It took her a year to realize how he felt about her. It took him two.
For almost a year, Judy had been so concerned with trying to keep her growing feelings under wraps that she hadn't even considered that Nick might feel the same way. The day she actually realized that Nick loved her as well, she was genuinely embarrassed that she'd missed the signs for so long. The way he reacted to any physical contact between them. The way he got protective when a suspect started getting aggressive. Even the way he always tried to be close to her when they were together, rarely straying more than a few steps away.
Excited that what she's dreamed of might not be as unlikely as she'd feared, but not wanting to come on too strong, she began dropping little hints to let him know that she was interested.
Sometimes when he said something funny, she'd laugh and softly run her paw over the fur on his arm, amused at the sight of his brain short-circuiting. Other times she'd 'accidentally' drop things and take an extra second to pick them up, usually turning around to catch her partner staring. He'd invariably get flustered and try to sell her some kind of excuse.
Her favorite so far was that he'd been appreciating her uniform's 'efficient design', and she'd somehow managed to keep a straight face when she offered to let him try it on. After he vehemently refused, she'd followed up by asking - in her very best 'innocent bunny' voice – why he didn't want to get into her pants.
He'd nearly choked to death on his coffee.
As time went by, though, eventually she stopped being amused by the whole situation and started getting annoyed. The playful flirtation had been fun for a while, but how clear did she really need to be?
He was a fox, for carrots sake! Wasn't he supposed to have a excellent sense of smell? She was pumping out enough pheromones that even the other officers had noticed. When she & Nick were on foot patrol, rabbit bucks were approaching her from across the street!
Finally, after several frustrating months, she came to a startling realization. Even though she'd figured out how he felt about her, he'd somehow failed to realize it himself.
Stupid, handsome, oblivious, heartwarming, dense fox!
Although she wasn't willing to give up on him, it had been almost a year now. As certain as she felt that he'd eventually gain the same insight as her, Judy had begun to wonder how long she was really prepared to wait for him. With a heavy heart, she even forced herself to acknowledge the possibility that nothing was ever going to happen between them.
Banishing those thoughts from her mind, she lifted her eyes from the small desk calendar to find the fox gazing at her from across their desks. "Something on your mind, Carrots?"
She shrugged. "Nothing new."
"Okay." He nodded, looking at her solemnly. "You know I'm here for you, right?"
"I know."
"All you have to do is ask." He insisted.
"Thanks, Nick." Tired as she was, she gave him a little smile. "I think I'm going to call it a night, though. There's nothing here that can't wait."
"No problem. See you tomorrow?"
"Yeah." She sighed. "See you tomorrow."
The following morning, Judy found herself sitting at roll call without her partner. Bogo hadn't come in yet, but if he arrived to find Nick missing, there would be hell to pay. Just as she was weighing the idea of going to look for the wayward fox, she was surprised to see McHorn step up to the podium. The rhino made no comment on either Chief Bogo's absence, nor about Nick's. He kept the briefing short and quickly handed out the day's assignments.
They were just getting up to leave when the door burst open, startling everyone in the room. An infuriated fox framed in the doorway, glaring at his partner. "You!"
"Nick?"
"Why didn't you tell me?" He growled.
"Tell you wha...?" An idea suddenly popped into her head. Could it be that he had finally, finally figured it out? That after countless nudges, hints and clues, he'd finally realized what had been right in front of him all this time? She couldn't help the grin that lit up her features. "Well, it's about time! I thought you'd never figure it out!"
"About time?!" He stared at her in disbelief. "Was this some kind of joke to you?"
"No, of course not!" This wasn't going the way she'd planned at all. "I just thought it would be better for you to get there on your own."
"Are you kidding me? Did you just get a kick out of watching me walk around oblivious? Dumb fox, right? Why didn't you tell me?!"
Whether it was the feeling of being caught off guard or Nick's angrily self-righteous tone, Judy's feelings of relief and joy were swept away by an overwhelming wave of repressed frustration. Leaping out of her seat, the bunny indignantly stomped the length of the table and got right in the fox's face. "Tell you?! I did tell you, you idiot!"
"Like hell you did!"
"Cheese and crackers, Nick!" She pulled on her ears in frustration. "I practically spelled it out for you! If I'd dropped any more hints, folks in the Tri-Burrows would have figured it out!"
"Hints? Hints?! I can't read minds, Carrots!"
