As requested, Rapunzel did not speak to Flynn for the rest of the afternoon. After a few minutes of waiting in awkward silence for him to come out of her bedroom, forgive her with a hug, or continue to be angry and shout some more, or tell her something condescending, she snuck in to see if he was still mad.

He was. So she dropped her gaze and plucked up some of her watch making supplies before scurrying back out to the kitchen table to work.

After a few minutes of shuffling and sighing, she turned silent again. He looked up to catch her peeking in at him, half hidden behind the door frame. She wanted to be near him regardless of his mood. That only irritated him more.

"Forgot my pliers," she whispered to Pascal, who had taken up permanent residence on her shoulder. She slipped in and dug through the mess. Then slipped out again to sit at the table and sigh.

He could hear the drum of her anxious fingers even from the bedroom, and he wondered if she was more upset about being trapped by the royal guard or about having angered him. In an attempt to not pay attention the her every sound, he flopped over on the bed and buried his face in the pillow. Maybe he could blot everything out if he held his breath until spots burst behind his eyelids.

Despite the fact that she now had her pliers, she soon gave up on continuing her work. She dug through the kitchen cabinets and told the chameleon in her most carrying voice, "We have enough food up here for... two weeks? Maybe two and a half. And then the emergency stores downstairs. How long do you think those will last? … No, I think longer than that... Mother said those were only for epic catastrophes, and I'm not sure if this is really epic, but it's still a bad situation and I'm sure she wouldn't be terribly mad if we had to eat some... Just a little mad... Hmm. Maybe I should save the rest of this oatmeal... Maybe if we can hold out long enough, mother will find a way into the tower. She's never been away for too long. She'll surely find a way to us. She's very persuasive. She'll shoo them away."

She raised her voice, making sure Flynn could hear it. "Maybe Flynn's friends he wanted to meet will come and help."

She waited for an answer that he was definitely not going to give her. After another painful silence, she continued.

"If we could get rid of the chameleons for a moment, we could send you outside, Pascal. Then you could go get help." Or drug all the guards and smash all the other chameleons so Flynn could get the hell out himself. Again, he kept his ideas to himself. "I don't know who you could get to help you, though. I could write a note to mother, but you would have to find her and then you wouldn't be a secret anymore. She might be angry with you... She'd definitely be angry with Flynn. Then with me."

This idea upset her into silence, as if facing her enraged mother would be far worse than slowly starving to death or having the guards capture, imprison, and murder her.

She shook herself and changed the subject. "Do you think they're still out there?" Her voice dropped to a whisper, then raised again when she remembered she was actually talking to Flynn. She scooted closer to the bedroom. "Do you think they can hear us? Maybe they know our plans."

But, of course, for them to know Rapunzel's plans, she would actually have to have some.

"Do you think they'll try to get in again?"

Flynn was certain they would.

"They could get in through the windows if they had a battering ram. Or if they lit it on fire. But we're so high up... That'd be too hard, right?"

It'd be hard. But not too hard.

"And I bet they could get through the roof if they bombed us. Do you think they could bomb us? Flynn said they liked bombing people they don't like."

He'd also told her that they no longer had airships.

"Could they knock the tower over? Maybe if they ran one of those steam carriages into it. Or if they got a big ball on a string like in that film." Rapunzel had been both fascinated and horrified by the wrecking ball film. She had shown it to Flynn as one of her favorites and then told him all about how awful it was that someone no longer had a home. And how far could they make the bricks fly? Far and fast enough to knock down the building next door? Could they knock over other things beside buildings?

"Maybe if they set up cables around the tower and then some wenches on the ground..." She shuffled around through her papers then scribbled something. "Like this. See? I bet we could calculate the tension."

That time she really was talking to Pascal.

They whispered for a while about things Flynn had no desire to understand, then fell into silence. Listening for the sounds of chameleon feet against the outside of the tower, the cranking grind of heavy machinery, or the sound of a full army coming to shove the tower over just with the strength in their arms. Flynn listened too, the silence all the more eerie in the darkness.

"I'm scared," she whispered. She meant it for Pascal again. She meant for Flynn not to hear. "I don't like it when he's mad."

The tremor in her voice made something jerk in his stomach, as though it was being yanked apart by a half dozen fish hooks.

Pointedly ignoring both her and his gut, he decided to take a nap.

He woke a few hours later, feeling groggy and irritable, his throat dry and his shoulders stiff. It took him a moment to realize that Rapunzel had crept in and snuggled up next to him, curled as small as she possibly could, pressed between his body and the wall with her face hidden against his shoulder, as if that could protect her from the intruders while she slept.

