The knock on the door to the little guesthouse interrupted Nick and Judy in the midst of their breakfast. Both of them were early risers, too many irregular hours over the years made five or six hours in bed more than enough. Judy found it hard to sit still any longer.
"Visitors!"
She jumped up happily and hopped to the door to find Willow waiting on the other side, her face drawn and pale.
"Willow? Everything ok?" Judy stepped back to let the girl inside.
"Can I get you some breakfast?" Nick offered, thumbing over his shoulder towards the eggs still on the counter.
She looked at Nick for a long moment. "I… I…"
Unable to get the words out, she sat heavily onto the small couch.
"Willow?" Judy sat next to her, sharing a look of concern with Nick. "You're worrying us, what's going on?"
"Are you still Xander, like, at all?" Willow finally blurted out, staring at Nick. "I can't tell, you know? But then when you used that glamour thing. You kind of were. I mean, the colors were wrong. But it was Xander's face."
Nick cocked his head to the side, his ears back against his head with the first signs that he might be more than a little distressed.
"Kind of early for big questions, isn't it?" he said.
Willow deflated. "They noticed, finally. Your… Xander's parents. I think the school called. It's been weeks and they only just turned up, asking if you were staying at my house. My dad got really mad at your mom. It was intense."
"That sounds tough," Judy comforted, resting a paw on Willow's knee. The girl wiped at her face frantically and nodded.
"We're doing everything we can to find ways to get back and get these bodies human again, but I can't say what that means," Nick sighed. "I wish I could, kid, but we're in the dark too."
She sniffed and took the tissue Judy offered her.
"I can tell you that I have his memories and that he loved you very much," Nick continued. "So there's something still here."
She laughed bitterly and blew her nose. "I don't want to be a crybaby, I just… we already lost Jesse."
Judy had no idea who Jesse was but patted her anyway.
"We're going to see Giles today about the Janus ritual, we could take you to school?" Judy offered. "Just let me get dressed. No one likes a grumpy bunny."
Willow swallowed hard. "Uh, yeah… do you go with Cordelia?"
Nick and Judy both laughed.
"Yep, she can be nice when she wants to be," Judy winked and drank down the last of her coffee. The stuff here wasn't anywhere near as good as the liquid life she could get from the civet bodega back home, but it kept her going.
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Cordelia in fact made them all get out of her car a street away from the school in order to prevent, in her words, a loser stain on her reputation. Judy mentally took back every time she'd thought Cordelia might be a little misunderstood and shrugged to Willow.
"What a lovely, not all deranged, girl," Nick commented. "She actually might be the devil."
"She's giving the Hellmouth a bad name," Willow agreed.
At school they were swallowed up by the crowd of heaving students, again there was no question about why two totally unknown individuals might be walking amongst the student body. Even teachers that passed by didn't pay attention and Judy sighed internally at the poor security. It was like fodder for the predators.
In the library, Buffy was already sat in a chair with her leg supported and an icepack cradled across the top.
"So someone had a party last night," Nick drawled and slurped on a can of soda.
"Attacked by an assassin while ice skating with my Hunny, not exactly party time," Buffy replied.
"Cooled the mood?" Nick grinned at his own pun and Judy poked him in the side. "What? That was funny."
"Unfortunately the assassin Buffy met was anything but amusing," Giles said, emerging from the back of the stacks with a set of books piled high in his arms. "The Order of Tarakis, an extremely dangerous and nasty group."
"That sounds pretty scary," Willow sat by Buffy, her face concerned.
"Indeed," Giles nodded and looked over his glasses at Nick and Judy. "I take it you're here for the summoning books I had shipped from the Council?"
They looked at each other and nodded.
"Yes, but if there's trouble we'd be glad to help," Judy offered. "There's a place you hide Buffy at least."
Nick looked at her sharply. "A hiding place?"
Judy frowned, a memory she'd barely accessed before seemed to float to the front of her mind when she'd imagined having to run and hide.
"There's an apartment, small and basic. Tara planned to hide out here for a little while… huh, I bet that's where her stuff is," she scratched an ear. "I didn't know about it until just a second ago."
Buffy checked the ice on her knee and sighed.
"I'm not going into hiding."
"Buffy, I don't think you realize just how serious this might be…" Giles warned.
"Uh, well I'm going to class so how about you think about the serious stuff and I think about being, oh I don't know, a teenager?"
She walked off, Willow waving apologetically at them as she followed, and Giles pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.
"Hey, dude, even if she says she doesn't want help now? We're not the sitting on the sidelines types," Nick told him. "We can help. No questions asked."
Judy nodded in support. They didn't know these people all that well but it was obvious they were trying to do the right thing, even if she disagreed with their methods.
"It's kind of you to offer," Giles smiled weakly and handed a large book to them. "The Janus ritual to invoke the god. You'll need some kind of figure or statue the spirit can inhabit whilst on this plane. I made some notes where it strays to Latin."
