Chapter 1: Counting Hours

Beep! Beep! Beep! The flashing digital letters followed with the loud noise. The small apartment was dark at that hour of the day, late autumn left it cold, dark and a monochrome grey from the clouds in the sky. The one occupant of the nearly closet like room, one Judith Laverne Hopps slowly rose to the infringing sound with a hearty groan. This wasn't always her routine; she used to greet even the colder weather with a chipper smile.

"7 Months, 2 weeks, 2 days." She began muttering to herself in the darkness reaching across to end the sound of the blaring alarm clock. She rubbed the tiredness from her eyes with a yawn. Looking over to the numbers, the clock read just after six. "And 20 hours," she recounted lamely.

It was a slow routine that she approached with about as much fervor as a grocery trip or a dentist's appointment, which for her rabbity kind was often. Dressing in her non-issue blues and stretching the remaining joints of all their protest, she dragged her own footfalls down to the entrance of the 'Grand Pangolian Arms' and drudged through the portal of an entrance that met her with the same cold, grey, cloud riddled sky the last couple weeks had.

"Gah." She scoffed incredulously at the weather. Temperate as Central was, but accustomed to changing seasons still. Even in its coldest it was still leagues warmer than Tundra Town she managed at that bright spot. She was on foot making her way to work, the usual stop for a predictable tar like drink that would help her with her would be energy crisis. It was as potent a mixture her species could handle with their limitations in dietary compatibility. Part of the sentience of mammalian kind had caused unique societal changes, proximities in one another lead to all species gaining broader digestive capability. She was glad of this since her health and history classes both told of how rabbits could hardly stomach almost anything in their past, even the carrots they were so rudely associated with were fatal in several ways.

"Carrots." She whispered to herself, to late to prevent the connotations of the word or its associated auburns. The train she was on screeched and shuttled along the track with its usual speed. Sniffles and coughs could be heard along the cabin, 'Flu season.' She readily concluded, thankfully the spread of viruses was low lately due to a recent push from medical clinics to immunize against ticks and fleas that time of year. It was a growingly helpful precaution that she recognized from her own farmstead. Close proximity of furred mammals with disease was a dangerous thing when the small blood sucking creatures were involved. Rain threatened just as her final steps brought her up the steps of the massive precinct 1 structure. Even after nearly two years on the force Judy couldn't help but marvel at it from time to time, not today though. The tired feeling in her body and the somber expression of the cloud weighed heavily on her.

"Morning Hopps!" The portly cheetah offered, routine, she waved back forcing a smile with a yawn.

"Morning Clawhauser!" She always tried to maintain a level of energy for her close friend. It was the least she could do despite how she felt.

She walked down the hall and right past the auditorium, she hadn't needed reassignment in months since she had essentially permanently been put under the radar. A small cubical, two seats backs to each other with two 'L' shaped desks meeting at the entrance. Her own on the left as low as the adjustable table could go, even then both it and its chair were substantially tall for her. The opposite desk raised slightly though still on the lower settings compared to the upper limits of the adjustments available. It belonged to her canine partner, one that, due to her size, easily shadowed her own. His blue officer jacket and the otherwise disheveled state of his desk present signifying his presence in the precinct. She felt a growing disdain for that same mammal when an offending sticky note adorned the border of her monitor making its presence known. 'Chief called me in, finish up my report. Thanks!' and like that her mind started thinking about the many ways to best get back at that stupid fang filled grin of his. Instead she sighed rolling her eyes behind her lids before wheeling her chair and settling in. Ticket duty reports were long, boring wastes of time.

For several minutes eventually going on an hour or more, the pre made template to complete the report on the screen filled in with long descriptions of their boring ticket punching routing just the day before.

"Knock, knock. Morning officer Hopps." The voice was awkwardly warm and Judy already knew who it was, rotating in her chair and the large tiger smiled warmly at her. 'Routine.' She thought to herself an awkward smile as her response.

"Morning officer Fangmeyer." Judy offered with a curt nod, it was him or Mchorn or Francine or one of the many other officers that held the same morning shift checking in on her.

"Figured you could use another coffee, crappy, muggy morning." The tiger said offering the steaming cup of even worse off tar.

"Thanks." Taking it, she saw that same appraising expression on the larger mammal.

"So how goes the investigation?"

"Hm?"

"The one with the drug dealers? Heard you, Officer Francine, and Officer Snarlof were working on that case involving the recent influx of drugs around the Rainforest District?" she asked pointedly with a raised brow, hoping to change the usual routine of whatever officer seemed to volunteer to check in on her.

