AUTHORS NOTES

Hey everyone,

First off, sorry for the radio silence this past week. I have not been ignoring the comments. I've read each and every one very carefully and have taken them to heart.

There were a lot of folks unhappy with chapter 10 and lapses in Nick's character. And after consulting a few readers privately, I tend to agree that I find the chapter (and parts of 9) lacking. Therefore, I'd like to announce that following the postings of chapters 11 and 12 (which are Judy chapters) I'll be taking a short couple weeks hiatus to rework some of the later story and parts of 10 to better fit Nick's motives as a character.

I will not be changing the core beats of the plot. This is ultimately a tale of Nick's choice between a life with Judy or a life without her. I will be alternating his motivations, however, so he's not leaning towards an unstable lifestyle of being a criminal again. And to do that, I need a little time. If this kind of story makes you want to stop want to continue reading, these I apologize I've upset you that much and betrayed your expectations. At the end of the day, this is my first attempt at a major fanfic piece and I've learned more than a few lessons so far. If you're gone, then it's been a pleasure showing you my writing so far and I hope I can write something better for you in the future.

So, that's where we're at. And, without further ado, let's dive into chapter 11. Or, as I like to call it, "why Noots has a Teen rating."

Chapter Eleven "Heat"

I slumped into the truck seat as mom prattled on.

"Honestly, Judy, what were you thinking causing a scene like that first thing in the morning? We heard about it all the way at the faire. I only asked you to keep an eye out for your sister."

"I lost control," I admitted, getting tired of feeling bad for myself.

I knew I had overreacted and having my mom, of all mammals, chew me out was doing nothing to help my headache.

"I don't know, mom. After what happened with Jen last night, seeing Rocky peddling family goods in the town square made me snap. He was acting like a creep."

"Someone said you tackled him to the street and handcuffed him."

"Okay, now that's just a flat out lie," I glared out the window. "I didn't even bring my handcuffs. But I think I ruined Jeanette's date though."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that. But you certainly threw a wrench in our plans for this morning. I need to hightail it back to the faire after I drop you off at home so I can help your father load up the truck with toy prizes."

"Sorry...Sorry. I'll be there as soon as I take a nap. And maybe a shower."

I took comfort in my phone as I fiddled around with my contacts.

I wanted to message Nick an apology for how I had acted.

He was the one who been the angriest with me after I called out Rocky. And, in hindsight, I could see why. But what could I even say to him? Sorry for being a dumb bunny sounded too insincere. And he had been mad enough to use my first name, of all things.

There was a fire in his green eyes I had only seen once before. That was back when he was acting savage in the museum during the Nighthowler case. The crazed and wild look he had on when he cornered me in the pit. And when his fangs closed around my throat...

I shook my head to forget the memory. I needed a distraction from my thoughts.

"Mom, can you give me Jean's number?"

"What for?"

"Play by play," I said. "If I can't help Jeanette out being there, I can at least give her some advice over texts."

She let out a reluctant sigh as she kept her eyes glued to the road while simultaneously digging through her pocket book on the floor. She handed me her phone, one of those cheap old folks devices with giant buttons for reading and designed only for calls and texts. The thing could just barely handle MuzzleTime. It was shaped like a carrot too, causing me to roll my eyes. Half a year in Zootopia had taught me just how hokey the carrot look was for rabbits.

I dug up Jeanette's number and plugged it into my smart phone before setting to work typing.

[Hey Jean. This is Judy. Sorry about the thing with Rocky. Is everything going okay?]

I hit enter and waited.

"So," I tried to pass the time while Jeanette responded to me. "Did you know Rocky was using spoiled goods from our farm?"

"It doesn't surprise me," mom answered. "Jenny is the oldest on the compound and runs the stalls for us all the time. She probably loaned him foods we wouldn't miss."

"Doesn't it bother you?"

"Of course it does. But it's also basically garbage to us and he's not the only mammal to do it. It's one step above being a bum and stealing plastic bottles to resell, as far as we're concerned."

I guess that was one way to look at it. But one crucial argument still came to mind.

"It's illegal though," I said. "All his goods have our logo on them."

"Then I'll have to have a long talk with Jen about trademark. But it's simply not as a huge a crime as it is in Zootopia, Judy. If we sued every single mammal who did it, we wouldn't even have enough time or resources to farm. We have more important things to focus on with the faire. That doesn't win him any points with me though. That's for dang sure. Just another reason why your sister is making a mistake."

