Chapter 10

Ali throws herself against her door once she steps inside her small apartment and groans as she slumps to the floor.

The small, white, patterned fox closes her bright blue eyes which were weary from the long trek back to her place. She had been out shopping all day, and she remembers why she absolutely hated it.

But, she didn't have any friends to help her carry her bags, nor a vehicle to get around quickly – so she had been on her feet, laden with bags since that afternoon. She had a hell of a day, but at least the phone she express-ordered had made it to her building (and the janitor was nice enough not to steal it… it has happened before).

Waddling with the heavy load, she moves closer to her bed and drops the clothing bag beside it and then makes her way over to her desk, pushing aside her laptop to open up the box with her new cellphone.

It wasn't anything special, a simple, pay-as-you-go model – but it was necessary, she felt, to have a phone in case of an emergency… or if she makes some friends.

Ali snorts in derision.

She could hope, anyhow.

At least now she's a little closer to being all settled in, she thinks. Ali really doesn't know how to cook much other than the basics, but the kitchen (small as it was) looked like it was operational. So she might just try to make something…

The phone chimes as it comes to life, announcing it has 50% battery life left. The arctic fennec turns the phone over in her paws, inspecting it. Really, she had bought it on a whim – trying to have a new start in a new place, basically with nothing, it was something that had appeared on her brainstormed-shopping list.

Now that she has the phone in her hand, she's not quite sure what she should do with it.

Obviously, enter in her important contacts – at least, that's what she thinks she should do. Instead, she opens up some jellybean game and wastes about twenty minutes playing until the phone announced that it had 40% battery life left.

Blinking she looks at the time and sighs before setting the phone in front of her. She rests her cheek on her right paw, while the other is stretched out and clacking her claws in boredom against the lacquer finish of the cheap desktop. Looking over, she can see her perturbed expression through the reflection on the blackout screen on her laptop. Her scowl deepens and she forces out a loud sigh before straightening in her desk chair and allowing her face to meet the desk with a dull thud.

She realizes that she got a phone with no one to call.

Then she wishes she had gotten the handsome fox's number. Ali supposes it might be hero-worship… or it could have been the deep tones of his voice, which was pleasing to her ears… It could have also been the way that the look of surprise and nervousness laden with exhaustion on his face did not dull the shine to his warm, almost red, brown eyes that had shown relief and happiness when seeing her – whatever it was…

The lady (who felt more like a girl at the moment, and looked like one too) was completely smitten with the fox.

Ali lifts her forehead off the desk about two inches before dropping it back down again with another thud.

She was being stupid. He probably thought she was a kid, or simply wanted nothing to do with her – he was just a good animal. And she had shamelessly flirted with him, probably making him super uncomfortable. The mini, arctic fox turns her head on the desk to look sideways out the window, cheek now smooshed against the desktop and resting slightly on her new phone.

The moon was almost full, and the sky was nearly cloudless.

Looking out the window, resigned, her sapphires glimmer just a bit before closing and taking a deep, calming breath only to release it as a gentle sigh. Her eyes stay closed, and she makes no move to the bed to sleep.

He hadn't emailed her yet.

But maybe she can text that bunny officer? Officer Thianta did give her a number in case she needed help around Zootopia, or someone to talk to.

She scrunches her face, chastising herself for feeling a need to make friends so soon. It shouldn't matter.

As long as she was away from that place and those people, she should be content. Honestly, it would probably be smarter to keep a low profile for the time being, anyways…

But then she wasn't good at that, either.

"Good Morning, Phoebe!" Clawhauser greets her with a smile and an extra note of enthusiasm in his voice.

She just waves her paw lazily and lets out a yawn that shows all her teeth, making the cheetah laugh. He always found her teeth to be amusing, for whatever reason. Though… Ben did tend to find most furry mammals smaller than him to be either cute, or amusing… so she just rolls her eyes and shrugs.

Rubbing at her eye with one paw, she swings her satchel up onto the desk above her head before reaching out with both paws to climb up to her seat. It took two tries, being that she was so tired and uncoordinated. Something had possessed her to watch a marathon of 'Stripes are the new Spots' until 1 a.m. It had seemed like a great idea at the time, but now she was totally regretting it.

"I was watching that show you were talking about, about the female bunny who's imprisoned –"

Clawhauser squeals and even with her dulled senses it's still too grating for this ungodly hour. "Ooooh! Didja like it! It kinda takes a few episodes, but it gets, like, super good real fast!"

Phoebe drags a hand down her face before taking off her police cap and halfheartedly trying to smooth out the fur there before replacing it on her head.

"I did. It was really good, and I lost track of time – I probably got four hours of sleep." The crème – spotted bunny grumbles as she rubs at her eye again, only to startle when Clawhauser snaps his claws in front of her nose.

