A/N

Ok, now if I can just get someone from one of the Antarctic research stations to view this story I will have successfully spread my drivel across all seven continents. I'm not sure if this is wickedly cool or downright terrifying.

To the reviewers:

Lunar Silver - (insert dramatic closing scene music) Find out next time Ooonn Derailed!, opps, nope wait here it is :)

gonekrazy3000 - ok this is more of a genie thing than grinch but lets give it a try, Alacazam! -here you go, chapter 2. No refunds or call backsies.

Arnasyll - Correct capitalization regarding Proper and Normative nouns and Apostrophe usage pertaining to correct possessive tense verse pluralization? Dear God Man, (author quickly turns his head and spits over his left shoulder three times) Do you want to have my third grade english teacher track me down and torture me, Again?! Why do you think I have a heart the size of a shriveled raisin? anyways instead of Bellwether's, bellwethers could be referring to a mini-me army of angry little sheep, heh talk about a dystopia. (author now has coffee) In all seriousness thanks for pointing that out and for your review.

Disclaimer: I do not own Zootopia. I would not, could not if I tried.

Chapter 2 – Without Inhibitions

Judy was a morning bunny, she usually had no problems waking up. But right now, her thoughts were slow and jumbled, rising and dipping in and out of the edge of consciousness. For a while she was content to just relax and let her mind drift. She imagined she was floating on a warm fuzzy cloud drifting through the meadows back at the farm where she'd grown up on. The smell from meadow was earthy and exotic and wrapped around her like a comforting blanket, it made her think of wild flowers and the earth in a freshly tilled field. She felt like she was at home in a way that her old apartment at the Grand Pangolin had never quite achieved nor her childhood house had felt like in years. Her cloud settled in the meadow surrounded by a wall of warm red grass. She snuggled into it, letting out a contented sigh, and the warm wall of red grass seemed to rumble lightly in a happy sort of way as it snuggled back around her. The scent from the meadow grass was stronger so close to it, but it just made her feel more at home. She felt safe and happy, and wished all her dreams could be like this.

Judy didn't know how long she stayed there like that in her happy little meadow. But eventually a stray thought, almost like a butterfly, made its way into her mind. She didn't remember red grass in any of the meadows back at the farm. She pondered this for a while as the wall of red grass around her continued to wave ever so slightly in the breeze, back and forth, back and forth. Judy liked her red grass, so why should it make any difference? But the thought/butterfly kept nagging her landing on her nose and making it twitch. She tried to shoo the butterfly away with her paw but all this did was make the grass's rhythmic swaying shift before it rumbled happily again. Another butterfly joined the first. Since when did grass rumble? But this time she was determined to ignore the butterfly. Rumbly grass was clearly better than regular grass anyway. And rumbly red grass was clearly betterer. She just huffed and snuggled close into it smelling the homey scent it gave off. One of the grass stalks leaned down brushed against her muzzle. The feeling made her almost giddy inside and she started to purr lightly. It must be morning in the meadow she though because the grass still had dew on it. The grass stalk kept at it for a while brushing over her cheeks and neck and between her ears, Judy happily purring the whole time. It eventually stopped and the grass snuggled closer around her again with one last happy rumble and resumed its steady swaying, back and forth, back and forth. Judy smiled, red rumble grass was certainly betterer than regular grass but that one red grass stalk was the bestest of them all. As her purring faded away she snuggled back into the grass's embrace, but this time as she shifted her hindpaw she felt a light twinge of pain.

That she didn't like. Why did her leg have to hurt anyway? She was warm and happy surrounded by her rumbly red grass, but now that she'd noticed the pain, the light throbbing wouldn't go away. And now she could feel a sore bump on the side of her head. Where had those injuries come from? She tried to focus, but that was a lot harder than it should have been.

She remembered the press conference after the savage mammals case, and how she'd destroyed her budding friendship with Nick. She'd been pressured for an answer she didn't know and desperate for something to say had ended up spouting old stereotypes she'd learned growing up as a kit. She'd broken the city with that press conference, but to her the worst part had been losing Nick.