Just then, my phone buzzed with Jeanette's reply.

[Hi. It's fine. Rocky is treating us to breakfast.]

I stuck out my tongue in disgust.

A big part of me said that the raccoon was trying to earn brownie points with them by making nice. But the other half of me, which remembered being snapped at by Nick, told me to stop assuming the worst.

"You going to be alright with Nick on his own?" asked my mother.

The question confused me. "Why wouldn't I be alright? Nick's a grown fox, he can take care of himself."

"Well, he's your...Partner. I figured you would want to be the one to show him around town."

I typed my response to Jean, trying to sound as diplomatic as I could.

[He's not giving you a hard time because of me, is he?]

"Mom, you're starting to sound like Nick himself."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, this morning he was all 'are you sure you want me to date Jeanette?' It's like, why would I care what he does with his personal life like that?"

A spark of realization flashed across my mom's eyes. "Ah."

"What?"

"Nothing, dear. I just realized how alike we both are. We're both hardheaded, in more ways than one. Stubborn too and a bit dense to the obvious. Especially when it comes to emotions."

Before I could ask what mom meant by that comment, my phone buzzed again.

[No. But he keeps leering at me.]

Thoughts of Rocky being a disgusting pervert distracted me from responding to mom. I began to furiously type away.

[Want me to come back? I can give you an excuse to leave.]

"Sorry," I said to mom. "Where were we?"

"We're here."

The pickup truck pulled into the familiar dirt road of our family driveway. I could see my little brothers and sisters playing in the leaves, while Pop-Pop was busy napping on the front porch. Mom didn't bother to park too close to the house.

"Come back as soon as you're feeling up for it, please," mom said as I left the vehicle. "We need all the help we can get to set up for tomorrow."

"Got it," I said, throwing my phone into my pocket and slamming the door shut.

Mom barely waited for me to close the door before reversing out of the driveway and into the street. In Zootopia something like that could cause a twenty car pileup. But in the country, we just called that 'driving in a hurry.' I could already see Nick's reaction to watching my mom drive. Especially with how he always poked fun at my driving at work.

I shook my head. I had been in the city too long.

My approach of the house did not go unnoticed by my siblings. Their shrill voices all shouted my name at once, but they were too involved in their play to hop over and say hello. I gave them a smile and a wave as I stepped up to the porch.

Pop-Pop was doing his dead mammal impression again while he slept. I gave him a nudge.

"Pop-Pop. Fox."

He shuddered awake and stammered a bit, like someone who didn't know where he was. He then looked over to me and blinked a few times.

"Why if it ain't Trudy? Where's your good-looking boyfriend?"

I groaned. "He's not my boyfriend, Pop-Pop. And he's on a date with someone."

"Ah. Someone stole him away from you, did they?"

For some reason, the way Pop-Pop phrased that caused my heart to skip a beat.

"N-Nick can date whoever he wants."

"Should have married him, Trudy. Harder to lose a fella with a ring on him."

I ignored him and stomped off, pulling out my phone to check if Jean had returned my last message.

[No, it's fine...Just need some privacy. Somewhere to think.]

I thumbed my keyboard trying to think of how to respond to Jean's message, unconsciously walking into the J section and then to my bedroom.

Like that morning, the entire area was quiet and empty. There were only faint signs of our bathroom shenanigans from earlier with the wet puddles trailing from the shower and into Nick's room.

I slumped onto my bed, shutting the door behind. In the distance, I could still hear the kits playing outside. They were muted by the sound of my phone buzzing with another message from Jean.

[How do I get on Nick's good side?]

[What do you mean? You guys seemed to be doing fine in the car.]

While lying face up on the bed, I passed the time chatting away with Jeanette, losing track of the minutes in the process.

[I don't know. I'm being stupid. I get the feeling he doesn't really like me.]

[But you said you smelled him earlier.]

[I could have been wrong. I don't know. I couldn't detect anything today.]

I chewed at my paw as I thought to give the obvious solution for her problem.

[You should just ask him then. Tell him how you feel.]

[I don't know. What if he says no?]

[You can't know until you try, right? You can do it.]

Come on, Jeanette. You gotta be brave here.

