Nick slumped over the table he and the other officers had claimed, lost in his thoughts as he listened to the other officers talk over the bar's background noise. He hadn't been especially eager to come to Hornton's this week. With how tired he felt the only place he wanted to be was back in the hotel room with Judy. He didn't care that she would be busy reviewing the case file, his time working with Lowell had left him aching for her company. It wasn't that he and the white wolf didn't get along in spite of the usual hiccups that came from working with someone new. Just that it was unfamiliar, so much so that both he and Lowell constantly had to remind themselves to make sure the things their usual partners handled still got done.

But as far as Nick knew the IA investigation was still on, so he needed to make a show of being just another one of the boys in blue. Clawhauser was there, of course, as were Snarlof and Delgato. Even Wolford showed up, though he arrived half an hour late.

Two wolves, a tiger, a cheetah, a polar bear, and a fox, Nick thought, feeling his mind working its way toward some sort of joke. Instead swerved on the way there, taking him down a different path. Six predators.

He considered that for a moment and took a sip of his drink. Judy had only been there last time because he'd asked if she could come. True, there were plenty of predators on the force, but between the larger prey mammals like rhinos, horses, cape buffalo, and elephants the prey still made up the majority. One would think a few would take part in Thirsty Thursday. For some reason that just wasn't the case.

The whole ZPD was like that, Nick realized. Wolford and Lowell, two wolves. Fangmeyer and Snarlof, tiger and polar bear. Francine and McHorn, elephant and rhino. Pred-pred, pred-pred, pred-pred, prey-prey. Even the operation to bust Flip fit the pattern. Lieutenant Uncia, Fangmeyer, Snarlof, and himself. Four predators, with only one prey joining after Judy managed to worm her way in. Now that he'd noticed it lurking right in front of him it was impossible to unsee.

"Hey, Ben?" he asked without bothering to sit up, simply rolling his head until one eye pointed at the cheetah. "Are Judy and I unusual at all?"

Clawhauser was halfway to taking a bite of a pretzel and stopped to look at the other officers at the table. "Um, do you mean about that thing I pointed out to Judy?"

Nick blinked, then folded his ears back. Of course, that would be the first thing to come to the cheetah's mind. "No, I mean a predator being partnered up with a prey. I haven't seen it that often."

"Oh, let me think." The cheetah took a bite of his pretzel, then dipped the end into the cheese sauce and stirred it around slowly. "There's Delgato and Higgins, and right now Wolford is working with Francine until McHorn recovers. I don't know about the other shifts, but they probably have one or two each as well. So no, I guess it isn't that unusual. Why?"

"I just noticed that most of the times prey and predators don't seem to be assigned to each other." Nick stretched a little, then pushed himself up so he could take another sip of his beer. "Was wondering if there was a reason for that."

"Oh, the chief likes to let mammals pick who they're working with as long as it doesn't cause problems," Clawhauser said before taking another bite.

"There are a few precincts that do things differently. I started out in Precinct Four," Wolford said. "Back there they assign a partner. You can request to be reassigned if you don't like who you end up with, but you won't get to pick the replacement and might make some other officers upset by breaking them up."

"So you had more predators paired with prey there, right?" Nick asked.

Wolford swirled his glass. "Actually I think we had less. Mammal Resources was always worrying about making sure mammals were comfortable with who they'd been assigned and did everything they could to avoid problems before they happened."

Nick drummed his fingers on the table, his ears folded back as he thought about that. He didn't get very far before Fangmeyer gave a light cough.

"Since we're on the topic. You and Judy?"

He flinched lightly, but forced himself to look up at the tiger. "Excuse me?"

"Come off it, Wilde. With that picture in the paper you know everyone is wondering," Wolford said.

Lowell chuckled. "Never mind the way they both smell."

For a moment all Nick could do was stare at the three, doing his best to keep his expression neutral. Not an easy task once he realized that even Snarlof was listening intently. "You wolves just can't keep your noses to yourselves, can you?"

"Just ignore those jokers, they probably have money in the office pool," Snarlof said. He shot Fangmeyer a look. "Though I thought some mammals had enough sense to not get mixed up in that kind of thing."

Fangmeyer held his hands up. "Hey, it's just good fun. Besides, it's been forever since we had something this juicy to wonder about."

"Pretty much everyone in the precinct wants to know if you two are an item," Clawhauser added helpfully. "Honestly I'm kind of curious too, since you'd make an odd couple. Not that I'm one to judge."

Wolford laughed. "Not with that crush you have on Gazelle. Are you still trying to convince the chief to let you work security for one of her shows?"

"He says I can't do it until I'm fit enough to do patrol duty," Clawhauser said sullenly, ears dipping.

