SO...
Either you liked or hated the previous chapter. If you hated it, then stop reading. I ain't on this site to hear rude complaints. But if you enjoyed it, then congratulations!
You've suffered your way through the entire length of my story! And now we're on the last chapter! How exciting!
I dislike using the adjective "supernatural" to describe the contents of Chapter 18, but that's what it kind of was, wasn't it? I've had this idea in my head for almost 9 months about how to reach the climax for this damned story, and that was it. Poof.
I'd just like to add that the "supernatural" kind of feeling will not return.
Well, I'm done rambling. Let's just wrap this story up, shall we?
"Hold up," Finnick aggressively interrupted, his voice audibly enraged and confused even through the weak strength of the call. "So you telling me that Nicky ain't dead? Cause I just got off the phone with V and he has a very different story. What kind of game you playing, rabbit?"
"I'm not playing any kind of game!" Judy frantically explained as she paced back and forth across the MGRI's third floor lobby. Fresh sunlight streamed in from the corner windows only a few feet away from her, turning her tight police uniform a shade of light blue. "Nick isn't dead! He called me!"
"With what?" Finnick asked, his voice filled with suspicion, disbelief, and above all rudeness. If he were standing in front of her Judy swore she'd tackle him to the floor.
"With his phone!" She yelled into her own phone she was holding right next to her stiffened ear. Panic and annoyance were building up inside of her already shaky voice. She didn't have time to explain this story all over again just because he didn't believe her!
"I told you this already!" She frantically grumbled, a small frown becoming furrowed into her otherwise panicked and nervous face as she quickened her pacing. "I left it at his grave here at the institute when he died! And a few days later, after I left you that message to call me back, I got a call while on duty! I didn't bother checking who it was; I just assumed it was you! But it was Nick. I swear on my honor as an officer of the city it was him."
"And how do you know it was him and not just some random mammal?" Finnick argued, fully-fledged rage and an overwhelming amount of disbelief in his voice. Judy could feel herself beginning to tremble with rage at the short fox's stubbornness. What had she ever done to lose his trust? Would she have to text him a photo of Nick just to get him to believe her?
"Because I know!" She violently screamed, her teeth clenching against one another as her frustration with the situation became visible on her face. Finnick didn't respond to her outburst, instead remaining eerily silent on the other end of the line.
"Ahem," A startled and almost disgusted voice called out from another part of the lobby, and Judy whirled around on her toes and stared across the L-shaped room at the flawlessly white front desk just beside the floor's elevators. Sitting at the desk's computer was a female elk in a white uniform. Her huge eyes were staring right through her like two arrows, and a frown was entrenched on her forehead. Judy awkwardly smiled in apology and walked away from the floor-to-ceiling windows she had been pacing in front of and jumped up onto the rhino-sized blue hospital chair at the end of a row of similar chairs that took up the entirety of the lobby's open space.
A small part of her screamed at her to yell back at the elk. The mammal she had killed had risen from the dead; what did some hospital receptionist know about what she had been through? Nothing, was the answer! She had all the reason in the world to be as loud as she wanted!
She's just doing her job, Judy. Judy calmly thought to herself, silencing the rageful voice, as she lowered her rear end to uncomfortably sit on the edge of the oversized chair. Right now you don't have time to be angry. Just focus on Finnick. Calm yourself.
"You still there, Finn?" Judy carefully asked, and she heard a muffled grumble from the other end of the line.
"Good," She apologetically said, turning her eyes up from the floor to intently scan the dark green forest and mid-afternoon sky just beyond the panes of glass in front of her.
"Listen, Finn," She delicately began after several seconds of strained silence. She could still feel her friend's disbelief radiating through her phone. "I know its a lot to take in, but it's the truth. I'm here. Chief Bogo's coming here when he has an opening. Doctor Zdanskyi, who's helped Nick, is here. We're all here, and somewhere here with us is Nick. I'm more than positive."
The other end of the line remained completely silent, and Judy let loose a sigh of disappointment as her ears fell behind her head in worry.
"How's he doing?" Finnick suddenly asked after what felt like an eternity of silence. Judy perked her ears at the sound of his tired and worried voice, and she smiled as her eyes scanned the forest beyond the glass with reinvigorated intensity.
"I don't know," She admitted, a new sense of insecurity washing over her, and she gripped the edge of her seat with her left paw as her feet began to nervously swing back and forth. "I've been here for twelve hours. You'd think that someone would tell me how's he's doing."
"Yeah," Finnick acknowledged with a dry chuckle, his voice now sounding just as worried as hers. "Tell me about what's happened there."
