Maura stifles a giggle as she waves to the infant only a few feet in front of her, head bouncing slightly over his mother's shoulder. She's been pulling faces at him for the past ten minutes, rewarded with an opened mouthed stare revealing pink gums that dribble saliva trails on the already stained shirt beneath his head.

Jane's hand pats her sons back gently as they walk, one arm holding him to her chest and the other trying to manoeuvre the baby bag at her side as it slips from her shoulder. Oliver had already thrown up on her in the car, a trail of yellow tinted goo that had to be wiped with napkins stained her shirt Jane found herself annoyed for having ignored her Ma's advice to take an extra shirt to class.

"Please go back to sleep." She begs her little boy quietly in his ear, turning her neck to kiss the sweet spot on the back of his head.

This movement however does not agree with the rest of her body, her lapse in focus resulting in the contents of the baby bag spilling across the path. She curses under her breath, instinctually covering her son's ears as she does so.

"Here, let me help you." A voice breathes softly to her side, feeling the touch of a shoulder against her own as a woman crouches beside her.

Jane feels the tension in Oliver's little body, sensing an impending bout of wailing, rocking him on her knee as she tries to gather her things one handed whilst still holding his delicate neck carefully.

"Thanks." Jane mumbles, getting to her feet awkwardly as the blonde pushes a slew of diapers into the bag and stands with a smile.

Through the fly away strands on her forehead Jane can vaguely make out a slender hand offered in her direction, bag hanging from French tipped nails. She blows at the hair in her eyes, trying to work the bag back onto her shoulder as the blonde giggles.

"Hold on," the stranger laughs. "Is it okay if I hold him?" Jane hesitates for a moment, only now fully recognising the gurgle of tears in her ear, assessing the stranger in her mind before she makes the decision to hand over her son. Amazingly, he stops crying only moments later.

"I'm Maura."

"Jane." Jane pushes her hair back into the messiest ponytail yet, reaching for the bag slung over Maura's shoulder and cursing at its broken zip. Maura moves her body closer to Jane's, hardly recognising that the bag has moved from her shoulder, smiling at the baby who's eyes have begun to close in her arms.

"You're a natural." Jane teases. "Sure you haven't got one of your own?" Maura frowns for a minute before detecting the joke, returning her smile to the now slowly breathing baby.

"Definitely not," she giggles, handing Jane's son back carefully. "What's his name?" Maura asks as her eyes gaze over the beautiful little boys face.

"Oliver." the brunette smiles, unconsciously stroking his soft hair with her fingers as she spoke. Maura's smile widens at the intimate display between mother and child, watching Oliver's tiny nose brush against Jane's neck.

"He's very handsome." Maura whispers, reaching out a hand to smooth fingers across his back. Only once the movement is completed does it shock both women, blush rising on Maura's cheeks as she turns to walk away.

"Hey," Jane calls as softly as she can. "Wait up." Maura turns back on her heel as Jane half jogs towards her, clearly trying not to rouse the infant in her arms.

"Maybe you should walk with me." Jane suggests, smile bright and warm in Maura's direction. "You know, in case I need your help again." Maura's breath catches as Jane winks at her, mind working furiously to decipher its intent. The brunette looks at her oddly after a few moments, stifling a smirk with her free hand.

"One little walk with a virtually single mother isn't going to convert you, choir girl."

"Oh no, that's not what I..."

"Relax," Jane smiles, putting a hand on Maura's bare and freckled shoulder. "I was joking, I'm a joker. I joke." she clarifies. Maura chastises herself, of course Jane had been joking.

"I would love to walk with you." Maura smiles earnestly.

With Oliver thankfully asleep in the crook of her neck they walk in silence for a while, sun warming their skin, falling into step side by side. Jane glances at Maura a few times, catching the glinting sunlight bouncing from a silver floral clip in her hair. She's dressed sensibly, not at all like Jane, in a rather feminine white dress with lace just brushing her knees and buttons following the curve of her chest. It does little to hide the tattoo that Jane spots on her other shoulder.

Maura watches the brunette too; a stretched and faded led zepplin t-shirt hanging down the surprisingly lithe frame. If it weren't for the baby at her chest and the slight swell still visible around her hips and stomach, then you'd probably never notice the girl at her side had already carried a child; Maura thinks.

"So you leave him at the day care here?" Maura asks casually, eager to get to know the mystery girl.

"Uh, yeah. Ma said when I got knocked up that if I wanted to keep him that I gotta keep going to school." Maura glances at them again; Oliver can't be more than eight weeks old, making it awfully early in terms of Jane's return.

"So how long have you been back at BCU?"

"Actually, this is my first day back." Maura smiles gently, brushing a stray piece of hair from her cheek and shifting the Prada purse at her hip.

"If you need anything, I'd be happy to help you again. I mean, I know a few things about babies." She offers. "Oh gosh, I'm not saying you don't. I mean, I know you're his mother and-"

Maura's sentence cuts short as Jane throws her head back, sun warm against her cheeks, as she laughs with bared teeth.

"I know what you meant." Jane grins, eyebrows raised. "And thank you."

Maura blushes again, turning her face away as they approach the day care. The girls hover for a moment or two, Jane shifting on her feet as Oliver begins to wake again.

"I gotta get him inside."

"I – Yes, of course." Maura smiles.

They share a sympathetic look as the boy starts to wail, Jane cooing into his hair before the first tear makes it to her shirt.

"See you later." Jane calls, the promise already warm in Maura's chest.

Jane lingers at the day care for a little too long, staring through the windows until she can no longer see her son. For all the quiet alone time she's been wishing for over sleepless nights, it doesn't feel at all like she'd expected it to. She suddenly felt extremely anxious and alone.

