Title: A Day in the Snow

Rating: T

Warnings: Swearing. Possibly.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by the Disney. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended

Author Notes: I've debated a lot over exactly how this chapter should go. I have had a basic idea of what I wanted but have been having trouble pinning down certain details. And yes I di realize that summer is not the usual time to be doing a Christmas-y chapter, but that's just the way it's ended up with the timeline for this fic.

As usual, I must give a shout out to my reviewers: Frostystuffs, Stagemanagertargaryen, and Reviewer1: I'm glad I was able to inspire you to write something. I certainly would be interested in reading your fic should you decided to post it, though I've never watched Once Upon A Time. AU fics can be just as good as Cannon ones. I've read several really good AU fics and I've even been toying with one of my own. My best advice, should you go ahead to post, is to write for your own enjoyment. That's what I do. Don't worry too much what other people think. Flaming reviews don't matter as long as you are happy with your story. And the good reviews, they'll just feel even better. Hell, if you're still worried, feel free to shoot me a PM.


When Jason was assigned to be Eugene Fitzherbert's manservant that summer over six months ago, he had not been sure what to expect. To be a personal servant could be difficult. Many of the highborn were very demanding masters. But Eugene Fitzherbert was not a highborn nor was he a typical master. Like his sister had learned with the Princess, Jason quickly learned to expect the unexpected.

Normally the Servant's Hall was usually the best place to learn the 'dirt' on any of Corona's noble families. Who was a good to their servants and who wasn't. Who was feuding with whom. Who had designs on whom. Who was having affairs with whom. It took a lot to hide things from the servants. Both Jason and Jessica found it highly amusing that they were the only ones to have learned about the two's night-time visits. Then there were the things that Jason hadn't even told his sister about. Like all the times that he helped with some of Eugene's pet projects on the Guards.

Finding two dozen frogs in the middle of winter had been… interesting.

So he wasn't really all that surprised when, just after breakfast two days before Christmas, to learn that he and Jessica would be accompanying the young Royal Couple down into Sunhame. The only warning about what to expect he had gotten was when Eugene had asked (not told, but asked) if Jason wanted to come help with something. Upon learning that it also involved both the Princess and Jason's sister, he had expected it to just be a simple last minute shopping trip. He really should have known that it wouldn't be that simple.

After retrieving a cloak and boots, Jason went down to the stable-yard where he was to meet up with the other three. At least he wasn't the last one to arrive; Eugene wasn't yet there. Jessica was standing beside one of the carts used to haul in hay and feed for the many horses and mules used on the palace grounds. Two of those mules were hitched to it. Princess Rapunzel was cheerfully thanking the stable-master for the use of the cart and animals.

Jason slipped up beside his sister. "Jeez, how much shopping are they planning on doing?" he whispered.

Jessica rolled her eyes at him. "You are an idiot, Jace. I don't know about Master Eugene, but the Princess finished her shopping weeks ago. This is a special trip to the orphanages to deliver extra blankets and presents for the children."

"Oh." He peered into the back of the cart to see the bundles of things already in there. "Now the cart makes sense."

Just then Eugene came out of the stables trailed by Maximus. "Blondie… Make him stop doing the eyes thing." He stopped next to the Princess and set his hands on his hips to give the horse a disgusted look. "Really, Max. Where is your dignity, man? Aren't you supposed to be a ferocious Guard Horse?"

"He just wants to come with us, Eugene." Rapunzel replied, smiling at both as the stable-master left. She reached out to scratch Maximus under the chin. "It's all right, Max. You're more than welcome to come along."

Maximus nearly went cross-eyed with pleasure at the scratches. Both Jason and Jessica had to hide their snickers at the horse's expression. Eugene just shook his head. "You are such a suck. And to think, I used to be so terrified of you." Maximus pinned his ears back and glared at the man, who in turn, immediately put up both hands. "Ok, ok. I take it back."

Jason exchanged a look with his sister and they both snorted in laughter.

"Both of you play nice. I don't want to have to babysit the pair of you." The Princess told the two before walking over to the cart. "Are we ready?"