No one ever got anywhere without being brave. That much I knew from my days in the academy. I looked at it from the only angle I could. Jeanette was about my age from I first made the jump into my career as an officer and joined the academy. It was hard, even impossible at a glance. But once I made it through, the reward was well worth it. I had never been in love before, but reaching to be a police officer was the closest thing I could think of.

[Alright,] she replied, at last. [I'm going to go out and ask him straight up.]

I smiled. "Thatta girl."

I put down the phone on my bedsheets and yawned.

Between managing Jean's romance and my pounding head, the bed was starting to feel very comfortable. I wanted to just rest my eyes for a moment. Just a quick nap before getting back to the work day.

A final buzz on my phone alerted me to another message from Jeanette before I passed out.

[I was just being stupid! He wants to hang out at the faire. He even asked Rocky to go away for me.]

I should have been happy for Jeanette, but there was a niggling dread in the pit of my stomach. It was the same feeling I had in the truck that morning.

Maybe I was coming down with something…

I awoke with a start and glanced to the clock on the side of my bed.

"Crackers!" I said aloud, tossing my blanket and my phone to the side.

It was three o'clock already, meaning the day was more than half over. I could only think of the earful I would get from mom when I got to the faire.

"I gotta go," I told myself. "I gotta shower."

The logical side of me said that taking a shower when I was in a rush to get somewhere made absolutely no sense. But I chalked it up to post-nap thinking. For some reason, I really wanted to be in the bath even though I didn't feel particularly dirty.

The house was empty as I made my way to the shower, stripping along the way.

There was an eerie fog throughout the bathroom, like someone had used it recently. Again, I didn't give it much thought with only getting clean on my mind.

I hopped completely naked underneath the farthest showerhead and blasted the water to maximum heat. This, of course, filled the room with more steam and until I was basically standing in a sauna. Like I was back in the tropic district.

For a moment, I lost track of time.

It was like I had fallen asleep standing up. My body went through the normal routine of soaping up and shampooing my fur, but at a much slower pace. I felt sluggish, like my head was inside a jar. Everything around me echoed and seemed to move at a slower speed than was usual. Or was it me who was being slow? Now I knew how a sloth felt.

I began to wonder how Jean's date with Nick was going after I ruined things for them.

I thought about Nick for a while too and what happened in the shower that morning. He had been pretty out of it when I dragged him in for his cold bath. I wondered if my current befuddlement was what he felt like. Soggy and cranky. Not really sure where he was or what he was doing. I closed my eyes to let the warm water take me.

Then the door to the bathroom opened.

In the Hopps household, we had unspoken rules of privacy. At the top of the list was to never enter the bathroom when you heard someone in the shower unless you had permission after knocking. And how could they not know I was in there? I had the water going at full blast and steam was probably starting to seep out through the cracks in the door.

My ears twitched as I followed the heavy footsteps. They were starting to approach the shower.

I wanted to turn around and yell "occupied" but for some reason my body couldn't move. I heard whoever it was turn on the water for the shower across from mine.

They were showering with me standing right behind them!

With a deep breath, I risked a glance over my shoulder.

A flash of red fur caught my eye. A fox? I realized it was a male body by the broader shoulders leading into a firm butt. A blush crept down my ears as I realized who had walked in on me showering, oblivious to my presence.

Nick!

I wanted to shout his name but couldn't. The sight of him naked had caused my mind to fry and I quickly turned away, afraid he might notice me leering at him.

What was he even doing here? I thought he was on his date with Jeanette! And he had showered today already too! Was he still so out of it that he wasn't even fully aware of what he was doing?

I was too busy juggling the questions in my head to notice a shadow approaching me from behind. I didn't even sense Nick over my shoulder until he leaned in close to my ears and whispered to me.

"I saw you looking."

I squeaked and slipped on the soap lathering the tiles.

Scrambling backwards on the floor, I put as much distance as I could away from the fully naked fox before me. Nick was looking down at me with a mischievous grin and green eyes filled with a certain hunger I had only seen in romance movies.

"I…" was the only word I could get out. "I...I…"

"Do you like what you see, Carrots?"

His mood darkened and he went down on all fours to creep towards me, like a savage predator.

Instinct took over me and I began to retreat across the shower floor. I kept staring into his eyes. I was nothing but prey to him. He continued to taunt me as he guided me deeper into the shower.

