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Chapter Text

A young Judy Hopps hopped along with her parents through the crowd outside her school, utterly failing to restrain her energy. As she leaped from the asphalt to a nearby wall, she could feel the crisp spring air through her mock scrubs.

“I’m going to be a heart surgeon mom and dad! Anything is possible!” she cried, tearing off her paper mask and allowing it to trail in her hand behind her.

“It’s great that you want to be a doctor, honey, but aren’t you setting your sights a bit high?” her mom asked, betraying obvious concern.

“Your mother’s right Judy, becoming a doctor is tough enough, nobody from our family has even been to college, let alone gotten a doctorate. You really should settle, like we did!” he dad added.

“But mom, dad…” Judy started, barely getting a word out.

“Even if you did become a doctor, why a surgeon? There’s never been a bunny surgeon. Tons of nice, hard-working family docs like Dr. Thumperleaf, but never a surgeon. Why go down that road when the risk of being unhappy is so high?” her dad asked, still smiling.

“Settling, that’s the key to happiness honey!” her mom continued, giving her husband a hug as they continued to walk.

Years later, Judy Hopps stood next to the bags that contained all of her worldly possessions, getting ready to leave home yet again, recalling that night fondly. Though she was now “big city” as far as her neighbors and brothers and sisters were concerned, it apparently never got any easier for her parents to say goodbye, even if she always kept in touch the best she could.

College had been good to Judy. Pre-med wasn’t easy, but it also wasn’t nearly as hard as her parents had made it out to be. Chemistry, biology, physics, and a host of other classes had flown by, along with a host of roommates, acquaintances, and a few casual boyfriends. Judy wasn’t the type to let her life clutter up though, every thing she held on to was another thing that could possibly keep her back. At the end of four long years, she had a handful of friends she’d never see again, a diploma that marked her as graduating Summa Cum Laude that hung on her parent’s fridge, next to dozens of drawings done by her siblings, and the certainty that she was ready for the next step.

“It’s not too late honey, it will never be too late to come back home!” her mother extolled, giving her a crushing hug goodbye.

“And it’s especially not too late to change your mind about surgery…” her father added, wiping away a tear.

“I know, I know dad…” she said, trying her best to placate him while giving him a hug and pat on the back.
“But I could never be happy with just a doctorate in primary care, I could never be happy coming back here to work with Dr. Thumperleaf, you guys know that!”

Both of her parents cracked knowing smiles beneath the bittersweet tears.

“We know honey,” her mother began, “so go out there and save the world,” she finished, stepping back to allow Judy room to turn and board the bus that had pulled up behind them.

She was telling her parents the truth, she thought, as she boarded the now very familiar bus and waved yet another goodbye.

She had shadowed in the summers between her years of college, watching how medicine was done in a backwards town like hers. Dr. Thumperleaf was a good doctor, a great one even, but he had his limits. Without taking the extra years to get a full doctorate in mammal medicine, he could never practice on mammals much larger or smaller than him, he could never specialize outside of family medicine, and he could never perform an operation outside of an absolute disaster.
Judy couldn’t live like that. She had wanted to be a cardio-thoracic surgeon since before she could pronounce it. It was in her blood, her drive, a mission that made everything make sense. It didn’t matter if most surgeons were larger or smaller than her, or that there had never been a bunny surgeon, or even that academic medicine was so backwards and “traditional” that even being a female was cause for discrimination. She was going to accomplish her dreams, and nothing was going to stop her.

As she transferred from the bus to the train to Zootopia, she drank in the familiar sights of the big city. It filled her with the kind of exhilaration that she had never felt in her hometown.

Chapter Text

First year was nothing like Judy expected. She was miles and years away from helping anyone, this was just college but harder, and every stumbling block was even more upsetting than the last. She excelled, as she had through all school before, but as finals approached, she felt awful.

Judy walked through the halls of Zootopia Medical, anxiously looking for an open study room. She had gone home for a quick nap and had woken up to discover she had lost five hours of time, over twice what she had budged for. The worst part was she didn’t even feel rested, she just felt that same haze of anxiety and regret that she had been feeling for weeks leading up to now.

She didn’t even have anything to do other than study, but lecture after lecture piled up on her laptop. Properly organized notes and study aids gave way to terrified intelligible scribbles, half-remembered trivia, and lamentably now dried out dry-erase markers.

As she continued to look, hefting her bag with her books and laptop, she spied what looked like a open study room. Nobody sitting in the single chair, and nothing was on the desk. The light was on, but at this point Judy didn’t care anymore. She opened the door and walked into the tiny room, hefting her bag onto the table.

“Oh hey, down here,” a voice said from below the table.

Judy froze, and in that moment the only thing moving was her twitching nose, which was apparently moving of its own accord. Her eyes silently darted around the room until they tracked to below the desk, where hungry eyes and a menacing toothy smile was lit by the eerie glow of a laptop screen. Sleep deprived, hungry, stressed, and not quite altogether there, Judy’s brain went into dysfunctional overdrive.

‘It’s a fox; there is a fox under the study table. This is it for me, goodbye Judy. Done in inside a study carrel in Zootopia Medical. Everything I’ve done is pointless,’ she thought.

Her muscles tense, she could feel the spring in the balls of her feet as she slowly processed what was happening. A solitary second passed and her brain gave another level best at figuring out what was going on.

‘No you idiot, that’s the fox in your class, the one from Abigail’s dissection group. You’ve just barged into his study room and now you’re acting like either a weirdo or a bigot, and your best hope at this point is that he just thinks you’re the first,’ was her next thought.

“Oh my goodness I am so sorry to barge in I didn’t realize anyone was in here I’ll leave right away so sorry have a nice night,” she said, her mouth moving at a mile a minute as if to make up for the lost time of just standing there.

As she made for the door again, this time out of embarrassment rather than fear, the fox under the table scooted out and gently placed his laptop on the desk as he stood up.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Name’s Nick, Nick Wilde. You’re Judy, right? Abigail’s friend? Nice to meet you,” the fox asked, offering a paw.

At this point Judy was incredibly flustered. Embarrassed, still mildly startled, and perhaps a teeny bit charmed now, she took far more time than was remotely socially acceptable to take Nick’s offered paw and shake it.

“Ummm…yeah, hi, nice to meet you too. I’m…ummm…Judy, Judy Hopps. I’ll just be…going now,” she said, clearly flushed.

Nick’s face turned to one of mild concern.

“Hey you know you don’t have to go. I’m obviously not using the desk or table, and you’re welcome to them. I imagine it’s slim pickings out there. Obviously if you don’t want someone else in your study space I understand but it’s no fur off my back for you to hang out. I promise I don’t bite.”

Nick flashed another smile, utterly disarming her. Her heart gave another flutter before ultimately calming down. She smiled, thanked him, and began to unpack her things. At first they sat in silence punctuated only by clicking, frustrated key taps, and the occasional groan at an unfair practice question or forgotten fact. They continued that way for the rest of the night, Judy sitting in the desk chair, Nick sprawled underneath.

The next day, without even conferring with each other, they both ended up in the same room in the same position. This time, Nick spoke up an hour into the session.

“You mind if I play some music? I forgot my earbuds,” he asked.

“Oh! Me too, I get a little bit antsy without something to listen to actually,” Judy responded.

They spent that night swapping music as they studied, Judy supplying a well curated list of pop music with Nick showing her a much more eclectic list of his favorites.

Through the rest of the week, they started to really study together rather than in parallel. Whenever Nick had a problem understanding a process, Judy was always there with a well-drawn diagram, and whenever a fact just wouldn’t stay in Judy’s mind, Nick always had a little mental trick to help her imagine it. What started as an insurmountable mountain of anatomy, histology, and cellular mechanics slowly became understood, maybe even easy.

During study breaks, they walked the halls of the school at nighttime, deeply engaged in conversation. Nick learned the name of every single one of Judy’s brothers and sisters and Judy learned the long story of how Nick had come to Zootopia Medical. By the end of the week, Judy didn’t feel overwhelmed anymore, if anything, she felt confident. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but Nick helped Judy put everything together, like he was a piece missing from her life she didn’t know she needed.

That Friday, seated in a lecture hall, the two of them sat down to their exam. Three hours later, confident and satisfied, they tromped down to the anatomy lab for the practical. Prepared, well-read, and confident, Nick and Judy both filled in the questions with ease, effortlessly recalling muscles, bones, and concepts with the tricks they had taught each other.

Their finals passed, they retreated to their old lives. Judy went out with Abigail that weekend to celebrate, unsure what Nick was doing with his free time. They both went home, Judy to her family back at the farm, Nick to his mom in the city. They spent the summer apart, but Judy couldn’t stop thinking about Nick. She had only really known him a week, and despite all the time they spent together, she didn’t really know that much about him. Only weeks into their vacation, she already missed him.

Chapter Text

The next year the material got tougher, but so did they. After the very first day of second year, they naturally went back to their old study room, as if the summer hadn’t even happened. Organically, they began building a study guide. Judy had a talent for reading between the lines, and with every chapter and lecture finished, she supplied highlighted lists of important concepts. Meanwhile, Nick’s artistic skill left them both with elegant and clear flow-charts, maps, and gorgeous depictions of anatomy.

As the finals of second year approached, the familiar mental buzz of stress and sleep deprivation floated over campus like a fog. In a familiar building on campus, Judy stomped towards the door to her and Nick’s shared study room, slamming it open
and startling the fox that was resting underneath the desk, swaddled in a flannel blanket.

“Whoa, easy there, what’s up?” he asked.

“Group of surgery jocks started messing with me a lunch, that leopard that runs the orthopedics interest group kept making fun of my size. I can’t stand some of the kids in our class, none of them act like adults, med students are the worst,” Judy replied.

Nick chuckled.

“You’re right there. Don’t let them get to you though, I know you’re fantastic, and you know it too. We’re both going to be great doctors, and that’s what matters.”

He looked up from his laptop, his eyes showing genuine concern. Judy knew that Nick was being honest, he really did believe in her. But this time, she was too angry to be placated.

“No, you know what? I’m tired of doing that. I’m tired of being the better person, the meek dumb bunny that everyone humors. I’ve known since day one that I was going to be a cardiothoracic surgeon, and not one person has supported me. I can’t take having to prove myself anymore, when is it going to be enough?”

“Whoa, slow down there. Your parents have supported you and your friends have supported you, what about me? You’ve got a whole team behind you!”

Judy huffed.

“I dunno Nick, it’s just frustrating when I have to deal with…I’m just gonna say it, embleer hrair like them.”

“Whoa, wait what did you just say?” Nick asked incredulously

“Embleer hrair, it means…” Judy began

“Oh I know what it means, I just can’t believe you’re saying it! Stinking thousand you’re calling them, enemies of rabbits,” Nick interrupted.

“I know I shouldn’t say it but that’s what they are, Nick!”

“You’re treating it like a swear word, it’s more than that, it’s a slur!”

He was raising his voice as he stood up, seemingly towering over Judy, his blanket falling to the floor.

“Nick, I don’t understand…”

“Don’t understand what? Don’t understand that your friend is one of the stinking thousand? Don’t understand that I’ve been called that behind my back since I was too young to understand what hate was? Don’t understand that even your friend Abigail and I have to deal with language like that because we’re 'traditionally predatory’?”

“Nick, don’t be like that, you know I don’t think you’re like that, besides I have plenty of pred…predator friends,” Judy said, starting to tear up.

