AN: This took forever to write… I had almost giving up on ever getting another chapter finished. However, this past week there have been a large number of new readers placing alerts or favoring this story, and I hate to disappoint so I just had to give it one more try… I'll try to get the next one out sooner.

On another, more private, note; my brother is having a baby any day now. Actually they are two days past the due date, so we are walking on eggshells waiting for the phone to ring!

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Chapter 34 - A naughty fish with a nasty bite

Leaning against the doorjamb, Edward frowned as he took in the scene before him. Items of clothing and children's toys were strewn all over the bathroom floor, where they mingled with an alarmingly large number of wet puddles.

His sister certainly had her work cut out for her, that's for sure. The wiggling, stark naked, toddler in her arms did not want to go anywhere near the bathtub.

"Anthony, honey, get back here!" Alice ordered in a somewhat strained voice, as the boy leaped out of her grasp for the umpteenth time in just as many minutes.

From the bath, an equally naked Elliott, let out a shrill laugh and clapped his hands together in absolute delight. His enthusiasm and sudden movements sent the water swirling around him, causing him to lose his balance and fall back on his butt. However being the seasoned bather that he was, he merely grimaced and wiped the bubbles off his face, before getting back on his feet again.

In the meanwhile Bella had managed to corner a fleeing Anthony and scope him into her arms, "Calm down, little guy!" she told the whimpering toddler, as she lifted him off the floor. "It's just water. There is nothing to be afraid of," she reasoned, but as per usual, Anthony was not easily convinced.

The boy looked utterly exhausted, as did Bella, Edward noted with a pang of irritation. Her arm should be in a sling. Why wasn't her arm in a sling? Apparently her back was sore too. He could tell; he recognized the signs. His own back was giving him all kinds of agony from the insane amount of snow he had shoveled.

Tired or not, Bella kept bouncing the boy in her arms, trying to calm him down. For a brief moment Edward contemplated stepping in, but he quickly decided against it with a small shake of his head. This was Alice's idea and therefore her responsibility, her headache.

It appeared as though his sister had finally gotten to the conclusion that neither persuasion, nor bribery would do the trick this time…. Well, either that or she had lost her mind completely. It was hard to tell, seeing as her new tactics seemed to entail making animal impressions and humming circus tunes.

Acting like it was a perfectly normal behavior, she tied a towel, cape-style, around her neck, and began fluttering about the room, gathering random objects and shoving them at random places. Or well, they were mostly bath toys which she threw into that bath, claiming they were circus animals on the loose.

Despite his decision not to intervene, Edward found himself doing just that "Alice you are making very little sense even for you," he said, with a shake of his head. "What exactly is it that you're doing?"

"I'm lining up toys for my puppet show," she answered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "The world's greatest floating circus puppet show. It's going to be absolutely fabulous," she declared and then punctuated her statement by forcing a kiddy sized, shower cap, down over her head.

"Riiiight… absolutely fabulous, " Edward agreed mockingly. At this point even Bella was showing signs of skepticism and as for Anthony… let's just say he hadn't dropped his guard much at all. The poor boy looked like he was one sea lion short of bawling.

"You do realize a lot of kids are absolutely terrified of clowns, right Alice?"

"Pffffffff, do I look like a clown to you?"

"As a matter of fact-" he began, but was silenced by a slap to his head.

"Elliott honey, can you help me with this," Alice suggested, giving her nephew an inflatable frog to hold on to.

The boy agreed readily, already knowing what was coming. Alice being Alice, she always went all in with the silly voices, the gestures and everything.

Mr. Froggy, the ringmaster, was first out and he didn't disappoint. "Hello ladies and gentlemen! The show is about to start; please turn off your mobile phones….And, please, no talking during the performance!" Alice croaked, causing Elliott to roar with laughter.

Anthony, however, was tougher nut to crack. The boy watched with large, unexpressive eyes, as Alice pulled off her whole register of tricks. The only time he actually cracked a hint of a smile, was when Pingu, the high-pitched squeeze penguin, zapped the poor, unsuspecting duckies with a super secret cleaning spell. That was it though. He did not want to learn the super secret cleaning spell and he did not want to help Pingu give the duckies their sponge baths. Nope…. No can do…. Not gonna happen…. Not falling for it… He shook his head vehemently at all and every suggestions put forward.

Every time Bella tried to set Anthony down on the floor, the boy tightened his arms around her neck and clung to her all the more. It didn't escape Edward's notice that Bella was more or less swaying on her feet at this point. The kid was heavy and her air supply was all but cut off. A glance at Bella's pale face and strained expression, confirmed that it was time he put an end to this circus.

