Archive of Our Own

The room was cozy.

Cream-colored padded walls, a soft, fluffy bed with pastel-colored blankets, several books stacked to one side for the guest's entertainment, and in one corner a small table with two chairs where she could eat alone or with company when she had visitors.

Connected to the room was a bathroom that was just as secure as the rest of the room.

Judy had been in Zootopia's best psychiatric hospital for six months, sent there by her former police partner and secret boyfriend Nicholas Wilde, who in the eyes of the world was just her caretaker with all the legal rights to commit her there as soon as it seemed to be in the best interest of the health of a poor unbalanced bunny.

Actually, living together, Judy had been content with her situation, but sometimes she had bad days, and sometimes there were more than one of those days.

That's what happened, a series of small things that led to disaster. Two bad days in a row, the conviction that telling Nick would be worse because she had become too accustomed to wearing a mask of complacency and happiness around him, an annoying prick in her conscience because after almost two years of being together, knowing that he lived tormented every day with the fear of losing her stopped being so satisfying and began to cause her overwhelming guilt.

Watching her once so confident fox become so deeply overprotective and obsessive about her, filling his apartment with cameras, hiding anything it could cut, sealing the windows…it stopped being funny after so long of watching him torment himself like that.

So, she tried harder to pretend everything was okay, and it turned out that Nick began to relax. He removed the seal from the windows so she could air out the apartment or get some fresh air even when he wasn't there.

Of course, the windows had grilles through which a bunny couldn't jump, but it was something, it was trust.

That day he had left the balcony open, probably because he was relaxed after dinner the night before.

A table set outdoors on that balcony, the views of the city from above, both wearing elegant clothes.

She put on the same pink dress with a sweetheart neckline that she had worn the first time she confessed her feelings to him so naively, the first time he broke her heart by labeling anything he felt for her as a "fetish".

He wears a dark blue shirt with a simple tie and matching trousers. His expression softens slightly when he sees her; he seems hurt but gentle at the same time.

It was like having a secret date, just the two of them because they can't go out as a couple, even before all the disaster when they went out together, they couldn't kiss or hold each other's paws on the table because it would be unnatural.

After dinner, Nick held out his paw and asked in a soft voice:

"Would you like to dance?"

She smiled and agreed; she had always wanted to dance with him in that romantic, intimate way, but Nick wouldn't have agreed then, and anyway, doing it together would have looked strange.

Dancing as friends had been fine, not this.

They danced around to the quiet sound of the record player in their shared apartment, the same one where the fox had dragged her kicking and screaming against her will the first time he found her trying to kill herself in her old apartment.

It was perfect, it was beautiful.

They ended the night making love in their room with a care and consideration for each other that would have been unthinkable two years ago when she kept hitting him and making him bleed.

She was so sorry, she had been so cruel.

She felt disgusting, terrible, and selfish. Was her love for Nick even okay? What kind of female decides she's just going to fix a male as if he were broken so soon after meeting him?

She had dragged Nick into becoming a police, she had brought a fox who used to live by his own terms into the polite and hypocritical society that would always prevent them from being together.

She had dragged Nick into hell, and with her love, with her naive bunny dreams of going against everyone, she would only have succeeded in sinking them both even further.

How would they have ended up? Possibly fired, victims of some hate crime, unable to find work anywhere.

Like Francine, the last time she heard from the elephant she left Zootopia with her rhinoceros because there was no room for them there.

Judy didn't know how liberal other city-states would be; on paper, Zootopia itself was a place where anyone could be whatever they wanted and be with whomever they wanted.

But that was just a huge lie.

At least away from the city, Francine could find work again, even if she never managed to be openly with her male.

Judy could no longer bear to see the fox so consumed by her; because of her, Nick had once again distanced himself from his mother, he hardly spoke to Finnick, and he had no life outside of work and being with her.

Perhaps Nick's life before was messy, illegal, and sometimes dangerous, but at least he had been a stable mammal, perhaps even happy.

Now he was a deeply unstable fox with a look that denoted equal parts love and despair, ready to stab himself with a knife right after she stabbed herself.

Perhaps Nick would be better off without her.

