The truck pulled up in front of a mound with a door in it.
Hunter eyed the small hillock curiously. "Judy lived here? Seems kinda small."
Nick gave him a look as he hopped out of the truck. "They're bunnies, Hunter. Most of it is underground."
"Oh, right." Hunter glanced around. "That isn't, though." He pointed at a small trailer set up on one side of the yard.
Bonnie, who had gotten out of the truck and come around to check on them, gave him a strained smile. "That's where you'll be staying, Mr. Hunter. I'm afraid our burrow is too small for a mammal of your size, so we borrowed Mr. Bruin's travel trailer."
"He's a bear?"
"Yes. It may smell a bit, um, fishy."
Hunter shrugged. "Sounds like my first apartment. Sounds good, Mrs. Hopps."
"Please, call me Bonnie," she said, almost automatically. She gave Nick another forced smile. "You may want to stay in there as well, Mr. Wilde- bunny burrows can be a bit cramped for mammals of your size."
Judy looked over from where she was helping Tavi down out of the truck. "He'll stay with me, Mom."
A frown flitted across Bonnie's face. "Well, if you're sure- your room is kind of small, isn't it?"
Judy sighed. "It's big enough for us."
Before Bonnie could say anything else, the front door to the burrow flew open and a veritable flood of tiny bunnies poured out.
"Judy!" shouted several as they piled onto her. She nearly disappeared under the wave as she smiled broadly and tried to hug them all at once.
"Hey, guys!" She looked back at her friends. "These are my younger brothers and sisters!" she said, raising her voice above the excited babble.
Hunter raised his eyebrows and looked at Nick, who stared in surprise. Nick looked back at him. "Big family," he said weakly.
Hunter nodded, frowning slightly. "Bother you?"
"What? Why would it?"
Judy had managed to hand out enough hugs that the excitement had abated a bit, and she turned- one paw clasped in that of one of her younger sisters- and gestured with the free paw. "These are my friends, guys. They work at ZPD, too."
The bunnies turned as one to stare at the fox, human, and mongoose. Hunter couldn't help but smile at their sudden concentration. "Whoa," said one, his eyes wide. "Is he a human?"
"Nah," said Hunter, his eyes twinkling. "He's a fox."
"I meant you!"
"Oh! Yep, I'm a human."
"Wow," said the bunny, drawing out the word. Hunter smiled at him.
"Well," said Bonnie, looking a bit more cheerful after seeing Judy reunite with her siblings, "I guess I should get you situated- Mr. Wilde, Ms. Tavi, do you want to grab your luggage?"
The fox and mongoose quickly gathered their things and headed inside with Judy and Bonnie. Stuart waved to Hunter. "I've got to go run a few errands. Nice meeting you, Mr. Hunter."
Hunter nodded back as he got his own belongings off the truck. "Good to meet you."
The truck roared to life and drove away.
Some of Judy's siblings had followed them inside, but several remained outside, staring at Hunter with wide eyes as he moved his luggage to the trailer. He suddenly felt a tug on his pants leg and looked down.
"I'm Bobby!" announced the kit.
"Hi, Bobby. I'm Zach."
"Are you a space alien?"
"No," said Hunter. Then he thought about it. "Kinda," he admitted.
Bobby's eyes grew even wider. "Do you have a ray gun?"
"Um, no. Should I?"
"In the Adventures of Dan Hare, the space aliens always have ray guns." The bunny held up a comic book, which showed a space-suited rabbit having a laser-gun battle with some sort of reptilian monsters. "See?"
Hunter shrugged. "Sorry, not that kind of space alien." He turned to open the door to the trailer.
The next question made him turn around again. "Did you come to ravish our females?"
"Excuse me?"
"Because in the Adventures of Dan Dare, the aliens are always trying to ravish Terran females!"
Hunter's eyes narrowed. "Does your mother know about these comic books?"
Just then, Tavi walked back outside. "Hey, Hunter," she began, before catching sight of the bunnies clustered around him. "Hey, guys!" she said cheerfully. "Are you talking to Mr. Hunter?"
