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3:19 AM

The bang as she slammed the door reverberated off the walls, lightly vibrating them, as she slumped against the frame. She closed her eyes as the stress from everything they'd seen and experienced the previous day, and the last few hours, weighed on her, suddenly. Through the whole day, she hadn't allowed herself to feel any of it. Experiencing it all at once now, she felt herself on the verge of emotional collapse.

The first thing she saw as she opened her eyes was Nick standing in the middle of the room, looking right at her and regarding her with a sad smile. He'd had a hunch that she'd be at the end of her emotional tether.

He'd had a hunch . . . because that's where he was himself.

The absolute improbability of this day was a slap in the face to everything he knew about his own reality. His mind had been swinging wildly like a pendulum, vacillating between madness and sober rationality, in the space of hours.

From waking up, confused and alone, near the stone bridge to being beaten--nearly to death--by prey animals who said he deserved it; from waking up and coming to terms with a city that had been trying to break him from the moment he'd explored it to being tortured--psychologically and physically--for no reason other than that he was a fox; from hearing the voice of the bunny he loved--seeing the words pour from her mouth--rebuke everything he thought he'd known about her to the feeling of hopelessness that had nearly drowned him: He'd been on the verge a total fucking breakdown.

Then all of a sudden . . . ! Then, all of a sudden, he'd awoken in that strange room in Wilde's office. And she was back--she was his again. And everything he'd convinced himself must have been the product of his own fanciful imaginings--that he'd found love, that he could be a good fox, that he didn't need to hustle anymore--were real after all! All of a sudden, his reason for living had stormed back into his life.

Twice that day, he'd had to reorient his sense of reality and what he knew to be true and what he knew to be false.

Twice that day, he hadn't known what was real and what wasn't!

His mind was currently such a jumble of boiling emotions that he didn't know what to do with himself. The only thing that calmed the storm, that was doing any good at grounding his reality, was the fact that she was there with him.

Even so, Nick had allowed himself at various points the ability to vent his anger and frustration at the reality he was now facing, even if it were only to some small degree--Judy hadn't permitted herself that luxury all day. She'd had her phone with her and had been able to re-establish her sense of reality, but she hadn't let herself deal in any way with her immediate reactions to the new situation in which she'd found herself. She had stoically tamped down her initial reactions to the individuals she met, their prejudices, and the oppressive situation in which she found herself in order to stay out of danger. The pressures of doing so must have been astronomical!

The whole way to Bunnyburrow, she'd been keeping a lid on her feelings. Expressing--at most--her initial outrage and sadness at what she was learning. And through it all, she had maintained--or at least attempted to maintain--a sense of rationality, a core of strength, in order to be there for the others around her.

It hadn't gone unnoticed to him, for example, that Judy had listened carefully and patiently to Wilde's story about his fiancée's death. She'd been the perfect officer.

Now it was time for her to let go.

She stood there for a beat and took a deep breath. The instant her eyes took him in, she shattered. She wanted to run to him but kept herself in check, remembering his injuries, and instead hurried over to him as quickly as possible. Her feet thudded on the wooden floorboards beneath her as she fell into his arms, hugging him tightly. And he hugged her back just as fiercely as the façade broke, and the iron will of survival which she'd overused that day came crumbling down like a building with no foundation.

Luckily, Nick was there to catch her.

He held her as every reaction which she'd stifled during the day came pouring out of her as she gave vent to her terror, horror, anger, rage, and fear--all of which she had forced herself to hide.

She clutched at him tightly and started sobbing endlessly into his chest. "Nick!" she cried, "God, Nick! I don't know what to do! I . . . I don't understand! I don't . . . !" She broke off and trembled as her tears kept coming.

"Oh, God! Oh, God! This place is so awful!" she continued weakly.

It was all he could to keep himself from collapsing at that moment. More than once that day, and even within the last few hours they'd been together, they could have died. Nick couldn't help but chuff into Judy's neck as the weight of everything he'd had to face throughout the day came pouring out of him. His life had been threatened for being what he was. It was mind-numbing on so many levels. He was had been at a total loss when he came into this world. He just couldn't understand what was happening to him--why he was being treated the way he was. Even his attempts to regroup and come off as congenial when it came to the police had been met with overt hostility.

Torture, executions, spies, espionage, fear, hatred, anxiety--all of these things painted for them a land of horrors. They'd only come through it relatively safe and sound through sheer luck.

"I know it is, Carrots" he murmured comfortingly as he rubbed her back, "we'll get through it somehow," he murmured into her head.

He clutched her protectively as she buried her face in his chest.

She'd been dissociating the whole day, keeping events at an arm's length. It was a survival technique she'd used many times but never to this extent. She was inexperienced in this regard and had kept up her mask for far longer than she'd ever had to. Never had she had to hide her authentic self in quite that way ever. She was naturally brave and daring but had rarely had to keep up that energy in the face of such obstacles as many times as she'd had to that day--where any suspicious behaviour could have led to her death.

Even Hopps, as awful as she'd been, had been betrayed by her comrades in the end. There was no loyalty amongst the animals with whom Judy had been working earlier in the morning.

Forgetting for a moment the immediate dangers their situation presented them with, the fact that they were both somehow in a new universe was positively mind-blowing. And neither of them had even really processed that yet.

She had forced herself to be practical and pragmatic in the face of what she sensed nearly right away was a dangerous situation in order to survive. Now it was late, and she was in his arms, in the safety of her parents' house, in her old room--it was here that she allowed her mask to fall.

In the space of a day, Nick thought, she'd had to come to terms with the fact that she was in a new reality, deal with an evil version of nearly everyone she knew, and try to navigate a minefield of questions and individuals--none of whom she felt she could trust. For the majority of the day, she'd been alone and trapped within the confines of her own mind in order to keep from being detected.

They really were alone together, thought Nick.

By and by, her sobs died down and she backed away from him. He caressed her cheek with his paw and she leant into it.

"I don't know what came over me," she said softly as she continued to sniffle.

"You've been holding back the whole day, Carrots. You don't need to be sorry for anything."

She nodded slowly. "I-I've just been . . . afraid," she admitted.

"Hey," he said slowly, calmingly, "we're safe at your parents' house. (Now there's something I never thought I'd say.)"

She chuckled and let out a sigh.

"It's late and we need to get some sleep," said Nick as he yawned.

Nick hopped into the bed but was surprised to see as he lay back that she had started undressing.

"C-Carrots, what're you doing?"

She turned back to him and gave a slight laugh when she saw the stunned look on his face.

"I'm getting out of my uniform. I've been wearing it all day!"

Nick had seen her naked plenty of times, but every time she undressed in front of him his heart started to pound. What on Earth had made him think that she would want to go to bed fully dressed?

'Well,' he thought, 'two can play at that game.'

He got out of bed and began undressing as well. He found, however, that it wasn't as sexy when he did it. Part of him was glad that she'd prompted him to do so, though: now he wouldn't have to have to be uncomfortable in his sleep.

She took her phone from her pants pocket and set it on the night table beside the bed and sighed when she checked the time. Nick hugged her warmly from behind and she turned into his fur and hugged him back, tightly.

As they got into bed together, Judy's body seemed to immediately relax as Nick wrapped his arms around her.

He could tell that she was still in a cloud of worry and anxiety--so was he--but he had no doubt that in time, as they slept, she would start to feel better.

Sleep found them quickly; and as they drifted off, the only thing in which their dreams took comfort was each other.

-.-.-.-

8:08 AM

Bonnie cringed at the shouts of anger, shock, and surprise that met her in the wake of the news she had just delivered.

She and her husband had gathered a significant group of her children and had been trying to get through everything that had happened the night before on top of the situation with which Judy had presented her. She had known that most everyone would be shocked by the news, but what really took her aback was the fury some seemed to be expressing.

As she tried to speak over the din, Stu came up behind her and put his hand on the small of her back in a show of support.

"Quiet!" he shouted to calm the crowd. "Now, I know that you know better than to shout at your mother!" He was absolutely furious. "What she's trying to say's important!"

"Is Judy really mated to a fox?" said one sibling as he stood up.

"Are chompers really coming here?!" started a young girl.

"Quiet!" their father shouted, quite at the end of his patience. "Now you listen good, Jasper," he began as he addressed the male who'd spoken, "Your sister needs our help. And so do the animals she brought with her."

Jasper sat down amid more protests, mainly from the group of brothers.

"Dad, are you insane?" asked another male. "You can't just let strangers into our house! Mom just said you were planning on letting in more of those savages!"

"It's my house. Well, mine and your mother's," he corrected quickly. "And I thought you'd all be a little more grateful about the fact that your sister's alive."

"Yeah, and dangerous!" emphasised Jasper.

"She's no sister of mine!" shouted another male behind him as a chorus of voices chimed in with support.

"She betrayed us!"

"Now we're all in danger."

"How could she put this on us?!"

Loud voices swoll with agreement while others protested, shouting the other's down.

"She's our sister!"

"We can't turn our backs!"

"We're a family!"

A the shouting became more heated, Stu and Bonnie turned and nodded to each other. They bent their ears back tightly, put their fingers in their mouths, and whistled loudly.

The mix of siblings shouted loudly and bent their ears back painfully, covering them, as the shrill sound pierced their hearing. Instantly, the cacophonous choir died leaving only grave silence in its wake.

Stu eyed them all sternly.

"Judy is my daughter!" he stated fiercely.

Bonnie took his arm and bit her bottom lip, admiring her husband's about-face on the subject.

She turned looked tearfully at the fractious boys.

"Would you rather she be dead like the news said she was?" she cried as she eyed Jasper. "Don't you remember what it felt like last night when we got the call and saw it on TV?" She covered her mouth and closed her eyes as the terrible memory swept over her. She took a moment to gather herself, wiping at her tears, before continuing on, bravely. "Our Judy was returned to us safe and sound by a group of predators. The least we can do is be thankful that she's here at all. And if you really think being mated to a fox is so awful, consider it a small price to pay as long as we have her back."

Stu nodded. "I can't say I'm comfortable with all of this yet, but our Judy is the same Judy we raised, the same one many of you grew up with." He came toward the group. "You can't tell anyone," he said vehemently as emotional tears touched the corners of his eyes at the thought of what almost was. He refused to let them fall, however. "None of you are going to breathe a single word of this to anyone."

His word was final.

Much of the murmur in the room was stifled at that moment. None of the siblings gathered had ever seen their father--such a jovial and happy character in most circumstances--put his foot down so definitely.

Stu cleared his throat. "Judy told us that if we say anything, it can only be to each other--face to face. The lines are being watched," he finished.

"You can't ask us to go along with this!" pled the other young male.

"James," started Stu, "you don't really have a choice. It's either get them out of here and let them fend for themselves or take them in. For me, that's all this comes down to. And so help me if anything happens to her-!"

"But what about the rest of us?! We didn't ask for her to bring predators here! What about our safety?!"

"Whoa, wait a second!" said Daisy as she stood up now to face her brother, "Since when is this us versus Judy? Judy is one of us!"

"Then she should have known better than to put the rest of us in danger!"

"Judy came to us for help! Did you miss the part where the ZPD is trying to kill her?"

James looked on in silence.

"If it weren't for the fact that she came here with a bunch of preds and a fox as her . . . as her mate . . . I'll bet none of you would waste one second thinking about whether or not to help her. Am I right?"

She looked around the room at her siblings and saw many of them look away shamefully.

"I know it's hard to swallow," she said, "it's even repulsive . . . but this is what we have on our hands. None of you have any problems working with Gideon."

Jasper stood up now. "Gideon's not mating our sister! If he were, the rest of us," he gestured to his brothers, "would boycott him in a second!"

"Speak for yourself!" shouted one.

Jasper was about to retort when he was cut off.

"For the love of God!" started Stu, "We are not going to debate whether your sister is worth helping! If any one of you were in a situation as serious as hers," he said as he pointed at them, "you can bet that regardless of any personal feelings I might have, I would absolutely be there to help!"

He paused for a moment as he tried to collect his thoughts. "I'm not saying don't be mad at her," he said as he tried to cool down, "I'd rather you not be, but I can't tell any one of you how to feel. The fact of the matter is that none of you would rather she end up hurt or worse if we decided to throw her out, would you?"

Everyone was silent, and those who had been standing sat down. Seeing it that way, no one could argue. Even their displeasure at her having become mated to a fox was born of a need to protect their sister from a creature they saw as dangerous. Thankfully, in the end, Judy had been right--as much as her family may have hated it, none of them would have been willing to jeopardise her life.

The doorbell rang upstairs, and Bonnie left the room hesitantly as the group of rabbits continued their discussion, Stu doing his best to supply what details he could.

She went upstairs and had barely reached the upstairs living room and heard the doorbell ring again.

"Who is it?" she asked brightly as she strode down the hall. When there came no answer, she approached more cautiously and reached for the knob. She opened the door just a crack and let out a gasp at what she saw.