On a good day, Judy would have realized that this was a lie; she was his partner for life, he was crazy about her, and if Judy killed herself, Nick would follow right after. In those days she appreciated that she was doing relatively well as a writer, she felt comfortable with her plants and experienced a certain inner peace.

But that was a bad day, and she felt worthless.

At that moment, she really brainwashed herself into believing that if she disappeared, everything would be alright.

So, the next day she said goodbye to him with a kiss after breakfast, smiled at him, and was sweeter than usual as a way of making it up to him in advance and preventing him from remembering the unlocked balcony.

Then the door closed, and she took her cell phone and walked toward the balcony.

She climbed up, letting the wind hit her face, fantasizing about letting go and forgetting everything, her small, delicate body, with all its lost musculature, slammed against the floor meters away like insects when they were crushed.

Without thinking about anything, without feeling, freeing herself from the pain and leaving Nick free from his dirtiest secret.

She sent him a goodbye message, told him she loved him, and thanked him for everything.

Then she put her phone aside and put both feet over the edge of the balcony, ready to jump.

Only two things saved her.

The first thing she did was look down and be assaulted by a sudden attack of vertigo, her basic survival instincts demanding that she hold on tight so as not to fall, urging her to live, not to die.

The second thing was a desperate fox, faster than she thought possible, grabbing her with his strong paws to drag her back inside and pinning her to the floor.

Scared, furious with his ears back, his pupils straight and small as if he were in a wild state showing all his teeth while panting from the frantic run he made on his way back to the apartment.

He grabbed her wrists, yelled at her, his voice breaking into a desperate sob, making Judy cry too, who only then came out of her mental fog and realized what she had been about to do.

She tried to calm Nick down, but it was too late; she had already broken him.

He looked at her with infinite sadness in his eyes before murmuring in a cracked voice:

“Nothing I do will ever be enough, will it, Carrots?”

He sounded so desperate and unstable that it broke her heart.

That night he grabbed her by the wrist and locked the bunny in her room, the one that was only there as a facade for when they received a visitor because in reality, she slept with him every night.

She remembered that amidst his shouting, he had threatened to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital, but she thought it was just something said in the heat of the moment.

She was wrong.

The next day, two bear nurses arrived, male and female, calm, friendly, with impeccable and high-quality uniforms, a sign that they worked in an exclusive place.

Nick had taken her out of the room when they had both arrived begging for forgiveness for having locked up "poor Judy" but explaining that she wanted to hurt herself, that she then tried to hurt him when he tried to stop her. The poor little bunny was very ill.

He showed them the scratches she had accidentally made on his wrists while they were wrestling on the floor, full of altruism and compassion for his poor friend.

There was no sign of the desperate lover who used to grab her by the ears and take her from behind with his claws buried in the mattress to hold on, making the bed creak relentlessly.

Judy's reaction didn't help either.

She screamed, she got angry, she wanted to shake him because he couldn't do that to her, lock her up, take her away from him, treat her like a crazy rabbit.

The male bear picked her up under her armpits like a doll, effortlessly pulling her away from the fox, while the female bear tried to calm her down by speaking gently about how this was necessary.

“Miss Hopps, your friend is very tired. He cares for you a lot, but he has no medical training. Look at him. I'm sure that deep down you want what's best for him and for yourself, right? Please come to the hospital; we are qualified to help you.”

The male holding her agreed:

"Lieutenant Wilde needs to focus on his job helping the animals of Zootopia. He can't be checking the apartment's security cameras every ten minutes. You were an officer yourself, you surely understand."

Salty tears streamed down the bunny's face. She tried to plead, to insist that it was just a bad day and that she would never set foot on the balcony again, but the nurses looked at each other as if they had heard that a thousand times and Nick's determined gaze never changed.

With a sudden surge of fear, she understood: at that point, it wasn't just about protecting her, but about self-preservation. The fox wanted to live, and he couldn't if his mate died.

Nick was simply going to force her to heal, no matter the cost.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Nick. I swear it was just a bad day. I was fine before. I'm sorry."

The fox shook his head:

“And yet you didn’t talk to me about it; you were just going to jump in and leave me to deal with the consequences. You could have told me you were so sad, Judy; I would have listened.”

