October 31:

"I really appreciate you guys doing this. Um - hold on - "

He looks away politely as JJ, eyes streaming, starts coughing into the sleeve of her bathrobe for a distressingly long time. She sounds even worse than she did when she left work earlier today. He's never quite sure what to do when someone's doing this - offer sympathy? Keep talking like nothing's happening? - so he starts adjusting the bright floral-patterned towel around his neck instead. In his peripheral vision, he sees Maeve look down and shuffle her feet a little.

"Damn," JJ croaks, when the coughing finally stops. "Sorry about that. As I was saying, Henry was really looking forward to this, and there's no way either of us can take him out. Will didn't even get out of bed today."

"It's no problem."

JJ looks over her shoulder, back into the house. "Henry! It's time!"

A child's voice, distant, from within: "Okay!"

"You need help with your costume?"
"I'm almost done!"

JJ turns back to them, smiling. "He's big on doing everything himself these days."

"Perfectly normal stage of child development." Maeve's voice is soft.

"Except that we had to get him velcro shoes for now. Otherwise he'd spend half an hour in the mornings trying to tie his own shoes and getting mad about it." JJ looks the two of them up and down. "Speaking of costumes, what are you supposed to be, Spence?"

For a moment, he feels silly, standing here on someone's doorstep in a purple bathrobe with a towel around his neck. "I'm Arthur Dent. From Hitchhiker's Guide, which I keep telling you you should read. The guy ends up traveling the galaxy in his bathrobe, well, dressing gown to be precise."

JJ nods. He knows she has no intention of reading either that series, or any of the other things he's recommended to her over the years, but he likes to carry on doing it anyway, just to bug her with the existence of SF subculture.

"Maeve? What about you?" she asks.

Maeve really is an interesting sight, he thinks. When he'd called her that morning and asked if she wanted to go trick-or-treating with him and Henry, he hadn't thought she'd come up with a costume on such short notice. Hell, he barely had. Maeve, on the other hand, is wearing a soft black turtleneck and black leggings, and she's wrapped strips of masking tape around herself for a striped effect and put on a headband with springy green feelers attached. Her face and hands are dusted with some kind of white powder, and there are big dark circles painted under her eyes.

"I'm a zom-bee. Get it?" Maeve does a little twirl in place.

"Zombie insects?" JJ sneezes.

"Colony collapse disorder is a real-life horror."

JJ smiles. Just as she's about to say something, there's a series of thumps behind her, and then Henry comes charging out the door. He's wearing a black-and-orange-striped sort of big onesie, with a small black cape flying out behind him, and his face is partly hidden by a small Zorro-type mask. He's clutching a big hollow plastic pumpkin in one hand.

"HI, Uncle Spencer!"

"Hey, buddy!" He crouches down for the inevitable hug, turning his head to avoid getting whacked with the pumpkin. Henry's hugs are like any small child's, sprawly and squirmy, but they're also the one instance where there's just no question about tolerating sudden touch. "What are you?"

"Ninja Tigger! RAWR!" Henry makes big swiping claw motions with his free hand.

"He couldn't decide which one to be," JJ says in her clogged-sounding voice. "So we combined them."

"Compromise. Good thing."

Henry looks up at Maeve, small brow furrowed. "Who are you?"

Maeve waves at him, not the little fingers-only wave lots of adults give kids, but a real wave. "I'm Maeve. I'm Spencer's friend."

"Nuh-UH! Mom said you're his GIRLfriend." Henry grins.

"That, too."

"Okay. Can we go now?"

"Henry," JJ objects.

"It's all right." Maeve smiles. "It's hard to wait at this age. There's scientific evidence that kids really do experience time differently than adults." As if to back her up, Henry grabs her hand and starts tugging. "I'll get the flashlight out of the car, if you give me the keys."

"Sure." He hands over the keys and watches them walk down to the car at the curb. Well, Maeve's walking, anyway; Henry's hopping in what he assumes are supposed to be Tigger jumps.

"We'll have him back no later than nine," he tells JJ. "Is it okay if we take him to dinner someplace too, before we bring him home? That way you won't have to worry about that, either, and it might discourage him from trying to eat fifteen pounds of candy tonight."

"Sure. Um, and could you check the candy? I think Will and I'll both be too out of it to do that when he gets home." JJ holds up a hand. "Yeah, yeah, I know poisoned Halloween candy is an urban myth, but humor a nervous mom, okay?"

"Will do."

As he turns to go, JJ beckons him slightly closer and drops her voice to a raspy whisper. "And, Spence?"

