Judy drifted between sleep and wakefulness with her body pressed up against Nick's side. She had wrapped herself around one of his arms, hugging it close to her while her cheek was pressed against his shoulder.

Nick lay on his back, soundly asleep and snoring lightly.

Judy's internal alarm was going off, however, and she cracked an eye open. Morning light filtered in through the window next to the bed; the warm and golden glow hadn't been deterred by the apartments and warehouses that surrounded Nick's apartment. She blinked and yawned. She shook Nick's arm lightly as she rubbed her cheek against him.

"Nick..." she said, her voice bleary with the last vestiges of what little sleep she had gotten, "Nick, wake up."

Nick inhaled deeply and swallowed. "Mmm?"

"What time is it?" Judy asked. She winced as she stretched one leg, vaguely wondering why it was sore.

Nick didn't react for several moments, but eventually opened his eyes and lifted his head to look over Judy at the bright digital clock on the night stand. He thumped his head back down and closed his eyes.

"Six," he started, but the words stretched out into a yawn, "Mmmph... twenty-five."

Judy made a little 'mmm' sound of her own as she snuggled against his arm then froze. Her eyes snapped open.

"6:25?" she said, her voice rising in panic. She shook Nick's arm hard, "Nick, get up! We have to go!"

Nick grunted and cracked one eye to look sidelong at her. "Why? We have over an hour. The station is only a ten-minute walk from here," he said muzzily and brought his other paw up to rub at his face.

"Bogo," Judy said flatly. "7:00 a.m. sharp, remember?"

Nick's paw stopped the rubbing motion. "Oh..."

Judy groaned in exasperation. "And I don't have my uniform!" she squeaked, her grip tightening on Nick.

"We didn't think this through very well, did we?" Nick said rhetorically.

Judy didn't comment. Instead she quickly sat up, but only made it halfway before her abdomen exploded in pain. She yelped; her paws flew to her belly as she flopped back down. Her stomach, sides, and rump hurt to touch even with her own paws.

"Ow, ow... oh my gods what did you do to me?" she whined. She choked out a dry sob as she tensed at the shooting pain in her lower body.

Nick, his one paw still over his eyes where it had stopped, lifted his other paw with one finger extended. "I did not do anything to you did not request... several times," he said.

Judy grunted and elbowed him, "If you had what I had in me last night, you'd be wincing, too. Now shut it and help me get up," she muttered.

Nick's ears perked and he turned his head to look at her.

"Wait, you really need help?" he asked. Judy swatted at him with a paw.

"Yehehehesss!" she cried. She tried to sit up again with one paw clutching at her stomach.

Nick shifted and winced himself, discovering he too was a bit sore, but he thought Judy seemed worse off by far. He leaned over and gently helped her up to sit on the edge of the bed. Nick's concern grew and when she panted a few times, rubbing at her belly.

"Do... do we need to take you to a doctor?" he asked earnestly as his mind started helpfully supplying him with possibilities that would make a hypochondriac proud. Or blush. Or both.

Judy slowly stood up with a grunt of pain. "No," she said, her voice strained, "I'm... just not used to having that... that thing jabbed in and out of me! It's too big!" Nick relaxed and settled back down, propping his muzzle up on a paw while he watched the very naked rabbit take a few tentative steps.

"Gotta say, being 'too big' is a new problem for me. Besides, I didn't hear you complaining last night. Just saying," he said and fished something orange out from under his pillow.

The noise of the pair's favorite carrot recorder pen rewinding filled the room. Judy froze as the tinny sound of her own voice replaced it and began to play.

"Oh gods, Nick, yes! Nnnguh! I can take it! Harder!"

Judy very slowly turned her head to Nick. Her mouth was open just enough for her to bare her buck teeth, and her pupils nearly vanished to pinpricks as she tried desperately to bore a hole through Nick's head with her eyes. Nick was no stranger to that look. In his experience, it usually said 'I am going to kill you!'

Nick had that, in Judy's opinion, equal parts infuriating and endearing smirk on this face. "I just wanted to see the look on your face one time," he said and thumbed the erase button.

Judy released the tension coiling inside her when she saw Nick hit erase. "You are incorrigible!" she said.

"I consider it one of my most charming character traits," Nick replied with a self-satisfied wink.

Judy rolled her eyes and turned back around and looked down at her panties and shorts in a pile on the floor.

Unfortunately, from Nick's point of view at least, bending over seemed to be out of the question at present.

