A/N: Sorry for the delay! I've been sick all week and just haven't had a moment to post anything. But at least it wasn't a month this time! Anyway, to my lovely reviewers - you all keep me writing. To Stars May Fall and Moonprincess92, you guys really makes me want to continue that story a lot, so perhaps I'll test those waters in the not too distant future...So thank you for the compliments and incentive! To Ladyinshiningarmour, MoonlightGardenias, Emmafan, and Aniable, you all have me covering my face and squealing - thank you so so much! To Guest, the latest chapter in my other fic should satisfy your post-episode-32 cravings haha. And to JRB, you quite honestly flatter me so much; thank you infinitely! I can't even put words to that comment, I just hope I can keep up the quality of my fics as much as possible!

As for this fic, I might have stretched the truth a bit when I said it was my fluffiest yet. BUT it is fluffy and you might find it to be more adorable than anything else so let me know. (It's really hard to top the first installment in this reality though, but I tried!) Also, this fic kind of takes place before the ending of the previous chapter.

PS: There's so much product placement in this it might as well be an episode of EA. I hope there's no confusion over what everything is though!

"(7) The whole nine yards" continued

"In spite of everything, Emma still wasn't really convinced that Alex meant their relationship was now their own world, one that didn't rely on outdated traditions. Not until their fourth date, when they stayed up until two am watching cheesy comedies and woke up the next morning still on Emma's couch."

Alex wakes up disoriented and his first suspicion is that he is hung over. He hasn't been black-out drunk in years and yet that was the only thing he could think of to explain why he had fallen asleep on a couch and woken up with a bitter taste in his mouth. The reality, of course, is a lot more pleasant.

When he allows himself to wake up fully, Alex establishes that he's in Emma's living room. He recognizes the oval stainless steel coffee table that Emma had assured him was very "Emma approved". The television set was hard to forget, as he had plugged it in and set it up himself, so he recognizes that too as he blinks the last of the sleep out of his system.

The small, white Blu-ray logo darts across the screen in front of his eyes and after a few seconds Alex realizes the set and the player are still on. He's about to dart off the couch to turn it off – worried about both Emma's electricity bill and the environment – when he notices the warm weight on his shoulder.

Emma shifts slightly against him as if she knows he's awake and Alex's face breaks into a small smile. He adjusts as slowly and subtly as possible before leaning his head against hers and closing his eyes again. The day could wait for him just a bit longer.

He's not sure how long he's actually been sleeping when Emma shakes him awake. Blinking, Alex looks up at her confused and notices she looks really worried. This only deepens his confusion.

"I'm sorry," she manages to get out before he has a second to ask. She's pulling him off of her couch and he's lucky he's confused and lethargic enough to slow her down or he'd probably be out of her door already.

"About what? What's going on?"

Emma pulls her hair back from her face and reaches for a hair tie on her wrist before noticing it isn't there. Dropping her arms back to her sides, she shrugs up at him.

"I didn't mean to make you stay over and you probably think we're moving too fast now and that last night was a mistake even though we didn't really do anything but I'm sure you'll find –"

Alex breaks the rhythm of her rapid fire speech by kissing her. (It's literally one of the best parts about dating her, that he can stop her from rambling.)

She smiles slightly against his lips but pulls back, "Alex..."

"It's fine," he replies, still holding her face in his hands.

She cocks her head to the side and narrows her eyes slightly. "What happened to 'taking it slow' and 'general gentleman-like behaviour'?"

Alex laughs, "I don't think we've exactly rushed into anything. Though, it may have been a little early in the relationship to be watching that many rom coms."

He looks at her very seriously but they both laugh at the same moment anyway. Then, Emma drags her foot against the hardwood for a second before looking up at him.

"So, we're okay?"

Alex moves his thumbs along her cheeks, "I thought I was the one who worried too much?"

"A simple 'yes' or 'no' would suffice, Alex Knightley…" she closes her eyes but he's sure she's rolling them too.

He mutters a "Yes," with a drawn out S to emphasize how obvious that was. But he presses a kiss to her forehead, cheeks, and lips just to make sure they were clear. Alex Knightley was nothing if not thorough.

"Now come on, I'm hungry," he tells her, grabbing her hand and pulling her over to the kitchen. As they walk, his face is practically twitching from the overwhelming desire to positively beam about the fact that Emma looked just slightly dazed by his kisses. But he'd save that discussion for when his companion was a bit more awake.

