When Nick finally got his emotions under control, he made all the necessary arrangements for his mother's body before he took a cab home. He tossed and turned all night, his mind too awake to sleep and his body too exhausted to do anything else.

The next morning, Judy was furious that he hadn't called her immediately after his mom passed away. He deflected her anger by saying he'd been busy filling out paperwork and hadn't felt like talking to anyone anyway.

Three days later, Nick was surprised to see so many officers at the funeral. He was glad, because otherwise the service attendance would have been pretty sparse. It felt weird to Nick, seeing everyone out of uniform, especially Chief Bogo. The Chief told Nick to take a few weeks off, or more if he needed it.

Judy stood next to Nick while several mammals waited to give him their condolences. "Thanks for coming, Ben." Nick shook Clawhauser's paw as the cheetah sniffled before he pulled the fox into a crushing hug. "Urgh… not so tight. It's ok, big guy," Nick patted the cheetah on the back and looked at Judy imploringly.

Judy came to his rescue, grabbing one of Clawhauser's arms and pulling him away. Nick mouthed a silent thank you to Judy while she led the blubbering cheetah off to follow the last of the ZPD officers walking to their cars.

Nick smiled up at Rita when she stepped forward and pulled him in for a hug with her trunk. "Hi, Rita. Thanks for coming."

"I wouldn't have missed it, Nick. You and your mom are like family to me." She leaned in and spoke quietly. "It's ok to cry, you know."

Nick shrugged. "I'm all cried out, I guess."

Rita shook her head. "If you need anything, you know where to find me."

Rita walked away to make room for Sally when she came to speak to Nick. The vixen tried to get him to open up, but Nick withdrew and slipped on the face he always wore, the comfortable mask of snarky humor he used to hide his true feelings from the world.

After they talked for a few minutes, she was able to finally convince Nick to let her help him empty his mom's house. Nick wanted to sell it quickly, and he knew he could use the extra help, even if it came at a price.

Nick surveyed the bedroom and his tail drooped. "This house… it's a minefield of regrets for me. The sooner I can clear it out and sell it, the better."

Sally, who was emptying a nearby dresser, looked at him and spoke. "So you're going to sell the house because you can't deal with your emotions?"

He turned to give the vixen a puzzled look. "What? No, my emotions have nothing to do with it. Look, it's a big house, and it's just me. I don't need the extra hassle right now anyway."

Sally came over and put her paw on Nick's arm.

"What if you want to ever, you know, settle down? It's crazy, but it could happen someday, right?"

Nick pulled away from her and picked up a small box from the dresser before he sat on the bed. He opened the box and stared at the contents.

Sally nervously looked down at her feet. "Sorry, it's none of my business."

Nick sighed. "No, I'm sorry." He smiled at her. "Thanks for helping me, Sally."

Sally went back to emptying the dresser as Nick dug through the box filled with thread, thimbles, and other miscellaneous sewing items until he jabbed his paw on an oversized straight pin with a little carrot head. He frowned and shook his paw before he closed the box.

Nick looked at Sally. "I remember the costume I begged my mom to make for me when I was just a little kit. I said I wanted to be an elephant, just like Rita."

Sally smiled at Nick. "That sounds so cute… do you still have it?"

Nick nervously looked at the box in his paw. "Oh, it's probably around here somewhere. I never did tell Ma that I wanted to wear it when I went for walks with Rita, so the other mammals wouldn't know that I was a fox."

The vixen paused and stared at Nick, her mouth agape. She started to speak, but Nick interrupted her and held out the box.

"Do you want any of this sewing stuff?" She smiled weakly before she nodded and took the box from him.

Several months later, at the end of summer when things were slow at the ZPD, Chief Bogo assigned Nick and Judy to work with the second precinct to help with some missing mammal cases. Two foxes had disappeared in the past two weeks, and evidence indicated that the first fox to go missing, Edward "Eddie" Escurro, was a known associate of Nick's dad, John Wilde. Neither Eddie nor John seemed to be connected to the second missing fox, as far as anyone could tell.

As Judy and Nick poured over the missing mammal case files, she knew something was bothering him. Since he and Sally had been dating for a few months, Judy had a pretty good idea that it had something to do with the vixen. She also knew that directly asking him would be pointless. If she could figure out a way to bring up the issue indirectly, she might get him to talk.

Judy looked up from the case file she was reading when Nick put a cup of coffee on the conference room table in front of her. "Thanks. Hey, we haven't hung out in ages, since you've been pretty busy selling the house. Maybe we could all go out to dinner after work sometime this week? I want you both to meet someone."

Nick put his coffee cup on the table before he sat down and spoke. "Really? Uhh… well, you see, Sally and I aren't… together anymore."

"You broke up with Sally? What happened?"

Nick shrugged. "The usual. So, tell me about this guy you met."

Judy gave Nick an annoyed look before she continued. "Ok… yeah, he's a rabbit named Wil. I met him at that talk I gave at the high school a few weeks ago-"

"Wow, you're so desperate that you've started trolling high schools for dates?"