Before her stood a female badger in formal dress who stood somewhat taller than she.

The badger smiled and extended her paw. "You must be Mrs. Hopps," she said warmly as Bonnie opened the door more widely.

The rabbit nodded slightly and took the collarless female's paw. "And you are . . . ?" she asked slowly.

The badger's smile widened.

"I'm Honey."

-.-.-.-

7:06 AM

Judy opened her eyes, slowly coming awake as her internal alarm clock stirred her. She pricked her ears slightly as outside in the tiny common room, she could hear Wilde and Fangmeyer talking. She sighed to herself and wondered how they could be up so early after such a long night. She felt Nick at her back, holding her from behind in his strong arms and she snuggled into them. She smiled warmly to herself as she relaxed a little before gingerly reaching forward to pick up her phone to check the time. She nodded to herself, settling back into the near-total blackness of the room, feeling a sense of safety and familiarity there.

It was no surprise, she thought, that she was awake as she and Nick often took morning shifts. After such a long time, it had become normal for her to get up early--and today definitely seemed as though it were going to be a morning-shift type of day.

"You're awake?" asked Nick behind her.

Judy jerked surprise before letting out a sigh and settling back. She gently nudged him with her elbow hummed in response. "You too, huh?"

"Yeah," he yawned, "just seems like one o' those days."

He ran his paw down her side, caressing her lightly, letting it trail down her thigh before repeating the motion, petting her gently.

She hummed again contentedly and snuggled back into his body.

He lightly kissed her cheek. She smirked and turned her head back to him and kissed him lightly. Their kisses deepened each time, and she turned to lie on her back as Nick arched over her to kiss her more fully.

Judy hummed as she allowed Nick's paw to trail down her side and dip into the valley between her thighs. He broke the kiss slowly and regarded her carefully.

"Do you wanna . . . ?"

She nodded at his unspoken question and caressed his cheek. He dipped down and kissed her deeply as she arched into his paw.

She muffled into the kiss and dipped her own paw low to gently grip his steadily growing length.

The kisses became more heated until with a final, passionate kiss, she turned to face Nick. Nick pulled back for a moment and looked down at her.

"You are so cute," he said as he looked down at her, smiling warmly.

Judy laughed slightly, enjoying the playful tone in his voice. Over their time together, she had grown to love it when he called her that.

She nuzzled his neck as best she could and sighed as his paw continued to rub between her legs. She stretched and suddenly let out a gasp when Nick let one of his fingers gently dip into the soft folds of her nether region. Her head stretched back instinctively, gently. She moaned slightly as she shifted her top leg back to give Nick greater access to her core. He took advantage of her offering, softly forcing contact against her womanhood, his heart rate quickening as he continued.

The kissed fiercely, now, as the tension and the stress they'd both experienced the other day seeped away--the only thoughts they had were of each other.

"Nick . . ." she said breathlessly as she pulled away from another kiss. She let out a shuddering breath as pleasure coalesced at the point of contact with his paw, his name a plea for more.

Nick arched his body over hers and kissed her deeply as she raised her head to meet his lips. They continued like that, softly kissing as he felt her folds moisten, telltale dew forming at the joining of her thighs. She moaned lightly into his mouth and then let out a shuddering breath when he withdrew his lips as wave after gentle wave of pleasure swept over her.

She wanted more.

While Nick continued his massage, she laid back and slowly spread her legs. Judy allowed Nick to continue pawing her for a few moments more, simply breathing in and out a few moments, before she reached up to hold his shoulder and gently drew his upper body over her.

"Nick . . ." she trailed off somewhat shyly, "are you ready for lesson two?" She caught herself and immediately giggled at how corny she sounded to her own ears. She honestly couldn't believe she'd just said that.

Nick let out a gentle snicker, too, before leaning down to kiss her as he continued his delicate massage, finding her clit and very, very gently massaging its outer folds--even taking a moment to lick his paw to alleviate the roughness of his calloused fingers before rejoining their kisses.

Judy tore her mouth away and let out a passionate gasp of pleasure when she felt Nick's thumb touch a particularly sensitive spot, rubbing lightly but setting off a profoundly pleasurable sensation as he continued.

"Lesson two, Carrots? Really?" he said incredulously though heatedly as his eyes peered down at her through the darkness, watching her as she slowly lost control. He playfully laughed off her attempt at sultriness but stopped when he felt her paw draw him down to her still further, his heart skipping a beat at the sound of her beautiful voice:

"Nick, make love to me." She murmured her plea breathlessly as she tried to look up at Nick through the darkness, cursing her night sight as her paws reached out blindly to caress his face softly.

Something flared in Nick's chest at the earnestness in her tone. "A-are you sure you wanna . . . ?" He trailed off, somewhat unsure, but quickly cast off his insecurity a moment later as the events of their first night together flooded his memory, reminding him that he didn't need to be anxious about that particular act anymore.

Nick's keen eyesight could see her in the darkness and noted the look in her eyes. She nodded firmly in answer to his question and took a deep breath.

Before their first night together, sex had felt like an insurmountable barrier and not because she felt hung up about it--certainly Nick hadn't, she was sure; but because they'd been worried about their compatibility.

Nick would never have voiced his concerns before, but he'd been hanging onto more than a hint of hesitancy when it came to the thought of sex with Judy.

'Judy!'

She had been the sole figure in his life who'd saved him from himself and given him a better life. She had loved him and opened her heart to him, but if things had worked out that they didn't work together physically, though he might not have said anything, a part of him would have seen that as a potential sign indicating their incompatibility as a couple. Their society had been against them as a couple to begin with, and that had affected them both, if not overtly, then certainly subconsciously. Sex may not be everything, but it was a fool's errand to ignore its importance in a relationship. There was also no point in pretending that if they hadn't worked together well it would have left them and their relationship totally unaffected.

One angle to take, Nick thought, was to see the fact that it had been Judy who'd had to initiate them as a sign that she loved him more than he loved her; that maybe she'd had more faith and more confidence in their relationship where he didn't. But as he looked down at her, he knew that wasn't the truth. He loved her. He undoubtedly loved her.

No, the real reason he hadn't been the one to initiate them when he'd had the chance was that he was afraid of what it might have implied if the hadn't fit. More specifically, he'd been afraid of losing her. He had just been too used to things going wrong at the slightest opportunity. He still was, if the events of yesterday morning were to go by. His doubt might even have even been strong enough to undermine the sense of love that they had for one another. But banishing that foolish thought was the fact that things had now changed: Where their world and society had tried to get into their heads and pit them against each other, plaguing them with doubts, they now knew each other.

Even if they hadn't been compatible in that way, Nick thought, he knew that he would have made it work between them because he wanted her. More than anything. He would have figured something out--they would have figured something out. He knew it. And just in case, he knew Judy and knew she would never have let them succumb to their doubts. They were each other's foundation. They were partners in every way--the two of them against the world. And if he had known for certain that sex with Judy had been a possibility from the start, he would have had sex with her ages ago--and she'd certainly provided him ample opportunity to do so in the past.

As it was, they had taken each other's virginities in a natural stride on a night that had not only been marked in their minds as having made them mates in the physical sense but had also effectively evaporated all their fears concerning sex in the future. And, which is more important, it had banished their doubts about each other.

It was the reason why, now, as they turned to each other, their minds slipped easily from one emotion to the next, naturally sensing that this was the perfect moment to enjoy each other.

"Close your eyes for a moment. I wanna turn on a light," she whispered.

He nodded and closed his eyes as she reached over to the lamp on the nightstand and flicked it on before dimming it significantly for their eyes--especially Nick's.

She turned around to see him and felt her breath leave her. He was turned toward her, naked and handsome as ever. His strong arms and torso had become firm with training and shone through with a hint of muscle, giving a bit of shape to his generally lithe form.

Her own figure was slight and deceivingly frail-looking in the dim light.

Nick would've been lying if he said he didn't love the sight of her bare body. He loved the sight of her slightly rounded hips--Lush!--the halting look in her face as she shrank under his gaze; loved the way her beautiful, grey chest rose and fell in anticipation. Her form truly was a vision, and it seized his chest that she was allowing him entrance to herself. It amazed him that he would be allowed to touch, caress, and possess something so beautiful; that he was allowed to be inside and temporarily a part of the seat of everything he had ever hoped his life would be--she was the throne of his love, his confidence, and his life. She wanted him to be part of her.

Growling low in passion, he reached out and gently took one of her hips in his paw and felt the muscle there flex under his touch as he gently worked it. He ran his paw further up, along her waist, near her chest, before reaching her face and cupping it.

Wordlessly, he carefully moved above her, trying not to his tangle his legs with hers as her thighs widened to fit his slender waist between them. She put both her paws on his shoulders as he moved up and over, his hips and legs brushing along her intimate region in a way that filled her with the warmth of anticipation. He took a moment and straightened the blanket over them so that it covered their lower body before he returned his paws to their intimate work. Judy allowed her own paws to gently run down his strong chest before roaming back up carefully against the grain of his fur, creating a tingle of pleasure that shuddered its way down his spine. The tightening in his heart and the pool of want and need gnawing in his gut caused him to let out a possessive growl as he beheld her body, enjoying the sight of her slim waist as it disappeared beneath him.

She was so small compared to him--so beautiful! And she wanted him. Her body was bare and on display for his eyes only with no hint of shame as she glanced up at him lovingly.

He adored the way she tilted her head up and looked down at all of him. He loved the look on her face as her eyes took him in--admiring him. An egoistic smile spread across his face as he watched her: she looked on him just as hungrily he did her.

He took a deep breath as she gently drew him down.

His instincts growled as the triumphant shout rang out in his mind at the vision of her beneath him: 'Mate!'

He lifted himself over her before pulling back slightly to rest most of his weight on his shins and left paw while carefully putting himself at her entrance with his right. Any trepidation or hesitancy he might've had had evaporated on the night they'd first made love. He smirked to himself--When they'd realised they'd fit, he thought.

The events of the other day had nailed into his heart and mind one of the truest lessons: Never let a good moment go to waste.

He intended to follow through on that, now.

He slid the tip of his red, tapered member in and out of her warm flesh before stroking in deeply and removed his paw, drawing musical hums of pleasure from her as he rocked his hips. He pulled almost all the way out and stroked at her entrance as he relished the feeling of dipping just inside her, again and again, the sensation washing him in a satisfying wave of desire. He hardened even more as he continued, his chest and torso beginning to burn as every fibre of his being longed to be within her.

In spite of his confidence, he was trembling

Her breathless, wanton sighs were a call to him. He felt like a king! He was dangerous to her. He was a natural enemy of hers--But now no longer. Now, he was her lover. He could wound her or hurt her and yet here she was giving him her most intimate embrace, trusting him with her heart and soul. While it may have sounded odd, he nodded to himself that that was exactly right--no one had ever seen this side of her, and even if they had, she was giving this to him now. No one had ever loved or wanted him as she did, and he swore to himself right then that he would do everything he could to show her that he loved her as much as she loved him.

He held himself aloft, his paws resting his weight on the mattress on either side of her hips, not totally over her body, but letting his hips do the work now as he continued to relish the incredible sensation of her folds as they parted around his member as he thrust slowly for a few moments--there was nothing like that initial sensation to him! And the quiet moans that were drawn from Judy's lips encouraged him in this play as he dipped in a little deeper sometimes, before pulling back slightly.

"Nick?" she murmured as she looked up at him.

He looked down at her, taking his focus away from their lower halves.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Um . . . that feels really good," she said shyly as she looked up at him. She felt silly telling him that and couldn't help but feel embarrassed. She shouldn't, though!

Nick sensed her hesitancy and nuzzled her reassuringly as his hips continued their movements. He didn't want her to feel ashamed to tell him what she liked--that she liked what he was doing. He didn't want her to feel embarrassed to tell him these things. If his cock were able to make her feel as good as she made him feel, he would do anything he could to do what felt good for her.

She shouldn't be ashamed of anything with him.

"Hey, it's okay, Carrots," he said calmly. He kissed her lightly, hoping to ease her shyness. "You mean, you like what I'm doing?" he asked carefully.

She nodded gratefully, an easy smile returning to her face.

"You want me to keep doing it?" he asked as he looked down at her adoringly.

"Yeah," she said, still in her shy voice, "for a little bit," she finished as he smiled down at her.

He nodded and leant down over her, kissing her lightly before she pulled him into a deeper kiss.

"God, Nick, that feels good," she moaned out as he continued.

At last, when they'd had enough, and she felt she was ready enough for him, he sank himself into her deeply, hilting himself and murmuring sweet nothings as he gently lowered his body over hers--the sensation of being fully enveloped by her warmth earning a possessive snarl from him as she writhed.

She felt the gentle pressure of his strong chest touch against hers and felt loved as his strong arms on either side of her focused her attention on him. She ran her paws up his strong biceps once or twice before she wrapped them gently around his back.

