Xander drifted somewhere between asleep and awake. She knew she was in her bed with her face buried into her pillow, with one pointy ear poking above the covers. She was vaguely aware of filtered light shining in from the window, the hum of the ceiling fan as it spun above her. But she wavered in and out of this consciousness, her eyes fluttering beneath her lids like moth wings. Xander could have chosen whether to get up or go back sleep just as easily. Her bed felt soft and smooth and cool and perfect beneath her, so she let go of consciousness and sank like a stone into the warm embrace of sleep.

But just as she’d begun to snore again, a tiny sound pulled her back, her lone ear twitching above the covers. Xander’s eyes creaked open like rickety wooden doors and she winced at the light coming from the window. Once her sight had adjusted, her attention drifted to the figures standing beneath the window, a pair of three foot tall silhouettes with tall, pointy ears and fluffy tails that looked very similar to her own. One of the pups quietly padded forward, not realizing Xander was awake, and gently tugged on the bedsheets while whispering so loud it was like she wasn’t even trying to be quiet.

“Mama,” Aurora hissed, cupping her hands around her mouth. She shuffled closer until her paws barely touched the carpet and her torso was draped over the mattress. She was barely an inch away from Xander’s face when she whispered again “Ma-ma” more intently. Xander groaned deeply in her chest and huffed as she rubbed sleep from her eyes. When she opened them, the first thing she saw was her daughter’s nose inches away from her face and the blur of her tail wagging furiously behind her.

“Mama!” Aurora squealed, kicking her legs in the air behind her.
“Good morning, baby,” Xander tried to say, but what came out of her mouth was more along the lines of ‘Gud morfin, bubby.’ She pulled the covers off of her face and shifted higher on her pillows to see. While her daughter Aurora was excitedly perched on the edge of the bed like a bird, her tail wagging furiously, her twin brother Rox stood against the wall a few feet away, wringing his tail in his hands anxiously. Xander remembered how uncomfortable she always felt waking people up in the morning and recognized the feeling in her son. She pulled her hand out from the covers and beckoned him closer. She’d learned that Rox often preferred to wait until someone had given him direct permission to do something before he actually did it.

The small pup relaxed and let go of his tail as he ran forward and began to climb onto the bed next to his mother. As he attempted to climb over Xander, he accidentally pressed a fist into her sensitive stomach.
“Whoa, whoa, be careful baby,” Xander said, catching Rox by the chest and lifting him over to her right side. As she did, she glanced to the second set of pillows and found them empty. Ethan must have already gotten up. It used to be that Xander would wake up hours ahead of her husband, but since the conception of their twins, she made up the time she spent awake at night by sleeping in late into the early afternoon. Rox flopped onto his back harmlessly on the bed, then crawled to his knees and sat up against Xander’s back, looking down on her.

“Mama!” Aurora said excitedly, hopping from the bed to the floor effortlessly. “We’re gonna see the fishes?” She scrambled around on the floor, too excited to keep still. Xander blinked, then turned and looked up at Rox, who was smiling himself and wagging his tail as well.
“Can we see the fish?” he asked in his soft voice. Xander smiled and scratched behind Rox’s ears before sighing apologetically at Aurora.

“Aurora, sweetie, the aquarium doesn’t open until next month. The fish aren’t…” Xander blinked, cocking her head to the side as she counted back the dates she’d mixed up in her head. Reaching to her bedside table, she fumbled for her cell phone, only to drop it to the floor the moment after she unplugged it. Xander groaned at the thought of having to get up and fish under the bed for it, but Aurora helpfully dropped to her knees and passed the phone up to her mother.

“I knew there was a good reason to keep you around,” Xander joked as she affectionately scratched her daughter under her chin. Xander blinked at the light of her phone and winced as she scrolled to her calendar. For the next three weeks, a long pink band stretched across the calendar marked ‘Maternity Leave,’ for which she’d totally cleared her schedule for. But one forgotten note she’d made almost a year ago stood out above it, reading ‘Aquarium Opens.’ As soon as she’d heard about it, Xander promised the twins she’d take them when it opened. Of course, this was almost a full year ago, before she’d even met Ethan, before she’d married Ethan, and well, well before she and Ethan had conceived the twin girls that Xander was nine months pregnant with at that very moment.

“Oh,” Xander blinked, setting the phone down next to her head. “I guess…I guess it is open today.” She paused, glancing at Aurora and Rox and the excited looks on their faces she couldn’t possibly say ‘no’ to. She sighed and picked up her glasses from the bedside table before saying, “Give me some time to get ready.”
This was enough of an agreement to send the twins into excited frenzies. Thankfully, they took their excited rampage out into the hallway and pulled the bedroom door behind them shut. Xander listened to their muffled voices fade away into the living room before sighing and flopping back into her pillow. The time on her phone read 9:49am, so at least the Dynamic Duo had waited almost an hour after they usually woke up in the morning.

Xander grasped the edge of her bedspread and threw it back like a curtain, revealing beneath the heavy, full-sized pregnant belly that swelled off of her. Her night shirt, which had served her well through her first pregnancy, barely reached her navel, which had popped out into what Ethan affectionately called her ‘oven timer.’ She tugged down on it instinctively, then wondered why she even bothered as she slid her palm over the taut surface of her belly. Her fur was stretched to its limit and was thin enough to show the stretch marks beneath it on her pink skin. Xander was endlessly embarrassed at the sight of them, hoping and praying she could find something to cover her entire belly so they couldn’t be seen in public. Ethan, like he did with many of his wife’s insecurities, paid special attention to her stretch marks, kissing them and calling them Xander’s ‘Mommy Scars.’ If soldiers could be proud of their battle scars, he reasoned, then mothers should be proud of the marks and scars that having children had given them. She liked them more than the other scars she had, that was for certain.

One of the girls in her womb stirred, sliding a paw against the inside of Xander’s belly. They’d gotten big enough that she could feel every tiny movement the two of them made, even as they thankfully moved less than before. Despite the girls being heavy enough to cripple a smaller woman, Xander preferred the more calm stages of the third trimester than the kick-a-thon that was the second. But even then, Xander always cherished the feeling of a pup in her belly, both the good and the bad. She never felt happier than when a pup or two poked her from the inside, as if to let her know they were doing alright and were safe and sound in their mother’s tummy.

Xander rolled over and kicked the covers away from her paws, stretching them out as best she could. It was the only moment of the day they wouldn’t be sore, so she enjoyed the feeling for as long as possible before climbing out of bed and putting weight on them. As she sat up on the bed, gravity did its dirty work and pulled her heavy belly toward the floor. The girls had dropped a few weeks ago and were riding low in Xander’s hips, giving her the slight waddle she’d managed to avoid through most of the pregnancy.

