Chapter 32 – Kiddy watch
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"Elliott, how many times do I have to tell you? Don't' hit your cousin with that thing!"

"Is my!" the little boy declared stubbornly. "…and I say I can!" he reasoned in his skewered toddler logic and then clutched his plastic toy shovel to his chest.

"Well, I say you can't!" Bella insisted, standing her ground. "You can't just run around hitting people. That's not very nice! What if he gets hurt, or what if he starts hitting you back?"

This caused Elliott to stomp his feet in the snow in a frustrated manner. And then he pouted, sticking his lips out in a sulk…. too cute… He looked like the Michelin Man in his down jacket, matching pants, and snow boots. Adorable yes, but utterly untamable at the moment.

How she had been roped into babysitting duty was beyond Bella, well no it wasn't… she knew exactly how it had happened. 1) she was terrible at shoveling snow and 2) the snow was too heavy for her injured arm and 3) even if her arm had been up to par, Dr. C pretty much had it twisted behind her back… ugh… so kiddy watching it was.

Just then she was pulled from her musings by a sudden smack to her shin. "Ouch! What the bloody he…ck!" she exclaimed as she bent down to pry the shovel from the child. This time she didn't hesitate; the plastic ninja weapon had to go!

Her movement was a little too abrupt though, sending Elliott toppling over, falling to his knees.

"Gosh, I'm sorry kiddo!" she rushed to help him up. "No hitting, no kicking, no biting, okay? If you don't start listen to me, I'll have to…I'll…" she trailed off not sure how to continue. Both Elliott and Anthony were watching with big eyes, waiting for her to crack.

What did one threaten a toddler with? Time out? Naughty corner? Revoked video-game privileges? Maybe making threats was the wrong approach to begin with? Maybe… ah, Santa! She'd definitely heard Emmett pull the Santa card just the other day.

It was worth a shot, she decided. "You, know what, Elliott? If you don't start listen to me, we might have to have a word with Santa about this!"

Elliott blinked, then blinked again. "Santa say no hitting?" he finally said in a questioning, hesitant voice.

"Yep, Santa doesn't like it when you hit your cousin like that."

"Santa is no fun," he decided with a grumpy frown on his face

"Santa says no hitting, no kicking, no biting, but I've heard that there is one thing Santa really, REALLY, likes and absolutely approves of. You know what that is?" She lowered her voice in a sing-song fashion. "A big ol' snow fight with bucket loads of snowballs!"

"Snowbaws?"

"You bet! I have two buckets right here, lets fill them with snowballs!" Bella suggested, fetching the rest of the toys that came from the same sand toy set as the plastic shovels.

"An then we tow?"

"Ah, yes, but it's throw, Elliott, not tow…. throw. First we make snowballs and then we wait right here until your daddy or uncle Eddie walks by. And then, when they least suspect it, we jump out and throw our snowballs at them."

"At daddy?" the boy giggled. "We tow at my daddy?"

"At anyone that walks by," Bella promised. "What do you say Anthony, do you want to come over here and help us make snowballs?" she asked, raising her voice and craning her neck to locate the other little boy. She knew he was close by, she could hear the telltale sound of plastic rubbing plastic and knew it came from the waterproof dungarees he was wearing.

Rosalie had been foreseeing enough to pack a variety of clothes for Elliott and even though they didn't exactly fit well on Anthony's slim frame, it wasn't anything a little duct tape couldn't fix.

"This way Anthony! We're over here!" she coed at the boy, trying to convince him to come closer by offering him one of the colorful plastic buckets. He was hesitant and she didn't blame him. Shovel or no shovel, Elliott could throw a mean punch.

"No Tony," Elliott protested, wedging himself in between Bella and the other little boy, making sure no toys were passed on to his cousin. "Only Ellie and Belly have!" he demanded, sticking his nose in the air.

