Chapter 3: Despite Everything

Judy spent the remainder of the ambulance ride pondering about her sudden epiphany, and about how it was all very perplexing; being in love with a mammal of a different species, being in love with a predator.

For a while, as Nick had a friendly conversation with Linda about his experience as a police officer, Judy tried to lie to herself that her feelings were completely spiritual. She tried to convince herself that she liked him as a soul brother, or a truly close friend; but every time she would glance over to her partner, and secretly take a good look at his bare chest, she would be flooded with undeniable yearning. There was something about his chest that made her covet it. Was it its slim, aesthetic shape? Was it the way it rose and fell every time he took a breath?

And then there was his face; his god-damned face with that coy, pearly smile and those bewitching eyes. The way they looked at her, his eyes, were enough to make her want him…

Yes, her mind whispered insidiously… want him… Feeling further confused, Judy felt the butterflies in her body start flutter around with such violence that they gave her a headache. Sinking her face into her cupped paws, she closed her eyes and tried to void her mind of thoughts.

But before the officer could free herself of thoughts, the ambulance came to a sudden stop as it arrived at the hospital. Hearing a sudden commotion next to her as the paramedics prepared to leave the ambulance, Officer Hopps lifted her head and turned her wondering eyes to Nick. Nick was propped up in a sitting position and was still talking to Linda, wearing a big smile, and making gestures with his paws as he spoke to the vixen. Just as he made one of his remarks, Linda laughed in the kind and bubbly manner Judy had quickly gotten tired of.

"You, my friend," Linda said, between giggles, "are very humorous." With a wistful sigh, and a dreamy gaze from the Vixen, Nick was prompted to chuckle pleasantly. He was feeling much better, and, despite the constant pressure and pain, had managed to be his old charming self. Linda, of course, was half the reason for this. Officer Wilde could not deny she did have a physical charm, and was very pleasant to talk to.

"I think you might be the first person to get my sense of humor," Nick returned, winking an eye at her. Officer Hopps caught this interaction with a quick glance, and suddenly felt sick to her stomach; first in disgust towards Linda and Nick, but later -as the slow seconds passed her mind- in disgust of her own jealousy. It was like her mind was being flooded with envy towards someone she barely knew, just because she could make Nick feel good. It was all extremely childish, Judy thought, shaking her head violently and burrowing her face into her paws again. Nick turned away from the Vixen, and noticed his partners actions. Cocking his head to the side, he wondered to himself why she seemed to be acting so differently. The entire ambulance ride Judy had been silent, and that, to Nick was already strange on its own. She was not too chatty, Nick knew -definitely not as big mouthed as him, he added in thought-, but Judy was not the silent type either. To add to that, she was brooding and seemed conflicted, which Nick also knew she'd avoid as a rule of thumb.

"Are you okay, Judes?" he asked in a soft voice, using that one nickname she loved to hear slip from his mouth -she realized, as his voice made electricity run up her spine. Looking up while keeping her head propped on her paws, her eyes met his, and for a moment, the two contemplated each other. Silence governed as they looked each other in the eye. Nick, trying to read her sullen visage, found it harder a task than ever before; and this bothered him because, normally, it would be quite simple, especially with Carrots. What made her act so differently? He asked himself in thought.

Suddenly, the two paramedics scooted past Judy, breaking the visual link she had with Nick as they moved towards the ambulance doors. Tossing them open, the sound of other ambulance sirens and paramedics shouting above these rushed into their vehicle, disrupting all the serenity that was left. Jumping back to reality from her mental world, Judy rose to her feet, and thought of being helpful.

"Is there anything I can do to help right now?" Officer Hopps asked as the second sheep paramedic turned to unfasten the stretcher wheels from their locked position, and the first jumped out of the vehicle. Nick looked to Linda, who shot her eyes up from a paper she had pulled out the moment the ambulance doors were opened.

"Umm, no, I don't think so," Linda said, as she put the paper down on Nick's lap, rose, and slid behind the officer's stretcher. Glancing down, Nick noticed the paper he had on his lap was the report the paramedics had written out. While most of it seemed to be medical jargon, Officer Wilde did notice the report mentioned Judy -"the patient's work colleague" as the document put it- as being "under a lot of stress from the circumstances." This made Nick feel troubled, as he figured it was due to him getting injured. If Nick hated anything, it was being a burden on those he truly cared for.

