Author's Note: Now we're moving into the little 'day in the life' type moments as they start building their life together. So, depending on their activities in the chapter, the baby talk might take prominence, or maybe it won't come up at all. It's not like you personally are constantly recapping all of the particulars of your own life during every mundane little moment.

That would be weird.

So, picking up a few weeks later.

Early March: Thursday Evening

Society's Views On Pantry Etiquette

Hotch was standing in Emily's kitchen with his brow wrinkled as he stared at the upper shelf of her open refrigerator door.

He was utterly perplexed.

They'd just come back from Safeway. This was their first grocery excursion since they'd gotten together three weeks ago. And they'd been out of the town for the last three days, so initially the plan had just been to stop at the store on the way home from work to pick up a few things to make dinner. It had been agreed, mutually, that they both ate entirely too much takeout, and that not only would it be much healthier for Emily and the baby if she cut down on all of fat and sodium, but it would also be a hell of a lot cheaper for both of them.

Babies were VERY expensive and they needed to start putting some money aside.

Yes, Hotch (and Emily) both earned a good paycheck, but at present they were paying rent for two apartments, with two sets of utilities, and he was also still supporting Jack and Haley. Right now, he still had plenty of disposable income, but his paycheck was not going to stretch nearly as far once this baby was born and he was officially taking care of two WHOLE families.

Not that he was really that concerned about money . . . eventually he and Emily should (hopefully) be splitting a household budget, not to mention the gas money on the commute . . . but it would be nice if maybe he could afford to send BOTH of his children to college someday. So with that thought in mind, he'd decided that maybe they should pick up a few extra food staples to leave at Emily's house. It would make it less tempting to order in if they got home late.

Emily had agreed.

Although he was only sleeping over a few nights a week, he was over for dinner twice as often as he was over to play house. So their quick stop at the grocery store had ended up taking an hour and a half . . . they'd walked out with ten bags of groceries. And now they were unpacking enough food to feed a family of twelve. But he'd just stopped his unpacking because he'd seen something rather curious in Emily's refrigerator.

Something he hadn't noticed before.

"Sweetheart?" he projected over his shoulder, "why do you have . . ." He did a quick mental count before finishing, "thirteen bottles of salad dressing in your refrigerator?"

Though he wasn't quite sure what the average household's salad dressing retention was, thirteen seemed like kind of a lot.

"Marinade," Emily replied to Hotch distractedly as she finished stacking the just purchased cans of tuna in the cabinet.

She was making sure that the little bumblebees all lined up evenly.

Some people thought that she had OCD . . . she rolled her eyes as she straightened the third can up . . . Morgan for instance had been known to make a comment or two about her desk layout. But really, she just liked things orderly. And now that the bumblebees were indeed orderly, she turned to Hotch with a little smile.

"On those random days I do attempt to cook, I use it as marinade for chicken or pork. They get boring if you make them the same all the time. And I don't usually get home early enough to make anything fancy, so I buy a bunch of different flavors of dressing so I can vary my meals."

Of course half of those bottles had probably expired a year ago . . . it was hard to use them up when you were ordering in half the time . . . but Hotch didn't need to know that right now.

No reason to look like a COMPLETE slob the first month into this relationship.

So she'd just clean out the fridge this weekend when he was back at his place with Jack. That way she'd come off looking like a tidy housekeeper . . . aka, good mother of his child material . . . and Hotch wouldn't die of ptomaine poisoning when she accidentally served him three year old Caribbean Jerk sauce.

Everybody wins.

Hotch tipped his head as he looked back at the extremely varied selection of regular, low fat, and no fat bottles jammed into the shelves on the door.

"Hmm," he mused, "makes sense I guess,"

And he'd learned something new today. They were still at the point where he was generally learning something new about Emily, every day. Their relationship . . . bun in the oven notwithstanding . . . was for all intents, still truly in the 'first few weeks, getting to know you' stage. Though of course they had actually known each other for years, so in that respect they were well ahead of the curve. Hotch knew what kind of person Emily was at her core.

The good kind.

But all of these little domestic bits, the salad dressing, her ridiculously (endearingly) enormous collection of pajamas, the obsessive bumblebee tuna can arranging . . . yes he'd seen her on tiptoes out of the corner of his eye . . . this was all very new. These were generally the things you learned about one another when you were dating. And these were the things that could often, strangely enough, make or break a relationship. But . . . he scanned the contents of the shelves in front of him . . . that was not going to happen here.

If they could work over the pitfalls of a relationship built initially on the shared interest in chasing down serial killers for a living, he sure as hell wasn't going to let a few condiments stand in the way of his personal happiness!

Though . . . his eyebrow went up as something in the lowest shelf of the door caught his attention . . . this was one condimental decision that did require further inquiry.

"Um," he cleared his throat, "why is the ketchup in the refrigerator?"

"Um, because that's where it goes," Emily logically responded as she started digging into the bag of toiletries. Then she looked up.

"Is that a problem?" she asked, now with a hint of amusement.

