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Life in Zootopia couldn't be any better: The rookie officers Judy Hopps and her partner Nick Wilde were pardoned from all the false charges against them, hailed as second-time heroes and fully accepted by their fellow officers who had previously looked down on and ridiculed them. Their friend Gary De'Snake had succeeded in his mission. The Reptile Ravine was reopened and repopulated again, the reptiles were welcomed back to the city, his grandmother Agnes De'Snake recognized as the city's true inventor and the disgraced family of Lynxley had been arrested and jailed for their crimes against the reptiles and for the fraud. Now Zootopia could finally live up to its moto: Anyone can be better zoogether.
It was a nighttime in Zootopia and everything was quite peaceful.
However, in the basement apartment under the Gym Trunks, everything wasn't quite peaceful for a certain fox.
Nicholas Wilde had fallen asleep on the couch in middle of the news, especially the top one about the trial of Pawbert Lynxley along with his family, with the youngest lynx was called upon for hearing and questioning by armadillo district attorney.
"Mr. Lynxley? Is it true that when you tried to poison Officer Hopps when you, she and Mr. De'Snake were in the control room of the weather room after you had discovered the location of the Reptile Valley, with this?" the attorney asked, while holding up the evidence bag with the same snake fang syringe he had used to inject Judy with the snake venom.
"I... I... Yes." Pawbert confessed, hanging his head down in defeat.
"So you do not deny you tried to murder Officer Hopps in order to frame Mr. De'Snake for it and prevent her from exposing you and your family's fraud and theft of Mrs. De'Snake's founding plans of Zootopia Weather Walls?" the attorney asked again.
"No, I don't, but..." Pawbert began. "Desperate times to get at least some recognition from your own family called for the desperate times so it was necessary evil to do so that I could finally be recognized by my dad and siblings."
While asleep, Nick half-consciously heard Pawbert calling the attempt of murder of Judy a necessary evil for his own selfish desires.
This caused him to toss and turn in his, moaning in anxiety as if he was seeing the nightmare.
"No... no... no... Carrots... Judy... no." he moaned.
Nick's dream
In his dream, Nick found himself back in the labyrinthine stairs and catwalks inside of the weather wall between of Tundratown and Sahara Square where he had been earlier searching for Judy with Nibbles, running along them as fast as he could and heading to the top of the wall, whilst looking for his missing partner.
"CARROTS?! JUDY?!" he called frantically, his voice echoing in the vast space.
There was no answer from his partner, so he kept running up the stairs and catwalks, panting from exhaustion as he did but forcing himself to push onward.
"JUDY?! CARROTS?! JUDY?!" Nick called again as he stopped at the railing and looked down for any sign of Judy in case he has missed some spots where she could be.
"NICK!" Judy's distant voice called from somewhere far above, catching Nick's attention as he looked up.
"JUDY!" Nick called and started running again even higher and higher. "JUDY! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"
"NICK! I'M OVER HERE!" Judy called again.
"HANG ON, CARROTS! I'M COMING!" Nick called back as he kept running.
"NICK! NICK, I NEED YOUR HELP!" Judy kept calling, sounding desperate and even scared, which made Nick to believe that Judy was in trouble, which only increased his adrenaline to keep going faster. "NICK, I... AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!"
Judy's sudden high-pitched scream of agony reached all the way to Nick's ears, sending chills down of his spine as he stopped in his tracks and look up in horror.
"JUDY!" he cried and kept running, even faster than before.
He soon reached to the door that led to the top of the Weather Wall and pushed the door open, stepping outside.
There was a violent, blinding and chilling cold snowstorm outside, causing Nick to raise his arm to protect himself from the blowing wind and the snow.
"JUDY!" Nick called over the whistling winter whilst searching for her with his eyes, but couldn't make her out anywhere.
But then, Nick happened to catch a small form lying at the edge of the of the ledge of ice at the edge of the wall. He narrowed his eyes to see who it was more closely, and then immediately gasped when the realization dawned to him.
IT WAS JUDY!
Judy was lying on her side on the ice, obviously in immense pain as she desperately and weakly tried to crawl away from the ledge. Her narrowed tear-filled eyes then looked up and she saw Nick standing by the doorway, staring back at her in fear and worry.
"NICK! NICK! HELP ME!" Judy pleaded, her voice low and weak but still somehow audible - and literally ringing - in Nick's ears.
"JUDY!" Nick called and was about to move onward.
But after taking a step or two onward, he stopped cold in his tracks when a rather familiar shadow in the shape of the lynx fell upon him from above, making the fox to look up.
And to his horror, he saw Pawbert Lynxley standing there right behind him, and looming over him almost as tall and menacing as Chief Bogo when he was pissed off, except that this time Pawbert was nothing like what he had been when he had confronted him on this same spot last time. All the calmness he had back then was devoid of him and he looked more like what he had last confronted him back at Gary's home: unhinged, crazed, wildly deranged, literally a monstrous version of Pawbert with a messed up fur and insane evil grin.
"BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!" Pawbert cackled like a maniac, sending chills down Nick's spine as he stared down at him with insane glare.
To Nick's further horror, he saw that Pawbert was wielding in his paw that very same two-fanged injector he had tried to kill him before... with the bottle of the snake venom loaded in it empty!
Nick's heart skipped the beat when a horrifying realization hit him and he looked back at Judy. And with the closer look, he could see two recently made puncture wounds in Judy's neck.
Pawbert had injected Judy with venom!
"JUDY! NO!" Nick called in horror and attempted to take another step to run to her side to see if there was anything he could do to save her, until he felt stepping into something on the ground.
Nick looked down and to his surprise, he saw a blue pen with the design of the blue snake lying there.
Gary's antivenom pen!
Nick remembered immediately that this same pen played a vital part in saving Judy's life the last time. He didn't know how it had ended up here, but he didn't care just as long as he could use it to save Judy's life again.
