Judy clicked on the printer icon and instantly smelled coffee. She turned around to find Nick carrying her mug and his, each filled to the top. "How'd it go?" she asked as she took her mug from him.
Nick waited a moment for Judy to finish her sip. As she set her mug on the desk, she felt herself being lifted from her chair. Her journey ended quickly, though, as the lingering taste of Yakswell House with two spoonfuls of sugar was replaced by the taste of Nick's lips.
Ten seconds passed, then twenty, then sixty. "I love you, Judy Hopps," Nick finally said after nearly ninety seconds of kissing his bunny.
Judy blushed, aware that almost every eye in the room was on them. "I love you too," she whispered, "but, Nick—"
"Forever and ever and ever."
"Nick."
"I'll never let you go."
"Nick!"
Now every eye in the room was on them. A few officers had even started to come over from other areas of the precinct.
Nick's pulse quickened as he too began to blush under his fur. He set his girlfriend back in her chair and then gestured toward the others to shoo. "All right, back to work, back to work. You're not getting paid to gawk. Reports won't write themselves, phones won't answer themselves, and criminals won't arrest themselves. Clawhauser, did you just take our picture?" As fellow members of Zootopia's Finest started to resume their duties, Nick turned back to Judy. "I'm sorry. It's just the reason for my parents' divorce. My father cheated on my mother. He's felt guilty about it ever since, but he still did it. I just had an overwhelming need to tell you how much I care about you. I need you to know that that's never going to be me."
"Oh, Nick, I'm so sorry," she said as she put a paw on his arm. "But it's not genetic. I know you, and I trust you completely, just like you trust me."
Nick smiled. "Thanks, Carrots." He paused for a moment. "Well, except for the heartbreaking truth, it was good to see Dad again. His story of how he became Dr. Cunningham is complicated but also pretty sympathetic. I also learned that I'm not an only child. Dad's affair lasted just a few months but it produced a kit, a son, whom he has never met. I'll tell you everything we talked about later."
"Later? Are you leaving?"
Nick nodded. "Are you OK without me? I asked the chief if I could punch out a little early. I want to take Dad to my apartment so he won't have to face the horde of reporters who, I'm sure, have surrounded his house in the Meadowlands."
"I'll be fine. So he's being let out on his own recognizance?"
"No. I called"—he leaned into Judy's ear and whispered—"I called our, uh, small friend with a larger name out in Tundratown, and he sent someone over with cash for the rather high bail. His service fee is being billed to me." He stood back up fully. "Little Judy, by the way, is doing well. She's going to be a big sister soon, and she's very excited."
The godmother smiled. "Aww!"
"We've got the next two days off, so we'll get together at some point. But I'll call or text you tonight after things are settled." Nick picked up his coffee mug. "A few swallows for the road," he said before taking a few gulps. He set the mug back on the desk. "You can finish the rest. After all, I hustled yours earlier."
Judy looked into Nick's mug, which had his name on the side spelled out in blueberries. There was only one sip of coffee left. Two if she really savored it.
— § —
About an hour after his call with Nick, Mr. Big's most private cell phone rang again. He tapped the green button to accept. "That was fast."
"Actually, sir," Raymond said, "I'm calling to let you know that we don't need to threaten him with icing after all. Formaldehyde Clyde has been dead for three years. Loxo had him put in the concrete when Central Station was having a platform upgraded."
Mr. Big tapped his fingers on the armrest of his tiny chair. "Hmm. I don't like the idea of the elephant boss of Savanna Central seeming tougher than I am. Go down to Central Station and threaten him anyway."
"Yes, sir."
— § —
"Good evening and welcome to ZNN at 6. I'm Peter Moosebridge."
"And I'm Fabienne Growley."
"We begin the new hour with continuing coverage of today's top story, the arrest of a longtime plastic surgeon who was never licensed to practice."
"Moments ago, our Tucker Snarlson spoke with the director of Meadowlands Hospital, where the fake doctor began his career of deception. Tucker?"
"Thank you, Fabienne. I'm here at …"
Elizabeth Wilde muted her TV when she heard a knock at her door. He hadn't called ahead, but she had been expecting him. She stood up and tried her best to collect herself as she went to answer it.
"Hi, Mom."
Tears welled up in the sixty-two-year-old's green eyes as she reached out to hug her only child. "Oh, Nicky. I'm so sorry."
"I'm sorry for you too," Nick said as he returned the embrace. He held it until Elizabeth let go to dry her eyes with a tissue.
The vixen backed up a little to allow Nick to step inside. "I had the day off, and I was just watching ZNN for a short time this afternoon when the story broke. It's been 90 percent of their coverage since. How did you learn?"
"Judy and I were the ones who arrested him," Nick said as he closed the door.
