How's your pain on a scale of one to ten?" The nurse asked
"Seven," Nick whispered.
Judy didn't recognize the voice she heard. It was quiet, scratchy, and tense with pain. Of the carefree relaxed tones she'd come to know there was no trace. She placed her paws in his. "Squeeze my paw, Nick."
He complied, and Judy braced herself for what she expected to be a paw crushing grip. His paw barely twitched. She felt his fingers curl around hers, but he couldn't muster enough strength to get a good grip on her.
"That's good, Nick," Judy said, rubbing his shoulder with her free paw. She tried to smile, but Nick only needed one look at her to realize the truth.
The nurse asked him questions, which Nick gave mumbled answers to. Every few minutes he seemed to nod off again, only to be drawn back to consciousness with a gentle shake or a quick snap of his name. Once satisfied, the nurse left to retrieve more painkillers.
"What'd I miss?" Nick asked after several moments of silence.
The question, while so typically Nick in delivery still managed to catch Judy and Delgato off guard. Delgato looked at Judy, and she looked right back at him while biting her lip. When it was clear Delgato wasn't going to be the first to say anything, Judy turned back to Nick and cleared her throat.
"Well, um, not a whole lot, I guess." She made a soft laugh. "Bogo told you to stop sleeping in."
The fox smiled politely. "Gotta take my vacation sometime, right fluff?" He croaked out.
"Nick," Delgato cut in, scooting closer to the side of the bed. "What...what do you remember?"
Judy glared daggers at the wolf while Nick's eyes closed. His jaw seemed to tense behind tightly pressed lips. When he opened his eyes his expression was blank. "Responded to a call. Badger lady…" Nick groaned, his paw covering his side. "She attacked Carrots. Tried to stop her."
"You did, Nick, you did." Judy held his paw close. "You saved my life."
He smiled up to her. This time she felt something genuine in the gesture. His voice grew quieter when he spoke. "That's… what we do….at..." Nick coughed once and grimaced. "At…" His coughing resumed, worse than before.
"At the ZPD," Judy finished the thought while glancing to Delgato.
Again and again Nick coughed. Judy put a hand on his shoulder, trying to steady him while Delgato slipped his arm behind Nick's head. He propped his friend up then brought the straw to his lips. Again and again Nick tried to drink, only for his coughs to interrupt him each time. It was then Judy saw blood staining his hospital gown.
"Oh god!" Judy nearly lunged for the call button.
Delgato laid Nick back down and put his paw over the spot of red. It was only moments before the ICU nurses flooded the room, several still pulling on their gloves. They pushed Delgato and Judy aside while they tore away the gown. A collective sense of relief filled the medical staff, though Judy and Delgato were left standing in terror for a moment longer.
"It's alright," the lead nurse assured ethem. "He's just popped a stitch. Nothing to worry about."
"That was a Hell of a cough," Delgato said, his paw flexing anxiously.
"S-sorry," Nick apologized through the pained gasps.
After they'd stemmed the trickle of blood, the nurses administered Nick a hefty dose of painkillers. They replaced the popped stitch with a fresh one, a pain Nick endured with little more than a flinch of discomfort. They checked his vitals, then quietly slipped out of the room again, letting Judy and Delgato settle back in by their friend.
"You're gonna be the end of me you dumb fox," Judy said,
Nick offered a hollow smirk. "Would you… love me any...other way?"
Delgato tried to cover up a laugh while Judy glared at him.
"You okay?" Nick asked, his paw reaching out for her. He grasped at the air twice before Judy took his paw between her own.
"I'm okay, Nick. Everybody is okay."
"Sorry…"
"What are you sorry about, Wilde?" Delgato asked. "You did nothing wrong."
"Made… You worry…" Nick's voice trailed off, the narcotics taking their toll on his limited stamina. "Tried to… To stop her…"
"It's okay, Nick," Judy assured him. "You were a hero."
Delgato nodded as well, patting Nick's shoulder. "The whole ZPD's behind you, Wilde."
Again Nick coughed. Judy and Delgato braced for another fit but were relieved when it seemed to subside after only one. The heavy breaths from Nick were the only sound in the room for a time.
"Ow…" He wheezed.
"You shouldn't do that, it hurts." Delgato so helpfully pointed out.
Despite everything, Nick managed a half-smile. "Up...yours…"
Smirking as well, the wolf leaned on a hip and winked. "Sorry, Wilde, my boyfriend's the jealous type."
Nick chuckled, his free paw drifting to his stomach. "Yeah...well tell...tell Dan" Nick coughed. "Ah...he knows."