Judy rolled her eyes. "No, you dumb fox, he's my age. His younger brother, Henry, goes to the school. Wil has been raising his siblings ever since their parents passed away. At least I know he's good with kids, since Henry seems ok."

"Why are you so obsessed with finding a guy who likes kids, when you don't plan on having any?"

"I've told you a million times, I want kids, eventually. Just not right now."

"What about his siblings, don't they count?"

"This is… different, I guess? I've never dated anyone with kids before." Judy looked puzzled for a moment before she smiled. "On the bright side, I can evaluate his parenting skills firsthand."

Nick chuckled and shook his head. "You're quite the romantic bunny, Carrots."

Later that day, Nick and Judy found out a third fox named James had been reported missing.

Over the next few days, while several officers from the second precinct pursued leads on the other two foxes, Nick and Judy chased down leads on Eddie and John. With the help of Mr. Big, they created a list of mammals who might have a vendetta against either of the foxes or who might know where they were. Put together with their rap sheets, the list of mammals to find and question about Eddie's disappearance was almost as long as Nick's arm.

One morning, Nick drove the cruiser to the second precinct while Judy sorted through the list.

Judy shook her head. "Wow, your dad was really good at pissing off mammals, wasn't he?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah, it's one of the many endearing traits he passed on to me."

"Wait, did you just make a joke about your dad?"

"Forget it, Carrots. I still don't want to talk about him."

Judy put the list into a brown satchel before she pulled out a letter and opened it. Her nose twitched while she read. "Aww, my mom wrote that my Great Uncle Stan passed away."

Nick nodded again. "Sorry to hear that, Carrots."

Judy shrugged. "It's ok, I didn't know him that well. In a family as big as mine, we get these kinds of letters pretty regularly, almost as often as we get birth announcements."

Nick chuckled, and Judy read the letter aloud. "Great Uncle Stan died peacefully in his home, surrounded by his family…" Her ears drooped and she trailed off. Judy put the letter back in the envelope and returned it to the satchel.

Nick ignored her reaction for several moments before he sighed and said, "What's wrong Carrots?"

"Oh, it's just the letter reminded me… I was going to tell you that Wil and I broke up."

Nick glanced at her. "I'm sorry, Judy. That didn't last long, did it?"

"Yeah, well you know how impatient I am. I don't just rush into relationships… I guess I'm always in a hurry to get to the end of them, too."

"What happened?"

"I'll tell you if you tell me why you broke up with Sally."

Nick snorted and sat silently while Judy tried not to smile.

Several minutes later, Nick said, "Fine. If it'll make you talk about your dumb bunny feelings, so we can get it over with… " He sighed loudly before he continued. "I was such a jerk to her, when she only wanted to get close to me. Also, she kept pressuring me to move in with her. And of course, she wants to have lots of kits right away. Same old song, different day. There, are you happy now?"

"Did you try talking to her? You know, tell her how you feel?"

Nick rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah… of course. But every time we talked, we ended up chasing our tails and having the same arguments over and over." They sat in silence for several minutes before Nick said, "We're really terrible at this, aren't we?"

Judy smiled wanly. "Luckily we've got some missing foxes to distract us from our sad little love lives."

Nick's ears flattened against his head. "They're probably just hiding from angry vixens or something."

Judy shook her head and scolded him. "Real positive attitude you've got there, Nick."

The fox grinned at her. "I'm just trying to get it into your little bunny head that I'm a chronic loner, so you'll stop trying to fix me up with vixens. Besides, you've got your own relationship problems to deal with. Speaking of which, why did you and Wil break up?"

"I caught him cheating on me."

Nick frowned. "Oh brother. I spilled my guts for that? You sly bunny."

Judy laughed and stuck her tongue out at Nick. "Well, if you weren't so emotionally constipated, I wouldn't have to trick you into talking to me about this stuff all the time."

"Dumb emotional bunnies."

Judy folded her arms and frowned. "Stupid emotionally stunted foxes."

They glared at each other for a moment, before they both looked away as they tried to hide their smiles from each other.

They narrowed the list down to mammals known to still be in Zootopia and spent the rest of the day turning over rocks to see if they could find out more about Eddie.

After they finished chasing down a series of dead ends, they heard that the body of the second fox who went missing had been found. Judy worried for the rest of the day and into the night. She hugged Nick and told him to be careful when he dropped her off before he returned the cruiser to headquarters.

Nick was so tired he had a hard time keeping his eyes open on the train ride home. He finally arrived at the rundown hotel, an aging brick building that had been converted to tiny apartments sometime before he was born.

Nick crossed the dilapidated lobby and walked past the broken elevator before he climbed the stairs to the third floor. He stepped out of the stairwell and froze. Something smelled… different. He sniffed, but the scent was faint.

As he walked past a darkened hallway, a figure charged out of the shadows and swung a pipe at his head. Nick jumped back and raised his right arm, which took the brunt of the blow as the pipe slammed into him with a sickening crunch.

With a startled yelp, Nick fell backward and his head smashed into the wall. He opened his eyes, his vision blurry as he tried to focus on the badger standing over him. He thought he heard angry shouting before the badger hit him again and everything went dark.