"Boom!" said Judy, slapping the ticket writer with glee. "Two hundred tickets before noon!"

Parking duty was light work, and Chief Bogo had thought it best to put Judy in parking duty for two weeks while Nick was in recovery. On any given day, this would have irked the little rabbit, but now that she knew that her friend was going to be alright, she was filled with newfound enthusiasm—even more than she had on her first day. The insults that frustrated civilians threw at her did not faze her either. At the end of the day, she was going to see Nick. She was going to look into his green eyes and when she would touch his fur, he would feel it.

Past noon, when she was not paying attention, thinking of Nick occasionally became unpleasant. The soft fur under her paws would become sticky and matted with blood. The green eyes would lose focus and then close. Judy gasped and blinked in the sunlight. It was alright. It was now weeks since the attack. The bull that had stabbed Nick was in the psych ward while Nick was going to be released soon.

Later that day, when Judy was getting ready to leave the precinct, she changed into her casual outfit in the locker room. "Hey, Hopps," said Fangmeyer in her deep, husky voice as she gently clanged her locker shut. "Are you going to the hospital? I pass by it on the way to my place. I can drop you off."

"Oh, thank you, Fangmeyer!" said Judy.

As Judy buckled herself up on the front passenger seat and feeling a lot like the doll she probably looked like to the tiger, Judy thanked her colleague again. "I really appreciate this, Fangmeyer," said Judy. "It's been a little tough to be alone. I guess I'm so used to being with Nick all the time."

"How tough?" asked Fangmeyer, giving Judy a look of concern as she started the vehicle.

"Well, I had a flashback today, in the early afternoon," said Judy. She cringed. She was not used to telling anyone about her low points. But knowing that Fangmeyer had been there when Nick had been injured, Judy trusted Fangmeyer. "It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it happens when I least expect it, regardless of my mood. And today, I was in a very good mood."

"You might want to let the chief and Clawhauser know about that. You don't want it impeding on your work. But don't worry. The other guys and I have been through that before. It doesn't last."

They were at the hospital shortly after that. "Say hello to Wilde for me," said Fangmeyer.

"I will!" said Judy, waving happily before she hopped into the building.

Judy found Nick stretching his arms and legs in his bed. He was groaning in apparent pain while his joints crackled. "Easy, Wilde," said Judy.

"Hi, Mrs. Wilde," she said to the vixen sitting at the foot of the bed.

"Hello, Judy," she said happily as she hopped off the bed and gave Judy a motherly embrace. "I'll leave you two alone." She smiled at her son before strutting out of the room.

"Hey, Carrots," said Nick, laying back down on the bed. He lowered the volume of the TV, which was showing a silly reality show at the time. "Had fun at parking duty?"

"Surprisingly, yeah," said Judy, hopping onto the bed and giving Nick a gentle hug.

"Saved any shrew princesses today?" asked Nick, flashing a knowing grin.

"Just 320 cars," said Judy. Smiling softly, Nick reached up to pet Judy behind her head and at the base of her ears. Suppressing a moan when Nick hit a sweet spot near her neck, Judy said, "Wow, how do you learn to do that?"

"I used to offer massages to my classmates in the high school track team and theater troupe," said Nick smugly. He guided Judy's head to his shoulder and kept petting her.

"I like it when you get touchy-feely," said Judy nuzzling Nick's neck. "How much did you charge?"

Nick's fingers stopped moving while he took a moment to remember. "Let's see. Two dollars for shoulders, additional two for head and neck, five for back, three for hands and arms. Thank God nobody asked for foot massages. I guess we all had an understanding how intimate that is." Nick's paw moved to her back, making her shudder.

"This already feels pretty intimate," said Judy stretching her arm across Nick's chest. "Does it hurt?"

"Ooh, yes," said Nick. "Almost every movement I make, it just hurts. But I've been able to get up and take walks. I miss doing pull-ups though. Am I getting scrawny?"

Judy playfully squeezed Nick's biceps with both paws. "Still not as scrawny as when I first met you," she said, nuzzling him again. "Well, I miss working with you. Are you okay being here?"

"With my mom hovering over me, I feel like a little kit again. Not that that's a bad thing—I think my mom misses having to take care of me," said Nick.

Judy giggled. "I look forward to when things go back to normal."

"Yeah, me, too. You sure you're okay?"

Judy sat up and smiled weakly at him. After a moment of hesitation, Judy confessed: "I had a flashback."

Nick frowned and held her paw.