"Not alo-" Judy began, but the sound of a lock turning and a door opening drew her attention and gaze away from the window and phone and towards her left. The lobby had three doors leading out of it excluding the ones behind the front desk; the elevators, the stairs, and the massive windowless ones that led into the bowels of the hospital. It was the ones leading into the hospital that had opened, and in the doorway there stood an old tiger in a flawlessly white labcoat.
"I have to go, Finnick," Judy frantically said in farewell, taking her phone away from her ear as she slipped off the chair, her eyes never leaving Doctor Zdanskyi's tired gaze. She hurriedly walked towards the tall figure who had only now just finished scanning the deserted lobby, and in the second before she hung up her phone and shoved it back into her front pocket she heard Finnick yell something in protest, but she didn't have time to talk with him anymore. She'd just have to call him back once she had finished talking with Zdanskyi.
"Doctor Zdanskyi, how's he doing?" She hurriedly asked from across the room, feeling nervous and worried and guilty and a hundred other emotions.
"Ms. Hopps, it's good to see you," Doctor Zdanskyi casually greeted, his paws moving from his sides to grip one another behind his back. His face was calm but worn, and bags were almost visible under his piercing blue eyes. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm not here to talk about me, Zdanskyi," Judy quickly stated as she came to a stop just in front of the tiger, her jaw clenched in nervousness as her eyes tried to decipher the expression held within the doctor's gaze and as her already racing heartbeat became like a machine gun. "Tell me about how my partner's doing."
"Of course," Zdanskyi said with a polite nod of his head. He turned away from her and began to stride down the long, windowless, white hallway beyond the wide doorway, and he motioned her to follow with a flick of his striped tail. Judy immediately followed his command, running alongside him to keep up with his quick pace. She couldn't help but feel a small wave of dread pass over her as the metallic doors behind her loudly buzzed and automatically shut, leaving her in the thin hallway with medical beds and carts crowding each of its sides and whose only source of light was angelically white fluorescent lights coming from overhead.
"Its needless to say that the circumstances of Mr. Wilde's... resurrection are beyond unique," Doctor Zdanskyi quickly commented as he piloted them down more windowless and deserted hallways. "There have been mammals who have risen from the dead before, but all of them came back within half an hour. It took your partner almost four days to return."
"Has that had any major medical implementations?" Judy worriedly asked, glancing up at Doctor Zdanskyi as she tried to remain by his side while avoiding a collision with one of the dozens of movable beds that lined the hallway's sides. A hundred different possibilities of her partner's health - all with dreadful endings - rose up in her mind, and she gulped with fear as tsunamis of guilt and worry flooded her mind and emotions.
"One of the institute's staff found your partner dragging himself along the gravel path leading out of the gardens shortly after Chief Bogo called and alerted the Institute to the developing situation," Doctor Zdanskyi carefully began after several seconds of what had looked to be serious thought. "It was then that he was rushed into emergency care, and then into surgery, and then into recovery."
"What happened to him?" Judy frantically inquired as she turned with Doctor Zdanskyi to walk down a wider, sunlight-filled hallway with empty patient rooms on one side and storage rooms on the other. A variety of white-clad mammals ranging from a beaver to a hippo were rushing back and forth across the hallway, all of them carrying some kind of instrument or form, but none of them held Judy's interest for more than an instant.
"A swollen chamber of the heart, severe heart palpitations, very shallow breathing, and very weak senses of smell, hearing, and sight," Doctor Zdanskyi replied, and Judy felt her heart drop to the ground at his answer as a fresh feeling of guilt entered her sore heart.
"His swollen chamber has been taken care of with a small incision through his rib cage," Doctor Zdanskyi explained, turning his calm eyes downwards to look at her. "I hope you don't mind that we executed the procedure without your permission. If we had waited any longer then his situation could've become even more dire."
"Will he live?" Judy frantically asked as her entire body began to tremble and as her state of mind began to decay into nothingness, but before she could fall into a guilty state of panic Doctor Zdanskyi calmly nodded, moving his eyes away from her to observe several of the institute's staff run back and forth between two rooms opposite each other at the end of the long, bright hallway.
"He will make a full recovery and live to be as old as you or me, with the help of the right medicines," Doctor Zdanskyi responded, and Judy breathed a huge sigh of relief as some of the worry and nervousness fled from her. Her dumb fox wasn't going anywhere just yet.
"Just between you and me, I received orders from Chief Bogo to keep you away from your partner and in the dark about his health until he himself arrived," Doctor Zdanskyi said to her, his voice hushed, as his eyes continued to scan the staff running back and forth now only a few dozen feet in front of them.
