Riley's condition was very up and down. Mia could attest as to how aggressively the man had punched, still feeling the effects herself (and she had been wearing a helmet!). In the span of a several days, Riley had woken up a few times. Of some of those times, she had been a little more aware and active. Others, she had done nothing but whine about how her head hurt. The hospital had kept her in their care for a few days before releasing her back to Mia and Kevin with a long list of instructions for caring for her. Riley was to spend most of her time in bed, or if she was out of bed it was for a quiet, somewhat mindless activity that would let her rest.

Fortunately, Riley's head was tougher than it looked. It was about as hard as she was stubborn, so the trauma to her head had been classified as moderate. A strong moderate, but not enough to be severe. With enough rest, and a long enough recovery period, Riley would be able to go back to her active, normal life.

Riley being at home and awake was just in time, too. Terran's first birthday had finally come, and all the Samurai were very excited. As though he knew today was his special day, Terran started it by sleeping in, giving his parents and his aunts and uncles time to get the house decorated. Mia and Kevin wanted to be a part of the celebration, but they couldn't leave Riley home alone so they insisted the birthday be celebrated at their house. Riley could join when and if she was feeling up to it. There would be cake, so it was likely she would turn up at some point.

A stack of presents sat on the coffee table in the common room. Terran was being spoiled rotten by his entire family – even those who couldn't be present. James' parents, as well as his siblings and nieces and nephews were out of town and couldn't come down even for the day – no matter how hard they tried. James' parents, who had met Terran before and had fallen in love with their newest grandson had called the day before, the morning of, and later the morning off, hoping to catch Terran so they could wish him a happy birthday over the phone. They had also sent many, many presents and Serena excitedly shook them all to try and see what they were. One box started singing when she shook it, which had scared her and made the others laugh. Serena already didn't like that one toy – whatever it was.

Serena's parents had also tried to come down for the day, but an incident on the farm made it impossible for them to leave. Like James' parents, they had called for Terran over the phone several times to wish him a happy first birthday and promised to visit him soon with their mountain of presents for him. Serena was sure they had James' parents beat, as he was their first grandchild and the first did tend to get spoiled rotten on such milestones.

But the rest of the family was in attendance.

"Does he even know it's his birthday?" Lauren asked as she watched her friends and brother hang up banners and streamers and a game that made no sense to her, but everyone was excited for. She couldn't remember the name, but there were tails laying on the kitchen table and a donkey showing its butt on a poster.

"Probably not," James shook his head and made sure the banners were level, "but we all do and it's his first. It's exciting and fun and…"

"He's a year old," Serena was sitting at the kitchen table and writing in a large card the Samurai had bought for Terran's birthday. The others had to share the right page on the inside of the card, while Serena had taken up all the space on the left, insisting that though it was huge, she would fill it up and possibly use the back. She had a lot to say to her now one year old son. "One year ago…"

"Yeah, please don't go into details about what happened a year ago," Mike rolled his eyes and sighed before he turned to Lauren, "Let's just say, Terran's birth caught us off guard. All I remember is a crushed had, a lot of screaming, being called a heartless jackass, more screaming, blood, screaming, blood, screaming, blood, more mean names, blood, and then Terran started crying."

The colour drained for Lauren's face. She nodded her head slowly.

"Yeah, I've never been happier to be a lesbian."

"I think I'm finally happy I can't have kids," Mia winced as she walked into the kitchen to get started on a cake for Terran. When the Samurai Rangers had first met Mia, asking her to cook anything that required more skills than putting two slices of bread in a toaster had been asking for death to come early. When Mia learned her cooking was… subpar, she started to take lessons from Kevin and had vastly improved. Now, she was one of the better cooks in the Samurai family, and she still had her passion for it, so she had been thrilled when Serena and James asked her to cook their son's very first birthday cake.

"Okay!" Emily darted into the kitchen on her crutches and with a big smile on her face. While the house was being set up, Emily had been keeping her eyes on Terran. He had woken up about half an hour earlier and it was up to Emily ot get him ready for his big day and keep him distracted for long enough while the others set up the house. She figured they had enough time and couldn't hold in her excitement any longer. She and Mike (with some help from Ji) had gotten Terran one of the best birthday presents ever (if Emily could say so herself). "I'm not going to brag, but I'm amazing."

"Where is the not bragging part?" James teased. Emily stuck her tongue out.

"Serena, one year ago you made the cutest baby I've ever seen. I've just made him a million times cuter. This is why I am the favourite auntie. Terran! Come see mommy!"

Always happy, Terran finally made it down the stairs, and ran into the kitchen to show off his new Samurai training uniform. It was a smaller men's version of Emily's, with just a little hint of white on some of the trimming. Terran made his way over to his mother and gave her one of his usual morning hugs.

"And," Emily continued, "Terran getting his first training uniform isn't bittersweet because he'll never have to be a Samurai! See how awesome I am? I should get a medal."

