I am actually a week past my own timetable…

Dear Guest who didn't like my last chapter, I would like to say how sorry I am. There will be always something someone doesn't like. It would be great if you could be more precisely in pointing out what exactly you didn't like.

You say it felt like fast forwarded, at the moment there are mostly two parts in each chapter. One part of Maura's pregnancy and one that is the actual present, after Sophie is born. Again, I feel sorry that you didn't like it

Thanks again to the other guest readers and ALL the readers who are out there, you have no idea how it makes me feel not to be alone with all my love for those characters. I am not usually one for hugging but today I feel like hugging you all. Love you all.

I wonder though. I thought I would reap a shitstorm for even mentioning Jane carrying a baby made from Maura's egg and Frankie's sperm… or their parenting of sleeping naked.

I read a few chat panels on the matter and OMG… some people are really, really sick. There was one woman who actually accused a couple of child molestation because those parents allowed their baby (no child of 6 years or so, no their baby of 9 month) to touch them. I though god hell… what's wrong with you? A baby doesn't know that it grabbed a breast or a penis, babies are just curious…

The mistakes down there are as sure as hell on me ;)

See Author's Note (Chapter one)

Maura could have bursted for that firestorm of feelings cursing through her.

Jane's birthday was Saturday, Sophie's baptism on Sunday. It was Jane's will. She had never especially liked to celebrate her birthday but since that fateful day at the prison infirmary she loathed that date.

She argued that if it was Sophie's baptism the next day, she could avoid her mother inviting people for her birthday. Maura had pointed out that it would only solve the problem for this year, but Jane had been stubborn as always and said that she would worry about that the next year. So, Sophie's baptism was planned for April 19th.

Maura's gift to Jane had been a beer brewing class at Samuel Adams Brewery. There had been bacon, sausages and scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Maura remembered Jane's one single outburst through the whole pregnancy while standing in the kitchen. It all had started with Maura nagging about Jane's choices for food, breakfast in this particular case.

Maura's POV

"I actually have no idea why you keep me around, Maura." Her tone had been harsh.

"Pardon?"

"You know if you don't actually like me you just need to tell me."

"Why would you say something like this."

"Oh, why? Let's think. Maybe because you always try to get me to wear clothes I don't like, because you always nag about my meals, because you always try to force me to eat stuff I hate, because I put too much sugar into my coffee. To me that sounds very much that you actually don't really like me. The 'me' that is what I am. Sometimes I feel like you want to form me into your perfect ideal of whom you want to spent your life with, but not me. Not Jane Rizzoli who likes to wear pants and comfortable shirts, the Jane Rizzoli who loves donuts and bacon for breakfast, who sometimes shovels down a bowl of cereals. Sometimes you act like I shove hot dogs and pizza down my throat every waking minute. Sometimes that feels like you want me, but a better, more suitable me. You know for me it's okay that you want to actually buy meat that's from happy pigs or cows or whatever, getting a massage every day and being caressed to dead, but there it ends. I know you mean well and I eat the fruits and other things because I actually like them but I only live once and I don't want to spent my life to pass up everything that's fun and yummy."

Jane hadn't touched her breakfast, then. She emptied her mug into the sink and went for Jo's morning-walk. I looked down on the table. I had swabbed her bacon to turkey-bacon, her cereals to oatmeal. There was nothing I would have found in Jane's own fridge.

As painfully as that revelation was, she was right. I had fallen in love with Jane, despite her cheap fabric clothes, despite her habit to turn to junk food when hungry. She had met me halfway, she had let me buy her clothes of higher quality for work, she ate a side of fruits for breakfast or some salat to her meals and she did that without complaining.

She was right with her other suspicion as well. It did look like I wanted her to change entirely. That never was my intention. I wanted her to live a little healthier, to prevent particular health issues but it didn't give me the right to nag about everything Jane wears and eats.

I had not been in a very good place when waking up that particular morning and had commented her choice of toothpaste, her three spoons of sugar into her coffee, her opening every cupboard in search for her pop tarts cereals.

The real problem was that the I knew Jane was not opposed to eat healthier but it was never enough for me, I always tried to top it. That needed to stop, immediately.

When Jane came home with Jo I apologized and wanted to treat her to breakfast where she could eat what she liked and as much as she liked. She insisted on having the breakfast that already was waiting for us, she said that it wasn't that she didn't like it but that she had the feeling everything she did was wrong or just not good enough.

She wanted to just have pizza or a serve of fries when she felt like it, she just wanted to have some chips or popcorn watching a movie without waiting for me to complain. If it was that simple to keep her as happy as she kept me happy, I was willing to shut up. Not entirely, we both knew that, but it wasn't about that.

It was in the past. Sometimes I would point out the ingredients of things Jane ate and tell her in what other things they were used but it was just Maura the genius and not Maura the nagging wife anymore. It was some kind of fun we shared, overcoming the pent-up frustration about that subject.

Now, if there was actually time for breakfast, our breakfast on Sundays is rich, it holds everything both of us like. Bacon, cereals, oatmeal, fruits, pancakes, sometimes there even are muffins or donuts. On nights when there was a movie there also is pizza and popcorn and Friday night in The Robber means burger and fries.

I never wanted her to change, I love Jane. Just the way she is. Sometimes I swap some ingredients to healthier ones but all in all I learned that it doesn't kill me to turn a blind eye sometimes. I want her healthy, I want her around for as long as possible, but I want her happy in the first place.

I had fed Sophie at half past seven this morning and after she had gone down for another nap I had woken Jane for an extensive birthday party in private.