Judy put a paw on the bed to steady herself, then gingerly started to try and pick up each item of clothing with her toes. Nick chuckled, and Judy made an irritated sound.

"Shut up... it isn't funny!" she snapped, but without much venom.

"Oh, I would beg to differ," Nick said, still ogling her bare rump and that cute little tail of hers.

"Ugh, just... shut up. Stop looking at my butt and get out of bed, we have to move," she grumbled.

Nick sighed and slid over to stand as well. He grimaced as he did, taking a few moments to stretch. He arched his back as he watched Judy manage to pick up the items with her toes without falling over and held them in her paws.

"Where is my shirt?" she asked, searching the floor.

"In the hall," Nick replied.

"Right... hall," Judy said and shuffled arthritically out the open bedroom door.

"Where's your bathroom?" she called a few seconds later.

Before Nick could answer Judy said, "Never mind.... I see it," and shuffled back into view as she made her way down the hall.

"Nicky, my boy," he said under his breath while walking over to pick up his neatly pressed uniform from where it hung on a hanger on the closet door handle, "You are one smooth operator."

Judy closed the door to the bathroom and looked around. She felt like she was entering some secret antechamber full of Nick. She was reminded of a conversation overheard in the locker room one day where Avanaco had said, 'You can tell a lot about guy on how he keeps his bathroom. You just gotta see it when he doesn't know you're coming over. If he knows yer comin' over it'll be all neat and spotless.'

Judy took a few steps in. The recalled conversation turned her eye critical.

Like the rest of the apartment, it was modern and overall fairly well-kept. While the living room had been all warm tones and dark furniture, the bathroom was all white, chrome, and modern. It certainly wasn't spotless and could use a good cleaning, but it wasn't filthy, either.

It just looks... lived in, Judy thought. Regardless, it was miles beyond the communal situation she grew up with, not to mention what passed for 'accommodations' at the Pangolin Arms. Her apartment complex wasn't dirty, though; if there was something Mrs. Armadillo was, it was fastidious, and the gods help those who didn't help keep things clean. Judy thought the restrooms there still looked like they hadn't been renovated in a hundred years.

Well, she thought as she looked around, It could be worse.

She resisted the urge to snoop around some; she knew they didn't have time. She carried on with her own pressing business, groaning as she pulled herself up onto the toilet to relieve herself. She hissed quietly and gingerly rubbed her belly with a paw. She shifted her paw lower and winced. The subject of Nick's ministrations last night was extremely sore, and even peeing burned a little bit.

"What did you expect," she muttered to herself, "He's twice your size. Count yourself lucky you can still walk."

"What's that?" Nick called from the hall, apparently standing close by on the other side of the door.

"Nothing!" she replied a bit too quickly. Her ears started burning again, a trend Judy hoped would stop soon. Nick didn't respond. Instead, she heard him softly start whistling. Her ears burned even hotter when she realized it was the song from previous night.

She finished her business without managing to fall in, hopped down, and flushed. Her muscles were loosening up, but the omnipresent aches refused to budge. She hadn't been this sore since after her first muscle failure PT at the academy, and she figured this was even worse than that. Everything from her stomach down throbbed with every heartbeat. If she hadn't known any better, she would have thought she'd been hit by a truck. A soft, russet, and warm truck, she thought fondly. As beat up and tired as she felt, she had to concede the soreness wasn't all bad. Painful and aching, but a part of her deep down felt good.

She looked longingly at the shower, but knew she had no time for that. Instead, she started getting dressed as quickly as she could.

Once clothed, she looked down at herself and sighed. Her shirt and shorts were beyond rumpled. She tried without much luck to smooth them out as best she could, then looked to the sink. Her ears fell. She could just see over the lip of the backsplash, her tired, sunken eyes eyes staring back at her in the mirror. She looked around and spied a small trash can to the side of the sink, the kind with chrome top that flipped up when you stepped on a pedal. She grabbed it and dragged it around to the front to use as a makeshift platform to stand on.

"You need a stepstool in here!" she called out through the door.

"Duly noted," Nick called back, "Does this mean you'll be over here often then?"

Judy paused one foot on the top of the trash can. That giddy tingle in her chest and stomach from the previous night returned.

"Do you want me to be?" she asked.

"Absolutely," Nick replied with emphasis and without any hesitation.

