She found him where she knew he would be; where she expected him to be; absent. As always.
The kabab shop in Hyena Heights was a crummy dive of a place. The walls were greasy and faded. There were scorch marks around the doorway to the back. The concrete floor was filthy and the mismatched tables and chairs scattered haphazardly against the walls looked to be on their last legs. Judy suspected there would be enough health code violations to choke a moose if she so much as looked. However, she only had eyes for him. Eyes that calculated.
He was sitting, or more accurately lounging, in the cheap plastic chair like it was a throne and he a barbarian king, nibbling something greasy on a stick. He looked the same as ever.
She'd known him practically since she joined the police service, eight years ago. He'd always looked the same. Gaudy shirt, dull slacks, smug grin and his bag of tricks, as he called it. She'd been forced to go through that bag several times. It didn't have much in it, most days. Usually, some sidewalk chalk, a magic marker, a ring of uncut keys, one church key, a few ounces of salt base for seasoning rice, a tiny pocket knife so dull soft tofu would be a challenge to cut, a palm-sized note book with pages missing and a ballpoint pen so old it had a patina.
No drugs. No weapons. No contraband. Not even a can of spray paint. She'd even had the grimy canvas bag swabbed and tested. It was obviously never washed, so if it had come into contact with anything illegal, it'd show up. Nothing. Not a drop of anything, just like his blood work. He was completely clean; drug and disease free.
So why he was always around events like the arrests the other night was a mystery. She'd taken him in as a mammal of interest once she saw him at the second or third crime scene, but he'd had an alibi. Each and every time he appeared, it seemed to be by coincidence. She checked. Early on in their acquaintance, she backtracked his movements every time hoping to make a connection. There never was one. Over time her fervor dwindled. Now, she only occasionally checked to make sure, by force of habit. He seemingly just wandered to where it was happening, whatever it was. There was no rhyme or reason to his movements that she could see and that was with eight years under her belt.
He had no criminal record. No connection to any suspects in any case on record. No listed residence, either! She would have arrested him for vagrancy, but she could never prove it. When she'd found occasion to frisk him, his wallet had a few notes, a renewable ZTA pass and a condom. He did have an ID, but it lived somewhere else, apparently. Upon demand the fox had procured it, seemingly from thin air, or behind her ear. The latter particularly irritated her.
She'd seen it. She knew she had, but the second it was out of her sight she forgot what it said and no method of copying it worked, either. Camera phones magically fell out of focus, written copies turned into chicken scratched, or Rorschach blots. It drove her to distraction. Much like the fact that he was so damnably hard to track down, even tracking his ZTA Card. Sometimes it felt to her that unless he wanted to be found, she couldn't find him. She'd tried so many times and never succeeded. He always, without exception, found her.
Today was no exception.
She'd walked into the kabab shop doubting he'd be there and he wasn't. She turned around and there he was, looking straight at her. He smiled at her gaping expression and breezed past her into the shop where he collected an order that apparently was waiting for him, paid, sat and started eating.
Now, she had him. If she could only get her brain to work again.
She shook herself and saw his smirk grow between bites. She hated feeling like he found her amusing. She stomped over and sat opposite him. She knew intimidation would accomplish nothing. She tried anyway.
Her stare didn't faze him in the least. "See something you like, Carrots? Or are you just that bored?"
"I thought I told you to refrain from calling me that." Her businesslike tone not hiding her annoyance.
"I remember. So, what do you want, Carrots?", he replied with a smirk, before continuing his meal.
"I need your help."
"That's a funny word, isn't it?", he commented around a mouthful of food.
Now, she was confused. "What word?" She hated how he could reroute conversations.
"The word "need". It implies requirement. In this case, that you require my assistance; require, as in without it, you can't proceed with your investigation. You and I both know that is not true. Not even a little. Especially, as you don't have a case you're working." He punctuated his statement with another bite, not bothering to hide his canines or his indifference.
"How do you know?" Her tough-cop front was cracking and it was barely two minute into the conversation. She doubled down and went for angry.
"Trade secret." He smirked and held up a finger, staying her retort until he'd swallowed. "The few times you've been on a case around me, you never sit. You only sit when you don't feel it'd be a waste to not be moving."
"You seem awfully sure of yourself."
"I am. Now, what do you want, Carrots?"
Judy fumed. Not just at the nickname, but at being so obviously read. "I need you to explain what happened last night."