Jessica nodded. "Yes, m'lady."

Jason helped both the Princess and his sister to climb up into the back of the cart and then hoisted himself up onto the driver's bench at the front. Eugene settled next to him, since it was obvious that Maximus was not inclined to let the former thief on his back as a punishment of sorts. Jason reached for the reins and then looked at the older man. Eugene just shook his head and sat back on the bench.

"Go ahead. That is, I'm assuming, you know how to drive." He said.

"Yes sir, I do." Jason quipped and slapped the reins lightly on the backs of the mules to get them moving.

Eugene groaned, just like Jason knew he would. "What have I told you about calling me sir?"

Jason grinned. This was a long standing joke of sorts between them. "That it makes you feel old, sir."

"And are you ever going to stop?"

"No, sir. Probably not, sir." Knowing that, while Eugene didn't care for the word, the man never did anything more than complain every time Jason used it, Jason made sure to stick it in whenever he could. He actually had tried once to not do it, but it just went against what he had been taught as part of his duties as a palace servant. "Unless you want me to call you m'lord instead, sir."

"Hmm… Now there's a thought." Eugene leaned back on the bench and stroked his chin in thought. "Maybe not. Lord Eugene sounds too pretentious and I'm just a plain simple man who is far to humble for such things."

"Of course you are, sir." Jason deadpanned as the girls in the back of the cart giggled. Maximus, walking beside the cart, snorted in agreement. Humble was not a word that was in either Flynn Rider's vocabulary, nor, to a lesser extent, Eugene Fitzherbert's.

The deliveries to the first two orphanages went smoothly. The children were excited by the gifts and the caretakers grateful for the extra supplies. The group spend about two hours at each before moving on. It was just after noon when they reached St. Augustine's and that's when plans went a little awry.

They were met at the door, not by enthusiastic orphans, but by one of the younger nuns. Sister Marion looked haggard and a little worried. She stood in the doorway and shook her head as they approached.

"I'm not sure if I can allow you to come in, Mr. Fitzherbert, Princess." She said, chewing her lower lip.

Eugene and Rapunzel exchanged looks. "What's up?" Eugene asked. "What did the kids do to end up not being allowed visitors?"

The sister gave a tired smile. "Nothing like that. Sister Ester came down with pneumonia three days ago and we also have a bit of a chicken pox outbreak. At least three of the children have it. We would hate to be the cause if it spreading to the palace."

"That could be a problem." Eugene replied. "Well, you don't' have to worry about me. I've already had it." He looked at the other three.

"When we were kids. "Jason answered the unspoken query. Jessica nodded.

Rapunzel, on the other hand, looked very thoughtful. "I don't know. What is it? Is it like the plague?"

The others looked at her with varying degrees of surprise. Jason shifted the pile of blankets he was holding. "You've never had chicken pox, Highness?"

The Princess shrugged. "I don't… think so. I don't think I've ever been sick. Then again, I don't know what it is."

"It's an illness." Jessica explained. "A rash the itches like crazy with fever, headache, nausea and other symptoms. It's a very common childhood illness. Most everyone gets it."

"And once you've had it, you're immune to it the rest of your life, usually." Jason put in.

Sister Marion sighed and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Princess. You really won't be allowed to come in. It's for your own good."

Rapunzel looked completely stricken by the nun's words and Eugene quickly freed a hand from his burden. He rested it on her shoulder and gave a little squeeze. "Blondie." He said softly to get her attention. "It's okay. I know you don't like this, but just think for a moment. I don't know if it was being in the Tower or because of your hair, but if you've never been sick before, you don't want to start by coming down with this. It can be really bad to get chicken pox as an adult. Not plague-bad but still bad."

Still looking disappointed, the Princess agreed. Eugene gave her a hug with his free arm before taking her sack of gifts from her. Jason and Jessica exchanged looks. It was obvious that Rapunzel didn't like being excluded from anything like this. Jessica nodded slightly and handed over her bundle of gifts to Sister Marion. She then went to join her mistress to wait in the cart. Jason turned to follow the nun into St Augustine's and Eugene followed.

