Karen Skippel's determined, focused expression threatened to turn into a full frown as she saw Judy's head poking from around her ZPD cubicle. The gray bunny's curious expression turned into a small smile.
"Officer Hopps," the arctic hare acknowledged tersely.
"How's it going, Karen?" Judy asked, her voice perky.
"It's... a challenge," Karen grumbled. "I've got a persistent hacker trying to get at all caprine-related crime files."
"Anything I can help with?" The gray bunny officer pursued.
"No, no it is not, it is outside your area of expertise," Karen answered with muted frustration. "Also, in the future, I'd prefer it if you called me by my designation and surname when we are on duty."
"Ah, okay! Got it, Officer Skippel," Judy saluted with friendly and over-dramatic flair.
Karen cringed just a little. "Also, please leave me be. Don't you have something to do?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Judy's expression morphed from friendliness to a slight perturbation.
"Come on, Officer Fluff," Nick beckoned his partner by cocking his head. "Some hares just can't be reasoned with."
"Officer Wilde..." Karen said through her teeth, glaring at him. "I am perfectly reasonable, when I'm not being pestered by trivialities when I'm trying to work!"
"Well, you know my partner," Nick tossed back casually, "she's friendly and gregarious, so if you can't 'reasonably' get along with that, I guess I'd have to disagree with you there."
Both lapines looked confused at this, though Karen's face was tinged with a hint of disgust. Nick beckoned Judy again, with his paw this time, and the two headed downstairs toward their cruiser.
"Nick, that wasn't very nice," Judy frowned at him, her paws balled into stern little fists they swung at her sides. "You know Karen's introverted. I'm just trying to chip away at that shell of hers a little."
"It's like I said, there's just no talking to some hares," Nick shrugged casually.
"'Some hares'," Judy flicked him an annoyed glance. "Bit specist of you..."
"Just talkin' from experience," Nick said, getting his gear from his locker. "Bet Skippy there could beat you in a contest of sheer stubbornness. I mean, your tenacity is well known, but a hare's?" The fox's head bobbed to the side. "Tch."
"Nick, you seem especially bitter this morning," Judy droned as the two buckled up into the cruiser. "I did make your coffee just how you like it, so where's that sweetness?"
"I dunno, something about where we're going just rubs me the wrong way," Nick grumbled.
A look of sudden understanding passed onto Judy's face. "Yeah... yeah, I can see that."
The crowd was organized chaos, as contradictory as that sounded.
Nick and Judy had been chosen to help provide security at a rally. Specifically, it was an anti-mixed species relationship gathering. Signs of all kinds that professed various views on the matter were being held by all sorts of paws, hooves, and even a few trunks. Some same-species couples defiantly held hands, angered looks on their faces, while the police had to keep protesters away from the rally.
"Buncha haters! You're nothin' but a buncha haters!" A surly red panda said, rearing back a water bottle to toss into the rally.
"I wouldn't sir, please step back," Judy said sternly, a paw on her non-branded, offically-issued pepper spray.
The red panda loudly sucked at his teeth and withdrew. The crowds continued to yell until a mammal behind them got up on a podium to make a small speech.
"Can't say I care for being on this side of the 'argument'," Judy chuckled hesitantly, giving her partner a quick glance. "I mean, if two mammals love each other and aren't hurting each other, what's the harm, huh?"
"Well, we're just here to try to keep the peace, as fragile as that's seeming," Nick said, a dour look on his face. "Rest assured both sides have their loonies."
Nick's ear bat as he finally tuned into the voice of the speaker.
"So I ask you, what's the point of these- these mixed relationships, huh?" The voice was feminine, powerful, borderline severe. "You think you might be different from one of your own species, hah! Try getting with someone of a different order. Or better yet, don't! Let me be the first to tell you: it doesn't work! Mammals are meant to be with their own kind. That's how we were built, that's how the future is made! Anything else is selfish nonsense!"
"YEAH!" Several anti-mixed species advocates shouted.
