Nothing to fear

Chapter 11

Nick had a headache as a result of his sudden introduction to the front door of his wife's family home, something that concerned Judy a little bit but the fox only asked if there was a place that he could lay down for half an hour. Her room was still the way she left it and it hadn't been given to any of her younger siblings, oddly enough, and she made sure that her husband was tucked in and the light was off before rejoining her parents and sister. To say she was in a snit would have been an understatement. Mari had set up the coffee pot that Judy asked for and as she walked into the upstairs kitchen Judy glared at her three family members in warning as she got her and doctored it with liberal amounts of cream and sugar. Sipping from it, the brew actually good and strong proving that there was one thing her sister could do right, Judy approached the table and one of the empty chairs as the other three bunnies whispered amongst themselves until she reappeared.

"Judy? I think we need to talk about this," Bonnie began before her daughter snapped her eyes up, a scowl knitting her brows together in a way that would've made Chief Bogo proud, glared at both her parents and Mari with such anger that all of them went silent.

"I. Am. Completely. Mortified." Judy said slowly, her voice low with more than a hint of frost in her tone. "I used to tell Nick all about how my family was warm and caring, how they were so much fun to be with and the three of you act like this?" She let her eyes fall on each of them in turn. She then directed her amethyst eyes to her mother.

"Judy, how did you think we were going to react?" Bonnie inquired. "You come here with a strange fox? And you're married to him? That's just not done! What about grandkits? Your father and I just want­ - "

"Really?" Judy cut her off. "The way you just behaved towards my husband and I...and this is now about you? What you want?" She set the cup down with a loud THUNK! that spilled a little of the beverage on the table. "What about what I want? Hmm? I mean, we are talking about my life and Nick's life and no one else's."

Stu made to speak but was silenced when his daughter raised her paw sharply.

"Nope. I'm going to drink my coffee. In peace and quiet. Then I'm going to go get Nick. Then my husband and I are going back to Zootopia," Judy told them in a quiet, brittle tone that indicated she wouldn't accept anything less than total compliance. They watched as she took a sip from her cup that had a smiley bunny on it before lowering it. "Unless you can come up with a valid...and I mean what I would consider valid, reason to stay."

The other three watched as Judy took another sip.

"Before you do that, though, I think there are some things that you need to know, and I want you to listen very, very carefully. One, Nick is the best friend I have ever had, and I mean that in the most sincere way possible. He's always been there for me, no matter what I needed or when I needed it, day or night. Two, he has saved my life, and I mean that in the most literal way possible. When he helped with the Night Howler case I would have been dead within sixteen hours if it hadn't been for him. He's saved it many more times since then, just like I've saved his. Three, you better believe I love him. He is my mate and I mean that in every way possible. I'm so in love with him that every day is like the first time I found out what I was feeling and it's wonderful and frightening and spectacular and I can't see a life without him. You see a fox, but I see the one mammal that I was made for and he was made for me."

Stu sighed as he realized that he might have acted more than a little judgmental. "You're right, Judy," he began until a voice from the doorway interrupted him.

"Sorry to break up the family pow­wow but I went to try and find the bathroom and found these little guys...and gals I suppose, instead," Nick told them, a bunny kit in each arm with others attached to each leg and a fifth holding onto the fox's tail and riding on it as he walked into the kitchen. "They were getting a little noisy and were more than a little ripe so I went ahead and changed them up. Hope I didn't get too much baby powder on their little cottontails."