A/N: I know I haven't updated since Friday, but please understand – my grandmother passed away on Saturday, and I hadn't been really in a condition to write. Maybe I'm getting back to the saddle, but I don't promise that there will be sure, steady, daily updates for a while (but I'll try).

Teamwork

In her childhood, Halloween had always been a source of great excitement, and then great disappointment. The kids in the orphanage would always get hyped up before the holiday, planning extravagant costumes and dreaming of all the candy they would collect, only to realize that the orphanage had no founds for getting them dressed up (so came the ghosts and the Greek gods, both manageable from simple white bedsheets), or personnel to chaperone them on the streets. So, trick-or-treating for Skye usually consisted of gazing longing out of the orphanage window (the situation was hardly better when she was at foster parents).

Maybe that's why she was so determined now to make her daughters' Halloween everything they wanted. Even if it meant pulling an all-nighter to finish their costumes.

This year, having relatively light mission load and two kids who fully understood and anticipated the holiday, she had decided to sew their costumes herself. She had some – minimal – experience in this field, back from her Rising Tide days, when "barely scraping by" had meant second hand shops and clothes she had to mend and alter herself (there was a reason she used to like baggy clothing), and, rather stupidly, she had thought it would be enough – after all, how hard can a Snow White (she didn't get Ada's fascination with that particular princess, but then again, who could completely understand almost-three-year-olds?) and a "superhero girl in tutu" (her firstborn was already at badass at five years old) costume can be?

Apparently, not that hard (according to the Internet), if you have time. Which she didn't. Because at the worst possible moment one of the analysts blew her perfect software, the one she wrote to trace the bank activity of suspicious individuals, and she had to spend the better part of her last two days with repairing it.

And that's how here she was now, in the middle of the night the day before Halloween, with two unfinished costumes, alternately stabbing the needle into her finger and chewing at her nails in worry (honestly, when she had been alone on at home on Halloween three years ago while Grant and Haylie went trick-or-treating, and couldn't decide whether she was having real contractions or Braxton-hicks, now, that was less stressful than what she was going through now).

(That had been a false alarm, by the way – Ada had been giving her those for days, before she was finally deigned to be born on the fifth.)

"Oh, damn it!" she burst as she pricked her finger again, throwing the needle and the half-done costume down in her anger. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she stared at the offending material for a moment, then let out a defeated sigh, picked them up, and started working again – she had finish these; she couldn't bear the thought of disappointing her girls.

Just then there was a soft knock on the doorframe behind her back. She turned around slowly, knowing very well who it was (honestly, there were only four people in the house, and out of those two were fast asleep in their beds).

"Hey there, stranger," she greeted him, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. "What brings you here? What about your reports?"

Grant walked over to her in a leisurely pace.

"They're done, and I just wanted to see how you were doing with the dresses," he replied, sitting down on the edge of the sofa.

Skye sighed; for a moment, she considered – well, not lying, just putting some make-up on the truth – but then looked around, taking in all the random bits and pieces of tulle, velvet, glitter and other various materials, and just gave up. The scenery was telling enough.

"Terrible," she confessed. "I'm trying to grab everything at once, which only ends with…" she gave him a little shrug "…everything falling from my hands." She cast her eyes down. "I'm honestly starting to worry about not finishing these things in time."

Grant just smiled at her fondly, took her chin in his hand, turned her face towards him and gently kissed her.

"Then let me help," he said softly. "We'll get this done in no time."

Skye shook her head.

"No, thanks, really, but you have to go and make a report tomorrow morning, and you've done enough already, and I told them I'd do these, and…"

To make her shut up he kissed her again.

"I faintly recall a vow when I said I'd always stand by you," he teased her. "And they're my daughters too, you know," he said, rolling up his sleeves. "Now, what do you need me to do?"

She smiled at him, eyes twinkling.

"I knew there was a reason I let you knock me up."

"Twice, if I might add," he replied, reaching for a piece of tulle that was to be a part of Haylie's skirt.

Although, as it turned out, Grant had zero experience with sewing, but he still diligently measured, cut, painted and glued, and with combined effort, they really did manage to complete the costumes in no time. Okay, it was past four a.m. when they finished, but they did finish.

And the girls looked absolutely adorable in their costumes the next day, and that's what mattered.