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Starfall: Chapter 28: Fitting in: Epilogue: Part-Two Mark.

--

Meadowlands General Hospital, Zootopia, Zootopian Dimension. About forty-eight hours later, early evening.

--

With a pained motion of his arm, and a sense of annoyance of the pain. Mark shuts the TV off. All the channels talk about is twenty-four hour civil war, which he’ll admit he had more of a role in the event than he should’ve.

Both in accelerating it, by his good nature, not wanting to see good people or mammals suffer. Pushing him to give all the information he has on it to the orange deer analogue of one president of the older United States back home. Otherwise, he’d face living through it first hand. The ‘troubled times’ his grandparents lived through, and so descriptively wrote in their journals.

And in taking out the leader of the separatists, as they’ve been crowned by the media, because Stallhoof took Vivian. Trying to get his hoof-hands on his tablet.

Said vixen, and he’ll readily admit, is his girlfriend now, was also arrested for being a member of The Skulk. Not that he’s surprised by this. She’s facing military justice like the rest of the group as he lays here. The government, like back home, is taking gangs as a military threat now. Instead of a law enforcement problem like before.

‘Her sentence should be light comparatively to the others. Considering how low level she is in the group… I hope. I’m stuck here in this hospital though, recovering from everything. Hair line fractures along multiple bones, internal and external bruising, the stab wound from stallhoof’s antler. Not to mention they want me under observation for residual effects of Night-Howler and it’s antigen for the next couple of days. Not that I blame them.’

Looking at the time, he contemplates going to sleep early having nothing else to entertain him. Only to pause as he hears the door to his hospital room open well past visitor hours but hours before any nurse or doctor should be here to check up on him.

A pang of worry of the possibility they may have found something wrong is pushed aside at the first thing he sees after the door closes. Two albino white ear tips of a hare or rabbit.

Not caring which species it belongs to, he watches the tips as they head for one of the chairs in the room. Only to slowly push it over next to the bed across the linoleum floor. Whomever it is, letting out a groan when the mammal hops onto the piece of furniture revealing who it is.

Mark just lets out a deep sigh. ‘So this is how it is…’

“I figured you were from some agency or government org when you were spying on me and Vivian back at the restaurant. Christ, only three or so days ago.” Mark beats the jackrabbit to the punch, speaking first. Causing the albino mammal to close his small muzzle.

“And here I was informed human senses were duller than even the dullest mammal species known.” He stands, rather than taking a seat on the wolf sized chair.

Mark only sighs. “They are, however humans are great at noticing patterns and oddities. Like you being the only other mammal in the restaurant other than my girlfriend reacting to me talking about how well humans tolerate alcohol or other things like capsasian and chocolate.”

Sitting up, he faces the albino Jackrabbit with a neutral expression on his face. Hiding the growing worry that this ‘agent’ is here for him and not to talk.

“Do I get a chance to say goodbye to my friends and Girlfriend, or are you just going to tie up loose ends without any fanfare? I can only see two possibilities an agent of any three letter agency of this world is here to see me at this odd hour of the evening. You’re either here because the new United States of Animalia considers me too dangerous to keep alive due to all the information I gave to the president. You know, just in case there’s even the slightest risk I’d give something to some other country’s government. Or you’re one of the few remaining Stallhoof loyalists here to get revenge on the man who killed the deer.”

If it wasn’t for what Jackrabbit had to do not even twelve hours ago. He’d laugh at Mark’s assumption in front of his flat muzzle. Yet all he can feel is a bit dead inside because of what needed to be done. With the chair next to the tiger sized bed the lupine sized human is laying on, he looks to Mark for permission to hop onto the bed.

Blinking a couple of times, Mark nods, while wondering why the Jackrabbit is asking. ‘Not like I can defend myself atm.’

“Neither really… I’m actually here because the President himself is unable to do it. Having to run what’s left of federal AND state governments while still ‘purging traitors’ and keeping order.” he walks closer to Mark, and the human can’t help noticing the slight emphasis in the Jackrabbit’s voice on the word traitor.

“Being frank here, I’m in no mood to do this. I had too… Put down someone I cared about, and that’s all I’ll say about it. If you can answer me quickly on the question the president wants to know, then I’d be appreciative.”

The Jackrabbit grits his teeth, showing his annoyance. ‘Then I can crawl into a bottle and rethink my life choices. Why did that damn vixen have to be a scat damned psychopath only using me to get access to being a secret agent? Here I thought I found someone special, and she was another albino to boot, which made it even more special.’

Laying one hand on his lap and taping his fingers, Mark uses the other rub an aching bruise on his chest. “Well, what’s the question then? I was thinking of going to sleep since the TV is just talking about the same things over and over again.”

“You have a blank check to cash Mr. Mercer. Whatever you want, within some reason. The President will grant it. Want enough money to never have to work another hour in your life? You’ll have it, all tax-free. Property? Maybe a place out somewhere away from all the other mammals? Within reason, he’ll grant it, tax-free too. He’s even willing to get his hoof-hands on any mammal he needs in the scientific field of physics and what not if your wish is to return home. He just can’t promise a timeline, only he’ll put the nation’s resources behind the effort and keep you in the loop.”

He stands there folding his arms as he sees the Human’s jaw drop.

‘I wasn’t doing what I did for any sort of reward to be honest. Other than to see Vivian again that is. Money would be nice though, Just by ending up here I lost over sixty million dollars.’

The thought of what amount he could ask for’s cut short with the mental image of his parents, whom he skipped their funeral. He had time to be there and say goodbye if he’s being honest with himself, but was still too angry at his father from his disownment.

‘No they raised a better moral and religious son than that even if Dad went back on some things over my removing Pippin’s collar. Asking for either money or property would demean the deaths that made this possible, the ones I killed. Not to mention the sacrifices of those who willingly gave their lives to act itself. Bogo and those polar bear’s.’ He makes eye contact with the increasingly annoyed looking Jackrabbit, who’s been sitting there quietly waiting for his answer.

‘If not for myself though, then I know two people who could benefit.’

“Alright Mr?” Mark gives a semi polite smile to the Jackrabbit.

The mammal sighs as he stands a bit straighter on Mark’s hospital bed. Erasing his annoyed body language. “Savage, but forget the name once we’re done here. Because as far as any mammal is concerned, I wasn’t here. Now what’s your answer to the President’s question?”

“Done, but I have two requests, not one. Both are not for me though. I think they’ll be pretty easy for the president to do.”

Savage sighs. “Alright, but two may be pushing it. So no guarantee's he’ll do both.”

Mark lays his head back a bit. “First. No ifs and’s, or buts, about this one. The Hopp’s farm, business, and all accounts of the deceased family go to Judy Wilde and her husband Nicholas Wilde. Including custody of the handful of kits Gideon saved. Doesn’t matter if there are older ‘Hopps’ rabbits alive, they’re disowned. It also Goes without saying, it should be free from any inheritance or property tax.”

Savage stares, hiding a blink and an ear twitch of curiosity at this. ‘He could have anything he wants, and he’s giving others things…’

“Okay, I’ll pass it on, but I need to know the nature of the disownment, last living relative laws and all that.”

Mark scratches his head. “From what I got from Judy and Nick, they moved their belongings on their wedding day at the Hopp’s farm to the ‘overflow’ burrow near the edge of the property.”

Savage visibly winces. ‘That’s tantamount to disownment in strict bunny culture circles. That burrow is reserved for those they still acknowledge as family, but want nothing to do with.’

“The other request?”

Mark breaks eye contact with the Jackrabbit. ‘Now about Vivian.’

“There’s a certain Vixen who may without intervention, receive punishment too severe and not fitting to the minor role she had in the Skulk. A pardon wouldn’t look good optically for the new state now, not when they’re doing the right thing and treating gangs as a military threat. A short sentence of jail time may be more appropriate for her crimes. I know ‘you’ know the Vixen I mean Mr. Savage.”

The Jackrabbit keeps his visage still. ‘And there’s the obvious one. Though why just a lesser punishment? He could ask and most likely get a full pardon for Vivian. Not wrong about the optics of the situation though.’

“That’s it? Remember you have a blank check here. You can have almost anything you want.” Savage temptingly smiles at the Human, only for Mark to return it with a stare.

“Yup. Now you can go mourn that psycho vixen who scared my girlfriend back at the restaurant. Yes I knew she was with you, I know to keep an eye on my peripheral vision. Saw her drop something off at your table not long before a scared Vivian returned to mine. Not that hard to put two and two together.”

Jack stares. “How?”

Mark sighs. “Resource runners like the cowboys of old learn to quickly gauge the character of people they meet. No one wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with a coward or psycho to defend the ship their on. She gave off all the vibes of being crazy when she up and abducted Vivian.”

Lowering his ears a bit. Savage hops back onto the chair, but takes one last look at Mark. “We of course didn’t meet. So don’t come begging for more.”

Mark rolls his eyes at the obvious bait before the Jackrabbit slips off the chair, then out of the room. Leaving the chair next to the bed.

‘I hope Viv understands why I couldn’t get her completely off the hook…’

--

Six months later, Now Neo-Zootopia. Howl Street in the new Lupine focused area of Pack district, adjacent to Pack Street.

--

“That’ll be twenty-nine ninety-five young pup.” The lupine taps on the register with his good arm as it rests on a glass display case containing, comics, trading cards, and figurines. The other arm held lightly in a sling across his chest, hiding the scar tissue and lack of fur.

A younger wolf, about eight, under the watchful gaze of his father takes out folded bills from his shorts. With an eager look on his muzzle, he climbs up a bit higher onto the glass case via a foot-paw-stool, before sliding the requested money across to the older wolf.

With the money in the register, the one armed lupine smiles, then carefully extracts a box of figurines from inside the showcase with his good arm. All the while said young wolf presses his muzzle against the glass in anticipation.

With it out, he hands it to the young wolf, before handing the pup’s father the change.

“What do we say to the nice mammal?” Said father looks down at his son, and with a gentle hand-paw placed on top of the young wolf’s head. They both look at the one-armed lupine.

Knowing what his father wants, the pup grins up at the lupine behind the counter. “Thank you, Mr. Wolfard.” Smiling back and watches the father and son pair leave as his tail slowly wags. Only moving away from the counter after the pair are out of sight.

Letting his tail go still, he heads for the back of the store, across some utilitarian carpet, and past a redundant ‘employee’s only’ sign. He’s the only employee after all, as well as owner, and stock mammal.

The latter role he now has to fill since there’s an empty spot in the main display case.

The back of the store is far less organized than the front, so it takes Wolfard a minute, shifting things awkwardly with is good arm till he finds another copy of the set of figurines the boy bought. All with a smile on his muzzle as he thinks of the happy expression on the pup’s muzzle.

‘That doesn’t get old, just as rewarding as helping mammals when I was a police officer if I am honest with myself.’ Sighing, he looks down at the arm in the sling. The thought of his past job bringing up not quite healed memories.

Taking the bullet for Judy cost him the use of the arm he’s staring at. The bullet ripped through enough muscle and some tendons, robbing him of the ability of moving it in any meaningful manner. Let alone lifting a pencil to write his name. ‘Isn’t all bad I guess. The Honorable discharge and all that helped pay for this store. Especially since real-estate's cheap here in the lupine district with all the non-lupines moving out to live with their own kind.’

Sticking the box in the crook of his good arm, Wolfard heads back up front. Once the display’s open, he carefully puts it where the previous copy was.

‘Still can’t believe what that Human, Mark, guessed would happen, actually happened. With the co-existence laws repealed by the new administration. Every mammal more or less moved into their own enclaves inside the weather districts, not to mention the rest of the country.’ Closing the case, the lupine stands back up and rubs his scar covered nearly useless arm as he feels a twinge of phantom pain from flesh he no longer has.

