A/N: This is WAY out of my usual style, but no one ever grew by sticking to their comfort zone. Zootopia is a pretty great film, and Judy and Nick are both very interesting characters, and I'm apparently the only one who decided that Judy's universal cheer might've taken a hit during the third act. So have a character drama about that.

Hate/Love

"That's the thing about depression: A human being can survive almost anything, as long as she sees the end in sight. But depression is so insidious, and it compounds so daily, that it's impossible to ever see the end. The fog is like a cage without a key."
-Elizabeth Wurtzel

1

Longhorns—born Arnold Long, some twenty-eight years ago—was not an easy bull to surprise anymore. Five years as leader of the Kingpins, Grazer Glade's largest and most infamous gang, following on the heels of ten years climbing the ranks and thirteen more years of various hardships, had seen to that. He'd seen and done things outside the scope of most mammal's imaginations, usually not in the direction they wanted to be imagining things.

But this…

"You've got to be kidding," he muttered, staring at the mammal before him.

She was small—she had to stand several feet back just to be seen over his mahogany desk—and her violet eyes were hard and unforgiving, as though she held even an iota of power in this room. Flanking her were two of his people—rams, both of them, shanghaied from the Ramtops group after its collapse in the savagery fiasco three years prior. The Ramtops had been a ram-led gang in the city center which had allied itself with Mayor Bellwether in the hopes of acquiring political clout. It had not turned out well.

These two rams in particular looked distinctly uncomfortable. His eyes traveled from one to the other. "You wanna explain," he asked coldly, "why this…" he gestured vaguely at the small mammal before him, "is here?"

"But, Boss," one offered, "she got to the doorstep and all, and knew where HQ was, so I figured she'd have to be shut up anyway, right? I just thought you should decide, uh…"

"…How?" Longhorns suggested.

"Right," said the ram, relieved. "That. Yeah."

Longhorns watched him settle himself into a little puffed-up blob of self-satisfaction and relief, confident in his security, before joyfully bursting the bubble. "This is why you're an idiot, Cade," he said, with mock kindness, relishing how the ram froze in the midst of relaxation. "See, if a cop knows where HQ is, what you do, Cade, is you make sure that they don't know it's HQ. Like I've told you to do several times?"

"To be fair, boss," offered the other ram, "She was pretty sure you were here. Persistent, y'know."

Longhorns turned his gaze on the other ram. "Claus, are you an idiot?" he asked slowly, enunciating clearly.

Claus shrank under the scrutiny. "Uh, I don't… think so?" he hazarded.

Longhorns blinked at him once, lazily. "Then tell me," he asked. "What are the two things that can keep a cop quiet?"

Claus blinked at him stupidly.

Longhorns sighed. "First is money," he said, "by way of bribes, you know. Dirty cops are a dime a dozen. Uniforms or no, they're all down here in the muck with us. Just another rival gang. What's the second option?"

Claus looked down at the small mammal, whose patience seemed to be thinning, and then back up at his boss. "Uh… kill them?" he guessed.

"Well done," said Longhorns, with false pride. "We'll make a semi-intelligent mammal out of you yet. Now, this one might be a bit advanced, but what odds would you give on Judy Hopps," he gestured at the small officer, "being up for purchase?"

Claus seemed to seriously consider this for a moment before saying. "Probably zero, actually, Boss. She's kinda well-known for it, right?"

"Good, well done," agreed Longhorns. "So, if we can't buy her, what do we do, Cade?"

Cade started at having the conversation suddenly turned back to him. "Uh, kill her!" he said quickly.

Longhorns nodded encouragingly. "Right," he said. "So tell me again, which this cop is here, in my office, and not in a ditch already?"

"I think I can answer that," said Officer Judy Hopps, tired of waiting.

Longhorns looked down at her. "Look," he said patiently. "I'm busy chewing out my incompetent help. I get that you're eager to get on with your afterlife, but the bunny gods will wait a few minutes, okay?"

