They say that love must first be a friendship, for a castle, no matter how strong it's walls, cannot stand without a firm foundation.

And Nicholas J. Wilde knew a lot about walls.

Ever since that day he was attacked by the members of the Junior Ranger Scouts, he had put up a formidable facade of cunning and indifference to those around him. Like a mighty fortress, this wall stood against an armageddon of prejudice and racism without so much as a dent, protecting and sheltering the scared, injured mammal within.

Safe, but alone.

But with every wall, there is a crack. Perhaps too small for the likes of most, but just large enough for one, sly bunny to slip through.

It had been almost an hour since the ZPD arrived. Every officer was busy collecting evidence and marking off the place from the public, while another group of officers was busy rounding up the last of Bellwether's allies, along with the ex-mayor herself.

And not one of them could find a single, goddamn ladder in the entire museum.

A low, annoyed groan pierced the awkward silence in the bottom of the below-ground exhibit, where a fox and a rabbit were being held hostage by the forces of gravity. "Ugh, why can't they just lower a rope or something?" The smaller, grey rabbit complains, laying face-up in a patch of faux grass.

The fox, who sat on a rock nearby, shrugged and continued to watch his companion closely. "I'm pretty sure they don't want you aggrevating that cut in your leg."

"My leg will be fine, Nick." She rolls over to face him, inadvertently straining the cut, and wincing in pain.

The fox can't help but smother a laugh. "Uh-huh, and I assume those are ketchup stains then?"

The rabbit looks down at the rag wrapped around her leg; the once pink cloth had been entirely soiled by her scarlet blood. She sighed and laid back down, her ears plastered to the back of her head.

Nick saw her ears droop, and sensed something wrong; he had always been good at reading mammals. Now, he decided he had to cheer her up, something he wasn't nearly as skilled at.

The russet fox got up off the plastic rock, now bent from his weight, and strutted over to his smaller friend. He knelt upon the grass beside her and placed a paw upon her shoulder. "Carrots, drop the tough-bunny attitude, I can tell something's been bothering you."

She turns over and looks him in the eyes. Her violet irises glimmered back at him with a deep sadness, and he knew something was very wrong.

"Judy," He said, referring to her by name. "If you think I'm still mad at you for that stupid press conference, you're wrong. Even I know you were set up there; all those reporters were prey mammals, and one of them was a ram! I'm pretty sure they were-"

Judy raised a paw to silence him. "No, Nick. It's not that…"

Nick met her amethyst eyes with his emeralds, and a short silence follows. Nothing is said, but something deep down, hidden from them both, was tryng desperately to be said.

But before either mammal could speak, the booming voice of Cheif Bogo splits the silence. "Hopps," He calls, knelt over the hole with a clipboard at his hip. "We found the maintenance ladder; the paramedics are coming with it now, so hold tight."

Judy smiles and nods. "Thank you, Cheif." She salutes to him as she turns back to Nick, laying back down onto the grass.

In the minutes following, the two mammals were carried out of the museum and transported to the nearest hospital in a shared ambulance ride, Judy on the stretcher and Nick on the bench. Both are left to ponder what may have transpired if the chief had not intervened, and what premature secrets may have poured from her lips had the buffalo been too slow to retrieve them...

Nick had been the first to be released from the doctors care, having suffered little more than some minor bruising from the tumble he and Judy took to escape the death-trap or rails. Judy, however, had suffered a severe injury, and was currently getting sewn back up with the help of the kind doctors. In the meantime, nick could only wait for his trusty bunny to be cleaned up, and the doctor to clear him to see her.

The nurse had been kind enough to lend him a clipboard and some paperwork to occupy his time, though he had already made up his mind to provide false info. Thanking the white-tailed deer doe behind the desk, most likely an intern from how young she seemed, he walked to a seat in the lobby and began the menial trial of his patience that was hospital waiting rooms.

Other than a few chairs, a muted television displaying some paid programming, and the constant ticking of the clock, the only other occupants of the room were a single, female otter passed out on the nearby couch, and a mother rabbit with her kit, whom was gleefully playing with a wire-and-ring toy.

The russet fox paid little mind to his surroundings, filling out his paperwork in silence, until a twitch of his ear picked up the sound of the childs disappointed mumbling, followed by the mother marching quickly to the counter, her face alight with outrage.

Aaaand, here we go, Nick thought to himself as he kept his ears peeled to the, no doubt, entertaining conversation to follow.

"Is something the matter, miss?" The doe behind the counter said with a smile, oblivious to the mothers blind rage.

"You know damn well what's the matter; There's a damned predator in here!" The mother spoke with hushed fury, as if she were pretending to keep herself unheard, but wanting to make it clear to Nick all the same that he was, in fact, not welcome.

"I-I'm sorry, is that a problem?" The doe said, turning her gaze to Nick, as if pleading for him to speak up, or perhaps to just dissappear.

"What do you think? That… That thing could go savage any second! I will not let his kind be near my child," She stated, loud and clear enough for Nick to overhear, almost intentionally. Yeah, I get the point, Karen, Nick thought to himself, his irritation manifesting in the grip on his pen tightening.

"I demand that you get him out of here before he mauls someone!" The mother continued, not even trying to hide her frustration anymore as the receptionist frantically tried to explain that they couldn't ask the fox to leave due to various rules, laws and regulations. The mother was having no more of it, and finally gave one last outburst.

"You lot ought to throw a muzzle on that fox; His kind can't be trusted!"

Before he could even register his own movements, Nicks hands had dropped to his side, clipboard and pen clenched tightly in his fist as he stood, his chair inching backwards and stopping the room with a loud scoot across the linoleum. Silence loomed in the air as the fox approached the desk, both mammals frozen with fear, until he stopped just short of the desk itself.

Nick calmly placed the clipboard on the counter, pushing it to the receptionist with a single pad of his paw. "Here you go. I'll be waiting in front of room 216 for my friend to finish with her stitches."

Turning on his heel without another word, he marched to the hall to make his way towards his destination. As he passed through the light-blue double doors to the hallway, he could just barely make out the mother spitting him one last passing comment.

"He's probably the one who gave her those stitches…"

Nick had fought hard to keep the tears from flowing as he sat against the wall, his eyes closed as he thought to himself over all that had transpired, and why it stung so badly.

The constant prejudice and hatred from being a predatory species was certainly part of the issue, but over the past three months after that horrid press conference, he had simply gotten used to the barrage of hate speech flying his direction; After all, it changed very little, other than those mammals who despised him before now being more vocal about it.

The muzzle comment was certainly what made him decide to leave, as it struck a resounding chord with him and his childhood trauma. However, similar comments had been made, and he would simply leave the situation, and go about his day.

Still, something she said was sticking to him like a mouse caught in a glue trap, refusing to let go of his mind and slowly suffocating him.

He wanted to cry; He wanted to scream, bawl, yell, curse, anything to relieve his internalized emotional breakdown, but he couldn't bring himself to let anything out, despite being utterly alone. I'm not going to be a crybaby, he silently scolded himself.

Soon enough, as if sensing his inner turmoil growing, and coming to save him from his self-destructive spiral, the doctor, a well-groomed possum, opened the door to find the russet fox sitting slumped against the wall.

"Mr…" The possum took a moment to adjust his spectacles as he viewed his clipboard. "...Wilde?"

Nick just nodded as he quickly stood up, quickly hiding all evidence of his turmoil with a forced smile and a quick response. "In the flesh; You need an autograph?"

The possum, not one for games, got straight to the point. "Ms. Hopps is currently recovering, but she had hoped to see you before you left; I believe she had something important to say."