"A new chapter? But you said this was only a five- I mean six chapter work!"

Yes, so funny story about that. When I set out to write a fairly short story about a bunny growing up with a fox and tell it mainly from her perspective, I came across an interesting problem. The audience should only know what she knew, except in rare circumstances where it was important enough to the story that I deviate from this.

Quite frankly, this work was always going to have an unsatisfying ending if you wanted justice to be done to the Hopps clan, since this isn't a story where I'm going to make up something to punish those who undoubtedly deserve it, just to punish them. I'd rather something like that grow organically and in the timeframe I was working with, that wouldn't have happened. As such this story was always going to end with the Hopps not having any sort of retribution brought against them, because there wasn't much means in which to do that.

Sure I could make Judy go to the sherif and arrest them for not telling Nick he was free, however the reason she doesn't in the story is because they're still her parents, she still loves them, and despite what they've done she doesn't want that sort of harm to befall them.

I could have made Nick choose to go to the sherif and arrest them, but there's two reasons I didn't do that, and they tie into each other. In the story Nick is emotionally broken, as well as emotionally dependant on Judy. I know a number of people in the comments are saying that this romance doesn't feel right in this story, and you'd be correct, it doesn't because we're looking at a very damaged person rely on somebody else emotionally to get any sort of happiness in their day to day life. For this romance to feel completely right we'd need to go through a full healing process, which I'd also planned to detail in the sequel, but at the end of the story I still wanted to show that there was hope for the two.

This was a theme I was planning on examining in the sequel, 'When Dreams are Just Dreams', as Nick still has a ton of emotional baggage to work through and we haven't even really begun the healing process by the time the story was over. This is another reason the story ends in an unsatisfying way, so why did I end it there?

Simple, this story started with Nick being brought into the rabbit warren, and it ends with him leaving the rabbit warren. It's the tale of A Fox Named Nicholas as he passes through the rabbit warren as told through the eyes of the one who's closest to him.

If we were to get actual closure for the Hopps clan as a whole, well in this story that would take years, at least a decade and a half for the best case scenario to result if everything ends up going right.

So let's look at if that were to happen shall we? This is the true final chapter this time: 'What Could Have Been'.

"Mom, what's a 'domesticated predator?'" Judy blinked as she opened her eyes and leaned further back on the couch she currently sat on, before regarding the one who'd asked the question.

At first glance they'd appear to look like a young rabbit that hadn't reached their teenage years yet. They were one with a female voice, an orange-red colouration to their fur, slightly shorter ears ending in points, a fluffier tail that was longer than usual and shorter legs. If one was an expert (or another rabbit), they'd notice the longer arms, harder points on their fingertips and the longer feet, but the dead giveaway that this was no rabbit was the pointed teeth when they opened their mouth.

"Why do you want to know that sweetie?" Judy asked as she looked around the room for any other intruders, spotting no one besides the girl. Besides her, all she could see was her living room, with two couches against one wall each, both facing an angled T.V. propped up on a stand that held a number of kits movies.

"It's what we're going to learn about later in school, and I heard dad say he was one a little bit ago." The strange not-rabbit continued, though Judy only smiled at her 9-year old daughter.

"Have you asked your dad yet?" She began to push herself off the couch with tired movements. She'd come home from work, having finally finished at the precinct, only to arrive home while the rest of her family was out. She'd only meant to sit down, but it seemed as though she'd accidentally dozed off.

"No, he's playing with Carl and Micheal, I thought you could tell me." The little kit stated and Judy sighed.

"Let's go find him Samantha, this is something we should both tell you." Judy replied to her daughter as she forced herself up, and began moving towards the hallway.

Her current house wasn't luxurious, but it was a lot better than the apartments they had to stay in when they first got here. Still, her current home was enough and after living like how they used to, her current one was more than enough.

It had a living room, originally three bedrooms, a rec room, a kitchen and a few closets. It was small, quaint, and it certainly made it easy to find out where her husband and her other two kits currently were. She followed the noise directly over to her bedroom, and when she opened the door it she had to stifle a laugh at the sight.

