She lay in the sun-missing him, a plastic lawn chair stretched out beneath her. It was two in the afternoon and she hadn't left the solitude of her home, "Nick's home", for the entire day. At some point, she needed to get groceries. Then again, maybe she could just root around in the kitchen and try to find something to eat. Really, she didn't feel all that hungry.

The prospect of attempting to make her way into the city was a bitter one. For weeks, she had looked for a job, and with every excursion she'd been turned down for one reason or another. On the one occasion where her application had been accepted it had taken the paparazzi only hours to swarm her location. The endless attention that rattled outside the store windows sent away more business then it drew in. No one ever asked Judy to quit, but the frazzled looks, the grim faces of the owner, and the eventual realization that her presence was doing harm to her employer's business was enough for Judy to resign.

By some miracle, she'd always managed to evade the hordes of her camera-wielding stalkers when she went home for the night, "went back to Nick's". It was a good thing too, because Nick's was her one final place of sanctuary. The house itself was wonderful. In just the two months that Nick had been at the academy, the house had begun to feel more hers than any place ever had. Even in Bunnyburrow (where privacy was non-existent and the idea of having something just to yourself was practically a sin) she had never felt like she belonged. But here… she'd fallen in love with it; this place, the polished wood and the eclectic furnishings. Nick had a grandfather clock, shelves filled with leather bound books, colorful teacups and faded landscapes hanging on the walls. Everything felt cozy-not cluttered, antique-not old. The sheer hominess of the house was all that kept her from bursting into tears out of loneliness most days. That and the smell. Even now the house was filled with musk. Nick's presence was a difficult one to erase, and because she cherished it, Judy had refused to open any windows since his departure.

She would never admit it to anyone, but she had bagged up all of Nick's unwashed clothes and on special occasions would close the door to… "Nick's room" and open them, letting the scent of him wash over her. It sounded kind of gross when she thought about it, but she chose to do so anyway. She could afford a little secret shame.

It was the first night he was gone that Judy had begun to sleep alone in his bed. They had shared it for one glorious weekend and it had been the best two days of her entire life.

They had been - just the two of them, as if stranded on an island unto themselves. Love was made, off and on, regardless of the time. Clothing was discouraged, and the seconds between embracing, kissing and slow ecstasy were uncounted. How could two bodies, two individual selves, ever contain so much joy? How could the core of her being remain the same after the touch of another soul? Being shaped, falling apart, rebuilding a new Judy Hopps moment upon moment in the ebb and flow of simple contentment. They say that prolonged sadness can change the chemistry of the brain. It seemed to her that the greater threat to the self, by far, was one single instant of true unfettered happiness. Because she was gone, and the new mind who now resided inside her had different dreams, different needs. She had been undone - in warm darkness, in his arms. Each day the memory of it would wrap her in a silent euphoria that sometimes overflowed her already filled cup; a few tears might fall, accompanied by a radiant smile. Just as quickly, it would be like a dagger was being twisted deep inside. The separation from her love, the stark and terrible aloneness was so keen… she supposed that it was all part of being in love. The feeling of connection to another and the madness that comes with it. Still, she wasn't yet ready to drive to the academy and sit, parked in the old beaten-up bunny-mobile (Nick's words, not hers) just on the off chance that her fox might run by in his ZPD track suit. Not again anyway... this week.

The academy was perhaps the real root of her current unhappiness. Or more specifically, the rules that the academy imposed on its students. Such as it was, those enrolled in the police academy were prohibited to use electronic devices of any kind, or even leave the compound during the weekends for the first three months of their training. That meant it was going to be another whole month before she could see him again, before she could even speak to him via anything other than physical letters.

Speaking of mail, that was her one big task for the day. She had been sending letters to Nick a few times a week religiously. She knew how hard it would to be for him; being a small mammal, being a fox, and especially being a strange semi-celebrity whose claim to fame was dating a bunny, an act that many saw as unusual if not downright deviant. He never let on in his letters that he sent her back, but she knew, reading between the lines, that he was having trouble. Not that she wasn't; being one of the most sought after mammals in Zootopia. It hadn't helped matters that the ZPD had basically given her equal credit for ending the savage mammal crisis. Which was crazy, seeing as all she did was make a phone call.

