When Nick wakes up in the morning feeling sore and generally achy all over, he thinks nothing of it. Probably just spend too much time sitting in the police car for the last couple days, he thinks as he drowsily pours himself a cup of coffee and puts two creamers in sluggishly. He looks at the clock and sees he has more than an hour to get to work and lays his head at his kitchen table. He'll just close his eyes for a moment to clear his mind…
An hour later, he groans exasperatedly as his phone lights up with a receiving call from Judy. What could she possibly want this early in the day?!
As soon as he answers the phone, he is barricaded with an onslaught of questions. "Hey, Nick, where are you? There's only five minutes until roll call and you're usually here at least fifteen minutes early so you can coax Clawhauser into giving you a donut or two." She pauses a moment, but when he doesn't answer immediately, she starts speaking again. "Are you okay? Did you get held up in traffic? Are you sick? Hurt? Did you forget to set your alarm? What's going on, Nick?!"
Nick looks at the clock with shock and is angry with himself for actually falling asleep. He clears the sleepiness out of his throat and replies in what he hopes is a light-hearted tone, "Ha, you caught me Carrots! I completely forgot to set my alarm, let our boss know I'll be fifteen minutes late, will ya?"
"… Okay, if you're sure everything is fine. You'd tell me if it wasn't, right?"
Nick is annoyed at the accusation and tries to remain good-natured as he replies. "Calm your tail, Judy. I'll see you in twenty!" He hangs up without hearing a reply.
Standing quickly from his chair, he immediately grabs for the table when his vision turns dark and the world seems to sway. After half a minute the feeling goes away and Nick shakes away any negative feeling by telling himself he was simply dehydrated and needed to drink more water. He grabbed his now lukewarm coffee, placed a lid on the cup and headed out the door.
Chief Bogo is staring Nick down and it's definitely not making him uncomfortable in the slightest. Nope, not at all.
Nick holds onto his coffee cup as if it's his lifeline. "What's my assignment, Chief?" He says, trying to break the ice first.
"Why are you here, Wilde?" Chief suddenly asks, glaring even harder at the fox sitting at desk in his office.
Nick's head has been pounding since he woke up from his kitchen table nap and he takes a moment to realize he's been asked a question. "Uh.. what? Is that a trick question?"
Chief looks even more annoyed as he reaches for what Nick realizes is hand sanitizer. "Why are you here, in my office, spreading your germs everywhere?!" He exclaims angrily as he puts on way more sanitizer than needed.
Nick is even more confused. What was the Chief trying to get at? "I'm just trying to figure out where you sent my partner, Chief. I'll be out of your hair once you let me know."
"It's company policy to call in sick when you have a fever, Wilde. We don't want the entire police force of Zootopia to be out with the flu, now do we?!" The Chief's anger has now dissipated into one of annoyance and… was that concern Nick saw in his eyes?
"I'm pretty sure I'm not sick, Chief." At the Chief's distrustful stare, he amended, "I mean, I guess I'm kind of tired, but who isn't these days? I just need to finish my coffee and I'll be good to go." After his sentence, he takes a sip and grimaces as his throat is unhappy at the lukewarm liquid as it goes down to his stomach, where it churns there unhappily.
"I'd feel more at ease if you saw the nurse anyway, just in case." Chief announces, leaving no room for argument. "If you are sick, I want you home until you have no fever for 24 hours, Wilde."
Nick huffs but says a sarcastic, "Yes, Sir," to his Chief as he stands up to leave the room. Once again, his vision seems to leave him for a few seconds and he grabs the chair for support.
"Nick!" He hears his boss exclaim and stand in concern for his employee. Before anything embarrassing goes down, Nick straightens up and clears his throat again.
