AN: I wrote this in the spirit of Halloween, and what I meant as a one-shot turned into one of the most exciting ideas I've had in a while. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. Hope you all had a pleasant Halloween!

Halloween never made it to the top five of Sara's favorite parties. When she remembers the carved pumpkins rotting on her neighbors' doorsteps, the kids tossing eggs and toilet paper at ungodly hours, and the oversweet taste of caramel apples that turned her stomach after a couple of licks, she's tempted to rank Halloween as her least favorite party.

That's precisely what she tells Katie when her friend asks her whether she's celebrating.

"You know the worst thing about it?" Sara says.

"Uh –" Katie fumbles for her umbrella as they exit Fox River. It plops open and covers them both, the sound of rain ricocheting on plastic nearly drowning their voices. "Since you grew up in Salem, I'd say the tourists?"

That's one thing, Sara has to admit. To have your hometown flooded with overexcited kids who flash their cameras everywhere and visit every haunted nook and cranny for the extra authentic Salem experience does suck. Especially for Sara, who just wanted to get through high school as quietly as possible, and was never extremely comfortable with Salem's dead witches past.

But that's not the worst thing.

"It's that you can't hide the fact that you don't celebrate Halloween," she says. "When everyone in town wears scary masks or makeup, you stand out immediately. It's like the whole town is pointing its finger at you."

"Lucky Chicago isn't as big on Halloween celebrations," Katie says. Despite the umbrella, the wind whips rain into their faces and the two women walk hurriedly to the parking lot. "So," Katie resumes, "I guess it's pointless to ask whether you want to catch some horror movie on Netflix tomorrow night?"

Sara smiles. She made a point of not celebrating Halloween in Salem for so many years, she's not about to start now. "I'll have to pass."

"See you tomorrow."

"Bye."

Sara drives home, and though she manages to park just a couple of buildings away from her apartment, her shoes are soaked by the time she gets home.

She curses, hangs her dripping coat on the rack and kicks off her ankle boots. All the time she was climbing the stairs to her apartment, the only thing driving her was the thought of a burning-hot shower. Now she's not sure even that will restore her toes to life, but she's damn well going to try. As she takes off her clothes and the spray pours steaming water into the shower cabin, Sara's cell phone starts to ring.

The lyrics from House of the Rising Sun fills the living room – Katie set it up as a joke one time when Sara let her borrow her phone because It's funny, we work at a prison. Which is precisely the reason why Sara doesn't find it funny, but she literally hasn't found the time to change it in the past couple of weeks.

Sara decides to let the phone ring – hell, voicemail will get it, and her toes might not have an extra few minutes – but right at the end, reason wins and she scrambles to the living room, half-naked. Maybe it's important. The shower is still running in the bathroom and she fantasizes about the feel of hot water on her numb frozen limbs.

"Hello?" she picks up the phone just in time.

The unknown number didn't give her pause – there wasn't time for it.

"Am I talking to Sara Tancredi?" a male voice asks.

Irritation wrings a sigh out of Sara. Of course, this is a joke. She should have guessed it. Though October 31 isn't till tomorrow, some start celebrating Halloween early.

She almost hangs up right there and then but the man's tone – so clean and serious – stops her. "I'm Special Agent Michael Scofield, with the FBI. I'm sorry to tell you I'm calling about your father."

Sara's heart drops all the way down her stomach. Stupid, this is all just a stupid joke. Except the caller clearly isn't a snickering teenager having a good time. His voice is grave, and he sounds somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty.

Oh God.

Sara pictures her father in his enormous mansion, sprawled dead on the dining room floor. Heart attack? Not two weeks ago, she made the obligatory call on his sixtieth birthday. Sixty is young to die nowadays, but heart attacks can claim basically anyone over forty, even without warning.

But if her father died of a heart attack, why would an FBI agent call her?

"Miss Tancredi, are you still on the phone?"

Sara realizes she hasn't spoken a word since the man called her. "Yes," she manages. "What about my father?"

Agent Scofield's next words steal whatever breath was left in Sara's lungs. "He's gone missing."

It's still pouring when Sara's cab drops her at O'Hare Airport. That damned rain thuds against the glass ceiling inside the airport but Sara can barely hear it, with her own heels clicking so loud as she races to catch her flight. After she hung up the phone with that FBI agent, Sara threw on the clothes that lay discarded on the bathroom floor, slipped inside the first pair of shoes she got her hands onto, and didn't realize they were high heels until just now. She didn't pack – no spare clothes, no book, no toothbrush or the usual stuff she'd bring with her on a flight. Then again, she barely remembered to turn off the shower before she locked up.

She brakes in front of the Delta kiosk for the check-in, where some thirty people stand queuing in front of her. While she waits, she calls Henry Pope to tell him she won't be at work tomorrow.

There's no time to breathe, no time to think almost, until boarding. Every second of wait, Sara spends worrying she won't get her flight on time, it was such a last-minute call.

