Nick Wilde had not been seen since that day.
Judy felt her heart quake and burn and question what had happened... why was he missing? WHAT HAD HAPPENED!
She sat in the park... a week gone by since the day of his disappearance and only ate her carrot chips with little emotion.
She had been taken off the force. She was unemployed with a criminal record now.
She was innocent.
Beside her sat Pete as he tried to cheer her up but nothing seemed to be working.
"Please smile, Judy." he begged her, hating seeing the girl he liked in so much torture over a fox who could be gone forever.
"Please just... know he's in a better place now."
She didn't reply. She put down the bag of carrot chips slowly and looked at Pete with quiet, dead eyes.
"I caused this all."
"No, You didn't, I swear."
"I did." Judy said in anger, and suddenly picked up the bag again, throwing it to the ground away in the distance. Pete watched his hard cooking labour go to waste and Judy just said to him with anger in her soul.
"I picked up that case! I wanted to solve it! I should have let it DIE! A-and now Nick is... N-Nick is..."
"Dead...?"
"No! Don't say that!" Judy yelled at him. She got up and started to storm away but Pete reached her side and pulled her back to face him. She just had pure self-loathing in her eyes, and he hated seeing her like this.
"You tried to prove him innocent. And I believe he didn't do it. But you have to accept that he's dea-"
"No." She said so coldly, the words never being said from her. She felt deep down... somewhere in her being that he must still be alive. He was sly, clever, quick witted. He could've escaped the prison... he wasn't... he wasn't... d-dead!
"Judy... I," Pete said, holding her chin up with his paw and she looked into his eyes with lost tearful ones of her own. "I... I love you... please don't let me see the girl I love torture herself when she t-tried."
Judy shut her eyes when he said the L word... when it didn't make her feel anything back. She felt him kiss her, to soothe her and she let it happen... feeling nothing either way.
She was still a murderer... and the day would come when she got her just deserts.
She didn't deserve Pete's love. She didn't want his love.
She pushed him away and said to him in an empty voice. "I don't love you, Pete..."
Pete felt his heart thud in quickening pain and he asked back, weakly. "Would you ever...?"
"I don't want to love you, Pete."
"I u-understand..." He said, his voice shaking as he tried to hold back his tears and Judy said to him... a sudden realisation dawning on her soul.
"I... I love Nick... I'm only in love with Nick..."
Pete froze, looking lost into Judy's own confused eyes as she said this. As it had finally dawned on her like the sun had risen at last on what she had tried to deny for so long.
"But he's a fox..."
"And I have loved him since I met him... since I knew him for him... and he is not dead."
"Judy." Pete just said in an upset sigh, his heart pounding but he knew he was too weak to fight this battle. He was going to give up... he had always known she loved Nick... he just wanted to deny it as much as Judy had.
"They never found his body." Judy said quickly, wiping her tears away and saying to Pete as she took a step back. "I know he's still out there... I feel him. I just know!"
"Please... this is only grasping at straws, Judy!"
"I'm not giving up." She said. She turned to leave as she whispered to herself in true belief, "I'm not giving up."