A week into the re–assignment, Officer Benjamin Clawhauser discovered that he really, really hated working in Records.

Chief Bogo didn't say a word when he dumped the stuff on the desk, and for once, Clawhauser wasn't quite brave enough to start a conversation. He knew as well as anyone in the police station that ever since You–Know–What had happened, the buffalo had been near–insufferable. Being in the basement, he'd heard more than he'd seen, but he'd heard more than enough over the last two days – constant pacing, slamming doors, assigning anyone who breathed at him wrong to parking duty.

Maybe he would have said something regardless – for instance, if he had been curious about the mess of paper and plastic Bogo had all but thrown at him. But with an expression like that? Clawhauser wouldn't have needed to know the buffalo well to guess what the pile contained. See, what usually came to Records was evidence that needed to be filed. And the Chief had this wide–eyed, twitchy, hair–trigger–temper–look about him – or at least, Clawhauser had never seen nostrils flaring quite so fast before, and was definitely not that great at running.

All in all, not a good time to ask if Bogo had gotten the new update to the Gazelle app.

After the Chief had made an excellent attempt to remove the door from its hinges, the overweight cheetah steeled himself and made sure the stuff left behind was as bad as he figured it was. Maybe Bogo was just really unhappy about one of Gazelle's television interviews. Or her latest breakup – she ditched someone every other week, after all. Or maybe they had closed the donut shop, and the Chief was being angry on Clawhauser's behalf, since Clawhauser made a point of never being angry when on duty.

But no. On top of the heap were… well, the crime–scene photos. Under those were the autopsy results, then the photos of the autopsy results, then the results of the crime–scene investigation, then some weird interview attempt that ended about when whichever idiot officer remembered Nick couldn't do normal languages any more. And then all these other documents, some forty pages about… well. It. The You–Know–What. Clawhauser guessed he was supposed to look at them without losing half his considerable appetite, and wondered if he might be fired over that detail.

The cheetah pawed idly through the papers, hoping to put off reading all this awful stuff in order to verify that (a) everything was Correct and In Order, and (b) he was Definitely Not Going To Have Any Dinner Tonight– hallelujah, a distraction, a little plastic box. Clawhauser pried the lid open, hoping it might be a sympathetic microwaved meal from Chief Bogo. It wasn't warm or brightly coloured – but faced with all those nasty documents, the records officer was determined to take any comfort he could get.

His breath caught in his throat, and he actually had to look away, one paw going to his mouth in a show of horror. Inside that tiny box, each little item neatly bagged, was all that he'd ever see again of his dear fri…

…his…

…Miss Judy Hopps.

That was all she could be to him, as a police officer working in a police department. A victim – no, the victim of You–Know–What. It was Clawhauser's job to think of her that way, as much as he hated having to be so cold.

The poor little bunny had been murde– the civilian rabbit victim had been killed, three days ago, by a fox friend who had gone savage. Clawhauser sighed, swallowing back bile and definitely not tears at all. He needed to stay focused here. Hopp– Judy, it felt weird to call her that but he had to – anyway, Judy was going to be the last victim of the strange attacks, if he and the Zootopia Police Department had anything to do with it. They might not know what the hell exactly was going on, as Chief Bogo liked to put it, but as Clawhauser liked to think, they were definitely going to get to the bottom of it. Or at least find a solution that didn't involve muzzling and collaring every carnivore in the city, that would be nice.

The cheetah knew exactly what his role in affairs was going to be, too: Doing Whatever Chief Bogo Said. That meant that he was not to really help, certainly not to go roaming the streets looking for a Real Solution. Instead, as Records Officer, he was going to sit in the basement, right next to the somewhat friendly–looking boiler machine, and catalogue what evidence was not either still at the scene or being tested. If Officer Bogo felt that putting numbers on the bags would make everything better, then Clawhauser was going to put numbers on those bags.

He reached for the box once more, and took each item in turn, holding it in his paws as though he might be able to feel her pulse through the plastic. There were some scraps of bloodied uniform (why her), a can of unused fox repellent (why didn't she fight), a smashed smartphone (why didn't she call earlier), some kind of bloody rag or handkerchief (why her), an…

Whoaaaaa. Half a donut?