"I need to shower," Emma reports when he plops her down in one of the kitchen stools by the island. She's folding her arms out in front of her, looking more like she was going to fall back asleep right there before attempting anything else.

"Do you want coffee before or after that?" he asks, his hands already grabbing mugs and Tassimo packages out of the cupboard by the machine. Emma looks up from the island's surface and hugs her arms closer together.

"I like having you here in the mornings," she reports, with the kind of sleepy smile Alex is certain he will never be able to say no to.

"That hardly answers my question," he responds, leaning over the island towards her. She pulls out her Alex Knightley do not be smart with me face and says, "After."

He grins, "Don't fall asleep in the shower and drown, then."

She slumps out of her chair and starts walking towards the stairs leading to her bathroom. When she reaches them, she turns back slightly to say "I would like to point out that I've survived my morning routine every day before this without you, you know that?"

Before answering, Alex leans his backagainst the island and opens his arms out in front of him. "Ah yes, survive. Not thrive."

Emma whispers a half-mortified "Oh my god" while trying to keep a neutral face.

"You'll soon find that I have a gift for mornings," Alex continues.

"Oh, a gift?" Emma asks, her curiosity sufficiently not peaked, as she trails her way up the stairs.

"Yup, it is uncanny. Plus, I make killer breakfast."

"Oh my god, please stop talking like you are a sixteen year old boy. I can practically see you flexing your muscles from here," Emma shouts down as Alex hears the bathroom door open and close. He laughs to himself, before moving to get started on the coffee.

When Emma comes back downstairs – looking ready for a night on the town, though it was 10 am and they had no plans as far as he knew – she also looked considerably more awake. She still grabs her mug of coffee like it's the last one in existence but he knows she rarely likes to operate without it.

"Glad to see you survived," Alex jibes from his spot at the stove top, surveying a pan of eggs.

Emma moves over to his side, slipping her arm through his as she watches him push the eggs back and forth with a fork. She leans her head on his shoulder.

"You know how you have a gift for mornings?" she asks.

Alex laughs and leans his head against hers slightly, though it's difficult because he's taller than her, "Mhm."

"You should stay for tomorrow morning, too," she tells him slowly, eyes still focused intently on the eggs she wouldn't be eating.

On his part, Alex doesn't really know what to say and thus stalls by finishing off the eggs and then moving back to the island to fill his plate. He even manages to drop the frying pan in the sink and rinse it off before Emma pokes him in the shoulder. Even then, he shifts past her and presents her with her own plate – devoid of meat, eggs, and anything else Alex would consider actual breakfast food. He wasn't sure how well he did on the whole vegan breakfast front, not having practiced that as much as other meals, but the small smile playing on her face is enough to make him feel that his effort was appreciated.

"You're really bad with this whole 'yes' or 'no' idea, did you know?" Emma mocks, as she returns to her stool.

Alex turns to face her from his own seat. They were sitting kitty-corner to one another and he caught her foot with both of his. "Do you really want me to stay over tonight?"

She eats two pieces of pineapple before replying, "I want you to stay over all weekend."

He lets out a deep breath and looks out her kitchen window while thinking the idea over. Despite having promised her he'd stop being overly formal, Alex still wasn't sure if spending two more days in her condo was the best idea at the moment. It's a hard argument to make, though, since they've both done it before they started dating. But back then, there had been a lot less pressure and Alex worried that he would start stressing again – which hadn't done well for him the last time.

Emma moves her foot along his right pant leg to bring his attention back to her. It solidifies his belief that he doesn't really have a say in this, or at least that it would be nearly impossible to say no to her.

"I'll have to go home to grab stuff."

"Is that a yes?" she inches closer to him and grabs his forearm.

"That includes work, which I need to finish over the weekend."

"This is sounding most definitely like a yes," she bites her lip and offers him a small smile.

Alex smiles back and leans in a bit closer, "Yes for tonight and we'll see how that goes, okay?"

Her "Okay" is almost lost on him as she closes the distance between them to kiss him. She wraps her arms around his neck and narrowly misses knocking his drink over, not that he would have cared much.

After breakfast, Alex heads out to his condo to grab some essentials. He does a few quick errands on the way back that end up taking longer than he expected. They're usually spread out over the whole weekend so they don't tend to take as long, but when he tries to cram them all into one Saturday morning, they end up taking up the better part of three hours. Just as he's parking in Emma's driveway, he receives her text that tells him she'll be visiting her father until 4:30 – a tradition he knew about but had forgotten somewhere between picking up his vitamins and mailing two packages to his extended family.

