Chapter Text
Jon Snow loved his job. He really did. But there were aspects of being the head principal of Chelsea Elementary that he found more tedious than others and staff meetings ranked up there in the top five. However, this was nearly the end of his second year being in charge around here and he even managed to contain his sigh of relief when he reached the bottom of his agenda.
“Alright. Anything else we need to cover?”
For a second, he was met with polite smiles and blank faces and he was ready to send everyone home for the day until Ami Frey, the head music teacher, tentatively raised her hand. “I had a suggestion actually.”
He smiled encouragingly. He didn’t mind his staff having suggestions or if they wanted to talk through something in the slightest. He infinitely preferred that to listening to himself droning on about policies and procedures or district school board changes and such. He was pretty sure they all felt the same.
“I thought we could possibly do something different for the end of year 5th grade party.”
That had his attention naturally. He cared about all the students here but his daughters were 5th graders and this was their last year at Chelsea. Lyarra had gone here since kindergarten, back when Jon was a newly appointed assistant principal under Brienne. Mina, who was his step-daughter (but every bit his child in his heart) had started at Chelsea her 3rd grade year after she and Sansa had moved in with him and Lyarra.
It was May already. Mina had turned eleven last month and soon Lyarra would be doing the same. They’d already started their end of school countdown on the family activity calendar hanging on the fridge. He didn’t mind that considering he liked the time off as well but this was more than the end of another school year for the girls. It would be the end of their elementary school years.
And for him personally, it’d be the end of them riding to the same destination with him every morning, the end of him being able to walk down the hall to the cafeteria and see them during lunch and the end of them seeking him out in the office whether they’d forgot a homework assignment or had something a little more serious troubling them.
This whole school year had seemed to whiz past him in a blur. He almost felt like he’d been grasping at dandelion fuzz trying to hold on to it since August. No, he wasn’t as sentimental in general as his wife but he had his moments.
“Something other than the pizza party and animated movies in the gym on the last full day, you mean?”
“Yes. I was thinking what if we did a dance instead?”
“A dance?” His tone might’ve been a little dubious. Okay, it was a lot dubious.
“Yes! It’d be something active for them to participate in besides sitting and watching movies.”
“Active is good but…”
Think! Think of a reasonable excuse why this isn’t a good idea!
Why? I mean, it’s not a horrible idea.
He couldn’t say why the idea immediately had him scrambling for an excuse to say no. “It seems like it’d be a lot of work to organize a dance in what? Three weeks?” Oh, no one likes deadlines and extra work. Nice one there, Brain!
“Not really,” Sylva Santagar said. “We’ve already got the location. The kids could help make decorations maybe. It’s really just a matter of music and refreshments…”
Sylva, you’re my assistant principal, he wanted to whine. You’re supposed to back me up!
“We wouldn’t mind helping the kids with decorations during art,” Miss Waynwood said.
Jon’s mouth was opening and closing. He probably resembled a fish. Dance decorations were neither here nor there to him. And he could already tell the way this was going.
But then, someone else spoke up.
“I like the idea, Ami, but I think you guys are forgetting the bottom line: money. You’ve got to pay a DJ. That’s probably more than the cost of those pizzas we get from Uncle Mario’s down the street. And the kids will definitely want refreshments. It’s late in the school year to be asking parents to donate more stuff for school parties and such,” Wylla Manderly said.
Jon was nodding his head along with Wylla. He loved all this rational talk of money from the green-haired 3rd grade teacher.
“But that’s the thing,” Ami said. “We’ve got our location as Sylva said and my boyfriend has done some DJing. He’s got a great set that even has cool lighting effects and I know he’d do it for free. And as for refreshments, Beth says the PTSA ladies liked the idea and said there were some funds available from the bake sale we could use.”
“Wait…Beth said?”
“Uh huh. I told her my idea. Tell him, Beth.”
“Well, I asked Mrs. Caron and Mrs. Crane for Ami, Mr. Snow, and they said there’d be, uh…plenty of…”
She’d stopped talking because he was glaring at her, glaring at poor Beth Cassel, one of the sweetest young women one could ever hope to meet. She was no longer the meek little mouse she’d been when she’d started at Chelsea but she caught his glare and started to shrink before him. He quickly pasted on a smile. The last thing he wanted to do was the scare the hell out of his staff acting like some fire-breathing dragon just because he was internally freaking out over this.
Ami seemed equally oblivious to his freak out and Beth’s fear and took it from there. “So, yeah, there should be some funds for refreshments and other things. The kids could dress up and we’d select some Kidz Bop tunes and…”
He glanced at Randa’s notepad since she was sitting next to him as he tried to rally again. And instead of her customary staff meeting doodles his eyes saw a mock-up of a flyer for the dance that hadn’t even been agreed upon yet! Did everyone else here know about Ami’s idea before him?!