The second paramedic finished unfastening the stretcher and gave Linda a thumbs up. As the stretcher was pushed out, Judy made eye contact with Nick again, and her yearning for him returned. Linda walked past Judy next, when the officer noticed a small detail about her she had not noticed previously: She kept her tail up, and didn't drag it like her partner. While it seemed more hygienic to do this, Judy didn't like it. Swallowing as she clenched her jaw, she wondered if there was anything about Linda she truly liked.

Soon enough, the stretcher was out in the open, and Judy had followed Linda out of the ambulance. On the outside, she began to look around, getting her bearings. The buildings around were tall, much taller than they were around Ottermen Street. Beyond the emergency room parking and loading area, Judy spotted a narrow street, and a big building behind that. Clearly they were in the back part of a hospital, as normally hospitals in Zootopia, Judy knew, had large plazas in front of them.

"This is Puffington Hospital, right?" Judy asked as she turned to face Linda, who held Nick's paw as she put a medical band around his wrist. Nick, looking over to his partner, grinned as he remembered trying to teach her all the streets of Zootopia one autumn morning. Sure, she had memorized all the streets in the academy, and could tell you what the climate conditions, and traffic would normally be in the area, but she was not quite as good as the fox at getting her bearings. It was only after Nick drove with her across the entire city, making her look at the littlest of details in each district, that she got a lot better at telling where she was right away.

"That's right," Linda said in a matter-of-fact tone. Upon fastening the band, and taking the paper she had placed on Nick, she ordered the two paramedics that had come with them to push the stretcher towards the entrance to the emergency room. As the stretcher was pushed, Judy followed, moving in a pace quick enough as to stay at Nick's side. Around them, paramedics of all species, moved about racing from their ambulances and back as they would leave the stretcher with patients at the entrance for nurses to carry in. Judy noticed patients of all types, big and small, being dragged in, and wondered what sort of incredible coordination they needed to have for the right paramedics and nurses to drag around the right stretcher. Without looking, the bunny officer reached out to grasp onto Nick's stretcher's handle bars, but found herself missing it several times. Finally reaching it, she noticed it was higher than she expected, and as she looked up to Nick, had another troubling thought creep in her mind: Aside the species difference -which was big enough of a problem in itself, she was also noticeably smaller that him.

Oh, come on, Judes, she thought to herself, brushing the thought aside. At least he's not an elephant, or a horse.

At the entrance of the emergency room, two nurses -another sheep and a goat, reached their stretcher, and took over for the sheep paramedics as they rushed Nick in. The emergency room was crowded by mammals of all shapes and forms, most of which were relatives of some animal or another that had been brought in. Most sat on long, lime-green leatherette benches set up against the pale blue walls of the room, looking at the clock on the wall, or their smart phones with tired eyes. Others paced back and forth with anxiety on their faces. The ambiance was unsettling for both Nick and Judy, who looked to and fro between the many mammals, wondering what had brought them here.

Racing past this waiting room, they moved into a long corridor with entrances on both sides. Judy, keeping a watchful eye, read the signs above each door: Surgery 1, Surgery 2, X-Rays, and so on. Coming to a total stop, and turning into the room ahead, Judy read "Police Infirmary" above the door. Inside, the room was laid out with three mobile hospital beds, each with its own set of curtains -used for whenever a patient had to be secluded or veiled. A bench, similar to the ones in the general emergency room, was set next to each bed. As he was rolled in, Nick counted the three beds, and noticed that not a single one was occupied. He puckered his lips, as he looked over from Judy to Linda.

"Well," Nick said sarcastically, as he eyed the empty beds again while putting a paw to his chin. "Either today's every other officer's lucky day, or I'm just out of luck." Judy heard her partners words, and was suddenly reminded of Bogo's words about how uncommon it was for an unarmed police officer to be shot. He was right, and Officer Hopps knew the exact numbers: During her years in the academy, she had read that out of every 100 officers, only 1.2 would be injured to the point of needing hospital care, and out of that 1.2, only 30 percent were victims of gun shootings. Thinking back, she remembered she would use this statistic to convince her parents that being a police officer was not truly that dangerous -despite the fact that she DID want to face dangers.

