Disclaimer: See chapter one.

A/N-First of all, Happy New Year, guys!  Many thanks to all of my reviewers.  Oh, and to "Me," thank you for the information.  I will definitely be able to use that for this story.  So thanks again!

I've been gone for about a week and a half; up to spend X-Mas with my family up north.  I spent every chance I got working on this chapter and, even though it's 12:13 AM on January 1, I decided to type it up and post it. 

Man, the things I do for you. *grins*

Chapter Two

The next morning, Joey awoke to two small boys jumping on his chest.  He cracked one eye open, only for a second, but it did not go unnoticed.  "Joey!" they squealed in unison.

Joey responded with a snore, but it only succeeded in making the twins continue their jumping.  "Joey!" they shrieked again, flopping down on either side of the half-asleep form beneath the covers. 

Joey moaned loudly, hiding his head underneath his pillow, taking in a deep breath.  "C'mon, Joey, we've gotta get ready to go!"  "C'mon!"  Nicky and Alex jumped off of Joey's bed and ran out of the room, laughing with glee.

Joey heard the twins' footsteps leave and released a sigh of relief.  He pulled his head out from under his pillow and rolled onto his stomach, thinking that he was going to be able to go back to sleep . . .

Or not . . .

Jesse was, at that moment, being led into the bedroom by his sons, who were each clinging to one of his hands as he allowed them to drag him along.  The three of them stopped in the doorway, watching a now-asleep Joey.

Jesse grinned evilly and knelt down to face Nicky and Alex, and began whispering to them.  He then stood back upright and slowly approached his friend's bed.  "And . . . NOW!" he shouted, running at full speed towards the bed, closely followed by his sons. They all leaped onto the bed, jumping joyfully and laughing, as well as shaking Joey. 

Joey rolled onto his back and covered his face with his hands.  "No, I don't want to get up," he whined.  "Besides, it's only-" He glanced at his watch.  "-ten o'clock."  He pulled his pillow over his face.  "Go without me," he moaned, his voice muffled by the fabric.

"Nope, you're coming with us, buddy," replied Jesse, yanking the pillow from Joey's face and tossing it onto the floor.

"Yeah," added Nicky and Alex, pulling on Joey's jersey sleeves.  "Puh-leeeease?" they begged.

"Oh, alright," gave in Joey, yawning.  He sat upright in his bed and rubbed at his eyes.  "I'm up."

"Good," said Jesse, clapping his hands together and climbing out of Joey's bed.  "Oh, and if you want breakfast, you'd better get downstairs fast," he added, after picking up the twins, and proceeding to exit the room.

Upon hearing Jesse's last remark, Joey quickly got out of bed and rushed downstairs.

He entered the kitchen to see Danny, the girls, and Becky already eating pancakes.  "'Morning, Joey," they greeted, in-between bites.

"How did you sleep?" asked Becky.

"Good, you know, until the very end," he replied, glaring at Jesse, who was innocently sitting his sons down in their chairs.

"Well, at least they got you up," remarked Danny, "or else we would never have gotten out of here before all of the tourists took over the beach."  He said the word "tourists" as though he was almost too disgusted to say it.

Joey sat down between D.J. and Stephanie, and served himself two pancakes.  "I'm so excited about today," grinned Stephanie, taking a sip of orange juice. 

"Me too; who knows, maybe I'll bee someone there," said D.J., smiling.

"Now, by 'someone,' you're referring to a friend, right?" asked Danny, putting his "dad face" on.

"Yeah, sure, Dad."

"Aren't you excited, Joey?" asked Michelle.

"Oh yeah, I'm . . . enthusiastic," replied Joey, halfheartedly, clicking his teeth together.

"You don't sound excited.  Is there something wrong?" inquired Becky.

"Well," began Danny, "Joey's just a little worried because-"

"-I haven't been to the beach over summer for a long time, and I don't know how crowded it'll be," interrupted Joey.  "You know how I hate those crowds."

Danny cocked his eyebrow at Joey in question, and Joey responded with a please-don't-tell-the-kids look.  "Right," agreed Danny, nodding.  "Exactly what I was about to say."

D.J., Stephanie, and Michelle looked over at Becky, who shrugged, a perplexed look upon her face.

As Joey ate his breakfast, he began thinking about everything that could happen at the beach: he could somehow end up in the water, face-to-face with a dark shadow of a shark.  Or he could watch as one of his loved ones is attacked by a shark.

A wave of nervousness swept over him as he visualized these possibilities.  "Joey, are you okay?" asked Jesse.  "You look a little . . . anxious."

Joey snapped back into reality.  "Huh?  Oh, no, I feel . . . just fine."  Off of Jesse's worried look, he added, "I promise." 

Jesse nodded, wanting to believe his best friend, but he couldn't seem to shake off the memory of how frightened Joey had been back in Disney, and he didn't want Joey to feel that he had to come along and fear for the worst, or relive his childhood just so he wouldn't disappoint the kids.

"Well, I'd better go upstairs and get ready," stated D.J., standing up and picking up her plate and glass.

As D.J. placed her dishes into the sink, Stephanie said, "Yeah, me too," and stood up as well.  Michelle, without a word, got up and ran up the stairs after her sisters.

"I'll got get Nicky and Alex cleaned up," said Becky, looking at the twins, who were covered in the sweet, sticky syrup.  She picked up Alex with her left arm and Nicky with her right arm.  "Okay, do you two want to go take a bath and get a scrubbing before Kimmie comes over?" she asked the boys, as she carried them out of the kitchen.  Their reply of "Yeah!" was heard as the swinging door shut behind them.