He kissed her lightly, her soft lips kissing back tenderly even as her body vibrated with pleasure at the feeling of being filled by him. She gave a muffled cry of pleasure and started pushing her hips back up to grind them against his as her body instinctively told her to move. He snickered slightly at her eagerness, and so did she as her ears tinted with colour. He kissed her lightly and ground back, matching the pressure, pushing his own hips against her with a strong yet gentle force as he began to rock them back and forth.

Immediately she let out a sharp moan that she quickly buried in his shoulder and was met with his scent, feeling a gentle longing in her heart as his mingled with hers.

Her body positively thrummed as in every way he filled her--His scent and smell only feeding the flame of desire in her core as it reminded her of comfort, his gentle strength, love, and protection.

This was only the second time he'd made love and teasing out what she did and didn't like was going to be one of the most enjoyable cases he'd ever worked. She loved the way he ground his hips against her opening, the soft fur rubbing firmly against the sensitive spot there sending her rather quickly to the next level. She moaned as he continued that motion a little longer, watching her reaction as and testing out which ways seemed to get the better reaction. He continued the gyration of his hips against her when he saw how much she seemed to like it.

He let out a moan himself as the motion drove up his passion and pleasure.

"Nick, I . . . d-don't stop!" she exclaimed in a hushed whisper as his grinding thrusts continued.

Nick obliged, but it wasn't long before he felt the need to thrust more deeply. His mind started going blank as the soft ridges of her passage seemed to wrap themselves around his cock as with each thrust her folds created a delicious friction. It was too much now: He couldn't resist any longer! He withdrew himself, nearly pulling out, and ran the tip of his member in and out, just at her entrance, before sinking in to the hilt again and making a few short thrusts deep within her, interspersing it every now and again with the grinding she seemed to love.

"Judy! God!" he exclaimed through grit teeth, "I-I've wanted you . . . I've wanted this for so long, you have no id-"

He shouted as his length found the right angle within her. He buried his muzzle in her shoulder and grunted as his thrusts came quicker. "Judy! God, Judy! I love you!"

He arched above her and held himself up on his forearms. They looked into each others' eyes, the deep green of his reflecting endlessly in her violet ones. She was gorgeous!--and at that moment there was nothing more erotic than the sight of her beneath him, her beautiful face a mask of love for him as he continued to thrust. They were floating in a cloud of pleasure, away in their own little world in which they saw nothing but each other.

He kissed her deeply and she wrapped her arms around his strong shoulders as they held the kiss. They kissed again and again, drinking from each others' lips as from a never ending well of passion.

"I love you Nick!" she moaned when they broke off the kiss.

He held her tightly and quickened his thrusts in response. "I love you, Judy! God, I'll never get enough of loving you!" he moaned as nuzzled her neck. He'd been trying to go slow, but she was driving him to the edge faster than he thought.

He slowed his hips, wanting to prolong their union as long as he could. For the life of him, he couldn't get enough of being inside her!

Words failed them as their language became nothing more than gasps and groans. They rained kisses on each other and spoke sweet nothings as they deepened their intimate embrace.

She moaned beneath him, reveling in everything he was doing to her, gasping as she felt herself loosening around him. He kissed her deeply again, and she wrapped an arm around his neck as he continued.

They broke off the kiss and gasped as they looked at each other, their eyes meeting as another wave pleasure swept over them before leaning in together and kissing again.

The sensation of his filling her completely wasn't enough. She wanted all of him! And as he worked his length within her, she let out stifled cries of pleasure as he strove to give it to her.

He groaned and let out a pleasured gasp as he felt himself gliding within her walls, pushing her folds apart with each thrust as they swept across his sensitive length. He filled her as much as he could, wanting to nestle his manhood within her as deeply as possible. He felt the spongy flesh near the end of her passage and growled at its implication as the folds there seemed to envelop his sensitive tip as it plumbed her depths. The exquisite sensation drew a low groan from him as it not only increased the sharp pleasure he derove from everything else but served as a reminder that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Her body wanted his essence, his seed. She wanted him and loved him so much she was willing to share her body with him not only at that moment but for the rest of the day. The thought of her absorbing and holding onto him for any length of time after they'd coupled drove him absolutely wild!

"Judy!" he growled primally through his clenched teeth at the thought of filling her, the idea kicking off a feeling of intense yearning as he subconsciously sped up the slow and methodical thrusts of his hips he'd been striving for.

Judy stifled another moan into his shoulder, bit her lower lip tightly, and began to gasp repeatedly. She threw her head back and arched herself into him, closing her eyes tightly as her fox hit the pleasurably sensitive flesh in the depths of her womanhood, her pleasure spiralling higher and higher each time he filled her--Nick's growls and shuddering breaths filling her with an unnameable satisfaction as his movements intensified.

She felt the muscles of his back ripple beneath her paws--felt the way his arms and paws seemed to be nearly clutching her now. She felt him pull away, though, as his movements seemed to speed up and slow down in a maddening dance that kept her on the edge of a precipice. At last, she opened her eyes to see him looking down at her intently, his green eyes shimmering with emotion.

He'd been overcome with a strong desire to see where their bodies were joined and had pushed himself up on his paws. He'd looked down between them, relishing the sight of their union for a few moments before turning his eyes to watch the emotions she was feeling wash across her face: She enjoyed what he was doing to her! He saw her eyes flash open, their deep purple hues telling him everything she felt for him at that moment as she regarded him.

In that instant, she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen!

She loved him!

"You have no idea how sexy you are!" he growled as he leant in and kissed her deeply, passionately, lovingly before pulling away to look down at their joining hips again. After a moment he looked back at her heatedly, his eyes seeming to deepen their green colour. She could see in his eyes everything he felt for her--his lust, his need for her, his hope to please her, and his desperate love and adoration.

"You have no idea how beautiful you are!" he growled as he bent low and kissed her longingly. "You're everything I ever wanted!"

His confessions stirred her love for him. She could feel it all!

"Nick . . . !" she uttered as the haze of pleasure overtook her. She returned his look full force as she arched into his ardent thrusts, feeling profoundly complete and whole at the feel of his hips and intimate regions pressing tightly against hers.

"Judy . . . !" he exclaimed before bringing his lips to her mouth. It would never be enough! They kissed again, heatedly as a red blush overtook them, locked like that for some moments more before Nick broke off.

"God, you have no idea what you do to me!" as he suddenly hunched over her. "Oh, God! Judy!" he ground out as he took her smell--the aroma of her arousal as well as the bonding scent sending signals to his mind and heart that the time was coming near . . . .

"Judy . . . !" he strangled out again as his passion for her deepened.

"Yes!" she cried out softly in pleasure. "Nick! Say my name again and again!"

"Judy!" he shouted through grit teeth as he continued to thrust into her waiting body. "Judy!" he growled again, shakily, as their love enveloped them, holding them together tightly as he continued to breathe her name as often as breath would allow. Her name was a prayer on his lips that led him to Salvation.

He let out a sudden cry of pleasure and arched himself into her to the hilt--his instincts could no longer bear it--and quickly tilted her hips slightly upward before pistoning his thrusts as he drove them both toward the finish.

God, he needed this! Needed her!

She was right there with him, meeting him thrust for thrust, moaning at the delectable, rapid pace.

He was on the edge, his sharp thrusts reaching deeper as he drove himself into her. Her intimate folds loosened more, preparing for what her body knew was coming next--

His hips were flush against hers, his sheath against her entrance, and he thanked all the stars in Heaven when he felt his knot form.

He growled in profound satisfaction as he felt it start to slip from the confines of his sheath, passing into the snug warmth of her body.

"Tell me what you want Judy! God, tell me that you want me!" he said, his voice strained with need, his ears pinned back, his eyes shut tight.

She was at her peak--nearly there! "Oh God, Nick!" she cried as she felt his knot push into her. She heard his strained demand, his desire striking a chord within the deepest regions of her being.

"I . . ." she struggled through the haze of pleasure as his hips ground against hers, his forming knot increasing the maddening pressure within her. She buried her muzzle in the beautiful red fur of his shoulder as she called his name. "Nick! I . . . I want you! I want you so bad!" she shouted wantonly as she pushed up against his bulb.

Though muffled, it was just what he needed to hear as his knot sank itself into her folds. He closed his eyes tightly, clenched his jaw and grit his teeth, and felt his feet twitch as they dug into the sheets beneath him when for a few moments he felt it swish around freely earning a guttural cry from him.

_'God! Yes! There it is!' _his mind shouted he felt his whole member stiffen and swell within her, triggered by her body, his pleasure intensifying--He didn't know he could be that hard!

'So close!'

And then he couldn't move anymore.

Nick had only barely felt the tie when the tension coiling within him spiked suddenly, tightening in him as he reached and fell past the point of no return.

"Fuck!" he shouted as the taught bow of tension in him snapped, blasting through him as shudders of pleasure bolted up his spine in wave after wave as he forced himself into his mate, driving himself into her as deeply as he could in one final thrust, hunching over her body and burying his face in her shoulder, taking in her scent deeply, as he let out shout after strangled shout of pleasure as emptied himself into her. The claws on his feet dug hard into the mattress, his paws holding her in place, as he strove to give her everything he could from his depths as her soft folds clenched and gripped him.

Judy's world shattered around her as the wave of pleasure that had swept Nick up took her with it, battering her senses in sheer delight as it washed over her again and again! She cried out with a loud shout of joy at the sensation of being tied with him as it bound them and let fly the deep and gripping contractions that pounded through her--emanating from where she and her lover were joined and resounding throughout her body like a wave of white-hot light. Being with him, loving him, just having him with her as they were truly meant to be, was everything she could have ever wanted in that moment.

She arched her back and hips into him, wrapping her legs around his waist tightly, as he pushed down with his.

She let out a kind of short laugh as she felt his member throb within her, moaning at the inner warmth as he came inside her.

After a few moments, she was left heaving deeply and heard Nick gasping for breath next to her. Her pleasure was subsiding but the hum delight in her core continued to vibrate through her warmly. She very well could have gone for another round, but she knew they'd be tied for a while.

She languidly caressed his back, threading her fingers through his fur, as she settled into the afterglow.

Nick was in the clouds. He was floating with her in his arms, slowly and gently, high above the Earth and its troubles.

Though the main event was over, he still grit his teeth now and again as his cock throbbed pleasurably within his mate, still coming.

He sighed to himself as he realised this was going to take a while. Not that he was complaining in the slightest. He wouldn't have traded any chance to have her in his arms a little bit longer for any reason.

He leaned down and kissed her gently, their kisses slow and loving more than passionate as they had been before. He shivered in delight at the continuous, slow movements her fingers made as she caressed his back. He snuggled her, nuzzling her with his nose as he instinctively mingled their scents.

She sighed wistfully as did so and gradually felt as her pounding heart slowed and smiled to herself.

She could still feel him throbbing, still hear him letting out gasps and groans of pleasure in the aftermath--while the tension had snapped in him, draining from his muscles, and ebbed away, his orgasm hadn't.

He was awash in pleasure. He had no idea it was possible to come this long but realised it had something to do with the fact that he had a mate now. His body had instinctively recognised that.

"Is it gonna stop?" asked Judy after a few minutes, half jokingly. She raised an eyebrow and snuggled into him, loving the feel of him on top of her. She didn't mind in the slightest that he was in the midst of his pleasure; it was simply that she was just as surprised as he was.

Nick chuckled into her shoulder. "Well . . ." his gravelly voice strained, "I guess my cock thinks we're trying for kits."

He nuzzled her neck and kissed her there before raising himself on his elbows and kissing her languidly. She kissed him back lightly, petting his head gently, continuing to exchange their kisses continuing lovingly in the afterglow.

Gently, Nick rolled them to their sides before shifting and rolling them so that he was on his back. She flattened himself on his chest, running her fingers languidly through his fur, using her fingers to feel the strength of his muscles beneath her.

"We need to do that again . . ." she murmured.

Nick chuckled. "Oh, you can bet on it. We are definitely doing that again," he finished breathlessly. He reached down and pet her lightly, running his paws down her back. "Ah, Carrots, what would I do without you?"

She chuckled and kissed his chest. "I'm glad we woke up on schedule," she said softly, "but I'm honestly still tired. Especially now," she laughed.

Nick nodded. "We do get to actually sleep in, today."

"This is what the morning after our first time should've been like," she murmured sadly.

"Hey, don't think about that," he said gently as he ran a paw through the fur on her back. She nodded slightly against his chest. Unable to keep his mind from wandering, he couldn't help but go over what they'd just done in his mind. "I . . . I wasn't too rough with you, was I?" he asked softly in their tender afterglow.

She shook her head. "No, you weren't," she said softly. "Why?" she asked, raising herself up slightly to look into his warm eyes.

"Because," he said as he softly ran his paw up down her hip and thighs in a tender caress, "you're small, and I want to be gentle with you."

A lump formed in her chest and she leaned forward, kissing him deeply as his arms wrapped around her.

