The Visit - by anon

"I'm serious, dear. I saw it. That taxi driver gave us the stink eye!"

"Hun, you can't go heapin' meaning onto every little thing we see here. This is the big city. Folks here are mixed up, turned around in every which way."

"Maybe... You don't think Judy, after spending so much time here...?"

"Judy's the same girl we raised her to be, no dumb 'ol city's gonna change that."

Mr. and Mrs. Hopps came to a stop in front of a slim, stunted brick apartment building. A sun-faded awning hung lazily over the entrance. Two planters of flowers hung from the front edge of the awning like two drooping eyes. These were obviously a once tasteful choice of decoration years ago before contents withered due to lack of care and the containers themselves cracked with time. Mrs. Hopps could not help but notice this had the effect of mirroring the glare the taxi driver had given them moments earlier. Despite this unsettling detail, the number on the front did indeed match one of two chicken scratch markings on a scrap of paper clutched in Mr. Hopps' paw. Meaning, they had reached their destination.

The two approached the front door with a small amount of trepidation. Cautiously, as though he were half-expecting the worn structure to crumble at his touch, Mr. Hopps reached out to buzz the apartment whose number corresponded to the second scrawling on his paper.

There was a long moment of silence.

"You think it's broken, hun?" Mr. Hopps asked, scratching his head.

"I'd be more surprised if it wasn't."

"Oh, don't be like that. Sure the place ain't much to look at, but you know Jude was always about function over form. " He laughed, peering through the front door at the expectedly dilapidated hallway on the other side. Then he added proudly, poking himself in the chest with his thumb, "I'm the same way. Always have been!"

This musing was then interrupted by a familiar voice crackling through the intercom.

"Who's this!? It's my day off!" Judy's irritable tone did not deter her parents in the slightest. In fact, their expressions lit up at hearing their daughter's voice.

"Judy, sweetie! It's your parents! We're here for our visit!"

Another moment of silence. Then, vague sounds of crashing, shoving, and scrambling from Judy's end.

"Wha...!? Um, uh, hi guys! Wh-what day is it again? Wow I didn't think..." Judy rambled frantically.

"It's Saturday, Jude! That's what we planned for, isn't it?" Mr. Hopps said.

"Oh! Oh, of course! Saturday! Right... Saturday..." Judy trailed off into mumbling.

The Hopps parents shared a look and a raised eyebrow, then shrugged.

"Are you going to let us in, sweetie?" Mrs. Hopps offered.

"NO! You have to go!" Judy hissed. "My parents..."

"What's that, Jude?"

"Sorry! Wasn't talking to you. Uh... Come right up! I'll just have to get dressed real quick. Must've slept in. Long night, you know how it is..."

There was a loud mechanical buzz and click, and the Hopps parents stepped inside and made their way down the hall and past the first floor apartments.

---

Just before the entrance to the stairwell, Mrs. Hopps grabbed Mr. Hopps' arm and gave him a pleading look.

"I'm worried about Judy."

"Well don't get your ears in a knot, we'll be seein' her in about  60 seconds." Mr. Hopps turned his gaze to the stairs and cocked his head like he was evaluating something complex. "Assuming I make it to the 4th floor with my lumbago..."

"It's just..." Mrs. Hopps continued undeterred. "Look at this place. The paint's peeling, the floor's stained with who-knows-what, it looks like it hasn't been renovated since I was Judy's age, and I think I saw a cockroach-

"The walls are paper thin too." Came a muffled voice from the apartment nearest to where they had stopped.

"I wouldn't worry, folks." A second voice from the apartment on the opposite side of the hall chimed in. "It's not a bad place. Safe neighborhood, heat works in the winter. What more could your Julie ask for?"

"Are you sure she said Julie?" Asked a third voice. "I thought I heard Trudy."

"Oh please, Marcia. Get the earwax outta your big elephant ears." A fourth voice from down the hall now joined the fray.

