Disclaimer: Zootopia and all related characters are owned by Disney.
...
Nick strolled into the lobby of the ZPD. Carrying a box of Clawhauser's favorite doughnuts, Nick stopped at the reception desk to greet the overly large cheetah. "Morning Ben, I brought you an entire box of crème filled this morning, make sure you save one for Hopps. Okay?"
"Morning Nick, will do." He reached in the box and pulled out a Bavarian crème filled treat and smacked his lips. "You're the best Nick. Where is Judy? I still can't get used to seeing you two not being partners and coming in together."
"Don't worry, we're still partners. A little more parking duty and everything will be back to normal. A side benefit is that I get to skip the bullpen meetings." Glancing around and lowering his voice to a whisper he added, "Although I do miss seeing that vein on Bogo's forehead throb every time he looks at me during the briefing." Waggling his eyebrows, he gave a two-fingered salute to the now chuckling dispatcher, "See ya, Ben."
Nick jumped up and grabbed the handle to the male's locker room and swung open the large door. Six months, a year for Judy, and still no modifications to any doors, fixtures, furniture or anything in the building except his and Judy's computers and one patrol car. Really feelin' the love.
There were a pawful of others in the locker room, but none of them acknowledged Nick as he walked to his locker. Looking at his locker door, Nick shook his head, 'Great, not again' he thought to himself. A booklet was taped to his locker, removing it, Nick read the title and then stuffed it under his arm. Stepping up on a small wooden box, he unlocked his locker door and then holding the door so no one could see his face, he closed his eyes tight and counted to five.
His usual mask of indifference had slipped a bit. What did he expect? All anyone saw when they looked at him was an ex-hustler fox pretending to be a cop. They didn't like him and they didn't want him here. Quietly sighing he counted himself lucky that no one had broken out a muzzle, yet.
After a couple of deep breaths, he was able to get a semblance of his hustler's mask back in place. He put his backpack and his clean workout clothes in the locker, quietly shut the door and went to leave.
The other mammals in the locker room could tell from watching Nick that he wasn't happy, a couple smirked while the rest either looked at the speciest hazers with disgust or shook their heads and looked away.
With the booklet in his paw, Nick jumped again to grab the door handle and opened the door. Once out of the locker room, he crumpled the booklet up and threw it in a trash can, well, underhanded it into a trash can at least as tall as he was.
With his head down and his tail droopy and dragging near the ground, Nick went to check out the parking cart. Slipping through the door to the garage, Nick missed seeing Judy, who had been watching him leave, and was now wondering what had happened to her partner to make him look so miserable.
...
"There's the place, looks like Leah is already there." Garrison gave a head nod toward a bistro up the block as she pulled the cruiser into a parking spot.
Garrison opened the door and held it open for the small rabbit. As Judy's eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, she could see that they had missed the lunch rush and almost all the tables were empty. No crowd, good, hungry bunny wants food quickly. A lioness sitting with a female honey bear at one of the tables waved a paw in their direction. Garrison and Judy headed over to the table and sat down.
"Hey Leah, how was it with your cousin?"
"Hey Sasha, we had a great time. My cousin's all checked in and has her dorm assignment for the fall. She's staying in the city with a friend until freshman orientation starts." Looking at Judy, she raised a paw in greeting. "Hi Judy, I'm Leah Corin, Sasha's partner, we haven't had the chance to talk at the precinct, it's nice to finally meet you." Pointing at the small black-furred bear, "This is Emily Abele, she works in records."
Judy smiled as she greeted Leah and Emily. Leah had on a light summer outfit, jeans and olive-green blouse that went well with her brown fur color. Judy remembered hearing that Leah graduated from the ZPA the year before she did. She seemed nice, weird that they hadn't seen each other more often at the precinct. Judy didn't recognize Emily but hadn't been down in records for a while. Emily was small even for a Honey Bear. She also had on jeans and a low-cut green top that showed off her distinctive white chest patch.
The girls continued to trade stories about work until the waitress came and took their orders. Once she had ordered, Judy excused herself to go to the little doe's room.