Judy felt her eyes widen in confusion, and a small frown became furrowed into her forehead as she opened her mouth to scorn the Chief's name. How dare he do something like that to her?
"I would've done the same," Doctor Zdanskyi commented before she could say anything, and Judy felt even more anger well up inside of her small body. "I've been through this experience with many mammals before - where they're so eager and nervous to see their loved ones that they'll do anything just to meet them."
"That doesn't give you the right to keep me away from him!" Judy growled, stomping her foot down and clutching her paws into fists as her ears fell behind her head in rage and as her gaze raked over Doctor Zdanskyi's mockingly calm face. They both stood motionlessly, their walk halted by her anger, but she didn't care one bit about that. She needed an explanation.
"You are correct," Doctor Zdanskyi acknowledged with a small nod as took a step away from her and towards a closed door on the outer side of the wide hallway. "I'm obligated to inform you about your loved one's conditions by law. In fact, with regards to the judiciary, what Chief Bogo ordered me to do was illegal. However, as Mr. Wilde's medical overseer, I can decide when you may see him."
Judy felt confusion and then realization take the place of anger inside of her as Doctor Zdanskyi slowly opened the heavy, white door on the other side of the hallway. It creaked and groaned from its own weight, but once it was completely opened the unmistakable glare of sunlight streamed into the hallway, surrounding her like a blanket. The interior of the room was spotlessly clean and, aside from the beeps of medical equipment and the gentle hum of the hospital, as quiet as a thief.
"This is Mr. Wilde's room," Doctor Zdanskyi explained with a warm smile - a sight she had almost never, if ever, seen on his face - and she nodded in understanding, not needing an explanation, as she walked away from the hallway's inner wall and towards the open door, her nervous eyes trying to catch a glance of bright orange as he worried mind screamed at her to just turn away. She ignored the voice and continued her cautious advance towards the doorway, but just before she could see inside of the room she simultaneously turned towards Doctor Zdanskyi while her pace slowed.
"Is there anything I should know about his condition?" She cautiously yet formally asked, trying to keep herself as calm and collected as possible as she straightened her back and straightened her ears. Doctor Zdanskyi nodded, taking his massive paw off the door's doorknob and walking around it to stand at her heels, his squinted eyes focused on the sunlight pouring into her partner's hospital room from a massive floor-to-ceiling window.
"He's on crutches for the moment, just to help him keep balanced," The tiger quietly said with a small smile. "He's refused to eat or sleep, too. Ever since the anesthesia from the surgery wore off he's been begging to see you. Given the circumstances he's quite the sly and stubborn romantic, but, like I mentioned earlier, his senses still aren't functioning properly, and he is in recovery from chest surgery. Just try to remain calm and quiet and no problems should arise."
"Will do," She said with a hushed voice as a small, eager smile formed on her face and as fresh energy and nervousness entered her system. She could feel her feet beginning to bounce her body up and down in sheer anticipation. The moment had finally arrived.
She took a deep, gleeful breath and turned away from Zdanskyi, who was still staring down at her with a calm and warm expression, and took several silent, slow steps into the room, her padded feet sliding across the white tiled floor like water running down a river.
"I'll leave you two alone," Doctor Zdanskyi whispered from behind her, and Judy nodded, only barely registering his voice and the almost-silent noise made by the door as it clicked shut.
The hospital room was flawlessly white and grey. The wall opposite the door was completely glass, looking out over the treetops just beyond the Institute's boundaries and the rolling hills far in the distance where the sun was slowly but surely descending towards. A few feet behind it was a light grey movable wall that curved around to make an almost L shape with the room's left wall. On the left side of the room, before the movable wall, was a round, deer-sized table with two equally sized chairs beside it. On the right side of the room was a low, medium-sized bed, with an assortment of screens and other pieces of medical equipment hanging on the wall behind it and notably missing the mammal that should have been in it.
So now he decides to get up without an alarm. Judy dryly thought as she gulped in anticipation, alerted by the sight of so many tubes and wires leading towards the bed, but she quickly pushed down the new spout of worry and wandered away from the doorway and into the center of the room. The gentle din of the hospital had faded into the air, and Judy tilted her ears towards the temporary wall that had been set up in the corner when she noticed the sounds of breathing coming from behind it.
Her heart beat sped up as she approached the stiff curtain, but as she walked closer and closer to it she slowed her pace until she was dead still. Her heart was faster than a roaring V12, and she forced herself to take several deep, calming breaths to try and reduce the nervousness inside her.