"Um, her name is Ju-" Mrs. Hopps attempted to set the record straight but was silenced by her husband's paw. She glanced over at him and saw him shaking his head frantically, essentially pleading with her not to get involved in this.

"Don't talk to Marcia that way! An elephant who's hard of hearing? You know she's sensitive about that." The second voice countered.



Then suddenly there was a massive, booming coughing and sputtering heard coming from one of the apartments.

"TERRY!" The first voice from before screeched. "You LITERAL furball! I told you to get medication for that LAST WEEK!"

Overwhelmed and at a loss for how to react to the chaos they had so innocently started, the two bunnies hurried up into the stairwell. Best to leave the cacophony of the first floor behind as quickly as possible, Mr. Hopps' lumbago be damned.

---

Now heading down the fourth floor hall, the Hopps' parents were dismayed to hear yet another argument breaking out in one of the apartments.

Something something something if you don't get out of this chair something something. Something something going to be here in like 15 seconds.

Mrs. Hopps just shook her head. "I don't know what to think. All these city folks seem so high strung. We'll have to see if Judy can show us what Zootopian's are really like. I certainly hope they're not all like that." She cocked her head in the direction of the apartment door all the yelling was coming from as she walked past, her husband just behind her.

"Woah, hold up honey bunny!" Mr. Hopps called after her. "This is Judy's place!"

Mrs. Hopps returned slowly to her husband's side, her expression unreadable.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hopps' enthusiasm to see his daughter again seemed to have only grown over their short trip through Judy's building. It had been almost 8 months since he had last seen his daughter, and now she was going to be giving him and Mrs. Hopps a tour of her life in the city. This was a big deal, and he just couldn't wait any longer! Without bothering to knock, seemingly ignorant to the scene taking place just behind those paper thin walls, he flung the door open with a boisterous "Hiya Judy!"

The yelling from before stopped abruptly. The site that greeted them on the other side was an odd one. Judy in a very wrinkled plaid shirt and pair of jeans, her ears and fur unkempt, was in the middle of absolutely throttling a fox sitting in a chair at her desk wearing an equally sloppy Hawaiian shirt/khakis combo. Far from intimidated by the bunny, he made a show of staring at his phone with a completely bored expression on his face.

Judy stopped her attempted throttling and turned, embarrassed, to face her parents.

"Hi Mom and Dad! I'm so glad you guys could make it!" Judy trotted over for a hug.

"Sure thing, Jude! Wouldn't miss this visit for the world!" Judy's dad said as he returned the hug with gusto.

Mrs. Hopps joined in on the hug too, but her gaze stayed on the mysterious fox in the chair, who still had not looked up from his phone.

"Who's your friend here, Judy?" She asked.

Judy retreated from the hug in an instant, as if trying to gain physical space to weave her answer.

"Well..." she hesitated. "This is Nick. He's my partner."

That sentence hung in the air for a split second before her eyes went wide and she rushed to add, "From the force! My partner in the ZPD. Yep. Partner. Cop partners. Together we do assignments and cases and stuff."

"And stuff."

Judy jumped at the sound of Nick's voice. He had finally turned away from his phone and was staring at her with his trademark smug grin.

"And stuff..." Judy continued, "Like, us and the other officers hang out after work sometimes, stay out real late and... And stuff. And since my place is near one of our favorite hangouts, sometimes I let Nick crash here. The trains don't run after 1AM and the taxis, don't get me started. Getting one at primetime, Friday night in this part of town? You can forget it..."

"Hey, no worries Judy!" Her father chimed in to save her from her rambling. "We don't have no problem with foxes anymore, now do we, dear?"

"Of course not, sweetie. " Mrs. Hopps continued. "Any friend of our daughter's is a friend of ours!"

"And especially a cop! Why, can you believe you were worried about Judy, dear?" Mr. Hopps chuckled. "We got two bonafide, badge-carrying ZPD officers here! I'll bet you there isn't a safer place in the whole city!"

