The world falls on me like a piano. No buildup, no context, I'm just there. In my room, shutting out the squabbles of my neighbours as I engross myself in a game of Beehive Bedlam. My better half occasionally casts an eye away from my phone, to the neglected book on my bedside table, but those flowers aren't going to match themselves. That's the excuse I've used the past three nights, anyway. The new Police manual for dealing with large protests will have to wait.

I'm interrupted by a knock on my door. At first I suspect my neighbours, likely trying to get me involved in another one of their late-night movie sessions, but the arguing on the other side of the wall continues as normal. I furrow my brow. Who on earth could it be at this hour? I check my clock on the off-chance I've been playing video games all night and Bogo has come to drag me to work, but it's only 9pm. Shrugging, I climb off the bed and make my way to the door.

A shadow casts over me as I open up. I crane my neck upwards and recognise a familiar fox, though not as I know him. He's not wearing his Police uniform, nor his favourite gaudy shirt and tie combo, but a suit. It's a bigger shock to me than the fact he's here in the first place, and it only grows as I study him. It's deep blue in colour, perfectly pressed and creaseless, and immaculately tailored. Nick's never struck me as the sort of guy to buy tailored clothing, but the way the lines angle over his shoulders and down his flanks, and the perfect length and width on the sleeves and legs, and the slight hint of cologne that hangs in the air…

I feel my heart thud in my chest. He looks nice. Great, even, which is why it dampens my spirits when I see that the look on his face is anything but.

"H-Hey," I finally say. Did I take too long to speak? I did, didn't I? Uh-oh. Your co-worker turns up on your doorstep looking emotionally distraught, and the first thing he sees you do is ogle him. Real smooth, Hopps.

"Hey," he replies. If he noticed me looking he isn't showing it, thankfully, but he can't hide the deflation in his voice. It slows down my own pulse.

"What are you doing here at this hour?"

He shrugs. "I was in the area and…I just needed to see a friend. Can I come in?"

I open the door all the way, and he saunters inside. He walks like the remorseful prisoners being escorted back to their holding cells. I take my time closing the door so he can't see the emotions playing on my face. Nothing makes sense to me at the moment – Nick turning up late at night, dressed to the nines, and trying and failing to put a mask over his clearly miserable mood – and it's worrying me. What's going on?

I slowly turn around to face him. He's slumped against my wall, knees pulled up to his chest, fiddling with the expensive watch on his wrist. I force myself to smile.

"So, how can I help?"

He shrugs. "Done anything exciting today?"

"Not really. Went to investigate a burglary and an incident at a mechanic's shop, both of which turned out to be false alarms. Yourself?"

"Same old, same old."

I see through the lie instantly, and that's the biggest shock of all. Nick being dressed up and a bit downtrodden? Unusual, but I can believe it, but Nick being unable to lie with a straight face? That's pure fantasy. Something is wrong, and I need to get to the bottom of it. But I also need to tread carefully.

"Are you sure?" I say innocently. His eyes lift from the floor to look at me.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh nothing, really. It's just something seems a bit different about you tonight." I start sauntering towards him. "Nice suit," I add, as if it was an afterthought, "When did you get that?"

"Oh, this? It's just some old thing I had lying around."

I sit down next to him against the wall, but keep a little bit of distance between us.

"Okay," I nod, "It's very nice, though. Not what I'd expect to see you wearing day-to-day. Looks like the sort of thing you'd wear to a special occasion, if you ask me."

He looks across at me, and I can see the discomfort in his eyes. He knows I've seen through his act. No point in continuing with the formalities, I guess.

"Are you alright?" I ask him.

I can see the conflict in his face as he looks at me, weighing up whether or not to drop his mask while trying to keep it in place.

"I've been better, but I'm alright," he says casually, but now that I've got him in a corner I'm not giving up.

"Nick, I don't mean to sound forceful, but something doesn't seem right with you. You've shown up here sounding upset and saying you want to see me, and that doesn't sound good. Is everything okay?"

"It's fine."

