[Bunny Stories / Doctor Who FanFic] Who left What in the Yard?

"That one looks like a carrot," Mick said with a yawn from where he was lying on his back in the grass, back legs stretched out, front legs occasionally batting at wind seeds.

"You think they all look like carrots," Speedy teased. He was lying on his side and watching the skies with one eye. A gerbil was curled up in the nook of where bunny neck joined bunny back. Every so often the little guy would mutter something and move his tail over his nose, or twitch it, completely lost in mousie dreams.

"Well, they do." Mr Mick said grumpily, defensive.

"That one looks like a rutabaga," Speedy said, gesturing with an ear.

Mr Mick turned his head to look at his friend, "What the heck is a rutabaga?"

"Turnips, kinda." Speedy explained.

Mick muttered something about foo' rabbits who couldn't just speak English. The irony hopped right past him. He turned his head to the other side "Whassat?"

Speedy followed Mick's glance. "Police Box."

"You keep your police in boxes?!" Mick spluttered. While it sounded organized, it didn't sound very practical! Why, there were so many better things to be doing with boxes!

Speedy gave a bee's in the ears headshake of amusement. Freddie Gerbil absently murmured a protest in his sleep at the movement. "Nono." Speedy explained, "Way back when, like a billion years ago or something, before rootless far-talkers, the police could make calls from them, and people could call the police, and they could lock up the bad guys in them till a paddy wagon arrived."

"Ohhh." Mr Mick rolled to his feet to go give it a sniff. "So why's one in the end of your yard?"

"Dad found it in the middle of his work yard. Decided Mum would like it in the yard as mar-ah-dad-ee." Speedy slowly rolled to his feet, letting the gerbil adjust himself in his sleep as his bed moved. He carefully walked to where Mick was sniffing, and nibbling, on the police box. Speedy had already given it a good sniff and taste; it was old and sparked in the mouth. He hadn't quite much liked the sensation.

Mick's head reared back as he took a nibble. "That's not normal!" he said, jaws twitching, tongue wriggling as he tried to dispel the sensation. A full body shake later, bits of fur dancing every which way, and he sat down amongst the flowers and glared at it.

Speedy managed to keep his amusement to himself. He didn't think his bestest friend would appreciate him giggling.

Mick started to circle the box, Speedy ambling behind him. They came around the side to the door. Mick, about two Speedies in weight, one and a half in size, had more impact on the door when he stretched up it, putting his weight on his front paws. The door swung open and the bunny went tumbling in. "Gaaacth!"

Speedy rushed to investigate, Freddie waking up to dash up on Speedy's head, wrapping his tail around the right ear.

"Ooo." Speedy said as he hopped in from outside. Mick was sitting and grooming himself in the 'I meant to do that' way that was common in both cats and rabbits. The English rabbit peered up one way while Freddie stretched up to look the other way.

The inside of the box was huge. There were all sorts of climby bits, and chewable bits, and hundreds of hidey holes, and what looked a play-go-round in the middle. There were all sorts of blinky lights and whirry noises. "Its rabbit paradise!" Speedy announced.

Mick snorted and got to his feet. "SOMEONE stole rabbit technology!"

Speedy tilted his head to one side, "Whatcha mean?" Freddie squeaked.

"Our bags, boxes, closet worm holes, all that stuff.. This box has them! Someone stole it!" Mick looked even more indignant than he sounded.

Speedy looked about, hopping to give bits sniffs. "Maybe they got it in the same place we did?"

"WE got given it by the universe. Its our special magic for being chased by pretty much everything on the planet that can chase." Mick snorted, "THIS stinks of humans. THEY aren't supposed to have our magic.. Well, unless they're special humans like Weasley's Momma." He sighed, "And I suppose the occasional foo' cat or foo' gerbil."

Freddie wisely refrained from comment.

Speedy hopped up and almost jumped a foot straight up when the door swung closed. Freddie eeped, tail tightening as he grabbed two paw full of slick rabbit fur.  "Sorry!" Speedy apologized immediately.

