Chapter Eighty-Three
Sanctuary
It was getting on for ten o'clock when Nick Wilde and his chief of police pulled up to a stop outside the Saint Bernard's Hospital car park. They had stopped over at Wilde's apartment, briefly, so the fox could change from his officer's uniform and into something more casual, while Bogo had looked slowly around the apartment — bent double a little in the building designed for medium-sized people — as Nick had changed.
He had come back looking clean but somehow dazed, as though he were only half there, and the Chief had nodded towards him respectfully as he had slipped on his coat and had made back towards the door out. Straight after, they had left for the hospital, while the fox was sat in the back with a gaze at the tall rooftops and multiple glazed windows of the marvelous, yet bleak for him, buildings.
"Well, Wilde, here we are. For better or worse," Bogo said, while the fox just snorted, his expression falling to the lifeless floor.
"She'll be okay, Nick," the Chief assured. "Rose herself said she would pull through, and she is a very capable nurse. I've known her for years, since she was young. You can trust her judgment."
"Can I go in? See her?"
"Sure, Wilde, we can go in." Stepping out from the confines of the massive vehicle, the buffalo walked around to the back and pulled open the door — which would've been too heavy for the fox to move in his current state — and stepped back as Nick jumped down. "The reception is just this way."
"I know," Nick tersely said. "I know my way around this city just as well as you do." The buffalo looked down into the stressed and edgy expression of the fox, their eyes holding for a brief instant, before, the fox went on ahead to the entrance of the reception.
Bogo moved to follow in toe, but then a voice from behind caught his attention, and he turned about over his shoulder to spy a white-furred hare walking with sure-footed steps in his direction. The Chief glanced back to the fox, calling out Wilde before turning fully and moving over to meet the hare.
The fox stopped at the sound of his voice... and the sight of the hare — with those long, white ears, that narrow waist, those powerful, strong legs, which engraved the image of a similar person upon his mind. He bit down on his outward reaction to the sight of her: this female whose species bore a lot of resemblance to Judy's, and dragged himself away from the compulsion to continue straight on to the reception, to his rabbit somewhere within the maze of the hospital.
"Nurse Flo," Bogo greeted as he came within talking distance of the hare.
"Chief," greeted Flo. "And you must be, Mister Wilde?"
"Yeah... heh, yes. We— spoke on the phone?"
"We did."
"Bogo was telling me you took care of Judy; that you were in on the initial examination of her?"
"Shall we walk?" she more like advised, moving past both officers with a path to the main entrance.
"What did you think of her? How— how is she?"
"She has got a number of quite serious-looking abrasions and bruising, and her wrist was dislocated during the conflict." They got inside the reception area that beamed in the purity of white. "However— morning Kathy, sign these two in please. I'm taking Nick Wilde and Chief Bogo of the ZPD to see Judy Hopps— however... none were especially life-threatening, have been sterilized, stitched up, splinted and should heal up fine in time. The only..."
Sidestepping, the hare held out a paw to signal to the fox and buffalo to move against the wall; the three of them doing so as a hospital bed, bearing an elderly elephant, was pushed past them by a team of struggling staff. "The only really worrying result that came about," Flo continued, resuming her role in leading the two officers down the various corridors, "was the depressed fracture to the skull."
"God," Nick whispered, "I—"
"It's okay, Nick," Flo vowed, her voice softening and becoming deeply reassuring, "she's fine. The damage wasn't too severe and the amount of pressure, the depression exerted on the cerebral fluid, hasn't appeared to have caused any damage to the brain. As far as we can tell, there are no signs of swelling or blood asphyxiation… though, the psychological reputations, such as amnesia or intermittent memory loss, we can't be sure of."
"Well, what will she be like? Will she be awake yet?"
"You've arrived a little earlier than I expected. So I'm not sure if the anesthetic will have worn off yet. My advice would be to take it slow with her: try not to say anything too... 'emotional'. Try to avoid statements such as 'I'm so glad you're alive'. Such can be, shall we say, distressing to patients who've only just woken up from an anesthetic-induced sleep."
"Then what should I say?"
"Just reassure her. Avoid the words 'it's going to be okay' and just let her know that you're there with her, that she's in hospital and that she's safe. Try to keep the conversation light if she tries to start a discourse with you. Otherwise, just continue to be a familiar face she can look to for support."
The fox's steps slowed down to a pause, his head nodding softly as he processed the hare's instructions. "Right. Alright, thank you."
Flo caught Nick's eyes and gave him a little smile. "Most likely, she'll just be glad to see you. This will have been a frightening experience for her, if she remembers what happened last night. Double more so, if she has amnesia and can't remember any of it."
"They do wonderful work here," she continued, pacing to a door further down the corridor, "but in truth, a hospital is the worst place in the world to wake up in when you don't know what's going on: it's bright, it's noisy, it smells strange and there are strangers walking about in the same room you were sleeping in. If you can be in there when she wakes up," she added, stopping at last and gesturing to the door before them, "that alone will be a big help in calming her."
