The weekend rolled past quickly.
Monday brought in a high-pressure front to clash with the permanent cold-front coming that poured off of the Climate Wall, according to the weather reports. Sheets of rain poured out of the broken cloud-cover as sunlight shined through on the Sahara Square earlier in the morning.
Judy was too busy listening to the rattling of metallic doors of the female lockers. It was not common for the doe to be distracted, but things tended to happen in the scheme of life. Her mind was a jumbled mess and there was no changing it: despite the ice-cold shower and billowing air within the changing area.
The bullpen was the same as it had ever been. The conversations held during the waiting period: all of the mammals greeting each other despite only having less than 12-hours of separation between one another. Bogo's entrance being led by a table-pounding group of subordinates. The buffalo had shouted down the noise, as usual, before doling out the day's tasking orders and patrol routes.
She had led them through the day as a good senior officer once the two had began playing in their sector. It was just as boring lead into the week as it had been the entirety of the previous week. Eventually, the duo stripped off their gear as they got back into their SUV. The humidity had left them both with a sheen of sweat due to the heat generated in their water-proof patrol jackets.
"So,"
The doe's conversation began easily enough. Though, probably seemed sharp to Nick regardless of the fact.
"Robby texted me this morning. He said he got into town and got moved in." Judy said, trying to sound random about it after the two had wrapped up a routine traffic stop. The tiger had not been happy with Nick's assessment of a red light decision. "Do you know anything about that?"
Judy saw Nick smiling out of the corner of her eye, from the passenger seat, as he watched the mammals as who were walking by on the sidewalk. The truth was that she hadn't spoken three-dozen words to him in the last week-and-a-half. Judy had been spending all her time thinking about what the todd had said to her: the desire that Nick had expressed to make sure that she was alright.
"Yeah… I picked him up late Friday night and lent him the truck. Had to keep Tracy and Kendra from jumping him. But, he might have dinged a trash can…" Nick laughed.
"Seriously?" The doe asked.
"Well, yeah." Nick continued simply.
A drink of water was taken out of his bottle, which had been in the cupholder, before there was any continuance.
"You were already asleep. The Warren Intelligence Agency tipped me off. Robby tried to cold-clock a law enforcement officer. Tracy was staring at his fuzzy tail. Robby's stomach made it sound like he was going to eat my dashboard. So, I took him out to Kendra's." He explained with amusement before raising his pitch. "For a boy's night! Yay!"
Both of their ears perked up at the sound of Judy's giggling. Neither of them had expected the titter to slip through her lips.
"You didn't have to hit him, did you?" Judy asked, rolling her eyes.
Nick adopted a more official, announcer-stylized martial artist voice this time around. "His bun-fu held no power against the likes of his mortal enemy."
His response only resulted in a scoff from Judy. The doe was busy looking around the intersection to ensure that her left-pawed turn was clear of sudden, illegal traffic and any jaywalkers. Nick had continued to watch the outer, passenger-side to make sure that they weren't intercepted as they drove through: while Judy watched the inside of the arc of the turn. Once the intersection was clear and, having only drawn a couple of pairs of eyes on her side, Judy heard the todd clear his throat a bit.
"We're heading back to the warren on Friday, right. Have you decided if you want me to drive us out there?" Nick finally asked, his voice unsure in the continued desire.
"You're serious about driving that far?" The doe glanced over quickly.
"Well, yeah…" The todd said, trying to keep a straight face. "I was going to make you drive so that I could get my beauty sleep, anyway."
"You're terrible." Judy fired back.
"I'm joking, dumb bunny. Of course, I'll be driving after the shift." Nick said with a happy nod of the head. "I wouldn't miss that opportunity for anything other than a specific request of yours. So, it's still up to you on if we do it at all."
"What about Robby?" Judy asked, waving a paw at the fox so that he could elaborate on the issue. Apparently, he had all of the answers.
"I heard that he was headed out Wednesday night. Maybe Thursday morning, at the latest." He explained. "Unless one of us is lucky enough to tranq some poor runner, we're not getting out any earlier than end-of-shift."
"We're not tranq'ing anybody, Nick." Judy replied firmly.
"What about Weaselton? Hell, he's older than me. You'd have figured that, after two-years of coming up snake-eyes with fleeing, he'd just give up on demand." The todd chuckled lowly.
Judy laughed outright at that. "That would go over well with Internal Affairs," She said, putting on her best impressions of Nick and the department head. "The Department Chief would ask: 'Why did you decide to tranquilize Mister Weaselton, Officer Wilde?' To which, you would reply: 'This was the three-hundredth time we encountered Mister Weaselton, this year alone, and I didn't want to chase him today'."
"See? You've got it! Minus my effects and all, but yeah." Nick nodded sagely. "Plus, anyway. I'd go home and chase myself around if I wanted someone to play 'hard to get' with."