"He's a space alien!" said Bobby excitedly.
Tavi blinked. "Well, not exactly-"
"He said he was! Did he ever ravish you?"
Tavi's ears flattened in shock. "What?"
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
They decided, in deference to Hunter and because of the nice weather, to have dinner outside. With the implacable organizational skills that belonged only to drill sergeants and mothers, Bonnie soon had everyone hauling tables, food, cutlery, and the other accoutrements of dining into something like order on the expansive lawn outside the burrow.
Nick, meanwhile, found himself laboring with Stu to place a table according to the expectations of his girlfriend's mother, specifications which proved to be remarkably exact.
"No, no, turn it around, Stu," she ordered, looking up from laying large cutlery for Hunter's place.
Her husband frowned. "It's the same both ways. It's a picnic table."
"That side needs to be facing the road."
Stu opened his mouth, then shrugged. He glanced at Nick. "Orders are orders."
Nick smiled at him, careful to not show too many teeth. "Ours is not to reason why, ours is not to make reply, ours is but to do and dine."
Stu looked surprised, but chuckled after a second. "Something like that." They picked up the table and spun it around. He looked to his wife for approval, but she had disappeared into the house again. "I'm half tempted to spin it around the way it was before to see if she noticed."
"You like to live dangerously, huh?" said Nick.
"Said I was half-tempted. She'd know, somehow." He grabbed a tablecloth and spread it across the table. Nick hurried to smooth the edges.
"So," he said carelessly, "Judy says you like to golf?"
"Yeah, every now and again." He glanced at the fox. "You golf, Mr. Wilde?"
"Sure. Maybe we can get in a few rounds tomorrow after I do that school thing," said Nick. "And call me Nick."
After a moment, Stuart nodded. "Okay." He paused. "Sounds like a plan, Mr Wi- Nick."
As he turned away, Nick caught Judy's eye- she was trying to herd a number of her younger siblings to the tables- and gave a thumbs-up.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
"So, Mr. Hunter," said Bonnie as they began passing around food. "You're from the human worlds?"
With remarkable forbearance, Hunter managed not to point out how excruciatingly obvious that was. "Yes, ma'am."
"Which planet?" asked a younger rabbit, whom Hunter guessed was in her early teens.
"Alpha Centauri Prime- AlphaCen for short."
"What's it like there?"
Hunter shrugged. "Different." He looked carefully at the young bunny. "I didn't catch your name, young lady."
"Cotton. I'm Aunt Judy's niece. I read a lot about the Human Stars- you've had a lot of wars."
"Well, not me personally." He paused. "At least not if you don't count between me and the brass."
Stu gave him an odd look.
"The books say the Human Stars are an oligarchical kleptocracy behind a veneer of democratic institutions," said Cotton. "Is that true?"
Hunter looked confused. "Maybe? I'm not entirely sure what you just said."
"An oligarchy is a-"
"No politics at the table," said Bonnie firmly.
Hunter leaned over to Tavi. "That was politics?"
She rolled her eyes.
"So what's it like to fly in space?" asked Cotton. Though thwarted in her investigation of the political landscape of the Human Stars, she seemed intent on interrogating Hunter.
"Well, it's mostly not too interesting. I mean, there aren't really any windows, you know."
"Why not?" asked another bunny. Hunter noticed most of the table was now looking at him.
"Nothing to see," said Hunter. "Space is really big, you know." He grinned at the bunny. "So you're usually too far away to see anything interesting until you're arrived, and then you get on a shuttle to the planet."
"How do you travel from one star to another?" asked Cotton. "You have some kind of faster-than-light travel, right?"
"Yeah. I don't know exactly how it works, though." Hunter chewed some food thoughtfully. "One of the crewmen on the ship I took to here tried to explain it to me, so I gather it has something to do with apples."
There was a confused silence. "Apples?" said Stu uncertainly.