“Think I’m like that? And did you just almost call me a pred? You know how I feel about that word too Judy! You think you have it so hard because people underestimate you because of your size and your species that you can’t even see what your predator friends go through. You don’t know what it was like to grow up where I did, to be a minority in a city that considers you a threat, to have to fight tooth and claw to be considered fair and honest and not dangerous to your patients, all while seeming humble and weak, just because you don’t want anyone to think you’re too aggressive. Why do they have to be predators to be awful?”

Judy was now so upset she was trembling. She didn’t know what to do. Her friend was obviously hurt, and so was she, but everything felt so overwhelming. She did the first thing that came to mind, the first thing that every little rabbit is taught as soon as they can understand. She turned and ran.

That night, she MuzzleTimed her parents. She managed to stifle the tears, but she just didn’t have the energy to perk her ears back up.

“Aww what’s wrong Jude, school getting to you?” her well-meaning father asked.

“You know we sent you a care package for the end of the month, should be coming tomorrow, share some with that nice boy
you’re always studying with, yeah?” her mother added.

Judy sniffed. She didn’t have the heart to tell her parents what had happened. She wasn’t even sure they would understand. She had never told them Nick was a fox.

“Thanks mom and dad, yeah, school has just…it’s just been rough,” she said.

“Well, we’re sure you’ll do fine, and if you don’t, there’s always the carrot farm to fall back on!” her father said joyously.

“Yeah…thanks, mom and dad. I’m gonna hang up and get to bed early.”

She said goodbye and hung up, the silence in her tiny apartment now deafening. She fell into her bed with a groan. Of course talking to her parents only made her feel worse.

The next morning, after class, she returned to her place again instead of going to her and Nick’s study room at the school. She wasn’t sure how to make things up to him, or even if it was possible. Sitting outside was a large package, specially packed to keep the produce inside cool. Of course there were plenty of carrots and beets, but she didn’t feel like eating right now.
They had also packed her a small pie and some assorted fruit. She packed them away in the small fridge by her desk and slumped into her bed, lying on a pillow with her laptop on her stomach.

As she studied that day, she still felt distracted. Every note made her think of Nick and what he said, how she had hurt him. She wasn’t sure he was being entirely fair, but she didn’t know anymore. She needed to talk to him. Even when her problem concerned him, she was still sure he could help, that he could explain it, just like he always did.

That night, she sneaked back to the school and walked to the study room. Hiding just out of sight of the room, she waited until she saw Nick walk away for a minute. Quickly hopping to the room, she stealthily jumped inside and packed a small basket of fruit by his abandoned laptop, along with a note that read:

The next day, Judy was walking out of class when Nick approached her, tapping her on the shoulder. She suppressed a jump and turned to face him.

“Nick…I…” she started.

“Apology accepted…Carrots, “ he said, enveloping her in a hug.

They embraced for a moment and then walked together to their old study room. Nick hadn’t eaten all the fruit Judy left him, and they split the rest of a small basket of blueberries. At first, they just studied in silence. Then, Judy spoke up.

“Hey Nick, could you tell me about growing up? I never knew it was so hard.”

Nick didn’t speak up at first. She sat patiently, not looking at her laptop but just looking down to meet his eyes under the desk. He made a motion for her to join him, patting the ground next to him. She closed her laptop, slid off the chair, and sat next to him, snuggling under half of his offered flannel blanket. They weren’t touching under the blanket, but she could feel his reassuring warmth underneath.

“I…I never knew my dad, he just wasn’t around. Mom wouldn’t talk about him, so I used to tell myself he was a hero, off saving people and making the world a better place. To tell the truth, I don’t care anymore. Maybe he’s just a punk who left a pregnant girlfriend, maybe he got shot doing something he shouldn’t have been, or overdosed. What matters is he failed mom and he failed me,” Nick began, showing more emotion than Judy had ever seen from him outside of their fight.

“Oh Nick…”

“Hang on. Mom didn’t do a perfect job raising me, and I can’t say I blame her for the job she did. I had opportunities lots of foxes don’t get. Sure she drank a little, but never around me. She gave me the support I needed to get good grades and get into college. She’s my mom, you know Judy? She’s not perfect, but she’s all I’ve got, and she must have done an amazing job because I’m here, and I’m so proud to have made it out.”

Nick was now crying slow, big tears that ran down his face. Judy offered him a tissue.

“Thanks.”

Judy continued to listen attentively.

“I still see her on breaks, but she’s not all there. I’m not sure if it happened while I was at college and I missed it, or maybe if she was kinda like that all along and I was just seeing her through rose-colored glasses, but she needs help Judy, help I can’t give her. I did the best I could. I worked my tail off as a medic to support her and I got the Mammal Inclusion scholarship that let me come here. That’s why I’m going for the DPC. I gotta get my doctorate and get to work. I gotta care for my mom, get her the help and support she needs, repay her for all that she gave me all those years.”

Judy leaned against him under the blanket, completely unsure how to provide support other than just listening. Eventually,

Nick’s tears stopped and he cracked a small smile.

‘Maybe listening is enough,’ Judy thought to herself.

Nick spoke up again

“I know it’s not easy for you either. I see the way the larger animals look at you, how they treat you, and we both know you don’t deserve it. You’re a great student and you have the drive to be a fantastic cardio-thoracic surgeon. I really believe that.”

“Thanks Nick and I really am sorry for what I said.”

“I forgive you, Carrots, I already said that.”

He turned to look at her, his face still a little puffy from crying.

“How long are you going to call me that?” Judy asked.

“When it stops being funny and you stop being a dumb bunny,” he said putting a paw around her shoulder and drawing her
flush against him under the blanket.

“Well I guess that’ll be forever then,” she said laughing.

But really she didn’t mind it at all, not from him.

Chapter Text

Judy turned as she continued to admire herself in the bathroom mirror, turning a little to appreciate how her little black dress hugged her modest curves. She usually wasn’t the sort to go out like this, but tonight was a special occasion. She turned and left the bathroom, pushing the door open into the bar proper. It was unsurprisingly busy for a Friday night, with the place packed with young people from all over Zootopia, many of them there just to celebrate yet another concluded work week. But tonight would be memorable for her and plenty of her classmates. All around the bar, she spotted her them, some drinking, some dancing, most talking in groups. On the patio outside she spotted a rhino who she was fairly sure she remembered from her family medicine rotation in Happytown a year ago.

She made her way over to the bar, weaving between larger mammals, some of them drunkenly staggering from place to place, with a skill she had developed from years of living in the city. She ordered a beer and turned to face the bar proper as the bartender poured her drink.

“Judy Hopps, as I live and breathe!” a familiar voice called from halfway across the room.

She turned her head slightly to see a tigress who was now rather roughly pushing her way towards Judy. Abigail was a friend from the earlier days, when medical school was all late nights and dry lectures.

“Abigail Stalks!” Judy cried, grabbing her beer from the bar and jumping to the ground to see her friend. After a brief embrace, the two retreated to a quieter part of the bar to talk.

“Hard to believe after four years it’s finally over, huh?” Abigail asked, giving Judy a gentle friendly push.

“Over for you maybe, some of us have more work to do!” Judy chuckled, returning the favor and utterly failing to move her friend an inch.

Judy hadn’t seen Abigail much since the start of third year, when everyone left campus to start clinicals. Abigail had decided to finish in four years with a doctorate in primary care with plans of opening up a practice in Savannah Central. She had always known she wanted to help other big cats like herself, and her dreams were finally being realized. In a way, Judy felt a little jealous.

“Yeah, another two more years of this, and you’ll have to move all over Zootopia, a new rotation and a new district every month. I have no idea how you have the energy,” Abigail replied, gently fanning herself in a mock display before taking another drink.

“Tell me about it, I wanted a trauma rotation but the only one left was the one in the Nocturnal District. A month of cold and wet while not being able to see my own paw in front of my face. How unfair is that?”

Judy took another sip of her beer.

“You’re kidding me!” Abigail exclaimed, looking excited. “Would you believe you’re the second person I’ve talked to tonight who’s doing trauma there next month?”

“I suppose so?”

“And the first was Nick Wilde! Did you not know? I thought you guys were really close?”

“Huh…” Judy began “…I guess we used to be, but you know how third and fourth year is, everybody drifts apart,” She said sadly.

“Yeah, I guess so…”Abigail responded, looking wistful for a moment.

“Anyway, he was telling me he decided to go for the doctorate in mammal medicine at the last minute, so he’ll be in your class!”

Judy had herself been temporarily checked out mentally, but that brought her back down to earth.

“Oh…ohhhh…OH!” she stuttered, her own wistful look being replaced with a shocked one. “Is he still here? I have to find him!”

“Sure! I last saw him over…there, about ten minutes ago!” she said cheerily, pointing to a distant corner.

Before she could get another word out, Judy had finished her drink and leaped away on a beeline for Nick’s last known location.

After a few minutes of searching, she spotted Nick Wilde’s distinctive red fur in the corner of her eye.

“NICK WILDE WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” she shouted, angrily tapping a confused and apparently already intoxicated Nick on the shoulder.

“Heyyyy Carrots! Long time no see! I missed you…” he slurred after turning to face her.

“Shut it Nick, and don’t call me that here, wrong time and place. What happened to getting your doctorate in primary care, going back home, supporting your mom? What happened to the scholarship? Where do you get off not saying a single word to me, one of your best friends, maybe only friend, for the last two years? Why are you so drunk already?” she said, going red in the face and practically running out of breath.

Nick looked sad for a minute before he steeled his expression back to his usual neutral.

“Some things changed…let’s just say I have a lot to drink about these days…”

He looked sad, maybe sadder than Judy had ever seen him. Beneath the inebriation there was genuine grief and loss. Judy knew then that something awful had happened, and it made her heart hurt.

“…but on the plus side I caught the emergency medicine bug and switched to the DMM program at the last minute! We’ll be classmates for the next two years!”

Judy wasn’t sure what she was feeling at the moment. Frustrated? Hopeful? Scared? Confused? Whatever it was, she wasn’t drunk enough for this. Grabbing Nick by his free arm with her right hand and snagging his drink with her left, Judy quickly downed the remainder of Nick’s drink while dragging him to the bar’s outdoor patio. She sat him down on one of the bar’s cheap plastic chairs for mammals her and Nick’s size, partially because she wasn’t sure he was safe to stand and partially because she didn’t want to lose track of him, and quickly ran back to the bar for another beer for herself and a water for Nick.

A few minutes later, she was seated across from Nick, staring into a face she didn’t realize she had missed so much.

“So…emergency medicine?”

“Yeah! Those couple years as an EMT before med school were some of the most thrilling of my life…and I missed it. I mean, Nick Wilde, doing well child visits, managing blood pressure, and treating colds for the rest of his life? How wrong does that sound? Surely miss ‘I’m going to be the first bunny cardio-thoracic surgeon’ can understand that…” he concluded, trailing off as his head lolled slightly.

He had a point. She did understand that, all too well.

“But what about your scholarship? The Mammal Inclusion Fund only covers DPC students, those last two years will mean big loans…but I guess I’m not in a position to talk.”

As she looked up to meet Nick’s gaze again, she noticed his head was drifting towards her as he slumped forward in his chair. She wasn’t sure what was happening until his head was totally resting on her shoulder, his closed eyes still managing to look somehow mournful.

“I’ve got worse things…worse things in my life right now than some debt…”he groaned. Judy was even more worried about him now.

“The last two years have been…dark, Judy, real dark.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. Nick kept his cards pretty close to his chest, but she knew enough to know he wasn’t in a great place to start with. Nick’s life had always been a rough road, and things with his mom were never easy. Last she heard they still weren’t on great terms. Medicine, and his scholarship, was supposed to be a way out for him and his mom. What happened?

