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"No wonder you never invite me over."
Judy muttered a little under her breath, trying all she could to keep her own words from spinning on loop in her head while she worked.
Over the past few weeks, planning out "Operation: Wilde Is Where The Heart Is" had occupied almost every minute of her spare time. The ZPD and other duties always came first, of course - testifying at the Lynxley trial, helping the reptiles settle back in, and rounding up all those escaped prisoners had been more than enough to keep her busy - but now that was mostly behind them, the time had finally come to put her new passion project into action.
The photo of Nick's apartment had thankfully been saved up in the zCloud after she took it, and since then she'd filled an entire notebook with drawings, diagrams and other notes for how to improve her partner's home. Though Nick always looked reluctant at best whenever she brought the idea up, and even after all that had happened that night, she couldn't help wondering if getting rid of the picture was his real motive for smashing her phone to bits.
Though in hindsight, she couldn't say she blamed him.
Judy knew it was an absolute mess, for sure. Anyone who got so much as a glance could figure that out, yet she'd assumed it'd be a fun challenge to clear out and completely renovate it into something more inhabitable. But now having to contend with several years worth of dust, grime and mould - all of which just had to be in the crampiest, hardest places to reach - it quickly dawned on her that the fun part of that challenge would still be a long, long way off.
So here she was, spending a sunny off-duty morning lying flat on her stomach underneath Nick's desk. Even with her chin right on the floor her head only had an inch or two of clearance, and there was barely just enough space to wiggle her arm so she could reach over and scrub the rotten remains of a long-forgotten pizza slice stuck to the bottom of the back wall.
It was funny. She'd joked the night before about maybe strangling her neighbours if they kept asking questions she didn't want to answer. But right here and right now, at least a tiny little part of her did feel in the mood for actually strangling something.
"Ugh... how could you even get a pizza all the way under the -?!" Judy lifted her head up, only to be met with a blunt THUD! as a reminder of the hard wooden surface that was still right above her. "OW, SON OF A - !"
"Why Lady Hopps, such profanities have never been uttered in this household!"
Nick's attempt at a more aristocratic voice had improved a lot since he and Gary started bingeing Pride Lands And Prejudice - he'd owed Judy that much after all the months she'd spent trying to convince him - though the fox went back to his usual, playfully sly tone as he leaned against the desk.
"Yeah, I figured it was gonna take a toll on you." He said. "I did say it wasn't a good idea bringing your brothers and sisters over to help out."
"Well then, it's a good thing I listened to you. See, we really are model partners!" Judy laughed as she began shuffling in reverse, only for her eyes to widen a little when her midsection stopped moving. "Uh oh..."
"You're stuck, aren't you?"
"What? Noooo, I'm just a little... slightly, uh..." Judy wiggled her bottom half a little more, to no avail. "Yeah, I'm... I'm stuck. Could you, uh... ooh!"
"No worries, Carrots, I gotcha." Nick took a gentle grip of Judy's ankles, planting his foot against the front of the desk to give himself some leverage before he pulled. "Three... two... and out we go!"
Judy had never felt more grateful to see the light, even when the light in question was just a barely-functioning lamp that hadn't been changed in over a year. Nick noticed a rather satisfied looking smile flash on his partner's face as she got back up and looked around, taking in the now mostly health hazard free room, which he thought was a good opportunity to speak up.
"Okay, great! Congratulations, Officer Hopps, clean-up was a complete success. Like living in a whole new apartment." He clapped his paws together. "So... brunch at Riviera?"
"Success?" Judy almost laughed. "Nick, we're not even close to done yet."
"Was afraid you were gonna say that."
"We just got all the really nasty stuff out of the way. Now we can get on with the actual cleaning." Judy skipped over to the roll of black trash bags she'd left on the TV stand and tore one off, then headed along one of the shelves at the other end of the room. "And since it's your place and your stuff, I'm putting you on sorting duty."