"Well, clearly! I can't believe it took this long for you to finally catch on!"
"It was hard not to after the Chief just about tore my head off for not showing up!"
"That's no excus..." Her voice trailed off. "Wait...what?"
"You heard me! I would have figured you'd have had my back on that one, partner."
"W-what are you talking about?"
"Oh, are we back to that, now?" He stared at her incredulously. "The annual fitness test! Specifically, my annual fitness test! Ringing any bells?"
Even as a cold lump of dread settled in her stomach, Judy felt as though all her blood had rushed to her face.
At least once per year, every ZPD officer had to complete a physical fitness test in order to re-qualify for patrol duty. For obvious reasons, she and Nick both had to schedule specialized tests. Doing so required permission and supervision from City Hall, the ZPD Union, and their own chain-of-command – that is to say, Chief Bogo.
Both of their tests had originally been scheduled for the following week, but Nick's had been rescheduled to that morning at the last minute. How could she have forgotten to tell him?!
"Oh, now she remembers!" He growled, seeing the realization in her eyes. "Well, the examiner, our union rep and the Chief sure didn't forget. They arrived at the training field at six this morning, and apparently waited for an hour before they decided I wasn't going to show!"
"Oh Nick, I am so sorry!" She gasped.
"You're sorry?! Bogo came after me the second I walked into the bullpen!"
"Let me talk to him! I'll explain what happened!"
"It's way too late for that, Carrots." He snapped. "Seems Bogo didn't enjoy standing in the pouring rain at six am, so he's refused my request to schedule a new assessment. I can't re-qualify for field work until the next round of assessments, so enjoy patrolling alone while I spend the next four months chained to a desk!"
The fox spun on his heel and stormed out before she could muster a response, slamming the door behind him.
When she came across a problem, Judy was usually compelled to try and fix it - it was one of the qualities that made her such a great police officer – but she'd long since learned that when her partner was in a foul mood, the best way to deal with it was to give him a little space and let him cool off.
That was why, an hour later, she found herself walking tentatively into the bullpen, where it was easy to spot her partner sitting at their shared desk. Aside from Francine, who was quietly working at her own desk, he was the only other mammal in the room. Though he was facing away from her, staring out a nearby window, she had no doubt that he knew she was approaching.
"Hey, partner." She ventured softly. "Feeling a little calmer?"
Nick crossed his arms and muttered something under his breath.
"I brought you a Blueberry Blitz smoothie." She held up the icy drink with a tentative smile. "It's your favorite, right?"
He huffed, ears pinning back even further as he refused to look at her.
She lowered the smoothie with a sigh. Placing the drink on Nick's side of the desk, she glumly made her way around to the other side and hopped up into her chair. "Nick, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry that I forgot to tell you about the reschedule, and I'm sorry that I yelled at you. I thought you were talking about something else."
A faint sound caught her attention and she glanced over to see Nick lifting the smoothie off the desk.
"It's okay, Carrots. You didn't do it on purpose." He paused to take a sip. "And I'm sorry, too. I still shouldn't have gone off on you like that, no matter how angry I was about us not patrolling together anymore."
"I'm not very happy about it either, Nick." She admitted, shuffling some paperwork around. "But it's just three months, and it's not as though we'll never see each other. It'll be over before you know it."
"Hm." He took another sip of his smoothie. "So, what did you think I was talking about?"
She looked up at him curiously. "Huh?"
"Just a minute ago, when you said you thought I was talking about something else." He reminded her. "What did you think I was talking about?"
"Oh...I thought you were..." She cleared her throat awkwardly. She knew that this was the perfect opportunity to finally have the conversation she'd been waiting for, but for some reason she just couldn't get the words out. "It's not important."
"Seems pretty important to me, considering how upset you were."
"It's really nothing." She insisted. "I do have something important to take care of, though. So I ought to go take care of...that."
Nick watched, bemused, as his partner leaped from her seat and all but ran out of the bullpen.
"And off she goes again..." He turned to Francine and gestured in the direction Judy had gone.
The elephant turned and stared down at him incredulously. "Wilde, you cannot possibly be that stupid."
"Hey!"
"For the love of... do I need to dangle you upside down until the blood actually reaches your brain?" Francine leaned over to punctuate each word with a sharp rap on Nick's head. "She. Is. In. Love. With. You."
"Ow! Cut it out!"
