A/N: A lot of new alerters lately. Hi folks! Say hi, don't be shy. I don't bite. Unless you're a warm piece of sourdough bread with butter. Then I am vicious. Also if you have a good grasp of the Harry Potter world will make this chapter slightly better but it's not necessary.

In retrospect, letting Adam plan the Halloween costumes for all six kids might not have been the most grand idea to ever come to fruition in their family. He assured them that he had something really awesome planned, they wouldn't have to do anything, and besides, Danny would help him get all the kids dressed anyway. Lindsay remained skeptical while Austin was completely unconvinced, and it was with trepidation that they walked up the porch steps after work on Halloween evening.

"I wonder if he dressed them up as the Brady kids. Colton would make a pretty good Greg," Austin noted.

"If that's not what he did, that's what we're doing next year. That or the Partridges."

"Oh yes! I love that we so get each other."

Lindsay chuckled and opened the front door where they were greeted by silence.

"Anyone home?"

There was a small noise in the living room and they peeked in, finding Avery sitting on the floor, dressed as a cat. She smiled and crawled over to them, reaching up to Lindsay and meowing.

"Are you a kitty?" Lindsay asked with a grin, kissing the chubby, whisker lined cheek.

"Mow," Avery replied with a smile. No wonder Adam had been trying to teach her what kitties say.

"Well you make a very cute kitty. Where are the rest of the kids?"

"We are in here! Ready to see us?" Colton shouted from the dining room.

"We're ready."

Out marched all five kids, dressed up like characters from Harry Potter.

"My name is Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore!" Colton said, raising his fake wand in the air. "I am old and wise."

"And I am Minerva McGonogall," Isa added. "I am the most awesome woman in the whole world."

Sarah grinned then, knowing it was her turn.

"I am Hermione Granger because I am smart and brave and a great warrior."

"I am Ron Weasley," Junior said as he itched at the red wig he was wearing. "I will always take care of my friends."

"And I am 'Arry Pottah!" Ben shouted in a terrible British accent. "I wear glasses. Expecto Patronum!"

Lindsay and Austin laughed as the kids danced around with their wands.

"That must mean you're Crookshanks, huh baby?" Lindsay asked as Avery meowed again.

"Yep. That's my kitty," Sarah said with a nod. "Uncle Adam let us watch the movie. So we could learn our characters."

"Oh, I see."

"Daddy watched it with us. He liked it too, even though he told Uncle Adam it was a geek movie."

Austin snorted and shook her head as the guys came out of the dining room.

"Well, what do you think?"

"I am actually pretty surprised it turned out this well."

"I have been planning it for a few months you know."

"Yes I do. Who did Avery's hair?" she asked, giggling at the two ponytails that stood up behind the cat ears.

"I did," Danny said proudly. "I thought they looked pretty good."

"They do. Are you kids ready to trick or treat?"

"Yes!"

They all jumped up and down with excitement as Adam handed out the pillowcases he'd let them decorate the week before.

"Is it just me or did Adam miss his calling as a preschool teacher?"

Lindsay snorted at the observation but nodded in agreement as all the kids lined up by the door.

"Okay, are you guys going to remember to say thank you when someone gives you candy?"

"Yes mama. And no runnin' away and always hold hands to cross the street and no eating any candy until you grown-ups 'spected it. We already know. Daddy told us."

"Alright then, let's go."

Avery was plopped into the stroller and the rest of the kids made sure they were holding a hand before they made their way down the street. It wasn't very late so there weren't many people out and several of the houses gave the kids handfuls of candy rather than just one or two pieces.

After an hour all the kids had bulging pillow cases, tired feet and cranky voices. They'd gone out before eating dinner so they could still get to bed at a decent hour, and they were going to need food soon or there would be meltdowns.

It started to rain just as they made it inside and the kids plopped down by the fireplace to look at their loot. There were excited shouts about the good candies and groans of disappointment at the peppermints and boxes of raisins. They had all gotten mostly the same things and sat there swapping for their favorites while Austin and Lindsay got dinner ready.