"I'm sorry, sorting duty?" Nick scoffed. "What's there to sort?"
"Photo of us, stays right here. Fantastic Fur comic, probably storage. Pawpsicle stick, trash." Judy held up the stick and dropped it into the open bag to illustrate her point, before passing it over to Nick. "See? Once you get a rhythm going, it's easy."
"Uh-huh..."
Judy darted back over toward the front door where she'd left her mop, bucket and scrubbing brushes - Nick had taken his own out of the kitchen for her to use, but she'd figured they'd get more done if they didn't have to share - and got to work on polishing the floor and wall. Regardless of whether Nick wanted to keep them or not, Judy was still mindful of any boxes or knick-knacks that were scattered around and made sure to carry what she could back to the centre, or at worst, clean around the heavier objects and then revisit those spots afterwards.
It was only when Judy tried to move the cardboard cut-out of The Neighsayer - which had been rather stubbornly wedged into the back corner, for what was presumably a pretty valuable vintage piece - that she'd finally noticed it.
The door.
It was rather plain looking at first glance, besides it's distinct bottle green colour, which almost allowed it to blend into the wall even without anything covering it. And - to Judy's mild embarassment - it was not nearly scary enough to warrant jolting back like she'd done at first glance, nor the new mess of newly-scattered cleaning wares that were now on the floor to show for it.
"Y'okay there, partner...?" Nick called over.
"What? Oh, uh..." Judy kept focused on the door. "Y-y-yeah, all good."
Unlike the doorknobs for the other rooms in the apartment, this door had a lever handle with a lock on the bottom, which seemed to have been custom made. And judging from its rather imperfect shape and it's ever so slightly crooked angle, Judy did entertain the possibility Nick himself might have indeed made and attached it without professional help.
But by far the most intriguing part was the small chalkboard that was hung about a quarter of the way down the door, with what she could only assume was it's name written out in big white letters.
"Uh... Nick?" Judy glanced briefly in the fox's direction, barely noticing his eyes bulging wide when he noticed what she'd found. "What's the Fun Room?"
"Uh, th-th-that one's not open, actually!" Nick blurted out as he clumsily sped over from the other end of the room - nearly knocking over a chair and several boxes - and he skidded to a halt right in between Judy and the door. "Yeah, you don't need to see that one."
"But we gotta clean it."
"Uh, no, we don't, actually, cause it's already clean."
Nick forced a smile, though he could tell from the look on his partner's face that she wasn't buying it, so he tried his best to think of something. Which was unusually hard to do here in the moment, compared to most other hustles he could pull off.
"Yeah, cause I... y'know, I uh..." He clicked his tongue a few times, still deep in thought while he tapped the handle with his finger, before something finally occurred to him. "I knew we hadn't discussed doing this one, so I figured it was best to just get it out the way before you got here. That way we could keep things on track and get done for noon, like you said, remember?"
"Really? Hmm... alright, well I better take a look anyway..." Judy took another step forward, only for the fox's free arm to stick out and block her path. "Nick... we agreed to organise your whole apartment."
"Actually, we agreed to organise my main room, kitchen, and bathroom, which you assumed was my whole apartment." Nick gave the door handle a quick wiggle, taking a tighter grip upon realizing it wasn't locked. "From which I assumed anything not included in that was off limits. Which it is."
Judy crossed her arms, pursed her lips and tilted her head, which - followed soon after by the rapid tapping of her left foot - was usually a sign that she wasn't going to settle for such a non-answer. Nick had always found this one of her most endearing little Judy-isms, though not so much when he was on the receiving end of it. So knowing there was no way of outright avoiding the discussion, best he could hope to do now was clarify it a little.
"Alright, truth is I, um..." He cleared his throat. "I have things in there."
"Things?!"
"Yes, things. Things I have that, uh..." Nick sighed, letting out a small laugh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's kinda hard to say. Honestly, even just mentioning them will probably make you think less of me."