"Oh, you heard about that?" The tiger fidgeted a moment before shrugging. "Yea, its getting a little out of hand actually. Found two more overdoses just on the border of Fog Street. We think that we're getting closer to the importers, keeping an eye on the Riverside and Marshland docks. Oh, but don't tell anyone I told you, still an open investigation." And that was why she liked whenever the large tiger was the one to pull into her routine, he seemed to be one of the few officers that didn't think she was so fragile since everything had apparently gone to hell. The digital clock just off the corner of her vision blared its own reading, somewhere just after 8:30. '7 Months, 2 weeks, 2 days and 22 hours.' She scolded herself for so readily knowing that number. The tiger adjusted where he stood, coughing fakely to catch her attention again.

"Sure we'll have you back at it in no time, wouldn't mind having you and your partner back on the streets with us, extra set even on patrol would add up." The tiger said with a thumb over his shoulder gesturing towards the second desk. "Could use his sniffer to help weed out them dealers, poor Snarlof is working over time with the number of call ins we keep getting for sniffers." The tiger nodded alongside Judy. Certified K-9 patrol units had a lot of action lately, a small jealous box to tick off against her natural abilities alongside nocturnal species. The way it worked was that an officer could apply and take a test to be certified for things such as T.U.S.K response, 'sniffer' or K-9 and Nightvision. The effect was that any patrol certified with that could respond to requests from other officers whenever they needed that attribute. Jealous in that her partner was certified in both night vision and K-9 and that came with a not so subtle pay increase that he regularly lorded over her. But it made no difference for the two since her indefinite run of off street work from ticket duty to records organizing meant that even with his certification they were never called in to anything. Judys own certifications for response weapons and even her tranq gun had run out in that time, since Bogo hadn't put in for her to retake the test to certify again.

"Can't wait till I'm back out there." She said somberly sharing that simple understanding with the large predator officer.

"How you feeling." And there it was, regardless of which officer it was, they eventually got around to asking her. '7 Months, 2 weeks, 2 days and 22 hours.' She thought again with a sigh. Seven and a half months since the Incident that she could still remember so vividly, the very same one that eventually lead to her being taken off active duty as an officer.

"Better, really." She offered though she didn't feel as confident as she forced herself to sound. The tiger seemed to bite at it offering his own smile in response.

"Good, expect you on our tails in this investigation soon. Oh, hey, you hear ol' Rhinowitz is finally retiring?"

"Huh, that old rhino would never retire." Judy said nonchalantly recalling that very same grizzled old mammal that fist bumped her on the first day. His years had started to catch up with him.

"No really, he's reached that golden number and is planning to retire on pension, word has it that Mchorn is going to get the promotion to Corporal and will be taking over the T.U.S.K. unit in his place."

"Woah, really? Good on him, he's worked hard for it. Rhinos and their thick hides, bit unfair if you ask me." And that's all it took to get the large tiger over laughing.

"Natural body armor right. Yea, hes gonna do great, number of raids we've been doing has doubled since." He caught himself with a surprised expression. They both quietly knew what that meant, since then , since the incident, that same bloody one that she still had nightmares about. "Sorry, I, yea." The tall tiger took to scratching at the back of his neck in the nervous gesture, she hated the general fragile way the other officers had taken to treating her but she had to admit the twinge of pain that was still present seemed to remind her that it wasn't entirely without merit.

"Nah, don't be. I'm a grown rabbit."

"Yea, still." He stood, back straight. "Anyway, better get to it, heading out for new clues, hey you should come out for drinks with the rest of us, think it would do you some good."

"Sure, sounds… Good." She said, though she didn't actually think so.

"Hold you to it." The tiger said backing out of the small cubicle in much the same way he had entered. The quiet steps of the cat species were pretty impressive, especially when compared to the cloven ones of the large bovine, cervine and other hooved species. The same tiger was for a long time almost permanent second in command of the special response unit, highly advantaged for their night vision in the event of night time raids. The toss up between him and Mchorn must have been extremely close, Judy concluded.

"Yea, wouldn't miss it." She said leaning back in her chair, the unoiled joint squeaking as it leaned back in a reclined position. Looking out the skylight above, she didn't know what to expect but she still scowled, cursing inwardly at the grey clouded raindrop that greeted the sight of it. The rain pattered uselessly against the thick glass panes that made up the framed large window that usually bore decent natural light in the seasons just outside winter. The rain it accompanied had left Tundra town in thick layers of additional snow and ice.

She hated herself for hoping for records organizing over the chance at another ticket duty in Tundra town. The cold was horrible with the additional weather but had several mammals to ticket for their lack of motorized common sense. 'What do you mean I should be driving slower during a snowstorm. She cringed at the common response of the stupider vehicle bound mammals in the snow district that refused to follow the common decency of a slower speed with the additional ice.

