Guardian Blue - Season 1

Episode 11 - Mal Diem

Sunday night was more about seeing the few remaining Hopps siblings, particularly the younger ones that had been watching the game but then vanished off to friends' houses afterward. Pete, Tanya and Billy, ages nine, ten and fifteen respectively, were happy to meet Nick but seemed initially a lot more shy about meeting someone new than the older Hopps family members had been. Nick didn't seem to mind this, and was both friendly and not crowding to them, staying where he was and letting them look, ask questions, and in young Tanya's case, touch his ears. She seemed enthralled with how he twitched them and flicked them about. Her ears went up, laid back, and that was about it. The flicking was a neat trick she appreciated.

Nick answered questions about foxes - about how big they got, how many of them were in Zootopia, and that yes, there were a few towns that were pretty much all foxes. He told them about things he liked to eat, he told them about how much he likLoled blueberries and excitedly claimed to have emptied the blueberry bushes outside (which he had not actually done). Dinner was had, more typical rabbit fare but Nick did not seem to mind. Judy knew he intended to see his mom soon and all his favorite protein dishes would be waiting for him there. The bunny toyed with the thought of trying to make his favorite shrimp dish for him, but decided against it because she was trying to kind of wean herself from her security attachment to her partner despite her sister telling her it wasn't necessary. The last thing that Judy wanted to do was put some emotional bunny weight on his shoulders like that. She didn't want to drive him off if she genuinely needed him for her life in the city!

Fortunately the day went without much notable happening. Nick and Stu played cards, Judy assumed it was poker, but she was not much of a card player herself. Her mother and her sisters played trivia which was a favorite for her free time. They had even played a few times via Muzzletime when the connectivity allowed. Nick had a fair amount of cider and happily wandered off to bed at a reasonable hour. 

Judy had a good talk with her mom and dad about her work and the nice things she felt she was doing for the city. She talked a lot about the fluff jobs that she had become a little more appreciative of after Nick had made it clear what the 'long game' was all about.  Even though her partner was pretty well within ear-shot, she talked some about how good he was with kits, and how much he wanted to make a difference where it counted. Judy and her sisters, Sammie, Jessie, Tanya, and Eli, as well as her mother all played another game of trivia after Nick went to bed. Stu wandered off to play poker on the family computer as that at least could not be knocked down by a couple of ciders. This left the ladies of the Hopps family alone. And so the conversation took a predictable bend with Sammie imbibing a lot of cider herself.

"I'm just saying, Nick's a pretty fox when you compare him. I mean, I wonder how he figures to other foxes..." Judy looked over her own cider glass as her mother cast a wary glance at her white-toned daughter.

"Feeling foxy, Sammie?" Bonnie asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" She giggled back, making it clear to Judy this was not entirely a secret from other family members even though she had just found out about it a couple days before. Judy spoke up to take Sammie off the hook since she had helped with her own confusion from earlier.

"I think his mom's pretty, and he has her eyes... He looks a lot like her." Judy said freely. Why not? It was true. She searched her phone and found a picture of the two of them together. Bonnie in particular was eager to see, and agreed that they had a lot in common. Sammie spoke up again.

"So, mom told me that he was..." she sipped her cider again. "... Like, he thought his mom had passed and you went and brought her back. How did he even react to that? I mean, I'd have just broken down." Judy regarded he sister quietly a moment. Nick probably had a deep dislike for telling someone else that she got to him. She softened what his response had been since they really did not have to know he had been so emotional.