A/N - Thanks for the reviews/favs/alerts/ect. They make me feel fuzzy inside. Have fun reading.
"I hope you're not still mad about earlier," Maura whispered to Jane as Clementine continued to snooze on the bed in between them. "Legal rights trump our…unique arrangement. I thought you knew that."
Jane made an exaggerated face of pity. "Are you seriously calling our relationship a 'unique arrangement?'" she asked, mimicking Maura's voice perfectly. "I thought I meant something to you. Guess not."
With a roll of her eyes, Maura took the pillow from behind her head, softly tapping Jane on the thigh. She avoided Jane's head, knowing that the motion might wake the baby. Maura didn't know why she had even bothered; the child was completely zonked out, her mouth opening slightly with each faint breath she took.
Noticing Maura's sudden preoccupation with Clementine, Jane smiled. "If only you could show me the same kind of attention…"
"Then you'd get lazy. I can't have that," Maura purred, tracing a finger down Jane's spine, causing a growl to break from her lips.
"Don't start something you can't finish."
"What makes you think I can't finish?"
"Clementine probably wouldn't enjoy it if we started screaming," Jane breathed, motioning to the snoozing baby between them.
"No, she probably wouldn't," Maura smiled, moving her hand away from Jane to play with Clementine's messy hair. "Seriously, are you really still mad about Eric telling me to leave?"
Sighing, Jane closed her eyes. "No, of course not. The idea of keeping secrets from you pissed me off. You know legal confidentiality doesn't mean anything to me when it comes to us. What's mine is yours."
With a smile, Maura lifted Jane's left hand into the fading afternoon light coming from the window.
"They'll never be any secrets between us. Never," she said, lacing their fingers together as the light shone upon their joined rings. "We love each other too much to keep secrets from each other. But since we're talking about secrets, I have something I want to share with you."
"Honey," Jane said. "I know you have a thing for Al Pacino. Watching the entire Godfather trilogy and saying every line pretty much put a nail in the coffin when it came to my suspicions. It's okay. He's hot…if you're into gruff older men."
Maura gasped in shock. "Al Pacino is not gruff, Jane. He's…" she took a second to pick the best word, "debonair. And older men have their benefits. They have incredible stamina and understand the various nuances of the wonderland that is a woman's body-"
"Oh my god…eugh!" Jane interrupted, making a comical face. "Really?"
"What? What did I say?"
"Shh. Don't speak."
Just as they began to lean toward each other for what promised to be a soul searing kiss, Clementine giggled, burbling a stream of nonsensical baby-talk. Her small hands eagerly grabbed the closest things available, two long locks of brown and blonde hair.
"Oww!" Jane exclaimed. "C'mon, Clementine. Your grip is killing my scalp. What do they put in that baby formula? Steroids?"
"Don't yell at her, Jane. She's exploring her environment. If you yell at her you could hinder her educational development."
Jane frowned. "Maura, you just pull these facts out of your a-"
"Jane! No cursing in front of Clementine."
Clementine laughed, releasing their hair from her grip. "Mau…ra? Ja…ne?" she mumbled, sounding out the new syllables. "Maura! Jane! Mama! Mama!"
In shock, Maura and Jane did a double-take. They were both thinking the same thing. Did she really say…my name, our names? An overwhelming sense of pride and maternal accomplishment shocked Jane with its intensity. It was getting progressively harder to remember that this baby wasn't her child to have these feelings for. Goodness knows what Maura was feeling.
Despite Jane's mental angst, Clementine was undeterred by her achievement, trying in vain to get one of her mothers to play a game with her. A tuft of black hair bobbed incessantly with each of her small movements.
"Did Clementine say what I think she just said?" Jane asked with a blank stare.
Maura squealed in happiness, clapping her hands happily. Clementine soon joined in.
"Ohh so cute! My little Clementine is so smart," she cooed. "Already able to speak with such an advanced vocabulary…such a prodigy. She's taking after me. By my first birthday, I was already speaking in basic sentences." Maura grabbed the baby up and got up from the bed. "If you keep continuing like this, we'll start you on learning another language. Hmm…what about French?"
Clementine shook her head adamantly.
"No? Well, what about German? German is a beautiful language full of heavy nasals and diphthongs. Doesn't that fun? Nasals and diphthongs!"
"Googur," Clementine babbled, turning toward Jane. "Mama!"
Jane got up from the bed. "Honey, please. Stop trying to make the child into Mozart."
Maura frowned. "I am not trying to make her into Mozart. Children are in their most critical learning period for language between one and two years old. Clementine's already showing advanced skills. We have to take advantage of them before they are left to waste. My mother did the same thing for me. By the age of five, I was in a gifted student program at Mensa International."
"Wow," Jane exclaimed with fake enthusiasm. "Who knew Constance's hands-off technique would be used as an example of good parenting. Better alert the press."
Maura narrowed her eyes. "Your humor is so funny that I regularly forget to laugh."
Jane sighed as Maura walked out of the room, continuing her discussion with Clementine. As much as she wanted to reassert that the baby wasn't theirs to worry about language skills or whatever, Jane knew she would be lying to herself. The feelings she felt for the child were so strong that she couldn't ignore them any longer. Clementine was now a part of the Rizzoli-Isles family, whether she liked it or not.
"Dammit…this is the last thing I need," Jane whispered.