Maura stands on the landing outside the door to her eldest son's attic bedroom. She knocks, and waits, and when no answer comes, she rolls her eyes.

"Levi Michael, you get up right now or I'm having Ma take the door off your room," she calls.

A shuffling of sheets and a muffled groan, something that sounds like, "dunwannah."

"Whether or not you want to get out of bed is irrelevant," she calls back, turning to descend the stairs. "Breakfast in twenty minutes. I expect you in the kitchen, dressed and smelling like a person who takes the necessary amount of pride in his grooming habits."

She listens, and is just about to yell again, when she hears the unmistakable sound of feet hitting floor. "I'm up," Levi grumbles from behind the door. "I'm awake."

Maura smiles, and heads back down to the second floor to check on her other children.

Noah is awake, when she pokes her head in his door, his eyes glued to his cell phone. "Who could you possibly be texting at seven in the morning?" she asks incredulously, stepping into his room over the huge pile of clothes on the floor. "And what have I told you about your clothes?"

Noah doesn't take his eyes off the screen of his phone. "Ma says that as long as I look presentable when I come out, she doesn't care about how my room is."

Maura rolls her eyes. "Oh, she does, does she?" She waves her hand in front of Noah's face, making him swat out at her irritably.

"Mommm!"

"Who are you texting? It's the break of dawn."

"T.J." Noah answers at once. Noah and his cousin are near inseperable, despite the almost three year age difference. "Can he meet at our bus stop?"

Maura holds up a sweater vest she's picked out of his closet. "What does Lydia say?"

Noah wrinkles his nose, "I dunnah, I'll ask…and not that vest Mom, it's not a dress up day."

"It's your first day of fifth grade, you don't want to look nice?"

"Lydia says yes. And no, I wanna look like a middle schooler. I wanna look cool."

Maura sighs, "Alright, Mr. Cool, breakfast is in fifteen. Please arrive sans cell phone."

"yeah, yeah."

"I mean it sir, or it's good-bye texting for the day. No electronics in the kitchen-"

"Or the dining room. I know, Mommy."

And even though his tone is something she should correct, he has called her mommy, so she cannot help but smile. She kisses the top of his blonde head, and heads back into the hall, where she meets Sofia coming out of the bathroom.

"How come you and Mama get your own bathroom, and Levi gets his own bathroom, and I have to share with the slobs?"

Maura grins, "Your sister is not a slob, she's just…"

"flighty," Sofia says fondly, heading back towards her room. Maura chuckles, following her. Although the twins are growing up to be as different as night and day, they have insisted on staying together in the same room, and Maura finds it both incredibly trying and incredibly sweet, the way they fight with, and stick up for each other.

Now she looks around the room, "Where is Bella?"

"Running with Ma. She's nervous she won't make soccer this year." Sofia says, disappearing behind the privacy screen that appeared this summer. Maura nods. "Okay…well, breakfast is-"

"In fifteen, yeah. I heard you tell Noah. I'll be down."

…

Back in the kitchen, Maura pours the pancakes. On a whim, she makes two shaped like bunnies, even though she knows that her children are too old to get excited about things like that anymore. She contemplates the summer her family has just had. It seems to have passed much to quickly in a whirl of cleats and sunshine and camps and sunburns.

Someone was always coming or going, bringing friends, or staying out with them, and even though she knows that the school year means seeing less of her children, it also means being with them more. It means sitting down for mandated family dinners three times a week, and it means kids home by a reasonable time to do homework, and go to bed.

All in all, Maura is glad it is September. Even if homicides don't understand the shifting of the seasons, the fall always makes the doctor feel more settled and serene. She enjoys the kind of ritual that comes with her children heading back to school. Even as they get older, there are some things that never change.

She puts the pancakes into the oven to stay warm, and heads out into the hall, where three back packs and a shoulder bag hang on the wall. In the front pocket of each, she puts seven dollars for lunch. In the front pouch of the blue backpack, she puts Noah's epi-pen (for bees) and in Sofia's gold and silver pack she puts her epi-pen (for strawberries).

She stands back and looks at the bags, thinking about all the times she's done this before, all the other first days, she's dragged her children out of their beds.

She grins. It's wonderful.

