"Okay, Lily bear. This is an extremely difficult rhyme, but I think you can do it. Ready? Here it goes: 'Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat! If you don't, I don't care, I'll pull down your underw—'"

Lily burst out laughing, but Maura cut Jane off with a light slap to the shoulder. "Hey! Would you quit corrupting her?"

"Relax, Maura! Yeesh. Your mom thinks she's too cool for fun rhymes like that," Jane said to Lily in a stage whisper.

"Or maybe you're just beginning to be too silly of an influence," Maura suggested.

"Too silly?! Why, I never heard of such a thing! Lily, lead us onward."

"Can I go on your shoulders?"

Jane flexed her shoulders with heavy sigh. "C'mon, kiddo, we've talked about this! You know I'm getting too old and weak for such shenanigans." (She always made sure to emphasize this rather than ever intimate that Lily was getting too heavy. Maura thought the child could handle such a remark, but burdened by her own memories of being called "Roly Poly Rizzoli," Jane wanted to do anything she could to avoid passing that embarrassment on to the next generation.)

"How about you take our hands and let us swing you, like when you were smaller?" Maura asked.

"No!" Lily scowled. "I'm not small anymore, mom." At six, she was convinced she'd never met anyone more grown up.

"Are you too big for a piggy-back ride?" Jane offered.

With a wide grin, Lily shook her head, and Jane stooped. Lily threw herself onto Jane's back, and whooped out in joy when Jane straightened up and went into a light jog. Maura hurried to keep up, and she was grateful at least for the practical boots Jane had convinced her to wear.

Last Christmas, Jane had given Lily a set of pajamas she'd seen the girl eying for weeks: the shirt and pants were designed to make the wearer look like they were wearing Batman's outfit, but Lily's favorite part (and the reason she'd wanted it in the first place) was a black cape that attached to the shoulders with velcro. Lily barely had an understanding for who Batman was, but the thought of running around with a cape was thrilling to her. Jane had almost shut a laptop on Maura's fingers when the doctor went to research the statistics on children who were accidentally strangled by such accessories in their sleep. Lily had to be cleared before going to bed; Maura would detach the cape and fold it inside one of her own drawers to keep Lily from putting it back on if she woke up in the middle of the night.

For Halloween, Lily had naturally wanted to be Batman. Angela asked why not Batgirl instead (which lead to Jane giving everyone a lecture on the existence of Batwoman), but after seeing the costume patterns available, Lily was happy with her choice of Batman.

Her next request was for Maura to be Robin, which she agreed to only out of sheer will to make her daughter happy - and which meant she had to put up with Jane teasing her for dressing up as "Batman's damsel in distress." Jane changed her tune slightly when she saw the costume Maura had ordered, which was tasteful but cute.

As Jane ran ahead piggybacking Lily, she said, "Look over your shoulder, Lil! Mom's having a blast with that cape, huh?"

"I told you they were fun!" Lily shouted.

And Maura couldn't help laughing as she thought how silly she must look, a grown woman in bright green and gold with a cape flowing behind her.

Jane's costume was a little less dramatic, as she'd been at work all day until Maura and Lily came to pick her up. Lily was disappointed at first to see that Jane's only dress-up item seemed to be a fake pair of glasses, but then Jane pulled back her hair, untucked one curl to let it fall over her forehead, and yanked open her button-up shirt to reveal a Superman T-shirt beneath it. Maura and Lily had applauded wildly.

When they got to the next house, Jane let Lily down to run up the sidewalk. She and Maura followed behind, both of them tirelessly loving the girl's enthusiasm. Lily rang the doorbell, and a middle-aged woman in a witch hat answered.

"Ooh! Is this Batgirl?"

"Batman."

"Oh, excuse me—Batman!"

"Trick or treat! …smell my fee—"

Maura hurriedly reached forward to put a hand over Lily's mouth. "That's enough, dear." She shot an exasperated look at Jane, who was trying not to laugh.

"Well, Batman, you certainly are lucky!" the woman said, handing Lily a bowl to choose her candy from. "I've seen a few parents here and there in a silly hat or fake beard or such—but you got both your mommies to dress up!"

Lily stopped her hunt for the perfect piece of candy and looked up at the woman. In a tone of light confusion, she said, "Jane's not my mom."