Well. That helped.

"Wake up! Judy and Nick are here!"

Phoebe fixes her posture and looks down quickly at her uniform, noticing it's a little rumpled she tries to smooth down the front with her paws before looking up as their favorite team reaches the desk.

She smiles and nods, opting to stay silent as Judy speaks with Clawhauser. Something about a new, Gazelle app or song. Wasn't really her cup of tea, to be honest.

This bunny preferred music a little darker, thank you very much.

"No sleep last night, Long-Ears?"

Phoebe doesn't fight the smirk that the nickname pulls on her face and instead leans forward and raises an eyebrow at the red fox.

"Hmm… I see you got yourself some files there." She drawls. Nick just gives her a cocky grin and lifts the stack from his side and into her face. Leaning back, she carefully grabs the file stack and looks at him, unimpressed. Judy must have caught the exchange because she's scoffing and rolling her eyes as she turns to her partner – though the little show of exasperation fails, because a grin pulls on the other bunny's face.

"Officer Thianta here is tired. Too much Carrot Juice?" The fox officer smirks at Phoebe and she just rolls her eyes again.

Clawhauser tsks beside her, "Do that too much and they'll get stuck in your head, hunny bun." This gets Nick to let out a loud and obnoxious guffaw and Judy to laugh cheerfully alongside him – though at least she tried to be more discreet about it until she saw Phoebe was smiling good naturedly and nearly joined her partner on the floor.

As her friends laugh around her, Phoebe is about to roll her eyes again before she stops herself and just ops for pinching the bridge of her nose and sighing loudly. "Okay. You guys… it was not that funny." The crème-colored bunny drops her paw from her face and glares at them, "That was like… two or three seconds of chuckling at most."

Nick inhales sharply and a wide grin threatens to split his face, but what she takes note of mostly is Judy – watching Nick and matching his grin, a hazy, nearly dopey, look in her eyes.

Those two need to wrap this shit up soon or she'll lock them in a closet.

Phoebe struggles to appear nonchalant as she listens to Nick while still trying to eyeball Judy, "It's because it was at you. A joke at your expense. And it was a good one. It was just…" he scoffs in mock frustration and dramatically throws his paws in the air. Nick then goes on to excuse themselves so they can go clock in before heading to the bull pen, and as the fox is walking away, congratulating Ben on his 'quip', Phoebe can't help but notice Judy shuffling back slightly while watching Nick.

Officer Thianta already knew what she wanted – she takes a sticky note and writes down a message.

Judy (sly bunny she is) just raises her paw and waits for a paper to meet it. When it does, she quickly slips it into her pocket – just as Nick turns to call for her, teasing her about being 'lazy' and 'falling behind'. Phoebe watches Judy's smirk turn a little mischievous before she bounds after her partner.

Leaning on the counter, she rests her chin in her paw as she watches the pair disappear down a corridor.

"Did you tell her?"

"Nah. Wrote a note for her to meet up later."

She can feel Ben's scrutinizing stare bore into the side of her head as she redirected her lazy gaze to the front doors of the ZPD where two officers were dragging in a muzzled tiger who was hissing and snarling, his claws locked behind his back as the two elephants muscled him down the corridor leading to the larger cells.

"Oh my gosh, what?!" Phoebe nearly shouts in exasperation as she slaps her paws onto the counter and snaps her head to glare at the cheetah, nose about an inch away from his where he was still looking at her with suspicion.

"Hmmm…" He raises an eyebrow before nodding, as if he just made some sort of decision inside his head or whatever – sitting up he leans back slightly and stretches before trying to act nonchalant.

Her lip threatens to curl in irritation but instead it just twitches before she starts to 'work' too. They were actually productive for all of five minutes before Clawhauser breaks it.

"You gave her some cryptic message, didn't you?"

Phoebe just hums, pursing her lips to hold back a smile.

"Probably just a location and a time," the cheetah huffs.

Still she says nothing as she sorts the files in front of her.

"You are so cruel… stringing her along like that."

A smirk stretches across her face, "You know me too well, Clawhauser."

"And they say I have a flair for the dramatics." He mutters spitefully, which startles a snort out of the long-eared bunny before she traps the rest of the laugh with a paw to her face.

The partners look sideways at each other snickering before simultaneously turning back to their work.

"So, it looks like we will be on a split-shift today." Judy comments unnecessarily to the fox walking, relaxed and lazy beside her.

"Yup. Gunna do some snoopin'," Nick looks over at her and smiles nicely, which she returns. They approach their assigned cruiser and hop in.

"So, Wilde, who do we have?"

Clearing his throat, Nick reads the case-file, "Gaspard Lennings, a.k.a. 'Gassy,'" they both look at each other and try (and fail) to withhold smirks, "is a raccoon who has an affinity for thievery, clawed assault, battery and possession of illegal substance." Judy crinkles her nose and glares ahead at the streetlight as Nick wrapped up the basics in the suspect's file.