"That's simple.", Nick replied, coolly. "While you were arresting that dealer, his supplier was going to jump you. I intervened to protect you. You tasered me. It's all in my statement and backed up by the CCTV footage."
Judy bit back, "It didn't show what you did, because you were outside it's footprint."
"Take it up with the technician who installed it." Another mouthful.
He was halfway done. She wouldn't be able to keep him from leaving once he finished, so she had to delay him. "Your statement also didn't take into account the flashbang you used to deter the suspect. Flashbangs are illegal for civilians to possess, or make themselves."
He didn't slow his pace a bit. "And you also know I neither made, nor used one. The tests you ran on my clothes and fur confirmed that."
"It had to have been that."
"Carrots, are you claiming I'm clever enough to develop a new type of non-lethal crowd control weapon that leaves no chemical traces and has no casing? Because, if I had, I wouldn't have used it to protect your adorable little cottontail from a drug peddler. I'd have sold it to the military or weapons manufacturers and retired to Pawlenesia, a very wealthy mammal."
"How did you know there wasn't a casing?" It was a long shot and she knew it, but anything to keep him talking. Maybe in blowing holes in her questions, he'd slip up.
"If there had been, you'd have found it, run your tests and then arrested someone else, because neither my prints nor fur would be on it. I dislike weapons. Thus, there couldn't have been a casing, because there was no flashbang." The fox swallowed and sipped his drink before continuing. "A few lightbulbs popped when I was running that weasel off. I startled him and he bumped into an old junction box. There must have been a short, or something and pop! You said yourself, you smelled the vapors."
"That doesn't explain the rest of it." Judy was getting frustrated. She was getting nothing but shut down. She needed answers.
"What rest of it? I do believe what we've discussed was exactly what you put in your report. Are you claiming you left something out?" Another bite. Less than a third of his meal remained.
Judy stared daggers at him. She was trapped. His explanation was the official version of events, but it did not cover the rest of what she saw, or heard that night. Her ears were good and she knew the snarls she had heard did not come from the fox across from her. She also knew that the weasel he'd "scared off" hadn't been found, yet. She suspected he would have some electrical burns and not from bumping a junction box. More like Nick's accomplice wielding a very illegal, overpowered stun-gun.
"Something like the accomplice who snarled and used your homemade stun-gun?"
The look she got in return was pitying. It made her teeth clench. "Oh, Fluff… You know as well as I do that there was no one else in that alley. Your wolf coworker, Wolford was it? Didn't he clear the scene with his partner, the other wolf?" Another bite and sip.
She nodded sharply, once.
He swallowed and took another. "Isn't it standard procedure to confirm no other mammals were present via Search & Sniff?"
Another sharp nod.
"And they found no other mammals present but you, me, the weasel I scared off and the capybara you cuffed. Right?" A swallow and a sip.
Judy forced a "No." out of her throat, through gritted teeth.
"Therefore, no stun-gun, no flashbang, no accomplice and no reason to press charges on me." Nick picked up his now empty paper plate and made his way to the bin. Judy followed. "Sorry, Fluff. Wish I could have helped more!"
As he turned to leave, she stopped in front of him and stood her ground. He stopped in turn and added a raised eyebrow to his expression. "Can I help you in some other way, Detective?"
Judy was fed up and at a dead end, but she would never leave a loose end like this. "Wilde, I am not done with you. I will find out what happened that night and if you did anything illegal, I will have your ass in cuffs so fast your head will spin."
Nick grinned as he bent down, decidedly inside her personal space. Almost nose-to-nose, in a voice that dripped teasing suggestiveness, he said, "Your cuffs won't fit my posterior, Carrots, but if you want to cuff me I can make myself available. Your place or mine?"
It took everything Judy had not to blush, or punch him. "In your dreams, Wilde."
Nick stood and sidestepped her, but stopped just as his muzzle passed her ears. "Wouldn't you like to know."
Judy spun on her heels, filled with indignity. Ready to lay into him, when her turn planted her cheek onto his lips. She back peddled, all her fury gone to fluster and surprise. "Watch it, Wilde. Do that again and It'll be sexual harassment."
The momentary flash of surprise on his face melded smoothly back into his usual smirk. His usual wry tone made her blush threaten to deepen. "You find something sexual in an accidental peck on the cheek? I had no idea you were so innocent, Carrots. How's the ex-husband, by the way?", and he was out the door.
When Judy rushed over to give him the tongue lashing he deserved, the door popped into its frame and jammed for a moment. By the time she got it open, the red fox was gone. She fumed the whole way back to the station.
