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"I can report with confidence that Niceville, Florida, is just that, but that there's one house that should not be allowed to stand."

Bobby Harris could only nod in agreement as he welcomed Duncan and Daniel Lamar back to their familial home with as big and macho a hug as the footballer could manage. The twin tigers gladly returned the embrace, without worrying a jot about the macho part, as both were now happily accepting of the young lion as the newest member of their family. "It was more than I could have asked for," Bobby managed.

"Not that we were spoiling for a fight..." Duncan began.

"Speak for yourself!" Daniel, the younger by eight minutes twin, grinned.

"...but it was good to meet the enemy face to face and shatter a few myths in the bargain."

Malcolm Lamar came bursting out of the house to plow almost muzzle-first into Duncan's welcome, hugging him tightly. "I was worried, even when I knew you were safely out of the panhandle."

"Not that big a deal, when you've got county law enforcement handy and a weekday 'raid' when the ugliest members of the family weren't there. Oh, by the way, Bobby," Duncan said, reaching into the car to bring out the first of seven boxes. "We got to meet Granny Harris along with Beth. They were great, and Granny Harris is a howl-and-a-half. They both gave us kisses to pass along..."

"No sweat," Bobby grinned. "A pawshake will do. Yeah, Granny's a real character." He paused, feeling his ears splay, looking carefully at the twins. "How bad was it?"

Daniel put a paw on the young lion's shoulder, looking gently into his eyes. "I'll tell you, if you really want to know." Bobby nodded, forcing his tail to still and his ears back forward. Daniel also nodded, then continued. "Beth showed us your room. They had emptied it. Not even furniture. Bed, desk, dresser, everything was gone. It looked like a room you'd see in an empty house up for sale. I think I could see where posters had been ripped off the walls. The place had been stripped, and the standing order was that the door was to be kept closed at all times."

"I'm almost surprised that they didn't rip up the carpeting," Duncan said, "just for fear of cooties. That, by the way, was what Granny Harris said, not me."

Bobby wasn't sure if he looked as bad as he felt, but he noticed Daniel's paw tighten on his shoulder a little. "You just saw Beth and Granny, then? No one else?"

"Apart from the various neighbors pouring out of various houses to wonder why the cops were at the door?" Daniel managed a small smile. "Strangely enough, when the neighbors found out who we were and why we were there, several actually offered to help. They were almost disappointed when it turned out that neither of us was Mal; I think they wanted to congratulate him, but we got some well-wishes to pass along to you both. We were actually given food for the trip back. And happily, the various resident males - and believe me, some of the neighbors were pretty vocal about them! - were nowhere to be found. The county sheriff's deputies were glad of it."

"I am too, just so you know." Lisa Lamar stepped out of the house to greet her eldest sons and to help with the boxes. "Looks like Beth managed to salvage a lot."

Bobby nodded mutely, still not quite sure how to feel. All that was left of his life before Malcolm was packed into seven comparatively small boxes. He wanted to go through them, and at the same time, he didn't even want to see what was there for fear of discovering what wasn't. It was like a reverse treasure hunt, finding some items from a mental checklist, but then realizing what was on that list that wasn't there anymore. Mal stepped up to his lover and gave him a gentle squeeze from the side, and the lion regained himself enough to help with unloading the car. "Guest room?" he wondered aloud.

"We could start calling it your room, at least for the holidays," Lisa smiled at him. "And sure. Go through it at your leisure. Anything you don't want to take back to university, you can store here. I'll give you the family discount rate."

Between the five of them, all seven boxes were delivered to the room in one trip. It made things slightly cramped, but not terrible. "Did Beth remember to grab any of your clothes?" the tigress asked.

"I wasn't very good at keeping up my wardrobe," Bobby chuckled. "She might have gotten stuff I haven't worn since high school; might not fit."

"Goodwill box isn't far away, and it could be a very practical Christmas." The lady cat grinned mischievously. "Do I get to take your clothing sizes?"

"Everything but the inside leg."

Daniel laughed, "I told you he'd fit in this family!"

The warmth of the laughter took some of the chill from the lion's heart, and he was able to look at the boxes with something more like gratitude than regret. Mal seemed to read his mind - not at all impossible anymore, he was starting to think. "Who wants to help me and Mom get dinner ready for our returning champions?"

