Hugo returns to the Clinic, where Roberto gives him the diet plan and some advice. Judy confesses a secret to Meredith. Bonnie gets some news.

Tuesday morning in Tundra Town at the Free Clinic

Hugo stepped back into the clinic's waiting room. He had left Amanda downstairs to look after her patient while he came back to check on Judy. He checked with the front desk to see which room Sally had taken them to, and wandered down the hall in slow pursuit, but before he got there Roberto stopped him.

"Hello, Hugo. I understand that the rabbit that came in this morning is going to be staying with you. And while I am pleased to note that she will recovering in a safe environment, I would appreciate it if you don't endanger that recovery with inappropriate actions on your part!" Roberto put his paws on his hips, leaned over, and stared down at the smaller cat with a touch of menace.

"Um… Uh… Roberto, I assure you..." Hugo stammered.

Smirking, Roberto pointed down at him and added, "That means no hot peppers! Her digestive track is very sensitive as it is, and the richer caloric food that we will be introducing will cause some upsets. Adding the caustic oils in peppers will definitely push it over the edge. So keep your cooking mild!"

He handed Hugo the diet plan, "Here's my preliminary dietary workup for her, at least for the first few days. If she encounters any problems, like queasiness, vomiting, or difficulty with passing stool, contact me immediately. My contact info is on the top of the sheet. Otherwise, we will take it slow, and make any changes to that diet plan if warranted on her follow up visits."

Hugo looked down at the sheet in confusion. After managing to get a dig in under his skin, Roberto took just a little pity on the poor cat. He asked Hugo, "Never done shopping for a herbivore?"

Hugo scowled up at him, still annoyed at Roberto's insinuations and double entendres, "No. Not in a long time. My last girlfriend was an insectivore."

Roberto directed him, "Just look for the local 'The Hungry Goat' locations on your smart phone. I know that there is at least one at the base of the alpine district that you should be able to visit on your way back home. They should have everything you need."

He turned to look down the hall, "Sally should be finished with the blood draw by now. I'll head on down to the kitchen and fetch Judy something to eat. I will be back up in a minute, Hugo." He passed Hugo, heading for the stairs.

"Ciertamente, Roberto." Hugo continued on the examination room. He walked in as Sally was walking out with the blood vials, already prepacked in their Styrofoam container for their trip to the lab. He stood the side and let her pass. As he walked in, Meredith noticed his scowl and commented, "Is there something wrong?"

"Ah? No, no. Not wrong, really. Roberto was just using this as another opportunity to harass me. He still hasn't forgiven me for introducing him to my Abuela's empanada recipe last month. I told him they were hot, but he didn't believe me. He considers himself the local southern continent food expert, so I suppose it's ironic when he can't handle a local dish from my hometown. Anyway, I digress, poorly. How fares our noble rabbit?"

Judy, leaning on Meredith, waved at him and let her paw drop down, frowning at the floor. Hugo took the opportunity to take a photo of the scene with his phone. Judy rolled her head up, squinted at him and asked, "Why did you take a photo now? I feel like crap, and probably look even worse." You jerk!

"Perhaps you do, but I took it as a reference, as I didn't take one last night. But I assure you, as each day goes by, you will feel distinctly better than how you felt the previous day. And by the end of the week, you will be amazed at how well you are doing."

He gestured to her current state, "As for how you are right now, you will start to feel much better once Sally comes in to start the IV. Also, I know that Roberto's gone downstairs to get your something to eat, so that will also help." Hugo assured the suffering rabbit.

"Uh, huh." It didn't look she quite believed him.

Sally walked in with the IV bag, and started to set it up. To get out of the way, Hugo excused himself. "I will be back in a bit, I just need to follow up on something." He handed the meal plan to Meredith and walked out the open door.

Sally hooked up Judy to the IV line, "Here you go, doe. This will help you perk right up." She cleaned up her left over plastic pieces, and turned back to Judy, "Bob's bringing you a sandwich, I believe. He'll be back up in just a minute." She followed Hugo out the door, and turned to shut it behind her.

"Leave it open, please." Judy called out to her. Sally just nodded, and left down the hall.

Judy squeezed Meredith's paw, causing Meredith to look up from reading the meal plan and over at Judy who expressed her gratitude, "Thank you for staying with me. I really appreciate it."

"Of course, dear." Meredith assured her.

Judy struggled to collect her thoughts and then just let out a long sigh, "I get really bad panic attacks if I get stuck someplace where I feel trapped," she finally confessed to Meredith.

"Oh." Meredith took in the scene around her and the mixture of scents she could smell. She leaned her head down and sniffed in Judy's scent.

