The first time they trick or treat, Tim is anxious.
"Angela and Wesley invited us to go trick-or-treating with the kids," Lucy tells Tim a few days before Halloween while she's distracted wiping down the kitchen counter after dinner.
He sighs as he puts their leftover dinner remains into the refrigerator and closes it behind him. "We should just go to the airport again," Tim grumbles.
"We went there last year because it was pouring rain," Lucy reminds him with a raise of her eyebrow. They had originally planned to trick-or-treat with Angela and Wesley and the kids last Halloween for the first time, but Los Angeles weather had other plans. It hadn't rained but an inch the entire year, only to storm the entire day and night of Halloween. So instead, the four of them took the kids to the local small airport hangar – an indoor event filled with games, activities, and its own style of trick-or-treating where kids can go from booth to booth and collect candy.
"And she had a great time. It's a lot more fun than trick-or-treating, actually," Tim counters as he dries a pan. "They have the costume contest, all the game booths. She's only four. She doesn't even care about candy. Or have a high stamina for walking. I'm going to end up carrying her the whole time."
Lucy hadn't minded the change in plans last year, honestly, because she had been five months pregnant with their second child and going through a second phase of morning-but-all-the-time sickness and exhaustion, and it was much easier to manage in an airport event space than frolicking through the streets of Los Angeles.
This Halloween, however, the weather was predicted to be warm, not a cloud forecasted to be in the sky, and with two kids in tow now, they were ready to tackle their first trick-or-treating experience with Angela and Wesley and their own two kids.
(Well, at least – she was. She knew Tim would get there eventually.)
"You know she wants to go where Jack goes."
"It's an absolutely ridiculous concept," he continues. "What, we walk up to strangers' houses, knock on their doors, offer them an interaction with our child, and then she takes candy from a stranger? Aren't we supposed to teach her not to do any of those things?"
"Well, yes," Lucy concedes his point with a frown as she leans one arm on the island and the other on her hip. "But, it's Halloween."
"I still think we should go to the airport. Strangers do weird things to candy inside their own homes." He puts down the dish towel he'd been using and waves a finger in her direction. "You know it's true."
She agrees, she does – she knows strangers do all kinds of things she would never want her children exposed to, has seen it firsthand way too often at work.
"Baby," Lucy soothes patiently, "it'll be fine. Kids trick-or-treat all the time. It's a childhood rite of passage," she reminds him. "We'll be there with her the whole time - along with Angela and Wesley - so that's three LAPD officers and a lawyer escorting her door-to-door. She's going to have a great time."
"Does a four-year-old even need that much candy?" he wonders, though his tone is more playful now. "Aren't we supposed to teach our kids not to consume endless amounts of sugar? Halloween is really contradictory to parenting."
She can't help but give a little chuckle, because she knows he's giving in but he's also got a point that she can't really argue: Halloween is sort of chaotic. She kisses him on the cheek and reaches up to give his shoulders a squeeze and she feels him sag in defeat. "That's Halloween."
He nods. "Fine," he agrees even as he reaches out to playfully whack her on the bottom way on her way out of the kitchen.
As the oldest of the four kids, Jack knows he's most experienced in all things Halloween and trick-or-treating and is excited to show them ins and outs, the tried-and-true tricks, and all the kids are having a great time.
"Trick or treat, smell my feet!" Jack chants as he skips down the sidewalk. "Give me something good to eat!"
The younger girls giggle.
The neighborhood is filled with kids and parents – the weather warm enough to cause everyone to want to be outside, and kids are laughing and people are screaming at the Halloween costumes and decorations they come across in their path, even though they aren't really that scary.
"Mommy can I eat a candy?" Lucy hears a tiny voice and feels the accompanying tiny hand tugging on her own.
Lucy feels another, more masculine and adult hand, catch her elbow. "We have to check it at home. Under a light," Tim insists before she even has a chance to answer. "It's way too dark out here to see anything properly."
"Here," Lucy shifts the baby to him from her place on her hip and Tim takes her, adjusting her cat ear headband as he does and is unable to hide a smile at the baby's grin and giggle despite his anxiety about the candy. Lucy takes a piece of candy from the bucket and examines it herself, using her phone to shine light on it. "It's fine. Completely sealed."
He gawks at her, as if he can't imagine that's good enough. "It could be tampered with. Subtly. Like, with a laser."