Three weeks into their crash course in relationship building, and this was the first time Hotch had been so openly curious about the things she kept in her refrigerator. Of course this was the first time that they'd been out shopping together. Generally when he was over, even if he was cooking . . . she'd discovered that Hotch was actually a REALLY good cook, score(!) . . . she was pulling out all of the ingredients for him before he got started.

It had just been easier that way.

Because as much as they were both trying, it was still a little weird to suddenly just be SO MUCH in each other's space.

So he'd seemed as willing to let her dig things out of the cabinets for him, as she was to do it. And that was saying something, because Emily generally wasn't much for waiting on anybody. Nor did she really think Hotch was much for being waited on. So actually, him now taking such an interest in the setup of her refrigerator made her happy.

It meant that they were settling in.

"No, not a problem," Hotch responded conversationally as he turned back to make room in the door for the Caffeine Free Diet Coke that they'd bought to replace Emily's usual caffeinated brand, "it's just that, well," he paused, "it belongs in the cabinet."

Now that they were together this way, Hotch had finally come to see just why Emily had always seemed to receive such immense enjoyment in pushing his buttons over the last few years.

It was fun.

And it was definitely not something that he'd done with Haley . . . his ex-wife's personality was night and day from his new girlfriend's . . . so maybe that was part of why he got such a kick out of joking around with Emily this way.

It was their thing.

And given how short a lifespan their relationship had to date, it was nice to start stockpiling things.

"Says who?" Emily challenged with a smirk as she crossed her arms across her chest.

"Society," he responded, sparing her a glance over his shoulder.

"Society, huh?" She snorted back, "Well you can tell," her fingers came up into air quotes, "'society' that they are welcome to leave a small bottle of ketchup in the pantry, but that the Heinz is staying in the door."

Seeing Hotch's lips twitch, Emily smirked again before she turned back to her unpacking of their non food items.

A split second later her smirk morphed more to a 'pursing of her lips' when she pulled out the next item from the plastic bag in front of her.

"Aaron," she asked in confusion, while staring down at the little white box in her hand, "did you buy cinnamon toothpaste on purpose?"

Beyond the suggested "staple stockpiling" that Hotch had suggested, Emily had also decided it was time for him to start leaving a few toiletries at her house. For the first couple of weeks, he'd just been living out of his ready bag, but now that more time had passed, she had started to see that him continuing to do so, would be kind of silly.

Really, him having a razor in her cabinet and deodorant on her shelf wasn't going to cause her to have a panic attack . . . not like it would have on Day Two. But this was now Week Three, and it was time to start letting him leave more than a few fingerprints here. So to that end, she made sure to send him off to pick up all of his bathroom basics before they left the grocery store.

Though she had no memory of him picking up this box.

"I did indeed buy cinnamon toothpaste on purpose," Hotch called back. And then Emily's brow wrinkled even further in confusion.

"But," she bit her lip, "since when do you use cinnamon toothpaste?"

"Since always," he answered while bumping the refrigerator shut with his hip before he turned back to her with a raised eyebrow.

"You've kissed me how many times over the last three weeks, and you've NEVER noticed that I tasted like cinnamon in the mornings and evenings?"

"Well," Emily's brow wrinkled a bit more, "yeah, I noticed the cinnamon, but I guess I thought it was a breath mint."

"No," he shook his head, "not a breath mint. Toothpaste." Then Hotch threw Emily's own question back to her as he crossed his arms and asked with an exaggerated, "is that a problem?"

"Of course not," she answered immediately while shooting him back a saucy eyebrow, "it's just that 'society' knows toothpaste is supposed to be minty fresh."

Hotch's jaw quivered slightly just before Emily laughed out loud as she placed the small box on the counter.

"Wow," she continued on with a grin as she walked over to him, "we just survived our first domestic incident!"

Of course they'd had the occasional work related disagreement over the last few years. But really, aside from TOTALLY getting off on the wrong foot for their first two weeks . . . and then that time in the Everglades when Hotch had (almost) accidentally shot her in the head . . . nothing big. So, given what would generally be considered a somewhat 'stressful' circumstance to build a new relationship . . . read, knocked up by your boss . . . they'd been doing REALLY WELL so far with all of this personal time they were spending together.

Their personalities were actually very compatible!

Thank God!

She had started to pick up on that last month when they began to get lunch together. Still, she'd been a bit surprised to discover just how well they got along given that superficially she and Hotch's personalities seemed so different. Her eyes crinkled slightly as she walked over him.

But there were a lot more soft layers to this man that most people would ever see.

Hotch raised an eyebrow at Emily's remark.

"I think you need to do a recount, Agent Prentiss," he scoffed drily when she stopped in front of him. "Do you not recall last Thursday when you told me that that if I ever wanted to sleep in your bed again that I needed to quote 'toss that vile substance in the trash,' end quote?"

Said vile substance of course being his breakfast.

Emily pouted.

"Well, that one doesn't count. You were eating runny eggs while your child threw its first temper tantrum in my stomach."

Morning sickness had unfortunately kicked in last week. Yuck. Fortunately so far it hadn't been too bad, not hitting everyday anyway . . . but still, yuck.

