A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, faved or followed this story! I'm having so much fun writing it and I honestly adore hearing all of your great ideas! Please keep them coming.
Thank you so much!
This is the one where Millie is sassy, Jay is confused and Erin is amused as hell.
The Sass is Strong with this One.
Every second Tuesday they went grocery shopping. Neither Jay nor Erin are sure when this came to pass, when it became a thing but it was a thing and it was Tuesday and they were in the car heading to the grocery store. Every so often, whenever work would allow, Erin and Jay would collect Millie from the child minder early and take her with them; she had a love for the grocery store and spending time with her regardless of what they were doing always made for the best time. Even if it meant listening to her music in the car on repeat while she 'danced' in the backseat in her baby seat, wriggling around to the music. Erin still insisted that Millie was a better dancer than Jay and Jay would always laugh and say that she clearly didn't inherit it from Erin.
As always, Erin drove and she would drop Jay off for him to grab a shopping cart and wait for her to bring their princess over to him to put her in the little seat. As always, Jay had dutifully gotten out of the car and grabbed a cart, waiting patiently for Erin to carry the toddler over to the sidewalk outside the store and place her down where she'd run to him and hold up her arms to be lifted into the cart.
Except today, Millie didn't.
She followed her mother's instructions to the letter; stay at the wall side and go straight to daddy. Erin herself was a couple of paces behind, close enough to snatch a wayward toddler as she waddled along the sidewalk, stomping extra hard to make her sneakers light up all the way to daddy. When she reached Jay, however, her little fingers simply wrapped around the metal of the cart and held on, waiting for Erin.
"Okay, Mills, let's go." Jay told her, looking at her; confusion on his face, Erin's too when she eventually approached.
"I's fine." She sing-songed, her sweet little voice carrying even in the wind.
"Mills." Jay warned, raising an eyebrow as his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter still didn't look at either parent.
"Imma big girl daddy, I's walk." She stated determinedly, her resolution as fierce as her mother's.
"Mills, you gotta get in the cart in the store."
"No, thank you. I's fine."
"Mille." Jay sighed and tried a different tactic, moving around and crouching down to be eye level with his daughter; she had her mother's dimples, his dark curls and Erin's tiny little button nose but she had his eyes. Her entire face at that moment was angelic, a picture of pure innocence and that was the face that usually meant Jay would give in. But not in a store, never in a store when anything could happen. "Millie, if you walk in here? You could get lost and mommy and daddy would be really upset. We'd cry super hard and you don't want that do you?"
The toddler let out a long-suffering sigh and gave Jay a look that reminded him so much of Erin he had to pause for a second to remind him that it was his kid and not his wife that he was talking to. The sniggering coming from behind him to his left was enough of an indication that Erin, too, found this hilarious.
"Daddy," Millie started, a raised eyebrow and one hand on her hip, the other with a death grip on the cart. "I's can walk. I's a big girl." She told him, reaching out her little hand to pat him reassuringly on the knee, "I's okay."
Erin was practically snorting with laughter behind him as she tried to keep a straight-face, Jay however, was too stunned to even do anything other than continue to crouch and look at his daughter, who was now giving him such a pointed look that he was beginning to think he'd stepped into a twilight zone.
"Uh." Jay started, blinking a few times. "You gotta go in the cart." He mentally cursed himself because at that moment his kid had formulated a better argument that he could and it killed him.
Millie rolled her eyes and looked up at Erin, once again, her sweet little face nothing but innocence. "Mamma, tells daddy." She stated, pointing at Jay. "I's a big girl. I's walk."
"No, baby." Erin shook her head, trying to be serious and keep the smile from her face as she debated the merits of going in a cart with her toddler. Outside of the supermarket. For everyone to see. "Daddy's right, you gotta go in the cart so you'll be safe."
The look that Millie gave Erin, accompanied by the gasp of sheer betrayal almost flooded Jay. Her little eyes looked wounded, tiny little mouth forming into a pout as her eyebrows drew down into a soft V. The hand that had been on Jay's knee fisted and moved back to her side where she continued to stare at Erin as if to say Et Tu Brutus?
Then Millie turned to Jay, once again all innocent eyes and she leaned in, "Sure I's can walk, daddy? Sure I's allowed." And Jay had to fight the urge to laugh because not 30 seconds ago was she trying to get her mother to tell him that she was allowed to walk.
"No Mills. You're going in the cart, you don't want mamma and daddy to cry super hard because we lost you do you?" he asked, reaching out to tickle her tummy, a move that usually had her laughing, but this time he was met with a glare as he stood up and held out his hands. "C'mon Mills."
"No, thank you." Millie stated and Jay silently cursed Erin's stubborn nature and that being the personality trait she got from her mom. Jay raised an eyebrow at Erin and she gave him a lopsided grin as they silently communicated how to deal with a toddler who wouldn't let go.
Eventually Jay took her wrist, leaning down to her again, "Millie, you're going into the cart, that's enough." He stated, trying to sound firm, but her fingers were going white with how tightly she was holding on and even when Erin intervened, she wasn't for letting go easily. It took them both to pry her fingers from the metal bar, Jay slipping his hands beneath her arms and lifting her, sighing audibly when she tensed up and wouldn't bend her legs for him.
"Camille Marie Halstead." Erin's firm but gentle voice was quiet and once again the toddler rolled her eyes but went lax in Jay's arms, enough for him to slip her into the seat safely. "You're in there because it's safer for you than you running around. We don't want you to get hurt, okay?"
