A/N: I've been thrilled with the reviews I've been getting so thank you for guys. The story is about to get flipped so I hope you enjoy the ride.

Oh, I don't own anything.

Chapter 3- Darkest before the dawn

The bullpen was always one of Nick's favorite parts of the morning. Not only did he get to sit next to his favorite bunny, but it gave him an opportunity to rub shoulders with some of his other cop buds before Bogo would walk in for morning assignments. Unsurprisingly, this morning didn't exactly match up with the previous ones.

"Jeez Nick. You look like shit."

Nick glanced over his shoulder at the lion sitting in the back. "Thanks Delgato. I really appreciated that pep talk."

"Seriously man, are you ok?" came a concerned voice from the wolf he just passed.

"Never better, Wolford. Thanks anyway buddy."

Wolford exchanged a look with Delgato but neither of them had any real answer to why their comrade looked so…pitiful.

Nick slunk up to the front of the room and, seeing Judy already in their normal chair, quickly glanced around the room to find another spot to sit. None of this went unnoticed by the rest of the room. Fangmeyer raised his brow and glanced over at Grizzoli. The polar bear was as surprised as he was and could only shrug with a baffled expression.

Not seeing any other seats, he grit his teeth and climbed up into the larger chair. Office Hopps scooted over enough for him to sit in the seat, never dropping her stoic expression or unfolding her clenched paws. Nick for his part only glanced at her once before he too adopted a mask of sheer professionalism, even though underneath that mask he was slowly sinking deeper into a pit of despair he hadn't felt in nearly 20 years.

Their lack of conversation was shocking to all of their friends. McHorn, the rhino who had sat next to Hopps for over a year and Wilde for the past 3 months was stunned speechless. Carefully he nudged the fox, making sure not to attract Hopp's attention. When Nick looked up at McHorn, the rhino merely sent him a look that told him as clear as if it were spoken, what happened to you two?

Nick shrugged his shoulders but as he turned away his mask slipped ever so slightly and McHorn saw the look of pain cross the fox's face. An almost infinite sadness seemed to radiate in that brief moment before Nick slid behind the mask once more but the damage had been done.

McHorn looked back at the entire room, his face conveying to all that something was wrong with their newest recruit. No. Not just wrong. Devastating. Whatever had happened between Hopps and Wilde was so destructive that she was losing her drive and he, well, he was losing everything else.

At that moment Chief Bogo entered the room to give out the daily assignments. While he never really showed it, the pounding on the tables from his officers gave him a bit of a bit of a jump start in the morning. It was a daily ritual that he took pride of his officers and their dedication to the job at hand. He had made it to the podium before he realized that the room was completely silent. Alarmed, he looked up immediately, noticing that every single one of his officers was staring at Hopps and Wilde. Letting his gaze slide over to them, his brow raised a fraction of an inch, however to anyone who knew him well, that tiny movement conveyed a lot.

Gone was the excitement in the two officers. There was no casual smirk on the fox's muzzle. No suppressed grin behind the rabbit's paws from some dumb joke Wilde would normally crack. Just two very stoic, very serious officers at the table. It scared the hell out of him.

Pulling himself together and deciding that this was something they would need to work out for themselves, he started giving out assignments. Once all of the other officers had shuffled out, he looked over Hopps and Wilde closely. "There's been some reports of petty theft in Sahara Square this week, the latest of which was from an antique store seeming to indicate that the thief is done playing small time and getting ready to move to the big leagues. I want you to patrol the streets and see if you can track him down."

Hopps got up to retrieve the file without a sound. Bogo held onto it for a second longer. "Are you sure you can handle this today Hopps? I need focused individuals on this one."

"It won't be a problem, Chief."

"Good. Wilde? You on board as well?"

Nick glanced over quickly at Judy who was still avoiding looking at him. "Yes sir, Chief. Job comes first when the badge is on."

Bogo gave a curt nod. "Then get out there and stop this thief before it gets any worse."

His two best officers nodded and walked out of the bullpen. This is going to be one hell of a shitstorm if this doesn't get resolved soon, thought Bogo.

Cruising through Sahara Square was usually a boring assignment, even if they were after criminals. Usually though they had conversation to fall back on. Witty banter back and forth, discussing office rumors, talking about what was going on at the Hopps farm. It kept them entertained while they just drove around. Today however was a different story. A horrible story. The silence they had experienced for the last 5 hours was not only deafening, it was enough to think their ears had fallen off altogether.

Nick turned to Judy but before he even opened his mouth, Judy cut him off."No, Nick."

"Carrots please, we need to talk about this. About last night."

"No, we don't."

"I can't stand this. I can't stand not being able to talk to you. I-I made a mistake." Judy ears twitched. "It was just a stupid thought in my head that I acted on without thinking about it. Maybe I was just tired, ya know?"

"...Tired."

"Yes!" Nick practically jumped at the opening. "I was just tired, that's all. We had been watching that RomCom, I thought things that weren't there. Just bad timing, right?"

Nick watched as Judy's ears twitched violently before settling down. "Let's just do our job, Nick. What does the report say the suspect looks like."

Nick sighed heavily at the lost opportunity. "Suspect is a tiger, male, roughly 400-450 pounds. Was wearing a black baseball cap and a tan muscle shirt. Kinda like that guy over there."

Judy slammed on the brakes, causing Nick to slam into the dashboard. "Ow Carrots! What the hell?"

"That's the guy right there, you moron." Nick winced at the term. She'd never called him a moron before. Dumb Fox, sure, but that was their little private game. This was a real insult.

Piling out of the car, Nick yelled "ZPD! Freeze!"

Unsurprisingly the tiger bolted down the road, throwing smaller mammals aside left and right. Even while that took some of the speed out of the predator, Nick knew he was never going to reach him, and with the civilians present he couldn't get a clean shot with his tranq dart. He began to call for Judy to see if she could catch him, only to see her halfway down the road, leaping over prey and pred alike, quickly closing the distance. What Nick didn't expect to see was Judy leap to a light pole at max speed and use it to launch herself at the back of the tiger's head. Slamming her hind paws into the back of his skull sent the tiger flying into the side of a brick building, cracking the wall and, more than likely, the tiger's face as well.

Nick ran up as she was cuffing the suspect to a pole. "Jesus Carrots! What was that? You could have killed that guy!"

"Maybe. But I didn't." She turned and walked back to the cruiser while I radioed for a larger cruiser to come pick up our, now unconscious, suspect. II quickly checked him over for any signs of severe bleeding and the standard signs for any internal bleeding. He had a minor concussion but otherwise he was going to be fine to put in jail.