Zootopia – Springtime Circumstances

Chapter 3 – What´s wrong with him? (POV Judy)

I have never witnessed him act like this.

"What on earth made him that scared of me suddenly?"

On the whole way to the ZPD, I was trying to think of the sickness, he could possibly have caught. "Why didn´t he tell me about it? He must know what it is, otherwise he would let me take a look at it, wouldn´t he?"

That made me nervous somehow. It has been a long time, since I entered the ZPD all alone. Even for the others, seeing me alone was an uncommon view.

"Judy?" Clawhauser asked me, as I passed him at his usual place behind the reception, „Where is the fox you carry around with you all the time?"

"He has some kind of sickness, but he refused to tell me more details…"

"Maybe he has the flees?" Benjamin suggested with a shrug of his shoulders and a naughty little grin.

I just shrugged my shoulders as well and took a quick look down onto my phone. Then I cursed a little.

"Damn, I´m two minutes late already!" I excused myself, "Sorry Benji, see you later!"

He just gave me a warm and understanding smile as I started running towards the bullpen.

"I´m sorry for being late!" I nearly shouted, when I rushed the meeting room and slammed the door shut a little too vigorously behind me.

Bogo was already here and talking about something, but he wasn´t too mad at me, weirdly. Normally, he got pretty mad when something like this happened, no matter who it was.

"Good morning, Hopps! Take a seat please!"

I did as I was told and tried to calm down my breathing a little. Shortly I greeted Rhinowiz, who was sitting to my right, as usual, then I gave my full attention back to the chief again.

"…that power cut yesterday has resulted in twice as much casualties as usual! Several stealing attempts, a violation in a night club and lots of other bad little happenings here and there…" he continued. While he spoke, he started handing out a few different sheets of papers to the colleagues. Everybody got a little mission to take care of, except for me. The chief obviously skipped me on purpose, and that wondered me a little.

"I need you for the difficult stuff again" he let me know, as he noticed the confused look on my face, "Where is Wilde by the way?" he asked, as he made his way back from the last row.

"He is really sick, as it seems…he´s at home and sounded pretty destroyed, when I was talking to him. I hit him quite badly, I guess…" I explained, shrugging my shoulders once again this morning.

"Shit…that´s not good…" he cursed lowly, as he got behind his desk again, "…I don´t need that! Are you sure he´s not able to work?" he asked again. Even the others shook their heads at that a little.

"Chief, that fox wasn´t ill a single day, since he joined us in the force, even in the winter! …everybody has his bad days sometimes, eh?" Officer Delgato asked back in defense of NIck, with a little chuckle about the chief´s annoyed face.

"Yeah, but why now?", he kept on complaining lowly. Nobody had to say anything about it, weirdly. But most of them just shrugged their shoulders, already reading the info on their sheets.

"Alright, you´re dismissed! Officer Hopps, stay here for a minute please!"

I nodded and climbed onto the table, to make up for the height difference between us. The others started leaving the room slowly, most of them still concentrated on their missions.

When the chief and I where alone, he handed me a case-file he wanted to discuss with me, not bothered about the door to the meeting room, which they left widely open.

"The power cut yesterday was not an accident. Somebody managed to place a tiny pack of explosives on the main energy split and destroyed it completely therefore. It took over two hours to replace it, as you surely noticed yesterday…"

While he was talking, I opened the case file and started looking at the evidence already.

"…I send Fangmeyer and Wolfheart from the nightshift to that place yesterday, and that is everything they found out…"

"That is not much" I stated nodding, understanding why he was this bad tempered right now.

"That´s why I need you and Wilde so desperately! You are by far the best detectives I have right now! And as a team, you are doing brilliant work every single time! You never let me down so far…"

"I´ve tried talking to Nick, but he won´t even let me into his apartment."

"Has he shown that before?"

"No, never…"

"Well, I guess you have to give it a try on your own then. We only know that it's a ram who did this, but we don´t know who he is exactly and what his, or their, goals are…"

I nodded silently, reading the data about the place and the time, when that happened. Then I rubbed my eyes and yawned deeply. I wasn´t motivated at all. The photos they got from the security camera footage were very bad and dark, nearly no details to be found. Just one person was to be seen, who obviously was a sheep, but he had something dark pulled over his head, so it would not be easy to find him at all.