"No fair!" "Get Off!" Her two 7-year old sons were there, both looking like slightly smaller versions of their sister, pinned against the bed in the room by the smugly smiling adult fox who was lying atop both. Apparently they'd wanted to 'wrestle' again and Nick had taken the easy way out.

Judy knocked at the door, and suddenly all three heads in the room shot up in the air and tried to turn towards to the door, before Nick sighed and moved to get up. "Sorry kits, playtime's over." He stated, Judy hearing their whines as they got up too.

Perhaps he thought it was time for bed, after all it seemed fairly late to her, but before her sons could move further Judy spoke up: "Stay here boys, Nick, Sam has a question for you." She looked down at her daughter at that, and the little kit nodded at her before moving into the room.

"Dad, what's a domesticated predator?" She asked and Nick froze for a second before sitting back further, the smallest of sad looks on his face. The two boys on the bed sat up at the question too, and soon they were also looking at their father.

"Hoo boy..." Nick began as he adjusted himself, moving closer to the edge of the bed, and his two sons came with him, one moving to each side of their father. He looked down at his hands for a few seconds, and Judy wondered if maybe it still wasn't enough time for him to tell her children about this.

Before she could suggest they do this another night however, Nick spoke up though his head remained down. "A domesticated predator is a predator that is bought and owned by another family. A long time ago, far before any of you were born, I used to be one of those." He said as she looked up at his three surprised kits, and then over to his wife, Judy giving him a supportive smile. "What that means is that I was considered to be property, a thing, just like your combs or backpacks are your property." He stated, looking around at his kits as he spoke, and occasionally one would nod.

"In my case I needed to do whatever it was they told me, cleaning up their home, putting out dishes for dinner, cleaning up afterwards, and that's what most domestic predators do. They aren't limited just by that though, technically the predators would need to do whatever's asked of them. Do you know what would happen if they said no?" Nick glanced to all three of his children, and in turn they all shook their heads. "Do you know what a shock collar is?" They nodded to that, and Judy could only be thankful her children would never need to wear one. "Well all domestic predators have them, and if they did something wrong, or if they didn't want to do something, or if their owners just felt like it they could just turn them on whenever they wanted."

"That's horrible!" Judy's daughter yelled out, and both parents nodded.

"It's worse if the rest of the family doesn't like you either, as they can do whatever they want to you and the collar makes it impossible to defend yourself..." Nick trailed off as a far-away look appeared in his eyes, and Judy gave a light cough. That seemed to snap the fox out of whatever unhappy memory he was going through and he gave a quick nod. "In any case, that's what a domestic predator is. They're just seen as a thing by the mammals who own them and they can do whatever they want with them."

That seemed to be where he was going to end it for tonight, and Judy would leave it at that. It seemed that even after this time it still wasn't easy to talk about.

The two would bid their kits goodnight from there, and once then they'd retire for the night themselves, though just before they'd fall asleep Judy had to bring her thoughts up to Nick.

"Nick?" She asked, getting a small hum in return. "When do you think we should tell the kits the whole story?"

Nick sighed. "We'll tell them, I'm just not sure when."

"It's not still hard to go back to?" She asked, but instead of flinching he shifted closer.

"It's not fun to remember, but I'll be just fine." His words had warmth care and love to them. She believed it. "Do you ever think about them?" He suddenly asked and her thoughts went in another direction.

"Who?" She asked back.

"The Hopps." Came his answer, though there was no bitterness to the tone, and no hate.

"No." She stated firmly, though it was a lie. On occasion she'd find herself wondering about what had happened to her siblings and even household as a whole, which included Bonnie and Stu.

"Sometimes I wonder if anything's changed with them." He spoke with a voice tinged in sadness. "I like to think that it could have."

"It's probably wishful thinking." She remarked and he gave an agreeable hum. The two would fall asleep shortly after that.

A few weeks later Judy actually would find out how her family was doing, though not because she had intended to. She would come home one day, still in uniform, to find her daughter working on the kitchen table as she wrote down notes from various books.

"Hey sweetie, what're you working on?" Judy asked as she looked around again and then homed in on her daughter, coming up just over Samantha's shoulder.

"We need to give a presentation on domesticated predators in front of class, so I'm working on that." She answered back, and Judy could see she was definitely doing that, with the title that she'd written out being 'Families that own the most predators'. The title could use work, so maybe she'd offer a better one later.