He quickly grabbed to the pen and started running towards Judy as fast as he could, all the while Pawbert laughed insanely behind him.
"BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!"
"JUDY!" Nick called.
"NICK!" Judy called as she collapsed to the ice, and weakly and desperately reached out to him. "HELP ME, NICK!"
"HANG ON, JUDY! I'M COMING!" Nick said and picked up the speed.
Nick's mind was screaming at him to go faster, because he didn't know how long it had been from Pawbert injecting her or how much time she had left for the antivenom pen to work before she... he didn't even want to think about that.
Judy's efforts to get up and crawl towards him became weaker and weaker every second as the venom in her system was taking a stronger grip on her, and the pain and hyperthermia were starting to get too much to bear.
Nick knew she didn't have much time left so he kept running like a crazy, almost that if he was running down on his all fours.
"JUDY! KEEP FIGHTING! I'M ALMOST THERE!" Nick called, desperately pleading Judy not to give up.
"I... CAN'T." Judy wept miserably.
"YES, YOU CAN!" Nick argued, encouraging her to keep fighting. "JUST A LITTLE LONGER!"
Nick reached to the edge of the wall and hopped onto the ice ledge... he was almost there!
But the moment he stepped to it...
CRACK!
A huge crack appeared on the ledge of the ice, right in between of him and Judy, with the outer ledge threatening to come loose from the rest of it and fall down into the abyss covered by the blizzard, and threatening to take Judy down with it.
"NO!" Nick gasped.
Then suddenly...
THUCK!
"AAAGH!" Nick cried in pain when he suddenly felt something to puncture his flesh in his left leg, which caused him to loose his footing and fall flat to the ice... not too far from where Judy was lying... dropping the antivenom pen from his paw.
After quickly recovering from that, Nick looked over his shoulder to see what exactly had hit him. His eyes widened with horror when he saw it was Pawbert's injector device somehow being stabbed into his leg, emptying its new snake venom bottle's contains into his system as well.
"NO!" Nick gasped and attempted to stand up, but his legs had been already immobilized from the first effects of the venom, preventing him to get back up, and quickly draining his strength that prevented him from pushing himself up.
"BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!"
That blood-curdling laughter made Nick to look back over his shoulders, seeing Pawbert walking casually out from the blizzard, staring at them both like a stalking monster, while laughing uncontrollably at their misfortune.
"USE THE PEN, FOX. USE THE PEN. SAVE YOURSELF." Pawbert taunted. "SHE ISN'T WORTH DYING FOR."
Panicking, Nick looked down at the pen lying beyond of his reach, and then up at Judy, who had finally stopped moving, and could only look at him with teary eyes as she lied there on the verge of death.
"NICK." she whispered softly.
Refusing to give up on her just yet, reaffirming his belief that Judy was worth dying for, Nick called out all the strength he had left and started crawling towards the pen, so that he could use it to cure Judy just in time.
Each move caused his muscles screaming from increasing agony, and he was starting to get sweaty because of his body temperature increasing at the dangerous rate. Even his head started spinning wildly and his vision began to blur.
But he didn't want to give up just yet.
As he was close enough, Nick collapsed to the ice and reached his paw out to get the pen... he was just inches away from catching it. Inches away from touching it with his finger tips.
"TUT-TUT-TUT." Pawbert's voice taunted as he pressed his foot down on Nick's back, pinning him down, and leaned over to pick the antivenom pen from the ice, to Nick's horror.
He looked up at Pawbert as he smiled like a madman while eyeing the pen in his paw in triumph, before he looked down at Nick.
"YOU CANNOT SAVE HER, WILDE." Pawbert taunted him. "YOU CANNOT SAVE ANYONE IF YOU CANNOT SAVE YOURSELF EITHER. TRUST IN ME." he added, before bursting into another insane fit of laughter. "BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!"
Realizing that he had lost to Pawbert this time, and what's worst, he had failed to save Judy, Nick turned to her and desperately reached his trembling paw out towards her as a last yet futile effort to save her.
"JUDY!" he called desperately, his own eyes welling with tears which he started to shed as he stared at her regretfully and apologetically.
With her last rapidly dwindling feeble strength, Judy tried to reach out to touch Nick's paw as well... but they were just too far apart.
"NICK." Judy said with the soft whisper and sob.
The ice between of them began to crack even more and more, with Judy's side tilting slightly downwards, causing her limp body to slid backwards, pulling her paw even further away from Nick's.
"NO! NO! NO!" Nick screamed as he watched Judy sliding away from him.
To add the insult to injury, Pawbert deliberately let the antivenom pen to fall out his paw... on Judy's side of the crack.
"WHOOPS." he joked. "BUTTER FINGERS."
Nick watched in horror as the antivenom pen hit the ice ledge on Judy's side of the crack, making the sound of the impact, which sounded like a thunderous boom as if the pen weighted thousand times more from than it looked, to ring in his ears before...
CRACK!
Judy's side of the ice ledge came off from the rest, causing it to plummet down into the abyss, taking Judy with it.
"JUUUUUUUUDYYYYYYYY!" Nick screamed from the bottom of his lungs in horror and crawled to the edge of the ice, reaching his paws out in desperate attempt to try to catch her, but she was just way too far from his reach! Way too far! He could only watch as Judy fell towards her certain death.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Nick screamed as he looked down, and the last thing he saw was Judy looking up at him with the sad and to her fate resigned look... before he disappeared into the blizzard and was never seen again.
Completely broken and devastated beyond recognition, Nick's eyes shed tears uncontrollably as he kept staring down into the abyss after his best friend and partner he was never going to see again.
"JUDY." Nick said in low and devastated whisper.
"BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!" Pawbert laughed at his victory behind Nick's back, severely taunting him for his failure to save his partner.
Nick couldn't take that anymore... especially not from the animal who had robbed from him the only animal he cared about more than anyone or anything else, the only animal who meant everything to him more than anyone or anything.