Judy was brought back to reality by the continued dead weight of Nick on her shoulder. She gently nudged him back to a neutral sitting position and stood up to go get another drink. As began to walk towards the bar, she felt the pleasant head buzz that told her the alcohol was doing its job.

“I’ll cut myself off after this one…”

Beer in hand, she made her way back to the patio, where Nick was still slumped in the chair. She eased him onto a nearby bench and sat down next to him, offering her shoulder as a more comfortable resting place than the flimsy plastic chair.

“I’m sorry I lost track of you Nick, we used to be such good friends,” she said, unsure if Nick was in a position to listen. “And I’m sorry for whatever it is you’re going through. You know me, I’m here for you, if you’ll have me.”

She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw a sly smile creep its way onto Nick’s face.

“There is one thing you could do for me Carrots…”

“Of course Nick!”

“Name the cranial nerves, in order,” he said, his sly grin becoming a full toothy smile.

“Olfactory, Ocular, Oculomotor, Trochlear, Trigeminal, Abducens, Facial, Vestibulocochlear, Glossopharyngeal, Vagus, Accessory Spinal, Hypoglossal...but you wanted to hear the mnemonic didn’t you?” she said, a grin starting on her face as well. “Oh! Oh! Oh! To Touch And Feel Vulpine Vagina, A Heaven!” she practically yelled proudly as she began to cackle, drawing the attention of a few nearby patrons who had been startled.

Instantly a host of good memories came flooding in. The late nights they spent reading. The study guides her and Nick worked ages and ages on. Countless notecards, heads on books, and whiteboards filled with diagrams that became nonsense by the eleventh hour. It was hell, but she still almost missed it. She definitely missed him. She eased her arm out of the space between them and threw it around his shoulder.

“You know you kept me sane those two years, right? I never thanked you enough for that.”

It took a minute for Nick to respond.

“You’re telling me… you were an absolute mess, remember how bad you were before the biochem final at the end of second year, you hadn’t slept in three days.”

“But I owe you more than you know Judy…I’m not sure I would have made it through myself without you.”

They sat there for a few minutes before Judy stood up with a groan, helping the still intoxicated Nick to his feet as well. Ignoring the host of raucous bar-goers, students and townies alike, they drifted to the street where they hailed a cab. She wasn’t sure where Nick was living these days, but she couldn’t let him wander the city this drunk, so she just directed the cab back to her place.

As she walked Nick to her door, she broke the silence that had settled between them during the cab ride.

“You’re getting tucked in, but I hope you remember this in the morning…”she said, fumbling for her keys. “I do want to be there for you again Nick, I miss you too.”

Nick mumbled something she didn’t quite catch as she guided him to the couch outside her bedroom. After grabbing a spare pillow and blanket and tucking him in, she retired to her own room to collapse.

Nick was gone in the morning without so much as a note. That didn’t surprise her, Nick was very personal and insistent on his own silly brand of dignity. She didn’t see him again that weekend, or any other time for that matter outside of passing glances in the hospital through the start of the rotation when she moved to Nocturnal District that next Monday. She knew something was up, but she trusted he’d tell her in his time and his way.

Chapter Text

Judy climbed onto the Nocturnal District bus that would take her from the hospital back to her temporary apartment. It had been three weeks now, and everything was starting to drag, especially since there had been little if any sign of Nick. Even the nights when the service was dead quiet and she got shifted to general Emergency Department work were still incredibly draining, and she missed the natural sunlight of literally anywhere else in Zootopia.

Overhead, outside the bus the permanent artificial moon of the Nocturnal District gave off a soft glow, just weak enough to leave Judy struggling to see her paw in front of her face. The district was built on the principle of limiting light whenever possible. Outdoors was kept almost pitch black, while strategic lights lined the roadways and other important outdoor landmarks, keeping even diurnal mammals with poor night vision safe. Indoors, mammals were free to use whatever lighting they wanted whenever they wanted, but outdoors light was strictly regulated, and heavy shades and blinds kept all indoors light from bleeding out.

As the bus crept to another stop, still far away from Judy’s destination, she let out another exhausted sigh and put in her earbuds. She needed something to keep herself from falling asleep on the bus, an embarrassing stunt she had pulled multiple times coming off her long shifts.

The music wasn’t quite loud enough to drown out the rumbling and the screams when they happened. As the bus screeched to a stop, Judy was still disoriented by everything that was going on.

“EVERYONE STAY CALM, WE ARE EXPERIENCING A CAVE IN. PLEASE EVACUATE THE BUS AND HEAD FOR SHELTER,” the otter bus driver yelled.

All around Judy, the fellow passengers screeched and howled. Above, the artificial moon shorted out, and the lights that lined the roadway blinked out, blanketing the city in total darkness. Judy suddenly couldn’t see anything, and the disorienting rumble and sensation of mammals pushing against each other in terror and fear sent her into a blind panic. As her heart thumped in her chest and her breathing became painful and tight, she almost couldn’t even bear to stand.

‘The first pulse to take in an emergency is your own,’ she thought to herself. She grabbed her phone and flicked on the front-light, illuminating the terrified faces of the other mammals on the relatively large bus. The light had a calming effect, especially on the diurnal commuters on the bus. Many mammals followed suit, some using the own phones for light while others pulled tiny flashlights out of their pockets or unclipped them from keychains.

As the bus driver ushered the passengers out and towards a nearby marked shelter, Judy looked around the pitch-black city and turned to see the illuminated sign of Nocturnal General Hospital still shining bright.

‘Of course, emergency generators must have kicked on, and the hospital must have ones separate from the main grid. Cave-ins mean injuries, I should go help!’

She set off towards the sign, the bus driver calling after her.

“HEY, WHERE’RE YOU GOING LADY SHELTER’S THIS WAY!” he cried.

“THEY NEED MY HELP!” Judy yelled back.

Her manic energy gave way to fatigue after a couple blocks. She could barely see and her phone was running low on battery. When the sign was visible she at least had a way-point to navigate by, but when it wasn’t her choice of streets was more guesswork than guided. She checked her phone a couple times to find she had no network access. The caves that the Nocturnal District were built in were too deep underground to get a normal cell signal, so communications were dependent on city-wide Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi that was naturally down with the rest of the city’s electricity and communications network.

Ten minutes later, her fatigue gave way to fear. She was practically lost in the city, utterly defenseless against an aftershock, and had no way of contacting anyone to let them know where she was. Even from where the bus had halted, it was too far to walk from her apartment, let alone now, but she wasn’t all that sure that the hospital was a reasonable objective anymore. As she shined her phone light ahead of herself, she spied a massive pile of rubble that made the street and sidewalk ahead of her impassable. She was able to turn around and find another way when she heard a moan. She quickly dashed forward to find a llama that had been trapped under the debris, only his head still visible.

“My name’s Judy, stay calm, I’m going to help you!” she practically shouted.

The llama only let out another pained groan. Judy tried to pull some of the rubble off, but it was too heavy, and the llama was obviously stuck. His moans meant he at least had an airway and was breathing, but she had no idea what his injuries looked like under all that, or how long he had left. She quickly pulled out her phone as she reached for his neck to take a pulse, confirming a quick and thready beat at his carotid. Then she dialed 911. Thankfully, at least emergency services were still active.
It took a long time to get a dispatcher, and Judy wasn’t surprised. In a disaster like this, everyone was scared and needed something.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My name is Judy Hopps, I’m at the intersection of Fifth Street and Crystal Way where cave in rubble has crushed a llama. He’s still breathing, I don’t see any blood anywhere, and he’s got a pulse.”

“Thank you for reporting ma’am, please stay calm and remain on the line. Where are you right now?”

“I’m right here with him,” Judy relied, realizing her error.

“Ma’am we have reason to believe that there may be more cave-ins coming. You need to seek shelter. We will send an ambulance when we can for the llama but you must move to somewhere safe. There isn’t anything you can do for him right now,” the voice said sternly.

“But…” Judy began, a dozen thoughts flying through her head before she fully came to her sense.

What was she thinking? Rule number one of first response was making sure the scene was safe! How many times had she repeated that in her CPR training, practicing it while hoisting cardboard off fake disaster victims, or circled it on a test? How many times had she seen it practiced during her ambulance ride-alongs in Tundratown? What was she going to do for that llama anyway? If his heart stopped there was no way she could move those rocks or provide chest compressions. She had done the best she could. Every second she was out here she risked being just another casualty, the worst case scenario of disaster response. She immediately began to panic.

‘I’m an idiot, I could have been killed! I still might be! What the hell am I doing running towards the hospital? I’m not even a doctor!’ she thought to herself, beginning to hyperventilate.

“Hello? Are you still on the line?” the voice asked from her phone.

“Yeah…sorry, I’m still here. Do you know where the nearest shelter is?”

She heard a rustle of papers and after a moment the voice spoke up again.

“Three blocks from your current location. Go down Crystal Avenue until it intersects Third, then take a right and it will be at the next intersection. It should still be marked with a red light.”

Judy thanked the operator and hung up as she began to dash for the shelter. After two blocks, she saw it in the distance, marked with a bright red light. It was then that the ground began to shake again, and right before her eyes a boulder twice her size fell, smashing a nearby car. Judy’s panic doubled. A few more errant pieces of rubble fell around her, and in the distance a building collapsed, its terrible sound echoing throughout the entire district.

“Oh El-Ahrairah, Prince with a Thousand enemies, please help me, Prince with a Thousand enemies, please protect me, Prince with a Thousand enemies, please save me,” she began to cry out as she bolted for the shelter. Still breathing too fast, her chest practically crushed with fear, her arms and legs chilled and beginning to shake, and she felt she could pass out any moment. All she could think about was getting to safety.

Two minutes later, she was through the door, where a few other mammals sat. As she walked inside, all eyes fell onto her. She looked down at her dusty scrubs.

“Are you a doctor or nurse or something? There’s a few people that might need medical attention. We called an ambulance but they said it would be some time,” a chipmunk at the head of the group said, looking up at her.

Judy obviously wasn’t in a position to talk, and she took a minute to herself, slumping against the door frame, still breathing heavily. Now not only was she in danger, but other mammals might be depending on her? What in the world could she do?

“I’m a fifth year medical student working a Nocturnal General. I’m not an intern or a resident yet, so I’m not even a doctor. But if anyone needs help I can do my best,” Judy finally said.

Thankfully, nobody in the shelter was in terrible danger. There were a few deep cuts that needed cleaning and stitching up, but without supplies Judy couldn’t do much more than recommending pressure to stop their bleeding. A Hippo that sat in a corner had a pretty obvious broken leg that probably needed treatment in the next few hours, but Judy wasn’t comfortable reducing or setting it, not with her size and not without an X-ray first. An elderly hyena sat in a corner, obviously out of breath. Judy quickly assessed him and took a listen to his lungs, hearing occasional crackles and good air movement.

“Sir, do you have a history of lung disease? Use any oxygen at home?” she asked.

“Yes, I have COPD, I used to smoke, finally stopped when they banned cigarette sale in the city and it was too tough to find ‘em anymore. Couldn’t save me lungs though,” he said, giving a hacking cough.

“Are you having any chest pain right now?”

“No, and this ain’t much worse than I usually have, I just left my tank at home in all the hustle and bustle.”

Judy finished her assessment, confident that the hyena was probably safe for a little while if a mammal kept an eye on him, and retreated to an empty corner of the shelter.

She must have drifted to sleep, because she was awakened a few hours later by the sound of an ambulance pulling up to the shelter. A minute later, two paramedics, both elk, walked in, the taller one ducking his head to avoid hitting his horns on the door frame.