Pull yourself together, Judy. She told herself, squinting her eyes in response to the setting sun that had just begun to disappear behind a forested hill as she stared at the corner of the movable wall only a few inches in front of her. Nick is right there. You killed him, and now he's back. You need to talk to him. Now.
With one last deep breath and a little more emotional preparation Judy took the last step needed to round the movable wall, and as she stood in the gap between the stiff curtain and the glass wall she heard a small, nervous squeak escape from her lips, and she moved her paws up to cover her open mouth as her eyes widened tenfold, ignoring the sunlight pouring into the room, and let her bright red ears fall behind her head in embarrassment.
Standing only a few feet in front of her was her partner. There was a crutch under each of his arms, supporting him, and a light green hospital gown was thrown over his shoulder. He looked just as thin as he did when she last saw him, although his ruffled fur had been neatly groomed and had shed to the point where it looked like it had when before he had visited Arctic One. He was facing the window, his eyes lazily closed and a relaxed yet oddly warm smile plastered on his face. He looked genuinely happy, a state of being she had barely scene him in without his usual sarcasm. There were two small carts just behind him, one to each of his sides. One of them led an IV into his right forearm from a bag of blood hooked onto the end of the cart while the other was a wheeled oxygen tank. A fox-sized breathing mask was strapped over his long muzzle, and his chest rose and fell with each strained breath.
And he was buck naked.
His fur gleamed like fire in the sunlight and Judy couldn't help but stare at it. She could feel even more blood flowing into her face as her eyes traveled down the length of his chest to stare at his groin, left completely exposed to her gaze. She couldn't help but feel something tingle inside of her as she stared at it, but she suppressed the feeling as her paws tightened around her muzzle, trying to catch any sounds from slipping out of her mouth and rudely alerting her partner to her presence.
But Nick already knew someone was standing beside him. He had been basking in the sun for a good half hour, and had heard his room's door open and close several times during that time. His mind was focused on the warmth flowing throughout his body and thawing his frozen and numbed chest. He swore he was beginning to fall asleep standing up and hallucinating some of the sounds he heard with all the pills Stripes had given him. After about ten feet his vision became so blurry that it was useless, as did his hearing, while his sense of smell was flat out gone. The sun was a mere spot of yellow against a bright blue background.
Nick smiled as he listened to the sounds the mammal beside him was making. He could hear Doctor Z's pen scribbling against the clipboard he always kept with him like a rabbit's foot. Or was that his breathing? He couldn't tell the difference, and right now he didn't really care.
"If you don't have the rabbit I ordered right now, Stripes, then I'm going to bust something," He jokingly commented, his voice crackly and sarcastic, and he tiredly opened his splotchy vision to squint at the dazzling sky.
The mammal next to him didn't respond, and Nick listened to the quiet and muffled sounds it was making for several seconds before he gave off an almost indistinguishable shrug. He could only guess what the tiger was doing.
"I guess something's busted," He sarcastically grumbled, turning his body away from the window as he painfully and stiffly moved his crutches towards Doctor Zdanskyi. He suppressed a squeak of pain as the IV coming from the cart connecting his forearm to a bag of blood tugged on his skin, and his limp ears only faintly heard the wheeled oxygen tank to his left side squeak as it too turned. He kept his eyes on the setting sun for a few final seconds as he slowly and shakily stabilized himself with his crutches.
"Has Chief Buffalo Butt arrived yet?" Nick asked, turning his splotchy, squinted vision towards the mammal merely feet in front of his worn body. "Cause right now he's really starting to get on the two nerves inside me that haven't died. What time did he... wait. Who're you?"
Nick squinted his vision even more and leaned towards the short, blurry, grey-and-blue figure in front of him. He tried to sniff the mammal's scent, but all he could smell was the oxygen being pumped into his lungs.
On the other hand, Judy was silently panicking, her face just as red as Nick's exposed... she couldn't bring herself to even think of that part's word!
Her eyes were incessantly skipping between that part of him now completely revealed to her and a bandage tightly wrapped around his mid chest; the place where Zdanskyi had undoubtedly entered to perform the surgery. She didn't know whether to feel completely embarrassed or absolutely enthralled. Sure, she had had the occasional thought about her partner's body here and there, and over the course of his recovery she had seen him 'in the raw' almost every day. But now, the sight of his red fur and lean muscles made something else throb up inside her. Despite her indecisiveness, the already immense feeling of guilt inside her grew tenfold as her eyes continued to penetrate his thin body.