"So how's Ben doing?" Austin asked, slicing the loaf of bread so there would be enough for all of them.

"Better. He still has nightmares quite a bit, but not the night terrors he was having before. He falls back to sleep a lot faster."

"What are you doing different?"

"We make sure he has a quiet time during the day so he's not exhausted at bedtime. He doesn't have any red meat at dinner and he eats more vegetables during the day. He goes to bed and wakes up at the same times every day so he has a better schedule. We took the nightlight out of their room and put it in the hallway instead so they still have light under their door but it stays darker and there aren't shadows there to scare him when he wakes up."

"Does he wake up a lot?"

"Every night now. Not always from nightmares though. Most of the time he just crawls into bed with Colton and goes right back to sleep, but he does have nightmares about three times a week."

"Does it bother him?"

"Apparently not. We were talking about it last night before I put him to bed and I said I was doing my best to help him and he said "It's okay mama, that is just how I am." And that made me feel worse because it's like he doesn't want me to worry about him or something."

"He's just trying to be brave."

"I know. But he shouldn't be. He's just a little boy. He should cry when he's scared not try to comfort me and tell me that he's okay."

"You know, maybe he does that because that's what he sees you and Adam doing. You always take care of everyone else before you take care of yourselves."

Lindsay didn't say anything and Austin moved closer, squeezing her shoulder.

"Your kids are so much like you two. All the best parts. All the reasons I love you both so much. But you have to remember how detrimental that's been for you Lin. You take care of everyone else and then you forget about you. And then what happens?"

"I know."

"It's not all bad, Lin. Just don't let him take it as far as you do. Sometimes it's okay to be a little selfish."

"I know. You've been telling me that for years."

"And for some reason you still don't get it," Austin chuckled, poking Lindsay's forehead. She chuckled and moved away, but still let her best friend catch her in a hug.

"I love you anyway though."

"Yes, I know. I love you too."

"Ben's going to be alright. I really think he'll grow out of it."

"I do too. I just hope it's sooner rather than later. So tell me, is Isa still mad?"

"She's not mad. She's just… Isa," Austin sighed. "You didn't do anything wrong Lin. She's just stubborn."

"I know. I miss her. She doesn't talk to me anymore. When it's my day to pick them up from the bus stop she's quiet the entire way home. I tried asking her things and she wouldn't talk."

"I'm sorry Linds."

"It's okay. I know she needs to figure it out on her own. Maybe someday she'll love me again."

"Hey. She still loves you. You two have that special thing, she's not going to let that go."

"I know. I'm just feeling sorry for myself right now."

"What can I do to make it better?"

"Nothin', I'm alright."

"Okay. Guess we'd better feed the gremlins."

"And the kids too."

Austin chuckled and they each picked up as many full plates as they could, taking them out to the living room where the kids were still dressed in their costumes and watching the second Harry Potter movie.

"We get to eat on the floor?" Colton asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Sure. Just don't go crazy, okay?"

Avery looked at all the kids eating, then glanced up at her mother, giving her the best pout she could muster.

"Oh are you hungry too?"

"Mama?"

"Maybe your daddy can feed you."

Avery looked up at him and patted his knee.

"Remember how I changed your exploded diaper today, Tink? Mama can feed you."

Lindsay grimaced and picked her daughter up.

"Daddy's right. I'll feed you."

Dinner was over and the movie was getting intense. The kids had all scattered from their semi-circle on the floor and had found laps to crawl into. Ben was cuddled up against Austin, chewing feverishly on his fingers while Junior was leaning so far forward he was almost falling out of her lap. Sarah was sitting with Danny, covering her eyes and peeking through her fingers while Colton and Isa remained on the floor, brave until the end.

