Judy stared out of the train window, watching the streets of Zootopia race by. From the heated plains of Sahara Square, to the frozen wastes of Tundratown, and the rain-soaked jungles of the Rainforest District, they flew by in little more than a blur as she milled over the plethora of thoughts cluttering her head.

Perhaps the most important of which was how she would explain to her parents why she, as well as her partner, would be unexpectedly visiting Bunnyburrow. They knew she was coming, of course, and that her partner was with her, but that was all Judy had managed to tell her mother before a series of crashes had drawn both parents away from the phone. The distraction was both timely and untimely, giving Judy a chance to think over the conversation she would inevitably have with her parents after they found out she intended to bring a fox into their home.

Speaking of said fox, Judy looked to her right, pursing her lips as she looked over Nick. He was wearing an outfit similar to when she had first met him – khaki pants, a yellow-green floral print shirt, and loose blue and purple striped tie. He was fidgeting in his seat, eyes fixated on the glass ahead of them rather than anything outside. It bothered Judy to see such uncharacteristic nervousness from the fox; you would imagine that years of being a conmammal would find ways to remove any semblence of the feeling.

"Hey, Nick?" She said, reaching out and gently setting her paw on the fox's left arm. It took a small shake from her for the fox to take notice, shaking his head before looking down at her, attempting to throw on his most casual expression.

"Yeah?"

"Relax," Judy said, offering Nick a reasurring smile. "This trip will be fine."

"Relax? I am relaxed, Carrots," Nick replied, rolling his eyes slightly. "I'm the embodiment of relaxed. I am-"

"Rambling to buy time," Judy interrupted, giving a small laugh. Nick dipped his head, reluctantly admitting to it. "I'm serious, everything is going to be fine. We're only visiting long enough to recover, and Bogo says this puts us well away from the city so we can relax. Which is what we're supposed to be doing. So you," she paused, lightly punching Nick's shoulder. "Need to work on that."

Nick sighed. "You're right, we should relax. Except for the part where I'm going to be fox tazed the moment your dad sees me. Or the way your siblings will all start rumors of how I'm going to eat you. Or that I secretly have six arms and am a demon come to eat the kits in the middle of the night. Or-"

"Nick, you're being ridiculous," Judy sighed. "No one will taze you, and no one's going to think you're going to eat them."

"And you're sure about it?" Nick asked.

"Sure as anything," Judy confirmed with a nod. "Besides, I'm sure they'll love you."

"Ha. Yeah..." Nick let his voice trail off as he returned his gaze to the window across from them. Judy wasn't entirely convinced that she had gotten Nick to stop worrying, but he seemed visibly more relaxed than before. Judy couldn't blame him for being tense, though, between everything that had happened in the past few weeks, and was still happening.

This was the next thing her mind turned to: what had led up to this train ride. Months ago, she and Nick had been assigned a seemingly simple case, that of an unidentified vigilante. It would later turn out that this fox vigilante was trying to prevent large amounts of Night Howlers from falling into the grasp of a group they called Phraxus. Through a long series of events, she and Nick had teamed up with the vigilante to put a stop to Phraxus – freeing hostages, recalling Night Howlers, performing late night 'raids' and 'missions' to retrieve information on who made up Phraxus. In the end, it was worth it – they had met up with a contact of the vigilante's, who had been pulling as much information on Phraxus as they could, and gave the information to the ZPD. The ZPD, in turn, gave the information to both the ZIA and ZBI, who searched through it and validated everything.

As it turns out, Phraxus had been operating for some time, but not always in Zootopia. And the leader of the entire group was none other than one Viggo Capeli, an abnormally large arctic fox and former CEO of the technology company Brightwater Industries. The same company that was being used as a basis for Phraxus and had its former CEO - who had faked his death in order to secretly monitor Phraxus - Arctic Brightwater, gathering information. Arctic was the vigilante's contact who had pulled the information leading to the Phraxus' downfall.

And to add to the confusion, the vigilante was Nick's cousin, Robin Wick. A duster-toting red fox with an unclear history and affinity for combat.

