Their positions had changed while they were sleeping, but somehow Maura had found her way back to Jane's arms and vice versa. Jane hadn't expected to wake up before her wife, so she wasn't sure what she should do. If they were still girlfriend and girlfriend, Jane would have woken her up, but now that they were a married couple Jane wondered if she should let Maura sleep. Whether or not newlyweds were supposed to wake up at the same time was beyond Jane. She stared adoringly at her sleeping wife for nearly five minutes until she realized Maura was much more fun when she was awake. Jane gently placed her left index finger on the tip of Maura's nose, but when her wife didn't even budge, Jane gave her wife's nose a playful tap. Maura's eyes crossed as she looked at Jane's finger on her nose and her facial expression made Jane smile. Never in her life had she seen something as lovable as a sleepy, cross-eyed Maura.
"I knew you'd be more fun if you were awake," Jane said before kissing a tiny freckle on her wife's face. "Did I ever tell you my goal in life is to kiss every single one of your freckles, but not all in a single night when I'm kissing your entire body? I want to kiss each one individually and memorize them."
"You have the rest of your life to do that," Maura beamed. She had never thought of herself as unattractive, but nobody she had ever met before made her feel as beautiful as Jane did.
"Maura Rizzoli," Jane recited. "Mrs. Maura Rizzoli, Jane Rizzoli's perfect wife."
Maura shook her head. "I'm not perfect."
"Perfect for me," Jane insisted.
"And you are perfect for me," Maura added. "I love my wife and my new last name."
Jane glanced at the alarm clock on Maura's nightstand. They were supposed to set the alarm for noon, so they'd have plenty of time to shower and have lunch, but the two of them were so exhausted that they had forgotten to set the alarm. It was now two o'clock in the afternoon and all they'd have time for is a quick shower and a few minutes to do their hair and makeup. Jane's hair and makeup routine consisted of a few swipes of mascara on her eyelashes, coating her lips with chapstick, and combing a handful of mousse through her curls. They had opted to shower separately because they knew showering together would lead to them spending more than an hour underneath the falling water. Maura's makeup routine was far more extensive than Jane's, but Jane always enjoyed watching Maura's step-by-step routine. Her makeup was so carefully applied and Jane watched in awe as her wife curled and sprayed her bangs with such precision.
"You don't need any of this," Jane said as she wrapped her arms around Maura's waist. "You're so beautiful. Nobody has a wife as beautiful as mine."
Maura turned around to face Jane. It was the sincerity in her wife's words that affected Maura. Jane wasn't saying this to make her feel better about herself or to prove she was a good wife, she honestly meant every word she said to Maura. "You're wrong," Maura pointed out. "Nobody has a wife as beautiful as mine. I'm so lucky to have you."
"And I'm so lucky to have you," Jane beamed. "You need to stop, Maurwife."
"What do I need to stop, Janewife?"
"Being so cute," Jane told her. "I can't get anything done when I'm so busy looking at you. Even when you're not trying to be cute, you're still cute."
Maura scowled at her. "So as not to distract you with my cuteness, I'll make this face every time I see you."
Jane couldn't help but laugh. "And you're even cuter when you're trying not to be cute at all."
Before Maura could respond, Jane lifted her up and carried her out of the bathroom and into her room. "I haven't properly moisturized!" Maura said as she stretched her arm out in a vain attempt at grabbing her moisturizer.
Jane and Maura hugged each other the moment they got into Maura's car. Both girls were trying to hold back their tears and they knew it was only a matter of time before one of them gave in and cried. They were having the time of their young lives while they were with their friends and while they were in Maura's dorm room, but now they were facing reality. They were on their way to tell Jane's parents and both Jane and Maura were nervous at the outcome.
"It's going to be okay," Jane reassured her. "No matter what my parents say, you and I aren't going to spend another night apart and we'll do whatever we have to do to make this work."
"My parents want to spend Christmas in Boston, so I cashed in my plane ticket," Maura informed her wife. "That's one thousand dollars for us."
"And Snot bought my Pearl Jam ticket," Jane added. "There's two hundred right there."
Maura looked at her wife in disbelief. "Jane, you've been looking forward to that concert for months! You and Mark talk about it whenever you're together."
"Our marriage is far more important," Jane pointed out. "I need to leave that part of my life behind now. We have twelve hundred dollars. That should be enough for a deposit on an apartment. Rent is about four hundred."
"My parents give me a three-hundred dollar allowance each month," Maura added. "You make two hundred?"
"Some months I make two hundred, some months I make three hundred," Jane informed her. "We'd be okay with rent, but then there's utility bills and groceries."
"I can get a job," Maura told her wife. "I can work with you at The Basement or I could get a job at the student store on campus."
"No," Jane insisted. "You need to focus on school. It's your dream to go to medical school and I don't want you to compromise that because of some mediocre grades you earned as a freshman because you didn't have enough time to study."
"But Jane—"
"No," Jane interrupted. "My coaching job is going to start up again next month and I can go to school part-time, so I can get another job."
"Three jobs?" Maura asked. "Jane, you'll be exhausted and you need to focus on school, too."