Cotton looked thoughtful, then brightened, her ears standing straight up. "Oh! Wormholes!"
Hunter looked at her in surprise, then smiled. "Yeah, that's right. You're a pretty smart kid."
"It's kit," she said, confused.
"Human slang. Yeah, wormholes. Like, if you were an ant walking around the apple, it would take a long time- but a worm bores right through it." Hunter nodded, satisfied.
"So human ships are like worms?" asked Bobby.
"I guess so?"
"Captain Dan Hare fought the space-worms of Sirius A once, but even they didn't have worm ships," said the bunny doubtfully.
"Did he ever fight humans?"
"Yep! They had ray guns!"
"Right, right," said Hunter. "I had forgotten the ray guns."
Bonnie smiled as Hunter continued to field questions from her kits. "You have a way with children, Mr. Hunter," she said after one of his comments elicited peals of high-pitched giggling.
The human looked a bit wistful. "Always liked kids- children, I mean."
"Do you have children, Mr. Hunter?" asked Cotton.
Nick, Judy, and Tavi all pricked up their ears and looked toward their friend worriedly.
Hunter had frozen, his fork halfway up to his mouth. The rest of the table's conversations gradually died away as everyone saw the stricken look on the human's face.
Cotton gradually realized she had said something wrong, and her ears lowered. "I didn't mean-"
After a long moment, Hunter carefully put down his fork and stood up. "I'm sorry, guys- been a long day. I think I'll take a little walk and head to bed." He nodded towards Stuart and Bonnie. "Thank you for supper."
"Are you okay, Mr. Hunter?" asked Bonnie worriedly. She didn't know what it meant when a human turned pale like that, but it didn't look good.
"Just a long day," repeated Hunter. He stepped back and walked away, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Cotton stared after him. She seemed about to burst into tears. "What'd I say?"
Tavi leaned over and hugged her. "You didn't do anything wrong, sweetie."
"Is he mad at me?"
Tavi shook her head emphatically. "No, no. You just accidentally reminded him of something. It's not your fault." She hesitated, looking at Hunter as he walked away. "I'd better go talk to him."
She hopped down and hurried off.
The rest of the gathering looked awkwardly at one another. "I'll explain later," murmured Judy to her mother, who was giving her a questioning look.
Bonnie looked at her curiously, but shrugged it away. "Well," she said, trying to get everyone back into a good mood. "No doubt you and Nick have some interesting stories about being police officers."
The kits all looked at them expectantly.
As was so often the case when someone says something like that, both Nick and Judy suddenly seemed to forget every funny or interesting story they knew. "Uh," said Nick, thinking.
Bonnie sensed the problem. "Wasn't Mr. Hunter going to tell us a story about- what was it, dear?" she said to Stu.
"A drop-bear," said Stu.
Both Judy and Nick started choking.
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"Zach."
Hunter kept walking as Tavi scampered to catch up.
"Zach, wait up. Hunter!"
He stopped, looked down as she ran up next to him. "Come on, Tavi, try to keep up."
"It's not my fault you have freakishly long legs." He started walking again, but more slowly.
For a long moment, they walked in silence.
"Want to talk about it?" she asked, finally.
"Not right now."
"Fair enough."
They kept walking.
Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Judy walked into the room she was sharing with Nick and closed the door. She leaned back against it with a sigh, closing her eyes. "Well, that was awkward."
"Could have been worse," said Nick. He was fiddling with his cell phone while sitting on the bed. "I think I may have started to bring your dad around."
She blinked. "Really? That's great! How?"
"Quoted Tenrecson."
Judy frowned. "You quoted classical poetry?"
He looked up from his phone, smiling at her. "What? I read."
She shook her head and smiled, too. "I wouldn't have thought Dad would have warmed up to you because of poetry."
"Well, we were bonding over the bossiness of females- ow!" He rubbed his arm where Judy had playfully hit him. "Case in point."
She sat down next to him. "I'm glad it's going okay." She hesitated. "Nick, what I said on the train-"
The fox stiffened slightly. "It's okay."
