Friday had been a disjointed series of events that had started almost immediately once Judy had gotten to work. The first thing Lieutenant Uncia did that morning was hand out several forms and command everyone to fill them out. Page one had been simple background information, mostly involving place of residence, personal and professional references, and similar details. Page two was a questionnaire that focused on involvement in illegal activities. Every page after that was blank aside for simple instructions at the very top asking for a personal account of the day Nick had been abducted.

It was, Judy realized, the very first steps of the coming IA investigation. Apparently Bogo hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said they would move quickly. All at once she found herself facing a monumental decision, one she had been hoping to have more time to consider. Did she come clean, or remain silent and try to survive the investigation?

Every time she looked at Nick his eyes were on her. She knew which choice he thought was best, and a lot of what he said made sense. Her deal with Mr. Big hadn't been about personal gain. She hadn't taken a bribe. She'd saved a life, and so what if it was the life of someone she cared about? Even if she cared about him deeply. Any system that could fault her for doing that didn't seem fair.

At the same time she understood why IA would want to take extra care to ensure that someone like Mr. Big didn't hold influence with any of the ZPD's officers. It wasn't like the ones conducting the investigation made the rules, they were simply doing their jobs—just like her—and anything she put down would be considered sworn testimony. Telling lies simply didn't sit right.

So she tried to pick the middle ground. For her personal account she simply told the truth, but left out specific details that might get her in trouble. She admitted to calling a friend, but left out that the friend in question was Mr. Big's daughter and skipped over her talk with the crime boss entirely. All the times she'd covered for Nick in the past made it easy, though she was under no illusions about what she was doing. Simple omission was still profoundly dishonest even if she wasn't actually telling outright falsehoods.

From that they went right into planning for Monday's operation. And an argument between Nick and Lieutenant Uncia. Nick was insistent that they take the opportunity to arrest Flip on Monday, arguing that the other fox was too dangerous to leave on the loose. The lieutenant dismissed his proposal because, in her words, Nick was too emotionally involved to give an unbiased judgment. She was convinced that Flip was a middleman who could lead them to more dangerous criminals, and as such it was too soon to make any arrests.

So they would be out fishing for information again, although this time Judy was going to find herself in the field. Fangmeyer and Snarlof would be kept in reserve to act as heavy backup if necessary, which left it up to her to handle observation. Besides, she was small enough to get in unnoticed and already knew the different vantage points the warehouse's skylights provided.

Just half an hour before the day ended Chief Bogo posted assignments for Founder's Day. She'd been so exhausted that she'd considered just going home, but all the other officers seemed eager to find what they'd been given so she'd taken a look as well. That was when she'd learned that roughly half of Precinct One was apparently slated to take part in a parade, while everyone else was expected to maintain order. She and Nick, as the most junior officers on the roster, had been tasked with ensuring that no revelers who happened to overindulge in drink crossed the boundary into Little Rodentia.

Come Saturday the first thing she did after waking up was go for her usual weekend jog. Setting out so early, with just the first hints of light beginning to peek above the horizon, filled her with no small amount of apprehension. The break-in still weighed heavily on her mind and sometimes she peeked out the window just to make sure nobody was trying to watch her, though more often she just kept the curtains closed now. Nick's warning that she might want to move didn't do much to calm her worries, but there no way she could afford to lose her deposit. While she was out she crossed paths with two foxes, and both times she'd done a double take just to be sure it wasn't Flip.

When she'd gotten back she immediately took a quick shower, then checked her email and saw that her account on Lifeline had been approved. A new sort of nervousness took hold of her as she went to finalize the registration, afraid of what she would find despite her desire to explore the entire forum. Immediately after her account activated she received several messages. The first was a simple welcome and a reminder that she should read and abide by the board's rules. The second was a reminder that personal information was forbidden on the board, and provided advice on how to avoid common mistakes. Finally, there was a message informing her that her account was currently on a probationary period, and as such some of the boards would still remain hidden from her.

She didn't know where to start. What had been a couple of sub-forums viewable to the public was transformed into over thirty, covering topics from dating to current events to general advice. With so many choices she ended up just drifting from board to board, simply reading any thread with a tagline that caught her interest.