The toddler beamed at both parents, an angelic happy smile on her face, dimples in full force. "Okay." She stated happily, as though they hadn't spent the past half hour debating putting her into the cart in the first place.
"That's your fault." Both Erin and Jay muttered under their breath at the same time, raising an eyebrow as they regarded the other. Jay was the first to pull away and smirk, his grin getting bigger when Erin put her hand in his back pocket.
"Bicsuts!" Millie clapped happily as they approached the aisle with the biscuits and treats. Erin dutifully read off the list. See, Millie had a thing while she sat in the cart of the grocery store to amuse herself. She would either pick the item off the shelf or be handed it and then toss it over her head into the cart, laughing almost manically while she did so.
Naturally, they were selective about which part of the cart they put certain items in and which items they allowed her to put in the cart. Chips, biscuits, candy, paper towels. Those were the safest. Sometimes they'd let her throw in some packets of meat or fish, but that was usually it.
"Okay, get the green packet, princess," Erin instructed and Millie made grabby hands until Jay moved the cart close enough for her to grab what she wanted, holding them up for Erin's nod of approval before shouting "wheeeee" and chucking them over her head.
Jay winced as they crashed into the bottles of water, continuing to push the cart, sighing when the tiny human continued to pick up biscuits and throw them over her head, making various animal noises as she did so.
"SHISPS!" Millie yelled bouncing in her seat and Jay threw his head back in laughter at her excitement over chips. She'd only recently been allowed to try them; Erin terrified she'd get a sharp edge stuck in her throat. They'd fast become Millie's snack of choice – second only to carrots and the way she'd stare at Jay as she ate them had him sleeping with one eye open, - and her excitement was always infectious whenever they came into the aisle. "CHEESE!" she yelled again and Jay blinked at the way she clapped her hands and her eyes widened almost comically when he reached up for the cheesy chips she loved so much.
Millie took them from Jay, thanking him over and over as she hugged the packet close to her, childlike love and glee all over her face.
"One day, I'm gonna find me someone who loves me as much as Millie loves cheese chips." Jay stated, earning himself an indignant snort and a whack on the arm from Erin.
"One day, I'm gonna find someone who earns my love, the way cheese chips earned Millie's." She countered, smirking at him. Jay grinned back, keeping one hand on the handle bar of the cart as he pulled Erin back into him, his hand splaying over her midsection.
"I think we have actual proof that I've earned it." He told her, his thumb caressing the barely-there bump hidden by her sweatshirt.
"Not the same thing." She tried to tell him, but her raspy voice was now husky and he knew he'd affected her. "Love you," he whispered, pressing a kiss to her cheek, turning back just in time to see his child kiss the bag of chips. "Baby, you don't know where that's been."
"In your hands." Millie quipped back, "an on tha shef." And with that, the chips were thrown over her head and she made explosion noises as they hit the rest of the contents of the cart. Noises that mainly consisted with her spraying spit everywhere and Erin looking utterly disgusted.
"Never gonna need any kind of DNA test for her. She's definitely yours." Erin told Jay, earned a snort and a swat at her ass.
"Excuse me. Have you met yourself? It's been three years and you finally allowed me to hang a towel rail in the bathroom." Jay counted, his hand moving back to the handle of the cart as Erin wrapped her arm around his, leaning into his shoulder.
"Only to make you stop nagging me."
"Three. Years. Erin." Jay punctuated each word, looking down at her as she studied the list.
"Technically, it was more like five. Longer if you count when we didn't date. Probably closer to about 8 years."
"You're not making this better for yourself."
"It can't get any better for me." Erin told him as she beamed up at him, a smile on her face as she leaned up and pressed a kiss to his lips, her favorite smile of his lighting up his face just as she pulled away.
"yuck." Millie groaned, both of her parents laughing when they pulled away to find her looking at them through her fingers. "get a woom." She muttered and both Erin and Jay blinked at her.
"Gonna kill Ruzek." Jay muttered to Erin as they made their way to the cashier they always seemed to encounter, ignoring the fact that Millie had stated that; knowing that if they told her off for it, she'd do it all the more, something to do with the terrible twos. Apparently, though, Ruzek was also in that category, because they'd told him repeatedly to watch his mouth around Millie.
"Mills, you wanna go to the park on the way home?" Erin asked as Millie had spotted her next victim, an elderly couple in the queue. Millie had another thing in the grocery store. Chatting to strangers. Literally anyone would do and she'd strike up a conversation and nothing was off limits for her. She had announced last week that her mom had gotten her dad boobs for his birthday, causing Jay to almost die of embarrassment on the spot and Erin to almost die of laughter. It was a cake in the shape of a bust and it had been Antonio's idea.
"No, thank you." The tiny human shook her head, yawning. "I's sleepy." She stated, looking pleadingly at Erin. Jay immediately switched places with his wife, loading the items onto the conveyor belt as Erin leaned on the cart, her elbow on the handle and holding her hand up for Millie to put her head on, letting it rest there and counting back from 10. She made it to 4 before the little girl was sound asleep, her head on Erin's hand.
They'd tried taking her out to the car and putting her in her car seat, but it only meant she was crying and grumpy by the time they got her home for a nap and it took her forever to settle which had a knock-on effect for bedtime. So now they had this routine; which would allow for them to have her asleep and rested for her nap in the afternoon.
Jay and Erin knew as they made their way to the car to load the groceries and the child that it would take a few trips up the stairs – Jay, never Erin – to get the groceries in and put away, but the look on Millie's face as Erin carefully lifted her into her car seat, carefree and peaceful, that it was all worth it.