Nick, however, had officially joined that infinitesimally small minority, and realizing this, Judy stopped at the entrance of the room, grabbed her chest and bearing the emotional weight of her feelings towards her colleague, feeling blame for putting him in danger was not something she needed. It was too much, and it made her want to roll up into a ball and cry.

Nick's stretcher was parked next to the bed on the far end of the room, and as the vixen doctor went to take the clipboard attached to the stretcher -containing an empty file for her to fill out for the fox officer, Wilde noticed Judy. Her sullen eyes, lowered ears, and drooped shoulders concerned him, but what really caught his attention was the fact that her nose wiggled uncontrollably. Her nose, he knew, would only move up and down that way whenever she was under great stress. Nick felt terrible, convinced again that he was the cause of his friend, and closest of kin's anxiety. Thinking of clever ways of telling her that he was okay, he opened his mouth, but just before he could speak, Linda stepped into his line of sight.

"Nick?" Linda spoke, as Officer Wilde was forced to focus his eyes on the vixen. "Would you do us the favor of helping us as we lift and put you onto the hospital bed? The paramedics over at the emergency room need their stretchers, and unfortunately, we can't make them wait too long... Sorry." Frozen in place and unmoved by Linda's words, Nick remained mentally focused on Judy and her worry, until, after two or so seconds, Linda had tilted her head to the side, prompting him to react.

"Oh!" he clamored, slightly surprised at himself for being lost in his mind for a moment. "Umm… sure." To the side, the officer noticed the nurses had lowered the handle bars, and were standing at his side ready to lift him up. Placing his paws down on his sides, he pushed up his whole lower body up, and began to scoot to the edge of the stretcher. As he laid down and stiffened his back, the nurses each grabbed him from one end, and jerked him up with such suddenness that his chest tensed up. Each bit of the motion, from being lifted up, to being tossed onto the other bed nearly like a sack of potatoes, hurt tremendously; but, alas, he got on the other bed. "There," he said in a rough voice as he swallowed his pain. Quickly, the nurses took the stretcher and rolled it towards the entrance of the room, approaching Judy at a quick pace. The bunny jumped out the way and rushed into the room with a little dash, giving the nurses the clearing the needed to head out. As they left, Nick propped himself up to into a sitting position. "Does this bed fold up to a sitting position?" he asked the vixen doctor as he struggled to stay up.

"Yeah," Linda said, as she moved closer to him, and then reached down to the controls of the bed. Once she had her paw on the lever that lifted the back piece, she pulled it, making the bed fold until it was comfortable enough for Nick to sit. Officer Wilde sighed with relief as he leaned his head back on the bed, and then looked at Linda.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Linda replied in an amiable manner, as she let go of the controls, and walked around to the lower end of the bed. Reaching into a plastic folder attached to the bed's foot-board, she withdrew several papers, and then returned to Nick's side. "Nick," she started again. "We're going to have to take you to the x-ray room to get you examined for fractured or broken ribs, so how about we go now, so we can hopefully get you out of this hospital quicker." Nick looked over to Judy, and then back to Linda as he made a small smile and nodded.

"Alright," the officer said in a lighter mood. "Let's go find out how broken this old body of mine is." As if on queue, the nurses returned to the room, and silently went to start moving the officer. They strolled him out, and turned to the left, as Linda followed, prompting Judy to go with them. But just as Linda reached the entrance, she turned around on her heels and fixed her eyes on Officer Hopps'. With no one else but the vixen, who stood between herself and Nick, Judy felt a tinge of hostility. She tried quickly to shut it down, however, thinking it was foolish to feel the way she did.

"Yes?" Judy asked as she looked Linda straight in the eyes. Without knowing, the officer began to tap her foot nervously, making a constant thump noise with the action.