As she walked the streets of her city, away from her wasted lunch-hour with the fox, she found herself conflicted. It was a common experience for her, when it came to Nick. Looking back, she was sometimes concerned about her interest in him. He seemed like a nice mammal, sometimes. At others, he was an unmitigated ass. For example, she hated to be reminded of her failed marriage and he knew it. However, he also arranged for the kabab shop owner to stop her before she left and give her a takeaway. She just did not get it.
He'd been on the ZPD radar for years when she joined up. Investigating the fox was something of a rite of passage in precinct One. It was the first time she had been called in to Chief Bogo's office. He investigations into the fox had not gone unnoticed. It was the first mystery about the fox where she actually got some answers.
"If he's not important, why have him flagged?" Judy was confused. It didn't make sense that her hard work had gotten her pulled in to the Chief's office. She was just following protocol.
"Because you aren't the first, Hopps." Her boss replied, tiredly. "That fox has come across my desk so many times in the last five years, I've lost count and I have a photographic memory. Every single cop in this precinct has investigated him for showing up at multiple crime scenes. Not a single crime associated."
"He must have done something." Judy grumbled half-heartedly.
Bogo's response was a surprise to Judy, both for its sincerity and it's candor. "That attitude is what got Lalynxski suspended. I do not suggest you follow his example."
"Yes, sir!" Judy knew about the IA investigation from the rumor mill. It was nothing to take lightly.
Bogo turned down the wattage on his glower before shooing her out of his office. His parting words were both confusing and concerning. "He tends to prefer befriending females, so if you're his new buddy go tell Francine. She'll be glad to be rid of him." She was.
That was eight years ago. It was fitting that she recalled that chat with the chief, as she walked into the precinct. Francine Trunkaby herself was at the front desk chatting to Sergeant Clawhauser. Judy liked both of them, so she decided to take a pit stop and hopefully raise her mood.
The elephant glanced up at the doors opening and did a double-take. "Hopps, what's got your cotton tail in a twist?"
"That damn fox. What else?" Judy did not like how close to a growl her voice was. It was enough to get Clawhauser's eyebrows to rise, though the big cat held his tongue.
Francine seemed genuinely concerned. "Geez, Judy. When he was following me around, he was never that bad. Annoying at times, but nothing to get pissed at."
"I seriously doubt he gave you a kiss on the cheek. I swear I want a shower. Maybe a delousing.", the rabbit groused.
"Wait. He did what?" The concern in the pachyderm's voice was replaced with flat disbelief.
"I went looking for him at lunch. He found me and ruffled my fur, as always."
"Damn. He never did anything like that with me."
With a sigh, Judy finally let the anger drop. Maybe a joke would lighten the tension. She really had plenty, as it was. "Probably had something to do with your cheek being several stories above his head. Unless kissing your other pair was what he was after."
Ben finally joined the conversation. "He's not the type. I'm still surprised, though. Didn't think he was the type for affection, either."
Francine hummed her agreement before checking her watch. "I gotta meet Higgins for patrol. Fill me in later?"
Judy nodded and the gargantuan officer lumbered off, leaving her and her favorite feline alone at the desk. Judy didn't have to wait long before the cat's pointed gaze made her uncomfortable. "What?"
The big cat was always one of her favorite mammals. He'd make someone a wonderful wife, one day. In the mean time, he was her staunchest supporter and one of her closest friends. He knew she didn't like talking about the fox, or any part of her personal life, publicly. "She's gone, now, Jude. What actually happened?"
She rolled her eyes before replying. "He was in my personal space and I turned quickly. His lips bopped my cheek. That's all."
"Sounds like an accident to me, Hopps," Claws commented with a raised eyebrow.
"It was." She sounded miserable, even to herself.
"So why are you so angry?" Understandable confusion on his end. Judy still didn't like it.
"I tried to use it as a handle, but he blew it off," Judy grumbled.
"What did you do?"
"Tried to warn him off about sexual harassment, but he just chided me for finding anything sexual in such a small thing. Then, he ribbed me about James." Gods, she sounded bratty. She looked up to see her friend's uncharacteristically considering face. "What?"
"You know he's been with you for longer than anyone?"
"You make him sound like a husband."
"He predates your husband."
"Ex-husband" She hated making the correction. Again. She knew it was a petty detail, but it hurt every time, both for the fact of having to do it and the reminder of her largest failure. "And why does that matter?"
"Didn't he say something about you and James not working?" The feline was working up to something.