"I don't think you fully appreciate your situation," said Officer Hopps flatly. "I don't intend to die tonight."

Longhorns nodded. "Most mammals don't," he agreed. "Not intending to die has a 100% mortality rate."

The bunny actually cracked a smile. "True enough," she agreed. "So… betting you don't intend to die either? Should that… worry you?"

Longhorns felt his lips twitch. "Nah," he said. "I have help." He nodded to the rams. "One good thing about having meat for brains," he said, "is that it makes you a better meat-shield. If all else fails, I throw bodies at them and run."

Hopps raised her eyebrows. "That's rather callous of you."

"Welcome to Zootopia," said Longhorns sarcastically, "where anyone can be anything."

"And you choose to be a murderer," Hopps said, her ears flat behind her head and her eyes narrowed.

The gangster snorted and shook his head. "I choose to be rich, powerful, and respected," he corrected. "The murder is just means to an end. That's the problem with these two," he nodded at the rams. "They don't get it. I didn't climb the ladder so that I could stay in the streets."

Hopps nodded. "You climbed it so you could do my job for me," she said.

He blinked at her. "Say what?"

"Uh, Boss?" Cade offered meekly.

Longhorns rounded on him. "Cade," he said, "Can you not see I'm having a conversation with someone much more interesting than you?"

"Yeah, Boss, only there's—"

"—A cop behind you," Cade finished lamely as Nick stowed his taser in his belt. Judy gave him a grin and leapt up on powerful legs, kicking one ram and then the other in the head, knocking them both out without pause or warning.

The bunny landed on the mahogany desk and nudged the bull's still-twitching head with her foot. "Interesting fellow," she offered conversationally. "Maybe I'll visit him sometime, in prison."

Nick leapt up onto the table in two fluid motions, one up to the unconscious gangster's leg, and another onto his makeshift pillow. He had no idea what his face looked like, but it clearly gave Juby pause as she looked up at him with a kind of nervous concern.

"Nick?' she asked hesitantly. "What's wrong?"

He gritted his teeth and counted up to ten slowly in his head, closing his eyes to do so. Once he finished, he met her gaze and said lowly, "You think maybe making a plan first would have been in order?"

She blinked. "I sent you that text, didn't I?"

Nick found his fists clenching, but he kept his voice even. "Yeah, I got the text," he said. "'Confronting Longhorns. I'll distract, you subdue.' Right?"

She nodded. "I'd have radioed," she offered, "but by the time I realized where I was and how good this opportunity was, I was already in audible range, and they were just changing the outer perimeter guards then. I needed to move fast."

Nick lunged in and grabbed the bunny by the shoulders. "Judy," he said flatly. "If any one of these three had been even halfway competent, they would have shot you without blinking as soon as you showed your face! The badge doesn't stop concentrated tranqs from stopping your heart!"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm fast," she dismissed him, "and I kept them out of range until it was clear they weren't going to shoot right away. I was safe."

"And how did you plan to get out if I didn't get the text in time?" Nick asked furiously. "How did you plan to survive if one of the rams did the smart thing when they saw me and pulled out their gun right there?"

She shrugged. "I was ready to jump on them by then," she said, "and come on, Nick. I knew you'd get my text. You always do."

Nick clenched his eyes shut. "I never thought I'd say this before I met you," he said grimly, "but, Judy, procedure exists for a reason, and when that reason is so that you don't die I'd be glad if you could please follow it."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Relax," she told him. "We got the bad guy, didn't we?"

Who cares? he thought despairingly. What good does getting gangsters off the streets do if you don't make it home at the end?

"I knew what I was doing, Nick," she said, as if reading his thoughts. "I saw an opportunity, and I took it. And we did it beautifully; by the numbers. Let's call this in and get SWAT to extract us."

Nick sighed. "This isn't over, Carrots," he promised. "But we need to get out of here first. You got a plan for that?"

