Story Summary:

This is an alternative ending to the Debts Unpaid Fan-fiction written by Magick205 over on DeviantArt where by Judy Hopps commits the murder of a prominent coyote, Carl Latrans at the age of 9, and is sentenced to a mental institution for the rest of her childhood. This story picks up 19 years after her incarceration and 3 years after the Night Howler events, where Judy is now 28.

Judy has spent the past 3 years lost and homeless on the streets of the Zootopia. After a dramatic encounter with Nick Wilde during a thunder storm in the Rain Forest District, she flees into the night and ends up in Tundra Town. Dying of exposure and hypothermia, she is found, purely by chance, by Doctor Hugo Wiedii, a former researcher who knew her from her time at Cliffside Asylum. He takes her in, and Judy begins the long road to recovery.

Chapter 1 Summary

Judy has been living homeless on the streets of Zootopia for the past three years. After seeing Nick Wilde walking through the Rain Forest district with his mate and kit, Judy could no longer take the heartbreak and suffering that the Divines had promised her, and ran off into the night. Soaking wet, she arrives in Tundra Town in the dead of night, and begins to feel the effects of the cold. Delirious, she wanders through the alley ways muttering to herself, slowly dying of exposure and hypothermia. She is rescued by an old doctor of hers, a margay named Dr Hugo Weidii, from her days spent at Cliffside as a young felon. Shocked to find her here after 13 years, he struggles to save her life.

* * * Somewhere Else * * *

Has she not suffered enough? Has redemption eluded her, even in the depths of her trials?

Can no solace be offered for her sacrifices? Can we not intercede upon her behalf?

Yes, You May…

For a time…

* * * A Cold Monday Night In Tundra Town. * * *

The night hung over Dr Hugo Weidii's head like curtains of still black velvet, a mane of rising exhalation wreathed around his ears while a few lonely snowflakes drifted past his nose like sleepy moths. It was a fine night in Tundra Town, and while the cold air stung his jungle born lungs, he could not help but grin.

The monthly dinner of the Tundra Town's Zootopia Neurological Society Chapter had gone smashingly well, with an excellent presentation on the current innovations in Mustelid spinal repair given afterwards. The two ferret doctors presenting it had enjoyed a packed audience of over 30 medical professionals, and quite a few interested lay mammals had attended it as well. He certainly enjoyed their rapt attention during the presentation and the questions that they had asked the two speakers afterward were certainly thought provoking, even to his tired mind.

The snow crunched under his wide margay paws as he strolled back to his SUV. He was certain his parents, down in the jungles of the southern continent, would find this place to be the surest embodiment of a frozen hell, but he enjoyed it. This impossible city was his home.

A murmur, drifting back amongst the flurries, twitched his ears. They swiveled back and forth, trying to pinpoint the sound. There, look there, down that alley way, it came from there. He looked up from the street he was strolling along at the darkened alleyway across from him. His tree born ears, optimized for hunting in dark dense jungles, zeroed in on the mutterings emanating from the dark.

He stopped, cautious but alert. He felt little fear, for while he shared his margay father's size, hidden under his bulky parka was a compact version of his mother's jaguar build. Many a bully encountered during his childhood had tried to tease him for being a half-breed runt, only for them to regret ever meeting him and his powerful claws. More modern criminals knew that by just meeting his eye that he was no easy mark, and would leave him to go in search of easier prey.

No, not a mugger. The mutterings weren't directed at him. They were sing-song, repetitive, almost prayer-like in their cadence. "I had to…. I had to…" They sounded drunk, almost feminine? Not a mugger. And certainly not a bar-crawler. There weren't any open on this street that he could see. A homeless mammal? If that were the case, the shelter sponsored by Her Lady's Divinity over on 10th should still be open. Maybe he could get them to go there. It wouldn't be the first time he had to escort an unlucky mammal to a homeless shelter. Far better for them to be there than out here on these frozen streets, even if they had to put up with the singing and sermons before they could sleep.

He stepped across the pavement, and into the gloom of the alley, the pupils in his nocturnal eyes widening to take in the dim illumination drifting in from the lone street lamp at his back. Color bleached from the world around him as the darkness fled and the scene before his eyes turned to monochromatic shades of gray and sepia. Empty pallets lined the walls, in between the ubiquitous rusting dumpsters that squatted on the asphalt like boxy toads, and a slow rivulet of icy water meandering around the garbage strewn down the center.

A small dark figure, mumbling at the air, listed down the alley towards him as he stood bathed in the cool light of the street lap behind him. He sniffed the night's breeze, but he could not detect the tell-tale tang of alcohol coming from them. Drugs, perhaps? It was certainly not a night-howler derivative, not if they were lucid in their whispers. Maybe they were an opioid addict, a victim of the latest scourge in a long line of pestilences to plague the city?