The three months afterwards had been the most miserable in her life. She had hoped that with time the hurt would go away but it didn't. She had found herself thinking back to her time with Nick over and over again. He had been a real jerk when she had first meet him, but the more time she had spent around him the more she realized it was just a front; he put up a mask that hid someone else from the world. And right when her world, her dreams seemed to be crashing down around her as Bogo was about to take her badge, the fox behind the mask had stepped out and stood up for her. Nick had nothing to gain and everything to lose by doing that. He threw away his chance to prove that everything he had said was right, to get out of the agreement she'd hustled him into, and instead he threw his lot in with her on a hopeless bet with the deck stacked against them. No one had ever done that for her before. Not her friends not even her family. The mammals that hadn't mocked her for her dreams might cede grudging respect, and those closest to her were even proud for what she had accomplished but no one had supported her let alone joined her. And then on the skytram he had shown her a deeper glimpse into who he really was. Judy new that was when Nick had become her friend, a true friend. That she slowly came to realize months later was when she had started falling for Nicholas Wilde.

With that crack in his mask everything had changed. For the rest of the case she could catch glimpses of the real Nick, her Nick. The hint of a real smile here, a joke he shared with her there, and every step of the way he was by her side, watching her back. She remembered how after going over the falls he had helped her to shore and held her close to keep away the cold until the police had responded. She had been so happy then. They had beaten the odds. The two of them, together. She had felt like anything was possible. And she had felt so comfortable and safe being held in his arms, being held by someone she knew she could completely trust.

Another butterfly of a thought crossed her mind but she ignored it, she might not be thinking completely clearly but the memories were coming clearer and faster.

By the time Gideon and her parents had given her the clue she and the ZPD had been missing she had already realized what the storm of emotions mixed in with the guilt was. She didn't have the foggiest idea of what to do about it or even how to handle it but she had accepted that she loved that dumb stupid sly fox. The Fox she had only just started to get to know, the fox she couldn't find, the fox that certainly hated her, the fox in the city she'd broken, the fox that a stupid country bumpkin bunny had fallen for. She knew that he would almost certainly never feel the same way, interspecies relationships between close species were rare let alone something like a fox and a bunny; That was more like something out of a fairytale or an old historical fable like Beauty and the Beast or Helen of Troy. With very few exceptions, mammals from different species just didn't become attracted to each other. There were just too many differences, from the older hold over traits such as what one species found as attractive from looks to scents, to the different cultures of the individual species; even the legal requirements for marriage and mates were not the same between species. But even if he never felt the same way, she at least wanted him back as her friend, to go back with him and fix what she had broken. Maybe if she was lucky they could even eventually be partners at the ZPD. That she was sure, she could live with. That is exactly what she had set out to do.

And surprisingly everything had worked out just as she'd hoped it would, better actually. Not only had she gotten lucky finding Finnick but when she found Nick and apologized he hadn't just agreed to help her, he'd taken her back just as if he had been waiting for her, wishing for her to come back. She had never felt so happy as when Nick was holding her after the apology, she'd almost slipped up then; she had wanted so much to lean up and kiss him, she had almost done it, actually started to, but in doing so had moved her hindpaw back onto his tail which had wrapped around them. But after that minor hiccup, everything started happening so fast. They were back together working even better than they had before, and they had hit one lucky break after another. All the way up until they meet Bellwether in the museum.

One of the little butterflies in her dream stopped pestering her and fluttered away.

Her leg. She had been so clumsy going around the corner, not watching where she was running, and had ran right into the mammoth tusk edge, leaving a long gash on her leg. It hadn't been life threatening but there had been no way she was going to be able to escape. She had wanted Nick to take the gun case and run. It was the smart thing to do, the right thing to do. But he had refused to leave her. She could see past the front he had put up, clearly see the fear behind the mask, how to hide his fear he kept joking as he bound her leg. But despite his fear, despite running being the best option, he had chosen again to stick with her, to stay at her side.