"Up yours, hare!" A rhino near Nick and Judy shouted, waving his massive hand. Judy winced and both of the officers drew their stun guns. "I got a bear mate and she's plenty happy with me!" His booming voice captured the attention of the hare speaker, who looked at him.
"If you tried to go 'up mine', you'd kill me, you deviant oaf," she said acidly. Some scornful laughing broke out, and the protester was jeered. The rhino snorted, in a cross mood; his body language read as if he was close to action.
"This could be bad," Judy winced, dialing up her stun gun's setting.
"Sir, going to have to ask you to back down," Nick warned as loud as he could, blinking a light in his other paw to get his attention.
"Uh?" The rhino looked down. "Oh, Nick, hey! First time I've seen you in the uniform!"
"Are you kidding me?" Judy's eyes squinted. "You really do know everyone, huh?"
"Just calm down, sir," Nick held out a paw in caution.
"Egh, all right," the rhino flicked his hand dismissively. "How come you're defendin' these bozos, Wilde?"
"Because in Zootopia, anyone can be anything," Nick said calmly. "Including being holders of whatever views they wish."
"Pretty magmammalous of you- magmaminous... what's that word," the rhino laughed, then shook his head and scoffed, making his way off.
Nick and Judy both took a relieved sigh and looked at each other briefly. Nick's sidelong glance caught sight of the the speaker, and it made his muzzle bunch up slightly and he sneered.
"Oh, for the love of..." Nick rolled his eyes and his mood seemed to worsen.
Judy curiously looked back at the hare speaker. Nothing really stood out to her as too remarkable. She continued her rhetoric unimpeded, denouncing mixed-species couples and praising those that stuck to their own kind.
The rally seemed to go on a long time to the smaller gray lapine. Too long.
The doors of the cruiser slammed; Nick's a little louder. He leaned his elbow against the arm rest and rubbed at his temple with two fingers.
"Exhausting, huh?" Judy leaned in a bit, getting ready to start the cruiser, but hesitating as she looked at her partner.
"Yup," Nick huffed, looking at one of his paws. "But we do what we do to make the world better. Every opinion needs its counter, and they all need to be equally protected."
"Listen, I'll be blunt," Judy frowned, taking her paw down from the starter. "I know something's wrong with you."
"Judy," Nick sat up abruptly and looked at her. "Do you believe in Serendipity?"
The bunny cop blinked at the odd question and tilted her head. When Nick's face seemed serious, she gave it some thought. She thought about all the chances she had taken, all the perilous situations she'd just barely managed to get out of, and, of course, her fateful meeting with Nick.
"I mean... maybe?" Judy smiled faintly. "She's a nice thought, anyway."
"And you ever pray to her?" Nick pursued.
"...I've thanked my lucky stars once or twice," Judy shrugged, nodding in conciliation.
"Then tell her to stop messing with me," Nick admonished, holding up a finger sternly. He slumped back into his chair, aggravated.
"Nick, what has gotten into you?" Judy frowned. "You've been weird all day."
"Here's another question," Nick said, his eyes darting over to his partners' briefly. "What's the most valuable thing you can give someone? Your life? Your time?"
Judy was quiet, staring over her upset partner as he seemed to seethe.
"How about your... first time?" Nick asked, and the poison seemed to drain from his voice, replaced by something like emptiness.
"Nick, what are you saying...?" The bunny asked quietly.
"That hare on the podium today," the fox said glumly. "She was my first."
"...Really? No way..." Judy seemed amazed, though not judgemental. "...Wow, she must have done a one-eighty, huh?"
"Sh- yeah," Nick scoffed bitterly, trying to sit back up straight in his chair. "How do you think that feels, huh? To screw up a relationship so badly that they go all the way to the other team? I'd have asked Chief Bogo for another assignment if I knew Melanie was going to be here." He enunciated the name with extra bile.
Judy frowned, but then leaned forward, her expression having a hopeful edge to it. "It takes two mammals to make a relationship, Nick. I doubt it was your fault."