Judy rubbed her paws under the air dryer and sighed. She was glad to be getting a short break from being alone with Garrison. Today's patrol wasn't quite a continuation of their last one, but close enough, and it hadn't helped matters any that she was still pretty upset with how Garrison had treated the Greytail family yesterday. Gritting her teeth, Judy looked at a clock on the wall, an hour for lunch and a short three block drive back to the precinct to catch up on paperwork and then she'd be able to give Officer Corin her partner back.
On her way back to the table, Judy was about to turn a corner into the dining area when her sensitive ears picked up Emily's voice as she was relaying a story. Judy stopped in her tracks when she heard Nick's name. Easing an ear tip around the corner, she listened carefully.
"They said he was so pissed, 'Parking Enforcement Supervisor's Exam Study Guide.' I guess he ripped it off the locker and stomped out of the locker room."
Judy heard Garrison laugh as she said, "Almost as good as a few weeks ago when they left him a booklet titled, 'Five Star Prisons – A Vacation Guide for Foxes.' "
Judy was livid! Now she knew what had upset Nick this morning and to hear her partner had been hazed before really pissed the bunny off.
She walked out from around the corner and stomped up to the table, folded her arms across her chest and glared at Garrison. "Sounds like I missed something funny, care to repeat your story?"
Garrison looked at Judy and smirked, "Nah, just a few of us having a little fun with your partner."
Pointing a finger at all three girls, Judy nearly yelled, "You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Nick is a good officer, he was top of his class at the academy and together we have one of the top case closure rates in the precinct. He doesn't deserve to be hazed just because he's a fox. It's already hard enough being a small mammal in the department, piling on abuse from your coworkers isn't funny, it's just plain cruel."
Garrison didn't care about anything positive Judy had to say about her fox partner. "Look, Hopps, you can stand there and defend that fox all you want. I don't trust him and I'm not the only one either. I know a couple of the guys that he graduated with and neither of them know how he managed to do so well without cheating. There's always something going on with that animal and I don't like it."
Judy glared at the Jaguar, "I know exactly how Nick made valedictorian, he studied more and trained harder than anyone else in his class! We talked on the phone almost every night and I visited him every day off I could, so I saw firsthand how hard he was working. Nick put in extra workouts and study sessions while his classmates played video games or posted to Muzzlebook. He even ran the obstacle course an additional half a dozen times on his mid-session break when everyone else went home. That fox was the only one I saw putting in the extra effort. He absolutely earned that top slot."
"Hopps, none of that is going to make any difference in the long run. He's a fox and being partnered up with him is only going to hold you back. The sooner you realize that, the better. He's trouble."
Emily broke in and added, "There's a record on him in the archive, a record that I don't think even Bogo knows about. It shows that someone picked him up for questioning at least a half a dozen times in the years before he became a cop. The record didn't have any reasons why he was questioned all those times, but it happened."
Garrison smiled thinking Emily had won the argument for her.
Seeing Garrison's smirk, Judy turned back to Emily and tore into her, "You may not know why, but I bet I do. Nick told me all about how the ZPD treated him while he was on the street, including all the times he was picked up and questioned just because he was a fox. So, does he have a history, sure, has he ever been arrested or even charged with anything, no, not even once."
"Yeah, so what! He's in the system, so he must be guilty of something." Emily retorted.
Leah added, "He just hasn't been caught yet, no way someone with his background should be a cop, especially a fox. How is he going to uphold the law when half the people he needs to arrest are his buddies?"
" 'So what?' are you kidding me?" Waving a finger between Leah and Emily, "You two are exactly why it's against the law for the ZPD to pick up mammals based on species and then keep records on them without ever charging them with anything, it's called profiling. And if those kinds of records exist, it is your job, Emily, to report the officer creating them and then have the records removed. Right?"
Suddenly looking a lot less comfortable, Emily nodded in response to Judy's glare. Hopps was right and worse, she'd lose her job in a heartbeat if her boss found out about that record and the fact that Emily knew about it and hadn't done anything.