Judy accepted it gratefully, at least one thing was going right.
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"There," Judy pointed to a small door attached to the side of the video rental place near the main street. "I'm pretty sure that's the one."
"Uh-huh, and is it the kind of sure that you had on the McDougall case or on the Lima case?" Nick asked, eyebrows wiggling.
Judy rolled her eyes. "You're never going to let that go, are you? Every time; is it 'Lima'? Is it McDougall?"
She pushed the key into the lock and it turned easily. "For your information, it's neither!"
Nick chuckled and followed her up the stairs, there was a note from the landlord stuck to the door reminding that rent was due in a week. But that could have been freshly posted or weeks old.
"Locks haven't changed," Judy observed. "We should pay up so she has somewhere to come back to, I don't want Tara to be homeless. Her family are already-"
She paused, there were footsteps creaking behind the door and the latch was a little off. Nick nodded; he'd picked up on it too. They didn't have weapons, so they made do with taking a pronged position with Nick leading.
He kicked the door open with a swift attack and it was flung back on the hinges so hard it bounced off the wall.
"ZPD! Who's there?!" Judy shouted, charging forward to leap at the first body she saw moving.
"Gotcha!"
It was a man, medium height with sandy hair, and when he turned his head to protest Judy realized why she thought he seemed familiar.
"Uh oh, it's this bozo again," Nick tutted. "Breaking into a woman's apartment, that's a 10 36 right there, at least six months if it's your first offense."
"Screw you!" Donald growled. "I knew the two of you were up to something, Tara you come home or I'll drag you back by you're damned hair!"
Judy chuckled and pinned his arms up behind his back a little tighter. "Really, you think you can drag anyone around when a bun- uh when I've already got you wriggling around on the floor."
She'd been so close to saying 'bunny' for a second, thank goodness Judy realized before the words came out.
"Still talking about this Tara girl too," Nick sucked his teeth. "You know, add a stalking charge to the breaking and entering and you could be going away for a while. You don't seem like the type to have a decent lawyer."
Donald bucked wildly to try and displace Judy off his back and screamed through his teeth in frustration when it made no difference at all. She'd been trained to deal with slipperier species than mostly naked apes.
"Get off me!" he complained as he collapsed back onto the floor, chest heaving.
"Listen, you seem like a… well, like a mostly unlikeable kid. So here's the deal. Go home, Tara isn't here and if she was then she wouldn't want to deal with you anyway," Judy said and yanked him upright.
Nick helped her get Donald down the stairs despite some renewed struggles on his part and throw him firmly out of the door.
"One down," Judy said, dusting off her hands.
"Right, the sulky kid. Now, how about the sulky God?" Nick suggested, tapping the strap of the backpack on his shoulders.
Other than fiddling around with the glamour potion, which was a lot more like cooking a weird recipe than doing something actually mystical, Judy hadn't really spent too much time delving into Tara's memories of witchcraft. She had an instinct that the whole thing was going to be a lot more complicated than they wanted it to be.
"Yeah, er… let's spread everything out and follow the instructions?" she suggested.
Nick was happy to follow Judy's lead, even less experienced despite a few of Xander's memories of dealing with one particularly awful witch.
"I'm having second thoughts about the statue," Judy said. "What if he gets mad?"
The only figurine they'd been able to get hold of was a toy soldier Xander kept in his locker. It was fairly small and looked like it had seen the wrong end of a dog at some point.
"Then he gets mad," Nick shrugged. "I'm getting good vibes from it. It'll add a quirky twist. Chaos gods like that, don't they?"
Judy shrugged, mentally deciding it was too late to regret now and started preparing the ritual space. There were almost no belongings inside the apartment; a small bag stuffed with a small number of clothes and cash, a few toiletries in the bathroom, and bottle milk that was more solid than liquid sitting in the empty fridge. Tara had traveled light. The only piece of luck was that the place came furnished.
Studying the text and Giles' notes, Judy began to arrange various candles and crystals. Chalking the different symbols took an extraordinary amount of time but she was also being extra careful. There were a few fairly dire warnings scrawled in Giles' handwriting about what to do if the summoning took a turn for the worse. Judy kind of didn't want to find out.
"Ok," she dusted off her hands. "All done!"
Nick gave an admiring whistle. "Looking good hun, what's next?"
"Uh," Judy read over the scripture. "I just invite Janus in apparently."
"Then be my guest," he replied, fascinated. Nick wasn't a believer in higher beings and greater purposes. Maybe this was about to change his mind.
Nodding, Judy cleared her throat and began to intone in a level voice.
"Janus, God of Chaos, I invite thee. Enter this world at thy will."
When she finished Nick stared at her.
"That's it?" he frowned.
"That's it," Judy shrugged. "Now we wait."