‘ ‘Like prefers to live with like. Forcing them to live otherwise causes resentment in one side, and entitlement in the other. Breeding an environment of violence and undercurrent of hate between all parties involved where they’re forced to live together.’. I think his exact words were.’

Wolfard’s train of thought’s interrupted from a sound coming from outside. Looking out his storefront windows to see what’s causing it, reveals an APC rolling by. ‘Doesn’t help the remnants of the attempted coup still exist. Living in the miles of old bunkers and passageways underground. All made during the great war nearly a century and a half ago in our classic system.’

Mentally going off on a short tangent about how the base ten system was easier despite it being new.

‘Only to emerge, blow a building up, or attack some mammals, then run back underground. Granted, on the other paw. I like how we treat gangs as the actual threat they are. I was getting tired of arresting some random gang-mammal, then having to let them go or finding they just got their ears cuffed the next day because the D.A. didn’t want to press charges.’

Sighing, he tears his gaze from the APC, to the clock on the wall. Styled after his favorite sci-fi franchise. ‘Bit slow this morning it seems. Then again, yesterday was the release of a lot of rebooted series, so most of my customer base already bought what they wanted. What’s actually surprising renascence of interest in them after the purge in the media who supported the ideals of Stallhoof. Especially from mammals who’ve said the franchise was dead to them.’

Smiling to himself as he gazes at racks of newly rebooted franchises going back to their roots rather than pandering to ideologies and pushing messages. Their flashy covers catching his eyes even if the characters are not one to one remakes of the originals.

His idle wondering of where the rebooted Paw-Wars, Paw-Trek, Warferal forty thousand and the like will go comes to a halt as a familiar sedan parks on the side of the street in front of his store. ‘Oh she’s early.’

Tail wagging, up a storm Wolfard bounds over to the front door to greet his wife, and as of four months ago. Chief of the restructured unified police of the newly rechristened city of ‘Neo-Zootopia’ Catherine Wolfard, or before her marriage to him, Fangmeyer.

The tigress doesn’t even have to open the door as Wolfard throws it open. Hugging her once he;’s just outside the threshold. “Taking an early lunch to check up on me stripes?” Giving her that goofy grin she loves so much before letting her go and pawing a crease down in her uniform he caused.

Mrs. Wolfard looks down at her husband with a feline grin while patting his head.

“No, just a perk of an assignment from higher up, and favor to old friends.” She glances around before looking back down at him. “Slow morning? You’re usually packed with mammals now.”

“Yea, everyone got it all out of their system yesterday when the first issues of the rebooted series dropped. Only had a young pup so far this morning with his father. Allt hey wanted was a Warferal figurine construction kit.” The lupine then tilts an ear at the last bit of why she’s here.

“A favor to whom?” Only for his ears and tail to drop as his brain catches up with his muzzle. “Judy and Nick?” His voice gaining a tinge of sadness while saying their names.

Catherine nods, then flicks an ear in the direction of the unmarked police sedan, mainly the back.

A body language habit she picked up from the dork in front of her, as they stand front of his new store. Wolfard steps past his wife as she moves out of the way, so he can look into the back of the unmarked police vehicle.

Inside, on the center back seat, sits a slightly worse for wear Vixen than last he saw her. Besides the reflective prison uniform. On the driver’s side rear seat, next to the vixen. Sits a now healthy weight for a Cheetah, Clawhauser. His stick thin frame filling out a patrol uniform nicely, something he doesn’t ever recall seeing the cheetah in at all.

“Clawhauser more or less begged to come with me.” Catherine smiles. ‘More like he grabbed my leg and wouldn’t let go…’

“Not to mention it’s also a favor for Mark. He’s still living with them.”

Raising his ears back up and stilling his tail, Wolfard takes a deep breath. “Give me five minutes, I’ll have the shop closed and ready to go with you. Luna herself couldn’t keep me from seeing those two again.” Before his wife can say another word, he’s already dashed inside and is going about shutting everything off. Putting what little cash is in the register into the nightly pickup box for the bank, and turning on the security systems.

Moments later, he’s already back outside in the ‘moderated’ summer weather locking the front door to the amusement of his wife with his still uneaten lunch.

“You sure you’re not physically able anymore to be an officer ‘Mr. Wolfard’?” Catherine grins playfully. “We’ve had a dearth of potential recruits, we’re still short pawed. We, I could really use you.”

Letting out a long sigh as he looks at his useless arm. “We’ve been over this hun. I could in no way pass the physical requirements for field duty, and by Luna I don’t want to be stuck behind a desk doing paperwork all day for the rest of my career. Being a comic store owner was always my backup plan when I was younger in case I didn’t pass the academy. So I’m happy where I’m at.”

Looking back up at his wife, he grins. “Lets go see the Wildes and that crazy Human.”

Smiling back at her goofy husband. “Lets, the present one excluded of course.” she looks back at Vivian who’s been watching them through the open window, ears half cocked. Catherine opens the front passenger side door for her husband before hopping around the front of the sedan to take the driver’s side.

Turning himself to look back at the two in the back, Wolfard grins. “Spots! Long time no see. I was hoping to see you in the crowd yesterday with every other mammal. How’s being thin treating you?” Wolfard’s then gently persuaded by his wife’s hand-paws to sit proper. So she can help him with the seatbelt.

Chuckling at the antics, the Cheetah grins back to Wolfard via the rearview mirror. “Much better than I actually thought possible… That medical emergency ended up being a blessing in disguise. I have ‘so’ much energy now! I also sleep better and everything feels, sharper? Even if I have to at least watch myself a bit as to not over stress my heart.” His eyes wander to the sling holding up Wolfard’s arm.

“I see you’re doing well, and well, not letting what happened get you down.” Clawhauser sighs. “I would’ve been in the crowd yesterday, if I wasn’t needed for paw patrol around the city center.”

Wolfard laughs. “How could I be down? I got the mate of my dreams, and I get to live my other dream job.” He pauses for a moment, recalling the news the other night of the construction crews getting attacked by stallhoof sympathizers as they rebuild the city center. Most likely the reason Clawhauser was on patrol.

‘Bogo really went out with a bang… is it too soon to even think that?’ Only to look forward as Catherine pulls away from the curb.

“Don’t worry Spots. I have copies of the new Paw-Trek and Paw-Wars reboots in the back with your name on it.”

The cheetah toothly smiles at the thought of getting his paws on those now ‘much’ coveted issues. “Thanks buddy. I’ll get you the money as soon as the department decides to pay us. With the state still technically under martial law let alone other parts of the country as everyone tries to rebuild. Our salaries are kinda low on the list of priorities…”

The lupine keeps the frown upon hearing that off his muzzle. “No worries, pay me when you can. Catherine’s in the same boat too more or less.” Said Tigress chuffs after Wolfard closes his muzzle.

Both of the Wolfard’s thinking at the same time they’d better start paying the department soon, or they may face another rebellion.

“Yea, the entire city's being run right now on promises of back pay with interest as they deal with the hold-outs. All in the name of preventing possibly funding them. We should’ve collapsed or filled those old bunkers and tunnels years ago! They not only allowed the Skulk to operate unimpeded under our paws for years, let alone now shielding Siambia and the remnants of Stallhoof’s group from what’s coming to them.”

Catherine grips the wheel a bit tighter in her anger. Claws digging into the pleather.

‘Delgato’s still recovering from the beating Siambia and the traitors gave her. Wolfard only lost the use of his arm. She’ll be lucky to walk again.’

“The skulk would’ve eaten you alive if you tried Mrs. Wolfard.” Vivian finally speaks up, having been silent ever since the Tigress picked her up at the prison. “You’re limited to police hardware, they have been arming up with military grade weapons for octets. Even ‘I’ saw some of it, and they barely let me in the first few rooms back when I was pick pocketing for them.”

“Yea” Clawhauser looks out the window on his side at the now parked APV. It sits next to an open mammal hole cover. Fully armored and armed marines pull out both restrained living and unrestrained dead foxes along with a few other mammals who’re part of the skulk and remnants.

Glancing out the same window, chuffing dismissively. Her mind though points out to her that one of those foxes could’ve been her… Vivian then looks forward at the Tigress and Wolf sitting in front of her.

“So where ‘is’ my brother, not to mention Mark?”

Clawhauser and Wolfard look at the Vixen in surprise. The former placing a hand-paw on her shoulder.

“You don’t know? I would’ve thought they’d kept in touch with you.”

Vivian shakes her head. “Mom and Dad followed Vulpine culture to a T. While I’m not exactly disinherited from the family, they did cut me off communication wise. I only got one visit from Mom, Dad, and my brother to tell me this and the fact they wouldn’t let Mark talk to me while in prison. Only to look them up when I get out, though without telling me ‘where’, So I don’t know where they’re at. It’ll be as much of a surprise for me finding out where, as them seeing me out early for good-ish behavior.”

She reaches up to finger the chunk of one of her ears that’s missing among a few other scars, all gotten in the name of self-defense against other prisoners.

‘Foxes aren’t treated well in prison after all… Still, I got what I deserved. I should’ve listened to them and quit much earlier than the last possible second.’ She muses.

Clawhauser looks to Wolfard and Catherine looks back at Vivian via a glance at the rearview mirror before she finally speaks.

“Both Judy and Nick quit the police force. Well, Judy was more or less was a mental health discharge, if you want to be technical. She was given the choice of either mandated therapy and the lightest workload desk job indefinitely, or quit. Nick in turn, quit to support her. They both moved to bunny burrow so Judy can be in a more familiar location. Your mother and father soon followed. They’ve taken up residence in what’s left of the Hopps family farm. As for Mark, he’s there to help them rebuild, said it was in repayment of taking him in after arriving in this dimension. Last I heard they’re turning the place into a farm, iguana ranch, and orphanage for those that lost their parents in this attempted rebellion.”

Vivian lowers her ears. ‘Yea bro said something that night about Stallhoof killing off all of Judy’s family outside her, those who were disowned, and a paw full of kits saved by Gideon Grey.’

“So we’re going to be driving all the way to Bunny-Burrow? That’s like a good four or so hours, if not more.” She looks back at the Tigress.

“Yup” Catherine pops the P as she replies. “So get comfortable, you’re not technically out of state custody till we deliver you to your parents Ms. Wilde.”

‘Figured as much’ Sighing, Vivian nods once and looks at the others. Clawhauser fidgeting a leg in the just big enough passenger foot-well as Wolfard pulls out his phone for entertainment.

“Speaking of which, I couldn’t get a clear answer from the warden. What am I in this new system? I know it’s modeled after Mark’s home world, but we didn’t get much into ‘to’ much detail.”

Vivian does do what Catherine suggested though. She moves to get herself comfortable in the seat she’s in. Sliding her tail to the side and bringing her legs up to her chest before wrapping her tail around them.

Only for Wolfard to speak up in the Tigress’s stead. “You’re a legal resident, banned from being a citizen for past gang affiliation. You have all the previous constitutional rights, except you cannot vote, own land, or work in any company that does business with federal or state governments. If it wasn’t for your crime, you would’ve been grandfathered citizenship for ‘just’ being old enough to be born before the cut off date.”

Vivian sighs but otherwise her ears and tail shows she more or less suspected as much and accepts it. “Sounds similar to what little Mark told me of the system back in his home dimension and country. Not that I ever voted before the change anyway.”

“I’m not one hundred percent happy with it to be honest.” Wolfard puts his phone down for a bit, finding the discussion more entertaining. “Yet I can understand the reasoning behind it. Democracy is and always will be mob rule. The slight majority dominating the slight minority. Our country’s supposed to be a republic though, with safeguards in place to prevent that. Safeguards that we’ve done away with over the years in the name of equality. All of which led to what we went through six months ago. One of those safeguards was limiting voting rights.”

He looks out the front passenger window as they’re waved through a checkpoint simply by his wife showing official papers through her closed window to the lioness Marine.

