The Door (Chapter 6)

by

Shadow Bunny Dragon

"They found another one!" the beaver said excitedly.

"Another one what?" Nick asked.

"Another human!"

Everyone in the room was silent, letting the news wash over them.

"Really?" Eli asked, being the first to regain his composure.

"Yeah! I wheeled him in myself!" Robbie said.

"Was he injured?" Judy asked, now holding one of Eli's hands. Robbie's excitement became subdued as he frowned and nodded.

"Yeah... from the look of him, he was in a lot rougher shape than Eli was," he said. Judy's ears drooped as she first looked to Eli and then to Nick, who then turned to Robbie.

"How much worse?" he asked.

"I was with the first doctor to examine him... the entire left side of his face had been practically smashed in. Three broken ribs, a sprained ankle, a lot of cuts and bruises, some new, most old, one of which was actually pretty badly infected. Not to mention, he looked really skinny, like it's been a long while since he last ate a good meal."

"Is he going to be okay?" she asked, now squeezing Eli's hand with both of her paws.

"According to Doctor Mathew, he should make a full recovery, it's just going to be a while..." Robbie trailed off.

Nick looked back over to Judy, and saw that she had climbed up onto Eli's bed and was hugging him. The boy looked a little surprised at first, but slowly wrapped his arms around her and hugged back. Then Nick looked back to Robbie.

"May I speak with him?"

"Sorry Nick, once the doctor's done with his preliminary examination, he's ordered a CAT scan and the works too. He wants to be extra sure that there isn't something wrong that he may have missed. Doctor Mathew is a worrier like that. So you're gonna have to wait to question him."

"I understand," Nick said. "What was he like though? Did he seem angry, or scared?"

Robbie thought for a moment before answering. "Well... to be honest, despite his injuries, he seemed alright. A little nervous yes, but he wasn't about to curl up into a ball and hyperventilate, if that's what you mean."

"Well that's good," Nick said as he thought over it some more.

"Did he just wander in or did someone bring him in?"

"Two officers brought him in. One said his name was Arnie, and he was a rhino. The other one, a wolf who's name I didn't catch, was filling out some paperwork."

Meanwhile...

Down a few halls, Packer was sitting on a chair outside of the examination room. Arnie had taken the time to call the Chief to let him know what was happening. As he waited, he looked down at the really dingy and worn looking green backpack Baily had handed him, to hold onto until the doctors were finished with him. He felt a strong sense of curiosity as he looked at it. He looked around the corner, and didn't see Arnie anywhere. Unable to help himself, he unzipped the main part of it and looked inside. He didn't see much though. A few candy bars and bottles of water. There were a few dingy paperback books, and an old looking cigar box. His interest piqued, Chaz took out the box. It was so worn that he couldn't make out any of the writing on the outside. He opened it, and was surprised at the sight of what appeared to be cards of some sort.

These ain't any kinda playing cards I'm used to, he thought as he looked them over, until a shadow fell over him and he suddenly heard a very familiar throat being cleared. He looked up to see the face of Arnie, looking around his horn down at him, with a very stern look.

"You know, for a rhino, you are actually pretty stealthy," he said while smiling.

"We've talked about this Chaz." Arnie sighed as he sat down in the chair next to him. It groaned a little but was otherwise silent. "You can't just go snooping through someone else's stuff like that."

"I couldn't help it!" Chaz said defensively as he held up the pack. "This is the second alien to appear! Can you really blame me for being a little curious?" he asked as he looked up, holding out the cards to show his partner. "Besides, have you ever seen anything as strange as these?"

"First of all, calling him an alien, while possibly true, is actually probably pretty insensitive. Secondly, what you call curiosity, is what everyone else would call a invasion of privacy. Lastly, yes, I have seen cards like those before. Those are called tarot cards, and they're used for fortune telling," Arnie explained. Chaz lowered his ears, now feeling guilty as he started to put the cards back into the box.

"You're right. I guess I went a little too far..." he said.

Arnie smiled reassuringly at him. "Yeah, but I suppose that you didn't mean anything by it."

Chaz took one last look at a few of the cards before closing the box and zipping it up in the pack.

"So how do you know about tarrow cards anyway?" he asked.

"Well, my Aunt Phyllis is a fortune teller. She has a shop over in Tundra Town. I used to spend a lot of time there when I was a kid. And it's pronounced Tarot."

