Summary Revelations, Part I:

Hugo wakes up with Judy still in his arms. He tries to groom her, but finds her not to his taste. He still makes an interesting discovery. While he does, Judy dreams a strange dream. Finnick calls, and Hugo talks to him about Skye, Cheryl, and the power of wise grandmothers.

Notes:

Revelations has been split into three parts due to length. I am sorry to do this, but the chapter was just too long, and I'm not going to post a 12k beast again. I will be posting the rest of it across this week. There won't be any flashbacks in between these three parts, as I don't want to muck up the flashback order.

Current Day: Thursday Morning In The Snowy Hills.

Hugo...

Hugo awoke with a start.

The morning sunrise blazed through his bay window, filling his living room with golden light. He looked around the bright living room for a moment, as he was sure he had heard someone calling his name. Nothing. No sounds, except for the sound of his own breathing, and the soft chattering of a rabbit's teeth. Hugo looked down at his little ward, and watched her mumble in her sleep, held to his chest by his own paws. She had made that same sound after had found her Monday night and she had fallen asleep on his chest.

He really was going to have to look information on what happy bunnies do, their body language and behaviors, as he only knew how to calm anxious ones down. Plainly this conejita was happy. Huh, this might be a dream, he thought, I searched for so very long for her, never finding her and yet here she is, sleeping peacefully in my grasp. I want her here, I want to keep her here, just like this. Warm. Safe. No more slow withering death, lost and alone in a terrible world, for my little conejita.

He had waited so very long for this, and her proximity was driving him crazy. He had held off for two days, but he could no longer delay. She was here, so very near to him, and he was so ecstatic to have her right here. He needed to do this. It couldn't hurt, and if he was very, very gentle, she wouldn't even wake.

He desperately needed to groom her.

He nuzzled the top of her head with his nose, and tentatively slid out his tongue, licking it along the top of her scalp from one brow to the opposite ear. It was so easy accomplished, so very gently done. He didn't want to wake her, he didn't want to scare her. As he drew his head back, to try another lick, he moistened his tongue, and as he did so he was struck by a most peculiar taste. He worked his tongue in his mouth, Judy's head fur momentarily forgotten, as he tried to work out what the new taste was.

Was it her? Was this her taste? No, this was an aftertaste of something, but not of rabbit. Too late he realized what it was, the aftertaste building from unknown, to unpleasant, to awful, and finally to outright horrid. He tried to spit it out, but it was stuck, glued, to his tongue. Oh, how he had forgotten this particular taste, but he knew it still the same. It was not something a cat should ever forgot. He needed a drink, no gargle, something, anything, to wash the terrible taste of medicated anti-mange body wash off of his tongue.

He tried wiping his tongue with his paw pads, but that just seemed to move the taste around on his tongue. Qué asco! He thought to himself, Well, I am sorry Judy, but there will be no grooming for you today. He reached up with his right paw, and smoothed out her head fur where he had licked, trying to get the ruffled fur to lay flat again. Her fur was looking much better now as he felt the return of the oils to her skin. He also noticed that her fur wasn't a uniform gray, but a mixture of white, black, and dozens of different gray hair shades scattered across her scalp. She also had what looked like very small uniform spots of white in rows down her scalp, like the spots on a deer fawn. Interesting. I didn't know rabbits could be spotted. I wonder why I didn't see them earlier on Monday? Her fur must have been too wet, and they blended in.

As he stoked down along the row of spots, Judy moved inside his grasp. Ticklish? He wondered, but she quickly settled back down. Wait, back up. That's odd. In stoking the spot, his finger pad found a small divot in her skull, a shallow hole in the bone. He examined the spot with his eyes, but he saw no visible scar on the surface of her scalp. No, there is definitely an impression here, he thought as he felt with his pad. 3-4 millimeters across, maybe a millimeter deep? The bone has filled back in, and it's well healed now. The white hairs might be a reaction of the trauma the scalp must have suffered. Except… He examined a couple more of the spots. They too had divots at their base, well healed and without visible scars.