Said champions were slightly slow at taking up the hint, but Lisa herded her elder sons out the door quickly enough. When they were gone, Mal leaned into kiss Bobby gently on his muzzle. "Thought you might want some privacy, at least at first, or...?"

The lion turned his lover's face to his and gave the tiger a proper kiss, lasting a proper time. He pulled back only a little and looked into the beautiful amber eyes that he'd fallen forever in love with, and smiled softly. "Thank you, love," he said softly, a sad smile on his lips. "I have a feeling I'm really going to need you tonight."

"I'll be here. Count on it." The tiger stroked Bobby's mane tenderly. "We all will."

"Think the bed will hold us all?"

That earned him a Gibbs-slap, a grin, and some time to himself.

* * * * * * * * * *

Dave was closing the park that evening; Lisa kept a plate for him in the microwave, joking that a good spouse always kept something hot and ready for the other one. It was all Bobby could do not to laugh at the youngest tiger's blush that seemed to rise up from his toes. Not entirely lacking in couth, the tiger twins managed to keep the early part of the dinner conversation light, not mentioning the boxes at all. Mal whispered to Bobby that Lisa probably had something to do with it. True or not, it helped. He'd spent nearly an hour alone with his old things before the call to dinner was raised, and he was grateful for the break. Toward the end of the meal, Lisa looked up at the lion and asked softly, "Want to talk, or shall I shut my fat trap?"

"It ain't fat," Bobby chuckled. "Besides, anyone who cooks this well should never be cussed at. Might not get fed this well again!"

Lisa sniffed the air. "Ooo, someone's baking brownie points!"

Malcolm laughed. "Mom's favorite phrase."

"Along with making a hole," Daniel laughed.

"I did get the idea that was a family joke," Bobby said. "Do I get in on it?"

"Part of my days with the Army Communications Corps," Lisa said, grinning. "We had some pretty cramped quarters in the post I had first, when I was still a grunt more or less, and I was getting some information off of one of the many bulletin boards around the room... except that this one was literally in the short, narrow hallway that led to the inner offices. I was so absorbed in writing down the data that I didn't know anyone had come out of the offices until I felt a tap on my shoulder. I said, 'Just a second.' And that was when I heard a voice say, 'Hey, make a hole, bagger!' Short for sandbagger, you see. I piped up and said, 'Make it a square one so you can fit your head in it.'"

The tigress paused, holding her forepaws apart by about a meter. "When I turned around to see who'd spoken, that eagle looked about that big!"

Bobby's dad had been in the Army, and he knew the term "bird colonel" came from the insignia for the rank just below the first level of Generals' ranks. His jaw dropping, he asked, "What happened?"

"The colonel - Ringwald, his name was - had a good sense of humor, thank the gods. He was known to joke with us when he could. He just stood for a second, considered my retort, then said, 'Not bad!'" The tigers around the table laughed with the pleasure of hearing the story oft-told, and Bobby could barely contain himself.

"I didn't dare laugh at the time," Lisa chuckled, "but I knew I'd be okay about a week later, when I was doing some work at a desk, and Ringwald stepped in. I stood up and snapped-to, of course, but he said, 'At ease... just thought I'd pop my square head in and see how you're doing.' I couldn't help but laugh, and I quickly came to the same understanding that the rest of the team had: He was the boss, and we kept proper ranks and order, but he'd rather we got the job done because we wanted to and not because we were terrified of him."

"One of the original One-Minute Managers," Duncan grinned. "See? I did pay attention to my business classes, at least a little bit."

"First time for everything," Daniel managed, getting his own Gibbs-slap from his twin. He winked at Bobby. "Worth it."

The lion laughed, then sobered slightly. "I'm sure everyone wants to know."

"We don't have to," the tigress said softly.

"Family is who you can talk to." Bobby smiled, then hugged Malcolm for just a moment. "Had to find one, first, but I know that now."

The twin tigers positively beamed. It was Duncan who said to his younger brother, "Good pick, Mal."

"I thought so," the freshman rubbed his cheek against his lover's shoulder, purring briefly.

Bobby was blushing like crazy, but he also felt really good. Lisa, to his other side, put a paw to his shoulder for a moment and smiled encouragingly at him. "What did you find?"

Daniel couldn't resist. "Tell me you found a_Spiderman_Issue One in there."