She broke off the kiss. "It was good," she said breathlessly, her tone telling him that it was more than "just good".

"You were wonderful," she spoke with a gentle certainty. It made her feel that much safer in his arms knowing that he was trying to make their coupling as good for both of them.

"I want you to know," he said as she lay back down on him, "how much I love you. I just want you to be happy. With our life together."

She nodded and smiled. She felt peaceful when he was like this: When it was just the two of them together--When he dropped his guard and let her see him. He had to keep up his façade of affability and confidence so often in front of others that being with him when he was just himself felt rare. Those moments of domestic life were the real moments they had come to cherish over the span of their relationship--

It was the way he made her feel when he asked her if she wanted a little more ice cream or the way she made him feel when she put her hand on his shoulder and asked if he were feeling alright. It was the way she'd brew coffee for them in the morning, how she always kept her small fridge stocked with his favourite foods. She had opened up her life to him and said, "Everything I have is yours," and he had striven to do the same for her. What other choice had he had in the face of such tenderness but to open himself to her, too? She'd made him love her.

It was this same domestic comfort with each other that settled them into their current silence.

She snuggled down into his body and let her fingers play through the fur on his chest. She couldn't help but see bruises marring the skin that lay beneath. Seeing them served as a mild shock to the peace they'd seemed to be settling into.

She perked up. "Aren't you still in pain?" she asked. "From yesterday?"

He nodded slightly. "Yeah, I am. Kinda," he said slowly. He certainly hadn't given any indication that he was in any pain while they were making love.

"Then why . . . ?" she asked softly, now worried that she'd hurt him.

Nick snickered. "You underestimate my resilience," he smirked.

"No, I don't!" she chuckled, "But this place," she said, sobering a bit, "it really could've killed you." She couldn't help it as the spectre of death entered her thoughts. The chances of death and failure were so great, here.

He grimaced at her expression. "Hey," he said gently, his voice warming through her, "I got through it. We both did. At least know what to expect, now." He kissed the top of her head. "I'm here now, aren't I?"

"Yeah," she snuggled into him. "Just don't get into any more trouble. You know I'd do anything to get you out of trouble, right?"

He paused for a moment, and she rose up slightly to look at him. He caressed the side of her face gently with the back of his claws. "Yeah. I would do the same for you. And . . ." he started hesitantly and somewhat fearfully, ". . . I know you'd do the same for me."

"Anything," she said quietly, "to do the right thing."

"Even if you end up hurt?" he asked. He knew the answer already

He tried to swallow the lump in his throat as he recalled the time they'd busted a drug deal. He'd never forget the fear he'd felt when she chased after one of the gang members nor the relief he felt when she came back, slowly dragging a snoring ocelot behind her. When they'd gotten back to the station that evening, she filled out the paperwork like usual and then went home with him.

He noticed that she'd said nothing to him about her fight with the feline and described it as being routine, but noticed how quiet she was about the incident. Especially when he saw her taking a switchblade to the evidence locker. He made a point of trying to ignore the tightening of anxiety in his chest when she'd told him later that evening that the ocelot had attacked her with it. He'd swiped her fur, but it was nothing serious. They'd gone to his apartment that evening for some dinner and fun and she and it was clear she didn't wanna talk about it. It wasn't until they were showering together the following morning that he noticed it. It had been under her fur, so he hadn't seen it:

While shampooing her head and neck, he felt something like a few grains of sand stuck in the fur on her neck. He tried tugging on a few to work them out but stopped when Judy cried out in pain as it seemed they were so well embedded that he was accidentally pulling out a few strands of her fur, too. He turned her toward him and looked to see what they were. He knelt down and searched through her fur till he found the source: To his shock and horror, he found that they were tiny granules of dried blood.

He'd parted the fur to look beneath as she looked at him sidelong, somewhat confused. He was stunned as he could just barely make out a shallow scratch that ran along the right side of her throat. It wasn't the cut that had seized him but the idea that, had the cut been larger, had she been a mite slower in her reaction, her life might have ended on the floor of that drug house. For the rest of the day he hadn't so much as let her out of his sight.

Then, as now, he didn't want to dwell on the idea that she could be harmed in any way--even for the love of him. But he knew she couldn't make that promise. Already since being here she'd put her life on the line for him. He'd've done the same for her had their situations been reversed.

"I have to," she said, looking down at him intently.

He nodded slowly. "Judy, just no leave me again," he pled softly as he held her.

"I won't," she murmured as she relaxed herself onto him again. "Hmm . . . Nick . . ." she hummed out as she rested. She could hear his breathing and the gradual slowing of his heart.

She pushed herself up again slightly and looked down at him. "So, how does this compare with your first time?" she asked slightly sultrily.

Nick's face instantly split: he let his muzzle gape open, lolled his tongue out the side, and rolled his eyes into the back of his head.

Judy let out a burst of hearty laughter that didn't die away for a few moments. He growled and gently reached up to hold her and gently rolled them to the side.

Calming, he nuzzled her before pulling away. "We should try to get some more sleep," he sighed as he ran his left paw along her hips and waist.

She nodded. "We definitely have to get some more rest. I mean, we have to be up later."

Nick nodded, closing his eyes gently as he pulled his bunny closer after turning off the light.

-.-.-.-

8:13 AM

A loud banging on the door of their room woke them and they jumped awake.

Judy skillfully turned herself at the waist, feeling herself still tied with Nick, as she spun back to grab her phone and look at the time.

"Who is it?" called Nick.

"It's me, Wolford!" came a deep voice. "We just got word that Honey's here. We're all gonna have a meeting down here in a few minutes."

Judy looked at the door quizzically. "What do you mean? Who else is gonna be there?"

"Well, your mom and dad. But they won't be down for a while."

"I think we're gonna wanna do it in private!" she called back. "Maybe ask my mom if we can open up one of the big rooms?"

"I'll ask and see what's what," he shouted back.

Judy heard him step away from the door and she turned back to Nick with a pointed expression on her face.

"Hey, there's nothing I can do. My dick has a mind of its own!"

In spite of the difficulty, they tried working free. It took about five minutes for things to settle down enough for them to come apart.

"Do you have a rag or something? We need to clean up a little," said Nick as he looked around the room.

"Cover your eyes," said Judy as she reached for the light switch.

Nick shielded his face as she turned up the dimmer to light the whole room.

She hopped out of bed to have a look in the closet.

Nick looked back at the bed but saw nothing that needed to be cleaned before looking back to Judy.

He admired her rear as she bent down and reached in to take out two towels from the bottom shelf, handing one to him. They quickly wiped themselves down as best they could when they were startled by another loud knock at the door.

"Would you two hurry up?! We're all waiting for you!" It was Wolford again and he seemed agitated by something, though of course, it was impossible to know what.

"Sorry," said Nick sheepishly as they both started dressing. He turned to Judy and whispered. "I wouldn't've started anything if I'd known we were going to have to be up in an hour."

"It's fine!" said Judy calmingly. "It really is," she smiled. She didn't want either of them to worry as she attempted to put on a brave face.

"Did my mom say anything about the room?" called Judy to the door.

There came no answer, and as Judy made to put on her shirt, she frowned. She shrugged and continued quickly, however, as she was almost done. She finished buttoning up her policeman blues and leant up to give Nick a quick kiss as he finished with his own shirt. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her softly. She smiled and snuggled in to him.

"You're sweet for saying that it's not a problem," said Nick, "but we're gonna get into trouble someday."

Judy shrugged. "Probably, but it'll make for a funny story," she giggled. "We're just lucky they didn't come for us right after!"

She blushed and he kissed her again, caressing her cheek lightly, before pulling away as they finished donning their clothes.

Judy thought about putting on her vest but decided not to. 'No need for pointless clothing,' she thought.

They went to the door and kissed deeply one last time.

As she reached for the doorknob, she could see the change take place in Nick--saw his mask come up, his signature smirk coming back to his lips as he prepared to meet the world. She felt her own shields come up, too. She was surprised when she felt Nick's paw at her back, rubbing her gently. He'd been watching her, too, and had seen the moment when her defences returned. He shared a look with her--a knowing look--and she both hated and love it. Hated it because it was a look that said, "Now we have to hide ourselves again--Now, we have to guard our inner selves." And loved it because it was a look of understanding--a look that confirmed that they were in this together, and more than that, that they were kindred spirits in this or any other world. Both of them were hiding, both of them had each other's backs, both of them were willing to sacrifice for each other. They knew each other.

With that, Judy turned the knob and opened the door to step out into the common room with her partner, steeling herself to greet the group of predators awaiting them.

"Sorry we're a little late," said Nick as they walked out, "we just took a bit longer getting dress-" He stopped in his tracks and closed his mouth abruptly when he saw the room was full of Judy's brothers--a group of about twenty or so. Judy felt herself go especially pale beneath her fur when she noticed her mother standing off to the left with a thankfully clueless look on her face, the implication of Nick's words bypassing her.

Wilde, who was standing tall amid the group of rabbits next to Wolford and Fangmeyer, hissed air between his teeth. "See . . ." he began slowly "I don't think you should've said that."

Nick felt his life fading away before his eyes. 'Well, shit.'

There was a beat of silence before the room suddenly erupted in a din of anger!

"You son of a bitch!" shouted one who suddenly lurched forward in a quick move to get at Nick.

Judy quickly stepped up front to block anyone's path. "Don't you hurt him!" she shouted, inwardly trembling at the savage expression on the faces of her siblings as their individual shouts and insults were lost in a choir of anger.

Another jerked forward as he tried to break free as other's tried to hold him back. "Don't you fuckin' talk about our sister that way!"

"Don't!" shouted some others near him as he struggled to break free. "He could kill you!"

"You keep your mouth shut you filthy fox," he continued, "and keep your paws off her! Let me loose! You heard what he said; let me loose!" the rabbit shouted as he continued to struggle.

"Why?" cried Bonnie, "what did he say?"

The shouting ceased as quickly as it'd begun as they all turned to look at their mother.

"Nothing!" they all said in a quick unison as they pinned their ears back. It would've been comical if not for the fact that Nick was relatively certain that all of her brothers were planning on ripping him apart at their earliest convenience. He scanned the room and was relieved to see that Judy's father was not present at the gathering.

Judy as her eyes landed on her mother, worriedly. "You told them?" she asked somewhat timidly.

"I had to," she began in a calming tone. "They were asking me why you were sleeping in the same room as a fox," she continued, her tone begging Judy to understand.

"Tell us it's not true Judy!" shouted the one who'd been struggling only moments before. He stood tall amongst his brothers and was easily the strongest of those present.

Judy looked back with a mix of shock and shyness. "It's true," she said quietly. "We've been together for a while." She spoke barely above the whisper under the assault of their glares.

Several scoffed in disgust, many of them turning away from her.

Judy swayed and felt she was on the verge of tears when she felt Nick put his paws on her shoulder from behind. She shrank back from the crowd, slightly, and into the fox.

Judy felt in her gut that, in reality, their reaction to Nick had nothing to do with anything he had done to them personally and more to do with the fact that he'd thrown their relationship in their faces. In her stubbornness, she took a more prominent stance in front of him.

Judy watched her as her mother tried to calm her brothers and make her way through her children to the large bunny who eyed Nick with a death glare.

"Jasper," said Bonnie, "he's probably very ni-"

"Excuse me!" came a feminine voice down the hall, "I hope you don't mind, but I've never been particularly patient."

Everyone in the common room turned to look as a badger in her late twenties came out of the hallway, striding forward confidently and surely.

"And shouting makes me nervous," she continued. She smiled at the room and stopped for a moment as she looked around.

As Nick took her in, he was at once, both impressed and intimidated by her. Her relatively small stature compared with those of larger predators did nothing to belie her serious composure. Neither did her seemingly genuine smile.

The bunnies in the common area instinctively made way for her as she started forward again, though her bearing was anything but threatening--it was all in the way she carried herself.

She made a way toward Nick but stopped for a moment when she caught a good look at him.

"No, this isn't right," she said flatly. She looked around her and saw Wilde standing head and shoulders above the crowd of rabbits. She took a good look at him before turning back to Nick, then back to Wilde again.

"Wolford, Fangmeyer," she started slowly, "who is he?" she gestured at Nick with the side of her head.

"We're calling him P," said Fangmeyer.

"First thing: Think up a better name for him. But more important, he says he's Nick Wilde?" she asked. Her tone was no-nonsense and to the point. She had come to make sense of the situation and that was precisely what she was going to do.

The pair of them nodded.

"Did you check his scent?"

"He smelled exactly like him," said Wolford.

"That can't be," she replied.

"It's true," he insisted.

"Then there's something wrong with your nose." It was a statement of fact. "You, too?" she asked as she looked at Fangmeyer.

He nodded slowly.

She shook her head to herself before looking back up. "Have you checked him recently? For how long has he 'smelled exactly like Nick?'"

Fangmeyer tried to think back. "Uh . . ."