The spots weren't obvious to the naked eye, being so small, and he would never have noticed them had he not tried to groom her. Multiple rows of even divots like that weren't accidental or even some thing she might have developed over time. She must have had neurosurgery, and those divots were the entry points. Cancer treatment? No, there are too many of them, and they're evenly spaced. An experiment epilepsy treatment, maybe? But again, why were there so many divots? He was going to have to ask Emmanuel. The muskrat knew a lot more about neurosurgery options than Hugo did. He would recognize this procedure, and maybe why a rabbit would need to have it done. Maybe then he could ask Judy for details.

His phone started to vibrate and chirp in his coat pocket, seeking a slice of his attention in his time of sensory crisis. Freeing up his left paw from Judy's back, he reached down to his left side and pulled it out. Finnick. Why are you calling me so early? He thumbed it on, "Hello?" he whispered.

"Yo Cat! What's wrong? Why the hell are you whispering?" Finnick demanded to know from his side of the phone.

"Judy is still sleeping, and I don't want to wake her.'' Hugo tried to explain.

"Oh Ho! Taking the rabbit to bed, are we now? Ain't that a little fast, Cat? Maybe you should take her out to dinner first, maybe a movie afterwards?" The little fox snarkily suggested.

Hugo groaned internally. It was far too early in the morning for Finnick's lewd suggestions. "No," He corrected the little fox, "We crashed out on the couch, and never made it to bed. Hang on, I need to get to my office so I can talk." He set the phone down on the couch arm, and turned to lay Judy down on the couch cushions. As he did so he noticed that her halter top was missing, and that his shirt was unbuttoned to his belt. When did that happen? He wondered, Ah! She must have gotten cold in the night and tried to snuggle in, since I tossed her blanket away.

Realizing that she didn't have a blanket to cover up with, he pulled his shirt and coat off and laid them across her curled up form. Picking up his phone, he retreated silently to his office, and partially closed the door.

"Hugo… Where are you, Kitty?" Judy called out, as she set her paper bag of groceries down on the counter top. She hung her keys on the key rack next to the refrigerator, and pulled took off her overcoat to hang next to the door, leaving her standing there in her tee-shirt and blue jeans. Pulling off her Doc Martins boots, she set them on the shoe tray to dry and slipped into her gray fuzzy rabbit slippers, the bells on the tips of the ears jingling merrily as she walked.

"Hugo… I've got your favorite Whiskas! Turkey and bacon! C'mon kitty..." She walked back into her bedroom, and there she found her orange tabby, curled up in among all of her fox stuffies. "There you, you silly cat! Didn't you hear me calling you?" She flopped down next to him, her long pale hair floating down to fall across his body. She giggled as he attacked her hair with his paws and grabbed a mouthful. His eyes got big and he spit the hair back out. He stared accusingly at her as he quickly started to composure wash his paws.

"Sorry, kitty. Looks like you don't like my shampoo, do you?" She reached across the bed to grab him with her delicate hand, and drew him to her chest. She stroked him, and he rewarded her with the start of a rumbling purr, but he got interrupted. He jerked, and quickly sat back up, his head turning to the wall, his ears swiveling back and forth.

Judy looked at the same wall, and sighed. She cupped her hand to the side of her head around her ear and listened. She put her hand back down to her cat, and started to stroke down his back. "It's just Chuck and Frank, arguing again." She told him, "The nice Lakoda lady down the hall, Cheryl, said that I could hear them because the walls were very thin here. She must be right, because it's getting easier and easier to hear them these days. I swear the walls that separate me from everybody else are getting thinner every day. Soon there won't be any walls, and I'll just be sitting in the middle."

"It's so noisy. Hugo. It's so noisy, I can't even hear myself think anymore. What will I do when I can't shut out the noise anymore?" She started to cry these little hiccuping sobs. Hugo crawled up to her, butting his head into her throat, his purr rumbling in her ear and resonating through her skull, drowning out the shouting.

"Thank you, thank you, little kitty." She hugged him to her chest.