"Tim," she laughs, though she knows he's really concerned and doesn't want to make fun of him for simply caring, but... "A laser? Really?"
"I'm just saying," he mutters, giving her a look of exasperation.
"No, baby," Lucy finally tells her daughter as she ruffles her hair. "Let's wait until we get home. Or Daddy will combust."
Tim glares at Lucy.
"What's combust?" the little voice asks, and Angela snorts and starts laughing.
Tim ignores them both and turns back to oldest daughter, instead, reaching out for her hand as they prepare to head on to the next house. "Candy when we get home, sweetheart, okay?" he tells her and she nods her agreement.
"Tim being overprotective?" Angela asks as she adjusts the mask on Jack's superhero costume.
"He thinks the candy could've been tampered with via laser," Lucy deadpans and Angela chuckles.
"It gets better. Wesley was like that Jack's first Halloween," Angela recalls. "I think he spent two hours looking at all the candy when we got home. We see too much in our lines of work, I guess."
Lucy hums her understanding. "Yeah, fair enough."
"At least we have good ones," Angela adds as she pats Jack gently on the shoulder, indicating that his mask is ready to go and he takes off to catch up to Tim and the girls.
Lucy nods her agreement – she knows all three of them probably never had a father who would would consider trick-or-treating with them. "We do," she agrees fondly as she watches Tim with both girls at the porch of the next house, laughing with Wesley.
A half hour later Wesley's taking his turn escorting the three oldest kids to the next few houses, while Angela fusses with the baby that she's confiscated and is holding in her arms (a convenient excuse, Wesley had noted, to avoid walking up to anymore doors with the other three kids for a good few blocks).
Tim sneaks up behind Lucy as they wait on the sidewalk, making her jump momentarily as he wraps his arms around her waist. "Boo."
"Mmm," she hums as he kisses her neck innocently enough. "You want a trick or a treat?
Tim chuckles into the space beneath her ear before whispering seductively, "Surprise me."
She turns slightly and smirks at him when the two older girls run up to him, Wesley trailing behind them as they return from the porch of the house that they had knocked on the door of.
She can't help but see a miniature Lucy and a miniature Angela in the girls and she chuckles to herself, imagining what rookie Lucy would have ever thought if she'd been plopped down in the middle of this scenario without context or warning. Her child, trick-or-treating with the miniature version of one of the other training officers? Not to mention the discovery of who the father of her own children would be. Realizing the oldest child here, Jack, named after Jackson who would no longer be with them.
"This place has the good stuff," Wesley informs them, excitedly. "Full size candy bars."
"Yeah!" all three of the older kids yell, picking up on Wesley's excitement even though the littlest ones probably don't even care in the slightest if the candy bar is big or small.
"Let's change costumes and go back again!" Jack says and they all chorus their agreement before Angela intervenes and redirects them to the next house with a skeleton in a hat on the front porch and fake tombstones in the yard that Jack says are "lame."
It strikes Lucy how her entire life has been built on her sudden decision to join the LAPD. The career she loves, the husband she fell in love with, the children they have, the friends that are family who trick or treat with their kids with you.
None of this would've happened had she not joined the academy.
They continue on for another hour – Tim giving Lucy a pointed, knowing look when he has to carry their sleepy child the last forty-five minutes and Lucy just gives him a smile and blows him a kiss and he can't help but shake his head and laugh.
It's late when they finally get home and the girls are in bed – though they went down quickly after their long, exciting evening. The bucket of candy is on the kitchen island where Tim is examining the pieces and placing them in a new pile of cleared candy. Lucy turns off the kitchen lights, leaving only the lights over the island shining dimly. She watches, amused, as he opens a miniature Hershey's bar and pops it in his mouth.
"You checking the candy or stealing it?" Lucy teases with a smirk as she leans on her elbows on the counter, across from him.
Tim looks up and grins at her. "This one didn't look very safe. I figured I should test it."
"Yeah. And it just so happens to be one of the few chocolates you actually like."
"Imagine that." He pushes a Reese's cup towards her, her own favorite. "Could be tampered with."
Lucy chuckles, but takes the bait as she teasingly inspects the wrapper even as she unwraps it to enjoy herself. "Looks like evidence of lasering."
He laughs, then – a real laugh - realizing how ridiculous he had sounded. "Shush."