"Where's the not bragging part?" James teased again before he turned to Serena who was cuddling with her little Samurai, "Alright, Em, you did good. He is adorable."

Emily smiled. She leaned forward on her crutches and invited James to come closer. He did and she whispered in his ear, "Also, it didn't take him half an hour to get dressed, so I taught him something."

"If he says poopie I'm going to…"

"Terran," Emily threw her arms around James while trying to get her nephew's attention, "Look who I'm hugging!"

"DADA!" Terran shouted, slipped off his mother's lap, and he ran to James. He pushed Emily out of the way and clung to his father's legs while giving her a mean look. He loved his Auntie Memy, but no one took his dada away from him.

James picked up his son and held him high in the air, "Finally, you little monster!"

While the parents celebrated Terran's birthday and his new word, Emily made her way over to the counter and smiled proudly at Mia and Lauren.

"Top that."

"You have to get him an amazing gift," Mia rolled her eyes, "You're the only person, aside from Serena, who actually shares DNA with the kid."

"Okay, well Mike helped me come up with this gift, and I had to ask Ji to make it… so top their gifts!" Emily stuck out her tongue.

-Samurai-

To Terran, the entire day was magical. He was eating sweets and treats that he couldn't get enough of, everyone was playing with him, and they were playing any game he wanted to play, and his parents who didn't usually like it when he started tearing into things were encouraging him to rip paper from boxes and scream as the boxes opened up.

On top of that, he was getting a lot of news toys to play with. With nothing but excitement and veins full of sugar he was running around the house trying to get his hands on anything that looked new, colourful, and shiny.

Though Mia loved to see her nephew so happy, all the excitement was bringing her headache back. So while everyone explained the rules of pin the tail on the donkey to Lauren, she stepped outside to get some fresh air and some peace and quiet. As she was relaxing on the porch swing, she saw the mailbox was full. With almost as much excitement as Terran on his birthday, she jumped up and raced down the driveway to see what was inside the mailbox.

Her last several days had been up and down, like Riley's headaches. While taking care of her daughter, she also had to take care of issues that would make Riley her daughter. Sabrina Clarkson had given Mia and Kevin the okay to be Riley's adoptive parents, but there had been a few loose ends to tie up before it was official. Whenever they could, Kevin and Riley met up with social services for meetings and filled out paperwork. It hadn't been easier explaining where they had gone with Riley when they suddenly disappeared, as well as why they had suddenly disappeared, but they had managed it somehow. The city promised to send them forms in the mail once the process was complete just to show Mia and Kevin that everything had worked out for them and Riley was officially their little girl.

Having just celebrated Christmas, there were a few bills, but Mia saw what she was looking for, dropped the rest of her mail in the snow and tore open the envelope. She read it quickly and then couldn't stop herself from smiling. She hadn't gotten a daughter the way she had always intended, and it was a little early for her dreams, but it was still perfect and exciting. Her headache now gone, she raced inside the house, found Kevin in the kitchen, and jumped into his arms just before his turn in the game. She pulled him into a passionate kiss which made the others look away.

Antonio covered Terran's eyes, "Uh, guys, I didn't think today was about that kind of excitement. There is a one year old in the room."

Mia waved Antonio off and shoved the mail into his chest. She let go of Kevin and started to drag him upstairs so they could announce the news to Riley. If she was going to hear it, it was going to be from her parents first.

Antonio's face lit up with happiness for the new parents, "It looks like we've got two birthdays to celebrate today."

"Two?" James asked.

"The adoption is complete," Antonio showed the papers to the family, "We have a new niece."

"Already?" Mike asked, snatching the papers to get a look for himself.

"There are hundreds of orphaned kids in this city alone," Emily reminded him, "Mia and Kevin are good people, so they probably don't want to waste their time with them anymore."

Lauren smirked teasingly at Emily, "Who's going to be the best aunt now?"

"What do you…?"

Lauren opened up one of the kitchen cabinets and pulled out a present wrapped in pink paper, "It took me a while to find one. We haven't been completely forgiven. Riley's last pink Ranger custom was covered in your blood..."

"I took a bullet for her."

"I got her a new one," Lauren said. Emily gave her the evil eye, which prompted Lauren to start running upstairs to give her niece the present. Emily went after her, but crutches and stairs weren't the best of friends. Emily stared up and huffed.

"Cheater! This is going to take a while."

Kate rolled her eyes and looked to Ji, "And they're behaving like this before we tell them," she whispered to her fiancé. He wrapped his arm around her and smiled.

"This family can't get any weirder," he assured her. Just then, the Samurai heard something tumbling down the stairs. Fearing it was Emily, everyone got up and rushed to the hallway. At the bottom of the stairs lay Emily's crutches, while she walked up on her hands and foot, bouncing from one step to the other. Kate shot Ji a look.

"You were saying?"

"She's your family."