A knock at the door drew her back, and she looked up. The knock sounded again, so she rocked her way out of bed, dragging Hugo with her. She hurried to the door, her cat clutched to her chest. She opened the door and stopped with a gasp as she saw who waited for her.

Three sheep stood outside her door, sheep standing on their rear legs, dressed in funny clothes. The two outer sheep looked like rams, with large curling horns, dressed in blue police officer uniforms. They flanked a much smaller ewe in the middle. She was dressed in a dark coat and skirt, with red tortoise-shell glasses perched on her little muzzle. She looked up at Judy and smiled.

"Hello, Judy!"

Judy froze, as Hugo screamed in her arms in recognition and launched himself at the sheep.

Hugo sat down in his office chair and scratched under his chest fur with his claws as he yawn. He held the phone up to his ear with the other paw as he spoke, "Okay, I'm in my office now. What do you need?" he asked the fox.

"You told me to call you, Cat, remember?"

"Oh, sorry. I'm still waking up here… The vixen, yes?"

Ohhh sleep… Finnick wished he could get some sleep. But between the three separate females wanting to talk to him till all hours yesterday, he didn't get all that much sleep. He sitting in his living room, sucking down Cheryl's hang over tea blend, hoping that it could cut through his headache.

"Wake you, Cat? You should be so lucky to get some sleep. I've been up most the night because I have had three females try to talk my ears off all night long, and Skye was just one of them. Apparently she's Judy's ex-girlfriend."

"Marilyn stated so last night. How did they break up?"

"Amicably, actually; they didn't want to. Skye had even invited Judy to live with her. But Skye's mom got really sick with late stage ovarian cancer, and she went north to take care of her."

"Wait a minute… Was this before or after I went out there to meet Mork?"

"Before, I take it. It wasn't so much as a breakup as it was a pause in their relationship. There seems to have been some expectation, at least on Skye's part, that they would get back together or something." Fennick paused for a moment, lost in thought, "But her mom kinda lingered for two years before finally passing away, and by that point they had lost touch."

"Did they have a falling out over relationship expectations?"

"No! Her asshole dad, which are her words by the way, was confiscating their letters to each other. Apparently he didn't approve of the whole female-on-female thing. So by the time Skye got back to Gateway, Judy was long gone."

"Down in Angels City, with a new name and a new look."

"Yuppers. Anyway, Skye bounced around the country for a while, doing odd jobs and working at other shops, before coming back here a couple of years ago and setting up shop with her uncle's automotive repair business. Apparently her brother also works for him; it's a family affair sort of business. She does classic motorcycle restorations, which is how Marilyn ran into her."

"As for the whole rabbit thing, at some point the two were out dancing at the club, and Skye got kinda drunk and weepy, and she blurted out this thing she apparently has for rabbits. It turned into this whole running joke for us, and so when you dumped Judy on my ass, I figured I could play a little with you two, and introduce her to Judy, maybe freak the rabbit out a bit."

"Things not work out the way you expected, Finnick?"

"Oh no… It never does, and you'd think I'd learn. Mess with the lesbians, and they will step all over you."

"I thought you liked that sort of thing?"

"Naw, getting stepped on still hurts. Yeah… I gathered from reading between the lines that Skye still considers Judy to be her mate, even after all these years. I think that's why she reacted to you that way last night. You know how possessive foxes can get with their mates." Finnick drawled.

"Hey Amigo, I only borrow your girlfriend occasionally, and even then I'm only interested in the strength of her arms. You can keep the rest of her."

"Pervert!"

"What? Who are you calling a pervert, Senior Zorro? You're more submissive that I am."

"Yeah well, I can't do the whole punching bag thing. So it's good for my hide that you're around whenever she gets pissed off and needs to blow off some steam, I will grudgingly admit that. Sometimes it's good to share the love, Cat."

"How did we end up talking about kink again? I thought we were talking about Skye and Judy." Sometimes it was impossible to keep the little fox on track, Hugo groused.