He abandons his candy post and stands, heading to the fridge where he pulls out a bottle of wine and pours them each a glass. He hands Lucy hers with a kiss to her cheek as she hauls the candy bucket towards her, taking a handful out so she can help him check through it.
"I like giving you a hard time-" Lucy begins as she inspects a lollipop.
"You always have," Tim interjects, just to rile her up, and she crinkles her nose at him in playful annoyance.
"I like giving you a hard time," she says again with a roll of her eyes, "but I want you to know I appreciate that you're such a good dad."
He can toe the line on overprotective sometimes but really, with the things they see on a daily basis, they know how the world works and it can make them both hyperaware. She does like ribbing him – and he's right, actually, she always has – but she'd much rather her children have a father who is concerned their Halloween candy has been tampered with and worries about them knocking on a stranger's door than a father who pays no mind lets them run around the sidewalks unsupervised and unaware.
He nods his understanding and appreciation at her words.
It's funny how traditions start. Right here in their kitchen, passing their daughter's Halloween candy back and forth after their first night trick-or-treating, drinking a glass of wine. Eventually, Tim reheats the leftover pizza they had ordered before heading out trick-or-treating, the pizza that they had both been too frazzled and busy to enjoy as they scarfed down a single slice just to have something to hold them over while they headed out for the night.
Now they sit on the stools at the island, talking and relaxing, unwinding with their chosen stolen candies between them and pizza and wine on the counter.
For years to come, this would be their tradition on Halloween night.
There would eventually be more candy to choose from, as they have more kids, as the youngest ones grow old enough to join in. Even more candy as all the kids grow older and have more stamina to trick or treat longer - but also, less candy to choose from because as the kids get older they know they'll notice how much (and what) has been taken after they already took meticulous stock of their spoils. The year when their son takes a photo of the candy before bed, as proof that he has exactly five mini-Snickers bars, so instead of eating his candy they mess with him by adding five more, laughing to themselves the whole time from the buzz off their wine.
Until the years the youngest no longer wants to trick-or-treat. Then they stay home passing out candy, and after the kids go to bed they pick through the leftovers that none of the costumed children took while they drink their wine and eat the take-out they order just for themselves because the kids had demolished the pizza earlier in the night, not a slice to be found after bedtime.
The years when the kids become teenagers and have their own Halloween plans, heading out with their friends (but not before a lecture from their father about being cautious and the dangers of Halloween night, one they pretend to be annoyed with but do take seriously). Then, they pass out candy themselves to the trick or treaters who knock on their door, sneaking pieces of their favorites during lulls, drinking wine and eating take-out while they keep ears open for the doorbell. They reminisce about when their own children were that young, suddenly missing the chaotic nights of trick-or-treating on Halloween, the nights that had seemed endless and exhausting at the time.
Eventually the kids are adults and bring their grandkids over to trick or treat in their neighborhood (because that's where the best candy is, they're told) and they manage to snag a few candies from the grandkids' buckets, their adult children rolling their eyes knowingly (there go Mom and Dad again and I always knew they stole our candy!), sharing a glass of wine and leftovers at home after the house is bathed in silence once again.
For now, though, they're still fairly new parents who are navigating the firsts, developing their family traditions, figuring out how to protect their kids and realizing the anxiety over everything they do is always going to be present.
"So," Lucy teases with a smirk once they're done with the candy. "I think I've decided on trick," she says and Tim's eyes instantly light up, then grow hungry as a smirk tugs on his lips.
"Trick, huh?" he muses as he tosses the candy back in the bucket casually. "I think I know all your tricks by now."
Her eyes follow him as she watches him come around the counter to put their empty wine glasses in the sink, turning her body to face him as he moves.
"You're so sure, huh?" she teases with a grin.
He laughs but then turns serious, reaching behind him to shut off the last of the lights and guiding her out of the kitchen and towards the stairs.
"How does that saying go again?" he teases in a whisper. "After… give me something good to eat?" he jokes as he leans in to kiss her.
"Stop it," she laughs through the kiss.
"If you don't, I don't care. I'll pull down your…?"
"Stop," she attempts to admonish through her laughter.
Despite the fact she's laughing at how ridiculous he is, that she feels the burn of anticipation swirling inside her, something else pops into her head.
"I love you."
He laughs, turns serious for a moment. "I love you too."
"Now, can we get back to my tricks, please?"
He laughs a hearty laugh and holds up his hands in surrender. "By all means."
She's thankful every day she found this life.