"Snake!" Isa shouted suddenly, bolting up from the floor and scrambling to find a lap to sit on. Lindsay's was the only one open, but she crawled up onto the back of the couch instead, cowering in the corner. Lindsay sighed deeply and Adam slid his free arm around her, kissing the top of her head and knowing how bad that simple and probably innocent action had hurt her. Avery must have felt it too for she gave Lindsay a sleepy smile and crawled into her arms, nuzzling against her neck and breathing in deeply.

"Mama."

"Thank you baby."

The kids were all shouting, half excited and half scared as the movie reached its peak, then breathed sighs of relief as the hero was the victor once again.

"Alright Messers, I think it's time to go," Danny said, lifting Sarah off his lap, then standing up and stretching.

"But daddy! There's more movies to watch! They go all the way to seven!"

"Yes, but you have the rest of your life to watch them, while I curse Adam for turning my children into nerds."

"Geeks!" Lindsay and Adam corrected in unison.

"Whatever."

The kids yawned as they gathered their candy and said goodbye, Colton and Isa lingering by the door and having a quiet conversation, stealing glances at their parents to head off eavesdropping.

"I think this is a good plan, Isa. You will tell me in code how it goes right?"

"Yup. You too?"

"Mm-hmm. Remember our code words."

"Yes. I will never forget them."

They did a secret handshake and hugged quickly before she walked back inside and hugged Adam tightly.

"Thanks for the costumes and movies Uncle Dum."

"You're welcome princess."

She whispered something in his ear and he chuckled, kissing her forehead.

"I'll see you later."

"Bye Dum."

The Messers vacated a few minutes later and Lindsay yawned, herding her own kids upstairs.

"Can you boys go get your jammies on while I put sister to bed?"

"Mama, I wanna wear my costume to bed. I wanna be Dumbledore all night!"

"Well I have it on good authority that Dumbledore sleeps naked."

Colton thought for a minute, then scrunched up his forehead.

"Does that mean daddy is Dumbledore?"

Lindsay's eyes grew wide and she knew her face was turning red.

"No… um… well daddy doesn't always… um… you know what, go take your costume off. And put your pajamas on."

He shrugged and went into his bedroom, Ben following closely behind while Lindsay took Avery into her room to change her.

"Oh my dear child, are you going to grow up and embarrass me to no end like your brothers do?"

Avery blew a spit bubble and laughed in reply and Lindsay smiled before cleaning the cat nose and whiskers off her face with a wipe.

"Do you know how beautiful you are little girl?"

"Ah mama."

"Are you getting sleepy? It's kind of late for you to still be up," she said, sliding her costume off and putting fleece pajamas on her. "There, all cozy. Should we rock for a few minutes?"

Avery burbled and popped her mouth open and closed several times and Lindsay smiled down at her, running a finger down her nose.

"Okay sweetie. Just a few minutes."

She sat down in the rocking chair and got them situated with a fuzzy blanket right before the boys came in for a progress report.

"We changed our clothes, mama! Now what should we do?"

"Go wash your faces and brush your teeth."

"Mama, I keep my scar on?" Ben said, pointing at the jagged fake scar on his forehead.

"If you wake up in the night with a headache it's your own fault," she teased.

"I might get headache? I wash it off."

She snickered as they went into the bathroom to finish getting ready for bed.

"Oh Averylin Grace, stop growin' so fast. I don't think I can handle another sassy talker around these parts. Can you stay this little forever? We're not going to be able to do this much longer. You're getting too old and I can't hold you like this if you grow more."

Avery gave her a tiny smile and reached up to grab her hand, clutching it tightly, then closely inspecting each finger.

"I love you so much baby doll. And I hope you always love me as much as you do now."

Avery stopped eating for a moment and took a deep breath before she smiled and went back to what she was doing.

"Expelliarmus!" came the shout from the bathroom.

"Reducto!"

"Lumos!"

"Ridiculus!"

"Avada Kedavra!"

"Expecto Patronum!"

"Expecto a spanking if you don't brush your teeth," Lindsay hollered back, her voice serious about brushing but not about spanking. There was a moment of silence and then giggles and water running.

"Hey babe?" Adam said, poking his head into the room.