"Jeez, Nick, put on some clothes!" She loudly and hurriedly complained, spinning away from Nick so that she didn't have to stare at his nude body anymore as her arms fell to wrap around her midsection and as a brutally embarrassed yet ecstatic smile formed on her face. Nick felt his eyes widen in joy at the sound of her voice, and a massive smile crawled onto his face as much his breathing mask would let it.
"Carrots!" He sarcastically cheered in surprise, the warm feeling in his chest spreading throughout his body as a rosy lens came over his vision. He took several quick yet small steps towards the blur of grey and blue, his crutches creaking under the weight of his body.
"If I had known you were coming I would've tidied up a little!" Nick humorously exclaimed as he came to a stop just in front of his partner, his hunched back making her appear just a little closer to his face. Judy could feel his gaze burning into the back of her head, and with a racing heart she steadily turned towards him, forcing herself to keep her vision on his face and not his groin.
They were on eye level with one another, and they stared into each other's eyes with such intensity that Judy felt that she would melt under his watchful gaze while Nick could feel his sedated yet heavy heart beginning to beat hard, straining the stitches sealing the incision on his chest.
"You've changed a lot," Judy warmly yet also wistfully commented, her eyes prowling Nick's slender, worn face. Nick snickered at the comment, keeping his gaze locked with the two pools of purple and the soft, blurry face only inches in front of him.
"No crap, fluff," He humorously replied, shifting on his crutches so that his muzzle was mere inches away from Judy's and his crutches trapped her from retreating. "I've always thought being alive is better than being buried."
Judy chuckled at his dry humor, finding it more annoying and guilt-inducing than funny. But this was the first moment ever since that fateful day when he boarded the ship to Arctic One that she had heard one of his wry jokes from his own mouth.
Without even thinking Judy forced herself into Nick, wrapping her arms around his shoulder blades as she plunged her muzzle into his dense neck fur. She curled around him, letting darkness take over her vision as his warm fur invited her to plunge even deeper into it. Nick balanced himself on his crutches and, as much as his sore and unsteady body would let him, he wrapped his arms around Judy's small back and curled his neck around hers. He could feel her heartbeat through her uniform, and his extended fingers gently wandered around her upper back, warming her bracing uniform. He closed his eyes just as he took in a deep breath, hoping to catch a whiff of her relaxing yet enticing scent on his tongue, but a wave of disappointment passed over him as the familiar smell of oxygen flowed throughout his veins.
Their hearts were only centimeters apart, and Nick swore he could feel his reaching out to hers. Judy could also feel the sensation, and she pressed her body against his even more. Her heart reached back, and for a moment both she and him were jolted by a wave of electricity as their affection connected. It was a euphoric moment, and Nick felt his hazy mind plunge into an ocean of love at the feeling. After years of suppression and heartache - not only after his 'murder' - he was here, at the end of the struggle. He had finally won.
Nick was the first to gently pull away from the embrace after what seemed to be an eternity of love, feeling what little strength that was left in his shoulders beginning to waver. Judy wistfully followed, not wanting to separate from him but feeling the urgency in his strained muscles. She stared into his tired emeralds affectionately and moved her right paw to rest on his that had fallen from her back and returned to the grip on the crutch under his arm.
"Think you could help me to bed, Ms. Hopps?" Nick asked, raising his right eyebrow in deviousness, and Judy raised her left to mimic him as a mischievous expression came onto her face.
"Of course, Mr. Wilde," She answered, moving out of his way so that he had a clear path to the low mattress halfway across the room but refusing to budge from his side, her muscles tensing just in case he collapsed to the floor.
"You've always been such a worrier," Nick grunted as he slowly yet steadily limped across the open floor, wincing in pain as the cart connecting the IV in his arm to a blood bag wheeled along beside him.
"That's what saved your skin a few times on the force, wasn't it?" Judy rhetorically asked, keeping her paws raised to Nick's side and carefully monitoring each of his steps as if he were a kit taking its first steps. Nick snickered in laughter, his toothy smile quickly becoming strained as his shoulders began to scream and twitch in exhaustion, dead from supporting his entire body's weight for the better part of an hour.
"Pull over a chair, Cottontail," Nick eventually said when the low, wide bed was within reaching distance. Judy didn't budge from his side, keeping her body ready to catch him, but when he turned to look at her with a reassuring gaze she reluctantly made herself relax.
"Fine," She sternly and warmly replied, her voice secretly worried, as she strode away from his side and towards the large chair against the wall opposite the side of the bed. "But don't expect me to pick you up when you fall!"