Jason looked back at the older man. "She's not happy about this." He said under his breath to Eugene.

"I know." He sighed then grimaced. "Though I think it's less to do with being told she can't come and more to do with being told it's for her own good."

"I am dreadfully sorry about that, Mr. Fitzherbert." Sister Marion put in over her shoulder as they reached the main hall of the orphanage. The large room nearly echoed with the noises of overly rowdy children playing. The young nun gave an exasperated cry. "I cannot believe this! Everyone, please settle down. You are all supposed to be playing quietly. I'm gone for five minutes and come back to a war-zone!"

None of the children were paying attention; that is until Eugene gave a loud whistle that cut through the noise. "I do believe the Sister was talking to all of you." He said a little sternly. Several of the kids looked sheepish and mumbled apologies.

Sister Marion gave Eugene a grateful look and called on the four oldest to come and take the extra supplies and sacks of gifts that had been brought. "Make sure everything is put away properly and no peaking at those gifts." She reminded them as they left.

"Been giving you a bit of trouble lately?" Eugene asked as the rest of the orphans resumed their games, though this time at a much quieter volume.

The Sister nodded. "Whether it's being cooped up because of the cold or being so close to Christmas, something has put the ginger in them. And with Sister Ester sick and Sister Agatha looking after her and the sick children…" she trailed off with a sigh.

"Leaves you to look after the rest." Jason finished the statement for her.

For a moment, Eugene looked thoughtful. "Say, Sister. What do you say to us taking them off your hands for a while? Get them out of your hair for a while and burn off some of that extra energy." That caught the attention of some of the nearer children and they stopped their games to listen in, whispering in excitement.

"But I would hate to ask such a favour, Mr. Fitzherbert. You do so much for us and it's not your responsibility to look after the children."

"It's no problem at all, Sister." Jason said before Eugene could say anything. He knew Eugene wouldn't offer unless he wanted to. "I would even guess that the Princess would offer the same as well."

Eugene nodded. "Yup. She was looking forward to seeing them again."

The whispers of the orphans grew louder and many of them were giving the nun pleading looks too. Sister Marion looked around the hall at everyone and then took a deep breath. "Oh all right." she gave in, resulting in shouts of enthusiasm, "Go on then. Everyone go get your coats, mitts and boots on." That announcement led to a flurry of children rushing off to do so. She turned to Eugene and Jason. "Though Tris and Mae will have to stay behind. They are on Helper detail today."

"No problem. We'll bring the rest back about dinner-time, how's that?" Eugene told the nun as they started back to the front door.

"That should be fine. Bless you." She gave them a weary smile.

Jessica, Maximus, and the Princess looked up as Jason and Eugene came out, soon followed by a stream of children bundled up in a hodgepodge of different coloured winter clothes. Both girls were sitting on the back of the cart and moved to jump down as the others came around to join them.

"Eugene?" Rapunzel asked.

"Cheer up, Blondie." Eugene grinned as he started slinging the smaller children into the cart. "We're going on an adventure."

"He volunteered us to look after the orphans for the afternoon." Jason added.

The addition of seven more people, though most were small children, made the cart a little crowded, but there wasn't a peep of complaint. There was a great deal of excited chatter as the Princess asked about the things that they had been doing since her last visit. Jason and Eugene climbed back up onto the driver's bench of the cart and, at Eugene's direction, Jason guided the mules towards the city gates and across the bridge.

"Where are we going?" Jessica asked, sitting up on her knees behind the bench so she could speak more easily to them.

Jason shrugged. "Beats me. I'm just going where he's telling me to."

Eugene chuckled. "What better way to burn off the energy of over excited kids than some fun in the snow. There isn't anywhere in Sunhame big enough and with enough clean snow, so…" he waved an arm expansively at the snowy forest they were just entering. "There's a decent clearing just up ahead." And indeed there was. A very large one at that. Eugene had Jason pull the cart just off the road at the edge of it. Jason set about unhitching the mules and tethering them to the side of the cart as everyone piled out of the cart. Eugene set his hands on hips and looked around at all of them. "Listen up. This is what's going to happen. You all," he pointed a finger around at the group, "are going to build the biggest snow fort that you can and as many snowballs as possible."