When I turn on the sink to rinse off our plates before putting them in the dishwasher I remember last year. Her hands sneaking under my robe, the beginning of some fun right here in our kitchen. Some things change and though they don't make me particularly sad. They brought other happy things along.

I find myself sitting on the counter next to the sink though. Fully clothed and drowning in a spectacular kiss. Maybe next year we can send off Katherine with Sophie and sex in the kitchen after breakfast can become a special treat for birthdays. We could do it now though, Sophie is not likely going to wake up for another hour and Katherine won't be back before early evening.

Responsibility. It is extraordinary how it doesn't make us feel like we have to behave, to stall. It kind of makes it more exciting, more valuable. Angela mentioned it, making love has become more valued than ever before. Not because it happens less frequently, no, since our first time after Sophie we are back to our normal, we make room for a little time for us on a daily base. It has become much more meaningfully, even more than before.

Our sex has never been about lust in the first place. Of course, we desire each other, we are attracted to each other, we love each other but it always had a deeper meaning. Even those months in my pregnancy. It wasn't about a raw desire for sexual gratification, I could have satisfied that on my own. For that hunger to appease I needed Jane and no one else.

It is hard to explain and maybe just outright stupid but on top of my insatiable hunger for sex there was this underlying need for Jane. For her to show me that I am desirable, lovably, sexy. Whatever I lacked in social tolerance my physical appearance made up for and never before I questioned my sex appeal. It's easy when you aim for nothing but a one-night-stand but being married is something quite different.

'Show me a beautiful woman, I'll show you a husband who's sick of sleeping with her.' It may have been something a comedian had said but most of those things hold some truth. It is my greatest fear that someday Jane is going to be sick of me. That someday I just overstep the mark with all the little things most people find repulsive about me. Jane had joked about not being a husband when I asked her if there was some truth in those words. I know it was her kind of telling me that it would never happen but all my intelligence can not protect me from those primal fears. It would destroy me to learn that Jane doesn't love me anymore.

I had never felt the need to be someone's wife and someone's mother but once I got a taste of that life I got addicted and now I can't remember how I ever lived without it. How I ever lived without Jane. Without my brash and brave detective, without my beautiful and amazing wife, without my loyal and reliable friend, without the tender and lovingly mother of my child.

"How can I convince you to taking me back to bed?" I whisper against her lips, wrapping my legs around her.

She doesn't answer, just picking me up and carrying me back to our bedroom upstairs. There is no sex in the commonly sense. We undress each other slowly in bed, kissing. There are careful and tender touches, caresses, kisses, skin on skin.

Petting. I recently read an article about it. People use that word to describe a sexual act without having sex. There exist distinctions in soft, medium and heavy. Actually, it results in a kind of insult for female same-sex relationships. If we don't penetrate each other our sex is considered heavy petting. Maybe that is one of the reasons why female sex-same relationships get sneered at. Because we don't have sex, it is just some harmless fumbling. Third base like Jane would call it.

It doesn't matter to me personally whether people see it as having sex or not, regarding our relationship. I don't think that people who matter to us are judging our relationship as such whether their opinion of us having sex or not. It actually made me a little angry reading that article. Angry for those who are not stable enough to fight to be taken seriously. Effectively it devalues female same-sex relationships.

I am a scientist and I live for clear definitions, provable theories and solid evidence but nobody has the right to evaluate and decide on such an intimate and private matter. I don't know, maybe I am getting angry about something nobody really cares about but unfairness is something I can hardly live with.

I am privileged and I don't talk about my upbringing or having enough money to live with. I am privileged because no one we know considers our relationship as a joke, not even someone like Darren Crowe. Some people play pranks at our expenses or joke about some harmless clichés, some of them immature and outright stupid but nobody seriously tries to hurt us. We are privileged not to run into a lot of people who give us trouble about our choice of living. Many people are not and I wish I could do something to ease that burden on them.

Jane and I are often in public, mostly through our jobs, sometimes through my family commitments. Maybe we can help make same-sex relationships more socially acceptable. Showing that we and also other people are not an exotic disease needed to be eradicated.

We chose Saint Leonard of Port Maurice Parish* for Sophie's baptism. A beautiful church, designed in the Romanesque style by architect William Holmes after Archbishop Williams asked the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception Province to minister to Boston's growing population of Italian immigrants. St. Leonard's Church is known for its attractive Peace Garden, and for its St. Anthony shrine, which is the oldest of its kind in Boston. Masses are held in English and Italian.

Being members of the public can also become a burden sometimes. There had been press at our wedding and we had hoped that there would be non of them at Sophie's baptism, but at least we were prepared. Some of Frankie's former colleagues guarded the gate on Hanover Street and were allowed to let some carefully chosen photographers pass. We decided for those who would respect our wish for not publishing Sophie's face.

That may seem overbearing to some, but one could never know who was lurking around the corner and we already had our fair share of people trying to hurt us. We don't want Sophie to become a pawn because of our professions.

I will start to work again on Monday. At first, I will only stay those hours when needed, as long as there isn't a case. Probably doing paperwork from home. I love Sophie more than my own life but I also love my job very much and I miss working with Jane and the rest of the team. I miss the morgue and the lab, I miss my own team.

Thank you very much for your time, review would be awesome like always :)

* I actually have no idea how that church thinks about homosexuals. I tried to research as much as possible but you can just learn so much on the internet. I never had a bad experience with Franciscans and I thought the history of that particular church is a perfect fit for them.