“Whew...okay…” Xander said to herself as she sat on the side of the bed. She braced her hands on either side of her and tensed her muscles in preparation. “One…two...three.” On cue, she pushed herself off the bed, her heavy weight settling onto her sore paws and hips. She took a few steps to regain her balance and swayed in place as she waited for blood to flow into her legs. Xander loved having children, and all that came with it, but the late-term stages were not among her favorite times to be pregnant.
Xander was a large woman, even when she wasn’t carrying. Well over six feet tall and curvy where it counted, her body was well-built for pregnancy and she hadn’t had much trouble in carrying Rox and Aurora to term. Of course, they had a different father than the twin girls in her belly. The downside of having children with Ethan, one of the only men she could look eye-to-eye with, was that the two of them made extra-large pups to match. At 34 weeks, the physical strain of such a large pregnancy finally caught up to Xander, leaving her tired and sore while feeling bloated and huge and unapproachable. She would let the girls come in their own time, but she quietly hoped it would be soon.

Tugging off her night shirt, Xander hobbled to the bathroom, her body swaying under the heavy weight. She was almost afraid to turn on the light as she padded onto the tile floor, but flipped it on anyway, catching sight of her reflection in the mirror. Cocking her head to the side, Xander turned and stood in profile before her reflection. She felt like crap, but paradoxically loved the way she looked. Other than the stretch marks striping up her lower belly, Xander adored the sight of herself so heavily pregnant and maternal. Her first experience had been stressful, as the bigger Rox and Aurora grew inside her, the closer Xander was to her life as a single mother struggling to raise a pair of twins. But since meeting and marrying Ethan, she’d finally gotten time to enjoy her changing body, admitting to herself how much she loved the sight of a heavy baby belly filling her out. In fact, after she’d given birth and returned to her old trim self, she found herself missing the feeling of something to touch and rest her hands on, not to mention the stirring sensation of pups so close to her.

Standing in front of the sink, she squeezed toothpaste onto her brush and began scrubbing the morning breath out of her mouth. As she did, she wet a nearby washcloth and prepared to wipe off the foam that would inevitably fall onto her protruding middle. Sure enough, as she brushed her teeth, more than a few flecks of white dripped off the end of the brush and fell on the curve of her stomach, which she wiped off without a second thought. After finishing, she turned to the side and spat toward the sink. Xander was far too big to bend over, so she had to aim for the center of the sink and spit from her full height. She missed, of course, sending half of the toothpaste splattering on the counter. She growled to herself and grumbled impatiently as she wiped it up with the washcloth.

Finally feeling halfway presentable, Xander left the bedroom and padded down the hall to the living room. Aurora was playing with blocks on the carpet while Rox simply watched with his tail in his hands. In the corner of the room, at his desk, was Ethan working on his laptop, while paradoxically wearing a button-down shirt on his torso and nothing but his boxers beneath it. The moment Xander entered the room, Aurora and her brother glanced up at the movement and excitedly sprinted toward their mother. Ethan spun in his chair at the movement and stood up to intercept them.

“Hey hey hey...Guys, you gotta be gentle with your mom, okay?” He said calmly as he caught Aurora by the shoulder. He turned up and Xander and smiled, his teeth and eyes sparkling like a movie star’s. “She’s got precious cargo.”
Xander blushed, wagging her tail and wringing her hands together. After two years, she still turned into a stammering, starstruck teenager whenever Ethan looked at her like that. As Ethan stood, he walked his fingers up the swell of her belly like spider legs and kissed her once he was at his full height.
“Morning, mama,” Ethan said, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her as close as she could get with her stomach in the way. “You’re up early. Did the girls do that?”
“The Dynamic Duo, actually,” Xander nodded to the twins behind him. “Couldn’t wait long enough for me to get up, I guess.”
“I’ll talk to them about it,” Ethan said. He backed away and pulled on her sweatshirt. “Sporty. Where’d this come from?”
“Baby shower gift from Roxy,” Xander giggled, pulling the fabric down over her belly. “Something fits me at full term, for once.”

“It’s even got a pocket!” Ethan remarked, wiggling his hand into the sleeve on the front of the sweatshirt. “You can fit…well okay, you can’t really fit anything in here, huh?” Ethan smiled, wiggling his hand to demonstrate how little room was available against Xander’s taut middle.
“Maybe a pen or something,” Xander said. “You’re working at home today?” She turned and glanced down at his furry legs. “Or is this a ‘no pants’ day?”
“Yes, I am working at home,” Ethan said. He stuck his fingers in the waistband of his boxers and snapped the elastic. “But even if work needs to video chat, it’s not like they’ll see below the belt anyway!”
“You’ll take every opportunity to go pants-less, won’t you?” Xander teased.
“In my home with my kids and my wife carrying my girls?” Ethan said, sliding closer to kiss Xander again with her belly in his hands. “You’d better believe it.”

“Ethan…” Xander giggled as she melted beneath the touch of her husband’s hands on her pregnant body, only inches away from the twin pups he’d put in her. He was proud of how she looked carrying his pups and she was proud to do it for him. She seemed to fall more in love with him every single day and felt it with every stirring of the pups inside her.
“Where you headed to?” Ethan asked, stepping back to look at Xander. “Aren’t you on leave?”
“I am…” Xander sighed wearily, shifting her heavy weight from paw-to-paw. “But I promised the kids I’d take them to the new aquarium when it opens. And…well, it finally did.”
“When did you tell them this?” Ethan asked, folding his arms over his chest.
“When the thing was announced. About a year ago now.” Xander sighed and touched her round middle. “It seems so long ago now…”
“I guess it does,” Ethan said, frowning. He sighed and slicked his hair back before speaking softly so Rox and Aurora couldn’t overhear. “Babe, you can’t go out with the kids, not in your condition. I can barely keep up with them myself, and I’m not pregnant.”

“They’re my kids, I can handle it,” Xander shrugged. She’d raised the twins by herself for the first years of their lives and was confident in her ability to handle whatever they threw at her.
“I know you can, Xander, you’re mom of the century here,” Ethan sighed. “And…maybe even a few months ago I wouldn’t have worried, but now? You’re due in a week. With another pair of twins. That’s an accident just waiting to happen, and I don’t think you wanna have our girls next to the snack counter.”
“You’re being dramatic,” Xander sighed, planting her hands on her hips.
“Am I, though?” Ethan continued, raising an eyebrow. “Twins very rarely make it all the way to term. You should probably be on birth-watch already.”