"Nick, you don't have to lie to me. You know I'm always in your corner, but I can't help you with your problems if you don't tell me what's upsetting you. I know you've come to me because you don't feel right, but to make things better you have to tell me what's chewing you up."

He looks to the floor again, lips firmly shut. I worry he's clamming up for good when they suddenly part.

"I got stood up."

Yet again I'm taken by surprise. Stood up? Nick's been on a date? Well, tried to go on a date? Since when was Nick seeing people? I didn't know that. Worry swells in my chest, but I force it down. This isn't about me.

I reach out and place my hand on his arm.

"I'm so sorry," I whisper, "What happened?"

"I met this girl on Cinder. My age; zebra; had a lot in common. We messaged for a while and I thought we got along really well, so I decided to ask her on a date. She said okay, so I booked a table for tonight at that pretentious place down on Howard Avenue. I turned up and waited for her, and waited, and waited, and waited…and then the waiters asked me if I could leave so a couple could have my table. So I left with my tail between my legs and I came here."

I scoot in closer and hug him. My face is soft and motherly, but deep down I'm angry. Angry at the heartless person who would do such a thing, and do such a thing to Nick in particular. Break the heart of such a funny, charming, sweet, lovely, handsome…

"It's not so much that, though," he continues, snapping me out of my trance, "It's the fact that it reaffirmed to me what I already knew."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I've been using that site for ages now. Read countless profiles and sent off plenty of messages, and I've gotten nowhere. Of the messages I send off I'd say I get a reply once every fifty times, and only one of them has ever resulted in a date. And you know why? Because no one wants to date a predator. The majority of the profiles I look at explicitly state they don't date predators, and countless more believe it but are too polite to mention it, so they just don't reply to your messages or make excuses. Basically, even when I think I'm in business I'm just being strung along. I wanted to believe that wasn't the case, that it was just a competitive market, and I thought tonight was finally going to prove that for me. Instead it just proved what I was living in denial about: no one wants a sly, untrustworthy fox."

His head slumps forward, and though he doesn't look like he's going to cry it's the closest to it I've ever seen him. I latch myself onto his arm and place my head on his shoulder.

"I'm so, so sorry," I say, "You deserve so much better than those hateful jerks anyway."

"I do," he nods, "But unfortunately hateful jerks seem to be the majority, so here I am."

The anger inside of me is threatening to rip open my chest at this stage. How dare they be so hateful and bigoted! Taking a good, upstanding fox and ripping his heart out just because he was born the way he is. It's shameful, a disgrace. I want to find all of the people who've balked on him, not just that zebra, and punch them, but I force myself to take deep breaths. Now's not the time for violence, it's about making a friend feel better.

"On behalf of prey everywhere I'm so sorry for how you've been treated," I say, but Nick raises a hand.

"Don't apologise for things you didn't do. I don't blame prey, I blame jerks, and you're anything but one of them. I just wish more people were like you." He chuckles, "Screw girlfriends and all of that junk. You'll always be my favourite girl."

I don't know what it is about that line, but it sets me off. Perhaps it's the fact that I feel sorry for him, or he singles me out as his favourite, or maybe that I'm pressed close against him, but whatever it is it gets a motor revving inside of me. I release my grip and crawl around so that I'm sat in front of him. His head tilts up to meet mine, and we lock eyes.

Something comes over me. I see it in the warm, watery innocence of his eyes; the smooth contours of his body in that suit; the intoxicating smell of the cologne on his neck. I can't place exactly what it is, but it wraps around the thoughts in my head, the thoughts of Nick's futile quest for romance, and takes control of my body.

"Carrots?" he says confusedly, but I silence him by grabbing his face, pushing him back against the wall, and smothering his lips with a kiss.

I wake up with a mouthful of chest fur between my puckered lips. I spit it out as my cheeks light up with embarrassment. Thankfully it doesn't wake him – being caught lying on him would be awkward enough without him seeing I'm sucking his body as well. Laughing to myself, I relax into his body and lament. It was all a dream. I guess I should have known from the start – me bunking off from reading up on Police procedures? Never gonna happen, but that doesn't make it all any less disappointing.

