Undercover Family

I would love to hear your opinions and look to working further on the story.

I do not own or have connection with the "Criminal Minds" program or its characters.

Chapter 29.

The first month of school goes along and our young agents have come up with a good schedule of school, activities and home, but there seems to be no new leads in the case. No new abductions or leads to where the missing children may be. A little girl at the Jr. High keeps hitting David in the arm, she likes the man boy and like Spencer, he's not sure how to deal with it. She is only eleven and although, he might look like he is eleven, he knows that he is not. The girl is nice, but he's just not interested, but he doesn't want to hurt her feelings. What a dilemma for our intrepid young good looking boys. Derek is just having fun with all the kids, he plays ball and is one of the more popular kids in the school. Emily is having her own difficulties with a little boy who keeps looking at her and has been bringing her flowers every day. How do you turn down the cute little eyes of a love sick boy or girl?

As our agents work through their dilemmas of first loves and homework, momma and Aaron are once again seeing the women and families of the missing children. The only day that they didn't go out was the day the Aaron once again experienced a tooth breaking through; the pain was as bad as he remembered and he hopes the case ends soon. He is tired of teething. Sean had decided to take another few weeks off and has stayed for a few more weeks and actually witnessed his big brother in pain from that. He literally saw his big strong seeming invincible brother break down and cry and whine. That's when he decided to head back to New York; he doesn't need to have all of his illusions about his big brother destroyed. He always thought of him as strong and invincible, what a revelation to actually see that he can break down. Sean leaves the next day.

After the teething episode, a breakthrough occurs. It is not a positive one however, since it was not one of our agents. During the last week of September, a child is abducted while walking home from school, ten-year-old Damien Rhodes was walking home from Jefferson and was last seen at the corner of McKinley and 3rd street. There were no surveillance cameras in the area, so no one saw what happened to the boy. Once again a state of uncertainty and fear grips the town, the abductor is back. Our agents get busy looking at the site and talking to the family of the boy, but there still is no clues about who this person. They have given a generalized profile of the perpetrator, based on precedent and best common denominator. But no specifics are available yet. For the next few weeks, a heightened state of vigilance was enacted. Parents picked up their children from school and parks were practically empty with parents trying to keep their children at home. But as many know, vigilance can only make it through so long before people get tired of it and slow it down. When another child is taken three weeks later, our agents begin to get frustrated in not being able to discover more about who this unsub is and are at a loss.

The week before Halloween there was talk about cancelling off trick or treating and festivities for the holiday. But the city council decided to let the festivities continue. Momma is preparing costumes for her children, although some are not looking forward to dressing up. Derek still thinks it is creepy Aaron does not want to be anything, except to finish up this assignment. He is tired of being a baby. Momma keeps joking with him about getting him an angel costume or something like that. His response is that he is not an angel. There was no disagreement by anybody from that remark. Momma really doesn't care what the kids want to wear; she already has a costume for them to wear. She has gotten one for their school parties and one for trick or treating. She decided to invite Sean to Illinois if he wanted to join them for trick or treating. Because of the wide age between Aaron and Sean, the brothers have never gone trick or treating together. I think it is time that they did. Sean agreed to come on the night before Halloween day. Momma gets him a costume. None of our kids know what momma has gotten them to wear. Momma will be taking the children out for trick or treating while Penelope will be dressed up and answering the door for the trick or treaters who came to the door.

During the week before Halloween, momma and Aaron would visit the families of the missing children and she dressed him up in a different costume every day. He hated it, on Monday; he was dressed as a pink care bear. On Tuesday, she put him in a skunk costume and Wednesday she made him a little superman. Thursday, she put him in a fisherman's outfit, with rod and reel. Friday, she was in a quandary on whether she should dress him as a little devil or little angel. This was the day that the children had their Halloween parties at school, Spencer was dressed as a little cowboy, Emily went as a drum majorette and Derek was momma's biker boy. David and JJ classes did not dress up but talked a great of the history of the holiday and learned of its origins. Momma decided on a compromise on her little guy, she created a costume that was both angel and devil. The halo was placed on a head with horns, the wings attached to the bodysuit with a forked tail. He became known as the devilish angel at the schools. Later that night was a Halloween party at the high school for the entire town and momma dressed up with her children to attend. She put them in similar style clothing. As a person who enjoys the medieval time period, she put all her children into queen dresses or knights and crusaders outfits, Aaron was in the outfit called the Heir to the throne, Spencer was a king crusader, Derek was a knight warrior, David was a valiant knight and our girls were queens, Emily was an Elizabethan and JJ was a Renaissance. Penelope dressed up as a blue maiden princess and momma went as a renaissance Queen. Sean had arrived that afternoon and was dressed up as Lancelot. Even Bob got into the act by being dressed by momma into a valiant knight. She enjoyed watching her children play at the party/dance. There were games, bobbing for apples, dancing and other things to play.

Although, knowing there are missing children and people are scared for their own children, the adults tried to make the night enjoyable for the children. The next day is actually Halloween and there will be trick or treating during the daytime hours. The town has created a curfew with the idea that it would keep the children safer. Parents made sure that their child or children were accompanied by an adult while going from house to house.

Momma went out with her children surrounding her; in fact many of the neighborhood children joined the family. The parents of the other children stayed and gave out candy while they knew their children were safe with momma. Momma gave each older child a younger child to be responsible for, while she watched all of them. Sean actually had responsibility for Aaron, David was given Spencer, JJ had Emily and Derek was put under the eye of a neighborhood child named Steven. There were about twenty children surrounding momma as they moved through the neighborhood and down the streets to the houses that looked open and ready to give to children. Sean learned what David had earlier in Chicago, that the boss man gets tired of walking very quickly. Spencer lasts a little longer, but he soon is very tired of walking as well and with four other children under four, there are many children now being held by their older counterparts. When momma sees this, she knows that it is time to head for home. It takes a while but after dropping off the other children to their parents, momma heads home her tired brood. She had to take Aaron from Sean's arms, remember he's currently a young teenager and his arms were getting too tired to hold a sleeping baby in them. Aaron fell asleep in Sean's arms when they were on their way home. Sean then went and helped David keep Spencer moving, who walked slower and slower each block they went. He started to whine on the last block that he couldn't move another step and at one point he sat on the sidewalk, Sean took him and put him on his back and began to carry him piggyback. When they got home, momma put Aaron in the crib downstairs and just laid Spencer on the bed, where he fell asleep immediately.

They brought all of the candy and stuff to the dining room table and momma would begin to go through and split it up into bins for each child. Some things she doesn't approve of for younger ages but are fine for older ages and yes momma takes control of the candy. She allows each child some pieces for now and then has them get ready for bed. She takes Spencer upstairs and dresses him for bed in a pull-up and pajamas before laying him in his bed. The other boys got ready for bed while momma went back downstairs and checked on her baby. Although, Aaron has been sleeping upstairs in the crib in the boys' room, she just kept him downstairs tonight. The girls went to bed after giving momma a big hug; momma loved this holiday.

But the idyllic life that she has with her children is about to change. She doesn't know it yet, but the case is going to become closer and her device isn't as infallible as she thinks.