Fifteen Halloweens Between

    “Foxes don’t kiss bunnies!”

    That was what she told him when Nick had tried to give her a peck on the cheek at the playground, and had jumped away like he was trying to set her fur on fire. He had managed to brush off the embarrassment with a laugh and an ear pull before running off to play with the other boys. When he got home that afternoon, he instantly asked his mom if what Judy had said was true.

    “Oh, my sweet kit. I don’t know if a bunny would want to be kissed by a fox,” she had told him, looking a little saddened by the fact.

    Neither answer sat very well with him. And so, in a moment of brilliance that only a nine-year-old could have, he decided that it was going to change because he wanted it to change!

    Convincing his mother to let him dress as a police officer with the ZPD was hard enough because a fox police officer was as unheard of as a fox kissing a bunny. But in the end, she had surrendered to his hung-fox face and big pleading green eyes. Come Halloween, he proudly put the blue uniform costume on. He thought he looked very official, even if the uniform was far from a perfect fit and the material was just cheap costume cloth with painted on gold buttons and a tin star on the oversized hat. With a quick goodbye to his mother, he grabbed his candy bucket and rushed out into the streets to join the other kids in their trick-or-treating groups.

    When he spotted her in a group of bunnies on the other side of the street a few minutes later, he made sure to adjust his hat and beat back the butterflies in his stomach as he rushed towards her. “Judy!”

    Pretty lavender eyes turned towards him and widened when he stopped in front of her. He decided not to give her time to say anything or give his nervousness a chance to change his mind, so he plowed forward with the speech he had worked on for a whole ten minutes the night before.

    “As an officer of the ZPD, I make the rules,” he quipped as he pointed his thumb at his chest, watching her while ignoring the whispers of the like-sized bunnies around them. “And I say that a fox can kiss a bunny!”

    With that, he drew a deep breath, pushed his hat up and leaned in close to press his lips to hers. She was really, really soft and warm and she smelled nice. The kiss was just a little awkward, with the way his nose pressed against her twitching one, but it only took him one second to process the fact that he liked everything about it before he pulled back to look down at the dumbstruck bunny. A wide, slightly dazed grin was plastered on his muzzle as she looked up at him. The way she tried to stutter actual words and failed with a blush ran up the length of high ears only made that grin widen before he raised his paw in a salute.

    “Carry on, citizen!”

    Then he was off in a run back to his own group, really surprised that his shaking knees allowed him to stay upright as he bounced back into place. The giggles and whispers of the bunnies reached his ears. Though he couldn’t make out what they were saying, the fact that the gray furred Judy Hopps was walking backwards with her eyes still glued on him made it all worth it.

    Best Halloween ever!

Halloween, 15 years later

    Officer Judith Hopps hadn’t dressed up for Halloween in years, and she felt just a little silly in the witch outfit. It fit a little more snuggly than the one she had worn when she had been nine – fit a bit tighter around the hips, accented her curves in a way that made it clear that it was made for adults – but it was the only one she had been able to find in her size. And she figured that this was as a good a day as any to try to jog Nick’s memory of their childhood.

    His mother had moved to the city six months after that Halloween. Whatever might have come in the years to follow had been cut short as the cute young fox waved a sad goodbye from the rear window of the car. Even though she had missed him, youth had allowed her to forget him and her first kiss on a superficial level through her teens years and the kisses that came and went through high school. Memories of him had faded to hazy daydreams, a childhood memory that was sweet and cherished but not very important.

    Then she had grown up, become the ZPD officer she had wanted to be, and moved to the city. And by random chance or fate, while on her first case, she met Nick again. The jaded street hustler who greeted her with smart ass remarks and general disdain was nothing like the friendly kit she remembered. Deciding then that he didn’t remember her, she decided that there was no need to bring their past into the investigation. But time passed and they worked the case together; at first by coercion on her part, but then things changed. They grew closer. They became friends again, partners, first on the case and then in a very real way as officers on the ZPD.

    Now her feelings ran deeper than she thought his did, and she wanted to remind him of who she was. The hope was that the connection and the memory of his insistence on kissing her as a kit might… Well, at least give him a hint that she was more than just a dumb bunny!

    She stood outside of the crowd in the party wearing her witches outfit, as close to what she remembered wearing back then as she could find, complete with an adorable pointed hat between her high ears. When she finally saw him walk into the room in his uniform, she was confused as first. He hadn’t even bothered to wear a costume? Then he came closer and confusion cleared into a giddy little thrill when she realized it wasn’t his uniform he was wearing.

    It was a cheap, costume cloth replica with painted on buttons, an oversized hat and a tin star.

    His surprised expression mirrored her own when they came to stand facing each other in the middle of the room.

    “So you do remember me,” they said together, causing her heart to jump and a silly grin to come over her muzzle when he drew himself up and saluted her.

    “As an officer of the ZPD, I make the rules,” he said, reaching up to tip his hat back as he leaned close to her. “And I say that a fox can kiss a bunny.”

    The kiss was not their first even if it felt like it all over again. The thrill of it made her smile against his lips as she gripped the front of his ‘uniform’ to pull him closer.