Two weeks after chapter 11, and references to chapter 7
Zootopia was changing. Nick couldn't quite put his finger on just how it was changing, but he could see it everywhere. He saw it in how an impala opened the door for him as he exited the grocery store. When held up a paw to shield his eyes from the sun, he somehow saw it in how the mammals moved on the street. Somehow, he could even smell it in the air.
Not even a month had passed. Not even a month since just about everyone in this city had looked at him with nothing but fear and suspicion. Not even a month since Bellwether was arrested and a city on the brink of collapse woke up to a shocking and confusing truth. And now it seemed to be changing faster than Nick had ever thought possible.
At first, he had told himself that he was just imagining things. Things never changed this fast, he told himself. At least not for the better. Things almost never changed for the better in his experience. But still… he shot a curious glance at the armadillo and the wolf who were having a casual conversation outside a coffee shop. If he had learned anything these past few weeks and months, it was that the world could still surprise him after all.
He sniffed the air. It had started to dawn on him why even the air felt different. It was the fear. For weeks, the smell of fear had been so strong in the city that Nick sometimes felt like he was walking through a thick fog. It had been everywhere. For the first time in his life, he had envied mammals with a less keen sense of smell. Even now, he could still smell fear. But what had been a thick fog had gradually turned into more of a thin mist.
Nick shook his head as he wandered down the street. He wasn't sure what to make of it all. Zootopia had always been a broken place. With the whole nighthowler crisis, he had assumed it would be more broken than ever for a long, long time. But apparently, he had been wrong. And the world had surprised him. Again. Now Zootopia somehow felt… less broken. It reminded Nick of the sigh of relief Judy would let out when her painkillers kicked in and the pain in her stitched up leg finally faded a bit. She was still in pain, but just being in less pain was enough to bring a tired smile to her face. Nick let out a sharp exhale of amusement at the far-fetched parallel his mind had made between Judy and Zootopia.
His mind was still preoccupied with these thoughts when he walked down the rickety metal staircase that took him below street-level. He put down the bag of groceries and used both paws to open the heavy door. The door let out a sharp squeak from its rusty hinges as it opened to a tunnel-like corridor. Two weeks had passed since they came here, and that corridor had become a familiar sight by now. Two weeks since he started sharing a basement with a bunny. Nick chuckled to himself as he fished the keys to their room out of his pocket. Speaking of change…
Judy lay on her back on the old couch when he opened the door to their shared room. Her wounded leg rested on a pillow and her ears were comically dangling from the edge of the armrest. She smiled and looked up from the book she had been reading.
"Hey, you're home!"
Nick let out a snort of amusement. Like he always did when Judy referred to that dark, tiny place they were temporarily sharing as home.
"Hey," he replied. "How was work?"
Judy sighed and put down the book on their sorry excuse for a table: a pallet propped up with cinder blocks.
"Boooring. I hate desk-duty. It drives me nuts. I just want to be back in the field, you know? Do some actual work."
Nick snickered.
"You've been back at work for, what, a week, miss Restless?"
"Yes, well, it feels like it's been months. Today I thought I was going to panic and just run away from the desk out of pure boredom. I had to remind myself that I'd just get even more desk-duty if I started running and ruined my leg again."
"Impatient bunny."
Nick took the few steps through the room needed to reach the stove.
"I need some coffee," he added. "Do you want some?"
"No thanks. You think caffeine is the answer when I'm this restless?"
"Good point. Some tea then?"
"We have tea down here?" Judy raised her head from the couch, looking a bit more interested.
"We do now," Nick said, pointing at the grocery bag.
"Oh, nice! I do want some tea."
"Tea for the mammoth-mauled rabbit, coming right up."
"You're the best. Even if you just had to squeeze in another mammoth reference there."
"You know you love them."
Judy's only answer was to stick out her tongue at him. Nick winked at her and turned to the stove with a chuckle.
"Anyway," Judy said behind his back. "How has your day been?"
"Oh, nothing special," Nick replied as he poured water into a saucepan. "Just a… normal day."
"A normal day of pawpsicle hustles perhaps…?" There was a teasing tone in Judy's voice.
"...Do I have the right to remain silent?" Nick said in a similar tone and shot her an amused glance.
"You do. Actually, I wish you'd use that right the next time you think of another mammoth joke."
Nick laughed as he began unpacking the groceries. He didn't bother telling her that it had been months since he sold any pawpsicles.
"Maybe you'll be less grumpy about mammoths when you see what I bought," he said and held up a jar.
Judy turned her head towards him and then laughed.