"I'm serious, Wilde. That bunny has it bad for you."
"Gee, thanks." He shot her a withering glare. "Way to rub it in."
The elephant's mouth fell open, her expression one of utter disbelief. "You knew?! Do you realize that she thinks you love her, too!"
"Because I do love her, thank you very much!"
"What?!"
"I said I do lov-urk!" His response was cut off when the entire room unexpectedly turned upside-down and he suddenly found himself eye-to-eye with a particularly annoyed-looking elephant.
"Wilde, she has been waiting for you to make a move for months! Honestly, I think she's been subconsciously torturing you for not making a move! Judy is an amazing mammal, Wilde, and your..."
"A fox." He interrupted, taking a half-hearted swipe at the trunk that held him aloft.
She blinked, then her features morphed into a scowl. "Oh, don't tell me you've got some kind of martyr complex going on here! What, you're not good enough for her because you're a fox?!"
"I'll have you know, Francine, that I'm awesome." He snarked, indignantly jabbing a pointed claw toward her. "That being said, I'm an awesome fox and male foxes don't make the first move."
"Are you telling me that you have spent the last year fully aware that your partner is in love with you, and you've been waiting for her to make the first move?"
"Frustrating, but true. I can't figure out what the issue is. I mean, I think I've been pretty clear that I'm interested." He frowned. "Could you put me down, please? I'm getting dizzy."
The elephant ignored his request, actually lifting him a little higher. "Oh, she knows. She just thinks you don't know."
"That she loves me?" He asked, looking a little puzzled.
"No, you love her."
"I'm aware of that."
"But she doesn't know that."
"Wait...that I love her?"
"No!" She shook her head, swinging the fox back and forth. "I already told you she knows that."
"I swear to god, Francine. You need to put me down, because you've completely lost me."
"What's happened is that she's..."
"Please don't explain it again, I'm begging you."
"I swear, you two are always making simple things harder than they have to be." She groaned. "I think it's time to get this nonsense sorted out."
"No, it's time to put the fox back on the gr..."
"Hold that thought." She interrupted, fishing out her cell phone.
Groaning, he squeezed his eyes shut and began massaging his temples.
Rolling her eyes at the fox's theatrics, she pulled up a familiar contact and lifted the phone to her ear. "Daniel, it's Francine. This may seem weird, but I need you to do something for me, and I need you to not ask why..."
Judy had almost reached the female locker room, where she absolutely wasn't going to hide, when she heard someone calling her name. "Hopps! Hey Hopps, wait up a second!"
Turning toward the voice, she was surprised to see Wolford jogging up to her. "Hey, Danny. What's up?"
The wolf slowed to a stop, a slightly bemused expression on his face. "So, for some reason, I was supposed to track you down and remind you that mammals in the Canidae family are matriarchal."
"What? Why?"
He shrugged. "Beats me, but that's what I'm supposed to tell you."
"Uh...thanks?"
"No sweat." He walked away, giving her a friendly wave over his shoulder. "Seeya tomorrow."
"Yeah. See you then." The bunny considered his odd statement. What was that about? Was he trying to tell me something? He said that someone else told him to say it, so was someone else trying to tell me something?
Shaking her head, she resumed to course for the locker room. What does it matter to me that wolves were matriarchal? He didn't say wolves, though...he said Canidae. But the only members of the Canidae family around here ARE wolves...and one dumb fox, of course.
She was walking on autopilot now, brow furrowed in concentration. Is that it? Is someone trying to tell me something about Nick? But if they are, why would I need to know that foxes are matriarch...
Her paw froze an inch from the locker room door. No, that couldn't be it. There's no way that HE'S been waiting for ME to...
Judy spun on her heel and sprinted back to the bullpen, where she was surprised to find Francine holding her annoyed-looking partner several feet off the ground. Nick noticed her almost immediately, though, and her heart gave a little flutter when the irritation in his eyes changed to warm affection.
"So...um...hey, Nick." She began awkwardly. "What's up?"
"Carrots." He nodded, the corner of his mouth curling into a faint smile. "Nothing much. Just hanging out."
"Oh...oh, right! Francine, could you, uh..." She gestured for the elephant to put her partner back on the ground.
"I don't know, Judy. I'm not totally convinced that you two don't need adult supervision."
"I think we can manage."
The elephant eyed her dubiously for a moment, then placed the fox down and walked away. As she reached the door, she glanced back over her shoulder. "I'll just give you two a minute."