"Ellie and Belly, eh? You're funny!" Bella mock-laughed, internally cursing the 'Jelly Belly' nickname Emmett had given her. The old coat that Esme had lend her was spacious, but that didn't stop her from feeling self-conscious and paranoid. Before she could mull on it any further though, Elliott made another lunge for the plastic bucket in her hand, causing her to nearly lose her balance.

"Hey now, stop that! Seriously kiddo, we are going to need all the help we can get! Have you seen the size of your dad? He is big. We'll need lots and lots of snowballs to take him down."

At this, the boy looked like he contemplated his options for a moment, then he relented, "Tony make baws?" he asked, reaching his hand out in his cousins direction, as if to wave him over.

Now there was a true Kodak moment, if there ever was one.

Anthony still looked uncertain, but he allowed Bella to take his hand. "Come, help us make some snowballs, Tony! We can throw some snow at your daddy too!"

"Edda?" Anthony asked, inching closer.

"Yes, your daddy," Bella confirmed. "We'll get him too, I promise."

"Ootay," the boy nodded, as if that settled everything.

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xXxXxXx

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"Wait…You're thigh deep in what?" Seth Clearwater asked, sounding confused.

"SNOW," Bella repeated impatiently. "I'm literally thigh deep in snow right now. The weather has been crazy up here, haven't you heard?" she asked, wedging the phone between her shoulder and cheek so that she could shove her hands back into her mittens.

"No, I hadn't heard that. Maybe because I haven't heard from you in days, partner," Seth complained, drawing the word 'partner' out into several syllables. "Just so you know, your pile of mail has taken on epic proportions and your plats have long since browned and shriveled. Oh and I'm pretty sure your mother is looking for you."

"Great, that would explain why my inboxes are flooded with voicemails and texts messages. In my defense though, I haven't had cell phone reception in over 20 hours."

"So… you've been like snowed in or something? In Seattle, with Cullen and his kid?"

"We're in Forks actually, with his parents and we're still pretty much stuck, not getting anywhere because of the snow."

"Really? With his parents? How's that going? Awkward, I bet?"

"Something like that, yeah," she muttered, kicking at some snow with her boot. "Let's talk about something else… Have you had any luck with that 'hard-drive-device-thingy' I so kindly presented you with the other week?"

"Please what do you take me for? An amateur?"

"My bad! Let's hear it then. I'm all ears," she prompted.

"Well, remember how I explained that each row in the database represents an appointment made at the clinic during a specific period of time?"

"Sure. Didn't you say the time frame spans over the first two quarters of last year? "

"Exactly, and for each row in the database, or appointment, if you so like, there is a social security number and a birth date attached. The encryption on those are slightly more complex, but I'm working on it. It's nothing I can't crack. However, I'm not even sure we need them at this point."

"Why is that?"

"Because each row also comes with a name and a phone number; information that I've already managed to decode."

"That's great, but without the birth date there is no way of telling if the patient is a child or not, right? Or did I miss something?"

"Well, it's pretty straight forward. If the patient is a minor, there is a second name listed along with the patients name, which I would assume belong to a parent or a guardian."

"Okay, yeah, that sounds logical. Can you tell if any of the children are uninsured or if any of them are missing a permanent address or a SSN?"

"I've found no insurance information at all, but there are quite a few blank spaces, quite a few appointments where either a social security number, or an address, or both are missing. There are also several 'Anthonys' and Tonys' listed, by the way, if that is any help."

"What about the nature of each appointment? Any clues there?"

"No, but each row, or appointment, is marked with a set of initials, like perhaps a signature that might belong to an attending physician or nurse practitioner."

"Right, make a list of all of those initials for me and I'll look into it. Actually, send over everything you got and I'll run a cross reference with the rest of the information I have gathered to this point."

"You do realize most people prefers quality time with family and friends over work during the holidays, right?"

"I'm sorry…. am I keeping you from something? Other than your pre-holiday drinking binge, I mean?"

"Ha-ha…. Nah, there will be plenty of time for that. It's the last minute Christmas shopping I'm worried abo-"

"Hey! Stop that!"

"What? Girls are hard to shop for."