“The two of them did,” Xander pointed out, nodding in the direction of Rox and Aurora. Rox was staring at the blocks in his lap, but Aurora was watching intently as her mother and Ethan talked in hushed voices. “I was overdue by two weeks, and it was my first pregnancy. My mom was overdue with Alex and I, too. It’s genetic.” She cradled her belly and held up three fingers, counting each of them down. “Big pups. Twins. Going past term.”
“Two out of three isn’t bad,” Ethan joked, circling his hands over Xander’s tummy affectionately, but sighing as he looked her in the eyes. “You can see why I’m worried, right? This might not be your first rodeo, but it is mine.”
“I already told them I’d take them, though.”
“But you didn’t know you’d be nine months pregnant with another pair of twins, either. It’s not your fault.” Ethan chuckled and looked down at his wife’s stomach and added, “Maybe I should have checked your schedule before knocking you up, huh?”

“Shut up,” Xander snickered, rolling her eyes.
“But really…Xander, I’m not just being paranoid am I? Don’t you see how dangerous this is?”
“I do…And…Well, it’s not that I’m not nervous,” Xander said. She laughed to herself, her middle shaking a bit as she did. “I mean, when am I not nervous, right? But I promised them, Ethan. I know it’s a little thing, and maybe it isn’t a good idea for me to go running around with I’m so close to my due date, but I promised. And if I can’t keep a promise to my own kids, then what good is my word, anyway?”
Ethan paused, looking at Xander deeply in the eyes. He folded his ears back and smiled broadly, his tail wagging through the back of his boxers.
“That might be the only thing you could’ve said to change my mind,” Ethan sighed, admitting defeat. “I still don’t like it…But I understand. You know your body better than I do, anyway.”
“That’s debatable,” Xander said quietly in a sultry voice, wrapping her fingers between his and guiding his hand over her belly.

“Xander,” Ethan hissed, shuffling in place uncomfortably and pulling the front of his shirt down. “The kids are in here and I’m wearing boxers.”
“Oh, right,” Xander giggled, stepping back and letting her flustered husband compose himself. “I’m not saying I’ll be having the time of my life today,” Xander said, her hands clasped under her belly. “But I’ll be careful. I promise.”
“Be better than careful,” Ethan said. He crossed over to his desk in the corner and held up his cell phone. “I’m going to call you once an hour to make sure you’re okay, so keep your phone on and charged, okay?”
“You’re definitely starting to sound like a dad,” Xander sighed, folding her ears back in annoyance.
“Sorry. I’m just being protective,” Ethan said, putting his phone down. “But please be safe, Xander.”
“I will. I promise,” Xander smiled, touching her belly. “I’ll be back later this afternoon with the twins still inside me. Count on it.”

“I believe you,” Ethan said. He padded across the room and leaned over her stomach to kiss Xander on the lips, then affectionately lick her cheek. “You’re a great mom.”
“Well, yknow…” Xander blushed, her tail wagging. “I try to be.”
“You succeed,” Ethan said. He reached down at stroked her belly and added, “Make sure the Girls stay put in there.”
“They’re comfortable,” Xander said. “I don’t think they want out any time soon.” She bit her lip and folded her ears back bashfully and asked, “Um…Can I take your car today?”
“Yeah, sure,” Ethan said, cocking his head to the side curiously. “Why? Is something wrong with yours? I can take it to the shop while you’re out.”
“No, it’s running fine. But I…” Xander swallowed and muttered quietly, “I can’t really…fit. In my car. Right now.” She glanced aside while Ethan smirked and nodded.
“Big puppies, right?” he nodded. “I’ll get my keys. You need something to eat before you go?”
“I don’t, but the snack bag I made above the stove,” Xander said, gesturing to the cabinet above them. “For both sets of twins.”

“Can you tell when the girls get hungry?” Ethan asked as he reached to the cabinet and removed the plastic bag from inside.
“I can tell when they get…kicky,” Xander said. “Food usually does the trick.”
“You guys have fun,” Ethan said as he leaned over the counter to pass his wife the bag of snacks. “Try not to fall into the water.”
“I think I’ll be too busy keeping my daughter from wanting to climb in herself,” Xander joked. She picked up her purse from the counter and tucked the bag of snacks inside. After asking Ethan to run to the bedroom for her phone, she turned to the Dynamic Duo. Aurora was already standing next to the couch and walking in place, excitedly picking up cues that they were about to leave. Rox was still playing with blocks quietly on the floor. It was behavior that worried Ethan, but Xander herself recognized instantly.

“You guys ready to go see the fishes?” Xander asked. Aurora shivered in barely contained joy and wagged her tail hard enough that it thumped loudly against the side of the couch. She hopped in place and flailed her arms in such wild enthusiasm, Xander didn’t know how a simple building full of fish could compare to the expectation. Aurora spun on her paw and ran to her twin brother, crouching beside him and holding up one of his pointy ears to whisper into it. He glanced up slowly and blinked to his mother, a broad smile cracking on his face as he stood and ran to her.
After taking her phone, the keys, a quick rub to her belly, and a kiss goodbye from Ethan, the three of them left the house through the front door and passed into the bright light of a sunny spring morning. Xander winced at the sun, adjusting her glasses and wishing she had flip-down shades for them, no matter how stupid they looked. She worried about the hoodie she wore, but it seemed to breathe in the air easily.

“Daddy’s car, daddy’s car,” Xander called out as Rox and Aurora ran to the back door of her sedan. The twins then hopped across the driveway to Ethan’s SUV and climbed in themselves, scaling the high seats like climbing a mountain. Xander herself had difficulty pulling herself into the seat, even as tall as she was, but after a few minutes of grunting and groaning, was able to drag her pregnant self into the driver’s seat and shut the door behind her, cranking the air conditioning as fast as she could start the ignition.
“Seatbelts on?” she called into the back seat. The twins were technically supposed to be in car seats, but even at age two, they were a good foot and a half taller than other kids their age and couldn’t fit in the regular seats, so they made do with booster seats meant for kids at least two years older. Xander watched in the rear-view mirror as Rox quietly and dutifully clicked his seatbelt on, but Aurora simply pulled hers down and tucked it under her arm.

“Aurora.” Xander said, deepening her voice. “We aren’t going anywhere without your seatbelt on.”
“Mommy,” she whined. Xander turned off the car and glanced around into the backseat, a stern look on her face. Under the gaze of her mother, Aurora quietly pulled the seatbelt down and clicked it closed. Xander nodded in approval before turning back in her seat, only to struggle with her own seatbelt. She blushed as she realized there was only barely enough room for it to reach around her swollen belly, but not enough to actually latch into the buckle. Xander tugged on it desperately for a few seconds to no avail, eventually discovering that she could simply tuck it beneath her heavy middle to barely reach the buckle on her right side. She huffed a sigh of relief before pulling out of the driveway.
Xander struggled to get comfortable as they drove through the neighborhood, adjusting and re-adjusting her seat to somehow accommodate both her long legs and pregnant stomach evenly. It had been a while since she’d driven anywhere, and the last time she’d been in her own car, she’d been able to settle back at least semi-comfortably with her rounded tummy settling in her hips. The third trimester wasn’t proving to be as forgiving; as far back as Xander could move the driver’s seat, the front of her stomach still touched the steering wheel, which felt sensitive and uncomfortable even beneath the comfortable sweatshirt. A sharp tapping thudded out from the right side of her belly as one of the girls inside squirmed and kicked in protest.

