Disclaimer: I don't own Watership Down!

Title: Visions Can Fade.

Summary: Little ones like Fiver.

Setting: The TV series

...

Little ones like Fiver.

Not once they get old enough to go around off on their own, like Pipkin, but newborns. Hazel would swear they'd crawl over to his brother just as soon as they'd curl next to their mother.

Fiver, personally, hates it. He shuffles away when they approach, jerk when they touch him. But, still. He just lies down and takes it when they climb all over him, although his eyes are begging he take them away.

"Fiver, it's alright," He assures him once again. Hazel's brother was a careful one. "You won't hurt them."

"They're like me, Hazel." He whimpers. Fiver's eyes have that glazed look about them. "This young, they don't have any walls built to protect them against seeing. They need to- I can't have them like this forever. I can't."

"You're not making any sense, Fiver."

"Just get them off me. I can't bear to ruin them. What if it's contagious?"

"I'd hate to wake them up. Are you ill?"

"I'd hate to rub off on them. Please, Hazel."

"Alright, alright." He gently scruffed one, ignoring a sleepy complaint. Fiver watched with sorrowful eyes, as still as a statue. Hazel does his best not to jostle the little one too much as he hops it back to its mother.

"I wanna go back to uncle Fiver."

"Uncle Fiver is tired right now." He answered reproachfully. "Why do you cling to him like that, anyhow?"

With a yawn and stretch, the kitten replied. "I feel safer with him. The scary rabbit likes him best."

"Scary rabbit?"

"Mmhmm. He's made of shadows." There was a mild shudder. "He told me we'd be safe with uncle Fiver."

Hazel all but fainted. In a daze, he stumbled back to the other kitten, eyes troubled, as he took it back to it's mother. He returned to find his brother waiting for him, unmoving.

"They aren't going to die, are they?"

Fiver shook his head, rearing back with a quick slinking motion. Shaking off any cramps, he replied. "Of course not."

"Then why...?"

A perfectly blank mask enshrouded Fiver's face. He shrugged. "Captain Broom's getting pretty old, you know."

The buck accepted this finality with a bitter silence. "Can you see him?"

"No. But kittens can. I think he scares them, so they forget. You probably saw him, once."

"Well, I could've told you that. It's only natural to be afraid of him."

His brother shrugged sheepishly, eyes on the ground. "I dunno, Hazel. We had a chat once, when I was their age. Pretty decent buck, once you get past the scent of blood."

Author's Note: My first Watership Down 'fic! Fun.

-Mandaree1