“Our founders and it turns out the founders of Mark’s home country too realized that letting everyone vote without earning it created a system where politicians could create policy by influencing those in the public who couldn’t be bothered to do their research before voting. So instead of the voter’s determining policy and the elected officials carrying out the will of the public. The officials shaped the public will to what they wanted and the ‘votes’ became a rubber stamp of the policy the politicians made for their own benefit and distributed via the media.”

Once through the checkpoint, Catherine speeds up and enters the highway on-ramp. Then takes the two seventy-five to Bunny Burrow.

“Yea. Owning property was the filter they used to determine who could vote. Actually getting property back then was a chore in of itself, so it created a sense of ownership in the country. Now it’s either five years in the military, or an octet working for free in public service work like infrastructure construction, forest management or mining. If I, my husband, or Clawhauser weren’t grandfathered in, I don’t know, which route any of us would take to regain citizenship. I honestly couldn’t see myself doing either. I like protecting mammals, so I couldn’t stand killing them in the military, and despite my build, I hate manual labor.”

Wolfard slightly turns his muzzle over to look at Catherine. She in turn pins her ears back.

“Nayntendo wii fit ‘does not’ count.” She glances back to her husband.

Vivian nods lightly, while hiding a smirk. ‘ Yea I kinda remember Mark saying something similar. Still, I’d still like to talk about something lighter…’

“Speaking of Octets. I guess it is true, they ditched that new base ten system everyone was pushing so hard four or so years ago?” She looks between the three other mammals in the vehicle.

“Yea” Clawhauser nods, looking back to Vivian from out the window. “Something about tradition and what not. Kinda like the old system to be honest though. It sounds cooler to say we’re in the thirty-eighth century rather than the twenty-first. I mean, when was Twenty-Twenty in the old system, wasn’t it all kings and what not in Pawurope?”

Vivian shrugs. ‘Didn’t pay attention to history class to be honest Mr. Clawhauser.’

“Maybe, I’d have to look it up once I get anything with an internet connection.” ‘Nick must think the same way, he’s a closet nerd… No wonder these mammals ended up being his friends.’

“Besides that, I just like the fact I no longer have to do as much math when doing art. Man was that annoying when I thought I was buying the right sized canvas and it turned out being the wrong size due to the change in the system.”

Chuckling, Clawhauser nods. “Oh don’t get me started on the argument I had one time with a clerk over change because they were counting in one system and listing the price in the other…” The cheetah’s ear twitches as he clamps down on that still ingrained urge for pastries as Wolfard joins in on the merriment.

“Trying to tell some mammal they were speeding or over the time was a nightmare with the two systems.”

This elicits a cringe in Catherine before silence reigns in the sedan’s cab. That is until Catherine breaks it several minutes later.

“I assume you were told you’re getting released a year or so early is due to good behavior, right Ms. Wilde?” She glances back via the rearview mirror, at the fox who’s fingering the hole in her ear idly with a claw-tip.

‘Will Mark still find me attractive with this? I mean he’s no todd, and Foxes aren’t like lions where scars look good on females. Karma, I’m not used to seeing it every morning in the mirror and it’s been months since that coyote bitch shanked it.’

Drawn out of her thoughts, Vivian uses the same mirror to look back at Catherine. “Yea, that’s what the warden said.” Said ears though fold back slightly.

‘Something else got me released early maybe? I know it felt a little odd considering similar lower level Skulk members got multi-year to octet long sentences. Any Mammal higher than I was also potentially faced the firing squad.’

“You didn’t hear this from me.” Catherine keeps her muzzle facing forward as her eyes dart in between focusing on the near deserted highway and the back seat.

This grabs Vivian’s attention as well as the other two mammals in the cab. Wolfard and Clawhauser turn their attention to the Tigress.

“Your sentence got cut short on orders from higher up on the food chain. Much higher up. The interim mayor more or less hinted at that fact at the last all paws on deck meeting last week.” She slightly glances at Wolfard, her husband before returning her gaze back to the long highway to Bunny-Burrow.

“So, I think it would be a good idea to thank Mark when you see him in a few hours. I have a hunch this may be something he managed to get done by talking to the right mammals. After all, he can talk to anyone or get into any system he wants with that tablet of his, kinda frightening really.”

‘Damn advanced alien tech…’ She mentally mumbles.

“Hun, we don’t know if that may be the case. Vivian is after all as low on the totem pole as it came for the Skulk. Could simply be because of that. I mean all she ever did was dirt common pick pocketing. Just for them rather than herself.” Wolfard chimes in.

The reminder of her past actions causes the vixen’s ears to fall flat out of shame.

‘He didn’t have to do that… I was fully willing to serve any sentence and take any punishment I deserve for my past, and in hindsight, selfish actions…’ Her tail joining her ears in drooping around her legs.

The lupine sighs jokingly. “Now look what you did, you killed her good mood hun. Bet she was all happy to get out of that place and go back to dating Mark.”

“She would’ve found out anyway you big dork.” Catherine retorts, but in a playful manner.

“Speaking of finding things out.” Clawhauser speaks up while patting the vixen next to him on the shoulder reassuringly. Having picked up on her body language.

“Either of you find out exactly how Mr and Mrs Wilde are doing other than what you just said about them moving to Bunny-Burrow and setting up in what’s left of the Hopps farm? Last time I saw Judy she was nearly a Zombie, figuratively speaking. Nick also looked like he hadn’t slept in days and that was a couple of weeks after that terrible night being locked away in holding by Stallhoof’s goons.”

‘Just glad the explosion that Bogo caused knocked out the guard in the precinct one holding area allowing those they stuck in there to escape before that part of the building collapsed. I’ll also have to thank Nick for teaching me how to pick the cell locks, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.’ The Cheetah muses.

Catherine sighs. “All I know from the grape vine of the Bunny Burrow PD is they’ve more or less settled into country life and are doing well. Or at least Nick is, as he seems to be running things there. That’s what it seems to look like whenever they drop off any newly found orphans. Believe me, I’ve tried to find out more, but they won’t tell a ‘city cat’ anything. Their words not mine.” She forces herself from gouging the steering wheel any-more with her claws before continuing.

“Stallhoof really did a number in purging mammals in that area. The Hopp’s weren’t the only warren and rabbits weren’t the only species dying during the ‘incident’. The Camalfornia national guard killed over a third of the city’s residents. I guess that’s what you get when you tell a bunch of farmers they no longer own their land and it belongs to the state. While also telling them they still have to work on it and give everything they grow to said state without pay.”

Clawhauser’s ear’s and tail join Vivian’s in drooping. “Why didn’t he turn to us for help? We’re his friends?”

Now it’s Vivian’s turn to place a hand-paw on the taller Cheetah’s shoulder. “Because in fox culture, albeit, our own fault with how our species treats others… When something happens to our mate, we go insular. Circling the wagons to use a saying Mark once explained to me, cutting everyone out but the closest and most trustworthy mammals we know. My brother most likely still considers all you friends, but the needs of Judy precede this. I’ll bet this is also why he quit being a cop after saying how much he loved it so many times.”

Wolfard blinks a few times and then chuckles. “He should’ve said so! Wolf packs, at least stark traditionalists have a similar practice. ‘Dening’ I think it’s called.”

“What would you do? Cheer them up with your goofy grin? Like the one you have had since getting in the car? That wouldn’t have worked, bro can be stubborn. I mean it took that bunny more or less crashing his entire world around him to get him to open up to her.” She grins at the lupine, a poor attempt at an emotional mask compared to her brother.

One Wolfard decides it’s better to just leave alone considering he can see right through it after being with Nick for so long. He looks over to his wife, who’s absorbed in driving the vehicle, then to Clawhauser who’s just staring out at the window as the summer forest starts to thin out into the plains that will encompass most of their journey.

Framed by the snow capped rooky mountain peeks, which are just pinpricks on the horizon in front of them.

Vivian sighs. “If you wouldn’t mind Mr. Wolfard. Can you just turn on the radio for some music? I think I’m done with this conversation.”

‘I need some time to think things over. Mark didn’t have to get my sentence reduced, and bro SHOULDN’T have cut off such caring mammal’s from his and Judy’s life.’

Wolfard nods. “Alright.” With his good arm he taps the infotainment screen between him and Catherine. Only stopping when Vivian indicates she’s alright with the station’s genre of music.

--

Four and a half hours later.

Bunny-Burrow. Wilde-Times Farm & Ranch.

--

The sedan pulls up to the southern entrance. A new sign reading ‘Welcome to Wilde-Times Farm & Ranch sits in place of the old sign saying ‘Hopps family farm’ on the top of the gate, while still having the smaller one under it. Stating it’s the birthplace of the famous Judy Hopps. All dates are also in the old Octet format, the base ten dates on the sign are missing. Wolfard can’t tell if they were just painted over or just flat out cut off from here.

“Wilde-Times?” Wolfard idly mumbles.

Smirking at the name, Vivian silently giggles. ‘Should’ve guessed he’d use that.’

“Bro had a silly idea, well after ‘that’ incident, and before he up and left us for the streets. Of starting a theme park with that name. So mammals can be themselves without hiding things from others.”

Catherine rolls down the drivers side window and presses the intercom speaker on their side of the gate. A moment later the downshifted voice of a small mammal comes out of the speaker.

“If this is another construction driver, you’re supposed to enter via the ‘Northern’ entrance ONLY. The Southern entrance is for family and food deliveries ONLY. I don’t care if there’s a line at the northern gate and you’re late.”

The tigress glances up at the camera pointing at the intercom. “Fru-Fru, this is Chief Catherine Wolfard. We talked on the phone yesterday?”

“Oh Brisby. Sorry Mrs. Wolfard, the construction crew cut the cctv cable line accidentally this morning. The southern gate camera’s out till they get around to fix it. I’ll buzz you in, then you can go deliver the Wilde’s wayward Daughter. Marion and Johnathan are waiting at the temporary housing trailers for her. Then maybe you can catch me up on all the fun you’ve had with that silly wolf of yours after your wedding. I had fun at it by the way.”

“I’m right here you know.” Wolfard grins and speaks up.

“I figured as much!” Everyone in the sedan can hear the grin on Fru-Fru’s muzzle before the gate in front of them opens.

Vivian’s ear’s lower to the side of her head. “Yea figured Mom and Dad would be the first ones to greet me.”

Catherine leaves the window rolled down, letting the warmer, but not hot unregulated summer air into the sedan as she drives down the private road. Or tries to do so, her eyes, and everyone else in the vehicle can’t help staring at the remains of the carnage from that horrific night.

What once were built up mounds of earth, the above ground parts of the Hopps warren. Now stand half collapsed with the chard remains of what’s inside haphazardly jutting out at odd angles for all to see. Burnt out vehicles, dragged from similarly constructed storage garages sit in rows, as if ready to be picked up and sent to the scrap heap alongside the road they’re on.

Catherine ends up driving a little too slowly, to the point that the elder Wildes look a little annoyed as the sedan pulls up to trailers. Trailers that wouldn’t look out of place from a low income trailer park. Behind them, rabbit sized construction machines are digging out the burnt out remains of the warren paint an almost eerie contrast to the whole scene. Catherine slows the car to a stop and pulls the parking lever before shutting off the engine.

She turns to help Wolfard out of his seatbelt as Clawhauser exits the sedan, then walks around to open the door for Vivian to get out on the side closest to her parents.

Marion approaches as Vivian pulls herself out of the vehicle. The slap across the muzzle the older vixen delivers with her full strength to the younger one, causes the Cheetah to hop back in surprise.

Stumbling back against the vehicle, then brining her hand-paw up to her muzzle, Vivian sighs. “I expected that…” Only to eep when Marion pulls her to her foot-paws and draws Vivian into a full body, rib crushing hug.

“This, I didn’t expect.” Vivian mutters, but still loud enough they all heard her. Causing smiles to from on everyone’s muzzle, but Johnathan’s.

“While I am ‘SO’ glad to see you again Honey.” Marion lets go enough to look Vivian in the eyes menacingly.

