"What are you doing, Peter?" he said.

"I'm going to see Beatrice's brothers," he repeated. "Tell them what happened. I'm already over the boundary, Alex, so you can't really stop me. Exile me if you really must, though. I don't care."

"Peter, it's your son's funeral!"

Peter shook his head. He didn't mean to look like he was denying the fact. He looked over Alexander's head, unable to maintain eye contact. "And?" he said bitterly. "It's not my funeral, so I don't need to be there."

"Funerals aren't just for the dead, Peter," Angus muttered.

"You've got to take time to grieve," Alexander added.

"And you've got to let me do that in my own way," Peter said. "Which is going over this field to tell Mark and Tom and Travis their sister and nephews are dead and that you lot didn't care enough to let me go and tell them."

Alexander looked annoyed at the insinuation. "Okay, then, you can go," he said curtly. "You can even come back again, if that's what you want. But you go alone and you come back alone. Those are my conditions."

"That's all I ask," Peter said.

Even as Alexander was ruffling his coat jubilantly for making it appear like he'd conquered the situation Angus was shaking his head. He looked at Peter, who almost looked apologetically back, then turned round and headed back toward the nearest rabbit hole without another word. His legs trembled beneath him, partly from the effort he'd put into finding Peter in time, and partly from simmering fury.

When Peter left the colony a few minutes later, he knew it was with Alexander's blessing to return, but not Angus' blessing to go in the first place. Many of the other rabbits waited along the perimeter to see Peter go where they'd only seen their disgraced kin go before. By the time Peter could no longer see them waiting there, he was already in another world.

It was a world of unchecked corn and entangled hedgerows. Peter was not used to this alien terrain. Even when he had found his way from his home to the warren on the western side of the A12 it had merely been a case of running across a tarmac road. Around the warren, the rabbits stuck to existing paths that had been walked by hundreds of rabbits before them. Here, there were no paths and Peter had to battle through the undergrowth and make his own. He had no idea how far he'd come, realising that his sense of distance was dependent on familiar landmarks.

The sun finally appeared from behind the stormy clouds when it was in its noon position. Beating his way through the corn, Peter quickly grew hot and weary and had to rest often. It got to the stage where he found he quite simply didn't have the strength to go on, but he never thought about turning back. Instead, he found a nice shady spot beneath the hedgerow to nap. The last time he had slept he had been back in his old burrow over on the other side of the A12 with Beatrice and the kids nestled around him. But it wasn't them he dreamt about.

It was Thumper.

Thumper had been the only one of Peter's littermates that also survived past his first week. He had been with Peter when Peter discovered the motorway, but he decided to go back instead. He had also been the first to welcome Peter back six months later, and it was as if they hadn't been apart for half their lives. Two years after Peter had left the warren on the eastern side the road, and just after Peter had returned to visit a second time, Thumper was killed by a fox. Within an hour of it happening, his home colony had sent a messenger all the way across the road to tell him. Peter appreciated that.

In his dream, Mark, Tom and Travis were doting on Thumper just like they had doted on their sister Beatrice in the real world. Indeed, the greatest punishment for them had been never to see her again. Peter owed them a visit for that reason. Angus thought they'd got the punishment they deserved and no longer thought of them as his sons. Consequently, he no longer thought of them as Beatrice's brothers either. When Peter had come charging into the warren after the accident, screaming and bawling and a slave to despair, at the back of his mind all he could see was Mark, Tom and Travis and them carrying on with their lives not knowing.

Peter didn't know quite what to make of the dream as he experienced it. He wasn't even conscious that it was a dream. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't asleep beneath a bush, he was running around with Thumper and Mark, Tom and Travis were there too. Beatrice and the kids finally appeared and Beatrice looked happy and Mark, Tom and Travis had fun with the kids and Angus was glad to have his family back together again and everything was perfect. But when Peter awoke with a start, the dream crumbled in the face of a desolate reality.

Something was watching him.