"And how do you know that?" Nick snipped, but some of the anguish in his face was changing to sadness. "How, huh? You don't know her; what she was like."
"But I do know you," Judy smiled patiently. "And I know you're a kind, sweet goofball with a sour outer layer. She tossed away a real winner."
Nick rolled his eyes, but couldn't find it in himself to scowl.
Judy finally started up the cruiser, starting to head back to the ZPD. A red light halted the massive vehicle.
"Anyway, I think I figured it out," Judy said, staring at the light.
"What's that?" Nick turned his head to her.
"The most valuable thing you can give to someone," Judy said with a wistful look in her eyes. "Your love."
"Oh, pff," Nick actually burst out a laugh, regaining his easy smile and half lidded eyes. "Now this is familiar. My bunny partner going on about how much she wuvs me while we're in the cruiser."
"Well, yeah," Judy looked at him coquettishly. "But you love me too. So, I consider myself very valued to have that love, and I will treasure it."
Nick looked baffled, and quite alarmed. "What... do you mean?"
"Tell me you don't love me," Judy narrowed an eye, smirked devilishly, then pressed her pedal on the gas when the light changed green.
Nick dropped open his mouth as if to reply, but said nothing, then just as quickly shut it, his eyes wide with confusion and maybe even a dash of amazement.
"Let's see..." Judy eyes roved around the traffic as she seemed so strangely conversational. "There was the bridge. You had the chance to walk out of my life completely, and you didn't. You instead showed me just how devoted to me you could be. You kept your cool when I did something... a little foolish, you saved what was important to the case. You didn't give up on me when I needed you, even though I demanded you to. Then when we got through that, you gave up nine months of your life just for the chance to be my partner, because I asked you. Nine months, that, I've heard, you were quite lonely through. Despite my occasional visit."
"Jeez..." Nick felt his stomach swirling. "Where'd all this come from, all of a sudden?"
"I just want you to know that I'll be here to give you my love, in whatever capacity you want it, Nick," Judy smiled with a satisfied warmness, "because I know you'll keep doing the same thing for me. You've proved it from everything you've done from that fateful day forward."
"...You think about that a lot?" Nick seemed almost timid.
Judy gave him a brief glance. "It was really important to me, Nick." She paused, then gave another little smile. "You make me happy, Nick, and I have a silly little feeling that I make you happy, too."
The two were uncharacteristically quiet during the rest of the drive, but neither of them looked particularly upset anymore.
Nick stood silently outside his apartment complex, trying to make out what stars he could in the city's night lights. He never really responded to that piercing monologue Judy had managed to land on him from earlier. How could he? It was so... surreal. She'd suddenly gained so much perception, and she spoke of things with that absolute certainty that he'd come to know from her. Like the secrets of his feelings were just an open book to her. It was... unsettling.
Bling!
Nick got a text, and looked down to check it. It was from the bunny, of course.
[Dinner tomorrow night?]
"Hoo boy, this is really a thing now, is it?" Nick felt his heart rate pick up at the simple request, despite the fact that he'd eaten out with her plenty of times beforehand.
His fingers almost wobbled as he went to text back.
[Sure. You got a place in mind?]
The indication that she was typing back was immediate. Nick felt his eyes glued to the screen as he waited for a response.
[Someone told me of this great omnivorous place called All Kinds. You heard of it?]
Nicks eyes closed and his head hung. He shook it in disbelief. Letting an amused and slightly annoyed huff out of his nose, he smirked and texted back.
[Sure, meet you there at 7.]
[Kay! Nighty night, foxy face!]
Nick looked back up at the stars, trying to remember the old lapine trick for finding your own personal "lucky stars". Tracing the line out from his paw and keeping in mind the season, he happened upon the constellation that was supposedly "his". He'd looked at those stars before. One of them in the middle seemed to be twinkling more than usual that night, as if it was winking. Nick was sure it was probably just light pollution.
"Yeah, yeah, Serendipity," Nick shoved his phone and his paws in his pockets and stuck his tongue out at the stars. "Laugh it up."