"Hmm?"

"I'm going to set the oven to clean, so if that awful smell wakes you up, don't start freaking out that I left the oven on broil."

"Thanks for the warning."

He came into the room and stooped down to kiss Avery.

"Night Tink. Daddy loves you."

She gave him a half smile and he slipped back out of the room and downstairs.

"I should really do somethin' special for that daddy of yours. He did a lot of work today, didn't he?"

Avery nodded slowly and stopped eating, this time done for the night and ready for sleep. Lindsay held her for a few minutes longer before standing up and settling her into the crib.

"Goodnight my love. See you in the morning."

She left the room and crossed the hall, finding both boys already in bed. They were whispering softly and she shut their light off before laying down with Ben.

"Did you have fun tonight baby?"

He nodded and she reached over to rub his nose where his glasses had left marks.

"I like bein' Harry. He is brave and strong. He is not scared of bad dreams."

"Well wait a minute there. Harry had a lot of bad dreams and bad things that happened to him."

"Yes. But he used brave magic make it go away."

"Brave magic?"

"Patronus. 'Member?"

"Yes, I remember. You know what though?"

"Hmm?"

"I think you're very brave. I know you get scared, but that's part of being brave. If you were never scared how would you know that you were brave at all?"

He sighed and shook his head.

"I am a big scaredy-dog."

"Scaredy-cat you mean. And you're not, Ben."

"I think I are. I scared of nothin', I think it scary at night."

"Ben, do you think I'm brave?"

"Oh yes mama. You is a grown-up. And you can fight all the monsters."

"You want to know a secret?"

"Okay."

"I get scared. A lot."

"'Bout what?"

"Different things. Grown-up things. My point is that everyone is scared but when you stand up to what scares you, that's when you're brave."

He nodded and reached up to run his hand over her face.

"You an' me work on bein' brave?"

"Yes, we can."

"Dealio."

She smiled and shook his hand then leaned down to kiss him.

"Goodnight Benjamin. I love you."

She stood up and tucked him in tighter, then moved over to lay down with Colton.

"Mama, tell me a story 'bout when you were little."

"What kind of story?"

"When you was a little girl. Tell me your happiest day."

"Well I have a lot of happiest days when I grew up. You mean my happiest day when I was a little girl?"

"Yes."

"Well, I guess that happened when I was six. I'd been fishing a lot of times before, but this particular day we were camping at Flathead Lake and we were going out in a boat. We sat there for an hour and no one caught anything. No one even got a nibble on their line. Papa said it was time to go in and we could try again later. But I really wanted to get a fish. So I cast my line again and I reeled it in really fast."

"Didja catch somethin' mama?"

"Well at first I thought it was just a little nibble, but before I knew it the pole was almost coming out of my hands."

"Oh no! What did you do?"

"I hollered for someone to help me. And your Uncle Jake came over and he helped me reel that fish in. And we were fighting so hard for that fish that my knuckles turned white and my hands turned red. But it was getting closer. We could actually see it just below the surface of the water, swimming towards our boat. We knew we were going to get that fish. We started fighting even harder and we pulled and reeled and pulled some more. And we finally got that fish out of the water."

"What kind was it? How big was it? Did it taste good?"

"It was a bull trout and he was twenty-two pounds and it was the best fish I ever tasted in my life."

"Someday I wanna do that, mama. Can we go to Montana again?"

"We'll see."

"I wanna go fishin' with you. You could teach me how, right?"

"Yeah, I would love to teach you. I'll teach daddy and Ben and Avery too."

"Just our family sittin' in a boat and fishin' and eatin' sandwiches. That would be a very good day."

"I think so too."

"Night, mama. I love you."

"I love you too, Colton. Sleep good."

She left the room and went upstairs, stretching and yawning before tossing her clothes into the basket and donning one of Adam's old t-shirts. He came into the room just as she was sliding into bed and she heard him drop his own clothes onto the floor.

"Stop right there, mister," she said, not turning over.