"Blessed Serendipity…" Judy muttered, wiping a paw down her face as her ears heated up. "We're not tranq'ing anybody unless they're a threat, Slick."
"You're no fun." Nick replied in mock despondence. "Now, I've got to figure out how to make realistic donuts that safely explode with confetti at the front desk…"
"Fine! You can drive out to the warren! But, you leave Clawhauser's donuts out of it." The doe ordered with another laugh.
Judy drove the SUV out to the southern curve of Sandy Ridge, aiming it to the east so that they could catch any potential speedsters or drifters coming through the wide hairpin, before calling it Clawhauser that they were holding position at that location. If the area had been rural, they would have been on the edge of the next municipality compared to the one north of them – considering that the road turned back on itself due to Polar Strait inlet to the east and the Sandy Cove to the south. There were two roads, one on the inside of the main street and one on shoreside, that mammals could use to avoid law enforcement, but they were longer and slower routes through cul-de-sacs.
"Do you really think it was Clawhauser that got Wolford?" She asked Nick.
Nick only opened his maw to laugh at the reminder of the prank on his friend. There was no mistaking the fact that Nick knew more than he would tell now. And, that pretty much confirmed the whole thing in the doe's mind.
Nick's little inadvertent protégé is already growing up so fast, Judy internally groaned.
"Let's just say that I'm pretty sure." Nick said humorously, leaving the whole issue open-ended.
The extreme boredom of patrol over the past two-weeks caused Judy not to look around when the todd grabbed the binoculars off of the dashboard in front of him. That would have been unusual in any other circumstance. She could hear the sound of Nick unbuckling his seatbelt and spinning around on the cloth interior.
"Judy!" Nick said suddenly. "We've got an antelope at our six with a knife! Middle of the parkway!"
"What?" Judy jumped to look around.
"He's got red all over his forearms and torso!"
Halting the desire to get eyes-on the suspect, Judy threw the sport-utility vehicle into drive and floored it out of their sandy parking spot. Nick slammed on the button for the lights and sirens before snatching up the transmitter. The doe heard the todd growl, as he was thrown into the door, while she went through the motions of the jarring U-turn.
"Dispatch, this is Unit-Three! We have a Ten-Thirty-Three-Alpha in the middle of the east-bound Sandy Ridge Parkway! East-side of the Shady Cove Court intersection!" Nick reported. "Suspect possibly covered in blood! Requesting all available units to our location, over!"
"Roger that, Unit-Three," Clawhauser came back over the radio calmly. "All available units, converge at Sandy Ridge Parkway and east of Shady Cove immediately."
There were multiple confirmations coming over the radio that Judy simply ignored. The throttling-through of the gears was ended seconds later as the tires screeched to a halt on the blacktop. The oncoming traffic had already stopped, with some of the drivers trying to back out of the situation that they had found themselves in, as the doors of the patrol vehicle were thrown open. Others had abandoned their vehicles altogether and were running in the opposite direction. There was no mistaking the sound of Nick drawing his Glock from its Kydex, as opposed to one of the less-lethal options.
"Drop the knife and get on the ground!" Nick yelled at the Gemsbok suspect.
"Ahh… Another fucking pelt!" The Gemsbok said happily.
Time does not slow down in high-stress situations. The minute details that set off warning bells hit hard and fast. The resulting emotional feelings either cause a mental lock-up or an overzealous response: if the mammal in question doesn't have their training ingrained in their being. The sight of semi-congealed blood dripping off of the suspect like syrup hit Judy at nearly the same time the scent had to have struck Nick. On instinct, Judy's supporting paw jacked the energy-output of her taser to its maximum. There was no helping the rise of anger in the tone that poured out of Nick's next bellow. The smell of blood permeated the whole area as they closed the gap to the suspect.
"Drop that fuckin' knife!"
Judy heard the sirens from the west-end of the parkway before she saw a second patrol unit screaming up on the westbound portion of the road. The unit eventually jumped the curb and over the mediated separation of the parkway itself, throwing grass and sand up as it came to a stop. Grizzoli and Delgato had arrived and a relay of that fact went out over the communications link.
The suspect's forearm snapped out, tossing the kitchen knife away to the opposite side of the road before the buck got down on his knees, with his forearms raised. His ears flipped back to the sound of Delgato yelling at him not to move.
"Del! Hook him!" Grizzoli shouted, side-stepping around and towards the knife while keeping his partner covered. The lion holstered his sidearm and withdrew pawcuffs from the back of his utility belt.
All three of his supporting officers kept their weapons trained on the suspected until he was face-planted on the blacktop and cuffed. The blood ended up smeared across Delgato's forepaws as he detained the Gemsbok. Judy would never forget the sound of that bloody schlick. Nick spun on his heel immediately, keying the handset of his personal radio-set as he headed south.
