Chapter Text
She explained the situation to Nick on the way to the house to get a minimum of equipment.
Chief Bogo sent her the address. It was a quick ride, a robbery and break-in case that seemed like more than just that.
It was a lady Fennec and her husband who called, insisting they had a small child with them. It was urgent, people were trying to enter their house.
They had absolutely nothing, except two tranquilizing guns Judy had packed in case a problem came and they were needed.
“Here take that!” she said and threw him the tranquilizing gun.
“Boy you really are a prepared-for-every-occasion kind of bunny,” he replied smirking.
She stared at him until he stopped smirking.
“Ok now let’s go!” she said.
Less than five minutes after the phone call they were in the family truck and she started driving.
She kept Clawhauser informed of their position, while Nick thought he could’ve used some sleep before getting into all of this.
Six minutes later — she checked — they were almost there.
The house was weirdly away from civilization, kinda hidden.
She stopped before reaching the house for a minimum of discretion.
“We’re here,” she whispered as they got out of the car.
“Yeah I got that when you stopped the car,” he answered, whispering too.
She glared at him.
They approached the house, and he must admit, he felt less safe without his uniform.
They got closer silently, tranquilizer guns out.
The door looked forced open, pretty normal in a break-in case.
There was light in one of the rooms upstairs.
“Why would the robber have gotten inside if they saw light up there?” she muttered, confused. This was not the usual robber logic.
“I don’t know. I’ll take the ground floor and you go upstairs?” he asked, though not sure about splitting up — really bad memories associated with that.
“Well thank you! Upstairs is obviously dangerous!” she whispered aggressively.
“Yeah, you’ll be fine,” he smiled back and started to walk carefully toward what seemed like a kitchen.
She sighed and started to climb the stairs, trying to take light steps.
Upstairs was a long dark hallway.
Great.
She needed to find the Fennec family, they were definitely still here.
One of the doors looked banged open, it was the room that was lit up.
She entered carefully, gun first.
Downstairs he was now looking at a living room. The only room he hadn’t checked yet was the dining room.
He entered brutally, gun pointing at what or who might be there.
Nobody?
Were they gone already?
“Hey Carrot?” he called, and got no response.
“Carrot?” he tried again.
He heard a noise upstairs, but he couldn’t tell what it was.
“Judy?” he shouted louder.
He started to climb the stairs, panic rising fast in his veins up to his brain, making it foggy.
“Yes, I’m upstairs. Uh… there’s a situation up here…” she finally answered.
A situation?
He turned into the hallway to enter the room her voice came from.
She was leaning over a crib, ears drooping.
He came closer.
“Oh so that’ll be a b-a-b-y. I know it can be confusing the first time you see one,” he said.
“Nick! Not the moment! I looked everywhere, the parents are missing! Why would he be left alone and not hurt? I don’t understand!” she said back.
His ears flattened.
“I’m calling Clawhauser, he’ll know what to do,” he replied.
He left the room, taking his phone.
She stayed staring at the one-year-old baby fennec with pity.
Something wasn’t right here. The baby seemed pretty fine. She was whining of course, but not overly disturbed.
Nick was in another room talking to Clawhauser.
“Oh I don’t know what to do in this case! I’ll ask Chief Bogo.”
Useful.
“Hey Carrot I’m gonna check for any indication of what might have happened!” he shouted from the room he was in.
Outside, there were tire tracks that indicated a precipitated departure.
Maybe someone at the ZPD could say what type of car it was. It would be a start.
Otherwise there were no other clues.
He made a mental note to ask if there were cameras around here but he didn’t hope too much.
Clawhauser called back.
“Chief says in this situation we take the child to foster care until he gets new information on the case.”
“Okay did he send backup who could take care of that?” he asked.
“Yes! Grizzoli and Wolford are coming with Jenny and Arnold from the child department.”
“Great,” he replied and hung up.
Upstairs Judy was now dealing with a crying baby.
She could’ve been dealing with that at the warren too, so it was not very difficult to handle.
And the little white fennec was small enough that she could carry it with no problem, which would have been much harder with a baby elephant.
She changed the baby’s diaper, and it was actually a girl.
Poor thing, left alone.
Nick came back.
“They’re sending Grizzoli and Wolford and some people from the child department for the kiddo,” he said.
“Okay,” she answered, ears still drooping.
“You want to go check for clues I might’ve missed?” he tried, hoping to cheer her up.
“Okay,” she replied, giving him the fennec.
And she left while he held the baby awkwardly in front of him.
He decided to sit down on the floor with the kiddo and put her in his lap.
He had never seen a fennec that white. Usually they were pretty yellow, not bright white like this.
The baby started to wiggle out of his grasp to take a toy on the floor and he let her do so.
She picked it up and started to stand up on her two paws with difficulty, which took her a full minute.
Then she walked back to him and almost fell down approximately forty times on the two steps it took to get there.
“There you go,” he said quietly, feeling his throat close a little painfully.
Poor kid.
He knew what Carrot must feel like. They had arrived too late. They didn’t stop the two parents from being taken away, and now this sweet little fennec was alone, forced to go into foster care for as long as her parents were missing.
She started trying to catch his ears to pull on them and help herself stand again.
He gave her his hand instead.