“I am also ‘so’ angry at you too! We told you to stop getting yourself involved with them the first time you were caught! Did you listen? No, you kept on doing so, because you thought you knew better than your parents and your brother who learned HIS lesson and tried to teach you it.”

The Wilde Matriarch lets go of her daughter, letting her stand there and rub one of her arms nervously as Marion continues to glare at her.

Catherine pulls her attention away from the scene, pulling out a folder from a storage compartment in the sedan before approaching Johnathan. “While your wife gives the chewing out your daughter deserves. Believe me, she should be glad to not be a Tiger. A slap against the muzzle wouldn’t be the least she’d get from my mom if I pulled the crap Vivian did.”

‘They would have to call an ambulance for me…’

The tigress holds out the folder for the Wilde Patriarch to take, along with a pen.

“You’ll need to sign her release papers for this to be official. She is after all being remitted to your custody for unmonitored house arrest for the next six months.” Her ears swivel to keep track of the drama between the two vixens as Johnathan opens the folder.

Catherine points with a claw tip where he needs to sign as they work through the pages of paperwork.

“Well, are you going to say anything ‘Copper-Tail’?” Marion uses her son’s nickname for her daughter as if it’s wrong to speak her name.

“Complaints? Blaming some other mammal for your own problems? I’m waiting and ‘willing’ to listen.” Marion continues to glare at her daughter as Clawhauser moves behind the younger vixen, trying to provide some support by putting his hands on her shoulders.

Only for Vivian to shoo him away, then look at her mother without directly looking at her. A sign of Vulpine submissiveness that the Cheetah recognizes.

“No Mother. I’m not. I have no excuses for the way I acted. Or how it may or may not have played into everything that happened that night. I realized this fact as I was crammed in that carrier by Stallhoof. It’s why I sat there with an accepting look on my muzzled muzzle as I was taken to the military base with Nick, and in the tribunal hearing later when they read out my sentence after the short ‘trial’.”

Only meeting her mother’s eyes for a moment, Vivian then adopts the same facial expression and body language as she did during the events she mentioned. Letting the rubbing arm drop to her side.

“It’s why I stand here, ready to accept any more punishment you deem appropriate Mother, up to and including disownment from the Wilde Den. I only ask that I’m able to see Mark, and that you accept him as my Mate. Karma knows after what he did that night, I can’t think of him in any other way.”

Anger in the elder vixen evaporates and it shows with her body language deflating, replaced that of confusion. ‘Well crap, here I was expecting she’d be defiant to the end. Listing excuse after excuse that what happened wasn’t her fault, and she was unfairly discriminated against.’

Marion just stares back at her daughter, withholding a smile at how much more mature she seems compared to the last time they had a discussion about her ‘choices’.

‘Now I just don’t feel right about what Johnathan and I agreed on…’

That stare though reforms quickly into a much weaker form of the motherly rage she had earlier. “You realize how lucky you are!? They could’ve considered even your minor support a treasonous act to the state, with the penalty that brings!” Marion lets her tail sway in annoyance back and forth while Johnathan finishes up signing the paperwork Catherine gave him.

Handing the folder and the pen back to the tigress. His polite posture’s swapped for one of confusion. ‘This isn’t going how we expected it to.’

Wolfard and Clawhauser glance worryingly at Vivian as Johnathan joins his mate. Staying quiet and the look on his muzzle shifting to one showing he’s similarly displeased with his daughter. Both Lupine and Cheetah are half expecting to hear him go on a several minute rant, complaining about the behavior of his daughter, complementing the one Marion went on now that he’s done with the paperwork.

Marion upon his approach, looks over to him and shakes her head before looking back at Vivian. Causing him to confusingly nod in return before Marion continues.

“You’re still our daughter, so a part of me is happy you’re home… Yes this is our home now, we moved in to help your brother take care of Judy, our daughter-in-law. Anyway, I don’t care if we paid for your college education, or the fact that you have a degree for that matter. From this moment on you’re a going to be a farmer, rancher and an extra pair of paws for any task that anyone here deems you should do, no matter how demeaning or trivial. Even your mate Mark can and should treat you the same. We’ve talked with him about it, and he understands.”

Marion’s ears twitches, causing Vivian’s tail to wag nearly imperceptibly. ‘That’s moms tell… She had something else in mind than this. Did I get her to change her mind?’

The younger Wilde sibling looks up, and meets her Mother’s and Father’s eyes in the human manner she’s seen Mark do. “I accept, I just want to know for how long?”

Marion looks over to Johnathan who for an instant almost looks back at his wife with the ‘this isn’t what we talked about’ look. Turning to look back at his daughter, Johnathan sighs at being put on the spot like this from his wife.

Still, he rises to the task at keeping up the look this was planned and not something made up on the spot.

“For at ‘least’ the time you’re on unsupervised house arrest. We’ll see from their young lady if it will go on longer or not. Needless to say, you disappointed us yet again, and we’re not that happy about it.”

He just barely glances to the side to Marion who nods her approval at his on the spot choice. ‘Frankly, I don’t know what to feel. This wasn’t how I expected this to go. I was expecting her to throw a full on temper-tantrum like the last time she was caught.’ Johnathan thins his gums a bit.

Marion then steps forward, giving Vivian another hug, before letting her go. “Mark has all your belongings. Go see him, and for today, you’re his helping paws. Do as he says, what he says, no complaints or talk back young lady. We’ll be asking him tonight how you behaved.”

She takes a step back, giving her daughter some room.

Vivian nods, slightly, her tail and ears are resting a bit more casually than before. The latter though does have a slight wag at the mention of Mark.

“Where is he though? I was expecting him to be here to greet me like you two did.” She glances around. ‘Though I do wonder what their original idea was… Could it have been full disowning? Would’ve deserved that to be honest.’

Marion points over to wolf sized metal shed that screams ‘temporary’ from its ramshackle construction.

“Today he’s trying to save what farm equipment that wasn’t to badly damaged in the fire. We need at least something running. This farm needs some income and growing something before the growing season’s too far along is the best way we can think of.”

Raising her ears, Vivian nods. “Thank you, Mom, for the third and last chance. I won’t waste it!” Everyone else just watches her go as she jogs over in the direction Marion indicated.

“Well then.” Marion looks to Catherine, Wolfard, and Clawhauser. “I get the distinct feeling you’re also here to see my Son and Daughter-in-law to? Considering only one of you could’ve just made this trip to drop Vivian off. Not to mention Nicky’s talked a lot about all three of you, and how good of mammals you were to him.”

“We’ll talk later Hun.” Johnathan interrupts Marion by hugging her, she instantly hugs him back before he lets go.

“I should go and give Gideon a helping paw in supervising the construction crew. He may have more energy with all the weight he lost, but he’s still mortal and this group’s been a paw full to supervise.”

The older vixen smiles back at her mate before he walks off almost in the opposite direction of his daughter.

Turning to look at the Cheetah, Tigress, and Lupine. “Just follow me you three. They’re closer to the northern part of the property. A ‘very’ small part of the burrow that only suffered smoke and trivial fire damage is where they’re staying. More or less an overflow of an overflow apartment for ‘barely’ tolerated relatives from what I understand. It survived only because there was one small underground corridor to it and it wasn’t inhabited at the time of the raid. So the guard ignored it and the tunnel was closed off. Possibly thought it derelict from the over grown front yard to be honest.”

The three look at each other before Catherine pulls out the keyfob from one of her pockets and locks the sedan. With that unnecessary but ingrained task done, they all follow the Wilde Matriarch across the property.

--

Temporary mechanic shed.

--

Liberally spraying wd-forty on a rusted / chard bolt, Mark slots a manual wrench on top of it.

“Ya probably should just cut ta bolt off.” Fennick comments from the sideline, walking around an engine block, set on plywood on the ground. He’s been lending his own mechanical expertise in trying to get at least ‘one’ tractor working out of the salvageable paw-full pulled out of the smoldering garage nearby months ago.

“Nah, this will work. Dad showed me and my brother that this will either loosen it… Or snap the head off. But at this point if we can get this bolt out, we won’t need to fabricate a replacement for this part. So it’s worth the risk and effort, even if we have to drill it out and slightly damage it.”

Using both hands Mark makes sure the wrench is secure. Then wipes the grime on his hands off onto his bare chest before picking up a large mallet.

“Alright…” The fennec fox moves to put the whole engine block between himself and the human. Fully showing Mark he does not trust that this will work. “Go ahead.”

Mark raises the mallet. “Ye have little faith.”

“I’ma not made of indistructiom like ya are human. Afta tha beating ya took and ya only have some scars? Thats unnatural I tells ya.” His ear tips though peek above the engine block, showing the human he’s at least curious if this will work.

“Should’ve seen the other guy Finnick.”

Putting his back into it, Mark brings the mallet down on the wrench. The clang of the wrench getting hit and the protest of the burnt and rusted bolt moving at least a millimeter greets Vivan’s ear’s as she walks through the open garage door for the shelter.

She opens her mouth, but shuts it upon seeing Mark only wearing jeans. His broad muscled chest on full display, abs highlighted from his sweat. ‘I’ll… Just enjoy the view till they notice me…’ Her tail wags at a high tempo, showing her pleasure at the sight.

‘After all, it was just a tits and bits fest in female's prison for the last six months, and I don’t swing that way.’

“I did see tha other guy. Tha red paste and tha guts plastered all about. Still, can’t believe ya dead-lifted tha bad excuse for a deer.” One of Finnick’s ear’s swivels in the direction of Vivian, while the engine block hides the grin on his muzzle from the half naked human that he knows she’s there.

“See! Told you it would work!” Mark points at the bolt, before raising the mallet and giving it another wack. Both vulpine’s wince at the sound of it hitting the wrench, and at the screeching noise as this hit fully frees the encrusted bolt. Despite it tearing the threads loose in the process.

Tossing the mallet aside, Mark grabs the wrench and puts his shoulders into unscrewing the bolt. Not stopping until the six-inch-long, half inch in diameter piece of hardware is in his hands. All the while giving Vivian a show of his arm and back muscles.

Only to nearly drop it as he holds it up to look at in the light, ‘finally’ noticing Finnick and him have a visitor.

“Vivian?” Mark places the bolt down on a low table and picks up a towel to clean his hands. ‘Has it been six months already? Damn time flies fast when your days are non-stop repairs and other tasks.’

Nearly doubling over laughing, Fennick comes out from around the engine block. “Took ya long enough. I knew human hearing is bad, just not tha bad.”

Noticing the damage to her ear, Mark quickly walks over to the vixen, kneeling down to her stature. “If I had known it would be that hard on you to be in prison. I would’ve asked for a pardon.” Then glancing to the fennec fox as he goes back to work on the engine block. Fixing a crack among other things wrong with it.

“I was too focused on the bolt to notice her standing there.”

His hand though is stopped by Vivian’s as Mark reaches to touch her ear with the chunk missing from it. “Well, I was going to ask if you made a deal to lessen my sentence, but that answered it. You do know I was fully ready to face the full brunt of my choices, right?” Looking over to Mark as he pulls his hand back with her head tilted and a bit of angle in her hip.

Unknowingly copying her mother’s body language.

A moment later though, Mark sweeps her up in a hug she doesn’t protest in the slightest.

“I know Viv. Still, and neither of you breathe of a word of this outside of the building.” He looks to Finnick. Said desert fox nods before turning his attention back to Vivian.

“When a secret agent comes to you, saying the president has a blank check with your name on it. You can’t just say ‘nope, I want for nothing’. So I had to ask for something, making sure Judy and Nick get this place, as well as lessening your sentence was all I could think of at the time, which wouldn’t be too much or too little to ask for.”

Patting his arm, she signals for him to put her back down, which he does so before standing up.

