8

"Hey carrots…" Nick murmered, still heavilly sedated by the effects of the morphine Boz had administed to him. It'd be only about half an hour until they landed at the German airport.

"Nick, you should've told me." Judy sobbed into his orange fur "You should've trusted me, we could've helped you."

"I didn't want you to look at me like I couldn't handle myself." Nick explained, his words slow and slurred "Never let them see that they get to you."

"Nick, you've got to open up!" Judy cried in desperation "Everyone had weaknesses, but you've got to tell the people who care about you what they are, or we can't help you."

"I don't know what you're talking about…" Nick whispered quietly. "But I told Boz, isn't that enough?"

"No!" Judy almost shouted in defiance "You should've told me, I care about you, you have to trust me to help you!"

"I'm sorry." Nick stated resignedly, gripping onto Judy's small body, pulling the sobbing rabbit close "I should've told you."

They both lay there, gripping tightly onto eachother, enjoying eachother's tight embrace.

"Wait a second…" Nick quickly stated, eyes widening, shattering the moment "Are we still in the air?"

"Yes we are." Judy confirmed "But you're staying right here, you're fine, just relax, go to sleep."

For a while Nick struggled urgently, but Judy held him tightly in her arms and he was forced to relax again within her crushing grip. For a while the two of them lost track of time, simply happy to be with one another. Nick wasn't so calm, but he had no way of doing anything, so he was forced to worriedly hold onto Judy, too scared and anxious to properly enjoy it.


"Guys, we're landing now!" Boz called from outside. He then appeared outside the door, and looked in to see Judy hurriedly scrambling out of the bed, while Nick was sitting up groggily.

"Um…" he stuttered anxiously, cheeks reddening "Am I interrupting something?"

"No, no." Judy casually replied, not quite understanding Boz's question.

"It's fine, Judy was just helping me out." Nick mumbled, momentarily blushing a little at the idea of what Boz had initailly thought they were doing.

"Are you OK?" Boz asked Nick sincerely, looking worried. "You don't look too good."

"I'll be fine once this damned plane lands." Nick replied abruptly, out of character, moving sluggishly over to one of the seats with seatbelts in the cabin designed for takeoff and landing.

"Well buckle in, we're landing in about five minutes." Boz explained. With immaculate timing the symbol for 'Put on your Seatbelts' lit up, seemingly to reinforce his point.

As a response the two of them buckled into the seats, and got gave Boz a thumbs up. Boz quickly paced back down the corridoor, presumably to go to his own cabin to prepare for landing. Nick sighed, still not feeling great about being over 10,000 meters high above the ground. He was then taken aback as Judy latched back onto him tightly.

"Ow…" Nick playfully exclaimed "Can you stop pulling my fur?"

"No." Judy stated smiling, glad for Nick to be slowly returning to his normal self "I'm not letting go until we've landed."

"Alright…" Nick conceded, secretly overjoyed to have the small bunny gripping onto him, reassuring him that everything was right with the world, keeping him from drifting off into another fear-induced frenzy.


"You don't have to be so harsh you know." the boar complained to Rebecca, who had just roughly pushed him down towards the aeroplane doors.

"I know." Rebecca replied bluntly "I just don't care."

"Judy, open this door so we can drop off this trash." Rebecca commanded.

"Why so bossy?" Judy answered with a unhappy look, initiating the door's opening mechanism.

"If you'd had to put up with this pile of crud, you'd be keen to get rid of him too." Rebecca explained, giving Mr. Horn a very hard look.

The doors opened to reveal a flurry of flashing lights, blinding them.

"I didn't think we'd have the press arriving with us!" Nick exclaimed, stepping back into his cool character. "I'll handle this one, you didn't do so well with it last time, did you Carrots?"

"You're never going to let that one go are you?" Judy questioned, annoyed at how Nick would never stop mentioning her infamous mistake when she made her first press speech.

"Let go of what?" Rebecca interrupted, confused.

"Nope." Nick continued, ignoring Rebecca entirely. "I don't want another race war on our hands."

"Let go of what?" Rebecca repeated, a bit louder this time.

"I'll explain later." Boz stated, pushing Mr. Horn. "It's quite a long story."

Two antelope agents from the FIS, dressed in black suits, promptly walked up to them when they reached the bottom of the portable stairwell to the ground. The tall pair simply showed their badges and Boz pushed the large hulking animal he had been escorting over toward them, knowing these were the guys they were supposed to be giving the hostage to. With a simple nod, the two of them quickly walked the animal over to a black van, shoved him in the back and drove off, all while Nick and Rebecca talked to the reporters while Judy just stood there scowling.


"…and that's why Nick's never going to let Judy speak to reporters ever again." Boz concluded, having just summarised how Judy had managed to practically tear Zootopia apart with a single interview.

"For goodness sake, stop being so harsh!" Judy exclaimed in desperation, fumbling with the key to the hotel room the receptionist had given them. "It was a single mistake, you should've got over it by now."

"Probably never will." Nick replied coldly, but made a quick wink to Judy to try and show he wasn't entirely serious.

"So what's the plan for the week?" Rebecca casually asked, striding into the spacious hotel room through the door Judy had just opened.

"Well we're going to the Berlin Currywurst Museum tomorrow." Nick told Rebecca, already making a beeline for the couch. "And no jokes about German sausages tomorrow, they're the wurst."

"Nick, if you weren't my friend, I would've killed you because of your terrible jokes by now." Judy stated resignedly, plopping herself down next to the slyly grinning fox, tired of the day's events.

"I know you all love my jokes!" Nick exclaimed in a false voice, knowing that only the exact opposite was true. "Like the one where..."

"NO!" The other three of them shouted.

"Look we're all tired, it's about 6am in the morning Zootopian time, and I'm saying we should all just sleep, alright?" Judy proposed, her head sleepily resting on Nick's chest, her eyes and ears drooping.

"Seems good to me." Boz replied while Rebecca just nodded, and the two of them went to their room, which they had specifically asked for two single beds to be put into.

Judy waited for Nick to reply, but heard nothing, so she looked up at him to see the red fox already asleep, breathing in and out deeply. Smiling smugly, Judy just lay with him and slept, using his red bushy tail as a blanket.