"Thanks, Nurse. Really... thanks." Rose nodded her head at him, the thin smile still upon her features, as she gazed up towards the nervous wreck of fox, who kept his anxiety only just under control with a veil of calm. Reaching out a paw, the hare pushed it against the door, swinging it open and revealing the occupied bed that slept inside.
…
The room wasn't dark nor dimly lit, for the two tall windows let in the light of the sun rising behind them on either side of the large bed, thus, splaying out the shape of two massive boxes of vision on the floor, where the sun's smile bathed through; the shapes elongated and massive. It gave view to the bleak surrounding husk of floor that hungered underneath the large bed-cold within the sterility of the room, which suffused in the last suffocating elements of gloom within, suffocation wherein the middle was a small lump — a small lump lying still inside the center of the imperialistic size of rest.
His breath held tight in his chest, his heart still, his every bodily function frozen by fear and by anticipation, the fox took a single step into that bright, chill room.
Bogo and Flo stood waiting by the door, both watching, unmovingly as the fox crossed the polished floor.
The fox took a shivering breath. It felt as though the bed were a thousand miles away; like the white walls of the room stretched off into infinity; like time had slowed to a fifth its usual speed; like gravity, like the air itself had fled the room, leaving him feeling like an spacemammle in deep space — lost in a desolate, empty wilderness; cut off from all exterior life.
He moved onwards, closer towards the bed, though with every step he took, he felt like he was getting further away. His vision blurred and his body shook, and his heart suddenly jerked away from its emotions as though it were frozen, instead of beating furiously in his chest.
A cold shiver ran through him. His lungs gasped for air. His fur stood on end, his ears were flat against his head... and all the while, his eyes did not for a second, move away from the small shape of the white lump of sheets in the bed.
In time — an amount of time which felt like an eternity to the fox, and was as exhausting to his body and mind like running a hundred miles — the figure of Nick Wilde reached the edge of the white, hospital bed.
He licked his lips, his throat dry. He took a slow, shivering breath. He reached out cautiously, delicately, flinchingly towards the edge of those white sheets, and his auburn paws and black-clawed fingers gripped the edge of the sheet. He pulled back slowly... and gazed down, deeply, unmovingly, upon the sleeping face of the rabbit; upon the face of Judy Hopps.
Nothing moved — not a blink, not a breath, not the twitch of an eye nor ear. The fox stood motionless over the rabbit's body, watching intently her every move; seeing the slightest twitching of her nose and the slow rise and fall of her chest. He looked upon the bandage wrapped around her head which was speckled in several places with dry blood. He took in the scratches, the small cuts and bruises upon her face, and found that, for all that — for all the bruises, for all the small cuts and the bloodied bandage around her head — she still, to the fox's eye, looked peaceful.
She still looked beautiful.
The fox's eyes fell closed, his lungs filling with air at the sensation of hope returning to his heart. The sigh abandoned him slowly, and left him feeling a dizzy kind of bliss as his eyes opened again, and he found Judy still there beneath the sheets — still alive, still resting... and still the rabbit, the femammle he loved.
Nick fell down upon his knees, a thin and weeping smile spreading across his face, tears falling slowly as he reached across between them and slipped his fingers into hers — touching delicately the fingers of the paw with the broken wrist which rested above the sheets. "I'm here for you, Carrots," he whispered, his sad but fond smile growing. "You take as long as you need to get better. I'm not ever going to let you go."
A twitch played out across the rabbit's features at those words, and her breathing changed as her mind dragged itself out of the deep, anesthesia-induced sleep. The fox's ears pricked up instantly, and his head raised with opened eyes that were magnetized upon the soft face of the rabbit — the bruised, bandaged but beautiful face, while her hidden amethysts twitched and her shoulders raised.
Nick's expression resolved, the worry clearing and his fears fading as her eyes pulled open, slowly, sleepily, as though they were held shut by a great weight, and that the effort of pulling them open was nigh insurmountable.
The moment they pulled open — the instant those bloodshot amethysts were there in the fox's vision — the fox drew his paws carefully around Judy's shoulders, burying his face close against the rabbit's as he held himself close against her. "Carrots... Carrots, I'm so glad you're awake, I've been... I've…" Sensing no movement, the fox drew his head back from being buried in her warmth. At seeing her face, his words had faded into nothing. Her eyes. Her features.
The angst started to return, and a vague feeling of sickness grew in the fox's mind as he pulled his arms away and spoke carefully into the rabbit's ear, "Judy?" There was nothing directly wrong, per se, but... her eyes. Her shining amethysts: the light was no longer in them, her fires had been extinguished; and her expression was unmoved and perfectly neutral as she stare blankly at the ceiling. "Judy. Judy, can you hear me?"
