AN-I planned to have to this out a lot sooner, but when I went to post it I deleted the whole thing and had to redo it. The first part of this seems like a huge time jump, but it's actually something that should have been put in beautiful stranger but never found its spot, there will probably be a lot more of what I call the outtakes of beautiful stranger in this one. There's some parts of the first part that I just couldn't get exactly right and after messing with it for days I just left it be, so I apologize if it doesn't come out the way I wanted it to.

4 years ago.

Maura's point of view.

"Your fathers gonna hate me." Jane says as we sit in my parents living room preparing to tell them that we are going to have a baby.

"He might be angry, but he won't hate you."

"Of course he's going to hate me and might be angry is the.."

"Alright." I snap. "I was trying to help and calm your nerves, but fine, he's going to be really mad. Happy?"

She throws her hands up. "No!" She stands up. "This is going to go badly. He was angry when he found out I was dating you how is he going to feel when he finds out I also got you pregnant?"

"He got over that Jane, he's genuinely happy for us."

"I don't regret what has happened with you I have never wanted anything as strongly as I want you, but I should have spoke to Your father about it way before any of this."

"Why have you pacing?" I ask.

"Are you kidding? I'm about to tell your father I knocked up his daughter!"

"We did this. You didn't do anything on your own."

She points at me. "Let's open with that."

The front door opens.

"Maura?" My father calls out.

"In the living room." I call out.

He walks in and spots Jane. "Jane, how's it going?"

"Good. Look, there's something we need to talk to you about."

He looks at me, and I stand up.

"You okay?"

"Yes, fine." I reply

His attention turns to Jane, frowning. "What do you both need to talk to me about?"

"Maura's pregnant." She blurts.

I glare at her. We discussed that we were going to explain a little better than that. Blurting it out is stupid, but there is no easy way of softening a punch like this. It just needs to be out there.

He blinks heavily. "I'm sorry, you're what?"

Jane wraps her arm around me, and I lean into her.

"I'm pregnant." I repeat.

He looks between us for a long time, and I have no idea what is going through his head. Different ways to castrate Jane, probably. The down fall of him knowing certain things about her.

"You slept with my daughter."

"Yes."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" He growls.

"Hey!" I shout. "Don't blame her for something I entered into willingly. We are having a baby together, and we're both happy about it."

He shoves his hands through his hair. "I had no idea you had completely lost it. You're not in the right place to have a kid." He tells Jane.

"I've been in a place to have a kid for a long time."

What about Maura?"

"What about her?"

He clenches his jaw. "You've screwed her life up and you.."

"Hey!" I say again. "She hasn't screwed anything up and when are you going to open your eyes and realize I'm not some helpless child? I've been living away from home for the last three years. I'm a grown adult."

"Are you grown up enough to have a baby?" He asks, almost sneering.

"Is anyone ever one hundred per cent ready? I'm going to be fine. I'm not doing this on my own."

"I get why you're worried. I haven't exactly been the most stable person with all this stuff with Hoyt but I would never walk out and leave Maura to do this by herself."

Our car ride home from my parents house after defusing the situation is quiet, but there is a tension that you can feel, Jane's nervous, but trying to hide it. She keeps squeezing her wrist and hums along to the music which are obvious signs of her nervousness.

"lyricist Rodger Penzabene hoped to get his wife back after writing this." Jane says to break the silence.

"Did he?"

"No, he committed suicide in 1967 a week after the follow up song was released."

I turn the music down. "Are you ok?" I ask, studying her.

She pulls the car over and puts it in park, she doesn't speak for several minutes, but I can feel her eyes on me and that makes things worse.

"What if your father is right Maura?" She finally says.

"Right about what?"

"Screwing up your life."

"He's not right, Jane."

Her hands slide up and across my stomach, and her lips make their way to the crook of my neck. She rests her head there and squeezes me tightly. I'm feeling unsure, but it doesn't stop me from crossing my arms around her body to hold on to her. When I feel her body starting to tremble and her grip lessens on me, I turn and see tears coming from her eyes. I grab onto her and hold her, I use all of my strength to hold her up as her cries shake us both.

"I'm so sorry." She painfully says, her sorrow rocking us both.

"Please don't apologize." I tell her and cradle her head against me, as she keeps repeating how sorry she is. I rub her back and hold her as close as I can.