"Dispatch, Unit-Seven has the suspect in custody. Unit-Three is pushing southbound, on-paw, to look for the Ten-Fourteens." Nick shouted. His heart-rate was dangerously high, according to the doe's hearing. How she managed to pick it up over all of the other sounds, she did not know. "Three is requesting additional supervisors, EMS, and a Bus."
The only reason that a ZPD Bus would be called to a location was because there were multiple deceased. Emergency Services was called for wounded.
"Wilde! Multiple victims!" Grizzoli bellowed, drowning out Clawhauser's response.
"I know! I know!" Nick screamed back at the wolf urgently. They could both smell something that the doe could not.
Judy spun and ran over to the rear of their patrol vehicle, popping the hatch and grabbing the emergency medical kit from the trunk. With a quick glance, she ran a path to the original blood trail, that Nick had spotted on the roadway, snapping along the path as she watched Nick duck into an open residential doorway. Something in Judy's mind couldn't exactly fault the todd for going in without immediate backup on his tail. When she got to the door, Judy saw his form ducking into an upstairs hallway.
A moment later, the radio crackled to life as she was about to start clearing the downstairs' rooms.
"This is Three-Whiskey," The radio squelched a bit due to her proximity to Nick.
Judy ended up throwing herself into the wall in an effort to rush upstairs. The todd was fast, and it was entirely possible that he had cleared the ground floor before she had made it to the residence. It was a stupid assumption, but the tone of his voice was just too much. More sirens were approaching the original location from afar. Judy ducked down the opposite hall than where Nick had gone to clear the rooms.
"Supervisors needed at Three-Two-Five Shady Cove Court. We have an EMS Priority-Five at this location with multiple Ten-Eighteens,"
Judy cleared the rooms as thoroughly as she could and ran down the hallway, trying to follow Nick's scent through the thick scent of gore within the building. She reached the room just as he relayed the last of his information.
"Recommend another Bus be dispatched to this location, over…" He finished softly.
Judy had found Nick to be staring into the scene of a slaughterhouse and felt his paw on her shoulder when she tried to dive in and help the victims. Anything about the scene could have been what caused Nick to hold her back. The sheer amount of blood on the wooden floor was the biggest clue. Some of the puddles, from each victim, had congealed before reaching the pool of the nearest neighboring victims. The slip of his paw from her shoulder, and a thump, brought her disbelieving eyes over to the todd while he was assessing the crime scene. He had smacked a weak paw against the doorframe to keep himself upright.
Spread across the second-story room, faced towards the falling sun beyond the window outside, were six red fox kits of various ages and – what Judy assumed – was their vixen mother. Their varying orange fur-tones were sharply muted by the arterial blood that had been released through the gashes along their throats. The youngest of the kits looked as if they had nearly been decapitated by the level of violence. There was so much blood near their bodies that it was nearly unbelievable that a body could hold that much. Judy quickly grabbed Nick's head to shield him as she tried to stymie the flashes of the victim's faces from passing behind her own closed eyelids. Their wide-open, fear-filled eyes and silent-screaming muzzles still exploded in her mind, nonetheless.
There was nothing to stop the piercing iron-smell that permeated every square inch of the second story of the building.
After the fact, there was no telling what it exactly was that kept the doe's body moving in-time with standard police procedure. Grizzoli had to guide Nick out of the building forcefully. Judy was on complete autopilot after the white wolf had assisted her partner. A cordon line was put up by her own paw and foot-traffic was directed until the detective returned to relieve her. There were police units from as far out as Central Tundratown and as close as the Sahara Square district that had been sent out for backup purposes. The street, down to the main intersection, had more law enforcement on it than residents. And, Delgato was watching over Nick at one of the nearby ambulances. The todd had his face in his paws as he sat on the end of the rear-step on the bumper.
Chief Bogo had arrived with Lieutenant Waldron at some point during her work. Several other members of Precinct-1 swooped in, to cover for the duo, while Corporal Judy Hopps made her way over to her immediate site commanders for an explanation.
It wasn't the first time in since the duo's initial partnership that they had seen such a gruesome crime scene. It was absolutely the most gruesome that they had seen, though. Only made worse by the fact that it, right from the word "go", looked like a hate crime. The specificity of the victims' species… The comment that the Gemsbok made when the duo approached him… The cover of the story read simply enough, and Judy was sticking to the theory.
Bogo had to grasp her shoulder firmly to keep her mind on the walkthrough of the timeline when they all heard Nick lose his stomach contents nearby. The physical response from the todd almost caused the doe to puke in front of her superiors.
