Dear reader,

Ah, there you are! I've been waiting here for ages; just for you... Greg... Oh, your name isn't Greg? Well, this is awkward... Tell you what, if you see Greg, tell him my feet hurt from standing and waiting. In the meantime, why don't you go on ahead an- wait... I feel like I've said this before... god my head hurts...

-Enjoy

Judy felt as though she had been handed down a death sentence. Five broken ribs, fifteen stitches, and trauma induced amnesia.

While Nick had only lost approximately a month and a half; that time included the entirety of their trip to Bunny Burrows, and Nick's proposal to Judy the day before their trip. While Nick was ultimately the same mammal Judy had known and grown to love, she felt deep sorrow at loosing such a pivotal moment in their relationship. At such a tender time, Judy had elected to wear her engagement ring on a chain around her neck, where Nick wouldn't see it.

Three weeks; was the diagnosis. While Nick was medically cleared to return home, the doctors predicted it would be three weeks before his wounds healed and his concussion mended enough for him to return to duty. However, Nick's memories were another question entirely.

"The brain is a funny thing," the doctor had explained to Judy outside Nick's hospital room. "While Nick's memories may still be in there, there's no guarantee he'll ever find them. Just count yourself lucky it's only a month; I've seen mammals loose entire lifetimes…"

Judy remembered crying herself to sleep that night, while Nick slept in the other room. For the first week, Nick hardly left his bed, and Judy didn't leave Nick's apartment. Nick's concussion left him violently sensitive to light and sound, and it was all he could do to exist in the inky darkness of his room. Judy's only contact with Nick for the time was whenever she crept silently into the pitch blackness to feed him some soup and ensure that he had water to drink, or when she helped change his bandages.

The second night of Nick's recovery, Judy made the mistake of attempting to talk with him while he ate. Her heart broke as she could feel Nick's mental ache radiate towards her through the darkness as he attempted to speak. His voice was shaky, and his thoughts came in fragments. Judy kissed the fox on the head and left him to the shadows.

Six days had passed and Sunday arrived. Judy was greeted with a surprise around noon when she heard Nick's bedroom door open of its own accord. Turning to look to Nick's door from her position on the couch, Judy felt the first ray of joy she had had in a week as she saw a disheveled fox standing in the door way. Nick was ungroomed, ragged and sported nothing more than a his dirty bandages and a pair of pajama pants, which Judy had given him on his last birthday (they were carrot patterned).

Judy wanted to run to him, squeeze him tight, and tell him how much she loved him. Instead, she crept softly over to where he stood. Looking up into Nick's tired eyes, Judy was overjoyed to see that the black of his irises had receded, returning the emerald-green that she so loved. Tears began to well up at the edge of her vision, prompting a soft chuckle from Nick.

"Come 'ere," Nick said, pulling Judy into a gentle hug "you bunnies; so emotional…"

The pair stood, with Judy's head buried in Nick's bandaged chest. Judy breathed in deep, but Nick's familiar and comforting smell was tainted by the coppery tinge of his bandaged wounds. The moment became too much for Judy and she began to sob. Shaking and crying, Judy's knees gave out. The pair now sat on the floor, with Judy curled up in Nick's lap as he stroked her long gray ears in an attempt to comfort his partner. Nick silently waited for Judy's sorrow to wain before he tried to speak.

"What happened to me?" asked Nick.

Judy paused and attempted to wipe away the offending sadness from her face fur. It never occurred to her that Nick may not remember their case or his own injuries. "Y-you don't remember?"

"Carrots," Nick whispered, "I'm not even entirely sure what day it is…"

"Y-you…" Judy attempted to formulate an explanation. The entire week that Nick had been laid up, Judy had not once considered how she was going to explain Nick's situation to him. "What's the last thing you r-remember" sniffled Judy.

Nick blew out hard through his nose as he tried to remember. "I… I can kind of remember, planning out our trip… I'm supposed to meet your parents a few weeks from now… I think." Nick's crumpled expression relaxed as he rested his forehead on his free paw. "My brain feels like a train-wreck… what happened to me?"

Judy's heart sank, and it was all she could do to keep the floods of her emotion at bay. "w-we were working on a c-case…" Judy sniffled. "And y-you had an accident… a-and it w-was all my fault…" Judy began to cry again

"No… Hay," Nick lifted Judy's chin, bringing her vision to his. "You are not to blame here."