"We're going to be ok. I promise you." I can feel her sorrow, her pain, her regret, and her helplessness. I've never seen her like this. She's hardly shown me any weakness, but I'm so grateful that she is opening up to me instead of running, instead of hiding it. I vow to myself for every moment she's weak that I will be strong. We will get through this.

The present.

Jane's point of view.

My phone wakes me up, its text notification interrupting a dream I was having about my father. Out of my brothers and I, I remember the most about our life before. Our mom and dad, I remember our life being good when our father was stable, or more stable than the times he wasn't. I remember feeling love at some points. I grab my phone, sleep in my eyes I look at the phone and see that it's Maura my head lands heavily back on the pillow. I want to close my eyes and wrap myself back in my dream, it was warm and safe but strange, and I hate as each second passes it escapes me, and I mourn the loss. The phone vibrates again. Maura is persistent. We've only spoken briefly this week through text, each time I've tried to apologize for my actions she's cut me off and mentions something about work or Theo, I just wish I knew what to say to her. I don't know how to comfort her and I hate it. If I'm honest with myself I feel guilty. Guilty about the things I said, the things I've done. I feel a stab of guilt when I want to be near her. It's crazy and starting to drive me insane. I've kept my distance while being as close to her as I can and it's ridiculous.

I climb out of bed and head downstairs.

"Well, good morning sunshine." I freeze seeing Ma holding Theo with a look on her face that's between pissed and smug. I've been avoiding her all week.

Theo beams causing me to break into a smile. I take Theo's hand and kiss it. He's the best thing I have ever done. To see so much of myself in him is still so surreal, to see a bigger purpose is a reminder for me to be a better person.

"Morning." I say, to my mother trying to put some enthusiasm into my tone.

"Wow, no it's so good to see you? I've missed you?" she says sarcastically. I let out a sigh and know that I'm going to have to put on my battle armor even though I don't know if I can stand with it on.

"I am, Ma. It's just been a very long week."

I say, and flop on the couch knowing what's coming. She sits Theo down whose attention is caught on cartoons. "I'm sorry that we haven't been able to talk." I tell her sincerely, but my voice is already exhausted from the conversation that's about to follow, so my apology comes off as dry and nonchalant.

"You're sorry." Her voice is already high and raised, full of indignation. "Jane, your marriage is on the rocks." She screeches, and I swallow hard.

"At least Maura is still talking to me after what you've done." She cries.

I shake my head. "You and Maura are best friends now, huh?" I ask a little jealous and hoping to lead off this subject.

"Don't you dare try to change the subject."

"I don't know what Maura's told you, but I've tried to apologize for what I said." I tell her defensively.

"She's told me quite a lot, but I'd love to hear it from you." She says, and I put my head in my hands. When I don't answer right away, she begins to lay out fact after fact, detail after detail and she knows pretty much everything that's happened including Maura's date I walked in on.

"Well, it doesn't seem like there's much for me to say because you know it all already."

She walks over in front of me and leans down, so we're at eye level. "I love Maura and my grandson, Jane." Ma says looking me directly in the eye. I can sense her worry, her restraint, the pain she's dealt with being interconnected to all of this. I wonder how many sleepless nights she's had, how many prayers she's said. I don't know if she hears her own plea, the one that's really unspoken, hidden under the anger at the surface, she just wants the pain to stop, a break from the underlying worry. I understand Ma, I've been in her place all of these years through the tug of war. "Are you ever going to be well?" She continues her words coming out sharp.

I stand and walk to the other side of the room. I know she only wants the best for us. I know she's worried but God doesn't she know I'm worried enough, stressed to the max, and I'm holding on to my hope by loose threads and she's not helping.

"This is why I don't talk to you." My voice is quiet and weak now. I shake my head. "I know that you're worried and that you only say what you do because you care, but I am trying my best to deal with this. It's hard, really hard. Can you just put yourself in my place for a moment? With all that you know that's happened, can you think of how I feel?" Her face soften. "Anything you have thought, I've thought it over a million times. I am already worried, I am already stressed, I am scared out of my mind that life will always be hard, and peace and easiness will never be a part of how we live. I am terrified of that, but I still have hope. If I don't have anything else, I have hope and I can't allow you or anyone else to take that away from me because if I lose that, I'm going to be in an asylum and that won't be good for anyone. So please, I ask you, I am begging you to just support me. Please don't make things worse." Her lips press together tightly, and she lets out a frustrated sigh but nods, and just like that, it's as if she's accepts everything. Well accept may be the wrong word. She's going to tolerate all of this.