Judy smiled as that giddy warmth spread through her entire body. She stepped up on top of the can with a pained grunt. The small trash can wasn't made to support any weight, and she threw her arms went out as she nearly toppled onto the floor. The combination of her sore body and improvised should-not-be-used-as-a-stool trash can nearly causing her to land face first on the tile, but she caught the edge of the sink and steadied herself. She sighed.

Now able to see herself in the mirror her ears drooped. Her fur was a ruffled mess. She reached in and turned on the water, let it get as hot as she could bear, and leaned in. She splashed herself several times before turning the faucet off, rubbing her face vigorously before starting to smooth it out her fur when Nick spoke up from the other side of the door.

"What are you, er, we, going to do about your uniform?" he asked.

Judy had already been thinking about this in the back of her mind. She picked up a brush, loaded with fox fur, that lay on the back side of the sink and used it to brush her head, neck, and arms as quickly as she could.

"There's no way to get to my place and to the station in time," she said, trying to pat down a particularly stubborn patch of fur on her cheek, "But my dress blues are in my locker."

"Oh," Nick said dryly, "that won't look strange at all."

Judy rolled her eyes and set the brush down; her fur was as good as she was going to get it. She hopped down with another wince and stepped over to whip open the door.

Nick was lounging against the wall idly whistling and swinging his uniform from a hangar, which Judy noticed was pressed and crisp. Nick was also quite naked, but after last night, it hardly fazed her.

"Do you have a better idea?" she snapped as she marched by him.

Nick pushed himself off the wall and moved into the bathroom.

"Nope!" he said. A familiar smirk adorned his muzzle as he closed the door.

"Foxes." Judy huffed.

Nick closed the bathroom door behind himself and hung his uniform on the hook mounted on its back. He answered his own pressing call to nature and stepped up to the sink, sliding the trash can out of the way with his foot. He took a deep breath, exhaled, and examined himself in the mirror. He didn't look any better than Judy had; his fur was mussed and stuck out at odd angles. He picked up his brush, but paused as he brought it up. A grin crept across his face as he noticed the small gray furs caught in the bristles. He started to brush himself down with more urgency than he'd allowed himself to show Judy. He hated to admit it, but he didn't want to be late, either.

Brushing his fur with the brush Judy just used sent a thrill through him that he couldn't quite place. What is going on with me? he wondered. He lifted his muzzle up to straighten out his neck fur with middling results.

A strangeness about the situation he was in started to overwhelm him. An odd self-awareness had been seemingly omnipresent for him in the last few weeks, like a fog — the near panic attack last night in the parking lot was so out of the ordinary it almost seemed like it had happened to someone else. It was like he had been a passenger, watching events unfold through someone else's eyes.

Happy, he thought, I'm happy. The realization stopped his arm as he smoothed out his chest fur. He looked at himself in the mirror for a long few seconds. For the first time in years he was happy deep down. Almost deliriously so. He was jolted from his musing by a pounding on the door.

"Nick!" Judy called, "Hurry up! We don't have much time!"

Nick blinked and shook himself.

"Right... right!" he said and tossed the brush into the sink. He grabbed his uniform off the hangar and quickly started to dress, opening the door once he began to shrug on his blue button-down shirt.

Judy stood there, hands on hips and one of her large feet tap tapping the floor. "Oh, for crying out loud," she sighed and stepped forward, grabbing his shirt to straighten it.

"Hey!" Nick said trying to fend her off, "I'm a big boy you know, I can dress myself!"

"Shush," she grumbled, batting his paws away. "You're as bad as my father..." She deftly started to button up his shirt.

Nick sighed and held his arms out, paws up.

Judy briefly turned her eyes up at him and huffed, looking back down. "And you males complain about how long us girls take in the bathroom." She tugged his collar couple of times until it looked right, then grabbed the tie hanging loosely around his neck. Judy's fingers flew, and Nick jerked his head back as one end of the tie went flying and smacked him across the muzzle.

"Ow!" he complained, and Judy shushed him again.

"Don't be a baby, it's just a tie," she said as she got the knot just so. She slid it up and snugged it tight, taking a moment to ensure she wasn't choking him . She pulled and tweaked with practiced fingers, stepped back, and gave him a quick once over. "Good enough. Tuck your shirt in and let's go!" she said. She fished her phone out of her pocket and looked down at it and let out a groan. "We got fifteen minutes!" she said and hurried for the door with Nick right behind her.

Nick's estimate that it was a 'ten-minute walk' had not been entirely accurate. They had started to jog or tried to until it became rapidly apparent that Judy was in no condition to jog at any pace. She might have been if they could spend time stretching, but that wasn't an option. Judy's head as on a swivel and noticed a passing cab, which she managed to flag down.