"Crap! I said no hitting, no kicking, no biting!"

"Eh, what the hell?"

"Sorry, that wasn't directed at you, Seth. Listen, I have to go. I have two toddlers crawling on top of each other, fighting over God knows what. I need to go pull them apart."

"Ooookay… Go do your thing Swan. I'll call you again in a few hours."

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xXxXxXx

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"Elliott William McCarthy Cullen! That is no way to threat your cousin!"

The voice came out of nowhere, but neither Bella nor Elliott needed to turn around to know who had spoken.

"Mommy?"

"Rosalie? Where did you come from?"

"You look like you have your hands full, Isabella. Let me help you with this one!" Rosalie suggested, swiftly lifting her son off the snow covered ground and into her arms in one deft swing.

"Thanks! One slippery, wiggly toddler I can manage, but not a tag team match with two." Bella sighed as she grabbed a hold of Anthony's jacket and pulled him to his feet. He was making whiny, growly noises and there was an angry, red scratch mark on his cheek to match the black eye he was already sporting, but other than that he appeared to be in good fighting spirit, as did his cousin. No harm done this time, thankfully…

"So this is what Edwards spawn looks like?" Rosalie stated, squinting down at boy, who was clinging to Bella's legs. "Alice has been driving me nuts with her nonstop yapping about this boy wonder."

"I don't blame her. Anthony is one handsome little fellow, as I'm sure you can see," Bella laughed, pulling the child's hat off his head, so that Rosalie could get the full scope.

"My, my… Alice wasn't lying. He's like a clone of his dumbass of a father, save for his coloring."

Bella ruffled the boy's hair before she covered it up again. "Don't be so hard on Edward, he's really trying."

"Is he? Really?" Rosalie snorted, raising a well-manicured eyebrow. "Because that's not the impression I've gotten."

"Yes, really. It's a work in progress obviously, because maturity and compassion don't just occur overnight. I can see a difference though. I can tell he is working on it."

"Look at you, rushing to defend him! You still have the hots for him! That's the other thing Alice wouldn't stop yapping about."

Bella made a grimace that was half a frown and half a smile. "You know Alice, she talks way too much. Where is she by the way?" she inquired. The thought of coming face to face with Edward's all-knowing, all seeing sister made her nerves a bit jittery. "I didn't hear a car, but you must have driven here together, right?"

"Nice change of subject there, very subtle," Rosalie smirked, bouncing a squirming Elliott on her hip. "You didn't hear a car because there was no car. We got here on foot."

"Yeah, right… You walked here all the way from Portland? I find that hard to believe!"

"Not all the way, obviously. Let's see… we started off hitching a ride with a big, sturdy plow truck, which proved to be very fortunate because the interstate was bumper-to-bumper with all that ice and snow. Then we switched to a wan in Rochester and finally a regular cab for the last hour of the drive. Or what we thought was going to be the last hour of the drive…We only got as far as the Tyne creak. The old bridge was damaged and there were fallen, uprooted trees left and right. We had to send the cab off and trudge through the snow on foot from there. It took an hour and a half. "

"That's quite a walk. What about the other two? Am I to assume they didn't make it?"

"Ha…who knows? They were right behind me, but I suspect Esme might have gotten to them." Rosalie shrugged, her blonde hair bobbing along with her movements." I heard the calls, but I didn't feel like stopping. I just wanted to get to my baby, " she paused to plant a noisy kiss on the end of Elliott's nose. "…and now, all I wanna do is get inside so that I can start to defrost and maybe get some feelings back in my toes."

"Ah, don't let me keep you from that." Bella said, urging her on with a smile. "Toes are important."

"Yep, my feet won't look good in sandals without them." Rosalie laughed, waving over her shoulder. "We'll talk more later. Oh and Bella, you look good with a little bit of color on your cheeks and some meat on your bones. I guess Eddie is actually doing something right for once, and I'm not talking about his mad takeout ordering skills," she winked, before taking off down the path leading to the house.

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xXxXxXx

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