“If anyone can walk, please walk towards the sound of my voice in an orderly fashion. We have some supplies we are authorized to give out,” said the one on the right.

“Anyone who is trapped or cannot walk, if you need help please call out to us,” the second one said.

Judy walked forward and greeted the two elk.

“I’m Judy Hopps, fifth year at Zootopia Medical. I’m working at Nocturnal General, I can help out. Are you guys headed that way?”

The two medics gave her doubtful looks, casting a glance at her now very dirty and slept-in scrubs.

“You got any identification?” the shorter elk asked.

Judy fished in her scrub pockets for her wallet and pulled out her Zootopia Medical student ID and passed it to the paramedic along with her hospital badge. The shorter elk took the two cards and stepped away for a minute, talking on his walkie-talkie. When he returned, he passed Judy back her ID’s and looked her in the eye.

“Central Disaster Response says you’re good to come with us, we just can’t interrupt our patrol. It’ll be a little bit of a ride, but you’re welcome to it.”

“You got it, thank you!” Judy said.

The taller elk looked down at Judy as well.

“We’re authorized to take yellow and red triage back to Nocturnal General. Are you familiar with the system?” he asked.

“I am,” Judy said, “Everyone here is green or uninjured, except the hyena and the hippo in the corner. 70 year old male hyena, history of COPD, on home O2 but doesn’t have it with him, shortness of breath for the last hour. He didn’t drop a lung but he needs checked out and proper studies and to get back on O2. The Hippo in the corner has an uncomplicated break of the right femoral head and should probably get it set in the next few hours.”

“We’ll throw the two patients in the back and you‘re small enough you can ride between us in the front,” the shorter elk replied.

Judy helped the two paramedics load the patients into the ambulance, which was an impressive treaded vehicle obviously fitted for disaster response. Judy climbed inside while the paramedics performed their own assessments, double-checking Judy’s work. She breathed a sigh of relief. After a quick unload of their authorized supplies, they collectively secured the patients and then buckled themselves in, on the road back to Nocturnal General.

Chapter Text

The ride to Nocturnal General took about ten minutes once they got started. The two elk paramedics made idle conversation but Judy, sitting between them, tuned them out, electing instead to concentrate on calming down.

It was not easy.

When they arrived, she hopped out, thanked them and followed signs for the “Disaster Response Medical Headquarters”, where a host of providers were gathered. She checked in with a beaver receptionist who directed her to a pile of clean scrubs and consulted a whiteboard to determine where Judy’s help was needed most.

After changing, Judy was relieved to be in something less grimy and gritty, but she still didn’t feel right. Flecks of dust and debris sat uncomfortably between her fur, and she itched like mad. She put those thought aside and traveled to her assigned ED zone.

The electronic patient management system she had grown accustomed to wasn’t completely operational, and while it was theoretically able to accommodate massive casualty and disaster management, there just weren’t enough computers to go around. She checked a nearby whiteboard on wheels that had been labeled with patient names and locations.

Her zone was exclusively minor injuries, things that she was cleared to patch up and send home. For all her bravado only hours beforehand, there honestly wasn’t much she could help with given how little real training she had had. She grabbed a pair of sterile gloves in package, a suture kit, and a bottle of iodine from a nearby cart and set to work anyway.

Two hours later, she had thrown more sutures into needy patients that she had remembered ever doing in her short career. She was also dead on her feet. She walked back to the receptionist in charge of assignments, told her she needed a break so that the beaver could pull someone else to cover the zone, and retired to a makeshift lounge that had been set up for medical professionals.

It was there that she recognized Nick.

She hadn’t seen him since orientation at the start of the rotation. They had worked opposite shifts most weeks, and despite that night he slept on her couch three weeks ago, which now felt like an eternity ago, she hadn’t talked to him at all. Judy knew that Nick was a private person. If he needed to talk, he would, she supposed.

She didn’t see anyone else she could sit next to and talk to, however, and she needed that sorely, so she made her way to Nick, who began waving her over once their eyes met. When they were a few steps away, he ran up to her and gave her a crushing embrace.

“Oh Judy I’m so glad you’re safe! I was so worried about you,” Nick said, his voice filled with emotion.

“Nick! I’m…I’m glad you’re safe too. It’s hell out there.”

“What are you doing here? I thought your shift was a couple hours ago? Shouldn’t you be at home?” Nick asked as he relaxed his hug.

“I…guess so?” Judy said, “I live pretty far away and I was on the bus when the shakes started. I knew I couldn’t make it home safe, so I kinda started walking back to the hospital. Eventually I found a shelter and an ambulance took me here. I got a few extra hours of work done but I’m dead tired now. I’m not even sure what time it is,” she finished.

“Oh…oh Carrots you poor girl. My shift just started when the shakes hit and I’m more tired than I’ve ever been in my life. I have no idea how you’re still standing. It was pure lunacy to leave shelter to get down here, but I’m glad you’re here now.”
Their conversation was interrupted by Dr. Hibers, a grizzly bear with tufts of graying fur who was the head of emergency medicine for the hospital. Nick and Judy recognized her from their first day of orientation at the hospital. As she entered the room, she carefully turned her head, meeting the gaze of every mammal in the room. She began to make rounds, shaking the hands of each mammal in turn and holding quiet conversation. Eventually, she made her way to Nick and Judy.

“Nick Wilde, Judy Hopps, two of our fifth year medical students. Both on trauma here if I recall,” she said proudly, with a hint of fatigue in her voice.

“Yes ma'am,” the two replied.

“On the record, I am required to say that as students you have no formal obligation to participate in disaster relief efforts. You are considered civilians by this hospital, as you have no formal license.”

Nick and Judy weren’t sure how to respond to that.

“Off the record,” she continued, “I am exceptionally proud of the work you’ve been doing. I can honestly say you have surpassed my every expectation of what a fifth year should be able to do, even under ideal conditions. I am prohibited from assigning you official shifts, but I want you both to know that we sorely need providers and there were be conspicuously unassigned shifts on upcoming published schedules for the coming days of disaster response, if you catch my drift.”

The older grizzly gave a slight smile on her kind face.

“I do,” said Nick.

“Thank you Dr. Hibers,” said Judy.

“Please, call me Selina, if we weren’t colleagues before we sure as hell are now. Having said all that, I’ve been in practice longer than either of you have been alive, and I know an exhausted provider when I see one. I want you both to take twelve hours off hospital property and come back refreshed if you’re still interested in helping. I absolutely can’t fault you for staying safe at home, but given you both came to here to help unprompted, I have a feeling I couldn’t keep you away if I tried. Now get some sleep, both of you.”

With that, she walked away. Nick and Judy looked at each other.

“Do you have somewhere to stay?” asked Nick.

“I’m not sure,” replied Judy. “I don’t know if my place was hit, and I don’t know how I’d get there anyway, I’m sure the buses
are shot. I guess I’ll sleep here?”

Nick looked concerned.

“You know, I have a place nearby, within the cleared zone for cave-ins. I could walk you there…”

Judy didn’t know what to say. She hoped the relieved look on her face said enough.

When they had enough energy to walk, they grabbed their allotted supplies and a fresh pair of scrubs for the next morning from the pile out front and made for the door.

Despite having been outside just a few hours prior, Judy wasn’t prepared for how crushing the darkness was outside. She could only see a few feet ahead of her, and even then just because of the lights of the hospital awning. Of course, between being unable to recharge and the heavy flashlight app use, her phone was dead. She heard Nick chuckle as he passed her a flashlight that he had pulled from his coat.

“Heh, junior rangers when I was little. Always be prepared Carrots!” he said with a flourish.

With Nick leading the way, they walked the ten blocks to Nick’s apartment, Judy shining the flashlight Nick had given her ahead of them. Occasionally, they had to stop or slow down due to nearby rubble, but it was mostly easy going.

“Hey, good thing I’ve got someone with decent night vision, yeah?” Judy said.

“Actually, yeah, but I know the area pretty well,” Nick said.

“After just three weeks?”

“You remember how I used to be an EMT?”

“Of course…”

“Well back then I was a fox fresh out of college with a bachelor’s in biology and an EMT certification, it was rough to find work. They can’t say it outright, but not everybody’s willing to hire a fox, but the guys down here gave me a chance. Not everybody’s as well suited to low-light or no-light work like I am, and they were just accepting and desperate enough that they let me work here. Would have kept doing it if I hadn’t gotten accepted to Zootopia Medical,” Nick said.

“So you know this district pretty well then?” she asked.

“Like the back of my paw,” he replied, grinning.

They made it to Nick’s apartment building, a squat place on the corner. He unlocked the front door and they trudged up three flights of stairs to his place, which he also unlocked.

“Are you sure it’s safe being this high up, what with the quakes and the cave-ins?”

“Yeah, in fact, even if we weren’t in the clearance zone, I scoped out the places with the best stability rating before I moved in this month. First week I lived here way back then, I lost my apartment with most my stuff. Not an experience I’m willing to repeat. This place and the hospital are both cleared to withstand anything up to and including a low-yield bomb. You’re safe, I promise.”

“I trust you,” she said, taking his hand as they walked indoors.

Chapter Text

Nick’s apartment was fairly modest, but Judy wasn’t in a position to complain, especially since it dwarfed hers. In addition to a bedroom and bathroom, Nick also had a tiny kitchenette and a small living space furnished with a coffee table and couch. Judy had never been inside any of Nick’s living spaces in the years she had known him, and she wasn’t sure what to expect. Like any temporary dwelling, it didn’t have much character or personality to it, but a few candles on the kitchen island either spoke to his practicality or his decorating tastes, Judy wasn’t sure which.

He gestured towards the fridge.

“Not much in there, but we best eat what I do have for dinner because I’m sure it’ll spoil before we get power back,” Nick said.
Their investigation of the fridge turned up two slices of cold pizza, a handful of strawberries, and enough milk for a bowl of cereal.

“Oh, I can definitely see why you were worried about this bounty being ruined,” Judy said sarcastically, taking her share and adding a bottle of water and a bag of chips from her share from the hospital.

As the fridge door swung closed, the apartment was swept back into darkness, so operating by phone light, Nick grabbed a small lighter from one of the kitchen drawers and lit a few candles, placing them throughout the apartment. They ate in silence together on the couch, easing into a coordinated slump, their faces gently lit by flickering candlelight.

“I don’t think I’m ready for bed yet,” Judy said, breaking the silence.

“Me neither, how about some music?”

“Hmm…I don’t have any power left in my phone, and even if I did, I usually just stream from Spots and Stripes-ify, what do you have?”

Nick stood up, first walking over to the kitchen drawers and pulling something out before walking to his bedroom for a moment. He came back holding a handful of CD cases, a portable battery-operated CD player, and something else in his left hand that he tossed to Judy.

“Are you serious? CD player? And what’s this?” she asked incredulously.

Nick laughed.

“Junior ranger, remember? Always prepared, even to fend off boredom. What you’re holding is a portable charge pack, should be enough to get you through till the hospital tomorrow. Not that you can do much with your phone with the networks down,
but I don’t like the idea of you being without the ability to call 911.”

Judy smiled at the sentiment but frowned for a minute when she remembered the poor llama that she left when she dashed to safety, and how dumb it was of her to run towards the hospital in the first place. She very nearly teared up on the spot but elected to curl up in a small ball instead.

“I know that look, we’ve seen too much the last couple hours. Way too much. We need a distraction,” Nick said kindly.

“So what CD’s do you have?”

“Let’s see, last year’s Taylor Swift, an Outbackstreet Boys CD from a long time ago, Deathpack for Cutie, some classical stuff, and a few Weird Aye CD’s.”

