Harry was exhausted. He had spent the last hour and a half wondering around the streets with his eight-year-old twins knocking on stranger's doors. He didn't really approve of 'trick-or-treating' but he just couldn't resist taking them just this once. That was his main weakness – he had the hardest time saying 'no' to his children.
They were currently in the living room, still in costume, arguing over who had the most sweets. They had both been to exactly the same houses and received an equal amount of sweets, although he suspected that Elliot had eaten about half of his already. Natasha was the more mature, despite being three minutes younger, and saved her sweets, eating only one and having the rest another time.
He should've known that they would find a way of arguing about something as soon as they got home. The thing that surprised him was the fact that they had been able to tolerate each other the whole him they were out. He imagined this would probably be exactly how he and Nikki would've been, had they known each other at their age. In fact, it is probably quite similar to how they were before they got together. Leo had complained about them enough times, that was for sure.
Natasha ran in, crying, and jumped up on her father's knee.
"What's wrong, sweetheart?" He asked.
"Elliot stole my broom and started hitting Green Teddy with it." She cried. 'Green Teddy' was her favourite toy. She had been given it by Leo and Janet on her second birthday and couldn't sleep without 'him'. He was also the only one of her toys who was a male (and even then he was a girl sometimes).
Harry went in and rescued the bear. He also collected both piles of sweets and put them in one of the high cupboards in the kitchen, sensing that they had both definitely had enough sugar for one evening.
After putting the twins to bed, Harry went up to see his wife. He had assumed that she would just be in bed, having been up since three in the morning on a case and spending the afternoon shopping for the kid's birthday presents. It seemed strange thinking that they would be nine in two weeks. To Harry it felt like only yesterday he was marrying Nikki and she had told him, on the dance floor during their first dance as husband and wife, that she was pregnant. It was the happiest day of his life.
When he entered the bedroom he was surprised to see the bed empty. And, what's more, it looked like it hadn't been slept in since this morning.
Frantically, Harry searched the house for a sign as to where his wife would be but couldn't find anything. All her stuff was still there and the only thing missing was her handbag. He concluded that she must have gone out to the shops for something, the thought that it was late and that she had been shopping all afternoon not crossing his mind.
He poured himself a drink and sat down on the sofa, flicking through the channels on the television to see if there were any decent scary movies on.
It was then that he heard a knock at his front door. He looked at his watch to find that it was half past ten, too late for it to be kids, so decided to ignore it, thinking that it was just some drunken teenagers. They did seem very quiet and a bit too persistent for teenagers. He thought that they would probably given up after a couple of knocks and moved on to harassing his neighbours when he didn't answer.
Eventually he heaved himself up and answered the door, only to find Nikki stood there in her black dress with a witch's hat on and her eye make up a lot heavier than usual. She looked gorgeous, he thought, if slightly gothic.
"Trick or treat!" She giggled.
Harry pretended to think for a bit. "Treat." He said after a while.
Nikki took off her hat and placed it on Harry's head, swung her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. He stumbled backwards a bit and she kicked the front door closed with her foot.
"Shhh. You'll wake the kids." He mumbled against her lips. She smiled broke away, looking upstairs suggestively. Leaving the hat behind, Harry scooped his quietly giggling wife into his arms and carried her upstairs.
He set her down on their bed and went back to shut the door, so as not to wake the twins.
Harry could feel his heart beat quicken as he looked down at the beautiful woman in that sexy little black dress on his bed. He walked over and kissed her on the lips. When they eventually broke apart he started kissing down her neck and gently pushed the strap of the dress down her shoulder so that he could kiss her along there as well, causing her to moan in pleasure.
Nikki then noticed the door slowly opening to reveal two sleepy looking children and (as much as she hated to) pushed Harry off her.
"Mummy, Daddy, we can't sleep." Elliot said.
"Why not baby?" Nikki asked.
"There's a ghost in the garden."
Nikki sighed and got up off the bed. She walked over to the twin's bedroom and looked out the window.
"Where's this ghost then?"
"By the trampoline." Natasha replied.
"Oh yeah I see it." She said, playing along to their imagination. "That's Casper. He's a friendly ghost. He won't hurt you. He's just there to protect you from all the other scary ghosts and stop them from coming here. Don't worry about it, just go back to sleep."
"Okay Mummy." She replied and yawned.
"Goodnight then. I'll see you in the morning."
"Night Mummy." They replied sleepily.
"So, do you need protecting from the scary ghosts too?" Harry asked as Nikki walked back into their bedroom.
"Do you think you're up to the task, Dr Cunningham?"
"I think so." He replied. "Now, where were we?"