“Okay, that makes me a bit less angry at you. Here I thought I was thinking I’m being petulant, but my mate is already helping me out… This just means I’m going to have to dive in head first in helping you here to make up for the fact, in my eyes at least. Not to mention me being more or less volentold labor for at least the next six months during my unsupervised house arrest.”

Before either guy can protest, Vivian sheds the upper portion of the prison uniform, leaving her in bare fur and bra before strutting around the stunned human and picking up discarded parts without any regard to how much grease, soot, and rust stains her fur or the prison uniform pants receives.

She’s trailed by Mark and Finnick. The latter being stunned that Nick’s sister is acting this way. ‘This used ta be little Ms ima betta than ya. I have a arts degree making me smarter than ya?’

“Helping us here?” Mark gently places a hand on Vivian’s head to get her to stop. In her hands are the previous bolt, along with various other rusted or oil covered tractor parts that her lithe frame can handle.

“That wasn’t what Jonathan, Marion, and your brother Nick told me last night on what they decided your punishment should be. Also, wait, you called me your mate?”

Stopping in her tracks, Vivian shifts her head under his hand to look up at Mark. “Yea. After that night, I can’t help thinking of you any other way… I think I imprinted on you or something like a proper mate, just without the sex.”

She shifts out from under Mark’s hand, not without rubbing her tail on the arm sensually and turns around and looks at them.

“After telling me where you want these, mind satisfying your vixen’s curiosity. What exactly was it they decided on?”

Swallowing once at the realization they’re married in all but official name now, Mark has to put that to the side, so he can point to the bin / pile they’re putting trash. “Head out the way you came in and hang a left instead of a right. Against the wall of the shelter just around the corner is a bin and pile of scrap. It all goes in there to be later sent to the dump with the wrecks along the road.”

Sighing once he continues.

“They decided on distancing, or partial disowning. You’d get to keep the Wilde name, while strongly encouraged, but not required to change it when you marry. Outside that, they were going to finish cutting off contact with you. You’d still be listed as their daughter. Just everything would go to Nick, and they would not want to hear from you for a decent while at least. Take it from me, it’s better than being fully disowned. What did you do to change their mind? They were pretty well set on doing that.”

Finnick focuses his ears at Vivian at this, he too wants to know what happened.

Vivian stops just outside the temporary garage in the summer sun. Her summer coat shines in the light, subtle coppery red fur with darker highlights here and there cause her to look like she’s glowing.

“To put it simply; Being taken by that psychopathic albino vixen, stuffed in that crate, listening to you fight. Thinking for a moment I lost you to Night-Howler. Then watching you beat up and throw Stallhoof out the window, having to inject you with the antigen, and watching you lay there on the floor hurt? It scared me in multiple ways.”

She notices how her fur looks in the light. ‘My markings do change between the seasons, but not this much?’ Not to mention her sense of smell seems to have strengthened too, among other things that she puts to the side to think about later.

‘More important things to talk about. They need to know…’ She drops what she’s carrying to turn and look fully back at Mark and Finnick. Making eye contact with both, though only the diminutive fennec fox stares back, having known Vivian before and seeing this near full turn around in her behavior stuns him.

“Scared for my own life in that car ride to the municipal building. My thoughts turned to mom, dad, and big bro on the ride up to his office. While shocked, my thoughts turned to them even more so when that vixen just up and killed her partners in cold blood. Later, thinking it over I swear I could’ve heard; mom, dad, and nick all saying that could be me if I continue down this path. One day someone I pickpocket after doing some low effort portrait, would just up and shoot me like that.”

Reaching up, Vivian fingers the hole in her ear. Inadvertently smearing rust and grease on white fur. “A path I had ample time to think about. It was a decent while after being stuffed naked into that crate and you doing what you did to get me out. Well, combined with the time we spent together while you were showing me the error in what I was taught at college outside ‘art’.”

Lowering her hand-paw, she looks at it, then her other one.

“I realized it would only be a matter of time before I got caught again. I wasn’t ‘good’ at it, just lucky. That, they were right I wouldn’t be so lucky a second time, and I only got away with it because of what Nick did for the city. I could hear myself say the excuses and accusations to shift the blame to any-mammal else. As I lay there, cramped in that crate, with a deer who I didn’t know if he would kill me or dose me with Night-Howler though. It all rang hollow for some reason. I was scared at what I had become.”

Moving her arms, she hugs herself as her tail sways a couple of times, then goes still.

“Hearing my own words and excuses of that well tread path I took every time I was confronted by my family to be better? I finally saw the Vixen they saw. I know looking back now it was the stress and my mind playing tricks. Or maybe it was that little part of me, the doubts I squelched before, coming out as I couldn’t hold them back.”

She stops speaking as Mark exits the shaded building and into the light. Sweat giving his chiseled torso a gleam in the late afternoon sun. Vivian looks up at the scar where the piece of Stallhoof horn stabbed into his flesh. The slight hint on one of his shoulders that it once sported a nasty bruise. Along with all small scars on his head from the one on one fight he had with the deer.

She reaches up to touch the scar, Mark lowers himself to let her. “I never felt joy at that level till things started happening and it was clear it was you, and big brother coming for me. I think the imprint happened after you had thrown Stallhoof through his office door, seeing you standing there triumphant. Only for that joy to turn to horror that I wasn’t able to stop Stallhoof hitting you with Night-Howler.”

As she traces the hard and whiter tissue, Vivian lets Mark touch the hole in her ear. “But as you laid there on the ground. Suffering from the after effects but alive. I knew I had to change, because all I could think about is ‘my’ actions led you to nearly losing your life. No, not that I knew, I now realize it was my instincts. Stuff I burred because like all mammal’s we’re taught we’re past it, bellow us as thinking beings. ‘SCREAMING’ at me I’m a bad mate for getting my mate in danger like this.”

Vivian steps back, lowering her arm, not even noticing the jaw a-gap Fennec Fox staring at the two. Mark only smiles down at youngest Wilde sibling. He’s about to speak only for Vivian to shush him. “Let me finish.”

“I had to change, I had to atone. I had to become BETTER to be worthy of you. Vivian the pickpocket, the selfish and angry vixen about things not actually owed to her, but she thought they were. Had to go, and had to go NOW! The first thing I knew I had to do is fully accept all the consequences coming to me with a smile on my muzzle and an acceptance in my heart that I did wrong. I’m not at the end of that road yet. To the state, even with your help they think I’m repentant. Despite my actions setting back the view of vulpines in all other mammal’s eyes.”

‘Huh… I guess I finally know what bro felt with Judy…’

Vivian closes her eyes and instead of what Mark was expecting, Her bearing her neck like a Bio-Morph to show submission. She kneels and bows her head. Ears low, and tail still. He instantly recognizes that she must’ve somehow looked up the cultural information he released upon his discovery. While he doesn’t view himself as a lord or king. He can understand why a semi-pack focused mammal like vulpines.

Or at least the vulpines here in this universe. Would mistake the more or less European Middle Ages formal repentance kneel and bow for something still culturally relevant. What he doesn’t understand is why she thinks it’s still appropriate.

‘I’ll ask her in a second, first though I’ve been waiting to do this for six months.’ He places his hands on her shoulders. Then gently lifts her up till her eyes meet his.

Vivian smiles at this. Only for her eyes to bulge as Mark plants his lips on her muzzle and sticks his tongue into her mouth. She does have the wherewithal to use the human flipping off gesture at Finnick as he hoots and yips in celebration.

The kiss lasts longer and shorter than Vivian expected. Licking her muzzle as she’s set back down. ‘Oh boy, my legs are a bit wobbly after that. Damn humans are good kissers.’

“There’s the intelligent vixen I knew was in you. You didn’t have to kneel like that though. Your words were enough to get the point across Viv.” Mark smiles and gently keeps a hand on her shoulder seeing her a bit flustered.

Vivian blinks. “But I was looking through the stuff I could get my hand-paws on in prison that you released to the public about your culture. I admit I didn’t get to modern day stuff, but…”

Mark chuckles. “That’s only for Japanese and Chinese cultures now. No one in the west has done that for about a thousand years.”

Blinking once, Vivian lowers her ears. Feeling just a tad embarrassed “Then I didn’t have to do that?”

Shaking his head, Mark lets go once he sees she stable on her own foot-paws. “No, though the fact you did this whole confession like that does show me how committed and dedicated you are to changing and bettering yourself in my eyes.”

Smiling down at her as he stands, he stretches his arms a bit. “Once you dump this stuff over in the pile, I think I know a few things you can help us with. Maybe we can get a tractor up and running before tomorrow now with an extra set of hand-paws.”

Vivian looks down at the stuff she dropped before giving her speech, then quickly scoops it all up. “Alright!”

Slightly nodding in return, he heads back into the makeshift garage shed. Glancing at the fennec fox before speaking just a bit louder than normal to get his point across. “How’s fixing the crack in the engine block going?”

Causing Finnick to quickly scoop up his tools and get back to work, letting the sound of him drilling stabilizer pins into the crack on the engine block answer the human’s question.

When Vivian returns, Mark has her hand him tools as he teaches her what his father taught him, in the same way his father taught him. The youngest Wilde sibling gives no complaints no matter how dirty she gets, or how hard things are from lacking his strength.

Fennick peeks over the engine block. ‘Ya have no idea how lucky ya are Mark.’ The little fennec fox genuinely smiles at how Vivian has decided to fully and genuinely reinvent herself. All to be better in the eyes of her mate.

‘This is a sign she’s ya’s and ya’s alone for the rest of her life.’

--

Marion Wilde leading Catherine, Wolfard, and Clawhauser.

--

The elder Wilde Vixen leads the three of them down the right side of the row of trailers, as her husband heads down the left side ahead of her.

Clawhauser looks down the rows of trailers as they walk. “Who’s staying in all these?” Everything about them screams temporary to the cheetah. They’re not even hooked up to mains power or water, each of them having tanks for the latter sitting against the side they’re walking along, and generators for the former sitting in between each row humming along.

Stopping in her tracks, Marion looks over the structures with drooping ears and tail. “As of this moment. About sixty orphans of various ages ranging from about one year to nearly two octets in one case. Thirty bunny kits, including the Ten cousins of Judy that Gideon saved on that night. Cotton being the oldest among them. Two gray fox kits, no relation to Gideon Grey other than their now dead family having bought the Grey’s family farm off of him years ago after his parents passed away. Three red fox kits, from the other side of the City. Five sheep lambs from a small herd which used to live in actual down-town Bunny Burrow, not the painted up one near the train station. And, ten Hare kits.”

Marion points to each trailer children are staying in as she speaks.

“One bear cub, she’s the oldest. Possibly the worst off of the entire group so far, saved by the military as the guard was doing ‘things’ to her. Two bobcats, their family used to own a store on the same street as Gideon. And, Five squirrels. The only survivors of a similarly large clan compared to the Hopps burrow. They ran a nut farm and orchard nearby, the largest in the city. It’s just that, they’re too young to inherit anything, the oldest isn’t even an octet yet. So now it is under the state’s control till they are old enough to legally inherit it. Well, what’s going to be left of it after all the damage done that night and the years of neglect till they’re old enough. The state isn’t going to do scat to keep it running.”

Marion forces her ears and tail to a neutral position as she turns to face the three. Her ear very slightly twitches.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by Clawhauser.

“You said sixty children. That’s fifty-eight. What about the last two?” He points out Marion’s omission while both Catherine and Wolfard look at each other worryingly over the fate of all them.

“Didn’t want to lie, it’s just that I don’t want Judy to know about the last two, they’re Panther cubs. Children of a classmate and friend of Judy’s when she was in grade school. Karma, he was in the same play she was in when she was an octet and one year's old. Declaring she wanted to be a police officer.” Marion sighs.

“Judy doesn’t know they’re his cubs yet, not that she’s paid much attention to all the ones staying here anyway. She’s, still too fragile of a mental state to take knowing he’s gone.”