Crushed by the fox leaping on top of Hop– Judy; soggy with blood and sweat – still not enough to throw Clawhauser off. He knew a fantastically delicious combination of fat, sugar, glaze, and sprinkles when he saw one. That was most definitely half a donut, and when he opened the bag to check the smell – yes, caramel! A personal favourite, so much so that he felt sad to have to throw it out after he'd photographed it. Judy must have had wonderful taste in baked goods.

Then he remembered: He had given her that. He'd had the whole thing, and was about to eat it, but Hopps (since she was an officer at the time, Clawhauser figured he could call her that when remembering the scene) looked like she was in need of some sugary comfort. She'd had a long, tiring day at work, and gotten into some sort of argument with the Chief, and now there was something about losing her job in forty-eight hours if she didn't achieve the utterly impossible. Clawhauser had gotten sprinkles all over her trying to break the donut while she pawed over the case–file for Emmitt Otterton, and she'd scowled, nudging at his shoulder every time another hit the paper, her fur, or the floor. But at the time, he'd figured it was all worth it. Sharing the joy of donuts with a sad friend was absolutely worth the mess. Always.

It only worked if the sad friend actually ate the donut, though. Hopps had certainly torn out of the office when she saw that photograph, fast enough that Clawhauser figured she'd gotten her sugar hit. Even being half a donut, it was quite big for a rabbit her size to have eaten. Of course, he'd thought nothing of it at the time, but now, staring at the thing in the plastic bag, he could only assume that far from scoffing the thing, Hopps must have put the donut away for later. With all the excitement, she must have constantly been in too much of a hurry for donuts (a near-impossibility for a cheetah like him, but Bunnies Were Different).

He wondered if she'd planned on eating the thing later, or if she'd simply done it to make him smile and back off. One thing was for sure: That rabbit would never get the chance to eat it now.

Speaking of hurrying, Hopps had also been in too much of a hurry to say goodbye. Hell – several times she'd come back past the reception desk, and she'd always at least waved to Clawhauser. But she'd never actually said goodbye. A wave at most was all the warning he got, before she would rush off. The receptionist had always figured it was a sign they would meet again, so Hopps could just say an utterly fantastic goodbye later, when it was really time for them to part ways. Even when she'd caught Clawhauser moving to Records, and he had figured all hope was lost for his social life at work, she hadn't said goodbye.

Maybe if he said it now, things would feel a little easier.

"Bye, Hopps. Judy, I mean. Whoever. Y–you're gonna hate me for saying this, but you were a cute bunny, on top of being smart and nice and friendly and – everything, I guess. And we'll make sure you're the last that… You know. Yeah. And you were really, really good. A– a hero and stuff. And Gazelle might even be comin' to sing at your funeral. So. Um, I guess that'd be nice. You liked Gazelle, right? Everyone likes Gazelle."

He waited.

"…Everyone still likes you, too. Bye, Hopps."

The donut didn't dignify any of the improvised obituary with a response. Clawhauser tossed it in the bin, and started looking for a… goodbye souvenir, for lack of a better word. Something that he could pretend Judy had left him as a goodbye, and maybe if he pretended enough, he'd believe it. He only had one chance, so he took care to get the specifics right. It couldn't be something broken, bloody, or anything that Bogo might think of as useful to the case. It had to be something small, that he could slip into his pocket and under the radar – something that would remind him of Hopps or Judy or whoever – something nice and vaguely comforting – something– ah!

A novelty carrot pen. A tiny, bright, cheerful thing, almost lost in his giant pawpad. The battery case had come off, and the batteries were nowhere in sight, but otherwise it looked relatively fine. Clawhauser took it out of its little plastic packet, and – oh gosh, it even smelled of her and him and donuts! Faintly, since they had been reading the big nothing that was Emmett Otterton's case two weeks back, when the whole mess had just been getting started. But it still smelled of them.

Of course, it seemed a little sterotypical of Hopps to carry something like that around, and it was a lot sterotypical of him to be remembering a bunny with a carrot–related item. And even if Clawhauser seriously doubted a pen could be at all of use in a witnessed murder case, it had still been delivered to Records. He doubted she'd have approved of him taking it, if Hopps had been here. She would have said it might still be important, and he ought to be less close–minded, and then he'd have apologized up the wazoo, and then… but… but… but she's…

But whatever, the pen reminded Clawhauser of Hopps, and the boiler room had no cameras. The cheetah's only problem was not sobbing until after he walked out of the building, and even that wasn't much of an issue. Most would have just assumed that he was sad about having to number the little bags of Judy, which to Clawhauser was as messed up as the phrasing made things sound. Bogo was the only one in the office who might have suspected otherwise, but (a) he was distracted, and (b) he would have trusted Clawhauser to be doing the right thing, even if the cheetah had been wearing a balaclava and saying things about robbing an art gallery.

