#hoppinwildely

"'Msorry."

He sat opposite her and spoke through a big bite of bug burger.

"So. What's news?"

"Slow," Judy said. "Chief still won't let me leave on patrols."

"It's only been a week."

"I'm not hurt that badly," Judy said. "I can walk."

"With a limp, I'll bet." Nick eyed her. "And you have to be able to run if you need to."

"Whose side are you on?"

He hid his smile behind another bite. "The side where you get better before you get into trouble again."

That was fair, if a little depressing. But then everything Judy did these days seemed to be lackluster compared to what they'd just finished. It wasn't every day the bunny cop and the slick confox uncovered a conspiracy and saved the city. Since then it had all just been paperwork, and careful stretching in the evenings on the doctor's orders. Judy hadn't seen Nick the whole time, and she hadn't blown up so much as a single train since the Bellwether case closed. She was going stir-crazy.

"You should see my desk. Case reports everywhere."

Nick's ears dropped. "Ugh."

"You'd better get used to it, if you're serious about joining up. Did you submit that paperwork yet?"

"The housing app or the specialization survey?"

"That comes later." Judy waved her fork. "You have to actually get accepted to the Academy before they give you a slot at the barracks."

Nick's nose twitched, and he shrugged. "Pretty sure the last form I filled out had ACADEMY HOUSING APPLICATION stamped across the top."

"Nick."

He grinned, wide. "You're gonna miss me."

"Nick!"

A rabbit made an overenthusiastic scene nearly jumping over the table at Moe's Curbside Cafe, and this time a fox was laughing along with her.

---

Judy dragged him with her back to her apartment. It was Sunday. She didn't have anything else to do, and she knew despite what had to have been a very recent Academy admission, Nick didn't have any kind of obligations, either. Not like he protested much.

"You are limping."

"Barely." Judy turned to him as they made her landing. "The stairs are good exercise. The doctors say I should be getting some of that. Regular, everyday use. Between that and the elastic stretcher thing I'll be one hundred percent in no time."

Judy unlocked her door and pushed it open. Nick leaned over her shoulder.

"And you give me crap for living under a bridge."

"Don't even." Judy snapped the light on, fighting the grin. "This place is nice."

"At resembling a cell, maybe."

"You live under a bridge."

"See?"

She gave him her lone chair and sat on the edge of the bed, and demonstrated the band stretches the department therapist had assigned.

"So you just come home and stretch?"

"Most nights. I go for walks, too. Riverwalk Park is right around the corner, and there's the boardwalk one stop over."

"Still." Nick looked around. "No TV, no couches or anything." He looked apologetic. "I think you're a workaholic. You need a hobby."

"Where would I even fit a couch in here?"

"I don't know." Nick held up his fingers like a film director. "On the wall by your bed maybe. Sure, it would take up most of the space, but at least it would be comfy."

Judy had missed the banter more than she expected. Nick was more that a little right, too, in that she'd tried to balance her injury by staying busy. She didn't feel like doing anything else, though. Coming off the high of getting through the Bellwether case with Nick had left her feeling a bit empty.

"And what about you?" she asked. "What have you been doing, other than not telling me you got accepted to the Academy?"

"I wanted to make it a surprise," Nick said. He smiled at her. "Bogo's been hauling me in for interviews ever since I got the news."

"No wonder he's been so grumpy."

"Yes, I'm sure that's it." Nick inspected the desk he was leaning against and held up a little paper packet. "What's this?"

"Hobby," Judy said. "Seeds from home. I've been thinking about starting a little garden. I miss the green."

Nick sniffed at the cucumber seeds. "What, in here?"

"Well, I was thinking about a little box out the window, but I need more room than that for cucumbers or peppers, and the window is also bolted shut. Something about liability."

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Cell."

She threw her elastic band at him.

---

But Nick was intrigued, for reasons Judy couldn't quite explain - and with nothing else on their plates he'd agreed to help out.

They decided on something less lease-breaking but probably more reckless. The stairwell at the end of the fourth floor hallway led to the roof, and right between the exit and the brick wall of the taller rowhome next to Judy's building there was a little concrete patio. Nick looked satisfied.

"I figured there would be something like this up here."

"I would have thought someone else would be using the space by now."

"Maybe they didn't know about it, either," Nick said. "Maybe they're all workaholics like you."

Judy was too busy mentally mapping out the space to take another swipe at him. This could get ambitious.