“Don’t you even start,” Xander warned her unborn twins.
By the time they made it to the highway, Xander had at least gotten used to her uncomfortable seating enough to simply ignore it. Aurora and Rox were chatting and singing and talking nonsensically in the back seat. Xander took every few seconds to flit her eyes toward the mirror to check the two of them weren’t fighting. As rare as that was, it was more likely to happen in the car than anywhere else.

“Mommy?” Aurora asked, pushing her feet on the back of Xander’s chair.
“Yes, baby?”
“Why…why is your tummy so big?” Aurora asked, fighting back giggles as she asked. Xander rolled her eyes. The both of them had asked that question a dozen times already and, at that point, probably just liked hearing the answer for its own sake.
“Because I’m going to have a baby soon, sweetie,” Xander said, patiently. “Two babies. Your little sisters.”
“You’re gonna…gonna have two babies?” Aurora asked.
“That’s right,” Xander nodded. “Like you and Rox. You were born at the same time.”
“Do they come out of your butt?” Aurora asked, giggling. Xander sighed. They weren’t so innocent all the time. “Are they gonna be poop babies?”
“No, Aurora,” Xander said, wearily.

Aurora started kicking her legs in her seat and making fart noises with her tongue. She turned to Rox, who was laughing to himself and began imitating her raspberries as loud as he could. Xander gripped the steering wheel and fought to tune out their shouts, but had a better idea to play into their logic.
“You know” Xander called into the back seat, “if your little sisters are going to be ‘poop babies,’ then that means you two were ‘poop babies’ first.”
The twins squealed in horror and disgust at the revelation.
“I’m not a poop baby,” Aurora declared. She turned to her brother and said, “But Rox is a poop baby.”
“No I’m not,” Rox protested with a scowl on your face.
“Neither of you are poop babies,” Xander shouted. “Your sisters won’t be either. That’s not how babies are born.”
“How are they born?” Aurora asked. Xander glanced hesitantly into the back seat, her children’s curious eyes watching her intently. She paused, opening and closing her mouth a few times. She knew she’d have to answer this question sooner than later, especially after she became pregnant again, but she still hadn’t thought of a good enough answer for them.

“Doctors,” Xander blurted out. “Doctors. Doctors take them out when they get too big.”
“Is Dr. Stein gonna take the babies out of your tummy?” Rox asked.
“He’s a dentist, sweetie,” Xander chuckled. “It takes a special doctor to do it.”
“Does it hurt?” Aurora asked, quietly.
“…It does. Sometimes,” Xander said, honestly. “But once it’s over, you feel really really good and you get to hold the baby you made, so it’s all worth it.”
There was silence from the backseat, followed by Aurora’s quiet voice.
“Are you happy we were born?” she asked.
Xander paused, glancing at the sleeves that hid the white scars going down her wrists.
“You and Rox being born is the best thing that ever happened in my whole life,” Xander said, solemnly.
“Really?” Rox asked.

“I promise,” Xander said, smiling. Without taking her eyes off the road, she rested a hand on her belly, the twins inside almost ready to be born. The birth would be hard, and it would be long, but this time, she knew the feeling of bliss that waited for her at the end, when she could finally hold her pups in her arms. In a way, she was excited for it.
They pulled off the interstate onto an exit Xander had never taken before, then followed a clean road lined with half-finished construction projects and brand-new shops and strip malls. Then, dramatic appearing over the horizon, the car crested a hill in sight of a huge, blue, angular building off in the distance that looked more like an art project than a real building.

“I think that’s it!” Xander said, stoking the twin’s excitement. She felt a nudge from her belly, as if the girls were just as ecstatic as their older siblings. Her heart fell at the sight of the long line of cars waiting to pull into the aquarium entrance. Of course it would be so crowded on its first day open. Xander knew that, but the thought of such a dense crowd of people pushing and shoving one another, yelling and shouting and screaming, hadn’t actually come to mind. She anxiety seeping into her body like sour poison in her veins.
Xander followed the line of cars into the parking lot and was eventually directed into a space toward the back of the lot. Xander swallowed at the distance she’d need to waddle with the twins in tow and rolled down her window to flag down the nearest employee in a yellow vest.

“There a problem?” said the gruff, middle-aged schnauzer, wearing a hat and sunglasses.
“I…Uhm…w-well, You wanted me to park in the back but I was w-wondering if there was anywhere…um…anywhere closer I could park?” Xander’s heart fluttered nervously.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, it’s a busy day out here,” the employee nodded as he stepped away.
“W-Wait!” Xander called out. The man sighed before taking off his sunglasses and turning impatiently in her direction. “Can I…Would it be alright if I took a handicapped space up front?”
“Are you handicapped?” the employee asked, raising his eyebrow skeptically.
“N-No, but…um…” she swallowed and took a deep breath before finishing with, “But I’m nine months pregnant with twins and I can’t walk that far.”

The canine employee blinked at her, his mouth falling open slightly. He leaned forward and stood on the tips of his paws to catch a glimpse of Xander’s heavy belly in her lap.
“Ma’am, I…I am so sorry, I didn’t realize,” the man said apologetically. He bit his bottom lip and pointed toward the front of the lot, closest to the building. “We don’t have any kind of expectant parking, but take a handicapped space and I’ll let the other employees know what’s up.”
“Thank you so much,” Xander sighed in relief as she pulled ahead. The man smiled, his rough expression seeming more warm and friendly than before.

Xander pulled around the lot, around walking families, and found a blue-marked space near the front. After turning into it, Xander turned off the car and removed the keys from the ignition, but didn’t get out right away. She took advantage of the muffled quiet inside the car that smelled like her husband and family and shut her eyes, clasping her hands together to rest atop her belly. She took slow, relaxed breaths to calm her pounding hard and relax her anxious nerves. In the back seat, Aurora and Rox quietly waited for their mother to finish, glancing at one another in confusion. Aurora was blessed with an outgoing nature, but the timid and cautious Rox, on some level, identified with his mother, even as young as he was.

“Okay,” Xander sighed, opening her eyes. Unbuckling her seatbelt, she opened the door and slowly, cautiously climbed down from the driver’s seat to the hot pavement, bracing a hand against her pregnant belly to keep her balance. From behind the window, she saw an employee of the aquarium in a vest approaching the car, likely to tell her to move it without a sticker or tag in the window. They stopped in their tracks once Xander shut the door and they caught sight of her heavy middle, then awkwardly turned away like they were headed somewhere else.
It’s got its perks, Xander thought of her baby bump, chuckling to herself.
“Stay close to me, okay?” She said to the twins once they were out of the car and at her side. “And don’t run too far ahead.” I might not be able to catch you, she finished in her head.
Rox and Aurora didn’t have anywhere to run to, as they were completely transfixed by the sight of the enormous, blue building towering above them. It was angular and almost looked like a giant church from the right angle. The twins craned their next as far back as they could, bumping into one another more than once while gazing slack-jawed up at one of the biggest buildings they’ve ever seen.