"Alright, Chief. I´ll try my best, but I´m going to get a coffee first!"

"Yeah, of course, if that helps…" he agreed.

I nodded and closed the case file, in order to take it with me to my place in the office.

"…I´ll talk to him for myself in the meanwhile!" the chief said confidently, while following me out of the meeting room.

"Good luck" I said with a little chuckle, "Maybe he tells you more than me…"

He just shrugged his shoulders and nodded confidently.

"Tell me, if you find something out, please" I asked him, as he closed and locked the door of the meeting room behind us.

"Alright, I´ll visit you in your office later anyways!" he told me, before making his way towards his own office. I nodded one last time and went for the reception again.

I gave the casefile over to Benji for the time I was going for the coffee, because I was too lazy to go for my own office first.

"You´re leaving already?" he asked me in surprise.

"No, just going for some caffeine…you need anything?" I offered.

He shook his head with a thankful smile and waved me with the half-eaten donut he had in his paws. "No, thank you, I´m still good! Greet Cammy for me, the new donuts are delicious!"

"Will do!" I smiled back at him, before leaving the entrance area.

We saw Cammy nearly every day. She made the best coffee around here, she was a happy nature and she charged the ZPD officers a dollar less for the medium sized coffee. She was a vixen, had completely white fur and was quite popular and respected around here for what she did. I liked her very much as a person, she was openly talking and helpful to everybody, and she was treating us Officers like normal animals, unlike many other employees who worked in customer services.

Every time I was in her little shop with Nick, it seemed like she was a little jealous at me, because I was spending so much time with him. She seemed to genuinely like him, and he noticed that as well of course, but I´ve never seen him flirting with her so far, which made me even more proud somehow.

Today, I was visiting her alone for the first time in a long while.

I was nearly alone when entered her little coffee shop, just a couple of Badgers was sitting on a table, ate cake and drank coffee peacefully. I went for the counter and greeted her with a warm smile. She already knew how I liked my coffee, and my little nod assured her, that she could start making it already.

"Where is your handsome colleague today?" she asked with a little smile, but not too sad about it actually, "…you never come without him!"
"He got some kind of sickness yesterday, and that seems to have hit him pretty hard" I explained it to her as well. Since she was a fox, she probably knew what could be wrong with him, I figured.

The moment I said that, her friendly smile turned into a wide grin. She obviously knew something.

The coffee machine was finished with my cup and she had the jar of sugar besides it already, to pour two spoons of it into my order.

"…I´m pretty sure it has something to do with the spring time" she told me confidently, "I bet his skin is burning like hell, he doesn´t want to see anybody and doesn´t want to talk about it either…am I right?"

I was a little impressed by that, she probably wasn´t wrong, as it sounded.

She reached me the coffee with a friendly wink and picked up the coins I laid down for her onto the counter.

"What does that have to do with the spring time?" I asked with great interest.

"That´s when the mating season starts" she whispered with a cheeky giggle.

"I never thought about that…that´s pretty interesting!" I continued, after I took my first, careful sip of the hot drink, "does that happen every year?"

"No, not every year, fortunately! It usually happens, when you´re deeply in love with somebody…or, well, sexually attracted…" she clarified.

I didn´t know if it was showing, but hearing that made me blush a little.

"Is there a cure for that? Because we need him quite urgently in the ZPD…"

"There are just two possibilities. You wait for about three to six weeks, until that fades away on its own…"

"Three to six weeks?!" I nearly spat out my second sip of coffee.

"…or you…well… he hast to have his way with the person of his desire!"

That send a shiver down my spine. Who the hell was Nick in love with this badly? Was it her? I´ve never seen him with anyone of his kind.

"Did you have that too?" I asked her, to change the topic a little.

"That´s a long time ago already…" she began, "I didn´t even have it after I broke up with my boyfriend two years ago, and for now, I´m fine as well. But it´s probably even a benefit for me, that Nick isn´t here today…" she chuckled, followed by a girly giggle, "That may would trigger it as well for me…" she stated, without being ashamed about it.

"Is that contagious?"

"Among foxes? Yes, very! That´s one of nature´s features which still is taking control of us, I guess" she chuckled with a grin.

"He is looking good since he´s working out, isn´t he?" I asked her, proudly of what he made out of himself.

