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Judy stared down at the piece of plastic in the bathroom sink. She didn’t want to pick it up. Picking it up made it real. For now, sitting in the porcelain bowl, almost blending in seamlessly, it could be a mirage. Like one of those optical illusion toys that showed you a frog or butterfly that your paw passed through when you reached inside to grab it.
The double pink lines were mocking her. She could feel it. Especially that slightly faded second one. If she squinted, was it even really there?
A soft knock had her nearly jumping out of her fur. Judy scolded herself—she should’ve heard that coming.
“You okay in there, Carrots?” Nick’s voice, somehow extra nonchalant, floated through the hollow MDF door.
“Yep!” The word came out half an octave higher than how she usually sounded, bordering on a squeak. Judy winced. There was no way he believed that.
“Okay,” he drawled, stretching his vowels like the cheese pull on a hot slice of pizza, “just asking because I can hear your heartbeat from the kitchen.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted, a little forcefully. She heard his tail swish.
“Alright,” Nick replied, all breeze, “takeout’s here.”
“I’ll be right out!” But Judy could hear him already walking away.
Worrying her bottom lip, her eyes returned to the plastic stick in the sink.
By some insane and miraculous twist of the universe, she was pregnant.
Judy Hopps was pregnant.
And while that may not be wholly unheard of for a bunny, it was wholly unheard of for a bunny in a relationship with a fox.
Nick Wilde got her pregnant.
What in all that’s good and green was she gonna do?
By the time Judy finally emerged from the bathroom, their garlic noodles had cooled. She could see Nick’s soy skewers on the coffee table they’d gotten into the bad habit of eating at, untouched. He lounged on the couch, scrolling on his phone and barely paying attention to the colorful improv comedy show on the TV.
Judy got closer. She could tell Nick was very intentionally not looking at her. Not in a passive aggressive “I’m secretly mad at you” way, but in a “I don’t want to set you on edge” sort of way. He was always so considerate, prioritizing her needs and comfort even though he pretended not to.
“You didn’t start?” She hovered at the edge of the couch, resisting the self-conscious urge to pull on her ear. It was a childhood habit she thought she’d broken. Perhaps not.
On the screen, the gopher host in his trademark pinstripe suit prompted a llama comedian to do her best impression of laundry that’s desperately horny to be folded.
“Nah,” Nick kept his eyes on his phone, “didn’t feel like eating without you.”
Guilt punched her straight in the heart. It wasn’t on purpose. It was just her sensitive nature.
“I’ll heat it up.” She scooped up the flimsy plastic containers and made a beeline to the kitchen.
“I left our drinks in the fridge,” he called after her. This time, her guilt suplexed her straight through the floor. Judy imagined herself crashing through the unit below theirs, to the next one, and the next one—all the way past the building’s basement, possibly to the molten core of the earth.
She quickly decanted their food into real plates and bowls. One foot thumped a mile a minute as she paused the microwave, mixed the noodles, resumed the reheating process. Judy knew her guilt around their cold dinner was just a thin lacquer painted on top of the guilt she felt over her knee-jerk reaction to seeing the second pink line materialize on the pregnancy test.
Oh, no. The thought had exploded out from the deepest part of her subconscious like a jet of water from a fire hydrant. I can’t do this, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, Ican’t, ican’t, icanticanticant—
Judy hadn’t thought about this happening. In fact, she was pretty sure it couldn’t happen in their specific cross-species relationship. There was the occasional mixed cat couple who produced a liger, or jaglion, or leopon. Donkeys and horses who had mules, donkeys and zebras who bore zonkeys. Polar bears and grizzlies who made grolars.
But not a fox and a bunny. What would they even call it? A box? A funny? A bufoxny?
What kind of life would that child have?
Cross-species couples already faced various levels of bigotry. Couples who were at least the same family (classification-wise) seemed to have it the easiest. Their children were mostly born infertile, although some could procreate. Judy couldn’t say if she’d ever met one.