"Way to traumatize the kid for life, Alice," he muttered under his breath, as he stomped into the room to retrieve his son. "Here, hand him over!" he urged with barely contained irritation.

"No, wait! I'm not ready to admit defeat just yet," Alice declared stubbornly, as she too reached for the child.

Anthony tensed and grunted unhappily, indicating that neither of these two the options were to his liking.

"Geez, stop it already!" Bella scoffed, throwing Edward a nasty glare. "Crowding him obviously won't help!"

"Fine, don't hand him over," he returned her glare with equal ferocity. "But Bella, sit down before you fall or drop him or something!"

"I would never drop-…"

It wasn't often he managed to catch her off her guard, but this time when Edward moved to grab her shoulders, she didn't react fast enough to dodge him. Bella couldn't do anything, but comply and let herself be steered backwards until she felt the back of her legs hit something behind her.

There was a startled yelp and then a sound that Edward deciphered as a sigh of relief as she sank down to sit on the tiled edge of the bathtub. The sounds coming from Anthony, however, were a little more on the hysteric side. His son clearly wasn't happy about the fact that he was now closer to the bath water than he had been all evening.

No longer interested in clinging to stay off the floor, Anthony took to squirming like a trapped animal instead. It seemed as though the little guy couldn't get away from the bath fast enough. However, before he could pull away from the arms that held him, his cousin Elliott decided to steal the moment by showing off his seriously awesome water-splashing-skills.

Suddenly, there was a whole lot of shrieking and crying and yelling going on and Edward found himself right in the line of fire… er… water. Most of it ended up in his face and on the front of his shirt. The little guy had an impeccable aim and the amount of water he could set in motion with his chubby, little hands was truly impressive.

His stunt was not appreciated by everyone in the room obviously, hence the deafening noise level. The chaos went on for another minute or two until Alice finally managed pin down a very slippery and quite hostile Elliott and pull him to the far end of the bathtub.

"What do we have here? - a naughty little fish with a nasty bite, " she jested, poking the boy playfully in the side making him squirm.

"Uh-uh! I'm a shark!," came the cheeky reply.

"That explains the biting!" Alice mused, playfully tickling him into a fit of giggles. "I bet I could make a really tasty fish burger out of this one!"

While Alice kept Elliott occupied, Edward was left with the task of getting Anthony calmed down and wrapped up in a towel. The boy was visibly trembling, but Edward wasn't sure whether it was because he was scared, or cold or both.

"Oh well, this was fun," Bella joked, handing Edwards another towel.

"Fun? I told you this was a bad idea – but did you listen to me? NO." Edward grumbled, patting the worst off the water out of his hair. "How is it that I'm always the one getting wet or contaminated? When it's not water, it's food or snot or some other smelly body fluid."

"News flash; kids are unpredictable and messy," Bella informed him ever so kindly, "Think of it as play therapy."

"Play therapy? Really? Are you a kiddy psychologist now?"

"No, of course not, but seriously Edward," Bella nudged him with her elbow and gestured towards the bath. "I for one, still think this could work."

"Sure, and pigs will fly some day soon."

"I mean it Edward," she nudged him again. "Look at him."

"I am looking. What's your point?" he asked, following her gaze. Bella was watching Anthony who in turn was watching Alice play some tickle-the-shark-game with Elliott. Sure the boy was much calmer now than before, but other than that, he didn't quite get what he was suppose to see. He didn't get what the big deal was… Well, until he saw two little feet, propped up on their tippy toes, that is… That's when he realized what Bella was talking about.

Anthony's cheek was pressed against the side of the bathtub, as he strained his entire body to peer over the edge. He was still sniveling every so often, but it came across more longingly than anything else.

"Let's give this one more try," Bella suggested, reaching out to ruffle the boy's hair. "You want a boat to play with, Tony?" she inquired in a sing-song, almost motherly, kind of voice. "Here, you can have the green one," she offered, lowering her hand into the water to push one of the floating bath toys closer towards the boy.

There were a few seconds of hesitation, before Anthony dipped his fingers into the water touching the plastic tugboat. "Is afloat?" he asked, turning to his father for confirmation.

"Yeah, that's right buddy! It's a boat and it floats."

"Can you steer it over here," Bella coaxed. "We wouldn't want the sharks to take it, now would we?"

The boy hesitated again, wavering slightly, before his fingers gripped the plastic toy again.