The feeling remembering that was indescribable. A mix of giddy joy and happiness unlike anything she had ever known. A love and a longing to find Nick, her Nick and stay by his side like he had stayed by hers. Forget rumbly red grass, she wanted her fox, she needed her fox. She didn't care what others thought, she would wake up from this silly dream, she would find Nick, and even if he didn't feel the same way she did, she would always be there for him. She was his bunny after all.

The rest of the butterflies started stirring and flying away.

Memories started flooding back faster and faster. The plan they'd come up with, being knocked into the display pit, the blueberry hitting Nick, Bellwether's confession, their fake savage ploy, The ZPD arriving, the…

Judy went stiff, her mind was still cloudy but she remembered. The hustle had worked, but it all came apart at the end. Bellwether hadn't given up and Nick got hit with the Nighthowler pellet, the real pellet not a blueberry. She had been determined to save him, she didn't know how, she'd hoped maybe with so little on him and on an appendage, it might be slower, that the other officers could get there in time to help her. The one thing she knew for certain was that she was not going to leave him, not again, not ever. She remembered holding him as his bigger frame shook, crying into his shirt, hearing the roars and shouts above them and an earthshaking crash behind them before something hit her and everything went hazy.

She could only remember bits and pieces after that. The shrieking sound like something from the stories told around campfires when her siblings were trying to scare each other with wild tales of rabid foxes. The feeling of something sharp but gentle lifting her by the scruff of the neck. A confusing set of images of a rhino and an elephant wrestling against the pits wall, as she seemed to move from the ground onto their backs and out of the pit. A few scattered images and sounds of streets passing by, cars blaring their horns and mammals screaming about a savage fox and a dead bunny, followed by dirty back alleys and the fading noise of the city center before everything went dark.

Judy opened her eyes, breathing hard, only to have the red grass replaced by red fur. The meadow smell crystallized into a scent she knew, the strong musk of a male fox, her fox. She put out a shaking paw not sure through the muddy feeling in her head if this was real or just another dream. But the fur was warm as she moved her paw through it. She could feel the slow steady in and out of rhythmic breaths. The red fur changed to creamy white as she brought her paw down between where she lay snuggled up to the mass. She looked to the side and saw a dark red paw draped over her holding her tight. She traced the arm back to a shoulder and to the side of a red furred neck where she'd been nuzzling, up to a familiar fox's face, the end of his sleeping muzzle covered by the tip of the tail that was wrapped around her. And Judy began to cry. She could feel the fox stir as she clutched at his chest and cried. She had been so afraid that she would lose him, that one of them would end up dead. That she would not even get the chance to tell her fox how she felt. All the emotions from the past months boiled up inside of her and mixed with the utter relief after having made it through Bellwethers attack with both of them still alive.

Judy hiccupped and gave a startled laugh as a foxes muzzle came into her tear filled view and booped her on the nose. As her crying slowed down the fox proceeded to lick the remaining tears off of her cheeks. Judy couldn't hold down her giggles as the somewhat rough tongue lapped at her.

"Nick! EEww! You're slobbering all over me!" she barely managed to say between fits of giggles. When it was over and Judy had recovered from her fit of giggles she looked up into the fox's face. Nick lacked his usual grin but Judy swore she could see a smile at the corners of his mouth, but what caught her attention was his eyes. They weren't the normal emerald green eyes she was used too. The softness was gone, there wasn't a hint of the joking hustler behind them. They were the eyes of a predator, a wild predator, a savage predator.

Judy considered this for a second through the still muddy workings of her thoughts.

She lowered her head back down into Nick's neck, this time in the creamy white fur under his muzzle and started to giggle. again.

"The savage fox did catch the bunny then" she squeaked, and proceeded into another fit of giggles.

The situation was just too ridiculous and her head was still muzzy and her thoughts were all over the place, and she just couldn't give the situation the seriousness she knew it probably deserved.

Oh, I so have a concussion she thought

Which set off another giggle fit.

The fox lowered his head between her ears and let out a huff as Judy continued to giggle against him. She wrapped her arms around him and dug her paws into his fluffy fur, and felt his arms tighten around her in response. She just couldn't care. They we're alive and had made it through in one piece, more or less. She giggled again. And she was happy and in the arms of the fox she loved. She had dreamed of being able to run her paws through his fur. But this was better than any dream she'd ever had.