Judy nearly fell off her couch laughing.

“Nick Wilde, the mighty alternative music guru, has all that to offer? Since when do you even like Taylor Swift?” she asked, taking a minute to catch her breath from laughing so hard.

“First of all, that’s a lot of high and mighty talk coming from the bunny that got me to listen to her in the first place, and second, she is the hottest cheetah in music, everyone knows that, so you can chill,” Nick said, popping the CD into the player and offering Judy one of his pair of earbuds connected to the player.

For all the trouble Judy had been giving Nick, she was grateful for everything. Grateful she had someone here with her, that she was somewhere safe, if relatively cold and damp, and grateful she had something, anything to take her mind off of the nightmare of a day she had just had.

The earbuds were too short to sit very far from each other, but neither Nick nor Judy minded that one bit. Between songs, Nick stood up to grab a thick quilt from his room and walked back to the couch, draping it over Judy and climbing under it himself. He inched closer until their bodies met, sharing his heat with her. As they worked through the crooned love songs and pop ballads of the album, Judy could feel the rise and fall of Nick’s chest as the two of them relaxed and she could feel his tight muscles through his thin scrubs. She felt like in that time, in that place, she belonged.

The album finished and the two didn’t move an inch, the earbuds still hanging uselessly in their ears, her leaning on one arm of the couch, him draped over her, the quilt overtop both of them.

“Hey,” he whispered .

“Hey,” she said back.

“Let’s get you to bed Carrots.”

She moaned slightly but complied, standing up but keeping the quilt wrapped around her like a cape. The ground was cold and wet on her paw pads. Nick had a bathroom, but the whole district’s power was out. No electricity meant no running water, since purification systems and the pumps that sent water throughout the district from even deeper underground were offline. Judy grabbed a small portion of their purified water and brushed her teeth. She began to make her way back to the couch.

“Ohh no Carrots, you are my guest and you had a much rougher night than I did. I must insist you take the bed, I will take the couch.”

He wrapped his arms around her to stop her and directed her to his bedroom, which was similarly modest but contained a very large and promising bed, especially given how tired Judy felt. She didn’t protest, she literally didn’t have the energy. When she made it to the bed, she flopped onto it, the oversized quilt even for Nick’s size falling with her, landing on top. His bed was like an ocean of comfort to her, the most welcoming thing she had felt in ages, with the exception of one particularly comfortable fox. It only took a minute to fluff a pillow to her liking and find just the right spot, and then she was fast asleep, safe and warm with the scent of Nick all around her.

The last thing she remembered was Nick blowing out the candles in his bedroom, leaving Judy in the darkness and wandering what it would be like to kiss him.

A few hours later, she awoke, initially confused. It took her a moment to remember where she was and what was going on. She didn’t recall a nightmare or a loud noise, but everything just felt a little off. She carefully padded over to the kitchen, grabbed another swig of water, and stood there, gazing wistfully at Nick, who was fast asleep on the couch. Her addled brain could only think of him. She needed him, his warmth, his safety, his smell. Slowly creeping towards him, she slipped onto the small couch next to him, pressing her body as close as she could to his, wriggling into the space between his arms.

She thought she heard him make a pleased sound of some sort, but soon enough they were both asleep again.

Chapter Text

“Zootopia, where anyone can be anything!“

Young Judy Hopps’ smile gleamed beneath a surgeons mask as she looked over the crowd in the tiny darkened school auditorium. The audience began to clap, quietly and almost unsure at first before slowly building to a standing ovation. The noise didn’t stop there. Louder and louder they clapped, the accompanying cheering giving way to screaming and howling. Judy clutched at her ears, but the deafening sound didn’t seem to let up. The ground beneath her began to shake violently and the walls of the auditorium collapsed, revealing a pitch black void on every side. She fought the urge to close her eyes tight as she hurriedly looked for her parents. Suddenly, a horrid crack sounded above her and as she tilted her head to look upward, the last thing she saw was debris, falling right towards her.

She awoke with a start, fighting the urge to scream with a whimper. As she tossed and turned, she found herself shivering uncontrollably, mostly out of uncontrolled fear but partially out of the chill in the damp air. Pressed up against her, she found a mass of warm auburn fur and she clutched to it for dear life, failing to stop herself from crying into it.

“Carrots, hey…hey, hey, hey, don’t cry, you’re okay, you’re safe, I got you,” the mass of fur responded in a kind and tired voice, turning to wrap its arms completely around her.

Judy tried to speak up to respond to Nick but her throat felt dry and the words just wouldn’t come.

“It was just a little one, probably halfway across the District. I picked this place for a reason, remember?”

She pushed her nose into his chest, breathing in his scent. After a few moments she managed a reassured grunt.
Nick spoke up again.

“I have a feeling it was more than the shake that’s bothering you. I’m having trouble sleeping too Carrots, heck, I don’t think there’s a mammal in the Nocturnal District that feels safe tonight.”

He paused for a minute, feeling her adjust her quivering body to push herself against him.

“You can’t possibly be comfortable in those scrubs, let’s get you into some proper PJ’s now that I have you awake, and after a mug of something we can talk about it if you like.”

He waited for a response, knowing full well the chance of getting anything intelligible out of Judy in the middle of the night was slim to none even on her best days. They had probably snagged three or four hours each, but it was nowhere near enough.

As he shimmied out of Judy’s grasp and stumbled to his feet he barely kept himself from letting out a yip as his paws hit the cool, moist ground. Still no Wi-Fi, no light, and most upsettingly, no working dehumidifier or heat. He carefully trod over to his kitchenette where a small battery-powered electric kettle sat, filling it with purified water from a nearby jug. He pulled up an errant chair, wincing at how cold it was, and after lighting the candles in the kitchen again, sat down as he waited for the water to boil.

An eternity later, the kettle began to whine and Nick stood up and paced the room, finding two tea bags and two clean-enough mugs. A quiet rustling on the couch confirmed his visitor had at least heard the kettle as well, and was probably interested in something herself. As he poured the hot water, his gaze shifted to the only other item by his couch: a battery operated emergency radio. He knew Judy was just as curious as he was about the cave-ins, the rescue efforts, how the hospital was doing, but she needed rest and a moment away from all that. They both did.

Both full mugs in hand, tea steeping, he turned back toward the couch to see Judy sitting up, her tremor nearly gone, rubbing her eyes. He carefully sat down next to her. He sat his mug down for a moment, passed her hers, and put his left arm around her. He noticed that she had taken him up on his suggestion to remove the scrubs but hadn’t elected to change into anything else. He didn’t mind that.

As she slowly sipped her tea, Judy finally spoke up.

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“This sucks.”

“Sure does. Bet you wish you had taken that reproductive health elective in Happytown now, don’t you?” he said, half-joking.

“Shut up Nick, you sound like my parents,” she said, bumping him with her elbow just gently enough that he wouldn’t spill his tea.

They sat in silence, sipping their warm tea and blinking blearily. After a while Judy spoke up, her voice still a little quiet and tired.

“I missed you buckets,” she said sadly.

“Me too, Carrots, me too. You were my closest friend and it hurt like stink to drift apart like that.”

“Then why did it happen? Why did we let it happen?”

“We didn’t do anything, real life happened. We were in different districts for rotations, studying like mad and trying our level best to get by in clinicals,” he said, looking sad as he met her gaze.

“Plus I never told you, but mom got sick midway through third year, and every minute I had I spent with her. I still…I still don’t think I did enough,” he continued, beginning to tear up.

“Nick, oh Nick. You’re a good fox and a great son. I’m sure you did what you could. You loved her, you did everything for her,” Judy said, pleading with him.

Nick tiredly slumped slightly, letting his heavy head rest on Judy’s shoulder, pulling his legs up to the couch.

“This is nice, you’re nice,” Nick said, betraying his sleepiness.

They made it through half a cup of chamomile each before the warmth of the heavy blankets and each other caught up to them. Just as Judy’s eyes began to look droopy, Nick blew out the candles he had just lit and took her paw in his as he walked her to his room, where he tucked her into a much more comfortable arrangement, this time joining her and wrapping himself around him. She quickly drifted off to sleep, and the last thing he felt before he himself drifted off was a gentle kick she gave as she slipped into REM, a cute if somewhat uncomfortable sign that he had done his job.

The next morning, despite having finally slept soundly, they still had an hour or so before they could be back in the hospital, per Dr. Hiber’s ultimatum. Nick scrounged up a protein bar for him and some trail mix for Judy, which she wrinkled her nose at but took gratefully. Every moment made the two of them cognizant of what a hard time this must be for all the mammals of the district. Nick had chosen a relatively comfortable apartment, all things considered, the two of them were lucky not to be deeper underground, where things were colder and wetter. And plus they had purified water from the hospital, at least enough to drink and use for brushing their teeth.

At they ate their breakfast, the two sat on the couch, attempting to distract themselves by catching up. Judy recounted how each of her siblings had done in the years since the two of them had really talked and Nick listened attentively, admittedly more entranced by the rabbit’s happy energy and the light in her eyes than the fate of any particular brother or sister.

Eventually, enough time had passed that they were free to return to the hospital. When they walked outside Nick’s apartment, they were greeted by the same oppressive darkness they had walked home in, except now when they were well rested it made Judy even more uneasy. She reached for her flashlight and flicked it on, giving her a better view of the district.
Nick had made good on his promise, and thankfully his apartment remained outside the threatened cave-in zone. There was no more rubble than there had been twelve hours ago, and all around mammals who lived in the area were making an attempt at rebuilding their lives, some walking around clearing rubble while others helped pass out supplies.

Technically, they were students, not hospital employees, residents, or even interns, but they also had enough training to qualify for Doctorates in Primary Care, if they had chosen to stop there, and the ER and trauma bay weren’t going to turn away free help. In any case, the head of emergency medicine had personally cleared them to work relief. Plus, in addition to the reward of helping others, Judy and Nick weren’t about to turn their noses up at one of the only sources of Wi-Fi, hot water, hot food, and properly heated and dehumidified spaces in the district.

It didn’t take any time at all to make it to the Emergency Department entrance, where a quick check of the posted schedule revealed the available shifts. After a quick shower in the locker room, Nick and Judy took spots in adjoining zones.
Though thanks to good fortune and civil planning the areas around the hospital and Nick’s apartment were secure, the rest of the district didn’t fare as well. Even from halfway across the district, the cave-ins could be heard, echoing like thunder.
The department received three traumas, but they were all small-sized mammals, hit by debris that would have just left Nick or Judy with a large bruise. Thankfully, none of them needed emergent surgery, and the last patient, a vole, was treated with closed reduction of his broken bone, a simple enough procedure.

What surprised Judy, though she felt silly about it, was that despite the disaster and district-wide emergency, many of the cases she saw that day were the same things that happened every day. Mammals still got sick, suffered chest pain, needed workup for bleeding, and had intractable headaches. If anything, the department saw even more routine cases through some combination of the stress of the disaster, lack of access to medication, and closed doctor’s offices throughout the district.
Judy found herself settling into a rhythm, seeing patients and presenting them to her senior resident just as she would before the cave-ins, but perhaps with a little less oversight than before, thanks to the staff shortage. Occasionally she was pulled aside to place an intravenous line, clean a room, or do whatever else needed done.

She didn’t have a chance to eat lunch, but she did take a fifteen minute break to raid the staff refrigerator for some carrots. When she returned to her area, she found she had a new patient, a young goat that was about her age. A quick check on the chart that triage prepared revealed that her patient was pregnant, and in the last few days of her pregnancy at that. Judy knocked on the door and walked into the room.

