Author's Notes: If you're interested in songs for this chapter, I have 2: Pieces by Rob Thomas for when Honey saves Nick, and Bet On It by Troy for Nick's attitude after he recovers. Enjoy the chapter.
….
Reaching forward, she rubbed her cheek against his and breathed in his foxy musk. "Hmm, Nick's foxy smell with a hint of violets." Burying her nose into the thick fur below his ears, she took a deep breath and hummed happily. "I know I'm safe when your scent is in my nose."
It took Nick a moment to process what she'd said, but once he did, he wrapped his arms tightly around her and buried his own nose in the fur of her neck. "What a coincidence, your smell has grown on me, too."
He paused a moment, then laughed again, before raising his head to look down at her. "Which is quite impressive, considering that before our mad otter chase, I felt myself lucky if I could go a whole week without running into one of you paranoid bunnies."
Raising his hands to gesture, Nick elaborated, "You guys are always so quick to accuse and lay blame on one us foxes for things we never even thought of doing. We don't even have to look at one of you, just in your general direction, and 'Oh, the fox is going rob me!'" Nick clasped his paws over his heart and acted frightened, even as he changed his voice to a mock rabbit one. "Help, police, he's going attack me! Aah, he smiled and showed the tips of his fangs—he's going to eat me! Help! Someone, please, help me! Oh, woe is me, I forgot my taser! I'm going to die!'"
He looked down at the bunny in his lap who was staring at him with a look between amusement and irritation. "What? Am I wrong? Are the bunnies different in Bunnyburrow, because, Scout's Honor," and he held up his paw in the Junior Ranger Scout's honesty sign, "that's exactly how they act here in the city."
Judy raised a finger and opened her mouth to refute the claim when the bag full of fox-away items her dad tried pushing on her, along with the fox spray she'd carried around the whole time they were together three months ago, flashed through her mind. Dropping her hand without saying a word, she moaned and dropped her head forward to land against his chest. "No," she moaned. "They're not any different. You should have seen the bag of fox-away products my dad tried to foist on me when leaving for the city. I only took the fox spray to shut him up." Taking a deep breath, she continued, "I should have thrown it into the first trash bin I came to once I arrived in the city."
"So why didn't you?" When Judy didn't immediately answer, he continued, "That was something that really bothered me, and one of the main reasons I was such a jerk when you confronted me that first day. You acted all sweet and innocent, and yet was carrying around a product specifically designed to cause large amounts of pain to me and my species."
Taking a deep breath, Nick continued, "After hearing Bogo tear you down and I realized you had no support from your coworkers, I thought, Okay, she's fresh off the farm and has no one else to rely on, I'll let it slide. But even after we worked so well together and we found all the missing mammals, you still went home, showered, changed, had a nice sleep, and showed up at the press conference wearing it. I had proven to you that foxes could be trustworthy, and I was the only fox you were hanging around, so did you think you still might need to use it on me?"
Judy could hear the hurt in Nick's voice, and she cringed. Lifting her head from his chest, she glanced at him and took a deep breath. "I . . . I admit that when I first saw you in the ice cream shop that I thought I might need to . . . threaten you with it. But after meeting you, and even after you left me in wet cement, I'd already come to the conclusion that you weren't someone I'd ever need to use it on. Yes, you hustled people out of their money, you even hustled me and verbally tried to tear me down, but even then, you never struck me as the senseless-violence type."
Nick flicked his ears back briefly as he still didn't see why she thought she needed to wear it. "So why . . . ?"
Judy took another deep breath and rubbed her paws together. "You were attacked by prey and emotionally scarred when you were 9, right?" At Nick's confused nod, she continued, "Well, when I was 9, I also had a scarring experience by a predator, a . . . a red fox. And it wasn't just emotional."
The confusion drained from Nick's face, to be replaced with guilt and anguish. His cute, little honeybun had been attacked by a fox! When she was only nine! Nick rubbed his paws over his face. "I'm so sorry, Judy, I didn't know. I shouldn't have . . ."