Clearly mortified, the woman looked at Jane and Maura, who both appeared a bit embarrassed (as Lily returned to scouring the candy). "Oh! Oh, geez—I-I'm sorry, I…"

"It's okay," Jane said breezily, trying to offer a smile of comfort. "Don't worry about it."

"But I shouldn't have assumed—but I saw you coming up the walk, and the way she…um…"

Her husband had since walked to the door, having heard the conversation unfold from the living room. "Don't mind her," he said to Jane and Maura. "Ever since our daughter decided she was a lesbian a little while ago, the Mrs here has been trying to find 'em everywhere. Solidarity, or what have you. Joan, these women aren't lesbians. And that's okay."

The woman was bright red, and when Lily had finally taken a piece of candy, she yanked the bowl back up so fast that more of it almost spilled out. She stammered another apology before wishing them a happy Halloween and closing the door.

There were only a few more houses left on their route before Maura said it was time to call it a night—and despite Lily's desperate pleas to keep going ("my bag isn't even hardly half full!"), Maura insisted they head home. The car ride was silent except for Lily counting all the candy in her bag, and naming which ones she could. Jane would chime in with an occasional opinion about the various types, but each time she glanced at Maura, the doctor kept her eyes on the road, no smile to be found.

When they got back to Maura's home, Angela was there waiting. She had volunteered to hand out candy there, promising Lily to save her some of the extra, should there be any.

"Angela, look at what all I got!" Lily cried, running into the house. She promptly spilled the contents of her bag onto the rug in front of the couch, where Angela had been watching Young Frankenstein.

"Wow, what a haul!" Angela laughed. "You made off like a bandit!"

"Or, like a Batman," Jane suggested, walking over.

"Cute costume, Janie," Angela said. "Clever use of your work clothes!"

"Yeah? I thought so. Lois Lane's not my speed."

Maura was waiting by the dining room table, removing the mask that had rested mostly on top of her head that night. She also pulled off her long gloves, watching as her daughter started sorting her candy into different piles. Angela looked on with the enthusiasm one would expect from a grandmother, and Jane… well, as always, Jane was interacting with Lily as if she was the most precious thing in existence. Like she always did.

Jane looked over to where Maura was standing, and Maura's breath caught for a moment.

"C'mon, slacker," Jane said, waving her over. "Look at the loot!"

As soon as Maura knelt next to her, Lily said, "Mom, what's a lesbian?"

Angela almost choked on the Rice Krispie treat Lily had offered her, and Jane averted her gaze. "How'd you hear that word?"

"There was a man at one of the houses talking about it. What're lesbians?"

"Lesbians are women who… love other women," Maura said.

"Oh! Okay. But wait… didn't that man say you and aunt Jane aren't lesbians? Aren't you? Don't you love each other?"

"Yes, we do, but we don't…we're not—"

Angela put her arm around Lily, cuing the girl to look up at her. "What your mom's trying to say, honey, is that she and your aunt Jane don't love each other like your mommy and daddy love each other. Lesbians …well, it's complicated."

"It is not complicated," Maura said, trying to keep her tone from being too harsh. Lily looked back at her, and Angela looked a little affronted, but Maura didn't care. She didn't want such ideas put into her influential young daughter's head. "Lily, a lesbian is a woman who would rather live with or be married to another woman instead of to a man."

"But then who's the husband?"

Angela gave Maura a look as if to say see? It's complicated! But Maura ignored it and said, "There is no husband."

"Oh. Well then how come girls have husbands at all if it's not even something you HAVE to have?!" Lily asked, looking exasperated. "Boys suck!"

"Lily, what've I said about using that word?"

She made a face. "They stink."

"You may think that now," Angela laughed. "But someday you're gonna love, love, love boys!"

"No I won't!" Lily giggled, which Angela countered with an equally cheerful "oh, yes you will!" and began tickling her.

As this went on, Jane restlessly started putting the candy back into Lily's bag, and Maura gasped, "Oh, goodness! It's almost 8:00!"

"What's that mean?" Angela asked. "Don't tell me it's bedtime already!"

"It's Skype time!" Lily yelled, jumping to her feet. "Mommy, let's go set it up!" And she grabbed Maura's wrist, all but dragging her to the den where the computer was.

Angela sighed happily as she and Jane got to their feet. "Technology's a wonderful thing, isn't it? Ten years ago if you'd told me a man working in Africa could have a face-to-face conversation with his daughter in the States over a computer, I'd have laughed in your face!"