"Y-you don't know that…" sobbed Judy, pressing her face back into his chest.

"I do to," retorted Nick, wincing at the force of his own voice. "You are NOT going to blame yourself for this…"

"I am," replied Judy, with her face still smushed into Nick's chest. "It's entirely my fault that you've lost a month a-and a half of our r-relationship."

Nick stiffened in shock, "Carrots… what day is it?"

"The twenty fifth…" mumbled Judy into Nick's chest.

"Of what month…"

"July…"

Nick stopped petting Judy's ears as he brought a paw to his muzzle in shocked silence. Judy listened to the steady beat of Nick's heart for what felt like an eternity. Breaking the silence, it was Nick who spoke first; "I thought it was the second of June…."

Judy shut her eyes hard as she attempted to bite back her emotions. She so badly wanted to tell Nick everything that had happened. Judy wanted nothing more than to fill in all the blanks, but she couldn't bring herself to say anything. Instead, she began to cry.

So the pair sat, wrapped around each other, taking comfort in their fleeting consciousness. After a while, Nick began to relax as he attempted to make peace with his predicament. Returning his paw to its duty of petting Judy's ears, Nick spoke up again; "So… did Guns 'N' Rodents get back together while I was gone?"

"You weren't gone," giggled Judy at Nick's joke "and no; Axil Rose still won't tour with the rest of the band."

Nick snapped his fingers together in mock disappointment, prompting another giggle from Judy. "Well… did we… you know…" Nick caught Judy's confused look as he continued; "Did we do it at all?"

"Nick!" Judy laughed, with more than a hint of sadness. "Now's not the time to be asking that…" The pair shared a healthy chuckle before Judy continued; "but yes…"

"Nice…" Nick whispered to himself, prompting a punch to the arm. "Daww!" Nick threw his paws up in frustrated disappointment.

"What's wrong?" Judy sat up in Nick's lap, shooting him a concerned gaze.

"I just remembered that I can't remember us boinkin', because I've got amnesia!" Nick had a surprisingly legitimate frown on his face, which prompted Judy to laugh at him. "Don't laugh at me, I'm a victim!" Judy threw a paw over her muzzle in an attempt to stem the first laughs she had had in a week. "This sucks; having amnesia sucks, I want my money back." Nick crossed his arms as he glared at Judy, whom still shook with stifled laughter.

Finally smiling, Nick leaned forward to plant a kiss on Judy's forehead, but caught himself as Judy lifted her muzzle to intercept the kiss. Nick shot Judy a surprised look as he recoiled, prompting Judy to wilt in sadness. Confusion danced across Nick's battered brain as he attempted to puzzle together what had just happened.

"I'm sorry…" mumbled Judy, realizing that Nick and her now existed in two separate phases of their own relationship.

"No, no, no…" said Nick, lifting Judy's gaze to his own once more "I'm sorry… I'm a hot-mess, Carrots. You don't have to be sorry about anything." Nick gave Judy a quick Peck on the muzzle, which was not nearly enough for the rabbit.

Judy forced a reassuring smile anyways.

"My brain hurts…" said Nick, massaging his closed eye-lids. "I'm gonna lay back down, care to join me?"

Climbing off the floor, the pair intertwined paws and stumbled back into the darkness of Nick's bedroom. Sliding into bed together, Judy fell asleep in Nick's arms for the first time in too long.

The second week had passed, and Nick was all but recovered. A trip to the doctor and an x-ray showed that Nick's ribs were mostly mended; only displaying calcified fractures. His stitches had been removed, and Nick was prescribed a pressure dressing to wrap about his torso to help protect and conform his ribs. As for Nick's brain; not much had returned, and Nick remained forgetful and poorly focused.

Nick had asked Judy for his missing memories, but the damaged rabbit could not bring herself to fill in her fiancé. When asked about the trip to Bunny Burrows, Judy told him that they had skipped it. When asked about the case, Judy simply informed Nick that they had solved it. Nick knew better than to take the explanations at face value; however he also knew better than to pry at his girlfriend.

"I don't feel like a detective…" said Nick to Judy. The pair lay side by side on the floor of the living room, and counted the dots on the ceiling, while a radio played in the background.

"Well you are," replied Judy, squeezing his paw for emphasis. "The great fox detective; Nicholas Wilde!"

"I don't feel like I earned it, though…" Nick frowned at the ceiling as he spoke.

