I am soooo sorry, I opened my account and got all of your reviews and was so happy then realized it's been a whole week you guys probably want to kill me for that, I am so sorry I don't even know what happened this week. So this chapter is a little slow and it's mostly fluff, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. I wish I could say that in my week of nothingness I made progress, but I still don't own the mentalist.
A month had gone by we were into Mid-October and things were normal again. Patrick was well enough to escape for his morning runs though he would still complain about how short they were. The social worker had come for the second visit everything had been cleared and the kids were officially mine. We had been a family for almost three months now and I wasn't complaining.
Halloween was coming in a week and Patrick had tracked down a pumpkin patch for us to spend the day at. "Where are we starting the corn maze, the petting zoo, the hayrack ride, the apple orchard, or pumpkin patch?" Patrick smiled letting a very excited three-year-old drag him after his sisters.
"You're never going to get them to agree." I laughed as each kid pointed in a different direction. "You're going to have to decide."
"Then decide I shall." He stopped for just a second to look at the things around him. "Petting zoo first, followed by the corn maze, after that the kids can relax on the hayrack ride before heading to the orchard or pumpkin patch."
"This was you're idea so you're in charge, and that means you're paying to." I had given in, I could only hold out for so long on his insistence to spoil us. While I still refused to let him pay for necessities he was allowed to spend his money as he pleased.
"Of course."
After spending time at the petting zoo, and then almost an hour in the corn maze with twins who can never agree on anything, we were sitting on the hayrack ride, the kids torn between resting and pointing out every thing we passed.
"The girls birthday is in less than a month." I took the ride as an opportunity to lay my head on his shoulder.
"Uh huh."
"What are we going to do? They've been talking about having a group of their classmates come over but is that really the best idea, what if they have another incident."
"But hiding them away from their friends because of a what if probably isn't the best idea either." He pointed out.
"That's the point, so what do we do?"
"I want to say let the kids have a handful of friends over, but I don't want to have to send them home early because the girls start feeling a little uncomfortable."
"It would be the barbeque all over again." I sighed.
"Their birthday is on a Tuesday so we can have our own birthday party that night and that might take some of the pressure off when they have friends come over for a couple hours on the weekend."
"I knew I kept you around for a reason." I smiled and he just gave me that stupid smirk. "What are we doing about Halloween in a week?"
"Don't look at me I never much liked Halloween."
"Really I would have thought it was you're favorite holiday wearing masks and stealing candy from strangers."
"We didn't celebrate Halloween where I grew up."
"I suppose it would be a little difficult to go from trailer to trailer."
"People didn't care enough." He shrugged.
"If it's any consolation we didn't really celebrate at my house either, well we did before my mom's death, but afterwards it just never seemed important."
"You grow up and realize the monsters actually exist and it's not as fun to dress up anymore." He sighed, and I just nodded in agreement.
"Do you think we could get someone on the team to pass out candy at the house so we could both take the kids out?" I wondered.
"That might imply them actually putting the pieces together."
"I thought we weren't hiding it from them anymore."
"Well last I checked we weren't exactly telling them either." He chuckled, "But you know as well as I do they would do anything you asked them to."
"I'll just ask the bullpen for assistance in general."
"Very wise." He nodded and before we knew it the ride was over and it was time to take the kids to the apple orchard.
"Two bags of apples don't go over board." I called as the twins ran through the orchard with William close behind. "And only pick the apples from the trees."
"But we can't reach the tree's." Emily turned around real fast causing her brother to run into.
"Maybe I can help." Patrick suggested, "I'll pick you up one at a time." He handed off Cass to me before lifting Alyssa first. It was after the second round that I started to notice him wince ever so slightly bending down to pick up the next kid.
"My turn." I cut in, "You need to go sit down, take Cass and I'll finish helping them."
"Teresa I'm fine, just a little stiff it's been a month I've picked up the kids since without issue."
"Exactly it's only been a month, and you were shot in the chest go sit down, you don't need to over exert yourself picking apples."
"I'm fine Teresa."
"Well then sit down for my piece of mind."
"Alright kids it looks like you're stuck getting apples from the lower branches." He teased lifting Cass out of my arms, freeing them just in time for me to slap him.
"Ass."
"Little ears." He chuckled wandering off to a nearby tree to watch. When I did come back to him he had Cass crawling over his lap while he smiled and ate an apple.
"You know I think we're supposed to pay for those."
"Tell that to all the abandon apple cores over there." He nodded to a tree not to far away. "Besides I think they give you a one apple leeway anyway."
"You're making that up."
"Why else do they charge so much for apples you pick yourselves? They expect you to eat them."
"You are impossible, come on we still have to find pumpkins, that's the whole reason we came out here in the first place."
"Well let's find a wagon and get to it." He smiled lifting Cass into his arms and tossing out the apple core. And soon began the search for the biggest pumpkin, which of course led to multiple arguments amongst the twins until we had six pumpkins of the appropriate size making sure no child's pumpkin was substantially bigger than another's. Soon we were home and with less than a week until Halloween we were carving pumpkins tomorrow after church.
We got home late setting the pumpkins by the garage and storing the apples in the kitchen I took the kids to the living room while Patrick started dinner.
"Teresa are you going to dress up for Halloween?" Alyssa giggled turning away from the TV during the commercials.
"I don't think so, I'm not really the costume type of person."
"But mommy and daddy dressed up on Halloween." Emily nodded, how come they could only agree on things that I didn't want to do and I always ended up getting ganged up on.
"I don't think there's enough time to find a costume for me now girls we have four days."
"We can find something, I promise."
"Oh girls why don't you ask Patrick, I'm sure he'd be more than willing to dress up with you."
"Party pooper." Alyssa pouted turning back just in time for there show to start again.
"What if Patrick says no to, then what?" Emily frowned.
"Well you talk to him and then we'll see."
"If he dresses up you have to dress up." Emily smiled.
"That is not what I said at all." I couldn't help but laugh because I knew the minute the girls asked him over dinner that would be his same proposal and some how I knew the ending. So a half hour later when we were all sitting at the dinner table I wasn't surprised in the least to hear.
"Well let's see I guess there is only one way to get me to dress up."
"Don't go there Patrick."
"Come on Teresa it's for the kids."
"Oh and where are we going to find costumes at the last minute?"
"Have you ever been to a party story?"
"Yeah and you are not getting me to wear any of those I have picked up pro's wearing more than some of those costumes."
"I'm sure we could think of something using what we've got." He just smiled.
"If you can think of a costume that we already own that I approve of then fine I'll dress up with you." Seriously how bad could this be?
"Oh I've got a couple ideas."
"And when are you going to share these ideas?"
"After dinner." He just shrugged, and apparently by after dinner he meant when we were lying in bed. "So how do you feel about James Bond?"
"That depends which one, they all have an accent which is definitely sexy."
"If I had an accent would I be sexy?"
"It wouldn't hurt you." I laughed, "But don't worry you're very nice to look at even without an accent."
"You flatter me Teresa." He chuckled and I just smiled laying my head on his chest.
"Why James Bond?"
"I thought it was obvious with all the suits in the closet it would be easy and you have a couple very sexy dresses I don't think you wanted anyone to know about in there."
"You want to be James Bond and have me be you're Bond girl?" I laughed.
"It was better than Magicians assistant."
"Not happening, I do that to much at work anyway."
"Like I said James Bond is better."
"I'm not getting dressed up like that for Halloween."
"Teresa why did you get such attractive dresses if you're not going to wear them?"
"Maybe I've worn them before."
"Do you keep the tags on all of your clothes?"
"Shut up bastard."
"Does that mean we're dressing up?"
"I hate you."