She nodded. "Not about to risk you," she said, as if that was obvious, as if she hadn't just walked into the lion's den herself without so much as a spear, taser notwithstanding. "We'll call it in, barricade ourselves in here—he's a gangster, and this is his room; it's built like a bunker—and wait for SWAT to get through the outer perimeter."

Nick nodded. "Fine. You call it in while I cuff him, and then we'll barricade the door and windows."

One frantic hour—and two less frantic ones—later, the two officers were filing into Police Chief Bogo's office for debriefing.

Nick had a feeling he knew how this would go. They get yelled at for a bit about breaking procedure, then Bogo would grudgingly admit that they had pulled it off, and Judy would get off with a warning and no real punishment, just like every time she broke procedure and Nick tagged along for the ride.

But when he saw Bogo's face he wondered if he had been wrong. The buffalo didn't have the usual mask of blustering rage covering a glint of pride in his eyes. Instead his looked grim and even worried.

"Officer Hopps," he greeted in a clipped tone. "Officer Wilde. Sit down, please. We need to talk."

Judy seemed as unsettled by the unusual approach as Nick. They sat together on the oversized chair across from the Chief.

Bogo studied them for a moment, his eyes lingering primarily on Judy. "I have several questions," he said eventually, "and a few things I want to say, but I have regs preventing me from asking and saying most of them. So I'll cut to the chase. Hopps, I'm putting you on mandatory, non-negotiable leave for a week—paid."

Nick's eyes practically popped out of his head, but his incredulity was nothing to his partner's. "You can't be serious, Chief," Jody said, standing frantically. "I'm being put on leave? Why? What did I do? I always take the minimum required time off, you can't just—"

"Yes, you do," Bogo agreed. "Always exactly the minimum time off. Don't think I haven't noticed."

"What's wrong with that?" Judy asked petulantly. "So I like my job. Why kick me out of it?"

"You're becoming unstable," Bogo said flatly. "I don't know if it's overconfidence or what, but stunts like that, whether they work or not, aren't acceptable in my force, Hopps. I like my officers alive."

Thank you, Nick thought silently.

"Unstable?" Judy shrieked, clearly disagreeing. "Chief, I'm just doing my job!"

"Your job, Hopps," Bogo said, with uncharacteristic calm, "is to work as part of a team to take down 'the bad guys,' as you put it. Not to go in on your own and get yourself killed. You can come back to work in seven days. That is final. Wilde, stay in a moment."

Judy seethed visibly at the dismissal, but to Nick's relief she didn't argue further. She stood, back ramrod-straight, gave Bogo a crisp salute, and marched out of the room.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Bogo turned to Nick. "I want you to go on leave with her," he said without preamble.

Nick's brows rose. "You sure you can spare us both?" he asked dryly. It was no secret that the two of them were Bogo's best patrollers, and were likely to be promoted to detectives within a year.

Bogo shook his head. "I can't not to," he said quietly. "Wilde, I'm worried about that bunny, and I know you are too. I need you to look after her, and that takes priority over petty crime, at least for a week."

Nick grimaced. "If she could hear you saying that…"

"She can't, though," said Bogo, leaning forward. "Wilde, let me be clear. There are regulations in place preventing me from telling you what I think you ought to know, but I'll tell you this. As Hopps' boss in a potentially hazardous profession, I have access to certain surface information from her medical history." Bogo's eyes flicked to the door before he continued. "That includes her psychiatric history, Wilde."

Nick frowned. "Wait, so you think Carrots is, what, insane?"

Bogo shook his head exasperatedly. "Insanity's easy to deal with," he said. "With insanity I can pass the buck to a psychiatrist, no problem. Whatever's wrong with Hopps is harder. I need you to look after her this week. I wouldn't have taken her off the force if I didn't think you'd be willing."