Fighting back the effect of the venom in his system out of his boiling fury, Nick clenched his paw into a fist and bared his teeth, letting out a primitive growl of anger as he with great effort pushed himself up to his knees, ignoring the fact that it felt like he was carrying the one elephant or even seven elephants on his back, and turned to glare daggers up at Pawbert.
"PAWBERT!" Nick growled furiously as if preparing to lunge at him, though that was pretty much all he could do before he collapsed and rolled onto his back to the ice again, unable to fight the venom off any more.
"BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!" Pawbert laughed again, as he walked up to Nick and grabbed by his shirt before lifting his limp form up till they were at the eye-level with each other.
"YOU WANT TO JOIN YOUR PARTNER, OFFICER WILDE?" Pawbert asked tauntingly, making Nick's eyes to wide when he realized what he was hinting."SURE! BE MY GUEST"
Pawbert then pulled Nick's face closer to his, where his crazed look briefly turned into the one of murderous rage.
"FOR THE FAMILY THAT YOU DIRTBAG FOX AND THAT DUMB BUNNY STOLE FROM ME!" Pawbert growled before he unceremoniously tossed Nick off the cliff and sent him plummeting down into the abyss below.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Nick screamed from the top of his lungs as he fell down, looking up at Pawbert as he tauntingly waved his paw after him as goodbye.
"BYE, BYE, OFFICER WILDE! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!" Pawbert laughed again before he and the ledge disappeared in the blizzard.
As he kept falling to his death, he could hear the voice screaming for his name from the deepest corners of his mind, and he recognized that voice as the one belonging to the very animal, the very person who meant to him so much who was now gone forever: His partner, his best friend, his beloved bunny, Judy Hopps.
"NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!" Judy's voice screamed.
"JUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" Nick screamed back, closing his tear-filled eyes shut and waiting for the lethal impact to the ground below.
Nick's dream ends.
"JUDY!" Nick screamed as he jerked awake from his couch.
With his heart beating like in attempting to burst out from his chest and his fur soaking wet from the sweat, Nick panted at the panicked rate as he looked frantically around of him to try to make any sense of his surroundings.
He also frantically toughed his torso to feel if he had broken ribs, life-threatening wounds and blood, or fatally damaged internal organs after the fall off the wall.
It took, what, five to ten minutes from him to realize that he was no longer at the weather wall but back in his base apartment, and that he himself was okay and alive. For a moment he didn't even know how he did end up her after falling from the wall or how he was even still alive.
Then he gasped with fright when he suddenly remembered something else.
"Judy?" Nick called his partner's name with the trembling and panicked voice as he frantically looked around his apartment to see if Judy was there, almost expecting to see her body lying on the floor: limp, broken, lifeless from the fall from the wall, but she wasn't anywhere to be seen.
Then it slowly began to dawn on him that it had all been just a dream... or rather a nightmare.
Upon this realization, gasped with utmost relief as his heartbeat and breathing began to stabilize to the normal rate.
The light from his TV then caught his attention and he turned to look at it, seeing it still broadcasting the trial of the Lynxley family, who had just been found guilty for their crimes and condemned to serve a long, a very long time in jail.
But the sight of Pawbert amidst his family made Nicking frown angrily. A small growl escaped from between his clenched teeth as he remembered almost every detail what he did to him and especially to Judy in his nightmare. Unable and unwilling to look at his face anymore, Nick grabbed to his remote control and turned the TV off.
Then he collapsed onto his couch again, not minding how sweaty and slimy it felt under his back, and tried to go back to sleep.
But he just couldn't, because all of his thoughts were on Judy, and Judy alone.
His mind was racing as he went through every detail of his dream: Him running up the stairs inside the weather wall, hearing Judy calling for him, her scream in agony, the sight of her lying helpless and in pain at the ice ledge, Pawbert in his crazed state, his chills-giving insane laughs, the venom injector device in his paw and the puncture wounds in her neck, her calling for his help and her attempts to reach out to him, him finding Gary's antivenom-pen, him razing against the time to save his partner, Pawbert injecting him with the venom as well and rendering him unable to help Judy, Pawbert taunting him to either use the pen on himself, Pawbert preventing him from helping Judy and stealing the pen, the pain on Judy's face and her tearful eyes when she looked at him, Pawbert causing the ice ledge to come loose and sending Judy to plummet down in the abyss, him reaching out to her as she vanished from his sight, and finally Pawbert throwing him off the wall as well.
And at the same time, his own memories from that moment in reality flashed before his eyes: him looking for Judy with Nibbles inside the weather wall, him ending up to the ice ledge, him being confronted by Pawbert who approached him with the injector device ready to inject him with the venom too, him telling him that Judy was dead, the shock, horror and devastation he felt in his heart upon hearing this, Pawbert attacking him and trying to kill him too, Gary pleading him to retrieve the antivenom and the sight of Judy's unconscious body in his coils, him fighting Pawbert for the antivenom, the ice ledge breaking under them, his decision to sacrifice himself to save Judy against Pawbert's selfish advise to forget the pen, him throwing the antivenom to Gary and seeing him retrieving it, making him feel hopeful for Judy's survival, the ice ledge breaking off and plummeting him and Pawbert into the abyss, Judy and Gary saving him while the villainous cat fell, his overjoyed relief to see Judy alive and well, and him confessing top her all of his issues with his insecurities, fears of vulnerability, his care for her and his deepest feelings for her.
Given how realistic that dream felt like compared to what happened in the reality, Nick's heart began to beat harder again when his worry and fear for Judy, a paranoid thought that something bad might have happened to her even now, began to raise in alarming rate.
Unable to take it anymore, he needed to be sure Judy was okay, safe and sound.
He reached out his phone and dialed Judy's number and was just about to press the Call button... when he suddenly halted himself and held his finger just above of the button hesitatingly. He tried to make himself to press it but something was holding him back.