"What?"

"Don't you dare come to bed without some form of apparel."

"Excuse me?"

"Colton says you sleep naked all the time so if you do it now it will skeeve me out."

"I'm not even going to ask how that came up in conversation," he chuckled, sliding into bed and wrapping his arms around her.

"That might be best. So I have something to run by you."

"Let me guess. You and Austin thought of something and you're going to do it whether I like it or not but you're telling me now so I can't get mad later and say that you never told me."

"No, this one is really up for discussion."

"Okay, shoot."

"We were thinking about a big family vacation. This summer. North Carolina."

"Outer Banks?"

"Yeah. They never go on vacation really, and the only vacation we go on is to see family and that's not always like a real vacation anyway."

"I think we should do it. The kids would be over the moon about it."

"We also thought Disneyland in a few years."

"Oh no."

"That was more of a passing thought, but she also mentioned camping in Montana."

"Was she drunk? Austin doesn't camp. Not the way you camp."

"We were spitballin' mostly. But we thought North Carolina would be fun. We could road-trip down and back, spend an entire week there on the beach."

"It sounds really good. Let's figure out vacation schedules for work and then book a trip. And not tell the kids until the night before."

"They're going to freak. It'll be awesome."

He smiled and rubbed his nose against hers while she grabbed his hand.

"Adam?"

"Lindsay?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For everything you did today. For the kids and making sure I didn't have to worry about it and that you're willing to do stuff like that all the time and you're willing to go on vacations together because you know it will make us happy."

"You act like I hate doing all that family stuff."

"I dunno, you're a boy."

"You think it's not important to me?"

"No I just think… me and Austin kind of threw this whole family together and you and Danny didn't get a chance to tell us to knock it off."

"Would you have?"

"No. I just think sometimes that the two of you are forced together when you don't have to be. You're not best friends and you don't have a ton in common but you have to be together all the time."

"Danny and I have more in common than you think we do. You and Austin always say that you couldn't do the mom thing without each other, but Danny and I couldn't do the dad thing without each other either. If it weren't for him, I would have no idea how to raise a daughter. Don't think we don't care. This family means just as much to us as it does to you two old hens."

She grinned and he tucked her hair behind her ear.

"I love you, you crazy, worrying about everything woman."

"Yeah, I know. You have the patience of a saint."

"You know, it's not really that late," he said, glancing down at her lips and them back at her eyes again.

"No, it's not," she agreed softly, acting like she didn't know what he was talking about.

"And you know, we've both been so busy lately…"

"Oh we've just been swamped."

"I miss you."

"You do? How much?"

"Hmm, how would you like me to show you?"

She chuckled.

"I don't know. You're pretty creative, I hear. Maybe you should surprise me."

His eyes went wide and she gave him a devilish smile before pulling him closer and kissing him. One hand held onto the back of his neck while the other skittered up and down his back and she could tell with the fervor of his kisses what those simple actions were doing to him.

"Hey," she said softly, pulling away for a moment.

"You're breakin' up the flow here, babe."

"You'll recover just fine," she chuckled, running that free hand over his chest. "I just wanted to say that it's pretty hot when you're rockin' the daddy thing."

"Oh yeah?"

"Mm-hmm. Makes me wanna give you more little munchkins."

"I thought you were done doin' that."

"I am. But there's times when I would like to drag you away from your parental duties and remind you of your marital ones instead."

"If not for the high chance of getting interrupted several times, I would encourage you to do just that."

"We should start caging our children."

"You know, you could give a guy an ego trip."

"It's well deserved."

"It's probably a good idea for you to just stop talkin' now babe."

His lips pressed into her neck and she swallowed hard, trying not to lose her breath already.

"Why? I'm not afraid."

His head popped back up and he looked down at her with dark eyes.

"Maybe we should send the kids on vacation and just stay home alone. Never leave the room."

A small smile tugged at her lips before he kissed her. They could dream of things like that all they wanted, but when it came down to it, what they had now was way more than enough.