More often than not, Judy was the only prey officer to be paired with a predator and she was the only one to be permanently assigned to a predator by request. Predators were accused of being fearsome villains in all of the stories and comments that the doe had ever heard in her lifetime… but, to see such a violent act draw such distraught sadness from a predator? It was also a fear. And, that fear scared the diminutive prey mammal worse than anything that she had seen on The Force, thus far. Days like today continued to hammer it home for Judy Hopps. The whole of Precinct-1, who were at the scene, were both saddened and angered. But, the looks on the predator faces were in another league of their own. They were all looking at this crime the same way that she was.
The Chief eventually ushered the duo off the scene. They were ordered away from the location, while the Gemsbok suspect was placed in Lieutenant Waldron's patrol car. Bogo led the convoy back to Precinct-1 while Judy followed up at the rear. Both of the small mammals were watching the suspect's form through Waldron's back glass just as intimately as they watched the traffic.
Judy knew that if the Gemsbok somehow made it out of the vehicle that Nick would shoot him.
Fortunately, no escape attempt was made.
The lobby of Precinct-1 was a-buzz with activity when all of the primary parties stepped out of the main garage elevator. Lieutenant Waldron passed the suspect off to two large patrol-mammals, Officers Wilcox and Aldrin, before taking off to her wing of the building. Judy watched as the Chief went straight up to his office. The distraction of waiting for further orders from her superior had let Nick slip down the hall to their shared cubicle. By the time Judy had caught up with Nick, he was already settled into his chair and beginning work on the required paperwork for the case reports.
Judy could not remember the last time that Nick was able go through all of the procedural motions for a case report so cleanly. As the supporting and secondary party to the whole event, Judy was off her mental-game. The whole report, that the doe was going to end up writing, was going to be an extremely simplistic After-Action Report. Incidents of violence were always led by Nicholas Wilde: due to his training with the SWAT teams and, more specifically, the wolves.
Tracking.
Mental Situation Analytics.
Subsequential Threat Assessments.
Those were aspects of the training for mammals with an elevated olfactory sense and the regimen was in that very order. There was no helping that she felt a little warmer at the fact that Nick seemed engulfed in anger as opposed to being distressed presently. The todd's tail was extremely fluffed-out and thrashing low, behind his seated hips. An hour later, their reports were complete, and the duo headed upstairs to the Chief's office.
"Enter!" Bogo shouted at Judy's knocking.
Judy led Nick inside and he shut the door behind them before they made their way over to the large chair in front of the Chief's desk. The doe placed the folder on their end of the desk before sitting down properly.
"Hopps. Wilde…" Bogo greeted them heavily. "I know it doesn't feel like it, but you both did a good job with that capture today. Who knows how many more he could have killed if it hadn't been for you two."
The buffalo took up the folder from his desk and opened it before putting on his reading glasses. It did not take long for the Chief to finish going over Nick's initial report. Judy's was shorter and simpler than the todd's. It did not matter because the events corresponded with the timeline. That is what the investigators would need, and it was not going to be led by her.
"I'm putting Grizzoli on point for this one. It already looks cut-and-dry and I anticipate that any interviews, if they become necessary, will come after the holidays at this point." The Chief explained as his eyes roamed over his officers. "Is that going to be a problem, Wilde?"
"Nothing that's going to get solved by cussing and breaking shit, Sir." Nick replied darkly.
"What about you, Hopps?" The buffalo's eyes narrowed back on her.
"No, Sir!" She replied immediately.
Bogo nodded once. "Good. I'll talk with Waldron and see if she wants any recordings of your perspectives at some point. That update will come tomorrow." The explanation came firmly. "Finish up your other reports and get out of here!"
Nick hopped down from the seat immediately and headed for the door while Judy followed him out. The door was held open so that she could exit first. Both Judy and Bogo noticed when he looked back at the desk in the center of the room.
"Just need one thing." Nick said quietly.
"What?"
"Make sure Grizzoli and the prosecutors bury that piece-of-shit, Chief." The todd said firmly.
"I'm going to personally see to that, Wilde." Bogo replied. "Go."
The duo left the Chief's office with a snap of the door closing behind them. They proceeded back down the stairs and to their cubicle so that the rest of the day's events could be typed-up and logged. Judy promptly sat down and watched as Nick ran his paws over his head as he waited for the desktop to boot up. The chair was spun around as soon as he noticed the restart was completed. Her own chair turned away a lot slower than the todd's.
First thing was first. Judy's paw reached up and found her EagleEye body camera so that she could remove it from the front of her vest. The ZPD had not been able to financially support an update to the WiFi syncing system for their video auditing program. The mechanics would remotely upload all video taken from the dashcams on the cruisers, but the EagleEye footage had to be uploaded by each officer at the end-of-shift so that the supervisors could comb through them for violations. The files were coded so that nobody could edit or delete the footage at the patrol level. Attempts to do so were recorded in the code, as well. Not that the latter-of-the-two options would have mattered in the event that the coding had been discretely altered. Any shift upload that was missed would raise immediate red-flags.