Scowling at the departing officer, Nick stumbled back to his desk and collapsed into his chair.
"So," Judy began. "I have something I want to ask you."
"Fire away."
"Okay, here goes." She paused. "No problem."
"Take your time, Fluff."
"Right. So, I was wondering if you'd maybe, you know, want to consider the possibility of going somewhere sometime?" She scuffed her foot against the floor. "With...uh...me? And you. Together, I mean."
He peered at her in confusion, head cocked slightly to one side. "I...what?"
"Sorry, I...What I mean is, would you like to, um..." She took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts. "...go out sometime?"
The fox blinked at her.
"On a date." She added. "With me."
After three years of friendship, she'd thought she'd seen every one of Nick's smiles. There was the little one he got when they went to the movies, the warm one that seemed to live at his mother's kitchen table, the proud one he'd worn the day she pinned that badge to his chest, and the sneaky one that usually preceded some kind of mischief. And naturally, there was his regular day-to-day smirk.
None of them compared to the overjoyed grin that lit up his face when she asked him out. "Yes! Finally!"
"What do you mean, fina-" She didn't finish before the fox pounced, lifting her off the ground. "AH! Nick, put me down!"
"Nope!" He laughed, jumping around happily.
Despite her attempt at being annoyed at him, it didn't take long for her to get caught up in his enthusiasm. As the tension and frustration of the past year finally eased away, she started laughing joyfully herself.
It took a few minutes, but he put her down gently, stepping back and taking a moment to collect himself. Leaning against his desk, he tried to look nonchalant. "I mean sure, I guess. I'll check my schedule, might have to move some things around."
She was about to roll her eyes, when a wicked idea popped into her head. With the same expression she used to intimidate suspects, she sauntered up to him, grabbed his tie and pulled him down till their lips almost touched. Pausing, she held his gaze and listened as his breathing sped up. Then, with a coy smile, she exhaled gently and felt a little thrill when he shivered happily in response. "Somehow, I think you'll find time."
Before he could answer, she placed a quick kiss on the side of his muzzle and walked away, making sure to put a little extra sway in her hips as she did. She managed to maintain her aura of composure until she was out of his sight, but the second she was sure he couldn't hear her she began bouncing and giggling like a little kitten.
Oh, this is going to FUN!
Three Weeks Later
"Hey, Nick! Guess what!" Judy came bounding excitedly up to their workspace, an amused smile coming to her face when she found her fox face-down on his desk and muttering quietly to himself. "Up you get! I've got a surprise for you!"
The fox lifted his head to give her the most pitiful look she'd ever seen. "You're going to do the compassionate thing and put me out of my misery?"
"You've been on desk duty for less than a month."
"Yeah, but that's over a year in fox weeks."
She rolled her eyes. "There's no such thing as fox weeks."
"That's discriminatory."
"Do you want to hear the surprise or not?"
"Fine." He sighed, pushing his chair away from his desk and turning to face her. "Lay it on me."
"I talked to the Chief and explained why you missed your test. I think he liked that I took responsibility, and we came to a compromise. If you agree to go through the ZPD's remedial fitness training course, you can be back on patrol today."
"That sounds fairly straightforward." His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What's the catch?"
"The training will be every morning, Monday to Friday, for the next six months."
"So, if I want to work with you again I need to spend half a year waking up even earlier than usual, just for the pleasure of getting yelled at by some sadistic ZPD training instructor?" He grimaced. "You might want to work on those negotiation skills, Carrots."
"Funny you should say that, because your sadistic instructor is going to be me." She smirked.
"You? Bogo actually agreed to that?"
She shrugged. "It was pretty easy to convince him. I qualified as a physical training instructor before I left the academy, and having me do it means nobody's schedule needs to be changed."
"He's not worried that you'll go easy on me?"
"Do you think I'll go easy on you?"
"Knowing your approach to exercise, I think I'm probably going to die."
"Oh, shush. It'll be fun." She assured him. "Of course, that's assuming you can deal with being bossed around by a female."
"I think I'll manage." Chuckling, he shut off his computer with a flourish and the pair headed in the direction of the motor pool. "Though I'm still not happy about having to wake up early."
"Look on the bright side." Hopping up slightly, she playfully bumped her hip against his. "It probably won't be so bad when you're waking up next to your instructor."