It had taken about a month, to Judy's great relief, for the main news networks to stop hounding her day and night. Now all that was left was the tabloids. She couldn't go to a grocery store in the city without seeing her face plastered across half a dozen crappy magazines in the checkout line. If the papers were correct, and they literally couldn't be more wrong, Judy Hopps had slept with nearly every predator, and half the prey in the city, including the ex-mayor(s). Also, she ate raw meat and had canines surgically implanted into her jaw. Oh, and best of all, she wasn't even a bunny apparently, but a kit fox who had undergone over a hundred cosmetic surgeries. Thinking about it made her angry enough to spit. Unfortunately, Judy had little else but her thoughts for company these days.

Thankfully though, after two months of loneliness and general boredom, things for Judy were about to change. Too bad that change wasn't necessarily for the better.

Half asleep, letting the sun beat down on her, and a pair of Nick's aviators resting over her eyes, Judy didn't notice the arrival of Finnick until a small pebble bounced unexpectedly off her face.

Sitting up in surprise, glasses falling to her chin, Judy looked around in dreamy bewilderment.

"Hey Bunny Cop. Looks like you made yourself right at home."

"Finnick?" Judy followed the two unmistakable sandy blond ears down to the ever-grumpy face of the small fox. "W-what are you doing here?"

"Should'a guessed you'd be livin' here all this time." The fennec fox pulled his glasses off, revealing an amused set of coppery orange eyes. "So, is all that crap they talkin' bout on the talk shows true? You shackin' up wit slick Nick?"

Judy had a policy of basically not talking about her personal life with the media. But when it came to direct questions from those who she knew, she wasn't about to lie or try and pretend that her and Nick were anything less than…. well, together.

"Yeah, me and Nick are a thing, uh, and by that I mean-yes we are dating."

"An' you moved in already? Nick's quick, whoda-thought."

"I'm just house-sitting until he gets back from the academy...", "…Actually, I want to live here forever. I want to make this into our burrow and grow old with my fox-"

"S'that all huh? An' old Nick's just gonna kick-you-to-the-curb soon as he's done? Pretty sure you his live-in girl now bunny. So I wouldn't go lookin' for somewhere else to be."

Judy tried to hide how much that small comment made her heart soar. Her ears, which had been resting on her shoulders, rose most of the way as a smile graced her lips.

That is, until Finnick spoke again. "So'd Nick give you the big 'D'?"

Judy shook her head slightly and blinked in incredulity. "S-sorry, what did you say?"

"Yeh heard me, y'know, did he put you on lockdown? You two get 'naughty'... know what I'm sayin?" A spiky grin had spread across the tiny fox's narrow muzzle. He seemed to be reveling in the reaction his question was having.

Judy's spine went rigid as her ears and face flamed with a deep blush that made Finnick burst out in a laugh. "Hah! Looks like you know exactly what I'm talking about."

"T-that-I have no idea… is none of your business!" Judy sputtered.

"Well don't worry. I ain't judgin'."

Judy couldn't believe the gall of the tiny criminal. Had he come all this way just to needle her about her sex life? Suddenly fuming, she hopped to a standing position, her arms crossed, ears erect and fluffed.

"Anyway, it's been nice seeing you again, 'Toot-Toot', but I have some things I need to do-"

"Hey, hey! Hold up. Don't get your tail in a bunch. I'm here for a reason. We goin' out on the town. I'm supposed to give you a tour of the city."

Judy's eyes went wide and her eyebrows pulled down, giving her a look of confused exasperation. "You are? What makes you think I'm going to go anywhere with you?"

"Cus you bored to tears and you still haven't really seen the real Zootopia."

Judy just stared at the diminutive fox, trying to sort out what his angle was.

Finnick turned away from her and started walking down the gravel driveway. "Nick wrote me a letter. I'll let you read it if you like. Also, I got a few stories to tell 'bout Nick I bet you never heard."

"The tiny criminal makes a good case." ... "Who are you kidding Judy? You're so desperate to get out of here you'd even spend the day with a grumpy infant impersonator."

Moments later Judy had followed Finnick to the roadside where he had haphazardly parked his uniquely ostentatious van.

Opening the two back doors of the vehicle, the fox grabbed what looked like a stained pillowcase filled with clothes and lobbed it at Judy. "Unless you wanna go 'round gettin' chased by the ratz, you gonna need a proper disguise."

"Sage advice coming from a grown mammal who may or may not still dress up in an elephant onesie."

"Fooled you didn'it?"

"I suppose," Judy had to grudgingly admit.

"Damn right it did. Now get dressed. Don't have all day."