"He said several things. All lucky guesses," Judy replied cagily.
"They were all correct?" He was inspecting his claws. He only did that when he was absolutely sure he had her pegged.
"Uhhuh. Like I said, luck," She really did not like where this was headed.
"Or he's paying attention." He posed the point as casually as commenting on the weather, with all the ease of stating fact.
Judy sighed. She could guess what was next. "What are you getting at, Clawhauser?" It wasn't the first time.
"Judy, mammals don't just guess with that kind of success rate." A fair point. She had to agree. She hated to agree.
It was time to turn this away from her friend's scripted conversation. "You think he's spying on me? Like he's a stalker?"
"No, no. You know he isn't. Stop being a DB and think about it!" His open annoyance was easily outstripped by her own. She hated even the acronym of that term. She'd fought against it for so long and he was the only mammal she even tolerated it from, because she knew he wasn't serious. It still pissed her off. The fact that he was presenting logical, well-reasoned arguments didn't help. "He's been around you longer than anyone. He's been around longer than your husband."
"Ex-husband," Judy grated out.
His eyeroll was expected and she braced for the heavy blows. "He always knows where to find you. He pays enough attention that he knows your moods and state of your personal life. He even knows how you take that awful tea you drink. He even got you home that one night after the holiday party, when we were all drunk."
Judy snapped, "So, you're saying instead of a freaky stalker, he's interested in me, what, romantically?"
In response, the cheetah only shrugged and made the "I've made my case" paw motion.
"Dream on, Ben."
She grabbed her bagged lunch and went to her desk. She ate as she worked her way through the usual pile of paperwork and documentation needed for a case wrap-up. She just wanted shot of this day. Like most days where the fox showed up, this one was full of frustrations.
She knew Ben liked seeing everyone at the station paired up and happy. He'd even thought that she and James were good together. At the time, Judy had agreed. She had right up to finding out about the does he was running on the side. Their marriage had ended two years ago. For as much pride as she brought the family for her professional accomplishments, there was that little record she held which was nothing but shame for her: shortest marriage to date in her family.
Judy finished her shift and got out of the precinct as quickly as she could. There was nothing to help settle her mind there. Sadly, her apartment was just as bad. She hated the broom closet she'd had to move into after the divorce. It was just like the greasy closet she lived in when she first came to the city. She called it Square One. She'd been there for two years and had no plans to leave. There wasn't a point to it. She barely spent any time there, anyway, other than to sleep.
It was avoiding the facts, but it was all she could do at this point. She had no kits, no mate, no prospects and no interest. As she microwaved her usual tasteless meal, she couldn't help but face the truth. The last one was a lie.
She was a rabbit. She hated being alone. Affection was one of the things she missed most in her life. She had it from her family growing up. After leaving to pursue her dreams, she missed it until she met James. She'd missed it since they split; most strongly when the day was done. Then, she was back to Square One - an amazing career and professional life, with a hollow personal life. It was always about this time, when the microwave dinged, that James' parting shot bubbled back up to her mind; that she was married to her work and there was no room for anything else in her life. Then, he walked away. They hadn't exchanged so much as a syllable since.
Ben and her mother both wondered why, after so long, she still hadn't even tried dipping a toe into the dating pool. The truth was that she still hurt. He'd spoken the truth. He was a cheating bastard and the judge had backed her up on it. She didn't deserve to be cheated on. However, she also knew that James didn't deserve to be neglected the way he had been. Infidelity was his failing. Neglect was hers. She wished they'd been adults and talked things out before it got as bad as it had, but that was impossible now. Hopefully, he was happier with whichever bimbo he'd settled on.
His happiness wasn't her issue, either way. Not anymore. Her problem was getting used to being alone. She wasn't going to have a round-two. One failed marriage was enough for her. As much as she hated it, James was right. She was married to her work; to her service to the city. There wasn't room in her world for another commitment like that and she had no desire to make the attempt. Anyone she loved enough to marry didn't deserve to be ignored in favor of her career. James hadn't.
She choked down her dinner and started to get ready for bed. Half undressed, the prospect of another night laying there in her panties and sleep shirt revolted her. She knew how it would go. She'd try to relax, or at least find the resignation that would let her get through another sleepless night. She'd fail. Rather than waste the steps between, she pulled her jeans and jacket back on and went wandering.
It was something she found herself doing when she couldn't sleep, or felt restless. For some reason, wandering the city calmed her. She felt more at home on the sidewalk, aimlessly ghosting the streets, than she did almost anywhere else. Just the feeling of the sidewalk under her feet was enough for her to feel the tension bleed out of her shoulders.
