Hey, someone brought it to my attention that I gave Emm two different middle names in separate chapters. She's Emmeline Jillian Garwin, not Emmeline Rose Garwin. Emmeline Rose is another character I write, she's actually where this Emmeline gets her name because I just loved that name. Also, I'm doing NaNoWriMo which means I'll probably be posting more often because I'll be avoiding writing my actual novel. Because I'm the worst.

He should have known better. He knew she loved holidays and her costume for last Halloween hadn't been anything to scoff at. He really shouldn't have dismissed it as a kids' holiday the way he had.

He should count himself lucky that she hadn't snuck into his house in the middle of the night and permanently painted his face like a mouse or something of the sort.

The moment Dan walked into her kitchen he froze. It took him a second to reconcile what his brain was telling him and what he was seeing. When her dad started laughing he burst out into his own peal of laughter, which left him doubled over the kitchen table.

"He's going-" He gasped for breath, "to kill you."

Her dad just laughed harder. He'd been amused by it ever since she'd even mentioned it.

Dan, knowing how seriously she took her holidays, always made at least a minimal effort. He, like so many other super, was dressed in the stereotypical alter-ego form. She always let it slide. Maggie would be going as a cat, Elijah as a zombie.

Logan had mentioned going as four different things without sitting on anything.

Even Peace's side of the group had expressed their interest in dressing up. He'd been the only spoil sport.

She smiled around a mouthful of cereal. "I'm just waiting on the final touches from Elijah." She pulled her sleeves up to show him her bare wrists.

While Dan helped himself to a bite of her cereal she dug through a pocket for her phone. She tossed it to her father.

"Take a good picture, dad." She made the appropriate "angry face" while her father worked her phone. "I'm going to send it to his mom. She'll get a kick out of it."

She'd scared the hell out of Maggie, made Ryan laughed so hard he nearly pissed himself. The entire bus ride was getting long-distance high-fives and laughs. Emm was far too proud of herself.

When they arrived Ethan was the first to see her. It took him several moments to recognize her, then he laughed. Albeit, a little nervously. Zack wasted no time in laughing uproariously. The others reacted more mildly, but all of their reactions were irrelevant when Peace strolled down the steps of the courtyard.

He took one look at her, her red hair streak, leather jacket, torn jeans, and quickly cracking scowl, and marched right back up the steps.

Emm couldn't help the laughter that followed. She bounded up the steps after him.

"What's wrong, Peace? Don't like my costume?" Her legs were much shorted than his, but she managed to cut him off. "You said you weren't dressing up. I had to represent you somehow."

"I hate you."

"Your mom loved it."

"Of course she did."

She'd spent the day stalking through the halls like a neanderthal, grunts and all. The occasional "Move aside, I'm Warren Peace, grr." found its way in.

The whole school seemed to find it amusing, though no one quite so much as Emm. This was, in her modest opinion, her best costume yet. Right down to the painted on flame tattoos.

The fact that it was freezing and the leather jacket was well insulated helped.

Peace had scowled and glared whenever he couldn't avoid her in the hallways, but no one really seemed to care. Someone had taken a picture of the two of them standing together on their phone and she was fairly certain it was circulating. She'd have to get her hands on that at some point.

When she sat across from him at lunch she heard snickers.

"You know, this is actually my worst nightmare. Two Peace's. That's a real scary Halloween."

He didn't say anything, didn't even look up from his book, just reached over and ate her fries.

"Give me a bit of credit here, Peace. I even had 'Lijah paint your tattoos on. I think they're a good rendition." She stuck her wrist in front of his book.

Finally he looked up at her. And that's when she realized why he'd been avoiding looking at her or standing with her too long. It was hard to spot, but she figured she knew him fairly well at this point, and she could see the slight upturn of his lip.

He was amused.

"Oh my god. You think this is funny."

He took one of her fries.

"You do! You like my costume!" The smile on her face disappeared. "I don't like this costume as much now."

"Where'd you get the jacket?"

She swatted his hand away from her tray, now pouting over the turn of events. He was not supposed to like the costume, it was supposed to annoy him to no end. "It's my dad's. When we were little he had a bike, it used to shoot lasers. Pretty accurate, I'd say, except I don't think this one is nonflammable."

