"Mo!"

Maura bends to pick up the little boy as he launches himself into her arms.

"Hello, darling," she says, kissing the top of his curly head. "Did you have a good weekend?"

"Yah!"

She sets him down, and smiles at the lanky teenage girl approaching her now, backpack slung over one shoulder. She doesn't return the smile that Maura gives her, but the doctor has come to understand that a smile is not an accurate indicator of her mood.

"Hi Emme," she says, reaching to touch her on the shoulder as she passes. "How was the weekend?"

She gets a shrug in return.

Behind them, Aminah is pulling a giant rolling bag out of the back of her car. "Thanks for the help," she calls after the children as they scramble into the adjacent car.

Maura steps forward to take the handle and Aminah blows some of her hair out of her face, exasperated.

"She should help."

Maura nods but doesn't comment. She has found that if she leaves all the parenting to the other woman during the exchange, things usually go much faster.

"Colby was dry both nights. And did not have any accidents." Aminah glances past her to the car. "You got him a seat," she says.

Maura looks over her shoulder to see where Emme is buckling her little brother into his car seat.

"I...did," she says, trying to choose her words carefully while also sounding natural. "I hoped to save you the trouble."

"It still faces backward," Aminah says, as though she hasn't heard Maura speak.

"Yes," Maura says, turning to look again. "There are several studies that show rear-facing car seats should be used for a longer period of time in order to protect t b he child's neck in case of an accident."

Aminah focuses her deep, dark eyes on Maura. "You gonna have an accident with my kids in the car?"

Maura is thrown off by this question, it seems so completely off topic, and so she stutters as she answers, her cheeks flushing.

"N-No! I always make sure to drive as safely as possible when I have...the children with me."

Aminah makes no response, but she steps around Maura and walks up to her car, leaning in to kiss Colby good-bye.

"Bye, baby," she says.

"Bye, Meenah," he says happily.

Maura can see her flinch in response to his use of her name, but she doesn't correct him as she did last time. Maura is grateful for this show of restraint.

"Good-bye, Emerson," Aminah says, and there is no mistaking the chill in her tone, or the formality of her words.

Emerson doesn't look around from the passenger seat where she has settled herself.

"Later," she mumbles.

.

The drive back into Boston is relatively silent. Colby falls asleep as soon as they hit the highway, and Emerson switches on the radio and reclines the seat a little bit.

Maura has been working very hard to catalog the teenager's actions into a roadmap of moods she can understand, and now as they drive along, she tallies up the signs in her head, trying to come to a conclusion.

Emme had not shied away from her touch the way she had during the first transfer six weeks ago. A good sign.

She had not left her ear-buds in but had instead opted for the radio. Her feet were on the dash of the car, but she'd removed her sneakers before putting them there. Two more good signs.

But her mascara is much darker than usual, and her the color of her nails is a shade of red Maura recognizes as "Murder She Wrote."

These are bad signs.

"You preset the radio."

Before Maura can fully analyze all of the data, Emerson speaks.

"I…" Maura frowns. "The radio?"

"Yeah," Emme rolls her eyes but does not suck her teeth. "You put my stations for the numbers. Like...four of them."

"Oh," Maura blinks at the road in front of her. "Yes. I usually listen to NPR, which I know you don't care for, so I put some of your stations on there in case you wanted something different."

Emerson glances at her and then at her phone. "How'd you know what I listen to?"

It doesn't occur to Maura that she should hide any of her motives. "I've heard what you listen to," she says plainly. "With your mother, or in your room. And then I looked up the radio stations that play those types of songs and pre-set them here."

Emerson turns in her seat to look at Maura fully. "Why?" she asks, though it is not the tone she uses when challenging her mother over a chore.

"For your comfort," Maura answers at once. "But feel free to change them if they're wrong."

Silence fills the car, and it occurs to Maura (rather belatedly) that perhaps she has misstepped.

She will ask Jane about it when she gets home. She glances in the mirror that reflects the mirror that reflects Colby's sleeping face. He sleeps with his mouth open, just like his mother.

"She gave him Mountain Dew," Emme says suddenly.

Maura looks at her briefly. "I'm sorry?"

"Aminah. She gave him Mountain Dew. And she lied about it. She told me she didn't, but it was in his sippy, and he was acting super weird right before dinner yesterday. All insane."

Maura hesitates, considering how to handle the situation. "Did...you ask her about it?"

Emme's shoulders rise and fall. "No. I told her to go out and by a fucking gallon of milk like a normal person, and to get a bed rail while she was at it so he doesn't have brain damage and ADHD."

"Correlation is not causation," Maura says before she can help herself.

This earns her the first, genuine, Rizzoli Sigh of the car ride. "He's fucking four," she says angrily.