She breathed the air that smelled of millions of mammals and more habitats than anywhere else on the planet. It smelled of exhaust and stress, ambition and anxiety, laughter and tears, desire and lies. Everything she loved about her city. It was nights like this that she felt it live and she felt her drive renew to make it better than it was yesterday and better again tomorrow.
It made the hurt and loneliness worth it to know she helped. When she walked the streets like this she didn't feel alone, or afraid. She just wandered her pains away and, eventually, found her way home in time for a handful of hours of sleep. She flopped onto her bed still wearing the smells of the nighttime city and drifted to sleep.
Hours later, she woke up panting, drenched in sweat. Her body was a mass of conflicting, incoherent sensations and not all of them were organic. Trying to wrap her head around that idea gave her a headache.
Her dreams roiled through her. In the darkness behind her eyelids, the strangest images and scenarios played out. Traffic was her blood, the winds and exhaust were her breath, the sewers were her bowels and that new construction down by the canals itched something fierce. She saw dozens of mammals and machines living their lives. Felt the hopes of stray plastic bottles and the fierce anger of the oppressed cockroach masses. The water pressure in the Rainforest District sprinkler system tickled as it flowed, the snow and sand blew pleasantly. The climate walls hummed through her bones, just like the electricity in the wires thrummed along her nerves.
She knew she was losing her mind.
She absently yanked her clothes off and ran to the shower on autopilot. She needed to get up, out and moving. It was still hours shy of her usual alarm clock going off, but she needed to not be sitting still, or she'd crack.
As the water cascaded over her frame, the memories from her dreams kept coming. Every second she had slept was filled with strange dreams and they were all desperate to get into the post-sleep montage. She was on her knees and shaking as she realized they were getting near the end. That was where he showed up.
The damn fox.
It took her a bit to realize it was him. He was dressed as he always was, but his face was different. The features were the same, but the mammal wasn't. His cheeky grin was gone, as was the playfulness in his eyes. He wore an expression of long-suffering patience and he was certainly not mammalian. She watched as he inhaled and blew out exhaust smoke to break up a mugging, pulled light from the bulbs on a side street so a tired wolf could make his way to the hospital without being spotted by the gang who hunted him, and walked through shadows as though they were doorways. Tundratown's cold didn't bother him any more than the heat of Sahara Square.
The montage continued, giving her a show of everything the fox did, all evening and through the night. She realized she was dry and half-dressed about the time her relived dreams took a turn she wasn't prepared for. The fox was walking on the waterfront, watching the sun rise. The light hit his coat and he seemed in that moment to be fire and light made flesh and fur. Then, just to make her reality bend a little more, he turned and looked her square in the face. His emerald eyes flashed with mirth and confidence.
His smile was his usual cocky grin and his voice his usual lazy timbre as he said, "Morning, Carrots," as if he was passing her on the street.
Her paws stopped she got her shirt over her head and her jaw dropped. Nick gave her a very obvious once-over with his eyes before quipping, "Looking good." And he was gone.
She sprinted out the door to the ZTA station by her apartment. She needed answers and she knew where to get them. All Judy could think as she ran was, "What in the buttery blue fuck was that?"
Nick sat, more accurately slumped, as he rode the ZTA bus away from his little lunch with Carrots. He was tired. Thirteen years was a long time to wait and eight of those were knowing who he was waiting for. It was far too late for him to change vocations. He'd made his choice and there was no going back. At the time, he hadn't known he'd be going it alone.
His mentor was dead, as were most of his colleagues. All that was left of the old guard was himself and Liam, an aardvark that was already losing himself to the city. Those others who had survived decided to move on, or let themselves be consumed entirely.
He was one doing the work of many. He needed help. And company.
Once upon a time Judith Hopps had been as bright as she was driven; a veritable light of the city. As she was, she would have been able to take the pressure off him by half. If she had just not met that damn buck. Three years of coaxing and long, slow effort gone. Exposing her to the city, opening her to the beauty and spirit of the place, helping her love for it become something potent enough to make the connection, blown away because of a pub crawl and a buck who was buying.
Now, her light was muted; strangled by her bitterness and regret; her self-loathing. It disgusted him. That worthless buck would hurt for what he did and Nick wouldn't have to do a thing. The city would balance those scales in her own time. That was none of his concern. In the meantime, Nick had work to do.