Judy touched his arm. "It's okay, Nick. You couldn't have known, and I should never have let it affect me so badly. He was a jerk. I knew a lot of rabbits who were jerks. I thought I'd gotten over it and moved on. I knew not all foxes had to be jerks, and yet I was still, I guess, carrying it around, subconsciously afraid of running into another 'Gideon Grey.' Which is completely ridiculous," she said while waving her paws out to either side of her. "I mean, I knocked out a rhino in the ring back at the academy. If I ever met another 'Gideon Grey' I could just beat him to the ground, cuff him, and haul him to jail. I wouldn't even need fox spray to do it!"
She was practically panting now, she was so angry at herself while thinking about how her unresolved fear of Gideon nearly destroyed her friendship with Nick.
Nick watched her little tirade, then slid his paws up behind her ears and gently massaged her head as he dropped his forehead to rest against hers. Taking a deep breath, he murmured, "We were both in the wrong and let the past dictate too much of our future. Do you forgive me?"
Nodding enthusiastically, she said, "Absolutely. Do you forgive me?"
"100 percent." Rubbing his forehead against hers for a moment, he then lifted his head and asked, "So what exactly did Gideon do to you? You said that he didn't just scar you emotionally."
"Well, we were at the Carrots Day festival and he'd just stolen my friends' tickets, so me being me, I stood up to him and demanded them back. He thought it was funny that a rabbit was standing up to him, a predator, and so shoved me to the ground. I kicked him in the face and so he, um . . ." Lifting her paw, she brushed the fur aside that hid her scars.
Nick gulped. In the brilliant light streaming in through the window beside them, there was no mistaking the slightly raised, white lines that ran across Judy's cheek. "He clawed you! In the face!" At her nod, Nick said, "So at the press conference, when I bared my teeth and claws . . ."
Judy nodded. "Yeah, you took on almost the exact same stance Gideon did right before he—" Judy swiped her paw at Nick's cheek.
Nick's expression turned even guiltier and he tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling before running his paws down his face again. "I was such a jerk."
"Hmm, yeah, well, so was I, and so was Gideon. But he sincerely apologized when I was home, and I forgave him. And you forgave me, and I forgave you. So, we're all good now and it's all water under the bridge." She grinned brightly with her buck teeth on full display.
Nick met her radiant smile and had to sigh. "You really forgave him—just like that?"
"Hmm, yep. He's a completely changed mammal. Soft spoken and very apologetic. I think he was a little scared of my reaction to meeting him after what he did to me as a kit." Judy looked up as she thought of her meeting with Gideon, then returned her gaze to Nick's skeptical one. "Anyway, he works with my parents now, can you believe it? My paranoid parents working with a fox. Ooh, and my dad says he's the best baker in the tri-burrows area. I bet he makes a mean blueberry pie." With a wide grin she added, "We should stop by and get one when we visit my family."
Nick raised an eyebrow and asked, "We visit?"
"Oh, right, I was talking to my mom this morning, and we discussed the possibility of them coming down this weekend for a short visit and then maybe we visit them once my leg heals enough to walk on it."
She looked up at him with so much hope shining in her eyes, that Nick really didn't have the heart to tell her no. But before he could speak up and agree to her request, she suddenly sat up straighter and waved her hands in front of her in a 'hold on,' motion. Closing his mouth, he waited for her to speak.
"We can discuss my parents' visit later. Right now, I want to hear about your mother. You never explained what happened to her."
Her nose was twitching so cutely, and her big, amethyst eyes were looking at him so expectantly that for a minute Nick's brain short-circuited. Blinking the brain fog away, he asked, "You really want to hear the rest of the story? Right now? What about the rest of your tour?"
"Story first, then tour."
She was looking at him so hopefully, her sole focus riveted on him. Taking a deep breath, Nick looked behind her to the piano, then down at the bunny in his lap. Closing the lid, he stood up and turned back to the couch.
"No, Nick," Judy pouted, afraid Nick wasn't going to tell the story after all.
"Don't worry, I'll tell you."
"But I thought you needed to play to talk."
Nick grinned down at her as he plopped down on the couch. "I found something better to do with my hands." And to prove his point, he began lightly drawing designs on her back with his claws.
Judy's ears stood straight up and pointed toward him as her eyes widened, then closed as she hummed into the pleasurable touch. "Hmm, that feels really good, Nick."
With a smug grin she didn't see, he replied, "I'm glad you like it because I'm enjoying myself, too."
