Disclaimer: Zootopia and all related characters are owned by Disney.

...

Nick floored the accelerator on the joke-mobile and headed out of the ZPD garage. He tried to take advantage of the cart's speed by hanging his head out the side. The canines in the movies always seemed to get a kick out of the wind blowing through their head fur, sadly it wasn't doing anything for him, maybe it was the fact that the cart was struggling to move faster than a drunken deer.

Nick headed over to city central. It was a bit early for any meters to expire, so he kept busy chalk marking tires. He figured 50-60 tickets would be enough for the day and give him time for a few calls.

An hour later, Nick slipped his wireless headset over his ear, put his phone in his pocket and called Finn.

Nick's phone rang a few times before he heard a shout through his earpiece. "Who the hell is calling me this early, tell me now so I can bite your face off!"

"Buddy, think caller ID and you'll save some time figuring out who to punish."

"Ugh, Nick what do you want? I only got to sleep a few hours ago."

Nick stopped his cart at a crosswalk and let a couple of bears cross in front of him. He smiled and waved while they gave him mildly dirty looks in return. Shrugging, he waited until they had finished crossing and then continued down the street.

"Finn, I need you to set up a charity for me."

Nick heard a yawn and the creaking of some bones from Finn, "Okay, when do you need it?"

"Today, and I don't want our names associated with any of the paperwork fillings or the startup funds, have a lawyer do it for us and be the agent. Also, the funds should be a gift, not a write-off, I want to keep this on the straight and narrow in case things go south on me."

"Text me the details. I'll meet you downtown at 2:30 with a notarized copy of all the paperwork." With a click, the line went dead.

Nick smiled and his ears twitched as he heard the sweet song of meters expiring. He wrote a few tickets and headed down the block to look for more clients.

...

Judy was catching up on some paperwork when Clawhauser called to let her know that her temporary partner, Sasha Garrison, had made it in. Judy walked down to the lobby and saw Garrison waiting near the reception desk talking with Clawhauser. Garrison was a powerfully built jaguar with the typical yellowish-brown fur covered with black rosettes.

Judy had never worked with Garrison before. She was five years her senior and up for promotion next cycle. Judy had heard she was a no-nonsense cop who didn't take any attitude from the perps she collared. She also ran a pretty tight ship in her patrol areas which included occasionally parking her cruiser in favor of short foot patrols. Judy had heard Garrison liked to get up close and personal with the district locals.

With a friendly smile on her face, Judy greeted the large feline "Good morning Officer Garrison, looks like we get to partner up for a couple of days."

As Judy put out her paw for a quick handshake, Garrison's nose started to wrinkle and twitch a bit. She left Judy hanging and took a small step back. She disguised the movement by turning toward the parking garage door and waved for Judy to follow her. "Let's get going, first, though we need to make a quick visit to the locker room."

Judy followed the jaguar into the female's locker room and watched as Garrison made sure they were alone. "Hopps, you reek of fox. You've got the scent of that partner of yours all over you and there's no way I am going to spend the next couple of days stuck in a patrol car with that smell."

Judy was shocked, she hadn't been near Nick since their talk this weekend and she had showered since then. Rabbits didn't have the greatest noses, but she sure couldn't smell anything. Besides, Nick's scent never bothered her, quite the contrary, she liked his scent, it was pleasant even comforting. With a confused look on her face, she looked at Garrison and said. "I don't smell anything, what are you talking about?"

"Hopps, you're obviously noseblind to the smell of that fox. Jaguars have the best noses amongst felines and right now, fox is all I can smell. There's some industrial strength Musk Mask over there on the shelf, grab some and rub yourself down, it should help deaden the smell for a while."

As Judy's shoulders sagged, she turned to go lather herself down. Before she took her first step, Garrison continued, "Hopps, that smell is probably all over your apartment and everything you own. Buy some Musk Mask household cleaner and clothes detergent on the way home tonight and use it to sanitize everything including rewashing your clothes and uniforms with it. As Senior Officer, I'm telling you, don't show up tomorrow smelling like that animal again or you can forget about patrolling with me, I don't want to spend a full day trying to scrub his stench out of the seats."

Judy numbly continued over to the shelf, grabbed the canister and thoroughly rubbed herself down. Walking back to the jaguar, Judy gave her a wide-eyed, questioning look as she raised her arms partially away from her body, palms up and waited.