Peas and carrots, Judy wasn’t even sure that she wanted kits. She liked them well enough, loved all her hundreds of siblings, and niblings, and cousins—was always happy to babysit while growing up in Bunnyburrow. But she always got to give them back at the end of the day. She was about as responsible for them as a sister, cousin, or aunt could be but no more than that. Never on the level of parent.
She never pictured herself with a warren of her own, let alone a romantic partner to build it with. Her future self had always been Officer Judy Hopps, sometimes Detective Judy Hopps. Not Mrs. Judy Hopps So-and-So. Not that you needed to be married to start a family, especially in Zootopia.
For God’s sake, she was only twenty-five! Nick just turned thirty-three! They’d only officially been Together™ for three months! Roommates for five!
A paw reached around her to open the microwave door and silence the beeping she hadn’t noticed. Judy jumped a second time, head swiveling hard enough to make her neck pop. Nick looked down at her with one raised brow, his expression still nonchalant despite the concern in his eyes. Would their eyes be green? A curious voice wondered inside.
“You’ve been staring at the microwave for almost a minute,” was Nick’s only explanation.
“Sorry, sorry,” Judy ducked out from under him and opened the fridge without looking at him. She grabbed their cardamom coconut milk teas. “Do you mind bringing those plates with you?”
“Sure. Do you wanna tell me what’s going on first?” Nick’s question—so casual, so unruffled—stopped her halfway out the kitchen. Judy couldn’t turn around.
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine.” She could hear him shift somewhere behind her, probably leaning against the counter with his arms crossed, the picture of indifference. It’s how he held himself in the interrogation room whenever they were in there with a suspect.
“Can you say that to my face?” Unoffended, easygoing, breezy as can be. Judy realized she was hunching her shoulders defensively. She straightened, willing her body to relax. It took a moment but she turned around. As she’d imagined, Nick idled against the edge of the counter. He tilted his head to prompt her.
“I’m fine,” Judy repeated, putting considerable effort into making her voice sound as normal as possible. “Really, Nick, everything’s good.” She smiled for good measure, not too big and not too small.
Nick held her gaze, eyes cool and half-lidded. He definitely did not believe her. Judy’s cheeks started to strain through the silence. She begged her nose not to twitch. This was torture. He was torturing her.
Then, he gave her a lopsided smile, fangs glinting under the fluorescent lighting.
“Glad to hear it,” he said. It did not reassure her. If anything, he looked like he secretly won something she thought she successfully hid. But he didn’t press it. Instead, he picked up the plates and gestured for her to keep walking. “Come on, Hopps. This won’t survive a third rotation in that microwave.”
They settled on the couch and Nick queued up the meerkat dating show they’d recently gotten into per Clawhauser’s—Benji’s—recommendation. They ate their noodles (chopsticks for Nick, a fork for Judy) and sides (soy skewers for Nick, carrots and snow peas for Judy) in relative silence. Nick seemed content to let her sweat beside him. It was hard to focus on the show without their running commentary.
Her heartbeat gradually evened out. This was routine for them. Come home after work, change into pjs, eat in front of the TV, go to bed. Sometimes they went out, but mostly they stayed in. Her body remembered the routine, knew it well. It relaxed into the couch but the positive lines on the pregnancy test loomed in the back of her mind.
What am I going to do?
When Judy went to bed early, Nick told her he was going to stay up for a movie. That wasn’t unusual. He may work the day shift but he was still a nocturnal mammal. She watched him for a moment in the tiny hallway. The TV’s light made his fur glow gold around the edges. His ears sat upright and still—Nick was immune to the constant hum of the city. A year into living in Zootopia, Judy was only just getting used to it.
She flicked on both the ceiling light and the fan as she shut the door behind her. The fan was generally reserved for showers and whenever they ate asparagus, but she found herself wanting to burrow beneath its steady hum. Judy took her time to wash her face and go through her furcare routine. Breathe. As she brushed her teeth, her eye crept to the trash, where she’d wrapped the pregnancy test in toilet paper and threw it away. She reached in to push it to the bottom of the can.