“Hi there, my name’s Judy Hopps, I’ll be taking care of you today. What brought you in?”

The nanny was obviously pregnant, and visibly sweating. She was accompanied by a billy who was the same age, who was holding her hand and trying to keep things together.

“My water broke about half an hour ago, we just made it in. This isn’t how we planned it, but it looks like this baby is coming.”
Judy felt a momentary panic. She took a big breath, tried not to look nervous, and gently reassured the couple before stepping out of the room, making an excuse about getting supplies. On her way out, she ran into the patient’s nurse, a relatively small middle-aged ocelot who immediately confronted her.

“Where the heck do you think you’re going child? Your patient is that way!”

“Oh, umm, I was going to grab the OB cart, she’s pretty close to delivering I think.”

“You think? Did you check? Do an exam? You’ve delivered a baby before right?”

Judy looked down on the floor.

“I’ve done a handful, but my female health rotation was in the Boardwalk District, I mostly delivered aquatic mammals, it’s a little different.”

The ocelot nurse chuckled.

“Well we’re all mammals girl, I’ll page the OB resident, I think we have one or two who can make it in. You go grab that cart, I’ll be in to assist in a few minutes.”

Judy grabbed the cart from a corner of the emergency department, checked in with the unit secretary to tell him she’d be busy, and pulled the cart over to her patient’s room. She walked back into the room slightly better prepared and more confident than she had the first time. Going through the steps from memory, she confirmed the baby had a healthy heartbeat and was headfirst. The rest of her exam revealed the patient probably only had less than an hour before the baby was crowning.

Ultimately, the OB resident didn’t make it quite in time to deliver the baby, and instead it was Judy, wearing a gown and gloves, at the foot of the bed. The patient’s nurse was on one side, gently reassuring the young goat and counting breaths and pushes, while the patient’s husband was on the other side, holding her hand and trying not to pass out.
Judy couldn’t believe it, but the delivery went off without a hitch, just as nature intended. The resident made it in soon after to take care of the baby and confirm everything really had gone properly. After all that, Judy was exhausted, almost as tired as her patient. She took a final look into the room to see a newly minted happy family, the beleaguered husband, the triumphant mother, and a single kid who was the picture of health. They all glowed with a joy that seemed almost alien in the midst of a disaster.

As she walked out of the room, she wandered into Nick, who had recently completed his shift. Judy had the sense to know she wasn’t any use to any more patients without some rest, so she walked out with him, leaning on him as they walked because she was simply too tired.

As Nick opened the door to his apartment, Judy made a beeline for the couch and flopped down on it, curling around one of the pillows. Meanwhile, Nick produced bag lunches that he had gotten for them from the hospital rations. They weren’t much, just a can of pop, a small vegetable sandwich, a bag of chips and a cookie each, but to two mammals that hadn’t eaten much all day, they were an extremely welcome bounty.

“Carrots you look tired as they come, how was your day?” he asked, midway through his sandwich.

“If you can believe it I delivered a goat kid when the resident didn’t make it in time.”

“No kidding! How’d it go?”

“Went off without a hitch if you’d believe it,” she replied, smiling sleepily.

“Course I do, you’ve got the training to be a DPC under your belt and I’ve never known you to be a slacker. She was in good hands,” he said, putting a paw on her shoulder.

“What about you?”

“Couple infected wounds from mammals that got hit in the first collapses and didn’t get good wound care. Mostly run of the mill stuff and cuts and scrapes. Near the end of the shift I just started passing out rations because there weren’t as many patients to see.”

She smiled. The idea that there could be an end in sight to this was reassuring to say the least.
The rest of the night passed quietly and similarly sleepily. Their dinners done, they wordlessly agreed to both spend the night in Nick’s bed, given what had happened the previous night. They both knew that sleep would come easier if they were together. They settled in, the heavy quilt and blankets of Nick’s bed providing a reassuring barrier against the cold, Nick lying on his back with Judy at his side, resting her head on his chest, one leg draped over his.

They both slept dreamless sleeps, exactly the kind they needed.

Chapter Text

“Get up lazybones, time to make the world a better place!”

Nick groaned from beneath the covers. Despite the fact that it was still cold and wet, and despite the fact that Nocturnal District was completely dark 24/7 without electric artificial moon above, leaving the “daytime” just as pitch black as the “nighttime”, Judy was somehow still her usual morning self. After letting out a second groan and sitting up slightly, he felt a fresh pair of scrubs hit him in the face and moments later a fresh mug of instant coffee and protein bar appeared in his hands. As he blinked away the sleep in his eyes, he was suddenly blinded by a flashlight Judy had pulled from her bag.

“Dammit, I never should have given you that…” he moaned.

Fifteen minutes of morning routine later, the two of them were ready to face what technically qualified as “day”. The cave-ins were still uncleared and there was no access to the rest of Zootopia, and the electrical grid was still down, which meant it would be a cold and miserable morning, not to mention yet another walk in the dark to the hospital.

They arrived an hour before their “shifts” would have started, if the word shift even had any meaning in a protracted disaster like this one. The students and employees they were going to relieve were still working and were willing to stay for another hour, so Nick and Judy took advantage of the bounty that was the hospital’s running backup generators.
Warm showers felt like a luxury like no other, even in a grody hospital locker room. Judy finished first, and after she toweled off and slipped back on her scrubs, she took the opportunity to power up her phone and connect to the hospital network.

Twenty-seven text messages and fourteen missed calls. No surprise there. Everyone that knew she was on rotation was worried about her. Her parents were worried sick, but she knew that they would want to MuzzleTime if she called, and she looked a mess right now, as expected for a bunny who was overworked and stuck in a district without power for the last two days. Plus they didn’t exactly know she was still working through the disaster. Despite the fact that it was probably the safest and most sturdy building still standing, she was sure they wouldn’t approve.

After she responded to the first half or so text messages, including the dozen from her parents, she powered her phone back off, just as Nick was walking out of his locker room, some of his fur still a little wet and out of place.

“Hey you!” she said, giving an affectionate patdown to an errant cowlick on the back of his neck.

“Let’s do this,” Nick said with a fake air of seriousness, refusing to acknowledge Judy’s gesture.

They walked from the locker rooms to the main dictation area, where a handful of attending physicians, resident doctors, and one student stood, conducting handoffs and finishing their notes for the shift. Judy recognized the student, Maurice, a mouse who had chosen to do a general surgery month in the Nocturnal District so he could be close to his family. Judy wasn’t sure how his parents and brothers and sisters were doing, and she decided not to ask. Both of them had bigger things on their plates.

Judy approached Maurice and sat down next to him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nick check a nearby posted schedule and wander to the triage area.

“Hey Maurice, how was the shift?” she asked.

He sighed. “The shakes last night weren’t as bad as the first collapses, but we still got our fair share of crush injuries through the night. Of course, most places are without running water, so the dehydration cases are starting to wander in, or more often get dragged in. I don’t envy you, Judy. Hope you’re up on fluid repletion and electrolyte balance.”

Judy winced.

“I’ll manage I’m sure, any handoffs for me?”

“Yup, I’m just finishing discharging this stoat in fourteen but we’ve got two here that are going to be sitting down here for a while. The first is in seventeen, a Mr. John Stamper, seventy-three year old male elephant who took a tumble during one of the shakes last night. Presented with altered mental status, headache, and confusion. CT showed a subdural hematoma, no other history of trauma, so he must have hit his head hard enough to cause a brain bleed. Anyway, we’re waiting on a decision from neurosurgery, depending on the OR waiting list and how he does in the meantime. No other medical conditions to worry about and labs are normal, but he needs regular mental status checks and nursing is tight, so you’re on that till he goes somewhere else.”

“Got it, who’s the second?”

“Second is Miss Angel Scavenge, twenty-three year old female opossum, history of schizophrenia, over in behavioral. Got picked up by squad who was doing a routine patrol when they found her wandering the street, talking to herself. On exam she doesn’t have anything significant other than some dry membranes, no injuries, but she does admit to some hallucinations, mostly auditory, whispering voices, stuff like that. We haven’t found family, but the care coordinator is looking for somebody right now. No suicidal or homicidal ideation, but it’s obvious she wasn’t safe to care for herself, with pretty good evidence of dehydration. Best guess she wasn’t able to get her meds when the cave-ins started on account of the pharmacies being closed, and between that and the stress of all this, we figure she lapsed back into psychosis. She hasn’t been violent or agitated, just a little confused and uncomfortable. We got her back on the antipsychotic dose we had in our records and she’s clearing up. Once we have somewhere safe to discharge her to she’s good to go. Fluids and as needed sedative is ordered, so she’ll probably be fine, but I’d appreciate if you poked your head in and talked to her a little, she’s been pretty lonely.”

Judy smiled. There were a thousand reasons for Maurice to trim down his patient care to the bare essentials, but he took the time to treat his patients like proper mammals and she appreciated that. In situations like this, people needed more to keep them going, not less. Maurice passed her the charts for the two patients she had been briefed on, finished his own documentation, and within ten minutes said his goodbyes and walked out.

Meanwhile, Nick was in the front of the department, working the triage desk. As patients walked in, he quickly assessed the acuity of their problems, directed them to the proper Emergency Department zone, and used the overhead to keep the various zones updated. At the same time, the hospital was also a disaster response shelter, so he also had his hands full passing out water and food rations, directing lost patients and locals, and mediating the usage of the single working phone that sat in the waiting area.

His next patient was a young bat, large for his species, holding his left wing close to his chest, wincing in pain.

“What’s bringing you in…Michael?” he asked, consulting the check-in sheet in front of him.

“Got knocked from where I was hanging in the most recent quake, landed on my outstretched wing. I’m not bleeding, but I can barely move my wing now, and it hurts like hell.” .

“I understand, please fill out this basic form, the hospital’s electronic records aren’t available right now. We’ll get you back as soon as possible.”

After handing the bat an appropriately sized clipboard and pen, Nick scooted back in his chair and quickly paged the lower-acuity zone, which happened to be currently run by Judy. A few moments later he got a call back.

“This is Judy Hopps, I was paged?” she said through the receiver, still somehow chipper with energy a few hours into her work.

“Hey Carrots, I got an 18 year old male bat here, arm pain, possible anterior dislocation of the humerus. I’ll leave the orders to you and your resident. Any experience with wing injuries?”

“Afraid not.”

“No problem, I did a month of sports med in the Rainforest District, saw a handful of these, mostly sugar gliders but I did reduce a couple fruit bat shoulders too. Just wanted to give you a heads-up in case it is a dislocation and you could use the help.”

“Appreciate it Nick,” she said, and Nick could swear he heard her smile through the phone.

Half an hour later, Judy called again, letting Nick know that X-rays had confirmed it was an uncomplicated dislocation, the patient had gotten pain relief and was ready for reduction, but there weren’t any free residents or attending physicians to help.

“No problem, you know I got your back,” Nick replied, quickly hanging up. A few moments later he grabbed an aardvark nurse to cover for him and made his way to the back to meet up with Judy, who was already waiting at the patient’s room. Nick and Judy knocked on the outside of the room and slid the curtain aside, walking in.

“Hey there Mike, my name’s Nick, glad to see you’re in less pain. I’ll be helping Judy here fix your arm. Did she explain the procedure?”

The young bat nodded lowly, obviously partially sedated.

“Okay great!” Nick said, turning to Judy. “This is going to be just like any other reduction, 90 degree flexion at the elbow, raise slowly, gentle pressure on the humerus to externally rotate it back into place. Only catch is that bat wings can tear, so we’ll take it nice and slow, we won’t hyperextend anything, and we shouldn’t have any difficulty. Sound good?”