The cabbie, a slightly disheveled older lion, did a double take as he looked in his rearview mirror.

"Oh! It's you two!" he said and chuckled. "Didn't think I'd get the pair of you as a fare today."

Nick blinked at his choice of words, but Judy was oblivious.

"Yup! It's us! The heroes of Zootopia!" Judy said in that bubbly-but-slightly-flattering tone she got when she was in a hurry. She assumed his comment was referencing their notoriety from the missing mammals case; she was recognized regularly while on patrol. Even Nick had had started garnering attention yesterday while on patrol. "Now, if you would please get us to the ZPD headquarters building as fast as possible, that would be just great."

The lion smiled and did a quick mock salute with two fingers.

"You got it, kiddo," he said. Nick could have sworn the lion had floored it, and both he and Judy were pushed back against the seat from the sudden acceleration. Judy was about to request he keep the speeding to a minimum, but a look at the clock on the center dash sealed her lips as the lion darted through traffic.

His frantic, and in Judy's opinion borderline illegal, pace managed to get them to the station with five minutes to spare. Judy opened the door of the cab and hopped out before it even stopped, hustling towards the entrance of the building.

Nick rolled his eyes. "I guess I'm paying," he muttered and pulled out his wallet. He fished out a ten dollar bill that was easily worth three times the cost of the trip, and tossed it to the cabbie over the seat. "Keep the change!" he said and hurried after Judy.

"Hey! Thanks, buddy! And good luck to you kids!" the cabbie said and drove off.

Nick stopped. He looked back and tracked the cab as it drove away. What was that supposed to mean? Good luck for what? Nick wondered. He shook himself and turned to speed after Judy.

Judy reached the doors ahead of Nick and looked at her phone again obsessively for the hundredth time just as the automatic revolving door turned. She barely sidestepped Sergeant Howlowitz from criminal investigation who was coming out the other way.

"Sorry! Excuse me! Big hurry here!" she said, completely missing the rather amused look the big wolf gave her.

However, the look was not lost on Nick.

Howlowitz chuckled as he spied Nick a few paces behind Judy, cocked a finger gun at him and 'shot' him with a click of his tongue.

Between that, the wolf's look at Judy, and the bizarre comments from the cabbie, Nick was starting to feel an unease building in his stomach. He trotted up behind Judy and they shuffled through the rotating door together.

Judy was quickly marching towards the locker rooms and turned to look at Nick while walking backward.

"You go up and wait for me. I got just enough time-" Her words trailed off as she saw Nick. He had stopped a few paces beyond the door, his ears splayed out, and staring wide-eyed past her.

"Oh boy..." Nick said.

Judy slowly turned back around, starting to notice the silence that was slowly falling. Outside of a few civilians, the main hall had upwards of twenty officers going to and fro or standing in twos or threes talking. As soon as she and Nick came through the main doors, all of them were now looking at her and Nick. Some grinned, others rolled their eyes, but not one officer was doing anything other than openly staring at them. One group of six or seven congregated around Clawhauser at the front desk.

"Wooooo!" someone hooted.

"Hey, Hopps! Where's yer uniform?" another one called from somewhere. Bemused laughter echoed through the hall.

Judy's ears fell, and embarrassment at the sudden scrutiny surged through her, "They... all know?" she squeaked.

"Uhh... Carrots..." Nick said from behind her, his voice containing uncustomary concern.

Judy turned. Nick had picked up a newspaper lying on a nearby bench. Judging by the grimace on his muzzle, she she was sure she wasn't going to like whatever it was.

Nick looked up at her, slowly turning it around, "It's a bit worse than that..."

It was Saturday and the weekend papers always came with a few special interest inserts. She recognized this one as the weekly gossip and entertainment section. On the front, in shiny, high-resolution detail, was a close-up picture. It was surrounded by a vignette in the shape of a heart and featured Nick and Judy kissing in the parking lot last night. The title shouted out in big white letters:

"Love is in the Air! Are Zootopia's First Rabbit and Fox Police Officers an Item?"

Judy's muzzle slowly opened in abject horror. She dropped her head into her paws, "Oh sweet cheese and crackers," she breathed.

The hall erupted in more laughter, hoots, and howls. Hooves and paws pounded on Clawhauser's desk.

From the mezzanine balcony a deep, baritone voice cut over the commotion.

"Hopps! Wilde! My Office, now!"