“Watch where you’re going!” Xander called out after Aurora nearly tripped over a hose belonging to a gardener a few feet away. Even with their little legs, they were easily outpacing their mother’s pregnant shuffle, even with Xander panting and huffing and moving as fast as she could to keep up with them. By the time they reached the ticket booth window, Xander was still nearly fifteen feet behind them. Fortunately, before they ran even farther ahead, Rox turned around anxiously with so many people around, then ran back to Xander and grabbed onto one of her pant legs for support. Aurora stood and waited, watching the two of them close the distance her.

“Don’t run off like that,” Xander warned in between gasps of breath. Her belly felt heavier than ever had before and the energy it took to hold both herself and the twins inside her upright was making her knees quake. They hadn’t even made it through the front door and Xander was already having doubts.
“I didn’t run off,” Aurora said back. “I was walking.”
“Well keep closer to me so I don’t lose you,” Xander said, wearily. She rubbed a sore spot on her gravid stomach, saying, “I can’t move very fast while carrying your little sisters.”

Aurora huffed impatiently, but seemed to pick up on the overwhelmed desperation on her mother’s face and kept quiet while standing next to her. Rox mumbled wordlessly and gripped Xander’s pant leg harder. She couldn’t bend down to pick him up like she normally would, but she was able to reach down and pat him affectionately on the head while taking his hand and leading the three of them in line.

While standing in the crowd, Xander caught more than a few side-eyed glanced toward her and her impressively heavy middle. She bashfully turned away each time, sighing dejectedly at the way her sweatshirt made her seem to bulge out even farther than usual. She’d spent much of her first pregnancy inside and hidden away, feeling far too vulnerable and fragile to show herself. It took the love and support of Ethan and the dedication to her children to bring her confidence back, but even as a mother of two and a soon-to-be mother of four, she still felt at times like a scared puppy when out in public.

“Good morning!” said the receptionist behind the glass, an older sheep woman with long dangling earrings and glasses.
“G’Morning,” Xander said, slurring the words together as she stood up the kiosk. Her belly was big enough to gently bump against the glass as she stepped forward and she found it necessary to crouch in order to look the woman in the eye. “Um...So-Sorry. One adult, please.”
“And two children tickets?” the woman asked, glancing at Rox and Aurora’s eyes peeking over the counter.
“Oh, uh, I thought…aren’t children free under age 3?” Xander asked. The sheep woman blinked, then sat up in her chair to glance down at Xander’s twins.
“They’re under three years old?” the woman asked, skeptically. “They look about five to me.”
“They’re two, actually,” Xander explained apologetically. Aurora tugged on Xander’s pant leg.
“Two and a half,” she corrected.
“I promise, they aren’t even three yet. We’re just…um…” Xander smiled awkwardly and patted her pregnant belly. “We’re a big family.”

The woman stared at her for a moment, then sighed and smiled warmly before nodded to Xander’s middle.
“And getting bigger, too,” she added. After taking Xander’s card, the woman punched up something on the computer before three tickets printed out. “Y’all enjoy, now,” the woman said before adding, “And congratulations.”
“Th-thank you,” Xander smiled back as she took the tickets and her card. On the way toward the entrance, a nearby security guard quickly ran over and unclipped the rope fence that would have forced her to waddle all the way around. She sighed in relief and smiled at the guard brightly, who smiled himself.

Xander followed the signs through the exhibits and let the twins through the aquarium, stopping at every tank full of exotic sea creatures and elaborate underwater sets. Rox and Aurora were easy to keep up with as they spent more than enough time gazing wide-eyed up at the tanks full of fish, enough that Xander had time to catch her breath and read the plaques of scientific information that the twins were obviously uninterested in.

While Aurora seemed more enthusiastic at a glance, darting between exhibits to take in everything the aquarium had to offer, Rox took his time gazing intently at the back-lit tanks with wide, curious eyes, as if he’d never seen something so incredible in his life. Xander thought his favorite exhibit was the jellyfish, bathed in purple light to make them seem all the more exotic and alien, but he came alive at the shark exhibit, fearlessly pointing to the enormous fish twice the size he was. It was Aurora’s turn to grip onto her mother’s pant leg shyly once they past the eels and river creatures with big eyes and intimidating faces.

Xander herself couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to an aquarium, aside from a trip she and her brother had taken with their class in sixths grade or so. She was surprised at how mesmerized she was by the exhibits around her, especially the bigger tanks that looked like she could fit her entire car inside. Seeing creatures she’d only read about in books or seen in movies was awe-inspiring, especially the way they moved and swam and looked around with their silver eyes. Xander was so happy and proud of how behaved Rox and Aurora were acting as it gave her a chance to enjoy the aquarium herself.

Of course, while the Dynamic Duo was distracted and entertain by the exhibits, their unborn sisters weren’t so easily pacified. About forty-five minutes into their trip, they had begun to stir and kick, waking one another up and fighting for space. Every time Xander was struck with awe at the sight of some creature she’d never seen before, a new frenzy of kicks jostled her from inside her belly and the moment was lost. She munched on one of the snack bags at one point, soothingly rubbing her hand around her belly to calm the girls, but their fight for space continued unabated. Looking down at herself, she could even see her stomach twitching and bouncing slightly from their movements. With her womb already heavy and overburdened by their size, the movement was enough to make her feel like she was about to pop.
Near the end of the aquarium, where the path began to loop around to the entrance, was the final, major attraction: an enormous, fifty-foot tall tank built to simulate a coral reef, populated with thousands of fish swimming in and out of the artificial coral. Xander and the twins were in awe as they saw the tank, the three of them speechless as they approached the underwater ecosystem recreated behind two foot thick acrylic glass. The room was dark, the only light coming from behind the tank itself, as if it was an enormous screen. At a close enough distance, it would be easy to pretend you were standing on the ocean floor.

Almost more exciting than the awe-inspiring indoor reef was the sight of Xander’s favorite attraction of the entire aquarium: a set of benches. While the twins were transfixed in wide-eyed, childish wonder at the wall of fish, Xander huffed and sidled toward the benches set into the floor. She’d expected to find a free spot somewhere near the middle, but the people sitting at the end immediately gave up their seat for her as she approached. Thanking them quietly, she braced her hands under her belly and against her back as she slowly descended onto the seat. Feeling the weight lifting from her paws was nothing short of euphoric, even if it meant it would soon settle back into her hips and make her legs fall asleep.

