Title: Game Day
Summary: "The snow's not going anywhere and we've got a very long day ahead of us." "Which begs the question," Henry continued, undeterred. "What are we going to do?" "I'm all for taking a nap," Emma grumbled at the same time as Snow suggested dragging out some board games. Emma blinked at her mother. "Board games? Seriously?"
Spoilers: None, really, but let's just say everything up through 2x11, "The Outsider."
Rating/Warning: K+, for Emma's mouth. No real warnings to speak of, but you might want to keep a toothbrush handy, because this is cotton-candy-fluffy.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I just need something to get me through hiatus.
Author's Note: I knew I wouldn't be able to stay away for long! And since we have THREE FREAKING WEEKS till the next new ep (not that I'm bitter or anything), I need some Charming Family fluff to help pass the time. This came from who-knows-where (the things I think about when I'm trying to fall asleep at night, man, I'm telling you), but once it was in my head, it wouldn't go away. Shoutout to starophie, whose enthusiasm for the idea helped me get it going quicker than I anticipated. Since, as I've mentioned before, humor isn't my strong suit, feedback is much appreciated (and something I live for). Finally and most importantly, enjoy!

Emma Swan was making a list. No, she wasn't going to check it twice; it wasn't that kind of list. This was a Things Fairy Tale Characters Living In the Real World Need to Purchase list. And first on that list was a goddamned snowblower.

That way, the next time a winter storm blew through and deposited six inches of snow on Storybrooke overnight, she wouldn't have to get up before the sun to help her father shovel out everyone's parking spots. David – she could not bring herself to call him Charming – could use normal, twenty-first-century technology to clear the spaces in fifteen minutes like a normal, twenty-first-century person.

It was pure altruism, you see. Buying a snowblower would save her father from turning into Frosty the Snowman every time it snowed. Metaphorically, of course, but she probably shouldn't say stuff like that too loudly around Storybrooke. The fact that she could stay in her nice, warm bed while David went out to use the snowblower was an added bonus.

Not that their two-hour shoveling marathon mattered in the slightest. For one thing, it was still snowing. The forecast called for the snow to end at some point around dinnertime, but shoveling in spurts was easier than shoveling all at once. For another thing, Storybrooke apparently only employed one snowplow. The plow operator was Leroy, and the plow simply attached to the front of his pickup truck.

Emma had expressed her disbelief that a town in Maine, of all goddamned places, didn't have a real, industrial snowplow at its disposal. Mary Margaret – er, Snow White mentioned that it had never been an issue before. Emma had again expressed disbelief, with a few more swear words this time, but Snow told her that big snowstorms didn't really happen in a magically unchanging town.

It was at that point that Emma stopped her. She'd handled a lot of crazy truths in recent weeks with something vaguely resembling aplomb, but any talk of the unchanging nature of Storybrooke under the curse made her brain hurt.

She'd told David to wake her at five so they could start shoveling, which turned out to be one of the stupidest ideas she'd ever had. Most of the roads weren't clear yet because the storm had unsurprisingly outpaced their plow crew of one. But still, they shoveled, figuring they were already up and outside. Now Emma was shivering, exhausted, and reasonably sure she had frostbite in her fingers, and her day hadn't even really started yet.

There better be cocoa waiting for us when we get upstairs, she thought as she started trudging up the stairs to the apartment with David at her heels.

Emma should have known better than to doubt her mother. The sweet aroma of hot chocolate greeted her as soon as she opened the apartment door. She inhaled deeply, her eyes closing against the scent.

"Off with the wet clothes," Snow said even though Emma had already begun pulling off her soaked gloves and hat. She handed both her husband and daughter a steaming mug before gathering their wet outerwear from the floor. "I cranked the heat, too, so you two should warm up pretty quickly."

"I can think of a way you can warm me up," David whispered to Snow as she passed him on her way to the dryer, his voice low enough that only she could hear him.