Nick hadn’t moved from his spot on the couch when she stepped out of the bathroom. She only allowed herself one glance before she padded to their room.
Leaving the door cracked, Judy turned down the covers and crawled into bed. She could tell Nick had turned down the TV. The movie was a distant murmur, like her parents staying up to chat in the kitchen after all the children went to bed. It should’ve been enough to lull her to sleep but her eyes wouldn’t stay shut and no position felt comfortable for more than thirty seconds.
“And I didn’t join the ZPD because I wanted to be a cop. I joined because I always wanted to be part of a pack.”
Judy stared at the closet doors, lying on her stomach, head turned to the side, as Nick’s words looped over and over again.
“I always wanted to be part of a pack.”
“You’re my pack.”
They hadn’t broached the subject of packs and fluffles since that day almost a year ago. Judy couldn’t recall Nick ever expressing a preference on having kits but that didn’t mean he didn’t want them. As much as he loved and trusted her, he was still private. Judy seemed to learn something new about him every day.
Packs usually meant kits, and not just one or two for bunnies. She felt clammy as the thought of giving birth to dozens of litters. Zootopia apartments were not designed for the average fluffle. They couldn’t afford to have kits in the city. They’d have to move to Bunnyburrow, be close to her family for support. They wouldn’t be ZPD anymore. She could apply to the local sheriffs department but she didn’t think Nick would like being a rural cop. He’d be restless in the countryside.
Could he be content with their little pack of two? Would he be?
Am I enough for him?
There it was. The question beneath the question. The root of her worry.
What if she wasn’t enough? What if he wanted more? He’d been alone for so long. It didn’t seem like Nick or Finnick considered each other pack, just partners in crime. Nick had been alone. What sort of selfish bunny would she be to deny him family?
The thought made her want to cry. Not just for Nick but—horribly—for herself. Judy wanted him to be happy, but what would it mean for it to cost her own happiness? To change the trajectory of her life? How long would she have to put her career on hold? The one thing she’s wanted for as long as she could remember?
Judy tossed and turned, worrying herself into the haze between deep sleep and wakefulness. She felt Nick sink into bed beside her, felt him curl up around her body and stroke her ears.
“Oh, Carrots,” he sighed and then she truly fell asleep.
~**~*~**~
Usually, Judy was up before her alarm.
Usually, she was bright-eyed and bushy tailed as she hopped out of bed, ready to take on the world.
But usually, she wasn’t pregnant either.
Judy made a distant mental note to thank Chief Bogo for rejecting her request to work a double and cover Francine’s shift. She felt hungover, based on the one time she drank enough to be hungover. Tired and achy and dry-mouthed. A heavy, sick feeling in her chest. Judy rolled over, surprise waking her more fully. She was alone. Nick’s place next to her was cool but not cold. He’d gotten up not too long ago.
“Nick?” The apartment met her call with silence. He wasn’t home.
Judy resisted the urge to flop around doomscrolling on her phone, especially after she saw that Nick didn’t even text to let her know where he was going. She opted for a quick shower and hoped the hot water would melt her emotional hangover away. Steam filled the small bathroom and the fan worked overtime to dispel the heat and moisture in the air. Her muscles loosened but her thoughts kept ricochetting around her skull.
One quick towel dry later and halfway through finishing with the furdryer they shared, Judy heard the front door open and close. She spent another few minutes drying off before dressing in shorts and a t-shirt, popping out of the bathroom.
Judy found Nick in the kitchen with a coffee as he read the comic strips in the back of the morning paper. There was a yellow and brown pastry box propped open on the counter and she could smell spinach pies, potato pepper cheese balls, guava pastries—all her favorites. She realized that most of the gnawing sensation in her stomach was hunger and not pure anxiety.
“You went to the hutia bakery?” Judy tried to stop her question from sounding accusatory. Nick lifted his eyes from the paper.
“Morning, Carrots. You were out like a koala; I figured I’d be back before you woke up.”
