Halloween

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Numb3rs characters. If I did, I'd be taking them to my school, showing them off, and making them help me with my homework.

Summary: My First Fic! Scary! A Halloween Oneshot—pure fluff. Charlie hands out candy on Halloween. Please R&R

Charlie heaved a sigh. It's Halloween and somehow, still very much to his bewilderment, his father somehow tricked him into the dreaded 'passing out candy duty.' Charlie still wasn't exactly sure how this happened. One second he was having a pleasant normal conversation with his father, and the next, Alan was running out the door shouting to Charlie not to forget to turn the porch light on or else all the trick-or-treaters would skip the house.

Charlie sighed again. He would much rather be working on his equations but….

Oh well, Charlie thought. Maybe he would come up with an interesting lesson plan for one of his lower level math classes. Something involving age range and costume choice…

He began stringing together math equations in his head as he walked out the door, bowl of candy in hand, mentally figuring all the variables. Charlie was considering going back into the house and getting a pad of paper to write all his equations down but at that moment, the first trick-or-treater ran up the driveway.

"Twick or Tweat!" exclaimed the small blond fairy, proudly holding out her bag. Charlie smiled and gave her a mini crunch bar. The little pudgy fairy exclaimed something completely unintelligible in toddler-speak and Charlie just nodded, praying that whatever the small child had said, didn't require a response. The little fairy ran back to her mother proudly waving her bag in the air, triumphant in collecting her first piece of candy for the evening. Charlie smiled and settled onto the porch to await more trick-or-treaters.

It wasn't long before the first large group of children ran up Charlie's driveway. Wow, Charlie thought, there are ten, no, eleven kids all in a group together! Charlie counted two witches, three grim reapers (of sorts), one zombie, two cheerleaders, two football players and one little Eeyore.

Before Charlie could start figuring their ages into his neatly crafted equation in his head, the mob was suddenly upon him, chorusing 'trick or treat' and thrusting their bags expectantly towards him. Charlie snapped from his thoughts and began to pass out the candy to the children and, at the same time, keep a certain little cartoon character's hands out of the candy bowl.

"Dylan!" one of the witches snapped, "Get your hand out of the bowl!" Dylan happily ignored her, already unwrapping the sucker he managed to get out of the bowl from under Charlie's arm.

"It's ok" Charlie reassured the girl, smiling, as he finished passing out the candy. Whew, Charlie thought as the herd of children tramped down the driveway and on to the next house. During his breather, Charlie started to work equations in his head. He had to guess at the children's ages since he didn't know for sure, but then again he could just use more general age ranges…

Charlie spent most of the 'in between time' calculating equations in his head about all sorts of Halloween things. Costume types and age ranges, age ranges and manners (small children were WAY more polite and never forgot to say 'thank you' although sometimes 'Mom' had to remind them.) and he also saw many interesting costumes. One group included, not only a princess, a witch and a football player, but also a cat, a hippie, a Courtney Love look-a-alike, and an inmate, orange jumpsuit and all! Charlie found the princess in the group to be…enduring…her 'lines' were announced with gusto and a rather large, and frozen, smile. Charlie had been forced to hide a smirk and a chuckle (disguised as a cough) before he dutifully gave the girl her prize.

Charlie thought that by far, the most interesting children he encountered were most definitely the bumblebee, the turtle, the pink commando, and Snow White. Both Snow White and the turtle were so ready to say 'thank you' that they plain forgot the 'trick or treat', so it ended up tagged onto the end after their mother reminded them. The bumblebee seemed to be very worried about possible 'monsters' and his mother had to reassure him that there were, indeed, no monsters, before he would even go up the driveway. Then the bumblebee forgot that just reaching in the candy bowl and grabbing what he could was a certified 'no-no.' And finally the pink commando…well she was just cute.

Finally, after about two hours, Charlie ran out of candy. About time, he thought. The porch didn't make for comfortable sitting. Charlie went inside, flicked off the porch light as to not mislead any remaining trick-or-treaters, and flopped down on the couch.

That was a little more tiring than I' anticipated, Charlie thought ruefully. He grabbed a pen and paper and started to scribble equations of things that he had observed. This will make for some interesting lesson plans tomorrow. Charlie grinned. Well, maybe passing out candy wasn't so horrible after all.

END

AUTHORS NOTE: Ok, that was a crappy ending I know it. I desperately need some constructive criticism here. This is written in past tense, which just doesn't seem to be working here. I don't know, verb tense has always been a problem for me and that's partially why I'm writing on this site. I need to figure out how to write a story without it getting redundant in past or present tense. Any input would be much appreciated. Thanks!