Going Up

Judy hadn’t known what to expect from life. But timelines are as uncertain as bridges to the stars, and she’s prepared to see where this one takes her. Almost. As long as he’s there with her.



I was going to make this platonic, but then I remembered that you loved Wildehopps, and I couldn’t deny you that.



But if you want the same prompt with a platonic plot, let me know!

She’s never had exposure to love. Real love. Not quite true- truth in itself was, by definition; accurate or exact. And they were neither of those things. Nick was sometimes too terse and she was sometimes too hopeful and they were a grab bag of will they won’t they and there wasn’t anything remotely true about the reality of them.



But it was honest and it was good, and she tentatively sidled into it with as much reserve as could be spared.



She asks him out. Tapping her feet on the underside of the dashboard and trying not to fiddle too badly with her radio. “Nick?”

He takes a left turn down fifth street and lets the wheel slide back through his paws. “Hmm?”

“Do you think you’d want to, uh…” tap tap tap go her feet- “we’ve been partners for a while.”

“One year,” he recounts almost lazily, his voice a twinge of summer days and sweet tea. “Or is it one and a half?”

“One and a quarter.”

“Tomato tomato.” He twists his head to give her that smirk. The one that always has her stomach in knots. Smirk number three out of his six smirk arsenal. “Why? You planning a party?”

“No. Uh- actually.” fiddle fiddle fiddle went her fingers- “I wanted to see what you’d think if I uh… asked you out?” A bunny of action was she, and beating around bushes had never been her specialty. Her arm was strong, but her morals were far too large to carry about sticks.



The silence after that is almost nauseating.



Nick is quiet. Taking the next right. Judy feels like she might vomit. Sorry, she wants to scream. God, she wants to barrel roll right out of their cruiser and duck into the sewers. Maybe she could live there forever! Become a hermit! Answer only to the call of the wild and tell no one about the mortifying moment where she asked her partner out in their cruiser.



Or… she could just be a big bunny, apologize, and then get home and bawl out her eyes the way she had at senior prom after she’d caught her date playing tonsil hockey with Jenny Clover.



“Nick-” she starts, her speech prepared with the twang of last words on her tongue-



“You know, Carrots, I ain’t a cheap date. Diamonds and flowers are all that really woo me. But if you’re willing to take a shot…”



The only thing that breaks her of her complete shock is smirk number five, and then she has to use every fiber in her tiny body to keep herself from throwing said tiny body across the dash and onto him. But she does well. Acadamy life trained her for this. And she sits in her seat, and gives a little wiggle of pleasure.



“I was thinking that Vegan place?”

“Sounds good.” He takes another right. “And I expect flowers.”

She brings him a bundle of petunias and he laces one through his lapel.

He’s never had the experience of meeting the parents, but here he is, sitting across from the both of her parents (who look like what he’d see on an honest to goodness How To Farm For Dummies instruction manual) and he is at a loss for everything.



“So… Nick…” Stu fiddles with the knife in front of him and Nick can see where Judy gets that habit from. “You uh… our daughter mentioned before that you were… different-”

“Stu!”

“Dad!”

Nick thinks he might actually be sick.



“What! He is! He’s a fox!” They opted out of eating at a restaurant, and Nick can see the advantage. At least the privacy of his home was of some comfort. He could duck out the fire escape and no one would be the wiser. “I’m not sayin’ it’s a bad thing!”

“Dad! Stop!”



Bonnie presses the heel of her hand to her brow and blows out a tropical storm. “Honestly, Stu.” She reaches across the table, taking Nick’s larger hands in her own. “Nicholas. We just thought it would be good to meet you. Our daughter’s gone through a lot and-”

“Mom!” Judy’s face is pink and red all at once, and she’s mirroring her father, fingers fiddling with the cloth napkins that Nick had taken out specifically for this occasion. “This isn’t ancient times, I can actually date someone without your approval!”

“I’m not saying you can’t hon bun. I just want to make sure that Nicholas here, I can call you that, can’t I?”

“Uh… yes ma’am?”

“Nicholas here is taking care of you.” Bonnie caught his eyes. “This isn’t a kind world, Nick, as I’m sure you’re well aware. And this isn’t a kind city.” The fox can suddenly see why she’s got as many kids as she does and is still standing. The woman was nothing short of a matriarch, and Nick wonders just how much strength she can fit in her denim clad body.



“I know, ma’am.”

“But my daughter is kind, Nick. You understand?”