"How do think, Cat? We be talking about lesbians, violence, domination, pain, so of course we're gonna talk about kink. Oh, and let's not forget the whole extreme porn thing Judy used to do, ya know. That's one worldly rabbit ya got there, Hugo. She's got the look, ya know?"

"Look, what look?" Hugo was now confused.

"The way she looks at you? You don't catch that? Seriously? You show up at my office with her fur all over your clothes, and you don't catch that she wants to be inside them? It was obvious to me!"

"Uh… No..."

"How do you miss that, Cat? She couldn't shut up yesterday about you and your muscles, and the only reason she hasn't jumped you yet is cause she thinks you've got spikes on the end of your dick!"

"Um, I don't..."

"Yeah, ya don't. I know that. You know that. She don't. And what do you think is gonna happen when the rabbit figures that out? Oh, your clothes won't stand a chance in hell. And you might pretend that ain't your relationship right now, but I know exactly what happens to you when a female uses that commanding tone on you! Not as submissive as me, my ass." Finnick snorted.

Ooohhh… mierda… Is that why Judy unbuttoned my shirt last night? Have I been missing… Oh. Recognition finally clicked.

"Um… Finnick, I don't know this, but I figure you might know this, but do female rabbits have a 'happy' smell'?"

"Do they what? A Happy Smell?" Comprehension dawned on Finnick, "BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" He lost it laughing on the other end.

Hugo listened to the phone, thinking, I'm not going to even mention about what happened last night, with Judy taking off my shirt, because Finnick would never let me live it down. He would never, ever shut up!

Finnick fought for breath, "Hehehehe… Yeah, no, Cat. They chatter their teeth when they're happy, but I don't think they have a specific scent. Why, does she smell 'Happy' to you when she's all over ya?" He grinned evilly on the other end.

"...Yes..." Hugo admitted grudgingly.

"Yeah… You're doomed, Cat. She's got her eye on you, and she knows what she wants."

"That might be so, but even if she got my pants off, it's not going to do her any good. I'm sorry, but I have almost zero interest in sex with any mammal." Hugo just shook his head.

"WHAT? When did this happen? You've had girlfriends, Cat! I know you have! I've met them! What, it was that the tree pangolin, and before that it was that crazy honey badger, what was her name?"

"Madge."

"Yeah, that's her! I've watched you be all lovey-dovey with them! You not have sex with them?" Finnick couldn't believe it.

"Pretty much never. Yes, I like the romance, and the kissing, and all that. I want what my parents share, but the sex not so much. I figure that it is because of my sterility and my messed up nervous system, but I have always had very little interest in sex or sexual attraction. Porn does nothing for me. Strip clubs don't interest me. And apparently I completely miss it when females are throwing themselves at me." Hugo rubbed his brows. How did this conversation go so wrong?

"Dude, like what the hell? I've known you for, what? Thirteen years? And this has never come up?"

"I don't advertise it, okay? Being a virile male is part of my Amazonia culture, and once I figured out that I just wasn't interested in females, or males for that matter, that way, I just hid it. Sure, I like pain, and I got in lots of fights during my gang battles, but sexual pleasure not so much. I like females just fine, just not that way." Hugo sighed, "I didn't even start dating until after medical school, once I found out there was even something like BDSM available to me."

"I'm sorry dude. You should have told me a long time ago. I would have given you a whole lot less shit about it all."

"Like I said, I don't advertise. Being sexual is all tied up with being a male predator, even here in liberal Zootopia, and most mammals look at my body and assume that I because I look the way that I do, I must be very sexual active. I'm not. I just work out because I like being strong, and it keeps me healthy."

"Yeah, I hear you, dude. I know all about Zootopian society thinking your maleness is tied to your physical size." Finnick sympathized with the Cat. "You're gonna need to talk to the rabbit, though, and get her straightened out. The sooner, the better, I think." He counseled him.

"I will." Hugo promised him.

"Well, at least there's a back up plan if the rabbit gets too horny on you. I'm fairly certain I know a vixen that would take her off of your paws for a spell." Finnick snickered.