"Can you smell it, my fear?" Judy asked her, the shame she felt coloring her voice. She buried her face in Meredith's side.

"Yes. I'm sorry, I didn't notice it before, with all the mammals coming and going. Are you having a panic attack right now?" Meredith was very concerned about her little charge.

Judy nodded, "I'm barely hanging on, honestly. If it wasn't for you and Hugo, I could never been able to do this." Judy shook her head and continued, "Since I've been homeless, I've not been able to visit a doctor, or go to a shelter, or anyplace where the doors lock behind me and I can't get out. Weird, right?"

"I don't know. Why do you say that you think that it is weird?" Meredith was a bit confused by her statement.

"A rabbit who doesn't like small, secure spaces? That's what's weird. Me." Judy sniffed, and wiped away the beginnings of tears.

"Well, Hugo has told me a bit about your past, and I can certainly understand about how you wouldn't like to be locked up, not after spending 9 years in Cliffside. Most of your childhood, in fact." Meredith started to stroke her paw down Judy's head and back, trying to soothe her. Just like Mom used to do…

"Yeah, that's a big part of it," Judy allowed that but kept the rest of what she was feeling to herself.

I'm sorry Meredith, but new found trust only goes so far.

Hugo leaned against the brick wall, and pulled out his phone. This next call was going to be really hard, but not because he was delivering bad news. Quite the opposite, in fact. Good news can carry it's own explosive emotional shrapnel into someone's life, and sometimes it is best to give someone a little warning before dropping the bomb. Especially when one's faith and hope has been all that sustained them in the long years of pain and loss while they searched for that which could not be found.

He sent a simple question first: "Do you have a moment?"

The replay, "Absolutely, dear. I'm in the root cellar, taking stock. What do you need?"

Hugo pulled up the picture of he just took. Judy look so vulnerable and broken, leaning there on Meredith's shoulder, but it absolutely beat the alternative. He always preferred to give hope, not pain, to the family and friends who held on to their faith that their loved ones would eventually be found, hale and whole.

He pasted the photo into a text message, and underneath it he typed "I found her!"

It was a message, in truth, that he had hoped that he would the chance to send to her one day. He had also feared that he would never get that chance.

He hit the send button, and slid down the wall to the floor to wait for what would certainly come next.

Bonnie Hopps was in the root cellar, cleaning out old tubers. Beth had taken a load of wrinkled and moldy radishes out to the compost pile, and that left her alone with the dusty shelves of pickled vegetables and dried onions. She was using her phone to take notes of what was left to toss and what was still edible when a new message popped.

"Do you have a moment?", she read off the screen. Oh, it was Hugo. It's been several months since he last chatted with them. And while she had to be realistic, and acknowledge that her lost headstrong daughter had finally passed on somewhere in the past ten years, she still appreciated that others outside of their family held out hope against the odds that she would be found.

She pulled up the message and replied, "Absolutely, dear. I'm in the root cellar, taking stock. What do you need?"

The message sent back was an attachment. She kicked up her ears in query and her brows furrowed. She never gotten an attachment in a text from him before. She clicked on the button, and it started to download. 3… 2… 1… Pop.

The picture that came up momentarily confused her. It looked like a doctor's examining room, complete with that uncomfortable examining bed. On the bed was a large white hare, dressed in an older more conservative feminine style than Bonnie usually saw in Bunny Burrow. And next to her was a smaller figure, dressed in a polka-dotted white examination gown, their lower paws dangling off the bed. It looked like it was a much smaller gray and white hare, leaning on the larger doe. Maybe one of the doe's kits? Were they sick?

Gray and white. That thought caused Bonnie's breath to catch in her throat. No. It couldn't be that, she thought. She zoomed into the picture, and scrolled up to their face. The face was drawn and hollow, the ears fallen down the back, and the muzzle turned into a frown. But then her gaze locked onto the kit's eyes. Oh, Blessed Divines!

Bonnie's paw flew to her lips as she started to sob, her heart beating a thunderous pace in counterpoint to the catch in her breath. She had all but lost hope in the past decade, reduced to nursing a small faint spark in a secret corner of her heart against the pressures of reality, and now that forlorn faith was rewarded with great peals of glad clarion note! She didn't even need to read the note below to know what those three simple words said. She knew!

Like fields of wind swept lavender after a summer thunderstorm, those amethyst eyes swept up Bonnie's heart in rapturous joy.

She rushed out the root cellar, passing a confused Beth, running to the fields where he toiled under the warm sun.

"STU!"