Judy removed the USB storage and plugged it into the tower of the desktop so that the software could immediately begin downloading everything. Once the file had been loaded into the video manager software, Judy began to tag specific sections for notation and review upstream. She listed the entirety of the Gemsbok incident as priority before hitting a dropdown to reference each with their specific case file numbers: two traffic stops and the final incident.
Once that was complete, the remaining two reports were short-lived. Even though Judy knew that neither of them could really focus back on a speeding ticket and a red-light violation mentally; both traffic stops would be clarified by the accompanying strips of footage. Nobody in the department was going to fault them for being distracted and forgetful on the more trivial of public interactions: assuming that those interactions were above-board in regard to the conveyed professionalism.
The printer went whirred to life in the center of the large U-shaped desk, behind the doe. Nick was already finished and printing out his side of the reports. Judy turned, waiting for it to cycle into the second report while noticing that the todd was uploading the digital copies to the Precinct's Cloud server. She did the same and queued up her own for printing. Digital signatures were applied, and the upload lasted a split-second, and while Nick was signing his paper copies Judy waited for her own copies to print. The todd shut down his desktop while he waited for her.
The lobby was empty - with the exception of Clawhauser's form sitting behind his desk. Nick had taken Judy's reports and organized them by the file number before slipping them into a folder, and he subsequently laid the folder in a tray for Clawhauser to collect. The rotund cheetah gave them a sad wave while he was working with dispatching ZFD assets to a fire in Tundratown. As Nick was walking out of the building, Judy noticed that a sticky note had been left on the folder for the cheetah. No doubt, it would explain that the third report was firmly in Bogo's hooves.
No time had been wasted in the parking lot considering that the Furd's engine was started up while Judy was hustling across the lot to get to her ride. She could see that Nick was shutting the radio off and had tossed his phone up onto the dash. A calm blanket was laid over his outward perception, but the fact of the matter was that the todd was furious. Very few would have ever even seen that truth. Judy was immensely grateful that she was one of those few who was allowed. As soon as the todd heard the passenger seatbelt finally buckle, he sped off across of the lot.
Judy was happy to see that no traffic laws were broken while Nick was moving through the streets: despite being a little lead-pawed and heavy swung through the corners. The throaty roar of the motor warded the pedestrians away from the edges of the intersections' curbs. When they reached the driveway, Nick slid the truck in against the concrete drive rather forcefully: contrasted by the gentleness that he switched the vehicle into park and shut it off.
The only sound to be had after making it inside was the sound of ripped Velcro from their respective pieces of soft armor. The doe dutifully put her gear away as Nick dropped his on the couch: vest, belt, and patrol cap. He would pick them up, but right now. He did not give a shit and that feeling carried with the todd all the way into the kitchen. Tossing his wallet down on the island counter as he went by. She watched as he made it as far as the sink before planting his paws wide at the edge of the counter, leaning over it as his frame deflated from the strain of the day. His ears were pinned back to their fullest extent, but she knew that he heard every pawfall on the floor.
"Sorry, Carrots," Nick said heavily. "I'm not going to be good for dinner tonight. I'll order something – in a bit – if you want."
"I can't eat after that, Nick." She responded tentatively, feeling the emotions welling up in her chest at the mere movement of her lips. The formation of words, on the doe's lips, betrayed ever duty and desire to remain calm.
"I can't say I feel any different." He said, drawing a shaking paw up over his head. She could hear the sound of claws been run roughly over his skin, between all his fur.
Judy understood that entirely and waited long enough to see Nick turn around. She had to have looked just as bad as he was looking to her. Tired, distraught… even aged a bit by the whole ordeal. The todd looked like he was about to start sprouting gray furs at any moment. The doe, herself, found it fortunate that any silver furs would be hidden amongst the predominate palate of gray that served as the baseline for her fur. Nick did not have that kind of luxury.
"I need a shower." The todd said with a resounding level of finality.
She watched as Nick took off for the shower just across and down from the kitchen, peeling his department-issue undershirt away as he walked off. The doe had never seen him use that shower before. It felt as if he was drifting further and further away from her, by the day. That consideration brought her paws to a quick pace, rushing upstairs and into her own shower with an urgency. Judy could feel the emotions welling up within her.
When Judy was done, she took her time with collecting herself, dressing in a T-shirt and shorts slowly before heading to the stairwell. The wait at the base of stairs was something that she had anticipated. Nick's shower was off, but the Nick's drying-off was still in full swing. The fur-dryer wasn't on, but she knew that he was still brushing his coat down. Her hindpaws brought her over to the door measuredly in the hopes that she wouldn't arrive too early to meet his exit from the bathroom.
Judy's breath caught in her throat when the door opened.
The todd looked wet overall. As if he had washed his boxers and undershirt in the shower, and then attempted to dry them after the fact. She had to have looked as emotionally drained as Nick: just by the lack of care for decorum that he currently had.
