They were driving back to the station and Nick had told Judy what Finnick was saying about her keeping her promise to never rat on him and she was grumbling under her breath.

"What's got you so uptight?"

"That… that old partner of yours is impossible! Making sure I keep my word! Did he not see how nice I was when he was pretending to be a kid?! I'm trustworthy! I don't like that we're letting him keep on conning but Judy Hopps always stay true to her word!"

Nick couldn't help but chuckle.

"It's not funny."

"I know. But you really are making too much of a big deal out of this. Finnick has a hard time trusting anyone at all. Even when I was teaming up with him to make our latest scheme work, he always made sure I wouldn't stab him in the back."

"For real?" her eyes were wide.

"More like the emotional betrayal meaning not the physical. Finnick had his share of hardknocks, if you think our childhoods were traumatic you should hear his."

"How… how did you find out?"

"I met his associates over the years, and knew what kind-of crowd he was in. He had it rough. It took him awhile to tell me the whole story."

Her ears drooped.

He gave a reassuring smile, "It's okay. It's Finnick's problem. We got our own problems to deal with, such as finding Gazelle's attacker and figuring out what to do for our first date."

She smirked, "First things first, the attacker, let's see if the ZPD lab has anything from that chandelier crash."


They got to the station where they asked Clawhauser if any of Gazelle's old classmates was staying at hotels. Then they asked for the results of the chandelier crash.

Ben was typing away at the computer, "So far, there are no registers of these names in any of the Zootopia hotels. And forensics discovered there were two missing bolts from the chandelier."

"Missing bolts?" Judy inquired.

"Yeah, that's what caused the chandelier to fall, good thing you guys were there to save Gazelle."

Nick smiled, "Yeah, or else you haven't a date with her. When are you going to have it by the way?"

Clawhauser widely grinned, "She asked for my number so she can text me once you guys find the attacker and we can go our date!" he squealed. "Hey! We should do a double date!"

The partners exchanged quick glances and Judy responded, "Maybe some other time, Ben, because that would so awesome… But Nick and I want to have our own personal date first." she held the fox's paw.

"Oh, I getcha." the cheetah winked. "It really is exciting seeing two fellow officers having a romance on the work force, it's like a fairy-tale! Before you know it, we'll have our first police force wedding!"

The rabbit and fox ended up blushing, and Nick thought before he cleared his throat, First Finnick… now Clawhauser… That dream must be conspiring against me… "Well, there isn't going to be a wedding if Judy and I can't have dates like we want to."

"But you two have been through so much already, why date?"

Good question… the both of them ended up thinking without realizing it.

"Take it from me, I have seen many officers have cases that they have been working on for months, even years! But I have never seen anything like you two, you always manage to solve a case within weeks and bring in the bad guy while you're at it! The Chief may not show it but he adores you two! You bring him fast results! I also think he secretly ships you two."

"He does." Nick stated. "When he caught us kissing, he told us he was happy for us while chewing us out."

Ben let out another squeal, "Oh, I got to put this on my furbook page!" he typed fast.

"When you're finished," started Judy, "think you can run a search of Gazelle's remaining classmates?"

"Sure can!" he kept on typing, and he came across a very interesting tidbit of information, "Well, you can cross Harry Timber off your list of suspects."

"Why do you say that?" Nick asked.

"He's in the penitentiary for bootlegging DVDs and CDs."

"How long is his sentence?" Judy questioned.

"Five years, he's already served three so he's still in prison for the next two." he read off his rap sheet, "He got caught when a friend told the police on him."

"Some friend…" Nick muttered.

"I got his prison record too, seems to be a pretty calm prisoner."

"Well, when your sentence is only five years of course you won't be causing any trouble." pointed Judy.

Ben cringed, "Ooh… you won't like who his cell block neighbor is though…"

Nick groaned, "Oh no, don't tell me… not the crazy sheep lady…"

Clawhauser somberly nodded, "Afraid so."

"Well, since this Harry guy isn't possible to be a suspect we don't have to visit him."

