AN: So, I wanted to make an attempt at a story for Halloween so despite the fact that I'm working on another story inspired by my story 'The Eternal Hope of Youth' I decided to write this. Hopefully I can finish by Halloween. No ghosts or ghouls per say but its set during sixth season, before, on and after the holiday and I do have talk of costumes! Hope you all enjoy!

Friday, October 29th, Chicago 8 a.m.

To most people Chicago O'Hare International Airport was controlled chaos. One of the busiest airports in the world, a lot of people tried to avoid it. Even a lot of the local travelers preferred the Midway Airport. That wasn't the case for Supervisory Special Agent Derek Morgan. For Morgan, O'Hare Airport meant one thing - he was home. Despite the troubling memories from childhood, Chicago would always be home to him. Would always have a special place in his heart.

Even at this time of the morning, the airport was crowded as Derek Morgan made his way through the crowd toward the baggage claim area. He had come home to share a special occasion with his mother. After all these years, and quite of few boyfriends that Derek had long ago stopped trying to keep track of, his mother had found someone that she wanted to marry. She had announced her engagement two weeks ago, and had decided that she wanted to have an engagement party to celebrate it. As she had always loved Halloween, it really came as no surprise to Derek that his mother had decided to combine that celebration with a Halloween costume party. He just hoped that she didn't expect him to dress in a costume, because if so she was going to be disappointed. He loved his mother, but that was one of the few things he wouldn't do even for her.

Derek wasn't sure what he felt about the whole situation. Desiree was completely thrilled with the whole idea of their mother getting married again. Sarah on the other hand was against it, feeling it was a betrayal to their father's memory. Derek had spent hours on the phone convincing Sarah to attend the party, to keep from hurting their mother's feeling. He could after all see Sarah's point and had to admit that on some level he felt that way a little too. At the same time, he wanted his mom to be happy and if marrying Phillip Rosendale made her happy then so be it. His father had been dead for almost thirty years now. His mother deserved to be able to live her life without judgment from her kids, didn't she?

Reaching the baggage claim area, Derek found the carousel that would soon be filled with the luggage from his flight. Finding a position near the conveyor belt, he waited with the other passengers, sitting the duffel bag and garment bag he had with him on the floor in front of him. Before long, the first of the baggage started coming into the airport. Derek kept an eye out for the bag he had brought along for the five days he planned on spending in Chicago. For once, he got lucky, the bag showing up near the beginning of the seemingly endless line of suitcases and bags.

As his black bag came past him, he plucked it from the conveyor belt. Picking up the other two items, he moved away from the carousel, his spot instantly taken by another passenger. As he walked toward an exit, he glanced around the area. His mother had said she would pick him up at the airport. Fran Morgan ended up finding her son before he spotted her.

"Derek! I'm so glad you could make it!" Fran cried, rushing toward her only son. She threw her arms around her son, hugging him with such force to throw Derek slightly off balance.

"I've missed you too, Mom," Derek told her, hugging her back. "You're looking good," he commented. Truth be told, his mother looked younger then she had when he had visited her on her birthday not quite a year ago. Her smile was brighter than he had remember seeing for a long time, and he had a feeling that was what made the difference.

"Thank-you. It's been a long time since I felt this happy," Fran replied, taking a step back and looking closely at her son. She could see a sadness in his eyes, despite the smile that was on his face. "Wish I could say the same for you. Are you okay?"

"It's been a rough couple of months," Derek replied, his mind thinking of Spicer, Elle, about JJ's departure, and Reid, who had been taking JJ's transfer harder than the rest of them. "But I came here to help you celebrate your happy news, not dwell on my problems," Derek added, forcing himself to sound cheerful.

"If you want to talk, Baby . . ."

"I know, Mom," he responded, giving her another hug.

As mother and son broke apart again, Derek became aware that another person had joined them. Just behind his mother, stood an older gentleman, about his own height. The man's black hair was peppered with gray. He was dressed in a gray business suit, the red and gold tie and gold cuff links the only thing adding color to his ensemble.

"Derek, I'd like you to meet Phillip Rosendale," Fran said, stepping back to stand next to her fiancé. "Phillip, this is my son, Derek."

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Your mother has told me a lot about you," Phillip replied pleasantly, holding out his hand to Derek.

"It's good to meet you, sir," Derek said, taking the man's outstretched hand. He hadn't expected to meet his mom's fiancé as soon as he had arrived in Chicago, and hoped he was masking his surprise well enough.

"I'm sure you didn't expect to meet me so soon, but I was anxious to meet you. I managed to clear a few hours this morning and was hoping you would let me take you and your mother out to breakfast," Phillip informed him.