Or so he thought. "Ugh!" Emma cried. If her poor, aching hands weren't wrapped so tightly around her mug, she would have pressed them over her ears. "Thanks for that. Now I need to go to find some bleach for my brain."

"Sorry," he cringed, a blush creeping up his cheeks.

Emma just grunted a response as she carried her cocoa over to the sofa. She made herself a little cocoon out of the blankets Snow liked to keep draped over the back of the couch and waited for warmth.

Between the throws, the cocoa, and the fact that Snow had turned the heat up to about eighty, Emma started to warm up within minutes. She leaned her head against the back of the sofa and shut her eyes, listening to the sounds of her parents shuffling around the kitchen to get breakfast started.

At least, that was what she hoped they were doing. Wait ... yeah, she definitely heard a frying pan thunking down on the stove. Whew.

The early morning stillness was shattered a few minutes later when Henry bounded down the stairs, exclaiming over the amount of snow on the ground. "And it's supposed to continue all day!" he added excitedly as he skidded to a stop at the counter. "We obviously can't go anywhere today, so we what are we going to do? Can I go play outside at some point?"

Emma's eyes shot open in the face of her son's exuberance. "Whoa, kid, take a breath. It's only …" she trailed off, searching for the wall clock, " … ugh, seven-thirty. The snow's not going anywhere and we've got a very long day ahead of us."

"Which begs the question," Henry continued, undeterred. "What are we going to do?"

"I'm all for taking a nap," Emma grumbled at the same time as Snow suggested dragging out some board games. Emma blinked at her mother. "Board games? Seriously?"

"What else are we going to do?" Snow asked with a shrug.

They could watch movies or read or, you know, take a nap. Anything but board games. "You just happen to have a collection of board games lying around?" she asked, arching a single eyebrow at her mother. The curse hadn't exactly set Mary Margaret Blanchard up with an arsenal of games and distractions at her disposal.

"I, um, actually went out and bought a few right after we came back from the Enchanted Forest," Snow admitted sheepishly. "And I took some duplicates from my classroom at school."

"You stole board games?" Emma asked in disbelief.

"Borrowed," Snow replied. "I borrowed them."

"But you weren't planning on giving them back."

"That's beside the point."

Before Emma could argue any further, Henry exclaimed, "All right! So what are we playing?"

David and Snow grinned at each other while Emma just rolled her eyes with a heavy sigh. A nap still sounded like the better option.

After a breakfast of pancakes and bacon – the perfect breakfast for a winter morning, according to David – Snow pulled out all the board games she'd purchased and "borrowed." Every game she had, along with a set of dominoes and a deck of cards, now sat in a pile in the center of the living area. Snow sat cross-legged next to the games while Henry, Emma, and David took seats on the couch. The plan, as Snow outlined, was to go through the pile game by game and put each one to a vote, yea or nay.

Emma wrinkled her nose at the selection in front of her. The occasional board game was fine. Fun, even. A whole day of them? Not so much.

"All right, let's get this started," Snow spoke up, commanding everyone's attention. When she picked up game at the top of the pile, Emma almost failed to hold in her groan. "How do we feel about Monopoly?"

"Absolutely not," Emma answered, shaking her head. "I want to still like all of you when we're done with this."

"We'll still like each other," David protested. "It's just a game."

"No one ever likes each other after a game of Monopoly," Emma argued. "There's fighting over Boardwalk and Park Place, there's fighting over the railroads, there's fighting over the utilities, and someone always quits the game in tears." She stopped speaking at that point but only because everyone was looking at her in surprise. "Just trust me. No Monopoly."

"All right, no Monopoly," Snow said with raised eyebrows. She set the box aside, creating a No pile. "How about Sorry?"

Again, it was Emma who protested. "Nope. I want you all to still like me when we're done with this." Her parents frowned at her. She actually found their identical perplexed looks kind of funny. "I'm vicious at Sorry. I used to fleece the new kids at my foster homes by betting them they couldn't beat me at Sorry. I was just this unassuming little blonde kid at first blush, so they all took the bait. I always ended up wiping the floor with them. I had strategies."