And he does. Because this world could split in two, and Judy would still find a way to grapple a path to the stars, just for him.



He nods.



Bonnie smiles. “He’s a good one,” she tells her daughter, still holding tight to Nick’s hands. “Keep him.”

“Mom.”

Nick feels exponentially lucky.



They eat blueberry pie for dessert straight from the farm. And after, Nick and Stu head to the living room and scream at the screen, and Nick finds out that her father is a Lions fan, which is about as close to treason as it could get, but apparently in the country anyone who was a Panthers fan was practically trash and four beers later he and Mr. Hopps are getting on fine.



“Anytime, Nick,” he says, slapping the fox on the back.



Mrs. Hopps gives him a tight hug on the way out, and he responds in kind. “She’s kind,” Mrs. Hopps says quietly next to his ear. “But so are you.”



And then they leave.



“Well… that went… well…”



Nick agrees.

He shows her how lucky he is later, pulling her away from the sink (”Nick, your hands are sudsy!” - “As if you’re any better.”) and dragging her into the bedroom.



The world had one Judy Hopps, and he’d wound up with her.



Judy has never had this much exposure to change. But here she is. Changing. First, it’s moving all her things to his apartment. Then it’s watching their home grow. And then, picture by picture on the wall, they become something kind and simple and good.

And then;

“Let’s have a baby.”

He says it, but it’s a question, and she can hear it there, somewhere between his teeth.



“What?” She looks up over her book.



“I said, let’s have a baby?” Ah. The question. There it was.



She puts down her book. “We’re not even married.”

“So?”

“So… shouldn’t we get married, first?”

Nick smiles wide. “Are you asking me to marry you, Mrs. Hopps!”

“It’s Ms.” She picks up her book again. “And maybe.”



They get married in the courthouse the next day.



Things are good.



So good.



(Too good)

She’s never had this much exposure to sadness. But here it is. And it slits her belly open and says nothing to the hole inside.



“I’m sorry,” says the specialist over the phone. “It just… won’t work.”



Nick comes home to her on the floor of the bathroom. Two tissue boxes are used up, and the second one had been thrown at the door hard enough to dent the cardboard.



He doesn’t ask.



He knows.



“I’m sorry,” says Nick.

“Don’t be,” says Judy.



They hold one another like that until the sun finally goes down. And when it does, Nick says, “we’ll find something.”



“Nick?”

“You’re too kind.” He wipes his eyes. Wipes hers. “You’re too kind not to love something that much.”



“I love you that much.”

He knows she does. That bridge to the stars is still incomplete but she never stops building it. For him. But…

“That’s not what I mean.”

She leans against the cracked tile and breaks. “I know.”



She’s never been exposed to this much grief before.



But neither has he.

They share it, and that makes it a little easier.



Mrs. Wilde comes over one weekend and brings a casserole with her. “Judy,” she says, and her voice is as warm as the pot she pushes into the rabbit’s paws. “I’m so sorry, darling.”



“We’re… handling it.” She puts the pot down and hugs her mother-in-law. The woman smells like Nick without all his awful cologne.



“Foxes rarely have many children,” the mother explains once they pull back. “Nick was my only, and I was glad to have him. I couldn’t imagine not…”

“Yeah.” A laugh, a little bitter. A little sour. “My mother has a couple more.”



They drink wine on the small patio until Nick gets back and pours a generous glass for himself. “I still expect grandchildren,” his mother says after a time, finishing off her second glass of red.



“Mom… we can’t. It’s not possible.”



“Still.” She stands up and brushes off her dress. “I was exposed to a house of little feet.” She slides open the door. “Come on. There’s casserole, and I won’t let it go to waste.”

They lie in bed after it’s all over and done with. “Nick?” Judy hisses through the dark.

“Hmm?”

“Your mother’s right.”

He flicks on the light by his side of the bed. “What?”



“I said-”

“I know what you said.”



“I just think… it would be good for us! You know. I want a kit.”

“I do too, but-”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You’re a flowers and diamonds kind of guy, remember? Well, you’re not getting any less. And neither am I.”

The bridge to the stars is making good progress, and as he pulls her to him, teeth clicking, hands rushing to fill in the gaps, he can feel the security of a constellation overhead.



She is kindness, and he will fall for her all over again.



She’s never had this much exposure to love.



Not when they’ve gone through agency after agency. Turned away because of their “life choices”. Because the fox sitting beside her was something to hate. Because Nick was too damn kind, too damn finished, to ever do anything but accept.



