This is my first story, so reviews are much appreciated. The story will eventually contain spanking or corporal punishment of a minor. If that is not your thing, then please stop reading.

The story is a bit AU. It's not so AU that it will have aliens or zombies, but it definitely is not canon.

For the purposes of this universe, Jack Hotchner does not exist.

Once upon a time, there were two men named Aaron and David. They were introduced in their younger years and had cultivated a long and strong relationship, first as co-workers and then as friends. As the years went by, their friendship gradually deepened into something more. Both had tried to live by the rules of society; they had tried to have 'normal' relationships with the opposite sex but they could never seem to make it work. After their marriages fell apart (more than once for Dave), they finally admitted to themselves that they were much more attracted to each other than they were to anyone else and, once they finally acted on their feelings, they each knew they were with their soul mate.

Their love sustained them through the good times and bad. While some of their family members stood by them as they declared their intense feelings for each other, others saw their love as an abominable life choice and refused to have any part of it. This saddened both David and Aaron, but their true friends and family stood by them and helped celebrate many joyous occasions in their lives; they almost made up for the missing, close-minded family members.

Like most couples, Aaron and David desired a child. They both had demanding jobs that required them to go toe-to-toe with the worst elements of society and they knew they needed a bright light in their lives to keep the darkness at bay. They understood that it would be time consuming and expensive to conceive a child, and that much of society was against the idea of them becoming parents, but neither of them had ever really cared about what other people thought of them, or their lives, so that wasn't much of a factor in their decision. Thankfully, since they both made good livings in their respective jobs at the BAU, and David was an accomplished author, money was not a barrier, so they had their pick of surrogate mothers and, as luck would have it, conception occurred early in the process…

"Let me help you, Anne," Aaron said as he came around to the front passenger side of the SUV. He held out his hand, and the large pregnant woman grasped it and hauled herself out of the vehicle with a groan.

"I can't believe I'm going to get even bigger," she grumbled as Dave joined them and they began making their way into the large medical complex. "I'm seven and a half months along and I'm a frigging whale! How is that even possible? I've eaten more healthy food in the last six months than I have in my entire life!"

Dave grinned as the woman checked in with the medical assistant at the front desk and then sat down heavily to wait for her doctor to call her. "Well, I'm not an expert," he said, "But maybe it has to do with that baby you're hauling around?"

"All I know is that you'd better start saving your pennies now guys, because your son is a healthy eater; God help you when he's a teenager!"

"Anne Meadows?" The nurse called out. The pregnant woman once again struggled to her feet with help from the two men. They watched as she walked down the hallway and waited for the nurse to call them back.

XXX

Twenty minutes later, after the doctor had finished the exam, Dave and Aaron were in the exam room getting an update on the pregnancy.

"Anne is in excellent health," Dr. Cantor told them as she stood next to the mother-to-be. "Her weight is perfect, her blood work all looks great, and everything else looks fine."

Both men exhaled twin sighs of relief at that. "So there's no indication of any more pre-term labor?" Hotch asked hesitantly. A month previous, the surrogate mother had started contracting. Luckily, a round of drugs and an overnight stay in the hospital had stopped the early labor and their son had stayed tucked up inside of her, where he belonged.

"I am not seeing any evidence of labor," the doctor told him as she squeezed a dollop of jelly onto Anne's bare belly. She grabbed the sonogram probe, placed it into the cold goo and, a minute later, a strong heartbeat could be heard throughout the room.

"That's our kid, Aaron," Dave said breathlessly, as he gripped Anne's hand and watched the screen.

"I can't believe it," he responded in awe, as he stared at the grainy picture of their baby.

The doctor gave them a moment to savor what they were hearing and seeing before speaking. "Like mom here, your baby also looks very healthy. As Anne can attest to, she is quite mobile, her size is right where we want it to be, and I don't see any birth defects. In short, your daughter is perfect."

"Hey doc, I think you're reading your notes wrong; we're having a son," Dave said absently as he continued to stare at the screen.

The doctor's brow furrowed as she took a second look at the sonogram monitor. "No, you're definitely having a girl. Otherwise, your son would be missing a pretty important part of his anatomy."

That got both Dave and Aaron's attention and they tore their eyes away from the machine and focused on the doctor. "But the last time we were here, they told us it was a boy," Hotch told her. "Did something happen in the meantime? Could this be a birth defect?" A million horrible thoughts sped through his mind as the doctor flipped through the medical file. Her furrowed brow suddenly smoothed as she began nodding to herself.

"I see what happened," she told them. "The sonogram technician who performed the last scan was new and she must have misread it. It's lucky you got me today, otherwise you would have had a major surprise in the delivery room."

Both men wore similar looks of shock on their faces and, without knowing it, the same thought was racing across both of their minds. 'What the hell are we going to do with a girl?'

XXX
Two hours later, after they had dropped Anne off at her apartment, the two men arrived home and beelined it straight to the liquor cabinet.

"What in the hell are we going to do with a girl, Aaron?" Dave asked, finally voicing their unspoken question, after taking a more than healthy swig of scotch.

Hotch followed suit and took a large draw of his drink before answering quietly, "I have no idea."

"We're two guys for Chrissake!" Rossi declared, a little hysterically. "We're gay! What do we know about girls?"

"I believe all of our ex-wives would agree what you just said," Hotch agreed dryly as he raised his glass in a mock toast to his statement.

Dave glared at his husband for a moment. "Would you please join me in my hysteria for a minute? How can you be so calm? The idea of having a kid was scary enough when we thought it was a boy, but a girl? At least with a son we would have had been able to draw on our own experiences to help guide him through his own, but that idea is out the window now!"

"Can you imagine the awkward conversations we are going to have to have with her?"

"Jesus," Rossi breathed as he took another gulp of his drink. "I never even thought about that.

Hotch nodded grimly. "Dating. Puberty. Why she has two daddies. Sex."

"I am officially, here and now, calling not it to all of those discussions," Dave told his lover firmly. "Well, except for the dating one. That talk will be short; no dating, ever. End of story."

"You'll see just how quickly my calm demeanor will fade if you even try to stick me with those moments, Dave," Hotch said quietly but forcefully. "We'll BOTH be sitting through those
horrifying talks, understand?"

Dave, not wanting to make matters worse than they already were, nodded grimly as he refilled his drink. Since it was a Friday, and neither of them had to be back at the office until Monday, they decided the best way to handle the issue was to get drunk and see if it helped in any way.