"Never a fan," Bobby said, grinning, "and you can slap me for it later. No, nothing like that. And Beth didn't seem to find my stash of_Playkitten_ magazines, either." He looked at Lisa seriously. "Great articles in there." When the tigress only grinned and didn't provide a slap to the back of his head, he looked slightly surprised. "No smack for that one?"

"Of course not. We all know that, before Malcolm, you couldn't read."

The lion turned to his lover. "You or me?"

"You're closer."

Lisa stayed politely still while Bobby delivered his first parental Gibbs-slap. "Nice follow-through!" the tigress approved. "And bonus points for not messing up my headfur."

"Hey, I'm still learning!" Bobby smiled as his family chuckled around him.

Family...

"A few photos in frames," he began, clearing his throat. "One's new; Beth printed one out, using photo-paper and got a simple frame for it. A picture of her. There's another one of mom; I'm not sure if it's Beth's, or if she printed out a copy for me and framed it too. Whatever way, they're nice." He glanced over at Malcolm. "May end up putting them on my work desk, if you don't mind."

"I think I'd like it," the young tiger said. "If nothing else, it would give me faces of people I'd like to thank."

Malcolm got a warm side-by-side hug and a kiss on the cheek for that one; Bobby didn't even mind the "Awww...!" from the twins. Lisa, for her part, just looked at the twins and said, "Clear evidence that you two were a practice set, and Dave and I got the third one right." Which earned her a pair of perfect raspberries, which she returned just as well.

Bobby picked up as if nothing had happened, which seemed about par for the Lamar household. As Malcolm has said on other occasions, he was a quick learner. "I didn't have that many books." He glanced at Lisa and pointed a finger at her. "Nope, you've had your one! But Beth found some things I thought I'd lost. A copy of_The Little Prince_ was in there. Dad called it my 'fag book.' Of course, just about anything would have been a 'fag book' just for being a book."

"I guess," Daniel observed, "we should give him credit for knowing what a 'book' is."

"Won't argue the point." Bobby's lopsided smile was all the remaining comment he needed to make. "I'm guessing that Beth had to do a lot of grab-and-run raids just to get what she did. She did grab a lot of miscellaneous stuff, lots of paper items that she thought might be important, I suppose. Most of it was badly-taken notes from earlier classes, but I'm grateful that she thought of it. Even a copy of my birth certificate, which was strange."

"Needed copies for your college applications, probably," Duncan nodded. "That'll save the hassle of having to send off for one, if you need any other ID."

Daniel asked softly, "Any of your trophies? You probably had a bunch of 'em."

"Funny, about that," the lion tried for a more genuine smile. It almost worked. "Beth apologized all over herself in an email about it. She said she didn't dare get all of them, because she was afraid Dad would notice if they were all gone. I'm just as glad that she didn't risk it; as you might have been able to tell from one of the recent newspaper articles, Dad can be a little too free using his paws, or even fists. I don't think any of us were spared that." He paused, clearing his throat. "Based on my own mental inventory, she saved all the ones from my senior year, left the rest, from the three years prior. Apparently, Dad didn't notice that there were only about half of them left."

The quarterback swallowed, aware that the silence in the room stretched longer than he had intended. He looked across the table to see identical dumbfounded faces, until Duncan's began to turn toward something like rage. "Let me get this clear. Your Dad couldn't tell... he didn't know how many trophies you'd won?"

Bobby stayed quiet. "Sounds like bragging to say that I had enough that five wouldn't be missed."

"Any of your college trophies?"

"In the den. Beth snagged the MVPs for my first two years; this year's hasn't been selected yet."

"But you're already gonna be varsity quarterback," Daniel put in. "I think that'll make even more show than an MVP trophy."

"And your Dad really didn't even notice?" Duncan just couldn't let the concept go.

"I think he was just too angry," Bobby said quietly. "He probably knew, but he just didn't care."

The elder twin exhaled sharply with something of a snarl mixed in it, one that gave the lion just a slight case of the creeps. Duncan waved an apology, looked first to Lisa and said, "Sorry, Mom. I know you'd rather not have that sort of thing at the table."

"This time, son, I'll overlook it," the tigress said. "I feel like spitting myself. But it does give me an idea." She turned to the lion. "Bobby, would you and Malcolm please retrieve all of your trophies? In fact, bring those two pictures in also, if you don't mind. Living room. Take a few minutes; we'll clear the table."

