Storm loved the park, but for the next little while she would have to settle for the backyard instead. Emily knew the park was perfectly safe for the dog, and Grant, who had taken Storm, wasn't going to be stupid enough to try and dognap from Emily and Mike again. Still, Emily's nerves were playing up and she thought it best to keep her dog in a safe, confined space.

She sat on a bench in the cold and tossed a ball and toys around so Storm would get her exercise. Emily wanted to take part in whatever game Storm was playing in her mind, but she was exhausted. She opted to sit on the bench and toss around the toys when Storm brought them back so the dog wouldn't feel neglected.

Storm loved to cuddle. Especially since she had been brought home, she loved to nestle into Emily's arms and chest. From the very first day, Emily had always made Storm feel safe and loved and did so by holding her close. Storm grabbed her ball from the snow and raced back to Emily. She jumped up on the bench and then jumped into Emily, pushing her over and placing her paws on Emily's chest.

"Ow!" Emily cried and pushed her dog away. She gave Storm a pat on the head and tossed the ball into the yard. Storm went after it, leaving Emily alone.

A knock on the sliding door caught Emily's attention as she rubbed her chest. James stepped outside. He carried a tray with what looked to be a bowl of soup.

"Is this nausea inducing?" he asked. Emily shook her head.

"No, thank you," Emily took the tray and set it down on her lap. James sat beside her, and when Storm came back with a toy he tossed it away. Storm glared at him – offended he would throw her favourite toy away. When she was sure he got the message, she left to retrieve it. James chuckled at then dog and then turned to Emily.

"How are you feeling?"

"Is it normal to feel completely miserable?" she continued to massage her chest, "And in this much pain? Carrie wasn't this bad… for what little time I had her."

"What happened to Carrie isn't going to happen again."

"I know, I know," Emily rolled her eyes, "It's just… the timing's all off again. I think you know better than anyone else how horribly timed my pregnancy was last time, and this time things are no better."

"A little better. We're not in the middle of a war."

"But babies are a lot of work and money and… Mike's got a job, but what am I going to do? We spent a fortune on Terran before he was even born."

"If it's money you're worried about, you can stop stressing. You're more than welcome to stay here until the baby's eighteen if that's what you need. I don't mind having you around."

"You've got to know that's not what Mike and I had planned. We wanted our own house and our own lives. I can't live under my big sister's wing or roof my whole life. If I'm going to be a mom, I want to be a real mom."

"You're going to be a great mom," James placed his hand on Emily's back, "By the way, Mike just called. He's going to be a little late home tonight."

"But we have…"

"If you don't mind. I'm going to take you to your first ultrasound. We'll drop Terran and Storm off with Lauren, Ji, and Kate and we'll go."

Emily winced slightly, "Mike can't come?"

"He made me promise to get the ultrasound recorded and he'll watch it with you later. He says the cheerleaders have a performance tomorrow and he can't abandon him. You know how perfect you have to be when you first start a job. There will be more ultrasounds. More exciting ones. He promised, no matter what, he'll make it to those ones."

"He better," Emily muttered. She finished her soup and got up. She opened the door to the house and called Storm back inside. "If I have to go, he should have to too."

"You have to go no matter what," James chuckled, "You're carrying the baby."

Emily looked down at her stomach and rubbed the little bump gently, "Yeah, yeah. My adorably stupid baby."

"If you keep calling him stupid, he'll have issues."

"I spent my entire life being called stupid," Emily shrugged her shoulders. "I turned out just…" Emily stumbled as she stepped inside the house but caught herself before she fell. Immediately she turned around to James. He was trying to hold in a laugh.

"Fine?" he asked her. "Were you going to say you turned out just fine, Lady Slips-A-Lot?"

"Shut up and go get the stuff for the appointment. I'm going to go pee and then vomit."

-Samurai-

After shopping for Riley's flower girl dress and getting her an early birthday present, Mia brought the little girl home. In the car, Riley had opened her Cinderella Barbie and was excited to take the doll up to her room and show her around.