Chaz was about to respond, when suddenly a zebra nurse quickly made her way out of the examination room and went to a phone on the wall. The two officers heard her quickly say something about getting someone prepped for emergency surgery.

"What happened?" Arnie said, standing up.

"During the cat scan, one of his broken ribs punctured a lung, and on top of that he's bleeding internally. We have to operate immediately." she said before heading back inside where Baily was. When she opened the door again, several more nurses and a doctor rushed in as well. Arnie and Chaz both looked in to see as they carefully, but quickly transferred him onto a gurney, and started to wheel him out of the room. The two officers were dumbfounded and looked at each other for a moment, before they hurried after the doctors.

Elsewhere in the hospital...

"So. would you like to meet him when the doctor's are done?" Judy asked Eli while looking up at him from where she was sitting on the side of his bed.

"I don't really know," Eli said as he thought about it.

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Do I want to meet him? He thought.

Nick was standing just outside the door, waiting for Robbie to return with news. It had been almost a full half hour since he left to go check on the new human, and Nick was starting to grow concerned.

It shouldn't take him this long just to ask a question about a patient, he thought. Just as he was about to turn to Judy and Eli and tell then he was going to go look for Robbie, he saw the beaver round the corner in a hurry, with a worried look on his face. Looking to see Judy and Eli weren't paying attention, he quietly closed the door.

"What's wrong?" he asked as Robbie ran up to him, panting a little.

"It's the new human, Baily, he's going into emergency surgery right now!" he said while leaning over, still panting.

"What happened?"

"His injuries were a lot worse than we had originally thought. He's got severe internal bleeding and a collapsed lung. He may also have a concussion, we're not entirely sure. We didn't get a chance to finish the CAT scan."

"Is he..." Nick trailed off. Robbie looked at him and smiled a little while shaking his head.

"It's bad, but Doctor Luca is the best surgeon in Zootopia. You'll see, the guy'll be patched up good as new," Robbie said while clapping Nick on the shoulder.

Nick then stood up a little straighter as he looked through the window at Judy and Eli, both of whom seemed to be in deep conversation about something, and Eli was smiling.

"Thanks for the heads up Robbie," Nick said to the beaver nurse.

"Hey, no problem Nick. I can't stay for long though, I gotta take over for Melissa's shift. She's with Doctor Luca right now," he said as he hurried away.

"So, when are you gonna ask her out already?" he called after the jogging beaver.

"Right about the same time you ask Judy out!" he called back before rounding a corner.

Nick blushed and his tail bushed out, again. He smoothed it out with his paws before taking a breath and opening the door.

"Oh, there he is!" Judy said. "Me and Eli were talking about going shopping for him tomorrow. Wanna tag along?" she asked. Nick smiled, but Judy immediately could tell something was off.

"Sure. I do, after all, have expert taste," he said. Then he noticed Judy's ears droop a little as she looked at him, and he sighed. He addressed Judy and Eli.

"Okay, so I just spoke with Robbie about the other human." He looked up to see that he had both of their complete attention. Judging from their body language, he could also see that they were both very concerned and worried.

"And during an examination, there were some complications... and he's going into emergency surgery."

The rabbit and the boy both continued to worriedly look at the fox.

"Is he... " Eli couldn't finish his train of thought. Judy squeezed his hand gently.

"Robbie says that the surgeon performing the surgery is the best Zootopia has to offer, and will have him patched up in no time." Nick tried to placate, but he could see that Judy and Eli were both still very worried.

"I'm going to go and try and find out some more, okay?" he asked.

"Thanks Nick." Judy smiled at him. Immediately, Robbie's words came back to him.

"No problem on my part Carrots," he said with a smirk, hoping that she didn't notice his slight blush.

Stop that! This is not the time to start going down that road! he chastised himself as he turned and exited the room. He quickly started to look for someone at the nurse's station, when he came across a certain rhino and wolf.

"Is there anything more that you can tell us?" Arnie asked.

"I'm sorry sir, but the Doctor is still in surgery. I'm afraid that you're going to have to wait for when she gets out before we'll know anything more," the chihuahua nurse said.

"Alright, thank you miss," the rhino said with a sigh as he sat down on a plastic bench right next to Chaz, who was still holding Baily's backpack.

