Hey there! Here is chapter 2 of the story. I put a lot of work into this, so I hope you guys enjoy it a little.

As always, tell me what you think and have fun reading. Next chapters are coming soon!

Big thanks to Gogofan for pre reading and correcting this chapter!

This one is corrected and improved as well now! Hope you enjoy! ;)

Zootopia – The Story of Nick Wilde

Chapter 2 – Childhood stories (POV Judy Hopps)

He went back to the house, walked around it to its backside and came back a few moments later, carrying some pieces of wood and a bucket full of water.

He placed the dry wood in the middle of the stone circle and spread some of the water around it, to prevent the grass from catching fire. Then he collected some of the other grass and hay, which was laying around everywhere, and placed it on top of the firewood.

Using this as a fire starter, he lit the whole construction and blew some air onto it.

I watched in awe as the handsome fox carried heavy things around and light the fire with a combination of strength and passion that was really beautiful to watch. The slowly fading sunlight shone through the tunnel of the bridge, flooding everything in a wonderful shade of orange. It had been a very long time since I've seen such a wonderful evening on a place this pleasant, and weather as great as this.

Nick, finally happy with what he had created, turned his attention to me again.

"Marshmallows?" he asked with an innocent little grin.

I nodded in agreement, even if I never ate those before.

"Didn't you ever do this in your Childhood?" he asked, after he had shown me how to put the marshmallows onto the wooden sticks and roast them over the fire.

"No, my parents have been afraid of open fire for as long as I know them. And since I have more than a hundred brothers and sisters, this was always far too dangerous in my family.

"Yeah ok, that's a good point. I did this with my parents nearly every weekend, back when I was a child."

"So that's why you´re so good at this. You´re lucky that your parents spent so much time with you, not everybody can say that!" I casually said.

"They were the only ones who gave me some love back then. Since I was a predator in a school where nearly everyone is was a pray, I wasn´t really finding friends anywhere. Sure, I was not the only one, but I was the only fox in the entire school, so everyone declared me as the nonsensible and untrustworthy nerd. My parents where the only ones who prevented me from losing every hope, and from really turning into a monster…" he began telling.

"Well…" I started, after a long and uncomfortable silence. "…they did a pretty good job though, that's for sure!"

He shook himself a little, trying to get that old memories out of his head, but then he caught himself and smiled at me again.

"Yeah, I´m glad that's over! But enough about me, your early days must have been much more fun than mine, according to the amount of euphoria you´re carrying around with you all day!"

I wasn´t able to hide a flattered grin as I heard that. He certainly was not making me a lot compliments at work or elsewhere, but therefore it meant a lot to me when he did. He never said anything about my personality either, so I was really happy as he said that now. It meant a lot to me, when he said it.

I smiled at him a little sheepishly, then I caught myself again and started telling him about my younger days.

…

"…and you already wanted to join the police, back when you were a kid?" he asked, after I had told him the story of my stage play, where I was telling everyone that every animal could be anything they want.

"Yeah, I wanted to be a cop for as long as I can remember. But on exactly that day, my wish was firing back at me…"

"What happened?" he asked with great interest.

"Later that day that fox bully, which…" I stopped in my tracks, wanting to smack myself in my own head.

"I am sorry Nicholas. I should have thought before I start talking…" I said, after sighing about my own stupidity.

He played it off like was not a big deal, but I sure noticed that his ears had dropped a little, as the word `fox` appeared again. Just now I realized, that exactly that was the problem of his childhood, even if he had nothing to do with that exact case.

"It´s ok Judy. I´m not going to compare myself to some other guy who was mean to you, just because he´s also a fox. I´d actually like to hear what happened to you back then!"

I hesitated for a moment, considering he might get mad by the prejudice clichés, but then I went for it. There was no denying he was going to hear it one day.

"Okay… so there was this fox bully, Gideon Grey. He had a gang of other rascals around him, all of them not being very nicely to anyone, and he stole some lottery tickets from my friends, which they just had won on the summer festival.

Because I was convinced of myself being a cop one day, fighting for the good things in the world, I collected all the courage I had and told him to give us those tickets back. He pushed me onto the ground, beat me in the face and scratched me with his claws. Then he and his crew began laughing at me, while my friends tried to help me. But they were too shy to attack them. When they were finally leaving us, I was still laying on the ground, had three slightly bleeding scratches in the left cheek, and as you may can imagine, I felt really defeated on that day. I felt powerless, small and vulnerable. Compared to him, I was no match for him as a fox, a much bigger and stronger animal."