Compared to everything she'd seen thus far it was an incredible deluge of information, and was at once reassuring and terribly frightening. Being unwillingly outed to family, friends, or at work was the collective nightmare, and there were numerous threads begging for advice after the poster had been unexpectedly confronted about their sexuality. About half those stories ended with the poster being disowned or otherwise driven away, and most of those with "good" endings amounted to little more than uncomfortable acceptance. One poster told the horror story of having been forcibly enrolled in religious conversion therapy.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the community was desperate for role models it could look up to, and although it seemed to be frightfully close to outing the off-topic forum frequently featured posts that speculated about different public figures. Gazelle came up numerous times, largely because of the provocative shows she gave with her tiger backup dancers. Most of the board seemed to believe she was, at most, a potential ally—after all she was a celebrity and causing controversy was just another way to maintain popularity. Still, there were a few die-hards who drew hope from the idea that she was "one of us" and used any fresh gossip as an excuse to resurrect the topic.

Half an hour passed before she stumbled upon a topic that made her stop. Children. Obviously predator/prey couples (like most interspecies pairings) were incapable of having children of their own, but there were a few options open to those who wanted to raise a family just the same. Adoption would have seemed like the easiest, but to Judy's surprise very few couples had any success with that route. The problem, it seemed, was that adoption required the adoption agency's approval. In many instances court approval was necessary as well. Those involved in the approval process apparently tended to be fairly conservative and frowned upon interspecies couples adopting for fear that it would cause a child to grow up confused. Predator/Prey couples had it worse still, and the few successes Judy found generally involved having only one individual sign up for the adoption as a single parent—a route that took additional steps and ultimately meant the other partner didn't have parental rights which could obviously cause headaches down the line. It also put the arrangement at risk if the adoption board ever decided to review the case.

Artificial fertilization with a sperm donor had more successes, but similar problems. A sympathetic fertility clinic was almost a requirement, and sometimes a bad experience with the wrong physician caused couples to find themselves blacklisted from many clinics at once. Beyond that, a few posters admitted to having regrets that the child was only related to one parent. A few even reported that their child had trouble with being picked on at school, and in many cases the faculty was appallingly unhelpful in addressing the problem.

There was one more possibility that was suggested, though the wording was so circumspect that at first Judy didn't realize the posters were suggesting what amounted to a series of bar crawls ending in one night stands. With so many obvious risks to that solution she could barely believe anyone would actually take things that far, but apparently it was considered the method of last resort by those that had explored other possibilities without success. She had trouble imagining just how desperate someone must be for children to take things so far.

But at the same time she found herself lingering on the topics regarding children, revisiting them over and over and over. Ever since she'd started to dream about being a cop she'd been steadfast in her insistence that she wouldn't make compromises when it came to her future. She'd wanted to be a cop, and a real one at that. Not a mall guard. Not a member of some private security force. A real cop, serving in the ZPD. It had been her unwillingness to compromise that gave her the drive to work and struggle and fight until she finally reached her goal.

Now she was coming to realize there were other parts to the dream she hadn't ever thought about. They'd just been assumed. Of course she was going to get married someday, and even if she didn't want to have too many kits she certainly wanted to be a mother. It was just another phase of her life she taken as pre-ordained, but now…

For some reason she found she could close her eyes and see herself living a happy life with Nick, but doing so made any hint of kits fade into mist—no longer the certainty she'd always believed they would be. Or she could look at her future babies until they came into focus once more, but Nick suddenly vanished into nothingness to be replaced by some bunny she didn't know and certainly didn't love. Either path she took meant giving something up, and the realization tore at her. She continued coming back to the question time and time and time again, gradually working herself into a knot of roiling emotions as she tried to find some third way that just didn't seem to exist.

Then her phone rang, nearly scaring her out of her skin. She almost dropped it as she fumbled to answer, her train of thought scattered as she recognized the precinct's number. There was only one reason for them to call during one of her days off: they wanted her to come in.

Nick wasn't terribly surprised to see Judy was already at the station when he arrived. If they had called him in it only made sense that she would be as well, but because he preferred to sleep in when possible he'd needed a good half-hour to make himself presentable. There was no doubt in his mind that Judy had risen early, so of course she would beat him.

What did surprise him was that he also saw Snarlof. And Fangmeyer. And Lieutenant Uncia. And the Chief. And a half-dozen mammals in suits wearing sunglasses that he'd never laid eyes on before. One look at the strangers told him they were there in some official capacity, the way they carried themselves was full of self-important purpose. A sour taste filled his mouth.

I'm just going to guess that they're IA, he thought as he took out his own sunglasses and put them on. Guess they really do move quickly.

He didn't have very long to take stock of the situation before everyone was informed that they were officially under investigation, and that IA would be interviewing them each individually. They were then immediately broken up, and Nick found himself sitting in one of the station's interview rooms with a rather stern looking buck whitetail deer. Without any explanation the deer sat and began to flip through a file, reviewing the contents silently. Although Nick couldn't read the pages from where he sat he recognized a few of the papers as the forms he'd filled out yesterday.