Another scent wafted in to his nose, riding in upon the breeze. Rabbit. He breathed in deep, his nostrils flaring as he drew in more information from the dank air. Wet Rabbit. No, not drugs or alcohol. It was something far worse for a night like this, and with that his medical training kicked in as a single thought screamed through his mind.

Hypothermia!

He yanked his zipper down and ripped the parka off his strong frame. Stepping forward several steps, he carefully wrapped it around the small shivering figure. The rabbit's eyes closed upon feeling the trapped body heat in the long coat embrace them. He looked down at the slight figure, trying to determine if they were a teenage rabbit, or a small female. Female, his nose told him.

"Miss", he quietly said, trying not to spook her with his voice. Rabbits were flighty creatures, prone to shock at even the mere presence of a predator. And the confusion that came from hypothermia doubled the danger. She was at extreme risk of cardiac arrest if he wasn't careful. But he had to get her out of the cold and out of her wet clothes. She was in serious trouble, and a fire & rescue unit might not make in time before she slipped into shock.

He knew his SUV was right down the street, and it had his gym bag and an old blanket in the back seat. It was the closest shelter available to him. He bent down on his knee before her and said "Miss, I need to get you out of the cold, and get you dried off. Can I pick you up, and carry you to my car? It's warm and dry there." He gestured down to the end of the alley way.

Diosa, I sound just like a stalker saying that! He mused wryly to himself.

Her nose twitched, breathing in the scent of warm predator standing just in front of her, but she didn't panic or try to bolt. A small smile appeared on her lips, and she breathed "Okay…"

"She is really out of it," he worried. As a rabbit, she was far too trusting of the feline kneeling in front of her. There had always been a whiff of fear from the rabbit families and patients he had dealt with in his career as a neurologist. Well, except for Dale and Meredith, but they were his neighbors and knew him well. They didn't count. But nothing from her, which was strange.

He slowly gathered his arms around the small shivering form, one arm around her back, and one below her hips. He pulled her to his shoulder, embracing her, and prepared stand up, taking her weight into his arms. "She's light, far too light" he thought. He stood easily, without a complaint voiced from her, and turned to exit the alley.

As he stepped out on to the street, he looked down at her head resting on his chest. Her cheeks were sunken, her fur was matted and mangy. He sniffed her head, between her ears, and smelled the distinct odor of ammonia. The horrible scent of a body that consumed itself as it fought to survive.

This confused him, as he knew that there were a quite a few shelters or soup kitchens, both private and publicly run, even right here in Tundra Town, where she could easily get two square meals a day. She might not get a bed for the night, but she wouldn't have starved. And they would at have least have made sure that she was dressed warm and dry before sending her into the night.

She might be a battered female, escaped from an abusive household or marriage. Or maybe a gang member on the run from retribution. But he couldn't see any telltale bruises or scars on her head. And as he tucked his muzzle in between her ears again for another sniff, she reached up with a cold and clammy paw to bop him on the nose. "Stop it, Nick, I'm trying to sleep…." she whispered.

That name, and the scent of her paw on his nose, jogged a memory in him that he couldn't yet place. He should have, but the wet fur hid the rest of her scent from him, hints of an earthy scent which was very similar to another, older scent, that he was familiar with. He couldn't place it in his distracted mind yet, as all of his concentration was now on her immediate survival.

He looked up and realized his SUV was just a few cars away. He hitched her around so that he could free up a hand to dig out his keys. He hit the auto start button and opened the rear doors to slide into the backseat. The change in motion stirred her to wakefulness, and she turned her head up towards his, opening her eyes.

Seeing those eyes, in the here and now, shocked him to his very core, freezing him right in place. Eyes that reminded him of sunsets and storms over the mountains, and of orchids and water lilies in the jungles back home. Eyes that screamed their connection to that tingling scent he just couldn't place before. Eyes he had been searching so long and fruitlessly for in this past decade.

Eyes of the clearest amethyst.

Mi diosa! It's Judy Hopps!

She shivered in his coat. Shaken from his reverie, he mumbled an apology to her and ducked into the backseat. Shutting the door beside him, he turned to her, and open the coat. He orientated her so that she was facing him and straddled his lap with her legs, but she shivered violently when the open air hit her wet fur.