He couldn't understand why he couldn't make the call to her, until he began to believe it to be for the fear that maybe Judy may not answer to his call, not because of ignoring it (she'd never ignored his calls before) but because something bad might have happened to her in her apartment.
And even if he did, and even if Judy did answer to his call, Nick also wasn't quite sure if he would feel any satisfaction if he just called Judy right now to asked if she was alright while he was here and she was there, fearing that anything might happen either during or after the phone call.
His desperation to be sure with 100% sure that Judy was okay becoming to near paranoid obsession, Nick decided to see to it personally.
So he got up from the couch, fetched his shirt and left his apartment to head for Judy's.
###
At Grand Pangolin Arms, Judy, in her pink nightshirt and dark pants, was sleeping peacefully in her apartment, in her bed filled with the stuffed bunnies and stuffed foxes. Her crazy neighbors Pronk and Bucky had been abnormally quiet this night so it was a blessing for her to get some sleep in peace and quiet.
Until...
"Knock, knock, knock, knock."
Somebody knocked at her door.
Judy frowned at the sound that disturbed her peace and tried to block it as she turned over in her bed. She was at least happy that it didn't stir her neighbors awake and provoked them to start another unbearable argument over it. Though it wasn't like Judy could really blame them for that for once.
Unfortunately, the peace lasted less than five minutes before there was another knock on her door.
"Knock, knock, knock, knock."
Judy groaned in annoyance. "Go away. I'm trying to sleep." she moaned in her slumber as she turned over again.
"Knock, knock, knock, knock."
Another round of knocks on her door made Judy to groan even louder that she turned on her stomach and pulled the pillow over her head to block the knocking.
"Didn't you hear what I said? Go away!" Judy moaned from under the pillow, a little louder now that the pillow was muffling her voice enough that her neighbors wouldn't hear it.
"Knock, knock, knock, knock."
When the knocking didn't stop and whoever was at her door wasn't getting the message home and left, Judy finally had it that she pulled the pillow off from her head and stood up to sit on her bed before shouting at her door with a pretty loud enough out of annoyance.
"Look, buddy, if you don't stop knocking on my door in the middle of the night and leave, then mark my words and I'll make sure you'll be charged with trespassing as my first thing tomorrow morning! How does that sound?!" Judy threatened.
It was quiet for a moment, until...
"Knock, knock, knock, knock."
"Oh, sweet cheese and crackers!" Judy groaned in annoyance.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
"Hey, bunny! Keep it quiet in there! We are trying to sleep in here!" Pronk called from the other side of the door.
Judy stared at her wall in wide-eyed disbelief that her neighbors were stirred awake by all of this noise, which made her to slap her paws over her eyes and groan in annoyance.
"Hey, don't blame the bunny! She was trying to sleep too until someone came to knock on her door!" Bucky said.
"Well, it's her door, not ours, so it's up to her to keep it quiet in there!" Pronk argued.
"How can she keep quiet if whoever is at her door won't stop knocking on her door and leave?!" Bucky argued back.
"She's the cop, remember! It's up to her to keep the nuisances at bay." Pronk argued.
"She's off duty, man, or did you forgot that?!" Bucky argued back.
"Oh, shut up!" Pronk argued.
"You shut up!" Bucky argued back.
"No, you shut up!" Pronk argued.
"You shut up!" Bucky argued back.
"Knock, knock, knock, knock."
"Hey, bunny! Can you do something about that?" Pronk asked.
"If I do, can you two PLEASE go back to sleep and be quiet before you wake up the whole building with that noise?!" Judy called to them as she jumped up from her bed and began to make her way towards the door.
"You mean him, right? He's the one who started this noise in the first place!" Bucky questioned.
"You joined in it! So that means she meant both of us!" Pronk argued back.
"Oh, shut up!" Bucky argued.
"You shut up!" Pronk argued back.
"No, you shut up!" Bucky argued.
"You shut up!" Bronk argued back.
"Neighbors." Judy sighed with the eye roll as she reached her door and unlocked it, except the door chain, before she opened it a little to see who was outside.
"Okay, buddy, now listen to..." Judy said as she was about to lecture the troublemaker, until she cut herself off when she realized who is actually was. "Oh, Nick?! It's you!"
"Hello, Carrots." Nick said, the tone of his voice abnormally low than usually and his ears were folded back, his eyes were gazing to the ground with the sad look on his face, which Judy noticed from the first sight.
"Nick? Is everything okay?" Judy asked worriedly upon seeing her partner and best friend in the low mood.
"Don't know." Nick shrugged. "Mind if I come in, or are you gonna do just like they say and tell the "nuisance" to go away?" he added with the light joke - though he barely even chuckled to it himself as he used to - and he nodded his head to the neighboring door, referring Pronk and Bucky.
Judy thought about for a very short moment, taking into note both her neighbors' demands to get rid of the "nuisance" as well as the time... but not really wanting to be rude towards him and wanting to find out what had gotten Nick so low mood, the rabbit nodded.
"Okay. Just a minute." Judy said and shut the door for a moment to unlock the door chain and opened the door again to allow Nick to enter. "Come in."
Nick nodded his thanks and entered Judy's apartment before he sat down to her bed, leaning with his elbows on his knees as hos gaze faced the floor beneath his feet, while Judy shut the door and locked it again.
"The nuisance is gone, boys! You can go back to sleep!" Judy called to her neighbors as she walked up to Nick, before she turned to him. "Nick. It's 3:00 AM and we have a work day tomorrow. Why did you come here at this time of night?"
"I know, I'm sorry." Nick said, rubbing his fingers together nervously. "I just..."
"Is everything okay?" Judy asked as she hopped onto the bed next to him and looked up at him with concern. "You don't look like your usual cheerful self, Nick. Is something wrong?"