Judy heard a couple of sniffs and then the response. "Better, let's go."

...

Judy and Garrison patrolled the north side of Savanna Central. Garrison drove her regular squad car while Judy rode shotgun. Garrison kept the conversation focused on work as she talked about the different neighborhoods, local criminal activity and some of the security issues that the local businesses had to deal with.

Judy had patrolled a few of these areas with Nick in the past and she smiled to herself at the difference in the type of commentary between Nick and Garrison. Nick's knowledge of the city allowed him to provide a much more personal touch. Nick was able to put names to some of the faces and also tell her fun tidbits about the people he knew, including a lot of the local neighborhood gossip. Judy also enjoyed it when she and Nick would play their game of mammal watching, where they each tried to guess what a person did for a living or where they were headed. Between their patrols and spending her time off with Nick exploring, Judy had learned a lot about the city over the last six months.

Garrison's dialog, on the other hand, seemed to focus mainly on the need to keep an eye out for certain species. She didn't exactly call it profiling, but weasels, raccoons and especially foxes were at the top of her list.

The rest of the morning went by pretty quickly with only a couple of traffic violations that needed to be handled. After they finished writing up a teen for running a red light, Garrison decided it was time for a late lunch.

Over lunch, Judy and Sasha got to know each other a little better. Judy told the story of her deciding to be a cop at nine years old and how her parents tried for years to talk her out of joining the ZPD. Sasha, on the other hand, had been born into a police family. Her Dad had recently retired from District 8 as a senior officer and her Mom was still a dispatcher also at District 8. Judy and Sasha swapped stories about their academy training and then they both laughed as they compared the 'you're dead' names that Friedkin had used on each of them.

After finishing lunch, the two officers returned to their patrol. The mood was a little less formal between the two as they continued to talk about their backgrounds while watching for trouble.

About a half an hour into the afternoon patrol, Sasha brought up the Missing Mammal and Nighthowler cases. "Hopps, that was some outstanding police work in solving those cases. New on the job, no real resources and you solved cases that the rest of the precinct had spent weeks on without any results."

Sasha rubbed her chin and added, "Hopps, why after those successes did you get saddled with a fox as a partner? You could have pressed Bogo to partner up with anyone, it doesn't make sense to me that he would do that to you."

"Garrison, I didn't get saddled with Nick, I recruited and sponsored him and then I requested him as my partner even before he graduated from the ZPA. He's a good guy, he knows the city like the back of his hand and we work extremely well together."

"Hopps, I heard rumors that you sponsored him, I just didn't believe them. You know you can't trust that fox. I'll bet he's running some kind of con right now and when he springs it on you, you're going to be left holding the bag, your career in ruins and probably get fired for your trouble."

Sasha looked directly at Judy, "Foxes are sly, shifty, bottom feeders, they always have something going on and you don't want to be on the receiving end of whatever they're planning. Hopps, you've barely been in the city for a year, a young, impressionable doe like yourself is an easy target for someone as slick as that fox. I don't want to see that animal take advantage of you."

Judy's mouth fell open as she stared back at Garrison in shock. Nick wasn't like that at all. He was kind and caring and hadn't taken advantage of her at all. Well, except for the first time they met when he hustled her out of $20 for an elephant-sized popsicle to melt down into smaller Pawpsicles and resell them for a profit. But that didn't count, and it certainly didn't count that he tried to get her to quit her investigation out of embarrassment by taking her to the Mystic Spring Oasis naturalist club. She supposed maybe it counted a little that he made her waste a whole day at the DMV waiting for his sloth friend, Flash, to look up a license plate number.

Judy closed her mouth and looked out the front of the cruiser thinking about this morning. She had grown to trust Nick, but he's only been an officer for six months and he had admitted to her that he was planning something. She was still miffed at him for not listening to her and she didn't know what he was up to. Maybe Garrison has a point about him.

Judy shook her head. 'No!' Despite the rocky start to their partnership, Nick had come through for her and more than made up for all his delaying tactics by standing up to Bogo when he demanded she give up her badge that night in the Rainforest District and then Nick went on to help her solve both the Missing Mammal and Nighthowler cases. She absolutely, positively trusted Nick.

