Chapter 44: Gossip

On the morning of the next day, after sunrise, Judy was awakened as before by the prevailing crowd, mostly caused by the doctors who were attending to the more injured in the incident. Doe, on the other hand, felt much better than she had two days earlier since being here. She had gained a lot of energy, no longer had a fever and everything seemed to indicate that she was ready to leave the facility to return to her family home.

When she woke up, she paid no attention to the others in the room, she lay with her eyes closed wondering what she would do when she got home. After all, she couldn't literally do nothing. She wanted to occupy herself with something, something that would give her the feeling of time well spent, which she would have in abundance. For the period of time that she would be on week-long leave, there wouldn't be much opportunity to interfere with the case of Nick's disappearance or anyone else's, but she hoped that the documents that had been gathered over that time would help her discover something new about the case. As she pondered this she also thought about Nick and their relationship. A week at home might be a good time to confess openly to them that she was in a relationship with the fox and that she loved him more than anything. She guessed that they wouldn't like it very much (especially for Stu, her father, who hates foxes), but she also agreed with Nick that they both didn't want to hide their feelings for each other, they needed an official relationship that they wouldn't have to be ashamed of. She wasn't worried about her mum, she knew that with the right conversation she could come to an agreement with her, she was more worried about her father. He is quite... stereotypical. He often followed the paths of old statements and thoughts without thinking about the validity of given thoughts, as in the case of foxes. Despite the fact that the world is changing and not every fox is bad he automatically considered the fox race to be bad. This is what Judy disliked most about him, she tried many times to change his attitude, but the old man still holds his opinion. In the back of her mind there were also thoughts that something might have happened to the fox, but she did not allow these thoughts to continue. She didn't even want to think about it, she focused on things that might happen in the near future.

Before noon, Alex came into the room to perform a routine check of the patient's condition. As he entered the room he saw that the doe was feeling even better than the day before. Her eyes had taken on an even stronger glow, and her steely ears hearing the quietest sound gave signs to the doctor that the rabbit was in good spirits.

"Good morning Judy, how are you feeling?" The doctor asked. He sat down on the edge of the bed as he had done yesterday, then put the thermometer to his forehead, after a moment the device indicated 36.8c, which the doctor was at least pleased with.

"Good morning, I feel much better. I can't wait to get out of here" Judy replied with vigour.

"Is it that bad here?" The doctor asked ironically, hiding the thermometer. He took out a small torch then shone it into the rabbit's amethyst eyes. Its reactions were going well.

"You mean?" Judy asked curiously.

"Well, I think everyone knows that the fox district is not the richest part of Zootopia...quite a few people perceive the town as poor and having nothing to offer" explained the doctor as he examined Judy's eyes.

"No...it's not that. It's just that I have so many things on my mind that I would like to be in a place where there isn't such a crowd" Judy communicated. Alex looked around the room and realized what the doe meant. All around them were several patients and other doctors, who all together caused a constant hum to run through the room that made it impossible to focus on thoughts.

"I see. Fortunately you weren't hurt as badly as you might have thought, that's good. You'll be able to get back to your post quicker."

"I dream of getting back as soon as possible!" Judy replied. Alex saw a childish excitement in her, an energy that made him laugh a little, but he didn't show it lest she take it the wrong way. It was a wonderful sight to see that there were people who cared about others and were not hypocrites.

"For you to complete your case. I'll prepare your discharge, at noon you can leave, from what I hear your parents are supposed to pick you up?" The doctor asked, Judy nodded with a motion of her head.

"Oh and one more thing. There's someone waiting for you in the waiting room, would you let her in? Her name is Caroline, she said you knew each other" asked the doctor before he left the bed. Judy felt surprised, why would Caroline want to meet her? They hadn't had the best relationship between them since they first met, or at least they hadn't shown it to each other. Still, her conscience wouldn't allow her to say no.

"Sure, let her come in," replied Judy thoughtfully. The doctor nodded with a motion of his head, left the patient's bedside walking towards the waiting room where the vixen was already waiting to be admitted. Rabbit waited impatiently for Caroline, who was due to arrive in a moment. She wondered what had made her decide to go to her? She certainly wanted to find out something about Nick, or at least Judy suspected so, but she didn't want to stir up negativity, so she waited for Caroline to arrive.

After 5 minutes, a vixen entered the room and stared at Judy from the very moment she entered the room. Her blue eyes were indeed mesmerizing, even Judy had to admit that when she stared into them. They had such a glow to them, they commanded enough attention to keep you from focusing on anything else. Soon Caroline sat down beside Judy and sat in silence for a moment watching her, as if she wanted to read something from her eyes.

"How are you feeling ?" Caroline asked.

"Quite well, certainly better than when we left the restaurant" replied Judy.

"Heh...well yes...the doctor said you've already been discharged today, is that right ?"

"Correct, I'll be able to leave the hospital at noon" confirmed Judy's message. Caroline looked at the watch on her wrist, it indicated 11.45 a.m.

"That's good, you can probably guess, but you're missing from the post...you must be very good..."

"Come on, just doing my job, nothing more" replied Judy letting out a short laugh. She made no secret of it, she liked Caroline's praise, who also laughed upon hearing the doe's reply.