It didn't take long, almost as soon as Judy finished talking a yellowish mist gathered inside the chalked circle of symbols and condensed around the soldier figurine. There was a moment when it thrashed and merged, the plastic taking on a new malleable face, and then the eyes blinked.
"Which initiate summons me?"
Judy bit her lip. The tiny soldier came with a tiny voice and she really didn't want to annoy a god.
"I did, Janus," she said and bowed very slightly.
The figure scowled.
"I do not know you, you are not an initiate of my temple," it said.
"No, I and my husband were pulled into this plane by one of your… um, priests," she explained. "We summoned you to ask that you send us home."
The figurine walked awkwardly to the edge of the stone circle and peered up at them. "Let me look closer."
They exchanged worried looks but both Nick and Judy crouched by the chalk lines. Suddenly it began to laugh uproariously.
"Ethan Rayne, oh my good child, I would know his hand anywhere," it wiped at a plastic tear. "An excellent spell, to create copies of souls from another plane of existence and bring them into this one. Transfiguring the body to match the soul. He's such a rare talent."
"Uh-huh, um, that's really great to hear about Ethan," Judy said. "But about the whole returning us to our plane?"
It waved a dismissive hand at them both.
"Return where? You have been copied, do you not listen? There's no return because you don't exist there either. The real souls still living there do. It's very simple," Janus scolded.
Judy felt her mouth go dry and heard a strange sort of roaring in her ears.
"We can't…?"
"No, no. Maybe I could pull your souls out and transform the bodies back to what they were. Then you vanish like a snuffed candle and one day, if the body survives, the natural soul would return. But look at them," Janus flicked their fingers a spider silk thin line of blue extended from Judy's chest out into the distance. "Already long gone, probably found a new plane of their own to inhabit. That's what happens to the ones that don't want to fight for their existence. If this pair hadn't already given up the spell wouldn't have trapped you two instead."
"You're telling me that you, the mighty Janus, can't fix this?" Nick said, his tone a little teasing and challenging. "Come on, you think I'd believe that when you're so powerful?"
"What a sweet-tongued boy, you know you carry a little of my chaos in your soul. We could be very good friends," Janus purred. "How about you devote yourself to me? Then you won't even want to turn yourself into dust on the breeze."
"Dust?" Judy choked. "Dust? But we – we're alive! Now and here! How could we be…"
Janus cackled. "The wonderful nature of a chaos spell is the chaos it creates. Nothing can be as is willed, only what occurs. You live, be grateful. Tomorrow you may not."
"It's starting to sound more like you don't want to than you can't if I'm being honest here, bud," Nick frowned.
"Devote yourself to me and you can discover for yourself," Janus spread their arms invitingly, a crooked smile stretching the plastic in a grotesque imitation of a smile.
"I don't think so," Judy said. With a trembling hand, she began to snuff out each of the candles.
"Such a sore loser, you'll come crawling ba-" Janus was cut off as the last candle died and the summoning spell shut down.
Judy looked down at the mess made by the ritual items and lashed out with her foot, sending wax and chalk and stones skittering across the apartment floor. Then she sat down, dull and unhappy.
"Judy," Nick put a hand on her shoulder and sat too. He sounded as heartbroken as she felt.
"I'm not Judy, I'm dust. A copy. A nothing," she snapped. "Worse than that, I'm a nothing that killed the soul of a child. Tara… she didn't have a happy life, but she could have. With time. It would have gotten better for her."
She began to sob and Nick tucked her close against his chest.
"What do we tell everyone else?" he wondered aloud. "Willow… Buffy, they're waiting for Xander. Do we tell them 'sorry folks, looks like your friend was so miserable he gave up on living and now you've got me'?"
Judy hiccupped and rubbed at her face. She hated crying, or at least, Judy Hopps hated crying. Who was she if a real Judy was still out there somewhere?
"Who are we even?" she demanded.
"Hey," Nick pulled her away by the shoulders and looked searchingly into her eyes. "Maybe Janus is right, maybe it was just messing with us, but you're not a give up kinda girl and no matter what you're still my Judy."
She swallowed roughly and nodded, a sick feeling of guilt and dread churned in her belly but at least with Nick here it felt just that bit more bearable. She looked around the dreary little apartment and grimaced. It was far too much like the first awful place she lived in Zootopia.
"We'll need to get jobs, make money. If it's a long haul then we can't stay with Cordelia," she said. "I don't want this to be the place."
Nick looked around. "I don't know, it's got a certain teenage runaway charm, plus it comes with a side of dumb hick stalker."
"Nick…" she warned.
"I know," he held up his hands in surrender. "We'll figure it out. There are answers out there. I know you can find them. You always have."
Judy managed a weak and watery smile that was, she hoped, better than nothing. Which is what she apparently was. But not for long, and not forever.