Maura has known Jane for nearly fifteen years, and so she can tell just by the opening and closing of the door that it did not go well.

She doesn't meet her wife in the hall, but waits, listening to the sounds of the detective becoming a mother.

when Jane finally rounds the corner and comes to sit next to Maura on the couch, she looks careworn and exhausted. Very sad.

She has shaken out her ponytail, and when she leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees, her hair falls across her face, obscuring her expression. But Maura doesn't need to see it to know what she is feeling. She reaches out and puts a hand on Jane's shoulder.

"I know you did everything you could," she says quietly. "I know you did everything humanly possible."

Jane nods into her hands. "Wasn't enough," she mumbles. "Wasn't good enough."

Maura squeezes the brunette's shoulder. "Where?" she asks simply.

"Greenfield Psychiatric, until she's 18."

It's not a surprise, not really. It's the middle path that the doctor expected the judge to take from the beginning. Less than jail time, stronger than a slap on the wrist.

"We'll visit," she says softly, leaning down so Jane can still hear her. "Of course we'll visit. She's not alone."

Jane nods again, head still in her hands, and then, at Maura's bidding she straightens her shoulders and leans back against the couch, eyes closing tiredly.

"Why can't they still be three?" Jane murmurs as Maura scoots closer to her, throwing her legs up and over the detective's lap.

"You wish for that a lot," Maura teases gently. "But three wasn't a walk in the park, Jane."

"I would take a solid week of Sofia's tantrums and Isabelle's steely glares over this new territory."

Maura smiles. "I know."

Jane sighs. "Do you think Bella will try to wait?"

Maura answers without hesitation. "Yes. Of course she will."

Jane opens her eyes and looks around. "Do you think it's the real thing?"

Now Maura sighs, reaching to take Jane's left hand in her own and rub slowly. "What does that phrase even mean?" she asks, aware that she might be avoiding answering.

Jane gives her a shrewd look. "I knew I loved you from the moment I kissed you. I knew that we'd be together. In the end."

"You did not," Maura teases. "You did not."

"Alright," Jane concedes. "But I wanted it. I never stopped wanting it. Do you think it's like that for Isabelle."

Yes. "I think," Maura says, switching hands, focusing on pressing her fingers into the soft center of Jane's palms, "I think that Isabelle is the only one who can answer that."

Jane's eyes flutter closed at the pressure on her hand, but she forces them back open to look around.

"Where are the juveniles, by the way?" she asks. "I was expecting a swarm at the door."

Maura glances towards the staircase. "You entered so quietly, I don't think they heard you. They are all upstairs with their homework."

"No Noah at the dining room table?"

"He wanted to study next to Levi, and was talked out of dining room study."

Jane nods but doesn't immediately move. Maura doesn't press her.

"I made a promise to all of them when they came into this family that I would never lean on them. I would never ask more of them than was above their abilities."

Maura nods absently. "That is a very large promise to keep, Jane. And how do you know that Bella can't handle this? How do you know that this is above her."

The left corner of Jane's mouth turns up. "It's above me."

Maura laughs, "Above my Jane Rizzoli? Never."

Jane chuckles after a moment, pulling her free hand through her hair.

"Yeah," she echos. "Never ever."

…

…

"It fits in like this? Mommy? It fits this way?"

"Hmm?" Maura has gotten lost looking at her daughter. Marveling at the cells that have come together to form such a beautiful brain.

"It fits like this?"

Maura looks down at the legos Sofia is struggling to put together.

"Yes," she says, glancing at the directions in front of her. "Snap that little bar to those two u-shaped ones, and then you can go onto step 12."

Sofia's brow furrows in concentration. "S'gonna be a pretty good car, isn't it."

Maura grins, "Yes," she says, "I think it's going to be the best one that we've made so far."

Sofia nods, and is about to respond, when something seems to divert her attention. She looks around at the doorway to the playroom, and Maura looks too. There's no one there.

"What?" Sofia says to the air, sounding mildly put out.

Maura is just about to ask if she's heard something, when Isabelle appears around the corner of the doorway, one cleat on and the other in her hands. Her ponytail has the hastily done mark of Jane all over it.

"I said c'mon Fia. Let's go play soccer in the park with Levi and Mama."

Sofia sighs heavily. Although she shares the same unwavering concentration and skill as her biological mother, she prefers to direct it towards strategy games and puzzles, rather than athletics.

Maura doesn't comment on how Sofia seemed to know her sister was there before she even appeared. Her twins are a species unto themselves. Sometimes at night, she can hear them talking to each other in a made up language, giggling and chatting away in a dialect all their own.