"Just one fort, Mr. Eugene?" asked one of the younger girls.

"Yup. You'll need to work together. After all, these woods are filled with ruffians, thugs, and vicious bunny rabbits." He grinned as Princess Rapunzel rolled her eyes at that last bit.

"I'll get you for that." Jason heard her mutter under her breath. Somehow, he did not doubt she would make good on that threat.

As the rest spread out to start building the snow fort, Eugene went to Maximus. After a moment of staring at each other, almost in a battle of wills, the horse allowed the former thief to climb up onto his bareback. The pair was almost out of sight when the Princess called out, "Eugene, where are you going?"

Eugene merely glanced over his shoulder and called back, "You'll see."

She made an exasperated noise and shook her head. Turning to the rest of the group, the Princess quickly got everyone organized. Soon, Jason and the older boys (Mark, Johnny, and Gavin) were put to work rolling large snowballs to create the walls of the fort, while the Princess, Jessica, and the younger four (Holly, Diz, Matty, and Sara) made a huge stockpile of smaller snowballs for ammunition. She did insist that the snowballs be only loosely packed, however. She didn't want to worry about anyone getting hurt.

Just as the fort was finished, Jason looked at his sister. "How much you want to bet that the thugs spring the attack on us any moment now."

"Why on earth would I need to make that bet?" she asked.

"Because…" Jason drew out the word for emphasis, "he wouldn't have mentioned them if it wasn't part of the plan that they would do it."

Jessica opened her mouth to scoff at the idea when that's exactly what happened.

Eugene came charging out from under the trees followed by several of his and the Princess's friends from the Snuggly Duckling. "Charge, my fellows!" He shouted as jumped to the top of a drift, "Onward for victory, for glory, for…"

WHACK.

The rousing battle cry was cut off abruptly as a snowball smacked Eugene right in the face mid word. He fell over sideways in dramatic fashion to lay spread eagle in the snow. The thugs paused in their charge at the 'demise' of their 'fearless leader'. Princess Rapunzel stood on top of the snow-fort wall, tossing another snowball in one hand.

"Nice try, but you are no match for my defenders!" She turned to the rest, "Come. We must protect our home from this band of marauding ruffians!" And with that, the battle was on.

It was quickly apparent that the snowball fight was rather one-sided. The thugs, obviously not wanting to hurt any of the children nor the Princess, were at a distinct disadvantage. In fact the only one willing to aim for Rapunzel was Eugene and even he wasn't throwing them that hard. The orphans had no such problems and took great glee in firing off as many snowballs as possible as hard as possible, though a good number went wide of their targets. None of the ones that did hit caused much hurt since the Princess had insisted on the loose snowball rule. Rapunzel, on the other hand, was startling accurate with her throws. In a lull, when one of the girls asked, Rapunzel admitted that she used to play darts a lot and all that practice was good for something.

Part way through, about four of the thugs decided to switch sides and began attacking their fellows. At first this defection nearly caused a routing of the others. Then all of a sudden Jessica, along with Johnny, Gavin, Matty, and Diz, did the same and the battle became a free-for-all. The snowballs flew thick and fierce in every direction.

It continued on for what seemed like forever until Maximus appeared along with the thug called Attila. The man was carrying a great steaming cauldron and the horse had a pair of rough sacks thrown over his back. "Who wants hot coca and muffins?" the thug bellowed, his voice echoing from the horned helmet he wore.

Every single person involved in the epic snow battle froze. All eyes focused on Attila. In a way, Jason thought the man was very brave to make that sort of an announcement in front of nearly two dozen potentially hungry people (with about a third of them being kids).

After the snack break, there were more games and activities. To one side, Gunther and Thor were debating aesthetics while building snow sculptures along with Vladimir, Holly, Sara, Diz, and Jessica. Gavin, Matty, and Rapunzel were racing on improvised sleds made out of shields being pulled by three more thugs. Jason, Eugene, Mark, and Johnny were facing off against Attila, Hookhand, Bignose, and Fang in a modified version of stickball using a piece of armor from one of the thugs as the 'ball'. Maximus just stayed out of all of it, preferring to keep warm with the mules.

