Hey guys, how are things? Have you been missing me?

Alright, who cares, let´s get on with this amazing piece of brilliance!

Big thanks to MrShurukan for helping me with the corrections once again, good job buddy!

Zootopia – Springtime Circumstances

Chapter 29 – Just a normal day at work (POV Nick)

Today was the third day after she was released from hospital. She has spent every single day with me since then. We began working out again yesterday as well, and she was recovering from her one-week coma as if it was nothing. She was full of power, just like I was used to it from her, and since she was with me again, I was happy every single minute of the day. Nothing else could bother or anger me anymore, not even the people who kept on staring at us, took photos and asked for autographs all the time, even at the gym, that all was fine as long as she was by my side.

This morning, we were heading back to the ZPD finally. We got ourselves into our police uniforms, attached our badges to our chests and left the door at 7:45am. Even just on the short way to the city center we got recognized about a hundred times. People started clapping and cheering for us as we went by the atmosphere was incredible actually. It was a great feeling to get this much positive attention, no doubt about it, but I got used to it in the meanwhile.

When we entered the lobby, we were greeted by a widely smiling Benjamin Clawhauser, and we immediately felt like at home again. I just now realized how much I have missed this place.

"Nick, Judy!" the big cheetah greeted us, "It´s so good to have you back!"

"Hi Benji" Judy smiled back, "Nice to see you!"

"Are you doing better already?" he wondered.

"Much better, thanks for asking!"

"You two really are the hottest cops we ever had!" he pointed out, "Already back at work and still looking fantastic!"

"He especially" Judy added with a teasing little grin while pointing at me.

Benji flapped his paws in an over-acted way because of her hint on the SMA show. He ironically acted like he was fawning over me, but he just did it to annoy me a little, obviously. He was widely grinning afterwards.

"No doubt about it" he told me with a big smile, "You´re so hot, you could burst into flames any second!"

"Haha, yeah…thank you!" I sighed, ironically overacting my excitement as well.

"But it really was great fun to watch the show!" Benjamin remarked, "Bia and I were so proud of you guys!"

"We had a pretty good evening too" I told him with a little wink.

"Come on, Nicky!" Judy reminded me again, "Meeting starts in a minute!"

"Oh yeah. Sorry Benji, got to go! See you later!" I waved for the farewell, as she already began pulling me with her quickly.

"Have fun you two, see you later!" he chuckled behind us happily.

We hurried to get up the stairs and into the meeting room. We arrived there just in time, because we already saw Chief Bogo coming down the hallway from his office. When we entered the meeting room we instantly got recognized and a huge storm of applause and excited screaming hailed down on us. We just stood there for a moment and grinned stupidly, and it kept on coming until the Chief entered the room as well and closed the door behind us. We quickly took a seat at our table in the front row and waited for him to lay down his clipboard.

"Good morning!" he greeted us as firmly as ever, "I´ve got a few points on the list today!" he informed us straight away, "First of all: As you may have noticed, we finally got back our two favorite detectives today!"

He was interrupted by loud cheering from our colleagues, but he was happy about it as well, "…we´re all glad you two got back on your feet!" he told us with a little smile, "Welcome back! You did fantastic work on that case, just like always!"

It took a little while until the hype finally calmed down a little, but a few of our colleagues still had big smiles on their faces and kept on whispering to each other in excitement.

"Second point!" the Chief took the word again, "It seems like there is a potentially criminal dealership in a sex club tonight, we probably need to get them down and we need a volunteer to get in there for undercover purposes…"

"Haha, very funny Chief!" I sighed loudly, after they all -including Judy- had laughed about it for a while, "I´m going to hear that for a while, don´t I?"

"I´m just kidding" he waved it off, "There is nothing special going on today" he sort-of ended the briefing, "But there certainly is a third point I want to talk about shortly! Detective Wilde!" he grinned at me once again, "Congratulations on winning the SMA show this year!"

"Yeah, yeah…love you too, Chief" I sighed ironically. The colleagues where still laughing about it.

"Honestly, I had a lot of fun watching that! And I told that to Daniel and Max as well: you guys did a great job in rising our image a little! The ZPD never was this well rated before!"

"I hear that everywhere I go!" I complained loudly, "As if we are the only ones working here after all that happened!" I chuckled, "Do you really think I wanted all that attention?" I asked them, and I really was meaning it.