"Aw Nick..." Judy shook her head with a chuckle, making a point to flutter her eyelashes a little. "What could you possibly be keeping in a place called the Fun Room that would make me think less of you?"
"Okay, I know what you're trying to do, and two things..." Nick playfully counted on his fingers. "One: charming hustles are not your thing. And two: do you remember that thing Fuzzby said a couple sessions back about partner boundaries?"
"Oh, uh..." Judy took a second to think, snapping her fingers. "Oh yeah, it was... respect your partner's boundaries, and make your own boundaries clear."
"Yeah, that's it, and this is one of those times now."
"Nick, come on, it's just a -" Judy cut herself off, taking a deep breath. "Y'know what? You're totally right. I'm sorry. If you wanna make this a boundary, I'll respect it."
"Okay, thank you."
Nick then turned toward the door and reached a paw into his back pocket, as Judy quickly recognised the small red train toy he'd lent her during the shipyard bust. She'd guessed at the time that it was just a generic lock pick - well, as generic as a lock pick shaped like a train could be - so it was pretty surprising when it revealed a slightly thicker, more serrated key piece, which he turned in the door with a rather loud CA-CLINK!
Figuring that was the end of this conversation, Judy quietly crouched down and started gathering all the sponges and brushes she'd dropped. But her mood was quickly lifted back up again when Nick knelt to her level and picked up some of the heavier materials for her.
"Shall we?" He gestured toward the main living room with his free hand, prompting Judy to nod as they headed back over to it. "But y'know, it's not, like, a dead body or anything in there, if that's what you're thinking, Carrots."
"Okay, well, I actually wasn't thinking that... at all..." Judy took a final glance over at the door, before shaking her head and focusing forward again. "Nope... no-no-no, not thinking about it. Boundaries... yeah, boundaries..."
The rest of the morning was fairly uneventful, especially once they got a general pattern going.
Just over an hour since they started, all the boxes had been cleared out of the living room and the remaining furniture was completely rearranged, with the TV now flush against the wall while the sofa-bed - after a thorough vaccuming - sat comfortably opposite, making a much homelier sight to open the front door to.
The kitchen came next. Even Judy had been somewhat dreading this on her way over, mostly from the rancid smell and the pile of uncleaned plates and cups that she'd seen slumped by the sink on a previous visit. Though once they'd found the main source of the stench - a half-eaten sandwich from Jaguarby's that had been sat in the fridge for two weeks - a couple blasts in the dishwasher and a quick scrub around the cupboards and drawers had it almost looking like a brand new kitchen by 10:30.
So now they were in the bathroom, the last (agreed) spot on the list, and barring a few surprises, the worst being a thick, greasy mop of orange fur that had to be fished out of the shower drain, they were all on track to finish by midday, just as she'd planned.
Nick was currently crouched in the bathtub, trying to scrape and peel the black mould from the seal on the edge, while Judy was stood up on the sink working through the medicine cabinet. It was already pretty well-stocked to begin with - if a little messily sorted - but the mirror gave her a perfect angle to get a discreet view her partner's lower backend while he worked.
Though in this case, it wasn't entirely for the same reason as most other times she'd done that.
"Y'know... ugh, come on... I'm really starting to think it's just mocking me at this point..." Nick grunted and strained as he intensely scrubbed a particularly stubborn spot. "Don't wanna mess up your train of thought or anything, but... sure I gotta do the whole thing?"
"You do if you don't want it coming back, Nick!"
Once the mirror was spotless, Judy bumped the cabinet with her hip to close it, before clambering back down and grabbing the mop back from the doorway.
"Ooh, you missed a spot!" She suddenly said as Nick poked his head up, pointing a finger to direct his gaze toward . "Yeah, about... ah-bup-bup-bup... there! See it?"