"Blueberry jam!" she exclaimed. "Awesome. And is that toast?
"It is."
"Oh, tomorrow's breakfast will be deee-li-cious. Nice shopping there, mister!"
She gave him a thumbs up. Nick replied with a quick smirk. Then a silence settled between them for a while. Ever since Judy's stay at the hospital, the two of them had gotten used to being in each others' company in comfortable silence. Judy turned her attention back to her book, while Nick's attention turned to his own thoughts as he prepared both tea and coffee. For some reason, he still thought about her question about the pawpsicles. Had it really been so long since he sold those things? Had it really been months since he did any kind of hustling at all?
He hadn't told her about the pawpsicles. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized just how little he had told Judy about the past few months. The two of them had talked with each other every single day for weeks now. But he had barely told her anything of what he had done while the nighthowler crisis was at its peak. She had asked him, of course. She had very carefully tried to get glimpses of what he'd gone through. But he had always managed to dodge her questions. And he wasn't even sure why he felt the need to dodge them at all.
So she still didn't know that he, to his own surprise, had lost all interest in hustling. Even though that meant his daily income had dropped to basically zero. She didn't know about all the days he had laid low in the abandoned industrial parks of the Canal district, with nothing but rain and dark thoughts to keep him company. And she certainly didn't know that the application to the police academy she had handed him had made him question everything in his life. He stopped himself from letting out a heavy sigh as he watched the coffee slowly drip into the pot. Soon, the water in the saucepan started to simmer.
"Tea for the bunny," he simply said as he put down the cup of tea he had prepared on the table next to her.
Judy looked up from her book and gave him a smile.
"My hero," she said. "Thank you."
"The hero of Zootopia thinks I'm her hero? What an honor."
"Shut uuup," Judy said with a frustrated laugh. "I hate that the media keeps using that nickname! It's so stupid."
Nick snickered as he sat down on the only chair in the room with his cup of coffee.
"Now you're just being humble. Like a true hero."
"I'd roll my eyes at your attempts to provoke me," Judy said. "But that would be rude when you've been so kind and made me tea."
"I'm glad my efforts are appreciated."
"Besides," she added in a more serious tone. "If anyone deserves to be called the hero of Zootopia, it would be you. Not me,"
Nick was silent for a moment. Then he scoffed.
"That's not true."
"It is," Judy simply said, as if she was just stating facts, before she turned her attention back to her book again.
There was another silence between them. Nick took a few sips of his coffee (which was far too bitter). Judy turned a page of her book and then let out a pleased hum when she tasted her tea. Nick turned his gaze to the network of pipes in the ceiling and listened to the rhythmic sound of the drops from the leaking pipe as they fell into the pot on the floor. Then he let out a chuckle as he shook his head.
"What are you snickering about?" Judy said with a smile as she once again looked away from her book.
"I just never thought I'd find myself in this kind of situation," he said.
"What kind of situation?"
"You know…" For some reason he found it difficult to put his thoughts into words. "This… All this… The kind of situation where I'm making tea for some bunny… who is a cop… who apparently is also my roommate. And she's trying to convince me I'm some kind of hero."
Judy laughed.
"Is it really that strange to you?"
"Well, I mean…" Nick shrugged. "Maybe not. But if someone had told me a few months back that I'd end up talking about blueberry jam and tea with my bunny cop roommate, I would have laughed in their face."
"How things change, huh?" Judy said, still laughing.
"They really do..."
"And deep inside, you know you love having a charming bunny like me for a roommate," she added with a wink.
Nick chuckled and wiggled his eyebrows at her in response, but didn't say anything. Instead, he took another sip of his coffee. He peered down into the coffee mug for a moment. As he watched the dark liquid, his mind once again drifted. He remembered that thick fog of fear and how it had almost suffocated him. He remembered his own dark thoughts while being alone in an abandoned factory. And he remembered a time when he thought the world could never surprise him ever again. Finally, he let go of those thoughts, took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment and allowed himself to let out that heavy sigh he had kept inside him for who knows how long. Judy gave him a puzzled look but didn't say anything.
"How things change…" Nick mumbled and smiled softly to himself.
Zootopia was changing. Nick couldn't quite put his finger on just how it was changing, but he could see it everywhere. It wasn't until now that he realized that he could even see it in himself.
It's been what, two years since the last time I updated this fic? And suddenly I felt like finishing an old draft I had lying around. And I see that the last time I updated I talked about writing a longer fic. I did write several chapters of it, but I'll probably never finish it, unfortunately. But hey, apparently I can still write scenes like this one sometimes!
