S04E20 - Routine

"Routine" is the twentieth episode of Season 4 of We Can Fix Pawbert. Pawbert conducts his first solo intake at ZRS and creates his first intentional painting.

Synopsis

With Luther fully healed, Pawbert conducts his first solo intake at ZRS with Finley, a recently released ferret whose story of family pressure mirrors Pawbert's past. Pawbert admits his own incarceration, helping Finley open up. He visits Mika's studio and paints a second work representing what home looks like from inside. The episode follows Pawbert's daily rhythm of work, friends, art, and pack.

Plot

The episode opens before dawn in the master bedroom. Two months have passed since Luther's injury, and his ribs have finally healed. The couple reunites intimately for the first time since the building came down, the relief of the moment expressed in tender physical reconnection. Afterward, as golden morning light replaces the gray, Luther sends Pawbert into his day with a simple directive: go build your empire.

At Zootopia Reentry Services, Sorrel intercepts Pawbert with news. An intake is coming in at ten, and Sorrel wants Pawbert to take the lead. The promotion is sudden but earned—five months of observation, assistance, and good work. Pawbert asks what happens if he messes it up. Sorrel's answer is calm and certain: he won't, because Sorrel has been watching. The client is Finley, a young ferret recently released after serving time for theft. Finley enters the intake room with the defensive posture of someone expecting judgment—shoulders hunched, eyes darting, weight shifting like he's ready to bolt. His answers are clipped, careful, the evasiveness of someone who's learned that honesty gets used against you.

Pawbert recognizes the fear because he's lived it. When the conversation stalls, Pawbert makes a choice: he admits he was inside too. Two years. Something worse than theft. The disclosure cracks something open in Finley. His posture softens, his answers expand into actual thoughts. He talks about his family's grift, the pressure to participate, the way they let him take the fall. He asks the question that matters: how do you get from there to here? Pawbert's answer is simple and true: one thing at a time. After the intake, Sorrel validates the approach. Listening is the hardest part, and most mammals don't do it. When Pawbert asks if disclosing his own history was the wrong choice, Sorrel responds with a question: did it feel wrong? Pawbert says no, it felt like the truth. Then it was the right choice.

The afternoon brings a shift at Snarlbucks, the familiar chaos of espresso machines and orders and Lane's boundless cheetah energy. Pawbert slots into the rhythm automatically, but his mind is elsewhere—on Finley's face, on the weight of helping someone who mirrors his own past. Lane notices the quiet, offers coffee as emotional support, and Pawbert manages a small smile. After his shift ends, Pawbert texts Mika. The studio is open. It's always open.

The Rainforest District wraps around Pawbert in humidity and mist. Mika's studio is chaos and beauty intertwined—canvases everywhere, paint on surfaces never meant for paint, clay sculptures occupying every available space. Mika doesn't ask for details about the rough day. She offers a choice: tell me or paint it. Pawbert chooses paint. He stands before a blank canvas, brushes and colors within reach, while Mika returns to her own work. The conversation that follows is about art, but also about more. Mika introduces the framework that becomes central: Pawbert's brain is wired for hypervigilance. Every room is cataloged for threats, exits, weapons. Art asks the opposite—it asks for attention to what is actually there, not what might hurt you. Presence instead of assessment. Pawbert looks around the studio and forces himself to stop scanning. He notices the light through the window—golden, warm, filtered through the district's mist. Mika tells him to paint that. An hour later, something exists on the canvas that didn't before. Not good, not skilled, but true: an abstract representation of warmth, light, home as a feeling. Mika calls it attention and presence. Everything else is just technique.

Back at the mansion, Pawbert presents the painting to the pack. Nick offers deadpan teasing about an original Pawbert. Luther studies it with intelligence-briefing intensity and asks what it is. Pawbert answers: home, he thinks. What home looks like from inside. Luther calls it beautiful. Later, in the quiet of the living room, Pawbert leans against Luther's legs and summarizes his day. He went places without Luther, and it was fine. More than fine. He talked to someone who needed to be heard. He made something that didn't exist before. He came home. Luther calls it a good day. Pawbert's response captures everything the season has been building toward: that's a life. The pack settles into their evening routine—arguing about takeout orders, propping the painting to dry, being together in the ordinary way that has become extraordinary. This is chosen routine, the rhythm of mammals who have built something together. One thing at a time. That's how you build a life.

Key Moments

• Luther and Pawbert reunite intimately after two months of enforced patience during his recovery
• Luther sends Pawbert into his day with encouragement to build his own life
• Sorrel promotes Pawbert to lead his first intake at ZRS
• Finley arrives defensive and mistrustful, expecting judgment
• Pawbert discloses his own incarceration to establish connection with Finley
• Finley asks how to get from prison to a functioning life
• Sorrel validates Pawbert's listening skills and disclosure choice
• Mika introduces the hypervigilance versus attention framework
• Pawbert paints his first intentional work representing home as a feeling
• Mika recognizes Pawbert's growth from chaotic expression to intentional creation
• Pawbert shows the painting to the pack and describes it as home from inside
• Luther calls the painting beautiful
• Pawbert summarizes his day: talking, creating, coming home
• The pack settles into evening routine with takeout debates

Key Lines

Characters Introduced

Locations

• Pawthorne Mansion — Master bedroom, ensuite, kitchen, living room
• Rainbow Falls ZTA Station — Pawbert's commute
• Zootopia Reentry Services — Lobby, conference room, intake room, break room
• Snarlbucks — Savanna Central location; abbreviated shift
• Mika's studio — Rainforest District, above Zen Noodle; the tea corner, chaos of canvases

Items

• Pawbert's painting — First intentional art piece; abstract representation of warmth and light; "home as a feeling"; propped to dry in living room
• Green sweater — Worn throughout the day; still his armor

Notes

• This episode pays off Luther's earlier statement that Pawbert's life must be more than just being together.
• The "hypervigilance versus attention" framework connects Pawbert's trauma response to his artistic development.
• Finley's story parallels Pawbert's own—both pressured into crime by family—creating a powerful moment of shared understanding.
• The phrase "one thing at a time" serves as both advice for Finley and a reminder Pawbert gives himself.
• Mika's studio becomes established as a space for creative refuge and processing.
• The restaurants mentioned in the dinner debate---Yak & Yeti and Pizzafari---are named after restaurants inside Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park.
• The Rainforest Clouds & Mist tea that Pawbert brings to Mika from Snarlbucks is a nod to Starbucks' "Emperor's Clouds & Mist" green tea, adapted with a Zootopia district name.