…

She's setting the table when Jane and Isabelle thunder into the front hall, and she can hear them laughing and talking and breathing hard as they make their way towards the kitchen.

"I won!" Isabelle's voice is so similar to Maura's that even Jane can't tell them apart on the phone, and Maura shakes her head at her daughter's competitiveness.

"You won because I had to carry Jo Friday the last half mile." Jane, out of breath and whining.

"Says the mother who brags about the time she dragged Uncle Korsak to safety. He's like fifty times Jo Friday's size!"

The two of them appear around the corner and Maura looks up, smiling a greeting.

"That was over two decades ago. I was a much younger woman, and Korsak was a much smaller man," Jane sulks, coming over to kiss Maura on the cheek.

Isabelle plops down at the breakfast bar, pulling the elastic out of her long strawberry blonde hair. She grins at Maura, and it's like looking into a time warp. "I don't know, Ma…I think maybe you're getting…"

"Don't you dare," Jane warns, pointing her finger at her daughter.

"Oh-" Isabelle starts, and Jane's pretend scowl deepens.

"OLD!" the teenager cries, and Jane slaps her hand over her heart. She looks at Maura, brown eyes wide and sparkling.

"This…from your child," she says.

Maura laughs, shooing Isabelle off of her stool. "Belle, go shower and change," she says, watching her daughter unfold herself. "And bang on Lee's door will you?"

"He's not up yet?" Jane asks, her head in the refrigerator.

"He made noise," Maura says, "but I'm unconvinced."

Jane pulls back from the fridge with an apple in her mouth. She rolls her eyes. "I thought I told him to either stay twelve or to skip sixteen altogether," she says, poking at Isabelle as she goes by. "Hurry up, Iz, I told you, you can only run mornings with Mom and me if you can leave on time for the bus with the others."

Isabelle sighs, but scoots away up the stairs, calling out for her sister.

Maura turns to Jane. "You had to carry Jo Friday?"

Jane's face falls, "Yeah," she gestures that Maura should follow her into the living room, and they round the corner to look at Jo, already curled up asleep in her bed by the sofa. "She got tired on the way back. Just lay down."

Maura kneels down to run her hand over the little wiry haired dog. Jo Friday's tail thumps. "Well, she's what…sixteen?"

Jane frowns, "Seventeen, I think," she says.

"You can't expect her to keep up with you and Bella anymore, Jane. She's an old lady."

Jane smiles ruefully. "I'm an old lady, Maur. I'm not gonna be able to keep up with Isabelle much longer either. That kid can fly. Wait until you run with her tomorrow."

Both Maura and Jane like to run in the morning, but with school back in session, they rotate days, Jane running Monday and Wednesday, and Maura Tuesdays and Thursday. Usually Isabelle goes with them, and sometimes Levi, although less often, lately.

"I mean, she can really fly, Maur. Maybe we should get her like…a coach or something."

But Maura is still looking down at Jo Friday, "I think we might take her to the vet, Jane," she says after a moment.

"What?" Jane looks surprised. "No, she's fine. She's just old."

"Statistically speaking, she's past the average age for dogs her-"

But Jane waves her away, heading back to the kitchen. "I won't run her anymore, Maur, that's all. She's fine."

Maura sighs, turning to follow. She knows why Jane is so opposed to hearing about her dog's possible slowing down. Jo Friday was Maura's gift to her on their first Christmas together as adults. She was there for all of their children's home comings and has been at Jane's side through everything. Maura watches as Jane pulls a bottle of water out of the fridge.

"So do you think Isabelle is going to make the squad?"

Jane snorts into her water bottle. "Team, Maura," she says chuckling, "and if she doesn't at least make the Freshman team, then the coaches are blind and deaf."

Maura is about to say more, but at that moment, Four pairs of feet can be heard on the stairs, though just barely over the raised voices of their owners.

"Ma! Isabelle didn't shower!"

"So? I smell fine!"

"If she doesn't have to shower after she works out, how come I have to shower after every breath?"

"Because you're a boy, and you reek like…three hundred percent of the time,"

"I don't reek!"

"You're not a teenager yet, dum-dum,"

Jane rolls her eyes, and strides towards the dining room, kissing the side of Maura's head as she goes. "Sofia, do not call your brother a dum-dum. He is a cherished and valued member of this family, despite the fact that he will grow into a big, smelly teenager like his brother."