"Oh, is Skye now Judy's consultation prize, is that what you are insinuating? I'm not sure what either of them would think of that." Finnick humor was crass, but accurate. "Wait a minute… You said three females. Marilyn and Skye were there, and I had Judy, so who else where you talking to last night?"

Ah Shit… Hugo, you would tumble to that, wouldn't you? Well, Finnick, ya got it to do…

"You know my friend Cheryl Silverheels, right?"

"The coyote professor, yes? Yeah, I worked with her during the Night-howler crisis, because Nick brought her onboard. I don't know her socially."

"Because of her wife?"

"In part, but I could definitely sympathize with Catherine's loss. No, it's more a matter of philosophical disagreements on the nature of sentiency. We tended to get into arguments about the root of mammal intelligence during our time together. I understand she's also Nick's friend, so I supposed that's also why I don't interact with her all that much."

"Yeah, speaking of Nick and not interacting, what's it gonna take to get you two talking? Uncle Finnick's kinda tired of keeping the two of you separated in his social life, especially for the past three years; makes planning parties a drag, ya know?" Finnick dangled the question.

"Honestly, Finnick, it's mostly on him, I suppose. I despise his tough cop demeanor, and I have little interest in his ZPD horror stories, no matter how funny he finds them. Cops equal corruption in my head, and I know that's a limitation of my cultural upbringing, but I don't trust the badge. But, still, I'd be interested in what he's like outside of the ZPD, what his family is like. He is your friend, and since you asked I will try to get along with him." Hugo paused for a moment.

"Actually, I might not have a choice in avoiding Nick. The new head of the Night-howler task force has ordered Bogo to get Nick to brief me fully on the case. The new agent doesn't understand the medical/neurological stuff, and wants me to bring him up to speed on that side while he works the financials."

"New Head? Not Bogo? Not Nick? Oh, I bet they're thrilled. Sounds political." Finnick thought furiously, "Wait! Does this have to do with the whole goat and Clawhauser thing yesterday."

Ah… meirda… "Yes. The goat was in the middle of Night-howler induced savage fugue when he attacked the poor Sergeant. We don't quite understand how he got intoxicated, and since he attacked an officer the ZPD got called in."

"Sooo a new agent, eh?" Good! Finnick thought. Now he doesn't have to tell the Cat anything! Nor did he have to yell at the fox, although he might still push him to be nice about it.

"Yes, he's an agent of the Commonwealth, by the name of Chi Daman. Apparently Nick has been snowballing him with information, and Agent Daman wants a mammal to put it in a form he can understand."

"And they chose you, Cat? They must be desperate, down at the ZPD."

Hugo snorted, "Funny, little fox. And you're stalling. What's going on with Cheryl that you don't want to talk about, Finnick?" Hugo asked politely.

Busted! Shit. "Okay, I know this is gonna sound weird, but it's all connected, I swear. Bare with me here, Cat. Judy said she found you in a Tundra Town on Monday night, a couple of blocks from the Central Square, right?"

Hugo frowned at his desk, "Um, it would be more correct to say that she stumbled into me. I had heard mumbling coming from an alley way and I went to investigate. That's where I found her, soaking wet and shivering. She was pretty far gone from the hypothermia, delirious even. I'm not sure she ever even recognized me."

Trust Hugo to stick his nose in an alleyway looking to help a strange mammal, Finnick thought. "Was she close to death?"

"Oh, yes. She would have collapsed from fatigue in a matter of minutes, and after that she would have died from exposure, as her internal temperature had gotten too low. She was in shock, and mostly incoherent."

"So, you think she would have died out there, in the snow?"

"Certainly… What are you leading up too, Finnick?" They were supposed to be talking about Cheryl, not Judy… Oh… Diosa, he was dense today. "This is about Cheryl, isn't it?"

"Yeah, Cat, it is. I know you don't agree with all of her beliefs, but I want you to listen, okay."

"If this is about the supernatural element of her rescue, you're going to be the third mammal to bring this up."