"No, it's not." Judy looked into his eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that if you didn't get along with my family we couldn't be together. I was just worried."
He was quiet for a moment. "I don't want to lose you," he said, very quietly.
The bunny shook her head. "You won't," she promised.
Nick cocked his head, studying her. "Even if they don't like me? What if- and I'm not saying it would happen- but what if they told you they didn't want anything to do with you as long as you were with me?"
Judy's eyes widened. "Nick- they wouldn't-"
"I'm not saying they would." His voice was low, troubled. He looked back down at his phone. "Just- if they did."
"It won't happen," she said firmly.
Nick, keeping his eyes on his phone, was silent for a long moment. "Okay, Carrots."
Troubled, she watched him for a moment. Then she glanced at his phone and blinked in surprise. "What are you watching?"
He held up the phone. "Zootube videos. How to golf in fifteen lessons."
"Um. Why?"
"I'm going golfing with your dad tomorrow."
"You golf?"
He pointed to the phone. "Not yet."
Judy rolled her eyes. "You know, it's kinda complicated."
"How complicated could it be? The videos are only about fifteen minutes long."
She shook her head and leaned against him. "You know, the walls in here are pretty thick- pretty much soundproof. All that dirt around them," she said suggestively.
He glanced at her, then did a double-take, his eyes widening. "Um, are you saying what I think you're saying?"
She grabbed him and pulled him into a long kiss.
After a moment, he broke the kiss. "I can't, Carrots."
Judy kept her arms around him. "Why not? Too nervous in my house?" she asked.
"No, it's just-" he pointed to the phone. "I've got to get through all fifteen lessons tonight."
A moment later the phone shattered against the wall.
Nick stared. "Wow, Carrots, you have a pretty good arm on you-"
He was cut off, and for the rest of the night neither of them said much of anything.
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
"Judy told me what happened to Mr. Hunter's children," said Bonnie to her husband as they were getting ready for bed.
Stu nodded. "She told me, too. Poor mammal." He opened the closet and pulled out a set of golf clubs.
Bonnie pulled on her nightshirt. "I feel for him, but I have to say- it doesn't make me any happier for Judy to be in the city. I mean, if there are mammals willing to do something that awful-" She shivered.
Her husband paused as he inspected a nine iron. His nose twitched. "I hadn't even thought about that." He shook his head. "Thanks, Bonnie."
She sighed. "You would have thought of it sooner or later."
"Rather have done it later, though." He picked up his putter and studied it critically.
Bonnie watched him. "Stu, what are you doing?"
"The fox wants to play golf tomorrow."
"His name is Nick," she said.
He glanced at her. "Right."
"Well, it will be a good chance to get to know him," said Bonnie carefully.
"Right," said Stu. He picked out a driver and hefted it free of the bag. He swung it through the air a few times.
"Stu?" asked Bonnie.
"Yes, dear?"
"What are you doing now?"
"Just practicing my swing, Bonnie."
"Isn't it usual to practice swinging at the ground, where the ball would be?" asked Bonnie dryly. "Not at, for example, head-height for a fox?"
A/N
So in case you're curious, Dan Dare was a 1950's era space captain like Buck Rogers. I didn't use Buck Rogers because it was already too perfect (buck being a male rabbit, of course). I don't know if that makes any sense. For the same reason I decided against Tiger Woods being involved in Nick's golfing lessons videos. I keep running into real-life people with actual Zootopian names.
A tenrec is a small mammal that looks sort of like a possum. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, of course, wrote The Charge of the Light Brigade, which contains the lines:
Theirs is not to reason why,
Theirs is not to make reply,
Theirs is but to do and die.
An excellent Romantic era poem- I highly recommend it.
The reference to apples and wormholes is a common model to try and describe one possible form of faster-than-light travel. Hunter may well have misunderstood it, though- he's very intelligent, but tends to get bored if the subject doesn't hold his interest.