"I'm sorry, but we need to get you out of those wet clothes and dried off, or you could go into shock from the cold." She looked down at the torn blouse clinging to her chest, and picked slowly at the hemline. Seeing that she really wasn't going to be able to help take it off, and that the blouse was a lost cause anyway, he hooked a claw in the front and ripped down, shredding what was left. As he reached into his gym bag for his towel he heard her mumble something like, "and we haven't even gone on our first date yet…"

Turning back to her, and looking into those eyes, he didn't see any fear. They were a little confused, which was but to be expected, but the hint of humor glinting there seemed a bit out of place. He started to towel off the front of her torso, and he was appalled by the feel of her rib cage under his paws. When she was still at Cliffside, even after being pumped full of Thorazine every day, she had still been an active and healthy bunny. She had fallen far since she had left that horrible place.

He finished with her front and reached up behind her to pull off her jacket, dropping it to the floorboards. The remains of her blouse quickly followed as he got to work drying off her back with the towel. He knew that the inside of his parka where it had touched her would dry quickly enough, as the inner lining wicked off any moisture that collected against it. As he worked the towel into the fur on her bony back, she in turn leaned into his chest and dug her tiny paws into his thick feline chest fur.

Her wet shorts had soaked into his lap by that point, which reminded him that she was still wearing them. Putting down the towel, he unfastened her shorts, picked her up under the arms, and pulled them down and off of her legs with a wet shucking sound. He pulled her to his chest, and carefully worked on drying her thighs. He didn't want the cold blood from her extremities rushing to her heart, as that could also cause her to have a heart attack.

As he was doing that, she had cuddled into his chest and neck, and had started to make a sound king of like soft purring, which he had never really heard a rabbit make before. He let the coat fall back to cover her legs, and since she had mostly dried her own arms on his shirt and underlying fur, he went to work on her ears that were draped over the back of the coat. As he slowly drew the towel down the ears, she sighed and closed her eyes. A slow smile crept up over her muzzle.

He was rather confused by all this. Either she was in shock or she had really changed in the intervening years. He was getting the distinct impression, both from her actions and her rising scent, that she really enjoyed the touch of a predator on her fur and skin. A scent he found to be totally at odds with her current physical state.

"Judy…" he softly spoke to her, trying to get her attention without also scaring her. "You're suffering from hypothermia and exposure. I need to take you to the hospital. Is that okay? Can I do that?"

She shivered again, not with cold, but with fear. He could smell the spike in her scent as it washed over her in a shudder. "Nooooo…. They'll catch me…." she moaned.

"Who will find you, Judy?" he queried her. But she just started to cry in these strange little hiccuping sobs. She was definitely in shock, and he wasn't going to a straight answer from her in this state. But something was definately terrifying her.

So that meant hospitals were right out. He knew the local shelters really weren't really equipped to handle hypothermia and exposure cases of this magnitude, not without sending her to a hospital. And he didn't want to risk her trying to escape, just like she used to do with great regularity at Cliffside. The ZPD would just shove her in the drunk tank to sleep it off - just one more homeless rabbit that they didn't want to deal with.

That left him with just one final option at this time of night.

Neighbors!

"It's okay, Judy, it's okay" he crooned to her. "No hospitals. We won't take you to the hospital. I'll just take you home and tuck you into bed, instead. Would you like that, conejita?" he asked her. (*Conejita: Bunny Girl)

She gulped back a sob with her eyes clenched shut and nodded once into his chest. Yes.

"Okay, I'm just going to call my neighbor Meredith to help me. You'll like her. She's a bunny just like you – an arctic hare. Is that okay?" He put his nose back down in between her ears, as it seemed help calm her. An action that seemed on the surface to be counter intuitive to him, placing his teeth so close to her head and neck, but she seemed to like the closeness. She must have had a predator for a boyfriend or loved one in her past for her to respond like that. Strange. The decade since he has last seen her must have had so many changes in her life.

Sniffling, with her eyes starting to relax, she let out a soft "yeah…"

He fished his cell out of his coat pocket, scrolled through listing until he found Meredith's number, and pressed "send call".

Ring, Ring… "Woot?" A sleepy, slightly cross, masculine voice answered.

"Dale? This is Hugo. I'm sorry to have called so late, but I have a bit of a medical emergency here, and I was wondering if I could talk to Meredith?" he asked.

"Man, we just got to sleep…" Oops, Dale and Meredith had headed off to bed early. They must have had plans for an early appointment in the morning or something. Plans which he was going to now thoroughly upset. Mierda!

Mumbled sounds came from the phone. "Meredith…. Meredith, wake up. It's the Jag. He's got some bloody emergency he wants your help with."

A sigh "Well, give it here, luv, and I'll talk to him." A bit of shuffling noise came over the phone, and Meredith piped in "Hello, Hugo. What do you need?" The voice was sleepy but distinctly not angry or annoyed like Dale. In fact, she sounded rather happy. And then the light dawned on Hugo as to why they had gone to bed early, why Dale was so annoyed, and why Meredith was so happy right now.