"I…" Judy said quietly.
"He'll get his, Fluff." Nick replied, stepping a little closer. "Prison is not kind to those that harm kits. No matter their species."
Judy felt her paws ball into little fuzzy fists as the tears overtook her eyes. She had not felt this angry about something it a long time. The cumulation of sorrow hit her soul when Nick dove in to wrap her in his arms.
"It's not right!" She cried out, hugging him in a tight return.
"No…" Nick whispered. "It's not right."
Effortlessly, Nick hooked his forearm under her bottom and picked her up. It caused her legs to wrap around his back instinctually while the todd carried her upstairs. Her sharp ears heard Nick's hindpaw bump a door open carefully. The tears fell more urgently as she clutched his shirt. It could have been the last lifeline on the planet at this point. The paw behind her head moved down to help him carry her up into his bed before he laid his head down on the pillow. The same paw instinctually began brushing over her ears and down to her back slowly as he whispered comfortingly.
"We got him, sweetheart." He explained softly. "He'll never harm another innocent soul. There's no way he'll walk away from a conviction."
The feeling of being held close was so comforting to Judy. It slowed her heartbeat down and the warmth fought against the shaking that wasn't caused by being cold. At this point, her partner only sounded tired of the whole ordeal. It still stumped the doe at the lack of surprise Nick had with the degrees of prejudice and bigotry against his species. Even Nick's anger about the murders only burned like dying embers in a fire. He had probably seen it all with the day's event.
The todd released her and she watched as he rolled on his back, leaning up to hook his thumbs on the back of his collar before roughly dragging the shirt off of his torso. It was flung off the end of the bed before Nick curled back up around her.
"How do you know?" She felt herself ask with a huff.
"The 'what-ifs', Fluff. All the other collars – in the prison – will wonder what it would be like if that buck's hatred had been directed at their species. Even some of the prey in there. He won't be made into a 'toy'. He'll be 'the example.'" Nick emphasized neutrally.
"That's how you feel?" She asked tentatively.
Nick shook his head, making sure to keep his chin off of her head as he did so. She watched as he stared at the window across the other side of the room: it made her wish that he had a better view out of it, instead of looking towards the house next door.
"That's what I know will happen." His voice was clipped and firm. "I hope that it isn't quick for him."
Before they had known each other as well as they did now, the doe would have been surprised.
If not appalled, Honesty spoke up.
It had taken all that she had seen in Zootopia to understand that some species got the short-end of the stick, by default. Historic tendencies diminished the acts of the current day for many small predators and nearly all of the rodent species. There was not a pred-exclusivity to it. And, nobody really bothered with bringing up the efficiency of the large-class predator species' killing abilities. Lions. Tigers. Wolves. When historic central religion gained serious traction, those species were quick to paint themselves in a holy light and that had stuck for centuries. But, not the sweetness or definity of Karma for foxes. And, just as Judy was about to speak, Nick cut her off.
"I don't want you to understand that, Judy. I don't want you to be OK with that mentality," He growled. "I don't want you to agree with me on that."
"Why?" She squeaked.
"Because you're not like me. You're not supposed to be like me. That's why you asked me to be your partner." He said easily. "You needed the contrast that I offer."
"That mother, Nick!" Judy moaned, feeling the next wave of sadness wash over her mind. "Those poor kits!"
"I know, sweetheart!" Nick replied, his body quaking with each nod of his head as his voice cracked like a fault-line. "I know!"
The totality of the event overtook the doe. She broke down in the todd's grasp. Judy felt his lips press urgently against her forehead and heard every catch of his breath in the process. There was no shoring up against the vocal cries that she let out into his fur, nor against the shaking of her frame against his. The todd could not help balling-up around her body as his whispered comforts were drowned out by her own cries of pain.
Sleep did not come easy for either of them. But, it was peaceful in each others' paws.
...
The environment of the bullpen was somber the following morning. The officers, who had not been to the crime scene, were shooting sidelong glances at those that had been. A lot of glances were directed at the serious faces of the rabbit doe and todd fox. Grizzoli and Delgato were notably absent. And, there was no uproarious behavior leading up to the Chief's entry into the bullpen. The giant water buffalo clearly had not slept at all and the state of his uniform suggested that he had not even left the Precinct. Judy felt both of their bodies deflate a little tension. It was a promising sight to see that their superior was giving it his all.
Assignments were doled out accordingly and the duo was left for last; with Judy noticing that Wolford's section gave them concerned looks as they went by.
"You two have Plaza patrol today. Your cruiser's dashcam footage is still being processed and I've taken the liberty to have the mechanics work on it while that's being done. I want to see you both in my office at noon. Dismissed." Bogo said tiredly.
"Yes, Sir!" Judy responded quickly.
"We've got it, Chief." Nick agreed resolutely.