The three look at each other before they nod as one, Catherine speaking up a moment later. “Got it, we mention nothing about that to Judy.”

Giving a slight smile to them in thanks, Marion leads them onward. “It’s late afternoon. Nick will be making food for everyone. If it wasn’t for you bringing Vivian back I’d be helping him too.” She sighs and is silent for a moment as her ears droop. “Judy will be at the shrine she’s made, and will be their till past dinner for the cubs.”

‘At least she’s eating by herself now. No need for Nick to feed her.’

The elder Vixen leads the three past the trailers, to the main and unavoidable feature of the former Hopps Family Farm.

The giant pit encompassing the entire Hopp’s burrow. Multiple stories deep and a few hundreds of yards wide, bordered on one side by two giant mounds, one of all the dirt displaced. The other made of debris from the destroyed burrow. Rabbit sized excavators and dump trucks work in the pit multiple stories down. They can see off in the distance a thinner Gideon talking with Johnathan and the Hare fore-mammal of this monumental operation. Sitting along the rim of the pit next to Marion and the others are wolf sized cranes. Still piloted by rabbits and hares though, each either lifting out damaged infrastructure while putting new infrastructure in its place.

Wolfard whistles at the size of the operation as Catherine just winces. Clawhauser, for his part just openly stares, jaw agape at the hole while following them.

Continuing to lead them alongside of it, and at a respectable distance to the work-mammals towards the north-eastern corner of the complex. The elder Wilde Vixen just solemnly smiles.

“If you look around town you’ll see this is a common sight now in Bunny-Burrow. Rabbits like to build their burrows in-situ, not excavated like this because of tradition mainly. If some part of them is majorly damaged though, it has to be dug up like this to be fixed like this. Considering the fire destroyed basically the entire burrow. Surface ‘and’ below. Outside the one part we’re heading to, and possibly the founder’s vault. Though excavation’s yet to reach it, should find it later this week to be honest. The entire multi-story complex has to be dug out like this, one room at a time.”

Folding her ears back as Catherin’s mind works over the logistics of such a feat, one thought sticks out to her though. “Mrs. Wilde, how are you paying for all of this? It can’t be cheap. By Kahn, it must be the opposite of cheap to be honest.”

“Mrs. Wolfard. Judy’s parents, Bonny and Stu Hopps made sure to fully fund college for ‘every’ kit they ever had, and some of their grand kits too. That money for all the kits that died, and the money in the accounts from other members of the Hopps clan who died. It all got dumped into a single account and given to Judy and my son. We’re talking eight figures at least… Yet, the cost of this whole operation has run into the millions range already with no sign of stopping. We’re still a good three to four months on the earliest estimate of digging it all out. It will most likely cost another few million on top of this to rebuild a smaller complex in its place once they’re done. One up to code too, part of the reason the fire took out the entire burrow is it wasn’t up to modern code.”

Marion sighs dejectedly.

“It is why it’s all hand-paws on deck to get what we can to grow, so it can be sold. The money in the account will only last us a few more years at this rate, and then what?”

Wolfard joins Clawhauser in just staring at it all, as he follows his wife alongside the pit to the northern part of the property.

Up ahead a small house that has seen some better days emerges from a group of trees, though looks solid, comes into view. Only then does the lupine open his muzzle. “I kept hearing from Judy how big her family was, and I just accepted it. I just never really sat and thought of the sheer scale it would require for, well, everything for a family that size! The complex looks like it’s nearly the size of a city block.”

Clawhauser nods. “Tell me about it.”

“Neither did we. As for the actual size, it ‘is’ the size of a now ‘Neo-Zootopia’ city block. Judy’s family home would be the same as a mansion without a yard taking up said city block, standing at least four to five stories tall. It was colossal, yet it was homely when we were here for their wedding.” Marion stops to look back at them.

“Still kinda angry at Nick for trying to handle all this himself. It’s too big of an operation for a single mammal to handle. Hell, even Mark has lent some expertise in running a farm physically, how to handle finances for it, and even the logistics of such an operation. He and his siblings back in his home dimension helped his parents run a farm and ranch a bit smaller than this.” She chuckles a couple of times.

“By Karma even the city of Bunny Burrow is offering to help with tax breaks and waving the costs of service hookups. The Hopps farm was one of the trio of burrows that made the majority of their exports. With it out of commission, the city stands to lose at LEAST a third of its revenue.”

Marion points to the house off in the distance in front of them. “We’re almost there.” All three nod as they glance at each other while following her.

Approaching the old style country house, they see the fore mentioned Rabbit and Hare kits playing. In a front lawn recently cleared of overgrowth, the tree stumps littering the lawn providing the main indication of such an action.

Many of the kits instantly stop what they’re doing upon noticing Marion, dashing over to her with yells of “Auntie Marion!” or “Mrs. Marion” depending on how old they are.

The vixen smiles at this and glances to the three following her. “The other kits and cubs are in the backyard normally.” Answering the question on their muzzles before either of the Wolfards or the Cheetah could speak it, but not before Clawhauser squeals at how cute they all look acting like this.

Marion pats each head of any kit that approaches her, gently moving them aside. Making room for her guests to get through to the house, though, with so many kits it’s like parting the sea rather than getting them to move aside.

Yet she doesn’t get the chance to open the front door by the time they arrive. Nick opens it before Marion’s hand-paw even touches the handle. Food stained apron covering a Pawaian shirt of indistinct color from stains that the apron didn’t protect against and a pair of casual shorts. The hand-paw that wasn’t opening the door holds a cooking ladle as he stares at the four of them blinking in confusion.

“Fangmeyer, Wolfard, and Clawhauser… What.. What are you three doing here? Also, Stripes, what’s with the uniform?”

Wolfard walks up and kneels to give Nick a hug with his good arm and his trademarked goofy grin. “Came to see you Slick.” He then nods to Catherine with a small tail wag. “And she’s now Mrs. Wolfard.”

Catherine grins. “Good to see you to Nick, though, that’s not how you address the Chief of Police for the entire city of Neo-Zootopia, now is it? As for the ‘Mrs’ thing, well, we did send you and Judy an invite to the wedding. But we knew you wouldn’t come due to well…”

Nick quickly dons an old and crumbling emotional mask, as worthless as it is considering his earlier reaction as he pats Wolfard’s arm to let him go. Not to mention everyone else present have learned to look through it.

The lupine grins and obliges, letting go and taking a step back as he stands up to his full height.

“Because Judy.” Another crack to the mask’s added as his ears and tail shift before he even has the wherewithal to stop them.

“So Copper-Tail’s release is today? Thought that was still a month or so away.” Only to loudly yip as Marion yanks the ladle from his hand-paw and removes the apron with her other hand-paw. Letting the full extent of the staining of the old shirt he has on to the world.

“Surprisingly she’s a changed mammal, so we made a new arrangement. Tell you all about it later hun, you just take your time catching up with your friends here. Leave feeding the kits dinner to me, okay?” Smiling at her son, Marion takes a step back into the house, closing the door after herself. Leaving Nick, standing outside a bit stunned at how fast it happened.

He yips again, this time from Clawhauser scooping him into a full body hug. “I missed you Nick! You and Judy were always so friendly to me compared to other mammals, and made my day whenever you two stopped by the dispatch desk.”

He puts the elder Wilde sibling down, ruffled fur, shirt, and all. Nick just holds his finger up for a moment, then lowers it as he closes his muzzle.

“I mean, if it wasn’t for you two giving me encouragement every day. I wouldn’t be this thin!” He pats his trim belly while motioning to how well his lithe runners frame fills out the patrol uniform.

“Probably would’ve relapsed to eating all that junk food again and had another heart attack despite doctor’s stern orders to not touch another doughnut. I Haven’t felt this good in YEARS, and I have you and Judy to thank for it!”

Nick blinks… ‘To Karma with it…’

He drops the worn and old emotional mask, genuinely smiling up at the Cheetah before looking him up and down in a more critical eye. “I bet. You actually look handsome now, properly filling out that uniform. Are you back on paw patrol too?”

“Yup!” Clawhauser smiles. “As much as I’m allowed to do with my heart, doctor’s orders. So no long foot chases going after a suspect, just short bursts of speed.” Smile turning to full on fanged grin of instinctual excitement.

“Boy, did I miss how it felt to run so fast too. It just scratches some kind of itch I forgotten about.” His smile though fades a bit to a more solemn look a moment later.

“Enough about me, what about you and Judy? I know you cared a lot about all of Judy’s family, especially the kits. Even if you didn’t outright admit it. Goes without saying about Judy caring about her family too.”

Nick lowers his ears. “When she woke up after fainting from the news over her family. That gleam in her eyes was gone, she barely even spoke to ‘anyone’ after that. Let alone eat, shower or well, you know. I had to force her to eat every day, not that she refused, just that she wouldn’t bother. It’s like she just gave up on living.” He sighs.

“Those few times you saw me just after what happened that night, well, that was after all-nighter’s taking care of her or stuff about my sister.”

Looking up at his friends, Nick holds up his hand-paws. “Before you all point it out, yes, I made the big mistake of not reaching out to ‘any’ of you for help. I know that, it’s just…”

Lowering them with a sigh he looks at them, all the while fighting the urge to look away in shame.

“I just… I guess, alright, I fell back on old habits and old coping mechanisms! Kept it all in, thinking I can handle it because I was the only one that could. Because I thought I was the only mammal I could rely on. The smart and crafty fox who knew everyone and can handle everything, or, so I thought. How Karma does one handle a situation like this! I had no clue but was too scared to ask for help.” He folds his ears back, if only for a moment.

Only to see the faces of Catherine, Wolfard, and Clawhauser smiling at him. Making him feel all warm inside, a new feeling to be honest. A different warm and fuzzy from how Judy makes him feel. “I’m sure you heard Mom chewing out Copper-Tail earlier. Mom and Dad did that with me too after finding out I tried to handle all this myself and moved out here with Judy. Thinking being where she grew up, despite the tragedy, would do more good for her mental health than wallowing in our shared apartment in the city around all the signs of stuff she did to it.”

Smiling. Catherine kneels, placing one of her paws on Nick’s shoulder. “Don’t you ever forget we’re yours and Judy’s friends ever again, okay? I can understand why you did it, but I know, you know. We were hurt from the lack of trust on your part.”

Swallowing once, and accepting the comment. Nick places his hand-paws on her larger hand paw. “I’m sorry. I know I should’ve apologized sooner, but…”

“But you had your hand-paws full over running everything?” Wolfard speaks up. He and Clawhauser joins the Tigress in placing their hand-paws on Nick’s shoulders. Wherever they can because of his smaller size than them.

“Yea. Taking care of Judy. Having the ‘entire’ Hopps estate and company dropped into my lap, because by Karma, Judy’s in no mental condition to handle any of it. And… Realizing Mark, and Finnick were right about what both of them said about police and how to change the world. No offense intended to you Stripes and Spots,”

Nick to Catherine, then Clawhauser. Both of them give him a nod of understanding that he means no offense over them staying police officers.

“You can’t make the world a better place by being a police officer. You can keep it a good place, as long as you keep a good head on your shoulders, and to know when to follow orders. No, to make the world a better place you need to make the mammals who are the future of the world better mammals.”

He looks past them towards the kits, then to his friends around him before gently removing their hand-paws from his shoulders.

Catherine smiles. “If we had more officers with the wherewithal to know what’s a good and bad order. All that happened that terrible night wouldn’t have been such a shit-show for the police to begin with. That being said, why are the kits separated like this? Isn’t that counter to what you just said Rabbits and hares in the front, the rest in the backyard?”

She gestures to the kits who have lost interest in the boring, to them. Adults and have gone back to playing tag. Though some are less enthusiastic than others in the game.

Wolfard watches them play too, arching an ear. “Kinda wondering about it too.” Only for his ear to start twitching. Followed by tilting his head to the side as something about this set up reminds him of something, till he snaps his fingers on his good arm and looks back at Nick.