"As an anecdote from Finnick, this dude does not play nice." At the serious and stern tone in Nick's voice she turns to look at him and sure enough, his voice matched his face and she draws in a breath.

"He's a dirty fighter with an affinity for using smoke and flash-bang grenades. This guy will try to outsmart us, not out-run us, Carrots."

She draws in a large breath and feels confidence flood into her chest, "Then we will just have to be smarter and faster! We got this, Nick! Don't worry!" Still driving, she chances a glance to her partner who looks a little less serious, but worry is still in his eyes but in a moment it's gone and replaced with a playful smirk and his copper sunglasses.

"Let's just not go in over-confident, Cottontail…" He settles himself into the passengers seat after setting the file safely inside the glove compartment, "Besides… we need to catch our bad-guy in the act before we go cuffing him, don't want all that work to go to waste!" He huffs a laugh before turning to look out his passenger window.

When she sees he's occupied she chances a glance at him and smiles sadly – he never uses the word 'muzzle,' and she absolutely hates the look on his face when they are forced to use them. They usually have dinner once they are off their shift, and she hugs her friend until he's better and then they watch lighthearted kid shows all night. It was tradition, and one that she'll gladly continue whenever her fox needed it.

"Okay Cottontail, stop day-dreamin' and turn left at the second stoplight up ahead. Then we should park two blocks down in an alley. Back into it so we can get a good look at the animals passing by." Nick's gentle, teasing tone brought her out of her head and if she didn't have fur, her cheeks would have been red. Still though, she felt flush from embarrassment and from the kind, knowing look he was giving her. It just made her want to throw her arms over his shoulders and burrow her nose into his neck and breathe.

Clearing her throat (and her mind) she follows his instructions and they set themselves in the alley.

They had a looooong day ahead of them…

The small, marble fox yawns loudly and stretches in her seat. Blinking wearily at her laptop screen she finds that she can barely keep her eyes open. Rubbing her eyes she shakes her head a little to try and rouse herself out of her daze. Ali looks again at the screen in front of her and smiles a little. She was actually able to get a bit of work done – after falling asleep last night at the desk, Ali had woken up and decided to spend the rest of the late evening and early morning getting caught up on her transcribing and coding. She wasn't done with her work… there was a lot to catch up on… but she could afford to take a break.

Now it was about ten in the morning and she was determined to not sleep, regarding– she's never had a proper sleep schedule before, but it wouldn't do her any favors to become a night-fox. Besides… she was starving, and one thing she failed to get yesterday was food. Other than some coffee and snacks here and there, she has yet to have a proper meal and decided right then and there that the next item on her agenda would be acquiring food.

Hopping off her seat and stretching again she decided that a shower would be in order before she heads out for the day.

Ali hums to herself as she jumps up to stand on the edge of the tub beneath the shower head and reaches to turn on the faucet before pulling out the stop to divert the water flow to the shower head. Once that was accomplished, she drops herself down into the tub-shower after pulling on the curtain to close it as much as she can.

With the shower working and warm, she hums to herself as she lathers the soap over her head and behind her ears. Her melodic voice gives a slight echo in the small space as she allows the warmth from the water to soothe and wake her.

Idly she wondered how her old friends were doing. They weren't especially close, but with everything they experienced together it was hard not to form some kind of bond. With thoughts of her old band, she frowns and thinks about her precious guitar – not knowing where she can take it to get it fixed. She knows she's being silly, but she didn't feel like she could trust just any-animal with her guitar… upon closer inspection, it needed more than just a string, there was a crack on the back near the base which may get worse if she doesn't fix it soon.

Still… maybe she'll just get the string fixed and worry about the crack later – she needs to wait for a paycheck, and she's unsure when that will be. She misses playing. It feels like it has been too long since she last played her guitar… or sang.

Finished with her shower, she plugged in and turned on her mini blow dryer, pinning her large ears back to try and quite the loud noise from the small device. When done, she runs a brush through her fur before walking out into the room and pulling open a drawer where she had a few clothes. She pulls on a pair of black leggings and a deep, purple shirt with long, quarter sleeves and a scoop neck. Backing up she looks at her self in the mirror and smiles shyly. Ali turns to look at her back and bites her lip – she has always been a little self-conscious about her coat. From the top of her head and a little in the back of her head was a black diamond-like shape of black fur that stood stark against her bright, white fur. She lifts her tail and swishes it a little; there was a very thin, black stripe of fur leading to the tip, which was completely black. Her tail had more fluff than most fennec foxes, and was a tiny bit longer as well.