"Was it eight-ish?" asked Wolford.

"Something like that. I remember calling someone from the van at eight-fifteen if that helps."

"I'm sorry?" she asked, somewhat lost.

"We picked him up out of the alley at around eight-ish. A little before eight-fifteen," said Fangmeyer as he clarified.

"Since that time, he's smelled like Nick?" she asked.

"Well, yeah!" said Wolford. "I have a good nose. I know I do. There's no way we're wrong."

Honey pursed her lips. "Check him now," she said after a moment of thought.

Wolford walked forward slowly as the bunnies parted around him.

"You, too," she said to Fangmeyer.

She came forward herself through the group, at last giving Judy full view of her.

Judy let out a gasp of shock "You! You're-!"

"Ah, yes," said Honey as she smiled.

"You're the badger who called me 'Carrots'," she said as she thought back to the moment she'd been redressed by Mrs. Otterton.

"You don't know me?" asked the badger.

"I know your name's Honey," she said tentatively.

"And nothing else?"

Judy shook her head quizzically.

"So you're not her," said Honey. "Where is she? Where's the other? Did you k-"

"Hey, wait!" exclaimed Clawhauser, "Don't you think we should have this part of the conversation in private?" he asked, sensing that they were delving into things that might seriously disturb the rest of those gathered.

Wilde cleared his throat. "To answer your question: The other's . . . uh . . . under lock and key at the moment."

Honey looked back to the two wolves who'd been taking a good smell of the fox.

They were both blushing profusely--such that she could see a pink tinge beneath Fangmeyer's white fur.

"Yeah . . ." said Wolford, "He still smells exactly like Nick. And a few other things."

"Well, if they'd given us time to shower . . ." murmured Nick, quietly enough only Judy could hear him.

Judy nodded stiffly and turned to look at Nick before giving him just the barest hint of a smile.

The badger nodded curtly at the two wolves, though she maintained a doubtful look in her eyes and turned to Mrs. Hopps. "Would you be so kind as to show us into a private room?"

The older female looked nervous. "Well, I-"

"No way!" shouted Jasper as he started forward. "This is our house and none of you are staying alone with our sister!" he said as he stood close in front of Honey.

"Is there a problem?" asked Honey as she turned to fully face the rabbit. Her voice was deceptively sweet, her tone switching effortlessly from one which was frigid and aloof to one which warmed with diplomacy.

"Well, I . . ." he stopped as looked into her eyes, taken aback by the soft fierceness in her gaze. "I don't mean any offence, but I don't like the idea of my sister being alone with a bunch of predators!"

"Oh? And why's that?" she asked softly, an easy smile coming to her face.

"Well I . . ." he started uncomfortably, "I mean, it just doesn't seem like a good idea for a prey to be alone with a predator is all . . . ." His ears tinted pink under her scrutiny.

"I don't know about that," she said casually as she looked him in the face, "you should try it some time. You may find you enjoy it."

The blush that started in his ears now lit his cheeks and was clearly visible beneath his fur. Some of his brothers snickered and slapped him on the back while some other's openly laughed.

"You don't need to worry about your sister," continued Honey reassuringly. "Not when she's with me." She winked and smiled.

Jasper's ears pinned back and nodded carefully. "Uh . . ." was all he could manage.

Bonnie looked between the two of them, somewhat unsure about the situation.

Honey turned back to the older female and smile. "Yes, sorry!" she started, "A private room?"

"There's a larger meeting room just down the hall I can show you," said Bonnie. "We use it for casual business meetings between neighbouring farmers."

Honey nodded agreeably. "Hopps, Nick, Other Nick, Ben, Wolf, Fang, and Finn," she called, "you're with me."

"Just a sec," shouted Wilde, "we're gonna need this trunk!" he continued as both he and Fangmeyer ran to fetch it from his room.

"It won't be necessary!" she called after them.

"Trust me, it is," said Wolford as he watched the two of them disappear into Wilde's room before popping back seconds later, carrying the trunk between the two of them.

"Why would you nee-" She stopped, cutting herself off as realisation bloomed in her mind, a bolt of anger shooting through her.

She sighed and composed herself before turning again to Mrs. Hopps again, her kind demeanour returning in a flash.

"My apologies, Mrs. Hopps; it's just that I was hoping . . . well, you'll probably see soon enough."

-.-.-.-

The door clicked behind Mrs. Hopps as she left the room.

The eight of them had been led down a few winding halls before reaching a somewhat large room. It was open in the middle and barren of any tables except for a long one which was currently situated against a long wall. The room was rectangular in shape and coated with a lush forest green. There were couches, chairs, and cushions to sit on arranged in a circle. On the whole, though, the room was much smaller than either of the common rooms but accommodated the eight of them easily.

Wilde and Fangmeyer had carefully set the trunk in the middle of the floor. The instant the door closed, Honey's face hardened, her voice changing from one of calm to one of quiet yet stern anger.

"Who has the key?" she said firmly.

Wilde came forward somewhat timidly at her demeanour. He felt as though he were a kit who'd just been caught doing something naughty by a teacher. "I do," he said, somewhat unsurely.

"Unlock it, now," she said quietly, though with no small hint of ire.

Wilde came forward and unlocked the trunk, unbelted the straps, and opened it.

Almost immediately, Hopps popped out of the trunk and looked about for a moment before her eyes landed on Honey.

She trembled slightly before speaking softly. "I could use a glass of water."

Honey smirked slightly. "I prefer tea."

"I don't think they have any tea here," said Hopps uncertainly as she looked around the room.

"If they don't, we'll switch to coffee," said Honey, somewhat insistently. "Trust me."

Hopps took a shaky breath. "But I mean . . . are you sure you can trust them?" asked Hopps.

"What do you think?"

Hopps gave a slight nod. "And . . . and what about them?" she asked wearily as she nodded her head toward Nick and Judy.

"Well," began Honey, "we'll see what's what in a moment. For now, they don't seem to be against us," she said before grinning. "If they are, calling me is the last mistake they're ever gonna make."

The cryptic insinuation sent a shudder through the room, and Nick reached out and took hold of Judy's paw.

At Honey's reassurance, Hopps nodded, and suddenly it were as though she had become transformed. Her face relaxed; her features softened. She didn't let herself appear frail even as she stood there, though--as still and as obstinate as a pillar.

"What's going on?" asked Clawhauser, slowly, as he stepped forward.

"Well," started Honey, "she could tell you, but you probably wouldn't believe her." She spoke calmly, notes of relief evident in her tone as she saw Hopps was relatively unharmed.

Honey helped Hopps out of the chest and turned to look at the group surrounding the two of them.

"Sgt. Hopps," started the badger, "of the ZPD and scourge of predators everywhere . . . has been working for me."

A stunned moment of silence followed before the frantic wheels began turning in the minds of all those present.

Fangmeyer felt his brain break. "I'm sorry, I thought I heard you say that she was working for you?" Tension was palpable in his voice and body as stern disbelief and denial warred with his calm.

"That's right," replied Honey slowly, trying as hard as she could to keep control of the conversation and the room with herself.

"That can't be right!" growled Wolford. "She . . . she . . . !"

"I know everything you've been put through," she said quickly.

"And did she tell you that she had us de-fucking-clawed, too?!" shouted Fangmeyer. "That she had my. . . ." He broke off, unable to finish the thought.

There was a pregnant pause filled with anger, hatred, and disbelief before Honey continued slowly. "What I understand-"

"How can this be true?" cried Clawhauser.

"She's run in more predators than anyone!" shouted Wolford.

"And did you also notice that her prisoners disappeared?" asked Honey, her voice rising now with a hint of anger at being constantly interrupted.

"Yeah, because she killed them! We saw on the news six months ago that scores of preds had been disappeared while in custody! That's what being 'disappeared' means!" said Wilde. "It's happened before."

Honey let the sentence hang there for a moment. She drew on her stance and her commanding presence, now, where she had allowed it to fall before in the hopes of easing the conversation's tenor and calming tempers naturally. It seemed now, however, that she was going to have to force her way.

"In fact, that's not true," began Honey. "No one has died at her instigation."

There was a rest in the conversation before Hopps spoke up, carefully. "No, Honey. There was one."

Honey turned to look at the bunny as she said this and felt the words hit home. Her seemingly-adamantine composure cracked for a moment as she looked at Hopps.

"Yes," said Honey as she nodded carefully, her bottom lip trembling, "one." It was a whisper.

The badger turned back to the group, now, gathering herself before she continued. "No one has died in Hopps' custody--not on purpose, anyway. The fact of the matter is . . . Mr. Big and I have been getting them out."

Another moment of stunned silence followed; the stupefied expressions on the faces of those gathered telling the badger that she almost had them with her. Almost.

The silence ended abruptly as the significance of her words hit their mark.

"What?!" cried the Happy Towners in a clumsy unison when they came back to their senses.

The badger sighed before taking a breath and continuing. "Sgt. Hopps was my contact point--and my only contact point--within the ZPD, and I was hers alone. No one else was to know of her involvement in any way. No one else will be able to verify to you that this was the case, but you need to believe me. Sgt. Hopps has been helping me, and I, in collaboration with Koslov and Mr. Big along with one other agent have been funnelling Happy Towners sentenced to death out of the city."

Finnick's mouth hung agape in disbelief. "And you all knew-"

"No!" said Honey quickly. "No. No one knew of the other's involvement."

Wilde looked puzzled but Clawhauser spoke up.

"So that if any of you were found out," he started, putting the pieces together, "no one would be able to turn on the other!" he finished as he nodded.

"But wouldn't it be a domino effect if one of you were caught? Couldn't someone give someone else away?" asked Judy, pondering the fact that all that would have to happen is for one person to give away the name of his contact at which point the ZPD would go after that contact, then the next. Until at last, they'd all be caught.

Honey turned around to address the rabbit. "I was never in Happy Town or Zootopia to be caught. I knew my agent's, but all they ever knew of each other were their code names. Judy's was-"

"Carrots," interrupted Judy. "That's what you called me on that street corner."

The badger nodded. "Anyway, none of them knew of each other's involvement. Even Mr. Big and Koslov don't know that they were involved with each other, and no one could let the other know without risking total exposure. The whole premise of the total secrecy was to stem any and all potential leaks we could. The world is too dangerous and enemies are everywhere."

The predators all looked at each other for confirmation but only saw their own doubt reflected in each other's faces.

Wild was shaking his head vehemently. "No, it doesn't make sense. We know she's killed before!"

Fangmeyer was merely looking at Honey, confused. From the moment she had said that no one had died in Hopps' care, the wheels had been turning in his mind. From everything he had seen and witnessed on the day he and his child had been taken in by the ZPD, he'd been led to understand that it was Sgt. Hopps who--either directly or indirectly--had been responsible for his death.

He shook his head in bemusement, totally dumbfounded as he tried to make sense of Honey's words and looked at her with a pained expression in his eyes. "But . . . ."

He trailed off, confusion rattling in his brain.

Honey regarded him for a moment and took a deep breath. "There's something you need to know," she said in a low voice.

Now came the delicate part for the badger. This seemed to be a crucial moment, and what she had to say she had to say very carefully, indeed. Now that Fangmeyer was out of the city and free, now that he was out and on his own, it would be safe for him . . . . Honey clenched her teeth--knowing that what she had to say was bound to incite equal parts elation and anger.

She hummed to herself slowly before gathering her wits. "So, there's something I have to tell you, now, and there's a strong likelihood you're going to hate me for it but I have to say it just so you can understand."

She was still for a moment and pondered her tactic carefully--she needed them with her.

"Fangmeyer . . . your cub's alive."

He looked at her, stunned and unsure for a moment, a mass of emotions boiling through him, not quite knowing where to settle. "Wh-what . . . ?" He was losing his grip!

His regarded her as though she'd suddenly started talking nonsense.

"It's true," she said coolly, evenly.

He fell to his knees as her words rendered his muscles useless.

"Nine months ago," Honey started quickly, "your wife was taken into custody by the ZPD . . ." Honey trailed off as she became slightly emotional, "and . . . and . . . and was killed."

"I know!" Fangmeyer said in a half-shout, half-growl as tears threatened to fall. "I saw the body! I saw the way they left her! What they . . . they did t-. . . ." He couldn't go on.

"Shortly thereafter," Honey pressed on, "about five months ago, you were taken into custody yourself for getting into a fight with an off-duty policeman. Your collar was malfunctioning and it didn't prevent you from severely injuring him. This happened while your six-year-old cub was in your custody. The ZPD had been planning on declawing you, and they did. They had summarily declared you violent for fighting with an officer-"

"It was a trumped up charge!" he raged.

"-and they decided to kill your son to keep you from passing on your defective, 'non-tame' genes."

"What?!" shouted Nick and Judy in unison at the stunning statement.

