AUTHOR'S NOTE: thank you Anonymous Guest for the review!

This chapter features another, very random, crossover.

Chapter 147: The Mistakes.

"I just can't accept this. It's making me nervous and sleepless and I feel absolutely horrible just thinking about it."

-LapinNoire, Now for Wrath! Now for Ruin! And the Red Dawn!

Debbie stared at the newcomers who had just exited the van The driver approached the police officer.

-"Mister Beaumont?" the officer said.

-"Mister Dusty?"

-"Thanks for coming so quickly."

-"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Debbie whispered in Dusty's ear.

-"He's a professional negotiator, formerly with the FBI, now working independently," Dusty replied. "They say he has had a near-100% success rate over the past 15 years."

Beaumont walked closer to them and shook Dusty's hand, before introducing the rest of his team.

-"My second in command, Cynthia Walker; psychological profiler Oliver Yates, and chief investigator Zara Hallam."

Everyone exchanged handshakes with Beaumont and his team. Debbie in particular spent a long time, staring deep into Beaumont's eyes.

-"Please save them. I can't bear to lose my daughter like this."

-"My priority here is to make sure everyone comes out of this alive," he said. "I'll do whatever it takes." He then turned to Dusty. "You were rather vague on the phone, what's the situation?"

-"We have two hostages inside, the farmer and his teenage daughter," Dusty explained. "There are two hostage takers, one man and one woman."

-"Have they made any demands?"

-"I didn't get a ransom demand or anything," Debbie said. "And we're not exactly wealthy, so there's very little we can pay. Especially with that idiot parking in the vegetable patch."

-"Don't worry about paying," Beaumont said. "We don't even know if money is their motive. Mister Dusty, have they contacted you?"

-"They haven't even acknowledged my presence since I came here," Dusty said. "I didn't try to contact them either, I was waiting for you all to show up first."

-"How did you even know this was a hostage situation?" Walker asked.

-"Apparently, one of the hostage takers ordered food delivered to the scene, shrimp or something. The delivery boy reported it."

-"A kidnapper calling in junk food to the scene? That's a first..."

-"I know, it's ridiculous, but it's the truth..."

Beaumont paced throughout the crowd, instructing the members of his team as to their specific tasks.

-"Zara, go interview officer Dusty to find out further information about the hostage takers. Oliver, you set up our equipment. Cynthia, you stay with Ms Cane here, and I'll go interview the silent one," he said, referring to the woman near the car.

Zara and Dusty went behind the car to be able to have their discussion without getting interrupted.

-"One of the two hostage takers is a fellow police officer," Dusty explained. "The other is a criminal he arrested."

-"What were the charges?" Zara asked, taking notes on her phone.

-"Minor stuff. Littering, threatening behaviour, attempted arson maybe? I'll have to check the files back at the station."

-"Do you know their names?"

Dusty opened his mouth, and closed it, embarrassed.

-"I don't remember...another thing to search for in the files, it seems. I do have a picture of the officer on my phone, though."

-"Text it to me."

A few minutes later, Zara received a notification on her phone. She repressed a chuckle as she looked at it.

-"That doesn't look like a police officer..."

Dusty walked over to her and looked at the device's screen: it was displaying a photograph of two young boys playing in the snow. As he saw the picture, he facepalmed.

-"Oh no, those are my nephews, I must have sent the wrong picture. Let me try again..."

Dusty pulled his phone out of his pocket and swiped through a series of pictures, attempting to find the right one. There were many more the nephews, as well as several of his pets and, to Zara's confusion, a few baseball players. This went on for several minutes, partly due to the large number of pictures, but also because the device was lagging noticeably. After a long time, he finally reached the desired picture. The officer was standing in front of a blank wall, staring directly at the camera, holding a piece of paper with a giant lowercase e on it.

-"I thought you said that was a picture of the officer, not the criminal?" Zara asked, confused.

-"Oh, that's not a real mugshot. He just wanted to make a joke."

Rather than try to get Dusty to text her again, Zara simply took a photograph of his phone with her own.

-"I'll try running the picture through facial recognition once our equipment is set up," she said. "But any additional information you could obtain from the files would be very helpful, especially to Oliver, so he could profile them."

-"Right. I suppose I'll get going now. Hazel's in charge until I get back."

-"Hazel?"

-"Yes, Hazel C, your boss called her 'the silent one'. The officer stole my car, so she drove me here. Now I'll have to take her car back into town."

At Watership Down, several rabbits were at silflay, resting after the weasels' burial. Flyairth stood near the beech tree.

-"So, now that the weasels are disposed of, can we leave the warren already?" she asked.

-"Oh, not this again..." Hawkbit mumbled.

-"Why are you in such a hurry?" Moss asked.

-"I really think it would be the safest option," Flyairth said "Besides, I was almost elected Chief earlier, so you should all listen to me.

-"I want to change my vote, to Hyzenthlay," Nyreem said suddenly "Last time, Alder said you were one vote away from becoming Chief. Now, it's two votes."

-"But why?"

-"You want to abandon this warren. I don't."

-"This is no time for sentimentality. Our safety should be the primary concern."

-"We're all exhausted, after the battle, and the clean-up," Hazel said. "Even if we were to leave, we wouldn't be able to make it far in our current condition."

-"Well...there probably won't be a second wave of elil overnight...we'll wait until morning..." Flyairth was clearly displeased by the delay, but was forced to admit the logic in Hazel's argument. The rabbits soon dispersed, going back to their respective burrows.

Before going to his own burrow, Hazel made a detour through his brother's, where he found two lying rabbits.

-"Are you asleep yet, Fiver?"

Fiver turned around and hopped away from Vilthuril, towards his brother.

-"Not anymore. What's on your mind?"

-"I think I made a mistake," Hazel confessed.

-"Don't worry, everyone makes mistakes. What do you think you did?"

-"I suggested having a second Chief."

This left Fiver very surprised.

-"You seemed so convinced this morning. What changed your mind?"

-"For one thing, the most popular candidate wants to abandon the warren."

-"I highly doubt she would have gotten that many votes had she said that before voting. Nyreem already changed her vote, others will probably soon follow."

-"That's part of the problem. You think you know someone...then something happens that makes you reconsider everything."

-"I don't have a bad feeling about the remaining candidates. But I didn't have any about Flyairth either..."

-"You can't have visions about everything, Fiver."

The two rabbits remained silent for a few moments.

-"I'm also reconsidering my initial goals," Hazel eventually said. "Initially, I thought I needed help with the important tasks of running the warren, but all this time spent on the votes, could have been spent actually doing these important tasks."

-"There was no way to know it would take as long as it did," Fiver said.

-"Perhaps not. But if Meadow hadn't arrived when she did, we wouldn't have known about the weasels until they were already underground and attacking. Some of us would have died."

-"Like Bigwig says: the price of safety is constant vigilance. We'll have to keep up the patrols, and probably leave sentries to keep an eye out for elil, and Woundwort."

-"You make some valid points. But when the morning comes...I don't know what I should do."

-"You're not seriously considering abandoning the warren, are you?"

-"Of course not. I was thinking of the election: ignore it, cancel it, vote again...all three options may cause problems." Hazel sighed. "It's really a shame you're not interested in the job, considering how often I end up asking you for advice..."

-"I can keep advising you in the future as needed. Until then, you really should get some sleep, Hazel. In the morning, I'm sure the situation won't look so hopeless anymore."

-"We'll see. I really appreciate your advice."

The two brothers nuzzled; Fiver went back to his mate and lied down next to her, while Hazel went to his own burrow.