So when she finally drops in her tight airplane seat, a violent rush of heat swims to her face and Sara sees spots for a moment. Even if she weren't a doctor, she'd know the signs. Sara's a small frame, and all it takes is for her to skip lunch and breakfast on an especially crammed workday before she starts to feel lightheaded. Naturally after all that happened this evening, she forgot about dinner, and she's pretty sure the sandwich she packed for lunch still lies crumpled in her purse at the apartment.

She puts on a show of casualness until they're up in the air, strangely worried if anyone sees the state she's in, they'll kick her off the flight.

But her sight stops blurring as she remembers to breathe, and the realization hits her full force.

I'm going back to Salem.

And everything she's left buried there awaits like gleaming treasures in the dark.

A blink of hesitation startles Sara when she slithers into the first cab she can reach outside Boston Airport, and the driver asks her, "Where to?"

The address to her father's house – that huge mansion whose every room she used to know by heart – hangs trapped on the tip of her tongue.

"Uh –"

Flashes of the house she grew up in, her mother's slim hand on her face, a bucket full of water and apples.

"Miss?"

"Sorry," Sara says, and tries to give herself mental slaps. "Webster Street."

"Salem?"

"Yeah."

The cab kicks into gear. "You going there to celebrate Halloween, are you?"

Sara's teeth clench into a tight bar, but her mind leaks with exhaustion and she can't muster the will to explain. "That's right," she says.

Even though it's past midnight, the sights outside the window draw Sara's eyes. The thick coat of leaves that paves the road glows bright orange when it catches the beam of the headlights. Trees not yet naked stand skeletal on the roadside.

Sara's heart thumps so hard in her chest she resists the urge to cross her arms over it, as if to kill the sound.

Ten years since she's been here. When she left, she thought she'd never come back at all. By the time the cab turns into Webster Street, Sara can see the town so clearly in her mind, it's as if she's seventeen again.

"You can drop me here," she tells the driver as the sizeable mansion looms into view at the end of the street.

"Wow," he says. "This your friends' house?"

"My father's."

The driver's eyes grow keener on her, like she's been pretending to be someone she isn't. "Looks like someone famous lives there."

"No."

If he Googles '26 Webster Street, Salem' and finds that's the registered address of the governor of Massachusetts, he might decide that's famous enough to call Sara a liar, and Sara honestly doesn't give a damn.

She leaves him a ten-dollar tip and walks toward her father's house. No yellow tape bars the entrance. All looks as she remembers. The mansion is Gilded Age, full white, save for the golden ornaments atop the pillars that support the balcony. Outside, the garden could tell you what month it is as well as any calendar: apple trees brim with fruit, which a gardener picks every day. Yellow-orange leaves round the trees on each side of the house and the smell of them hits Sara like a slap as she nears the doorstep.

She knocks at the door, cloaked in the strange sensation that she's about to step through the threshold of time.

The door flies open and an aged round face appears, haloed by white hair. Recognition is slow to come and it's only when the woman draws Sara into a hug that Sara recognizes her. It's her smell that does it. Ten years have gone by, but Anita Carlisle still wears the same Nina Ricci perfume – a bottle shaped like an apple. Anita let Sara try it on once.

"Oh sweet pea," Anita speaks the nickname, like Sara is still ten years old.

Sara waits for as long as she can, ashamed of her stiffness in Anita's embrace. That woman has known Sara since she was a baby – has known her and cared for her longer than her own mother. And how often does Sara think of her in a year? Once? Twice?

Finally, Anita releases her and Sara takes a step back. "Is that FBI agent still in the house?"

"In your father's office. They're talking to his assistant."

Sara nods and starts to climb up the staircase. Goosebumps break down her arms as her fingers brush the polished mahogany handrail. Each footstep drags on and on, like the stairs are made of microwaved fudge. When she reaches the door of her father's office, she hears male voices on the other side of the door. Her hand clutches the knob and she pulls, certain her father will tell her to go to her bedroom – politics is no business for a little girl.

Two men stand at the center of the room, amidst the shelves full of unread books and expensive baubles. They fall silent as they turn to her. Both are tall, with hair cropped short, and they wear suits that could probably have paid for Sara's first year in med school.

Beside them, a blonde ponytailed woman – Sara's age. She looks like a second edition of Frank's last assistant.

One of the men steps toward Sara. "Miss Tancredi?"

Sara recognizes the man who talked to her on the phone – the man who sent her whole life off the rails.

She manages to answer, "Yes."

"I'm Agent Scofield," the man says, then waves to his partner. "This is Agent Kellerman. As I told you on the phone, we're investigating your father's disappearance."

The second man – Agent Kellerman – looks at her father's assistant and says, "Thanks, I think you gave us all the information we need."

She looks happy enough to leave the room, and Sara wishes she had taken more time to open the door, that she'd prepared for whatever's about to happen.

"Thank you for coming here on such short notice," Agent Scofield says. "You've had a long trip, would you like to sit down?"