I sense the faint light in the room and glance over at the clock. 6am. Not quite time to get up, but at this stage there's not much point in going back to bed. I ease myself out of Nick's arms and off the bed, but only take my eyes off him to collect a bottle of carrot juice from the fridge. As I drink it I sit against the wall, the same spot I occupied in my mind, and watch him sleep. He seems strangely vulnerable while he's asleep, but then I guess it's the one time he's not in control of his mask. From here his face looks soft, at peace but with no layer of defence in front of it. It makes me think of the face I saw in my dream.

Suddenly I'm pounded with memories. Opening the door; touching his arm; feeling anger on his behalf, and finally kissing him. At first I feel a little apprehensive about it like I always do, but as I dwell on it my nerves slowly turn to steel. I saw Nick get hurt, and it was my fault. I may not have stood him up or not replied to his messages or stuck disclaimers on my profile page, but I did love him and do nothing about it. I sat quietly on the sidelines and let him chase people who didn't care about him, and by the time I did something about it he'd been through the wringer and back again. A happy ending, sure, but not before some completely unnecessary suffering on his part.

I stare at him down the barrel of my raised juice bottle. Am I really doing him a favour by staying silent on my feelings for him? He deserves love and respect like anyone else, and I can offer him both of those things in spades, so why should I make him run around looking for someone else just because I think I know what's best for him? Why make him risk being stood up on a big date by some heartless jerk when I can go and give him a night he'll cherish? It's not fair on him, and it's not fair on myself.

I am perfect for Nick. That's not a boast, it's a fact. I care about him more than anyone else does or will do, and I know that I can be everything he needs and more. And I've denied myself that opportunity because I'm scared I might freak him out. Well maybe he does find the idea of a bunny wanting to date him weird, but who says I can't win him over to it? Before I met him he was a petty hustler of twenty years, and I managed to convince him to join the Police. If I can do that, why is convincing him to take a bunny as his girlfriend suddenly impossible? Because I think he'll run and hide if I tell him that? He knows I'm his friend and that I always will be. If he doesn't want to go a step further I'll respect that decision and we can carry on as normal. But maybe he does want to, and I'll only find out if I take the plunge and ask him.

I cross the room and sit on the edge of the bed, next to his feet. On an urge I reach out and gently stroke his leg, and touching him triggers more memories in my mind. The feeling of his shoulders through that immaculate suit, the smell of his cologne and groomed fur, the burning heat of his cheeks as I held my face to his, and the bliss as our lips touched. I smile. I want it to be real, and I know now I'm going to do my best to make it that way. But right now? I think I'm just going to let him sleep. The alarm will wake him up eventually, but since I'm awake I might as well head off to work. It gives me a chance to catch up on yesterday's paperwork, and more importantly to think through how to go about asking for Nick's hand.

I gather my things and head for the door, but not before I've pulled the blankets back over Nick and tucked him in. He'll get a rude awakening soon, so I might as well make him comfortable while he can be. Sure enough I see a thin smile grow on his face as I watch him from the doorway, which I keep my eyes trained on for as long as I possibly can as I ease the door shut. It was nice to wake up to that; hopefully I'll be doing it again sometime soon. It might not be easy to achieve, but Gazelle told me to Try Everything and she hasn't led me astray so far.

I whistle the song to myself as I set off down the street, a small shudder of excitement propelling me on. Soon, be it today, tomorrow or whenever, I'll let Nick know that he gets to me. Because I want him to.

Part 4, and another change of perspective. Similar stuff, though. I'm lazy like that. XD

Well, that's that for this particular story, I think. I intended on four parts and I'm staying true to my word. I think this is a nice point to end as well - the film itself taught me that slightly vague endings can be most enjoyable and opens doors for people, so why fix what isn't broken? ^_^

Thanks to all of you for your comments, I really appreciate them. :) One last review for this chapter wouldn't go amiss either, wink wink nudge nudge. XD