Judy had only looked through the bag for a few moments before she shook her head. "There is no way I'm wearing this."

"You want this place swarming with reporters twenty-four-seven? Cus that's what's gonna happen unless you get wit the program. I'm getting' the van started, tour starts in five."

Two minutes later, the rabbit who sat next to Finnick was a fever dream to behold. Over her torso she wore a long, baggy, ultra-vibrant tie-dye shirt. On her head was some kind of multicolored rough-knit hat. It was large and deep enough that she could stuff her ears into it. Even then, it flopped down against the back of her neck like a saggy water balloon. Around her neck, she had a hemp necklace with peace symbols strung on it. Finally, a pair of reflective, round, gold-tinted sunglasses completed the ridiculous ensemble.

The tiny fox gave a short barking laugh, "Lookin' good flower child."

"Please just drive."

"You gotta 'chill out' bunny. We gonna have fun today."

Judy responded in her driest deadpan, "Oh, I can't wait."


Four hours later, future Judy was surprised to admit that they had had fun. Almost too much fun, it felt a bit like a high school sightseeing tour she had taken to Zootopia. At the time, the hundred or so bunnies on the bus hadn't even been allowed to step out into the city proper. The tour guide had given them a strictly drive-by taste of city life. Teenaged Judy had been ecstatic nonetheless, and short of actually being allowed to get off the bus, it had been the greatest field day imaginable.

This was even better. Finnick took his role as guide seriously, speaking more in a few hours than Judy had thought possible for the sonorously voiced fox. He wasn't taking her on a tour of the city's history though. Or at least, not the history Zootopia liked to present to the rest of the world.

Around noon, they pulled up to the side of the road under the shade of large trees that were decorated with yellow and blue streamers. Judy had never visited the Taiga District; a good hour drive from the downtown center, in many ways it felt almost like a separate city. It was undeniably beautiful though.

Here the houses and businesses had been built around, between, and within the trees themselves. The branches of many had been painstakingly guided into shapes, arches and lampposts. It was a living cityscape. The streets were cobbled cream-colored brick, and in the branches above them was a second street-level inhabited by squirrels, chipmunks and other tiny-to-small treetop mammals.

Across from where they stopped was an enormous park. Strangely enough, it was devoid of any trees whatsoever. Instead, it was filled with paths that snaked around the tailored landscape and lay hidden in tall grasses and between well-tended shrubbery. Interspersed throughout were patches of multicolored flowers. Judy had seen a picture of this place in a travel magazine when she was younger: 'The Glen at Forest's Heart' (Ranked number six among the seven Zootopian Wonders - ask your travel agent for details).

After paying for parking, the unlikely pair left the van and walked out into the sunlit field. Judy was so taken with the sights she wasn't even bothered by how she must look in her crazy hippy attire.

"This place is gorgeous! I can't believe I never came here."

Up until now, Finnick had been introducing her to all the places where crime and poverty were most prevalent in the city. What streets to avoid, and what streets to run away from because your life depended on it.

It seemed to her after listening to a few surprisingly well-thought-out lectures delivered in Finnick's... unpretentious style, that the mob wars, smuggling rings and eras of government oppression, both social and cultural, were as important to understanding the city as was any other part of its history.

That being said, this current part of the tour they were on was nothing like that.

"I must admit, after all the uplifting things we've seen today, I wasn't expecting you to take me to a place like this little Toot-Toot."

"Call me 'little' or 'Toot-Toot' again an' I might just start calling you 'cute', rabbit," Finnick half-growled.

Judy smiled; as caustic as Finnick was, she had desperately missed things like simple banter. After all her time with Nick though, she felt she was able to give back just as good as she got. "Oh, don't worry, you can call me cute if you want Finn. I'd be quite the hypocrite if I took offense seeing as you have to be just about the cutest wittle baby foxy who ever lived. Yes you are!"

The sudden rage that filled the tiny vulpine's voice startled her, "You wanna start a war bunny!? Cus this is how you start a war! Lop-eared fox-fu-"

"Whoa! Okay! I'm sorry!" Judy took a deep breath and lowered her paws, which she had been waving in front of her. "I was just kidding. I guess with Nick gone… I've kind of got snark withdrawal."

Finnick gave her a hard stare before huffing through his teeth. "Whatever. Leave that crap to Nick from now on. You ain't as good at it as you think you are." Then, in a quiet voice as if talking to himself, "Nick's gonna have to pay me extra to put up wit this shit."