Maura chuckles, grabbing the plate of pancakes from the oven where they've been keeping warm, and moving to set it in the middle of the dining room table.

"I want a bunny one!" Noah cries, reaching out across the table.

"Me too!" Isabelle, knocking her brother's hand out of the way.

"Mine!" Levi squawks, and Sofia lunges too, her own thin hand reaching out.

"Heathens!" Jane shouts, and she lifts the plate up, out of their reach. "Be STILL!"

They all fall silent, looking at her. Maura stifles a giggle.

Jane glares around at them. "Enough of this! It is time to pull yourselves together!" She looks at each of them in turn, and Maura thinks she looks a little fearsome and a little beautiful. Nobody speaks.

"You have spent this summer stampeding in and out of this house like a herd of wild buffalo," she focuses particularly hard on Noah, who pretends to be very interested in his nails. "You each have about six hundred friends, none of whom, from what I can tell do not get the proper amount of love or nutrition in their own homes.

Isabelle ducks her head, possibly to hide a snicker. "I spent July telling strange teenage girls they're so pretty…and August watching football players eat the last of my hot pockets!"

Levi looks up at the ceiling. Jane points at Maura.

"Your mother has baked endlessly, for your sales and your car washes and your sleepovers. She has done mountains, of laundry, some of which required me to bring home a HASMAT suit for her so that she didn't perish."

All the children are giggling now, and Jane has to work hard to keep a straight face, as Maura rolls her eyes, grinning.

"But now, it is the first day of school, you are off to relearn everything you forgot last year, and it is up to your teachers to tame you…god help them. So, in celebration and mourning, your mother and I will be eating the bunny pancakes…and you.. heathens! Will get the plain round ones. Because we somehow, have made it through the summer with you lot."

Jane leans over and Maura lifts one of the bunnies off the plate, chuckling. "Your Ma is right," she says to her giggling children. "We love you all dearly…but it is a miracle and a blessing that each of you is going back to school in one piece."

The kids laugh, each picking out a pancake. Levi and Isabelle grab bananas from the center bowl.

"Pass the syrup, Lee," Sofia says quietly, and then, "Thank Mom...for making all those brownies this summer."

"Yeah, Sorry my team ate all your hot pockets, Ma," Levi says, pouring syrup all over his plate.

"Yeah," Noah.

"Thanks," Isabelle.

Jane flashes wide eyes at her wife. "Just call me Detective Rizzoli. Kid whisperer."

Maura laughs. "Don't push your luck, detective."

.

They watch their children get ready to leave the house, jostling and laughing, slinging back packs over shoulders, pulling on jackets.

"Watch you're brother onto his bus," Maura says, because Jane refuses to utter anything that begins with watch your brother.

Isabelle slings her arm around Noah as they head down the steps. "Don't worry, Ma, we won't let chowdah head here get lost."

"I am not!" Noah says with a push, pulling out his cell phone, presumably to text TJ.

"We should never have gotten that for him," Maura sighs as she watches the retreating backs of her children.

Jane slides her arm around the doctor's waist. "Tommy got junior one, what were we supposed to do? Make him the only Rizzoli without a phone?"

Maura sighs and leans into Jane. "Another school year."

"Another school year."

"What do you think the chances are we'll have today without a call from dispatch."

Maura smiles, "Now that you've said that? Slim to none."

"Why, Dr. Isles...you're giving in to superstition!" Jane teases, and Maura feels her lips on the side of her head. Her eyes flutter closed.

"High school for our girls," she says, and Jane understands.

"They'll be fine. They're good kids. And they've got Levi to watch out for them."

They stand for a while, looking out at the crisp clear morning, empty of their children, now.

"Ugh, I don't even want to start anyting," Jane murmurs, "The moment I do, the phone's going to ring."

Maura grins, and turns into Jane, leaning up to kiss her. It's slow, and sensual, and Jane pulls back after a moment, eyes darker, looking surprised. "Maur?"

"It's only superstition if you can't back it up with facts," she says lowly, pressing Jane back from the doorway and into the house. Jane bites her lip, grinning. Maura smirks.

"Come here...let me test the theory."