"I didn't want you to know."

"Well... I found out the hard way."

The nurses looked at Nick with pity; he approached the bunny, placing a paw on her head and stroking her in a friendly gesture, controlled in front of the public.

"I'll come see you as soon as you're settled in, Fluff, I promise."

The male bear picked her up and carried her outside; the nurse took a backpack with her belongings that Nick had prepared and followed her colleague.

She'd been with Nick almost all the time for too long, and if not, she was alone. She panicked when they took her away from him.

She screamed, begged, and writhed trying to escape until the nurse injected a tranquilizer into her neck, forcing her to sleep.

When she woke up, she was already in that room.

Her treatment could have been adequate if the staff had not lacked all the information; her undercover mission, the multiple rapes and the cause of her addiction could not be revealed, so they treated her as if she were just another female who fell into drugs and alcohol due to chronic depression and who also suffered from bipolar disorder.

These were not bad diagnoses for health professionals who had a medical record carefully edited by the ZPD to erase her failed mission from the map.

Her current psychiatrist contacted Dr. Fuzzby, who was also bound by ZPD confidentiality. Her only concession was to hint that Judy might have suffered some harassment from her colleagues on the force for being a little bunny and that she had bad experiences with the opposite sex.

They made her speak to a psychologist who addressed it all as workplace bullying, and she was treated according to the diagnosis found.

It was somewhat effective, but not entirely; she was more stable, but without ever getting to the bottom of the matter, could she heal completely?

But she was safe, and that seemed to be what mattered most to Nick, even if since she had been there, they could hardly touch each other because of the constant surveillance when she had visitors.

Judy sometimes wondered if he wanted her there forever, safe, in a padded cage with no possibility of harming herself. She should have been angry, but then she saw him looking much better than when he feared for her daily, in a better mood, wearing a clean shirt and smiling when he came to see her, then she decided that maybe this would be their future.

One where she couldn't hurt herself or have bad days because she was kept under control and where Nick always knew she would be safe and visited her daily.

She could accept it, even if she missed living with him; if she had to give herself pleasure because there was no opportunity for them to have sex, it was a sacrifice she would endure.

She had already enjoyed hurting him as much as she wanted at the beginning of their relationship, so now she would endure what made him happy.

She received visitors.

Supportive friends like Gary, Clawhauser, and Fru Fru. They thought she was just going through a rough patch and believed she'd pull through because they didn't know the full story.

The shrew was friendly, but Judy felt she couldn't let her guard down around her; she came from a dark world, she knew things about Nick, she was clear that the fox had perverse sexual habits, practicing interspecies sex even with prey.

Fru Fru was worried about Judy; she wanted to be sure that the fox had never done anything strange while they lived together. She had already despaired several times because of his refusal to let her see the bunny, and it was only her knowledge that Judy adored Nick and trusted him that prevented her from forcing her way into the apartment.

She denied everything; from her friend's conversation, she understood what Fru Fru thought about Nick's diverse tastes in terms of species, and since Judy herself was in a psychiatric hospital, she doubted that anything she said about having done it voluntarily would be taken seriously.

So, she couldn't say anything, she had to stay there laughing, pretending that the shrew's suspicions seemed terrible to her when all she did on a daily basis was miss her fox and his habit of pinning her against the kitchen wall.

Having to see each other but not being able to touch each other in that way was sometimes as torture as not seeing each other at all.

It was funny that of all her acquaintances and friends, only Fru Fru suspected her relationship with Nick based on the fox's past habits.

Judy wasn't surprised; predator-prey relationships were a taboo associated with hardcore pornography, usually linked to dark fetishes of predation. The only thing considered worse after that were snuff videos.

No one would ever see it as love, least of all between a fox whose ancestors ate rabbits.

Her parents were another matter; they trusted Nick, but insisted that once Judy was healed, she should finally go home, settle down, grow carrots, and admit that police work was never meant for a bunny.

Her father sobbed when he saw her in pajamas locked in that room; her mother lovingly took her paw:

"Jude, maybe all you need is your family close by and an understanding male. Having a litter or two, the hard work of the fields, and having kits to take care of will take away all that time you're spending having sad thoughts."