"I told you he would have fun hearing that from you, Chief" we heard Max chuckling from the back rows, "Nick loves being a hero!"

"Yeah, yeah…" I sighed again, Judy was widely grinning at me, just like all the others.

"You should have seen the backstage-girls when he came back from the stage!" Daniel added, and everybody chuckled again.

"Yeah, yeah…thank you guys!" I sighed, "Enough of that, please!"

"Anyways" the Chief took the word again, "It´s not like you haven't earned it. At least you were a good sport in the show."

"My word!" Judy chuckled.

"Yeah! …Nick, you little show-off!" somebody else laughed. They just wouldn't stop rubbing it in.

"I was never showing off! When was I showing off?"

"You beat up two polar bears! And you were running around naked in the ZPD goddamned" Daniel chuckled, "Is there any way of topping that?"

I actually turned around to look at him this time, and I couldn´t hide a little smile anymore. They had to live with the payback if they tried to tease me with that now.

"And what about you Maxie `MC average` and Dan `Mr. I´m afraid of little heights`, having fun with the most famous popstar of Zootopia all night?" I asked back, "And you were the ones who wanted to show that video in the show, just to remind you!"

Now I wasn´t the only one they all were staring at anymore. I kept on grinning at them for a little longer, just so everybody would know about it. I´ve gotten them speechless with that for a moment. They probably thought I would let them off that easy.

"…don´t tell me you haven´t told them already!" I spurted out in an overacted way, as if they have done something really dirty with her. I wasn´t a hundred percent sure if there even happened anything, but it helped brilliantly to see their reaction once again. I grinned a little wider to let them know that that had worked pretty good once again.

"Told them about what?" Max asked back with a big grin, not even trying to deny it anymore.

I just waved it off and turned around again with a little smile, just to get everybody even more interested in what happened. That worked even better.

There was a big, long and confused silence now.

"Maxie MC what?" Judy asked with a little giggle, and the whole room burst out into a big laughter again. I just now realized how stupid that was, but now it was too late anyways.

I waved it off once again, not at all wanting to humble him with that topic once more, but I messed that up already.

"Alright…" the Chief concluded our little discussion finally, before he already attempted to leave the room, "I´m not quite sure if have to understand all that, but I think that´s all I had to tell you for today! You´re all dismissed, get to work!"

After he left we all got up from our chairs as well, but instead of leaving the room, Max and Daniel were instantly surrounded by everybody who was still here. Including myself and Judy, who I carried on my shoulders once again.

"Yes, Nick" Max told me, when we arrived them at their table, "we had a lot of fun after you left as well…"

"Oh really, did you?" I grinned.

"You´re not serious, are you?" Snarlov asked, "That is a joke!"

Both of them, neither Daniel nor Max could hide a dirty and proud little grin, and that clarified a lot. I was not that staggered though, I expected it a little somehow, Gazelle seemed to be just an animal as well, and she seemed quite attracted to them also.

"And you´re complaining about me showing off?" I asked with a chuckle.

"I don´t believe that! You didn´t to ´that´ with Gazelle! Never ever…" Higgins agreed with his colleague, "That is bullshit!"

"Told you they wouldn´t believe us" Max chuckled at Daniel, but he just waved it off as well with a big smile.

"You´ve had fun with the interviews afterwards I heard?" the lion wanted to know then.

"Loads of fun" I sighed ironically.

"Judy, have you seen the recording of the show by the way?" Max wanted to know.

"Yeah, Nick showed it to me!" she told him excitedly from above me, "I loved it! And I was very touched by your nice words! You guys were brilliant on the stage!" she complimented.

"Oh thank you! At least somebody who appreciates us!" Max chuckled ironically because of the earlier comments.

"I appreciated you guys too!" I told them, being totally honest actually, "I wouldn´t have wanted to go there alone! They would have ripped me apart if you weren´t there!" I chuckled, not even joking about it.

"Alright, Nick" somebody else grinned ironically, "For sure…"

"You should have seen them backstage when you were talking to Gazelle in the show" Daniel supported what I said, "they nearly where losing their minds!"

I just shrugged my shoulders a little as everybody kept on staring at us.

"What did you mean with Maxie ´MC average´ earlier?" somebody else repeated the question Judy asked already.