"The... the little one?" Nick's voice went a little higher pitched when he pointed to the thin, blackish-green stain, his face sinking even lower when she nodded. "Judy, no one would even see that one..."
"Which is all the more reason to get rid of it while we can..." Judy tilted her head, prompting Nick to mouth along with her words as she repeated what seemed to have become her mantra for the day. "Better doing an easy clean often than -"
"- than a tough clean rarely." Nick rolled his eyes as he finished the phrase, before climbing onto the edge of the bathtub and taking a tight grip of the curtain with one paw. "Fine, but if I slip and get horribly mangled, Carrots, I'm gonna - hey!"
He nearly jolted out of his skin when he felt something suddenly wrap tight around his legs, only to look down and see Judy - having thrown her arms around his entire middle section to keep him steady - smiling back up at him.
"No worries..." She said sweetly. "I got you."
"Hmm... glad to hear it..." Nick answered back in his usual tone - though Judy could tell he really did mean it - while reaching his cloth upwards to quickly scrub the stain away. "Got it!"
Judy kept ahold of Nick's lower half until he was fully off the edge - it wasn't exactly a steep drop to the floor if he had fallen, but better safe than sorry - before she finally stepped away, allowing him to get back to finishing scraping off the last remaining mould on the seal around the bathtub.
Even now, the would-be duel between fox and fungus seemed to take forever - though it was probably only the better part of five minutes - and Nick was sure if it took much longer, he'd have started trash-talking it as if it could actually hear him. But just before he could start thinking of any mildew-related insults, a harsh but rubbery PFFFFT! snapped him back to reality.
"Huh...?"
He looked down again, finally seeing the tiny black remants of the mould lying scattered and loose at the bottom of the bathtub. The silcone it had been clinging to was now a dull, somewhat aged light grey, but compared to how it had looked before, it was practically sparkling like new.
Had he just done that? It sure did look like he had.
"Well what do y'know... hmm... alright, that's the last of it!"
Nick let out a tired but still relieved laugh, suddenly feeling in a much better mood as he stood back up and climbed out of the bathtub with his battle-damaged cleaning materials.
"Can't exactly promise I'll keep it clean, Carrots, but I'll try my... my, uh..."
Though it was only when he'd fully turned around that he realised Judy was gone.
As in, gone gone.
Her mop and bucket were still propped against the wall, and the door was wide open right beside it. Even when Nick peeked his head into the hallway and glanced around, his ears could barely even pick up a sound. It was almost like she'd vanished altogether.
"Carrots...? Judy...?"
He shouted her name a few more times, to no answer. Just as Nick reached to get his phone to try and call her, he instantly froze up on the spot when his paw went into his back pocket, letting out a long sigh as he realised the other thing he'd put in it was no longer there.
"Oh boy..."
Judy held her breath and tiptoed as quietly as she could back into the front of the apartment. She couldn't help taking a few quick glances back, making sure Nick hadn't heard her leave, before she finally stopped right in front of the bottle green door.
FUN ROOM
Now having the chance to inspect it properly, she could take in more of its little details and imperfections. The slightly crooked angle of the chalkboard, the small cracks and bumps that hadn't been fully sanded before painting. Whatever was motivating Nick when he'd customised this door, it was either extreme desperation or extreme excitement, with no in-between.
Once she'd opened the front latch on the train toy, it took her a moment or two to remember which of its various key pieces was actually the one Nick had used for this door. Though it quickly came back to her when the thicker, more serrated piece finally popped up, and Judy slid it comfortably - but quietly - into the lock.
CA-CLINK!
Judy winced back at the sound, tensing her whole body with dread. Even when the moment passed and she relaxed again, she kept her ears up and waited a couple seconds more, just to be on the safe side.
Nothing.
"Okay..." Judy whispered to herself, letting out a long exhale. "Okay-okay-okay..."