She hopped down off of the chair before Nick and the two made for the lobby. It surprised the doe when Nick made a beeline for the front desk to speak to Clawhauser, so she waited near the main doors for him to catch up. When he returned, Nick had one of the new belt-mounted ticket machines on his frame and one of the ZPD's smartphones in paw. Nick held the door open for her before following her out into the sunshine.
Judy kind of just followed Nick out through the parking lot. He knew how to keep himself distracted in times like this and that would be the best thing to follow on. Plaza Patrol was the kind of job that was somewhat nonspecific in rules. They wouldn't get in trouble for issuing parking tickets or simply sitting on a nearby bench to watch for suspicious activity. So, they walked. Counterclockwise around the outer sidewalk of First Street so that the todd could find any vehicles that had a parking violation.
Unlike her usual routine for parking duty, Nick had an extremely specific set of rules that he followed for parking violators and that rule would work really well for the Plaza. It would take about an hour to make it all the way around considering there was always conversation to be had or tickets to write. His rule was simply. If the vehicle owner wasn't violating the meter by more than an hour, then they'd get a pass until he found their car again on the next pass. Handicap mammals got a pass completely. And, to him, that was fair to each mammal's specific issues.
"It would have been better if Bogo had put us on rolling parking duty." Nick muttered, typing out the first ticket on the smartphone. "This just makes it feel like we're on display."
Judy nodded sadly, trying to keep a face of neutrality on despite the understanding. They had to have made the news last night. Smartphone footage of the parkway encounter was likely all over the web now. There was not a single mammal – who passed them – who did not know what they had just been through thanks to the local news networks. Whatever information that was gleaned from the investigation was aired on television already.
Deciding to ignore the looks from the locals, the doe smiled softly. "Well, between you breaking the frame of the Meter Maid Mobile and my overzealousness of ticketing, they're probably not going to reinstitute parking duty." She admitted.
"Officer Hopps…" Nick smiled just a little. "Are you implying that I'm fat?"
"And, that you have a temper." She huffed out an amused snort. "It wouldn't have broken if you hadn't thrown your big butt into the seat that day."
"Yeah…" He finally admitted, turning to continue their patrol down the sidewalk. A second later, he was chuckling. "I was pretty upset."
The morning was spent making the rounds. Eventually, Nick got tired of levying fines against delinquently parked vehicles and the duo took a leisurely stroll through the park. Pre-teen kits would sometimes shout urgently before kicking a soccer ball or throwing a football at Nick: and, Judy watched as a soft, genuine smile crease his muzzle as he returned the ball. They would whoop happily and run off, bragging about how the first fox police officer to the ZPD was messing around.
Judy made sure to watch over Nick as he laughed, jogging out to get into the middle of a soccer game. The entertained look on his face melted the doe's heart as she continued to look over the crowd of surrounding parents. Fortune favored both sides of comfort and not-so-much, as they looked on. The fortunate side of things were that the parents did not seem concerned with the fact that it was a fox that was playing with their kits. Every now and again, Judy would check her watch to ensure that they weren't late for their meeting, though time melted away quickly. Judy gave a loud whistle while Nick was across the pitch. There was a jerk of his head, to look back at her, before he lobbed a curving black-and-white ball into the net downrange. It brought a chorus of groans and joyful laughter from each youth team as the todd raised his paws up over his head before being swamped with several kits from nearby. Nick laughed joyfully as he rubbed several of their heads for their help in his shot while saying his goodbyes.
The doe looked on with a happy smile, positively overwhelmed with adoration for her partner, even as Nick approached. He could see everything written on her face, without a doubt. It only made his smile grow wider, though sheepish. It was at that moment that she understood the entire mindset of her motherly-bound sisters. It must have taken an amazing male in their lives to want to go out and conceive kits at such a moment's notice. And, now, Judith Laverne Hopps knew that feeling intimately.
The way the todd played with the kits… The way he was consumed with their safety. How concerned he was for her own well-being. The entire focus on others over his own well-being… Those half-lidded eyes and that stupid, distracting smile: which erred more on the side of curiosity than arrogance in that very moment.
It all made Judy bloom with a longing blush.
"Sorry, Fluff." He said after jogging over. "Those ruffians challenged me, so I had to gently whoop their tails."
"Whatever you say, Slick." She grinned softly, looking down at her hindpaws as they led them away.
The feeling dissipated as the walk towards Bogo's office wore on. The lobby door was opened. The stairs were reached. She swore that neither of them even looked at Clawhauser on their way by. They were too busy readying themselves. It was the worst that she had ever felt on the way to answer the Chief's earlier call and it made no sense because they had done nothing wrong in the arrest of the Gemsbok. There wasn't going to be a single, neutral civilian that would dare to have faulted Nick for his blatant language during the initial corralling of the suspect.
For Serendipity's sake, we weren't even the arresting officers, Judy thought wildly.