They had gone off to do that special thing that hares do, with the hares that they love, with great vigor, and commendable enthusiasm. And considerable stamina. It was scary, after all, considering that they were grandparents. Well, at least he had caught them after the fact. Dale would have probably broken the phone if he had called earlier.

"Hello Meredith. I am sorry to call you so late, but I need a bit of your nursing expertise. I have found one of my strays, but she is refusing to go to the hospital." Hugo started off with.

"Oh! She?" Meredith's question hung in the air. "Which she?"

"Judy Hopps, Meredith! After a decade of searching, I finally found her! Or more precisely, she found me, I think." Hugo exclaimed, then he looked down in worry to see if she had been startled or not by his voice. But Judy was doing fine, nestled into his chest fur and making a soft sound as she started to drift off to sleep..

"What? Wait, is she purring? Why Hugo, you randy devil, you!" Meredith softly chuckled.

"What What? No, it isn't like that. She's in a bad way. I found her wandering around Tundra Town soaking wet. She's suffering from exposure, hypothermia, some dehydration and also what smells like malnutrition. She's paranoid about going to the hospital, something about somebody being after her, which would explain why she was in such a state here tonight. But it seems that she is willing to go to my house to rest. I thought we could get her cleaned up and hydrated tonight before taking her to the TT Free Clinic in the morning. With that in mind, what I wanted to ask you is when was the last time you ran an IV? I've got a full emergency kit down in my office for when patients come over and something horrible happens, but truthfully I'm not all that good of a stick."

"Truthfully?" Meredith replied, "Thursday."

"Really? Oh! Oh, okay, that's good".

"Really. Hugo, luv, for a doctor you are profoundly ignorant as to what happens inside a maternity ward on a daily basis. Or even, I might point out, the means and methods of reproduction for mammals in general, for that matter." She managed to get a little dig in under his skin. He was a dear, and she did consider him to be a good friend and a good neighbor, but his timing just always leaves something to be desired.

"Ha Ha. I work with the pointy end of the mammal, not the middle part. Less screaming that way."

"Uh huh…" She patiently replied. "And are you actually going to bring this female patient up here, or are you going to banter with an old doe all night?"

"Oh, sorry, I'll head up now. It should be about twenty or so minutes, at this time of night."

"We'll be waiting." Meredith chuckled as she ended the call.

Hugo closed the phone app and opened the SUV control app so that he could send the front passenger seat all the way back and down. Peeling her up off his chest, he wrapped her up in the coat and lifted her up over the center console so that he could settle her into the seat. Pulling up the blanket, he turned and draped it over her slight frame, and watched quietly as she fell back to sleep. Watching her, he realized that while she was out of danger for the moment, it would be a long and tough road to her recovery. She had no reserves left – the next shock could kill her. She needed time and support to recover those reserves.

But he needed to take the next step, and actually drive her to her next destination. He looked down at himself, and realized he was soaked from chest to knees. "Oooo this was going to be cold" he thought as stared at the side door with trepidation. He did not want to go back out there. Screw it! He clambered up between the seats, getting wet mud from his feet on the center console and his alligator leather seats. He steeled himself for a slight OCD attack over getting them so dirty, but nothing really happened. I guess it helps to have somebody else to worry about, he thought, as he buckled her in, then secured himself.

He pulled out of his space and went down the road, heading off to his house. As he did, he passed a ZPD cruiser driven by a lone cheetah. Ah, it looked like it was Officer Clawhauser on patrol tonight, and looking miserable to be stuck in Tundra Town on a cold night. He waved at him, wished him well on this cold night and turned down the street for home.

Author's Notes:

Doctor Hugo Weidii is based on an early version of the character that would in the end become Dispatch Officer Clawhauser. There were several variants of the story that the writers at Disney worked through before they arrived at the story that we know as Zootopia, and in one of those earlier story variants Nick was a secret agent. He meets a bartender named Hugo, a large orange tabby cat dressed in shorts and a green tropical print shirt, and does a scene at a bar with him. This character would go through many changes, but would eventually become the adorable cheetah we know as Benjamin.

I needed a character that Judy could have interacted with during her time at Cliffside, and since "Hugo" means mind or spirit, I picked him as a base for her doctor. In Zootopia there are no human domesticated animals, being that primates died out before the rise of Mammal Sapiency, so the character would have to be based on a wild cat. I picked the Margay feline because it was about the size of a very large housecat, orange, and because it was an expert tree climber, which was cool. Also, Hugo is a very common name in Venezuela, which in turn is part of the Margay's home range.

I keep and update a Glossary of Terms and Characters over at AO3 if you are interested in reading more. Just look up The Measure of a Mammal there, since I can't seem to include a hyperlink here.