"Your language," Maura says, not rising to meet Emerson's anger.

"That's the other thing," the teen says, letting out a breath. "She swears around him all the time. She brought her rando friends around on Friday, and last night she made me babysit while she went out. It's her fuck- sorry. It's her last night with me and she goes out."

Maura does not miss Emerson's distress, and though the story rankles her a little too, she manages to keep calm.

"It's an adjustment," she says. The party line. "It's an adjustment for everyone, Emme, even her."

Emerson glares at the car out of her window as though the occupants inside have done her a terrible injustice.

"I know it seems impossibly difficult now, darling, but it will get easier. I truly believe that."

Emerson heaves a sigh that sounds, to Maura's finely attuned ears, like one of deep sadness, with a hint of resignation.

"I know you do, mom," she says after a while.

And then she turns up the radio.

...

They decided immediately that Maura would be the one to do the pickups and drop-offs. Three days after the judgment came through, they sat down at the table to discuss it, and Maura had said right off that she would take the kids to the meeting location.

She would do the weekend exchanges.

Jane had been gathering her courage to ask, and she seemed shocked when Maura began the conversation this way.

She'd sat back in her chair at the dining room table, and Maura could see her swallowing all of the arguments she'd stored up. The begging she'd been ready to do.

"You'll do the transfers?" she'd sounded both disbelieving and relieved.

"Of course," Maura had said, with a little more confidence than she felt. "Yes."

And so she has been the one, for the past three weekends, who stands and watches her children's other other mother drive away with them. She is the one who kisses Colby's tear-streaked face and promises that she and mama will see him "very, very soon."

She is the one who endures Aminah's insincere smile, and her cold, judgemental eyes, and the superior, satisfied smile she throws over her shoulder before she gets into her car to drive away.

But she is also the person who gets to see them first on Sunday, and the first to hug Colby as he comes running into her arms. She is the only one who has witnessed Aminah's palpable jealousy at the way both children relax when they are back in Maura's presence.

And that almost makes it even.

They pull into the driveway of the house, and when Emerson gets out, she goes to the back of the car and pops the trunk, lugging her suitcase out and rolling it towards the front door.

Maura makes eye contact with her before reaching into unbuckle Colby, and Emerson shrugs a little guiltily but does not look away.

At fifteen, she is so much Jane that it is like looking at a video from the detective's past.

Maura wonders for a moment what Aminah sees when she looks at the daughter she hasn't seen in years.

Jane is on the couch, reading through what looks like a legal document, when they all traipse into the house.

As Emerson plops down beside her on the couch, Jane slips the papers to her other side. The teenager doesn't notice, although Maura does.

"Hey there," Jane says, knocking their shoulders together.

"Hi, Ma," Emme says. Her tone is still sulky, though she looks a little brighter than she did in the car.

"How was the weekend?"

"Sucked."

Jane is getting better at hiding her happiness at her children's reluctance to embrace Aminah, but Maura still sees the side of her mouth twitch.

"Nothing good at all to report?" she presses.

"She gave Colby Mountain Dew," Emme says. She turns to see watch her mother's face darken, and for the first time since she's been in Maura's presence, she smiles.

"She what?" Jane asks sharply.

"Yeah," Emerson says eagerly. "I told her not to, but she did anyway," she continues. And then, in her rush to get the reaction she'd wanted earlier, she overplays her hand.

"I called her a cunt though, so it's good."

Jane's expression changes, though not in the way Maura knows Emerson was wishing for.

"You what?" Jane spins to face her daughter, her twin except for her undercut and the line of earrings that run along the curve of her outer ear.

"We talked in the car," Maura interjects.

Both turn to look at her.

"You...what?" Jane blinks at her, clearly having trouble with the information overload.

In Maura's arms, Colby stirs and sighs.

"We discussed this in this car," Maura repeats, "Emerson and I. She has double chores this week, and early internet tonight and tomorrow night."

Jane sits back a little bit, letting the last two minutes percolate. Maura wonders what had her so focused before they arrived.

"That sounds fair," she says.

Emerson is still looking at Maura, her expression caught somewhere between surprise and dismay. If she calls Maura out on her omission, then she has to face the wrath of her mother and a new punishment. If she keeps quiet, she has to accept Maura's ruling without complaint and still chance a lecture from her mother.

"Yeah," she says finally, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Whatever."

Jane puts her arm around Emerson's shoulder, pulling her closer so that she can kiss the side of her head.

"I know it's hard now, kid," she says, echoing Maura unknowingly. "But she wants to try to get to know you guys. She wants to try to be a part of your lives."

"Why now though?" she asks quietly. "She didn't give a shit about us before."

Jane sighs, kissing Emerson's head again. "Remember when you had to live with Nona for a little bit? When I was sick?"