When Rosalie appeared in the doorway, roughly ten minutes later, Anthony was hanging over the edge on the bathtub, elbow deep into the water, playing referee in a boat race (or was it a shark race?) between his aunt and his cousin.

"Aww, look at that!" Rosalie exclaimed. "My baby is playing nice and making friends."

"Depends on how you define 'nice'," Edward replied, stepping aside to allow his sister-in-law to enter the room "There is actually more water on the floor than there is in the bathtub and I believe Allie has more bite and claw marks than your typical zookeeper."

"Ah, but that sounds more like Jaspers doing, if you ask me."

"Nice one, Rose!" Edward commented, with an exaggerated head shake. "Did you forget that there are kiddies in the room!"

"It's never too early to encourage good grooming habits in your children," Rosalie shot back, in her trademark smug voice. "Manicure is not just a 'girl thing'. Speaking of grooming, you look like a wet, sloppy mess. Did you get peed on again, Edward?"

"Very funny!" Edward scowled and flicked her off.

"Esme sent me up with another bucket of hot water," Rosalie said ignoring his glare. "This is the final one, though. What do you say Al? Should we finish this off with one last fanfare and see how if goes?"

While it certainly sounded like a perfectly innocent suggestion, Edward caught a somewhat strange exchange of glances between Alice and Rosalie. He chalked it up to them having an inside joke or something, one that Bella wasn't in on, because her confusion was plain to see

Before he could ask about it though, the moment had passed and Alice was nodding her head in agreement. "Bring it on! As much as I'd love for this to go on indefinitely, I think I'm beginning to turn into a prune."

Rosalie lifted the bucket to shoulder height and crossed the small bathroom in two steps.

"Wait! It's not too hot is it?" Alice interrupted her just as she reached the bathtub.

"Of course not! What do you take me for?" Rosalie huffed in irritation. "Just keep the boys at bay, alright!"

"Maybe I should…" Bella, started to get up, but was knocked back down by Rosalie, who very uncharacteristically lost her trademark queen-like composure and started slipping on the wet floor.

What happened next seemed to unfold in slow motion. Loosing her balance, Rosalie stumbled and fell forward, catching herself with her hands at the very last moment before her knees hit the cold hard tiles of the floor. Of course in order to save herself, she had to let go of the bucket of water, which in turn fell straight into Bella's lap, who not to surprisingly failed to get a firm grip on it, and therefor ended up drenched from chest to mid-thighs in water.

Edward knew he shouldn't laugh, but Rosalie looked more than a little ridiculous sprawled out on the floor with her ass in the air… Also, the shocked look on Bella's face when the water hit had been priceless!

Then there was the wet T-shirt aspect of the whole thing; amusing and awe inspiring in its own right. Not that she was bra-less or wearing a sheer white t-shirt or anything remotely provocative like that, but the clothes she did wear, now clung to her chest and torso like a second skin. All of those new voluptuous curves that he had only been allowed to see small, small, glimpses of, were now promptly and unceremoniously put on full, in-your-face, display.

Bella was on her feet in an instance, one hand pulling at the wet fabric like it was burning her skin or something, the other scrambling for a towel.

Edward's laugh died into a worried frown as multiple questions flooded his confused, perplexed mind; had Rosalie misjudged the water temperature? Why was Bella hunching her back? Had she been hurt? …and what the effing heck was that?!

Evenslouched over, it was impossible to miss that there were more curves to her body than what was normal; convex curves, something bulging where no bulge of that size should be. There was a roundness to her stomach area, too pronounced to be mistaken for a full belly, or a roll of fat or a fabric lump.

What. The. Hell!

He stared and he blinked but it didn't change; nothing changed.

Realization hit like a punch to the gut. Images and words from the past four weeks —particularly images from their intimate moments— raced through his mind.

All those times he'd touched her, fondled her, squeezed her… How could he have missed something as major as this? Admittedly, her magically growing tits had stolen most of his attention, but still….Argh! Not once had he even thought to question that growth spurt…. or the weight gain, or the mood swings… the hasty bathroom trips, the peculiar eating habits…

CRAP!

This was not happening. This was not happening. This was- It didn't matter how many times he tried to chant it, he had to face the facts. It was happening.

"What the hell!" he repeated his earlier thought out loud, sounding just as shocked as he was.

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An2: I don't want to be annoying, but this story officially has more alerts than reviews. And while it's absolutely amazing to know that people want to read my story, please review! Even a smiley face review would make my day! :)