"He's changed from his time on the street, I don't think he would ever do anything to hurt me. We're best friends and he knows how important being a cop is to me."

"You only think he wouldn't hurt you, you don't know! No one volunteers for parking duty, so the reality is, he's either being punished for something we don't know about or worse, he's up to something and when that something blows up in his face anyone nearby will be taken down with him. You said yourself that he spent years on the streets, no one unloads that kind of baggage in just a few months, you best watch yourself or you could get caught up in something really ugly."

Before Judy could argue more with her temporary partner, she spied a purse snatcher on a skateboard having just pulled a bag away from an elderly deer. Judy pointed and yelled for Garrison to turn left at the intersection and follow the thief.

Garrison turned sharply toward the alley entrance the thief had ducked in to. "Hopps, call it in. You wait here by the alley entrance, use the car as cover, and make sure he doesn't get past me." A moment later, the cruiser door slammed shut and Garrison was running into the alley.

Judy grabbed the microphone from the dash radio, "This is Hopps, we have a 4-84 in progress, we are in pursuit of a purse snatcher on a skateboard. Location is an alley between 1st and 2cd avenues at Plumb St. The suspect is a male ocelot, approximately 18 years old, wearing jeans, a white t-shirt, and a blue hoodie."

Judy heard Clawhauser reply, "10-4, stay in contact with status."

Judy held her position using the squad car's open door as cover. Barely ten seconds went by before she couldn't take it anymore, 'This is ridiculous, I'm not some frail doe that needs to be protected from trouble.'

Deciding the situation didn't warrant using a lethal, Judy drew her tranq pistol and moved out from behind the cruiser. She went to the entrance of the alley looking for Garrison or the ocelot. Not seeing either, she proceeded into the alley. With her ears at attention and pivoting around like small dishes, Judy listened carefully for the sound of her partner or their quarry.

She finally heard Garrison down toward the end of the alley heading back. As Judy raised her paw to signal Garrison, the ocelot jumped out of his hiding place behind a leaky, smelly dumpster. The thief had used the smell of the trash to hide his scent from the jaguar's better nose, and now he only had a small rabbit to worry about.

The ocelot mounted his skateboard and started to coast toward Judy. As he angled his board to try and get around Judy, he pulled a knife out from under his hoodie and started waving it around.

Judy pointed her tranq at the teen in a two-handed grip, "ZPD, drop the knife and get on the ground!" Not that any perp actually ever listened, but it was procedure, so Judy had to try.

As the ocelot continued to come toward her, Judy aimed her tranq pistol at him and yelled out, "Last chance, drop the knife and get on…"

The ocelot suddenly jerked up, his arms shot out from his sides and his muscles started to twitch violently as a pair of wired darts hit him in the back and the follow-up 25,000 volts caused him to fly off the skateboard and land in a quivering mass on the ground.

"…the ground."

Garrison kicked the ocelot's fallen knife away and pulled her handcuffs from her belt and secured the dazed teen. "You should have listened to her and hit the ground. Purse snatching is now an attempted assault on an officer with a deadly weapon."

All Judy heard in response to Garrison's quip was a low moan, so she holstered her tranq gun and moved to help secure the prisoner. Garrison waved her off, picked up the smaller feline with one arm, carried him to the cruiser and then locked him in the back seat.

As Judy was recovering the knife, skateboard and purse as evidence, Garrison came up behind her.

"Hopps, I told you to call it in and wait outside the alley entrance, not to come in. Ocelots can be vicious animals; besides the knife he was carrying, his claws could have gutted you with a single swipe."

Judy looked incredulous. "Don't worry about me ma'am, I am quite capable of taking care of myself. For the ocelot to hurt me, he has to get near me and I'm a lot quicker than you think."

"Don't care. Next time, follow instructions and stay in position; otherwise, you might get hurt."

After the evidence was bagged, they went and found the elderly victim, took her statement and drove back to the precinct. Discharging a weapon for any reason meant that the rest of their shift was going to be spent on paperwork.

...

Nick loved parking duty in the afternoon, all those mammals taking a bit too long of a lunch break padded his ticket total. Another 15 tickets and he would have all he needed to meet the daily quota.