Judy was totally unable to contain herself. "There's no way that that's any kind of legal!" she shouted. "I didn't see anything like that on the books!" she continued, stunned and outraged at the hateful notion. Her mind was swimming, feeling an odd buzzing in her brain as she was utterly incapable of processing what she was hearing. It just wasn't connecting! It was unreal and unbelievable! Never had she ever heard of such vile cruelty. She had known that the powerful forces in Zootopia were treating predators with a criminal level of malevolence, but this was an out-and-out embrace of evil!

"What the hell kind of place is this?!" Nick shouted furiously.

"Hell."

It was Wilde who'd spoken as he eyed Nick intently.

"This can't be happening," muttered Judy, "This can't be real!"

"It is real!" cried Fangmeyer angrily. "My son is . . . he's . . ." he trailed off as he was overcome with sorrow and disbelief.

"Hey, hey!" said Honey as she came up to the white wolf, her sure stance and steady glance commanding his attention, "It's true. You're son's not dead. He's alive. I'm telling you, he's alive!" she said quietly though insistently.

Judy was in a world of her own as her soul was swamped in a haze of anger, fury, fear, and horror. She couldn't believe it! In the midst of the cloud of darkness that came over her, she felt Nick put an arm around her and draw her close.

For his part, Nick felt a profound wave of anger sweep through him, surging in his chest, and he instinctively growled as the depths of this reality's mercilessness sank in on him. Judy put her own paw on the small of Nick's back and gently rubbed him, trying to comfort him as he did her. She felt his hackles lower under her touch, and the silence that followed was full of a sense of sadness:

Those in the group who believed that the couple were from another universe looked on the two of them somewhat crestfallenly: It seemed to them that the couple were acclimating themselves to the horrors of their reality, and it was sad to see them lose--in a way--their innocence, piece by piece.

In the midst of that silence, Hopps turned toward the couple. "You learn," she said in a low voice, "that a lot of the laws in Zootopia are 'off the books.'"

Fangmeyer looked stunned as the revelation sank in. He couldn't believe it. "Wh-what happened that day?" he asked as he looked at the badger.

Honey turned back to him and spoke slowly. "Hopps was there that day and relieved the men on duty. She called me, and I had a point-man take him into his custody."

"Who?!" shouted Fangmeyer vehemently, "Who has him?!"

"I don't know at the moment," she said, her explanation coming out rapid-fire, "but he was taken by a spy contact of mine who deals with such things. His name is Jack Savage."

Fangmeyer let out a snarl. "Were you going to even tell me?!" he shouted loudly.

He buried his face in his paws as uncontrollable tears of joy started pouring down his cheeks. He didn't understand how he could be so furious, so incredibly elated--relieved!--and so sad all at once!

Wilde looked on for a moment, biting his inner cheeks and chuffing as he struggled to contain his own emotion.

"Hopps actually was working on getting you out. You remember the sweeps that were being conducted in your area? She'd been planning on using that opportunity to get you to your cub. You weren't caught up in them so you kept missing your chance."

"Could you blame me?!" he snarled. He was furious at the galling insinuation that his circumstances were in any way his fault. "What the hell was I supposed to do?! What was I supposed to think?!"

"I know. I know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . . all I meant was that we were trying to get you out. It's just that, considering the nature of what we were dealing with, there was no way we would've been able to let anyone know ahead of time. Judy didn't plan the sweeps--she merely intended to use them as a means of freeing as many animals as she could." Honey kicked herself for her lack of tact and tried her best to calm the wolf. At least she had Fangmeyer with her. Well . . . probably . . . .

His eyes had been fixated on the ground, but he now looked up to regard Hopps, an uncertain look in flashing in their depths.

The lull in the conversation was abruptly broken, however:

"No, no, no!" exclaimed Wilde, "That doesn't make any sense!" He looked around at the other preds. "She killed Otterton!" He turned quickly to see Hopps as her ears drooped.

Honey sighed. "Yes, she did," she said slowly, regretfully. "That . . . that's something she did do."

Wilde growled. "That-"

"That's true," said Hopps slowly, cutting off Wilde. She seemed to be trying to hold in some emotion. "It's true," she said again, more quietly now as her mouth went dry. Her voice was quiet with notes of the flat, sarcastic air she had affected whenever she spoke to them earlier but was now tinged with a subdued calm.

"I killed him."

It was silent in the room.

Wilde and the others were suddenly disarmed at this change in her composure.

"Tell'em," said Honey. "They need to know what happened."

Hopps nodded slowly and turned back to the others as she took a deep breath before starting.

"I had just gotten to Zootopia . . ." she said softly. "I had been on the force for maybe three months," she murmured. "I just wanted to make the world a better place."

Hopps paused for a moment and regarded the animals around her for a moment carefully. Nodding to herself, she took a deep breath and told them her story.

-.-.-.-

Officer Hopps closed the door to her police car as she stepped out of the vehicle. She sighed to herself in a mixture of exasperation and relief at the fact that her day was almost over while also recalling some of the more unsavoury parts of her shift. The day of meter Siding had taken its toll on her, and she wasn't looking forward to having to sit down and start writing up reports--the less time spent on remembering the details of the day the better, she thought.

In the three months the rabbit had been working for the ZPD, all she'd done every day, from start to finish was serve tickets and get berated by irate violators who insisted that they were only a couple of minutes over.

She sighed in annoyance at the recollection as she walked up to the station and was curious to see, through the window, more chompers than usual milling about inside.

As she stepped through the doors of the ZPD, she was met with a breath of cool air-conditioning, letting out another sigh as it washed over her--this time, of relief. She saw Cevilla sitting at the reception desk and calmly walked over to her.

"Is Chief Swinton in?" she asked sullenly as she reached the deer.

Cevilla jerked up from the Buck's Life magazine she was reading and peered around her desk, momentarily bewildered when she saw no one, before suddenly leaning over the station exaggeratedly to look down at the bunny.

"You mean Pricilla?" she asked with a smile on her lips.

Hopps groaned. "No, I mean Chief Swinton. I know her name, and if I'd meant to say it I would have," she said, her tone more than a little miffed at the size joke the doe had made at her expense.

"She's meeting with some new before recruits," said the doe.

"Anyone you know?"

"What makes you think I would know anyone of them?" said the doe, her tone taking on an air of offence.

"Hey," started Hopps, pacifically, "take it easy! I only meant-"

She interrupted herself when she noticed a grey wolf in a navy blue police shirt was walking toward them somewhat submissively.

"Hi! Uh . . ." the wolf began uncertainly as he walked up, "my name's Garou."

Hopps cocked an eyebrow in curiosity. "Garou . . . ?" She was hoping for a last name.

"Oh!" started Garou as he fumbled somewhat clumsily and leant down to offer his paw to the rabbit, "My last name's Leukos. You'll never get it; it's a French and Greek hybrid," he laughed.

Hopps took his paw and shook it carefully, a half-smile appearing in the corner of her mouth. "French-Greek hybrid? How does that happen?"

The wolf chuckled. "It's what you get when you try to write a Greek name with French spelling: My great-grandfather emigrated from Greece to France." He grinned, and neither the rabbit nor the doe could help but be taken in by his easy manner.

'Oh, my,' thought Judy as she appraised him, 'He's positively charming . . . .'

"So I should call you officer . . . ?" she started.

"Just, pronounce it 'Lukas' if you can't say it," he shrugged.

"I remember you from high school!" said the doe suddenly as Hopps and Garou turned to her in surprise. "I thought you looked familiar!" She covered her mouth and looked down at Hopps.

The rabbit looked up at her and smiled. "So, you 'wouldn't know any of them?'" she asked laughingly but stopped when she noticed Garou's reaction.

"What was that?" he asked somewhat quizzically, though his smile seemed to have faltered somewhat.

"Oh, it was nothing," said Hopps, smiling. "I was just joking about the new recruits and asked whether she knew any of them."

"And she said she didn't know any of us, huh?" said Garou. Though he was smiling, Hopps could hear a biting edge in his voice.

"Well, to be fair," started Hopps, continuing easily though somewhat wearily, "it's not likely that she would be friends with a chomper. I think that's what she meant, anyway . . . ." Hopps trailed off as she realised what she'd said.

Garou scowled as he looked at the both of them.

Judy swallowed tensely.

She'd only meant to tease Cevilla but didn't realise how it would sound to Garou. It was clear that she'd stuck her foot in it.

"I may have spoken too soon," murmured the doe hesitantly under Garou's glare. She quickly turned to him. "All I meant is that I don't-"

"Associate yourself with animals like me anymore," he said to her as both she and the bunny watched the coloured light on his collar flick from green to yellow. His brow furrowed as he turned to the doe.

"I didn't mean it like that, Garou! I didn't know you were one of the recruits. You have to admit it can be bad, though!" the doe pressed.

"To be near me? You weren't worried about that before!" he said accusingly.

Hopps found herself surprised at the quick change in his mien but quickly came to a feeling of sympathy for him. It was entirely understandable that he would be touchy about such a subject.

If someone she knew had said something about not knowing her or wanting to dissociate themselves from her--even if they didn't know they were talking about her at first--it would really piss her off. And calling him a chomper had been the topper, she realised.

It occurred to her that this or something similar had happened to him before. It wouldn't have been surprising to find that lots of friends had abandoned him as relations between prey and predator animals seemed to have worsened in recent years. Hopps could only cringe as the doe dug herself in, deeper.

"That was when we were kids!" she said as she willed him to understand her. "Thing's're different, now!"

The wolf's resentment seemed to grow. The doe flinched at her words and realised that she could have said it better. All she had meant was that things had become more prejudiced since they were younger, and even the barest of friendships between prey and preds were looked down on.

"Are they?" he asked. "I thought you were my friend! Animals here have been giving me the brush-off left and right, and I could use someone in my corner. The higher-ups're being real jerks about it, too--like I'm just here to fill a quota. All I wanna do is be a cop!"

Cevilla nodded somewhat sadly and debated whether or not to tell him the truth. She'd really enjoyed Garou when she was younger and she didn't feel good about keeping information from him. At last, she sighed and came to a decision. "I don't think that's likely," she said quietly. "You becoming a cop, I mean."

The wolf recoiled as though he'd been slapped. He was positively seething. "What?!"

"I-I don't mean that you couldn't make a good cop!" she tried quickly, "I'm just saying that the reality is . . . they probably won't let you. I know they reel you in with a bunch of promises, but they're probably gonna start you off in records and then just leave you there. It's what happens to all the preds here. Well, most of them . . ." she trailed off. "Look at Judy! She's been here three months and all they'll let her do is meter maid!"

The conversation was doing nothing to help his mood, and the doe hated herself for having said anything at all, but specism was likely to rear its ugly head at some point. On the other paw, she was shockingly lacking in tact. The conversation had just sort of spiralled out her paws.

Her shoulders slumped. She could tell that she'd spoiled his mood and kicked herself for that. All she could do now was apologise somehow and try to make nice. It was likely that he could use as many friends as he could, here.

"Look, Garou: I'm sorry for what I said," she started. "I mean, really sorry. Of course you're my friend, and it was mean of me to say that I wouldn't know any cho- any preds." She stressed. She felt ashamed and let out a sigh before trying, gently, to change the subject. "But anyway," she vaguely trailed, "yeah, I didn't mean to get off on the wrong foot. And I really didn't mean to make you angry, I just . . . well, anyway, what did you come here for? I mean, did you need to ask us something?"

She spoke quietly and sincerely, grinning in a bid to ease the tension.

The wolf only looked at her with a mixture of disappointment and anger. "The chief wanted me to come here and ask for help with training in the record's room." His voice was hardened with no small hint of anger.

Cevilla bit her lips as she inwardly cringed.

The tension was palpable.

Hopps was disappointed in herself. She knew from experience what it was to be looked down on in this environment. And now, she felt, she had undermined a potential friendship by joining in a joke making light of his being a predator. There was no excuse for it, she thought, and she could see now that his disappointment his seemingly-congenial personality. Hopps regretted all of it and put a paw out.

"Look, I'm so-"

"It's fine!" he growled sharply. His composure had snapped and understandably so under the barrage of faux pas.

Immediately after he'd spoken, he suddenly jerked in pain as his collar shocked him, its light changing from yellow to red. He grunted but kept his mouth shut, casting his eyes to the ground.

There was an awkward pause where the three of them said nothing before the silence was finally broken.

"I'm sorry," he said stiffly before continuing slowly, measuredly. "My behaviour was rude and vulgar."

It was a practiced response.

It was, quite honestly, the most embarrassing thing the rabbit had seen in her life.

"No!" said the doe insistently. "We're sorry. Aren't we, Judy?"

"That's Officer Hopps," replied the rabbit with a measure of censure, "but yes: I'm sorry," she finished, looking up at the wolf.

The wolf chuffed and looked away. "Whatever. It's not important. Anyway, I just came here because Cheif's putting me down in records and said you'd be able to train me," he said as he turned toward the doe, his eyes still downcast; his voice, stiff and business-like.

