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Felicity smells him before anything.
That sharp, rank stench-it’s diluted, mixed with the smell of apple cider that’s stuck in her nostrils since the flood- but she’d know it anywhere. It’s his smell. She curses herself for going off alone- Mrs. Badger and Rabbit’s ex-girlfriend had been doing their best to comfort her, but she felt an overpowering need to grieve for Foxy privately.
Before she quite knows what she’s doing, she’s on her feet, running towards the source of the smell, because that smell means mischief and danger and her son- all she has left of her family, now-might be its target. She sees a length of chain and stops to pick it up- she’s not sure what she’ll do with it, hasn’t fought anyone in a long time, hasn’t even contemplated it- but she has to take what she can get.
“DAD!” Ash’s voice echoes through the sewers, in distress, and she knows it’s her worst fear come true, the villain’s come for her son. She redoubles her speed, following the smell, fighting down the nausea because Ash needs her, his dad isn’t coming.
And she rounds a corner and sees him- that dark, spindly figure with the naked pink tail, impossibly tall even hunched over, bearing down on a huddled ball of fur and cotton- Ash. Felicity can’t stop to wonder why he’s come for Ash, why none of the other animals are coming to his aid; she charges, knowing he hasn’t noticed her, using his focus on her son to her advantage.
You’re not getting him, you cusser, she swears, the first complete thought she’s had since she caught that scent.
“C’mon, man, stop!” Ash pleads, and his attacker snarls; her own fury builds to a fever pitch as she closes on the villain and seizes his collar in an iron grip. She has the satisfaction of seeing him pause, befuddled, for an instant. A snarl twisting her lips, she yanks him backward with a strength she didn’t even know she had as he cries out in surprise. She lifts him clear off his feet and dumps him on the filthy sewer floor.
Where you belong, she sneers, as she pulls out the chain and snaps it at him, her gaze boring into him.
His reaction, however, is not what she’d hoped for.
“Woo-ee!” he chortles. “Look at you, girl- you’re still as fine looking as a crème brulee.” He leaps to his feet easily, leering at her exactly as he used to.
She won’t acknowledge that she remembers him; she won’t give him that satisfaction. Pouring all her contempt into her voice, she answers,
“Am I being flirted with by a psychotic rat?”
That shuts him up, but that achievement’s of dubious value; deftly flipping out a switchblade, he brandishes it and hisses. It’s a hiss that’s haunted her dreams more than once, but she won’t yield before his hiss or his blade, she’ll stand firm because Ash is depending on her. She sees a glint of his knife and readies herself to spring, to wrap the chain around his neck and kill him if necessary, last time she bit and kicked and scratched, but only as much as she needed to get away from him. This time she can’t run.
But she underestimates the rat’s reach; just as she’s about to lunge, one of his spindly arms shoots out and grabs the chain, yanking her off her feet with shocking force. She’s thrown just as she threw him, and she lands hard, but full of adrenaline she scrambles to her feet at once, just in time to see the rat grab her son and stuff him headfirst into a burlap sack-
“ASH!” she screams, and launches herself at the rat again, but the lights flicker- she catches something long and thin in her paws, it must be his tail, but she sees the glint of the knife coming at her and she has to let go. She just manages to catch his wrist, to stop the blade from piercing her heart, as the lights switch on again, then off; his eyes glow in the dark like hot coals and he snarls in rage as he pushes the blade closer and closer, his strength is terrifying. He shifts position, wrenching her around, and suddenly the knife’s almost in her face, but she will struggle until her last breath-
“Excuse me,” someone says, dangerously, and she thinks she must be hearing things as the rat swings her around again, because it’s a voice she was sure she’d never hear again.
Foxy!
He’s there-alive! - and his teeth flash ivory in the wavering light as he growls, “May I cut in?”
When she goes over the battle in her head later, Felicity wonders why the rat didn’t just hold her and Ash hostage, demand Foxy come with him to give up his life for theirs. She’ll never know, of course, but she’ll like to think she riled him up enough that he wasn’t thinking, that he forgot his advantage.
In the moment, though, all her thoughts are of seeing her husband alive, and she’s startled when the rat throws her aside; she lets out an involuntary yelp. Again, she gets to her feet- just in time to see the rat tackle her husband, knocking them both into the darkness beyond-
Felicity is desperate to help, but there’s nothing she can do but watch, watch as the flickering lights show flashes of their struggle; if she charged in there, she’d be as likely to do harm as good.
Snarls and growls and hisses, it seems to last a very long time (afterwards, she realizes it could not have been more than half a minute), but finally she sees a spark of electricity, hears a blood-curdling shriek, and in a moment of light she sees a body- a long, dark, narrow body, NOT Foxy’s, spasm in agony. Felicity lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. It’s over. It’s over, and Foxy’s still alive, and Ash too- her family’s still here.
Felicity rushes to Ash, hugs her son tightly, as if she’ll never let him go, and uncharacteristically he doesn’t resist- she actually hears a murmured but sincere, “Thanks, Mom,” and she kisses him on the forehead. Foxy is at the rat’s side- to make certain of his death, she’d thought, but when she sees her husband’s face she sees this is something different, he’s kneeling, staring at the rat with something approaching pity. Her lip curls, but Ash is there with his father and she says nothing. She still hasn’t told Foxy one-tenth of what she went through with that rat, back in the day; the time might come when she does so, but it’s not now. The rat doesn’t smell the same, now- the acrid scent of charred flesh overpowers his old smell.
She can hear the other animals crowding around them now that the struggle’s over, but her eyes are fixed ahead; she watches as Rat reveals Kristofferson’s location, feels a surge of joy as she realizes her family may yet all survive this. She watches Foxy give the rat a pawful of “cider” to ease his passing, and she’s torn between admiration and disgust.
She watches the rat give one final convulsion and lie still, and watches Foxy gently send him off, down the sewer pipe. The burnt smell lingers after his body disappears. He’s gone for good, and she’s not sure what to feel.
Her spell is broken when Foxy climbs to his feet and announces:
“My suicide mission’s been canceled. I’m replacing it with a go-for-broke rescue mission.”
Some of the other animals mutter skeptically, but she hardly notices as Foxy looks at her with intense joy and relief, his face mirroring her feelings. She rushes forward and hugs him, as tightly as she did a few minutes ago when she thought she’d never see him again- but this time feels infinitely better.
“You all right, honey?” he says, gently patting her back.
“Oh, I’m fine. You sure have a way of coming through at the last possible moment.”
He chuckles.
“Mom was really brave,” Ash puts in, and she smiles at him- “Unlike some people,” he continues, glaring at Badger and the others.
“Ash,” she says, with just a bit of an edge in her voice, and he stops.
“We were going to do-something,” Badger says sheepishly, rubbing his head with his paw.
“I-ah-got in his way,” Weasel offers. “Slowed him down a bit.”
“I was just lucky there was a naked wire back there, or he mighta had me” Foxy says. “I guess the current was stronger than the one in Boggis’s fence.”
“What?” Felicity pulls away, regards him with her paws on her hips and a raised eyebrow. Foxy shrugs, offers her his trademark toothy smile. Ash snickers, and after a moment both his parents join in the laughter.
“C’mon, Foxy,” she says when they’re done. “I want to hear about this go-for-broke rescue mission.”
“Rally the troops, Dad!” Ash says, pumping his fist.
Foxy grins slyly.
“All right,” he says, putting his arms around them both. “Let’s go.”