“But a dance? For 10-year-olds?” he tried again, figuring he might as well make one more attempt.
It didn’t matter though because everyone else present seemed quite fond of the idea and soon a cacophony of voices were excitedly drowning out his concerns.
Talk of hiring a photographer was heard, followed by a suggestion of borrowing the middle school’s disco ball. Ami said she could teach a few simple dance moves in the final music classes of the year. Sylva Santagar even said she had a cousin who had an Italian Ice stand they could use. Italian Ice might be okay. But the rest?
“I’m still getting occasional complaints about us letting the 5th graders sing that Green Day song two years ago when Brienne left,” he mumbled.
Nothing. Nada. All the rest of the faculty was gung-ho for Amy’s idea except for Mrs. Dustin. Great, I’ve got Barbrey on my side. I’m officially a fuddy-duddy.
He grew quiet listening to the others plot and plan and kept thinking of Lyarra and Mina…at a dance.
Was he aware that his girls were getting older, old enough to probably think Ami’s idea was awesome? Yes, he was.
Did he like it very much? No, he didn’t.
Ami turned back his way as the discussion died down and all eyes were on him. “So, what do you think, Jon?”
“It’s, uh…let’s give it a whirl, I guess,” he answered feebly.
“Remember when the days were long
and rolled beneath the deep blue sky?
Didn’t have a care in the world
With Mommy and Daddy standing by
When happily ever after fails
And we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales…”
“Could you turn that off?” Jon asked as he carried the load of clothes from the dryer into their bedroom.
Sansa looked at him funny before clicking off the music she’d been listening to. “I thought you liked Don Henley.”
He dumped the clothes on the bed so they could start folding and looking for missing socks. The girls had a match tomorrow morning and always seemed to be in desperate need of clean socks at the 11th hour. “I love Don Henley but he’s not helping my midlife crisis any at the moment.”
“You’re 32, Jon.”
“I’ll be 33 in a few months.”
“And unless we’ve gone back in time a couple of centuries without my knowledge, it’s still hardly midlife crisis time.”
“A dance, Sansa…for the girls.”
“This isn’t a big deal. Mina’s old elementary school would do a 5th grade party and there was music and dancing, I believe.”
“But our girls at a dance and dancing…with boys maybe.”
“You’re going to go grey during the teen years, huh?” He gave her a pitiful look and she laughed. “It will be fine. They’re still just kids, honey. You’ll have chaperones and such anyway, right?”
“Right.”
“Can I be a chaperone?” she asked, her fingers dancing up his arm as they continued folding.
“Sure, you can. I’ll tell Ami to put you on her list.”
“And will you be my date?”
“You’re always my date, love, and I figured you wouldn’t want to miss this.”
“You know, as I recall from school days, the chaperones occasionally danced together at these things.”
“I didn’t go to many dances,” he shrugged, doing his best not to crack a smile at her pout. He failed.
She leaned into him and batted her eyes flirtatiously. “Will you dance with me, Mr. Snow?”
“I don’t know. I’ll be terribly busy making sure no one spikes the punch or pulls the fire alarm.” She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ll dance with you. I’ll dance with you now in another way if you’ll allow.”
And to prove it, he cast aside the socks in his hands and pinned his wife to the mattress, earning a yelp and then a soft moan when he kissed her.
“DAD!! MOM!! David’s stinky!!” Lyarra hollered down the hallway.
“Shit,” he muttered, his forehead sinking onto Sansa’s heaving chest.
“Probably,” she snickered.
“No, David, no!” Mina shouted. “He’s trying to take his clothes off!”
Nineteen months old and obviously a prodigy of some sort, David Rickon Snow had discovered that he liked undressing himself. It had started with shoes. He preferred being barefoot and his shoes and socks were often tugged off at the most inconvenient times like at the grocery store…or in the backseat if the window was rolled down. There’d been a few U-turns made to retrieve his Stride Rites.
And when his shirts or pants were relatively simple to remove (and who’d want to dress a toddler in something complicated with lots of buttons and ties?), he was becoming a regular little Houdini at getting out of them.
Add to that disposable diapers with Velcro tabs, and you could have a naked boy in seconds flat. Jon almost envied him. But with a dirty diaper? Yikes.
He rose to his feet and helped his wife back up before trudging off to take care of one of the more thankless tasks of parenthood.
A few minutes later, he was reaching for a final wipe out of the container and came up empty. “It’s straight to the bath for you anyway,” he told David. “Girls? Can one of you grab another tub of wipes from the storage pantry for me…please?!”