"For that, you get to carry the dirt up here."

"Sorry, what?"

Yeah, this would work. "My family cobbles together growing trays that can sit out on bare ground or concrete or whatever." She turned to him. "And since you have two functioning knees, you're going to bring the heavy stuff up here."

---

They wound up with a list. Judy cleared it all with her landlady, just in case, but the armadillo seemed happy to let them experiment with something that might actually raise the property value.

The wooden shipping pallets they fished out of an alley for free, to Nick's amusement, and for the rest they visited Flora & Fauna, the nearest garden supply store. Judy directed Nick to heft around the bags of topsoil they would need, and she collected fertilizer and linings and low trays and a watering can and a set of little paw tools - commercial holdovers she couldn't hide her disdain for. She'd have to replace them with actual quality implements from her own family's machine shop as soon as she could. She picked out some perennials, too, just for some color they wouldn't have to wait to see.

It took them several trips, but eventually all of it was stacked on the roof of her apartment building. Nick was panting. Judy ignored the dull ache from her knee.

"You know you're going to be doing a lot worse at the Academy."

"I'm trying not to think about that part."

"You should learn to love the 5K. I can start dragging you on them on the weekends before you leave, if you want."

"I am diametrically opposed to running, Carrots. And you're not doing any with that leg, either."

Judy grinned at him, showing teeth. "You are going to just love Casset. I can't wait to laugh at you over muzzletime every night."

She had him break down one of the pallets so they could fashion a trellis for climbing plants. While he wrestled with the wood she lined trays and checked their drainage and filled them with soil.

It wasn't much of a garden, but it was a start. By the end of the day, as the sun started to drop, they had two trays full of cucumber and green pepper seeds and primed with wooden frames, with space left over for something small. Judy had put her flowers at the corners.

"Here." She fanned her remaining seed envelopes at Nick. "Pick something tasty."

"Don't suppose you have blueberries."

"You need more room for those. Maybe the next time we expand."

"Oh, is this a project now?" Nick inspected a packet of chili pepper seeds.

"I've given you a hobby now, too. Good choice."

Nick shook the seeds into their waiting furrows and sprinkled the thin covering of soil over them, per Judy's directions. "You'll keep these alive while I'm gone, right?"

"Of course. I'll send you updates every day."

"When's harvest time?"

"A few months, at least. I'll dry the first batch out in my apartment for when you get back."

Nick stood and surveyed their progress. "Everyone else there is going to have pictures of their partners to motivate them, or family. Me, I'll have my plants."

"And me," Judy said. His ears twitched over to her, and the rest of his attention followed. Did she mean that? Yes, she decided. She did. "I mean it when I say I'll call you. Every night."

Nick's face lit up with a smile, and it made Judy warm. "You're going to get sick of me."

"Somehow I doubt that."

---

They washed up in her little bathroom, scrubbing the soft soil off their paws. Judy sat on her bed again to do her exercises. The day's crouching had left her sore, and she worried it showed. Nick looked on with what she was starting to think was concern.

"How long?"

"A couple weeks. Pending Bogo's approval."

Nick winced. "Sorry."

"I'm keeping busy. He's happy with that."

"We'll trade status updates, then." Nick rubbed his muzzle. "I'm supposed to leave in three days. I don't know how much time I'll have between now and then."

That soon. Judy looked over at him, sitting on her chair, in the same clothes she'd last seen him in. Same tie and everything. "What about until then? You're not still living under the bridge, are you?"

"No." That alarm, Nick had definitely picked up on. He held out a placatory paw. "Bogo let me borrow a cot. Down in one of the break rooms. It's not much, but it's working."

"You could stay here." On the floor, sure, but at least he'd have someone to talk to. A friend.

"I'll be fine, Carrots. It's just a couple days. But that's where I should get back to before it gets too late."

Judy decided not to push it. She slipped off the bed.

"If you change your mind, or if you have time before you go, just say so."

Judy hadn't had occasion to hug him since that fateful meeting under the bridge last week. And this afternoon at lunch, technically. But this one was slower. More controlled.

Better, probably, she thought as his arms settled around her shoulders. She smelled topsoil and fox.

And Judy didn't look down, but she could have sworn she felt a fluffy tail curling its way around her ankles before Nick was gone, padding down her hallway.

It was dangerous to wonder when she'd get to feel that again. She knew that, and she thought it anyway, long into night, until her phone's message notification pulled her back out of a doze.