Rox and Aurora glanced away from the wall and stared around the room before their eyes zeroed in on their mother. Xander waved at them with a smile, prompting the two of them to wave back before gazing up at the tank again. Once they were looking the other way, Xander sighed wearily and gripped the sides of her belly, which was bouncing and kicking from the aggressive activity of Ethan’s daughters. She was too heavy, too big, too tight to endure their stirrings for much longer. Every kick hurt her stretched skin and left her silently begging them to just stop.

Xander was so distracted by the uncomfortable kicks from the girls that she barely heard the pulsing vibration of her cell phone, buried deep in her purse. With the twins occupied and Xander off her paws for the moment, it was the perfect time for Ethan to call.
“Hey,” Xander sighed into the phone as she answered the call.
“Uh, hey,” Ethan said, pausing. “Xander? You okay?”
“I’m fine, just tired,” Xander breathed while rubbing a hand over the front of her heavy middle that she’d gotten so used to carrying. She’d spent about half of her young-adulthood pregnant and was strangely satisfied with the thought. “Your girls decided to wake up and kick the crap out of me for fun.”
“Are you feeling anything?” Ethan asked, quickly. “Anything like a pinch or…or like a muscle tic lower in you-”
“Baby, I know what labor feels like,” Xander chuckled. “And no, I haven’t. Like I said, the twins are staying put.” She paused. “Your twins. The girls. Not the other ones.”
“This is going to get confusing once they’re born,” Ethan admitted.
“Let’s just hope you don’t put another pair of twins in there after the girls are born,” Xander chuckled.
“…Wait. Are you saying…that you want more kids after this?”

“Well…” Xander trailed off while gazing down at the fertile belly that filled out her body. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“Fair enough. Don’t scare me like that.” Ethan paused. “Seriously, how do you feel? Are you okay?”
“About as tired and sore as I thought I’d be,” Xander said, shrugging as if Ethan could see it. “But we’re having fun. Rox and Aurora look like they found Heaven on Earth.”
“Even Rox? He’s so hard to engage with sometimes.”
“You just aren’t on his wavelength, sweetie,” Xander said, glancing across the room to her quiet son. “He’s fine the way he is.”
“I believe you,” Ethan said. It was a phrase that meant, ‘I’m choosing to trust what you think more than my own opinions.’ It was the solution to a thousand arguments the couple never had to have. “You guys coming home after this?”
Xander didn’t answer right away and instead watched the twins following the a large, tropical fish as it swam from one end of the tank to the other. She frowned and sighed through her nose, lost in thought.

“Xander?”
“Oh. Sorry,” Xander sputtered. “I’m just thinking.”
“Talk to me.”
“It’s…worrying me. The girls are almost ready to be born,” Xander sighed as she shifted in her seat and patted her belly. “You, me, the girls, and everybody who sees how big I am can tell you that. But the twins, the Dynamic Duo, I don’t think they really get it. They don’t understand what it’s like to have a baby in the house that isn’t one of them. So when the girls are actually born, they’re going to feel ignored and passed over and overlooked and…we won’t have as much time for them anymore.”

Xander felt herself feeling guilty already, wishing she just had the time to care for all four of her children equally.
“I think this might be the last time I’ll be able to spend a day with the twins by themselves, for a while at least, to let them know that no matter how much time I need to spend with the new babies, I’ll still love them just the same as I do now. I wish I could just tell them that, but they’re too young for that. I need to show them.”
“So...” Ethan paused. “You really think you’re up for that?”
Xander apprehensively shifted in her seat and clenched her teeth as one of the girls kicked into her ribs.
“I do,” she said, but not entirely believing it.
“If you were just...not quite so close to term...” Ethan sighed through the phone. “…I understand. Keep me in touch.”
“I will,” Xander smiled, wagging her tail. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Ethan said. “You’re a good mom.”

The two hung up at the same time. As Xander dropped her phone into her purse, the twins came running up excitedly back up to her.
“You guys finished up here?” she asked, rubbing the side of her belly to try and soothe the pups inside.
“I wanna see the octopus again!” Aurora said excitedly, so elated she clenched her fists and hopped in place.
“Okay, how about we go back to one more exhibit each, okay?” Xander compromised. “Aurora, you want to see the octopus. How about you, Rox?” She shuffled a little closer and make sure to make deliberate eye contact with him. “Is there anything you want to see again?”
The little pup wrung his hands together nervously, usually too uncomfortable to say much outside of home, but he stared up at his mother and smiled despite himself, saying quietly under his breath, “S-Sharks.”
“Good choice,” Xander smiled. Gripping the handrail, she shuffled and grunted as she pulled her nine-month pregnant body into the air and wobbled slightly as she gained her balance, feeling blood seep back down into her paws. The girls squirmed uncomfortably at being squished in their mother’s womb, but settled down shortly as they began to walk.

They spent a few extra minutes at the twins’ chosen exhibit, where Xander took the time to read the informative plaques and screens to them, hoping some of the science would stick with them later in their lives. On they way down toward the entrance, Xander grumbled in frustration as she realized the exit through the aquarium was through the gift shop. It was hard enough to keep the twins in check when they walked within eyesight of the toy aisle at the store, so getting to the exit would be an ordeal.
“Okay guys,” Xander said as the three of them crossed into the shop. “You guys can each pick out one thing for yourselves, but you have to be quick about it. Can you do that?”

Aurora nodded and darted away from her mother’s grip the second she could, making a line toward the toys in the corner of the store. Rox seemed a little more hesitant and padded away toward the other end of the store with a finger in his mouth. While the twins were exploring, Xander leaned against a nearby pillar and winced as she caressed her stomach. What she had thought were the kicking and stirring of the girls inside was really an alarmingly familiar ‘pinching’ sensation close to her hips. She massaged herself, wishing and hoping the pain would stay just an avoidable pinch instead of the hard clench of pain she dreaded most of all.
Aurora returned first with some kind of mechanical sea turtle toy that could swim in the bathtub while Rox followed behind, clutching a plush shark with both hands and smiling happily as he presented it to his mother.

“S-shark,” he mumbled as she took it.
Xander kept the twins at her side as she got in line, carrying her purse beneath her other arm and the toys under her other. She shuffled forward as the line did, but her mind was distracted toward her belly, wary of any kind of pain or discomfort. Well, any pain or discomfort beyond the normal symptoms of being nine months pregnant. The line snaked around the counter without another incident occurring and Xander relaxed as she approached the counter and smiled at the young high-school age otter girl behind the counter.