Judy's delicate ears heard him perfectly however. "Wait. Nick's paying you?"

"Course he is. Think anyone but Nick'd wanna spend time with you if they wasn't being paid?"

Ouch… she had been feeling rather friendless lately. Not that she didn't have friends. They just weren't her fox, or worth braving the city to see.

Still, loneliness aside, Nick was thinking of her even at the academy. She'd needed to get out of the house desperately and somehow, he'd known. She would have to give him a slug in the shoulder for paying Finnick to hang out with her… followed by some very intense kissing for being so thoughtful. Judy found her mood lighten and a smile return to her face as she thought about Nick, his smug grin, those dazzling eyes-

Finnick was looking at her at the same time with thinly veiled disgust. "Stop thinking about Nick. It's nasty. Makes you look even dumber."

The glare Judy threw him could have curdled milk.

Finally, after a short staring contest, the vertically impaired fox just threw up his arms and turned away. "How 'bout we jus' walk and not talk. Deal?"

"Fine. Deal."

The 'deal' didn't last long though, as Judy was constantly being blown away by the beauty of the park and simply couldn't contain herself. A small, lazy cyclone of butterflies had enthralled her for nearly twenty minutes, and after a particularly high-pitched 'Look at that! O'my goodness!', Finnick's melancholy seemed to intensify.

"I didn't bring you here to see the flowers an' bugs, bunny! I get it now tho. You an' Nick deserve each other. You equally annoying."

Judy silently stuck her tongue out. She was feeling too good at the moment to have it rained on by Captain Moody.

"Well, if you didn't bring me here to see the sights, why bring me at all?"

"Cus I'm trying to show you that under that pretty face, Zootopia's a mile deep swamp filled with crap."

Judy suppressed a groan and put on a sarcastic face of resignation that said, 'Sure, whatever you say'.

Finnick just shook his head, ears wobbling, showing a few teeth in frustration. "Wait and you'll see rabbit. You'll see."

Another ten minutes passed before they reached the far end of the Glen as all the intertwining paths began to loop and head back towards the main road. Instead of following said path however, Finnick unexpectedly veered off into the forest that lay on the borders of the park. By the signs posted on many of the trees, Judy gathered that they were about to be trespassing on conservation land, "some kind of bird nesting site".

"Hey!" she called as she pushed through the long grass and caught up with Finnick. "We can't go back here. It's against the law."

"We ain't goin' far. Plus, I got a cop with me. That makes it alright don'it?"

Judy continued to struggle through the grass. She pushed forward as she continued to protest, "No, actually I'm not a cop. I will be in a few months, but right now I'm just a private citizen who is trespassing."

"Well, we better be quick then."

A minute later they emerged into the forest proper. At first Judy's sensitive ears began to pick up a light murmuring in the distance. Then quite suddenly, the scene before her revealed itself in all its inglorious chaos.

The ground beneath the trees was mostly clear of foliage. Instead of leaves and bushes... Judy couldn't believe what she was seeing; tents. Dozens of tents and bivouacs, shanties and ill-kept fire pits littered the forest floor, and among the chaos and trash were mammals; lots of mammals.

"What is this?" Judy whispered, her tone laced with confusion.

Finnick's response was grave, "This here rabbit is Zootopia's own traveling tent city."

For the next few minutes they walked slowly between the ragged campsites littered with old sleeping bags and weather-beaten tarps. Judy saw many different mammals, male and female. Families were there as well, huddled together in their makeshift shelters. No one was paying her or Finn all that much attention. Judy noticed a small brood of children; raccoons. They looked malnourished, their t-shirts and pants too big or too small. Judy was pretty sure she could see fleas bouncing off their fur from where she stood ten feet away. She finally couldn't hold in her questions any longer and spoke as if lost.

"H-how can all these mammals be here?"

Finnick scoffed. "Won't be here long. Couple days and they'll have moved some place else. And who says anyone wants to do anything about this? Most times when the fuzz finds someone sleepin' on the streets they don't arrest 'em. They just drive 'em out as far from downtown as they can. Hell, lots of cops know 'bout this place, and if there's a camp set up, they bring 'em straight here."

Judy turned in a circle as she took in the scene before her once again. "That can't be right Finn… and why isn't child services here? Look at this... this place is like a third world country for rhubarb's sakes!" As she spoke Judy gestured with ever greater agitation at a group of mammals drawing water from a dubious looking stream - a bow-legged jaguar peeing on the forest floor just outside his tent - a stove that appeared to be made of oil-soaked toilet paper and a large coffee tin.