Mia walked into to the house less excited than when she had left. Kevin, who had been in the kitchen getting a head start on dinner noticed this and knew right away that there was something wrong. He turned the heat on the stove down and greeted Mia with a hug.

"If something bummed you out while wedding planning, it's going to be big. Is everything okay?"

"We have to change the date of the wedding."

Kevin groaned loudly, "Mia, you're kidding! I just finished the invitations. I wanted to mail them all tomorrow so everyone invited at least gets the invitation before the wedding day. We're really pressed for time now."

"Riley dropped a bomb on me. On us. We have to change the date, Kevin."

"What did she do? Do I need to talk to her?"

Mia shook her head and walked to the kitchen table. She set Riley's dress down but didn't remove it from the bag for Kevin to see. Instead she sat down and dropped her head in her hands, "You can't talk to her about this. It's her birthday."

"Today?"

"No," Mia shook her head, "But you know how we thought it would be sweet and romantic to have our wedding and all our anniversaries on Valentine's Day?"

"Yeah…"

"How about our daughter having a birthday on Valentine's Day instead?"

"No…" Kevin groaned as he realized what this meant. He had no problem sharing his wedding day or anniversaries with Riley's birthday, but this was going to be her first birthday without her birth family, her first birthday with her new family, and for Mia and Kevin it was going to be their daughter's first birthday. They couldn't overshadow all those firsts with their own wedding, "Dammit."

"What do we do?" Mia asked and looked to Kevin hoping he would be able to come up with an answer. She had thought of this problem the entire way home and couldn't come up with a single solution. She had already compromised on her dream of having kids naturally. She didn't want to have to compromise on her dream wedding as well.

"There might be a way to do both," Kevin suggested. "We can shorten the ceremony a bit and just do what needs to be done. You'll still get everything you ever wanted it just won't be for as long as you wanted."

"As long as I get the pictures and the memories, that's fine with me," Mia said. "But what about Riley? I've always loved weddings, but I don't think she shares that passion with me. Poor kid won't want to sit through all that wedding stuff on her birthday."

"That's why, instead of wedding cake at the reception, we surprise Riley with the biggest birthday cake she's ever seen. If you're willing to forfeit having the bride and groom figures on top of the cake."

"My mini-bride?" Mia shook her head, "Nahuh, I've got a better idea."

"What do you propose?"

"We add Riley on top of the cake. Her birthday's going to be the day this family really comes together. We'll celebrate that, we'll celebrate our wedding, and we'll make sure Riley has the most amazing and unforgettable birthday ever."

Kevin gave his wife a smile, "I'll start calling everyone. If Riley's going to have a special birthday, she'll need presents and people are going to need to know it's her birthday."

-Samurai-

Mike was tired when he got home, but still very excited. Because his group of cheerleaders needed extra practice so they could perform at their best the following day, Mike had to duck out of going to the first ultrasound. The cheerleaders still weren't great, but they would do well enough to not drop of severely injure each other, which was good enough for Mike. Quickly, he pulled Serena away from her homework club and sped home. He was very eager to see the recording of the first ultrasound – confident this was going to be one of the greatest moments of his life (until the baby arrived, of course).

He and Serena weren't greeted at the door by Storm or Terran. When his mother got home, Terran always dropped whatever he was doing and race to give her a hug. Storm would usually follow, curious about who was coming into her house and if she needed to defend her family or not.

Instead, James stepped into the front hallway and he looked a little nervous, "I left them at the Shiba House. We got… news."

Mike's excitement turned into panic. News in pregnancy was never good. When everything was progressing as expected, there was no news, just confirmation. When the doctor said everything was fine and healthy, that wasn't news. News meant something had happened. News made Mike worry.

James knew the father to-be was in a panic and so he held his hands up and sighed, "It's nothing bad. The pregnancy is going well and Emily's healthy and so … well, she's on the couch resting. You can ask her yourself."