"Hm?"

"She's perfect for you."

He smiles. "I know."

The sky is just finishing the change from deep blue to black by the time they set out. Maeve carries the flashlight, one of the giant ones with its own handle, while he leads Henry by the hand.

"Remember what I told you about which doors to knock on?" he asks.

"Yeah! Go for the ones with the most decorations!"

"Right. Because the better the decorations - "

"The more candy!"

"Isn't that a bit mercenary?" Maeve is smiling, so he knows she probably doesn't really mean that as criticism.

"It's true, though. If people are willing to take the time to decorate, they'll usually have more candy, and better quality, too. Hand-carved jack-o-lanterns are the best sign. I worked out the exact probabilities when I was a kid."

"I wanted to do a jack-o-lantern," Henry says solemnly. "I asked Mom and Dad for a pumpkin, every time we went to the store. But they said it's too messy to make a real one. We got to paint on real pumpkins at school, though."
"Cool." Maeve's voice sounds genuine, he notes, not the high-pitched, vaguely condescending tone so many grownups use with kids. He'd always hated that when he was Henry's age. Still does, actually.

"I made my pumpkin blue. My teacher didn't like it, though. She said real pumpkins aren't blue."

"That was mean of her." Maeve gives him a questioning look over Henry's head, and he makes a face the kid can't see.

"Dad said he called her. He sounded mad. Then Mom came home and said she called her too, and she sounded mad. So I got to keep my pumpkin."

"Good. I bet your teacher didn't know there are real blue pumpkins."

"There are?"

"I saw them in a store once. Blue pumpkins, and green and red ones. They weren't painted, either. Some farmers crossed different kinds of pumpkin parents and made baby pumpkins that were different colors."

"Cool!"

"Maybe you can look it up on the computer when you get home." She looks at him over Henry's head again. "And maybe we can look it up, too, and you can give the info to JJ so she can send it to his teacher?"

"Sounds good."

Then they all have to step into someone's yard, to avoid getting run over by a big gaggle of squealing grade-school kids in miniature superhero costume.

The temperature starts dropping sharply after full darkness falls. Henry doesn't seem to notice; he's too busy jumping around Tigger-style and charging up the front walks at houses, and his costume is fleece, anyway. Maeve, however, is starting to look decidedly blue-lipped after a few blocks, and he's beginning to wish he'd worn more layers under the bathrobe - his T-shirt and sweatpants aren't quite sufficient.

He steers them into an apartment building for a while, and they walk up and down dimly lit hallways and knock on doors decorated with pumpkin and bat cutouts and orange and black streamers. Most of the residents here are on the elderly side. He loses count of the number of times someone says they have a grandchild Henry's age.

By the time they finish with all three floors, Henry's pumpkin is nearly full. He starts poking around in it as they exit the building. "Hey! I got peanut butter cups!"

"Your mom said no eating any till we check it, buddy."

"Uncle Spencer. I'm hungry." Henry's voice takes on the precise level of whining tone that's hardest on the ears.

"Well, if we walk two blocks more, there's a place to eat." He looks over at Maeve and clarifies: "There's an all-night diner down there."

"Two blocks?" Henry's clearly passing that event horizon between energy-loaded and tired and cranky in the weirdly sudden fashion kids do.

"You're Tigger, right?" Maeve says. "Pretend you're . . . going home for Extract of Malt. That's what he always eats in the books, right? And then he gets really bouncy."

"All right." Henry picks up the pace, walking just ahead of them.

The diner is warm and foggy-windowed, and the lights are soft globes, not the usual bright blue fluorescents that make him feel like he's standing inside a giant bug zapper. After they order, Maeve takes Henry over to investigate the big light-up jukebox, while he dumps the pumpkin's contents out on the booth table for inspection. The flat, foil-wrapped chocolate pumpkins seem to be especially popular this year, he notes.

He finishes and starts putting the candy back in the pumpkin just as the tired-looking waitress returns and slides the food onto the table: baskets of hot dogs and fries, something easy to manage. She looks over at Maeve and Henry, who've noticed and are heading back over to the booth, and smiles. "Your little boy's cute."

He considers correcting her for about a millisecond. Forget it. "Thanks."

Henry obviously hates having a booster seat, but it's the only way to get his elbows far enough above the table that he can reach his food easily. They eat quietly, listening to the kid chatter about his friends at school and who won what on the playground and how he already knows all the sight words so the teacher gave him a bigger list, except that's no fun.