"You have to calm down, Fluff," Nick whispered, ears back as he was visibly blushed in embarrassment. "You're freaking the rest of them out."
Judy's head snapped up to the todd as they reached the top of the stairwell, watching as his own muscles were trying to find a new spot to set the fox, before looking around the lower lobby. There was no "up-wind" in the middle of the Precinct for him. Clawhauser was laid out over his lower desk, ears pinned back while his arms were thrown over his adorned headset. Wolford, who for some reason was in the middle of Precinct-1 in the middle of the day, had his ears pinned even further back as he tried to dutifully walk across the atrium.
"I—" She began urgently.
"You don't have to say anything. Just take a sec and lock it down. We didn't do anything wrong." Nick overrode her quickly, spinning the doe around with both paws. He immediately hit a knee and looked her over urgently.
Then, Nicholas Wilde gave her a hug. And, that, sent her body into a level rigidity that would have rivaled any building plank from even the most notable lumber distributor in Zootopia. The scent of violets and the plushness of the fur underneath his patrol shirt was almost immediately calming. It was the engulfing arms, the tightness, and the warmth therein that calmed her down after that. Nick's tail had even wrapped around the entirety of her frame, extending well past even that to curl back around his opposite knee.
It took another moment for Judy to firmly steel herself and once she had, Nick unwrapped her. He stood up fully and began smoothing out his uniform while she did the same on her own. Once that was finished, the todd ruffled her ears with a gentle smile before knocking on the door. The normal gruff response hollered for them to enter. Within the room, Lieutenant Waldron was sitting on a chair across from Bogo while the water buffalo stood behind his desk. No doubt, he was reading reports that the female cheetah had brought him. The duo immediately took their seats.
"The Lieutenant has some questions for you two." Bogo said, not looking up from the forms.
A black notebook was cracked open in Melissa Waldron's lap as Judy's eyes found the cheetah's staring at them. Pen poised in a spotted paw. What most did not know, until both mammals were in the same room, Lieutenant Waldron was an officer that had an even stricter temperament than the Chief.
"You'll have to forgive me, Officer Wilde, but I have to ask." Waldron began, putting the tip of the pen to the paper. "Were you acquainted with the victims?"
Nick shook his head. "I knew that it was the Beijars when I saw them. I didn't know them, though." He replied simply, looking out over the desk. The todd ended up cutting against the grain by making an inquiry. "What happened to the husband?"
"The Tundratown Precinct found him early this morning. He was already three-days deceased and the wife had called in the missing mammal's report. A BOLO had been issued." The cheetah explained without looking up from her notes. "Run me through the initial notice of the suspect."
"I got a case of the sore-ass from sitting around so long. It had gotten me shifting in my seat a bit. I'm fairly sure that it was a vehicle's high-beams being flashed that caught my attention. I could tell that a mammal was in the middle of the road at first glance, but I didn't verbally alert my partner until I saw the specifics of it through the binoculars. As I noted in my reports." Nick explained.
"You were the one to spot the suspect?" Waldron said, raising her eyes onto the fox.
"No disrespect meant, Lieutenant. Or, to you, Chief. But, I'm not speaking to you in my secondary Vulpish. Nor did I write my reports in such a fashion." Nick's statement was made in just as even a tone as ever, staring down the larger predator. "So, what was this?"
Judy elbowed Nick in the side for leveling such a blatant demand of their superiors. Insubordination had always made the doe uncomfortable to be around and it was the worst feeling in the world when it involved their boss. The look of warning that the buffalo had was not missed by Judy.
"We're confident that this was a hate crime with only one suspect. There was forensic evidence that put the Gemsbok at both scenes." Bogo said resolutely.
"Wilde. Hopps. I want to make this absolutely clear to both of you." Waldron spoke up. Judy did not miss the rolling growl that came from the female's chest. "The district attorney is going to pursue the death penalty. There will be no deals rendered for the suspect."
The doe watched as Nick start down at the end of the desk for a moment, clearing his throat in the process, before he chose a moment to speak.
"Will there be anything else, Lieutenant?" He asked softly.
"Not from Waldron, Wilde..." Bogo said gruffly.
Judy looked up suddenly. The Chief had set his shoulders and was staring right at Nick with every bit of intensity that he could muster. When she looked over at Nick, he was side-eyeing her with a sad smile.
"Sorry, Fluff," Nick said softly. "We're benched until the holidays are over. At the minimum."
The Chief fell back into his chair with one of the loudest grunts that had been released in the presence of any of his officers. Sometimes, the todd's ability to read other mammals, and into their plans, was impressive. The doe watched as Nick's smile widened and how his head turned back towards Bogo. There was a very uncharacteristic groan released by the Chief.
"So, Buffalo Butt." He said loudly, chuckling. "What are our duties? Armory, desk, or Dispatch?"