Judy found it hard to focus on anything but his touch, but she forced herself to open her eyes and meet his smug gaze. "Your mother?"
Keeping one hand on her back, he brought the other up to rub his chin. "Okay, so where was I?"
"You were getting beat to death when Honey saved you."
"Right, so, Honey shows up and chases those specist bastards off and would have called an ambulance, but I utterly refused to be seen by a paramedic or taken to the hospital. I'd seen firsthand their gross neglect and uncaring attitude when it comes to foxes. I wasn't going to let them rough me up, then sit me in some corner to bleed to death before seeing me. Uh-ah. Not happening. The hypocritic oath means nothing to them when a fox is dying in front of them."
Judy's ears dropped and she felt her eyes well back up with tears when she thought of Nick's two missing family members. Reaching up hesitantly, she gently stroked his cheek but said nothing.
Nick gave her a grateful smile and continued, "So anyway, Honey takes me home and calls a couple of her medical friends and they come over and patch me up. I was bedridden for two months, but Honey didn't waste that time and gave me bookwork to keep me busy."
"Bookwork?"
"She found out I was failing in school due to bullying, having my assignments stolen, my books ripped, and accused of cheating when I aced my tests, not to mention having dropped out completely once I ran away from home. Honey listened to my sob-story and immediately enrolled me in an online homeschool program and took it upon herself to homeschool me. I was reluctant at first, fearing she was going to expect something in return."
Nick waved a hand in the air as he explained, "If there was anything I'd learned in my short life, it was that nothing was free, and everything came with a price—a lot of times the price was too much to pay."
"Did she tell you why she took you in, a complete stranger?"
"Once I asked her, she explained how her husband and son died and that I was about the same age her son would've been had he survived. She said that if it had been her and Daphyd that died and her son had survived, that she hoped that someone would've had the heart to take him in and treat him as their own—and so that's what she did for me. She had just retired and had lots of time to devote to finish raising an angry, jaded fox kit."
Nick smiled at the memory, remembering the patience Honey showed him when he wasn't the easiest teenager to deal with. "She never gave up on me and told me to prove them wrong—that I wasn't some ignorant pelt, but that I was not only smart enough to keep up with them, but that I could beat them—academically, of course." Nick smiled again at the memory. "And I did. I showed them up and graduated when I was 16."
Judy's jaw dropped. "You what!?"
Nick showed her the smuggest grin she'd ever seen and said, "You heard me. Even if I didn't show it, I always paid attention in school and I retain over 90% of the things I see, read, or hear, so getting me caught up in my studies was easy. And with so much time and no negative distractions I blew through my assignments. I even took some college classes that were offered to seniors."
Judy could only stare in wonder. She knew Nick was intelligent, but this was beyond anything she could've imagined. "Wow, Nick, I'm feeling really stupid now, remembering how I called you an articulate fella."
Nick chuckled. "You have no idea how accurate that description is, though." At Judy's head tilt of confusion, he explained, "I've always had a way with words, both written and spoken, but especially the spoken."
Meeting her focused amethyst gaze, he explained, "This is very important, because my mom got sick just after my 15th birthday. A real nasty canine virus that had a high death rate. She was hospitalized, and at first, she was getting the proper medical treatment—which was shocking to me at the time, but I think it had to do with Honey coming with me to visit her that convinced the doctors to treat my mom right. Everyone knew she had connections with both the military and the government, so no one wanted to catch her ire." Nick gave a bitter laugh.
"But that changed, didn't it?"
"Oh, yeah, did it change." He paused in thought, then continued, "She was in there for almost five months—it took that long to fully overcome the virus and began recovering from the damage it inflicted—which meant a lot of medical bills, which meant I was still hustling, even while working on my high school diploma." Meeting her stunned gaze, he said, "My mom couldn't work, and my sister, who was a senior at the time, wasn't making enough to hardly feed herself, so all my hustling money went to pay for mom's medical expenses. Any leftover over money I gave to Anya."
"You didn't keep any for yourself?"
Nick shook his head. "I didn't need to. Honey took care of all my needs, so everything I made went to my family."
Judy nodded, her heart swelling for the fox in front of her. Even after all the bad stuff that happened, he still put his family first. Nick had to be one of the most unselfish mammals she'd ever met—regardless of what he said about himself.
