I do not own Zootopia, that belongs to Disney. This a fan work made solely for the sake of amusement.

"Let It Go, It's Happytown"

Chapter Eleven: Police Line

By: Gabriel LaVedier

Officer Louis Wulfberg lived in two worlds, but was judged by one. He was passing... but passing as the 'wrong' parent. Even if he had looked like his father, however, his name would have locked him out of many places. The pedigree would have stood. But the species attached would have swept him away, goat face or no. They would have known 'predator' lay somewhere in his blood. He was proud of his heritage, proud grandson of THE Mayor Eliot Wulfberg, who cleaned up Zootopia, even while being reviled. But the name meant so much more than history...

Though with his latest case, through the accidental machinations of chance, he had been moving in grand circles. He had been speaking with the Chief, with Councilor Seedsworth. Being a liaison was heady stuff. But it wasn't constant. A day was made of many hours. Not all of them could be so exciting.

He plodded his way through the cracked streets of Happytown, part of the skeleton crew sent there to keep a lid on things, a compromise between the Chief's desire to charge in and break the back of whatever was there and the Mayor's desire to quietly keep the violence from spilling out past the border. They were to keep the peace, and little more, with a stern nod and wink from the Chief regarding looking for clues. Most of those were coming from the yak and his mincing little weasel assistant.

They were relying on someone external. It went against every instinct as a professional law enforcement agent to rely so heavily on an outsider. It would have been more galling had he not been so good at it. His immense intellectual prowess on the subject of detection and the synthesis of evidence was beyond what even the instructors at the academy could boast. If he had been on the force he'd already be some kind of upper-echelon gold-buttoned figure.

Circumstance. Situation. Context. Even in the enlightened and allegedly advanced city it was a matter of streets and districts that could dictate what you were. Everyone knew you by where you were from, in-district, down to the high school and neighborhood. In general by the teeth in your mouth and the hide on your back. The fact that it wasn't actually so clear-cut even while it was always portrayed that way was something that used to make him angry. Still did, if he really thought about it.

The teeth in his mouth offset half the blood in his veins. His sister could at least claim horns and a beard dangling off her chin. Her outward tokens of her lineage hardened some folk even harder against her and softened some others who were inclined to overestimate and defend the prey half of her, their father's side. They could be comfortable with half a goat that showed half of a goat. But a wolf that swore a goat's blood thrummed in his veins, even if it was true, was just a wolf. But it wasn't so simple, with his mother's high status. Lionheart's high status. Various businessmammals. Predators could be potent, deferred to.

Mother had deference for the sake of her father, for the sake of her wealth. She wanted to insulate her children from the harm her lupine form could have done to them. But nothing could ever take it all away. Some were unimpressed with everything, and held them in contempt. There were always richer, more awful mammals. Or just those who had no concerns. Even his father, prey, was looked down on by other working-class mammals for taking up with a predator, even a rich one.

He wanted consistency. Even if it was hurtful, bigoted, cruel. At least it was, on a higher level, fair. It was why he became a cop. He believed in law and order. The ZPD was, in a real way, the true promise of Zootopia. Any mammal could join, could become a success. His pearly whites were no more a barrier to being one of them than Grizzoli's massive mitts, and half-and-half nature, Delgato's mane, Fangmeyer's stripes, or even Nick's... everything. They were all equal in blue and behind the shield. The law was orderly, and the law made them all the same before it. No twisted and complicated social weighting scale, nothing that made anyone better or worse beyond seniority and rank. Dedication and merit were all that mattered to a fair system.

Being in Happytown as a liaison had upset the order he understood, and worse, he understood the upset. No one fully liked the police in the wider city. They were there for a tragedy or to impose themselves on a matter of public order. But in a very broad way, they respected the police, because for better or worse, public order and their swift response was better than the old ways, the savage ways. A fledgling social prototype red in tooth and claw.

