Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Cocotato ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.

Judy: 25

Nick: 27

"You know, we probably shouldn't have broken the bank on something this expensive," Judy muttered, filling out the restaurant check and eyeing the bill uneasily. The escargot, gourmet grilled lobster tail, and hefty piece of blueberry cheesecake sat comfortably in her stomach, but the enormous charge convinced her that perhaps she shouldn't have been so extravagant. Nick was eyeing his own bill with a grimace which he was trying (and failing miserably) to disguise as a cheerful smile.

"Oh come on, Carrots!" he said. "You made it through all of your police training without being accidentally stepped on by a rhino! I think that's very deserving of extravagant dinners."

"Sure, if I don't want to have electricity for the next month," she mumbled.

Ah, bills. Her least favorite part of moving away from home.

Nick gave her an incredulous look. "You just achieved your lifelong dream and graduated at the top of your class! I think that deserves a bit in the way of treating yourself."

Judy sighed, looking over her friend. This whole celebratory dinner had been his idea, and he didn't seem to regret it in the least, but she still found herself worrying about him. With his barely-above-minimum-wage factory job, he had a lot less extra money to spare than she did.

She had offered to cover dessert, but it hadn't helped much. His own etouffee had cost a pretty penny.

"I'm sorry," she said suddenly, although she wasn't entirely sure what she was apologizing for. Letting Nick follow through with this? Her making a bigger salary? Him being stuck at the kind of jobs only a fox could get? He gave her a puzzled look, as if wondering the same thing.

"Maybe we shouldn't have done this," she added quickly.

Nick rolled his eyes. "Tsk tsk, always veering on the cautious side these days. What happened to the little Judy who climbed on roofs and took off predators' shock collars just to be rebellious?"

"Shhhh!" She glared at him, eyes briefly flicking around the restaurant to make sure no one had heard.

Nick smirked. "Relax, I'm pretty sure there aren't any recording devices in the napkins."

"Still! You need to be careful about saying stuff like that."

"Okay." His expression faltered slightly, and a tinge of guilt worked its way into his green eyes. "Seriously though, lighten up," he added. "It's not going to ruin your perfect bunny-cop life to splurge a little and take a stupid risk every now and then. I think we've learned that a few times." His grin returned, and she readily grinned back.

"You're such a dumb fox," she said.

He leaned across the table and poked her on the nose. "I only learn from the best!" She giggled.

The waitress, a tall, slender cheetah, came and snatched up their checks and strutted off back toward the kitchen. When she returned, she was smirking slightly.

"Splitting the bill, I see," she said. She turned to Nick. "I think you've found yourself a keeper. Nothing quite as nice as a girl who doesn't expect her date to pay for her!"

"Oh, uh…" Judy's face grew hot. "We're not…he's not…"

"Definitely not," Nick added emphatically.

"My mistake," the cheetah said, still smirking. "For what it's worth though, you two would make a cute couple."

Her tone was teasing, but both bunny and fox burned with embarrassment.

As soon as they got out to the parking lot and climbed into Judy's car, she turned to Nick and forced a smile.

"Phew, sure glad we're out of there!" she said, laughing uncomfortably. "How awkward was that?"

"Very," Nick agreed, sounding equally uncomfortable.

As Judy pulled out onto the street, a short silence fell over them. When Nick spoke up again, his voice had taken on a serious tone.

"Judy?"

"Hmmm?"

"Do you think it's going to…" He hesitated. "Do you think it's going to hurt your job that your best friend's a fox?"

No one has to know. As soon as her mind had formed the thought, Judy wanted to smack herself.

"No, why should it?" she settled for instead, careful to keep her voice casual. "There are lots of predators on the force, it's not like they have something against them."

"Not just any predator, though," Nick argued. "A fox. You know, the ones who are known for being the criminal types." He smiled meekly.

Judy snorted. "Who cares? Anyone knows they're not all like that. I might not mention that popsicle hustling you do on the side, though," she added teasingly.

"Right, I know." His serious look faltered, but only for a second. "I just don't want to get in your way, Carrots."

Judy rolled her eyes. "What are they going to do, fire me? If I have to take some dirty looks from my coworkers instead of ditching my lifelong best friend, I think I'll go with the former."

"Well, thank you." He gave her a small smile. "I appreciate that."

"You really do need to stop with your popsicle business, though," she said with a sigh. "That's super slimy."

"But so lucrative!" he said with a grin. "I'll have you know, I made almost 330 dollars last week, Hopps! How else do you think I was able to buy so much cheesecake?"

"Ah. Of course." Judy rolled her eyes again. It was easy to forget that through his shifty popsicle sales, he actually had quite a bit of money to spare.

No wonder lives of crime appealed to all the foxes trying to scrape by on minimum-wage jobs.

Although Nick looked incredibly pleased with himself at the moment, it was a disturbing thought.

She tried not to dwell on it, turning her attention to turn signals and lane merging and cheesecake and their satiating celebration dinner.

That had to be enough for now, she thought.

Yay, time for an update! My apologies for such a short chapter. If I remember correctly, I was going to tack this onto one of the other chapters, but it didn't really fit with any of them agewise and I wanted to make it its own thing, so here we are. Just a tiny one-shot of Judy and Nick doing fun adulty things, like going out to dinner with no adult supervision! :D And being mistaken for a couple! :D And let's not forget the mandatory depressing aside about how hard foxes have it in the local economy! :D

I DID include this chapter partly for the little snippet where Nick asks if he'll hurt Judy's job, and she basically says "fuck em" even though it's her lifelong dream job. YAY FOR HEARTWARMING MOMENTS! It's pretty brief, but I love that part.

In terms of other important stuff that happens in this chapter…well, there's not much, but it does delve a bit more into my personal headcanon, which is that Judy was the daring, adventurous one as a kid and Nick was the cautious rule-follower, and then they kinda swapped roles when they got older, with Nick being the rule-bending hustler and Judy being the law enforcer! Funny how that works, isn't it? Also, if you don't think the cheeky cheetah waitress was Best Character, you're wrong XD

So yeah, not much going on in this chapter, but here's your update. I promise things will get a bit more exciting next week! Also, we are really on the home stretch with these…only a few more chapters!