Disclaimer: I don't own the characters; they belong to Anthony Zuiker and CBS.
Wheels squeaked as the little boy's tricycle sped down the hallway. He turned a corner into a hall with doors on all sides. At the end of the hall, he frowned as he spotted two people at the far end of the hall. The trike came to a stop.
"Come and play with us," they said together. It sounded like one person spoke the words, but both of their mouths were moving.
"Come play with us-"
"Danny!"
Danny Messer jerked, fumbling for his glasses on the coffee table. He took a deep breath, letting his nerves settle, and looked up to see the amused smile of his wife. Lindsay Monroe-Messer stood over him, baby Louie on her hip gumming his fingers.
"Baby, you're lucky our kid's in your arms or I'd have somethin' else to say to you," Danny warned her with half a smile on his face.
"You're the only person I know who can sleep during The Shining," Lindsay rolled her eyes, bouncing Louie up and down, eliciting a giggle. "Time to get up," she informed him. "It's just about time for the party, and I know I certain little princess who is refusing an audience with her mother."
Louie babbled as Danny stood up, blowing a raspberry on his son's stomach. The baby squealed in delight. "Obviously that's 'cause she needs to see her Prince Charming," Danny grinned. "Lemme see what I can do. What about our once and future king, here, when's he gettin' dressed?"
Lindsay raised an eyebrow. "When his daddy gets his sister dressed and gets his own costume on so mommy can give him up- every time I try to put him down he screams at me."
Danny held his arms up. "Say no more." He poked Lindsay in the nose on his way past, heading for the bedroom down the hall. "Daddy Messer to the rescue, once again."
Lindsay rolled her eyes. "Daddy Messer is about to be met with a royal pain," she whispered to Louie. The baby responded by grabbing a handful of her hair.
Danny poked his head into the bedroom and had to stifle a laugh. Four year old Lucy Messer sat on her floor, one of her dolls from Auntie Stella in her arms, and not a shred of clothing but her Minnie Mouse underwear on. Her Elsa dress lay forgotten on her bed. "Excuse me, Your Highness," Danny spoke up, leaning against the door frame, "but it's almost time for us to go to the party. And Uncle Mac has a strict no shirt, no shoes, no service policy in the crime lab."
"I don't wanna go to the party," Lucy informed her father.
"Really?" Danny came into the room and sat down cross-legged next to his daughter. He pulled her into his lap. "And why is that?"
Lucy shrugged out of his grip and returned to the floor. "You know, I don't believe for a second you don't wanna go to the Halloween party," Danny told her. "What's goin' on, baby girl?"
His daughter was silent, continuing to brush her doll's hair.
Danny glanced up to see Lindsay in the door, Louie busying himself with a handful of her hair. She cocked an eyebrow as if to say, Told you.
"Hey." Danny gently took hold of the hairbrush and set it aside, brushing Lucy's hair out of her face. "What's wrong, Luce?"
Lucy sucked on her top lip for a moment. Then, "Mommy said we can't tricker treat this year."
Danny frowned. He looked up at his wife, who looked equally confused. "No, Lucy, what Mommy said was that we might not have time to trick or treat this year because of the party," Lindsay explained patiently from the doorway.
"But I wanna," Lucy whispered. "I didn't get to last year."
Suddenly, it clicked. They hadn't been able to trick or treat the year before because Lindsay had been pregnant with Louie and hadn't been feeling well. Lucy had been three at the time and while she understood Mommy didn't feel good and needed to stay home, and Daddy had to work, apparently, missing out on trick or treating had made more of an impact than they'd realized. It would've been her first year that she'd have been able to fully appreciate it, and she'd had to miss out.
Danny glanced up at Lindsay, then, stood up and pulled his daughter into his arms. "I know, baby girl," Danny told her. "I know last Halloween was kind of a downer because Mommy was sick and Daddy was working. I bet your friends from daycare were talkin' about it, huh?"
Lucy nodded. "Hey, I'm sorry, baby, I know that stuff like this is important when you're a kid." Danny looked at Lindsay, an idea forming. He took a quick glance at his watch. "How about this, Lucy. What do you say you get into that pretty blue dress there, and maybe we can get in a couple doors in the building before we go to the party?"
"And," Lindsay added, "I bet that there's some fun treats at the party, too, so that will be a little like trick or treating!"
Danny tilted his daughter's chin so he could look at her. "Whaddya think, Lucy, that sound okay to you?"
His daughter broke into a smile, one that looked so much like Lindsay that Danny felt his heart melt. "Yeah! Daddy help me put on my dress?"
Lindsay grinned. "Go on, I'll see if I can't wrangle this one into his costume as well."
Fifteen minutes later, Queen Elsa, accompanied by a tiny Olaf in his mother's arms, skipped down the hall and banged on the door of a neighboring apartment. Lindsay stood with Louie in her arms just off to the side while Danny waited with Lucy at the door.
The door opened and one of their neighbors poked his head out. Lucy bit her lip and looked up at her father. Danny smiled at the man inside the door and looked down at his daughter. "You gotta say it," he told her. "I'm too big!"
Lucy looked at the man, who was waiting patiently with a plastic cauldron in one hand. "Tricker Treat!" Lucy announced, then hid behind her father's leg.
The neighbor smiled. "Here you go," he told her, dropping a package of fun-sized Skittles into her treat bag. "Happy Halloween!" He winked at Danny and waved to Lindsay before returning inside his apartment.