He didn't regret giving her the meal, any more than he regretted cutting her little fishing expedition short. It was a simple cantrip. He'd summoned the memory of rain from the RD and reminded the wooden doorframe of when it lived. It stirred in memory of when sap flowed through it and rain eased its unquenchable thirst and swelled. He felt the Number 22 bus, running exactly 4 minutes late as always, about to pull away and slipped aboard just as the doors were closing. It was a small gratification to see her consternation at his disappearance. It was a small compensation for her anger and accusations.
He didn't regret it, but it didn't feel very good to him. It was a hollow gesture. Once, they might have shared a meal. Now, he was interrogated, while he took a small rest from his duties.
He slipped off the bus at a random stop. He knew it was the right one. He felt it. It was time for pest control.
Two boars were standing in the alley across the road, waiting for some hapless mammal to wander past. Typical muggers. The scent of blood on them was strong enough that the air around them seemed tainted red to Nick, as he took them in. They didn't see him. The shadow of the building behind him concealed him from their sight and the exhaust blunted his scent. He sighed and stepped back into the building, through the concrete and glass and up to the roofs of the building across the street. He was above his prey, unobserved by the common mammal; hidden by his benefactor. He did not enjoy this aspect of his calling. Pulling weeds was scut work. He'd done more than his share as an apprentice. Now, he had to do it again, because there was no one else who could. His distaste and frustration at that rabbit drove his emotions higher.
The fox reached out to the airs of the city as they whipped between buildings, funneling them; guiding them to where he was. Suddenly, the two porcine degenerates were engulfed by a freak blast of wind. Trash blew into them from every direction, disorienting them and blunting their senses as well as their voices. No one heard them, just as they failed to hear.
Barbed wire slid along the walls and floor of the alley, like living vines. The boars inevitably blundered into them as they choked on the exhaust-saturated air and fought the rubbish as it collected on their bodies, like a cocoon, and they struck. The tendrils of sharp metal leapt from the walls and floors to embed themselves in the flesh of their victims. Bone broke and skin tore under an assault that lasted a heartbeat, before the would-be muggers were dragged down through a manhole cover and into the bowels of the city.
Nick released his hold on the magic and let it slip away. He sat on the roof top for a moment to rest. The feeling of the area lightened fractionally. It felt safer. Weed plucked.
There was more to do. He was needed in the Meadowlands.
It was still full daylight, so the shadows were still thick and lush. Nick slipped into the lee of the stairwell and vanished into the shadow. The crushing pressure and sensationless void were nothing unusual in Nick's world. It still itched a little, though.
As he stepped out of the shadow of a huge tree in a cemetery with a view of the alpine district, he saw why he was there. A teenaged goat was standing by a grave, swilling wine straight from the bottle. It was clear the kid needed closure, but couldn't find it. Nick didn't need the reminder. The wine bottle shattered as it came to rest on the headstone. The goat gaped. He hadn't put it down that hard. Dark liquid dribbled over the engraved name and the trees rustled. The kid finally cried for mommy and broke down.
Nick hadn't been subtle. He didn't need to be. He didn't want to be. The same ache he always had was there.
All afternoon and evening, into night he worked. Again.
Alone.
Still.
The same as it'd been since Finnick and the others died.
As the fox stepped into and out of shadows, onto and off of busses and trains, it was all the same. The crushing weight of responsibilities and loneliness. Back and forth across the city, he worked his magic and kept the city in balance; weeding, pruning, exterminating, scratching itches and soothing hurts. By dawn, he was drained. He needed sunlight.
In that quiet hour before dawn, when every city settles just a touch in anticipation of a new dawn, Nick found himself walking the line between water and land. It was one of the few places he felt the balance of the land most strongly. It was where he finally felt what he'd been waiting for, for eight long years.
Her presence was there. She was awake and she saw him. His heart buoyed and for the first time since he couldn't remember when, the sun breaking the surface and shining over his fur felt like a benediction again.
He turned to face her and was stunned to see her form. She must have dreamed deeply to come so far in a night. A full-body manifestation over distance usually took a few months. Maybe she was making up for lost time, with the city's help. Whatever it was, it was the first heartening moment he'd experienced in a very long time.
He grinned. "Morning, Carrots."
Then, he saw her state of fluster and undress. Police work definitely treated her well, from what he saw. He couldn't resist. He dragged his eyes over her, taking in every inch. "Looking good." And he severed the connection.
He settled on a nearby bench to wait. He knew she'd find him. Finally. For once, he didn't have to go looking for her.