Chapter Text

Magnetic Resonance

“So Officer Wilde, we are doing an MRI of your right shoulder, correct,” asked the rabbit in the violet scrubs and for some odd reason that was all he was focusing on at the moment… how her deep amethyst eyes matched her scrub uniform almost exactly. 

“Officer…?”

“Oh…sorry, yes, shoulder yeah. It has been bothering me so the doc wants it checked out again.”

“So you have had a previous surgery on this shoulder Officer Wilde?”

“Yes nurse, Hopps is it?”

“Actually I am a Nuclear Medical Technician.”

“Woe, woe, like I am not going to end up with some palladium in my chest am I?” Nick chortled as he was guided to the MRI table. 

“No Officer,” she giggled…

 ‘ …dang she’s so cute when she giggles’

“...that would be sub level ‘D’ section ‘C’ corridor ‘M’ guarded by the large black bear with the eye patch. We just handle MRI’s and CAT scans… oh and before you ask, Fox scans too.”

Nick smiled as he laid on the long plastic table… ‘ Oh she’s even got a sense of humor too.’

“My official title is an MRI Technologist, but my degree is in Nuclear Medicine,” Judy told the officer as she secured braces around his shoulder. A female cheetah also in the same violet scrubs came in with a computer tablet while Judy prepared Nick. “But back to the question on your shoulder, how did you injure it and when it was repaired did they use any metal implants?” 

“I thought we went over the iron-mammal info?” Nick smirked, “But nah, it’s all me… one hundred percent. Yeah, I had my tail handed to me by a kangaroo high on PCP. He kicked me across the intersection of Pack Street and Flock Boulevard. When I landed… on my shoulder, i got hit by a double-decker bus—”

“What? Seriously? How are you even still alive, fox?” Judy asked, shocked and maybe a bit skeptical of the story.

“Judy, Officer Wilde is telling the truth. Look, it’s right here in his chart. It says he sustained tears to his Infraspinatus tendon and Subscapularis tendon after being hit by a bus… oh my gosh fox, how  are you not dead?”

Judy’s eyes softened a bit as she looked at his chart, seeing documentation of multiple injuries going back to his childhood. She stopped scrolling when Serina tapped her shoulder. Judy knew all too well the plight of many predators with her time and position at Zootopia General Hospital. She had to blink a few times to keep the tears from forming at the corners of her eyes. It was her tender heart that kept her from becoming a full fledged doctor as she just could not take the heartbreak she saw in the ER of the poor mammals of the inner city. 

“Well Officer, I’m glad you are still in the fur and protecting the city for us. You don’t have any other metal on you… other than perhaps a gold ring… ah, well, for example.” Her ears suddenly reddened a bit before she dropped them. Why, she herself didn't understand? Maybe it was the way he was smiling at her.

Nick gestured for her to bend down a bit with his left paw as he was now secured to the MRI table. “No rings.” he wiggled the digits of his left paw, “Guess I never met the right gal. I’ll tell you a secret about my accident though if I can… well maybe get your number?”

“Are you trying to hit on me fox?” She gave him a soft smile as she tucked a pad under his other shoulder, “Okay, okay, you must know how curious rabbits are, you sly fox. I’ll write in on you paperwork. So what’s the secret?”

“That double-decker bus…”

Judy’s muzzle bent down close to his as she put ear plugs in his ears so the noise of the MRI would not be to loud for him, close enough to let their whiskers touch and feel a bit of a tingle from the sensation. “Go on…”

“What I didn't say in the report was that it was in the rodent-only lane.”

The  rabbit stood up laughing as she punched him in his good shoulder, “You rascal fox you. Okay Officer Wilde, we will see you in about 35 minutes. Just stay calm. You’ve been through this before. Just like…”

“...like going into the rabbit burrow.” the fox chortled as the table slid into the confines of the MRI.

“Oh you!”

Serina gave Judy a slap on her rear, “The work-a-holic finally might get some tail.”

“Oh stop. I was just trying to make him feel calm for the…”

“Yeah, yeah, you end up with rosy ears and a cute little bobbing tail every time you try to calm a patient. Hopps is finally going to be a lucky rabbit.” Serina finished in a singsong voice. 

“Oh shut up and start the test.

****

Nick was startled awake sometime later by the fact there was no longer the loud pulsing thrums of the MRI. It was always odd to some how the confined space and loud rhythmic pulsing noise put the fox to sleep. But then he grew up in the slums of Happy Town; living in a basement flat with the subway line right next to his building. There were no stations nearby, just the noise of the trains rumbling past the forgotten borough. So when he awoke to near silence he assumed the test was over and waited for the mechanical table to withdraw him from the confines of the machine… and waited… and waited.

“Are we almost done?” he asked loudly but there was no response. He remembered the rubber squeeze ball connected to the line he had in his left paw so he could signal if he had a problem. He squeezed it several times. He heard a beeping noise outside the device with each squeeze, but still no response. 

“Miss Hopps? Judy? Ah… Serina? Anyone!?”

Nick began to freak out a bit but then he realized there was a noise in the distance. No, not the distance. Used his left paw to reach up and remove the ear plug from his left ear. It sounded like an alarm. Not too far off. Using his claws to dig into the hard outer plastic cover of the MRI he pushed himself out lifting his lower half with his legs. As soon as he was free, he tried to make sense of the madness outside the glass of the MRI room. Smoke filled the hallway as ceiling tiles hung randomly from various places and emergency lights flickered as most of the regular lights were off. Maybe it was the confines he was in before that he had not noticed how low the lights were in the MRI room but with the emergency lights on he could see rather clearly. 

“Judy! Hopps!” Nick noticed some blood stained stapled paperwork with his name at the top on the floor. ‘My paperwork? But who’s bloody paw print?’ He sniffed it. It was not from a rabbit as much as he could tell.  In the upper corner by his name was a handwritten phone number with:

“I’ll give you a chance, Slick Nick. -Judy-”

He opened the door to the MRI room and could hear a robotic voice from down the empty destroyed hallway: “Savage mammal containment Breach - evacuate the premises. Savage mammal containment…"

With the bloodied paperwork dangling from his paw he cried out, “Juuuudy” but no other living mammal was there to respond.