Immediately alert and on his feet, Peter froze. This came from the rabbit assumption that other predators find you in the same way rabbits find each other. They can smell where you are roughly, but it's movement their eyes pick up upon. Peter smelt a predator close by, a bird, a large bird, a hawk, yes, a hawk, but he couldn't see it. He stood on his back legs and slowly looked up to the sky. There wasn't any hawk there either. This meant it was hiding, waiting, sizing him up for dinner and getting ready to swoop in and strike.

Though protected to some extent by the hedgerow he still felt exposed. If something could see him and he couldn't see it, then it was probably because it was using the hedgerow for cover too. He ran into the cornfield, emphasis on his back legs, using his forepaws to push the corn out of the way. Behind him he heard the flap of wings of a hawk taking flight. It had been right above him all along.

He didn't know where he was actually running to, but if he'd stayed put he knew he'd already be dead. He heard the bird swoop through the air behind him, judging its size by the noise its wings made displacing air. He skidded in the dust, looked back briefly, saw it was even bigger, then started to run again. But the hawk was closing in on him. It wouldn't let him escape now.

Sure he was finished, Peter skidded and froze again, immediately rolling into a tight ball and squeezing his eyes shut tight against the pain. It didn't come. The hawk had built up too much speed. It overshot him. Peter opened his eyes, watched the hawk soar into the air and then come back again for another go. He realised he still had a chance, if he could just keep doing this and get back to the hedgerow. He turned round and ran again. The hawk swooped in once more.

Peter stopped suddenly again. But the hawk was no fool. It flew lower this time, rearing back as it swept over Peter with its talons open and ready. It caught Peter, but was going too fast to get a grip on him. He rolled beneath the hawk's claws, crying into his own belly. The hawk didn't stop. It flew back around again for another attack. Peter tried to run. The hawk caught him mid-hop this time. He rolled over and over, head over tail, but at least the hawk still couldn't pick him up.

That last attack the hawk wounded him. His leg was gashed and he was bleeding. But he was closer to the hedgerow. If he could just survive another attack he would be safe again. He could squeeze into its tangled depths where a bird the hawk's size couldn't reach him.

But when the hawk struck a third time, it knew this was its last chance. It came in slower, and lower. It didn't fly over Peter, it landed right on top of him. Peter squealed. The hawk's talons were so large they didn't tear into him, they clamped round his entire body. He felt the bird of prey squeeze him tighter and tighter, making sure he couldn't escape as it got ready to take off again.

Then something unexpected happened.

The hawk crowed in shock and let go of him. Peter opened his eyes. Something had attacked the hawk from behind. The hawk was trying to flap its wings but something had got hold of them. Something was preventing it from flying away. And it was something small. The hawk turned its head around completely and pecked down over its shoulder, but whatever was attacking him was so small it couldn't reach them without turning round. So it did.

The three rabbits holding onto the hawk's feathers with their teeth were carried with it. Peter immediately recognised Mark, Tom and Travis, though they'd all grown since he last saw them.

The hawk spun around once more, but it couldn't reach them, so it just crowed and cawed at them instead. Having enough and realising it was beaten, the giant bird tucked its head down, then suddenly launched itself skyward, throwing the three brothers into Peter. This time, it didn't come back.

The four rabbits picked themselves up. The brothers already knew whom they'd rescued. Travis smiled at Peter and Peter smiled back.

"So," said Mark boldly. "They finally exiled you, too, then."

"What did you do?" asked Tom excitedly. "Did you steal something?"

"No," Peter told them. "That's not why I've come..."

The three brothers almost looked disappointed.

"Look, have you got somewhere safe we can talk?"

"Yeah," said Mark. "This way."

Mark and his two brothers led Peter to their burrow, which was not too far away, buried in the elevated grass verge further along the hedgerow. It was a small burrow, barely big enough for the four of them to fit inside, and poorly built. The ceiling was crumbling and the floor squelched when they went in, so saturated with rainwater was it. Peter also noticed the various items of rubbish they'd taken inside, but now wasn't the time to ask them why.

"Look," he said, brushing a paw over his ear neurotically. "There's no easy way of saying this, so I'm just going to come out and say it. Beatrice is dead." He'd said that so many times today already the words had already lost their meaning.