Mrs. Hopps trotted over and offered her paw to Nick. "Nice to meet you, Officer...?"

Nick hopped to his feet to warmly accept the handshake. "Wilde, Officer Nick Wilde. But please, call me Nick."

"I'll be sure to do that, Nick!" Mrs. Hopps smiled.

"So!", Mr. Hopps said, rubbing his paws together. "You gotta tell us everything! How's work been? How's life in the big city? How'd you end up in this place, of all places? Now, I think it's a swell little apartment, but you know your mom, if something doesn't look like it was put together by Martha Stoat she gets to worryin'."

And so the Hopps family took time to chat and catch up. Judy tried her best to answer even the most annoyingly detailed, doting questions, feeling guilty for being so unprepared for her parents' visit. Mr. Hopps took Nick's now vacant seat at the desk to comfort his lumbago, while Nick, not wanting to interrupt the family mood, wandered off to sit on the bed and bury himself in his phone again. As they talked and reminisced, the tension seemed to melt away from Judy, whose easygoing, enthusiastic smile soon returned. Any signs of the frantic bunny from before all but vanished.

Then, after awhile, her dad's attention turned to the desk he was seated at.

"Hey!" he said, as something caught his eye. "Judy, is this that recorder pen you always used to carry around? Boy, this brings back memories, don't it?" He turned to his wife, who nodded emphatically. "You must've had this thing since, oh I'd say, about 13?"

Over on the bed, unseen by anyone, Nick's ears perked up.

"Oh yeah, you wouldn't believe how useful that thing's been!" Judy said. "This might sound weird, but that little thing's been more use to me than most equipment they give us on the force! It's even helped put some bad guys behind bars, if you can believe it."

"Landsakes! Ain't that something?" Mr. Hopps scratched his head in wonder at the nostalgic carrot-shaped recorder pen. He picked it up, handling it gingerly like a precious artifact.

"Hey, honey. Think about this:" He turned to his wife, brandishing the pen. "We gave Jude this little thing. So if it helped put some bad guys away, it's kinda like WE help-

OOOOHHHH! NIIIIIIIIIICK!

Everyone in the room jumped. It was Judy's voice, in an obviously very compromising situation, given the tone. The source of it was immediately apparent: It was coming from the pen. Frantic Judy returned in an instant as her eyes zeroed in on the horrifying sight of her dad's thumb over the recorder button.

Meanwhile Nick's nigh-permanent smirk curled into an almost impossibly wide, toothy smile. He immediately recognized how hilarious this was going to be and he could hardly believe it was happening.

OH GOD, NICK! YES!

Judy lunged for the recorder pen.

MMMMF! TELL ME I'M CUTE!

In her frenzied state, her lunge only succeeded in knocking the pen out of her dad's hand, sending it spinning across the desk. She tracked it as it threatened to fall into the crack between the wall and the desk. The very heavy, solid-backed desk.

"Eep! Oh no!" Judy squealed.

OH YES! The recorder-Judy moaned.

To her horror, as she reached for the carrot pen, her fingertips nudged it just over the edge. Down it fell, down into the abyss. And for a moment, everything froze. The recorder was silent. From her splayed out position on top of the desk, Judy prayed that was the end of the recording.

Judy looked to her right at her parents, instantly, unwillingly taking in every detail of their surprised expressions. She felt her face growing extremely hot. She forced herself to look past them at Nick. That stupid, smug fox! He was actually smirking at her! At a time like this!

"Ok," Judy began the grisly post-mortem. "You're probably wondering what that-

OH YES, NICK! RIGHT THERE! DON'T STOP!

Whatever excuse Judy was going to muster, that next line that exploded out from behind the desk made it fairly clear what they were actually hearing, if it hadn't been already. Reinvigorated, Judy now scrambled off the desk and dove underneath it, groping wherever she could to try and retrieve the pen. But the desk was too low to the floor and too close to the wall; her paws could barely fit, and they were grasping at nothing but dust bunnies.