"Geeze, now I really feel low for snooping in his stuff," Chaz said, his ears flattening against the side of his head.

"Snooping in who's stuff?" Nick asked as he approached the other two officers.

"Oh hey Wilde. What are you doing here?" Arnie asked.

"I stopped by earlier to keep Eli company, while Judy came around for a... much different reason. What are you doing here?"

"We found another human. He's in surgery now. It's pretty serious," Chaz said, looking guiltily at the backpack.

"I heard about another human being brought here, and the surgery, but I had no idea it was you two that found him." he said as he took a seat next to the two.

"So... have you received any word about what's happening?" he asked.

"Not yet," the nurse said that this surgery could take anywhere from two to six hours, maybe longer," Arnie said.

"I see," Nick said unsure of what to say. After a few moments of awkward silence, Robbie hurried around the corner.

"There you are Nick!" he said, once more panting as he came to a stop.

"I just spoke with Melissa, and they say that things are looking good for the human," the beaver said.

"That's great!" Nick said excitedly. Arnie and Chaz also looked relieved at the news.

"I guess that this means that I can stop feeling so bad about looking through this backpack," Chaz said, loudly unzipping it as he spoke.

"Packer!" Arnie said severely.

"I was just kidding," the wolf said with a smirk as he re-zipped the backpack up and held up both hands in surrender. Arnie continued to look unamused. Ignoring them, Robbie continued.

"The puncture itself was actually quite small, and the lung hadn't collapsed. They were also able to stop the bleeding! They're going to have to reset his ribs, and since they found a few breaks in his left arm that didn't heal right, they are going to reset that as well. Ultimately, he's going to be just fine!" Robbie said ecstatically. "Although he's going to be laid up for about a week or two, with no major physical exertions, and lots of breathing tests. But that's better than what could have happened!" After a few more words with Packer and Rams, Nick made his way back to Eli's room, and told them the situation.

"Robbie will be along later when he gets out of surgery, and will let you know anything else that happens," he said to the now relieved looking rabbit and boy.

"That's wonderful!" Judy exclaimed as she turned to Eli to hug him once more. Eli smiled again as he felt her arms around him. "Alright," Judy said as they let go again, "I think that since there's nothing more we can do, how about we pick up where we left off with the list."

"List?" Nick asked. Judy quickly pulled out her notepad and carrot pen and opened it to him. On it was a list of various pieces of furniture.

"Desk, Desk Lamp, Bed, Computer?" he asked as he read the note.

"Well yeah," Judy said while rolling her eyes. "Eli's coming home with me tomorrow, so we gotta find some furniture for him in his size."

"Can you afford all of this? Especially a computer?" Nick asked to see a blushing Eli looking down and now a stern looking Judy.

"I just spent the better part of half an hour convincing Eli that I didn't mind spending money on him, especially for things he needs," she said flatly, making Nick wince.

"Heh... sorry about that," he said looking sheepish.

"Besides, Eli's going to need a computer for when he starts school," she said matter-of-factly. Judy turned to see Eli looking nervous.

"A-a-about school... a-a-are you sure that... it'll be alright for me to go to school... with others? Won't I be a... freak?"

The moment he said it, Judy was back on the bed, pulling Eli's head down closer to her so that they could make direct eye contact.

"Eli! Don't you ever call yourself a freak again!" she said in the sternest voice Nick had heard. Then her eyes softened as she continued to look him dead in the eye. "Yes, there are going to be people out there who will try to put you down, but don't ever put yourself down like that. You are a wonderful and sweet person. Understand Eli?" she asked.

Eli looked down and nodded. Clearly he wasn't convinced, but Judy could tell that her words had made an impact. She hugged him one more time before she opened the notebook back up.

"Alrighty then, I think that we've got the basic furniture down, now let's talk about wardrobe," she said while trying to get Eli to focus on something else. Nick quickly joined in, and soon Eli was starting to smile again.

"Of course he's going to need a tux, always gotta have a tux," Nick said while putting his aviators. Eli chuckled a little at that.

"Oh cut it out Nick." Judy said, smiling herself.

After a while, Robbie showed up to inform them that Baily was now out of surgery and was currently asleep in his own room. He also informed them that Rams and Packer had been assigned to him by the chief, per message from Arnie.

"That's great! I totally knew that he would be alright," Nick said casually. Judy just smiled and let that one go.