Judy pointed, "Not so, Officer Wilde, he could have information we need. If he's not a suspect he might be more willing to talk."

"Do we have to?"

"Yes."


"I still think this is a bad idea, Carrots." he said as they were entering the prison.

"We won't be anywhere near Bellwether. We're going to be questioning Harry Timber."

The warden greeted them then led them to a room where the guards had brought in a wolf in an orange jumpsuit. The warden and guards left them alone.

Judy started them off, "Mr. Timber, I'm Officer Hopps and this is my partner, Officer Wilde, we have some questions to ask you."

Harry took a load off and put his feet on the table, "Go ahead, I got all the time in the world."

"Cute." Nick mentioned and said, "The reason we're here is because an old classmate of yours as been in a series of "accidents" and has almost been kidnapped. She's the famous Gazelle now but you might have known her as Giselle."

Harry frowned and put his feet down, "You mean to tell me that Giselle has been attacked?"

"That's right." said Judy. "We were wondering if you knew any of your old choir classmates that was willing to hurt her? We found the class ring that Gazelle told us that you all wore during choir."

"If they did… If I was out right now, I would personally search for everyone and demand answers if they were the ones who hurt her. But it's hard to imagine anyone of them could do such a thing. Some of my best friends were in the tenor section with me, I can't see them hurting Giselle."

"Animals can change." Nick pointed.

"I'm sure no one thought you would end up in prison for bootlegging." gestured Judy.

"True, but my life was never really the same after high school. I had it all, a nice home, good friends, and an amazing girlfriend, who was Giselle by the way."

"WHAT?!" they shouted out.

"Yup. She and Gina used to tease me when we were younger, but as we grew up, Giselle apologized for her behavior and we were high school sweethearts from that day on. But the moment she was discovered and when we graduated, we lost contact. Then I lost my home after I told my parents I wanted to start a band instead of going to college, they told me I had to make something of myself. So I was on the streets until I came across the bootlegging business and an associate of mine squealed and that's how yours truly ended up here."

Nick could see Judy was on the edge of tears. He addressed the wolf, "Listen, maybe we can reduce your sentence if you tell us about Giselle's past. She won't say anything to us, so maybe you can. Seeing how you two were close."

"Could you really?"

Judy nodded.

"What would you like to know?"

"Why don't you start at the beginning, like your guys' childhood?" Nick suggested.

"Well, it's like I told you, she and Gina used to tease me because I was sort-of a lone wolf, mainly because there weren't that many predators. Giselle was one of the most popular girls in the school, the prey absolutely adored her." he could see the shock on their faces. "Yes, it's hard to believe that Gazelle, a big supporter of diversity in Zootopia used to pick on predators."

"What made her change her mind?" they both ended up asking.

"I don't know. All I know is that one day, she came up to me and apologized. We started talking and found out we weren't so different and became good friends and eventually lovers. Because Giselle was still popular no one questioned our relationship, in fact that was when we students started to becoming more accepting of each other, predator and prey. That's why we had matching rings in the choir to prove that we were alike when it came to the music."

Judy uttered, "That's explains so much…"

Nick agreed, "It does, no wonder Gazelle wants Zootopia to be this loving place for both predators and prey."

"Harry, thank you so much. We're going to make that request to see if we can get you out soon."

"Thank you, and make sure you nail the creep that's attacking Giselle!" he pounded his fist on the table.

"We will." said Nick as him and Judy left the room.

They were walking down the corridor and Nick said, "That was enlightening."

"It certainly was… no wonder she didn't want anyone knowing about her personal life, she was apparently ashamed of the way she acted when she was younger." she gave a small chuckle, "Reminds me of Gideon…"

"You know it makes sense now why she's your favorite singer, you're a lot like her."

"How so?"

"Well the fact she was dating a predator in high school and she wants the best for the city, it's no wonder you love her so much." he took her paw.