Delgato laughed and nodded, rubbing Nick's shoulder again. "I'll let him know."
"Judy! Judy!" Bonnie Hopps rushed into the room trailed by Stu with a frantic look in her eyes.
"Mom?" Judy made a confused tilt of her head, her ears perking up again. "What's the matter? I thought you and dad went to get some rest."
"Your father and I stopped to get something to eat first and maybe pick up some extra shirts when we saw this." Dipping a paw into her beige purse, Mrs. Hopps produced a folded tabloid. She unfolded it and showed the cover to Judy and Delgato with Nick managing to keep his eyes open and take a look as well.
The cover was Nick's face from his hospital bed. Bold white letters outlined in black asked the question "Justice for who?" In all caps.
A horrified shock stunned everyone into silence. Bonnie stopped abruptly when she noticed that Nick was awake and staring square at his photo. All eyes turned to him unsure of what to say. They didn't need to wait long for Nick to break the silence.
"Got my good side, right?"
He was smiling. It threw Judy for a loop. She was horrified, enraged, confused. How could he take it all so easily when his privacy had been violated like that? Then Judy realized two things at almost the same moment. The focus of her borderline apoplectic feeling wasn't at the paper, the photographer, or the hospital for their lack of security. No, what blame there was landed squarely on her own shoulders. Second was Nick's smile. It looked carefree and relaxed, but it was only in his lips. The smile didn't crimp the corners of his eyes or bring his ears up. It was forced, like that of a social worker or salesman.
Judy pushed aside her worries, at least for a few minutes. "Ed, call Bogo. He needs to know."
"I'd be surprised if he doesn't know already," Delgato answered, pulling his phone from his pocket. "Be right back."
An eerie quiet settled over the room after the doors closed. Judy looked to Nick who simply closed his eyes and laid his head back on the pillow.
"Nick?" She placed a paw on his forearm. "Are you—"
"M'good," he answered quickly. "Just real tired, Carrots."
Her ears sagged along with her shoulders, but Judy nodded. "It's okay, Nick. Just get some sleep then.
An hour later Wolford and Fangmeyer were standing guard outside of Nick's door. THe fox was fast asleep when Bogo arrived a couple hours later with two other mammals in suits following close behind him. One was a jaguar that Judy recognized as Thomas Cortez, the ZPD's chief legal counsel. The other was a spectacled rabbit dressed in a blue suit tailored to his lanky frame. He looked to be almost her grandfather's age, though was far more spry in appearance. Every officer in the room could feel the anger rolling off Bogo in waves.
"All of you come with me." Bogo's tone made clear that it was anything but a request.
The gathered officers exchanged looks of concern amongst one another. They followed him out of the room to a quiet area in the hall.
"This is Mr. Beck," Bogo motioned towards the rabbit at his side. "He serves as the hospital's chief legal counsel."
"How the Hell did this happen?" Judy demanded, barely containing her voice.
Bogo frowned. "Two days ago I got a tip about a picture from a photographer friend of mine. I-"
"You've known about this for two days and told us nothing?" Fangmeyer growled.
He was silenced by a cold glare from the buffalo. Bogo folded his arms across his chest and exhaled sharply before he spoke. "It took me a day to confirm there was a picture and another day to find out who had it. Obviously by then it was too late to get a court order on the tabloid."
"Who took the picture? How'd they get into the ICU?" Judy asked.
"I couldn't get a name, but I know it's a papparatzi." Bogo pulled out a thin manilla folder no larger than the one Judy had been given for the Otterton case her first week on the job.
Papparatzi were a chronic headache for the ZPD. Many were small rodents armed with all manner of specialized cameras. They snuck into homes, cars, and buildings all in search of a perfectly compromising shot that could be sold to the highest bidder. Sometimes they called the police after celebrities accosted them. The men and women of the ZPD rarely felt sorry for the snooping rodents, but they were still mammals and thus entitled to the same protections.
The old rabbit, Mr. Beck, stepped forward. "On behalf of the hospital I want to say we are very sorry about all this."
"We're not the ones you need to apologize to," Judy growled.
"Stand down, Hopps, he's on our side." Bogo growled. "We're initiating a full investigation with the hospital's cooperation. Hopps, Delgato, Fangmeyer, you're assigned to be security. No mammal gets in that room without going past one of you first. Wolford, Grizzoli, work your contacts, get me some leads on a name. I'll make sure the papers are in order. You should also know that video of the shooting is on ZooTube. Every time we get one taken down two more are put up."