Danny, Jesse, and Joey began cleaning up the dirty dishes from the table, quietly.  Danny broke their unusual silence with a question: "So, Joey, why did you not want me to tell the others about your, you know, phobia about the beach today?"
Joey shook his head.  "I don't know, Dan, I just don't want to ruin the trip for them."

"Well, wouldn't it be better if they did know?" wondered Jesse, drying off a plate.  "I mean, then they wouldn't pressure you to get into the water."

Joey put a clean glass into the cabinet before responding.  "That's probably true, but I'm not going to worry about it."

"Really, you're not going to let your fears bother you?" asked Danny, in an amazed voice.

"No, I meant that I'm not going to worry about the girls trying to force me into the water," Joey replied, gesturing with his hands for impact.  "I'm sure that they'll respect me if I tell them that I don't want to get into the water."  Danny and Jesse gave him a knowing look.  "Well, maybe not 'respect me,' in a sense, but at least they'll leave me alone."

"Maybe, but don't get your hopes up, okay Joe?" remarked Jesse.

"Yeah, trust me; my daughters will stop it nothing to get everyone wet."  He let out a chuckle. "I remember, this one time with Pam, before Michelle was born, when we took D.J. and Stephanie to the beach.  Pam and I told the girls that we didn't want to swim, so they filled their little buckets up with ocean water, snuck up behind us, and dumped the water all over us."  He chuckled again.  "God, I miss her," he mumbled, quietly.

"Well, I'm going to go change," said Jesse, quickly changing the subject, as he noticed the sorrow that was showing on his brother-in-law's face.  He put the last dish into the cabinet and closed the doors.

As Jesse left the kitchen, Danny turned to his best friend, who was drumming his fingers nervously on the count and staring off into space.  "Umm, Joey?" he began, leaning against the refrigerator.  "Are you absolutely positive that you want to come along with us?"

Joey opened his mouth, and then closed it.  When he opened his mouth again, he said unsurely, "Yeah, I can't disappoint your girls."

"They'd get over it.  You could stay home and watch the twins.  I'd rather not have Gibbler come over again.  The last time she watched Nicky and Alex, I came home to find about three pounds of sand on the kitchen floor."  He winced as he remembered that day.  "Apparently, Nicky and Alex wanted a sandbox.  Exactly how they had gotten the sand, I'm still not sure about." 

Danny's gaze drifted back to Joey, who was staring back at him, a confused look on his face.  "Right," he said, turning around and going quickly up the stairs. 

As he entered his bedroom, he pushed his door shut with a *click*.  He opened the bottom door of his dresser and pulled out a red bathing suit.  He sat down on his bed and took off his shoes.  But, instead of continuing to get undressed, he laid on his back and stared at the ceiling.  "Just don't think about it," he told himself.  "Just think about the great day we're going to have."

But it won't be a great day if you or someone else gets attacked a faint voice in the back of his head told him.  He shook his head, attempting to rid his mind of that voice: the voice of fear, the voice of worry.

His head snapped up as someone pounded on his door.  "Joey!" called out Stephanie.  "Are you almost ready?" 
He took a deep breath.  "Yeah, I'll be right out."

Not one minute later, Joey came down the stairs.  He saw the family standing at the front door, all of them looking back up at him.  "Are you guys . . . ready to go?" he asked, nearly getting caught on his own voice.  He could feel his heart pounding, but refused to think about what the news report had said the day before.  'Maybe the shark went away,' he thought, hopefully.  'Maybe it, I don't know, died.'

"Almost, we're waiting for Kimmie," replied D.J.

About five seconds after her reply, there was a knock at the door.  Danny, who was standing nearest to the door, opened it to reveal a smiling Kimmie.  "Hey Tanners," she greeted.

Danny, a half-smile on his face and an angry gleam in his eyes, grunted in reply.  "Aw, come on, D," said Kimmie, giving him a playful punch on the arm, "you're not still mad about the whole 'sandbox in the kitchen' incident, are you?"

"Kimmie, I spent four hours in the kitchen with the vacuum that day," he replied.

"So, you forgive me, then?"

Danny sighed.  "Yeah."

As she walked towards the couch, where the twins were sitting, she leaned in to whisper something to D.J.:  "Don't worry; I'm not mad that you didn't invite me to the beach.  After today, I'll be able to afford that perm I've been saving up for."  She nodded for effect, and sat down in-between Nicky and Alex.  "So guys," she said, looking back and forth from the two, "what do you want to do today?"

"Sandbox!" they cried, throwing their arms into the air.

Kimmie laughed nervously, glancing at Danny, who had a look that was either expressing horror or anger.  "Umm, don't you guys have to go?" asked Kimmie, her nervous smile frozen onto her face.

"Yeah," D.J. replied, quickly.  "Let's go."

The seven of them went outside and walked up to the car and began to load their belongings into the trunk. 

As they began to get inside the car (Becky and D.J. in the back, Stephanie, Joey, and Michelle in the middle, and Danny and Jesse in the front), Joey had to keep telling himself, "Nothing will happen," but a nagging thought in the back of his mind made him feel that he was wrong . . . that something was going to happen.  "Nothing will happen."

To Be Continued . . .

A/N-What will happen?!  Dun dun dun!  *Ahem* I know that last time I said "ten reviews" but I'm not going to worry about it this time.  But do review!!!  I await them anxiously!