He uses the spare key to let himself back in and starts working on his latest attempt to crunch some crucial numbers in order to be free for when Emma returned.

Of course, he wasn't, and Emma laughs at the sight of him typing away on her couch when she comes through the door.

"You definitely know how to keep yourself busy without me," she jokes, dropping off her purse and keys on the coffee table before joining him on the couch. "You know that I do have an office – that place with a desk and ergonomic chair where you can do all the silly math you want?"

"It even has lamps," he retorts, leaning over to kiss her in greeting. She rolls her eyes and smiles before leaning against him.

"I see you've showered and dressed."

"I had considered lounging around in pajamas all day, but I figured you'd be critical of that," he switches tabs to continue reading the essay he'd been skimming on emerging markets in Western Europe. It wasn't exactly work related but it at least meant he wouldn't be typing and jostling Emma's head on his shoulder.

"You should always be awake and prepared to face the day, even on the weekend," she says, and for once he makes no argument.

They stay like that for a bit until Emma gets up and returns with her Kindle, moving a pillow to Alex's side and lying down on the couch. "You can get back to your real work now," she tells him, and he has to smile at how observant she is even about his boring stuff.

When he finally feels like he has completed enough work, Alex shuts his laptop and turns towards Emma, half expecting her to be asleep. She isn't, though, but rather checking twitter on her phone.

"Anything noteworthy?" he asks, surprising her and causing her to sit up and face him.

"Harriet and Martin's date went well," she tells him brightly. She may still not be completely sold on the couple, but she cared about Harriet and had even started to warm up to Martin, so knowing they were both happy was enough for her right now.

"Good, so where did B-Mart take her?"

"Please do not call him that," Emma groans as Alex winds his fingers through hers on her free hand. "And I'm not sure, the tweet doesn't say. Maybe I'll call her…"

"Do you want me to start dinner while you call?"

Emma blinks at him, her thumb freezing above the dial pad on her phone.

"Yeah, you are never getting out of spending time here again," she says, shaking her head and grinning at him.

Alex laughs, "I'm sure you'd eventually get tired of the three meals I can cook that you'll actually eat."

She tilts her head slightly, saying, "True," before leaning forward and kissing him quickly, "But not yet." Then she's pressing the green call button on her phone and leaning back into the sofa cushions.

Dinner is gluten-free pasta with tomato and basil sauce (the simplicity was about the only way to ensure that they would both end up eating it). As they ate, Emma filled Alex in on Harriet and Martin's date at a pizza parlour (along with all 25 reasons why that was not Emma approved) and her visit at her dad's. Alex didn't have much to contribute to the conversation but he was content just to listen to her (and argue 22 of those aforementioned reasons). By the end of it, he even managed to talk to her a bit about the essays he'd been reviewing lately. She asked enough questions to seem interested but Alex could almost hear himself getting bored of his own voice. So after dinner, he opted for some time in front of the television.

They flick back and forth between Jeopardy and Family Feud until 9 o'clock, repeatedly saying they weren't keeping score but both knowing they were doing it anyway. By the time they'd call it quits, Alex had garnered the most points, thanks to the Family Feud question on "What people bring to go camping."

Alex follows Emma upstairs and listens to her complain about the necessity of hand sanitizer while in the wilderness, before reaching the guest room where he'd left his things. As he turns to enter, Emma notices him no longer following her.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting ready for bed…?"

"Yes, in my room," Emma says, crossing her arms as though daring him to deny her.

"Emma – "

"No Emma-ing me," she pouts, "Besides, that room's all dusty from lack of use."

"I stayed in there three months ago," he reminds her, lifting an eyebrow and trying not to smirk. He had been having his bathroom redone and she offered him the guest bedroom for a few days. Not exactly the same circumstances, but still.

"Yes, well," Emma uncrosses her arms to reach for his hand, "I think it's safe to say, things have changed since then." She drags him back slowly to her own door, and grabs the handle from behind her back.

"Emma, what happened to taking it slow?"

She rolls her eyes, "I don't expect us to do anything, it's not that big of deal."

He looks at her pleadingly, hoping that he had conceded enough for one day. She purses her lips for a minute and then sighs, "Fine."

Alex kisses her lightly and tells her good night, then he heads back to the spare room and falls asleep in a matter of minutes. But not before noticing that it was actually dustier than he remembered.

(...)

Emma hears the knocking at her door and almost wonders who it could be. In the space between sleep and alertness, she forgets that there is another person in the house with her. She should really be more worried, in those moments before she realizes it's Alex, but she doesn't assume that a serial killer or a robber would knock. So she takes her time getting out of bed.