"Do you actually need me here, or did you simply want me watch you catch up on your school work?" Nick asked.

The deer paused for a moment, then took out a pen and wrote something before he spoke. "Officer Wilde, I recommend that you take this investigation seriously."

"Oh I am, believe me," Nick said, leaning back in his chair. "I take anything that drags me out of bed on my day off seriously. Especially when it then starts to waste my time."

A pause, a sigh, and the deer took his sunglasses off. In his eye there was a disdain Nick hadn't seen for quite some time, the type that most mammals reserved for when they were confronted with something particularly distasteful like rotted food or raw sewage. Or, in this case, a fox.

"Very well. I am Agent Forester. Officer Wilde, you are officially under investigation for suspected corruption and criminal connections, specifically to Mr. Big and his syndicate. As this is the criminal phase of the investigation you are entitled to representation by a lawyer, provided by yourself or the Police Officer's Union. Any statements made by you, verbal or written, are hereby considered evidence and sworn testimony that can be brought against you during trial. Moving forward, any and all actions you have taken while in uniform, or otherwise acting in official capacity, are open for review. Do you understand?"

The buck fired off the statement so rapidly that Nick wondered just how many times he'd said similar things in the past. "I do."

"Would you like to make a statement before I begin?" Agent Forester asked.

"No, I just want to get this over with so I can head back home."

Agent Forester's eyes closed and he tilted his head, swinging his antlers first to one side and then the other as he popped his neck. "I'm going to be up front with you, Officer Wilde. I've made you the focus of this investigation—" Big surprise. "—so I would recommend that you treat myself and my fellow agents with all of the respect we are due."

Nick paused to consider the deer, noting the agent's stiff posture and condescending expression. Three points on each antler. Cleanly pressed outfit without a trace of dirt. Freshly laundered, judging by the scent. Wedding band on the left hand. Family man. Career man. Just enough experience to be confident he'd seen it all. Even his pen was one of those expensive, designer things. Arrogant.

"What makes you think it was me?"

"Because you are the only one I can see who had anything to gain from Mr. Big's intervention, Officer Wilde," the deer said as he began to flip through the file again. "To say nothing of the many questions that I have regarding your past. You put down on your ZPD application that you were self-employed? Yet according to your tax records you had no earnings for…fourteen years. That can't be true however, as the residence you've just moved out of was extraordinarily nice for someone with no income."

How many times was that going to come back to bite him? At least this time he was prepared.

"All the forms are accurate. Technically. I put down self-employed because I did not have a job at the time," Nick said. He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up. "I tried to do odd jobs, however that didn't really pan out."

The deer took a few more notes. "Then how did you pay your rent, Officer Wilde?"

"Pan handling," Nick lied, yawning a little bit. "With a good corner and the right act you can make a surprising amount in a day."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"Not particularly, but it's the truth. I partnered up with a few smaller mammals, the cute ones everyone mistakes for children, and split what we made at the end of the day," he said with shrug. "Everything we got was a gift, which is tax free under a certain amount, and since no one mammal was handing us fat stacks of cash…"

"I think I get the picture," Agent Forester said. "You wouldn't have kept any records of this, would you?"

Nick rolled his head back to look at the ceiling. "Of my begging? Was I expected to hand out receipts?"

"Never mind, that was a stupid question—"

"Yes, it was. Are we done?"

"No." Agent Forester gave him a stern look. "Frankly I am a little confused about why someone like you would suddenly decide to become a cop, Officer Wilde."

"I thought it was time I tried doing something productive with my life. Seems like the sort of thing the city would want to encourage."

"Actually I was talking about your family. Specifically your father," the deer said, turning to a new page in the file. "According to city records, your father was incarcerated for drug possession with intent to distribute."

Nick clamped his jaw shut and took his feet off the table. "He was innocent."

"Really? Because according to the police report a fox was seen selling drugs in your neighborhood, and at the time of arrest your father had over a kilo of—"

"That wasn't his," he said, ears folded back.

"Oh?" Agent Forester clasped his hands together. "I suppose he just found it on the sidewalk then. And that his confession was just a silly misunderstanding on our part."

"My father worked at the western quarry and was away for weeks at a time because he couldn't afford to take the train home every day. How the heck was he supposed to sell drugs when he wasn't even in the area?" Nick said, looking right into the deer's eyes. "But the prosecution didn't care about that, because possession over a certain amount automatically becomes intent to distribute. His public defender said a jury would only see a fox accused of selling drugs to kids—prey kids—and convinced him to take a plea deal since it was his first offense."