They're down to the last few fries when Henry looks down mid-sentence. "Uh-oh. I got ketchup." And - yes - there's a big maroon streak down the front of his suit.

"Well, if we go wash that off quick, it'll come out."

In the bathroom, he lifts Henry up to sit on the counter. It actually takes a little effort. This might be the last year I can pick you up, he thinks, and that brings up the memory of holding an impossibly tiny newborn Henry at their first meeting.

"You're getting me all wet."

"Can't be helped." The paper towels are shredding against the fleece of the costume. "Try to hold still, okay?"

Henry sits still, with some effort. "I like Maeve. She's fun."

"She is, isn't she?" He throws out the paper towel wad and inspects the results. Well, the stain has lightened by several shades, anyway.

"Are you gonna marry her?"

He stops dead and stares at Henry, fumbling for words.

"Mom told Dad you might." Henry's voice is very matter-of-fact.

"Um . . . " Mental note, he thinks, tell JJ to refrain from discussing coworkers' love lives within earshot of the kindergarten set. "You know what? I . . . actually don't know yet."

"How come? Don't you like her?"

He lifts Henry back down, feeling his bad knee twinge a little as he does. "I do. A lot. But it would depend on whether she wanted to get married, too."

"Why don't you ask her?"

Oh boy. "Because . . . it's not really quite the right time yet, buddy. Um, don't say anything to her, okay? That's something she and I have to talk about. Just us."

"I swear." Henry holds up a hand like a miniature witness taking an oath.

Maeve is just exiting the women's bathroom when they come out, Henry's pumpkin in hand. She's washed the makeup off, except for a few traces of black around her eyes. "I already paid, guys."

"You didn't have to do that."

"It's okay. My . . . payment . . . came yesterday. For once I had a few bucks left over after the bills. Electric bill goes down when it gets cooler, you know." Her voice has a slightly nervous, chattery tone, but she has a funny little smile on her face. He wonders, suddenly, if she might have been able to hear his conversation with Henry through the wall. He hopes she can't see him blushing in the light in here.

They deposit a yawning Henry with a groggy, cold-medicine-incoherent, but smiling JJ, and get in the car just as light, prickling rain starts sifting down.

It's a full, loud blatter against the windows by the time they pull up outside his apartment building. Maeve looks over at him.

"Got an umbrella?"

"No. But this is one of the reasons Hitchhiker's Guide says it's important to always know where your towel is." He pulls the towel over his head and scrambles out of the car, darting around to her side. She laughs and ducks under the towel with him to make the dash to the entrance.

They've hardly gotten in the door of his apartment before Schrodie comes galloping out of the kitchen, yowling. He stops to sniff Maeve's shoes, then starts trying to climb up her leg.

"Ouch, kitty! Yes, I will feed you. Just a second." She picks the cat up and cuddles him against her chest.

"Didn't you feed him before we left?"

"Yes, but he just inhales everything lately. I swear he grows noticeably over the course of a day."

He hangs up the wet towel in the shower and sheds the bathrobe, while Maeve rattles around in the kitchen, with Schrodie providing a background gabble of sharp meows and little yipping sounds. Maeve must know where everything is by now. Since giving her the spare key, he's come home a few times to find her here, curled up with Schrodie on the couch and reading one of his books. A few of Schrodie's things have become fixtures here, a spare bag of kibble in the kitchen cupboard and a litter pan on the floor of the linen closet on the hall.

He'd wondered if it was going to bother him, someone able to just show up in his space at any given time. He figures it still would if it was anyone else, but Maeve-and-cat don't. Even if said cat has put holes in some of the window blinds, trying to look out.

Maeve meets him as he comes back down the hall. She's holding up a crackly plastic bag. "Can I assume these are for general consumption?"

"What other night would we eat chocolate pumpkins?"

They sprawl on the couch, feet on the table and Maeve's head against his shoulder, and watch It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on DVD, volume low and captions on. Schrodie emerges from the kitchen, stretches, yawns, and curls up on the rug.

"Linus reminds me of you," Maeve says, as the end credits play.

"The glasses and the infodumping at that same age, sure. I never dragged a blanket around, though."

"I like Charlie Brown's ghost sheet with all the extra holes. I almost did that instead for tonight, actually."

"I think I like the zom-bee costume better."

"I noticed you looking."

"Well, I have to say it gives me a . . . buzz." He slips both arms around her, and she turns on her side, toward him.

"That's good. Because I was just trying to think of a subtle way to ask if you might be interested in a little . . . pollinating."