The next thing to do would obviously be to move the desk. Judy placed her back to its side, heaving back and forth to try and coax some movement, any movement from the solid oak, but to no avail. She wildly tried to grip the thing at any angle possible: from above, from below, from the side. But there was nowhere to get leverage that her relatively small arm span would reach.

Her increasingly frantic series of failures was of course punctuated by more loud moaning and comments from recorder-Judy, who was beginning to let loose a string of expletives that would make a sailor blush. In a moment of what could only be described as temporary insanity borne out of desperation, Judy briefly considered pretending nothing was going on and continuing to make conversation as usual. She jumped up straight-backed and faced her audience of 3. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to pursue the denial strategy, but quickly realized it was a losing one and promptly slammed her mouth shut again and went back to beating on the desk.

OH NIIIIICK...

"NICK! Help me with this!!" She called out desperately.

Her head whipped around the room. She wasn't sure where her parents had retreated to, but her gaze lasered in on Nick, who was ever so slowly slinking off the bed.

"I guess..." He began.

"Don't guess! Just help!" Judy shouted back as she grappled with the offending piece of furniture.

"Are you suuuure you can't move it yourself? You graduated top of your class at the academy, I'm sure you're strong enough." Nick taunted.

Judy's head whipped around again. As she realized Nick was standing idly by the bed and not making the slightest effort to get over to her, her eye began to twitch. "Are you kidding me!? God, I hate you so much, Nick!"

"That's not what you said-

I LOOOOVE YOU NICK!

"Case in point."

With that, he very leisurely sauntered his way over to Judy, who was on the verge of tears at this point, and knelt down beside her. Nick's physical presence so close to her stemmed the tears but, in combination with the audio, brought a whole flood of different memories and emotions that made Judy's face flush somehow even hotter than it already was.

Finally, with a valiant heave-ho, the two managed to shove the desk over the few feet necessary to recover the offending carrot. Instantly Judy snatched up the recorder and tapped the button to turn it off.

Mercifully, all was silent in the tiny apartment at last. Judy forced herself to look up at her parents. Her mom's face was a mixture of frozen surprise and disbelief. Her father on the other hand had his face contorted into a dopey grin that Judy could only imagine was forced. She rushed over to them, placing a hand on each of their shoulders and blurting out, "Can you guys just give me and Nick a second alone, please? Just wait in the hall, I'll be right out and... we can get lunch or something."

As she pushed them out the door, her father said something reiterating how "they had nothing against foxes", which Judy didn't fully hear, but she didn't really want to in the first place. She was sure it would've only embarrassed her further anyway.

After slamming the door behind her parents, she spun around to face Nick. He braced himself for an explosion of patented bunny rage, but it didn't come. Instead, Judy had tears welling in her eyes. This caught him off guard, and his expression immediately softened.

"Nick... why didn't you tell me you recorded that?" She forced out, just barely not sobbing.

"I'm real sorry, Carrots... I really, honestly forgot about it until after your dad picked the thing up and but by that point it was too late."

Judy just sniffled and dragged herself towards Nick and her bed.

Nick continued apologetically, "Are you upset because I kind of messed with you? I'm sorry Jude, I just thought it was  too funny, I sort of couldn't help myself..."

Judy shrugged. "No... The damage was already done either way, I guess... Now I'm just thinking of how I have to spend the whole day with them pretending that didn't just happen." Judy allowed herself to faceplant onto her bed out of sheer exhaustion.

Nick looked down at her small form. Judy really was adorable.

He placed a paw comfortingly on her shoulder. "Have I ever told you how cute you are? Oh! Sorry, I forgot bunnies don't like..."

"It's fine." Judy interrupted, her words muffled by her bed sheets. "I didn't get mad when you called me that last night..."

She paused, then added with a defeated sigh: "...about 50 times."