Her morning greeting has barely left her mouth before he's lifting her off her feet in a bear hug.

"Why am I being hugged at 10 am?" she asks, snuggling into Alex's neck with her arms wrapped around him and half-way towards going back to sleep on his shoulder.

"Because I just finished wrapping up the accounts for our last client," he pauses for effect and she can feel the excitement in the tension in his muscles.

"And?"

"We broke even! Isn't that great?" he chuckles to himself and Emma feels herself smiling.

"Do you usually, what, pop a champagne bottle when I'm not around for these kind of successes?"

Alex laughs and leans her back against her door frame, but Emma wraps her legs around his waist instead of letting him drop her. He laughs again slightly.

"I'm just going to ignore you for the next five minutes so I can enjoy this, okay?" he tells her quietly.

Emma laughs and pulls back to kiss him lightly. She goes back to hugging him for a bit before something clicks in her head. She lets herself fall back onto the floor before asking him about it.

"Why did you figure this out at 10 am?"

He looks at her confused, "Because I just finished working on it?"

"Okay, let me rephrase: why were you working on it at 10 am?"

"Oh," he yawns, "I wanted to finish before you woke up. I didn't want to work on it anymore during the day."

Emma pulls at her pajama shorts slightly and shakes her head, looking for the right words to say.

"What?" Alex asks.

"You're just too much sometimes," she replies, yawning herself, and then heading back into her room to get changed.

Emma does yoga on Sundays so she heads down the stairs assuming Alex had forgotten (or alternatively, didn't know) and had made them both a heavy breakfast. Instead, he hands her a container of granola and yogurt, saying something about not knowing if she wanted to eat it now or take it with her. She was beginning to realize how poor she was at reacting to him being…well, him. Alex. Her boyfriend? Part of her was starting to understand why he wanted to take things slow.

Yoga was the perfect distraction from this thought though and once she returned home and showered, Emma was back out again to visit her father until 2. He asked her why she seemed distracted and she told him it was nothing. In truth, she hadn't really broached the topic of her dating Alex with her father yet because neither of them had said anything official about what 'they' were. She didn't think of it as lying because what is there to tell when you don't know what to tell? But she knew it would come up eventually, which seemed to weigh on her about as much as everything else that day.

Emma walks back home to find Alex on the phone with one of his old college friends. She waves to him and then makes herself a snack and pours herself some lemonade. When she actually leaves to sit on the porch, however, she realizes she isn't really in the mood to eat it. That's how Alex finds her.

"Hey, how was your dad's?" he asks, pulling up in the chair beside her like he had on their second date. Emma reaches into his lap and grabs one of his hands because she needs to feel grounded and Alex had always been her solid point. She feels how much larger they are than her own, and how dry they are. The urge to make a comment on that is less strong than it would normally be.

"Good, he was heavily invested in whether or not Henry and Emma got their flu shots this year."

"Flu shots?"

Emma shrugs and Alex laughs. "Well, I hope they have more Woodhouse in them than Knightley, they'll be far less susceptible to diseases that way."

She smiles slightly but she knows it isn't the reaction he's expecting.

"Hey," he says, squeezing her hand gently and looking at her with concern.

"Alex, what are we doing?" she practically blurts out. And it's a testament to how long they've known each other that she can tell he's suppressing the urge to be sarcastic.

"What do you mean?"

"Us. What…what are…we?" she makes a face at her own words because she is unimpressed with them.

"I don't know what you're asking me," and he actually looks genuinely confused, which is both nice and annoying.

"When you talk about me, who am I?"

Alex almost looks afraid to say, "Emma Woodhouse?" she groans. "Um…yeah, I'm not good at this. What is your question, exactly?"

Emma rolls her eyes and adjust in her chair so she's facing him. "Am I your girlfriend?" she asserts, because she is Emma Woodhouse, and she doesn't shy away from direct questions.

Alex stares at her incredulously before laughing. He's cut off almost immediately by her still straight face, but he's still smiling through his confusion. "I…I thought so?"

She hits him on the shoulder and grins, "Don't laugh! It was a fair question." He pulls her into his lap, bringing back more déjà vu, and shaking his head.

"We've literally been going on dates for almost two months."

"Hmm, well maybe you had to ask. It is the gentleman-like thing to do," she pokes him in the chest and he laughs again, brushing her hair away from her face.