Funny how her ears were kind of a mix of his and Judy’s — huge yet pointy.
Anyway… let’s not go down that road right now.
~
Judy didn’t find any new clues and came to the same conclusion Nick did.
She was so disappointed and felt like she had failed her mission toward the baby fennec.
She was about to go upstairs again when she heard police cars coming from behind her.
Two cars stopped. Grizzoli and Wolford nodded as a “hello” at her and she did the same, not really in the mood to be all sunshine back to them.
One otter and a lizard came to her.
“Hi, I’m Jenny and this is Arnold,” the otter said, smiling gently.
“Hello,” Judy answered and shook their paws.
“Our job is to take care of babies, kids and underage teenagers left alone in some police cases,” the lizard added gently, “like when the parents are going to prison or, in this case… disappeared.”
They really looked kind, probably great with kids.
But they still weren’t their parents.
She pointed a finger toward the first floor.
They started walking there and she followed, while Grizzoli was talking in a walkie-talkie and Wolford was analyzing the car tracks outside.
Upstairs, Nick was still feeling strangely sensitive toward the baby, who he had found out was named Alma.
It was written on one of the onesies he found in her drawers.
Seeing all her cute baby stuff made his throat close even more for some reason, his ears completely flat on his skull.
Jenny and Arnold came in and made the same speech they told Judy.
Then they checked the baby for any vital problems. She had none.
Grizzoli came upstairs.
“We’ll take it from here. You two can give your statement tomorrow at the precinct.”
The otter spoke again.
“Oh actually we’ll need one little statement about how you found the baby—”
“Alma,” Nick cut in.
“—on how you found Alma. Where exactly, was she crying? Or not?” Jenny continued.
They explained everything and answered the questions.
By the end it was three in the morning, and Alma was asleep in the lizard’s arms.
~
They got back in the family truck after that.
“We have to go back to Zootopia and get the investigation started,” she said.
“Wo-wo no, we need to go back to Bunnyburrow and sleep. THEN we’ll go to Zootopia,” he replied.
“Nick! Alma is alone, we need to find her parents fast, who knows what they could be going through right now!”
“Grizzoli and Wolford will start the investigation tonight, then we’ll join.”
She stayed silent so he continued.
“Look Carrot, I know you feel responsible, but we did our best. We’ll find the two others fast enough, plus half of our stuff is still in your parents’ house.”
“What… if we don’t?” she asked in a tiny voice with teary eyes. “What if it’s already too late?”
“Then… I… we’ll find a solution. And I really don’t think they are already dead. I lived on the street. If you kidnap someone you want something in exchange. If you want to kill them, you just kill them right away.”
“You can’t be sure…”
“Yes and I also can’t be sure that you are not a squirrel disguised as a bunny, yet I really think it’s not the case.”
She threw him an interrogative look, so he added,
“The point is, there’s something more there. Trust me?”
She nodded and he exhaled, leaning into his seat.
She started to drive quietly into the night.
They arrived at the Warren near three-thirty in the morning.
Everyone was asleep. She texted them to explain the situation and said they might come back late, or not at all.
They walked down the long hallway to their shared room. Judy stopped at the bathroom.
“I’m gonna shower,” she whispered, and he nodded.
He reached their room and fell on his bed without turning the light on, staring at the dark ahead of him.
He didn’t know he stayed like this that long until Judy came back and he got up to take a shower too.
He thought of Alma, asleep, who was going to wake up in a room she didn’t know, with people she didn’t know, not her parents.
Maybe never her parents again.
He felt a tear run down his cheek without realizing it.
Been a long time since he had cried in the shower.
Alma kind of reminded him of himself.
He had to take care of himself since he was twelve. Of course Alma was eleven years younger than that.
Which was worse.
At least she was taken care of, not like him, which was an improvement.
But is foster care really an improvement in life?
Damn, this kid really bringed tears in his eyes.
~
When he came back into the bedroom, Judy was lying on her side, frowning, obviously trying to solve the mystery before going to sleep.
He lay down in his bed and turned the light off.
“Goodnight,” he said in the dark.
“Goodnight,” she replied quietly.
He sighed.
~
One hour later he was still wide awake.
And Judy was not.
She was starting to whine and move around.
Of course. Nightmare.
Fun.
He waited to see if it would stop at some point.
It didn’t.
It only grew louder until it became unbearable.
He got up and sat on the floor near her bed, leaning his back against the wall.
He took her hand, careful not to wake her, and pulled his knees to his chest, head resting on them, turned to watch her.
She stopped whining after a minute or two.
He stayed like that.
She seemed to woke up and lift her head to mumble something.
He just replied that everything was fine, and she fell asleep again.
They didn’t think of closing the curtains and the moonlight was lighting the scene perfectly.
He was avoiding sleep by trying to improve hers.
Running away from his nightmare to chase hers away.
Damn he was so screwed.
His thumb brushed her hand softly when she started to move around and whine again.
He fell asleep like that, imagining a peaceful and perfect world where he and Judy were together and Alma was not alone.
And selfishly he wished she could be with them.
He didn’t think he could fall asleep in such a position, but he was really exhausted.
The sleep was blank, full of nothing.
Her paw in his probably helping a lot.
When they were not reaching,
they were holding.