But in Happytown the citizens still called for PIs, they thought of police as lower than spoor. Because in the past, they had been. Heavy-handed bullies that took every word from skittish prey or any rich loser with an axe to grind and a scandal that needed forgetting could call on the police to smack faces and tase the innocent in Happytown to make them remember their place and assuage the skittish fears of the rest of the city. The folk of Happytown didn't have happy memories but they sure as scat had long ones.

PIs like Sherlock had their place, even in the wider city, but it was never truly okay. It was justice of some stripe, but it wasn't fair, wasn't orderly. Yes, all the wretches of the place were poor, as Sherlock's stoat kept saying. But not equally poor and not always truly poor. When justice could be for pay, one empty pocket meaning that a crime could go unpunished, it hurt anyone who fell on the other side of that line. They had left the poor of Happytown so little choice, a clearly imbalanced and unfair system was, to them, the peak of justice. They ate a mirage's fruit because they didn't know any better.

He shouldn't have felt guilty. He didn't do anything, not really. Being part of a system that let them down wasn't an indication of how he felt or what he did. But seeing it first-hand, watching the citizens look on him with disdain... with fear. The confrontational probably gang members made him want to pull the suppressant spray. But the ones plugging away at a living, doing their best, who flinched if he moved too quickly or twitched fearfully if his hand happened to brush his taser or club; they kept him up at night. The guilt came through for a reason. He wasn't the only one. He could tell Chief Bogo fought to keep the investigation alive, despite not knowing anyone from there, because of what it all too often represented. And Councilor Seedsworth, his motivation was transparent, and his guilt from being part of the core of the system that let down the area probably weighed on his tiny shoulders like the whole world.

Life was too often a series of compromises, picking the least bad decision from a, usually, artificially winnowed array of bad choices. No matter what, a callus had to be grown. Thick or thin, the soul had to be toughened to some degree. There had to be some inuring to tragedy and suffering, especially as a cop. It was no excuse to be uncaring, but it was the reality. When the soul grew too thick and tough, however, too impenetrable, there was no point even existing. Looking at others as nothings... being that soul-toughened was a kind of moral zombification, like that crazy Dawn Bellwether.

A balancing act. The precarious balancing act of life was something that folk like his girlfriend Scarlet understood. Scarlet... by all right, she should have been right beside that stoat she was so very like. Another immigrant, who could muster up the same Gallic talk if she put her mind to it. But she had arrived on a silk pillow, with a silver spoon in her muzzle. She lost her accent, she acted blithe, she never was concerned about not belonging. But she understood, abstractly, life was no one's promise. She knew intellectually what the stoat knew from experience. Fatalism. Her happy nature did everything to banish the darkness of understanding the uncertainty.

Her rich family cushioned the blow, but nothing could cushion her coat. A red fox is a red fox. It takes a bigger bank account to become something other than what Nick found himself as. Behind her needle-toothed smile and bright, flashing eyes was the clear-minded understanding of what she was and how she was seen. She knew the truth behind deference, behind accepting her presence. No one kissed her hand because they were delighted to see her in her own pelt. They didn't call her Miss Liskuski out of a real sense of respect. She had passed their credit check and made all the right gestures to be allowed to be part of the inner circle of fine mammals. She knew it all. She always knew. And she went along because the alternative was to refuse, and be shut out of a good life. Swallowing her pride and shutting her muzzle was a small price to pay to experience a kind of normalcy that natives, prey, and more acceptable predators could access with the simple expedient of being them.

Thoughts such as that, thoughts about where he stood, why he stood there, and how other mammals in his life were standing allowed him to trudge his way along his beat, and to ignore the occasional hateful stares that would follow him. Seven times out of ten it was obvious someone was up to something that he wasn't supposed to see. They had been without real law so long those malevolent ones had lost the natural fear that kept they covert. It wasn't they were more criminal by the numbers, they just didn't hide it as much, making it easier to spot. He was the intruder, the interloper. Even if his job dictated it, he didn't belong there, he wasn't supposed to interfere in their business.