"What've you found?" Judy asked as she moved away, her throat felt a little parched so she'd just intended to get some water.

"A lot, did you know that the owners of the most domestic predators worldwide is a family of rabbits?" Asked her daughter excitedly, and Judy paused right as she grabbed her glass.

"No I didn't know that." She answered as she continued on her way. If there had been one family that would be like that, she'd never guessed it would be rabbits. "How many domesticated predators do they have?"

"Only twelve, but it's highest anyone's recorded." Samantha answered and Judy cocked her head. That was certainly a lot less than she'd been expecting for anything that was a world record.

"Did you find out why they have so many?" Judy asked absently. Maybe somebody there was a little sympathetic?

"I know they run a farm, maybe they needed the help." That made Judy pause again, though she dismissed this new thought as she poured herself some water. Plenty of rabbits had farms, and it wasn't as if only one of those families ever thought of using domesticated predators.

"They'd need a big farm then." She commented back before downing the glass.

"I don't know how big the farm is... I should look that up!" Her daughter spoke her thoughts aloud as she began to go through her books again with renewed interest.

"Do you know where they are?" Judy asked as she put her glass in the dishwasher.

"Yeah, they own a farm over in a place called Bunnyburrow." Her daughter answered and Judy froze for the third time that day. She knew of course that it had to be a different family, but that didn't prevent her from wondering.

"Do you know what the name of the farm is?" Judy asked as she slowly stood.

"Yeah, it's called the Hopps Family Farm." Her daughter answered and Judy's mind began to race.

Normally on her days off Judy would spend the time with her children or husband. Her hours could stretch long into the day so when the opportunity arose she'd take whatever chance she could to spend what she had left with those she cared most about, though today was an exception.

Today was an off day where she was driving out of the city, on a trip that she'd very rarely thought of making before, one which she felt was necessary now, and it seemed Nick was of the same mind.

Judy told him the day she'd found out that the Hopps apparently owned the most amount of domestic predators worldwide, and together they'd look up what they could. Though the internet wouldn't give them exactly what they were looking for, they did find a Furbook group, one which did have a number of predator pictures in locations that looked very familiar to her.

She'd grown up seeing the walls of the warren and the fields of the farm, so she immediately knew that this was the Hopps' warren. Flicking through other pictures revealed that it wasn't just the fox though, there also seemed to be pictures of a skunk, a weasel, a raccoon, a very young badger... that wasn't wearing a collar.

It wasn't just in the first picture she saw that badger in either. There were other pictures, all of whom were taken fairly close to the predator. There was the badger sitting among other rabbits and eating what seemed to be lunch, the badger dozing off under a tree, and then there were even a few selfies that the badger had taken, pictures of them smiling among equally young rabbits.

That was another thing Judy noticed as she flipped through the pictures, most of them had the predators smiling. The misery that had been present on her fox's face while he'd been in the burrow seemed nowhere to be found here, everyone just looked... well if it wasn't for the collars around the necks of the older predators she'd say they looked normal, compared to the city she currently resided in anyway.

It seemed wrong and felt wrong, as if the pictures were all fakes and she happened to be looking at another family with the same last name and living in the same burrow somehow, but no, also in the photos were occasional shots of rabbits that she definitely did recognize. Some her juniors, some her seniors, and it just made her all the more confused.

It bothered her enough that she'd talked to Nick about it and eventually they'd both agree that she might as well go see herself. Somebody needed to stay back with the kits, as there was no way they were coming and Judy knew that Nick would never want to go back either, so she went.

The drive out was a long and boring one, which wasn't helped by the terrain being all too familiar and boring to her. It did give her time to think though, time to wonder at what she should say, who she should talk to, and what she should prepare for.

By the time she arrived in Bunnyburrow she'd had a plan, although despite herself she found nervousness creeping into her system when she eventually pulled up in front of the Hopps farm. She could see mammals working off in the distance, all of whom seemed to be rabbits, and so she judged that if the predators were kept for tasks they would most likely be inside. Many of Nick's tasks took the entire day to do on his own, but even so getting a dozen predators to do them seemed to be more overkill than anything else.