She snapped, the mere thought of having sex with anyone other than Nick brought her back to that time captive, used as nothing more than a doll, spat on, raped, called a “semen whore” over and over again, shattering the tough cop image she had of herself, reduced to a scared, dying bunny until her fox found her.

She yelled at Bonnie everything she could about her backward ideas, her mediocre life, how she would rather die there than end up like her. In reality, she never despised her mother's lifestyle, it just wasn't for her; what she despised was the idea of ​​being forced to live it herself.

But at that moment she was furious, reacting to trauma, to memories her parents knew nothing about.

Bonnie left crying, and Stu looked at her with a disappointment she'd never seen in him before:

“We just wanted to help you, Judy, but if you hate the idea of ​​being with your family so much, maybe you’re right and that’s not the place for you. I hope you find it, because you can’t stay with Nick forever either.”

Then he wiped away his tears and went after his wife.

His last sentence echoed in her head because for everyone it was like that, Nick would eventually make his own life, if it didn't work out last time with his fiancée it might work out at some point, many males settled down around forty.

Could no one really see them and think that, perhaps, they were together?

Since she had to leave the ZPD, she hadn't spoken to her former colleagues; it hurt too much, and Nick, being a cunning ex-criminal, was never close enough to anyone.

She had no visitors other than Ben on that side.

Dr. Fuzzby once went to see her with an apologetic expression.

She asked how she was in that soft voice she always used with her patients:

“Lieutenant Wilde went to see Chief Bogo, and he confronted him because the ZPD never gave you the necessary treatment to overcome what happened…I think he’s right.”

“Do you think so?” she replied bitterly, but with little anger; she had long since stopped getting angry about that.

The doctor seemed embarrassed:

“Yes, Chief Bogo seemed to think the same because he made some calls and contacted a former field officer from his generation. She was sexually assaulted by her partner during a mission, and she was also under a confidentiality agreement, so she dealt with it as best she could, but…maybe talking to another victim will help. Nick has her number.”

Judy blinked. Reliving her experiences with another female? She would have liked to pretend nothing had happened, to forget it, but that hadn't worked. Maybe talking about it would.

“Is she happy?”

The doctor smiled:

“Oh yes! She has a beautiful family.”

“Did she stay with the ZPD?”

The doctor hesitated:

“No…she left the police force after her mission, but now she owns a beautiful bookstore!”

“And her abuser? Was he punished?”

“He was a promising detective back then, so he was just disciplined. But years later the case was reopened and he was expelled!”

Judy's paws curled angrily up onto her knees.

"How many years later?"

The doctor shrank back in her seat:

“Ten…but those were different times, Judy, and that girl was a rookie officer. She used to be a bit too liberal, so her accusation was initially dismissed.”

"Go away."

"But Judy, I'm just explaining because initially no one..."

"Go away!"

The doctor left quickly, and the bunny stared at the padded wall for several minutes.

Apparently, that agent didn't get justice either because she was too liberal, whatever that meant.

The ZPD seemed to have a habit of hiding cases of rape on missions and binding its officers with legal confidentiality agreements.

When Nick arrived to see her, she was sad, angry, and didn't want to talk. She clung to him as soon as the guard left; they knew they had fifteen minutes until he returned from his rounds.

The fox grabbed the front of her pajamas, pulling her towards a possessive kiss. She threw him onto the bed, letting her little paws slip through the gaps between the buttons of his shirt.

There was no time to go any further, so they immersed themselves in a routine of wet kisses and furious caresses that were never enough for either of them, but helped them cope with the separation.

When he had to leave, he told her about his conversation with Bogo, assuring her that the former ZPD agent's number would be waiting for her when she returned home.

Judy says that she missed their home, Nick smiled and replied that he missed his emotional support rabbit.

Even so, Nick never rushed the doctors to discharge her.

She found out about the new girlfriend from Mrs. Wilde.

She had always liked the vixen, but now she was only irritated by the insistence on assigning her asexual roles: saint, savior, a great friend, anything to make Nick's devotion to her and their closeness less "weird".