A big part of her still hated to do this. Nick had called the Fun Room a boundary, and Dr. Fuzzby had really stressed how important those were to keeping a good partnership. Though on the other hand, was she really breaking boundaries if he didn't know she was doing it?
"Sneak out, take a quick gander, sneak right back before he knows I'm gone" seemed a pretty foolproof plan, all things considered, and really, the only thing disrupting that was her sudden hesistance to actually open the door and get said gander now.
Besides, Nick was perhaps just a little too quick to say it wasn't a dead body, so under probable cause the least Judy could do was ensure it definitely wasn't.
While she pressed the handle down and slowly pried it open, Judy's head was going in all kinds of different directions trying to figure out what secret "things" Nick could be hiding behind this door. Maybe some old props, disguises, fake IDs, for all she knew it could have just been a freezer of unsold Pawpsicles.
There was a brief, fleeting moment where Judy wondered if it might be something for her too - which may have explained Nick's clumsy attempts at secrecy - but given her birthday was still a few months off, she quickly tossed that idea out. Though even despite her giddy excitement, it did occur to her that some of the possibilities she was imagining, perhaps even hoping for, were probably a little less appropriate than other options.
So if nothing else, she needed to just get this over and see what it was, before her mind went to some really touchy places.
Crrrrrrrreeeeeaaaakkkk…
But whatever she'd expected to see, this certainly wasn't it.
"Oh…"
It was a boxy little room, only about a third bigger than her own apartment back home, with four evenly spaced walls all painted a plain, light sky blue. The back wall had a horizontal window running all the way across, about six inches below the ceiling, which let the late morning sunshine down to light up the area and the few things in it.
There was an old, navy blue luggage compartment laid on its side in the corner, hidden right behind the door next to a slightly taller, four-wheeled red cabinet. Most of its shelves were filled with small tools - blades, hammers, pliers and the like - which upon closer inspection, seemed to have been laid out into kind of a hierarchy, all sorted by their different sizes, types and purposes.
Having assumed Nick was bluffing earlier, Judy was rather surprised to find this room actually was clean and well-kept. As in, arguably more clean than the rest of the apartment was even in its current, newly-renovated state, and definitely not the kind of clean someone would do as a last-minute rushed job. Even the collection of modelling paints and brushes on the top shelf of the cabinet were all clearly labelled and neatly stacked, and the various tins barely even had a drip of residue running down the sides.
But the main attraction was the small stool and the wide, black wooden table positioned right in the center, draped over with a massive tarp concealing something stood on top of it. It was already hanging over a bit, so Judy didn't see much harm in climbing on the chair and slowly pulling it away to get a better look.
It was a model, or rather, a whole lot of different models, making up one big diorama that filled the entire space. A long, thin strip of metal, held up by small suspensions placed at even lengths, reached all the way from one end to the other, before splitting off into several new lines that circled around in various different directions, at which point Judy finally pieced together that the whole thing was actually a miniature train track.
The thick, uneven structure placed around the edges was comprised of mountain and hills shapes. From a light touch, Judy figured the various pieces were either cut from upholstery foam or folded up cardboard, though they all blended together well, having been painted in various greens and greys.
Looking past that, it was too easy to make out the shape of Zootopia just left to the midpoint of the table. All the buildings and streets looked fully painted and sculpted, and from what Judy remembered of their regular travels through the city, it looked uncannily accurate for such a small scale, even down to the position of the Weather Walls cutting through each of the districts.
But it was the right side of the table that really got her attention.
Comparing the model's scale to its life size counterpart, the little forested area placed here wouldn't have been too far off from Bunnyburrows, but the model it was surrounding definitely wasn't there in reality. It was very oddly shaped, with a flatter dome stood at the front while several taller structures - three or four towers of varying height, and what seemed to a wheel - positioned behind it. The train was placed on the tracks right beside it too, though it only seemed to be four stationary orange carriages without a working locomotive piece to actually pull it.