"We could always test that."

"Screw you."

He ducked his head and she thought it was an attempt to hide exactly how amused he was.

"Wait. Wait. There's no way you actually approve of this." She reached over her tray to pull his book away, ignoring when he slapped her hand. "You want me to think you find this funny so I won't do anything like it again. I am on to you."

"Garwin, has anyone ever told you you're paranoid?"

She kicked him under the table and that was the end of the conversation for several minutes while she and the others counted all the alter-ego costumes around them. And then counted all the costumes of heroes they personally knew.

Peace continued to eat her fries, ignoring the many times she kicked and swatted him. At one point she took a fry straight from his mouth and ate it before he could say anything. She didn't even really care about her fries anymore, but she never wanted him to win.

"So, are you coming tonight?"

He paused in his reading to raise an eyebrow at her.

"To Dan's house? We talked about this. Multiple times. The others are all coming."

"To watch scary movies and eat obscene amounts of candy? Sure, why not."

Emm rolled her eyes at him. He had to make everything such a chore. "Don't go out of your way for us, Peace. I'm sure we can manage without you."

"Shut up, Garwin, I'm coming." There was a wicked glint in his eye. "I know you can't stand to be without me for too long."

Emm's jaw dropped. It wasn't like he never teased her, but the look in his eye and the stupid grin he was fighting back made her reach over the table and slap the back of his head.

"Hardly, Peace." He was still trying not to smile and she could see it. It riled her up a bit. "I would much rather never have to deal with you again outside of driving you crazy. But, our friends have become friends and they won't listen to me."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah."

"So that explains how often you just end up at my house, right?"

She sputtered for a second and he ducked his head. And she knew he was smiling.

She kicked him hard enough to bruise and tried very hard to ignore the way Logan's eyebrows were waggling at her.

Going to Dan's house for Halloween had been their tradition for years. Dan's parents spent most of their time working around the country and usually only made a point of stopping by to check in on him once a month. For years Dan had lived with an in-house nanny, but when she'd gotten pregnant and decided to move closer to her family they'd agreed that Dan was old enough and responsible enough to go without.

Most days he was at the Garwin home or the Rollings home or they were at his. All of his holidays were spent with them. They didn't talk about it often, but when it came time for a get together there was no better place.

He only lived two houses down from Emm and they only lived two blocks from Maggie, it was easy for them to all meet up at a moment's notice. They each had their own spots on the couches and seats, they all knew exactly where they slept when they spent the night. They even had pj's in a drawer in the guest room (which was just them being too lazy to walk two doors down).

The addition of Will, Layla, Peace, and company meant reorganizing a few things. The four of them still claimed their preferred seats, but they also requisitioned several large pillows and blankets to spread around the floor and seats.

Pizzas were ordered, three boxes more than usual, drinks were gathered, candy was poured into bowls, popcorn was popped. No meeting was right without massive amounts of drinks and food.

Maggie and Emm were one their way back from Emm's house with extra bowls when Peace's De Soto drove past.

Will had apparently forgone flying for the day and all of them had been crammed into the car, with Magenta in her guinea pig form to save space. Emm could only imagine how much Peace loved having them all shoved into his car.

His car made a strange noise when he parked and the moment Will got out of the car she shoved all the bowls into his arms.

"Let it go, Garwin."

"Pop the hood, Peace."

He glared at her for a second from inside the car then, with an audible groan, popped the hood. Zach and Ethan came around to join her, looking interested enough in the inner workings of the car. When everyone was out of his car, Peace joined them too.

"It's been doing that for a few days, I'm working on it."

"What's it been doing? I didn't notice anything." Zach leaned over Ethan's head, trying to see anything obviously out of the ordinary.

Peace slid his way in between Emm and the two of them. "There's a problem shifting gears." He moved her hand out of the way. "And of course you noticed, from the sidewalk. Your obsession with my car is disconcerting."

"Ooh, big word."

"And that's enough." Warren grabbed her round the waist and turned in place, depositing her on the sidewalk, despite her shout. "Someone make her go away."

Maggie laughed and hooked her arm around Garwin's. "Come on, Emmy. Let's go inside and let Warren deal with his car."

"I was just trying to help!"