"There are strategies in Sorry?" Henry asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Isn't it really just luck of the draw?"

Oh, kid, Emma thought. She felt a pang of guilt when she realized just how much she was going to beat the pants off him. "Put it in the Yes pile, then. I'll show you what I mean."

Snow exchanged a glance with David, who gave her a shrug in return as if to say, Why not? "So Sorry's a tentative yes," Snow said, creating a new pile next to Monopoly. "Any objections to Boggle?"

"Um, not to be all Johnny Rain On Your Parade," Emma spoke up sheepishly, "but I had strategies at Boggle, too."

"Boggle has strategies?" Henry asked incredulously. "I mean, beyond finding as many words as you can in three minutes?"

At least now he looked intrigued, as did her mother and father. Eh, what the hell. She supposed she could give them a little something free for nothing, even the playing field a little bit. "Strategy number one," she said, ticking it off on her index finger, "the S is your friend. Make plurals whenever you can out of whatever you can. Most people will see, say, 'bear' but they won't always see 'bears.' And if they didn't see either, then you've got two words for the price of one. Strategy number two: know your anagrams. If you have 'tea,' nine times out of ten you also have 'eat' and 'ate.' The trick is trying to get the most bang for your letter buck."

All three of them were staring at her in amazement. Suddenly uncomfortable with the attention, she squirmed on the sofa before nudging Henry. "Remember when you asked me how I was so good at Text Twist? This is how."

"All right, Boggle's a definite yes," David spoke up, nodding towards his wife. "I want to see our daughter the wordsmith in action."

Emma heaved a sigh as Boggle joined Sorry in the Yes pile. Snow sent her a comforting look before grabbing the next box in the stack. She snickered when she realized exactly she had in her hand; this must have been one of the games she'd taken from school. "How about Pretty Pretty Princess?"

Her suggestion was met with a loud, horrified, three-voice chorus of, "No!"

"I figured," she laughed, plopping the dress-up game on top of Monopoly. "I just couldn't resist. Clue's up next."

"I like that one," Henry said at same time as Emma insisted that watching the movie would be a better use of their time. The kid's eyes widened in excitement. "There's a movie?"

All of a sudden, Emma remembered just how much innuendo was in that movie. Funny and quotable innuendo but innuendo nonetheless. "Uh, yeah, but it's a movie that's not entirely appropriate for you, so pretend I didn't say anything."

"Aw, man, that's not fair!" Henry cried. "I can't just pretend you didn't say anything!"

"So Clue's a yes?" Snow asked over her grandson's protests. "The game, not the movie?"

"Yes," David answered.

Smiling, Snow set the game in the Yes pile and moved on. "Payday?"

"Eh, it gets boring after a while," Henry said.

Snow looked to Emma and David, neither of whom had ever had the pleasure of playing. They both just shrugged. Making the executive decision, she dropped the game into the No pile. As she grabbed the next game in line, her brow furrowed. "What on earth is Jumanji? I've never even heard of–"

"Oh, sweet mother of God, no!" Emma cried. "Knowing this place, that home version really would come to life. I have absolutely no desire to live out a Robin Williams movie, thank you very much."

Henry laughed, at least. Snow and David just exchanged a bewildered glance. Still, Snow did as Emma suggested and placed Jumanji in the No pile.

They continued voting until they'd whittled the playable pile down to Sorry, Boggle, Clue, Chutes and Ladders, and The Game of Life. Taboo was sitting in a Maybe pile, along with both the deck of cards ("for Concentration!" according to Henry) and the dominoes ("the only way I know how to play with dominoes is to set up topples," from Emma).

After putting away the rejected games – and setting Pretty Pretty Princess aside to bring back to school since she couldn't in good conscience burn it like Emma asked – Snow turned to her family. "All right, looks like we're all set. So which one are we playing first?"