"I won't be exhausted," Jane insisted. "Coaching is something I do on my own time. I love the little girls I work with and I always have fun working with them. My job at the Basement is basically me just hanging out with Mark. I have time for a third job, Maur. I don't need to finish school in two years like I had planned. I can't get into the academy until I'm twenty-one, so there's no need for me to finish school at nineteen or twenty."
"And what about time for yourself?" Maura asked. "I can't let you work three jobs, Jane."
Jane held her wife's hands between hers. "Loving you has always been and will always be so easy for me, but not once did I think married life would be easy and I'm sure you didn't think it would either, yet we got married anyway. It shows that we believe in each other, Maura, and that's all I need from you. I need you to stand with me in this decision and believe in me. Our lives aren't going to be perfect, but our love is and I'm going to do anything I possibly can to make sure you're cared for and have a safe place to rest your beautiful head every night."
Maura removed her hands from Jane's and wrapped her arms around her wife. "I do believe in you and love you more than I have ever loved anyone in my entire life, but I'm still getting a job."
"Maura," Jane groaned.
"Marriage is a partnership," Maura pointed out. "And I want to contribute."
Jane smiled at her wife. There was not a single thing she could say or do that would get Maura to change her mind. Jane knew Maura was right; the two of them were in this together and if Maura wanted to contribute, Jane would have to be willing to accept her help.
Jane and Maura kissed each other as they sat in Maura's car. They were now parked along the curb in front of Jane's house, but neither Jane nor Maura were ready to face Jane's parents, so they decided to kiss and hold each other until they worked up the nerve to go inside. There were 'I love you' and the obligatory 'everything is going to be okay' exchanged between the two of them, but they still wondered when everything was going to be okay and what, exactly, they'd have to endure in the meantime.
Jane walked into the living room hand-in-hand with Maura. She may have seen herself as a grown woman ready to take on the responsibilities of married life, but she knew she looked like nothing more than a scared little girl at that moment.
"Ma!" Jane called out, her voice starting to quiver.
Even when Maura, Jane, Frank, and Angela were seated in the living room, Jane still hadn't let go of Maura's hand. By holding her hand, she hoped to convey not only to Maura but also to her parents how much she loved her and how she was never going to let go of her.
"Maura and I really love each other," Jane began. "And I know our love for each other will only grow stronger as time goes on."
"And now you're grounded for another month for sneaking around," Frank told his daughter.
"You can't ground me anymore, Pop," Jane told him just slightly louder than a whisper.
"What was that?" he asked, although he had heard her. "It sounded like you just said I couldn't ground you, Janie."
"You can't," Jane stammered. "Maura and I got married yesterday and I—"
"You did what?" Angela asked in disbelief. "We told you time and time again not to see her and then you go out and do something stupid like—"
"We love each other," Jane interrupted. "Maura and I know we're going to be together for the rest of our lives. We know we should have said something, but there's no point in talking about it when there's nobody listening to us and nobody believing in us. Everyone just thinks we're young and dismisses what we feel for each other as young love."
"So you do something immature like run away to get married?" Angela nearly shouted. "Janie, I can't even look at you right now. Pack your stuff. I want you out of here tonight."
The scared little girl had overcome the tough woman Jane was trying to be. She knew her parents were going to be upset, but never did she expect for them to turn her back on her. "But Ma—" Jane sobbed.
"I mean it, Jane!"
"Don't yell at her!" Maura intervened. "I'm her wife now and I'm not going to let you belittle her! Jane Rizzoli is a good young woman and I'm so proud of who she is and just as I'm proud to be her wife, you should be proud to be her parents." Maura no longer cared that her in-laws were watching them; she wrapped her arms around Jane and gently pressed her lips to hers. "Let's go pack," Maura whispered.
Jane had expected the heartache she was feeling to lessen after what Maura had said, but as she sat on her bed, she couldn't get herself to stop crying. Just as she did in front of Mr. and Mrs. Rizzoli, Maura held her wife as closely as she possibly could and let Jane sob into her shoulder. "It won't always be like this," Maura tried to reassure her. "Let's pretend it's one of our scenarios like we did with the mix tapes. The year is 2010 or maybe even as soon as 2007 and you're my Detective Rizzoli and I'm your medical examiner."
"My chief medical examiner," Jane corrected. "I can't imagine you being anything less than the best."
Maura smiled at her. "I'm your chief medical examiner and we're both passionate about what we do and about helping people and we make a perfect team."
"But it's 1994," Jane reminded her. "We're 18 and my parents don't respect us nor do they respect the love we have for each other."
"They're doing us a favor," Maura pointed out. "And we have to look at it that way. By not believing in us, they're only strengthening our bond and the love we have for each other."
Jane knew she had to pack, but in that moment, all she wanted to do was cling to Maura for as long as she could. Even as they heard a knock on Jane's door, Maura still held on to her wife.
A/N: Sorry about the cliffhanger, but this is going to be one of those two-part chapters. Regardless, I hope you've enjoyed it and thanks for all of the lovely feedback on the last chapter. :)