Malcom's response to Bobby's perplexed look was a little shrug, and the two of them got up from the table to do as asked. Even back in Bobby's room, in whispered conversation, neither knew exactly what was going on. They gathered the various trophies as asked, packed loosely into one of the boxes (Malcolm carried the two framed pictures, looking at them fondly, making note of how much Bobby favored his mother), and carried them into the living room. There, they found Lisa, Duncan, and Daniel standing conspiratorially together, smiling in a way that made Bobby wonder if he was to become dessert. Instead, Lisa outlined a suggestion, and the smiles became contagious...

* * * * * * * * * *

The photograph on Lisa Lamar's Facebook page the next morning showed her youngest son sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of seven gleaming sports trophies, and looking up with "My Hero" eyes at the blushing but smiling face of the athletic young lion kneeling behind him. Bobby had his arms dangling around Malcolm's neck, forepaws joined over Mal's chest, and the young tiger had his own arms wrapped around those, a study in tawny fur against black-striped orange. To either side, Duncan and Daniel knelt, each with an arm around Bobby, and in the opposite paws, the framed photos of Beth and Bobby's mother. Both of the lionesses seemed to be quite proud to be there. The caption for the photo read, "What a Real Sports Hero Looks Like." Further notes from Lisa included that their local photo and framing store was arranging to make a 40x50cm print for their wall, properly framed for display, along with all of the name-tagging for the six faces in the photo and a detailed description (courtesy of a slightly-reluctant sports hero) of each trophy.

Within 48 hours, more than 250 reposts (one of them to Beth's page, another to the Harris Family Tree page managed by Granny Harris) and over 7000 "likes" had been recorded, some of them from some well-known names in not just collegiate but professional sports circles, as well as two interesting comments from people that Bobby identified for Lisa. One was from Randell Suarez, the other from Buddy Garnett, who were (respectively) the principal and head coach from Niceville High School. Each requested permission to use copies of the photograph, which they wished to display prominently in (respectively) their main office complex and their athletic offices.

Another 24 hours later ("likes" just past 9000 at that point), an attorney letter was delivered (overnight delivery, signed return receipt requested) to the Lamar household from a D. Sherwoood Tatum, Esq., representing one Mr. Jackson Harris, who demanded that the photograph be removed from the familial Facebook page and threatening legal action against anyone posting it, in any form, in any location. "Courtesy" copies were sent to the Niceville High School principal and head coach and (no one in the Lamar household could keep from staring in disbelief) Isobel Stutz Harris - Bobby's granddam. Lisa grinned at the letter in a way that gave Bobby no doubt whatsoever about her ability to predate with the finest of them. She made two phone calls, one to Niceville's school offices (not yet closed for the season), and one to the finest vulpine lawyer in a dozen states (by his own admission). He had Lisa fax the letter to his office, along with the contact information for Messers. Suarez and Garnett (who had both agreed to go along), chortling with mirth at the prospect that lay before him. He wished the Lamar family (including Bobby) the merriest of holidays and rang off.

An hour or so later, Scott Chamberlain, Esq., called back to report that Mr. Tatum had been properly schooled, informed, and treated to the most veiled of threats that no one in the Lamar household (including Bobby) should ever hear from Mr. Harris, Mr. Tatum, or any other "two-bit, four-flushing, deadbeat, pasty-face, malodorous, lying sack of shyster" ever again. Lisa made sure to write it down, vowing to memorize it in case she needed it again. She was also taking notes when Granny Harris called her "favorite star quarterback" and was put on speaker so that she could regale all listeners with her own tirade and expressive opinion of her youngest cub. Although she couldn't join in this year, Granny was immediately penciled in for any and all Lamar family gatherings henceforth, out of caring, camaraderie, and sheer pleasure of having such a character come say whatever she damned well wanted.

About a week later, Lisa received a large, flat envelope with a copy of the "Christmas Edition" of the Niceville Independent School District newsletter, which featured on its front page a reprint of the photograph and an article describing how a 60x75cm reproduction will be featured in the trophy case at the local high school. A paw-written note to Bobby said that his high school trophies would be permanently and carefully preserved, if he wished to donate them. The note, signed by both the principal and the head coach, wished Bobby and his "real family" a warm holiday.

Bobby was able to hold back his tears until he and Malcolm were alone that night. Real heroes do cry, it seems, but they try not to blubber in front of just anyone... especially twin elder brothers, even though they might still be somewhat intimidated by their younger brother's blue belt in aikido.