“Oh, yeah?” Her voice was distant to her own ears as she approached the box. Nick turned to reach for something and presented her with a tiny coffee of her own. She murmured her thanks as she took a sip. It was a cortado, equal parts espresso and steamed soy milk. He’d introduced her to them the first time they went to the hutia bakery after moving in. It’d become her new coffee order.
Nick had gone out and waited in the crazy Sunday line to get Judy her favorite pastries and cortado. He loved her. It was as tangible as the warmth of the paper cup between her paws. And it meant so much more because she knew exactly who and what Nick was. A solitary creature, by nature and unfortunate circumstance. Someone who hid behind layers of irony and detachment, sarcasm and scams. Someone who, despite that, gave her the honest parts of himself. The parts no one had seen in a long time—if ever.
Judy decided she could be honest with him too. It felt too unnatural not to tell him, the way she told him every single thing.
“Do you want to do anything on our lovely day off?” Nick asked, shuffling to the community calendar section of the paper. “We could see a movie or… oh, Mystic Spring Oasis is hosting an open yoga sessi—”
“Nick, I’m pregnant,” Judy blurted out. She hated the way her voice cracked on pregnant. Tears welled in her lavender eyes, ears drooping, nose twitching as she sniffled. She clutched the coffee cup to her chest, desperate for its warmth.
Nick only blinked at her.
“O…kay…?”
“I don’t think I can do this,” she stumbled on, shoulders rising with her emotions, “I don’t know how to be a mom, I don’t know what I’m doing—I’m not ready, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready, but no one in Bunnyburrow’s ever gotten an abortion and I, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Nick—”
“Woah. Slow down there, partner.” He set his cup aside and put both paws on her shoulders, gently pushing them down. “Take a breath before you pass out on me.” Judy sucked in a breath. It turned into a hiccup as more tears soaked her cheeks. “What makes you think you’re pregnant?”
“I took a test,” she sniffed, “last night.” Nick nodded slowly. “I was feeling weird and bloated and I thought it was the burritos we had last week or the spiced cauliflower but then I saw the pregnancy tests at the corner store and we do it a lot, you know? Like a lot, a lot, and I—I thought, maybe what if?” It all rushed out and she spent a few seconds catching her breath as she watched Nick process her word vomit.
“Maybe what if,” he echoed, sounding far away from himself. Judy couldn’t tell if he was happy or disappointed. Before she could catastrophize any further, Nick came down from wherever his head went. With a gentle squeeze on her shoulders, his eyes locked with hers. “Let’s go out. I know a place.”
Judy could only stand there dumbly, still holding her coffee while Nick packed up the pastries and grabbed his shades.
“C’mon, Carrots.” And he ushered her out of the apartment.
They didn’t speak much as Nick herded her to their local metro station where they hopped on the inner loop. She didn’t ask where they were going—she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Nick stayed relaxed at her side, occasionally touching shoulders or brushing her absently with his tail as he typed away on his phone. If it was any indication, wherever they were headed couldn’t be too bad.
Judy watched as they left downtown, passing through the tunnel in the climate wall to enter Sahara Square. Palm trees lined the rail and the clay buildings grew larger and more ornate, stacked atop each other as they hurtled towards the center. Nick didn’t even look up as they looped past the Oasis line and the glittering Palm Hotel. He finally nudged her towards the doors when the PA system announced Vornoy Plaza as the next stop.
Heat blasted her fur as soon as she stepped onto the platform. Judy squinted in the bright light, wishing for her own sunglasses. They left the bustling station for the even busier plaza, ditching their empty coffee cups in the first available trash can. They wove around hyenas, cheetahs, other foxes, past tiny stalls run by rodents with ears large enough to be wings. Antelopes and oryxes with shopping bags crowded around them at a crosswalk, jostling Judy into Nick. He glanced down at her.
“We’re almost there,” he said. She only nodded.