For a wonderful moment Nick was able to hope that the conversation had moved away from his relationship with Judy, but attention promptly shifted back to him. His mind raced, unsure of what he should say. A flat denial wasn't about to work, not if Lowell really had been catching Judy's scent on him every morning, and simply admitting to the relationship wasn't the sort of thing he wanted to do until he knew what Judy thought first. That left him with two options: deflect or stall.

"Are you guys seriously asking if we're sleeping together? And you actually expect me to answer?" Nick asked, letting his tone tilt toward annoyance. "As if you'd even believe me if I said we weren't."

"I would," Lowell volunteered. "I mean, you've never walked into work smelling like that."

Wolford promptly tried to cuff Lowell over the head, but the white wolf ducked too quickly. "Would you just listen to yourself? You know it's rude to use your nose to sniff out something so private."

"It isn't like I can help it," Lowell protested. "Besides, I said he wasn't doing it."

"Still rude to talk about it that way," Wolford said, then sighed. "Though unfortunately pretty much every wolf on the force has noticed the same thing. Why do you smell like each other?"

Nick tsked. "Well, Judy's living with that absurd splint, right? I'm sure my senior officers can put their keen deductive skills to work to solve that mystery."

That seemed to satisfy both Snarlof and Clawhauser, but as Nick expected both of the wolves kept giving him curious looks. No doubt they could tell he was doing more than simply sharing a room with Judy while her arm healed. Thankfully neither of them pressed the issue. Still, he made a mental note that he definitely needed to look into some scent neutralizing shampoo during his next shopping trip.

Judy's phone began to ring with a MuzzleTime request when she was nearly finished reviewing the case file, sending her scrambling to the night stand to answer before the call was ignored. Her heart felt like it was in her throat when she pushed to answer, a little shiver running through her body as her mother appeared on screen.

"Hello?"

"Hey bun bun," her mother said. "Your dad is asleep right now. I swear, those painkillers just knock him right out."

Judy's nose twitched lightly. "Oh," she said, then realized just how pitiful that made her sound. "Is he doing alright? I got your texts a few days ago, but you haven't really kept me up to date."

"Sorry, I know I should have called sooner," her mother said. "Are you alone right now? Because if this is a bad time to talk I can call back—"

"Now is good," Judy said quickly. "Nick's out with some of the other officers. I…um… I would have called, but I was worried you were upset with me."

"Why in the world would you think I was mad?"

She swallowed. "Well, I mean…you kind of took your time calling back. And what with Nick not being a bunny…"

Her mother's expression softened. "Sweetheart, I could never," she said, then shook her head and took a deep breath. "Though I'll admit I've had to spend a lot of time thinking about all this. I'm sure your father would too, if the drugs weren't making that so difficult for him. You have to understand this is… Well, it's not anything like what we expected."

"I'm sorry mom—"

"No." Her mother's ears tilted back slightly as her voice suddenly turned firm. "No, Judy, don't you do that. This is very difficult for your father and I, but don't you dare apologize when you haven't done anything wrong. I'll admit that I'm just a little scared out of my mind because never in my wildest dreams or worst nightmares did I imagine one of my daughters would take fancy to a fox, but that's my problem isn't it?"

Judy blinked as her mind unpacked that. "Nick really isn't bad, mom. He's actually very sweet when you get to know him."

"I'm sure he is, bun bun. You've said nothing but good things about him," her mother said, then let out a soft sigh. "And I trust your judgment, even if I don't understand it and I'm a bit nervous about what is going on over there. I didn't raise a fool, so if you say this can work then I'll believe you. Just…please be a little patient with your father and I, it'll take some time for us to come to grips with all of this."

At first Judy couldn't think of anything to say, but when her vision began to blur a tiny laugh bubbled its way out of her. "Do you think dad feels the same way?"

"There's no question in my mind, Judy. You're father loves you just as much as I do," her mother said before glancing off to one side. "Can't speak for the rest of the family. You know how Pop Pop is."

"Maybe he won't be so bad after he gets to know a fox."

"Maybe," her mother said, though she didn't sound terribly convinced. "Let me worry about Pop Pop. You probably have enough problems, no reason to add a senile old bunny to the list.

"And speaking of problems, how is your arm?"

"Still hurts," Judy said, resisting the urge to touch the splint. "Not as much as it used to though. After work tomorrow I'm going in for a check-up. If the doctors like what they see I might get some sort of arm brace instead of this bulky splint."

"Well I expect you to keep taking it easy if they do. Bones don't heal in just one week," her mother said.

"Trust me, mom, Chief Bogo isn't going to let me out from behind my desk until he's sure I'm ready for it," Judy started, then blinked as she heard Nick outside her door. "I need to go, mom. Love you."

"Love you too, bun bun."

She quickly hung up and slid off the bed, hurrying to meet Nick with a hug the moment he got through the door to squeeze him as tightly as she dared. After he recovered from his initial surprise, Nick wrapped his arms around her as well and leaned back against the wall.