Nick sighed, trying to find his words how to start to explain to her what was his problem. He found it to be, however, pretty harder than he expected it to be. He had opened up to her about his issues once back in gondola elevator and for the second time back at the weather wall after beating Pawbert in the first round, so he couldn't explain how it was so difficult for him to open about it now.
"I don't know how to start, Carrots. I don't know where to begin." he admitted as he put his paws over his laps
Judy then reached out her paw and put it on Nick's left arm like she had done once to him in gondola to both comfort him and silently assure him that it was okay. Upon her touch, Nick turned to look down at Judy's paw resting on his arm and then up at her in the eyes, and Judy gave Nick a reassuring smile.
"From the beginning?" she suggested.
Nick thought about it for a moment, all the while looking down at Judy's paw on his arm.
(Flashback) Immediately the memory of seeing her lying limp and weak on the edge of the ice ledge, looking at him with her tearful eyes while weakly reaching out to him, desperately pleading for his help, flooded into his mind. (Flashback)
Nick quickly shook that memory out of his mind and turned his gaze away from Judy. Looking into the void while contemplating Judy's suggestion to start from the very beginning, Nick opened his mouth and started to speak.
"I... I... I-I-I... I had a dream, of you." he began.
Judy raised her eyebrow and tiled her head a bit as she looked at Nick in confusion... that he had a dream about her. Of course, she shouldn't be too surprised if he dreamed about her. That was pretty obvious to her if he did dream about her, taken into note of his confessions to her back in the weather wall, about how much he cared about her, saw her as the best thing that had ever happened to him, not wanting her to get hurt or not wanting to lose her, him saying that no one or anything in the world mattered to him more than she did, and that she was her pack and that he loved her. That thought even forcibly made her to blush even though she tried not to.
"Well, that's a quite reason for you to come here at three in the morning." Judy said with the slight touch of humorous sarcasm, though it was mostly to hide her own blushing from her partner so that he won't tease her about it.
But deep down, she knew that the reason for Nick's low mood had to be something else.
"Except that it wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare." Nick confessed.
"Oh." Judy gasped, now understanding that Nick was in the low mood because he has just seen a nightmare... about her. "Want to talk about it? You don't have to if you don't want to."
"That's exactly why I am here, Carrots." Nick said.
He took a moment to prepare himself to reveal the full plot of his nightmare to Judy, before he let out the sigh and began talking.
"I was back in the labyrinthine stairs and catwalks inside of the weather wall between of Tundratown and Sahara Square. I was running them up and heading to the top of the wall as fast as he could, while searching for you because you were missing. I heart your voice, though, coming far from above, so I kept running to get to you. you sounded desperate and even scared, so I though that you were in trouble, which only pushed me to go faster. But before I could even reach you, you let out a scream in agony, which I can still hear ringing in my ears. I knew something was badly wrong, so I picked up the pace until I reached up to the top of the weather wall on Tundratown's side. To the same edge where I confronted Pawbert... about you."
Judy led out a sharp gasp when Nick brought that moment up, which she remembered well from watching it from the monitor screens of the control room when she was poisoned by Pawbert and rendered helpless to do anything for Nick when he was confronting that murderous lynx. Definitely the most terrifying moment in her life ever.
"I found you there, lying in pain on the ledge of the ice and weakly trying to crawl away from there, reaching out to me, pleading for my help. Pawbert was in there too, in his insane and crazened state like back in Gary's home in our final confrontation, cackling like a maniac. He had that injector device with him, with its venom bottle empty. And seeing you in that state and him with that thing in his hands, I realized to my horror of what he had done."
As Nick explained, he reached out his left paw, gently took Judy's cheek and carefully lifted her head up slightly, revealing to him those same scars of her puncture wounds from that vile device on her neck, in the exact same place they had been in his dream.
"Then for some reason I found Gary's antivenom-pen lying on the snow right in front of me. It had saved your life before, so I was sure I could save your life with it again. So I grabbed to the pen and ran to you as fast as I could, trying to reach to you in time while urging you to keep fighting till I get to you. And then, just when I was so close, (Holds up his thump and forefinger in the air, leaving only a tiny space between of them) this close to reach to you at the same time when the ledge was starting to break between of us, Pawbert ambushed me from behind and struck me in the leg with his injector, pumping the venom inside me so that I couldn't get to you."
Judy looked at Nick in wide-eyed horror that he had suffered in his dream the fate what she had back then feared he'd meet for real in Pawbert's paws.
I tried to get to the antivenom that I dropped to the ledge, with him taunting me to use it on myself instead of you. I refused and he pinned me down to the ice and stole the pen from me. He prevented me from getting to you. (Nearly sobbing, voice breaking) I tried to reach to you with my paw! I tried to! I tried my everything! I really did! I was so close to you yet you were still far beyond my reach, and your breaking and downwards tilting side of the ledge kept pulling you further away from my reach! Pawbert then threw the pen to your side of the breaking ice ledge, and like it weighted a ton, it broke your side off the ledge and took you away with it. And the last I saw you was how you fell down into the blizzard-covered abyss and vanished forever from my sight, just before Pawbert threw me off the ledge after you!"
Clenching his teary eyes tightly shut and pursing his lips together after he stopped talking for a moment - which Judy took as that he had come to finish of telling about his nightmare - Nick let out a heavy trembling sigh of grief and high his head down, so down that it almost hung just between of his spread knees.
Judy watched her partner sadly, feeling sorry for him to have such of horrific nightmare about the events at the weather wall, before she reached out and gently touched Nick's left shoulder, getting his attention.
"Hey, hey, hey, hey. It's okay, Nick. It's over. It's over." she told him gently. "Remember that it was just a nightmare, and that nothing went like that back that day on the weather wall. We survived. Both of us. And why? Because you saved my life. You and Gary both. And you survived too, because you fought for my life so that I could save yours."