"But you did," replied Judy, rolling onto her side to look at her fiancé.

"That's what you keep saying," replied Nick to his girlfriend. "But it's like…" Nick rolled onto his side as he attempted to formulate a comparison. "It would be like if you were a little bunny, and you woke up one day and everybody wanted to congratulate you on achieving your dream of being a cop… you get what I'm saying?"

Judy's smile faded to a frown as she began to imagine how Nick must feel.

"It's the journey, not the destination…" Nick continued to reason before trailing off.

Nick's ears flicked towards the radio as he caught a familiar tone. Crumpling up his face as he focused, Nick's brain roared to life as he searched for where the song came from.

"This song…" mumbled Nick, prompting Judy's attention to shift. "I think… I think it used to be my 'jam'" a thin smile attempted to creep across Nick's muzzle as he continued to listen.

Judy's eyes lit up with hope as she instantly recognized the song. Turning to look at Nick, she could see that he was on the precipice of remembering. "Come on, how can you forget 'your jam'" teased Judy, all the while saying a silently prayer as Nick teetered on the edge of memory.

"I have jam-nesia," snapped Nick dismissively, prompting an excited giggle from Judy. The gears of Nick's brain ground against each other as they attempted to turn. A sharp pain rolled across his brain and Nick admitted defeat. Laying back, flat on the ground, Nick exhaled deeply before saying; "I got nothing…"

Judy's heart sank, and she felt herself fill with emotion. Feeling the unstoppable plummet, Judy decided to hide before Nick could see her distress. "I'm gonna go shower," Judy all but yelled as she scrambled up off the floor and made a mad-dash to the bathroom. Before Nick could even reply, the bathroom door slammed and locked.

Returning his attention to the ceiling, Nick's ears flicked about as the white noise of the shower's faucet mingled with the bouncy tones of the nameless song.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Nick let the nameless tune carry him as he tapped a single digit on the floor; matching the bouncing synth tones. Neon danced behind Nick's eyelids, as he descended the street-level. With a gasp, Nick's eyes snapped open.

Stumbling, Nick found himself being led by the paw through a crowd of midnight mammals. Looking to his guide, Nick smiled Just in time to see Judy slip his grasp and disappear into the crowd.

"Carrots!" Nick shouted as he lost sight of Judy in the sea of mammals. "Come back!" Nick ducked and wove about the legs of larger mammals as he attempted to follow the distracted rabbit. Catching fleeting glimpses of Judy's wonder, Nick fought the rolling tide of bodies. Breaking away from the current, Nick finally caught sight of Judy standing in front of a massive tree.

Jogging up to Judy, Nick caught her wrist mid grab; stopping her paw inches away from an inviting white orchid. However, Nick's attention shifted from the orchid to Judy's finger, where a gorgeous silver band and diamond lived.

"What's this?" whispered Nick at the ring.

"That's a Siren's Orchid, Carrots. They're good luck, but kind of dangerous…" came Nick's voice from Judy's mouth.

"Judy," Nick turned the rabbit to face him as he pointed to the ring on her finger. "Who's ring is this?"

"They're a powerful narcotic…" explained Judy in Nick's voice once again. "And an even stronger aphrodisiac."

Nick's face crumpled in confusion as his attention jumped from the Siren's Orchid, to the ring, to Judy and back to the ring. Nick's brain kicked into overdrive as it attempted to pull up more information. Shaking away the pain from between his ears, Nick locked Judy's violet eyes.

"Is this an engagement ring?" Judy's eyes lit up at the question, before vanishing from Nick's mind's eye.

*VRRRRRRR*

Judy's phone danced across the floor next to Nick. Nick looked at it, as he realized that it must have fallen out of Judy's pocket while they were lying on the floor next to each other. Answering the Phone, Nick was greeted by Chief Bogo's voice.

"Officer Hopps!" the buffalo sounded absolutely exhausted.

"Chief, It's Wilde; what can I do you for?" asked Nick, climbing to his feet. Listening with his free ear, Nick could hear the shower still running.

"Officer Wilde, get officer Hopps on the line; we've had a mass abductions from the heart of Rodentia…"

Oh hot-diggity!

Did you just read another whole... Wait... What's my line again? Anyone remember? Umm, well... I g-guess that you can leave comments, I think? O-Or you could s-subscribe? God my head hurts... Where am I?

-Enjoy the next chapter!