Atlas Kelper tried not to grunt as he carried full grocery baskets through the short aisles of his local grocery store. He cursed himself for not staying in better shape and the store for organizing its goods in a manner that required him to go all over the store just to locate a handful of different items in very illogical places.

'Seriously, why would they put cookies at the end of the frozen section when the sweets are at the other end of the store?' He thought bitterly to himself. His mantle reflected his mood, shifting between various shades of red.

His aggravation was stoked when he got to the only cash register that was attended and there were six people ahead of him in line. The person at the front was digging a large assortment of coupons from her purse, eliciting a vexed expression from the cashier.

The people behind her had already dug out their phones in anticipation of a long wait, but he had both his arms full. He could, of course, put the baskets down to save his arms but he had just enough macho pride in him that he refused. A certain part of him also wanted to defy the stereotype of his generation and resist taking out his phone, giving him a sense of superiority.

As the lady at the front handed the cashier the coupons one by one, his mind wandered, trying to keep itself occupied while only dimly paying attention to the events around him. Filtering out his irritation at the woman in front and the tiredness in his arms helped calm him, his colour shifting to a less aggressive dark blue. He marveled at the way the cashier managed to maintain his natural green despite his irritation and growing pressure as the line continued to grow. There were four people behind Atlas now and they seemed just as annoyed as he had been.

"Why don't they open another register." One of the Inkling's behind him muttered angrily. Atlas couldn't agree more with that statement but he suspected that if they had anyone to crew another register, they would have done it by now.

Fortunately, once the coupons were finally scanned, the cashier was quick, and with the coupon lady out of the way, the line finally began to move, and in less time than she had occupied on her own, all the people in front of Atlas had gone through with their purchases.

Atlas quickly piled his large assortment of items onto the sales counter, happy to be rid of the baskets and give his arms a brief respite. The cashier standing behind the register stared at the pile of groceries for a moment before giving him a knowing smirk.

Atlas tried not to make eye contact with the cashier as he scanned the purchases. There were only a handful of reasons why an Inkling his age would purchase so many groceries at once, and since the lack of junk food disqualified any kind of party or get-together, that more or less left a hungry expecting female as the only possibility.

Mercifully, the cashier made no comment, and allowed Atlas to pay in peace then leave with his dignity. The plastic grocery bags were harsher on his hands than the basket had been, but he was just glad to be out of the store and on his way back home.

It was a weekend so the streets of Inkopolis' suburbs were relatively quiet as everyone headed off to fight turf wars or some other 'fun' activity. The young, rebellious part of Atlas wanted to drop everything and join them, but it was promptly squashed by his sense of duty and responsibility, a part of him that had become much more dominant since beginning his adult life and especially after his marriage. Besides that, he'd never been a very good battler in the first place and if someone asked him, he said he didn't enjoy it.

Throughout his teenage years, he had never managed to get above C rank, being left behind by his friends who continued on into the B ranks and one even made it to S+. It wasn't just his friends either, the other guys in school all seemed to achieve better than he had, making them popular with all the girls and dashing all his hopes at winning the affections of Starla, his high school crush.

Knowing there was little point in continuing to battle, he focused on his studies, getting himself into a good university. There he studied economics and after graduating he landed himself a job at a marketing firm where there was always plenty of business, especially as the economy was on the upswing.

After a good twenty minutes of walking, Atlas arrived at the front door to his house, a small, but fairly new, blue two-story house in which he, his mate, and soon another, would live and grow in. He managed to open the door with two fingers and placed one bag on the floor of the porch to close it behind him.

"I'm home." He announced. No reply. Kicking off his shoes he carried the grocery bags into the kitchen and set them on the counter. No sign of her.

There were other places she might be, the bathroom for instance, but if she wasn't in the kitchen emptying the refrigerator, pantry or cupboards then there was really only one other place she would be.

He went back into the hallway and made his way to the back of the house where the corridor opened into the large living room with a concrete floor and sliding glass doors which opened into the backyard and brought plenty of natural light into the room.

To his right, the couch had been pushed into a corner that was normally reserved for his mate's workspace. A few weapons were cluttered around a collection of open magazines with a small work bench in the adjacent corner. On the left side of the room was the television, and where the couch used to be, was a large rectangular glass tank, gradually being filled with water and with a pair of oxygen pumps installed. Finally, sat in the armchair next to it, rubbing her bulging middle through her shirt, was his lovely mate.

Her sparkling purple eyes stared in the direction of the tank but their gaze was on a very distant place. Her mantle gently shifted between a dark pink, a light blue, and purple. Her natural colour was the same purple as her eyes, with black at the tips, but lately, he'd been seeing much more blues and pinks from her as her egg laying day approached.

He smiled and watched her silently for a few moments. She was so lost in the realm of her own daydreams that she didn't notice his presence until he finally spoke.

"I'm home Starla." She bounced a bit in her seat from surprise, her mantle flashing yellow-orange and stared at him for a second before she calmed down.

"Geez, don't scare me like that."

"Don't blame me for being lost in your own thoughts." He chuckled as he walked over to his pouting wife.

"Did you bring the groceries?" She asked indignantly.

"Yes, I didn't forget." He replied with a barely suppressed groan, but at least it got her to smile at him.

"Good; bring me some." Suddenly her voice was all cheerful.

"It's in the kitchen. You can get up and go there to eat it." He extended his hand, offering her help up but she protested.