He turned the pen over, then nodded, his mind made up. He'd already gotten pawprints on it by taking it out of the bag, and a pen couldn't possibly be important here, and the carrot would look okay on his windowsill, and if he found a replacement battery case and batteries, then maybe he could pretend that was a metaphor for fixing the hole that dumb bunny had left behind, and if the carrot lit up or something when he turned it on, that could be a metaphor for hope's light, which was a metaphor in itself, and more metaphors were always a good thing, and– and then what?

What am I supposed to do without you around? I'm a big, bad predator, and a donut–loving fat cop...

The cheetah shook his head, stuffing the pen into a breast pocket before he could think about Hopps any further. She wasn't going to come back, and if he kept on procrastinating, he wasn't going to get paid. Right now, he had to put numbers on the bags, then write down the numbers in a big file, and catalogue it all. That was Clawhauser's new job, as much as he hated it and as much as he missed her.

But he would definitely get that pen fixed, later.

And he would definitely say goodbye properly, later.

"What do you mean, seasonal?! Just set up a hothouse!"

Mayor Bellwether was not pleased. Her lab had been blown up – a literal trainwreck (ohhhh, how she had hurt the ram who made that joke), and her last dose of Night Howler serum had been used on that awful low–life predator. Sure, that rabbit had been done away with, but that in itself was not necessarily good. Judy, with her little slip–ups and her can of fox repellant, had been excellent in frightening the media; it was unfortunate that she'd had to be killed so early into the campaign.

Worse still, there could be no attacks for the next few days. Which was a real shame, since the next target was supposed to be the boldest yet. A strong, fast cheetah in the middle of the city could cause a lot of damage, but better yet, this wasn't just any strong, fast cheetah. This one would be wearing a police uniform, and ordering his favourite caramel donuts from a rabbit bakery at exactly five–thirty in the afternoon! There would be so, so many customers dead before the on–duty officers showed up.

"I gave you the resources, and I don't care about the costs! I'm the mayor now. I can have anything I want, did you forget? And right now, I want that serum! Tomorrow!"

The phone chattered something indignant about Sundays, and she scowled. Rams were so stupid, sometimes. Didn't they get it? The attack was going to be good, but she needed it to happen while the killer was still remembered as the face of the police department. Bogo had caved to pressure and reassigned the receptionist a week ago, but he might have already made a mistake with that stupid cheetah that would cost him the ZPD's independence. If Bellwether could capitalize on that in time, she could completely rule Zootopia.

"Two days, Wooley! Get it done!"

The mayor hung up, tapping her hooves on the desk and trying to quash her frustrations by fantasizing about her latest showpiece. Benjamin Clawhauser – ahhh, the name alone made her want to laugh! It really was a brilliant move. So many prey animals still thought that big oaf was nice. Sweet. Trustworthy, like they could come to him with their problems at the front desk, and no matter what, he would be able to give an answer or point them in some direction or other. What she'd give for a picture of Bogo's face when he saw his own co–worker, still in uniform…

Bellwether picked up the phone once more.

"O–oh! Um, hello, is this Two Moons Investigation Services? Yes, M–maaaaayor Bellwether here. Um, I would like to hire a little surveillance for tomorrow… It's very important, all these predatory attacks and… Well, do I get a little priority? B–being a prey animal, I can't help but be worried…"

That's right, she was the mayor now.

She could have anything she wanted.

A/N: Is this even a fandom-? I hope so, the world's been pretty fun to write so far. If there's a fandom, then I don't know anyone in it, but I'd love to meet you guys! Make some noise?

Fun fact - the next planned serum target in the film is a cheetah, and a little commentary is heard along the lines of "Aren't cheetahs fast?", "Don't worry, I can hit him" when Judy and Nick are listening in the abandoned train-turned-lab. Of course, it was never confirmed to be Clawhauser, but wouldn't it be interesting?