“You don’t want to be that mammal that forces them to get along, you want them to get along on their own.”

Clawhauser scratches an ear. “How does that make them make the world a better place?”

Nick smiles. “It’s what Mark said next that’s important. It’s how things are run back in his dimension after trying it the way we used to, which led up to the troubled times as he called it.”

The elder Wilde sibling gestures with an open hand-paw to the playing kits. “Forcing them to get along, since the Rabbits alone out number each individual species of the rest of the orphans. Would result in resentment with the Rabbit kits if we forced them to ‘get along’ with the others. Along with a sense of entitlement from the other kits. They’d know if the Rabbits did anything wrong, real or made up, we’d side with them because they’re the minority.”

Catherine lowers her ears, fully understanding this behavior. “And cubs will be cubs, they’ll abuse this, judiciously. Then all of them will grow up with hate of other species. Well more hate than what they already have considering how old some of them are.” She then tilts her head a bit.

“Wouldn’t you need to still nudge them in that direction? They’d just stay like this otherwise, right?” Then looks back at the vulpine.

“At first we thought that too. Yet…” Nick points to the group of Rabbits and Hares, prompting the rest to look in that direction.

“When we first started this, it was only the Rabbits in the front yard. Eventually they got bored playing with only the same kits over and over again. Then one brave kit went to the backyard, coming back with one of the Hare kits in tow.”

As he talks, as if on cue. One of the Rabbit kits, who wasn’t too active in the game of tag they were all doing. Possibly because she’s already played tag with every other kit here and is tired of it. Or, she wasn’t too invested in the game to begin with. Stands from sitting on the sideline, making her way curiously around the small house to the backyard where she knows the other kits and cubs are.

“See like that.” Nick grins.

“Don’t know who’ll she’ll grab. She’s talked with and eaten with one of the gray fox cubs previously, and the panther cubs too. The point stands though, she’ll bring some new mammal, and either make the current game they’re all playing more fun. Or the two will start to play something else.”

Tigress, Lupine, and Cheetah watch silently as the rabbit kit quickly returns, not with a gray fox cub, but one of the red fox cubs instead. Said cub looks around at the group nervously. All the Rabbits and Hares, who after a moment of staring back at the Kit. Go back to their game of tag.

Both the cub and kit talk for a moment, in a low enough volume that the general noise of the kits drown them out. A moment or two later the Rabbit kit has the Fox cub cover his eyes. The moment his paws cover his eyes, she dashes off. Hopping into a hollow tree stump about as tall as she is without hesitation.

Clawhauser chuckles. “They’re playing hide-and-seek. That’s just too cute! Like a smaller version of you and Judy, Nick.” Nick nods, yet his tail droops a bit at the mention of his mate.

“Yup. This is the good part. I wasn’t convinced till I saw it happen with the Rabbits and Hares last week. Neither normally get along well here in bunny-burrow. Strange how they don't like each other over the simple difference of one liking to live above ground and the other one bellow ground.”

As he speaks, the fox cub stops covering his eyes and counting. Looking around the yard, followed by sniffing the air. He ignores the rest of the kits playing tag, even if a few of them have stopped playing to watch him both curious and cautiously.

The red-fox cub searches around the area, but doesn’t leave the front yard in trying to find the rabbit kit’s hiding spot.

Only for the moment he gets close to the Rabbit kit’s hiding spot, does she take off running. Giggling madly as the fox cub chases her. Both of them making only a single lap around the front yard until she tumbles to a stop with a playful tackle from the Fox kit. The Rabbit kit and Fox cub laughing wildly as they roll around in the grass.

The Fox cub doesn’t even have time to catch his breath from the tackle as other Rabbit kits and a few Hares mob him. All wanting to join in on this new game because it looks ‘so’ fun. Leaving only a few hold-outs still playing tag. They look on with envy as they only put a small amount of effort into the now boring game of tag.

Smile morphing into a more of a fatherly grin, Nick looks back at the three of them as they watch in silence the new dynamic play out with the Kits and now single Cub.

“The Rabbit kit sought out the Fox cub, and the Fox cub accepted. They played, and had fun. Seeing the fun they had, the other kits wanted to have fun too. Now, suddenly the Fox cub’s accepted by most of the Rabbits and Hares without me or any other adult ‘telling’ them they MUST accept him. The hold outs will last a few days before they find it’s more fun to be with the rest than not. I didn’t have to force them to get along, so no resentment from the Rabbits and Hares for having to play with a Fox cub. No sense of entitlement from the Fox cub that he’s owed participation. No matter what the Rabbits and Hares are doing.”

“And you’re raising them like this?” Catherine moves to more comfortably sit on the porch steps. Her tail swishing back and forth in thought. Wolfard soon joins her, sitting next to her and leaning against her. Only Clawhauser remains standing as he watches.

“Yup, if what happened with the Hares is any indication. After this afternoon, he and the other Red Fox cubs, maybe even the Gray Fox cubs too. Will be welcome in anything the Rabbits and Hares do from now on.”

Looking towards the backyard, then to Nick, The Cheetah flicks the tip of his tail. “And the others? Not to mention those who would just well, kits being kits?”

Nick’s smile fades. “Well, none of them so far have out right refused to interact with the others. They’re just staying within their own groups for the moment till something like this happens. If one does something they shouldn’t, then me, my parents or anyone else here watching them will intervene. If a cub or kit becomes violent, well, we’ll separate them from the group, if it becomes a common occurrence, well. Don’t know what we’ll do.”

Nick shrugs.

“Don’t know what you’ll do?” Catherine looks over at him confused. “You just send them to another foster place, right?”

Shaking his head, Nick sighs. “The ‘only’ reason we got licensed for this so quickly is there’s a massive shortage of qualified places to house them, and a giant surge of orphans. I don’t think there would be an open spot ‘for’ such a difficult cub or kit to be sent to in such a case.”

Overlooking the whole front yard, where most of the kits are playing hide-and-seek instead of tag now. Nick smiles fatherly once again before patting both Catherine and Wolfard on the shoulders.

“We should go see Judy now and let them play. Maybe seeing you guys will help her a bit, get her to open up a little. She, hasn’t had much social contact lately. Not that we haven’t tried.”

The Tigress and the Lupine stand, falling in behind Nick with Clawhauser walking next to the Vulpine as he opens the front door, leading inside the older farm house.

Despite its small size on the outside, and age. The inside looks rather roomy and modern. The front door deposits them directly into the living room. There’s a fully furnished kitchen right behind that and just beyond it, a glass door to the backyard.

The rest of the Kits and Cubs and other young are visible playing in their own groups through the glass from the group’s vantage point.

Catherine whistles a bit at the layout as she looks around. Her head turning side to side. “Now I kinda want a country house like this. Only kinda, I like being the Chief of Police right now. Maybe when goof-ball here and I retire we can move out here.” Marion waves from the kitchen at the group and the Tigress returns it.

“Judy’s in her shrine” The elder Vixen points to the hallway on the left leading to stairs leading both up and down.

“You guys keep saying shrine. Shrine to what?” Wolfard scratches an itch on his bad arm around the scars. Also liking the layout and decor of the house, but staying silent on it.

Sighing Nick leads the trio to the hallway and just past the stairs up to the second floor. “Shrine to her family. At first, it was all the photos she had in her belongings when we moved in here. Then anything she added anything we salvaged in the ruins. Finally completing the collection with everything she could pull off the social media accounts from her family.”

He stops the group at the door for the ‘shrine’, even though it’s large enough for mammals like Catherine to enter it would be tight in the shoulder for her.

Yet the door handle’s low enough for mammals the size of Nick and Judy to use. Reaching up, Nick lightly knocks on the door.

With a soft voice, Nick speaks just loud enough to be heard through the door. “Judy. Some of your friends have come to visit.”

Wolfard and Catherine glance at each other while Clawhauser folds his ears back, tail tip showing his mood over the implications of how Nick is acting around his mate. Someone he remembers as being headstrong.

It takes several seconds for any answer from the other side to appear. Long enough they thought Judy didn’t hear Nick.

Except when Wolfard’s about to open his muzzle, Nick steps back as the door slowly opens. What emerges from the slightly darkened room is as close to the polar opposite of their memories of the full of life, nearly hyperactive and eager Judy they fondly remember.

Her gray fur, unkempt and a little long in places where she would normally trim it short. Ears limply laying on her shoulders and back, lacking any of the perkiness they once had at one time.

She stands there wearing a rumpled flannel shirt and a pair of shorts. A pair of shorts anyone with even a Human sense of smell can tell it hasn’t been washed for over a week. They also notice how stained with dirt it is.

What concerns the Lupine in the group the most is the scent of burning and candles coming out from the now open room. So he shifts his stance to one side, trying to get a better look inside to sate his curiosity.

Row upon row of photos of Judy’s family line anything that can be used as shelves, each one with a candle in front of it. Each candle on a dish to catch wax and all of them have a ‘lot’ of wax on them.

Except one.

A doe, looking a bit younger than Judy. Then again Judy looks older than she actually is right now. With his curiosity now regretfully sated, Wolfard meets Judy’s gaze. All the while biting back a whine in his throat from the sight of the mutilated photo with knives laying in front of it instead of a candle.

The gray bunny doe looks up at the three. Dull amethyst eyes scanning over them with a critical gaze that doesn’t hide the raging emotions in her head to them.

The thin cheetah but with a spot pattern she knows. “Clawhauser” Her timid voice breaks the silence as she points to him, causing him to wince at the tone.

Then to Wolfard, wincing at the sight of his near useless arm. She fully remembers how he got it, how it was his arm, or her life. It feels like another life to her now, one in her opinion not worth the trade of the wolf’s mobility. “Wolfard”

Only to stop her arm at the sight of a ring on a finger of his good arm. The matching one on Cathrine’s hand-paw instantly draws her gaze too. Noticing it well before recognizing style of uniform the Tigress has on.

“Fangmeyer. You’re chief now, aren’t you?” Not hiding the venom in her voice over the fact Bogo sacrificed himself in that Human’s foolish, and unnecessary plan.

Nick gives a weak and troubled smile as he quickly moves to her side. Thinking he can try to salvage this as it seems to not be doing what he thought it should.

“Yes she is, with everyone’s support from what I heard. Still, Catherine, and others came to see how you were doing while they were dropping Vivian off. So, do you want to come out and talk with them? They’d like to talk to you.”

“I’ve done enough harm to all the mammals in what was Zootopia, I’m not going to what ever the celestials it is ‘now’.” She’s about to turn and head back into the room, but Nick gently stops her with a gentle hand-paw on her shoulder.

Clawhauser and Wolfard tense up, expecting this rabbit, this not Judy, to lash out at Nick. Meanwhile, Catherine just winces. Her mind going back to that meeting in the warehouse where Judy forcefully removed Nick’s paw because he sided with Mark and not her.

Continuing to smile, the elder Wilde sibling looks up to his friends as he speaks. “No, they’re not here for that Judy. They just want to talk to you. Catch up with how you’re doing.” He gives a genuine if strained smile.

“Maybe have dinner with them before they head back home?”

Choking back a whine of his own, Clawhauser’s first, and only of the three to move forward. Kneeling down to Judy’s level, so he can look at her in the eyes. Plastering a friendly smile on his muzzle, he slowly reaches out to the bunny.

“We’re just worried about you. I mean, you and Nick made my day most of the days I was stationed at the front desk handling dispatch. I wouldn’t even be this thin if it wasn’t for your encouragement in those days after the heart attack.”

Nick swallows nervously. ‘Please Carrots, you’ve mostly shut everyone else out except me and even I seem to test your patience some days…’

Judy looks down at the cheetah paw as it comes to rest on her shoulder, and for a moment. Nick is hopeful for some progress. Only to see the only progress here is that she allowed someone else than Nick to touch her, if only for a moment.

