"Mom, mom, look at me!"

Liara turned away from the bowl she was in the process of filling with candy, coming face to face with the noisy spectacle of her older daughter running into the kitchen. Shocked by what she saw, the information broker called out in the direction of the front door.

"Shepard! What in the name of Athame is our daughter wearing?"

Melanie walked into the room. For her part, the dark-haired former Specter was wearing her N-7 hoodie, a pair of jeans, and a self-satisfied smile, no doubt amused by the small costumed asari in front of her. Meanwhile, Ashley T'Soni tilted her small head up at her mother and from beneath her mask, cheerfully informed Liara, "I'm Kai Leng."

As Liara looked at her daughter in dismay, Melanie darted in and kissed her bondmate swiftly on the lips. "I guess that answers your question. See, she's got the little plastic swords and everything."

As Ashley ran around the kitchen waving said faux weapons in the air and proclaiming that she would vanquish a variety of imaginary foes, Liara queried her wife. "Melanie, love, do you really think that's an appropriate costume for Ashley? That man killed Major Kirrahe. He nearly killed Miranda. He tried to kill both of us on a number of occasions."

"And now he's a plastic mask being worn by a five-year-old asari. What do you think he'd make of that?"

"Five and a half, Dad," Ashley insistently corrected, taking a brief pause in her epic battle.

"Right you are," Melanie replied, reaching down to pat her daughter on the head.

Her irritation fading in the face of this tag team, Liara cracked a smile and laughed softly. "I imagine that he would hate it."

Melanie chuckled along with her bondmate. "Yeah, I thought it seemed like a fitting punishment for that…" Liara could tell that her wife was about to curse, but in deference to their daughter's presence, the human instead finished the sentence with "Jerk." Shepard had been working hard to break her habit of cursing in front of Ashley and Liara showed her appreciation for the effort with an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

"I suppose I can see your point. Though I will admit that I still do not fully grasp this holiday. The appeal of dressing up as evil creatures eludes me."

"Aw, it's just for fun. I guess, maybe, it says that they're a joke, instead of something that we have to be afraid of."

"That may be, although I am still astonished at how quickly this holiday was adopted here, given that the colony is only twenty percent human."

"Hey, what can I say. I'm a trendsetter. You usually like it when I find ways to use my fame for good."

Shepard grinned and Liara rolled her eyes. "I'm not sure that this qualifies."

"Hey, kids love Halloween. Even in my old neighborhood, shi… lousy as it was, we used to trick or treat when I was little. Of course, you had to be careful to not to stop at the drug dens, but…"

Melanie's lightning reflexes kicked in just in time to catch her daughter's hand before it could get into the bowl Liara had been preparing. "What do you think you're doing there, Ashley? Daddy told you before, you have go out and get your own candy tonight. Not just take it from your Mom's bowl."

"Can we go now?'

"Soon. For now, let me show you how to use those things."

As Melanie led Ashley away from temptation and into the living room for a lesson in the finer points of plastic sword fencing, the buzzer sounded.

When Liara opened the door, she found two of her old teammates attired for the occasion. Garrus, apparently amused to discover that turians resembled the human embodiment of evil, had worn a red cape and was carrying a plastic pitchfork. Tali for her part had festooned her suit with brightly colored decorations, the significance of which was not immediately apparent to Liara but which certainly gave her a festive air.

Between the two stood their quarian daughter, Harah'Zorah. While the girl had adapted sufficiently to the atmosphere on Sanves enough not to have to wear an environmental suit, tonight she was covered up none the less, a toothy rubber mask on her face and in her hands, a little shotgun that she was pointing at the asari.

Liara laughed in spite of herself. "Not you as well. First, Shepard allows our daughter to dress up as Kai Leng, and now this? I thought the idea was to go attired as monsters. That hardly seems like a charitable way to refer to her uncle Wrex."

Behind her, Shepard was bringing Ashley to the door. As the two children immediately began engaging in an historically inaccurate but highly energetic fake battle, Melanie corrected her wife. "Not always. Sometimes kids dress up as heroes too."

"Now, now," injected Garrus. "I think Liara's original theory may have been closer the mark."

Tali gave him a playful shove. "I thought we talked about not passing on old prejudices to our children."

"Oh, this isn't about krogan-turian rivalries. You two," he teased, turning to Shepard and Liara, "May not have stayed down in the cargo hold, and you," he reminded his wife, "Have air filters built into your suit, but for those of us who had to smell him after shore leave, I think monstrous is a pretty apt description of Wrex."

"Fair enough." Tali agreed, tapping on the side of her helmet. "It's easy for me to forget the advantages of this thing sometimes."

Liara accepted that she wasn't going to get anywhere with this line of objection. "Garrus, where is Varius tonight?"

The turian shrugged. "My son has decided that he's too old for this particular activity. He's with his friends."

"Hey, be careful, Melanie warned. "Back on Earth, guys his age often throw eggs and toilet paper at houses on Halloween."

Tali shook her head. "So I discovered when researching this holiday of yours on the extranet, Shepard."

Garrus chuckled. "That's why I reminded him that his father can still pick off a trespasser at 1200 yards."

Melanie gave him a skeptical look. "1150. I'm pretty sure I was the only one who hit that last target."

Garrus gave Shepard his best aggrieved expression and Tali groaned. "You two save it for the next hunting trip."

"Sure thing," Melanie smiled. We better get going anyway. "I think the clash of the titans in there is in danger of demolishing half of our furniture."

As Shepard went inside to collect the kids so that they could start their trick-or-treating, Liara queried her. "That reminds me, love, if I'm staying home with Benezia and handing out candy, won't you need a costume?"

"Nah," Melanie grinned, giving her wife a loving kiss goodbye. "I figure I can just go as Commander Shepard."

"Why not," Liara shrugged. "I imagine that if heroes are an acceptable costuming choices, yours will be the most popular one anyway." Since that vid series had aired, the heroes of the Reaper War had been even more the rage than in the war's immediate aftermath. Ever since she and Shepard had to explain to Ashley why her human friend Eric had little plastic figures that looked like her Mom and Dad, Liara had accepted that their daughter's childhood was going to be a little different.