"Oh please, not that again!" I sighed loudly, but Max wasn´t even that mad about it anyways. I was tired of hearing it though, I sort of wanted to apologize for that, but it was too late now anyways.

I believed that Judy got it as well in the meanwhile, because she had started giggling about it uncontrollably. Everybody was staring at her, then at me and then back at Max again.

"What do you think did he refer to with that?" Max asked them in acted annoyance, "When the show was over, he told us that he was lying about it in the show, just to test our reactions about it. He surely noticed that I had been a little scared, because he said that he was more endowed like an average wolf, and that told him about me being ´only about average´ on that topic" he explained it straightly, because there was no point in denying it anymore. The naturally were chuckling about it a little, but Max actually really was not too mad about it, "…the joke of that story was, that he wasn't lying in the show, he was lying when he told us he was lying. That's how that name was created, because Nick apparently is an over-endowed monster" he told them with a big smile.

I just sighed about it once again, in hope that it would be over very soon.

"Wow" somebody else commented, "I thought that was bullshit all along…I thought that really was just Nicks usual humor…"

"Me too", somebody else confessed, "I´m sorry Nick, but I didn´t believe that either…"

I just rested my head in my paws tiredly while shaking my head a little. Judy and the others still found that very amusing.

"As if that is any important!"

"I don´t know? Is it, Nick?" Max asked me with an evil smirk, just to annoy me even more with that.

They still kept staring at me, predictably.

"No, it´s not!" I sighed, "And I have another question: What makes you think I would lie on a show like that? Don't you think that somebody would bust me eventually? After all that´s been happening lately…" I reminded them.

There was a big silence after that.

"Well…" Daniel stated suddenly, "Talking about that…"

"No way!" Max chuckled, grinning even harder now.

"…I have been talking to Cammy while the interrogations yesterday…"

Now he was the one everybody was staring at.

"…just because I was interested, you know" he grinned, to make it more suspenseful.

"There you go" I told them, totally unimpressed by their staring, "Hope you´re happy now."

They still kept on staring at Daniel.

"It´s true" he finally confessed, "She has been watching the show as well, and she didn´t notice a single word of a lie from him. She knew exactly what I was referring to. Her expression said more than a thousand words. I would believe him if I were you…" he grinned.

Judy had begun massaging my ears in the meanwhile, and that was really relaxing right now. They all kept staring for a little while, but I still didn´t mind about it. Now that was over as well, and the only thought that remained was: "so what?"

"There you have it. And now, can we please agree on never talking about it ever again?" I chuckled tiredly.

I took a quick look at Judy, who was still sitting on my shoulders calmly and enjoyed the awkward silence after that. She really was amused about all that crap, and she kept in massaging my ears carefully while everybody tried to find out about her reaction to that topic. I was glad that she didn´t mind.

"Well…yeah…alright" somebody else chuckled to end the silence finally, "I´ll have fun with that picture in my head…"

They all were giggling a little.

"And now, since that question is answered as well now, is there something else you want to complain about?" I asked Max ironically to lighten up the mood a little.

"Yeah, yeah, Mr. SMA" Max chuckled, "But I wasn´t complaining! I didn´t hear any complaints about the ´average wolf´ on that evening either!" he grinned.

"…or about the average lion who is scared of ´little heights´" Daniel added.

I just smiled chummily and offered both of them a quick fist bump with that. I surely was a little proud of them for that, and it was not like they didn´t earn it as well.

"Why don´t you all just shut up?" somebody complained ironically, "Unbelievable!"

"Why don´t we stop all this nonsense now and get to work?" I suggested.

"Not quite sure if I can concentrate on work with that all in my head?" somebody else chuckled.

"Not easy all the time" Judy giggled.

I shook my head again with a little smile and began carrying her out of the room slowly.

They kept on laughing about if for a while, but soon they went on their way to get to work as well. I didn´t stop anymore and went straightly for our office. I had enough of that for now. I really wanted to get some stuff done right now.

"Nick…" Judy giggled from above me, "I think you will never lose that title again…"

"I will, hopefully!" I disagreed.

"Not if you don't stop showing off!" she teased me.

I just looked up at her with a tired little sigh, and it made her giggle once again. I just couldn´t be mad at her for that, it was too adorable. Instead I started another tongue fight with her, after I had closed the door of our office behind me. A very good decision as it turned out, also it was very good every time.