Was she really so lonely as to want to snuggle with him even when he was ticked at her? Even when he was cruel? What did that say about her and her life?

With that in mind, he could almost see why she would want to keep him there, why she would go so far as to sabotage his health. He could almost understand. Looking at the slight frown on her face, at the way her hair draped across her face, at the way her delicate hands held his sleeve, he was so close to forgiving her.

But he couldn't do it. It was too weird and too serious and too soon. He wanted to be angry, and it was completely unfair of her to manipulate him with the tragedy of her life and the tragedy of her pretty face.

Her eyes flickered open, and she stared blearily at him for a moment before remembering herself and jerking away.

"Sorry," she whispered, grabbing for the strand of brown hair and tucking it away so he couldn't see it. "Do you want some water? I- I mean – Pascal? Pascal, do you want water?" She looked around for the chameleon, her eyebrows drawing together as she realized what a silly question that was and how her transparent back-pedaling had failed her completely.

"How much water do we have left?" he asked, rubbing out the kinks in his shoulder.

She paused for a moment and narrowed her eyes, trying to decide if his talking to her was some sort of trick.

"Lots," she said, holding back her enthusiasm to have her conversation partner back with a hesitancy that maybe they were still on rocky ground and he might snap at her again at any second without warning. "We collect it when it rains. It runs down from the roof into a holding container."

He paused. "... So rain gets in from outside."

"Well, it's not like it rains inside. It just gets stored and- Oh! OH!" She leaned right into his face to make her question as quiet as possible, even as she started to gather her skirts and her hair to run to check the water stores. "Do you think they can get in that way? Ohnoohnoohno."

She scrambled over him, her feet slapping the floor as she hit the ground, her hands grabbing at her skirts to bunch them up to her knees, out of the way as she ran, her hair trailing behind her, dragging over Flynn. He cringed and pushed it away, shrugging to his feet and following the light from her oil lamp and the glittering trail of her hair.

She stood in a corner of the kitchen, next to a great, wooden barrel, spouting pipes like tree roots that sprawled along the floor and the walls to disappear into the dark as they retreated into other parts of the tower. She had her ear pressed to the barrel, listening for the metallic clinks she imagined a swimming chameleon would produce. She held a finger to her lips even though he'd made no move to make a sound, then moved her ear to the main pipe coming into the barrel from the ceiling. After an extended, painful pause, she checked a level to find it in the proper position and nodded to herself before pulling back.

"I don't hear anything," she whispered so softly that he had to lean close to hear her. "And the flu was closed – the one we have so the barrel doesn't overflow. But I don't know. Could they get in anyway? Eat through the flu?"

She looked up at him with wide, concerned eyes, as if he knew the answers to everything plumbing and chameleon related. Flynn looked to Pascal, who was, as usual, unhelpful. One of its eyes pointed at the floor, while the other inspected Rapunzel's piece of brown hair.

He shrugged, "Only one way to really know," he said, then leaned away from her, quietly taking the lid of the barrel on either side and giving her a look to express his intentions. Preparing herself, she picked up a pot in one hand and a carving knife in the other, bit her lip and nodded that she was ready.

One, he mouthed.

Two, her shoulders tensed.

Three.

And he yanked the lid away with a creaking pop of wood against wood, immediately shifting his grip to use the lid like a blunt instrument and smash anything that leapt from the barrel.

But there was nothing. Just the black surface of the water that sloshed slightly in the wake of Flynn's disturbance. Rapunzel continued to hold her weapons ready, holding her breath, assuming the intruders were attempting to lure them into a false sense of security and that they would rise, dripping and determined from the water at any moment.

The water settled, and her eyebrows furrowed in confusion as Flynn's muscles relaxed, his irritation returning. She eased forward cautiously and poked the surface of the water with her knife before squeaking and jumping back.

"I think it's safe," he said, plopping the lid back into place and crossing his arms over his chest.

She continued to stare at the barrel for a long moment, her eyes shifting up the pipe into the rafters, then out again across the plumbing along the floor.

"What?" he asked. "Disappointed we won't be poked and poisoned to death?"

She gasped as if she hadn't heard him, the sound so sharp and loud that he nearly jumped. Then she grabbed his hand and dragged him out into the main room.

"What on earth are you doing?"

"I have an idea. You have to help me."

"What idea? Why should I help you?"

She rolled her eyes as she kicked a decorative carpet out of the way to reveal a trap door, her hand never leaving Flynn's even as she jerked open the trap door and dragged him down into darkness.

