A/N - Thank you for your feedback, folks. If you want anyone focused on, let me know. And, yes, by the way, I do still spell Hallowe'en the old fashioned way! Also, Canadian Thanksgiving is next weekend so I'm probably going to do a T'giving story. So it may sound like it's out of order from Hallowe'en, it's not.

Enjolras and Grantaire took Nico, Fleur and Peep for their day out. They had talked about it at the house, get out in smaller groups, mix up the bunch, give each other days off - as they did today with Combeferre. They did a bit of shopping for costumes...Peep wasn't really understanding it all as they were slipping hats and headbands on her but one thing was obvious, she didn't like masks. They even showed her that it was them behind the mask, and no matter how silly the mask (clown vs goblin), she would run to Grantaire or Enjolras' arms. They would have to specify "no masks" in the party invitations. With her hair and big brown eyes, the best bet would be to dress her either as a lamb or a poodle. Give her fluffy pigtails that would look like ears, a black nose...that may be all they'll get out of her that year. Next year she may see that it's just harmless fun.

"Nettie!" Enjolras said, reaching out to pick through the wings. "She should be here to shop for wings." he texted Eponine. He had no idea where they were but he told her where there were tons in various colours and textures.

The kids chose to go see a movie as their activity. Of course it was going to be a movie that neither of the adults were interested in, plus Peep wouldn't be able to understand it. Maybe it would be best to wait for awhile before taking her into a movie at a theatre until she (and the others) were a bit more versed in sign. The museum had a fun set of kids' shows. One on the human body and one about the history of toys. Both had hands-on, characters, mini-movies and activities to keep them busy and running for a long time.

"Nico, what are you doing?" he asked when he saw the little boy pinch his finger in a toy vise on a play worktable. It wasn't heavy duty but it gave a pinch and he kept tightening the knob. "Don't do that..." he reached over and turned the knob the opposite way to release his finger. He wanted so badly to ask him why he was doing that but he needed to wait a few nights until Jehan had some time to come by the house. He looked at Nicolas' hand. He hadn't been in the vise long and it wasn't tight enough to do any damage, Enjolras absently kissed his hand and set him off to play on something else. He could hear Peep's squeals of laughter and amusement at some other place in the museum. She still had no idea how much noise she made. She was quite the spectacle in the science section though with her pending cochlear implant surgery but mostly what she wanted to see was the taxidermy animal displays. She pressed her face to the glass, her little palms making sticky candy prints.

"Aren't they cute?" Grantaire asked about the lion cubs. He felt a bit weird, wondering how the lions died. Hopefully they were totally synthetic. "That's what Nico is going to be for Hallowe'en."

"Whee?" Peep asked.

"You?" Grantaire asked, indicating a mask across the eyes and Peep shook her head. "How about a dog?" he asked, making the sign then holding her hair in pigtails, puffing the rest of it out and running his finger on her nose and drawing imaginary whiskers. It was too much for her too process but she liked him tickling her face. She threw her arms around his neck and giggled. He decided the best thing to do was pick that for a costume but just start making her up when everyone was getting ready on Hallowe'en night.

"Hey mom?" Enjolras said into the phone as they piled back into the car. "I have a couple of the kids here, can we visit?" he asked. His parents, like Courfeyrac's were anxious to meet the children. Also like Courfeyrac's parents, they were well off. Enjolras' father had been a bit disappointed when he stepped down from law full time to concentrate on childrens' services but he did recognise that it was still a very good occupation. It wasn't like he quit to sit in the basement and smoke pot. It took awhile to convince him that he WAS still in law, though, just a different branch. He knew that the senior Enjolras had a longing for them to have a father & son law firm.

"Of course!" Josette Enjolras said. "I can fix a bit of lunch for them, what do they like to eat?"

"Your cooking?" Enjolras said. "I'm sure whatever it is, you'll get them hooked on it." he said. He missed her cooking and when he worked late, he would stop at their place for supper.

They hadn't seen Grantaire for a few years - they hoped he had grown up a little and was not still party-hearty type. Josette watched him get the little girl out of her car seat and put her down on the sidewalk, motioning for her to go up to the house with the others while he locked the car.

"Hello!" Josette smiled and bent down to talk to Nicolas. "You're one of the twins?" she asked and he nodded, wondering how she knew that. He had no idea how much everyone talked to their parents about the kids. How else would they know how to do things like...rather than shaking them awake in the mornings, just open their bedroom door and turn the light on dim...they'd wake up on their own or that fifteen minutes of sitting up watching a boring talk show would put an "I-can't-sleep" child into a slumber. "Lucien!" she hollered for her husband to come greet their company.