Nick sighed. "I don't really get what you're going for here, Chief," he confessed, "but, well, sure. Why would I refuse paid time off? I'll probably be spending most of the week with Carrots anyway, so you can count on me."

"I know," Bogo said with a slight smirk. "Now scram. Find Hopps. Don't tell her I want you watching her."

Nick rolled his eyes. "Obviously, boss," he said. "See you in a week."

Nick caught up with Judy just as she was storming out of the lobby with a duffel in tow. "Nick," she greeted dully, her ears flat. "You should be working."

"Ah, see, that's where you're wrong," Nick said with a smug grin. "Bogo put me on leave too."

Judy blinked at him. "Wait, really?" she said disbelievingly. "Why didn't he just say that he was putting us both on leave, then?"

Nick shrugged. "He wanted to talk to me about something else, too," he said honestly. "And you know he likes winding you up."

Judy growled. It was adorable. "Why can't he ever take me seriously?" she asked rhetorically. "Haven't I done good work?"

Nick snorted. "The Chief takes you very seriously, Carrots," he told her. "Take my word for it."

"Then why won't he let me do my job?" whined Judy.

Nick shrugged. "He's worried about you," he said. So am I.

Judy shook her head. "What's to worry about?" she grumbled. "I come in to work every day, and I do my job as well as I can. Isn't that enough?"

"Maybe," Nick said noncommittally, studying her.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "What?" she demanded. "That's your 'I-know-something-about-this' face. What's Bogo up to?"

Nick rolled his eyes. "You see conspiracies everywhere, Carrots," he said affectionately. "Bogo's not 'up to' anything. Look at it this way!" He slung an arm around her shoulders and gestured out the ZPD's revolving door at the streets outside. "You have a week where you're getting paid to enjoy yourself! The city—no, the world—is your oyster! C'mon, Carrots," he twisted himself around to stand before her, a hand on her shoulder, and met her violet eyes. "Let's have some fun this week," he said. "It doesn't have to be a bad thing."

She slumped in defeat. "Fine," she mumbled. "You win."

He smirked. "I do that a lot," he said casually as he led the way through the revolving door. As they left he turned his head and gave a jaunty wave at the receptionist's desk. "See ya, Donuts!"

"See you in a week, both of you!" Clawhauser replied with a wide smile.

Judy gave him a halfhearted wave as they left the building. Nick took a deep breath as they entered the open air. The brisk evening air was cool on his lungs; the western sky was still faintly pink, juxtaposed with the deepening blue of the east. The streetlamps lit the busy street with a faint golden glow like a warm fire, and the sound of the city was muffled as it often was in the evening, as though the whole city was collectively starting to decide that it was nearing bedtime.

Not that the city would sleep, of course. It never did.

"Well, Carrots?" Nick asked as Judy came up beside him, looking out over the busy sidewalk and busier street. "You ready to enjoy freedom?"

She snorted. "It's too late to do anything today," she groused.

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong," Nick said with a grin. "You haven't had dinner yet, have you?"

She shook her head. "I'll make something at home," she said.

"Not on your first night off, you won't," Nick told her. "Come on; there's a Bengalese diner around here that I doubt you've tried."

"But seriously, Nick, you should have seen his face!" Judy chuckled through her napkin. He'd managed to get her mind off work by distracting her with paneer vindaloo and laughing at her running nose and eyes. Now they were talking about Longhorns, but not in terms of the ZPD. "He was so confused!"

"I might've been confused too," Nick confessed, "if I got tased in the back while talking to a cop my people brought in. He probably didn't expect them to actually be incompetent enough to nab one and miss her partner."

She shook her head, giggling. "Thanks for getting there, by the way," she said, her bright eyes seeking his. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

He smirked at her and raised his glass of water. "I'll drink to that," he said with a wink.

She giggled again and clinked her lassi to his glass before drawing deeply from it through her straw.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Don't know how you do it," he said, nodding at the white drink. "The mango ones are always so much sweeter. Why get it plain?"