True to his word, after a few more turns, Judy found herself in a quieter, shaded alley. Nick guided her to an orange, pointed arch door beneath a sign bearing a light teal cross with a paw print at its center. Her brow furrowed as she realized that he’d brought her to a clinic.
Inside was cool, not from air conditioning but from the clay that constructed the office. A pale addax looked up at them from behind the beige reception desk and greeted them with a smile. Nick leaned, as he was ever inclined to do, against the counter and gave him a charming smile, explaining they didn’t have an appointment but that Dr. Atlas was expecting them.
“Just one moment, please. Why don’t you have a seat in the meantime?” The addax rose, gesturing to the waiting area, and disappeared into the back. Nick sat on one of the teal cushioned chairs beneath a print of desert blooms and picked up one of the magazines spread across the side table. Judy took a seat beside him.
The only other mammals in the waiting room were a golden wolf and a honey badger, each preoccupied with their own magazine. Not wanting to be without a magazine of her own, Judy grabbed the first one available—Vanity Fur. She flipped through the ads, the fragrance samples long since faded. Gazelle’s face smoldered up at her from a multi-page Preyda spread.
“Dr. Atlas will see you now.” The addax’s voice broke her out of her staring contest with the pop star. He smiled as she and Nick made their way to the door to the left. A young lioness in scrubs with a black mohawk mane stood waiting for them.
“Right this way!” She led them down a hallway of exam rooms, “I’m Nurse Kiva. We’ll have you wait in E here at the end.” Kiva rapped her knuckles on the door before opening it, “Dr. Atlas will be with you in a moment.” And then she shut the door as soon as Nick and Judy were both inside.
Nick slid into one of the chairs, leaving Judy to stare at the exam table. The crisp white sheet paper seemed to float atop the brown plant leather and stirrups were folded down against the sides. It was finally clicking for her and Judy wasn’t sure how to feel.
“Did you bring me here to have an abortion?” In a way, she was relieved. In another, she was strangely hurt. Nick opened his mouth. There was a swift knock and they both turned to see Nurse Kiva open the door.
“Well, well, well. Nicholas Wilde. It has certainly been a minute,” came a lightly accented voice from somewhere close to the ground. Judy looked down. A hedgehog in a white doctor’s coat strolled in, adjusting her tiny round glasses. “Thank you, Kiva.”
“No problem, Doctor.” And Kiva left the three of them alone.
“How’s it going, Doc?” Nick leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “Roast any good beans lately?” Dr. Atlas rolled her eyes. Judy looked between them.
“Hi, I’m Judy Hopps,” she announced a little loudly. “Are you going to give me an abortion?” Dr. Atlas and Nick looked at her at the same time. She swallowed.
“Nicholas, Nicholas,” Dr. Atlas muttered under her breath, “what did you do to this poor bunny?” Nick held his hands up in mock defense.
“If anything, she pounced on me.”
“Some would call that victim blaming,” Dr. Atlas replied, drier than Sahara Square itself. The hedgehog waddled over to a small platform, pushing a button to power it upward until she and Judy were roughly eye level. “Hello, Judy Hopps. I’m Dr. Zainab Atlas. Would you like Nicholas Wilde to leave the room?”
“I can wait outside, Carrots,” Nick offered. She bit her lip.
“No, that’s okay. For now.” Judy settled on the exam table, the sheet beneath her crinkling at an obnoxious volume.
“Very well. Are you here for an abortion?”
“I…” Judy glanced at Nick. He was on his phone, giving her the semblance of privacy. Still, she hung her head when she finally said, “yes.”
“We’re going to confirm your pregnancy and then talk options, alright?” Dr. Atlas waited patiently for her to nod. “Excellent. Nurse Kiva will give you a specimen cup and show you to the restroom.” She gestured to the door, which opened on Kiva’s enthusiastic face as soon as the doctor finished her sentence.
“Gotcha.” As she followed Kiva to the bathroom, she could’ve sworn she heard Dr. Atlas say something that sounded a lot like “idiot bush-for-brains fox.”