Derek found himself nodding. He had been hoping to get settled at his mother's house, spend some time alone with her and maybe grab a few hours of sleep, but he couldn't think of any way to politely refuse the offer. "That sounds good, sir."

"You can drop the sir bit. Phillip will be fine," Phillip told Derek, as he reached out to take one of the bags. Derek offered no protest to the gesture, and instead put his free hand around his mother as the three of them headed toward the exit of the airport.

Silently, Derek wondered if he was going to be able to resist to call his mother's finace anything but sir.

As they headed out to the waiting car, Fran started catching her son up on all the latest hometown news.

Quantico, VA, the same morning:

"What about this one?" Penelope Garcia asked, as she sat in front of Agent Emily Prentiss' computer in the bull pen area on the sixth floor of the building housing the BAU. She was helping Emily find a costume for the Halloween party that Emily was hosting the following evening. Garcia had found web sites for some local costume rental stores that they were perusing through. Unfortunately, this close to Halloween the pickings were slim.

Emily looked over her friend's shoulder at the costume that was up. It was a costume for a pirate wench that had a midriff showing top and a tight short skirt, with a split on the right side. The top didn't bother Emily none. The skirt however . . .

"I don't think so," Emily said for about the sixth time since they had started the search.

"You know if you hadn't waited until the last minute to get a costume you would have had much better pickings," Garcia commented, starting to look again for a costume in Emily's size that the store still had available.

"I know. I just got so into planning the party that I forgot about my costume. What are you going as anyway?"

"Lady Jane from Tarzan. I was hoping I could convince Derek to go as my Tarzan but alas he skipped out on us and headed out to Chicago."

"You really think you could have convinced him to dress up?" Emily asked incredulously. "I was having my doubts as to whether he would come even before his mother decided to do an engagement and Halloween party at the same time.

"I have my ways," Penelope said, a mischievous tone to her voice and a smile to match.

"I can't believe I talked Rossi into coming," Emily commented, as she watched the costumes that flashed by on the computer screen.

"Is he dressing up?"

"He wouldn't commit to that so I guess we'll see."

"Nice to see that two of my agents are so hard at work."

The sound of Agent Aaron Hotchner's voice caused both women to jump. The fact that his voice lacked any stern quality to it was the only indication to his subordinates that the comment was made in a joking manner.

"Just trying to find Emily a costume for her party, my liege," Garcia replied, not looking up from the computer screen.

"Sure you can't drop in at all tomorrow night?" Emily asked.

Hotch shook his head. "I think I really need to be with Jack this year," he told her. "Reid and I are taking him trick or treating and then we'll see what we can find on tv to watch."

"You finally did get Reid to join you?" Garcia said excitedly, finally looking up from the computer. Since JJ had left, getting Reid to do anything with them outside of work had been near impossible. He hadn't even shown any interest in Halloween so far this year, a holiday that he usually enjoyed.

"I didn't, Jack did. Little boys are so hard to say no to it seems. Jack even convinced him to dress up as a pirate with him, but that means I've got to participate too," Hotch said, holding up the garment bag he was holding, which contained the costume he had picked up from the rental place on his way in. "Speaking of Reid, where is he?"

"Haven't seen him this morning," Prentiss said. She had realized the young genius had not yet showed up. She glanced at the clock, it was just now getting to be nine o'clock but she knew Reid always tended to show up early. "He'll probably be along shortly."

Hotch nodded, though he wasn't totally convinced by Prentiss words. Reid usually called if he was running late. Hotch pulled out his phone to make sure he had missed any texts or calls, disappointed that there was nothing. He tucked his cell phone away as Garcia spoke up.

"What about this one, Em?"

Prentiss looked at the computer screen Curious, Hotch moved so he could look over her shoulder. On the screen was a picture of a "I dream of Jeannie" costume, consisting of the hat and veil, top, and pantaloons all in a bubble gum pink and red color scheme.

"It would work better if she were a blonde," Hotch commented.

"She could get a wig," Garcia suggested.

Prentiss grimaced at the thought of that. She had worn wigs for costumes before and she hated them. They were to warm, heavy and they always seemed to make her head itch. "There's also bleach," Prentiss added.

"You as a blonde?" Hotch commented, causing both Prentiss and Garcia to look back at him. "Now that I would pay to see," he told them, before turning and heading toward his office.

Prentiss watched her boss disappear into his office, part of her not believing what she had just heard. ~Is he actually daring me to bleach my hair?~ she thought, more willing to accept that than the other thought that crossed her mind. If the comment had come from Morgan she wouldn't have blinked an eye, but Hotch?

