Carmelita nervously started to walk around the rooftop while she tried to calm her accelerated heartbeat down, which wasn't very easy as she couldn't avoid seeing Sly's smile every time she closed her eyes, the same smile the raccoon would greet her with every time they met.
It was obvious that their relationship was somewhat complicated. They felt an odd attraction to each other from the moment they met, but they knew that due to one being a thief and the other an Interpol officer, a romantic relationship between them was impossible. However, this didn't prevent them from creating a special bond. Sly enjoyed Carmelita's company, despite her wielding a gun in most of their encounters, and, as he had shown a few minutes ago, he cares about the fox enough to leave a valuable piece of art behind to save her. As for Carmelita, she wasn't always irritated by the sarcasm and flirting of the raccoon and, after all these years, ended up genuinely having feelings for Sly, feelings that she thought were mutual until the clicking sound of her handcuffs broke her heart.
The fox left the rooftop angry and embarrassed at the fact that the thief tricked her, so she tried to clear her mind on the way home. Once Carmelita arrived at her apartment, she changed her uniform for an oversized t-shirt and a pair of shorts, lay down on her bed, and stared at the ceiling while trying to fall asleep.
She closed her eyes and listened to the beat of her heart getting slower and slower when a sudden knocking on her door made her sit up. The fox waited for a few seconds to see if the knocks would repeat, and they did. Carmelita walked to her apartment door and tried to see through the door hole, unfortunately, it was too dark for the inspector to recognize whoever was standing in front of her door, so she grabbed her shock gun and carefully opened the door enough to identify who knocked on her door.
"Sly?… What are you-" her voice broke when she saw that the raccoon was seriously hurt.
The thief was panting, using his cane to stay on his feet with one hand and covering a wound he had on the right side of his ribs with the other.
Carmelita quickly helped him, she left his cane on the floor and walked him to her bedroom, the fox told him to wait while she put a blanket she grabbed from her closet over the bed, to avoid bloodstains. Then she helped him lie down and turned on the bedside lamp.
The inspector struggled to stay calm as she looked at the wounded body of Sly, whose breathing was shallow and agitated.
"Keep applying pressure," said Carmelita as she placed the thief's hands on his wound.
The fox rushed to the bathroom to grab the first aid kit she had in the medicine cabinet. She sat on the bed, between the thief's legs, and began to take off his clothes. First, Carmelita put Sly's cap on her bedside table, then she removed his bloodstained gloves and carefully took off his blue jumper, which was ripped and also stained by the raccoon's blood.
"Who did this to you?" asked Carmelita after taking a closer look at the wound and realizing it was a claw wound.
"I followed that guy back to the museum" answered the thief in a weak voice.
Carmelita soaked a few gauzes in saline solution and proceeded to carefully clean the wound while dealing with her slightly shaky hands. Once the wound was cleaned, the fox used a cloth to dry it and applied a thin layer of antibiotic ointment to prevent any infection. Finally, the inspector helped Sly into a sitting position and dressed the wound with a bandage.
The fox rested her hands on his shoulders and looked down as she took a deep breath. Sly, who was feeling much better, held one of her hands, but she pulled it away.
"What were you thinking?... Why would you go back for that stupid helmet?" Carmelita told him off.
"I didn't go back for the helmet" answered the raccoon as he scratched his neck.
"Wh-then why did you do it?" asked the fox, confused.
"I had to retrieve my backpack,'' admitted the thief as he looked at the floor, where he had dropped his red backpack a few minutes before.
"Your backpack!?... You almost got killed for your backpack?" said Carmelita as she grabbed it.
"Check the small pocket inside" responded Sly.
Carmelita did exactly as the thief told her. She opened the backpack and checked the pocket to find an impeccably conserved newspaper clipping.
"Interpol rookie Carmelita Montoya Fox promoted to inspector" she read the headline.
"It's a little souvenir from our first encounter, it also brings me good luck" smirked Sly before taking the newspaper clipping, folding it carefully, and putting it back in his backpack.
"I-wh-" the fox, who was lost for words, blushed as she gazed into the brown eyes of the raccoon.
Sly gently pulled the fox closer to him by her arm and rested his head on her shoulder.
"I'm so thankful to have you" confessed the thief after surrounding Carmelita's body with his arms.
The fox felt a sensation of warmth growing in her chest as the raccoon's tail fondled her back and his breathing caressed her neck.
"Sly… I…" Carmelita's agitated voice made him move a few inches away from her and look the inspector straight in the eye "...I think I should clean up this mess" she referred to the blanket, the thief's clothes, and the drops of blood on the floor.
"Oh… right..." said Sly with a saddened voice before falling back on the bed "...by the way, would you mind helping me go to the bathroom?, I'd like to clean myself," he asked while looking at his hands.
"Sure" she helped him up and walked with him to the bathroom door.
After the door closed, Sly washed his hands with a bar of soap while the fox cleaned the bloodstains on the floor with a damp sponge and a cloth.
"Carmelita" the raccoon called her from the bathroom.
"Yes?" the fox responded as she walked back to the room.
"Do you have any clean clothes I can wear?"
"Yeah, of course," said Carmelita before taking an Interpol academy t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants from her closet and handing them to Sly.
The raccoon thanked her and closed the door again, it was then when the inspector looked at her clothes and realized she also had to change them. Once she was dressed with clean clothes, the fox grabbed the blanket that covered her bed and the clothes that were laying on the floor and washed them.