Chapter Fifty: Epilogue

As she opened the main door and walked into the house, Maura looked around. Peacefully. She took a deep breath and went to sit on the couch. The sun was shining high, passing through the windows and embracing the furniture – the hardwood floor – of a delicate and warming shade.

Everything looked different. Brighter, better.

"And here they are... Baby express delivery!" Jane's joyful tone pierced through the silence as she went to pass the door holding both baby car seats with the twins deeply asleep in them.

A month and a half had passed by since the girls' birth and they had finally been discharged after many medical exams. They were healthy and strong enough to start their life outside a hospital room.

Barely containing her enthusiasm, Maura grinned as Jane put the seats in front of her on the coffee table. She bent over – winced in pain, the scar still being sensitive – and proceeded to unzip their coats.

"I'll go pick up the rest of their belongings."

Maura nodded but Jane had already rushed back to the street where she had parked right in front of the door of their house. With a lot of care – afraid to wake them up – the honey blonde grabbed the twins' arms and took their respective coats off.

Alba moved slightly at the touch but kept her eyes closed to Maura's highest relief. She was weighing almost as much as Lucie now but was still a bit shorter. Just a tiny bit. Passing a soothing hand on her daughter's stomach, Maura bent over and planted a loud kiss there; the baby smell going to her head as bewitchingly as ever.

A movement on her left made her snap her head. She swallowed hard, apprehensive. Coco Loco and Jo Friday had trotted to the table and seemed to observe the babies without knowing what to think.

Within a second, the cat jumped on the coffee table and went to snif the girls' little legs. Maura didn't move. It was normal, Coco Loco's reaction was perfectly normal. Alba and Lucie were strangers to him. But not sensing the mere danger, the cat finally settled between both carrier adaptors and fell asleep.

Turning her head towards Jo Friday, Maura smiled at the dog and motioned her lap. Jo jumped to sit on it. "These are Alba and Lucie... They are a bit young for the moment but very soon, they will play with you. In the meantime, I count on you to protect them... Alright?"

Jane finally passed the door – closed it – and dropped the bags by the couch before sitting down on it by Maura. There they were, at last. The past weeks had been hard. If Maura had been released barely a week after her c-section, the twins had had to remain at the hospital and for this lapse of time, Jane had been living for rides from Beacon Hill to the maternity yard with the feeling the medical staff seemed to steal from them all these precious moments they should have been experiencing from the intimacy of their house.

"Now life can begin..."

Exit the fears, the doubts. The beeps of the machines and the atrocious feeling as they had no choice but to leave their daughters behind them at the end of the day when visits came to an end. They had a whole life to build. A sweet one.

Unable to break eye contact with the twins, Maura bit her lower lip and pondered the words that had been burning her lips for too long now. They had to come out. She had to let them hit the air. Now.

"Were you scared when you were told that I was in labor?"

They had never alluded to it, to these long hours that had preceeded the birth of their daughters. Maura preferred to forget the state she had been in but her curiosity was such that she wondered how Jane had been.

The Italian scoffed and bent over to plant a kiss on Lucie's cheek.

"When I saw the plane wouldn't take off because we were waiting for suitcases, I honestly thought I'd start the whole damn thing to hurry up. I mean once I got that Tommy – who had called me – was not kidding. I didn't want to miss it... I wanted to be with you."

A pale smile lit up Maura's features. She felt melancholic, probably suffering from a slight post-partum depression added to the stress of dealing with premature babies.

"I wish it had happened differently."

It had been chaotic, tough. Not at all the way she had imagined it to be, from the early labor to passing out and going under surgery without knowing about it. A part of her still thought that she had missed it all but – little by little – she was overcoming the bitterness brought by such feeling.

"Are you tired?"

Jane's question – sweet as ever – made her smile. The brunette had been incredible for the past weeks. She had been there all the time – supportive and reassuring – while Maura had tried to deal with the absence of their daughters. It was cruel to come back home without them. Traumatizing.

But now they were there and Maura would never let them leave again.

"I am okay..."

Jane passed an arm around her wife's waist before resting her head against her shoulder. "How about we all go upstairs – the four of us – and take a well needed nap? Look at the girls. They seem to agree with that... Besides we need strength for tonight. Our mothers come for dinner."

And the rest of the week would be just as busy. Everyone wanted to see the twins. Everyone wanted to hold Alba and Lucie. Nodding, Maura stood up – let Jane take the girls' baby carrier adaptors – before heading upstairs to their bedroom. She passed the nursery where dozen of birth presents were waiting and went to settle in bed; arranging pillows around to settle the newborns against them.

As if she had done that all her life, Jane grabbed Lucie with a lot of care and put her down next to her wife before repeating the gesture with Alba. Once she was certain that the babies were well settled, she lay down on her side of the bed and passed a leg over Maura's before looking down at the girls between them. She had dreamed about this moment for such a long time that it seemed surreal. Too surreal.

"Lisa and Guadalupe sent us a card..."

Surprised, Maura raised an eyebrow and grabbed the mail Jane held out to her. A picture of Haumea illustrated a little welcome-to-the-world text. Another premature little girl who was now doing fine.

Haumea...

Haumea is the goddess of fertility and childbirth in Hawaiian mythology. She is the mother of Pele, Kãne Milohai, Kã-moho-ali'i, Nãmaka, Kapo and Hi'iaka among many others. Except for Pele who was born the normal way, her children were born from various parts of her body. From her head, for example, were born Laumiha, Kaha'ula, Kahakauakoko and Kauakahi. She was a powerful being and gave birth to many creatures, some after turning herself into a young woman to marry her children and grandchildren.

Fertility. The word resounded loud in Maura's head.

They had gone through a lot after taking the decision to have children.

On various occasions, she had wondered about her own capacity to ever give birth. To ever be able to bring life to someone. Time and patience had answered to her doubts and she was now the mother of two perfect little girls who seemed to have changed every single perspective of her existence without any warning.

"Haumea..." Her whisper died on her lips as she squinted her eyes at the picture of the baby. There was something very symbolic in all of this; something that hadn't striken her until then.

Guadalupe's pregnancy had preceeded hers, opening a path to Lucie and Alba as if guiding them towards life. As if Haumea had been looking after them during all this time.

Everything remained to be lived. Many, many years. Now she and Jane were mothers. They had a lot of responsibilities and would have to learn – step by step – how to handle them properly.

It wouldn't be as easy as they imagined it to be but Maura knew that they wouldn't regret it. How could they?

"Jane?"

Silence. Moan. "Hmm?" Obviously, the brunette had no problem falling asleep.

"Don't you think we should put them in their cribs? What if we roll over them while asleep?" As much as she had read a hundred articles about the benefits of sharing a bed with newborns, such possibility – as tragic as it sounded – kept on haunting Maura to the point it drove her crazy.

Jane opened an eye and squinted it at her wife. "Why would we roll over them?"

Shrug. "I don't mean intentionally, of course... But you know that I have a tendency to move a lot when I am asleep..." Pout. "Please...?"

Jane sighed but obliged. Yes. That was only the beginning.

The End (to be continued)

Author's note: thank you very much for the reviews and messages you posted all along this story, it was a pleasure reading and answering to them. As planned, there will be a sequel coming soon.

I am going to Greece for a week tomorrow. If I see the connection is fine enough to allow me to update the sequel every day then I will start posting it by Thursday. If it isn't good enough then I will post the first chapter when I come back on September, 10th (or 11th in the morning). I hope you will like it as well...