Callused and scarred rabbit hand-paws grab hold of Clawhauser’s hand-paw. Slowly, she removes it from her shoulder before letting it drop.

“I’m fine as you can see.” Her voice strains in annoyance of being interrupted in her prayers.

“And you all seem to be doing ‘well’.” She doesn’t hide her tone of voice. One harming the three of them as much as a punch to the gut would.

“Catherine’s got the mate she wanted, Wolfard’s got the wife he wanted and kept his arm no mater how useless it is. You, Clawhauser, you are thin again. More handsome than you ever were before to be honest.” Anger at them doing better than her soon mixes with tears in the doe’s eyes.

To the point Nick lets go of Judy’s other shoulder. Realizing this may have been maybe a bit too taxing to have them all here at once for Judy’s fragile mental state. He plasters an insincere smile on his muzzle, trying to counter the looks of shock and sadness in the three present.

“Now, please excuse me. This little carrot farmer hasn’t finished praying to serendipity and the other celestials like a good farmer should.” Before Nick can even protest, or move, Judy’s already back into the room and shutting the door in their muzzles. Followed by the sound of her locking the door.

The sound of which deflates Nick’s posture and over all body language like the strings holding him up have been cut.

‘Damn imprinting! It hurts seeing her like this!…’

“At least…” He stifles a whine. “Judy let you touch her Clawhauser. Mom and Dad can’t even do that, and she loved them like her own parents.” Nick frowns a bit as he’s quickly held up by Wolfard on one side and Clawhauser on the other before he can collapse to his knees.

‘Sigh, come to think of it, that might be why she doesn’t let them touch her. They remind her of her too much Bonny and Stu.’ Musing as his two friends help him over to one of the tables set up for dinner back in the main area of the small house and the action doesn’t go unnoticed by Marion.

Catherine follows behind them, a deep frown clear on her muzzle and a plan storming in her mind. “How long has Judy been like this? Praying to the gods most of the day and working in the fields?”

Nick looks over as the Tigress sits cross-legged on the floor to fit next to the adult Fox and Rabbit sized table despite the cramped nature of it. “Guess you saw the dirt on her clothes. Not hard to miss, to be honest.” He looks towards the back of the house, to the side of the backyard. A strip of unused land between this house and the border of the Hopp’s property.

“Since she started being able to at least eat and minimally take care of herself. So, three or four months ago? We tried to stop her as she was a bit weak from how little she ate up till then, but she’d attack us if we tried. None of us can counter her police training, I mean you remember her kicking even my tail in spars.” He pauses for a second. “Before you ask, the crops are all carrots. Nothing else.”

Marion quickly shows up once she can leave the cooking dishes unattented to hug her son and support him. “Give me a moment.” Only to dash off, back to the kitchen.

Wolfard watches her go, then looks back at Nick who’s at least recovered a little due to the motherly hug.

“Why? That doesn’t make any sense to me if I’m being honest. It’s not going to bring anyone back, only get her exausted every day.”

Sitting up a bit straighter, Nick genuinely smiles from his mother’s hug, before letting his ears fall a bit at the lupine’s comment.

“Didn’t to us either, then I reached out to one of my few connections back in Zootopia to a psychiatrist, calling in a favor still owed. Helped the mammal turn his life around ironically enough by hustling him out of what little he had left. The Zoomies tele-session with him for Judy’s sake didn’t go well to say the least.” Nick looks in the direction of the shrine room.

“I’m more or less paraphrasing from the psychiatrist here; Every mammal follows the stages of grief differently, some go through every step, others skip some but not others. Judy’s in the bargaining stage, some part of her mind now rationalizes that if she does well as a ‘carrot farmer’, everyone will come back. This may be due to being told her entire life to stop trying to be anything other than a simple carrot farmer, for that’s all a rabbit should be.”

The elder Wilde vixen soon returns carrying plates of food for the four of them with as much grace as any well skilled waitress. Nothing extravagant, breaded chicken with various veggies, and some water to wash it all down before she too sits down at the table, across from her son.

“From the looks on your muzzles, you don’t understand that scat either.”

“To be honest Mrs. Wilde, it doesn’t make sense at all. At least to me. I mean how could she possibly even think just growing carrots well will bring them all back from the dead like it never happened?” Catherine looks down at the food before looking back up to the older vixen. “You didn’t have too…”

Marion gives the Tigress a motherly smile. “Nope! I insist. It’s a four and a half hour drive one way to or from here and Neo-Zootopia. Even if you leave now, you’re not getting back to the city till late at night and I take it you all have work tomorrow morning?”

All three nod, Wolfard’s the first to dig in before Clawhauser, then finally Christine.

“This is good.” The Tigress comments after taking a bite but looks between Nick and Marion.

“I’m actually considering putting in a request to get a live in department shrink out here for Judy to have access too. She’s owed that much from her pension even if she only worked a few years on the force. I don’t buy that explanation the other one gave one bit.”

Nick puts down his fork. “I won’t say no, but I think they may come to the same conclusion. If they can get her to sit down and talk that is. The reason the Zoomies session didn’t go well is we tried, and failed to keep her physically present for the whole thing. Judy may not be in her right mind, but she still knows all the police paw to paw training. Everything we tried short of out right tying her to the chair resulted in pain and bruises. Even for Mark, who had the hardest time trying to hold her while not harming her.”

“What I want to know.” Wolfard points his fork politely at both Nick and his mother. “Is why there’s a photo of a rabbit doe sitting on the shelf with the rest of them, but looks like it’s been repeatedly stabbed and cut with all those knives in front of it? When I got a glimpse of what’s in the room all the other photos and pictures are lovingly and carefully framed with candles in front of them. Not a speck of dust or wax on any of them.”

Tapping the table with a claw tip, Marion sighs. “I can answer that actually. Her name was May Hopps. One of Judy’s younger siblings by a few years, still in college to boot. Keep in mind, that while Stallhoof’s orders wiping out the Hopps clan already doomed all of them no matter what transpired that night. She was ears deep in the ideology Stallhoof and others pushed into the school systems for years, so she was pretty much the definition of a useful idiot. Letting them into the compound thinking it was one of her friends coming to celebrate their ‘freedom’ from the buck in the White-house. Just after Stallhoof declared independence.”

Rubbing her hand-paw over her head dejectedly. “Turns out it was their preferred method of getting into the three largest warrens. Get someone from the inside to let them in, so they have the element of surprise on their side. We only know it was because May thought it was her friend, and she wanted to party was we found the remains of fifteen hundred zbuck top of the line I-Carrot near her body weeks later on one of the sweeps for last few bits of remains to bury.”

Marion folds her ears back. ‘Never did like those who pray to him, but I understand why Judy does now.’

“One of the prayers Judy does is to Calamity the Hyena to torture May’s soul in the afterlife.”

Nick adds. “It’s why her pictures so mangled and the ‘ritual daggers’ lay in front of it. Part of the prayer, or should I say curse, is to mangle an image or other representation of the mammal.”

Clawhauser pushes the place away from himself, food half-eaten. ‘Seeing Judy like this has made me lose my appetite.’

“And she’s latched most of the blame for everyone else dying onto May?” The Cheetah connects the dots he wishes he hadn’t.

Nick nods, saying nothing other than that to answer as he picks at the food in front of himself. Forcing himself to eat despite his mood and concern for his mate sapping his appetite yet again. ‘For her sake I can’t let myself slip like she did.’

“Alright. That settles it!” Catherine speaks up, ears up and tail lashing about behind her as she places her hand-paws on the table in front of her in a commanding manner.

“First thing tomorrow morning after roll-call. I’m ‘stalking’ our new union rep and my superiors to get Judy the help she needs and won’t stop till they do.” Looking over to Nick.

“I’m sure you already know my email address, so keep me informed on her condition. I’m not dumb enough to take at face value you cut ‘all’ means of communication off to help Judy.”

Pre-empting the ingrained habit of masking his emotions, and his plans. Nick lightly nods. “Yea. Just in case…”

Catherine frowns again. “I think this is the definition of ‘just in case’ Nick. Judy’s suffering and needs help.”

Marion reaches over and places one of her hand-paws on the Tigress’s. “No need to go that far Mrs. Wolfard. We do have some money to spare, and I think Bonny and Stu wouldn’t object if some of it went to Judy’s care. So we’ll pay for any help you can get us, no need to try to get her help for free.” Marion politely smiles at the Tigress.

Catherine shakes her head. “No, I insist. It’s the least the city can do for what help she’s done in the past. It’s also the least ‘I’ can do as a friend of hers. I miss the bunny I would talk to in the female’s locker room each morning after roll-call.”

‘Despite the fact she was constantly teased by the others and was relegated to that press-board ‘locker’.’

“The least of what ‘we’ can do as her friends.” Both Clawhauser and Wolfard say at the same time causing a genuine smile on Nick’s muzzle to form.

“Which is why ‘I’m’ here.”

Every mammal at the table, expect the squeaky speaker, nearly jumps out of their fur at the voice of Fru-Fru while climbing up onto the table’s surface unaided. So engrossed in their conversation they missed her coming downstairs from the second floor ‘office’.

“Fru-Fru.” Catherine smiles as she gets her fur under control, along with everyone else. Nick’s tail though refuses to stop bottle brushing, so he tries to ignore the feeling of it.

When the Tigress has a semblance of being back in control, she lowers a finger. Claw sheathed, to wrap gently around the shrew’s shoulders for a moment. The socially acceptable way of a larger mammal to hug a tiny one like this.

“Nice to see you again, but I thought it was just because they offered you a job to help manage the paperwork.”

The tiny shrew pats the Tigress’s finger and giggles before Catherine pulls her hand-paw back. “No. While I like doing secretary work, and am Brisby damn good at it after years helping run the ‘legit’ side of my father’s business! I took the job, and housing offer simply to help Judy. Remember, she saved my life on her first day as a cop, it’s the LEAST I can do to help her put hers back together after that even if I’m ALSO one of her friends.”

“Speaking of which.” Clawhauser speaks up after combing his facial fur down. “What happened to your father. I know Catherine and Wolfard were with him in that warehouse. Just not after they were all picked up by the military. There’s also been no hide nor hair of news about him in the media sense either.”

Fru-Fru, with the permission of Catherine, swipes a bit of chicken off her plate to nibble on before speaking.

“Turned himself in to the military units doing police work before the police got reinstated. Gave what he could to me and my husband, said his goodbyes too… I didn’t want him to leave because Judy, my daughter, not my friend. Loves to be around her grandpa. He said this new world has no place for mammals like him anymore though. The city and the country have a fresh start, mammals like him are only needed when they’re already corrupt.”

Clawhauser looks to Wolfard, who in turn looks to his wife before Fru-fru shakes her head.

“No he’s not dead. Just, he’s going to be living what little time he has left on Ratkers island prison.” She uses a corner of a napkin to wipe her muzzle.

“Good food as always Mrs. Wilde.”

“I just finished it up. My son was the one who cooked most of it.” Marion smiles.

“Well then Nicky.” Fru-Fru looks at the todd, speaking like she used to when a younger Nick had been employed by her father. “You did good.”

---

End notes:

Judy may be a bit controversial, Though i would point out how she acted after emotionally hurting Nick in the movie. so her going back that way, but up to 11 kinda fits the scale. The celestial's / gods are just stuff i remember from various fan stories. Kinda like how they flesh out the world more or less.

The political system used for the Bio-Morph universe and this version of Zootopian one is based off the 'book' starship troopers. Not the movie, the movie cut a lot out.

A critique of at the time, and still valid now, of the usa's political system, and imho a better system. One more in line with the republic we're supposed to be. It was also written as a counter to what the author of the book viewed as the less personal liberty focused 'star trek'. Yes the bugs were an allegory to communism, it wasn't the only topic the book covered. Just the only one in the book the movie writers either thought would make a good film, or the only one they understood.

>.> also sorry not sorry for the animal pun name for teleconferencing.