"I am building a car, Izzy," Sofia says reasonably. "I want to build my car."

Maura does her best not to show her emotions on her face. This divergence of interest seems to be happening more and more lately, and usually Isabelle will stand resolute and narrow eyed until Sofia puffs out her cheeks and sulks off after her twin. Both Angela and Constance have commented on how this seems to be a miniature theatrical of the disagreements between the doctor and the detective.

But now Sofia shakes her head. "I don't want to," she says plainly. A first.

And Isabelle looks as caught off guard as Maura feels. "whut?" she asks, like she's heard wrong.

Sofia looks up into Isabelle's face. "I don't want to," she says, louder this time. "I want to stay and build this car with Mommy."

Silence.

Maura watches out of the corner of her eye at the emotions playing over Bella's face, watches her try to work out the correct response to this rejection, and she feels an ache expanding in her chest.

"You can go to the park for a little bit," she says, her impulse to spare one child pain stronger than her desire to remain neutral for both. "The car will still be here when you get back."

And there is Jane's stubborn brow, her deep chocolate eyes.

"But Mommy I don't want to go."

And how can she argue with that?

It appears that Isabelle cannot find a loophole either. Finally, her little shoulders rise and fall as she shrugs and turns away, her only expression one of anticipation.

"Okay," she calls back to her twin. "I'm still for ya."

Sofia goes back to her lego model. She smiles too, looking relieved. "Still for ya." She echoes.

…

…

Jane is the emotional touchstone of the Rizzoli-Isles family. She is the one who bandages knees, who listens to the latest boy or girl drama and offers her ever colorful opinions on retribution and retaliation. Maura can tell by the cadence of her children's voices which mother they want. She can tell in the way they throw their backpacks whether or not she should call the precinct and tell Jane to wrap it up and come home.

Whatever inadequacy she feels at her ability to connect emotionally with her children, she makes up with the fact that she is present. She is there for each and every one of them. No matter what.

Maura teaches Levi to change a tire. She shows Sofia and Isabelle (and then Noah, because he had clearly been interested) how to put on mascara. She teaches them to cook, and how to do geometry. She takes them to museums, and on hikes, and they come to her too, when they need her.

McKenzie's sentence falls squarely into Jane's territory. Jane should be the one to break the news and deal with the emotional fallout. Jane should report back to the doctor at the end of the night.

But it is Maura who tells her daughter that her girlfriend won't be coming back to school.

Jane takes Sofia and the boys out for the day. She rouses them before the sun and tells them they are going out.

"But whyy?" Sofia had moaned, at first, but a look from her mother had shut her up.

They troop down the stairs in their hiking boots and fleeces, and Maura feels herself get a little weak with panic. Why had she'd agreed to this. She loves her daughter, more than she could ever express, but she has never been exemplary at understanding the moods and motions of a teenager. Not even when she was one.

"Don't go," she says into her wife's fleece when they meet at the bottom of the stairs. "I've changed my mind."

Jane chuckles, running her thumb affectionately over Maura's cheekbone. "No backsies," she whispers. "You'll be fine."

"I have no idea what to say?"

Jane purses her lips for a second. "Remember that night I snuck into your room through your window because Pop was on another tear?"

Maura nods. It had only happened once. It had been like a movie, watching the thin dark figure slip in past the curtains.

"I...got a little teary," Jane says gruffly, "and you stayed next to me in bed the whole time, and you held my hand, and you said, "I don't know what to say. I'm sorry sounds so dumb. Just know that I love you and I'll always be here to listen to you."

Maura makes a helpless gesture with her shoulders. "That was hardly help-"

"It was one of the most helpful things that anyone has ever said to me. Ever," Jane says earnestly.

Maura puts her forehead back onto Jane's shoulder. "Why do we have to divide and conquer this situation anyway?" she asks, and as if in answer, Noah and Levi's voices hit a crescendo from the kitchen.

"You are a big, stupid, dumb, OGRE!" Noah shouts.

"Takes one to know one, toenail breath."

And Jane steps away from the doctor and rolls her eyes. "Honestly! are you both five? Upgrade your insults or stop fighting!" She puts her hand up to forestall Maura's protest. "Into the car, all of you who are not blonde women."

The boys both cast furtive glances at Maura and Isabelle as they head out to the car, but Sofia goes over to the sofa where her sister is sitting and puts her arms around her shoulders.

"Want me to stay?" she asks, and it is not lost on either mother that she has not asked anyone permission but her sister. If Isabelle says yes, no one will stop her from staying.

"No, Fee. Thanks," Bella says quietly. "Mommy and me are just gonna talk."