Her fingers passed over the keys in succession mulling over the previous day's events, several accidents and tickets, she had decided on giving a little leeway with the parking tickets due to the snow and ice. She hated giving them out at a growing rate and the cold and ice was a decent enough reason to give a few of the parked cars a free pass in the heavy weather. That didn't fly for all of them like- "Billy, tall grey furred mountain goat." she spoke to herself recounting the events of the vehicular incident where the motorist decided to try their hoof at a red light and upon finding they wouldn't make it decided late breaking was in order, fast vehicle, dumb driver and a sheet of ice later and tada that goat was now fined, field sobriety tested and would find himself in having to deal with his insurance company and the lawyers of the opposing elephant motorist whose car the goat's had become an almost permanent fixture of.

"The belligerent goat occupant was then fined additionally for speeding, et cetra, et cetra." She droned on. "Cross my 'T's' and dot my 'I's' and voila, done." She said, stretching again. There was nothing worse than desk duty. If it wasn't for the portly appearance, Judy couldn't full well understand how Clawhauser managed the seat all day. For her it was boring and draining on a morale level, even records was funner to her. At least requiring her to actually get up from time to time. Finally signing off on officers present and necessary signatures she clicked the print button the small ink jet printer within the cubical surging to life in its own mechanical way. The print arm made the same monotonous tone drifting back and forth at a slow pace printing out the heavily official looking report files. She stood beside the machine slowly sipping at the second tar like cup of coffee she had while the machine worked at its task. The coffee's flavor, horrible, but the warming feeling the substance offered at least earning a relieving sigh.

"Oh, just now printing out your report from yesterday?" Judy looked beside the cubical at Officer Wolfard as he entered.

"Yea, had a lazy partner that decided not to get it done yesterday." She smiled rolling her eyes.

"Huh, they sound lazy, you should ditch them for a hard working, responsible and reliable officer like myself!" The wolf playfully put a paw over his the badge that hung from a chain around his neck. All the wolf officers she had seen so far in her time never wore standard blues similar to but different to her own body suit. But the canines were unique in that they all uniformly wore a chained badge over a ZPD T-shirt with either khaki or blue work slacks but never the dress blues.

"Oh, a responsible, hardworking and reliable partner." She listed off counting against her paws digits as she did. "Where can I find one of them." She mocked with a smirk.

"Ouch." the wolf officer chuckled just a couple times. "How you doing?" He asked and again there it was, the routine of checking up on her, though the wolf was more personal in his consistency.

"Everyone keeps asking me that, for what five months now." She said with an annoyed tone. "I'm doing fine, alright?" She said with raised challenging brows at the wolf, he seemed to watch her for a beat, then two. Assessing the sincerity of her statement and his own expression told her that she had failed to convince him. "Aggghh, really. I think I'm more tired of being asked if i'm 'fine' or 'alright' than I am from parking duty now." She emphasised by gesturing over at the hung orange meter maid vest.

"Ok."

"Ok?" She rounded on the canine gauging what he meant. "What do you mean 'O.K.' exactly?" She squinted with her own assessing expression.

"I mean, O.K. I believe you." He said warmly with a smile but again she just looked at him, probing at his tone, experience or anything that told her, he was being insincere, she didn't find anything.

"Ok."

"Ok." He confirmed with a nod. "Oh, hey. Chief wants to see you." He said simply with a foreboding tone layered with a hidden knowing.

"He does?" Judy questioned, the few times since her move to inactive duty, he had only seen her to check up on her, no different than the other mammals. "I've been doing my reports very carefully, I haven't done anything wrong, right?" Judy asked with a growing worry.

"Woah, woah, woah. Slow yourself there." The wolf leaned over putting a paw on her shoulder shaking her lightly. "Relax now, your reports are just fine." He assured with a calm tone. "Just gonna have to ask him when you get there."

"Right." She agreed nodding several times before pointing towards the exit of the cubical. "Alright, don't want to keep the chief waiting." She made her way readily.

"Oh wait up, let me grab my jacket." And like that the wolf quickly grabbed at the jacket before catching up to her footfalls at the exit of the cubicles. Brass name tags just above eye level of the simple cubical walls for larger mammals read 'Officer Hopps' and just underneath it 'Officer Wolfard' her partner. They left down the hall, but not before she could catch a final glimpse of the digital read of that wall clock.

'7 Months, 2 weeks, 2 days and 23 hours.' She counted against the hour mark of the clock. Seven months, two weeks, two days and 23 hours since that fatal shootout that cost her her previous, auburn-furred partner. "I'm fine." Judy whispered to herself, and for the first time in as many months she actually felt a sincerity in that statement.

"Hm? You need to get another coffee?" The wolf partner beside her inquired.

"Oh, no." She said astutely. "I'm fine." and she meant it.