And we jump ahead twenty-odd years. While I would want to do more with little bunnies, I thought it best that I take care of the Marnie question for now. The extra background on Finn has been taken from Selaxes' 'Cry for the Children' now over at AO3 as an element of his larger 'In the Days that Follow' collective story.

'Phone chime and a soft caller ID voice 'Chryssie, emergency call'. The 'phone would otherwise screen any late night communications.

Nick's blood ran cold at that and he grabbed the paw held, "Nick here!"

"Nick! It's Finn! He's in route to Zoo Central. Might be a stroke!" Finn's Wife, Chrysanthemum, the erstwhile steady Tenuki could barely whisper the awful words.

Damn it. The little Sand Dog's health was less than good lately, but...

"I can be there in just a few!" Nick gasped. Turning to his best beloved who had also snapped awake with the call, "Judy, Finn's gone to hospital, Chryssie says it might be a stroke!"

The pair were up and dressed in an instant, with the practice of years in reaction to crisis. While Nick set the 'phone to route calls, Judy collected wallets and keys and paw-helds for the two of them and they were out the door in a flash.

While the running joke was that Nick was the more sober driver, it was always Judy who could focus on maintaining a safe performance in even the most harrowing hot pursuits. That left Nick to fret over his oldest friend's possible situation.

The Fennec had a rough life early on, and took to bad habits of drink and tobacco for a long while. But even after years of clean living later, damage was beginning to catch up with him and he was old beyond his years. That other associates in his same general age bracket had either passed or were in deep decline was an unpleasant reminder of what they might be facing.

After all the years together, Nick and Judy didn't need to say all that much, just some shared expressions and an occasional grunt, especially now. Outpourings could wait.

Zootopia General Hospital was all too familiar to the pair, both as repeat customers as well as all too many friends and relatives getting the 'free ride' ambulance trip to emergency. There they found the little raccoon dog waiting for them, looking like bad news.

Chryssie was a veteran officer and otherwise used to all manner of tragedy, but this time... She stood too rigid, too clenched, and the pair realized the worst.

"Chryssie...?" Judy stood off, just in case the grief-stricken Tenuki needed some space.

"He flat-lined in route. His EEG was already gone when the medtechs first hooked him up, but there was always the tiny hope..." She gasped out, her face screwed tight with pain. Then she seemed to recover, or at least unclenched herself. "He was gone, just like that." She sighed, and held out her arms for a hug.

After the several octades as all but family in name, words were not necessary as the three shared their grief in that physical contact.

Then began the tedious task of dealing with the death. Everyone there were city employees and were already well versed in the labyrinthine processes therein. Fortunately, the paper-pushers were prepared to hold off on the worst of it for a few days in respect for all involved. While Nick and Judy were still the hero-saviors of Zootopia all these years on, Hiram and Chrysanthemum Finster enjoyed some well-earned attention over the years in their respective fields.

That also meant that the media ghouls attempted to be out in force, but were kept at bay by the ZPD family in blue.

But what was worse were the well-wishers. Even though the outpouring of sympathy was earnest and heart-felt, all it did was remind poor Chryssie that her Mate was gone.

After all those years, Finn the half-pint street hustler was pretty much forgotten, aside, almost ironically, by some of the ZPD veterans, including some from the worst of the bad old days. With the distance of years, they waxed nostalgic as though he was some manner of worthy adversary. A point that especially grated with Nick, who knew that they had targeted him with 'Precinct Thirteen' treatment more than once. On the other paw, most of them were now very much ex-cops, as various anonymous sources lead to evidence that helped shortened careers or lead to charges. But the solidarity of the thin blue line even in that was a bitter pill.

The outpouring of true affection and gratitude to Hiram, the child welfare advocate, was, in many ways so much harder to take. The countless lives he had touched, helped, and even saved only emphasized how vast a hole he now left. Or so it seemed to Nick and Chryssie, and they spent most of the next days and weeks close in mutual support.

Chief Kamatti was ever so understanding and supportive, allowing them the time to work through their grief. Bogo, now retired from the ZPD and long time champion of the various programs that Hiram had struggled with over the years came out of retirement specifically to insure the best of his efforts would not fade with his loss.

Judy and the Triplets stood by and helped as they could, but in the end, it was the simple passage of time that healed the worst of the wound.

Finally, on a day that seemed that all the worst was behind them, Nick announced, "Judy, I've got something I need to tell you, the Triplets, and Chryssie, about Finn and me." Nick wouldn't look at his Wife as he said it.

"Can you tell me what it is?" Judy could tell it was special, likely in a bad way.

"Only that it was way back in the bad old days, but is still relevant to all of us still."

Getting the three bunnies back was a bit of a chore. Bereavement leave and travel was one thing, but cryptic family pow wows were quite another. Mary was back in the 'Burrow, getting ready for her first litter with Ted. Bonny was back in university at Cordata and John was back on duty off in the Territories. But the next weekend was possible with some abuse of credit cards for last minute travel costs.