Sofia's arms tighten a little, and she kisses the side of her twin's head, just a carbon copy of her mother. "Okay," she says, and she she pulls back and heads towards the door after her brothers.

"I'm still for ya," she calls over her shoulder.

Isabelle's smile is tremulous. "Still for ya," she calls back.

…

…

Isabelle takes the news about McKenzie with dry eyes. Maura can practically see her brain working over each possible outcome.

"For how long?" She asks after a moment.

Maura takes a breath. "Until she's eighteen."

"Until we're eighteen," Isabelle says slowly.

Maura nods. "Honey, I'm so-"

"I'm going to visit her," Bella cuts in. "A lot. You and Mama said that even if she went to jail I could visit her if I wanted. I'm going to. And when I can drive I can go by myself, and you and Mama won't even have to take me."

Is this what Constance felt, when Maura stood in front of her and declared her love for another fierce and misunderstood girl. Is this why she acted the way she did? Maura can feel the fear and churning, gut wrenching doubt. It's there underneath the love and the pride and the desire to do right by her child. She could give into it...if she wanted.

"Of course you'll visit, Bella. No one would tell you you couldn't. I just want to talk to you about-"

"I'm still with her," Isabelle interrupts again. "I still love her. What happened doesn't change that."

Maura blinks, resetting herself. "No one is telling you you can't love her, sweetheart. Your mother and I just thought-"

But Isabelle shakes her head, sitting up on the couch to face her mother, her expression a mixture of defiance and fear.

Maura tries to think back to the day her mother discovered her relationship with Jane. She'd been so scared.

She'd been so determined.

"Isabelle," she says softly, trying to focus on the words she'd wanted her mother to say. "I understand what you are feeling."

The teenager blinks at her, clearly skeptical. "You do?"

"Yes," Maura says quietly. "I didn't want to speak to you alone because I wanted to discourage you from being with McKenzie. I know how feel. I know how…" Maura puts her hands to her chest "How tight it feels in here...knowing that she's away from you, and that it will be for a long while."

Isabelle looks into her lap, biting her lip.

"I understand what it's like to look at someone you love, and seem them very, very hurt, and to feel completely paralyzed."

When Isabelle looks back up at her mother, she has tears in her eyes already, but Maura presses on. "I was going to tell you that I understand what it's like to see that person in pain, and drowning, and to feel like you are drowning yourself. And I was going to say that I also understand what it's like to have that person wrenched away from you.

"And you can visit her, Bella. I would not dream of keeping you from visiting her. But I want to talk to you about obligation."

Bella looks blank. "Obligation," she repeats.

Maura doesn't define it. She knows her daughter could probably give a more verbatim wording than she could. "Yes. Forgive me, for drawing on my own experiences, sweetheart, but loving someone who has been loved so poorly for the majority of their lives is extremely, extremely difficult. Especially when you are both so young."

"Being young doesn't mean our feelings don't exist," Isabelle says quickly.

"Certainly not," Maura agrees. "In fact, it probably magnifies them tenfold." She puts her hand up to forestall her daughter's response. "Bella, I am not going to tell you that you cannot love, visit, and spend the rest of your life with McKenzie Brown. It would be hypocritical of me. Your mother and I met when we were only a little older than you, and though we dated other people…"

"They both turned out to be murderers?"

Maura chuckles, and squeezes Isabelle's hand before releasing it to take her own drink. "No," she says with a smile. "No…what I want to say is that I did not continue to love your mother because I felt I had to."

Maura looks up to see the smile fall from her daughter's face, and knows that she has struck a chord.

"I did not stay with her because I felt guilty, or because I felt like she needed me and I had to stay. I married your mother...I am with your mother because she is the most wonderful woman I have ever met in my life. And I could not have walked away from her if I tried." Maura leans in, and tilts Isabelle's head back. "And I want that for you...with Mckenzie, or another girl...or a guy!"

And Isabelle scrunches up her nose and makes a face, and Maura laughs, and pulls her into a hug that lasts long enough to be a cuddle.

"Mommy?" Isabelle's voice comes to her from the crook of her arm.

"Yes, darling."

"You don't snug us like this much anymore...can you do it more?"

Maura has to swallow several times in order to answer. "Of course I can, honey...I...I'm sorry. I thought you were getting too old to hug your mother."

Isabelle is silent for a mintute, and then she burrows deeper into her mother's arms. "Just don't do it like...at the mall or anything." she says into Maura's arm.

Maura laughs, and bends to kiss her daughters temple. This beautiful, wonderful, mini her, whom she is raising well.

"Deal."