"Huh?" Really, he's not the first to figure it out? Who then?

"Emmanuel talked with me about it yesterday, and my Abuela on Monday evening, before I even found her."

"What do you mean, before?" Finnick was stunned.

"I mean, that my Abuela sent me to find Judy." There, he had said it. It sounded crazy, like that out in the open, but he was increasing convinced that none of this was by chance.

"The shamanist, right?"

"Yes. I believe she sent me on a Hunt, find the lost and the dying, and to guide them back to the land of the living." Now he waited for his little friend to respond to that proclamation.

"Okay, then. That makes me feel a lot better. I thought I was going nuts, but it's not just me then."

"Finnick..." Hugo growled.

"Okay, Okay! Cheryl has been having this dream every night for a month where she's Clawhauser on patrol in Tundra Town, and she discovers a dead rabbit in the snow. A gray female rabbit, and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was..."

"Judy." Hugo finished for him.

"Yeah, Judy Hopps! She was convinced of this! And she kept having the dream, every night this past month, right up until Monday night, when it changed. Judy was no longer in the snow, right? She should have been there, but she wasn't anymore. You know why?" He asked the cat.

"I had her." Hugo breathed…

"Exactly..." Finnick concluded.

"Finnick, when I was leaving Tundra Town on Monday night, I drove past Clawhauser who was out in a patrol cruiser. He was driving toward the Central Square." Hugo explained.

"Oh… Shit!" Finnick swore, "She was supposed to die there, and They were smacking Cheryl with the news, and she passed it on to me, and when I didn't do anything with it, They got your grandma to send you in. What the hell, Hugo? What's going on? What is so special about this little rabbit?" Finnick demanded to know.

Hugo was struck with a thought, "She was marked for death, and Lord Jaguar himself has interceded on her behalf, but He has interceded in her death without petition, Finnick. No one petitioned to find her. I certainly didn't petition to find her, and Abuela would have told me if there was a petition, I would think. No, nobody who loved this rabbit knew where she was or if she was dying. Nobody knew." Hugo's mind was racing to a conclusion.

"Finnick, this incredible." Hugo was stunned to realize, "This hasn't happened in living memory, I mean..." He ground to a halt.

"What? What hasn't happen?" Finnick demanded.

Hugo struggled to explain it to the little fox, "Abuela used to tell me legends, legends of Death Priests and their Acolytes sent by Lord Jaguar himself to save a hero. I mean, she didn't tell me of any where they were sent to save the villain. It might of happened, I suppose."

"Except that there is nothing heroic about this rabbit! She's a former porn queen, and now she some kinda crazy homeless mammal, right?" Finnick still couldn't wrap his head around her.

"Yes, that is true, but in the legends that my Abuela taught me, the meeker the mammal, the greater the quest."

"Ah… Shit… Marilyn said the same thing. She said that Judy was on some holy mission from the Espiritus Santos, and that it was our job to support her."

Hugo mind halted with a click. The meeker the animal… Judy was anything but meek. She was damaged, yes, but meek no. "Our job to support her? Or is that our job as predators to support her?"

"Predators? What?" Finnick asked.

"She's a small, weak, and sickly prey mammal. Yet she has surrounded herself with predators. She prefers the company of predators, Finnick. She is comfortable in their company. How many other rabbits do you know that can say the same?"

"Ohh..." Finnick breathed.

"Think, there's me, a forest cat, you and Marilyn, a fenec fox and a maned wolf. Cheryl's a coyote. She's even taken a fox as a lover!"

Finnick's mind quickly caught up. What about Nick? "Is there's bound to be more predators involved?" He asked Hugo.

Hugo responded honestly, "I would think so. She's going to need a lot of help, and lot of protection, if she to succeed with what she was sent to do."

Finnick blurted out, "And what is that? I've been racking my brain, but everything is peaceful right now! I don't get it!" What's the connection with those two dead mammals, Bellwether and Latrans?

Hugo looked down at the floor. The answer was obvious in hindsight. "There is one mammal who does know." He told the fox.

"Judy."