"Hopefully I won't need your help," Nick commented with a huff as he rotated himself, the carts to his sides now both on his right as their cords became tangled, and he lowered himself to sit on the edge of the stiff, uncomfortable mattress as he stared at Judy's blurry body. "If I'm not killed the next time I should be dead then I'll just have to kill myself!"
"You wouldn't dare," Judy challenged as she pulled the massive, wooden chair away from the wall it was resting against and drug it across the open tile floor. At first she had a difficult time pulling the heavy object, and Nick snickered in laughter as he watched on.
"Not without my permission!" She grunted as she oriented herself towards the chair and wrapped both her paws around one of its legs. "If you die it'll only be if I kill you!"
Nick laughed at her joke, resting his crutches against the bed's side as his left paw removed his unworn garment from his shoulder and laid it beside the supports before he began to slowly and carefully scoot towards the pillows at the head of the bed.
"I wouldn't put that past you, Sweetheart," Nick jovially said, scooting his behind towards the edge of the edge of the thin polyester sheets with small, painful movements. Judy didn't smile at his joke, thankful that he wasn't looking at her face.
But I did kill him. She grievously and dreadfully thought to himself as she rotated the chair and began to push it towards the end of the bed. I was the one who didn't do enough for him. Everyone else was doing something, even him! Why couldn't I have done anything more? Why'd I have to be so weak?
When Nick was finally rested underneath the bed's translucent sheets he rested his back against the bed's flimsy headboard and lazily turned his head towards Judy. A small wave of worry swept over his mind as he watched her push the chair to stand next to the two carts by the bed's side. She seemed tense - too tense for what was going on. There was something weighing down her mind and pulling her into a quiet and reserved slump.
"What's up, Carrots?" Nick called out, his quiet voice barely audible over the noise the breathing mask was making, and he pulled the device off his muzzle and let it fall to rest around his neck.
"Nothing," Judy called out a little too quick as she rounded the chair and pulled herself atop it, finding that it was just perfect for her body despite its massive size. The ever rising tide of guilt within her was lapping at the last few atolls of happiness inside her, and as she sat on the chair's edge and looked over her partner the tide of guilt began to rise like global warming.
Nick, on the other paw, didn't believe her answer for a moment. She was looking over him as if she was the one responsible for putting him through all the dejection and agony he had experienced, and when her wide, tense eyes connected with his the worry in him grew exponentially.
"Come on, Fluff," He warmly chided, sliding his paw across the polyester sheets to grip her paws tightly clenched together as they rested in her lap. "I thought you were an honest bun."
Judy let her eyes drop to her lap as Nick took her paw in his, and the ever-rising tide of guilt was momentarily halted as she felt his slow and steady heartbeat pass up her arm and into her chest. A small, unworried smile formed on her face, and she squeezed his paw back as their fingers curled around one another and as she silently moved their interconnected digits off her thighs back onto the bed's sheets.
"Nick," She gently began, searching her partner's tired half-closed eyes for the right words as her grip on his paw tightened even further. "If you could go back in time and fix something terrible you put someone through, would you?"
Nick remained silent for several seconds, his lazy eyes studying his partner's face for any sign of emotion seeping through her grey fur. His skills were beyond rusty, and his blurry vision didn't aid him in any way, but sunken somewhere in the wide pools of purple on her face was guilt, and he let loose a sad sigh as his head gently fell against the bed's backboard and as his tired eyes closed shut. He could feel what she was feeling, and he didn't like it one bit. Luckily, his silver tongue was just as operational as the last day he had used it.
"No," He honestly answered, his fingers curling around the soft paw holding his. "I wouldn't, because everything that's happened has led me here. And right now there's nowhere else I'd rather be."
The last of Judy's sanity broke down, and she squeezed her eyes shut as her ears fell behind her head and she plunged her head towards Nick and her's connected paws as a flood of sudden tears began to drip onto the white sheets. Grief and guilt consumed her entire body once again, and she was back in that dark place she had been right after his death. Even his gentle heartbeat couldn't soothe her pain. She had killed this mammal. The mammal she loved - and he loved her! Yet he didn't seem to care about the blood on her paws! She was so guilty, and he still loved her! Why'd he have to be so forgiving, and why'd she have to be so weak and lazy?
Nick was stunned by her outburst, and he felt his heart break in two as tears dripped from her closed eyes and onto his fingers. He squeezed her paw even tighter, but her loud and guilty crying refused to subside, and with a sudden urge to comfort her and a new throb of love in his chest he moved his left paw across the sheets to gently stroke the back of her head.