"What?" the three brothers said together.

"What happened?" Travis added weakly.

"Well," Peter said. Then he told them. When he'd finished, they all sat in silence as each of the brothers took it in. Travis' eyes welled up and he hid his face so the others wouldn't see him cry. Mark looked angry, vengeful, just like Peter felt himself. Tom didn't register any emotion at all. His face was blank and expressionless, just like the face of the man who'd kicked Cottontail.

"Have you buried the bodies?" asked Travis.

"There was only one," Peter replied. "They were burying it as I left."

"Who was it?" said Mark in a low voice.

"Cottontail." Peter could barely whisper it himself.

"Fucking hell!" Mark spat.

Travis immediately burst into tears and ran from the hole. Tom went to follow him but Peter stood in his way and shook his head. He'd known what it was like to need some time alone. Mark looked around for something to lash out at. The nearest thing was one of the porno magazine photos of the two men having anal intercourse. It was sodden wet and tore easily as he struck it with his claws.

"How's papa?" Tom asked, bitterness in his voice.

"He's okay, actually," Peter lied. "He sends his commiserations."

"Bollocks," said Mark. "He didn't want you to come, did he?"

Peter didn't respond. Tom sighed. It was a staggered sigh. Tom was also fighting back the tears. "I think we should go and find Travis," he said. "He was closer to any of the kids than we were and he's not going to have his mind on predators. Can't think where he's gone, though."

"I know where he'll be," said Mark.

Peter went with them. It was true that Travis had bonded with Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail more than his brothers had. Travis had only been born in the same birthing season as Flopsy, so he was more of a brother than he was an uncle. The brothers had been exiled a few months after Cottontail was born.

Mark took them along the grass verge and then back through the hedgerow. The first thing Peter thought when he saw the burnt out smouldering wreck of the upturned car was that this was the furthest point he'd even been from his birthplace. Mark led them across the blackened, burnt patches where corn once grew that were still warm underfoot. Travis was sitting in the car, on what was once the ceiling. Above him, hanging upside down, was the charred remains of a human child still trapped by his seatbelt but charred beyond recognition.

"What is this thing?" murmured Peter.

"It's a car," Mark said. "Maybe even the one that killed Beatrice and the children. Crashed last night. Travis thinks it was his fault." As he said it, Travis looked out from the car and nodded, his shoulders bobbing as he cried.

"You crashed a car?" said Peter. "How?"

"Our Travis has magical powers," Tom scoffed. "He can do that."

"It was barbed wire that did it," Travis squeaked.

"Barbed wire?" said Peter.

"Oh, not that again." Mark sighed.

"It got caught in the wheel or something," Travis continued.

Peter went into the car beside Travis and looked around. Much of the upholstery had been burnt away and some of the metal surfaces were still hot. A grey smoke still hung in the air with the same smell of burning that had accompanied the giant mushrooms in the sky. But it was only when he got underneath the seats that he realised, from their positions, that those shapes strapped into them were dead human beings. He looked up at them, so prone and helpless. Part of him hoped Mark was right, and that these were the humans who'd killed his family.

But if not, they still gave him an idea.

NOTES:
Writing this I found MS Word didn't recognise the word "bollocks", so I added it to the dictionary. Whilst I was at it I also added "wank", "shite" and "motherfucker". Might come in useful some time...

This chapter was my favourite to write so far. I'd learnt the lessons of getting bogged down in chunky prose that made the third chapter my least favourite and this one flowed nice and neatly without much exposition of past happenings, Thumper's fate aside. In this chapter, Peter's doing something. He's got a goal. It's always much easier to write for a character who's heading somewhere, and not just literally. The hardest part to write was when Peter told Mark, Tom and Travis about Beatrice, which is why I cribbed the "There's no easy way to tell you this..." speech word for word from a Tom Hanks speech in "Saving Private Ryan". I also threw in the reference to gay porn as some awkward humour.

Thanks to Scott Middlebrook for reading the first chapter and asking with a smirk if Fiver and Thumper would turn up in the next chapter. I think they're characters from "Watership Down", another source to mine, if only for names.