When Emily and Aurora placed their orders, Emily immediately noticed that something was different about her daughter's disposition than it had been even five minutes beforehand.

"Aurora, what's wrong?"

The young woman wiped the distant look if her face and gave her mother a reassuring smile. "I'm fine, I promise. I was just thinking."

"Care to share?"

"Even before I met Aurora's bio-dad, I've been burned in relationships before. I love Spencer with my whole heart and every single day, I'm in awe that he fell in love with me, of all people. I can't wait to Missus Doctor Spencer Reid, but this far into my last relationship, I was already missing warning signs that I was going to get dumped."

Emily's heart broke a little for her daughter, and she suddenly found herself wishing that she could go back in time to personally kick the ass of every last person who had ever made Aurora sad.

"Sweetheart, Spencer loves you so incredibly much, and he loves Alice like he's known her since she was growing inside you. He's even got a framed picture of the two of you on his desk now; I saw it this morning."

Aurora smiled. "Yeah, he showed me the picture before he left today."

"So you see? If Spencer does something like that, it's because he truly loves you. He can't live without you, Alice, or the baby."

"And none of us can live without him."

"Does that make you feel better?"

"Yeah, Emily, it does." the teacher's happy smile grew. "Thanks."

Emily reached across the table and gave her offspring's hand a gentle squeeze. "Now how about you tell me something from your first pregnancy?"

Aurora thought for a minute and then laughed as on the thought in particular popped into her head. "One of the most telltale things, besides the usual, was that I craved fruit. Usually, pregnant women crave anything but healthy things don't they?"

Emily laughed. "I hate to make a pun out of this, kid, but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"No?"

"It was the dog days of summer in Italy during my first trimester, and it was hot to the point where I'd actually get sick from heat exhaustion and have to stay inside. That being said, it was also prime watermelon season, so that turned into my favorite go-to snack, once I found out the hard way that I'm allergic to strawberries."

Aurora spat out a little of her drink in surprise.

"What?" Emily asked in amusement as she helped Aurora clean up. "Are you allergic to strawberries, too?"

"And kiwi. I also found out when I was pregnant, although apples were my favorite thing to snack on. It was never a fun day when I ran out."

"Well, if I passed down my love for fruit and my strawberry allergy, but you got a kiwi allergy on your own, did you pass any of that to Alice?"

"Both allergies, and any time we take her somewhere or when she's at school, I give her a special bag that has an epi-pen it because her allergic reactions can be near-fatal."

"Good to know." Emily said seriously. "I'll make sure JJ knows, too."

Aurora smiled at her mother's concern, touched. "There is one thing that I just can't figure out about her and her food, though. Neither can Spencer."

"Do tell."

"Alice has an extremely irrational fear of any spaghetti-like noodle."

Emily gave a snort of laughter. "That's a bummer, considering her heritage, but seriously? Spaghetti?"

Aurora nodded. "At least Zadie's irrational fear is normal for a small child. She freaks out at the sound of a vacuum."

"Poor baby." Emily laughed and then wrinkled as she felt a stirring in her womb.

"What is it?"

Emily leaned back in her seat and blew out a breath as she rubbed her middle. "It's nothing. Twenty-five years is just a long time in between pregnancies, and things are slightly different this time around because I turned a particular number on my birthday this year."

The equation Emily was avoiding was basic math, and the number in question was forty.

"Then at least answer me one more thing about pregnancy before the food comes and it gets weird."

"Fire away."

"What have you and JJ been craving now?"

"There are normal things, and even things that neither of us can process the other liking because the combinations are so odd, but the mutual thing seems to be vegetables, actually."

"Vegetables." Aurora echoed blankly.

"Yep, and it isn't that surprising."

"Why?"

Emily grinned. "Not only are JJ and I always eerily in sync, but your baby siblings are literally going to be siblings, if you catch my drift. JJ and I are more in sync than ever because of that."

Aurora totally caught Emily's drift, and lit up with joy; now she really wanted to see JJ again.

Before she could say anything to that, however, their food came and their conversation soon drifted to other things, including different ways Emily could propose to JJ.

They chatted at length as they ate dinner and even dessert together, although on the way back to Noir Crescent, Aurora became quiet again.

Just before she said goodbye as Emily's car sat idling in the driveway, she said one last thing to her mother.

"Emily, how did you know that you were in love with JJ?"

Without any hesitation, Emily answered, "All of the songs made sense. Does that help?"

"Yes." she smiled.

Aurora had reached that conclusion the second she realized that she was in love with Spencer, but she just wanted to see if that sense of certainty was one more thing that Emily had passed on to her.

She was glad it was.