“Just these,” Xander said, sliding the toys over as she pulled out her debit card. “Also, do you know where I need to go to get a season pa-hhaaaaaaaahhh…”
Xander dropped her card to the counter as her hand darted to her belly, balling her hand into a fist as she breathed through a hard, painful clench. The girl behind the counter looked up at her in horror, as did surrounded customers, quick to stare at the heavily pregnant folf seemingly entering labor in the middle of the store.

No no no no no not now not now not here not here, Xander pleaded with her body. Call Ethan call Ethan got to call-
But the instant the cramp started, it was over. Xander panted, her hands resting over her belly as she breathed. A real, honest-to-God contraction of labor wouldn’t have been so short, or even so sudden. She sighed in relief, petting her stomach while taking deep breaths.
“Braxton-Hicks,” she sighed to herself, leaning against the counter. It was just a particularly hard and sudden Braxton-Hicks contraction. If Xander hadn’t gone through labor before with the twins, she likely would have panicked and driven straight to the hospital. Fortunately, nearly finished with her second pregnancy, she knew better.

She glanced up at the girl behind the counter, who stared at her in horror and confusion.
“Um…it was just a Braxton-Hicks contraction,” Xander explained as she held her hands to her stomach. “F-false labor. It’s not… I’m okay.” She glanced around at the crowd watching her in concern. Her heart fluttered in her chest at the attention, but raised her arm out and patted her round middle for emphasis. “Just a Braxton-Hicks. We’re okay.” Xander watched the faces of some of the older women sigh in relief, while husbands cocked their heads curiously and turned to their wives for an explanation. Xander paid for the twins’ toys as fast as she could, took the bag in hand, and waddled out of the store as fast as she could move with Rox and Aurora following behind.

“That was…not fun…” Xander shook her head. In the parking lot, she passed the kids their toys and led them to the SUV still parked in the handicapped spot near the entrance. Once they were inside with their seatbelts on, Xander turned in her seat and smiled at the twins.
“Okay guys,” she said, “where to next?

****************************************************************************************************

In the late afternoon of not-quite nighttime, but not enough time to do anything before night actually fell, Roxy stood over the stove in the kitchen, boiling a pot of water. She gripped a handful of dry spaghetti noodles and tapped them against her palm impatiently as she waited for the tiny bubbles at the bottom of the pot to grow. As Roxy shifted her weight from paw-to-paw, her pregnant bump brushed against the front of the stove and she backed a few feet away, cautious. Being partially dragon, Roxy wasn’t bothered much by heat or flames, but she’d burned for than a few expensive maternity clothes by misjudging how close her belly was to the stove.

As her stomach rumbled, one of the impatient twin babies occupying her womb stirred and kicked against their mother’s thick uterine wall. Roxy flicked her ears and grumbled, pulling her white undershirt down over her rounded stomach.
“Yeah yeah, I know you’re hungry,” Roxy said to her belly. “You don’t need to kick my ass to tell me that.”
The baby turned again, as if trying to corkscrew inside Roxy, and slid a paw against the wall of her womb. Roxy giggled at the sensation and poked a finger to her belly, following the baby’s paw from the outside while the other stirred in their sleep. She glanced up at the water, which still wasn’t boiling the way she wanted it to, and pouted before dropping the handful of noodles into the pot.

“Fuck it.”
Roxy reached into her daughter’s snack cabinet next to the refrigerator and removed the favorite craving-snack of her second pregnancy: Oreos with Birthday-cake flavored icing, a snack so nauseatingly, sickeningly sweet that not even her daughter Otome would touch them, which left the entire package to Roxy and the family’s yet-unnamed newest members currently occupying her belly. Peeling back the package, she carefully removed four cookies stack on top of one another and carried them in her teeth as she walked into the living room.

With a loud crunch, Roxy smashed the four Oreos in her mouth all at once and chewed ravenously, a chill of satisfaction running up her spine. Next to the couch, on the bedside table, was her charging cell phone, blinking with a purple light that indicated a text message from a very specific person. Roxy set down the Oreos and squatted with a hand braced against her tummy to pick up the phone. She’s learned the hard way through her first pregnancy to never try and bend over once her bump was big enough to bounce when she walked.

Xander’s message was only a few minutes old and was sent likely the minute Roxy and left the living room.
Hey Roxy. I have the twins. Can we come over?
Roxy smirked, surprised Xander even thought she needed to ask. At that point in their friendship, Xander should have a key of her own. Roxy quickly texted back with one deft finger flying over the keypad.
Of course you can.
Just as Roxy set the phone back down on the table and turned back to the kitchen, it buzzed again with a response from Xander.
Good because we’re already here.

Not even seconds after reading the message, Roxy heard the bell of the elevator outside her apartment, followed by a soft knock on the front door, then a few more knocks after the first from tiny hands about four feet below. Roxy blinked, taken off guard for a moment, before realizing she was leaving Xander and her twins standing in the hallway and crossed the room as fast as her pregnant body could move to open the door.
“Aunt Roxy!” Aurora shrieked, lunging forward to wrap a hug around the wolf’s nearest leg. Roxy patted Aurora on the head and glanced at Xander’s son, the boy named after her, as he hid behind his mother’s leg and gazed up at her with a curious look. He returned Roxy’s broad, toothy smile, which was a step beyond what he gave anyone else.

“Hey there you little hellions,” Roxy teased as she stepped out of the way to let the twins run inside. Aurora was still clinging onto her leg, obscured somewhere beneath Roxy’s baby bump, but she quickly fell off with a shake. Roxy glanced up at Xander, her eyes suddenly going wide. There were dark bags under the young mother’s eyes, her ears drooped next to her head, and her tongue lolled panting out of her mouth. Her hands and arms were full of bags from toy stores, clothing outlets, candy stores, amusement parks, and anywhere and everywhere a terrible-two-year-old dreamed of spending their day.

“What have you been up to?” Roxy asked incredulously, stepping to the side and watching carefully as Xander toddled inside in case she was about to faint. On top of carrying around the heavy bags, Xander was still heavily, dangerously pregnant in the kind of way that made Roxy’s late-term baby bump look like a slight paunch in comparison. She looked like she was ready to drop at any second with a pair of twins almost as big in-utero as Otome was at ten months old.

“We’ve…we just…” Xander panted, swaying in the middle of the room. “Aquarium this morning, and then we…I took them around town…”
“Xander, babe, c’mon, put all that shit down,” Roxy froze and cleared her throat, shooting a glance at Rox and Aurora. “Uh…Stuff. All that stuff down.” She helped Xander remove the bags from her arms like taking weights of a barbell, making the nine-month pregnant mother feel like she was light as a feather in comparison.
“Hey kiddos,” Roxy said over her shoulder to the twins, “Otome should be in her room. Go play with her for a little bit, okay?”