The cortado had gone straight through her so filling the plastic cup was easy. She made sure to rinse it after closing the lid, feeling self-conscious as she handed it over to Nurse Kiva. The lioness was entirely unfazed—this was a normal part of her job.
“We’ll run a pregnancy test and an STI panel. Should have the results in a few minutes.”
Judy thanked her and found Nick alone when she returned to the exam room.
“How’d the whole pissing in a cup thing go?” He asked without looking up from his phone.
“Fine,” Judy coughed awkwardly, clasping her paws behind her back and bobbing on her toes. “So…” she began after Nick’s noncommittal hum, “how do you and Dr. Atlas know each other?”
“I was a runner on a coffee bean scam the good doctor had going. Think I was fifteen or sixteen?” Off Judy’s incredulous expression, Nick shrugged. “Med school ain’t cheap, Hopps.”
“I guess not,” she relented quietly. Shifting her weight, she let herself abruptly change the subject. “Do you want me to get an abortion?” Nick’s brow shot up.
“I was under the impression that you wanted one.”
“I…” She did. Didn’t she? “Well…” No, she definitely did. She just didn’t want to hurt Nick by explicitly saying so. And she very much convinced herself that it would.
Wouldn’t it?
Judy took a slow breath.
“Nick… what do you want? Do you—do you want kits?”
He regarded her for a long moment, green eyes inscrutable. They made her heartbeat kick into gear and her stomach flutter up between her ribs. Judy realized she’d been holding her breath when Dr. Atlas returned through a smaller door carrying a tablet, preemptively ending whatever response was about to come out of Nick’s mouth.
“Well, Judy Hopps, I have good news and I have bad news.” She didn’t ask Judy which news she’d prefer to receive first. “The bad news is you can’t have an abortion.” Judy’s stomach dropped. “The good news is you aren’t pregnant.”
“I’m not?” Her internal spiral skidded to a halt.
“You’re not.” Dr. Atlas shook her head.
“Not even a little bit?” Judy asked, just wanting to be sure.
“Not even a little bit.” The doctor turned the tablet around to show her the test results. Her STI panel was negative and she was most definitely not pregnant.
“Huh.” She felt lighter, anxiety dissipating so quickly, it made her giddy.
“Do you recall the brand of your at home pregnancy test?’ Dr. Atlas pushed her glasses up her snout.
“Um, yes.” It had been a white box with a purple design. “I believe it was Kit Just Got Real.”
“They recently had a recall due to a series of false positives from a defective lot that’s been on the market.” Dr. Atlas tapped away on the screen, “I’ve had a few other patients come in with the same results.”
“That’s why it was on clearance,” Judy half muttered to herself. Freaking duh. To her right, Nick snorted and covered his face with a paw. Dumb bunny.
“Judy Hopps, let me assure you that it is not biologically possible for interspecies couples at your class distinction to reproduce together. But there are still reasons to use protection beyond pregnancy and we encourage our sexually active patients to regularly test for STIs.” Dr. Atlas spoke firmly, without judgement, but a terrible embarrassment still took hold of Judy.
She knew that. She knew. But a faulty pregnancy test from the clearance shelf at the drugstore was enough to send her on an anxiety spiral so bad that Nick got up before her and took her to a doctor. It knocked all sense of logic out of her head, making room for these previously unknown anxieties. It made her feel stupid.
Judy squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. This was humiliating. If the sands could swallow her up, that would be awesome.
“Thank you, Doctor.” She took a deep breath before looking up at the hedgehog. “I… appreciate your… words…” she finished lamely. Dr. Atlas seemed unperturbed.
“Is there anything else you’d like to discuss while you’re here?”
They wrapped up their appointment, with Dr. Atlas sending Nick off with his own specimen cup for an STI panel. She hand waved Judy’s self-consciousness away like a particularly annoying gnat and assured her, in not so many words, that she wasn’t the only interspecies couple to psych themselves out with a pregnancy scare.
Knowing that helped. A little.