Judy turned her glare on Leah, "Yes, Nick knows a lot of people in the city, and yes some of them are shady characters. But you know what? I don't care! He's my partner and the best friend I've ever had. If it weren't for him helping me and standing up for me during the Missing Mammal case, I wouldn't even be a cop right now. Heck, he's not only saved my job a couple of times, but he's also saved my life too. I asked him to become a cop because he is a good mammal and I wanted him as my partner."
Leah and Emily were staring at the angry bunny trying to process what she had just said. Neither had ever heard another cop talk about their partner with quite that much feeling. Garrison, on the other hand, didn't seem like she'd heard a word of what Judy had said.
"You're still not getting it. Wilde is a fox and a con artist, he's trouble." Waving her paw toward the other mammals around the table, she said, "Don't just take my word for it, listen to your friends here. You're still new to the big city, you need friends like us to help guide you and keep you from falling in with the wrong crowd and being taken advantage of."
Judy was at the absolute end of her rope with Garrison and everything to do with her. Done with having to listen to Garrison just because she's a senior officer, done with her rants about the neighborhoods she patrolled and the hard working mammals living there and done with her speciest attitude toward anyone on her list, especially Nick.
"Garrison, you just spouted off about being my friend, let me tell you something about being friends. Real friends respect each other, they understand each other's differences and support and depend on each other. Real friends communicate on a level you'll never understand and they look out for you even when you don't deserve it.
Friends aren't speciest, bullies like you."
Her tone went cold as she continued, "Nick Wilde is my friend. And, so help me god, if you or any of your speciest buddies ever think about going after him again, you best remember that this rabbit has got his back, and it will be my great pleasure to demonstrate exactly what that means with either a private sparring match," Judy leaned in closer to Garrison and spat out "or a meeting in Bogo's office about your bigoted attitude."
Garrison sat up in her chair and took a quick look around the table. Not seeing the waitress or anyone else nearby, she relaxed a little and sneered at Judy, "Bogo's not going to take the word of a rookie over a senior officer about anything us girls have been saying over lunch, especially when I have witnesses and you don't."
Judy replied with an "Uh-huh." Suddenly there was the sound of a recording being played in reverse followed by a familiar voice, "Bogo's not going to take the word of a rookie over a senior officer—"
Judy clicked off the carrot shaped recorder pen she was holding and pointed it at Garrison, "Bogo may not take my word on anything you've said, but I think he'll take yours."
"Shit"
With a satisfied look on her face, Judy stepped back from the table, "Yeah, I think we're done here. Enjoy your lunch, I'll see you 'girls' back at the precinct."
Judy took a couple of steps toward the door before stopping and turning her head slightly back toward the table. "Emily?"
"Yes, ma'am, I'll take care of it."
With a nod, Judy pushed open the door and left the three silenced predators behind.
...
Nick was slowly walking in from the garage when he saw Judy coming out of the female's locker room. Nick smiled, she had changed into one of his favorite outfits, jeans and a pink hoodie. He wanted to rib her about how cute she looked, but he could tell from her droopy ears that she wasn't in the mood for his quips
"Hey, Hopps, long day?"
Judy cringed again at Nick's use of her last name. She was starting to get used to it, which only made her feel worse. "Yeah, how about you? Break my record yet?"
"No chance, that record is unbreakable. I had maybe 45 tickets today." Nick shrugged his shoulders adding, "Got yelled at a lot more to make up for it though."
Judy was examining her foot as she rubbed her big toe along a seam in the floor. Nick put his paws in his pants pockets and looked away from the bunny in front of him.
"So, you want to get something to eat or maybe do something, you know, like tonight?"
Judy looked up at Nick with hope in her eyes, but after a moment she sighed and looked down again. "Um, probably shouldn't, you know, since we aren't, I mean we can't um, I uh, ate a late lunch, you know, have to get home, maybe later."
"Yeah, uh, me too, I guess." Nick walked around Judy, stretched up and opened the door to the male's locker room and just before walking in he said, "See you tomorrow."
Judy stood in the hallway until she heard Nick's footsteps fade deeper into the locker room. As she walked toward the atrium and the exit, she sighed, it was going to be another lonely walk home.