Judy took a moment to compose herself, and the left the car, striding confidently to the door of the burrow and then ringing the doorbell right next to it. It seemed like almost immediately the door opened, and a completely unfamiliar rabbit looked up at her.

"Hello!" He called out, and Judy took a moment to examine him. He seemed to be a young buck, maybe ten or eleven? If he was that age then that would mean he'd have been born after she left.

"Hi, I'm here to speak to..." Judy stopped for just a second. She was about to ask for the heads of the household, but that might not be Stu and Bonnie anymore. She could ask to talk to somebody besides those two, but she wanted to hear what had happened from them, judge for herself if they had changed. "Are Stu and Bonnie in?" She changed her question after all, the confused buck nodding slightly before turning back inside.

"I'll get them for you." He quickly said before shutting the door. Judy sighed, she was only at the door and already couldn't seem to say a single sentence without overthinking it.

She wouldn't wait long before the door opened and the two she came to see would be before her, though she blinked in surprise at seeing them. In the time she'd left the burrow, age had seemed to take a fierce hold of the two, though they weren't what she'd call elderly, not yet.

Stu held himself with a little slouch, the formerly strong (if a bit beefy) frame having seemed to shrink significantly, while Bonnie moved as if every little movement took effort, and even wore glasses. Both rabbits had grey hairs peeking through and even a few wrinkles, and all of this added up to make them seem like smaller, lesser versions of their previous selves.

"Jude?" Bonnie asked in surprise that was soon mirrored by Stu, and Judy blinked again.

"Hi." She greeted back with a forced smile, before both rabbits moved forward with a quickness that belied their age, and enveloped her in a hug.

Judy waited patiently for them to let go, as she knew they eventually would and though they hugged her, she would not return the gesture.

They would move from the doorway over to a side stretch of land on top of a hill. The two older rabbits had invited Judy inside, but she'd brushed off the offer by saying she didn't have a lot of time. It was a fairly true statement, even if she left right now it would be almost night by the time she got back to the city.

Still, the two Hopps didn't wait long after they'd all sat down before they tried to open up: "So Jude, how've you been?" Stu asked and Judy tilted her head as if she was thinking.

"I've been doing well. Keeping busy." She replied. It was true as of late, though it certainly wasn't the case when she'd first gotten into the city.

"Been keeping out of trouble?" He asked and she nodded. "Are you still going around with that fox?" The question made her brow twitch a little, but she nodded still. "If you ever come back out here could you bring him? I'd like to apologize." Stu spoke with a happy town that quickly grew sadder and when he was finished the last word, he was no longer looking at her.

Judy shot Bonnie a quick glance, and to her surprise she wasn't making eye contact either. "I heard you've gotten a lot more domestic predators now." Judy began, shifting the subject onto what she actually meant to talk about. Both other rabbits looked up quickly at that, proud smiles on their faces. "How did that happen?" Judy asked before either could interrupt.

"Now that's a bit of a long story..." Stu started before trailing off.

"It started about... 13 years ago?" Bonnie came to his rescue. "You remember your brother Justin?" Judy nodded. "This all started soon after he got married."

Judy raised a brow at that. She knew Justin but had never heard him talk about any girlfriends, still though, two years was a long time. "Did I know her?" She asked and Bonnie shook her head.

"She came in from out of town, and she wasn't here long. She died in a traffic accident." Judy felt a pang of sympathy at the words. Even if she wanted as little as possible to do with her family she still didn't want to hear about sad moments like this.

Bonnie looked away and this time it was Stu who came to her rescue. "Justin wanted kits so badly Jude, so much." He sighed as his eyes temporarily glossed over, and then he was back. "Well a few days after she died he decided to go on a trip, just a little vacation he told us. The next time we'd saw him, he came back with Ryan and told us he bought him from two arctic foxes living in a shelter." As Stu spoke he started shifting and reached into his pocket, managing to fish out his phone right as he finished speaking, and soon he had it displaying a picture.

It looked like the arctic fox she'd seen on the Furbook images, though in this picture the fox looked far younger, around the same age as Nick when her family had first gotten him, though there was no collar. "He wasn't collared?" Judy asked.