"So, what is Dad all about?" Mary grumped. She was nearly due and feeling very full in all the worse ways. Judy had picked her up at the train station and was surprised how really round she'd gotten in the last few weeks.

"I really don't know beyond what he told all of us earlier, which is basically nothing." Judy echoed her Daughter's vexed tone. Now perhaps doubly so, seeing how uncomfortable she was in her condition. "I'm almost surprised Ted let you go by yourself."

"Not really his choice." And she gave her Mother a mock snarl. "He couldn't afford it and I'm not a beached whale yet." Then more thoughtfully, "Dad knows how far along I am, yet insisted I come, so I suspect it's really important."

"Yeah..." Judy trailed off. Nick had gotten increasingly moody, withdrawn and guarded, both at work and at home. Personal time was the worst, as he would endlessly groom Judy, a sure sign of worry, but refused reciprocal attention. Her attempts to get anything out of him was met with increasingly firm resistance, and reactions of pained guilt in the refusals.

Bonny and John both flew in later that day, separate flights but close enough arrivals that everyone decided to meet at the airport before heading home. John was still in his Territorial Guard uniform, and looked particularly sharp while Bonny looked like she still cramming for finals, which she was.

"Your Husband better have a damn good reason for dragging me back here." Bonny very uncharacteristically snarled. Her eyes were baggy red and her ears refused to be anything but dead limp.

"My Husband? He's your Father!" Judy bantered back, but her tone dropped to serious. "I guess we're going to find out shortly."

Bonny looked to her siblings who could only shrug, then gave Mary a double take. "Cheese, Mary, you look like you're about to literally pop."

"Argh. Don't I know it. And about that, I need another bathroom break." and She pointed to a strategically convenient rest room. She waved off any assistance and waddled in; assuring everyone she'd be back in a second. A moment later there was much shouting and when Judy and Bonny got inside they found a somewhat confused Mary with a pair of kits in her arms.

"I felt like I had to go, and, ya know, pushed. Almost dropped the first one in the toilet." Said with a meek smile. "Everyone kept on going on how arduous it could be. Breaking water, labor pains and all. And they just popped out, easy peasy."

As the airport had EMTs on hand, with some experience with surprise births, getting things tidied up and cleared for a non-emergency trip to the hospital was done with efficiency. Needless to say there were any number of 'phone calls, including one to the new Great Grandmother who laughed and laughed. The new Father was very dismayed he wasn't on hand, but agreed, very reluctantly, to finish up things at work and to dare not dangerously rush to the City.

Nick was rather subdued when he heard, and was going to meet them at home bringing Chryssie with him, barring any surprises with what ought to be a simple pediatric and post partum exam at the hospital.

"Wow, that is pretty weird for Dad." Bonny observed. "I'd have thought he'd be giddy with excitement over them."

"Especially with a little Nicholas to spoil." Mary and Ted had already had a short list of names and the smoky-pointed little boy got to named after his Grandfather. The other boy, a grey, was getting his Great Grandfather's name.

"That's been Your Father all these last days." Judy sighed. "I only hope that once whatever this is done, he recovers from it. As down as he was when Finn first passed, this has been worse."

They got home to find Nick and Cryssie already there. No surprise in that, but to find that Nick had been drinking was. Not that he was drunk, but he never drank. He was always too cautious, too controlled to risk 'in vino veritas'. While he was happy to see everyone, including the new members of the family, he was still restrained.

Though he was not drunk, the alcohol plus the cumulative stress of the last many days gave him a deeply fatigued air, and now he seemed to be letting that weight go as he addressed his children. "Your Mother has belabored you with all manner of tales of how I was all over you when I first found you back in the day. And all too much of it is true, and for all the obvious reasons. I've always been a sucker for cute little baby things and I was getting familial thoughts about your Mother already." He looked over to his Judy and they shared expressions. "But there was another aspect that put an edge on things, and until Finn died, I couldn't dare tell of it."

"There is no statute of limitations on wrongful death, and Finn would have been vulnerable to hard time since he was already a felon."

The family flinched at the news. They knew of Uncle Finn's rather 'colorful' past, and it was true, though half of the 'felony' aspect was simply the crime of being a fox in the bad old days along with some minor non-violent offenses.

Nick explained. "It was back in the really bad old days, when I was still just a kid and Finn was not all that old himself, but liable as an adult for anything he might get caught for."

"We were living on the streets, literally at times, and there was a circle of other street kids we hung with. Some were runaways; others were kid that had been tossed out of their homes for whatever reason. Others were simply trying to get by off the grid, out of the system."

"Marnie was maybe twenty-two (18 base ten) and had a couple kits, desperate to keep them, so hid them and her away from any authorities. Always afraid that she'd be deemed an unfit mother and all that. We all tried to help as we could, but she was a bit secretive, had a hard time trusting anyone."

Nick always had a bit of a guarded tone when he talked about the bad old days, but now his whole demeanor turned grave, his eyes hinted at something...