"So, do I keep looking?" Garcia asked.

"What?" Prentiss asked, coming out of her own thoughts, as she looked back at Garcia.

"The costume?" Garcia said, waving her left hand at the screen. "Do you want me to see what else we can find or what?"

Prentiss thought about it. The costume showed her midriff, but she didn't care about that. It would be a fun costume even if she didn't do anything with her hair, after all, why couldn't a genie change her hair color at a whim? Though going blonde could get an interesting reaction from the people she knew.

Prentiss reached past Garcia and grabbed a pen and post-it pack. "What's the shop's number? I'm going to call and see if I can arrange to pick the costume up after work."

Garcia smiled as she started reading off the phone number.

In his office, Hotch found a place for the pirate's costume and sat down at his desk. He reached out for the top file in his in-box. This was a paper-work catch up day. A rare day that he and his team would be in the office the whole time. No new case to worry about - just the pile of paperwork that sat in his in-box.

Hotch's gazed moved from the in-box to the out-box which was nearly empty. "Wish it were the other way around," he muttered to himself, as he opened the file.

Instead of looking at the file though he found himself glancing out the window to his office. Garcia was still sitting a Prentiss' desk. The later agent was now on the phone and giving the topic of conversation he had left, he had a feeling the call wasn't work related. As technically their work day had now started, he knew he should probably go out and see that his two agent's got to work, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

It was Friday and not just an ordinary Friday. It was the day before the Halloween weekend. The day before he and his teammates had two whole days off.

Looking around at the other agents in the bullpen, he noticed that not many of them looked very busy yet. As if proof of the fact, a paper plane sailed across the room. Hotch hadn't seen who had thrown it and wasn't about to go try and find out. The only thing he really cared about was the fact that Reid was still nowhere to be seen.

Hotch looked down at the papers on his desk. He tried to fill out the report that was required but found himself looking out the window quite often. When Reid still hadn't shown at ten minutes after nine, Hotch pulled out his cell phone. It wasn't long before the call had been placed and the dark-haired agent was listening to the ringing of the phone. When the voice mail picked up, he resisted the urge to curse.

Five minutes later, still no word or sight of his youngest agent, Hotch got to his feet. He walked out of his office. Garcia was still at Prentiss desk, but Prentiss had now pulled the chair from the unoccupied desk of Derek Morgan over, and was sitting next to her. There was paperwork spread out on the desk and even if they weren't working, Hotch had to give them credit for at least looking like they were.

It wasn't long before Hotch had reached his destination, the office of David Rossi. The door was open and though he knocked on the door, Hotch didn't wait for a reply. At his desk, David Rossi looked up, the dry witty remark that he was about to say completely forgotten as he took in the look on his colleague's face. He couldn't stop the next thought that came to mind.

"Did Strauss find another one of my skeletons?" Rossi asked.

Hotch closed the door to the office. Without any indication that he had even heard what the older man had said, Hotch spoke. "Reid hasn't showed up yet and he's not answering his phone."

Rossi glanced at the clock on the wall. "He's only fifteen minutes late," he pointed out. "Surely everyone is entitled to be running behind from time to time."

"Sure, but he would have called and said he was running late or at least would have answered his phone."

"I think your overreacting."

"This isn't you or Morgan, who might stop off and chat with a pretty girl they passed, that we're talking about. This is Reid, who isn't just almost always on time but at least tem minutes early for everything. The guy who calls and says he's going to be late and then walks in a minute after the time he was suppose to be here."

"Can I help it if I've got an eye for beauty," Rossi quipped. The expression on Hotch's face hadn't changed at all and Rossi knew his friend was really upset about this. "What do you want to do?" he asked.

"Can you go to his apartment and make sure everything is, okay. I've just got this feeling and I'm not going to get anything done unless I know for sure."

"Sure, I'll go calling on the doctor," Rossi said getting to his feet. "When he shows up right after I leave though, don't forget to call me," he said trying to ease Hotch's worry.

"Let's keep it quiet for now," Hotch said, nodding toward the bullpen. "There is no reason to upset them unnecessarily."

"Sure thing. Anyone asks I'm taking a very early lunch," Rossi said as the two of them left the office.

As Rossi made his way toward the elevator, Hotch stood outside the office. He hoped Dave was right and he was blowing the situation way out of proportion. As the doors of the elevator blocked Rossi from view, Hotch started back to his own office. In the bullpen, Garcia and Prentiss had noticed Hotch's quick visit to Rossi's office and exchanged questioning glances.