"Do you get those, too?" she asked. "It just came out of nowhere while I was working. I was so happy and looking forward to coming here. And then, suddenly, I was back Downtown and trying to save you while watching you pass out."

Nick sighed sadly.

"Fangmeyer said it's not forever. But it's still horrible. I know for a fact that you'll be okay, but my mind makes me feel things that seem more important than they should be," said Judy.

"I know. I get it," said Nick, squeezing Judy's paw gently. "I get nightmares about it, too, usually when my wound aches while I sleep. And like you said, I know for a fact that I'm all patched up and healing, but the initial scare is taking a while to go away."

"Oh, Nick," said Judy, nuzzling his cheek. "That makes me wish I can be with you all the time."

"Me, too," said Nick. "That's why I've been looking into apartments we can share."

Judy lifted her head suddenly, her nose twitching with surprise.

"Yeah," said Nick, tapping on his phone. Then, he showed her a map with apartment units for rent. "I've been looking into these while I'm here doing nothing much else."

Judy chuckled. "Now, there's something we have in common: You and I both hate being idle."

"I might love my beauty sleep, but this is ridiculous," said Nick.

"Well, with new battle scars, I bet all the vixens in the city would be all over you," said Judy.

"Not with the smell of rabbit all over me," said Nick, "which I like a little too much." Nick carefully propped himself up with his elbows to smell Judy's neck. She had been all over Savanna Central and Downtown and a fraction of Sahara Square to exceed her quota like she always did. A few more sniffs, and he could almost taste the sweetness of carrots and a salad of flowers and berries. Being this close to her now counted as one of the best things in the world. He nearly trembled as he tried to resist licking her. His mouth watered. He wanted to bite her.

Judy wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Her nose twitched and her ears slowly folded back at the feel on his breath through her fur. "Is this why you want us to move into a new apartment together, to get more of this?" she quipped.

"Even when I'm battered up like this, you drive me wild," Nick said with a glint of desire in his eyes.

"Easy, Nick," said Judy. She appeased him with a quick kiss before guiding him back down on his pillow. She sighed softly as Nick grimaced in pain.

"Sorry," he whispered. "Too much?"

"Not really," said Judy. "The feeling is mutual, actually." She laid her head on his shoulder.

#

A gray-and-blue streak kept rushing past the edge of Nick's line of sight as he slipped parking tickets on one car after another. Unlike Judy, Nick didn't actually mind parking duty, and it was a step up from weeks of filing work. Even with the orange clown vest on, it was nice to be in the sun and surrounded by the constant color and movement of the city. The dark filing room that Chief Bogo had chained Nick into had worn out its welcome well into his second week in there, mostly because Judy hadn't been there with him. At the time, she had been working with Fangmeyer, whom Judy had become close to.

Until parking duty today, Judy would meet up with him telling stories that Fangmeyer had told her, about what the ZPD had been like before the Mammal Inclusion Initiative. Some of those stories Nick had already heard from the wolf officers. Their favorite was the one about a young Officer Bogo, who was, at the time, one of the few prey officers in the force; like Judy, he had worked extremely hard to become the illustrious chief of police he was today. Glancing at Judy standing on the hood of a large mammal's car, Nick mused about how, in spite of the lingering discrimination in the city, Zootopia was still a better place now than before.

On a normal day of parking duty, Nick would have been racing alongside Judy slapping tickets on as many cars as he could. But while he was now in far less pain than before, he was also far from perfect working condition. He smiled fondly at the boundless ball of energy at the end of the block somewhere in Savanna Central. It was hard to remember the horrors of that evening and the crazy bull in this beautiful morning and an even lovelier rabbit not far from him. Nick mostly drove the jokemobile while Judy dashed from one block to another until it was time for them to go back to the precinct and then home.

It had now been a few months since the attack. They had since moved into a new apartment together, closer to the precinct than either of their previous apartments. It was located Downtown, near Pack Street Station. Near Happytown, Pack Street, as its name suggested, was a neighborhood densely populated with predators. While the bouncing bunny got more than a few stares for working and living with her natural enemy, none of it fazed her. Even a few wolves and coyotes would take a second horrified look when the fox followed after the bunny through the door.

But once that door was closed, the rest of the world stopped to exist. All Judy saw was the one she loved most, his precious heartbeat against her cheek as he embraced her. To look up at his green eyes and not be afraid was exhilarating. To feel comfort from his teeth on her ears and his claws on her back was bliss. No words were needed for them to know what they shared.