And by and large, he didn't. It would have been too much work to bother for small matters. If he saw genuine harm to a member of the community he would take the time, otherwise there was hardly a justification. It was why the likes of Duke Weaselton, like Nick even, had been allowed to go on as long as they did. It was a matter of finding, and a matter of taking all the time required by the book.

He ignored modest matters like open-air day-drinking, small-scale botanical chewing, marking, littering, the usual things. He gave warnings now and then, threatened tickets, even wrote one or two. That really put a knot in his gut. They had little enough, and a fine was no way to make a poor mammal's life any better. It was just the sad reality that everyone had to be a part of. He gave few of them, though, because it wasn't his place to make a bad situation worse, just keep a bad situation managed.

Every so often it seemed like the right time to ask those hanging around about the case at hand and potentially related issues. Moreso after... it was a dangerous place. Being mistaken for the wrong thing was a bad thing to have happen. She didn't dress fancy, not by the usual streetwalker standards. She wasn't flirty, she was like the women in those black-and-white foreign movies Scarlet showed him. Languidly beautiful, but never intending to attract. But they did. Another mistake. She maybe had to do something she didn't want to in a quest for information.

The consideration died before it fully formed. For all the scat he gave Sherlock and her, he knew they were sharp. Another overdose, so soon after that bobcat, in similar locations, and with someone connected to the case who would have been asking questions. Sure the mayor would call it a coincidence.

But it wasn't.

He didn't know them that well, but they were connected, whether he liked it or not. Liaison. That was him. Scarlet had told him it was from her language. Binding. He bound together the ZPD and these immigrant natives of Happytown. They knew the place, the police knew the law and he served to bind them. In that way, he was inextricably bound to the both of them. They mattered to him, by purely practical definitions, but also because of the working relationship they were establishing and strengthening. It was one thing to work together, but another thing to have the work matter enough to be invested in. His signature on that report that night had been the sign it mattered. He made the choice to care.

He cared. Sherlock's stoat... Hermione. She didn't deserve that kind of thing. Near death from a fake overdose was a horrible fate. Laid up in the hospital. She got treatment, and the money came from somewhere. It was Cecil Seedsworth, covering what the city was stubbornly and cruelly holding back. It was a point of confirmation, this attack. It was no proud thing being right, and he had helped them to get to that point. More guilt, on the shoulders of a single father fighting to free his wife. Everyone had to do better.

He had to do better.

He couldn't go beat heads in and taser soft parts to get answers, answers he couldn't be sure were out there. Not in the mammals he could get to. Mr. Limo. He was involved, somehow. Anyone in the limo with him. If he wasn't the one that took the ladies and used them, there was a darker figure who stayed out, kept his hands clean. Hooves clean. He didn't know it for a fact, but the killer had trotters. There were horned figures involved. It was a pfennig to pumpernickel someone was keeping their hooves spotless and polished while dirty deeds were done in their name.

His paws knew where to go. They took him in the darkening evening to the arrayed ladies, who closed ranks and looked on him with contempt, but sorrow behind their eyes. Front and center was the smoking coyote, a phlegmy cough emerging before she spoke. "We don't need-"

"I'm here because Hermione got hurt," Louis quickly said, drawing all eyes to him. "I'm not here to run you in. I'm not here to trap you. I have cases to solve, murderers to run in. And we all need to work together to stop this madness."

Clover the coyote stared for a bit, looking to the other woman arrayed around her. Being the new Red was no picnic. No one elected her, it was always just assumed, but no preparation would have been sufficient. "The Old Girls ran off the pimps, they whipped off the buck-hungry dirty Vice Cops..."