"Judy," He soothingly began, ruffling the fur on the bases of her ears, but Judy shot her head upward, throwing his paw into the air as her miserable and guilty eyes connected with his. She tried staring into his warm, worried pools of green with all her might, but all she could think about was the life slipping out of them once again, and she slowly shook her head as her jaw clenched even tighter and as fresh tears began to gloss over her eyes.
"I killed you, Nick," She painfully began, her eyes only briefly darting up to connect with his, and Nick felt his wounded heart snap in two pieces at the sound of her dreadful and pitiful voice. "I ended your life, and you don't seem to care. And I don't understand why."
"It's because-" Nick began, but he felt a massive urge rise up inside him as Judy cut his words short and turned her full gaze towards him.
"I killed you..." She said, her words drifting off as her eyes once again fell to the bedsheets. "I killed you, and I loved you. I'm a murderer. Maybe I do deserve to di- MMPH!"
Judy reeled back as Nick thrust his muzzle into hers, her eyes the size of saucers and fingers suddenly extended in surprise. His lips pressed against her gently, enticing her to join him. For a moment she overcame her guilt and all the negative emotions inside her fell away. A warm, fuzzy feeling rose up in her chest, and slowly she began to kiss back just as Nick wrapped his paw around the back of her head, pulling her closer towards him. She accepted his invitation and scooted over from the chair and onto the edge of the bed, settling herself into a kneeling position as she wrapped her left paw around the back of his head and as the fingers on her right rapturously interlocked with his.
Their first kiss was blissful and heavenly for the both of them, and a feeling of triumph passed over Judy as their tongues began to wrestle in each other's mouths. But Nick didn't feel as energetic as she did. Underneath his closed eyelids tears of fear and guilt were beginning to form.
His partner was dead wrong. She wasn't just a dumb bunny if she honestly thought she was his murderer; she was a retarded one! His Primal Self was the one who had killed him!
Yet, in a dark and mysterious way, his Primal Self was himself, wasn't it? He was the only mammal to blame for his death. Regret filled his entirety as the first few days in the darkness with his partner blitzed past his mind's eye. Why had he waited so long to try and improve? It wasn't like he had anything better to do!
And look where that had led his partner! It didn't matter about if he lived or died, only if she was happy or not. It was all his fault. He was the mammal responsible for putting his partner through all the guilt and pain and suffering. Not only in these past few days, too. He still remember seeing her for the first time when his Primal Self had stalked her and he had been forced to watch on. All that time he was gone, she was grieving. She was in pain. Nothing but pain. If anyone deserved to die for what they'd done, it was him.
"You stupid, stupid rabbit," He managed to say between guilty and horrendously wretched wheezes, pulling his lips away from Judy's and moving his left paw away from hers to gently stroke her puffy cheek. His eyes were just barely cracked open, and the silent tears beginning to stream down his face blurred his already fuzzy vision, making his partner no more than a mass of color.
"You're as innocent as you've always been," He continued, his voice filled to the brim with self-loathing as the backs of fingers gently traveled down his partner's face, and he couldn't help but feel his heart swell and press against his ribs. "If anyone's to blame for all this, it's me. I'm the one who didn't do enough to save myself; you nearly worked your self to death because of me! And I just sat there. All I've ever done was cause you pain..."
Judy remained absolutely silent as Nick fell back towards the pillows, resting the back of his hunched-over head on the flimsy headboard as his paws retreated from her face to limply rest on his lap. Fresh pains along with a passionate burning feeling erupted in her chest, and she tensed her body.
"I should just leave," Nick wistfully whispered, his eyes unblinking as they unseeingly stared at the outlines of his feet poking through the bed's thin, white sheets that now seemed to trap him in place. "It'd be for the best. I wouldn't be able to hurt you anymor-"
Before he could finish his miserable words Nick felt a mass collide with him, pushing his head backwards to strike the flimsy headboard and temporarily stunning his senses and focus. He didn't need sight or smell to know what was going on; he could taste his partner's tongue in his mouth, jousting with his, and he could feel both her arms tightly wrapped around his neck. Through the thin bandage over his sore chest and his partner's uniform he could feel her heart beating away like a drum, and his sped up in turn as her paws pulled the fur on the back of his head.
It took him a few seconds to regain his senses, and when he did he began to kiss back, all the guilt in his tired body routed. At first it was his lips that responded to Judy, but eventually his tongue became involved, taking the battle between their tongues onto a whole other level. A blissful, euphoric feeling consumed his body, and he forced his eyes shut as his arms curled around his partner, one of his paws on her lower back while the other covered the back of her head and limp ears.