"Wouldn't Clawhauser be better at training him?" asked Cevilla, looking at the rabbit.

"Look," said Garou, his voice filled with a restrained exasperation, "if you don't wanna do it-"

"It's not that!" said Cevilla, quickly. "Trust me: it's not that. It's just that he knows the records room like the back of his hand."

"Yeah," Hopps began thoughtfully, "but he started his vacation just yesterday, remember?"

Cevilla nodded and turned to Garou. "Right," she nodded. "So," she began slowly, somewhat awkwardly as though trying to push through the tension, "if you'll just follow me . . . ."

Hopps and Garou bade a stilted farewell, and the rabbit watched as Cevilla slowly led him down the hall to the back stairway. She cocked an eyebrow as she watched the wolf's back as he strutted behind the doe.

She couldn't deny it: He was built. Clearly, an alpha if she'd ever seen one. How demeaning for him to have to wear a collar, she thought. Since arriving in Zootopia, she'd never given it much consideration. Her dream of a Zootopia where anyone could be anything had been meeting a frustrating end with nearly every day that passed. That Zootopian predators had to wear shock collars was something of a surprise--no predator in Bunnyburrow had ever worn one, but perhaps that was only due to the fact that the Burrow had a ratio of predators to prey that outdid even Zootopia's, their greater numbers making them feel more secure.

She watched as the two disappeared through the stairwell and was about to head to her desk to start paperwork on her tickets when she was startled by a sharp voice behind her.

"Disgusting, isn't it?"

Hopps turned and saw Chief Swinton looking over her head and down toward the stairwell door.

"Don't you think?" added the pig.

"I'm sorry?" asked Hopps slowly.

Swinton looked on for a moment before turning to the bunny. "Well, that chomper."

Hopps inwardly winced. "You didn't want to hire him?" she asked carefully.

"They're ruining our society. We just want to live in peace. That's one thing those chompers will never understand about us. Why can't they just be docile?"

"I'm sure grass might wonder the same thing about sheep," said Hopps, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

The pig eyed her carefully and smiled in a way that nearly made the bunny shiver. "Until the plant learns how to bite back, of course. Even docile plants need a bit of poison if they're to survive."

Hopps wasn't entirely sure she liked the insinuation but said nothing.

"If you'll excuse me, Chief" began Hopps, nodding politely, "I have to go finish some reports."

She shuffled off slowly, almost awkwardly, as she started back to her desk. She was more than eager to get away from the conversation and the odd feeling she got from the chief.

From the moment she'd arriven, she'd been treated as an inferior and relegated to second-class status. Everyone she'd met there had looked down his nose at her, both literally and figuratively. Three months of that treatment coupled with the abuse she was met with at the hands of angry parking offenders and doing the same thing day-in and day-out was absolutely infuriating.

As she reached her desk, she couldn't help but contemplate the conversation with Garou. As far as she was concerned, they were both in the same boat when it came to working at the ZPD. Of course, his problems didn't cease once he left these walls, but only increased. On that score, they were very different.

She hummed to herself as she sat down at her station, pulled out some forms from her desk and began filling them out, cross-referencing the information with her ticketing machine as she went along.

Nearly an hour and a half later, she was almost finished with the tedious task of form-filling. Writing them up at this point was a task that she was completing by rote, now--her handwriting was practically unintelligible, though she was far past the point of caring. She sighed, leaned back, and cracked her knuckles as she took a moment.

She turned when she heard a gentle tapping at the entrance to her cubical to see Cevilla and a somewhat shy-looking Garou standing there.

"I showed him just about everything I could down in records, and Bogo said it was fine if we knocked off a few minutes early. I invited Garou out for drinks and I was wondering if you wanted to come."

The rabbit eyed Garou, carefully. "Are you sure you feel like having me around?"

"I wouldn't mind meeting someone new," he smiled.

Hopps nodded. "I have to finish my paperwork but we can go afterward," she said.

Cevilla and Garou looked at each other carefully.

"Did you guys already punch out or something?" asked the rabbit.

"Yeah" began the deer, "we kinda just meant 'if you were ready.'"

"Ah! Yeah, no, it's fine. You guys go on ahead and I'll catch up with you once I'm through here. The usual spot?" she asked.

"Yeah," said the doe, "we'll see you there!" she finished. And the two went off together. The rabbit sighed and turned back to her desk and got back to work.

Some time later, she had finally finished and gave a long stretch before sitting forward and pulling out her phone. It was seven thirty-five and scowled as it had taken her longer to finish than she had hoped.

She logged into her personal account. It had taken them nearly a month to set up her account and get her in the system. She knew that the animals responsible for setting up her stuff had been dragging their heels on the issue--otherwise there was no reason not to have her in the system to start with. Just one more thing that bothered her about the individuals working here: There was no professionalism at all. Everyone seemed to have their own personal vendetta against someone else--usually prey against predators. And what frustrated her most were the obvious office politics that being bandied about.

Chief Swinton was a perfect example of that: Here was a pig whose main job should be to ensure that the police force be run ethically--and yet she couldn't help but be bothered by the obvious cruelty with which she had been treating perps who were preds. She had no idea what was going on, but it was worrying to her that the more time she spent on the force, the more she seemed to be a witness to something that just crossed the line.

Recently, they had hired a gopher who was passed off as some sort of doctor. Hopps hadn't even been aware of the fact that they had an infirmary, and when she asked about it, she was met with cagey answers that didn't leave her feeling very well. Coal, one of the officers who had started after her, seemed to treat her with out and out hostility when she brought up the subject in his presence. One thing was for certain--there was a definite in-group and out-group among even the prey animals working here, and it was clear where she stood. It was also clear, and not a little troubling, that the reason as to why she was in the out-group, she was relatively certain, had to do with her by-the-book mentality.

She hadn't been raised that way. Her older brothers and sisters seemed so concerned with matters of duty, honour, loyalty, and morality that it seemed impossible for her to turn a blind eye to the undercurrents of corruption she could sense here.

She found out not too long ago that her parents had started a working relationship with Gideon Grey which was good to hear considering she had heard so much of the opposite from her father when first leaving for Zootopia. While her parents had been developing that partnership with Gideon in such a short space of time, she, on the other paw, had been facing something quite different--exposure to the rampant dislike of chompers not only in the police force but all throughout the city had rattled her. She had initially become a willing partner in it as far as her own internalised prejudices had let her.

She had had to confront that latent side of herself once when she had seen some officers take down a ferret named Duke Weaselton. She didn't witness the altercation but had heard that the he'd sustained some major injuries and had to be taken to hospital. At the time, she hadn't paid much attention as she just assumed that the mammal must've done something. In point of fact, she later learned, he had indeed been attempting to smuggle something into the city, though the details of the satchel he'd been carrying had been withheld from public reports. Swinton had kept a tight seal on those records and would allow no one to access them save those involved.

What had started to sway her opinion somewhat was when she heard Coal and Rhinowitz joking about the incident later. She was shocked to hear that Weaselton's injuries had been caused by the rhino!

Normal police procedure usually called for mammals of relatively equal strength be used to apprehend a perp of equal size and measure. It was for this reason that Hopps and Rhinowitz were forbidden from entering and apprehending anyone in Little Rodentia--for that purpose you would call in Officer Brie or any one of a number great mouse detectives.

What little information she had been able to glean had set off a chain reaction in her mind, and the wheels had started turning. She overheard, for example, that nearly every bone in the weasel's body had been damaged in some way or other.

The poor creature must have been in excruciating pain!

In the days following, her sharp hearing picked up more than she ever wanted to know, and she learned that her partners were untrustworthy.

She was also shocked to see how much she had really turned a blind eye to: Now she was glancing up from her work maybe a second or third time whenever a predator was brought in--always muzzled. She started eyeing the number of times a perp would get some extra treatment at the hands of the officers there and saw that it far exceeded what she would have thought any creature deserved.

She noticed harsher treatment and sentences for offences which should normally have carried a lighter offence.

And Hopps realised at this point that there was something she didn't like about herself, because she noticed that nine times out of ten, a part of her felt that the perps deserved it. She didn't like that she felt safer when she saw before after pred being marched in for petty crimes. She didn't like that she got a sickening pleasure from seeing a resistant before get beaten or shocked. And she didn't like that a part of her soul was allowing her to indulge more and more in the awful enjoyment she was getting out of what amounted to a blood sport.

She had every once in a while turned her gaze to Coal--such a docile-seeming creature when he first joined--change from an idealistic young koala straight from the academy to being a mean, vicious, cruel animal who dipped into schadenfreude to the point where he was scarcely the same animal Hopps had met only a month after she joined the force. And one day as she was looking at him, it struck her--She was looking at a future version of herself. This is the animal that she was going to become if she allowed herself to continue on the path that she was on, and if she didn't want to become him, she was going to have to make more of an effort to change herself.

Thus, she had been reminding herself of her personal mantra nearly every day and had been trying as best she could to apply it to every facet of her life.

Some days were better than others, and when she called one of her more religiously-minded sisters one day to voice her concerns, her sister seemed in agreement with her and applauded her efforts to do better. Hopps would never forget, though, the advice her sister had given her before hanging up.

"Judy, I just want you to be careful. Remember the old saying: 'If you look in the face of evil, evil's gonna look right back at you.'"

Judy punched out before logging off her computer and grabbing the finished reports. She headed down to the records room and delivered them to the attendant there before heading back to her station, grabbing her stuff, and heading for the door.

The whole while, her mind had been turning with thoughts of Garou, and she wondered how best to make up with him.

'Being myself, for starters,' she thought as she reached her police car. 'Not being a jerk. Not letting other people change me . . . .'

The list went on.

She started the car and headed off. As she drove out of the parking lot she briefly considered the possibility of heading back to her apartment for a quick change--she hated feeling grimy at the end of the day--before deciding to just go as she was. She was certain that Garou and Cevilla were probably still in their uniforms.

She sighed as she drove, focusing on the road and trying to keep her mind off the more stressful parts of the day and relax from the drudgery of the monotonous reports she'd had to write.

She switched on her police scanner for the hell of it to listen in on any nearby calls that were being taken in the downtown area. Not that there was much that she could do about what she heard, anyway.

God, she was so pathetic. Here she was: having to listen in secretly to conversations over the radio. To anyone on the outside, it really would look as though she were just pretending to be a cop, sitting comfortably while living vicariously through the actions of her comrades. It was infuriating that Percy Reinhardt--a meerkat and one of the few friends at the station her size--had had to fix her scanner so that she'd be able to hear dispatches in her precinct. She'd really been desperate when she had him do that for her. She just wanted to feel important--like she mattered and was making a difference. Instead, animals looked through her and over her--no one seeing her. She was as invisible as the chompers who worked at the station--relegated to menial tasks, reprimanded harshly for the least infractions, and asked in so many silent and small ways to constantly prove herself.

The meerkat had done that for her because of a sense they both had that they belonged together--at least, that they were in this mess together.

Hopps sighed to herself as she listened to the useless crackle and chatter of the scanner and focused on the road ahead. She'd gone about three blocks and had just stopped at a red light when the radio crackled and a voice came in over the scanner.

"Officer Higgins to dispatch. Officer Higgins to dispatch, can you hear me?

"10-2, this is dispatch to Officer Higgins."

"Dispatch, 10-108 near Pine Drive and Rhodes."

"10-4. You said a 10-108?"

"Affirmative. Officer down and in danger. And a 10-52."

"10-108? Are you currently in danger?"

"I'm also calling in a 10-91v. The subject ran off."

"What's going on?"

"My partner an' m-"

"Are you in danger?"

"My partner an' me were responding to a disturbance and ended up getting attacked."

"Are there any civilians near you?"

"Negative. The a-

"The area's clear?"

"10-4. The area is clear."

After a brief pause.

"This is dispatch, officers are en route."

There was another pause before Hopps heard the voice come over the radio again.

"This is dispatch to all officers near Pine Drive and Rhodes. We have a 10-91v in the area. There's an officer down."

The rabbit gripped the steering wheel for a moment as there was a brief silence before a third officer joined in.

"10-2, this is Officer Rhinowitz," came his clear voice over the radio, "what's the call?"

There was a static click before dispatch responded. "Officers reported a 10-91v."

"A vicious animal? What species?"

"Unknown. The officer's currently administering first aid and called for a bus."

She took a deep breath and held it for a moment as she deliberated whether or not to butt in. She knew she could get into serious trouble for it. There was a silence just before she flipped on her lights and sirens and made a u-turn as she headed back to Rhodes Street.

"Officer is advised to use caution," came dispatcher's voice again. "That means do not engage the subject."

Hopps bit her lip as she recalled the last time someone had told her that.

"I forbid you, Hopps! The last thing we need in the news is the PR disaster your death would cause! 'Cute Bunny Meter Maid Splattered All Over Pavement in Residential Neighbourhood!'" Deputy Bogo boomed.

Hopps sighed. "I don't think the papers would use such a long title."