Judy nodded enthusiastically and the two got to work. Both standing to the patient’s left, Judy slowly and gently lifted the patient’s arm with the elbow as Nick had described while he took the lead, rotating the arm into place. She looked over at Nick, who was obviously deep in thought, gritting his teeth as he concentrated. After a few seconds, Judy heard a satisfying click as the patient let out a grunt.

A quick check revealed the entire wing was still looking fine, which meant the patient was good to go after a second X-ray.
Nick patted Judy on the back and walked out, leaving her to finish up with the patient. A quick check with the front desk revealed he had enough relief for a lunch break, so he went back to Judy’s zone to wait for her. As she walked out he greeted her with a quick hug.

“Nice work with that one,” he said grinning.

“Speak for yourself, you practically did that one entirely on your own,” she replied back, nudging him.

“Hey, you got time for lunch? I got coverage in triage for an hour or so.”

“Sure, he was my last case, the others I got from signout I finally got discharged.”

Chapter Text

The two walked to the emergency department lounge, a small room off to the side of the department, furnished with a flickering fluorescent overhead light, a sad couch, and a few mismatched chairs around a large table. In a corner, a cornucopia of soggy cheese sandwiches and droopy lettuce awaited them in the fridge. Opening the door, Nick grabbed a sandwich for both of them and threw a handful of lettuce into a Styrofoam bowl for Judy.

“Lunch is served,” Nick proclaimed, sitting down on the couch next to Judy, leaning on her as he traded Judy’s food for a bottle of water she had procured from a nearby stash.

They ate in silence for a few minutes before Judy spoke up.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this Nick,” she said seriously, “I mean, I put on a face for the patients, I know we both do, because they need us to be a source of hope, but I am exhausted, and I can tell you are too.”

“Yeah, you got me there.”

Nick had finished his sandwich so he lay down, putting his head in Judy’s lap.

“I mean, how unfair is it that this happened on the last week of the rotation? Seriously.”

That earned him a shove from Judy that nearly knocked him off the couch.

“Very funny Nick,” she said, pretending to be mad. “I’m not the mess I was when this started, but I’m running down. If we don’t get power and get the district opened up soon, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle it. It feels…claustrophobic down here.”

“I know what you mean, if it’s any consolation, that makes literally hundreds of thousands of us.”

“You know it doesn’t,” Judy responded, chuckling a little as she began to run her fingers through the fur on his head, gently trailing around his ears.

In that moment, maybe just for a few seconds, when they closed their eyes they both forgot where they were and what terrible thing had brought them together after two years of being apart. Naturally, their pleasant reverie was pierced by the shrill loudspeaker overhead.

“SQUAD TO TRAUMA BAY TWO, MID-SIZED MAMMAL, ETA FIFTEEN MINUTES.”

“I guess duty calls,” Nick said.

In an instant, the two of them leapt up, running towards the front of the Emergency Department where the ambulance receiving and trauma bays were. Already Dr. Diggs, a naked mole rat and the senior attending trauma surgeon was standing outside, putting on his mask, face shield, gloves, and impermeable gown. At his side were a badger and a zebra that were doing the same. Judy remembered having seen them in passing but hadn’t directly worked with either of the other two mammals, but she knew Dr. Diggs well, if only by reputation.

“Let’s move it mammals! You heard the comm, personal protective equipment on, we got fifteen minutes till the bus gets here!” he shouted, addressing the rapidly accumulating team.

As Nick and Judy tore open the packaging for their gowns, Dr. Diggs spoke up again, holding up a walkie-talkie.
“Just got more report. Forty-two year old female gopher, multiple stab wounds to the chest, couple miles away from the hospital. Naturally there’s uncleared debris in the way, because that’s the kind of week we’re all having. As soon as she hits the door I want a full assessment, venous access, and stabilized for surgery. Let’s assign roles.”

He started to point around the room.

“Hunter, you and I are on primary survey and physical,” he said, pointing to the badger. “Herd, you’re on airway,” this time pointing to the zebra. “You there, bunny, Hopps, right? Grab a pair of shears, I want those clothes off for complete exam and you’re on pulse checks and compressions if we need them,” he said, pointing to Judy. “Wilde, good to see you again, I want you on venous access. No idea what they managed to throw into her on route but I want an intra-osseous line to the bone and a liter of whatever isotonic crystalloid we got left running wide open into her as soon as possible, got it?”

“Yes sir,” Nick said, nodding.

As Nick and Judy finished putting on their gear and the team moved into the bay proper, the mole rat continued to assign roles to the nursing staff and anyone else who was available.
It felt like an eternity, but only minutes later the doors to the emergency department burst open. Through it rolled a stretcher with two panther paramedics on either side. On top was the patient, a gopher woman whose chest was soaked with blood, despite the paramedics’ best attempt at holding pressure. As the stretcher came to a halt in the bay and locked into place, the team immediately sprang into action. The paramedics began to give report but Judy lost track of it in the scuffle, her gloved hands immediately going to her trauma shears as she began to cut the patient’s clothing off.

As soon as the patient’s pants were cut off, Nick similarly moved like lightening, shaving an area on the gopher woman’s leg where the shin was closest to the skin. Quickly and confidently, performing a maneuver he had a hundred times before he drilled a needle into place, confirmed it was into the bone and would flush, and hung a bag of fluids, opening the valve fully and attaching it to a pressure bag.

In the background, Dr. Diggs confirmed an open airway with ragged breathing, found a weak if present pulse, and began the remainder of his trauma survey. He darted from one side of the bed to the other, quickly listening for breathing and heart sounds.

“Heart sounds are muffled. Low blood pressure. Neck veins are distended. Heart sounds, neck veins, hypotension, Beck’s Triad, means we got tamponade. Her blood is collecting around her heart, literally putting too much pressure on it for it to relax between pumps. Get me a needle kit, stat, we’re draining the pericardial sac and then taking her to surgery.”

The rest was a blur. Judy remembered all the individual steps: Pressure on the wound, EKG leads, defibrillator pads just in case, what seemed like a thousand blood draws, fluids, and medication orders, portable chest X-ray, intubation and of course a rapid needle drainage of the area around the patient’s heart, but she would be hard pressed to recount it as it happened. It was almost as if one instant the patient was crashing and the next she was stable.

As the patient’s vitals limped back towards normal, Dr. Diggs spoke up again.

“Good job team. I want a finished assessment now that she’s stable, and then we’re going to OR. Hopps?”

Judy was startled for a moment. “Yes sir?” she asked.

“Nice work,” Dr. Diggs said,” You moved quick and did what I needed you to do. This is Dr. Hunter,” again he pointed to the badger.

“He’s board certified in cardio-thoracic surgery and here as my senior trauma fellow. He’ll be my first pair of hands in this case. You ever scrub into a thoracotomy?”

“Yes sir, quite a few times,” Judy said, this time more confidently.

“Excellent. I’m hard pressed to find any mid-sized mammal residents or attending physicians who are free so you’ll be assisting Dr. Hunter and I. Take off that soiled equipment, find an appropriately sized sterile gown and gloves, and meet us in OR six in ten minutes. Got it?”

“Understood,” she said, already on the move.

As Judy jogged towards the elevators, Nick and about half of the team disbanded, shucking their own protective equipment and returning to the emergency department proper, leaving Dr. Diggs, Dr. Herd, and a handful of others to finish up.
As he walked away, Nick took one last look at the patient. Suddenly, something in his memory clicked. In that moment, he recognized the poor gopher’s face. She was a mother of two and he had given her food and water rations in the main lobby not a few hours ago. She had probably been mugged on the way home for those supplies. Where were her kids? Was there anyone waiting for her at home?

Nick shuddered.

He remembered something his mother said during one of her last sober and lucid periods:

“There are no atheists in a foxhole, Nick, us foxes gotta bilk everyone we can to get by. Take what you can, even from the divine.”

Nick wasn’t religious, not even compared to other foxes. He remembered little talismans his few fox friends used to carry, or the little superstitions they had adopted, private rituals that mostly only other foxes recognized. He remembered his old medic partner, a fennec fox named Finnick, and the medallion of four elephants holding up the world he used to wear around his neck and kiss before every shift.

Things were still a mess out there, and in here patients and providers alike were running ragged. He froze in place, shut his eyes, and said a quick prayer to whatever was listening that night.

“I’ll take what I can, but I’ll give what I got,” he whispered.

Chapter Text

As Nick and Judy walked home that night, back to Nick’s apartment, everything felt a little lighter and brighter than it had in days. Though the rubble closing the Nocturnal District off from the rest of Zootopia wasn’t cleared enough for civilian travel yet, supplies were making their way through. The power had come back on in the rest of the district while Judy was scrubbed into the thoracotomy, and the first thing she saw when she scrubbed out was Nick, who immediately hugged her.

As they parted from their embrace, they looked each other in the eyes, their faces nearly touching. There was magnetism there, something they both had been denying because of school or their families or the blackout, but now it was back in full force. Their gaze lasted one second, two seconds too long. It was Nick that broke the eye contact, turning to walk Judy back home.

In all honesty, now that power was back on, public transport was available again, which meant Judy could make it back to her own apartment if she really wanted to, but in her mind she thought up a dozen excuses. The truth is she didn’t even need one.

About halfway through their walk, Nick spoke up.

“How’d the operation go?”

“Oh! Nick! It was amazing. Dr. Diggs is such a good teacher, and I ended up doing so much. Dr. Hunter took lead and ended up assisting him while Dr. Diggs directed us. I’ve never done that much in a case like that before.”

“I thought you did dozens of those during your chest surgery elective last year?”

“Yeah, I scrubbed into dozens, but there were plenty of times I had to just watch, or didn’t even get to do that. It’s hard to get taken seriously as a rabbit in the world of surgery Nick, you know that. This is the first time an attending responded any way to me other than grilling me with questions.”

“How’s the patient though, that’s what I was asking,” Nick said, a little solemnly.

“Oh! Of course. She’s doing great. We repaired everything, it just took a while. The pericardial sac was damaged but the heart muscle itself was thankfully totally untouched. We had to give her a couple units of blood but she’ll pull through.”
Nick breathed a sigh of relief.

“Did you know her?” Judy asked curiously.

“Kinda, I had passed her rations a few hours before the stabbing happened, I guess. The whole thing really freaked me out.
Usually I’m pretty good at compartmentalizing but seeing someone I had seen fine just a couple hours prior so hurt, it really messed with me,” Nick said, almost looking ashamed.

“Hey, it’s okay to feel like that, even on a normal day. And today is not a normal day in the slightly,” she said, doing her best to cheer Nick up.

They walked the rest of the way in record time and as Nick opened the door to his apartment, Judy was beside him, holding his arm his hers, jumping with excitement.

As they walked inside, instead of being greeted by the uncomfortable humidity and chill air they had grown used to, they found a perfectly well controlled climate, as well as multiple working light fixtures. It was a paradise and Judy barely recognized the place.

“It’s fixed Nick! It’s fixed! It’s all almost over!” she shouting, practically crying from joy.

“Sure is Carrots, and there’s nobody I would have rather weathered it with,” he said with a sly smile.

It was like a switch had flipped, and suddenly the looming specter of the cave-ins and power outages were no more. That left only one thing on her mind, something that she had pushed aside and tried not to think about: Nick.