"Woah, hey. I missed you too Carrots," he started and gave her a light squeeze in return. "Are you crying? Everything okay?"

A laugh slipped out as she realized that she had started tearing up. Blinking a few times cleared her eyes for just long enough to smile up at him, and she went up onto her toes to plant a kiss right on the tip of Nick's nose.

"Fine. Everything is fine."

Nick's body relaxed slightly. "Oh, well as long as everything is fine."

"I just got off the phone with my mother," she said, finally releasing him. Nick remained silent as she practically bounced in place. "She says she's okay with us. She thinks dad will be too once he gets off the painkillers."

"She is? Really?" Nick asked, then blushed when Judy narrowed her eyes at him. "I mean that's great. I just…wow."

"Told you." Judy's face lit up with a smile while she let go of the hug.

"Shame on me for ever doubting your word." Nick's ears dipped back slightly as he carefully escorted her away from the door. "How'd the case review go? Sorry I wasn't able to give you anything better than a list of Flip's old haunts. Really doubt you'll find him at any of them."

"Can't hurt anything to check, though I wasn't really expecting too much," she admitted. "To tell the truth I'm pinning my hopes on getting back the final lab reports. Might give us an idea of how Flip's making this stuff, which will probably give us an idea of where to look for him."

"You think?"

"Well, he's getting his stuff from someplace," Judy said, beginning to fuss with her splint as she nestled against Nick on the bed. After a few light huffs she managed to pull it off her arm before gingerly leaning against his side. "How about you? How's the city been?"

Rather than answer, Nick wrapped Judy in his arms and pressed his nose lightly against her neck. A light sigh slipped from him.

"That bad?"

"Not at first." His words sounded raspy. "Everyone was on edge, but that was to be expected. As time's gone on though…well… And especially today. Lowell and I ended up being called out to so many public disturbances where mammals were just looking for an excuse to start a fight."

"Sounds like you really needed the break tonight," Judy said.

"I guess, though it wasn't the same without you there," he said. "They asked about us by the way."

His words hit her harder than she expected. "Seriously? What did you say?"

"Didn't say anything. Just stalled," he answered, moving so he could look at her. "Seemed wrong to tell them anything until I knew what you thought about it first."

Green eyes. Her thoughts scattered.

"Carrots? Judy? You okay?"

"Sorry, I'm okay. Just…is everything going to keep coming back to that?" Her hand found his and squeezed tightly. "I still don't think I'm ready to take that step. Not yet at least. Thank you."

Nick's tail curled around her. "Thank goodness," he whispered. "On the way here I started to worry you'd think I was ashamed or something."

"Mmm, maybe if you were someone else. You've been pretty shameless from the moment I met you though," Judy said, smiling a little. "Everyone will figure it out sooner or later; I just want a chance for us to figure it out first."

"Does that mean I don't have to tell my mom yet?" Nick asked, then let out a light yelp when Judy pinched him.

AN1: One friend asked why I decided Zootopia was founded by a bear (a comment Flip made in the last chapter). There were several reasons.

First, bears aren't strictly carnivores. That seemed like a good starting point for this sort of thing (I don't firm have a timeline for it in mind though). Also, animals seem to have a lot of the same stereotypes for each other as we have for them. A bear seemed a good fit for a predator species that might engender some trust among prey as able to enforce a "no predation" policy.

Secondly, this is clearly oversimplifying what was obviously a complicated history. Flip is, without a doubt, glossing over a lot. That is pretty common, and to the misfortune of everyone that is what mammals (and people) want. Easy to understand explanations. We know there aren't any, but we cling to them when they are given to us just the same because it's comforting to have an explanation you can explain in a few words.

...

Addendum: I know what I just said might be taken as commentary on current events unless I comment. That is not how it is intended (the above note was written weeks ago). This is not directed at any one group, but something I have come to learn is true of everyone. It is one of the sins we are *ALL* guilty of, we just like to tell ourselves that "I am different. I am not like those morons."

AN2: This is a weird chapter to post because as I was writing it I realized the same thing Nick did. Art is a funny thing, because I never intended for that to be a plot point. Was my subconscious working on that? From the start I knew my story was going to delve into some of the themes from the movie. Or am I seeing a reflection of my own biases here, splitting up the world of Zootopia across pred/prey lines the way I see racial lines drawn in the world around me?

I'm not sure, but however it got there I am glad it showed up. Because it just snuck in, but just by existing it kind of makes the point of how easy it is to let this happen. Zootopia is a city striving to bring predators and prey together, and it is making strides in that direction, but it isn't there yet. And the ZPD itself is a microcosmic of that. Predators and Prey come together in the ZPD to enforce the laws in my story, but even then there is still a divide everyone needs to learn to bridge. Sitting there in front of them the whole time, and you wonder if they even notice it exists.