"Yeah, good ole Dr. Faulkner never being around sure is a riot," Jane muttered.

"Jane, don't you start," Angela said shortly. "That man's doing good, selfless work."

"What, like Americans don't need medical help? Like there aren't enough people suffering in this country, who he could help while also being with his—his wife and daughter?"

"You ought to be a little more supportive of your friend, Jane," Angela said. "That man is the love of her life, and she respects his choices. You should, too." Jane had no response for that that wouldn't involve some choice four-letter words, so she chose to drop it and hoped that Angela would, too. She couldn't stand another lecture on how amazing and selfless Dr. Ian Faulkner was. When Angela changed the topic, though, it wasn't particularly gladsome: "What I'd like to know is what a man was doing talking about something so inappropriate in front of a little girl."

"Hm? What?"

"You know! Lesbians!" Angela whispered, as if Lily could still hear her. "He should've known better than to start talking about stuff like that when a kid was in earshot."

"Ma, believe it or not, some people don't care. They don't. Maura doesn't care. In fact, she wants her kid to grow up with 21st-century ideals and beliefs."

"Look, I don't care what all they do, it's fine. It's their business. But that doesn't mean they should go around—"

"Ma? Stop. I don't feel like getting into this right now," Jane mumbled, throwing herself down onto the couch. "Just drop it."

This sort of remark would've normally made Angela want to do just the opposite, but she held back, knowing she didn't have time to get into an argument at the moment. "Well. I'm meeting Sean for drinks soon, so I have to leave anyway. Do you need a ride home?"

"No. I'm gonna wait and say goodnight to Lily."

Angela nodded, then went to the kitchen to collect her purse and coat. She was hoping by the time she circled back that Jane might have relaxed somewhat, but her stance was still defensive, angry. She didn't even look up when Angela started talking again.

"I thought there was something sweet about it, you know. You and Maura. I mean, how Ian's away so often, abroad, and Casey's in Afghanistan. I'm glad you two have each other to lean on. I don't understand how you can be so snippy about Ian being gone and not care about Casey."

Because Ma, you just said it yourself. I do not care about Casey. He doesn't care about me. We're former-friends with benefits. That's literally all I am to him. I hate when he's here. I let him treat me like crap and I don't know how to deal with this garbage. He doesn't have a kid here dying to see him all the time.

"There's not a ring on this finger," was all Jane mumbled.

Angela left.

Jane slumped over the dining room table and shut her eyes. She didn't hear Maura's soft footsteps reenter the area, and was only alerted to her presence when Maura gently touched her shoulder. Jane blinked her eyes open, and saw that Maura had taken the chair next to her. She glanced down.

"Took those boots off," she said. "No wonder I didn't hear you walk up!"

Maura smiled half-heartedly. "Comfortable as they were to wear, I was happy to take them off. 'Fashion homicide' and all that."

"Yeah," Jane snickered. "Well, Robin isn't exactly renowned for his taste in fashion. Come to think of it, most superheroes probably aren't." She returned Maura's weak smile, and a brief silence followed. Then, "Is Lily getting ready for bed?"

"She's still talking to Ian," Maura sighed. "They always end their calls with a little private daddy-daughter time." She shrugged. "I have no idea what they talk about. But I wish you'd heard her just now, Jane."

"Why, what'd she say?"

It took Maura a moment to answer; she was fiddling with her ring and staring down at it, trying not to cry. When Jane noticed her chin was trembling, she reached over for Maura's hand. The doctor inhaled sharply.

"She said you're her hero," Maura finally got out. "He was admiring our superhero costumes, and she said you were the best one because you were just dressed like you always are, except for that T-shirt. She thinks you're a real superhero because you catch bad guys all the time."

"Well!" Jane said bracingly. "That does make me a superhero, doesn't it?"

Maura tried to laugh, and nodded to herself. "Jane, it's… not… I mean you are, and she can see it, and she loves you so much, and…" Jane reached forward, pulling Maura into an embrace and rubbing her back. They say there in silence for almost a full minute, as Maura tried to gather her courage. She had to get this out there. "And I love you," she whispered.

"I know," Jane murmured. She kissed the side of Maura's forehead, still stroking her back.

"No…" Maura pulled herself free enough from Jane's arms to be able to look her in the eye. Her own were swimming with tears, one of which fell as she repeated, "I love you."

Jane blinked away her own tears before steadily responding, "I said, I know."