Mick's ears were still cupped forward as he glared at the door.

"Hello? Is someone there?" A voice said coming from the centre of the play-go-round. "Well, of course someone is there, or the communicator wouldn't have activated. So you must be there somewhere. Say something. Thump or something."

Now, thumping they could do. With a grin at each other, Mick and Speedy thumped with enthusiasm in synch.

"Ahh!" A screen on one of those x extendy thingys swung in their direction. "Rabbits?!" The voice belonged to a scrawny looking human with fur sticking straight up and thick glasses. "There's rabbits on my TARDIS!"

Mick looked to Speedy, Speedy looked to Mick, and Freddie chirped indignantly.

"Oh, AND a gerbil. Well, doesn't that make it all better." The man grumbled.

Mick sat up on his hind legs, periscoping to look up at the screen. "What is a TARDIS?" he asked in his most polite voice.

"Its a space and time ship." Came the answer. "And it was stolen and I would very much like it back. But I have only managed to get into the communication circuits, Martha's stole.. ahh, borrowed, a tracking device that will hop a female, why a female I don't know, I didn't design it, but so far she's not having much luck with triangulation." Mick could sit on his hind feet all day, but he was starting to think this man never shut up. "So, that leads one to beg the question, where is it?"

Speedy's whiskers twitched mischievously, "Okay." he said.

Mick's whiskers twitched as well.

"Well? Okay what?" The man on the screen asked.

"You can beg the question. Although, one would think, begging for the answer would be more effective." Speedy said with a bunny grin. Freddie snickered.

The man blinked rapidly and seemed to smack something off screen. "I'm not sure this translation circuit is working properly. It hasn't been designed for animals, after all. Your sort operated on a whole different bandwidth than the humanoid.. but if I.." He started to drone on about technical stuff that made both bunnies roll their eyes. Freddie seemed to be taking notes.

"AHEM!" Mick finally broke in. "We were being silly. Its like when someone says 'Can I?' instead of 'May I' and you say 'I don't know if you can or can't until you do it'

The man raised an eyebrow and gave the handsome honey lop a droll look. "I've lost house, home, transportation, translator, best friend and communicator with the universe, and you're picking semantics?!"

The two rabbits exchanged another look. "Yes." Speedy agreed.

The man looked pained. It was an expression the two had seen on a lot of occasions on their chosen humans.

"Please, would you tell me where my TARDIS is?" The man finally said, seeming through grinding teeth.

"Oh, sure. Its at the bottom of Speedy's garden." Mick said. Speedy nodded a couple of times.

"Ask a non-specific question, get a non-specific answer." The man muttered and then sighed.  "Will you assist me in getting my TARDIS to where she belongs?" He finally asked, as if carefully choosing his words as he spoke slowly and clearly.

"Oh, sure." Speedy said, hopping towards the screen.

"Under one condition!" Mick interrupted. Speedy looked at him with a tilted head, not sure what Mick could possibly want. "You tell us where you got bunny technology from!"

The man rolled his eyes, "Well, you see, you're under a bit of a misunderstanding there.. Its not that we stole yours so much as you borrowed our's. There was a TARDIS and a Timelord at the start of the universe. A very handsome fellow, quite smart, even more charming. His knowledge of such technologies was mixed into the fabric of the universe, so somewhere along the line, you picked it up and put it to use. How else would you carry a pizza?"

Mick didn't look convinced but seemed willing to let it drop. "Okay, what do you need us to do?"

The instructions that poured forth left their heads spinning. The two rabbits would be dashing about the consoles pushing buttons, yanking pulleys, moving levers. "How big is your crew?" Speedy asked, quite impressed with the list of things they needed to do.

"Just me. Well, and Martha of course, but she's not crew, she's guest.. a travelling companion, bosom buddy, compadre, pal.. keeps me out of trouble. Well, mostly. Sort of. But, just me, muggins, running the show."

