A/N

Fair warning going in, as the description says this isn't a complete story. It's an anthology centered around a much anticipated event with the stories connected in no particular order. They just follow the themes of our duo getting married and the struggles and stories behind working their way up to the big day. It's fluffy, but there's some thinkin' behind it. Or I hope there is.

I'll add to it as stories come to mind, but don't expect consistent updates. Most of these were written for my good friend, paintkettle. Thanks for the inspiration, man, and I attribute these stories to you.

"A list of things to do before the wedding?" Nick asked with some surprise.

The fox and the bunny had just started their lunch break together while on duty. An hour or so to find some grub on the hot summer day in mid-July.

Judy was thankful the cruiser had air conditioning as they waited in line for Bug Burga's serving window. She hesitated passing over her legal pad with two hundred and one ideas of what she wanted to do before getting married. And counting.

"It's kinda like a bucket list," she explained, feeling her ears go slightly red. "I know most people are exaggerating when they say your life is over when you get married. But I still thought it'd be fun to do with you before things get crazy."

"Well, we certainly have time. Spring's not for awhile."

Her parents had insisted on having the ceremony when everything was in full bloom in the burrows. Judy was hard pressed to deny them that, at the very least. She didn't very much mind where or when the wedding would take place so long as it happened with her family's blessing. She was going to be the first Hopps to ever marry a fox, after all.

Judy smiled at that thought as she fiddled with the engagement ring on her finger.

"There's a lot to do besides all this," she said knowingly. "But I still wanted to have some fun too and not make it all serious. Like we're adults or something."

"We are adults, Carrots."

"Well, you sure don't act like it sometimes."

"I'm also not the one playing keep away with the list like she's a high schooler with her diary. Come on, I'm curious. Let me see it."

Judy rolled her eyes and passed her partner the legal pad as the line for the window moved up some. She turned to the wheel while Nick turned the pages.

Nick chuckled as he ran a claw to each bullet.

"Climb to the top of the highest building in Zootopia...Pull an all nighter for fun...Find the best coffee in the city—Oh, I like that one."

"Figured you would."

The list went on and on. Most were simple things, like wanting to try shopping in Little Rodentia or eating an entire Jumbo Pop in a single sitting. Ice skating in Tundratown when winter arrived was a particular highlight on the lineup for her. It wasn't like getting married was ever going to prevent them from doing those things together. But Judy liked making lists and it was a fun way to pass the time while they waited for the big day the next year.

And some of the things on the list she hadn't done since she had first come to Zootopia.

"...Find the record shop," Nick's voice lingered on item ninety nine. "What's the record shop?"

"Oh," Judy's ear fluttered slightly as they were next in line. "It's silly. On one of the first days I was here, I just stumbled into this cool record shop while I was struggling to find my way home. It was a small place, very independent. Had a lot of neat vinyls I liked. But when I tried to find it the next day I couldn't recall where it was."

Nick chuckled. "Well, you're lucky I know everyone. What was the name of the place?"

"I don't remember…"

He nodded, knowingly. "Alright then. Do you remember who owned it or who worked there?"

"No...I remember there wasn't anyone at the counter when I was there. That was why I didn't end up buying anything."

Nick kept quiet for a moment. "Well, do you at least remember what it looked like? Out front or otherwise?"

It was like trying to remember a fading dream.

"It feels so long ago," said Judy. "But there was a big glass window tinted blue. And all the records were stored in those plastic milk cartons and separated with newspaper. The entire building had this weird pungent smell."

"Sulfur in the pipes?"

"Maybe," Judy rubbed at her nose. "They say smell is the biggest trigger to memory."

"It is," Nick agreed with a nod, his eyes shut as if trying to place the memory himself. "And I think I know the exact place you're talking about now."

Judy smiled as she watched her partner scan his memory banks, as she had seen many times before. Nick was never exaggerating when he said he knew everyone in the city. Over the years together, Judy had come to realize that his relationships with people were like the branches of a tree. He would know someone, who would then know three other mammals Nick would be introduced to. And they would know five other mammals. And so on and so on.

The uber mammal memory scanning routine was different this time around though.