Judy felt her hackles rise, a seething, boiling, consuming fury building in her gut. Yet she held her tongue. The anger radiating from her must have been palpable, Delgato put a paw on her shoulder as though to reassure her. It did little good, and only made her more aware of her disgust.
Her partner, her best friend, had been shot. She had been shot. Nick could have died, and was paralyzed likely for life. It wasn't reality TV to be watched for the perverse entertainment of the unthinking masses. It wasn't glorious, heroic, or exciting. It was one mammals last moments of life, and a violent end to what should have been a simple call.
She still heard the gurgling at night. The wet bubbling noise that came from the gaping wounds in his gut. In her paws she felt the blood seeping through her fingers. When Judy woke with a kick and a start she always checked to see if the blood was out of her fur. And then there was Nick's face, ashen, dull-eyed with his jaw hanging slack his teeth glistened in the light of the sun.. He looked like death was picking over his body as he laid in the street. With his jaw hanging slack his teeth glistened in the light of the sun.
In her nightmares the paramedics still swarmed over him. A laryngoscope was put down his throat and a tube put in to feed Nick precious oxygen, but it was already too late. Death had claimed him, like it had claimed the badger they had been sent to deal with. In her nightmares she never got to say goodbye. In her nightmares she heard those terrible shots again and again.
And now mammals were watching that nightmare for their perverse curiosity.
Things seemed to move quickly after that, and Judy spent it in a daze. Bogo and the lawyers had gone in to wake Nick up. They had spent nearly an hour with the white blinds of the intensive care unit drawn shut for privacy. When they emerged again Bogo left with the lawyers for more rounds of paperwork, Delgato slipped into Nick's room for a few moments while Fangmeyer took up a post outside.
Judy spoke with her parents for almost half an hour, then saw them off to their hotel. She felt her shoulders sag after they had climbed into the Zuber car and vanished down the streets. It was like a bridle of cast lead was set over her shoulders. Balancing on her crutches, Judy made her way upstairs, past Fangmeyer and into Nick's room.
The back of the bed was propped up allowing Nick into a sort of reclined sitting position. Delgato had pulled up a chair next to the bed with his back facing the door. The chair opposite of him was reserved for Judy. Nick held his phone sideways in his paws, waiting for something as he watched a video. Judy couldn't see what he was watching. His attention so focused on the screen that he hadn't heard her enter the room. Delgato did, though, and his ears splayed out with a worrisome frown on his lips.
Judy worked her way around the bed to her seat and climbed up with some effort. Upon getting a look at the screen she felt faint. The video was of Silver Spring plaza, and Judy recognized the badger standing in the decorative fountain holding her head under the water. Nick, a blur of blue and red, was on the badger's back, putting a foot into the back of her knee to break her stance and get her off of Judy.
"Nick." Judy put a paw on his wrist. "You shouldn't watch this."
He ignored her, eyes fixated on the screen. She looked to Delgato for support, but found that he too was transfixed by the shaky video. Why, she wondered, and then she heard Nick shout his warning.
Crack came the report of the pistol, Judy saw herself dropping backwards. Nick had screamed her name. She didn't remember him saying a word. Crack and mammals fled in all directions. Crack and glass shattered. The mammal wielding the camera docked for cover, the video becoming a blur of color as they hid. Crack and snap, another bullet firing wildly. It all happened so much faster than she remembered.
Poking their head up from behind the relative safety of a car, the camera's operator found Nick struggling for control of the gun with the badger. Crack reported the pistol, the shot that was still buried in Nick's thigh. The next three shots came in quick succession, the badger had been trying to pull away from Nick, her gun caught on the hem of his vest. A scream of horror flooded the audio as the mammal holding the camera caught all three shots that hit Nick. There was a red mist that exploded from his back when the first two shots went through his body, accompanied by shredded fabric and fur. The badger pulled her gun free, and Nick started to double over, but a final shot hit his kevlar, knocking him flat on his back.
Judy charged, then fell when a bullet grazed her leg. The video cut there with the badger leveling her gun at Judy's head, the camera's operator cursing and scrambling for better cover. Nick stared at the screen, his eyes glassy with the corners of his lips turned down. Judy waited for a while, then gently took the phone from his paws, placing it down beside him.
Nick's right paw moved, touching the mound of blankets where his leg was outstretched and bandaged. He said nothing and neither Judy or Delgato could find any words of comfort. Gently, Judy put her paw on Nick's cheek. He looked over to her, wearing a blank expression.
Moving closer, Judy slipped an arm around the back of his head, pulling Nick into a gentle embrace. She felt his slow breaths warm her shoulder, felt the steady beat of his heart, and the trembled sigh he made as his arm wrapped around her back to hold her close.