Elizabeth's jaw dropped. "No!" She brought the tissue back to her eyes. "Oh God!"
"It was a planned sting to catch an unlicensed doctor. Judy posed as a patient. We didn't know that the doctor was Dad until about an hour later when his pawprints matched ones already in the system. I talked to him privately for a while after that. If he hadn't been arrested for shooting off those fireworks on my fifth birthday, I never would have guessed that he was my father. His changes to his face are just that good."
"I know. Every time they put up his picture, I can't believe it's him, and I was married to him for eleven years. Even his eyes are different."
Nick nodded. "Blue contact lenses."
"Such an elaborate deception. I never thought he'd be capable of something like that, but I never thought he'd throw away our wedding vows either."
"It breaks my heart that he did that to you. Part of me is glad you kept me in the dark, and another part thinks it would have been easier in the long run to have known the truth a long time ago. But my heart breaks for him too."
Elizabeth said nothing but she looked disgusted.
"He says he still loves us, Mom, and I believe him." Nick gestured toward the couch. "Let's sit down for a bit. I have a lot to tell you about Dad's life over the past twenty-seven years, and I'm sure you have some things to tell me."
— § —
For more than ninety minutes, Nick told his mother about his father's deep regret, his suicide attempt, and how he had made the unplanned transition from an unemployed tailor to a surgeon trusted by average mammals and A-list celebrities. Nick explained that he had a lot of sympathy for John despite his flaws, and that he was sad that his father's arrest had ended the closest he had ever been to true redemption. Elizabeth told her son about the pain of losing the love of her life and how being a mother was the only thing that had helped her through the long, lonely nights. She explained how she had kept the last name Wilde for Nick's sake even though it filled her with sadness. She regretted, though, pressuring John to not seek visitation rights, admitting that Nick probably would have had a less rough childhood and teen years if he had had his father in his life.
Finally, the room fell silent. Every question that mother and son had for each other seemed to have been answered.
Except for one.
"So ... are you going to see him?" Elizabeth asked after a moment had gone by.
"Who? Dad? Yeah, like I said, I took him to my apartment right before—"
Elizabeth shook her head. "Not your father. Gideon."
Nick cocked his head. "Who's Gideon?"
"Your father didn't tell you?" Elizabeth paused for a moment. Slowly, she realized. "He doesn't know." She paused again. "Gideon is your half brother."
"How ... how do you know who my half brother is?"
"Your father's mistress asked him not to look for her, and it seems he honored her wish. But I didn't."
Nick's eyes widened. "What?"
"I needed to know who this homewrecker was, so I sold my wedding ring and used the money to hire the private detective Adrian Shrewlock. Almost immediately, he was able to link the paper she had written on to a certain cheap motel, and after investigating there, he was able to tell me that Cinza was just this vixen's alias. Gwen is her real first name, and cinza is a Porkuguese word for her real last name, Grey. Adrian tracked Gwen to Bunnyburrow—"
"Bunnyburrow?" Nick whispered to himself.
"—to the same house where she had lived since coming to Animalia from Porkugal with her mother and sister when she was young. She worked at a cannery, where her job was to inspect labels on cans of sweet peas to make sure they had been glued on properly. Talking casually to neighbors and coworkers, Adrian learned Gwen was single throughout her adulthood but that she had long talked of wanting to be a mother. That obviously wasn't going to happen in Bunnyburrow, where there were almost no other foxes. So she came to Zootopia in search of a suitable, healthy tod. To put it crudely, Gwen was never interested in your father, she just needed a sperm donor. Once pregnant, she returned to Bunnyburrow, where she gave birth to a son in May 1990."
It was deep into the twenty-first century, but ZT&T still printed phonebooks annually. Elizabeth got the latest Zootopia and Outer Burrows edition off a nearby shelf and flipped to Bakeries in the yellow pages. She handed the open book to Nick. "This is your half brother."
Wearing a pink apron with a smiling pie on it, the blue-eyed plump fox who shared a father with him stood cheerfully behind the counter of his bake shop. On a tray were some pies still steaming from the oven. "'Gideon Grey's Real Good Baked Stuff,'" Nick said, reading the ad. "'Made with fresh produce from'—he briefly paused—'Hopps Family Farm'?" He turned to his mother. "That's Judy's parents' farm!"
"It's a small world, Nicky."
"Does he know what happened?"
"I don't know. I didn't follow much of his life growing up. I don't blame him at all or harbor any ill will against him, but he's still not my son. Though it was your graduation from the police academy that suddenly made me curious enough about him again to Zoogle him."
"Well, he should know. If he's anything like me, he has questions that he long ago gave up on." He looked back at the ad and started tearing out the page. "Questions that might finally be able to be answered over slices of blueberry and raspberry pies. And later, some carrot cake."