"But unfortunately I won't be able to return to the station" added Judy gravely.

"You need to rest, don't you?" Caroline asked. Judy nodded.

"I'm sorry, we're all waiting for your recovery, you don't even know how Commander Bogo is worried about you"

"He? He seemed so tough..." Judy asked.

"Mhm, yes, he does. He can pretend to be tough, but when you got here he talked about you practically all the time. First he went to you personally, now he sent me..." Caroline explained. Those words hurt the doe a little. She had hoped that the vixen had come with her own pure intentions, but as you can see she was mistaken, she was a little disappointed, she tried not to show it, but her ears lowered down and her slightly lowered eyebrows showed that she was saddened.

"Oh..." Judy sighed.

"I mean you know, that's not all I came to you for...yes, Bogo told me to, but I want to clear up a few things with you" added Caroline. The doe tuned her ears curiously listening to what the vixen had to say.

"I know you haven't felt any confidence in me since I started coming, I see it every day..."

"It's not like that, it's just..."

"I guess Nick told you who I am to him?" Caroline asked. Judy felt embarrassed and a little ashamed at this. It was quite strange - talking to your boyfriend's ex. It was quite an awkward situation where Judy herself didn't know if it was Caroline playing a game or if she had just really opened up. It was hard to believe that she had suddenly opened up to the doe, but she sounded so believable...

"Yeah...he said a few days after I met you," Judy admitted.

" So I am not surprised that you don't like me very much and I understand that. To be honest, myself when I discovered it was Nick I was surprised...I don't want to tell you much because he probably did it himself, but he used to be a lot different"

"Well, actually I changed him" replied Judy.

"Heh...yes I know, you helped him get into the position he is currently in right?" Caroline asked. Judy nodded once again. Although she felt strange, the vixen looked calm and even pleased to be able to have an honest conversation with the doe. Although Judy tried to answer normally, without jumping to conclusions she quite quickly let herself be drawn into a frank conversation.

"I could see that you were jealous of him. I've had little to do with rabbits, but your eyes express too much emotion, one can read everything from them."

"Nick tells me so too" replied Judy quietly nodding with a movement of her head. She felt embarrassed again, but she couldn't deny it, the fox had often told her that her eyes betrayed everything she was feeling, even when she herself denied it. Her eyes are too honest...

"Do you two have something in common?" Caroline asked. It was a question to which Judy was quick to respond, that question always made her mind tell her to wake up and answer it with consciousness. She had heard them too many times to make a blunder.

"Ugh...as if to say...why do you care?" Judy asked. Her curious gaze made Caroline slightly perplexed this time, she hadn't expected such an answer and it showed. She sat in silence for a moment, gazing through the glass wall and staring at the view of the city until she thought of something.

"I've heard that you two often go out together, after work you often go out together...there are rumours around the comm," Caroline replied.

"How do you know about that? Ah...Clawhauser!" Judy sighed. Caroline nodded with a slight smile. Cheetah was always capable of revealing any secret. Although Judy liked him, she thought he talked too much, unnecessarily. It wasn't some big flaw, but you often had to be careful what you said to him, lest it all come out.

"It's just gossip, you know, it's not every day you see a friendship between a fox and a rabbit" replied Judy calmly. This question always made her feel a little uncomfortable (probably because their relationship had been in hiding the whole time), but she had learned to answer it with complete seriousness.

"Indeed, it is a fact. I, however, think there may be something in it," Caroline replied. Judy did not reply. She laughed briefly in an attempt to salve the vixen with that, but she stared at her with sharp eyes that caused the doe to become serious while waving her head from side to side.

"Believe me, if we had anything in common..."

"Judy!" A male voice came from the hallway. At that moment, her parents arrived to drive her home. Rabbit took advantage of the commotion and looked at his watch, it was almost noon. Caroline seeing Stu and Bonnie growled quietly, hurriedly got up from her chair and shook Judy's hand. She looked slightly annoyed, her ears drooped along with her eyebrows and her tone of voice changed to colder.

"It was nice talking to you, we can't wait for you to get back to work, see you later," Caroline said. She greeted Judy's parents and then left the room leaving them alone.

"Who was that?" Asked Stu once they were alone. Judy rose slightly on the bed to see if Caroline was staying in their vicinity. She hadn't seen her in the corridor, so she decided that the vixen had already rather let the eavesdropping go and headed towards her target.

"It's just my work colleague Dad, take it easy" replied Judy trying to reassure her father. She expected that the sight of her with the fox might arouse strange feelings in him.

"A colleague at work? Since when do foxes work for the police? That's weird..." He exploded with Stu's query.

"Shhh! I don't know if you can see, but this is not the right place for such texts" Judy said in a stern tone quietly. Fortunately no one was likely to be bothered by the rabbit's text, the doctors had created a loud enough noise that no one heard it.

"Okay honey, don't get all twisted up anymore okay? The important thing is that Judy is okay and can go home, right?" Bonnie asked.

"The doctor should be coming in any minute with the discharge...oh! And I think he's on his way," replied Judy as she spotted Alex with the papers in his hands.