A/N: Special thanks to Kastraz for making the cover for this FanFic.
"Carrots. Carrots, please help me."
"Sorry Nick, but I don't have it in me to help you."
"Carrots! I know you better than this!"
"Then I guess you don't know me."
"He's so fluffy!" Yelled one of the many rabbit kits that engulfed Nick, whom is on the floor in the Hopps residence. Nick frantically tried to free himself from the horde of bunnies by swinging his limbs all around, but to no avail; the bunnies' numbers and cuteness were too great.
Christmas was tomorrow, so Judy decided to go to her family for the Holidays and suggested that Nick came along to help put up decorations; however, he might have turned down the offer if he knew that the Hopps residence would be filled with rabbit kits.
"How sharp are your teeth?"
"Do you eat meat?"
"You are the biggest bunny I have ever seen."
"His tail is so soft!"
"He's not a bunny, stupid."
"Does it hurt if I jab you like this?"
"Mom! Trizney called me stupid!"
"SOOOOOFT!"
"Carrots! Please!" Pleaded Nick as he clawed the air in her direction. Both Judy and her mother, Bonnie, couldn't help but chuckle at the adorable spectacle.
"Now kids," said Judy's father, Stu, "get off him. I still need him to put up some more decorations."
After a while of some of the older rabbits prying off kit after kit, Nick was finally free. He stretched his aching muscles, trying to lessen the pain. "Ugh. How many siblings do you have?" Asked Nick as he stretched his back.
"Well," Started Bonnie, "Stu and I have 552 children."
This surprise made Nick pop his back a lot harder than he intended. "…Wow. And you're able to support all of them just fine?"
"Well, not all of them live with us anymore." Started Bonnie.
"But we are a hard working family." Insisted Stu.
"It's also nice to own a farm. Food and all."
"Yes, quite."
"But…" started Nick, "it doesn't… bother you, or anything? I mean, it's a lot of kids to look after."
"Never bothered us in the slightest." Stu said with a large smile.
"I mean, it can't be easy, can it?" asked Nick.
"Well," started Stu, "at first we were scared."
"Oh, terrified."
"But eventually we got the hang of it."
"Mostly."
"Yeah, mostly. We still have the occasional heart attacks now and then."
"Especially with Judy and the whole cop thing."
"Yes. Especially that."
"But…" Nick was looking for the right words to say while avoiding eye contact with them and was scratching behind his head. "But… have you ever—I dunno… wished you had… less?"
Bonnie, Stu, and Judy were all shocked at what the fox had asked them. None of them could find the words to respond.
"Hey Nick, why don't we put up some more decorations." Judy suddenly said as she grabbed Nick by the arm and roughly pulled him to a nearby room with more boxes filled with decorations. Judy quickly grabbed a decoration out of one of the boxes and practically shoved it in Nick's face. "Hang these over the archway above us. You're tall enough to reach it on your own." Judy said awkwardly.
"Is… is it what I—"
"Just hang up the decorations." She quickly said, looking away from him. Nick was surprised that she was suddenly acting like that, but he reluctantly took the decoration from her and they started working. The two continued this in awkward silence for several minutes, but Nick couldn't take it anymore and he just had to break the silence.
"Is… is there something you want to talk about?"
Judy took a deep breath in and out. "I wanted to ask you something with just the two of us, and I didn't know how to start."
"Well, ask away. What's the worst that could happen?"
Judy looked away from Nick as she began to talk. "Its just… what you said back there about the children, and the ability to support them, and especially about asking if they wished that they had less children. Something is obviously bothering you. May I ask what it is?"
Nick looked at Judy and took a breathe in and a breathe out. "Okay." Nick sat down next to Judy. "I was a single child in a poor family consisting of a hard working dad and a part-time working mom. Together, they made just enough money for us to barely get by in life.
"When I was twelve, my father, John, went on a loaning escapade at the banks so we could have enough money to make a tailoring business, but each one he went to turned him down—most likely because he's a fox.
"We were running out of money, and fast. If it kept up, we would lose our house. One day, my father went out to try again, and he came back with a lot of money. We were so relieved. He finally got enough money to not only pay off the bills, but to buy equipment and a building to set up business.
"All was well, but a week went by and we started getting a lot of phone calls by the same number and Dad didn't want us to pick up the phone. I didn't think much about it, but my mother was worried, and my father kept getting more and more paranoid about things.
"One day, when my father was not around, the caller called again, and I picked up the phone, asking them who they were. They told me that they were business partners and asked a few questions about where I and my father were. I, being an idiot, answered their questions.
"The next day, we got a phone call by that mysterious caller, and Dad picked up the phone. The message was brief, but whatever was said, it made my dad freak out. He told us that we had to leave the shop right then and there. But before we could get out the door, the room started to fill with gas and I got knocked out from it.
"I woke up in the hospital with my mother asleep in a chair next to my bed. Days went by until I got the whole story of what has happened. Turns out, my dad made a deal with a mob boss, and hadn't paid them back in full in time. So when the deadline came, my father wasn't able to give them back their money, and they… they killed him." Nick looked away from Judy, closed his eyes, and took a long, slow breath in and out. He slowly looked back at Judy. "They killed my father, Judy. Then they burned down the shop and left my poor mother to raise her only child all by herself. And it was all because of me.
"My mother could never raise enough money to support the both of us and the house. So, being filled with guilt and believing it was the right thing to do, I ran away.
"And I bet you could fill in what happened for the next twenty years."
Judy had a tear running down her left cheek. "Nick. I… I didn't know. I'm… I'm so sorry." She said as she put her paw on Nick's arm.
Nick looked at Judy and quickly got back up. "Well, these decorations aren't going to hang themselves. Let's see what else we have in this here box." He said as he rummaged through the box of decorations. "Oh, lookie what I found." He said with a smile. "I found mistletoe." He held up the plant so to show Judy.
"Actually, Nick, that is holly. Mistletoe have white berries, while holly have red."
Nick looked at the plant, and sure enough, it had red berries. "Oh."
"Hey Nick!" called Stu from the other room. "It's getting kinda late. You should go home now!"
Nick looked back at Judy and handed her the holly. "Well, I should get going then. I don't want to miss the train."
"You're not staying?"
"Nah. Some rabbits here are giving me a terrified look, and I don't want to ruin Christmas for them." Nick turned and walked toward the direction of the front door. "See ya, Carrots." Said Nick giving Judy a gesture of good bye with two fingers.
A/N: Yes, I did the math on how many children Bonnie and Stu would currently have. If they had 276 children when Judy was 9, that means they would have had 30 2/3 children a year. In the movie, Judy is 24, so that is fifteen years gone by. If the rate stayed stable, then in those 15 years they would have 460 children, but age also has a factor in this. Let's say both Bonnie and Stu were around 30 when Judy was 9, so let's say the rate has remain stable until they were 39 years old. (39 because the average rabbit can produce until they are 4 years old, or 39 rabbit years old.) So that would only be 9 years, which would bring us back to the answer of 276. So, 276 plus 276 equals 552.