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It’s the first of October, which means one thing: Hunter is finally allowed to start decorating the base for Halloween. He had been ready since the end of August, but May had given him the stink eye until he agreed to wait for October to begin. He wasn’t much good at saying no to her anymore.
What makes this year arguably better than any other year is Hadley. She’s finally old enough to understand the concept of decorating for holidays, and is eager to participate in the festivities. Convincing Jemma to let Hadley take the day off school had been a piece of cake, and now Hunter gets to spend the whole day decorating the base with his daughter.
The bags upon bags of decorations he had gotten from Party City the day before are sitting in the middle of the kitchen, just begging to be opened, alongside several rolls of tape and an eager four-year-old.
“Alrighty, Hads. We’ve got to do the kitchen, the gym, the common room, and your bedroom. That’s four things for my favorite four-year-old. Sound good?”
“Can we do Grandma’s room, Daddy?” Hadley asks, blinking up at him with wide blue eyes.
“You’d have to ask her, birdie.” Somehow Hunter didn’t imagine May would appreciate having her room covered in faux-cobwebs, but her soft spot for Hadley has done nothing but grow since Hunter and Melinda had returned from their disastrous capture.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know, love.” Hunter smooths his hand over Hadley’s head, soothing her. “Let’s start with the kitchen and if we see Grandma we can ask her, alright?”
Hadley seems content with that answer, and soon busies herself with rifling through the various bags to pull out the perfect decorations for the kitchen. Hunter vetoes the idea of hanging the orange-and-black tinsel in the kitchen for no other reason than worrying tiny pieces of it will get into their food. Instead Hadley picks out a ‘Happy Halloween’ banner, complete with smiling pumpkins, to hang across the kitchen cabinets. She also pulls out a plastic jack-o-lantern, giving Hunter a toothy grin when she does.
“It looks like Mummy’s belly,” Hadley announces, standing on her tiptoes so she can set the plastic pumpkin on the kitchen counter.
“We don’t tell Mummy that, Hads,” Hunter chastises. Bobbi’s nine months pregnant and nearly ready to pop - any reminder of how big her stomach is frustrates her to the point of tears, and Hunter would rather not end their decorating day with a crying wife.
“But I like pumpkins!” Hadley insists. “And I like Mummy!”
Hunter steps down from his step-stool, banner now securely taped into place, and kneels beside Hadley. “Mummy doesn’t like pumpkins, though, baby bird. Do you want to make Mummy sad?” Of course that isn’t a whole truth, but explaining to a four-year-old why comparing her mother to a pumpkin is a bad idea isn’t on the top of Hunter’s to-do list.
Hadley sticks her bottom lip out in a pout, but shakes her head emphatically. As much as Hunter adores his daughter to bits, she’s always been more of a mother’s girl. There’s probably not a single worse idea in Hadley’s life than making her mummy sad - except for maybe skipping a meal.
They finish decorating the kitchen, which involves putting up a string of orange lights and hooking some fake bats onto the ceiling. Hadley declares it perfect only after Hunter’s moved the bats around six different times, and in true Morse-Hunter fashion, her favorite arrangement ends up being the one they started with.
Hadley insists the next room they tackle is the common room, because Hunter had promised the tinsel not allowed in the kitchen could be used in abandon anywhere there wasn’t food. The couches and armchairs in the common room end up so covered in tinsel they’re barely usable, but the agents who see Hadley wrapping the tinsel around the furniture are too amused with her single-minded focus to mind the uncomfortable sitting locations - for now.
“Skeleton!” Hadley cheers when she pulls one out of their bags. “We can put him by the TV!”
Hunter obliges, hanging the skeleton beside the flatscreen. Hopefully it won’t be too distracting when people are trying to watch something. And if the skeleton is distracting, it’s only for a month - they’ll deal.
“Wait, Daddy!” Hadley screeches as they’re preparing to leave for her bedroom. “We can give him a hat!”
Hadley produces the black, pointed witch’s hat from one of the bags, running back to where the skeleton hangs. Hunter manages to stop her before she attempts to climb the skeleton, much to the relief of everyone watching. Instead he lifts Hadley up so she can plop the witch’s hat on the skeleton’s head. She doesn’t seem to notice it’s not quite straight, and Hunter’s not going to tell her so. The hat being slightly askew adds some charm to it - and reminds everyone of whose idea the Halloween decorations are in the first place.
When he asks about decorating Hadley’s bedroom, his daughter doesn’t seem interested any longer. Her interest in the task is rapidly fading, which is probably for the better - the only items they have left are a couple of cotton cobwebs and a giant spider that Hadley refuses to touch. Hunter figures they’ll stick the cobwebs up in some corners and then take a snack break, but his plans change when he sees who’s in the gym.