Aurora nodded emphatically and skipped away down the hall. Rox approached the bags on the ground, dug through them until he found a stuffed shark toy, then followed his twin sister with it in hand. Roxy braced an arm around Xander’s back and walked her to the couch in the living room, the two of them easing into it side-by-side. Roxy’s guest sighed deeply once she was off her sore paws and sank deep into the couch cushions with a groan.

“Holy shit, Xander,” Roxy sighed, brushing hair out of her eyes. “What have you been doing taking them all around town when you’re this big?” She rested a hand against Xander’s belly, remarking how taut and solid it felt against her palm.
“Sorry…” Xander breathed, her eyes half-closed. “I just…I thought I was okay for a while…I just needed somewhere to rest and you were close by.”
“You don’t need to apologize for that,” Roxy sighed, shifting closer to her friend. She compared their pregnant bodies side-by-side and was amazed at how much bigger Xander had grown than her, even considering how they both carried twins. “But what were you thinking?”

“I…I promised them that I’d take them to the aquarium when it opened,” Xander said. “And I just…I got worried that they might think I’m abandoning them when the girls are born. I wanted to give them a full day to keep them from thinking that.”
“Look, that’s just kids. That happens when there’s a new baby in the house. It helps them learn they aren’t the center of the universe. They’ll figure it out pretty quick.”

“I…I know,” Xander said, hesitantly. She rested her hands on her belly and felt the girls shifting inside. “I just don’t…I don’t want to have two more babies if it’s going to make the other two think I don’t love them as much.”
“I think you’re gonna have those two babies whether you want to or not,” Roxy chuckled as she poked Xander’s round belly. “Look, just get your energy back and stop worrying so damn much.” She smiled and leaned her head on Xander’s shoulder. “I mean jeeze, I wonder how you haven’t scared yourself into an early labor.”

“Me too,” Xander said quietly in the back of her throat. Her voice sounded hoarse. Roxy awkwardly fumbled off the couch and padded into the kitchen. After pouring a glass of water for Xander, Roxy frowned at the pot, still not boiling, before suddenly realizing she’d turned on the wrong burner.
“Oops,” she said to nobody as she turned the correct dial.

In the minutes it had taken Roxy to get a glass of water from the kitchen, Xander had already fallen asleep with her head leaning against the back of the couch, her hands clasped protectively over her stomach. Roxy smirked and set the glass of water on the table before heading into the kitchen to start on the spaghetti sauce.
*****************************************************************************************************

Xander fluttered her eyes open at the sound of Roxy’s voice that she heard before she was completely awake.
“Hey Ethan, babe. It’s Roxy. Xander stopped over here with the kids and tuckered herself out.” She paused, before saying. “A couple hours ago. I didn’t want to wake her when her phone was going off.”

Xander shifted on the couch, feeling sore and stiff, groaning softly. Opening her eyes, she noticed the sky outside was dark and Roxy’s living room was lit only by a few small, soft lamps in the corner. Roxy had her back turned to her and was talking on Xander’s phone, her tail swishing side to side as she spoke.

“She’s okay, babe, don’t worry. She just tired herself out chasing the twins around all day. I won’t let her leave without a bite to eat, anyway.” Roxy paused, then sighed and answered, “Yes, the pups are fine. And they’re still in there. No signs of labor. Cool your jets, hot-shot.” Roxy turned, mostly visible in silhouette against the light, her low-hanging belly in profile. “I’ll get all five of them home safe, trust me…Okay. I said trust me, babe. Xander couldn’t be in better hands.” Roxy glanced aside and locked eyes with Xander. “I’ll call ya if we need ya. Toodles.” With a beep, she hung up the call and tossed the phone into a nearby chair.

“Feeling more like yourself?” Roxy asked. Xander stretched her legs as far as they could reach and sat up slightly.
“A little,” Xander groaned. “Still tired.
“I’ll bet,” Roxy said. She glanced at Xander’s sides with a warm smile and added, “So were they.”

Xander turned and realized why she found it so difficult to move. On either side of her hips, Rox and Aurora had curled up against her and fallen asleep. Aurora’s hand was entwined in her hair and her tail tucked between her legs. Rox was facing inward, his hand reaching out to gently touch his mother’s pregnant tummy.
Roxy quietly tip-toed over and sat on the coffee table across from Xander, her legs spread out wide to make room for her pup-heavy belly.

“Look, I’ve been thinking,” Roxy said, quietly. “Kids are smarter than we give them credit for. They may not know how babies get made or where they come from or…whatever. But they understand what’s going on. You’re going to have new babies and they won’t be the center of attention any more. They won’t like it, but they know how much you love them and it won’t ever change. You don’t need to buy them toys and candy to tell them that.”

Xander didn’t answer, but what Roxy said seemed to warm her from the inside. She looked down at her first twins, sleeping quietly next to her second twins not yet born, and gently stroked their heads.
“We’re a family,” Xander said, quietly. “Together. And we’ll love each other like a family.”
“Of course you will,” Roxy said, leaning over to pat Xander’s belly. “There’s nobody in the world with more love to give than you, babe.” Roxy hopped up to her paws effortlessly, rocking uneasily in the way only pregnant women did. “I can at least give you spaghetti.” She paused and cocked her head to the side, then smirked and added, “Nice sweatshirt, by the way,” before leaving to the kitchen.

With a small noise, Aurora turned over and opened her eyes, blinking up at her mother. Xander smiled down and stroked her long hair.
“Hello sleepy,” Xander said. She glanced at Rox, who had already awoken and shuffled closer to his mother.
“Mommy…” Aurora moaned. “Can we go home?”

“Soon, baby,” Xander said. “Aunt Roxy’s cooked us some dinner.” She felt her belly bounce from a kick inside and giggled. “I think your sisters are hungry, too.”
Xander felt a tiny hand touch her stomach and turned to find Rox sitting up on his knees, curiously feeling the kicks of his twin sisters from inside Xander’s belly. She smiled at him and he stared at her shifting middle in wonder with the same expression he’d looked at the sharks with.
“They’re moving,” Xander said to Aurora. “Do you want to feel?”
“We did,” Aurora said. “When you were sleeping.”

“Are you…” Xander paused, trying to think of the right words while Rox curiously felt the girls kicking against his hands. She looked back at Aurora and asked, “Are you happy about having new sisters?”
Aurora rubbed her eye sleepily, then nodded.

“I wanna see the babies when they come out of your tummy,” Aurora said, reaching her hand over her head to touch Xander’s belly.
“It’s hard to take care of a baby,” she said. “Will you and Rox help your daddy and me to take care of them?”
Aurora nodded again, then turned over and closed her eyes and drifted off back to sleep. Rox was wide awake and still exploring the surface of his mother’s baby bump. Xander smiled and rolled up the front of her hoodie, guiding her son’s hands to where the girls were kicking and moving.

Xander smiled. They were getting along already.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Commission for  xanderblaze with a cameo of Roxy, who belongs to  herox77