In Which the Cullens Go to the Beach

By AlohaFox and Ame Warashi

"Come on, Bella! We're going to miss the winds!" Alice called to the human girl, waving her colorful dragonfly kite in her hands. It was almost as big as she was, maybe even bigger. Bella hoped it wouldn't make her fly off into the distance.

"We won't, Alice, relax," Emmett called in reply, his own butterfly kite strapped over his shoulders. It was huge and pink, much to Bella's dismay. But then, butterflies seemed to fit, and all of its pinkness.

"C'mon, Carlisle. Why don't you fly kites?" Bella asked the doctor, hoping she wasn't the only one who wasn't exactly excited about flying flimsy instruments of flight.

"…" He was nonchalantly reading a novel that Bella would never think of a relaxing book, as it was monstrous in its size and probably worth its weight in big words.

"He's concentrating again," Emmett sighed. "Why does he always have to do that?"

Rosalie, in her rhinestone-d kite, shrugged. "Because he can," she decided aloud. "Hurry up, sweetheart…we're going to miss everything, like Alice said."

Emmett nodded, and hastily wrapped an arm around her perfectly sculpted waist, like he was doing her a duty by NOT flirting with every girl on the beach, and they all started out, following Alice – who was skipping and singing, "Ice cream, ice cream, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate ice cream! NACHOS AND CHEESE PILED UP SO HIIIGH!"

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"Emmett, get that kite out of my face," Jasper muttered.

"Jasper, have some fun!" Alice cheered, trying to pull him away from his laptop.

Emmett's kite crashed into Jasper once again. "That's it!" Jasper pulled out some scissors. He had mentioned to Bella before that they were essential when going to the beach with his family.

"Jasper…what are you doing?" Emmett asked warily, beginning to pull his kite in. "Jasper…"

Snap. The kite string snapped in half.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"

"Looks like they're having fun," Esme commented.

"Um-hmm," Bella agreed as she watched Emmett sink to his knees, sobbing uncontrollably, trying to re-attach the broken strings by mashing them together again and again, like a small child.

Bella snuggled up against Edward's knees as he laid his hands on her shoulders, chuckling. So often it was that Jasper and Emmett's sibling rivalry became the family's entertainment.

Jasper smiled with satisfaction, tucked the scissors back into his pocket like it was a revolver, and went back to his laptop like nothing happened. Emmett was still sobbing, but Alice was still flying her kite.

"FLY, MY PRETTY! FLYYY!" she shrieked joyously.

"Bella," Esme called, "Come walk with me." She was standing on the shoreline where the tide came in. Edward concluded that it would be safe; they would be walking far enough from the waves.

"So, are you having fun so far?" Esme asked, grinning her usual beautiful smile.

"Absolutely!" Bella replied enthusiastically.

Bella was the one standing closer to the water, and apparently didn't hear Jasper's warning about the high tide…

"OHMYGOD!" Edward yelped as Bella fell ungraciously into the water as the wave hit her full-on. He rushed over to her faster than she could scream for help and pulled her out, cradling her like a child. Well, she was pretty light compared to him. And he had that superhuman strength…

"ARE YOU OKAY?!" he practically screamed in her ear.

"I'm wet," Bella replied, wincing from the power of his voice in her ears. "I'm wet, but I'm okay. Stop worrying so much about me all the time, will you?"

"But, Bella…" Edward trailed off as she untangled herself from him…slightly. She was still close enough for him to wrap his arms around her. "I love you."

Bella chuckled a little. "I know you do, and I love you too, but you shouldn't be worried about me just because a wave knocked me over."

"Aww, has Eddie saved his dear love from her eminent doom yet again?" Emmett called from afar.

"Shut up, you…" Edward began, but stopped himself when he realized that Emmett was talking again. TALKING – like a halfway normal person again

He, Bella, Esme, and Jasper all looked up at once. And gasped.

Emmett was proudly sailing his ten pink butterfly kites, beaming.

"Alice…" Jasper began, "…why?"

"What did I do?" Alice asked, looking at them all from her kite-flying. She hadn't been paying attention at all.

"Where did Emmett get all those kites?"

"The kite people gave them to me…" Emmett murmured meaningfully.

"Meaning that tourist family over there," Carlisle pointed out. Had he finished that book already? All of them looked towards the tackily dressed grandparents, parents, and children. The family waved.

"Old people are nice…" Emmett smiled.

"Too bad they don't have any kites…" Esme sighed.

"Oh, they're fine. We gave them some potato salad," Alice assured.

"And you got potato salad from…?" Bella asked, in between telling Edward that she was fine.

"The potato salad people…" Alice and Emmett murmured together, paranoid.

Bella shook her head and glanced back at the water. "Oh, look at the waves coming in! Anybody up for swimming?"

"I don't know, Bella…" Edward said nervously, "those rip tides look pretty vicious."

"Oh, come on, Edward!" Carlisle wheedled, taking off his shirt, revealing moon-pale skin and a chest that was rather broad for an English man. He took off his pants ("AAHH!!" screamed Bella in her mind) and ran for the waves in his black trunks.

Bella idly wondered what would've happened if she had met the handsome doctor, or any of the other Cullen boys, before Edward.

Alice squealed excitedly and stripped down to her pink bikini, which immediately distracted Jasper from his laptop. She looked like a little kid as she ran energetically into the waves.

"How are the waves?" Esme asked her just as a wall of greenish-blue five times taller than little Alice loomed over her surrogate daughter.

"Alice…get away from that," Jasper called to her nervously.

"C'mon, Jasper, I'll be fine. It's not --!" The wave smashed into Alice, immersing her for a few seconds.

"ALICE!!" Bella and Jasper shouted, sure she was taken into the ocean, drowning.

"She's fine," Rosalie gestured to the shoreline, where the waves were retracting back into the ocean. Alice's stone-like vampire body stood right where it had been before the wave, only now she was soaking wet.

Alice gave them the thumbs up. "They're good!" she called in response to Esme's question as she spat a little fish out of her mouth. "Come on, Jazzy! It's not so bad once you get used to it!"

Jasper did indeed peel off his jeans and t-shirt, joining his wife in a pair of bright green Hawaiian-style trunks, much to the amusement of Edward and Emmett.

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