POV Max

At first, we pretended that we were going towards our police car, which really was parked in the car park, but when Nick and Judy disappeared into their office, everybody started moving somewhere else quickly. Nobody of the whole group at the briefing this morning was on duty today. The guys who took over our shifts for today were out on the streets already, a few of them even helped us with the prank. It has been a lot of work to set it all up, but it worked out in the end and we got it done. Now Daniel and I went towards the Chief´s office once more just to get the last few tiny details right.

"He really has to pay for that now, doesn´t he?" Daniel asked with a big grin, as the door of the chief´s office fell into its lock behind us, "He is not getting away this time! This is going to be so much fun!" he whispered in anticipation.

"What about Gazelle?" the Chief straightly got to the point.

"She should be ready…" I told him, shrugging my shoulders before I took another look at my phone again.

"Cameras?"

"Set and ready to roll" Daniel confirmed, "Snarlov and Higgins must be on their way already…"

"Clawhauser?"

"He knows his lines…but I´ll go and check out on him in a minute anyways" I assured.

"Good" he said confidently, "What about the vixens?"

Daniel and I grinned very widely at that question.

"That was not hard to accomplish, Chief! We´ve had a lot of volunteers" I told him, "He´s not going to forget that! This is going to be epic!"

"Numbers?" I asked with an interested smirk.

"About forty?" Daniel guessed

Now the Chief grinned widely as well.

"He really is not going to forget that, is he?"

"Don´t tell me he didn´t earn it."

"Oh no, he earned it so much!" I agreed, "He´s not done with that yet!"

"But remember to tell them: They have to respect his privacy to a certain level!" the buffalo reminded us again. We both nodded understandingly.

"Wanna get started?" Daniel asked a moment later.

We all nodded.

"Get out of my office then!" the Chief told us warmly, "They´re going to be talking to me before they go, and they must not see you two blokes here!" he told us with a little smirk once again, "…and we need to get there as quickly as possible! I´ll take the backdoor of the building!"

"Alright, Chief! See you at the party!" I waved him for the farewell, while Daniel was opening the door for us already.

"But be careful" the Chief told us before we left, "They really are good at what they do, and they will have loaded tranquilizers of course!"

"We know they´re good, chief!" I chuckled, "And Nick is equipped with a pretty solid night vision as well, it´s not going to be easy anyways! It´s not easy to out-clever a fox…"

"Do your best, it´s going to be good anyways!"

POV Judy

"Did you really do that to them after the show?" I asked him, as we finally decided to start with our work.

"Yeah…more or less just for fun, because I wanted to get a little revenge…" he confessed, "but I didn´t think that could be so much of an important topic…"

"It really isn´t" I chuckled, "Don't worry!"

"See! I was thinking that everybody would see it like that…" he told me, "Why should I be proud of it? I was born like that…" he told me with a shrug of his shoulders, while grabbing one of the case files on his desk.

I just waved it off once more and booted up my computer.

"Anyways…" I chuckled, "Where do we start? What do we have from the interrogations, if we even have anything?"

"Not much" he sighed, "I believe they were just a little piece of a much bigger plot…they all sounded like the tried to save somebody…"

"Do you think Cammy will tell us more?"

"Do you think she knows more?" he chuckled back after considering it shortly.

"Worth a try, isn´t-"

"Officers Hopps and Wilde!" Clawhausers voice suddenly interrupted us through the radio very loudly, "We have another hostage taking of some sort! We got a call from a young man whose girlfriend got abducted just in front of his eyes! The Chief says it has something to do with you probably! …can you please get in touch with him as soon as possible?" he asked.

"Really?" Nick sighed, "On the first day we´re back?"

I just shrugged my shoulders, before I took the radio-microphone from our desk.

"This is Officer Hopps, we´re on it!" I told him quickly, before we left everything just as it was and went for the door of our room.

"I don´t know" I answered Nicks question, "…but that makes no difference!"

POV Nick

We went to the Chief´s office as quickly as possible and entered it without even knocking on the door. He was sitting behind his desk, as usual, and he didn´t look like he was very amused, which also was quite normal.

"Another hostage taking, Chief?" Judy asked him straight away.