At first she speaks ill of Nick, of how he didn't take proper care of Judy with all that he owed her, but then she happily mentions that he has met a vixen, Clarie, a pretty arctic fox three years older than him, who wants to settle down soon, has a stable job as a ballet teacher and rents a small house that she shares with her best friend, an obviously homosexual male squirrel.

“They have so much in common, dear! They are both best friends with a prey, they like sweet things, and they want a quiet life keeping their friends close. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Yes, great, wonderful.”

She almost answered in a zombie-like state. Did Nick get another girlfriend? While he was seeing her every day, kissing her, caressing her, and constantly assuring her that he was doing everything for her own good, did he have a girlfriend? Was he courting someone else? Was he treating her the way he treated Judy?

Anger grew inside her.

When Mrs. Wilde left, she sat up straight in bed, ready to wait for a treacherous fox.

The guard ushered Nick inside, freshly showered as usual, smelling of shampoo and cologne, wearing his street clothes after changing out of his ZPD uniform at the station.

He glanced at Judy, who was holding a cushion with both paws.

As soon as the guard left, she threw it at him.

"Liar!"

Nick caught it, looking bewildered:

"Judy? What happened?"

She moved closer to him, taking hold of his tie:

"Did you think you could leave me locked up here for life like a dirty little secret? Have a pretty wife at home while you grope me in secret here?"

Nick understood:

“My mother told you.”

She tightened his tie until he was almost choking.

“Shouldn’t she? She was telling me how perfect and sweet Claire is,” she said the name as if she were spitting it out, full of resentment. “So, Nick? Do you have sex with her before or after coming to see me?”

She let out a high-pitched laugh:

"Wait, doesn't she mind that you smell like a rabbit? Was all you could get was a perverted female? Does she like humiliation? Like her future husband smelling like someone else?”

The fox placed a paw on hers, calm, used to her outbursts, loosening his tie:

“I never sleep with her, Judy. Claire is a facade.”

Judy was taken aback:

“But you already did that with your ex-fiancée…it was for your mother…even for me, so I’d leave you alone, right? You told me so.”

The fox shrank back guiltily in front of her, as he always did when the bunny brought up his terrible coping mechanisms for his love for her.

Judy continued:

“Why try it again? I thought it was fine, everyone just assumes you don’t want to settle down yet…or that you never will.”

“Apparently some animals do talk, and it reached Bogo’s ears.”

“What?”

Nick straightened his tie, sat on the bed with a sigh, and gently knocked on the side of the bed so she would lie down beside him.

The fox put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer.

“He called me to his office three weeks ago and said there are animals out there who might be getting weird ideas about us. Like, I never date, and I broke up with my fiancée right when I started taking care of you. You know how Buffalo Butt is with the ZPD’s reputation.”

Yes, she knew it well.

“So…he suggested I needed to lead a healthier life,” he said with a humorless laugh, “which translates to looking like a decent, normal fox in the public eye, but I don’t want to deal with another deluded vixen who thinks I’m actually going to pay her any attention if we get married, so I searched with the help of several acquaintances until I found Claire. She’s in the same boat as us, Judy.”

The little rabbit looked at him, remembering what Mrs. Wilde had told her about how the female fox lived alone with…her best friend, a squirrel.

“The squirrel she lives with…”

“Kevin isn’t gay; it’s just that everyone assumed it since high school, and it worked out well for them to spend all their time together and hide in plain sight. They even got married in secret in a religious ceremony years ago…I wonder who that daring pastor was.” He chuckled, gently rubbing Judy's arm. "Her family keeps trying to force her with male foxes, and she'll never be able to live openly with Kevin. She needs a cover husband as much as I need a wife who doesn't expect anything from me."

He looked Judy in the eyes:

“I didn’t tell you because I wanted to wait until everything was ready. We’ll get married in a simple, legal ceremony, nothing fancy. She knows about us, and she’s okay with you living in the same house. If my own wife agrees, no one could question it. We’ll live in the house next door to where she lives now with Kevin. It’s a nice condominium complex, single-story houses, with lots of natural light. You’ll like it.”

“One-story houses, right?” She looked at him with sad eyes.