Agent Forester was writing again. "I see. Well, there are no other arrests on his record, however you didn't provide your father's contact information. Are you currently estranged?"

"No," Nick said, crossing his arms. "Are we done?"

"Officer Wilde, I will inform you the moment we are finished," Agent Forester said. "I have been more than patient with you, and your attitude is beginning to make me suspect you have something to hide. This investigation requires I look into all of your past connections, including your ex-con father. Now, you will give me a way to contact him, or I will have you arrested for obstruction."

Moron, Nick thought as he pulled out his phone. Without a word he dialed his mother's number, then slid the phone across the table to the deer. "Knock yourself out. Please."

The agent stopped the phone's slide with the file and gave him a curious look before he held it up to his ear. "Hello? Oh, no Mrs. Wilde, this is not your son. My name is Agent Forester," the deer said. "I'm with Internal Affairs and was wondering if you could assist me. I've been looking for a way to contact Officer Wilde's father and—excuse me? … No, ma'am I— … Forgive me, Mrs. Wilde, I was unaware. I'm very sorry. You have my sincerest condolences."

Nick couldn't help snorting at that last bit, his eyes rolling when the deer finally ended the call. "You want to know why I suddenly decided to join the force? Fine. Because a bunch of halfwits like you arrested an innocent man, threw him in jail, and then couldn't be bothered to make sure he made it out alive. Because he looked like me. I wanted to make sure that never, ever happens again."

"You could have simply told me your father is deceased," Agent Forester sniffed.

"Please, like it isn't written down in that file of yours somewhere," Nick said. "Besides, I wanted your investigation record to show how eager you were to assume the worst of me right from the start."

"I do not appreciate the implications you are making, Officer Wilde."

"And I don't appreciate being interrogated by a bigot that's glued a couple of tree branches to his head," Nick shot back. "Are we done?"

At the beginning of the interview Judy had been nervous the IA agent assigned to her would aggressively grill her, but Agent Gat (a soft spoken ocelot) remained quite friendly as he walked her through the whole process. They started with a review of her service record, addressing several complaints that had been entered against her during the days she was assigned parking duty in the process, before they reached the matter at hand.

And to her surprise things had gone smoothly. Agent Gat seemed mostly interested in verifying that the information she'd written was correct, so they stepped through the paperwork one item at a time while she verified her answers were accurate or occasionally provided additional information where requested. She was just beginning to believe that she was home free when the one thing she'd been hoping wouldn't come up was asked.

"One last question, Officer Hopps," Agent Gat said, looking over the rims of his sunglasses. "In your written statement you mentioned that you stepped out for 'a few minutes' to collect yourself after Officer Wilde was abducted. During this time you called a friend?"

"Yes, sir. That is correct," she said, fighting to keep her nose from twitching. "I wanted to talk to someone."

"I trust that you didn't divulge any details of your investigation over the course of this call?"

This time she had to think about her answer carefully. "I don't think so, sir. I did mention that my partner was in trouble, but that's all."

Agent Gat wrote a few words, then smoothed down the top page of his notebook. "I also noticed that you did not provide your friend's name. Would you be willing to do so now?"

Judy swallowed hard, her ears folding back a little. "Oh, sorry. It's…um…everyone just calls her Fru Fru, though that might just be a pet name her father gave her."

She braced herself, waiting for the bomb to drop, but the ocelot simply hummed neutrally and went back to writing. As time crawled on without anything resembling an accusation she began to relax. Maybe Fru Fru was a common enough name that she shouldn't have been worried in the first place.

"And how long did you talk to this Fru Fru?" Agent Gat asked as he continued to write.

"Not long. Two or three minutes."

"I'm going to need her phone number for the investigation," Agent Gat said absently.

Her mind raced, trying to remember her friend's number, but it had been so long since she'd entered it into her phone. After a couple moments the ocelot looked up at her, clearly awaiting an answer. "I can't remember it off the top of my head."

"That is perfectly fine, Officer Hopps. I don't mind waiting while you look it up on your phone."

She took a deep breath, wondering how she was going to explain this in a way that wouldn't land Nick in hot water. "To tell the truth, sir, the problem is that it isn't on my phone any longer," she said, smiling nervously. "I've been waiting for the next time she calls me so I can save it in my contacts again."

Agent Gat's head cocked to one side. "Phone problems?"

"Yes, I'm very sorry," she said, seizing on the excuse. "Although I'm sure if you check the call records you can get her number from there."

The ocelot smiled. "And with that we are done. You are now free to go, Officer Hopps. Thank you for your cooperation."