"You're not to engage anyone and that's an order!" Bogo insisted.

Even now, Deputy Bogo's voice still rang in her mind; her insistence on doing more had come to nothing in spite of her lobbying for more responsibility.

She took a deep breath as she considered her options. She didn't want to get in trouble but it sounded like they needed all the help they could get. She argued with herself, weighing the pros and cons before coming to a decision.

'You assist the officer and take over first aid if you can manage to do even that much without being a total fuck up,' she thought to herself derisively.

She sped quickly, having just passed by Rhodes, herself. She was near enough that it was a straight shot about a minute away from where she was.

As she pulled up to the intersection, she saw a police car, its lights flashing but siren off. She could see two figures on the sidewalk--one kneeling over the other.

She pulled up and parked along the curb, got out of the car, and sped to the two creatures in front of her.

"Hey!" she called out carefully as she came nearer, "How is he?" she asked. She was near enough now that she could make out the animals--a zebra was knelt down over a stag. His police shirt was off and he was pressing it into the stag's neck. Blood was covering the sidewalk and she could see that the equid was holding the garment to the deer's neck, firmly, to stem what was clearly a grave injury.

The zebra turned and furrowed his brow when he saw the rabbit.

"Hopps?" he asked as she dashed up.

"Yeah. Is everything alright? What can I do to help?" she fired quickly.

"How did you know we were here?" said the zebra, unable to help but wonder why a meter maid had responded to his call.

"I didn't. I saw your lights as I was passing by," she lied. "Thought you might need some assistance. What happened?"

The zebra paused for a moment and silently regarded her--not quite buying her story--before taking a careful look back down at his partner. The stag's breathing was ragged and he seemed to be on the edge of consciousness.

"Me an' Sean were out on patrol when we got a call for a 10-91v," he said. Hopps followed the zebra's gaze as he focused on his partner. Her eyes turned and looked at the shirt he was applying to the stag. A nametag shone in the dark as it reflected the light from streetlamp emitting a dirty orange cast on as it illuminated the scene. It proudly displayed the name, Higgins. The tag and the name on it were smeared with gouts of blood, and Hopps couldn't help but shiver.

It was ghastly!

She took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts as she answered. "A vicious animal attack?"

He said nothing.

"Higgins?" she prompted when he didn't answer.

He nodded distractedly. "Yeah. A vicious animal. An otter. He was quick," said Higgins, "but we managed to pursue him on foot before we lost him." He looked up from the stag and nodded down the street in the direction they'd gone. "Sean decided to go back to the car to radio for backup. I went on to look for it. Next thing I know, I hear Sean screaming and I ran back here to see the fucker tearing out 'is throat."

Hopps shivered and looked down at the stag but looked up again as she heard sirens approaching and watched as a large patrol car pull up behind hers.

Rhinowitz came out of his vehicle and quickly jogged over to them.

"What happened?" he asked as he slowed.

Hopps looked up the rhino, craning her neck to see him. "Officer Higgins said-"

"I don't remember talking to you, Hopps!" he boomed. He looked to the zebra now. "Sorry about that. What happened?"

Higgins relayed his story in quick detail, and Hopps noted to her relief that she could hear ambulance sirens in the distance. Hopps noted curiously, however, the rhino seemed to show no signs of surprise or concern about what was happening--not even when he was told that the species they were looking for was an otter. Rhinowitz couldn't seem to care less, and Hopps exchanged a bemused look with the zebra for a moment as the stripped animal finished speaking before looking back to the large mammal.

There was a pause in the conversation before the rhino turned to her. "Hopps, I don't know how you knew that there was something going down, here, but it's good that you're here all the same." His tone was conciliatory, but she could hear more than an edge of resentment in it. "You can take over first aid while Sean and I go to investigate the area."

"I'm not leaving him," said the zebra firmly as he kept the pressure on his neck.

"There's a savage on the loose and you're the only officer who can come."

Hopps came forward and reached for the makeshift bandage. "Please, let me take o-"

"No!" shouted the officer firmly. His outburst caused Hopps to recoil and nearly trip over herself.

"Do it, Higgins," said the rhino. "I need back up."

"Use her," said Higgins. "I'm not leaving him."

"Man, if you're doing this because you blame yourself-"

"I don't!"

"Then come with me and we'll find the bastard who did this to him."

"I'm not leaving him. He's my partner," he said firmly.

The rhino regarded the zebra pityingly before turning to Hopps with a sickening grin.

"Well Hopps," he started as he gave her a know-it-all tone, "You always wanted to be a real cop--now we get to see what you got. . . ."

Hopps only stared at him. "What?" she asked incredulously.

"You're gonna help me catch that savage and you're gonna do it or I tell Chief Swinton that you answered a call against protocol. You see what the fucker did to Sean--there's no way that I'm chasing after that thing on my own."

The large mammal smirked to himself as he looked down at the bunny. He was certain--or at least partially so--that she would decline out of fear. He didn't know what it was about her, but there was something in her that he didn't like. Maybe it was the way she refused to go along with the crowd, or the look she gave him and the other officers when they were teaching some of the other predators a lesson to remember--whatever her motivations, he knew that he didn't like them. This might be a chance to scare her off. Or get her hurt. Either way, he knew that one way or another, she didn't have the guts for the job--at least, not the job Swinton was asking for.

He could see the bunny warring with herself. She could recognise his trap--if she went with him, he could get her into a huge amount of trouble for disregarding protocol. If she stayed behind, everyone on the force would regard her as a coward. Either way, she'd be facing disciplinary action simply by how he'd spin her role in this situation.

She finally seemed to come to a conclusion--if she were going to face disciplinary action either way, let it be for something worthwhile.

She looked up at the rhino and said, "Let's do it."

The rhino grinned and reached into his pocket and pulled out a smallish tranq gun--smaller than any she'd seen. It was odd, she thought as she looked at the gun. He handed it to her and she gently took it from him.

"You're a cop now, Hopps. You're gonna need one of these."

"What kind of a tranq gun is this?" she asked as she looked up at the rhino incredulously.

"It's one made specially for taking down preds."

Her curiosity peaked even more. "So . . . what kind is it?"

"Heh. Don' worry about it, Tender Foot. We got a savage to hunt down."

Hopps looked down at the bleeding stag and couldn't help but scrunch her nose at his deliberate word choice.

She holstered the weapon and started with the rhino down the sidewalk.

"Where'd you see it go last?" called the rhino to the zebra.

"Just down that alley!" he shouted as he motioned diagonally across from them to an alley situated between two tenement buildings.

"Alright, Hopps, you remember your training from the academy?"

Hopps nodded slowly. "I only got out three months ago, so yes."

"Well, this ain' like nothin' they teach you at the academy. You never faced a feral before? They're fuckin' savages. You tranq'em and ask question later. Understood? The important thing is getting them under control."

Hopps nodded carefully. "Alright, Meter Maid, you take the alley. I'll circle around and take the back."

Hopps could feel a well of fear rising in her chest as she looked down the dark way.

She turned back as she could hear the sound of ambulance sirens heading toward them down the way and felt a surge of relief on behalf of the fallen officer.

She turned back to Rhinowitz only to see that he was gone and was just heading around the corner to reach the other side of the tenement block.

In reality, thought Hopps, his job was more dangerous as the savage had, in all likelihood, left the alley and might be loose somewhere else in the vicinity.

She took a deep breath and shored up her courage before heading for the alley.

The instant she reached the opening, she realised just how bad an idea this was. Her eyesight was nowhere near as good in the darkness, and she was certain that the rhino's was even worse.

Her ears twitched as she strained to pick up any sound she could. She withdrew her weapon, leaving the safety on, as she started down the darkened tribute.

Her nose twitched at the unpleasant smells, the stench of waste and refuse disturbing her, nearly causing her to gag.

When she was about ten feet into the alley, she lost her eyesight completely. All she could see were floating shadows near the edges of her periphery that were either boxes or trash bins that were waiting for the morning pick up. She nearly tripped on some bottles that were lying on the ground which clinked loudly in the darkness as they shattered the silence around her.

Judy took another deep breath and headed further into the dark, her eyesight, at last, reaching a point where she could no longer make out even the barest of shadows around her.

"Rhinowitz!" she called timidly, her voice echoing off the walls. "Rhinowitz!" she called, still more loudly as she hoped and prayed for a response from the depths of the abyss.

There was no answer as she continued down the alley. The only thing she could hear were her footfalls as she went further and further still.

This was stupid! She had thought that the lights from the overhead apartments would be enough to light her way in the darkness but they clearly weren't. She felt the prickling of the hairs on the back of her neck as she felt a foreboding sense of danger creep over her.

She needed to get back to her car, she felt. The darkness of the alley was pressing in on her in a way she couldn't rationally describe. An odd, primal terror seemed to take hold of her and her heart began to beat faster as a crippling anxiety took hold of her.

Behind her, she could hear the sirens cease and the paramedics call to each other as they stabilised the deer.

She needed them now. She needed to get back to the light! She needed to get away from the danger and come back with a stronger light that banished the shadows.

She turned around to face and took a few steps forward before she stopped suddenly, standing stock still at what she saw before her.

Backlit by the lights from the street, she could only make out a figure in silhouette. She stifled a cry of surprised as she beheld it. It form was amorphous and silent and it stood there, facing her. She took a step back, feeling her stomach clench in fear as the unknown figure stood there, regarding her for what felt like an eternity.

Attempting to gather her wits and banish her fear, she tentatively called out. "Hello? Are you alright, Sir? Or Ma'am?"

There was a dark silence that followed for a moment before Hopps felt her hackles rise even more as the creature let out a low growl and then snarl.

Fear overtook her as she clicked the safety off and trained it on the figure before her.

It growled loudly again and crouched down low as though getting ready to pounce! Suddenly, a broken street light from above her flicked on, and for a brief flash as it went off again, she saw the bloody fangs and terrifying, gaping maw of a creature she couldn't recognise!

She screamed and fell backwards as the creature seemed to roar and jumped at her, its claws and fangs outstretched.

Instinctively she fired a shot.

Blood spattered in the air, shimmering as the streetlight illuminated individual beads from behind.

The creature howled and she fired twice more into its chest before landing on her, another scream tearing from her throat as it landed on her and seemed immediately to go unconscious.

Hopps scrambled away, shoving the thing off as crimson pools began to form, coating the ground liberally.

She could only look at the figure on the ground before her, her trembling hand dropping the weapon. She had no idea what she had just done.

She turned her gaze to the ground beside her to regard the weapon.

'What the hell is that thing?' she wondered. Never had she seen a dart gun do so much damage to a creature.

Her shock was due in no small part to the fact that she hadn't been expecting the blood.

She looked back over at the fallen figure and a chill swept over her as she heard its ragged breathing. She closed her eyes and tried to cover hear ears . . . and tried to pretend it was just her imagination when she heard its breathing cease.

Hopps jumped suddenly when a loud voice shouted her name.

"Hopps! Are you alright?!"

It was Rhinowitz. She wanted to answer, wanted to call back but found she'd been stricken dumb. She couldn't speak. Her thoughts were a jumble of senseless words and images as the terror, fear, horror, and regret all swoll within her.

She sat there silently as Rhinowitz and some other officers who'd arriven on the scene came to her assistance and got her up. She felt herself being carried to the ambulance where she was looked over by the paramedics.

She had no idea what anybody was saying to her or about her. The sounds, the looks, the stares all passed right through her.

She looked over as they carried the creature she'd shot out of the alleyway and was shocked.

He really had been an otter. She looked at him and felt a pang of pity, regret, and guilt shoot through her heart.

He had the face of an angel and could have been asleep for all she knew.

Instantly her emotional barriers broke.

She made no outward display save for the tears that suddenly started pouring down her face. Her countenance was stoic.

Rhinowitz noticed her and came over to her.

"It was a good shooting, Hopps. It would have killed you if you hadn't killed it."

"That gun wasn't a tranq gun," she said quietly as her tears continued to fall.

Rhinowitz laughed. "Naw, it wasn't. It was only for use on them."

Hopps nodded. "You mean preds."

"I mean savage fucks like him," he continued.

Hopps said nothing but continued to stare off into the darkness, saying nothing as she continued to look away as other officers that had now arriven on the scene asked the rhino for details. They beamed and smiled as he recounted the tale of Hopps' bravery in spite of being such a small creature.

They surrounded her as their voices became a jumble around her, the conversation becoming a muddled pond of meaningless chatter.

She looked up into their faces and noticed to an officer that they were all looking over her to each other.

And there she was, in the middle of the story of her life, and she was invisible.

All she could hear in her mind as she looked at the scene before her--its incredible contrasts between light and shade and the cacophony of voices that filled the air--was her sister's voice and her grave warning:

'If you look in the face of evil, evil's gonna look right back at you.'

-.-.-.-

A pall of quiet fell over the tiny room as Hopps paused.

"Poor Otterton," said someone.

There was nothing more that could be said.