“And cameras. Don’t ask me to trust your Judy. I can’t, I won’t, at least not for long. What happened made it clear I can’t let my guard down around you.”

His claws dug slightly into her thinner arm; his fluffy tail coiled around her ankle like a shackle.

Judy sighed, tired and sad:

"So that's it, huh? I'll be your dirty little secret for the rest of my life."

“I’m yours too, Hopps. Besides, it’s not your only option; you could always go back to your original plan.” He turned to her, lifting her chin with the tip of a claw. “I thought you wanted to destroy me, make me go through the same thing as you, see me lose everything.”

"Not anymore, Nick. I haven't wanted that for a long time. Going on that mission was my decision. I could have changed districts if I wanted distance, I could have even gone to another city, but I chose the riskiest mission I could. It was my decision, and in retrospect, I think I understand now why you rejected me so much."

She closed her eyes, a tear slipped down the corner of her right eye, he wiped it away:

“Even so, it wasn’t an excuse, Judy. I loved you, I always did, but I was too afraid to be honest, to tell you…” His voice dropped to a whisper. Outside the padded room, there was no sound.

“To tell you that I desired you from the moment I met you, to let you see that the Nick you liked didn't exist, how messed up I was inside, how I only became a cop to protect you, not because I believed in anything better. I just didn't want you to see any of that; I hoped to maintain the facade, keep you safe. I couldn't”.

He sounds defeated, sad, completely broken. She takes his paw, tilting her face towards him:

“I was foolish too, Nick. I wasn’t thinking. I wanted a public relationship and never saw how impossible it would be. I thought I could change things about you… I… I wanted to fix everything my way, I wanted to be admired, to change everyone’s minds. I believed that if I tried hard enough, at anything, if I constantly tried, everything would go my way sooner or later. Even our relationship.”

He hugs her as silent tears stream down the bunny's face. When he speaks, he does so in a whisper:

"When I brought you here, I thought you were going to report me."

Judy pulled away from him, stunned:

"It was the perfect opportunity, Carrots. Foxes are still often looked down upon. If you had said I took advantage of you despite being just your caretaker, that I raped you, they probably wouldn't have even bothered to investigate much. In fact, ... I wasn't going to deny it, not if that's what you wanted."

She freezes, stares at him in horror:

“Nick…being my caregiver…if I said that…if you confessed, you’d go to jail and we know what happens to rapists in jail like…”

He returns her gaze, a determined and sad green:

“Well, you once said you hoped I would suffer the same as you. It was the best way to make that wish come true. So, all this time I’ve wondered if you forgave me or if the idea of ​​sending me to jail ever crossed your mind.” Nick sighs, looks away. “That day when you were about to jump, I thought it was all a lie, that you still hated me, that you had been waiting for me to let my guard down so you could destroy me more effectively, only you decided to destroy yourself in the process. I gave you a better way out, one where you didn’t have to die.”

He looks at her again, grabbing her face with both paws:

“One where you live and I suffer. Even on your first day here I made a will, you know? I left you everything… I was ready for whatever you wanted to do, Judy. I’m bigger than you, we slept together several times. If they check you, you’ll have signs that you were with me.”

She feels powerless to react.

He had heard her when she said those hurtful things to him at her worst moment; he had been prepared to suffer the exact same fate as her.

If it made her happy, Nick had planned to end his life in the worst way possible. One where he would remain alive but in constant pain, rotting away in prison for the rest of his life where he would be treated terribly.

Judy's nose twitched, she hugged the fox's neck and burst into tears.

Nick's ears twitched toward the entrance. Not detecting any suspicious noise, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to his chest.

"I guess you really didn't like the idea," he said, his orange tail swishing happily behind him as he rested his chin on the bunny's head.

Judy sobs harder:

“Of course not, you stupid fox! I forgive you, Nick, it’s okay, I forgive you for everything.”

She squeezes her paws a little tighter around him:

"And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for all the pain I caused you."

As she lets the tears flow, curled up on his chest on the pastel-colored bed with the padded walls surrounding them, Judy allows herself to imagine what things might have been like if the world were kinder.

Perhaps Nick's mother would have accepted her as a daughter-in-law, as it didn't seem so impossible to her that the two of them were in love.