"No." "At first." Stu and Bonnie spoke at almost the same time and with conflicting information, Stu saying the no, but after glancing at each other he quickly looked back at his phone and started flipping through it while Bonnie looked at Judy.

"When he came to the burrow he wasn't collared. We demanded he would be though, but after Justin saw the first shock happen he took the collar off and refused to put it back on." Bonnie explained and Judy tried to imagine how that must have been at the time.

"You didn't just force him to do it?" She asked, getting a little too curious when Bonnie shook her head.

"We argued at first, but he was mourning and we eventually agreed to let Ryan go without it for a week, so long as Justin stayed with him at all times and they stayed away from the kits." Judy could see how their opinion might be swayed a little, but she couldn't help in remembering something she still despised.

"Did you give him the training manual?" She asked with disgust in her voice, only to see the same sort of disgust cross both other rabbits in front of her.

"We threw that awful thing away." Bonnie answered and Judy had to admit she felt a little glad.

"When?" She pressed on.

"About a year after he came back with Ryan." Bonnie replied and Judy nodded. Of course they wouldn't have thought to throw it away right away, so what changed?

"So you didn't give it to him though?" She tried rewording her previous question.

Stu suddenly spoke up: "We tried, but you know Justin. Proud, too proud to try getting answers from a book." He let out a little chuckle at that and Judy could see Bonnie smile a little. "Do you know what he told us Jude?" Stu asked and she shook her head. "He told us..." He raised a finger up for emphasis: "'I don't need a stupid book to teach me how to raise a fox right!'"

Stu punctuated the words with motions from his finger and Judy smiled a little bit at that. She had never been all that close to Justin before, but now she almost wished she had. "So what happened?" She asked.

Stu dropped his arm before continuing. "A week went by, then we demanded he collar Ryan again." A look of regret seemed to cross his features at that. "But do you know what happened when we did Jude?"

Judy could only frown in confusion this time at the question. "He got shocked?" She guessed the most obvious answer.

"No, it's..." Stu began only to stop in thought. "When he didn't have the collar, even though he wasn't near the kits, he played like one." Stu began as he turned his head and stared off into the distance. "He would run around, he'd try to get Justin to chase him, he'd jump on Justin when he thought nobody was looking..." He sniffled a little before continuing, much to Judy's surprise. "When we put that collar on him I saw in an instant that bright little kit turn into somebody else. For a second he looked exactly like the fox when we brought him home that first time."

Judy could barely remember the event, but she nodded anyway. "So what happened after that?" She asked when neither Stu nor Bonnie continued the story.

"I uncollared him." Stu spoke in a sad voice. "For just a second Jude, I saw what would happen if I didn't, and I don't want any more of my kits to ab- abandon their family." He stuttered slightly at the end, but Judy understood what he'd meant. Apparently an uncollared predator kit was considered the lesser of two evils when the other one involved one of their children choosing a predator over them.

"You approved of this?" Judy addressed Bonnie as she tried to imagine the argument that would've ensued.

"Heavens, no!" Bonnie suddenly spoke up, confirming Judy's thoughts. "We argued for a very long time about it Bun, and you were brought up a fair bit too." Judy blinked at that, though the older doe continued: "Eventually, I agreed that it was better to keep a fox kit under careful watch though."

"You both thought he'd choose Ryan over you?" She asked and sad looks crossed their faces once more.

"You never saw him with Ryan Jude." Stu whispered out. "Justin wanted kits so badly, that I think he started seeing Ryan as his own, despite the obvious differences."

Judy nodded, and for a few seconds silence fell as all three stopped talking. "What made you throw the training manual away?" She eventually asked.

Bonnie took the lead on that one: "We started questioning it when Christmas rolled around, you remember those, right Bun?" She asked hopefully and Judy nodded. "In all the chaos somehow Ryan managed to slip away and join some of the younger kits. Even though he knew he wasn't allowed to, he played with them and their new toys, though we eventually caught him." Looks of regret flashed across both of their faces once more.

"What did you do?" Judy asked with a little worry.

"Do you remember how the fox looked during his first Christmas, when he wasn't allowed presents?" Asked Bonnies suddenly, and Judy shook her head. Bonnie sighed again before speaking up once more: "I'd forgotten how he'd looked too, right up until we caught Ryan. If it wasn't for his fur colour I'd swear he'd have looked the exact same. Sad, lonely and scared."

