Nick gazed up quietly at the stars alongside Judy as she rested on her side pushed up close to him. It was some time before dawn. They had slept fitfully with the uncertainty that they would be discovered, despite members of the group keeping guard. The forest was dense and it was impossible to tell if they were being followed. Some sleep had still happened. It had been a terribly long day. It felt like almost a week worth of things had passed in that time and it was hard for Judy to get her mind around the things that were going on.
They had nearly drowned rafting over the rapids. Skye and Jack had gotten into a serious fight that was then emotionally resolved. The group nearly died from a planted bomb. They had been taken captive and locked in the mines. Pembe had intervened inexplicably. They had rescued the missing mammals from the villages around the mine. They had uncovered a possible government conspiracy concerning the secrets that this indigenous population had been protecting. There had been kidnappings. There had been murders. These were extremely dangerous mammals. Soon, however, they would not be alone in this. The conspiracy, like the one she'd discovered at the beginning of her career, was not universal. These mammals would pay for what they'd done.
"I missed this, honestly," the fox whispered beside her. Judy perked up a bit, shaken from her thoughts. The soft sounds of other mammals in their dark wooded camp softly snoring or shifting on leaves made it so it wasn't a full break of silence, but her attention fixed on her partner.
"Missed running for our lives and nearly being killed every hour, on the hour?" Judy asked with a tired chuckle.
"No, Fluff," Nick laughed back softly, "Camping. I missed camping. I wish I'd done this with you sooner. With a tent. And bug spray. And marshmallows." Nick's voice was wistful as he smiled. Judy was amazed at how calm he could be when things got hard. They had not spoken about his panic in the mine. This was not the time.
"You like camping?" Judy asked, pushing in even closer to her beloved vulpine and stroking his bare chest. His shirt was spread out under them to give them something other than bare ground to rest on, which suited Judy just fine. The cuddling pair simply wasn't bothering to conceal their relationship. No one was even really paying attention to it. They had their own important things going on right there.
"My dad and I used to do this a long time ago." Judy's heart lurched. It was one of those rare occasions where she got to look a little deeper into the heart of her fox. Her ears lifted and she focused on him so hard it utterly muted the other sounds around the smoldering campfire. "It's what we did the only time I ever went to New Reynard. I think I was only five or six back then. It's strange how the smell of the fire and the sounds of the forest at night can make you really remember that stuff, even so far back." Nick put his paws behind his head, propping it up a little, looking up through the small divide in the canopy to see the myriad of bright stars unfettered by the lights of the city.
"Happy memories I hope?" Judy asked. She was concerned at the kinds of things that would be remembered by someone who had lost their father so young.
"Yeah. I mean... I don't remember much about the uh... the bad parts," Nick looked into his partner's eyes, murmuring softly, "I guess I never told you about what actually happened to him, huh?" He sounded regretful.
Judy shook her head and leaned in, planting a soft kiss just below his eye, on his cheek bone. "Nick, you don't have to talk to me about that if you don't want to. I know it's not something you enjoy discussing."
"Judy, I'm vowed up to you," Nick said calmly. "That wall's not for you anymore. There's a little bunny-shaped door in it now, you can come as close as you want. I'll not hide. It won't always be happy stuff but you can ask me anything. If... If it's something you don't want to know, then I understand that. It's not a happy memory after all."