Nick, however, shook his head. "But throughout my dream, I felt the same pain, horror, and shock in my heart as when Pawbert told me you were dead." he said as he turned to Judy, his paw over his heart. "Even if we lived through of it, it doesn't take away that pain, nor my fear of losing you."
Judy was taken aback to learn that Nick was still pretty much traumatized and haunted by the thought of having lost her and that he was too late to be there to help her.
Those to last words "losing her", were too much for Nick to take. It broke him completely and he began to sob over the thought of losing Judy in his nightmare and how close he was to actually lose her in reality.
"I cannot take it, Carrots. I cannot lose you. I just can't. I'm deeply afraid every day that I'll lose you, because if I ever lose you for real, and I was never there for you when you needed me most, I don't know what I would have done or how I could live with myself! I literally can't live without you, Judy! I can't!" Nick sobbed, tears flooding from his eyes as he put his paws over his eyes and turned away from Judy, likely because somewhere deep in his mind he felt a little embarrassed that Judy saw him as such of emotionally broken and sobbing miserable wretch even if he had a good reason to be that way.
Judy looked at him sadly, unable to bare to see her partner reduced into this by his fear of losing her.
As Nick kept sobbing, Judy crawled towards him and sat on her knees next to him. Then she put her right paw on his shoulder again before she gently took him by the right side of his face with her left paw and turned him to look at her, making Nick to look at her while his vision was blurred by his tears.
"Nick, please." Judy said, looking at him with the reassuring smile, while tenderly caressing with her left paw Nick's right cheek and wiped away his fresh tears away from his eye with her thump, and she did the same thing with her right paw, wiping the tears away from Nick's left eye. "Don't be afraid. You are never gonna lose me."
Nick sniffled a little as he continued to shed tears while he stared at Judy's face, every single detail of it, and Judy's beautiful violet eyes staring deep back into his own emerald eyes.
"You are never gonna lose me." Judy repeated reassuringly while holding with both paws from Nick's jawline.
Nick closed his eyes for a moment, letting a few more tears out before wiping them away with his own paw, before he opened them again and looked at Judy with the smile.
"Say it again, will you?" Nick asked.
Judy let out an amused chuckle at this and smiled broadly with happiness. "You are never gonna lose me."
With that, Judy pulled her paws back from Nick's jawline and proceeded to wrap them around his partner's torso, before she pulled him into a hug to comfort, while pressed her head against Nick's and cuddled her face against his fur, inhaling his scent that gave her the feeling of safety. She sighed happily with the pleased satisfaction from the feeling of the warmth of Nick's body temperature against her body and the sound of his heartbeats in her right ear.
Nick returned to her hug by wrapping his left arm around her body and under of her arms and cupping with his right paw most of the left side of Judy's face, and finally wrapping his own tail around of Judy's waist, before he too pulled Judy against himself, literally curling up around of her small form, and pressed her head harder yet still in gentle manner against his, enjoying of her own warmth and taking in a deep inhale of her amazingly wonderful scent, telling him that she was there for him.
"You promise I won't ever lose you?" Nick asked in whisper.
"I promise." Judy promised.
"Say it again, will you?" Nick asked again.
Judy chuckled again. "I promise."
The two hugged each other even tighter, reaffirming that promise... until their tender moment was broken by Judy's crazy neighbors from behind the wall.
"See? I told you! She made him happy again! Bravo to you, bunny!" Bucky said.
"Don't encourage them! Otherwise they're gonna stay up all night!" Pronk said.
"Why can't you give to the fox and bunny some privacy now that they have their most tender moment?!" Bucky said.
"Because you're trying to get them in the mood where they'll soon be making out in in bed!" Pronk said.
Both Judy and Nick's eyes flew wide open upon hearing this, which made them to blush furiously. However, instead of letting go and backing away from one another in embarrassment, they kept holding from each other as they turned to look at the wall, both of them wearing on their faces equally matching annoyed frowns for Judy's neighbors for ruining their happy moment.
"Oh, shut up!" Bucky argued.
"You shut up!" Pronk argued back.
"No, you shut up!" Bucky argued.
"You shut up!" Bronk argued back.
"WILL BOTH OF YOU BE SHUT UP THERE, PLEASE?!" Nick finally barked.
"Now look what you did! You made them mad at us!" Bucky argued.
"Oh, shut up!" Bucky argued.
"You shut up!" Pronk argued back.
"No, you shut up!" Bucky argued.
"You shut up!" Bronk argued back.
Judy and Nick shook their heads and rolled their eyes at the neighbors, but the moment they turned to look at each other again, they smiled and went back into their hug, ignoring the argument the neighbors had entered.
The two remained in that position for who knows how long, with Nick in particular refusing to let go of her, wanting to hold onto Judy as long as possible as if his very own life depended on it, or if wanting to keep her forever safe in his arms. And Judy didn't want to let go of him either, for she enjoyed the sense of security in Nick's arms and would've preferred to stay there as long as she liked, or at least until Nick was with 100% sure that he won't ever lose her no matter what... but to her own disappointment and reluctance to break Nick's moment of happiness, she knew she couldn't.
"Nick?" Judy said finally. "We can't stay up like this for long. We have work tomorrow, remember?"
Nick let out a sigh of disappointment, for he knew that it was true, as much as he didn't want to admit it.
"Yeah. So disappointing." he groaned as he forced himself to let go of Judy as they pulled back from each others arms. "Well, I think I should go now."
Judy would have liked to ask him to stay here for the rest of the night, but she refrained herself from asking because Nick hadn't brought anything with him for the sleepover and besides, he had to be ready for their shift the next morning. And on top of that, Judy barely managed to hold herself back from saying that despite his scent that brought up the sense of security in her, Nick did smell a little sweaty.
"You feeling... better now?" she asked.
"Yeah." Nick replied with the nod, while wiping the dry tears from his eyes, before he put on his usual casual smile as he stood up from the bed. "You know what? Maybe even better than fine, for I feel now satisfied of having done what I came here for in the first place: To check up on you."