Blink. Blink. Blink.

"Your name is muggins?" Speedy finally asked.

"Not in the least, I'm the Doctor."

"Of what?" Mick asked. Speedy nipped the air in Mick's direction to let him know he was being rude. Mick didn't much care.

"Everything." was the surprisingly short, and serious, reply. For a moment, both bunnies felt like they could see the weight of the years of the universe in the Doctor's eyes.

"Er, right." Mick said, "I'm Mickey, this is Speedy." Squeek. "Oh, and Freddie."

"Oooh! A Mickey! I haven't had a Mickey in my TARDIS in forever. Weeeell, not really forever, it's actually been.." The Doctor went on about relative time compared to linear time, "..wibbly wobbly, you see.." then segwayed into dimensional manipulation, "..that brings up to parsecs. Did you know the word parsec is shortened from a distance corresponding to a parallax of one second? Bit wordy that, you can see why they shortened it. Never did get it straight with that Solo fellow who kept using it as time instead of distance. Actually, the two can be the same thing if you.."

While the Doctor was explaining the universe, the bunnies had been practicing what the Doctor wanted them to do. "Oi!" Speedy called, breaking in on the lecture. "We think we've got it."

"Excellent!" The Doctor clapped his hands together and rubbed them.

"What do we get for this, anyway? You get a TARDIS, we get what? A pat on the head and told 'Good Bunny'? 'Cause I can go home for that."

"Come on, Mickey. You're supposed to do good things for your heart and health. But, I suppose, I could let you have a romp through hydroponics and then drop you off back at home right when you left. Weeell, not right when you left, a bit after, wouldn't want to trip over your own tail, would you?"

"Sounds uncomfortable." Speedy agreed. Freddie hopped off his friend to go run to the wheel that was his job. It was perfectly sized for a gerbil, too bad it was horizontal instead of vertical or he could just run around it instead of actually working.

"Ready." Speedy said, nose gaining speed in twitching, "Steady, Go!"

The two bunnies launched into frantic button mashing, lever smashing, and wheel turning. "Isn't .. it .. ready.. set.. go?" Mick panted as he yanked and pushed.

"What's a set?" Speedy asked, mostly rhetorically. "Steady means hold your pose now that you're ready to go!" He wasn't having as much difficulty with the pace as Mick, he was quite used to running around at top speed for half a day. He also had the advantage of youth.

Suddenly the middle bit started whirring and throbbing and the lights dimmed and lightened in time to its noises. The two stopped to get a breather.

"Sounds like someone left the e-brake on," Speedy muttered, ears flattened. Mick was also trying to press his ears closer to his skull. Probably fortunate that the Doctor couldn't hear them over the cacophony.

When the noises balanced out they went back to worth, grateful for the breather.

Two bunnies and one gerbil were flat and gasping by the time they'd finished the list of things the Doctor had wanted of them. The door was opened and in strode the Doctor and his female companion. "..I tell you, Doctor, it wasn't there for all your device insisted it was. And a time of it I had explaining myself, I'll tell you.." The woman stopped and blinked at the companions. "Is there rabbits in the TARDIS?"

"And a gerbil, don't forget the gerbil." The Doctor said with a grin, "And our saviours!"

The woman looked at him like he was mad. "Whatever you say." She said before shaking her head, as if to settle stray thoughts, and turned to the console, "Well, thank you for saving us."

Mick managed to twitch an ear. He wanted a nap. And some water. And then another nap. Speedy was already dreaming of his play box. Freddie was curled up around Speedy's ear, making little snoring noises as he dreamed gerbilly dreams.

"Let's get them home to where they belong! I don't think they'll be much interested in a romp through the hydroponics bay, but I think I can come up with a good present or two of thanks.." The Doctor strode over to the console and winked at Martha, who was still looking at the animals suspiciously,  before flipping a handle, "Allonsy!"