"Long version," she said easily, "is that not all of us like sweets as much as babies, Nick. Short version?" She smirked at him. "Carrots aren't as sweet as blueberries anyway."

He drew back in mock offense. "I do eat things besides blueberries, you know," he said. "Palak paneer, for instance."

She shook her head at him, amused. "Even at a Bengalese diner, you choose the most juvenile option on the menu," she chastised him. "Will you never grow up?"

He smiled at her. "I like being a child," he said. "Children can pretend that a fox and a bunny can be best friends, and no one has the heart to tell them any different."

And then something odd happened to Judy's face. Her mouth gave him a returned smile, but her eyes seemed to darken with some shadow Nick couldn't identify.

"Fair enough," she said, with cheer that didn't even sound forced. "Children it is, for both of us."

"In that case," said Nick, raising his glass again and giving the bunny a raised eyebrow and a nod. "Here's looking at you, kid."

The water was slightly bitter.

"So what do you want to do with the rest of your week?" Nick asked as they left the restaurant. The sky had darkened while they ate, blackening to the pitch-dark of a city sky polluted by light and fume. The gold of streetlamps and pale blue of headlights, however, meant Nick registered only a change in color, not in exposure.

Judy's ears drooped slightly, but remained erect. "I don't know," she sighed. "I haven't had much time to myself in Zootopia; I don't really know what to do around here." Suddenly her ears flicked in a familiar gesture of epiphany. "I could go home," she suggested. "Mom and Dad have been wanting to see me; I haven't been back since just before your graduation last year."

The Zootopia Police Academy was in the suburbs of the city; still well within Nick's populous comfort zone, but also significantly closer to the countryside and Bunnyburrow.

He nodded. "It's an idea," he said encouragingly. "You should come back before the week's out, though."

She looked over at him oddly. "Why?" she asked.

He smirked at her. "If you've been here three years and can't find something to do in your time off," he said teasingly, "you need help. I've got your back, Carrots; we'll find something to do."

She smiled slightly. "I'm sure we will," she said, bumping him with her hip. Then she stopped, as if hit with another idea. "Hey, you want to come with?"

He frowned at her. "Come where?"

"Bunnyburrow!"

He blinked at her. "Me?" he asked blankly. "Come to Bunnyburrow? You sure?"

She frowned at him as she asked, "Why not?" It was an odd, dual expression, though he only noticed because he knew her so well; she was frowning in question, but in her eyes he could see a hint of hurt.

He raised an eyebrow. "It's called Bunnyburrow, sweetheart. Think they'd welcome a fox?"

She drew back slightly. "You wouldn't be the only fox there," she said, and her voice was oddly low. "There's another family—the Grays—they live in the Triburrows, and Gideon makes the best pies around. He buys his blueberries from my parents."

He stared at her. "You never told me that," he said in surprise. "I didn't think you knew any foxes before you got here."

She turned away from him, looking down the street. "I didn't know him then," she said, and there was still that slight low pitch to her voice. It wasn't the first time he'd heard it, but its meaning still escaped him. "I'd met him, yeah, but I only really talked to him when I went back after… well, you know."

Nick's shoulders slumped. "Right," he breathed.

There was silence for a moment.

Nick cleared his throat to break it. "Nice fellow, this Gideon?" he asked casually.

"Decent enough," Judy replied, still not looking at him. "He's definitely grown since I we were kids."

"I thought you said you didn't know him?"

"There was a reason for it," Judy said shortly, turning back to him. "Anyway," she sighed, fixing a smile back to her face, "it's not as though my family's never seen a fox, and they do want to meet you. What do you say?"

He grinned at her. "I find my schedule's clear for a while," he said easily. "My boss just gave me a week's leave."

She nearly bowled him over with the force of her embrace. "Great!" she said excitedly. "Ooh, I'll get tickets for us right now!" and she was whipping out her phone and frantically taping the screen before he could breathe again.