I was nearly whispering by the last sentence, not wanting to say something unpleasant too loud.

Nick, who was listening concentrated, appeared to be feeling really affected by the story, as I was telling it to him.

I had examined him the entire time, and there were some noticeable changes in his body language, which distressed me a little as well. He winced slightly, when I was speaking of Gideon punching me in the face, his breathing got heavier, and when I was talking about his claws, he was looking at his own ones with a really fearful and hateful expression on his face.

"Now I…" he stuttered. "…I understand, why you were acting so strangely in the Ice shop when we met for the first time…" he mumbled.

"Strangely?" I interrupted him.

"I mean, you were like…this over enthusiastic. You wanted to convince that elephant guy to serve me, and you fought for my rights as a customer…" I noticed a sudden change in his voice. It almost sounded like he was crying a little, but he was really trying to finish his sentence. "…you were convinced of me being a very nice person, although I am a fox. You believed in me the first time you saw me. You got rid of all your former prejudices in that moment, which you´ve gotten from your first experiences with a fox back in your childhood!" he whispered, now really struggling to keep himself together.
That was the reason why I didn´t want to tell him that story at first. I even figured that he was clever enough to think about that as well, and now I tried everything I could to relax him again. The last thing I wanted is that he felt uncomfortable around me now.

He sniffed a little and it became harder to speak for him with every sentence. Now I could clearly tell that he really was crying a little, and I felt so sorry for him that I didn´t know what to do.

"…and what did I do, just some hours later, when we met again?! I was the biggest douchebag of them all, telling you that you never will be a cop and…" he lost it completely at that point and buried his face into his palms.

"Nick…" I tried to calm him a little, coming a bit closer and patting his shoulders a little. He hugged himself by reflex, not wanting me to see his paws for some reason. I figured that he believed, that his claws made a monster out of him, since I told him the story of Gideon Gray, but I wasn´t even a tiny bit scared of him, and I wanted to show him that. "…I don´t care about that day anymore. I´m over it!" I told him with a serious expression. "Now look at me! I am a cop, I got everything I wanted, and I´m happy with everything as it is right now!" I stated, trying to hug him carefully.

"But how were you able to forgive me?" he asked, still breathing heavy and unsteadily.

"Because I forced you to help me? Remember? You were my only hope on solving that night howler-case and keeping my job as a cop back then! And you helped me, you helped me a lot! You saved me from losing my police badge on that wooden bridge where chief Bogo found us. How could I have not been able to forgive you?"

"…but I just started being nice to you, after you had saved my live! You never did something bad to me, and I was being an idiot the entire time! And just as you had saved me, I woke up and started treating you like the nice person, you were…", he whispered, before staring into my eyes with a sad expression on his face. "…and still are.", he added then.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, but then I decided to end this.

"Nick, listen. You may be right with one or two points there but that doesn't matter anymore. You changed your personality on that day. You wanted to help me, you wanted me to solve it! We did something the entire police force of Zootopia was not able to!"

Now I was the one to stutter a little. "…and what did I do? I told the press there is a virus or something, which turns only predators into wild and uncontrollable beasts. Which is ten times worse than being unfriendly for one or two days! The whole city hated predators since I said that!"

"That's not true!" he interrupted me, sounding slightly offended now. "You were nervous, you were excited and you didn´t know what to say. And I was judging you for that, because some stupid old experience of my past was flashing before my eyes. And then I was upset about it! I really was a coward and a bad friend back then!" he snarled in disgust of himself.

He forcefully turned away from me and buried his head in his palms vigorously.

"Nick! Don't say something like-"

"I´m the worst friend ever, Judy! I was even more of a psychological monster than a physical one!"

"You´re not, Stop it! I don´t care anymore!"

He shook his head and started sniffing again.

"I´m sorry, carrot´s!" he whispered, before he jumped out of his deck chair and ran towards his house, wanting to get out of that situation as quickly as possible.

"Hey!" I shouted, before chasing him. "Wait!"

Thanks for reading ;) Stay tuned for more...