"Good?" she asked back, "He´s freaking sexy, if I´m allowed to say that! And the blue of his uniform suits him so well! He wouldn´t have any problems of finding somebody to help him, that´s for sure!"

She really was thinking exactly the same as I, but I wasn´t surprised about it.

What stressed me now a little, was the fear that he probably was in love, or sexually attracted to the vixen, who made his coffee every day.

I tried my best to not make her notice it though. I just grinned at her mischievously, then I changed the topic completely.

"Have you been affected by the power cut as well, yesterday?"

"Yeah, it took them forever to repair that! Do you know what caused it? It really messed with my plans for yesterday evening…"

"Well, when know what it caused, but not who it was…"

"So, it wasn´t an accident?" she wondered.

"Any ideas who could need something like that?"

She shook her head very slightly and grinned ironically.

"No, I have no idea who could make a use of that…"

That reaction came a little too quickly, in my opinion, but probably was I just a little over-suspicious about her.

"But I certainly know who wouldn´t be too happy about that again" she chuckled with a little wink.

"I wouldn´t need it either" I agreed with her, smiling a little.

Then I waved her with the paper coffee cup quickly, making my way towards the door slowly.

"Anyways, thanks for the talk, Cammy! Have a nice day! …oh yeah, and I should tell you from Benji, that he really loves the new donuts! Feel yourself greeted!"

"Thanks Judy, means a lot to me!" she waved back, "See you soon!"

The door fell into its lock behind me and I was confronted with a dozen of new questions instantly, none of them had anything to do with the case I had to solve today. What Cammy had told me about the mating season, Nick was probably struggling with, made me think of so many, probably very wrong, ideas in my head. I slowly made my way back to my office, enjoying the morning sun a little and taking a few more sips of my delicious coffee. I wasn´t really in a hurry, even if the Chief thought a little different about that.

POV Bogo

My morning was a nightmare already. The telephone in my office was ringing every minute, I had a terrible headache and I still had no results in the power cut-fiasco. It actually got so far, that I honestly tried to call and motivate one of my officers personally. I never thought I would do that one day, but today, I thought it was necessary. I needed results, even the mayor was calling me because of this already.

Nick was a good detective, just as Judy, but when they were working as a team, which they did all the time, they never failed at what they were doing. They both would be promoted once again pretty soon, because of their high rate of success.

He was the perfect counterpart to her. He often had a totally different view than her on many problems, because he certainly knew the other side of the law a little, and that helped us very often already. I was sure we would be a lot more successful today, if he was here to help us.

So, I searched for his phone number in his data entry and called him. After the third attempt, about half an hour after I was talking to Judy, he finally picked up. He really wasn´t sounding good though.

"Yeah, Chief?" he asked. He sounded weak, annoyed and out of breath, not what I would call pleased in any way. He even sounded a little furious.

"Officer Hopps told me you couldn´t come today…"

"Yeah, Chief, she was not wrong with that…" he answered dryly.

"But we need you and your skills quite urgently today, since that power cut yester-"

"Chief, I really can´t, I´m sorry!" he interrupted me, now louder and very harshly. "It´s often not easy for my species in this time of year, and this season hit me pretty hard. I´m no help to anybody today, it will just make everything worse in fact."

I sighed, noticeably, but that wasn´t impressing him either.

"Ok, Wilde…then it has to work without you, I guess!"

"Tell Judy that I´m going to be fine, ok? It has nothing to do with her, if that´s what she is thinking…"

"Alright, I´ll let her now. Hope you get better soon!"

"Thanks Chief, bye!"

And with that he ended the call, even before I could say another word.

I put the phone away as well and woke up my computer. I wanted to talk to Judy in a second, but before that, I was curious.

"Which problems to foxes' struggle with in the spring time?"

I typed it into the search bar of my browser like that, and the first link already contained something that said "foxes mating seasons". That cleared it up for me pretty quickly. I was reading about burning skin and bad itching, that it actually is contagious, and that it mostly appears, when the suspect is in love or sexually attracted to somebody. My gaze wandered off to a tiny little grin.

If all of that was over, I finally had something to pay him back for all his sly patters and pranks he pulled on us every now and then. I would not spare him that at all.

I put my computer on standby again and went out of my office. I promised to tell her, if I found out something new, and that was very interesting, probably.