“Baff?” David asked.
“Yes, bath.”
“Baff.”
“Yes, you’re going to take your bath.”
“NO!”
“Well, you’ve certainly got that one down.” He looked up to see the requested wipes being handed to him. “Thank you, Mina. Would you mind starting his bath for me, sweetheart?”
“Sure thing. Not too hot.”
“That’s right.”
After disposing of the diaper, sanitizing his hands and lifting the wriggly toddler, he kissed the top of his son’s head, enjoying the tickle of his soft, dark curls against his lips. “David, I think it’s about time we had a man-to-man talk about potty training.”
“Poddy?”
“Yes, potty. Maybe you can use the potty like a big boy soon.”
“NO!”
Once David was splashing in the tub, Jon had figured Mina would leave them to it but she remained. She did enjoy helping with her brother as long as stinky diapers weren’t involved. Both the girls were very attentive and sweet with him.
However, it would appear that she had something else on her mind tonight as David was getting washed.
“Hey, Dad?”
Was he still pleased as punch every time she called him Dad? Yeah. Was he always going to be like putty in her hands when she did? Maybe.
‘Dad, can I have a BMW for my 16th birthday?’
‘Sure thing, sweetheart. I’ll go rob a bank while you pick out the color you like.’
Christ, he needed to work on his Tough Guy routine some.
“Yeah, sweetheart?” he asked, rinsing his soapy son.
“What were you and Mommy talking about earlier?”
“Earlier?”
“Uh huh. Something about a dance?”
Her voice was soft as a kiss and her bright blue eyes brought summer skies to mind. In the face of such wistful innocence, he felt helpless, but relieved by it in a way, and forever amazed at how easily his children could steal his breath away.
Mina would absolutely love the notion of the dance, he was sure.
He might have his reservations, largely linked to his tenacious desire to keep them little kids as long as possible in this case, but he would readily acknowledge that he could be a pushover when it came to Sansa and the kids.
“Yeah, a dance for the 5th graders. Would you enjoy that, sweetheart?”
Mina had felt rather important having top secret news to share at recess on Monday. She’d called them all over to discuss it. Alright, maybe it wasn’t really top secret but the announcement wasn’t going home until later this week. Jon hadn’t said she couldn’t tell, had he? There were perks to being friends with the principal’s daughter, right?
Apparently, Lyarra hadn’t thought so. She’d shrugged and said she was going to kick her ball around with some of the other kids instead when Mina had told her about the planned announcement. “Like a press conference!” They’d been discussing such things in social studies this week.
It had been decided that the dance would occur at the end of the school day and a permission slip would be required. There’d be an alternate plan for kids whose parents didn’t want them to attend…board games and ‘Magic School Bus’ videos in Mrs. Dustin’s room. Mina shuddered at the very idea.
There’d be music and refreshments at the dance, Jon had said. Mina was already trying to decide what to wear. Maybe Mommy would be willing to help her find something special for this occasion. They were graduating from Chelsea in a sense, weren’t they? This was probably like prom or something.
And everyone knows that proms have a queen and a king.
She looked at Parker and smiled really big. He smiled back but looked kind of puzzled, too.
“A dance?! Why are they ruining our party that way?!” Rashad asked, looking very unhappy once she’d spilled the beans.
Parker and Luis were wearing the same disappointed looks.
“Are they going to serve pizza at least?”
“Yeah! My parents never get Uncle Mario’s pizza. I’ve heard it’s good.”
Jon hadn’t mentioned pizza among the refreshments. “I think the dance idea sounds wonderful,” Mina sniffed, ignoring the question of Uncle Mario and his pizzeria.
Abby and Sarah nodded in agreement. They seemed to like the dance idea. She’d thought Parker might at least like the idea a little bit. He’d given her a very sweet Valentine a couple of years ago and he was her friend…and he was cute. He’d make a good prom-type king, wouldn’t he?
That’s silly, Mina. Proms are for teenagers. You’re just 11 and Jon said it was more like a fun party for the 5th grade. Stop making it more.
Still, she wanted Parker to be excited about this. Boys could be weird about things like dances, she remembered. She’d heard Jon saying things about not liking dancing in the past. What was something that could make this more exciting for a boy?
“My step-dad said the dance might have its very own Italian Ice stand there.”
“Really?!” That had Rashad’s attention anyway.
“Would we have to pay for the Italian Ice?” Sarah asked.
Mina frowned. She wasn’t sure. She also didn’t like not having all the answers. “Of course not. It’s our 5th grade dance party. I’m sure the Italian Ice will be…” What was that grown-up term? “…on the house. You know, free…as much as you want.”
There were pleased looked all around now and Mina grinned. This was going to be amazing.