Sara shakes her head.

"All right," he says. "In such cases, it's best my partner and I keep track of every conversation. Do you mind if we record this?"

"No," she says, and the man presses play on a recorder that lies on Frank Tancredi's door-sized desk. "How long has my father been missing?"

"A little over five hours. Your maid came to bring him dinner at seven. According to her, he'd been locked up in his study all day, working."

"Does that strike you as unusual?" Agent Kellerman asks.

"I haven't seen my father in ten years. I'm not exactly up to date as to his working habits."

"Is there any particular reason for that?" Agent Kellerman prods.

Agent Scofield clears his throat, and though his face doesn't betray traces of annoyance, Sara gets a feeling he doesn't like his partner's forwardness.

"Miss Tancredi," he says, "we're trying to get the most precise picture of what kind of man your father was. Even if it seems unrelated to his disappearance, what you can tell us about his character would be valuable information."

"You mean," Sara says, "did I not return to Salem all this time because my father and I quarreled?"

"Yes," Agent Scofield answers.

"You want to know if he was an abusive man?"

"If you'd oblige us."

"He never hurt me," Sara says, "and I don't think he had the passion required to hurt anyone."

"Did you have a falling out?" Agent Kellerman asks.

Sara shakes her head. "There was nothing to fall out of. My father and I are oil and water, we never got along."

Her eyes stray to the office despite herself – possibly, the room she knows least in this whole house, but Agent Scofield follows her gaze and asks, "Do you see anything amiss?"

"You'd be better off asking his assistant or Anita," she says. "I wasn't allowed here when I was a girl."

Sara takes in the paperwork on the desk and open laptop. A mug of black coffee sits half full on a coaster. No way her father just walked out of this room in the middle of the afternoon. "Do you mind talking me through what you know?" she asks.

Agent Kellerman opens his mouth with a look of polite protest on his face, but Agent Scofield beats him to it, "The last time anyone's seen your father was three in the afternoon, when your maid brought him some coffee. After that, she just assumed he was working in his study. Around four, she heard him talk to someone over the phone, and said it sounded like they were arguing."

Agent Kellerman seizes the window back into the conversation, "There's no way you are the person he was talking to, is there?"

Sara looks at him in surprise. "Like I said, I never argued with my father."

"When is the last time you talked to him?"

"Two weeks ago, for his birthday."

"How did he sound to you?" Agent Kellerman asks.

Sara tries to recall their conversation. How long did they talk? Two minutes, two minutes thirty? Seeing as they never went beyond platitudes, they quickly ran out of material.

"He asked if everything was okay at work," she says. That much she's sure of, because Frank always asks her about it, as if he's proving a point.

Agent Kellerman senses her latent irritation, "Did he have a problem with your job?"

"I work in a men's prison," Sara says for an answer.

The man's mouth breaks into an actual smile. For a second, Sara wants to slap him, the urge so strong in her hand that she steps back in dumb shock.

"Right," Agent Kellerman says.

Agent Scofield resumes, "Did your father seem in his normal state to you?"

"We talk twice a year," Sara says. "I'm not sure I'd know what normal was for him."

"Did he seem paranoid?" Agent Scofield clarifies.

Sara's eyes narrow down on him. Through the emotional roller coaster of the whole evening, this might be the first time she actually looks at Agent Scofield. His very blue eyes look directly at her.

Maybe it's about time she starts asking herself the right questions. Isn't it strange that the FBI would get involved so soon, when a governor goes missing for only a few hours? Why didn't Anita call the police? As a matter of fact, does anyone aside from Anita, her father's assistant and these two men know that her father's disappeared?

"Was he mixed up in something?" she asks.

Kellerman offers a polite smile, "It's too early to tell."

"Sorry," she says, "but you expect me to believe the FBI just had special agents lying around in Salem?"

The two agents don't exchange glances but stare blankly at her instead. These aren't green police officers fresh out of the academy.

"You got here so fast because you were already keeping an eye on my father," Sara says. "Weren't you?"

She doesn't mean to turn the interrogation on them – well, at least not for sports. On the other hand, she didn't fly all the way to Salem not to find out what happened to her father.

"I'm sorry to say," Agent Kellerman answers, "for the moment, that's classified information."

"Why did you ask me if my father was paranoid?"

Agent Scofield pulls a sheet of paper out of his coat pocket. It's tucked inside two sheets of plastic that gleam as he shows it to her and says, "We found this under the desk when we examined the room. Do you recognize your father's handwriting?"

Sara nods. For her birthday, he never calls but sends her flowers and a handwritten note, never longer than two lines.

"Then please, I'd like to have your reaction to this," Agent Scofield hands her the note.

Sara reads:

Sara,

You are in danger. I don't have time to explain

The sentence stops, like her father was interrupted. He picked up at the start of a new line, and the last three words that Frank wrote bristle the hairs at the back of Sara's neck.

Trust no one.

End Notes: Please leave a comment to let me know what you think of the story! Take care!