Judy shook her head, trying to regain her focus. It was clear to her, looking back on things, that they easily and quickly got very muddled and confusing if she wasn't careful. The reason she and Nick were being sent away was to recover from a car accident. She and Nick, along with a few other officers, had been sent to apprehend Viggo Capeli and transport him to a rather sudden court hearing for a trial of various crimes he had done under the name of 'Fangs', leader of Phraxus. Unfortunately, their cruiser had been hit by a stolen SWAT vehicle and both officers rendered unconcious. While they were out, Capeli had somehow made it to the home of Robin, where he had beaten the vigilante before shooting him. Robin managed to shoot Capeli as well, however. As the arctic fox had died mere seconds after his wound, Robin had been shot in a way as to begin bleeding out over a lengthy period of time.

When Judy came to, she was in a hospital and being bandaged for her injuries from the crash. Nick was still being treated, and it didn't take long for them to learn of his cousin's current state. He was then, and still currently, in bad shape – the reynard had nearly bled out before he was given medical treatment. And on top of that, there was a lack of blood to give him, so Nick had to donate shortly after he had awoken.

Unfortunately, during their stay in the hospital, there was an attack on the Tunradown branch of the University of Zootopia had been attacked. Judy hadn't been told many of the details, but she knew exactly who had done the attack: Phraxus. They had sent someone into the building to add a unique Nighthowler-based gas through the air ducts.

The result, as one could've imagined, was disastrous. By the time the ZPD and medical personell reached the building, over a dozen mammals were in critical condition or injured, or savage, or both. Thankfully, there were no fatalities, but it frightened Judy to see how quickly things had escalated. One minute the University was going about its day normally, and the next, it was chaos.

The rabbit shook her head, choosing not to dwell on the negativity of the situation. It had been contained and taken care of, and that was what mattered right now. Instead, she moved on to the next event leading up to this train ride.

The day after she and Nick had recovered enough to leave the hospital (really, it was only one day), Chief Bogo had given them very clear orders: Take care of the paperwork on their desk, then take a temporary leave. After what the duo had gone through, and the multitude of injuries they sustained, the Chief wanted them sent away and out of his tail while he took care of the new situations coming up. And while he admitted he didn't enjoy the idea of removing two of his best officers from the field, he also explained to them about how he knew they would only get into even more trouble if he let them stay. And, in his exact words, he "can't afford enough scotch to deal with that" – to which Nick replied: "I'm sure you could find a way, boss."

The Chief sighed heavily and just pointed to the door, growling "Paperwork. Then leave."

And that was exactly what they did. While they were working on the literal mountain of paperwork (Well, not exactly a mountain, more of a hill), they were given papers signed by the Chief explaining how he wanted them out of the Precinct for at least two weeks – the majority of which was so they could use some of their days off from last year.

Two days later, the paperwork was done, and they were on an outgoing train to Bunnyburrow. It had taken some time for Judy to convince Nick to come along, but he relented when Judy gave him her cutest pleading look. That wasn't to say he didn't complain, however. The fox had grumbled indignantly about how Judy cheated to get him to come along, but he had stopped complaining once they met on the platform, and instead became nervous and agitated as they got onto the train.

Judy knew it was because he was going to meet her family. A short time after Nick had joined the force with her, she had explained how her overprotective dad had been the one to give her the fox repellant, and laughed at mentioning how he had also tried giving her a fox taser and other anti-fox items. Nick wasn't so amused by the thought.

The bunny leaned back and pressed her head against the window behind her, feeling the vibrations of the train runnin through her. It was somewhat comforting, the simple feeling. It reminded her of when she was little, how the large tractors felt when she sat in her fathers lap. She fell asleep more often than not on those trips, and it seemed like this would be no exception as she let out a yawn. She could feel Nick chuckle beside her, but he didn't comment on it.

A few minutes later, and she was snoring softly, tipping over and resting her head against Nick's arm. The fox smiled softly and, being careful about his movements, lifted his arm and put it around Judy. It was a great comfort to him, just knowing that she was there. She gave him hope that this trip wouldn't be a disaster.

A few more minutes later, and the fox was also asleep, head titled back as he let out slightly louder snores, but a smile on his face.

~ óÓÒò ~

So here it is, finally! The start of the story that I wanted to first write, but felt needed a prequel, and underwent some major changes.
These chapters are likely to be shorter than those in ANFiT, at least for the time being, and it's going to take a while to get back into the thick of things. I think these two deserve a little R&R, don't you?