She smiled at him as they kept walking until her smile faltered the moment she saw the sheep responsible for savaging predators with Night Howlers. Bellwether was being escorted by a guard as she went pass the animals responsible for her capture, the sheep glanced at them and saw they were holding paws.

She huffed, "Disgusting display." and was gone around the corner.

Judy's blood boiled as she wanted to go after her but Nick held her back.

"There's nothing she can do to hurt us anymore…"

"I just feel like an idiot for trusting her when I did…"

"There's no way you could have known… she was this crazy criminal mastermind."

She sighed.


When they were driving back to Tundra Town, Nick pointed out, "So, think we should tell Clawhauser about Gazelle's old flame?"

"I think it should be Gazelle that tells him. Much like you should have told me about your own old flame…"

"Ouch. For the record, I would have told you eventually."

"You came that close to getting engaged, I would think the new girlfriend deserves a heads-up that her fox almost married in a previous relationship."

"But it didn't. So stop worrying, Carrots."

But Judy couldn't help but worry. Before they went to Big's place, she woke up before Nick and was getting up until she noticed the box underneath his bed. Due to her snoopy detective skills, she couldn't help but investigate. She did feel guilty for going through her boyfriend's things but when she saw the picture of him and Vivian and the words she wrote to him…

They looked so happy… it's amazing that Vivian left him at all…


When they were back at snow-covered house, they told Gazelle everything about Harry and what he had told them.

The gazelle somberly sat in the chair, "Oh Harry… What has become of you…?"

"We're going to try to reduce his sentence." said Judy.

"I hope you do."

Nick motioned, "I know it seems like I'm prying but I am dying of curiosity as to what made you change your mind about teasing him."

His partner scolded, "Nick, she doesn't have to tell us if she doesn't want to."

"It doesn't matter at this point. Harry revealed enough about my childhood. It was true, I did tease him and others because they weren't as good as me. I had the prey students' upmost support, it made me feel special… But then one day… I was playing in the park when I overhead a group of kids in the Ranger Scouts," Judy could see Nick tensing up and reached for his paw to comfort him, Gazelle continued to speak in a broken voice, "they were saying such awful things about how they managed to muzzle an untrustworthy fox… I realized then I was making the similar mistake of teasing students who were predators but I would never go far as to do a thing like that… That terrible conversation opened my eyes that we needed to treat everyone with respect and not hurt them… I quickly apologized to Harry and we became fast friends. Just picturing Harry in a muzzle made me feel so sad that I wanted to do everything I could to protect him and our fellow classmates that were predators."

She could see the bewildered looks on their faces.

"I know I was an awful person…"

"It's not that Gazelle…" Nick said in a low tone and took a breath, "I was the fox that those kids muzzled…"

She covered her mouth in shock and whispered, "Were you really…?"

"He was…" Judy sadly said.

Gazelle shook her head, "I'm so sorry that happen to you…"

Nick gave an amused scoff, "Judy had it worst. She has scars from a fox that clawed her when she was a kid."

"We both had a dark moment in our childhoods…" she nudged him.

Gazelle gave a small smile, "I noticed this for awhile, at the party, the studio… Fru-Fru was the one that confirmed it to me that you were in a relationship that was much more then professional."

Judy replied, "In a word, yes, but as of this moment we have work to do in finding your attacker."

"I don't mind, in fact seeing you two together like this makes me happy that predators and prey can live together with love…"

Nick inquired, "Why do I get the feeling you'll want us as a poster couple the next time you promote diversity at one of your concerts?"

Gazelle couldn't help but giggle. "It's a good idea but that's only if you want that."

"What about you and Ben?" Judy asked, "Having you two together might send a stronger message."

"We'll have to see, we to have date for a bit before we can get to your guys' level."

Judy had to point out, "But Gazelle we just started dating ourselves."

"Really? But you seem so close."

Nick said, "Let's just say during the Night Howler case, we went through a lot that made us get close to each other. Such as saving each others' lives."

"And we made this connection that cannot be broken." gestured Judy, but secretly thought, At least, I hope…