Scratching his chin, Nick came back to the story. "So back to my mom." Taking a deep breath and going back to drawing random shapes on Judy's back with his claws, he continued. "Like I said, it took them five months to rid my mom of the virus and then began the process of healing from the wasting disease. She was making leaps and bounds at recovering her strength and stamina, but a few days before she was scheduled to be released, she started going downhill again. It made no sense, either. The virus was completely out of her system and she was doing great, and then she's suddenly sick all over again."
Tipping his head back against the couch cushions, he closed his eyes while remembering the events of that time. "I tried asking the doctors what was going on, but they gave me the runaround and acted . . . dodgy. As a hustler, I was already pretty good at reading people, so I knew they weren't being honest with me. They knew what was wrong with my mom but weren't admitting to it. So, I took it upon myself to find out what. While sneaking around, I overheard a couple of the doctors discussing a new drug they had began administering to my mom and a few other patients."
Nick met Judy's shocked gaze again. "Talk about a red flag. My mom shouldn't have even be on any drugs at that point, so I had to find out what it was. It took a while, and I almost got caught a few times, but I managed to get the name. And guess what I found out when I poked it up online?"
"What?" Judy whispered while holding her breath.
"Nothing, nada, zilch. There wasn't anything about the drug because it wasn't on the market yet."
Judy dug her blunt claws into Nick's shirt as she squeezed the material in a death grip. "You mean . . . you mean they were testing the drug out on your . . . on your mom!"
"Bingo. My mom and quite a few other, lower-class patients."
Judy didn't have the words to describe what she was feeling. "That's just . . . just . . ." Taking a deep breath, she asked, "What did you do?"
"I brought it up to Honey and she was livid, let me tell you." With a humorless chuckle, he continued. "She was ready to take it to the police, but I talked her out of it. No one would believe the word of fox, a teenage one at that. And even if Honey convinced someone to look into it, you can bet the criminals would have destroyed the evidence before it could be collected." With a wide smile, Nick said, "I convinced Honey to let me gather the evidence myself."
"How'd you do that?" Judy was honestly curious and wanted to better understand how his mind worked.
"First, I scoured Daphyd's old architect books and blueprints to better understand how buildings worked—their ventilation systems, electrical, stuff like that. Once I understood basic building structures, Honey was able to get me the blueprints for the hospital. After coming up with a plan of action she approved of, Honey supplied me with tiny cameras that recorded both visual and audio, and, with Finnick's help—he was my hustling partner by then—we were able to set the cameras in all the patients' rooms who were being experimented on, and even in the offices of the doctors involved. Finnick's small size really came in handy then. The air ducts were a piece of cake for him to crawl through."
Judy met Nick's smug grin with one of her own. She wanted to ask more about Finnick, but didn't want to get lost on another tangent, and so instead, she said, "Wow. That's incredible." His ability to easily find where the wolves took Mr. Manchas now made much more sense. "So you were able to get all the evidence you needed?"
"Yep. It took a couple of months to set everything up and get it all recorded, but once we had enough and the list of all the patients being experimented on, we sent all the recordings and the evidence we'd gathered, including a sample of the experimental drug they were testing, anonymously to the ZPD. The case blew up all over the news and the doctors are now serving twenty-five to fifty years in prison."
Judy didn't know how to respond. Talk about a landmine of information on the mammal known as Nicholas P. Wilde. With a smirk of her own crossing her lips, she asked, "So is this one of the secrets you thought I'd be interested in? That you're some kind of unofficial secret agent?"
Nick's ears perked up at the question, but then he laughed. "Not quite."
"So what's the secret? You still have two left to show me up here."
"That's right,"—reaching forward, he booped her twitching nose, making it stop—"it's something I can show you."
….
Hi, WingedKatt, here. How's this: Nick Wilde, unofficial secret agent. ;) Honey's support has definitely given Nick a leg up from anything he's experienced before and has opened opportunities he's never thought possible. Nick and Judy have finally discussed the cause of their misunderstanding at the press conference and can truly put the past behind them. So what are the two last surprises Nick has in store for Judy?
Stay tuned. Chapter 11: Is This Legit? will post on Wednesday.
Any thoughts or comments? Leave me a message. =)