“Mummy!” Hadley runs across the gym to the treadmill Bobbi is walking on, halting in front of it. Hunter follows her, albeit at a more restrained pace. It doesn’t matter how slow he is, though, because it takes Bobbi a few seconds to stop the treadmill all the way and gingerly step off it.
“We’re putting up spiders!” Hadley announces to her mother.
“Are you?” Bobbi asks, grabbing her water bottle from the holster on the treadmill. She hadn’t been going fast at all, but she still takes a healthy gulp of water before looking back down at Hadley, eyebrows raised.
“I’m putting up spiders,” Hunter corrects. “Your daughter has arachnophobia.”
“What’s ar… ar… What’s that?”
“It means you’re afraid of spiders, birdie.” Bobbi offers her hand to her daughter, and Hadley takes it eagerly. Hunter follows them both to a bench, hovering nervously when Bobbi lowers herself down to sit. Hadley perches herself next to her mother, and Hunter takes the free space on the other side.
Hadley begins chattering about what’s happened so far that day, Bobbi nodding along as she recounts the tale. One of Bobbi’s hands is resting on her belly, rubbing repetitive circles into her skin.
“Alright?” Hunter asks lowly when there’s a lull in Hadley’s talking.
“Yeah.” Bobbi stops rubbing her stomach when she answers his question. “Just some practice contractions this morning.”
Hunter tuts sympathetically, lacing his fingers through his wife’s. When she had been pregnant with Hadley the practice contractions had scared them both to death more than once, and he can’t imagine it’s any more pleasant the second time around.
“Do you want to help put up the spiders too, Mummy?” Hadley asks.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. Mummy isn’t feeling very good. Maybe we can just let Daddy do it?” For a moment Hunter’s afraid Hadley’s going to pitch a fit, but instead she just snuggles closer to her mother’s side, nodding emphatically.
Hunter spends the next fifteen minutes being ordered around the gym by his girls, hanging up cobwebs and spiders wherever they ask him to. Bobbi demands there be an entire wall of spiders directly behind the treadmills, insisting that people would run faster if they were afraid of spiders chasing after them. Hunter doesn’t think it’s very nice, but it is very funny. They could worry about whether or not that’s a message they wanted to pass onto their daughter later.
When the gym is plastered with cotton ball cobwebs and plastic spiders, Hunter returns to the bench where Bobbi and Hadley are still sitting, having a conversation about something or other he doesn’t really understand. When he’s back at her side, Bobbi reaches out for him, squeezing his hand gently.
“Hey Hads?” Bobbi asks. “How about you go find your Uncle Mack? There’s something I need to talk to Daddy about.”
Hadley’s reluctant to part with her mother, but after some gentle encouragement she’s off, running down the hall to where Mack’s office is.
Suddenly the pressure around his fingers increases, and alarm bells go off in Hunter’s head. “Bob?”
“I don’t think those were practice contractions,” Bobbi whispers. “Ready to have some babies?”
---
“Mummy!” Hadley comes soaring into the hospital room, Mack hot on her heels. Hunter manages to catch Hadley before she throws herself on Bobbi, cuddling her close to his chest for a moment. It’s been a long twenty-four hours in the hospital, including an unplanned C-section and too many close calls for comfort, but now he has everything he needs: his Bobbi and all three of his babies.
“Mummy’s tummy got a little hurt, birdie,” Hunter explains. “You have to be gentle with her, okay?”
Hadley doesn’t seem to be listening, but when she is allowed into Bobbi’s hospital bed all she does is curl up next to her mother, nuzzling into Bobbi’s shoulder.
“Hadley thought you might want these.” Mack smiles wryly when he holds up a bag of leftover Halloween decorations, and Hunter laughs.
“We’ll see if we can find a place for them.” Truthfully, he doesn’t think the hospital will want them hanging anything, but maybe they can find something worth propping in a corner. They won’t be here for much longer anyways - they can return to the well-decorated base in plenty of time for Halloween.
“Can I see the babies, mummy?” Hadley asks, loud enough for Hunter to hear.
“The babies are asleep right now, little bird. How about you tell me about your super-special baby name?” Bobbi and Hunter hadn’t settled on the babies’ names yet, and of course Hadley wanted to be a part of the process.
“Pumpkin!” Hadley chirps. “Since they made your belly look like a pumpkin!”
Mack’s laughter fills the hospital room, and Hunter slaps his hand over his face. He had really thought he was going to get away without that comment making its way back to Bobbi.
She doesn’t seem to mind, though. She’s giggling, too, her blue eyes shining, and everything feels right in the world.
If only every Halloween decorating excursion turned out this well.