"Bzz, bzz, bzz," he whispers, and she giggles and gets up and he follows her to the bedroom.

Afterward, they lie there in the dim gold light of the bedside lamp, him curled up around her spoon-fashion. He finds himself twirling bits of her hair around his fingers, letting it slide over his hands and looking at the tiny highlights in it. She doesn't seem to mind.

"Spencer?" Maeve's voice is a little sleepy.

"Hm?"

"I had a really good time tonight."

"You seemed like you were."

"Henry's the first person I haven't been nervous around in a long time. Except you, of course."

"He's a great kid."

"Yeah."

"You're great with him, too." Maeve goes quiet. He's just starting to think she's fallen asleep when she speaks again. "You ever think about it?"

"About what?"

"You know. Kids."

It takes a moment for him to realize what she might be saying. "Um. Just to be clear, you mean, having them."

"Yeah, that." He's not entirely sure, but her voice sounds a little nervous now.

He sighs. "Yes. Especially since . . . I mean. I'm getting older. But I doubt I'd pass the process to adopt, and I'm sure ninety-nine percent of people out there would say I shouldn't have biological kids."

"Why?"

"Because. Between my brain and my mom's, and both things can run in families, and people would say it's a terrible thing to do if you could pass something on and . . . " He lets his voice trail off because he can't quite figure out how to finish articulating something this big, and the train of thought is making his stomach hurt.

"Spencer. You don't think it's . . . a terrible thing that you or your mom exist, do you?" Now Maeve definitely sounds worried. He's glad she's facing away from him.

"No."

"Or that other autistic or schizophrenic people exist?"

"No."

"Well, that's good." Maeve moves around and leans her head back so it's under his chin. "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

"My first year in pre-med? There was a required Intro to Genetics course. The professor was this crusty old bastard with a really loud voice. The first day, he tells us: 'The reason for knowing more about how genetics work is to help save lives. As doctors, you'll swear to do no harm. If you start thinking it's okay to use people's genetics to try to dictate who should be allowed to reproduce, or who should be allowed to live or die, you are doing harm, and you should not be a doctor.'"

"That's . . . really great. And unusual."

"I know. He made sure we learned the basics about eugenics abuses, and that it's not ancient history, and . . . well. I found out later that the reason he talked so loud was because he, and most of his family, had an inherited type of progressive deafness."

"That probably explains it."

"True. Now, would it bug you if I put on my doctor hat for a minute?"

"No." The knot in his stomach is starting to loosen.

"With just one schizophrenic grandparent in the family? The odds of it skipping generations like that are very small. Autistic people do seem to have a bit higher chance of having autistic kids than non-autistic people do. Now, if someone decides for themselves that they don't want to take the chance, that's their business. But if someone who really wants kids . . . whatever might happen with said kids . . . is being coerced, or worse, into not having them because other people don't like their genetics, or don't like disabled people, or whatever . . . that's just wrong. Um, I hope you understand what I'm getting at here."

"I think so."

"Hell, there are genetic factors involved in anxiety and PTSD, too. I bet my DNA probably wouldn't pass an audit from people like that, either. Besides, if we did have a kid who was - different - somehow, we'd realize it pretty fast and be able to get them whatever assistance they'd need to live their life. They wouldn't have the hard time you had growing up."

"That's a very definite plus." He leans his chin on the top of her head, then jumps a little as the entirety of what she just said registers. "You . . . said if we had a kid."

"Well, I'd hope you weren't thinking about having one with anyone else." There's a small teasing lilt in Maeve's voice. "Not right away, of course, but - "

"Of course."

"So. Forget what ninety-nine percent of people would say about it. What would you say?"

The relief washing over him is so strong he can hardly get the words out. "I'd say I'd like to. Yes."

Maeve gives a small, happy squeak and reaches around to take his hand before relaxing against him again.

They fall asleep with the bedside lamp still on. Sometime close to morning, he dreams:

A crisp fall day in the park, the trees flaming red and orange and the sky an unmarked blue. Maeve sitting at one of the tables for chess, a board in play in front of her. Across from her a little girl, maybe about kindergarten-age, who looks just like her. A Maeve-let, but with his posture and the same look on her face that he feels on his when he's concentrating. She moves a piece and laughs, hands flapping at her sides like his did at the same age.

He wakes up to morning sun through the window, Maeve curled up against his back and Schrodie curled up purr-snoring next to his head, and finds himself smiling.

**Author's Note: Any readers who think disabled people shouldn't have children, go away and take it somewhere else. That is NOT a discussion I'm interested in having or hosting.**