"Just one class." She mumbles to herself. One class and then she can hold him again; just one class, then the stabbing pain of guilt she felt for leaving him will fade away.

Each step feels heavy as her feet hit the pavement, every unfamiliar sound making her want to rush back to him. Instead she pulls her hair free, brushing through its tangles as she walks, attempting to cover the spit up mark on her shoulder. Jane tries to distract herself, touching absentmindedly at the tattoo still red and raised across her heart under the fabric, she thinks about Maura and smiles.

People aren't often as sweet as the stranger who had left her less than an hour ago, most often they are judgemental. She hears them whisper as she struggles with Oliver in the supermarket, trying to wrangle both her wailing son and several items under her arm. She'd known it would be hard, despite being eighteen and already pregnant, she wasn't naive; she knew that she would be alone.

"Watch it!" A girl scolds as Jane collides with her chest.

"Sorry." She shakes her head back into focus, working her way through the busy corridors to her class.

The room is easy enough to find, situated at the end of a bleak looking hall on the second floor, 104 glinting in metallic numbers on the door. It's already filled with more students than she'd expected, a few strays pushing past her and into their seats.

"Jane!" The brunette jumps before recognising the voice as Maura's and releasing a heavy breath. The blonde is sitting in the third row with a seat spare next to her, smile bright enough to assure Jane that she's wanted there.

Maura waves the towering brunette over as she takes her seat again, watching as the woman's denim clad legs work awkwardly around the desks.

"Hey." she smiles, sitting to Maura's right. Maura doesn't respond right away, instead tearing a slip of paper from her book and scribbling on it before pushing it in Jane's direction with a heartbreakingly sweet smile.

"My phone number." she clarifies. "I realised that I didn't give it to you earlier after saying that if you needed help to come find me."

Jane smiles and tucks the paper into her backpack. When she leans on her elbows and shifts her gaze back to the blonde she begins to notice all the finer details that hadn't been quite so visible earlier. As choir girl as Maura looked from the left, she looks much more delicate badass on the right. The pastel pink dip dye she's got going on definitely doesn't help the delicate idea, nor do the lilac and lavender roses spreading from the white dress strap covered shoulder, but Jane notices another tattoo. Craning her head to peer at Maura's forearm she notices a short space of writing.

"It's Latin." Maura smiles, biting her lip at Jane's apparent curiosity. "Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae."

Jane raises an eyebrow at the superb fluency Maura exhibits despite the absolute gibberish that Jane sees.

"This is the place where death rejoices to teach those who live." Jane whistles in an amazed sort of way, a blush rising on Maura's cheeks at the indirect compliment.

"I expected it to be some kind of carpe diem kind of thing, you know, what most girls would get." Jane admits sheepishly. "But I guess you're clearly not like most girls." Maura is about to protest before realising that the brunette meant it more as a compliment than the insult she is so used to it being.

"There's a lot that the living can learn from death, the passage on my arm is chosen from an inscription that graces the walls of most morgues."

"Cheery." Jane jokes.

"I'm studying to be a pathologist. I'd like to perform autopsies." Jane's face goes a little pale after that, swallowing roughly before the colour returns to her cheeks.

"Don't tell me you've always wanted to dissect dead people." She laughs playfully, Maura's brow furrows a little as she frowns.

"Okay, I won't." Jane recognises almost immediately the girl beside her is serious and has in fact always wanted to dissect dead people. Each to their own; she thinks.

"You'll be a regular queen of the dead." Jane winks, easing the tension in Maura's chest. Unexpectedly the blonde laughs, her hand reaching out to touch Jane's with a light squeeze before returning to her lap. Maura wasn't sure where her sudden bravery had come from, but she knew she felt safe with Jane.

"So," Maura breathes, twirling a pastel lock between her thumb and forefinger in a practiced manner. "What's the story behind your lion?" Jane shifts her gaze to the tattoo that rests high on her bicep, touching it lightly with her chewed fingernails.

"I was seventeen and it was just before I found out I was pregnant, Casey, Oli's dad, and I were about to be separated and so we went and got tatts to make the distance easier. The usual young, dumb, and in love story." Jane laughs. "I also wanted something big enough to cover a scar." she admits lightly.

Maura's mouth opens to question further, studying the ink until she spots the slightly raised scar tissue beneath, before being interrupted by the lecturer's arrival.

Jane is too anxious to focus, she's never been an advocate for classroom learning but today is harder than usual, she can't stop thinking about Oliver. It's not the first time she's been without him before, but never this long and never with anyone but her mother. She can feel the worry prickling in her gut, feelings she never thought she would experience before seeing him in her arms for the first time two months ago.

Maura isn't learning anything new so far but takes notes diligently despite the distracting woman at her side. Jane's fingers have been clenched tightly around a pen the whole lesson and Maura is unbelievably surprised that it hasn't simply splintered in the brunette's grip. Its light tap is consistent against the wooden desk, approximately seven beats a second she would guess, and Jane's anxiety just seems to be getting worse.

"Hey," she whispers, reaching to cover Jane's hand with her own. "Take a deep breath. I'm sure Oliver is fine." Maura assures the brunette beside her gently.

She feels Jane's muscles relax under her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze as she slides her thumb across the back of the girls trembling knuckles. Maura catches Jane's slightly bleary eyes with her own and smiles sympathetically. Her hand stays with Jane's.

Jane isn't used to being touched so gently, especially not from someone who's virtually a stranger, especially from anyone but her mother. She had expected the sweetness to make her tense but instead she welcomes it as her heartbeat slows. The prickling feeling in her gut all but fades away as her mind clears. She winds her thumb around the slender pale hand atop her own. Thank you.