Even though she typically hid her tail within baggier clothing, or curled it up under her sweaters so it was out of sight, she personally liked it. She flicks her ears, and tweaks another smile at her new shirt and leggings in the mirror before she turns away and gathers her things before locking up and leaving her flat – feeling giddy and confident for the first time in a long time.

She could feel it was going to be a good day!

They cased the building across the street, rumored that their suspect and fugitive frequented the building for over the past two hours of restless 'observation', the duo decided that their time would be better put to use later in the evening.

"Maybe the guy is sleeping? Aren't raccoons like, nocturnal?"

"Many animals naturally are, yet we still come out during the day – but you may be right…" Judy mumbles and scratches her cheek sleepily. Nick could tell his friend was bored out of her mind, but was too professional to complain, unlike him.

He calls the Chief and gets the 'okay' to abandon the post until their evening shift, until they were to clock out at one o'clock, the cape buffalo wanted them in Sahara Square to take notes on a robbery that had happened earlier that morning.

"Okay, Chief – Wilde out!" The fox hangs up the phone and turns to look at the bunny who is watching him expectantly. He assumes she heard most of the conversation, because there is a shimmer of hope in her eyes. Nick can't help but smirk fondly – he totally knew she was bored.

"Good news, Carrots! We get to case out a robbery!" The fox chuckles when he hears the exasperated bunny sigh and mumble something along the lines of 'finally', before he punches in the address for the incident and they are off.

While they drive, Nick has an idea to maybe clear the air between the two of them – he knows they have both been feeling the tension between them rise, and he is anxious to get things back to normal – or at least, better than how they are now.

Sure, they've had a pretty good day so far, but he has always been sensitive to the bunny's moods, and he can basically feel Judy's apprehension – of what, he's uncertain.

But she can no longer deny that it has nothing to do with him.

Nick thinks back on what Finnick had said while he mindlessly chats with Judy about mundane things on their way to the site. His little foxy friend had a point – he was being hypocritical, and he'd probably be better off telling Judy what she wants to know.

He just needs to find the right time…

"We're here! Let's get this over with." Judy says tiredly, though with a smile on her face – though Nick knows something is wrong. Those words were not normal for his bunny.

She'll ever only use that tone or attitude about work if it's one of the occasional times they are assigned as meter maids (usually as punishment for going 'off book').

He decides to stop her before she completely opens the door and alerts the shopkeeper they had arrived.

"Woah there, Carrots – hang on a second!" Nick keeps his tone light and jovial, trying to stay as close to normal as possible.

Judy turns to look at him, one paw on the door handle like she's waiting to escape. Nick unbuckles his seatbelt and crawls slightly across the large cruiser until he's sitting closer to his bunny, he notices the hitch in her breath and her eyes grow a bit wider. His keen, green eyes catalogue these reactions to analyze later, then he reaches out a paw and sets it gently over her knee. He can feel her muscles stiffen at his touch and he tries not to frown – he feels his face fight the reaction and he supposes his face looks like he's grimacing, but he needs to bite this out before he chickens out. Again.

"Look, I know you have questions, I have questions too. Things have been weird between us, and I want us to have a talk… so… at lunch? We have a few hours before our night shift. I think then would be a good time." Nick sees her open her mouth to retort but he leans away a little and shakes his head, stopping her before she starts.

"I know we had mentioned we'd wait until after the case, but I don't think we should –" Nick gives her a pleading look, one that he knows she can't turn down.

His heart is pounding loud in his chest and he wonders if the rabbit can hear it. The two seconds before she sighs and answers felt like an hour – "Okay." She whispers, letting go of the door and clutching at the sleeve of his uniform, she leans into him a bit, making her have to look up at him. It's his turn for his breath to hitch, and a wave of warmth rushes under his fur – he knows he looks nervous or… something, because she gives him a shaky smile of reassurance before pecking him on the cheek and pulling away.

The fox officer comes back to reality with the slamming of the cruiser's door. Nick jolts, shaking himself out of his daze and trying to calm his rapidly beating heart before he shimmies over to his side of the car and letting himself out after grabbing his notepad and sunglasses from the console.

Nick is more than happy to let Judy do all the talking, as usual.

The only difference in this interview is that Nick hardly says a word, afraid of whatever may come from their, now scheduled, conversation.

He just hopes he doesn't ruin the only good thing in his life. Nick watches Judy as she flawlessly handles the interview with the victim, and it's only after he sees the shopkeeper's husband give him a funny look that he tears his admiring eyes away from the bunny of his affections and decides to take case the shop, pretending to look for evidence.

Author's Note:

Sorry about the long wait, I had a really hard time trying to set things up. The next two chapters will have romance and drama... I will try to get into a better head space - promise.

Anyways, hope this can hold you over! Got a lot of Nick and Judy coming in the next chapter, and I will bring in Finnick.