Fur. The thought stuck in her mind for a second, as her paws kept roaming through his cream and russet colored coat.

"Nick?" she asked knowing that she wouldn't get a response "Where are your clothes?" This time she felt her ears blush hot as another giggle escaped. She knew she probably shouldn't, but she couldn't help herself. She looked down, and her ears went from blushing to burning. She still had her torn up jeans and plaid shirt on but her body was pressed into Nicks, who was completely 'in the fur', every detail visible. She could feel a heat building, accompanied by a longing she'd never had for another mammal before.

"I might have to check that this isn't a dream again" Judy mumbled behind a lopsided grin as she looked back up. She could see the foxes nose twitch and his ear stand up. The sight made her blush all the harder and the heat grow in intensity. The scent of fox, male fox, her fox was all around her. She couldn't help but breath it in with every breath. And it was like a bellows stoking a furnace. He was in her arms and holding her. She knew that Nick wasn't in his right state of mind, she knew she probably wasn't thinking clearly either. Her emotions, her need was boiling over. Three miserable months separated from her fox and then she'd almost lost him again.

Again.

Never again.

She had moved before she was aware of it. She was rubbing her chin from his ears to his nose, marking him.

Never again.

She was rubbing her chin along the side of his muzzle and down his neck. Nick had moved after a surprised moment and was now rubbing his long muzzle against hers, over her head and along her ears, marking her in return. The feeling made the inferno in Judy flare.

Mine.

She could feel a rumble start in her fox's chest and it only increased her frenzy to drive her scent into him. To claim him. Nick was now marking her neck, he had rolled over her and know stood above her on all four paws. His marking was devolving into nuzzling and nips against her neck and shoulder. The sensations sent an arc of lightning down her spine that exploded in the inferno raging inside her and what ever restrain she still had fell away.

Judy never quite figured out how her clothes left her, all she could remember was the storm of feelings and sensations. The feel of a larger body pressed against hers, the soft tug as his fur ran through hers. One heat meeting another. The white hot explosion of pleasure as two bodies meshed. His growls and yips, her moans and shouts. Gentle bites and frantic paws. A building pace till a yipping shriek and a hot flood and growing pressure sent her mind over into a white bliss and she joined her voice to his.

When her vision started returning, she could fell the fox lowering himself next to her and wrapping her up in his arms and legs and tail. He buried his snout in the crook of her shoulder and neck, biting softly and slowly panting. She could still feel him as the rolling waves of pleasure ebbed away, an unexpected and almost but not quite painful pressure holding them together. She knew that she had been rash, had acted without thinking, that there was an avalanche of repercussions awaiting for her actions, but she simply couldn't find the effort in her foggy but happy mind to care. She held onto Nick and nuzzled at his shoulder, a contented sigh leaving her. Her fox had his bunny and that's all she cared about for now.

But unfortunately, that peaceful state lasted only a few moments longer. She felt the hackles on the fox lift and he released her shoulder to let out a growl. Not a happy low rumbly growl. No this was near a full on snarl of a growl, one that promised violence.

"HOPPS!" She heard a shout from nearby, and her minds gears ground together for a moment before they clicked.

"Chief Bogo? Is.." Her sentence was cut off as a drat passed through the fluff edge of the tail wrapped around her and hit her in the shoulder.

The fox screamed another shriek rolling over to stand crouched above her. But her vision and thoughts where already floating away once again. As the encroaching darkness took her she could hear a curse and the puff of a dart pistol, and then nothing else at all.

A/N

I didn't realize this until what (if your generous) could be called my proofreading attempt. But Freud would probably have a field day with the beginning of this chapter. (snicker) For some reason I find this far funnier than it should be, I blame a lack of coffee.

Oh and a special callout to Fox in the hen house, Thanks. If you haven't read his story you probably should, its better than this.

gonekrazy3000 has just gone crazy with a dictionary on this chapter. Its thanks to him that I might not have to fear the wrath of my third grade english teacher. Thanks, you just saved me from the worst nightmare ever.