It was hard to tell whether this unfamiliar sight was meant to be exactly in scale with the city diorama placed opposite, though if Judy didn't know any better, from the size of it she'd almost assume this was meant to be a whole other city in itself.
"Yeah, it's uh... it's a lot to take in..."
"Oh my gosh!" Judy shrieked as she nearly fell out of the chair, her eyes bulging wide while her ears went upright and her fur flared up on end, though she relaxed a bit when she turned to see her partner stood idly in the doorway. "Oh, Nick, um... hi, I... I-I-I was just, uh..."
"Stepping all over your partner's boundaries...?" Nick raised a brow, counting on his fingers again. "Course, if we wanna bump up the charges, there's also pick-pocketing... great form, by the way... trespassing on a restricted area. Oh, and would the shower rail thing count as reckless endgamentment, or...?"
"What?! N-n-no, I just... I... I was..." Judy held her mouth open for a moment, but when nothing came out, she finally drooped her ears and let out a sigh of defeat. "Okay, yes, I was."
"Uh-huh..." Nick playfully tutted, keeping his smug grin. "Probably best we don't mention this in the next therapy session, huh?"
"Nick, I -"
"Y'know, first time Fuzzby brought up the whole boundary thing, I was kinda dreading it was gonna be me doing something to -"
"Look, I'm sorry, okay?!"
This sudden outburst made Nick freeze up on the spot. Judy pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a long, frustrated exhale, though as he peered a little closer, Nick was almost certain that he could see the corner of her lip lifting upwards a bit.
"I... I'm sorry." She said again, softer this time, though there was still a bit of strain in her voice. "Alright, I know you said this was a boundary. You didn't want me in here, I... I went behind your back, walked straight in anyway... I... but I just... I... AH HA HA HA HA HA HA!"
"And there it is..." Nick snarked, crossing his arms as Judy struggled to control her high-pitched laughing fit.
"I mean, come on!" Judy just managed to stifle her giggles, putting one paw on the table to keep herself up while holding the other to her head. "Sweet cheese and crackers, Nick, you could have just told me you had a train set in here!"
"Y'sure? Cause the laughing's not all that reassuring..."
Nick held back for a moment before stepping further into the room, approaching the table right beside where Judy was.
"But yeah, it's uh... it's sort of an on-and-off thing I come back to now and then." He said. "Pretty therapeutic when I feel kinda down. Or, I guess... more down than usual...?"
"Oh..." Judy deflated a little from hearing this, before turning her attention back to the main city portion. "So you really made all this stuff?"
"Uh, yeah, yeah I did." Nick nodded, itching the back of his neck. "Took a few years to put it all together. Plus, the city changes all the time, so... kinda have to keep it up to date."
This prompted Judy to squint a little as she looked over at the Tundratown section. It had been hard to tell at first with the whole area being blue and white, but she finally noticed the backend of it was actually a still-unpainted region of smaller buildings, the most distinct being a small, familiar-looking lighthouse.
"Aw..." She beamed warmly. "You're adding Reptile Ravine."
"Course I am..." Nick playfully nudged her shoulder with his. "Really glad we plowed through that maze, though, cause I was not looking forward to building that!"
They both laughed, before Judy then turned her attention back to the mysterious structure on the opposing end.
"So what's this supposed to be, then?"
"Oh, that?" Nick winced a bit, stifling his laughter. "Yeah, that is Wild Times."
"Wild Times?"
"Yeah, it's this old idea I came up with a few years back. Predator theme park, long story..." Nick rolled his eyes, letting out a small sigh. "Look, I uh... I-I-I know this is all pretty stupid, but -"
"Stupid...?!" Judy suddenly straightened up again, almost offended. "Nick, have you seen all this stuff?! It's not stupid, it's amazing!"
"Well sure, to us it is, but I still got a reputation to keep up, Carrots." Nick chortled. "Grown fox playing with a train set's not exactly gonna cut it."