"Protocol makes it impossible for me to let you come with us while Nick is being tested," she stated in an apologetic voice, while taking a look down at her bopping foot. "Would it be much of a problem if you stayed here, for just a while? We won't be too long." The tapping of Judy's foot got worse as she started to go faster and bopped her foot on the ceramic floor harder. Suddenly noticing the nervous twitch, she brought herself to a stop, feeling tremendously embarrassed that she behaved the way she did. It was all very foolish of her, she thought.

"No!" Judy suddenly said in a tone of forced cheerfulness. "It's not a problem at allt." More uneasy than ever before, she chuckled, and swung her arm up to her chest before adding "just make sure my buddy is A-okay!" With her eyes still locked on Linda's, and a smile she convinced herself to hold on her face, Judy felt her heart sink from self pity. The she-fox laughed politely.

"Oh, I promise you he'll be alright in my paws," she said, as she put her paws to her collar. "I have got to say, you do care a lot for your partner." The vixen winked at the bunny officer in an exaggerated manner, making Judy, who noticed the action, swallow and give a toothy, nervous grin. After racking her brains for a moment, she figured she had to say something in return.

"Well, yeah… He's been a close friend for a little over a year," Judy remarked as she brought her feet together and cupped her paws. "I'm truly fond of him."

"I bet you are," Linda mused, as she winked again. Turning her sight back to her clipboard, she made herself look busy. "Well, I'll be back with Nick soon, and don't you worry, I'll be very careful with him." With those words said, Linda turned and headed off in Nick's direction, leaving Judy by herself. Alone, the she-rabbit felt her right ear twitch and her left cheek tingle as the emotions and thoughts she had been burying beneath her facade began to emerge and infest her. There was love, and doubt, and annoyance, and anger, and jealousy, and they all danced and intermingled within her, making her feel heavy-footed. Grabbing her vest, she tugged against it, feeling tremendously warm, despite the fact that the room was air-conditioned.

Officer Hopps then looked up at the clock above the entrance of the infirmary, and noted that it was 12:32 p.m. Having the feeling that it would take a while before Nick would be back, she walked over to the nearest bench, and hopped up on it's seat. Sitting with her feet dangling over the side of the bench, she closed here eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath, allowing her chest to rise and fall is a slow, melodic manner. Suddenly she was thinking about Nick, arranging the images, memories, thoughts, and emotions she had in her mind. As she did, she realized how many there were… Nicholas P. Wilde… Her partner… her friend… her love…

She loved him… She loved him despite the confusion… despite the fact that she was a bunny and he was a fox… despite everything. She loved him, and craved his everything…

Judy suddenly looked up to the clock again, and noticed it was 12:54 p.m. Looking back down, she continued to enjoy her sweet surrender, to the point that it was intoxicating. Her cheeks felt numb, and her feet tickled, as the butterflies she had in her flew up and down in synchrony, making her feel sensual. Every time she closed her eyes to blink, she would leave them closed for an additional second as she imagined herself with him holding hands… cuddling… kissing… and much, much more. Her cheeks suddenly felt warmer than the rest of her body, as in her utter bliss, she felt another urge: the urge to tell someone how she felt. It only seemed fair, after all, for her to share the joy. Quickly, the officer reached into her pants pocket, pulled out her smart phone, turned on the screen, unlocked the phone, and clicked on the contacts app. She felt the jitters, as she started swinging her feet in a childish manner while scrolling down the contacts until she got to the one she wanted. It didn't take long before she read the name she was looking for.

BENJAMIN CLAWHAUSER.

Clicking on his name, and then clicking on the option to send him a text message, the screen changed to their chat. Pressing the chat box below, the digital keyboard appeared before her, and she duly went to work.

[JUDY: I have something to tell you… I like someone…]

A/N: A Special thanks to:

Those who were involved in the beta reading of this chapter:

- Tumblr's Vetinarini, for giving me feedback on my writing in general, as well as for giving me some nifty suggestions about how to improve a part of the chapter.

- Reddit user eisbaerBorealis ,for his very thorough feedback and suggestions.

- Johnson Olsen for his awesome suggestion, as well as for giving his opinion about the chapter.

- DevianArt's AIMYY, for giving me very good feedback, alongside offering to provide helpful insight on the workings of emergency response for future chapters.

I'd also like to thank those who have given me their support in one way or another. You guys truly rock.

Please comment.

Thankies!