Maybe she could have introduced Nick as her boyfriend in Bunnyburrow and Stu would have taught him how to drive a tractor, then her fox would have followed the same custom as her sisters' husbands and asked her father for her paw in marriage.

Clawhauser would have acted as he did with any budding romance at the precinct, supporting them if he had believed that Hopps and Wilde could be a couple and not just colleagues. In that world, they wouldn't have been a malicious rumor whispered by perverted minds, but two animals with undeniable chemistry that no one could deny.

They would have shared the same experiences as other "normal" couples: friendly banter, bets, support.

Francine would have been there.

Their story could never have been so dark, so sick; it could have been better, cleaner, with less pain even if she had suffered the same terrible fate on that mission.

In a world less obsessed with species and stereotypes, everything would have been better.

She cries a little more when she thinks that in the seedy underworld Nick came from, animals sometimes had interspecies relationships; morality mattered less there.

But even now, she doesn't belong in that world, and Nick knows it. Besides, he burned all bridges of returning when he became a police officer.

They have no choice but to live as best they can in the midst of decent society where a fox and a rabbit cannot be in love.

Judy calms down, resting her cheek against his shirt:

“Nick?”

He touches her head with his nose, a sweet, kind gesture:

“Yes?”

“If things weren’t the way they are…if a “we” had been possible…, would you have rejected me that night?”

They look at each other, she doesn't specify which dinner it is because he remembers it as well as she does, it was the beginning of everything, the first time she expressed her feelings and he dismissed them.

Nick's expression softens even more; he touches his nose to the bunny's:

"In a world like that, I would have tried harder, Carrots, I would have tried to be better, for you. And that night I would have asked you out as soon as you opened your mouth."

Her heart races; there's no doubt in his words.

"What's up, Slick? Nothing casual? Nothing 'let's see what happens'?"

"If I could have pursued you honestly, I wouldn't have needed any of that nonsense; you'd be the one I'd be marrying."

She couldn't stop crying; he cried too.

It would have been beautiful.

Three days later Judy meets Kevin and Claire.

He has a slender physique, being a ballet dancer, he wears light denim pants, a mint green shirt and a pastel pink sleeveless knit vest. He has a soft voice for a male, and in a world where no one looks beyond stereotypes, he is clearly gay.

Claire is beside him, resting a paw on the squirrel's shoulder in that friendly yet intimate way Nick also used with Judy in public. A way of making contact without revealing that they are truly meant for each other.

The bunny understands why Mrs. Wilde likes the vixen so much: pure white fur, warm brown eyes, a ruffled blouse, and a flowered knee-length skirt. She looks even more domestic and gentle than Nick's previous fiancée.

Nick stands next to Judy, his paw on her waist as if to hold her up when in reality he just wants to touch her.

Claire looks Judy in the eyes; the two females establish a silent communication that gives birth to a painful understanding.

Neither can live openly with the male they love, forced to treat their love as a dirty secret and to be their mate's dirty secret themselves.

Claire is going to marry a fox she doesn't love to keep her relationship with her squirrel a secret; Judy is going to watch her fox marry another so they can both continue living together safely.

The fox offers her paw to the bunny, and her first comment isn't a greeting but an apology.

"I'm so sorry, Judy."

She replies in the same tone:

“Me too, Claire.”

As if it were a funeral.

They talk a little, she and Nick will never sleep together, they will tell their respective families that they don't want kits.

Kevin will continue living next door, a safe way to stay close to Claire, and Judy will have her own space in the house which she will in fact share with Nick.

It's the best way out they have.

There's nothing more to do, nothing more to say.

Two weeks later Judy leaves the hospital and the next night Nick is already married to Claire.

That night, as they slept together in bed after making love, the bunny felt the fox's calm breathing beside her. She tried to console herself by thinking that even if no legal document ever recognized it, in fact, she was Nick's wife.

She is in everything but name, marital problems and crises included.

They might be a little sick, deeply broken, and their relationship might not only be forbidden but unhealthy. But it doesn't matter.

She is his and he is hers.

Soulmates equally broken, trapped together, forever.