She retreated to the perfectly warm space that Nick’s bedroom presented and began to strip off her scrubs, first pulling her top over her head, then untying her scrub bottoms and letting them drop to the floor, leaving on only the pair of Nick’s too-small boxer briefs she had borrowed that morning, which hung low off her hipbones. She had taken no effort to close the door to the other room, and she turned her head to look over her shoulder, catching an embarrassed Nick who was staring at her despite being midway through taking off his own scrub top. Judy didn’t mind.

She made a full half-turn so that she was facing him and began walking slowly towards him. He remained stunned and looked like an idiot with his shirt still half-off.

“You need some help there bud?” Judy asked, breaking the tension between them instantly.

As Nick laughed, Judy pulled off his top, taking a chance to run her paws through the thick fur on his chest, applying just enough pressure to feel the muscles just under the surface.

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He bent his head slightly forward and kissed her, wrapping one paw around her waist and the other behind her head. It was awkward and uncomfortable, and the strain on his neck was killing him after a few moments, but he didn’t care. Nothing else mattered but her warm body on his.

They collapsed giggling onto the couch, rolling around as they ran their paws over each other, alternating between tickling and kissing. It was like a flood that had been building up for years had finally been released.

Nick settled into place, wrapping his arms and legs around her while he looked into her crystal clear eyes.

“Hey there,” he whispered.

“Hey,” she replied, repeating the exchange they had had just a few nights before.

“I’ve got a thousand questions and I don’t have any answers. You were always the one with the answers, Carrots,” Nick said, his voice almost sad.

“I’m afraid I’m all out Nick, and I don’t think we need any. We have each other, that’s enough,” she replied confidently.
Any other time, with any other mammal, he would have rejected that in a heartbeat. But this time, with Judy, she was right.

That was enough. She was enough.

He kissed her again, deeply, fully, his hands tracing the small of her back, passing over the briefs he had lent her to her thighs. Judy pushed him away ever so slightly and undid the ties of his scrub pants, roughly pulling them off, leaving the two of them lying in only underwear on Nick’s couch, slightly chilled despite the newfound heating. She climbed on top of him, straddling him between her hips, rocking against him as she kissed him passionately.

Of course, it was Judy that shivered first. She did her level best to hide it as she ran her paw over his now exposed thighs, kissing his neck.

“Are you kidding me Carrots? I’m the one whose pants you just stole and you’re cold?” Nick asked incredulously. He got up in a huff, dragging her to his bed where a pile of quilts and comforters sat. She collapsed onto the bed, pulling him down over top of her. He had just enough time to grab a thick quilt and pull it over the both of them before she kissed him again.

For a time they just sat and held one another, feeling the mutual warmth that the two of them had grown accustomed to in the dark chill of the blackouts and the cave-ins. They kissed gently, not needing to exchange any words. Nick got up after an indeterminate amount of time time to grab them both flannel pajamas, because it was obvious that Judy was still cold.
They lay on the pillows on Nick’s tiny bed, their legs entwined, cuddling as they looked into each other’s eyes.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for…you know…” said Nick, more unsure than Judy had ever heard him sound.

“Ready for what Nick? Sex? A relationship? Our next rotation? The real world?” Judy asked, putting on an air of faux impatience.

“All of it! Dammit Judy, you need to give me time to process this.”

Her face turned kind.

“That’s okay Nick. I’m not sure I am either, and you know me, I respect you far too much to push you into anything you’re not comfortable with. But I also know that I want you, I need you Nick, and I think you need me to.”

He kissed her again, feeling the softness of her fur as if for the first time, taking in every glorious moment. She was right, of course.

“I do. I do need you.”

“Then that’s what matters. You’re still my friend, like you always have been, like you always will be. Is that enough?”

“You will always be enough.”

They laid in silence for a time, taking in the sight of each other.

“What will your parents say?” Nick asked.

“Who cares what anybody says? Interspecies romance isn’t illegal, neither is marriage, it’s just uncommon. Interspecies attraction hasn’t been in the DSM as a mental illness for decades. Besides, they were against me being a surgeon until they realized it was a part of who I am. If they’re against this until they realize it’s a part of who I am too, then so be it. They’ll come around. They love me, they always will.”

“Even if I’m a fox?”.

“Honestly, they’ve been pushing me to ‘ask out that nice boy Nick’ for years. The thrill of being right might blind them of anything else, especially given they’ve been really desperate for me to settle down.”

“What about your bigoted grandma?”

“If Grammie Thistle says one word about what the Prince with a Thousand Enemies would think or even looks at you funny, let alone says anything choice about you, I’ll tell her to jump down a rabbit hole.”

Nick laughed, a full and perfect belly laugh that only made Judy fall more in love with him.

“You know Carrots, I always admired your moxie,” he said, kissing her chest.

“I always admired your body, even if it does smell,” she responded cheekily.

He laughed again.

“What in the world are you talking about? Don’t tell me this is more of that stuff your grandma says.”

“What? No! Oh no! This is real. You have a certain scent about you, it’s stronger when you don’t shower or at the end of the day, but it isn’t bad, and it’s always with you, at least a little bit. It kinda just smells like…danger, and power. Like you’re the kind of guy I want to be around,” she said, blushing.

She took another whiff, smelling him again. He had an earthy scent that reminded her of tilling the carrot fields, or a spring morning after rain, mixed with a hint of something hot and alive, like a crackling fire on a summer night.

“Dangerous, is that right? Let’s see if I can make good on that,” he said, kissing her again before gently nipping at her neck.

In a way, nothing had changed between them. They still fell asleep warm and in each other’s arms, regarding each other more highly than perhaps any mammal had ever regarded another, and certainly more than a fox and a rabbit had ever regarded each other. But that was okay. For the first time in a long time, everything was okay.

Chapter Text

It was Judy’s phone that awoke them the next morning, her MuzzleTime notification buzz piercing the sleepy silence her and Nick had settled into hours beforehand.

“Ahh the joys of a repaired electrical grid and working Wi-Fi,” Nick moaned, turning in bed.

“It’s my parents, I have to take it,” Judy said, picking up her phone. She climbed out of bed and moved to the living room, taking care to pull on a t-shirt that she found lying around. When she was decent, and sitting on the couch, she answered it. Her mom and dad appeared on the screen, and if she was honest, they looked more tired than she was, likely from being awake for the last few nights with worry.

“Mom, Dad, I’m safe, everything is okay, I’ll take the rest of the rotation off and be there by tomorrow to tell you what happened. You don’t need to worry anymore, I promise.”

Her parents’ looks softened but it was obvious there was plenty of residual fear and concern on their faces.

“Judy we’re just so glad you’re safe,” her dad said, breaking into tears as he was wont to do on emotional occasions.

“We heard you were working the disaster relief effort and we’re going to have a long talk about why you did that instead of staying somewhere safe and why we had to hear about it from a friend of a friend who saw you in the hospital, but for now we are so incredibly proud of you and we can’t wait to see you,” her mother finished with a smile.

Judy and her parents tried to distract themselves by catching up on gossip and family matters, as if the last few days had been a vacation for Judy rather than a harrowing and at-times life-threatening experience. After ten minutes, her parents were placated and a distant rustling reminded her she had something waiting for her in the other room. She said goodbye, reaffirmed her promise to make a trip back home, and hung up her phone. When she looked down on it, she saw a dozen more notifications pop up from concerned classmates and the like, but she didn’t have time for that.

She walked back into Nick’s room to find him lying on top of the covers, his head propped up on one arm, doing his best to look sultry.

“Nick what are you doing?” she asked, suppressing a laugh.

“Waiting for my girl and wondering why she’s suddenly wearing more clothes instead of less,” he replied, giving a coy smile shifting so that he could pull on the nape of the shirt she was wearing to guide her back to bed. When their faces were inches from each other, she couldn’t resist anymore and she kissed him quickly.

“Very cute, but I’m not anybody’s girl. You’re my guy, but nobody owns me but me,” she said, giving a smile of her own before kissing him again and pulling off the shirt she had borrowed.

“Explain why I’m okay with that,” Nick demanded rhetorically as he traced his paw along her now naked fur.

“Because you know I’m right, dumb fox.”

Nick chucked.

“I guess that makes you a clever bunny.”

The temptation to lay in bed all day and do nothing but enjoy each other was fairly strong, but the siren call of coffee and proper breakfast was stronger. Nick’s place finally had running water, so they were able to take proper showers. Nick walked her to a local coffee shop he used to frequent before the cave-ins, the two of them holding hands the entire way there. The glow of the artificial moon above lit the streets below, which were returning to normalcy. Cars had returned to the roadway, which was once again lit by functioning streetlights and lighted guidelines.

The shop, called ‘The Nervous Wolf’, was blessedly undamaged by the events of the last few days, and inside Nick and Judy practically gleefully stood in line for two extremely hot cups of coffee and fresh baked apple Danishes. They enjoyed their breakfast at a small table by the window, but between sips and bites they elected to take in the sight of each other rather than the district outside.

It all felt new and unfamiliar and almost too good to be true, as if their wonderful new situation was unique to the awful setting of the shakes and liable to dissolve any moment. But even after their breakfasts were done, everything stayed blissfully the same.

An e-mail from the hospital to their student accounts explained that the remainder of their rotation was cancelled, which gave them a few extra days before the next rotation began and they would have to move somewhere else, Judy to one of the only apartments her size in Little Rodentia to learn more small-animal medicine, Nick to Outback Island to learn more emergency medicine, especially given the poisonous animals out there.

“Nick, I’ll be too far away to see you every night, even with the high-speed rail.”

“I’m okay with that Carrots, we both need our space sometimes. We can see each other on weekends we’re not on call, maybe get dinner a few times. And we’ll be in Savannah Square the month after that, right?”

Judy’s ears perked up.

“Right! Even if I will miss you in the meantime.”

“Which parts of me?”

“Nick Wilde! Let’s keep that for a more private discussion, yeah?” Judy said, blushing.

He walked her back to his place, where they ended up on the couch, utterly unable to keep from touching each other.

Eventually, it was lunch time, and Judy knew full well she had to get going if she wanted to get back home anytime soon. Nick walked her to the bus stop and gave her a final hug and passionate kiss goodbye, completely uncaring to who was watching.

Despite what she said, she was his and he was hers and they both knew it.

Judy boarded the bus that eventually took her back to her apartment, using the time and now-restored city-wide Wi-Fi to respond to her texts, reassuring her friends and acquaintances that she was safe and promising at least half a dozen meetups to tell the story.

When she finally made it back to her apartment, she was floored to find the roof caved in, debris littering the floor and the bed smashed to bits. She was overwhelmed by a number of emotions: gratitude that she was safe, terror at what might have been, and a pervasive anxiety as she remembered the things she had seen on the night of the worst collapses. She crouched down for a minute and tried to dust away some of the rubble, eventually pulling her suitcase free and raiding her dresser. After an hour of work, her life outside of Nick and her family was packed away, ready for the next adventure.

No, adventure wasn’t the right word. She had had enough adventure for years, if not for a lifetime. But in the end, she had her health, her family, and Nick, and there wasn’t much more she could ask for. Hopefully the nightmares and stress reaction of the collapses would fade with time and therapy, and if they didn’t she at least had someone she could talk to about it.
She trusted Nick for that, and a thousand other things. She couldn’t help but fantasize about his beautiful fur and mysterious eyes, the way he touched her, the way even his natural warmth was like a reassuring furnace, the way his steady heartbeat was a promise that everything would be okay.

Eventually, she made her way to the high-speed rail, suitcase in tow. She kept her eyes glued to the window, and the thrill of seeing natural light was almost too much to handle. Zootopia hadn’t looked as gleaming and perfect since the day she first saw it, and she was overwhelmed with happiness to see it again, and to enjoy the warm light of the sun, even through the windows of the train.