Judy could feel a new wave of affection for the fox she had fallen in love with wash over her, but tears were still underneath her closed eyelids. A dreadful, hurt, yet guilt-free feeling had built up in her chest. She despised seeing her partner like that. Vulnerable, self-hating, guilt-stricken - those were words she'd never see on his face again if she had anything to say about it.
"Shut up," She managed to growl between kisses, briefly forcing Nick's strong tongue out of her mouth. "Shut up you big, dumb fox."
Her partner's grip around her only tightened at her words, and she pressed her entire body against his as wave after wave of ecstasy and passion passed over her. This was what she had been waiting for her entire life. This single, throbbing, euphoric moment. And she never wanted it to end.
But, like all things in life, their fuzzy embrace had to end at some point.
After a time that in her mind was only a few instants Nick pulled away from her, gasping for breath. His oxygen-starved heart was beating out of his chest, and his equally starved mind was on the verge of going unconscious. His breaths were more like wheezes, and he collapsed back onto the bed's headboard while he moved a shaky paw to his neck to pull his breathing mask back over his muzzle.
He closed his eyes as he took a series of deep breaths, the incorrigible smell of his partner and the sounds of her worried, quick pants coming back to him at a painfully slow rate. Eventually he cracked open his eyes, and only a few inches in front of him were his partner's amethysts, just as stunning and sparkling as they always were.
"Maybe we should wait until I've got this thing out of my arm and this mask off my face before we make out again," He wryly suggested, and Judy gave a dry huff of laughter, her heart still beating out of her chest and worry once again in firm control of her mind. She'd wait as long as Nick needed until an intimate moment between the two of them wouldn't cause him to suffocate.
"That's a good idea," She commented, tightening her grip around the back of his head, and a small smile came onto her face as she listened to his heavy breaths. Nick faintly yet warmly smiled back at her, and he moved his paw back onto the far side of her head and gently pulled it towards his chest. Judy accepted his embrace, resting her head in the gap between his chest and chin as she gently shut her eyes.
Nick's fur was soft, and she played with it with her fingers, smiling as he began to make circles with his claw at the base of her left ear. Each second she was with this fox the butterflies in her chest quadrupled in number. She wanted to marry this fox, call him her mate, and raise kits with him - if that was even possible! But what truly made her heart make leaps and bounds was that she could feel the same dreams drifting out of her partner's mind.
"You ever noticed that," Nick slowly and painfully began, rubbing his chin against the top of Judy's head as his squinted eyes surveyed the blurry, white room. "We both are idiots."
"At least we're idiots together," Judy countered, pressing her forehead further into her partner's soft neck fur.
"That's not what I meant, but..." Nick said, trailing off as he gave off a confused shrug. "Your mind works in strange ways, Carrots."
"You're telling me," She mumbled, beginning to feel oblivious to anything but the heat radiating from her partner's bare fur. It was like she was being hugged by a thousand tiny butterflies.
Nick casually smiled, pressing himself harder against his partner's body with all the love-fueled strength he could muster up from his worn body. He stared out the window, his eyes focused on the almost-set blur of light that was the sun. He studied the bright shape carefully, and after several seconds of affectionate and deep thought an evil and toothy smile came onto his face.
"Hey Carrots," He deviously started, his eyes not daring to move away from the last rays of the sun, and he felt Judy shift on his chest and barely saw her ears lazily raise. "Were you looking at my ... ahem ... earlier?"
Judy opened her eyes at the question, alerted by her partner's suggestive tone, and she felt her paws begin to sweat in nervousness.
"Yes," She curtly responded, her muscles tensing, and Nick nodded, a sly expression coming onto his face as his grin closed. "But don't think that mean-"
"You don't have to explain yourself, Fluff," Nick wryly interrupted, stroking the fur on the back of her head. "I get what you were thinking. Just wanted to have aWilde Time, Right?"
As quick as a dart Judy shot up to Nick's face, one of her paws jabbing his stomach while the other pulled his ears close to her mouth. Nick felt his eyes grow wide in fear, and Judy meekly smiled at his expression.
"If you ever utter those words again, Slick," She gently yet passionately began, rage welling up in her love-filled chest. "Then I'll kill you and Voltaire and burn down that damned bar."
8 months of hard work just for a bunch of people complaining about how Nick 'shouldn't have died' and then how I 'should've left him dead'? No comment...
Primal: A Zootopia Fanfiction Epilogue - March 15
A Fox in Shining Armor: A Zootopia Fanfiction Chapter 7 - March 31
A quick update on A Fox in Shining Armor. Chapter 6's release date has been pushed back to an unspecified day; probably sometime around March 4. Sorry for the inconvenience.
This chapter was last edited February 28, 2016