Everything was coming together. Nick had just finished picking up the paperwork Finn had gotten from the lawyer and now he was ready for the next item on his list. Nick pulled out his phone and opened up the Zoogle app with his research notes. Tipping his head side to side as he weighed the options, he finally decided and tapped a phone number on the screen, a few minutes later he had a lunch appointment with a history professor at Zootopia Metropolitan University for the next day. He made a note to himself to work the area around ZMU's city campus tomorrow to make getting to the appointment easier.

Nick headed down the sidewalk, humming a happy tune, as he looked for more meters that needed maiding.

...

Exiting the locker room Garrison turned to Judy, "You remember what I said about cleaning up your apartment, right?" Judy nodded as she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Nick leaving the male's locker room. He looked over her way, smiled and gave her a low, shy, half wave with his paw. Garrison saw where Judy was looking and said to her in a low voice, "You need to keep away from that damn fox, he's no good for you as a partner." With a huff, Garrison headed out to the parking lot and home.

Judy turned in time to see a fox's tail slip out another exit before the door could slam shut on the fuzzy appendage. Nick would be heading back to his place. Usually, they left together and grabbed a bite to eat or wandered through a park that only Nick knew about. Not tonight and probably not ever again, she had made sure of that a couple of days ago. With a sigh, she made her way through the front lobby, waved goodnight to Clawhauser and pointed herself toward the nearest market to pick up cleaning supplies.

...

Nick walked to the metro station a little slower than normal. He was missing the company of one bundle of energy that he'd gotten used to spending his spare time with. He could count on one hand the number of times he had left work by himself over the last six months and he didn't like adding to that total.

As he reached the station, he felt a text alert from his phone. I'm on the train, I can't believe I let you talk me into doing this. If it doesn't pan out my boss will have my ass. You owe me big - hate you!

Nick chuckled and texted back, If anyone can find what I need it's you and don't worry, your ass is too cute for anyone to take it from you – thanks and you're right, I owe you big. Nick added a couple of off-color emojis just for fun.

As his railcar arrived, he checked his phone for a reply and saw, I still hate you followed by some animated emojis doing hmmm, Nick decided it would be best not to look too closely at whatever they were doing, count on someone in the business to find stuff like that.

...

Judy finished drying herself off from an extra long shower. She had almost started to worry that she was going to use up the building's hot water supply in one go. After a quarter of a bottle of extra strength Musk Mask shampoo, she was certain that there was no remaining fox smell on her fur. Three loads of laundry and an hour of scrubbing with Musk Mask detergents made sure that everything she owned was antiseptically clean too. Looking around her apartment, Judy hoped it would be enough to satisfy Garrison's nose.

Judy slipped on an oversized t-shirt to sleep in and then sat down on the edge of her bed. She grabbed her phone to turn it off but ended up staring at the background picture instead. It was a selfie she had taken of her and Nick the morning he left for the academy, she was in her uniform and he was wearing one of his ugly Pawaiian shirts and a tie. They were so happy. And then she had to go and ruin everything.

Judy whispered to herself in frustration, "You are such a dumb, stupid bunny."

Groaning into her paws, she couldn't help but start in on herself again, she shouldn't have said 'yes.' It's just that it had all happened so fast and when she got to the restaurant, everything was so wonderful. The view from the rooftop was amazing and Nick looked so handsome, and he took such good care of her. He'd cooked her favorite dishes and once they'd eaten some of those, he brought out a dish so special that she'd nearly done a binky it tasted so good. It was a wonderful dinner, and afterward at her apartment, well, that was even more wonderful.

She'd felt it building throughout their date, a feeling she'd never experienced before and then when Nick kissed her goodnight, it happened. A dam burst open in her heart as she realized that she'd been wanting him as more than a friend since the day of their first patrol together. Holding Nick in her arms as he kissed her, she'd been the happiest she'd ever been.

But now it was over, and it was all her fault.

Taking a deep breath, Judy settled herself. Rehashing what she'd done, again, wasn't going to help anything, so with a last, longing look at the picture on her phone, Judy sighed and turned it off.

Crawling into her bed, Judy took a few sniffs. After all the cleaning she'd done, she couldn't smell anything anymore; her scent was gone and so was Nick's. Closing her eyes, a small tear started to form as she realized that from now on, this is what it was going to be like without her best friend.