There was a pause, and then Stu was speaking again: "When we saw him like that, we decided just for Christmas he'd be able to play with the other kits, but after that things would go back to normal." Oddly enough a happy smile came across his features when he'd finished.

"I'm guessing that didn't last long?" Judy took a stab at the unlikely answer, and Stu nodded his head.

"We made sure to keep him away from the kits, we just didn't think the kits wouldn't keep away from him!" He announced with a small laugh, and then Bonnie was smiling too.

"Do you remember how interested all you kits were in the fox when we first got him?" Bonnie asked and Judy nodded. That was one memory she had kept. "The smaller kits were the same way around Ryan, all begging to play with him and even Justin began asking to let them play, so eventually we did, under heavy supervision of course."

"You were afraid he claw or bite somebody?" Judy asked the obvious question, and both older rabbits nodded.

"We thought we'd have a repeat of Gideon." Stu answered while raising a hand to point at her cheek. "Crazy thing is, we almost did."

That made her heart skip a beat, but before she could ask further his wife took control of the story: "Ryan scratched one of the others too hard and cut them, and you wouldn't believe how mad I was that we'd let this happen, but then he started crying." Stu sniffled at that, and then Bonnie continued the story: "We learned this later, but in the shelter in which Ryan came from was one of the worse off ones. One of those where if you could get any number of nasty infections and die just from a single cut, so he panicked."

A smile came to her face then. "He ran around the room begging for all of us to help him, and of course at the time we didn't know why he thought this was so bad. So we put a bandaid on the cut, and I told him that everyone was okay and nobody was going to die... and then he hugged me." She looked away again while Stu let out another sniffle. "He was so much like one of you kits..." She whispered and silence fell once more.

"Is that when you threw the book out?" She ventured.

"No, that happened when Marlene got Paul from a shelter." Stu answered, but before Judy could fully take in what this new development he continued talking: "I'm not sure why she did it, but it was the very next day she left, and the day afterwards we found her with this skunk in her arms. Poor thing looked almost skeletal, half dead and you wouldn't believe the condition of his fur."

"Did he come from another shelter?" Judy asked and Stu nodded.

"We brought in Doctor Leaps to take a look, and he told us it was a 50/50 chance of him even making it, though Paul pulled through." A bit of relief came onto him after that. "Like Justin, Marlene said she didn't need a book to make him a proper skunk, and she'd also demanded he go without his collar."

"Did it go as well?" Judy couldn't resists asking, and Stu shrugged.

"It went about as well as before, though the kits didn't stay away from him like they originally stayed away from Ryan." At that another thought occurred to Judy.

"Neither of them were targeted or bullied by the older kits?" She asked and Stu looked thoughtful for a second.

"I can't 100% say that they weren't, but honestly Jude the last time I can remember a really bad bullying case was when the fox had his arm broken." Stu answered, and Judy made a quick note in her head that he didn't mention who broke it.

"What happened after that?" She querried when it seemed like neither were going any further.

Bonnie chose that moment to come back in: "Martha went and got a weasel, Susan got a red fox, Jerry went out and got a different skunk, all from shelters Bun, and they were all in a very bad way when we got them." She took in a breath before focusing Judy with a hard look. "We were worried they'd be unruly when they got better... but then Martha's weasel died." Bonnies eyes seemed to tear up at that, but for Stu they began rolling almost immediately, even as he started speaking.

"I was there when he went Jude, and do you know what I saw?" Judy did not move or say anything, but Stu continued anyway: "I saw a tiny kit curl up in my crying daughter's arms, and then he was gone." He let out a sniffle at that, and though she tried her hardest to keep it down, Judy felt pity begin to worm its way up. "He was smaller than any of you at his age, his hair was missing in spots, and I don't think he ate much before we'd gotten him... it just made us think." He took a moment to sniffle again. "We realized two things that night Jude, the first was that our kits were going to keep bringing in mammals who needed help, and the second was that we couldn't be prouder of them for doing that."