After Nick’s test came back negative and Dr. Atlas refused to accept payment (from their insurance or otherwise), Judy thanked her and her team once again as they left. The orange door closed behind them and the tension in her body slowly seeped out from the pads of her feet into the sandstone concrete.
“Feel better?” Nick asked. His tail gently swept behind her to curl up and graze her paw.
“Yeah,” she exhaled. Her ears drooped as she peeked up at him through her lashes, “I guess there’s stuff we need to talk about though, huh?”
“Oh, you know me,” he inspected his claws and polished them against his chest, “I’m happy to glaze over vulnerability with some avoidant jokes and a healthy dose of sarcasm.” That made her smile.
“We’re definitely talking.”
This would be an important conversation, probably best suited for the privacy of their apartment—however much their paper thin walls offered them. But Judy didn’t want to go home yet. The skies were clear, the sun was out, and she wasn’t pregnant. It all felt like a reason to celebrate, so she told him that.
“You got it, Carrots.”
A few more streets and an open air flea market later, Nick brought her to a cafe with sidewalk seating. He greeted the camel waiter by name—Humphrey, who rolled his eyes at the sight of Nick but gave Judy impeccable customer service, seating them outside beneath the awning and beside some potted palms.
“You really do know everybody,” Judy murmured as she looked over the menu. Nick only lifted his sunglasses to wink at her over the top of his. They ordered honey mint iced teas, falafels, and a hummus plate with flatbread, carrots, cucumbers, and radishes. Judy stirred the mint leaves around her glass, feeling the condensation soak into the fur between the pads of her fingers. Where should they start?
“I don’t know if I want kits,” she ended up blurting out, “I never actually thought about it—I didn’t even think about dating.”
“You’re like a nun but for the police.” Nick said dryly, sipping his tea. Judy wiggled a little in her seat. The teasing felt good. It made things feel normal between them.
“So you’re not mad?” She just wanted to be sure. He looked at her over his sunglasses and crossed his heart, holding up two fingers like a junior ranger scout.
“I, Nick Wilde, swear to you, Judy Hopps, that I am not mad at you.” He dropped his paw to lean forward and fold his arms on the little round table. “If anything,” his voice lowered and he hid behind his shades, “I was worried about you.” Judy’s reflection stared back at her from the mirrored lenses.
“The pastries—” she started, but he cut her off.
“Oh, those are for me,” and he was grinning at her and then she was grinning back. But the question she asked at the clinic hung between them, unanswered.
“What were you going to say? Before Dr. Atlas came back in?” She leaned forward too, wanting to meet his response head on. Nick studied her for a quiet beat.
“Would you repeat the question, Officer?”
“Nick!” She kicked him under the table.
“Police brutality!” He clutched his knee, wincing dramatically.
“We’re off duty,” Judy sniffed.
“What did you say to me one time?” Nick tapped a finger against his lips, looking up to mock recall the memory, “‘The job doesn’t stop just because the uniform is in the wash?’”
“File a report then,” she challenged, “I’m sure Chief Bogo will get a kick out of that.” He snorted.
“Chief Buffalo Butt would commit a coverup for you, on God.”
“The question?” Judy prompted, trying to get them back on track.
“Ah, yes. The question.” Nick paused for a moment and she had to remind herself to keep breathing, “Do I want kits? Sure, maybe. Haven’t thought about it too much. It’s not the end of the world if I don’t have them. It’s the end of my world if I don’t have you. So if you’re ready, or you don’t know, or you wanna be DINKs, it’s all good by me.” He gave her one of those easy smiles—one of his real ones, always meant to reassure her. She frowned.
“DINKs…?” She’d never heard the term before.
“Dual income, no kits,” he explained.
“Oh,” she said as Humphrey returned with their order. She made a mental note to look it up when they got home. Everyone in Bunnyburrow had kits sooner or later, but the possibility of living out her life with Nick without that pressure felt like permission to start taking their future seriously.
Judy smiled, watching Nick munch away on a falafel.
Kits… maybe, one day. But also, maybe not.