The main body of the tower was hollow, a spiral staircase descending down to the ground. And on either side of the stairs were shelves crowded with boxes upon boxes and barrels upon barrels of provisions.

"Whoa. What is all this?"

"It's for emergencies."

"Like what? The apocalypse?" Was her mom expecting to be under siege?

"The outside world is full of terrible people, and we need to be as self sufficient as possible in case they turn on one another. Or so I can be safe if my mother ever gets murdered."

Or so they could hold out if anyone ever found out about her magic hair and decided to storm the tower.

"Here," she said, coming to a stop in front of a series of shelves full of jars of oil. "How much do you think we'll need? If we use it all we won't have any, but if it works we can open the windows again and we won't need it as much."

"Huh?"

She came to a decision without him and shoved three jars into his arms, knocking the wind from him.

"Take these upstairs and then we'll get more."

It wasn't worth it to argue with her, and after three trips they had half the oil upstairs, stacked in the kitchen and enough to fill the rain barrel if she should feel inclined to do so. Flynn wasn't going to take any guesses as to what she was inclined to do.

After messing about with a bunch of knobs and levers at the base of the barrel to disconnect it from the water system, she popped back onto her feet and ordered Flynn to help her move it out of the way. That was a pain, made even more so by the fact that he did most of the work. Or at least it felt that way.

As soon as the water was removed, she dashed off again, leaving Flynn to lean against the counter, catch his breath and wonder at the direction his life had taken.

A series of metallic clangs interspersed with grunts of exertion came from whatever part of the tower she was in. He thought about checking on her or at least calling out, but then he decided against it. He didn't care what weirdness she came up with.

At all.

She returned, broken goggles firmly in place over her eyes, spanner in her hand, awkwardly carrying a great length of pipe in her arms. He moved to assist her, only to have it deposited roughly into his arms so she could run off again and beat on something else. He stood for a second, eyes narrowed after her, before glaring at the heavy pipe, wondering if he should continue to hold it, and then dumping it on the floor with a CLUNK.

After a few minutes of clanking and whispering to Pascal and what could only be described as growling, Rapunzel burst into the kitchen once more, sweaty, grease smeared, and disheveled, holding a device nearly half her size. While helping her to lower it to the floor, Flynn discovered it was also nearly half her weight.

"What is this?"

"The pump for the bath tub."

"Sooo... what's it doing in the kitchen?"

She laughed a little, straining to unscrew the lid from one of the oil jars then pouring it into the cauldron that had held the morning oatmeal. "I'm redecorating?"

"Redecorating. Obviously. Why didn't I see that earlier?"

"Hold this," she said, pushing the half empty jar into his hands before grabbing a second jar and prying off the lid. They stood next to each other for a while, letting the viscous gloop ooze into the vat. It moved slower the less of it there was, mocking him and how long he had to stand there, coaxing oil out of one container and into another. The good news was that the jar got lighter as time went on, and he was able to shift his shoulders into something more comfortable.

Eventually, his jar ran out of oil, at which point Rapunzel peered inside, smiled, and told him to grab another.

After her third jar, her arms got too tired to continue, and she left the exciting job of oil pouring up to Flynn. She decided that her time could be better spent rearranging the mess of pipes, adding pieces into a patchwork of plumbing, directing the main tube from the roof down to the floor, where it turned, trailed just above the floor, and then attempted to attach to the pump. This proved difficult, as to connect with the pipes she had laid down, the pump would have to hover about two inches off the ground, and given its weight, that would prove impossible and then everything would break and be terrible forever.

Or so he guessed.

She disappeared again, returning with her arms full of books about electronics and clockwork and such, which she arranged like a complicated puzzle to lift the pump to the correct height. Flynn grabbed another jar, and Rapunzel ran off to cannibalize more pipe form the bathroom and include it in her monstrosity.

The pipes ran further along the floor, creeping towards Flynn a foot at a time. They curved up at the base of the cauldron, only to take another sharp turn and plunge into the oil. The fluid had grown so sticky and unwieldy that Flynn had to stop what he was doing to help her shove and drag the last piece of pipe into the right place, then hold it for her as she screwed it into place and let the sealant set.

She grinned, stepping back to admire her work with her hands planted proudly on her hips. Smears of grease and oil and glue covered her face and hands and skirts, and she looked so proud of herself that he almost felt bad for having no idea what she was doing.

Almost.

He picked up the last jar as she dropped to the floor next to the vat and lit the fire under it, letting it roar to life before popping back up to fiddle with the gas controls to make the fire hotter, larger, more intense.