"Nick, take it from a bunny who still sleeps with plushies. This is not something to be ashamed of."
"Okay, didn't actually know that, but that suddenly explains a lot of different things!" Nick laughed, only for the air to rush straight out of his lungs when Judy sent a fist right into his stomach. "Ugh... okay, yep, deserved that one... so, you uh... y-y-you wanna see how she runs...?"
"Yes, I do, I really, really do!" Judy nearly squealed through her giggles, excitedly latching onto Nick's arm as she jumped back up on the stool and pulled him up with her. "Besides, we did clean your entire apartment before noon, Nick, so I think we're in need of a victory toot-toot."
"Alright then... victory toot-toot, comin' right up..." Nick took another look at the track, then sent a playful side-eye his partner's way. "Course, it only works if you have every piece..."
"Huh...? Wait, you mean... ooooooooh..." Judy could practically feel the bright red blush beaming from her face as she reached into her shirt pocket, pulling out the lock-pick and carefully handing it back. "Sorry..."
Nick collapsed all the keys back into the train's front compartment, before slowly placing it on the track and connecting it to the front of the other carriages.
"Oh wait wait wait, hang on..." Nick climbed down again, rushing over to the luggage chest before he opened the lid and began digging through it. "Sure I left it in here somewhere, it uh - ah-ha!"
He came back over, carrying a small blue flat cap in his paws, with the word "CONDUCTOR" sewn in gold fabric on the front. It was clearly sized more for a child - or rather, a fox cub - though on closer inspection Judy realised it also happened to be a pretty perfect fit for a slightly smaller mammal too.
A rabbit, perhaps.
"There we go..." Nick casually plopped the hat right on her head, straightening it a little so it lined up with her ears. "See, now you're ready."
He then reached over to one of the mountain pieces, opening a concealed lid off the top to reveal a small built-in control panel, with a prominent red switch positioned right in the centre.
"Care to do the honours, Miss - whoa!"
Judy barely waited for him to finish speaking as she quickly reached over, latching onto the switch with bow paws before she turned it on.
CH-CHUNK! WWWWRRRMMMM...
One by one, hundreds of small LEDs lit up from all their hiding places, casting a range of vibrant colours on the city and tracks as the entire diorama finally came to life. With a faint click the front train's wheels started turning and it pulled its cargo forward, moving with a gentle hum as it circled around the amusement park.
When it passed by, the dome and its surrounding towers also fully lit up, finally revealing the WILD TIMES letters that had been formed out of tiny light tubes on the front, as its ferris wheel began steadily turning while the helter skelter piece slowly rotated on the spot beside it. Judy looked particularly mesmerised by that, staying focused on it even when the train had moved onto the main city, and she seemed to have barely even noticed her own hand tightly clasping around Nick's.
"Y'know..." She finally spoke up. "That could actually work."
"What...?" Nick pulled his eyes from the train, almost laughing when he realised what Judy was talking about. "What, y'mean Wild Times? Nah..."
"Well, why not?" Judy turned to him again, though the warm colours of the diorama reflecting off her face only made it even harder for Nick to focus. "I think a lot of animals would love to see something like that. I know I would, Nick."
"Eh, who knows...? We'll see what the ZPD retirement packages look like in about thirty years, then we'll talk."
Nick scoffed, putting both hands on the table edge while he watched the train continue its rounds. He took a few small glances Judy's way, though she was still too focused on the train to notice, hesitating just another moment or two before speaking up again.
"So, uh..." He cleared his throat, prompting Judy to look up at him while he averted his gaze. "I guess this means I'm gonna be inviting y'over a lot more often now, huh?"
Judy's whole face lit up with an excited gasp, though she only just managed to somewhat compose herself again before Nick looked back down at her. She let out a small chuckle as she took a tighter grip of his hand, using the other to flick the conductor's hand upwards while she tilted her head with a grin.
"Sounds good to me, partner."