Looking at the little boy, Lucien Enjolras just stared. He hadn't been close to his own son to watch him grow. He had been too busy, something he always regretted. In spite of the pretense of the Courfeyrac family, Lucien was always watching the doctor show his pride and support for his son, even in the wake of what everyone knew about him...and what Lucien suspected of his own son. Unlike the Courfeyrac's, Lucien's son would be best to hide it. His father wasn't quite as liberal. It wasn't anything Sylvain worried about because his father was on the wrong track anyway.

The little curly haired boy looked up with his blue eyes and smiled. "Hi." he said.

"Hello." Lucien said. "What's your name?"

"Nico." he said.

"NicoLAS?" The man said, disdainful of nicknames.

"Yes...yes sir.." Nico instinctively knew the man was not to be feared but respected. "But they call me Nico." he explained, maybe the man didn't know about nicknames. He would listen to hear what he called his son.

"I'm Fleur." the raven haired girl said, causing Lucien to raise his eyebrows. He didn't even GET a first name out of her, how could he correct her. "That's Peep." she pointed to the little girl Josette held in her arms.

"Is this was grandparents are like?" both Nico and Fleur wondered. "They meet you at the door and pick you up, kiss you and talk to you?" Even though Lucien was a bit stiff and hard to warm up to, he was still nice and...as his son told him, would have to get used to some nicknames, though they did give him grace on Peep's name. She usually was referred to as Sylvie, they used Peep when talking to her. Fleur, on the other hand was pretty much only called Daphne at school, sometimes a quick "Daf" at home but most of the time she was Fleur.

"Lunch is pretty much ready if you want to come through here." Josette said and they walked through the house and out the back door into the sunroom. One thing about the Enjolras household, it was massive and lush but there was a casual living space that welcomed things like walking in the house with your shoes on and having spaghetti and meatballs instead of fancy dishes. The only house staff was the cleaning lady and she came in twice a week. If there was a big function at the house, they would hire some kitchen help but otherwise, Josette loved doing her own cooking.

"Do you have a flower shop?" Fleur looked out the windows of the sunroom onto the garden. "There are so many!"

"No no." Josette laughed. "Lucien loves flower gardening, that's just his hobby space." she put a slice of homemade bread on Fleur's plate. "You can go out there after lunch if you're very mindful to stay on the path." she welcomed her, not sure if that would raise the hair on the back of Lucien's neck but he'd probably go out there with her. Josette chatted with the children as the two men talked business and bringing each other up to date on life in general. Lucien's eyes kept drifting back to Nicolas though. It was like a ghost. Something was saying 'do it right this time'. The times he was ready to correct everything from talking with his mouth full to reaching across Peep's plate in order to get something, he stopped. He listened to, smiled at and reacted to the nonsense the children were talking during lunch and his son just stared at him sometimes.

There had NEVER been talk allowed at the table in the Enjolras house. It got a bit more casual after he had moved out and only came over for occasional meals but that was mostly because that's all the time they had to talk before he had to go flying back out the door and go back to work. There would be occasional pangs of jealousy when Enjolras saw the liberty the children got at the table but mostly it was a feeling of satisfaction that the kids would, no doubt make a difference in his parents' lives and perhaps get his mother off of the pity wagon of not having grandkids.

"Look what we got!" Gavroche held up a bag when they got back to the house. His clothes and nails were filthy, they had done their best to scrub them after they had dug in the garden. Minette was carried, cradle style through the door by Courfeyrac. She was not only dirty, she had fallen in the mud so she was carried right down to the bathroom while Gavroche took the bag of carrots and potatoes up to the kitchen and put them on the table. "Grandma Marcelle said in the spring she can come out and help us plant a garden here." his voice squeaked with excitement. Amy took the bag from him and he went up to the bathroom for a good cleaning.

Courfeyrac and Enjolras nodded at each other. Enjolras knew that they had been at Courfeyrac's wonderful vegetable garden. Now that her son was out of the house, Marcelle called her vegetable garden her pride and joy and it was a fun competition between Lucien's flowers and Marcelle's vegetables, though they exchanged goods frequently. Both Enjolras and Courfeyrac obviously had the same idea that day and it proved successful. They would have the parents out to the home occasionally as well.

"Naturally, Mom ADORED Minette." Courfeyrac said, chatting with Enjolras as they washed the last of the dirt off of the vegetables and got them ready for cooking while Amy and Eponine cleaned the dirt off the kids and got them ready for even getting NEAR the table.

"Any light shed on those two?" Enjolras nodded in the direction of the kids.

"Yep." Courfeyrac said. "We'll have something to say to Nico later. How about you?"

"We didn't really go there. I want Jehan there, it's just so much bigger than just me." Enjolras said.