"What?" Judy scoffed as she too hopped off her bed. "Are you telling me you didn't come here in middle of the night to seek comfort after your nightmare?"
"Well, that too," Nick replied with with the shrug. "But I came here mostly because to make sure you're okay, and most importantly, still alive, and that no Pawbert has done any harm to you again."
Judy chuckled at this, as she began to lead Nick towards the door of her apartment. "Nick, you know that I'm not "damsel-in-distress" type of bunny. I can take care of myself just fine."
"Oh, yeah?" Nick challenged with the smirk. "Oh, yeah? Then who was the "bunny-in-distress" that needed to be rescued from being fired by the Chief Buffalo Beef? And who was the "bunny-in-distress" again when a certain heroic fox and the heroic snake worked together to save her life?"
"Oh, knock if off, dumb fox." Judy laughed and playfully punched Nick in his left arm - a little bit too hard, again, as usually - before she began to open her door.
"Ow!" Nick winced, holding from the sore spot in his arm with his paw. "And who's gonna rescue this "fox-in-distress" from you and your punches?" he joked.
They both laughed as Judy finally opened the door and they stepped outside, where Nick turned around to face Judy for one last time before he will be on his way back home.
"Well, I'll be on my way then." Nick said, nodding his head towards the other end of the hall behind his back that led into the exit of the building.
"Nick. One more thing before you go." Judy said with the soft voice.
It took a brief moment from Judy to muster up to say it, while Nick waited for what she had to say patiently.
"If you start again having similar nightmares like the one you just had, then never forget that I'm still here with you in reality, and you can always come to me for comfort if you feel like it." she said as she took Nick's paw in her own paws, before she raised one finger up at him and gave him a lecturing look. "But phone-call first next time so that I can be ready to receive you."
Nick chuckled at this, before Judy continued while still holding from Nick's paw.
"And remember this, you never have any reason to be afraid of losing me, because I will never leave you in any case, you understand?" she said, as she let go of Nick's paw.
"You promise?" Nick asked.
"I promise." Judy promised.
"Say it again one more time, please?" Nick asked.
Judy chuckled once again. "I promise."
Nick nodded satisfied. "Well, good night then, Carrots. I see you tomorrow, then." he wished with the smile.
"Good night, Nick. See you tomorrow." Judy wished back.
Then the two of them turned to leave, Nick heading to the other end of the room and the exit of the building, while Judy headed back to her door and from there to her bed to continue her sleep.
But as she was about to enter into her apartment, Judy felt suddenly a large paw landing on her right shoulder that gently turned her around, making her to look up and see Nick standing there, who had come back.
"I too got just one more thing for you, Judy, before I'll go." he said as he pulled his paw back.
"And what's that?" Judy asked, putting her paws on her hips and looking up at him expectantly.
"You'll see." Nick said. "But before we start, let's consider this as... ummm... top secret, highly classified, shared only between the two of us, okay?"
"Okay." Judy said, nodding almost immediately. "So what is it that you wanted to say?"
Nick smiled at her slyly for a moment, before he raised his right paw up and put his fingers over his mouth, and Judy frowned a little with the slight confusion when she heard a muffled sound of the smooch coming from behind Nick's raised paw, thanks to her keen sense of hearing.
'Did Nick just kissed his fingers? But why?'
But before she could question Nick about this, the fox reached out his paw towards her head and tenderly rubbed his fingers along her left cheek before pulling his paw back. Gasping with surprise, Judy's eyes flung wide open again, her mouth fell open and her ears jumped upright when the realization hit her, especially when she felt a slightly wet spot in his fingers right there where he had kissed them touching her cheek.
With her heart razing in her chest from this, Judy looked up at Nick as she sub-consciously raised her paw over the spot where the slightly wet spot had remained from Nick's fingers, making her to blush furiously.
Nick smiled at her reaction to what he had just done and winked at her before turning around and going on his way without saying a word.
Judy kept watching him go as her paw still remained on her cheek, before her ears slowly dropped down and her own surprised look on her face melted into an adorable touched smile, with tears of happiness forming in her eyes as she let out a sigh of happiness.
Judy then wiped her tears away from her eyes and, with her gaze still lingering in Nick, she returned into her apartment. But before he closed the door, she lingered at the gap of the door, her gaze still on Nick.
"Hey, Nick!" she called almost without even realizing it herself.
His ear twitching into the direction of her voice, Nick turned around to look back at her, believing that it was now her turn to either say or do a one last thing to him.
And he was right, in the latter's case
As Judy smiled at him sweetly from the gap of her apartment's door, she lifted her right paw up and pressed it against her own lips, before she blew an air kiss in Nick's direction, to Nick's mild-surprise and amusement.
Their literally enchanted gazes lingered on each other for a moment afterwards, before Judy began to slowly, with her gaze still on Nick, back away from the gap of her door and into her apartment and closed the door behind her.
Once Judy was out of sight, Nick chuckled and shook his head, before he paid a one last glance at Judy's apartment's door. "Clever bunny." he muttered, before he exited the building and began his way back to his home.
(The screen then pulled away from Nick as he left from Grand Pangolin Arms, and it hovered over the roofs of the buildings of this block and rose even higher as the screen pulled further away from the downtown of Zootopia. And as the screen turned around, it moved quickly through the city until it slowed down as it descended/approached the prison on the outskirts of the city.)
Meanwhile, at the other side of the Savannah Central, in the prison where Nick had been previously locked up during the case of the mystery behind Agnes De'Snakes' journal under the false charges. The prison had been repaired following Nick and Nibbles' escape from there and majority of the 200 escapees had been re-captured and put back in there.
The prison seemed peaceful and quiet tonight, without any disturbance... but sadly it didn't last long.
"BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEB! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEB! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEB! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEB!"