She heads to the kitchen and starts pouring coffee for us.

"How is she?" I ask Ma casually, when she comes back with the coffee.

"Maybe you should ask her, Jane." She says simply.

"It's not that easy. She doesn't really want to be around me." I admit. "She probably thinks things are better this way." I say quietly.

"How do you feel about that?" Her brown eyes seem to see through me. She puts her hand on mine, and I say what I've wanted to say since the night I left Maura.

"Terrible." I admit.

We let the conversation about Maura go, and cook breakfast for Theo and later in the day I sit in the floor and get out paints and paper to keep him entertained while waiting for Maura to pick him up.

"Red and blue." I tell Theo as he squishes his hands in the paint. He giggles after he mixes the colors together. "Already a little artist." I kiss him on the cheek.

I let him busy himself with his own artistic masterpiece and put more paint on my fingers and spread them across the large board. He douses his hand in orange paint now and makes little dots then pushes away the little bowl and pours out all the blue onto the board.

"Beautiful! You really like blue, huh?" I laugh as he smiles and it's the best feeling in the world. His eyes lighting up look just like Maura's, and a slither of sadness goes through me.

"Mama." He squeals hitting the paper before swirling his fingers around in it. I turn and see Maura watching him.

"Look at my little Picasso." Maura says excitedly. Theo pushes himself up and walks over to her.

"No you're going to get paint all over mama, doodle." I tell him but Maura picks him up and kisses his cheek.

"That's the most amazing picture I've ever seen!" Maura says enthusiastically and Theo grips her face leaving a blue handprint on it and giggles.

"I'll go wash him up so you guys can be on your way." Ma says, taking Theo out of Maura's arms and walking upstairs with him.

Maura looks after her, I know that look, the one that begs for someone to help them.

"Please help me, Mommy," I whisper as I feel him shift above me and every single part of my body feels like it's ripping in two. He covers my mouth with his hand roughly, and tears slip from my eyes. Where is she? Why doesn't she come get me? I feel like I'm dying on the inside, Although part of me wishes I were dying on the outside too.

"Help me..."

I shake that thought away.

"Hey." It's simple and sounds pathetic to my own ears but it's all I can muster with my heart galloping as it is. Is this our world now? Are fights, angriness, bitterness and hatred the only things to look forward to? "Do you want some clothes to change into?" I ask, while starting to clean our mess.

"No, I'll change when I get home."

I nod, there's an awkward stretch of silence that lies between us. She stands there, not moving but looking blankly at the wall. I don't know what to say to her, nothing that will make this better. I want to ask her if telling her all of the secrets and lies were worth it, but I know that won't make things better for anyone. Another slither of sadness goes through me. The last time she was this way with me was when we first met. It seems so long ago I think to myself as my mind travels back through time, back to when I first met her, back when everything was nothing. God, she was and still is incredibly gorgeous in more ways than most people will ever know. As stupid and as cheesy as it may sound, even from the beginning she has always perpetually owned my fucking soul, or the pieces of it that are left, anyway.

"We've always been able to talk Maura." I say, wiping my hands on a rag. "I know that lately we've fought more then talked, and I'm sorry for that." I turn my head and see her close her eyes. A single tear slides down her face. "After that night in the car when I broke down after telling your parents about Theo, I thought we could discuss anything. That was my lowest point, up until now, and you were there." I walk to her and place my hand over hers, she finally looks up at me. "I guess what I'm trying to say is this is my reason to get my life together. I don't want to be a mess anymore. I want you and Theo to be able to rely on me. I promise you I'll be that person, Maura. I won't let either of you down, no matter what is it you want. If you want to raise our child together and that be it that's what we'll do, but you have to make that decision. I can't and I won't be the one to do it, and it scares the shit out of me, because that might be exactly what you need."

She turns her hand over in mine and holds my hand in her own, I don't know how she does it. How I can be feeling so shitty one minute, and then she does something as simple as this and for a second the pain is gone.

"We're going to be ok, Jane."

AN number 2- in case anyone was wondering the story about lyricist Rodger Penzabene is true, and the song is I wish it would rain by the temptations. I was listening to that while writing that part, and that information found its way in there. Lol