She was done accepting. So she made some calls.



“Hey, Nick?” she’ll ask him in the cruiser. Her feet tap on the bottom of the dash. Her fingers fiddle at the buttons.



“Hmm?”

He takes a left onto Seventh Avenue.



“So I made some calls…”

“Hmmm…” he says again, tapping the wheel.



“How would you feel about a little boy?”



This time, it’s Nick who has to keep himself from throwing the weight of him across the dash. And he doesn’t do a good job at that.



They name him Rigel. Well… she doesn’t. He does, really. Nick pointed out, from fifth-grade astronomy, that it was the brightest star in Orion’s belt. And it had some meaning. To him, at least.



Judy had wrinkled her nose. “You want to name our son Rigel?”



“You don’t like it?”

“I don’t not like it. It’s just a little…” she flounders. “I don’t know… Crunchy granola?”

“We can pick another name.”



She looks at their already exhausted list. “No… I want there to be some meaning to it. And you seem to like it.”

“I do!” he nods fast.



Her bridge falters. Just for a moment. “Rigel.” She tests the name on her tongue. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” She circles the name. “Crunchy granola it is.”



He won’t tell her that he’d thought of that name again and again. Rigel. If she were hanging any tightropes up through the skies, he rather thought she’d choose the brightest star. Kind Judy never did anything but poke holes in the darkness, and he’d been prepared to supplement whatever was to come ahead with a candle, a match, and a light bright enough to prove he was worth the effort.



Her bridge continues.



Rigel is the runt. They’d kept him under observation for a time while his lungs caught up with the rest of his tiny body. He’s all rust and puffy fur, and he settles so well into her arms that Nick could swear he was built for them.



He’ll say the same thing a moment later when he accepts his tiny boy into the crook of his arm.



“You’ll need to fill out paperwork,” the social worker reminds them.



“That’s fine.”

“And there’s a visitation from myself a few other board members coming up in three weeks. You think you’ll be ready for that?”

Nick bobbles over, (up and down up and down) watching the babe stare at the world around him with still blue eyes. “No,” he snips happily. “Not prepared at all.”



The social worker gives them a look. “Nevertheless.”

And that’s that.

Rigel is settled between his parents. Fed. Bathed. Sleeping off an exhausting ordeal of playing with his new favorite pink hippo toy surreptitiously named “Bop”. Judy toys with his tiny ears.



“You’re okay with a fox?” asks Nick. His son - his son - yawns wide, and his milk teeth flash. They’ve already started having issues with that, and the legs of their best chairs are going to suffer dearly. “I know it’s… not what you expected. We could’ve gotten a Prey-”

“I’ve stopped expecting.” Her son makes a noise, and she kisses the back of his soft head with such affection that Nick wants to cry. “And there are too many foxes, Nick.”



Nick might cry, then. But he buries his face against her head and keeps their son (theirs, theirs, yours and mine and mine and yours and ours) between them.



This child will be exposed to nothing but love. He’s sure of it.



He won’t have an easy life. Foxes never do. They’re born with a pock, a mark, a scarlet letter stitched to their chest, and there’s nothing he can do that will wash it away. But he’s Judy’s son, now. Nick has to realize that. And he knows that this little boy will have to learn fast that the callouses passed on to his paws are good for nothing less than turning the world over and over and over again. And the woman who holds the Atlas, lying on the opposite side of the bed, won’t let the weight snap this child in two.



The escape bridge runs long and the stars spell their names in poetry.



Nick wants to say I love you, but she’s pressing another kiss to Rigel’s soft face, and Nick keeps it to himself.



(Besides)

(she already knows)



“What do you think he’ll be when he grows up?”



“I thin it’s too early to tell, Nick.”

“Nah. He’ll be a police officer.”



“Nick-”



“If he’s anything like his mama he’ll change the world.”



The baby yawns and stuffs one of Judy’s ears into his mouth. She winces fondly when he gnaws in his sleep. “It’s too early to tell, Nick. No one’s born to change the world.”



His leans over to kiss her and mumbles you’re wrong into her mouth. The bridge above her head changes course and reaches for higher stars. And he’s got no doubts that the path will be anything but exquisite.



“Maybe,” says Judy.

“Definitely,” says Nick.

She scratches her son’s head. “What d’ya think of that? You gonna change the world?”

Her son chews on her ear and yawns.