"Yes, and you´re not going to like this: We had a fox calling a few minutes ago. He told us there suddenly appeared a black van, a lion and a wolf grabbed his girlfriend and took her with them. No number plates, black masks over their faces…the same thing as two weeks ago!"

"You are joking, aren't you?"

"I´m not, Wilde! …but I have a slight foreboding about this already…"

"Did they locate her phone number?" Judy asked.

"We have" the Chief noddingly confirmed, "And you´re not going to like that either."

"The old daycare-center?" I guessed straight away, knocking it right out the park with that once again.

"Exactly" the Chief confirmed that as well.

"This is addressed at the two of us, isn´t it?" Judy asked me, "They abduct a vixen, bring her to a place we already know about…"

I nodded in agreement, she surely had a point with that.

"It´s probably a trap" the Chief agreed, "I´m not sure if I should send the two of you out there, they are probably playing it a little more serious now…"

"Do you think we didn´t take it serious the first time?" I asked him loudly, a little angry even because he said something like that. Judy was thinking the same way I did, apparently.

"Of course, we´re going, Chief!" she agreed without a single second of hesitation, "Inform some colleagues to ensure backup please, this could be important!"

"Alright!" he agreed now, "Get yourself some armory, there is no more time to lose! Hurry up!"

"We´re on it, Chief!" I told him, as Judy already started making her way out of the room. Then I followed her.

POV Chief Bogo

I kept on waiting for a few seconds, then I couldn´t hide an evil little smirk anymore. I´ve never done something that sneaky and evil to one of my colleagues ever before. It felt good though, no question.

"You can always count on them" I joked very lowly, before I got up from my chair with still a little smirk on my face. Then I went for the camera on the tri-pod-stand in the left corner of my room and turned it off. I would rub that into his face so much once that video was finished, that was for sure. I´ve been waiting for this moment for a long time already.

POV Judy

We did it as usual. We quickly went for the armory chamber, got ourselves some gear, and then we headed for the garage as fast as possible. We had on the slightly stronger protection armor today, two of the machine-dart-pistols and three magazines for those each. Barely five minutes after we had talked to Chief Bogo in his office, we were rushing through the streets of Zootopia with blue and red flashing lights on our roof. Backup was on its way as we were told.

"As if they waited for us to come back…" Nick sighed while shaking his head in disbelief, "Wouldn´t that be the worst strategy ever?"

"Probably just a happenstance" I answered with a shrug of my shoulders while concentrating on the road before me.

"But why that location again? Does that make any sense?"

"I can´t tell you, Nicky" I told him once again, as he switched on the blue light´s for the next junction. Everybody in traffic was stopping for us and I got back on the throttle again.

"There it is" I pointed out, as the old building came in sight already, "Here we are again."

"Ready?" he asked while unlocking his weapon.

"I feel good, yeah" I smiled confidently.

"You were in coma just five days ago…" he reminded me.

"We were in the gym again yesterday" I reminded him back, "And I really feel great! Don´t worry!"

"Alright then" he confirmed, "Let´s go for a second round in there!" he proposed, as I steeped on the brakes and stopped the car right in front of the entrance with a big slide. Nick jumped out first and covered the entrance doors while I got out of my side, unlocked my own riffle and went around the car to join him.

"The door is locked!" he told me soon afterwards, and that slowed things down a lot once again.

"At least that's a little more professional than last time…" I suggested.

Nick carefully examined the door a little closer, then he rattled on it.

"It´s just nailed together or something" he told me then, "That´s nowhere near professional…"

"You think we can kick it in?"

"Not a problem" he confirmed, but then he stopped in his tracks again, "Do you hear anything? Like screaming or something?" he asked.

I listened a little closer for a moment.

"There is something that sounds like scratching, but just very lowly. I think its coming from pretty deep inside the building…but I don´t hear any voices…" I told him.

"We shouldn´t lose any more time! This could be crucial!" he announced after carefully considering every bit of information we had right now once again. Then he went a few steps backwards to take some run-up, "And that joke of a door is not stopping me!"

Muhaha, I´ve done it again! The worst cliffhanger in history! But don't worry, the next chapter is already taking shape, and it´s going to be a big one, hopefully that makes up for it a little.

Tell me what you think! Or not.

Have a good time, see you soon!

~furrwolf