"Yes, sweetheart," Hotch responded calmly while sliding his hands along Emily's now ever so slightly expanded waistline, "I know that OUR child," he gave her a look, "made you very nauseous that day, and I'm very sorry about that. But if you'll recall, you did smack me in the shoulder, throw a dirty dishtowel over my plate and then threaten to cut off all physical affection for the next seven and a half months if I didn't immediately toss my breakfast in the garbage."

His eyebrow quirked up in amusement.

"So I'd have to say that taking all of those factors into account, objectively speaking, the events of that morning tend to fall under the category of a 'domestic incident.'"

Really, for Hotch, as corny as it sounded, it was domestic bliss. For the last eight months, his average morning would have seen him, alone, standing at the counter of his crappy little rental apartment, downing his third cup of coffee while he checked his email. Then he'd leave for work just after dawn, without any food in his stomach. But now his routine was completely different.

Because now he had Emily.

And although they were still limiting themselves to three nights a week together . . . again, playing house part time to slowly learn new habits/avoid getting on each other's nerves . . . his morning routine had changed DRAMATICALLY. Because even on the mornings that they weren't physically together when they woke up, they talked on the phone. Generally he would take his morning run, and then when he got home, he'd call to wake her up. He loved to hear her sleepy in his ear, even when she was grumbling about needing more sleep. They'd usually talk for a few minutes about the weather, or their schedules, or how she was feeling, and then he'd close with an, "okay, see you in an hour, sweetheart," and she'd respond with an excited, "bring me food!" and he'd chuckle, and they'd hang up.

He'd usually have a stupid smile on his face even while he was making the mental note to buy her a donut or a bagel on his way in to work.

But on the morning of the FIRST recorded domestic incident, he had actually slept over Emily's. All had been going very well while they shared their juice and toast. But then while they were discussing plausible scenarios (lies) to tell the team so they that could both clear their schedules for her next visit to the obstetrician, Emily had suddenly stopped talking, turned green, and begun smacking his arm.

She'd been yelling about eggs.

Before he had even processed what it was she was saying, she'd slapped her hand over her mouth and had bolted off to the downstairs bathroom. Of course he'd run after her, and like a good boyfriend, he'd held her hair and rubbed her back while she got sick.

That had gone on for a SOLID five minutes.

Then afterwards he'd wiped her face with a cool cloth and helped her up off the floor. And even though she'd tried to insist that she was fine, he had seen from the pinched lines around her mouth that she still felt like crap. So he'd ignored her somewhat feeble protests as he walked her out to the living room, logically pointing out along the way that she might as well rest for a few minutes, because if she got sick later when they were at work, she wasn't going to have the same luxury of going to lie down. Of course he'd have loved to let her have the use of his couch, but clearly that just couldn't be done. He could only imagine the reaction to letting his pregnant girlfriend sleep in his office during the day.

Might as well start sending out his resume now if he thought that was the way to handle this situation.

And even though he'd hated that Emily was so miserable, he couldn't deny that for him, it had actually been another good day. Really, all of his days so far with Emily had been good days, but most of them had circled around them working on their personal relationship. But that day, he'd felt more like a new Dad again.

It was an excitement that he had had missed.

Emily narrowed her gaze as she stared up at Hotch looking down at her. Then her eyes dropped to his chest for a moment.

Yeah, he might have a small point there about Incident One. So when she brought her eyes up to his again, she gave him a little smile.

"I guess in retrospect, an A&B on your scrambled eggs might technically count as a domestic incident."

Surprised that she'd given in to him so quickly . . . over the last month, Hotch had discovered Emily had a VERY competitive streak when it came to things like this . . . his lips twitched slightly as he looked at her.

"Thank you for seeing it my way."

That's when he leaned down to give her a quick thank you kiss.

The thank you went on for a little longer than he'd planned, given that they still had to finish putting away the groceries before he started dinner. But in regards to their physical relations, they were still very much in the honeymoon phase . . . i.e. he couldn't keep his hands off of her. And when he finally broke away more than a minute later, they were both flushed and panting, her shirt was untucked, and he was trying to remember exactly why it was that making dinner was so damn important!

Oh right . . . the fingers glided over her bare stomach as his higher reasoning skills started to come back again . . . growing baby. That was it.

Their child needed its mother to eat.

For a second Emily looked up at Hotch, still panting slightly, before a slow grin spread across her face.

"You know, I think I really do like the cinnamon!"

And Hotch burst out laughing.

"Good to know, sweetheart!" He kissed her forehead, still chuckling as he pulled her into a hug.

"Good to know."

A/N 2: Condimental is actually a word! I thought I was making it up, but no, the spell check didn't underline it. Now we've all learned something new, that will serve you no helpful purpose in life :)

If you've read Girl all the way through, you'll see basic elements of their personalities (as I've interpreted them in this universe) showing up in this story, but in new ways. Like Emily's slight OCD, her pajama collection (something suddenly thrust upon Hotch sharing her bedroom as opposed to the occasional glimpses he was getting of them initially over in Girl), their bantering, and Emily's competitive need to win every time. That is my favorite part of having these multiverses, weaving in these same bits, in new ways, in each world :)

One more fluffy one coming up, then the super heavy case fic!