Flo appeared instantly at the fox's side, leaning over the bed and clicking her fingers in front of the rabbit. Judy flinched and her expression changed. While it did still retain an element of being worryingly neutral, a look of distant worry did appear on her features as her eyes focused on the fox's face that quickly repeated worryingly, "Judy?" Her expression didn't change, didn't flinch but for the slightest raising of a brow, as she gazed straight at Nick's face — partly looking at him, partly looking through him as though only half aware he was even there.
Reaching down once again, the fox slipped his fingers in amongst hers. It took several seconds — several long, painful seconds for the fox to endure — but the rabbit's small, soft paw did close around Nick's, just as her eyes did the same. His mind swimming thick with doubts, Wilde got close down until his face was levels with Hopps', his paw holding hers tightly as he spoke in soft and warm tones, "Carrots? You hear me?"
As before, it took a few seconds for a reaction to come, but the rabbit's head nodded, though her eyes didn't open and her ears didn't twitch. "How're you feeling?" he asked, cautiously.
No reaction at all that time. "Can I get you anything? If there's anything at all I can do..."
"L-let… s-sleep," she rasped.
"You want me to—" the fox halted in immediate understanding, moving to pull his paw away, but Judy's fingers tightened suddenly around his, and her eyes pulled open and stared sleepily towards Nick.
"S-stay… need—"
"I'll stay, Judy, I'll stay, don't you worry about a thing. I'm not going anywhere my Carrots, I promise." Her gaze held loosely for a few seconds longer, and her mouth opened as though trying to speak again. But then her chest fell in an exhausted sigh, while the hold of her paw lost all strength, and her eyes fell deeply closed.
The fox quickly turned to Flo, his brow raised — worried, questioning — as the rabbit's breaths evened out again and sleep took her once more. The hare looked at him, biting on her claw thoughtfully. "It's difficult to make an accurate prognosis at this time," she stated. "All signs are positive at the moment: she spoke, she seemed to know who you were… or at least was aware she knew you, and showed a healthy level of conscious decision-making, considering her current state. My advice for now: let her sleep."
"Do I... can I stay here?"
Flo nodded. "I'll check back every twenty minutes or so. I have many other patients to look after. As the anesthetic starts to wear off, she should start waking up more often and become more alert. When she awakes, try to engage in some simple conversation: nothing too deep, just small talk, empty phatics. That'll help to stimulate and encourage her conscious mind back into order."
"What can I be expecting? Any amnesia?"
"Definitely. To begin with, at least, it's a side effect of a general anesthetic. You can ask her some non-specific questions about what may have happened, not mentioning anything related to the attack. That'll test her long-term memory, which should return quickly as the final effects of the drugs wear off."
"And her short-term memories? Last night?"
Flo's brows raising in a micro-shrug, the hare glanced off to the side, her paws slipping into her coat's pockets. "That depends on a great deal of variables—the exact extent of damage to the brain, the level of emotional trauma caused by the attack; even her own mental state prior to the experience factors into it. Either way, it'll be at least several hours before she'll be able to recall anything that happened back then. Take that as a respite, Mister Wilde, this is the happiest she's going to be for a while, I judge. After today, she's going to start getting flashbacks: likely PTSD, if you know anything about that."
"I know about that, alright," Wilde murmured with a dawning of filthy memories that his mind translated equal to those that Judy would soon be going through. It made the situation even worse for his mental stability.
"I've already arranged counseling for them both," Bogo intervened, with both hare and fox shifting to look at the prior-silent chief as he spoke.
"Both?" Flo asked with no slight surprise.
"Mister Wilde here is romantically affiliated with Miss Hopps," Bogo declared. "Her current state has shaken his system far more than he's outwardly showing." The hare's brow raised quizzically, and she got to look at the fox with curious regard. After a few seconds, a subtle smile crossed her features. The Chief cleared his throat, "If you don't mind, Nurse Flo, I'd like to go and see Jack now. Is that possible?"
"There's not much to see," Flo answered, pacing away from the fox and towards the door, "but there's no issue in going in to see him at this current time."
"I trust you have all the paperwork in order?"
"I do. Oh—" she added, as she reached the door, "speaking of paperwork, the mammle who fired a shot at Wolfard during the raid: the badger? He passed away last night."
The Chief grimaced. "I see."
"He was under the effects of hallucinogenic substances; it reduced his body's ability to—"
Flo's voice fell silent to the fox as the door fell closed. Turning slowly back at the sleeping rabbit — his paw still held in hers — a long, thin breath escaped him.
His expression weakening, his lips twitching, Nick climbed up onto the large bed, beside the sleeping shape of the rabbit, and wrapped himself — his tail, his arm, his leg — carefully, protectively around Judy's small frame. He held her, warmed her… engulfed her in his scent. In truth, he knew… there was little more he could presently do.
Author's notes:
Hesitance jumps around your mind,
Grooms decision thus chosen blind.
Your thoughts most succulent of snack,
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