"My grandfather did that," Louis said proudly, showing off his nameplate. "Eliot Wulfberg, father of Olympia Wulfberg-Mouflon, my mother. I'm an Indivisible now. The Stainless Badges made those vicemongers... vanish from the force. He didn't quite mean to, but I like to think it was something that he would have been happy with. Dirty cops stayed away, pimps vanished. The family can keep helping. This can't go on. The police have a purpose, the city has a purpose for everyone here. You know it. Bogo and Seedsworth are helping all they can, and it's my job to be the link between everything out there, and Sherlock in here. He's struggling and needs more leads, and with his assistant out... someone you talked to. She wanted to help you, help the queen that paid for the investigation. We have to work together going forward."

Silence reigned among the women for a long while, glances passing along them all before Clover gave a firm nod. She strolled forward and thrust out her hand. "Someone moved," she said, grasping the hand presented and shaking it. "We had everything in a holding pattern, then something happened. It's all falling down, we can't just ignore it. Red didn't deserve to pay for it. Just don't run us in. This is Happytown. We need to live however we can. Just leave it alone for now. We'll do what we can, let's just bring back the old fire. We're the new Old Girls. We want this scum out, and whatever it takes, we'll do it."

o o o

Burning guilt bought many things. The mission was dangerous, scooting close to a fire, and that getting burned was a possibility. Recovering from it was a top priority when it all meant so much. It was odd a stoat with minimal capacity to afford treatment was in a private room, with machines softly hissing, monitors beeping, her blood being carefully cleansed of the poison that had been forced into it.

Hermione looked, superficially anyhow, peaceful. Her body twitched, still filled with musteline energy that could not be fully contained. She was covered with a white sheet, arms out, showing only her arms, face and neck and the top of the green paper gown she had been placed in. So much had happened. And through it all, Sherlock had been there, and remained, keeping a vigil.

He had obligations. He was supposed to be solving a mystery. But she was his assistant, a student. Understudy, by her term. She was investigating on her own, because he told her to follow her instincts. He had been in the area, just to watch her use her skills. Like any good teacher, he wanted to see her use the education. He lost sight of her for just a moment. He could still hear her, hear that malevolent monster, verbal sparring. She had done well trying to trick him into saying something, anything. But not every lowly minion was ignorant. One never underestimated an enemy when death was on the line.

He arrived in time to take her to hospital when she had been attacked first. They had told him she was lucky. The locoweed that had been used was distinctly unsuited to intoxicating a weasel like her. It was still dangerous, terribly dangerous, but slower and more manageable. Other common drugs would have affected her strongly enough to do the job as intended.

"Hermione..." Sherlock said, low and slow. He almost felt her name over his tongue, experienced it on all the levels he had been trained to experience. "Hermione, I should have supervised you more. Birds must leave the nest, but flights are stumbling and dangerous. On the Sacred Mother the birds must fear for more things. I know I must cut you loose to fly, but... that period in between, between novice and master... it should have been simple. Even if nothing is simple, this should have been simple..."

The silence was imperfect in that room, beeping, hissing, the rustling of blankets as Hermione twitched. Sherlock sat there, lightly squeezing one of her hands. There was work to do. But there were other things. Trained to be diligent as he was, he was still a mammal. Flesh was weak and bought the world as presented. Sometimes that clouded the mind, ruined objectivity and skill. But in a world of connections, that was the key. He was not in the lamasery at the top of the world, a million miles away from all, transcending lowly connections.

He walked with the population, saw the world in suffering. And far from being like the enlightened one and withdrawing, he knew there was a different necessity. If folk were to be enlightened and transcend their earthly pains, they needed to be relieved first. They had concerns that clouded their minds, engagement with the dull but present business of living. His job was to solve their conundrums and clear the way to give them the choice to be more enlightened.

In that walking with folk, he grew close to them. Like the enlightened one, seeing the suffering moved him. But it moved him to become close to those around him. Charlie, Red, Fleabite's poor employees, even those who merely struggled because of the crimes. Fleabite himself, Chief Bogo, Councilor Seedsworth, longsuffering Officer Wulfberg, Hermione.

Hermione...