"Thanks for the concern, Chief. Just stood up too fast, I guess," He chuckles nervously as he backs out of the office. He is annoyed when he catches the chief watching him closely as he heads for the stairs to go down to the medics' office, where they always had a nurse or EMT on-duty 24/7 for situations just like his. Guess he wasn't going to get out of this one…
Nick steps into the tiny office and sees a middle-aged pig in red scrubs look up from her cellphone quickly, seemingly excited to finally have something to do. She gestures for him to sit at a nearby chair as she grabs some medical tools and asks in too cheerful a tone, "What seems to be the problem, sweetheart? Someone not feeling too hot today?"
Nick is already irritated for some reason. "I'm just tired." He sighs as he runs a paw down his tired face and adds, "and maybe dehydrated. Everyone is making a big deal out of nothing."
The nurse rolled her eyes good-naturedly as she sticks a thermometer in Nick's mouth. "I'm sure they're just worried about you," She says as she pulls out the thermometer and puts it in front of Nick's face. "Especially since you have a fever of 101.6. What are your other symptoms?"
Nick shrugs his shoulders. "I don't have any, that's why I didn't realize I had a fever." He checks his phone and sees he has 12 missed calls from Judy and 33 text messages asking about his whereabouts and safety.
The nurse, who Nick read her nametag and sees is named Cindy, says, "Most people don't just get fevers with zero other symptoms, Honey. Are you sure? No headache, sore throat, stomach pains or anything like that?" She sees Nick huffing impatiently and adds, "I've been doing this for twenty years, there's no need for being embarrassed about any symptoms."
"I'm not embarrassed, I just…" Nick searches for the right words. "… I mean I guess I have a headache, and my throat is definitely not happy today." He squirms uncomfortably at admitting the weakness, looking at his phone as he thought of an excuse to tell his partner.
Nurse Cindy nodded. "Alright. I'll write a 'doctor's note' to give to the Chief. Come back to work when your fever is gone but make sure you check in with the office first."
Nick has absolutely no intention of doing the latter but nods anyway as he snatches the sheet of paper from the Nurse. "Of course Cindy, thanks a lot for all your help today." He hopes he doesn't sound too vindictive, but she doesn't seem upset or annoyed in the slightest.
As he walks out the door he hears Cindy tell him to get plenty of rest and fluids and take a Tylenol when he gets home for the fever. He grunts in acknowledgement as he takes the elevator this time to see the Chief, having no energy for stairs this time.
Chief looks disgusted at the note in Wilde's hands and grabs a handkerchief to handle to paper with. Nick rolls his eyes at his boss's antics and he mutters a bye and leaves the office. He hears Chief Bogo shout after him, "Get some rest Nick, and don't return until you have a clean bill of health! Do you understand?"
Nick turns around and gives his boss two thumbs up and a weary smile, hoping it'll be enough to please the buffalo. On any other day, his chief would've lit his ass for the belligerence but surprisingly his boss let it slide without anything but an eye roll. Nick sighed as he stepped into the elevator again. Out of all the downsides to being sick, not being able to get as high a rise out of Chief Bogo had to be one of the most annoying.
As he entered the main lobby and passed by the front desk, he heard Clawhauser gasp dramatically. "OMG Nick, are you okay?! Judy called me earlier and asked if I had seen you, you've been missing all morning!"
"I'm a little under the weather, Clawhauser, I'm going back home to get some beauty sleep. Can you call Judy back and let her know I'm okay?" As he saw the cheetah eagerly nod, he added, "And definitely do not let her know I'm sick. I do not need a mother hen chasing after me all day long."
Clawhauser looked confused. "Then what am I supposed to tell her, Nick?" He gasped and whispered harshly with narrowed eyes, "Unless you want me to lie for you, which would be totally uncool!"
Nick rolled his eyes but instantly regretted it as it only served to make his head pound even harder, "On second thought, I'll call her and let her know I'm okay. Don't worry about it buddy."
Clawhauser looked worried and Nick decided to exit the building before any words of advice could be exchanged between the two. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket as Judy called again for the 30th time that morning. How was he going to play this off as nothing to her?