"She got knocked down by a car. Didn't seem too bad, skinned elbow kind of thing, or so she insisted. As always, she didn't dare get herself checked out. Too scared that they'd notice she was a nursing mother and all that."

Nick paused and grimaced, looking at a memory rather than the family around him.

"We didn't see her for a few days. Not entirely unusual. Like I said, she could get a bit paranoid and disappear for a while. Then we got a tip that she was squatting at an abandoned office space and we went to see if she was okay or needed anything."

This time he paused and looked to the three young adults who sat before him, his face twisted in real grief.

"She was dead. For all we could tell, likely died that same night after she was hit. Her kits were there, hadn't been cared for since."

He looked up, as though imploring the heavens, "We were so stupid ignorant. And we freaked out. Never had to deal with a dead person so directly before. We split. Left them. Had to figure out what to do. Finn was really scared. He had just got out of jail a couple weeks earlier. Bullshit charges and some 'special attention' while locked up."

Nick paused again, hunched over, his face in his paws.

"We came back, but it was some hours later. There was so much we didn't know. And the kits had died too. All too late."

Nick sat back up, his face a lifeless mask.

The collected mammals around him were in shocked silence.

After a moment he recovered a bit, looking to the three and Judy and Chryssie in turn. "Finn took it hard. Kept himself knocked out drunk for like a week, and kept drinking hard for a good while after. I never dared drink, but kept an eye on him."

"I'd been an angry young mammal, hated the world and didn't care too much about anyone and anything. Since a drop out young fox literally couldn't work in the city back then, when I wasn't helping Finn I was a nasty little nickel and dime thief, shoplifting, smash and grabs, car prowls, a couple B and Es. A lot of petty vandalism too. Finn had always been the hustler, and was pretty disgusted with me half the time for my BS."

"But after Marnie, I never stold so much as a chew stick ever again. I was never going to make an innocent victim of anyone. Sure, I'd hustle and scam, but I'd never actually hurt anyone. And too many of those scam 'victims' knew they were playing the odds, going with their own greed instead of the straight and narrow."

He looked to Judy; "I didn't want to tell you all of my ugly early life, though I came totally clean with Bogo back in the day. All juvenile acts, so technically free and clear later, but needed to be told. Except for Marnie."

As Judy and Chryssie were both officers, they knew that Finn could have been prosecuted for negligent death, and likely would have been harshly sentenced in the bad old days. Given his many years of sterling service since, he was likely not in real jeopardy any more but it would have tarnished his legacy. Judy remembered finding Finn all those years ago after they first found the triplets and realized likely why he was in the state he was in then.

Nick then turned to Chryssie, "And Finn, once he got more sober began to volunteer for stuff. Some general social service assistance at first, then got seriously into child welfare. I suspect, though he never said anything, that he had some issues of his own with that kind of thing, and Marnie really hit him hard. And you know how he went pro once he saw me go legit with Judy and the ZPD."

The Tenuki sat in thought, her face going through a range of expressions as she considered the implications of what Nick just said.

Nick again looked to his three children; "You know I love you all for yourselves. But in those first few minutes, it was Marnie and her kits all over again, and I wasn't going to let it happen again."

"Mom said you were kind of crazy clingy with us early on..." John warily observed.

"Yeah, but that was just me going into fatherhood overload. You guys really were the cutest things back then. Marnie and all was just my dread of the moment. I really did fall totally for you from day one."

That night, with Mary and Ted on the road back to the 'Burrow with Bonny's help with the twins and John crashed out in the spare bedroom, Nick and Judy finally got to bed themselves.

"Cheese, Nick! That was a bombshell if ever there was one."

"I know, but I had to get it out. That whole business haunted us forever."

"Forever?"

"Yeah... Whenever things got hard and the easy way out..." Nick sighed. "Sure, I've taken shortcuts in my life, but on the things that really mattered, when other's lives were involved, it always came back to that. Same thing with Finn. He was a sour little sand dog from day one, but that left a bitterness, a self-loathing that took a long time to get over."

Nick sighed and stared off at the ceiling. "And even then, I'd lapse, and the guilt after would eat me alive. Remember the bridge? How easily I could forgive you? Along with everything else that had gone through my mind in the weeks and months before, the Marnie factor wasn't all that far behind as well."

Judy smiled at a little memory. "Finn's face when I found him looking for you. Glob, how he hated me, but how much he loved you. All tough and gruff and that, but by the time he realized I was sincere, I could tell he was hoping I'd be your salvation."

"Salvation." Nick sighed. "Yeah. You know he called me to warn me you were coming. And though he never said it, I could tell he was hoping. He'd been worried about me in his own way."

"Marnie was a turning point. Kept me from going down a really bad path. But not enough to make me a better fox. Not in the way that you did, Carrots."

"Humph! Now we're back to 'Carrots'?" It was a nickname that had fallen out of use in favor of 'Judymylove'.

"Well, if we're going down nostalgia lane..."

"Oh, I see, Popsicle Hustler."

"Officer Fluff."

Both knew they were deliberately distracting themselves from the deeper and potentially painful subjects, but in the moment, why not.