Finally, as all good things must, the afternoon came to an end. The sunlight turned from white to gold to orange, signally that it was time to get back to the city. One or two of the youngest orphans made half-hearted protests about leaving. The thugs helped get everyone into the cart as Mark and Johnny helped Jason hitch the mules. It wasn't long before they were back on the road and headed for the city.

"Come on Eugene. Sing with us." The Princess pleaded. She and the children had been singing a few carols. The four youngest added their voices to the pleas when it looked like he was going to protest.

"You might as well give in, sir." Jason put in, speaking low so that only Eugene would hear him. "She isn't going to give up."

Eugene gave a huge, and completely faked, sigh of exasperation. "All right, all right. One song! And you all better be ready to join in." He sat up on the bench and cleared his throat before launching into a very familiar song. "Dashing through the snow/ In a one-horse open sleigh/ O'er the hills we go/ Laughing all the way/ Bells on bobtail ring/ Making spirits bright/ Oh what sport to ride and sing/ A sleighing song tonight."

Right on cue the rest sang the chorus in amongst giggles. "Jingle bells, jingle bells/ Jingle all the way!/ O what joy it is to ride/ In a one-horse open sleigh."

"A day or two ago," Jason took up the second verse. He snapped the reins of the mules to encourage them to go faster. "I thought I'd take a ride/ And soon Miss Fannie Bright/ Was seated by my side/ The horse was lean and lank/ Misfortune seemed his lot/ He got into a drifted bank/ And we – we got upsot!"

There was more laughter as the second round of the chorus was sung. Then Jessica stood up, held onto the back of the driver's bench to keep her balance, and went right into the third verse. "A day or two ago/ The story I must tell/ I went out on the snow/ and on my back I fell/ A gent was riding by/ In a one-horse open sleigh/ He laughed as there I sprawling lie/ But quickly drove away."

"Now the ground it white/ So go it while you're young," Princess Rapunzel sang after the third chorus. "Take the girls tonight/ And sing this sleighing song/ Get a bobtailed bay/ Two forty is his speed/ Hitch him to an open sleigh/ And crack!" she made the motion of cracking a whip. "You'll take the lead!"

"Jingle bells, jingle bells/ Jingle all the way!/ O what joy it is to ride/ In a one-horse open sleigh/ Jingle bells, jingle bells/ Jingle all the way!/ O what joy it is to ride/ In A One-Horse Open Sleigh!" The small group sang together.

It was during that final round of the chorus that they rounded a bend in the road just before the bridge to the city. Maximus had trotted on ahead of the cart, but now had come to a complete stop in the middle of the road. The white horse had his head up and was sniffing the air. Jason exchanged glances with Eugene as he brought the cart up along-side the stallion.

"Max? What is it?" Eugene asked, looking first at Maximus and then across the water at the city. Jason shaded his eyes with one hand to try to see what had caught the horse's attention. There didn't seem anything unusual at first. Just the darkening sky with columns of smoke from cooking and heating fires rising above the roofs.

Then Jason noticed that one of the columns was thicker and darker than all the rest. "Lots of smoke. Do you think there's a fire, maybe?" he suggested uneasily. The mules shifted in place. Fire in the city would be a very bad thing, what with most of the buildings being of wood and, in some parts, build very closely together.

Rapunzel sat up on her knees behind the bench. "That looks like it might be awfully close to St. Augustine's." Jason thought she might be right about that. The smoke was coming from right around the same neighbourhood as the orphanage. So close in fact that…

"Shit! Shit!" Eugene suddenly swore. He threw himself off the cart and onto Maximus' bare back. "Go! Go, Max!"

Maximus did not hesitate. He broke into a gallop that was probably similar to the one he used that fateful day when Flynn Rider broke out of prison to rescue a Princess from her Tower. And Jason knew why.

St Augustine's Home for Orphaned Children was on fire.