Nick's brow furrowed as he opened his eyes, making the same face he'd have if his zipper got caught in something.

"...Odd," he muttered. "I have the exact vision of the place, like you do. But, for the life of me, I can't remember the name. Or how to get to it."

Judy gave a slight frown before shrugging it off. "Then maybe we both dreamed it existed. Can't expect to remember everything, slick."

Nick didn't have a witty retort for her and kept silent as they approached the fast food joint's window.

He continued to stay quiet as Judy passed him his bag of hash browns and tofu burger, while she enjoyed something off the prey menu. Teriyaki grilled carrots. They parked in the nearby lot to dig in.

As she unwrapped her treat, she paused for a moment when she realized Nick hadn't even touched his own bag yet.

"It really bothers you?" she asked.

Nick jolted slightly, as if Judy's words had woken him from sleep, before slouching into the seat.

"More my pride," he replied. "It's part of my thing, you know. Knowing everyone. Dashing good looks, smarm, fast-talking, and having connections to everyone in the city. Those are the ingredients that make up Nick Wilde."

"I'd say there's more to him than that."

"It's how I've always been," Nick continued. "Knowing people is just one of those things I took pride in myself. And if I can't help you with something little like this, what good am I going to be to you as your future husband?"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Judy nudged him on the side of his arm. "You do more than enough for me, silly. Besides, I wasn't really expecting to complete every little thing on the list."

"Well, I still owe it to myself to find this dinky little shop for you. It'd soil my pristine reputation otherwise. Now sit up. We're switching."

Judy didn't even have a moment to take a bite of her lunch before Nick rose from his seat and scooted her with his paw, practically forcing her out the door. She had to grasp the wheel before he pushed her out the window.

"Hey, hey, hey!" she replied, making her stand. "You don't get to drive."

"Why not?"

"Besides you not passing a basic driver's test in the academy to handle one of these things? The last time I saw you in control of a vehicle, you backed it into a lampost."

"The lampost was asking for it. I got my tongue stuck to it in winter once."

"Petty revenge is not appropriate behavior for an officer of the ZPD."

Nick let out a content sigh. Their back-and-forth fake argument could continue on for hours, if they both had a mind for it. But he knew as well as she did that they had less than an hour before they were back on duty. With that in mind, he showed a rare moment of humility and admitted defeat.

"Fine, fine. You can drive there. But we're probably going to get lost a few times on the way."

Judy tried to ignore her lunch on the floor of the cruiser as she shifted the gears into drive.

"The most likely place is along Armstrong and Mercury Street," Nick explained. "There's a lot of music shops there, so it's a fine place to start. At the very least, it might jog either of our memories."

Judy nodded along as they turned into the downtown area.

There were some mammals that called the downtown districts the true face of Zootopia. There was no polish or glamor, like in Savannah Central. Just honest brick buildings established almost a hundred years ago, in some cases. At best, the downtown area had an old-fashioned charm to it like something out of a movie based in the 1940's. At worst, the abandoned factories and condemned apartment buildings had been left to be claimed by vines and overgrowth.

Nick had told her he had grown up in the area once. He pointed out the shop his father formerly owned, Suitopia. Now it was owned by a thick layer of moss and ferns, courtesy of the nearby Rainforest district.

Thankfully, they were far enough away from the bad memories to remain focused on the task at paw.

The cruiser slowed to a crawl as Nick gestured to stop just around the corner of the two streets, stopping at the space for five minute parking. His tail was a flutter with excitement.

Judy, however, was more reserved.

"Nick," she said sweetly. "I don't think I've been here before. I don't remember any of the sights around this neighborhood."

"Let's just wait and see," he replied, calmly and confident.

And so, they parked in the first open spot they could find, with the downtown being emptied from mammals on their way to eat lunch. The district they were in didn't look to have any restaurants available, much to the disappointment of Judy's growling gut.

As they stepped out onto the sidewalk, Nick kept his nose pointed in the air like he could smell the store while Judy followed his tail closely behind. Keeping pace with his longer strides reminded her of the time when they first met and she had tried to nail him for a long list of potential wrongdoings.

He stopped suddenly, as if he had picked up the scent and sharply turned to what was across the street.