Emerson nods.

"You didn't think I didn't care about you then, did you?"

"No," Emerson says, pulling away to look at her. "But you wrote to us and called all the time. Nona brought us to see you too."

"Yeah," Jane says, "but we don't know what her reasons for staying away are. We have to give her a chance, hon. She gave birth to Colby."

At his name, Colby opens his eyes, yawning. "'M here," he says from Maura's shoulder.

"Yeah, and then she left him," Emerson says to Jane. She stands up, slinging her bag back over her shoulder. "She just walked out on us. And she went out both nights, Ma. She went out like we weren't even there. And you want us to try to pretend like she gives two single fucks about either of us?"

"Hey," Jane stands too. "Hey...wait, she what?" Jane holds out an arm to stop her from walking past, but Emerson dodges her, and run upstairs.

"Hi Mama," Colby says into the silence that falls.

Jane turns to blink at Maura. "Hi, love," she says softly. She moves to them and kisses Maura, and then Colby.

"Thank you," she says, like she does every time Maura handles the transfer. "Thanks for doing this."

Colby swings his body weight from Maura to Jane, squeezing tight as she takes him.

"You're welcome, Mama," he says.

Maura chuckles.

.

Maura meets Jane on Colby's second birthday, which is thrown at the precinct at the toddler's request.

She is seven weeks into her new job as Chief Medical Examiner, and watching the officers go out of their way to make a two-year-old's birthday something special makes her comfortable in a way she hadn't expected.

She tries to sneak out and is stopped by Detective Frost, who cajoles her back into the bullpen for cake. That is how she meets Detective Rizzoli, and already snarky, smart as a whip, twelve-year-old Emerson.

Jane does not question Maura's presence at her son's birthday, just hands her some cake and whispers that his name is Colby just before the singing begins.

When Maura gets home that evening, she realizes that her jaw is sore from the amount of smiling that she's done that night.

In bed, she goes online and orders Colby the Leapfrog "Grow with Me" Tablet, and its entire catalog of software.

Three days later, Jane brings it to her in the morgue, speechless with rage, and they have a fight that ends in Jane calling Maura pretentious and Maura telling Jane that she cannot use words she is unable to spell.

To her utter shock, this makes Jane burst into laughter. She holds up the packaging, still sealed.

"So, wait," she says between laughter. "Is this for me or for Colby?"

And then they are both laughing, and Maura finds herself agreeing to visit Jane's house in order to help her set the tablet up.

Three weeks later, as they work their first case together, Maura knows the Detective well enough for a spasm of terror to run down her spine at the name Charles Hoyt.

.

"Do you think they're safe over there?"

Maura puts her book down and takes her time responding, though she's been working on the answer to this question for the last fifteen minutes.

"I don't think she'd ever deliberately put them in danger," Maura says, knowing this is only half of an answer.

Jane sighs, leaning back against her pillow.

"I don't know how to answer Emme's question," she says. Her voice drops with the confession, even though they are both alone.

"Hmm?"

"Why now," Jane says. "Why does she have an interest in them now?"

Maura doesn't know the answer either, and so she takes Jane's hand in hers and kisses it.

"You raised two, amazing children," she says softly. "Who wouldn't want to get to know them?"

Jane smiles faintly and then rolls to put her lips against the doctor's shoulder.

"Know how I feel when it's a real bad one? When there's not a lot to pick up on, or the relatives don't care or something?"

Maura runs her hand through Jane's hair. She nods. She has seen the expression her detective wears when a case is especially hard. It is three parts stomach ache to one part of guilt and dissatisfaction.

"Feel that way when they're gone," Jane mumbles against Maura's shoulder. "Feel that way when I think about her."

Maura sighs. Jane does not say her ex's name if she can help it. She has never asked Maura how Aminah looks or acts during the exchange. She inquires about Emerson and Colby only.

"She's their mother," Maura says, but Jane sits up, fixing her with a deep, intense stare.

"No she isn't," she says lowly. "She might have been Emme's mother but she was never Colby's." She shakes her head as though the movement will force anger to override her grief.

For a moment it looks like it's working.

"Emme used to write her all the time," Jane says.

"I know," Maura replies, reaching to put a hand on Jane's knee.

"She used to be so...open, and sweet and...She was so excited about Colby being born."

"She is a wonderful big sister," Maura says. "She loves him, and you, Jane." Maura waits, but Jane doesn't answer. She stares at her hands the way Emerson had on the way home, lost in thought."

"Jane-"

"She wants 50/50 custody," Jane interrupts, looking up into Maura's face, her eyes wide. "I got the documents today. She wants the kids half of the time."

Maura is too speechless to reply right away, and for a moment, they just sit in bed, holding hands. Looking at each other.