"Naughty bunny. You think I wouldn't notice the glances? Is my rump that fascinating to you?"

I thought back to my peeping at his butt that morning.

No.

I realized that hadn't been the first time I had caught myself staring at him. There had been countless incidents at work where I would curse my wandering eyes. When Nick bent over to pick something up. When he undid the top buttons of his shirt to get changed at the end of a long day...

"Y-You knew?"

"Of course. You think I can't tell when someone's leering at me? Let's see how you like it."

I was running out of floor and Nick's pace was quickening.

He snarled a bit, showing most of his very sharp teeth. The fog of the shower blocked a fair amount of the view below his waist. But I could tell just by his eyes that he was feeling aroused. I covered myself just as my back hit the wall.

"Run, rabbit," he growled. "Run. I wanna hunt."

I took some deep breaths.

He was being serious. This wasn't acting, like it had been in the museum. He wanted to eat me.

Natural reflexes took over as he pounced at me.

I rolled out of the way and hopped on all fours. He was close behind me, still giving chase. I made a beeline for the door.

"Locked!" I cried as I tried to pry open the slippery knob.

Nick must have planned this from the start and blocked the exit somehow. I ducked just as he slammed into the door.

We weaved around the lockers and the stalls, crawling over every surface in our game of cat and mouse.

My heart was racing and all I could hear was the sound of him breathing behind me, getting closer and closer. I had the speed, but I was quickly getting fatigued. And the shower was too slippery to get a proper grip on the tile. It was only a matter of time before Nick caught up to me...

When he did, we fell into each other like tumbleweeds, toppling into the middle of the shower floor where all the drains met.

I kicked at him with all my might, trying his stomach first and then aiming for his face. His jaw clenched and he snarled in pain. My attacks had only enraged him.

His green eyes had turned red and he was preparing to bite me.

As his jaw opened, I braced myself for the stabbing sensation at my neck, accepting I had been caught and was a dead rabbit.

But the howling pain across my throat never came.

I opened my eyes to the sensation of Nick gnawing on my neck in a tender kiss.

He was working his way up to my ears while his paws traveled down my side. He placed himself on top of me, pinning me down so he could have his way with me. I felt his tail brush against the soles of my feet.

"Nick…" I moaned, surprised at how good the massage felt on my tender, exhausted legs.

He purred when he reached my ears before changing his mouth's direction. His snout connected with mine.

We gave each other a passionate kiss that made me lose track of time.

I came to the realization that I had always wanted to kiss him by how I clawed at his back. My tongue slipped around his fangs. I could smell him. The musk. The heat between his legs...

I didn't want it to stop.

"Judy…" he whispered when we broke away. Hearing my name in such his husky voice sent chills down my legs. "I want you. Now."

The dull spray of the shower faded away, along with everything else. Suddenly, we were just in open space. Just the two of us. Alone.

This would be my first time. And with a fox no less.

But looking into the hopeful eyes of my best friend was enough to silence such unwanted and cowardly thoughts. And I did want this. I wanted Nick. More than anything. Even being a police officer.

It was liberating. Being caught and exposed. It was thrilling to be pinned and cornered like I was nothing but prey. To be chased and wanted so badly. A rising heat in my head fogged off anything other than lust and desire.

But I wouldn't submit to Nick before I could say the words I always knew I wanted to say.

"Nick…," I said with blush running down my face and my heartrate sounding more like a blaring alarm. "I love..."

"...love you," I murmured as my ears twitched. Slowly, I opened my eyes to the sight of my bedroom ceiling.

I jolted up in an instant, only to be reminded of my pounding headache.

I felt warm. Overheating, like I had just run a marathon. I was even starting to pant a little.

The clock on my bedside table told me everything I needed to know of the memory that was fast fading. Eleven thirty.

"A dream," I said, though my heart was still pounding. I had only been out for two hours.

I rubbed my eyes as my mind played catch up. I was still out of breath.

What the heck was with that dream?

That had felt so real. I could still feel Nick's fangs at my neck. And his smell...Never had I experienced anything like that before. What did it even mean?

I shook my head, trying to ignore the obvious answer to that question.

That's when I noticed a moistness between my legs.

I pulled up my blanket, knocking my phone to the side, and looked down to my thighs pressed together. Then to the stained sheets below.

"Oh, noots…" I whispered, my ears drooping down.

I was in heat.