"That's it."

Nick had taken a pose like he was the opening act to a great performance, extending his arms and bowing low with a smile stretched across his face.

Judy glanced at the large window before them and read the name of the establishment outloud.

"Sharp Regrets?"

It sounded like a pretentious store for pretentious people. Even the mammals loitering around outside looked like what Clawhauser would call music hipsters with their braided fur and baggy clothes. The sort of store that didn't sell vinyls because of the crisper sound quality but because it was what was presently in fashion with the more obscure crowd.

"This is the first place I can think of that has a big window out front that sells old-fashioned records," Nick explained. "Maybe the smell we remember was all the hemp that gets used by the patrons. Or something."

"Or something," Judy repeated, shaking her head. "Nick, this isn't it."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive," Judy went quiet for a moment. "I haven't been in the area before. I remember that clearly enough because it was a little after I confronted you about your pawsicle scam. When I was depressed and in a rut."

"Ah."

Nick went silent again.

Chief Bogo had made it very clear to the two that public displays of affection were not allowed while on the clock. Even if they were engaged to be married. But Judy didn't see the harm in offering some comfort to Nick by grabbing at his paw.

"It wasn't all you," she assured him. "The meter maid business had been getting to me. I had been delaying going home after work all the time because being stuck in that old shoebox of an apartment was starting to make me stir crazy. So, I had taken to wandering around the city when my shift was up. You know. Trying to find the good in it."

Nick thought for a minute before he huffed through his nose and smiled. Then he squeezed her paw in return before releasing it.

"I'm going to guess you didn't have much luck, Carrots."

"Well, the record place certainly helped. I hadn't ever heard the kind of stuff they were playing on the stereo before. In the burrows there's only pop songs and country on the radios."

"Indie stuff then, huh?"

Judy shrugged. "Instrumental. No vocals at all. All calm and smoothing, but still faintly upsetting. Like a summer's day at the end of August. You know it can't last forever and the end's in sight."

"And still you try to grab onto the little somethings that remind you of it."

Nick closed his eyes as if he could hear the same tune Judy had a couple of years ago.

He only opened them again when Judy's churning stomach reminded them of the spilled Bug Burga bags still sitting on the floor of their parked cruiser. The cruiser that was going to technically become illegally parked in just a few seconds.

Nick smiled again.

"Come on then. I may know another place we can check out in Savannah Central. But if we don't feed you soon those tasty preservatives in our food are going to turn it into rocks."

Judy pressed at her navel, as if doing so would give her the power to silence hunger pains.

"Very salty rocks," she smirked. "We still have half an hour before we need to get back to it. Let's find the shop. Lunch can wait."

It was when Judy realized they had circled the same street corner with the same nameless hobo carrying the same tin cans in the same shopping cart four times in a row that she finally thought to ask the question.

"So...Where are we going, exactly?"

"Oh, you know...One of the shops around here."

"Uh huh. And do you happen to know where said shop is?"

"Well...I figured since the police station is in Savannah Central, the record shop would be somewhere around here. I guessed it was only a matter of retracing your steps."

"You don't think I tried that already? I've gone home every which way long before you became my partner, slick. Still, I found it impossible to go back to exactly where I was before."

Nick did another one of his odd silences before speaking again.

"Maybe two looking would make it easier to find again?"

He didn't sound nearly so sure as he had before. Enough to cause Judy to frown.

"Nick...You don't need to know everyone and everything in the city to make me happy. The effort is more than enough."

"Thanks. But that's not entirely it, Carrots."

Judy recognized that tone of voice and frowned before putting their vehicle into park at the very edge of the corner, with the emergency lights going.

"What's wrong? You've been moody all lunch."

Nick cracked a slight smile. "Nothing gets by you. Does it, Officer Hopps?"

"Not with you. Nope."

Nick let out a sigh that was laced with more than just sadness.

"I'm just being nostalgic, I suppose. If that's the right word for it. There's gotta be a better way to describe it. This little distraction has gotten me thinking. Everything's about to change, isn't it?"

Judy opened her mouth to deny him, but felt the ring on her finger.