Lucy looked at her father, wide eyed, and immediately went after the Skittles. "Whoa, whoa," Lindsay told her with a grin. "Let's wait on eating that until later, it's not going anywhere!"
Her daughter fixed her with a patented Danny Messer stare, and Lindsay eyed her husband. "Okay. Just that one before the party," she acquiesced. "She's your daughter," she muttered to Danny. Louie blew raspberries in her arms.
"Mommy help me with the next one?" Lucy prompted.
Danny plucked Louie from Lindsay's arms and balanced him on his hip. "Your turn, Montana," he told her.
Lucy bounced on her heels excitedly as the elevator rose up and up to the 35th floor of One Police Plaza. It paused on the 35th floor and Danny swiped his badge. The doors opened and the Messer family stepped off into a Halloween-esque wonderland.
Someone had taken window chalk and painted scenes on the glass walls of the lab facing the hall: here a sketch of Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas, there a 3D carved jack o'lantern. Decals had been pasted to the tile below them, warning visitors to Keep Out and Turn Back!
"Welcome," a voice intoned, and Danny looked up to see a blue-eyed vampire sweeping down the hall toward them.
"Got somethin' in your teeth there, Flack," he joked.
Don Flack smirked and ignored his best friend as he bent down to Lucy's level. "Well, hello there, Princess," he greeted her. "How's my favorite four year old?"
"Hiya, Uncle Flack!" Lucy greeted him. "I got candy!" She thrust her bag at the homicide detective, and she and Flack pored over the contents together as Danny and Lindsay moved further into the lab. There was commotion coming from the break room, so they made their way that direction. Danny waved to Adam, who was in the A/V Lab, a projection of Poltergeist on the large screen behind him. Louie stared, transfixed by the movement on the giant screen.
On screen, the tree broke through Robbie's window, and Louie burst into tears.
Danny shot Adam a Look. The lab tech looked appropriately abashed.
"Hey, you guys made it!" The greeting came from Sheldon Hawkes, dressed in a black turtleneck and dark jeans. Single-serve cereal boxes had been stapled to the costume, a few of them punctured by plastic spoons.
Lindsay studied him, comforting a whimpering Louie at the same time. Then, she grinned. "A cereal killer, really, Hawkes?"
"I told him it was a little too on the nose, considering," another voice told her. Dr. Sid Hammerback had stepped out of the breakroom, in a long flowing robe, a mask with a hooked beak on the end hanging from his neck.
Danny raised an eyebrow. "Oh, and Plague Doctor isn't, Doc?" he countered.
Flack approached them, a tiny blonde Elsa swinging her fingers in his grip. "You didn't get very far," he told Lindsay and Danny. "And someone should tell Adam there's kids at this party-this one down here about had a heart attack after the killer clown tried to get the kid in Poltergeist." He looked at Danny and Lindsay. "Had to bribe her with a piece of her candy to get her to calm down."
"You can come over and get her to bed tonight, Uncle Adam," Lindsay told Adam, who had come up to join the group.
"It's Halloween," Adam protested, adjusting the lab goggles over his spiked hair. "It's meant to be scary."
"Scary for the adults," Stella Bonasera agreed, poking her head out of the breakroom. "But she's four, Adam." She reached over and scooped Louie out of Lindsay's arms. "Hi, handsome! Look at how big you are!"
Louie babbled and reached for the gold headband wrapped around Stella's forehead. The Greek goddess deftly plucked his fingers out of the air with her own and proceeded to tickle him as she headed back inside the breakroom. The group moved inside to where most of the techs had gathered. Classic slasher movie soundtracks were playing on the speakers, and someone had put the appliances out of the way to make room for platters of adult and kid-themed treats. Lucy's eyes widened at the tray of brownies dipped in green frosting, made to look like tiny Frankensteins.
"I think my goddaughter needs one of those," a deep voice said, and Lucy looked up and grinned in delight at the sight of her godfather, Mac Taylor, dressed simply in a black longsleeved shirt and jeans. He picked her off one of the treats and handed it to her. "Thanks, Uncle Mac!"
"I think we'll just leave her here for everyone else to try to put to bed," Lindsay teased as she and Danny came to join him. "Where's your costume, Mac?"
He raised an eyebrow.
"You went as yourself?" Danny grinned. "That's terrifyin' enough," he added quickly, and Mac smirked at him.
"I tried to get him to dress up," Mac's fiancee, Christine, cut in, dressed in a black dress with cat ears and a tail. "It's my mission to get him into a costume."
"Maybe you'll have more pull after you're married to him," Jo Danville told her, a red Solo cup of some orange liquid in her hands. "Hey, Ellie managed to figure out how to get the punch bowl to smoke," she told the group, handing her cup to Danny so she could flick her dark hair over her Crimson Tide jersey. "You should come check it out. She refuses to tell anybody but Tyler how she did it." She noticed Danny studying the cup in his hand. "It's not gonna kill you, Danny." She frowned. "I don't think, anyway."
Lucy tugged on her mother and father's shirt, and Lindsay and Danny looked at their smiling, frosting-smeared daughter. "Can we go tricker treating again tomorrow?" she begged.
The two elder Messers exchanged a Look. "Maybe we wait 'til some of this sugar wears off, huh baby girl?" Danny suggested.
"Yeah," Lindsay whispered in his ear. "Like, in about another 364 days."