Mike didn't need to be told twice as he darted to the living room to check up on his wife and his baby. Serena dropped her bag and looked to husband worriedly.

"James, if there's something we need to know."

"We found something we weren't expecting in the ultrasound. Emily's freaked out, but it's nothing to worry about. It just… changes things a little bit."

"Like what?"

"I promise, you don't have to worry," James assured his wife and grabbed the car keys, "Let's give them some space though. We'll pick up our kid and the dog."

Serena looked worriedly over her shoulder as James gently pushed her out of the house.

In the living room, Mike found Emily asleep on the couch with James' IPad on her chest. He had asked that the first ultrasound be recorded so he didn't miss it, and assumed she had fallen asleep while watching it. He didn't want to wake his sleeping, pregnant wife but James had made him panic so he had no choice. He gently shook her awake while also taking the IPad in his hands. Emily stirred and then groaned.

"Mike?"

"Yeah?"

She jumped into his arms and hugged him tightly. Mike was glad he had taken the IPad because he was sure it would have dropped. He set it down gently and hugged his wife.

"Is everything okay?"

"See for yourself," Emily pulled away and pointed to the screen on the IPad. "It was a little blurry at first, but once you know it's there, it's kind of hard to miss."

"I can't read these things," Mike shook his head. To him, all ultrasounds were just a mass of black and white.

Emily pointed to what looked like a blob to Mike, "Well, there's baby and," she moved her finger across the screen, "apparently, this is his or her sibling."

"Wh… what?" Mike could feel his jaw slowly dropping as he tried to figure out what he was being told. He heard the words and he knew what they meant, he just wasn't sure it was really happening.

"Well, when I went with Lauren the doctor said I looked a little big," Emily lifted her shirt to show Mike her stomach, "He thought I had maybe just… you know, mixed up the dates. I believed him because we… well, you were there."

"Yeah… I… I think I was," Mike nodded and stared at the screen, "T-two babies?"

"I have been feeling really, really crappy lately. Worse than I did with Carrie. The doctor said morning sickness is sometimes worse with twins and, well, the toilet is my new best friend."

"Twins?"

Emily leaned into Mike, "You can't get scared, Mike. I'm already scared. One baby had me worried and now I have two and… what are we going to do? I can't… we can't afford twins! I can't take care of two babies at once. I… I…"

Mike wrapped his arms around Emily and held her, "I'm the good kind of scared. Well, the good kind of terrified. We're going to figure this out. But… do we… do we know what kind of twins?"

"The two for one kind," Emily gave Mike a stern look. He shook his head.

"Yeah, no I mean are they identical twins or not? If they are identical, I am going to mix them up so telling them apart will be your job."

Emily chuckled and shrugged her shoulders, "I don't know yet. The doctor said that once we know what we're having, we'll know a bit more."

"What are we having?"

Emily pointed to the ultrasound on the IPad, "They're blobs, Mike. We can't tell yet."

"But there are only two of them, right? I mean, I can get used to two, especially if they aren't identical."

"You can get used to two? I'm freaking out! Two kids at once! That's like… Terran times two, plus some because we're going to be the parents, not the aunt and uncle."

"Yeah, but the kids still won't outnumber us. You take one, I'll take the other… I think we'll get it all under control. And Serena owes us, so we have a third parent on call at all times. We're going to be fine."

"But financially? What about that apartment? How are we going to afford a place big enough for twins while buying two of everything?"

"I'll take care of it. We're going to be fine. You just… focus. Those babies are coming out at some point, right?"

"Don't remind me," Emily groaned and buried her face in Mike's chest. He chuckled and wrapped her in his arms.

"Still scarred from Terran?"

Emily nodded her head, "Mike…"

"Yeah."

"No matter what I say, I want the epidural. I want as much as they can give me, as soon as I can get it. Promise?"

"Your call. We might want to consider ripping you open and just plucking them out."

"Whichever is less painful," Emily nodded.