He chuckled at her. "Don't hurt yourself, now," he said. "Going that fast can't be good for you. Come on, let's get you home."

She giggled, winking at him before turning back to her phone as she followed him down the road.

He led them at a gentle walk, carefully pulling Judy out of the way of larger mammals several times, before eventually she flounced up beside him, slipping her phone in her pocket.

"It's done," she told him merrily. "We've got tickets on the 7:23 for the Triburrows tomorrow morning! Oh, I'm so excited!"

He laughed at her. "Sure seems like it, Carrots," he teased gently. "Got a handsome jack you can't wait to get back to?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Don't you think you'd have known about it by now if there was?" she asked him rhetorically. "It's just going to be fun to show you around the old burrow, and introduce you to my… siblings…" Suddenly her face fell slightly. "Uh, by the way," she said, suddenly slightly nervous, "I know you always say you know everyone, but… don't feel pressured to memorize everyone's names."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "You don't have faith in my powers, Hopps?" he asked blandly. "I'm hurt."

She didn't roll her eyes, just looked at him dully. "I have two hundred and seventy-five siblings, Nick," she said flatly. "I can barely keep them straight."

He stopped short and stared at her. "You're serious," he said flatly.

She stopped too and nodded. "Dead serious," she confirmed.

He blinked once, slowly. "Well, what do you know," he said, a laugh bubbling up. "After all your talk about rejecting stereotypes, your family practically…"

"…Defines 'breeding like rabbits,'" she finished wearily. "The irony, Nick, does not escape me. Besides… you know perfectly well I'm not always open-minded enough."

He shook his head, still chuckling. "Carrots," he said, "no disrespect to your parents, and I'm sure I'll like them, but coming from somewhere like that, you're open-minded plenty."

She seemed to stumble for a moment before righting herself, looking down at her feet. Nick's laughter died in his chest.

"Carrots?" he asked gently. "Sweetheart, you all right?"

She looked up and gave him a sincere smile. "I'm fine, Nick," she said. "Looking forward to the next couple of days."

He smiled back. "So, tell me something else about the Triburrows," he said. "What's there to do; who will I meet?"

She giggled. "Nick, you don't do things in the country," she chided him. "That's why people retire there!"

He snorted. "You said it, not me." He nudged her shoulder with a paw. "But come on, Carrots. Details."

She giggled. "All right, fine."

She talked until they reached her dingy apartment complex in the slums of the city center. If he was honest with himself Nick really didn't like the idea of Judy living in a place like this. Given that his living situation was probably worse, though, he really couldn't say much.

Still, she deserved better.

She subsided as they reached her door and turned to him, eyes shining. "Thank you, Nick," she said softly. "Today could have been… a lot worse."

He raised his eyebrows. "You could've died, for instance," he said chidingly. "Don't think I've forgotten."

Her face fell slightly. "Yeah, all right, I'm sorry."

He hugged her. "It's fine," he said. "Wouldn't be you if you were careful all the time. Just… try for me?"

She smiled up at him as he released her. "For you," she said. "Sure."

He smiled back. "Thank you," he said.

She turned towards the door. "We should do this more often," she said as she fished in her pocket for the key. "It was fun."

"Getting rescued?" Nick asked jokingly.

"Getting dinner," she said, rolling her eyes at him.

It wasn't the first time they'd done it by any means, but she wasn't wrong.

"Count on it," Nick said with a grin.

She gave him a warm look as her key clicked into the lock and the door swung open. She held the door open with her foot as she turned back to him.

"See you tomorrow, Nick," she said.

"Looking forward to it," he told her. "Sleep well."

"You too," she said, and shut the door.

He looked at it for a moment before walking away. The dark streets welcomed him back.

A/N: Got a couple of other Zootopia ideas in the works, but this one shouldn't take more than about 10 chapters so I thought I'd get it out now.