He had no need to feel guilt. But he did. He had held the idea of death in disdain. It was a transition, merely another step in life. He could intellectualize it even while feeling sadness. But when it came so close, hit so near and raw, the tiny thing he thought he had stared down grew large and menacing for so many reasons. Some because of what he hadn't done. His lying by omission.

"Young disciple, what is the truth?" Master Bajja asked. He was with Shalva in a blank room, the young, shaved-headed yak in lotus posture in the center of the room.

"That we live in an illusion. The veil of Maya hides from our eyes all that we should know as the real, so we exist in this unreal place," Shalva answered, eyes closed and features at peace.

"And what is truth?" Master Bajja asked, the loosed-robed figure standing very close to the meditating bull.

"I... I answered the question, Master."

"So it is that the only truth is the illusion of the world, young yak?"

"The ultimate truth, the full truth," Shalva said with a smooth surety.

Master Bajja struck out quickly, striking Shalva with his wooden-handled paper fan. "Did you get stricken?"

It took a moment to respond, the young yak wincing a bit. "It occurred but... ultimately..."

"And do you have pain?"

"It is... but..."

The shadowy figure turned away and slowly strolled along. "Every novice tastes a single drop of the wisdom of ages and believes their whole being suffused with such learning. One line about the veil and they feel they know it all. No life was ever so simple. For all that we know the world and suffering is an illusion, we must still live with this illusion. The pain we feel, the happiness we feel, all these emotions are the real things. Not everyone can reach the state of Nirvana in one passing."

Shalva slowly opened his eyes, breath still slow and meditative. "The honesty of these illusions, these shadows is... good?"

"Tell me, young yak, did your parents weep when you were chosen to come here?"

"I knew they tried to be strong, but they did. They were sad to see me go."

"Did you say all things to them? You were leaving, perhaps forever. What if you found they were no longer there, some time later in your life?"

"I... I said I would... miss them. But master what..?"

Master Bajja swiftly tapped him on the head with the fan again, and held it there. "You see the truth, and you see truth. You owe truth to all the beings. Even in the midst of the world's falsity, what you experience together is the truth you share. Do not add to the suffering and falsehood with lies by omission. If you have something to say, say it, or someday you will find the truth rotted on your tongue when the one to whom it was owed has gone on. It will always be easier and easier to never say what you meant to say. Remember this, my young disciple."

What remained unsaid was an untruth. Even if it was a truth, having it contained in a mind did no good. And a world filled with sorrow needed all the good that could be delivered. As ever, truth was owed, with no exceptions. Not for fear or any other sense of hesitation. The earth was a place for betterment, and truth was always better.

"The things we always say, the empty words, the sounds filling the air... like these words... they mean nothing. I make them because I do not want a silence. I relished silence once. Or thought I did. It was never silent. The world spoke in the rumble of falling rock and snow, the muted howling of the wind outside the lamasery, the chanting of others. I don't want this silence, unable to do anything. I have to wait, to hope that I can still see you, see you grow, become the detective I always knew you could be. I saw the potential in you, and told you so. I always remembered to tell you of your skill. But more. I had so many things to say. More truths. When I stood there, at your door, waiting on you, it was just another day, another time of me doing it, but it had been building up more and more meaning. Your quick mind has always been a boon, and a delight. It seems empty to say in effective emptiness, to silence. But I should say while you rest here I-"

Hermione gave one large twitch and her eyes snapped open, the monitors flashing larger numbers, the beeping getting faster. She wasn't writhing or struggling. The sudden surge from her return to consciousness ebbed out back to a more normal rate. She sucked in a huge breath and let it out as a groaning sigh. "M-m'sieur..."

Chapter Notes

Indivisible- A mutated reclaimed term. With Division families (mixed diet couples who had children but never married) getting married now Division child has become a mark of the old ways. Such folks have taken to using the term Indivisible to mark their own mixed pride, and to celebrate their new family unity that will not be busted apart by external pressures.