Warren dropped the hood and, after checking to make sure Maggie was indeed leading Garwin away, went around and turned the car off.

Patterson's house was slightly bigger than Garwin's, a little more aesthetically pleasing from the outside, but the inside felt completely different. Where the Garwin home was neatly cluttered with signs of live, the Patterson home seemed too neat. Even though he could see the others moving down the hall the house seemed empty.

The pictures on the walls, he realized, were of Garwin, Maggie, Elijah, and Patterson throughout their youth. None were of his parents, not a single picture of the family hung on the walls.

He stopped at a picture of what appeared to be a seven year old Garwin holding an Easter basket full of eggs. She was holding Elijah's hand, he must have been five, with an arm swung over a young, chubby, Patterson. She was all smiles and pigtails and yellow dresses.

"Hey, you get lost?"

He glanced over at Garwin, still dressed like him, with that teasing look on her face, and laughed.

Her eyebrows went up.

"You know, looking at this I almost forgot what a pain in the ass you are."

Rather than rise to the bait she came over to see the picture. She was in a good few of them along the walls. She appeared to have known Patterson longer than Maggie, but Maggie had found her way into good number of the pictures. She smiled at it.

"You were kind of cute back then."

"Screw you, I'm cute always."

"Yeah, you're really adorable when you're making me want to strangle you."

"That's when I'm most adorable."

He didn't argue with her, just turned her around and pushed her toward the living room. "Let's go, Garwin."

The living room looked to be swathed in blankets.

Bowls and bowls of candy were set up around the room, pillows thrown everywhere, and a stack of movies were set next the TV. Everything seemed ready.

He took a seat on the couch mainly facing the TV, settling into the right corner while the others picked their spots. Garwin and Patterson moved flawlessly around one another and, when one of them threw something at Maggie or Elijah they didn't have to warn them. The flowed together, all four of them, in a way that showed just how long they'd been doing things like this.

Warren didn't even noticed when Ayers arrived until he was standing behind him.

"You know, hanging out with them is fun, but Dan's got pictures of them as kids on his walls. That's a whole lot of friendship."

He looked up at Ayers as he walked around the couch. They hadn't really talked since Garwin and him had become partners, not directly at least. Any time Ayers was around it was because Garwin was around and they both preferred talking to her. Little as he might want to admit it.

"Today's technically our last day as partners."

Warren realized what he was talking about suddenly. It was silly to worry about, they'd clearly accepted Ayers into their little group. Well, at least Garwin, Maggie, and Elijah had. Patterson was much harder to read.

"Yeah, well our last day was a month ago. You can't really escape her."

As if to emphasize his point, which she couldn't have heard, she came barreling into him. "Your ass is in my seat, Peace." She pushed him into the corner of the couch until a full seat was free. "I've been sitting here for years and I refuse to let you change yet another thing."

When he was properly in his corner and giving her an unamused look she stood again. "This is my seat. Maggie sits right here next to me. No one ever sits in these two other spots, so we can fall asleep. No one sits on that couch." She pointed to the cream colored sofa against the wall. "Dan sits in his special little recliner, and 'Lijah sits next to Maggie's legs."

She pulled Ayers around to the other side of the couch. "You can sit here next to Mags." And that was the end of the discussion as far as she was concerned. She went bounding down the hall and up the stairs in search of something.

Beside him Ayers laughed to himself. "Yeah, you really can't escape her." Warren only sent him a look from the corner of his eye and nodded to Elijah when he offered him a drink. "But, then, I don't think you really want to."

He pretended not to hear him (he had nothing to say). And he pretended not to see Layla's looks when Garwin came back and settled into the seat next to him (she'd been giving him that look for weeks).

He tried not to laugh too loud when he realized she was actually incredibly jumpy with scary movies (though he was quick to point out that she was forever surrounded by superpowered people who would jump to her defense and ghosts were not real, much to her annoyance). Or the weird waggle of Will's eyebrows when he got up to use the bathroom and saw his hand splayed against her back (he didn't really have an explanation for that one).

But, when Maggie fell asleep nuzzled into Garwin, he took off his jacket to drape over her and couldn't ignore the smile Garwin gave him. And when she fell asleep on him, pushed into him by the weight of Maggie, he adjusted his arm around the both of them.