Finnick looked around nervously and raised a paw to his mouth, speaking in a baritone whisper, "Keep that shit down. We ain't in Canis anymore, case you didn't notice."

She was about to ignore him, but a sixth sense was pinging in the back of her mind. They were drawing attention. Ears were turning towards them and eyes, partially hidden from within cardboard boxes and squat hovels, were beginning to follow them as they walked.

Judy shut her mouth, although the look she gave Finnick explicitly said she wanted answers.

After a few more silent minutes, they stopped on the outskirts of the camp.

"Ok," Finnick spoke now in a lower register, "Yeah, child services comes around once in awhile. They take you outta here if you look like you might actually die."

Judy was about to explode with objections but Finnick cut her off, "Look 'round. Who d'you see for the most part? The five lowlifes that's who. Foxes, skunks, raccoons, opossums and weasels. Half these mammals wouldn't be able to rent an apartment even if they had the money. An' nobody is looking to adopt their half-wild kits. Add in that the foster system is a snake pit and yeah, child services won't touch 'em wit a ten-foot pole. Take this from someone who was born in a camp jus' like this one."

Judy was stunned silent. The righteous anger she felt building inside her cooled. Later, she promised herself, she was going to talk to Bogo about this. It was not right. She would figure out how to help fix it, or at the very least she would try. Mammals shouldn't be living in tents in a forest when scientists had cracked cold fusion. How were mammals living without running water and sanitation while on the borders of the richest city in the goddamn world?

For now though, she was filled with sudden sympathy for yet another fox who had been given no help and had suffered so much unfairness for so long. It really did burn her up.

Unbidden tears started to build in her eyes, and without thinking she squatted down and wrapped Finnick in a tight hug. "I'm glad you told me Finn."

The fox reacted like a cat thrown into a bathtub.

Wriggling wildly, Finnick struggled out from the hug and bodily pushed Judy into a pile of leaves and fast food wrappers. "Paws off the merchandise! Th'hells wrong wit you!? I don't want none of your pity! Know what, can't take this! Find your own way home. We done!"

Judy wanted to apologize but she struggled to pull herself upright. When she had finally struggled to her feet, Judy cupped her paws around her mouth and called after the fox as he marched into the camp, heading back the way they had come. "Look I'm sorry." The rapidly disappearing mammal showed no sign of recognition. "It was just a hug! Bunnies hug! Come on!"

"Now I'm yelling at nothing." Judy rolled her eyes as she prepared to sprint after him. "Emotional foxes."

Now, partly due to her initial shock, and also from her misadventure in the trash pile, Judy had thus far failed to notice the quiet steps of a larger mammal that had been slowly stalking her.

Just as she made to follow Finnick, a shadow fell over her as a large paw wrapped itself around her wrist, pulling her off balance.

Judy's reaction was instantaneous.

By muscle memory alone, she grasped her own fist and yanked upwards, breaking the mammal's grip. In the same motion, she whipped her elbow around attempting to ram it into her attacker's face. In breaking the grip however, she had unexpectedly sent the mammal sprawling to the forest floor. Seeing the mammal fall, Judy went reflexively for her tranquilizer gun and handcuffs, only to discover she didn't have either. So instead, she dove forward and grabbed the offender by the wrist with one paw, twisting and orienting herself, locking them into a hold. With her other paw, Judy pushed the mammal's muzzle into the dirt. It was then that she finally got a proper look at who she was dealing with.

It was a vixen. She had to be at least sixty, but by the bags under her eyes and the way her filthy, lusterless red fur hung like brittle paper from her skeletal frame, she could have been ninety. At second glance: covered in bald patches, teeth rotten, nose dry and generally smelling like decay and acrid chemicals, this vixen could be hours from death for all Judy knew.

The decrepit fox lay unmoving on the ground, her lower half spattered with mud. The only indication that she was alive was the long deep sniffs she was making. That and the piercing, sunken emerald green eyes that stared unblinking into the dirt.

When the vixen spoke, it was in a gravelly whisper; the voice of a lifelong smoker, so that each syllable was accompanied by the low rumbling of tar-like phlegm from deep inside her lungs.

She struggled through her next five words in a voice that was laced with both wonder, and terrible pain.

"You smell like my son."