Zootopia: Secrets And Deception

Chapter 16. Confession

The next morning, Judy was still awake and hadn't slept all night, she was red eyed and exhausted from the night before. It was painful for her to see Nick like this, limp, motionless, and looked as if he was broken.
"Oh, Nick. What did Jeremiah do to you?" she thought to herself. Just the thought about what Jeremiah did to him started to bring tears to her eyes, but what really puzzled her was what he said to her.
"Don't. You. Ever. Say that I am a coward, I have lost everything I loved,  and didn't get to choose like what I gave you.....I am not afraid to die, or of anything else." It rang in her head like a bell, but she didn't could care less, Nick was now safe and that was all she cared about at the moment.

Just then, she heard the door open a crack. She turned to see Bogo, who had come to see how both Judy and Nick were doing, and found Judy sitting in a chair right next to Nicks' hospital bed. She was holding his hand inside of hers, but Nick wasn't awake, but was sleeping from the medicine that the doctors gave him for his nerves.
"How is he doing?" he asked as he walked in.
"the doctors gave him some medicine for the pain, but I know he is doing better." Judy said as she stood up to stretch her legs a bit.
"That's good, and.....how are you doing?" he asked gently. Judy paused a moment when she heard his question, and her ears drooped a little.
"I don't know, to be honest. I know I should be happy and relieved that Nick is safe, but Jeremiah told me something that I haven't been able to get out of my head. I mean, I am relieved that he is safe from Jeremiah, but....." she stopped suddenly as Bogo brought a chair and sat a few feet away from her. "But I can't help feeling like I have underestimated him, almost like I feel pity for him, and I feel sorry for shouting that word at him." She said as her ears dropped completely to her back, and sat back down in her chair.
"Judy....." Bogo said suddenly. "I.....I need to tell you something....." Bogo added and stood up and walked to the window. Judy was confused by the way his voice sounded, almost like he was keeping something from her. Almost like a secret. "When Jeremiah made that threat to me, it was a personal one. To be completely honest with you, when I was a new recruit in the ZPD, I was put on a case of a hit and run/murder case with a partner. We had just gotten the file and began looking through it, when we found that this case was about a completely different species of animal in Zootopia. It was of a female snake, much like Jeremiah before he became this way, only she was hit by an unknown vehicle and had been shot three times. At first we thought she was going around town by herself, but we later found that Jeremiah was with her and listed him as a suspect. Once we had located him, not only was he there with her, but watched as they shot her all three times and left her limp body out into the pavement. After I began investigating in this further, I soon discovered that he was the one that called 911. When the ambulance showed up with the first responders, he was cradling her and holding her head with the end of his tail. His eyes just flowing with tears and the right side of his face was gushing blood from being cut from something. We tried tending to his wounds, but all he would do was push us away and shout "don't touch me. Save her! Save my wife, Megan!" but the doctor at the hospital refused to help her." Bogo explained, and leaned forward on his knees. Judy felt like tears began to form in her eyes. "When they put Megan in the ground, no one really came to the funeral because they were snakes, and looked down upon them because of it. Jeremiah was the only one who attended, and the only one who was there at her funeral. Which is why he has this bitterness and anger towards Zootopia, and to the ZPD because we failed to find and bring to justice the one or ones who did this to him." Bogo finished, and his eyes had grown a little red from telling this to her.

Judys' ears were still droopy, and she felt more sorrow towards Jeremiah.
"But it still didn't excused him of what he did to the both of us." Judy said as she looked back at Nick.
"I don't think that Jeremiah wanted to, but was forced to. It seems as if he never tries to harm anyone without a reason to." Bogo responded, and they continued to talk for a little while longer until Bogo looked at his watch and saw that it was getting late, and decided to head home. "You should go home and get some rest, Judy. He isn't going anywhere." He petitioned softly. Judy nodded and began to leave the room, until Doctor Nial Antlerson, one of the finest and most brilliant Doctors in all of Zootopia and very good friend to both of them, stopped her.
"Miss Hopps?" he said as he walked towards her.
"Yes, Doc?" she asked as she turned towards him.
"I have Nickolas' bloodwork, and I have both good news, and bad news. The good news, is that there isn't any serious damage to his entire nervous system. The bad news is that even though both were controlled doses that he was given, it is still in his system." Nial said as he handed her a glass of water, while Judy was still a little shocked from all this.
"How can this still be in his system?" she thought to herself, as she sat down on the bench right outside Nicks' room.
"We are working on something that will wipe out whatever it is in his blood, but will take some time to do so." He said as he put his hand on her shoulder. "I will call you when I have more results, but you should probably go home and get some sleep." He added, and began walking back towards the lab for more testing. Judy thought about it for a while, before standing back up and opening the door to see Nick one more time before she left. Her ears perked up suddenly as she saw Nick sitting upright and looking at her, his eyes started to tear up a bit as they grasped each other in their arms. While outside in the parking lot, Bogo had just gotten inside his vehicle and started it up.
"I only hope it isn't too late to turn Jeremiah back from this path. Can he still be saved from this?" he thought to himself. But it is a question, only time will tell.