"That's not a bad thing," Nick continued. "Things change all the time and it's only natural. But I think you feel it too, right? With this list you made, I mean. We're both trying to hold onto the stuff we think we might lose soon. Even if it's a silly thought. You can always climb the tallest building in the city after all or make finding the perfect coffee a weekend project. Still, things are changing. We're changing."

"You're worried that we're going to end up changing too much when we're married?"

"I think I've already changed if I can no longer remember the name of a simple music shop. I'm slipping a bit. It's like..."

Nick thought for a moment before speaking again.

"...Know what the worst thing that can happen to you on the streets is?"

"What?" Judy responded, feeling as if she was being asked a riddle.

"To be forgotten. It's the same as being ignored, in a sense. In a city with millions of mammals all in one place, you have to fight for attention. It's so easy to lose yourself in the crowds. Even remembering a name means so much to some people."

From a long relationship together, Judy knew to put her paw on her partner's leg to comfort him. Nick returned the gesture with his own paw on top of hers. Again, she didn't care who might be watching.

"It's one of the things I made it a point to learn early on," he said with a smirk. "Memorizing names so I wouldn't forget that there's mammals behind them. Respect and all that. It just always felt like the higher you were above the crowds, the less you saw the people. And I never wanted to be a person like that."

Judy huffed a slight laugh. "I seem to recall you forgetting my name at the DMV that one time."

Nick chuckled in return. "I didn't say I was perfect at it. And I seem to recall you giving me a very hard time back then and I was spiteing you for it."

Then the two went silent for a moment, lost in the memories of each other's eyes, before Judy decided to put the cruiser in drive again and peel out.

"I can't promise everything's going to stay the same, Nick. But that doesn't mean you have to feel bad about what does change. We don't like to think about it, but everything does come to an end. Eventually."

"Eventually," Nick repeated with a shrug. "You're right, of course. But I'm still going to pout about it though. And as long as I get to stick with you as things change, I can deal with it."

"Good," Judy nodded in satisfaction as the car rolled to a stop at the light. "Come on. Let's get back to the station. Maybe microwaving our lunch might make it passingly edible."

Nick glanced to Judy out of the corner of his eye. Then he did a double take.

"Hey, Carrots."

"Hm?"

"I love you."

"Love you too, slick."

"Also. I found the record shop."

As it turned out, the record store had a name that was so bland that anyone would have trouble remembering it, or even finding it in the phone book. Central Records. That almost made it sound like a storage building for files and documents. Hiding in plain sight, where it always was.

But it was exactly how Judy remembered it. From the slight stench of sulfur in the air to the big blue window with paint flecks on its edges. Even outside were the several tables of milk cartons filled to the brim with vinyls and newspaper.

"Well," Judy said, making a map marker on her phone for the store as well as checking the time. "We got ten minutes until we're supposed to be back on duty. We can come back later after our shift."

"In a moment," said Nick, his tail fluttering around as he dug through the nearest crate. "Bogo won't notice if we're a few minutes late. And after all the trouble we went through to find this stupid shop, I want at least a souvenir before the building stands up and crawls away again."

"Is that what happened then? It crawled away from us?"

"But of course. How else can you explain the blemish on my perfect memory record?"

Judy's rolling eyes did enough to hide her smile as her fiance continued to search through the music.

"They have some good stuff here," Nick added. "A little bit of the old and a little bit of the new. Helloooo. What do we have here?"

Judy's nose detected the scent of musky, damp paper before Nick slid the record out from the box. It was by an artist she didn't recognize. A calming azure cover under a lizard reaching for the sun.

"You said you liked the instrumental stuff?" he asked her. "Ever hear of this guy?"

Judy shook her head.

"Let's give it a play then. You can tell me what you think."

She wasn't able to argue against Nick much as he guided her to the counter, where the record players were. After some quick bantering with the shop owner, they managed to secure a turntable and listened to the vinyl.

A relaxing beat overtook the air, of a soft guitar riff and hip-hop beats as percussion. Gentle like a waltz set in blue. Or velvet for the ears. Judy was never sure when it was going to end, but she enjoyed every moment of it all the same. An aruarian dance.

And that was how they found the song they'd first dance to as a married couple.