„No Maur, we are definitely not going to smoke the weed. We have random drug tests at the precinct. And if they find drugs in my blood hell will break loose and I can kiss my job goodbye. So, No!"

"But Jane…" Maura pleaded while they walked into their home after a day at work. Janes mind focused onto the loud voices coming from the kitchen.

"You said I can have it!" Julia said.

"Yeah, but I thought that you would only eat half of it and leave me the rest!" Sophie stubbornly replied.

"Well then you should have said that I can have half of it!" Julia spat.

"I thought that it would be clear that we share!" Sophie yelled.

"Don't yell at me!" Julia yelled.

"This is a mad house." Jane sighed walking into the kitchen were the girls were fighting.

"What are you fighting about?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Food." Maura gave the obvious reply and Jane rolled her eyes.

"What are you fighting about?" Sophie asked smartly, also raising her eyebrow.

"Drugs." Maura replied and Jane cringed.

"All right. Everybody listens now! We are not doing drugs in the house or in its perimeter. New rule! And we are not fighting over food as if we were living in a third world country. There is plenty of food in the pantry and the fridge. Am I clear?"

Jane gave a meaningful glance at the three who wore a pout. "But Ma!" Julia dared to protest. "No but Ma! Am I clear?" Jane stated.

All three of them nodded. "Yes. Clear." Sophie grumbled throwing a deadly glance at Julia. "Next time I eat my pizza alone." She mumbled and Maura got to listen up. "Pizza? Haven't we talked about nutrition?" she asked.

"Very smart!" Julia smirked at the other girl.

"Pizza is fine as long as they don't kill each other over it." Jane said and Maura poked her into her side. "We talked about it Jane. Pizza is once a week. It goes with watching TV on family evening every Friday. No pizza during the rest of the week."

Soon Maura and Jane were fighting over food, while Sophie and Julia were back on fighting over not telling their parents their secrets.

Angela walked into the fights with Will on her arm and yelled at everybody to stop. "Too many female hormones in this house it seems." She mumbled to Will who giggled.

"Now, everybody listens!" Angela pouted just like Jane had done minutes before. "No more fighting. Everybody takes a deep breath and calms down. Act like your age and get your shit together."

"But Ma!" Jane exclaimed.

"Don't you ma me. I'm serious. You are all more or less grown up so behave like it or you will get the result under the Christmas tree." Angela pouted at Jane who nodded. "All right. Very good. Now you all go to your rooms while I cook dinner. I have a little man to feed. And if you get lucky you will get some too."

Jane huffed and followed the others out of the room. Sophie and Julia rolled their eyes. "Damn, granny is in a mood today." Sophie mumbled and everybody else agreed.

"Everybody into his own room!" Angela shouted after them and they giggled.

"Tell me." Jane grunted. "I grew up like this." She mumbled and they laughed some more.

"Jane, what do you think you are doing?" Maura asked when the brunette followed her into her office.

"I thought we could…" the detective stammered.

"Go to your own room." Maura smirked and then came closer to whisper into Janes ear: "Otherwise we get no presents for Christmas. But I think we will make up for our fight later." The doc winked at her and Jane smiled.

"Okay. Sounds great!" They chuckled and Jane found herself in her own office staring at the wall.

R&I

After dinner which was eaten in mere silence, Jane and Maura did the dishes, while Angela put Will to bed. Only then she was willing to leave. But not without a snort. "Too many female hormones." She emphasized again and closed the door behind herself.

Jane threw the dishtowel onto the counter and padded over to Maura. "I'm sorry for earlier, babe. But I have no good feeling if we smoke the weed. I'm the sergeant of the homicide unit."

Maura nodded and apologized too: "I'm sorry too. It was just so tempting. With my missing out on everything fun in my childhood. But you were right. I already had a taste at the lab with Kent."

With that Maura reached into her bra and handed the foiled package to Jane who kissed her. "Let's flush it down the toilet shall we?" Jane giggled and Maura nodded.

Afterwards they called the girls into the living room for a talk. It had been Janes idea to clear the air between everybody.

Now she was sitting on the couch, her arm around Maura, her feet on the coffee table as she glanced into the round.

"All right. I thought we could make it a rule to have a family meeting once a month to check on some things. Everybody gets to say what he feels isn't right or bothering him. The goal is to find solutions and make living with each other more joyful." She began and saw Julia yawn. Her eyes narrowed to slits and Julia huffed. Damn teenagers she thought and giggled inwardly.

"I want to start!" Maura stated with a serious face. Jane rolled her eyes.

"I did some thinking while in my room." There was a pause, and everybody glanced at her like seriously? Who did really think when being sent to his room?

"I thought that it might be unfair to limit your consumption of unhealthy nutrition to one evening a week. BUT" a groan went through the room. "BUT" Maura insisted. "I'd like to trust you that you still eat at least some fruit or vegetable each day. And with vegetable I don't mean the few dead pieces on a pizza or the long dead salad in a burger!"

"Piece of cake." Julia mumbled and her words were followed by some cheering.

"Can I go next?" Sophie lifted a hand like in class. Jane nodded.

"I want to clarify that there is a sharing rule between Julia and me. If I say: you can have it, I don't mean that she can have all of it." The girls exchanged a glance and Julia apologized. "I'm sorry." She said and gave Sophie a hug.

That was going better than thought Jane noticed until she heard a AAAAAAANNND from the blonde girl "I also want to clarify that Granny is not allowed to send me to my room because I'm almost grown-up now." Julia totally agreed and so did Jane.

Hell, she even sent Jane to her room. "We should really try once more to teach her not to just barge into our house." Jane stated towards Maura who took a deep breath. "Why are you looking at me Jane?" she asked indignant.

"Because you are the most favorite of her kids and she listens to you." Jane pointed out and the girls agreed.

"That was a long time ago." Maura snorted. "She even sent me to my room."

Jane gave it a thought. Maura was probably right. "Anyways, I'll let her know that if she threatens us again with not giving any Christmas presents, we threaten to not invite her to our Christmas party. That will do the trick." Jane said with a happy grin.

They all chuckled. When there was nothing else to say they kept talking about various things. Jane enjoyed the girls company, thinking that all too soon they would leave the house to explore the big wide world. And these evenings where they all spent time together became rarer and rarer over the months.