Flynn almost immediately started to sweat. He scooted as far as he could from the heating cauldron and the slowly warming oil, while still standing close enough to pour in the last jar.

"Blondie, don't you think this is a bit... reckless?" She was going to burn his eyebrow off. He needed those. He turned the jar upside down in hopes that it would drain faster.

She grinned, and for a moment she looked disturbingly evil. "Yup!"

"... Just as long as we're clear."

She giggled, which was not the correct response, and hopped up onto her tiptoes to peer in at the oil and the bubbles that had started to form on the bottom.

"How hot do you think it needs to be?" she asked, leaning away as the heat coming from the vat caused her goggles to fog over and she had to scurry to wipe them on he cuff.

Seeing as he still had no clue what she was doing, he had no opinion - informed or otherwise - about how hot oil had to be. But then she wasn't really asking him anyway. She was talking to herself, or asking Pascal, who seemed to be able to read her mind (or at least it seemed that she thought it could and it had never contradicted her.)

The last jar wasn't completely empty, but he decided it was good enough for whatever she wanted and he set it down and stood back as a bubble rose to the top and burst in a splatter of boiling oil.

Soon the bubbles were rising faster, growing more furious, churning and boiling until the ever building heat fumes distorted the view of the bricks behind the stove. The oil seemed to glow from its depths, growing more transparent, less viscous, illuminating the bubbles even as they burst into tiny, splattering droplets in a drumming, unceasing rhythm.

He took another step backwards. "Uh, Blondie, I don't know how hot you want it, but this looks good enough."

Pascal shifted away from the molten oil as well, pressing closer to her neck, almost hiding in her hair. She seemed to take the chameleon's opinion more seriously than Flynn's, and pulled her glasses down again with a determined set to her jaw.

"I think I did everything right," she said, kneeling to make adjustments to the pump, turning up the pressure to ten times what it was for the bath tub.

"Fantastic," Flynn said, leaning back against the wall to give up on her telling him what she was doing. He didn't really care how she entertained herself or how much of her hair got burnt off in a bizarre cooking accident. If she really hurt herself, she could just sing a little song and everything would be fantastic again.

She continued to murmur, mostly to herself. "I mean, I don't think there's a leak, and even if there is, we probably won't be scalded with oil."

"Awesome."

"And I think the pump is strong enough."

"Yeah. Super strong. That's a great pump you've got there."

"You really think so?" she asked, turning to him for the first time. Despite her overly magnified eyes and the dim, shaky light from the lantern and the scalding oil of death, her face somehow still looked hopeful – hopeful with a hint of pride and excitement at being praised.

It made him pause enough to second guess his sarcasm.

"How on earth would I ever know that?"

She shrugged, pushing herself to her feet. "Should we go ahead and try?"

"Yeah. Go for it. Whatever it is. Looks exciting. Like it'll do great things for your skin."

She reached up to the lever that controlled the flu, biting her lip before throwing her weight against it with a clang. For a moment there was silence except the fading ring of the opened flu and the popping boil of the oil. And then the sounds of tiny, metal feet clicked and scrambled down the pipes, the sounds layering on each other, building and echoing with every new click of every new chameleon that ran towards them.

Rapunzel grinned, skipping across the room even as it filled with the claustrophobic ticking of oncoming chameleons.

She threw a switch on the pump, which groaned and coughed and spluttered into a roar, the dials flickering, a series of chugging bangs beating against the freshly laid pipes. With one cough, the oil in the vat spluttered and splashed, causing both Flynn and Rapunzel to jump away, one of her hands gripping at his sleeve.

The sound of the chameleons faded, covered by the all-consuming roar and sharp bursts of steam from the pump. Or perhaps the chameleons sensed the danger and had stopped their forward movement. Either way, they could not be heard-

Until the pump found its rhythm, sucked the oil up through the pipes with a gurgle, and the chameleons began to scream.

It was an otherworldly sound, like the squeal of metal and the agonized cries of ghosts. It wrapped around the kitchen like steam, melting and slipping in pitch as the machines clawed against the pipes in a desperate attempt to escape, their efforts fading as their delicate clockwork melted from the inside.

Pascal bristled and ticked, pressing further into Rapunzel's hair, while Rapunzel hopped up and down beaming and chanting under the clamor, It worked, it worked, it worked.

Flynn stood and stared stupidly at the pipes as the boiling oil washed out the chameleon army, surged up to the roof to overflow the gutters and poured down the sides of the tower, cooling and congealing on its way down to cover the stones with a waxy residue, cementing the last of the chameleons where they stood, like confused gargoyles preserved in wax.