He had a smile on through the tears at that, and the smile was soon shared by Bonnie. "That was when we threw the book away Bun." Bonnie stated before taking in another breath: "We threw it away and talked with everyone about what we were going to do."

Stu spoke up as excitement seemed to get the better of him: "We'd make a plan. We'd take in the worst off in the shelters, the ones who weren't likely to survive on their own. We'd raise them like normal kits, as much as we could anyway. When they graduated we'd set them free from their contracts and give them two choices, they could stay, or they or they could leave." He seemed rather proud of it when he finished, and so did Bonnie.

"How many have you tried taking in so far?" She asked and Stu let out a whistle while Bonnie frowned in thought.

"I think we're nearing twenty?" She asked absently. "Currently we have twelve, some have left, and some occassionally don't make it. We could show you pictures of all of them if you want to come inside for a bit."

"One second." Judy responded as she pulled out her phone and glanced at the time, noting that they'd been sitting here for a quite a while, and she deemed that she'd heard enough. "I'm sorry but it looks like I have to get going." Judy stated as she put the device away, and both other rabbits nodded slowly.

"Will you come back again? We still have so much to tell you and I'm sure you've got a lot to tell us." Bonnie asked as Judy moved to stand.

"I'll consider it," Judy started, before giving the two rabbits one last look. "Thank you for your time, Mr. and Mrs. Hopps."

The sad looks on their faces told her they understood exactly what she'd meant with those words, and then Judy left for her car.

Through the walk back to her car Judy felt... light, free, as if a weight was gone from her shoulders and it made the walk to her car and the drive back into the city feel like a surprisingly short one.

No matter what they'd said, no matter what they did, she would always remember the past, she'd remember them choosing not to free a scared kit when he was young and his contract was broken. She remembered them not treating him as much besides property when he was still technically theirs, and she remembered all of the hardships that came when they moved to a city and he tried to adjust to a normal life.

She remembered being woken up in the middle of the night by Nick's night terrors. She remembered him trying to push her away because he thought he wasn't a good enough mate and she remembered both her and his therapist trying to work through his crippling self-doubt. She remembered the sudden panic that used to envelope him during any kind of confrontation, and she remembered the scars on his neck when he'd had a dream that his collar had been strangling him, and he attempted to take it off through any means necessary. There was more she remembered, but it was all in the past now, and hopefully it would stay there, alongside the Hopps.

When Judy pulled into her driveway it was late at night and she was tired. Still, she did a quick check on her two sleeping boys, then her snoozing girl, before finally peering in on her husband. Nick was spread out on his back under the covers, a dopey smile on his face, and with a smile of her own she moved to join him.

Later she planned to tell him all about the conversation, and describe in detail everything she'd seen at the Hopps farm. Right now she simply wanted to enjoy the simple moments like this one, where everyone in the household was completely and utterly content.

And there you have it. I hope that was a lot more satisfying than the conclusion you got from the last chapter, as now we know what happened to the Hopps family in the end. Those who still want retribution are no doubt disappointed, but this was never meant to be a story where everyone gets just punishment for all of their actions.

I titled this 'What Could Have Been' because I really do see it as the best possible outcome for the Hopps family in this story, as it best shows their positive qualities (few they may be) and it gives you an idea of what Nick's life with them could have been like. In this chapter they learn from the past mistakes they made with Nick, and even if their motivations aren't quite in the right place (as they initially choose to do what they do out of interest for their own, rather than for the predators involved) they do eventually have a positive outcome as a whole.

Honestly my feelings towards them are summed up fairly well by Judy's final goodbye to them. I made sure not to ever once refer to them as her parents in this story through the narration, because after everything Judy and Nick are going to have to go through in the sequel (specifically a lot of emotional trauma) she will no longer see them as such. Does she forgive them? No and you don't need to either, but she's able to move on, and if I continued this story and looked ahead another decade or so and they continued doing what they're doing, maybe she'd be able to.

As stated before the stuff that had brief mentions will be more fully explored in 'When Dreams are Just Dreams' because that's where I'll be able to dig in and show the very long recovery of Nicholas (in this chapter he's already gone through all that), as well as tell a new tale about what happens after they reach the city, though like I've mentioned before, it's not getting posted until it's fully finished, so it's going to take a long time.