"I'll ask if you want me to. I'll even take a knee," he jokes, pressing his forehead to hers. But she just kisses him instead because titles, traditions, clichés, and whatever else weren't important as long as he was hers.

She eventually pulls him back inside, conceding to his request for pizza (as long as it was home cooked). They put the dish in the oven and wait it out by making out against her kitchen island for the better part of eight minutes. When the pizza's done, they both burn their mouths on it before it cools and Alex convinces her to let them eat on the floor in the living room while they watch the American Idol auditions she had PVRed. And even though Alex has his arm wrapped around her shoulders and continuously presses kisses to her temple every now and again, it still feels very normal. Like all his silly dates before, she feels like she's just spending the night with her best friend, which she kind of still is.

"Do you think we're moving too fast?" Emma asks, when Alex sits back down after putting the dishes in the kitchen. He hands her a glass of white wine and shrugs when she raises an eyebrow.

"Not physically, but emotionally?" she continues when he doesn't respond.

"No," he says, putting his own wine glass on the table. He works the tie off his neck, which she didn't know why he was wearing to begin with. Generally, Alex hated ties.

"No? That's all you're going to say is no?"

"I don't think we are. What part do I need to elaborate on?" He leans back against the sofa to look at her.

"The why, if I had to take a guess," she replies with as much sarcasm as she can muster.

Alex sighs, "Because the only thing that determines what speed we're taking this relationship in is you and me. And I don't think we are and you've never made any mention of it before now."

Emma presses her tongue to her cheek and tries to figure out the best way to say what she wants to. "Relationships are about balance, right?" Alex nods. "Well…I'm not sure we're…balanced right now."

"Why?" he asks, moving to wrap his arm around her waist loosely.

She bites her lips and sighs, remembering her belief in being as direct as possible, "Because you're more open with your feelings than I am."

Alex blinks. "What?"

"You're always doing all this stuff to show how much you care about me and I don't feel like I'm measuring up to that so maybe it's not that we're moving too fast but that you're moving faster than me which is probably worse –"

He cuts her off by kissing her; she leans entirely into it. She normally hates it when she sees other people do that because she thinks it's their way of cutting out the emotional side of things. But as she listened to herself worry about what was going on between them, she was beginning to realize that that wasn't really a problem worth fussing about. Yes, sometimes she felt like he was pulling out all the stops while she couldn't even meet him half-way, but the truth was that she did care about him and he knew she showed that in different ways than him. It was almost strange because she never used to ramble in the past, it was just something about all this that made her feel like every second was precious and she had to get out what she needed to say as quickly as possible. Emma was beginning to understand why Alex had been so prone to worrying on all their dates – it was easy to worry when something really mattered.

When he pulls back, his hand is still on her shoulder and he's looking at her smiling. "Emma, I do those things because I love you. And that isn't a contest."

She laughs. He furrows his brow.

"Sorry, it's just that. I was going to say that I wanted to say that first," she smiles when he smiles, "then you had to go and be all humble about it."

"It doesn't hurt to still say it back…" Alex prompts. Emma laughs again and brushes her nose against his, before finally picking herself up off the floor and slouching back into the sofa, wine in hand. He rolls his eyes, but stays on the floor until the auditions finish.

On their way up the stairs later on, Emma feels the need to question why American Idol was on its thirteenth season. Alex just laughs and links his hand with hers up the stairs.

When she reaches her door, Emma turns to look at Alex and says "Good night." Even though she wants to ask him, once again, to give up on the guest room already, she figures they've made enough progress for one day. He echoes her good night with a smile but doesn't move to kiss her. In fact, he doesn't move at all.

Emma ignores this and moves into her room. She's only a few steps in when she hears his footsteps behind hers. The smile on her face is small but it does a poor job of displaying her happiness.

She turns around to look at him and he smiles back at her. Then he reaches behind his head to scratch the back of his neck.

"So, I do still need to go back to the guest room and change…but I thought this was a better message," Emma laughs in response and shoos him off before closing her own door behind him.

He barely takes up the left side of her bed and doesn't even face her. But it's a start.

(...)

Emma wakes the next morning with Alex's hand tangled in her hair and his forehead pressed to hers. He wakes up in the same moment as her and looks like he's about to apologize, albeit quite sleepily. But she beats him to it.

"I love you, too, Alex" and he positively beams at her.

"I'm really not sure I could have waited any longer for that," he jokes, and Emma knows she has absolutely nothing to worry about when it comes to them. Not anymore.

A little different than their (adorable) dates, but change is good! Haha, hope you liked it and please review, as always.