"You'll make the female carrying your big heavy egg get up and walk all the way to the kitchen just for a little bite?"

"There's no such thing as a 'little bite' with you anymore." He retorted with an air of authority. "And besides, it's good exercise." She let out a whine but accepted his hand, letting him help her up until he found himself looking up at her as she stood to her full height.

On average, female Inklings were roughly one-third taller than males and sometimes double the mass thanks to having longer and more developed tentacles. Starla stood almost two heads higher than him. Hardly the largest disparity between a couple but still striking.

"How much longer do you think it will take to fill?" She meant the tank.

At the moment it was just over half filled. It was a seventy-five hundred liter tank and by the time it was full enough, the water would be over a meter deep. At three meters long and two meters wide, the tank was meant to provide more than enough space for mother and child to swim and play. Of course, that much water would weigh a lot but there were reasons he had chosen a house with a concrete floor.

"At least another few hours," he told her. "Plenty of time. Then we'll have a night or two to get ready."

With a gentle push on her back to encourage her, Starla waddled out of the living room and to the kitchen where the recently purchased foodstuffs still waited in their bags.

"I told you we should tear down that wall." She grumbled, gesturing to the inside wall of the kitchen. "Then we could have an open concept house. What were they thinking?"

"It was to the previous owner's specifications." Atlas reminded her, and not for the first time. "There are reasons we got a five-year old house so cheap."

"Well, I still think we should do it." She went on. "I wanted it done before the baby hatched. It can't take too long to tear down a wall can it?"

Atlas had asked a contractor friend of his about the job and after inspecting the wall said that it should be a fairly simple job but would also create a lot of dust in the house and depending on any unforeseen difficulties, could take two or three days to do properly. With Starla expecting by then, neither thought it a good idea to perform house surgery until the baby could leave the tank. The topic kept coming up however as Starla was constantly regretting that decision.

"It would take too long now." He said at last. "Now sit and eat. Baby's probably hungry and that's making you irritable."

One of her tentacles flipped back and whacked him lightly on the side of the head. "I'm not irritable." She insisted as she carefully sat herself down. "Just…. nervous."

Atlas rubbed the side of his head and smiled, reaching out to touch her hand. "I know Snuggle Sponge; I am too, but you'll be a great mother and with all the work we're doing to prepare, the baby will be healthy as a seahorse." He meant every word as if he were proposing to her all over again, offering her the bright pink coral ring she currently wore on her finger.

Starla simply nodded and began digging through the bags and sorting out things that could be easily eaten or not. "Can you get a pan out?"

"Of course."

He noticed the corners of her mouth tug slightly upwards as he got up and headed to the cupboards. When he had graduated high school he would have never guessed that he would have actually succeeded in getting to date his high school crush, much less marry and have children with her.

Back then, Starla had been the most beautiful girl in school. Perhaps not the most popular but she had been up there. Like most girls, she was interested in Turf Battles and guys who did Turf Battles. She dated a few of those guys, some of the best jocks in the school, while he, with his C ranking, languished at the bottom and with no hope of being cool. His heart was broken believing his crush would never so much as look him in the eye. Even when they shared a class, he drowned his sorrows in his studies, managing to put his teenage anguish to good use and propel himself to the top of class marks. Despite being derided as 'unfresh', he managed to stay out of the sinkhole of depression and graduated high school with honors.

Although some of his Turf Battling school mates did end up going pro, most of them simply weren't good enough and struggled to find any sort of direction in life. Starla had been among them, but she managed to pick herself up and start her own little business decorating weapons for Turf Battlers, something she proved a talent at with a number of regular customers. He could only admire her for trying something totally new as a way to make a living.

With the pan retrieved he started frying up some of the fish meat sausages while Starla munched on some of the barely edible but very filling and nutritious protein snacks. Atlas felt oddly happy though as he was frying the sausages. Here he was, with the love of his life, still young and expecting their first child in a relatively short time. What more could he ask for?

"Atlas?"

"Yes, darling?"

"Do you want to set up the tank tonight if it gets full early enough? It shouldn't be too much work to at least get the simple stuff in, right?"

Atlas shrugged. "I'm sure we can get the heating coils put in tonight and at least start trying to heat the water up, the oxygen pumps are already in there but putting the plants in is going to have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest. Same with the rest of the sand."

In order for both his wife and child to breathe comfortably underwater they had to ensure it had oxygen in it, which was what the oxygen pumps were for. The plants would be far too few to do it on their own, but their main purpose was for their baby to have something to interact with besides it's mother and the sand would help make it feel more homey and less artificial.

"Tomorrow then." She mumbled. "It has to be perfect." Her hands wandered downwards and she started to rub the bulge in her belly. "It has to be."

Atlas left the sausages for a moment and wandered over to his wife to kiss her on the cheek. "It will be, because you will be there, and our baby will be perfect because it came from you."

She uttered a healthy chuckle and nuzzled against him. "Oh, you. Always such a sweet talker."

"I speak only the truth Sugar Rush." He smiled, giving her a quick peck on the lips. "Now just worry about eating. That egg will come out before you know it."

He walked back to the stove and turned the sausages over, sighing quietly to himself, knowing that tomorrow was probably going to be even more frustrating than the coupon lady had been.

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Author's Notes:

My second Splatoon story that was born of a discussion about whether Inklings are born or hatched. Updates will be twice a week.