"Us." Courfeyrac reminded him. While they all focused on one kid, they were a family.

"Maybe with them not picking on Scott it might stop?" Courfeyrac took a guess at what had caused him to do it in the first place. "Like he wants to share the pain?"

"It's not always pain though..." Enjolras said, then noticed Nico outside on the swings without a jacket. It wasn't freezing but the sun was fading fast and it was October. "Nico, come in and get a jacket." Enjolras hollered through the sliding door. "I did catch him with his fingers in a plastic vise at the science museum though." he said. "It wasn't tight but it was as tight as he could turn it. Anyway, after supper we can get the three together and then over the next day or so we can see if the other thing changes." he sighed in exasperation a few minutes later when he looked and saw Nico still on the swings without a jacket. He reached into the closet and took out Nico's jacket then grabbed his jean jacket and shrugged it over his shoulders. He slid the door open and went down into the yard. "You not hear me?" he asked Nicolas.

"I heard." Nicolas said. "I just wanted to play out here 'til supper time."

"Nothing wrong with that." Enjolras said and sat on the swing next to him. "I just asked you to get your jacket on." he said and handed it to Nicolas. "Did you have a good day?" he asked and Nicolas nodded, pulling his arms through the sleeves and zipping the front closed. "My mom and dad sure loved meeting you." he smiled and reached out, toying with his hair. "Gav and Minette brought vegetables from Courfeyrac's garden so they're really fresh and very good. Nothing but love goes into them." he watched to see if there was any reaction to his siblings names. "Pretty soon it'll be ready, maybe we'll go in and wash up?" he said. "How's your hand when you squished it in the vise?" he asked and looked at his hand. There wasn't a mark on it.

"It's okay, it didn't hurt." Nicolas said, sliding off of the swing.

"What happened?" Enjolras asked. "How'd your fingers get in there?"

"I just wanted to know how tight it went before it hurt." Nico answered. It sounded very strange but Enjolras didn't want to push it any further and they were at the sliding door already anyway.

The kids jabbered and chattered about how they spent their day and it was agreed that next time they went out they would switch positions, though it better be fast because both gardens were at the mercy of mother nature. They had already had their baths so they could watch TV a bit longer. Not that Sunday night TV was the best but they managed to agree on something. The rule in the house was that they had to learn to share so they could only watch the one TV. If they begged hard enough they could watch a movie on one of the guys' laptops but it had to be a time that it wasn't being used. That was one of the reasons Enjolras and Nico watched movies a lot. Often they were nature shows and only an hour long and it was just as likely to be a bedtime story. They were lying on their backs on Enjolras bed as if they were cloud watching when Courfeyrac knocked on the half opened door and poked his head in. "Can we come in?" he asked and escorted Minette and Gavroche in, everyone piling on the bed. "Nettie and Gav have something to say." he said.

"We want Scott to come to the Hallowe'en party." Minette said. "Can you invite him?"

"He doesn't have a costume, he told me." Nico said. "I tried to invite him already."

"We could help him with one." Gavroche said Courfeyrac's eyebrows went up. He did NOT ask them to say that.

"I think that's a great idea, Gav." Courfeyrac said. "We still have to pick things up, we can take him with us." he nodded. Now that THAT was done, he kept his eyes on the two so they could get around to what they really needed to.

"We're...I'm sorry that we've been picking on Scott." Minette said, changing the "we" to "I" very quickly as there would be NO group apologies.

"Yeah." Gavroche nodded. "We...I'm sorry. It was nice of you to be his friend when we were so shitty to him." he said. Enjolras and Courfeyrac both fought to keep straight faces after that.

"That's okay." Nicolas said.

"Well...not 'okay' but we'll start again tomorrow, right?" Courfeyrac said "So you can show them you're sorry." he said and they nodded.

"You want to watch a movie before bed?" Enjolras asked them. Nobody knew that this was the envy of all the kids. Bedroom doors were never closed tight but they knew Nico and Enjolras were having quality time with books or movies and left them alone. Every one of them had special evening time. Courfeyrac and Gavroche played video games or basketball in the back yard, Minette and Eponine did crafts or lip synced to CDs and they all enjoyed but the quiet time Nico and Enjolras shared sounded...pleasant. To be able to lie in there and watch movies on Enjolras' laptop sounded like an honour.

He popped them some popcorn and Nico let Minette pick the movie then Enjolras and Courfeyrac left them alone to enjoy themselves. All that remained to be seen was if Nicolas would stop hurting himself.

"Well...that was ... easier than I thought it would be." Courfeyrac stretched and leaned his head back in the hot tub. "I mean, getting them to apologise and all that."

"Damn...we're good." Enjolras agreed.

A/N...don't get cocky, guys!