The alarms was set off, shouting of both inmates and the guards and barking of orders - not to mention the thunderous rumble of the guards stampeding through the corridors of the cell blocks - were heard from inside the prison, and from the watch towers the beam lights were activated, which moved around of the perimeter surrounding the prison.
The was a prisoner escape.
At the door, the same door that Nick, Nibbles, and the prisoners piled on top of them had previously used when escaping, came the shout of a guard standing on watch inside.
"Hey! You! Stay right where you- ARGH!"
The door was forced outside and off its hinges when the guard, a rhinoceros, collapsed against it as he fell onto his back to the stairs, lying there unconscious, while something black, like a handle, was sticking out of his chest.
A moment later, as the alarm lights flashed in the hallway inside the prison, a dark figure stepped out of the busted doorway in a slow yet menacing pace, dressed up in a black hooded robe, with two ominous yellow eyes glowing from the inside of the hood. Casually, the hooded figure stepped over the unconscious police officer and knelt over his body, only for a large light gray paw to come out from under the robe, which reached out to the black object in the rhino guard's chest, wrapped its fingers around of it and yanked it off.
The object was revealed to have two curved snake-fang like needles in it, which tipped something green out from the tips of them.
The figure then pulled the object, now revealed to be injector device - the similar one used in now-disgraced Lynxley family - before the figure opened it and took out the empty bottle of snake venom, only to reload it with another full snake venom bottle.
The figure then reached out with its other paw towards his hood and pulled it back off his head, revealing himself to be - none other than - Pawbert Lynxley!
However, Pawbert was just like he was in Nick's nightmare and back when he, Judy, Gary and Nibbles had last seen him back at Gary's home: unhinged, crazed, wildly deranged, literally a monstrous version of him with a messed up fur and insane evil grin.
"BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!" Pawbert cackled like a lunatic.
He stepped off of the guard he had just injected with the venom and began to make his way away from the prison and towards the streets of the outskirts of the city, heading towards the downtown.
"I'M FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! PAWBERT LYNXLEY IS FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!" he cackled triumphantly
Pawbert then pulled his hood back on and took out a newspaper, in which headline was reading:
OFFICER HOPPS, OFFICER WILDE, A PIT VIPER AND A BEAVER SOLVED YET ANOTHER MASSIVE CONSPIRACY.
The picture of triumphantly posing Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde, Gary and Nibbles, along with defeated and subdued Pawbert Lynxley in Gary's coils, at the doors of the Reptile Ravine's clock tower.
LYNXLEY FAMILY FRAUDS?!
The picture of Milton, Pawbert, Cattrick and Kitty Lynxley being arrested and escorted into the police van.
OFFICERS JUDY HOPPS AND NICHOLAS WILDE, GARY DE'SNAKE AND NIBBLES MAPLESTICK OFFICIALLY PARDONED.
The picture of Mayor Brian Winddancer handshaking with Judy, Nick, Gary and Nibbles after they were cleared of all the charges.
DISGRACED LYNXLEY FAMILY INCARCERATED. EBENEZER LYNXLEY'S STATUE TOPPLED.
The pictures of the mugshots of the Lynxley family members in prison suits, and the picture of Ebenezer Lynxley being removed from its stand in front of Milton's mansion.
REPTILE RAVINE RESTORED AND REOPENED. AGNES DE'SNAKE CREDITED FOR FOUNDING ZOOTOPIA.
The picture of the thawed out, restored and reopened Reptile Ravine, celebrated by mammal and reptile alike, with the statue of Agnes De'Snake at its entrance.
However, Pawbert's eyes widened and he gritted his bared teeth in insane rage as he stared intently at the picture of the four heroes who stole his chance to earn his long-yearned approval and respect from his family and destroyed the Lynxley family's reputation forever.
Growling with uncontrollable rage, Pawbert dug his claws into the newspapers and brutally tore them in half down the middle, right between of Judy and Nick in the picture of the headline.
Throwing away the torn pieces of the newspaper away, Pawbert continued his way towards the town.
Breathing heavily with rage through of his bared gritted teeth and brandishing his long sharp killer claws, he grinned maniacally with bloodthirsty excitement, his next goal all too clear.
"Family for family! See you soon, Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! AH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAA-HA-HA-HA-HAA!" Pawbert laughed in excitement for his plans of revenge as he disappeared to the streets.
(Side view of the busted wall.)
Meanwhile, at the busted doorway where the poisoned rhino guard was still lying unconscious while the tiny gerbil prison nurses and doctors were in the hurry to give him the antivenom to save him, another animal poked her head out of the doorway and looked around to see if the coast was clear.
It was none other than Dawn, Dawn Bellwether, the disgraced lamp ex-mayor of Zootopia and the mastermind of Night Howler Conspiracy.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haa!" she laughed as she hopped joyfully out of the door and attempted to make her way away from the prison once more.
La-la-laa, la-la-laa! La-la-laa, la-la-laa!" she sung as she danced over the unconscious rhino guard with no regard of his critical state or the gerbil nurses on her path, which she proceeded to kick out of her way."
However, before she could get far, the trunk of the elephant guard reached out from the door and towards her when her attention was towards the potential freedom, before it grabbed from her prison suit and yanked her back inside.
"Bellwether is free aga-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" she yelled as she disappeared back inside the prison that her glasses fell off and landed to the top stairs.
"I do have my glasses, you know!" Bellwether complained.
The elephant guard then reached out his trunk again and picked them up from the stairs, albeit a bit roughly, as his strong grip ended up accidentally breaking the lamb's glasses as he brought them back inside.
"Here you go, ma'am." the elephant guard gruffly told as he gave what was left of the glasses back to Bellwether inside the prison.
"Thaaaaaaaaaanks." Bellwether thanked both curtly and sarcastically, obviously not being too happy that the guard had broken her glasses, albeit accidentally.
THE END.