Work Text:
The morning had a strange stillness, the kind that comes with a heavy snowfall. The storm had started overnight. New York, along with many parts of the US, was anticipating two feet of snow. The storm had barely begun, and their neighborhood streets were already hidden under a blanket of fluffy white snow, and their long driveway resembled a ski slope.
Thankfully, it was a Sunday, and for Donna and Harvey that meant sleeping in—hopefully. They’d spent the first part of their weekend prepping to be snowed-in with their two small kids and two dogs. Donna ran to the grocery store while Harvey made sure there was gas for the generator, god forbid they would need to use it if they lost power, and called the plow company that he hires every winter to make sure their house and Donna’s parents' house were on the schedule.
Donna stirs in bed, stretching her body to try to wake herself up. She cuddles into her husband, pressing her forehead on his chest, breathing him in. Harvey feels her presence against him and wraps an arm around her, pulling her closer, kissing the top of her mussed red curls.
“Mornin’,” he hummed into her hair. “Ready for our snow day?”
Donna nodded her head against his chest, her eyes still closed. “Do you mean am I ready for our,” she murmurs as she adjusts her body against her husband to get comfortable again. “very excited kids to demand to play in the snow as soon as their little eyes open?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” he says with a chuckle as he brushes his hand through her curls, enjoying the quiet while they can.
Donna rolls out of Harvey’s embrace and sits up against the headboard, reaching for her glasses on her nightstand. “I’m honestly surprised they aren’t up yet—especially Jude.” She picks up her phone from her nightstand to look at the time. “It's already past 8.”
Harvey gets out of bed and walks over to the large windows that overlook the front of their home. “Holy shit—,” he mumbles as he opens the curtains and sees the blanket of snow that has overtaken their neighborhood. “It’s like Antarctica out there.”
Donna places her feet on the cool hardwood floor, her eyes wide as the light shines from the outside into their bedroom. She walks slowly towards Harvey, taking in the winter wonderland. “How much snow do you think is out there?” she asks, looping her arms through Harvey’s and resting her head on his shoulder.
Harvey takes a deep breath as he looks at the snow-covered front yard and driveway. “Oh—I don’t know—half a foot maybe.”
“And it only just started,” Donna says, sneaking a kiss on his lips.
Just then, the sounds of thudding little feet, sweet little giggles, and the jingles from the dogs’ tags as they ran filled the hallway outside their master bedroom.
As Donna and Harvey turn their heads towards the bedroom door, the door flies open. First, their two golden retrievers, Duke and Genivieve, run into the bedroom. They leap onto the bed, expecting Donna and Harvey to be there. When they notice they aren’t, they jump off and run towards them.
Then Jude and Sloane run into the bedroom, giggling. Jude, in his Valentine’s themed dinosaur pajamas, his blond waves tousled and frizzed. Behind him is Sloane, also in her Valentine’s Day pajamas, but hers are Pooh and his friends, her Pooh under her arm as she moves her arms back and forth as she runs, her strawberry blonde curls that are never really tamed, frizzed out bounce as she runs.
“It’s snowing!” Jude says as he leaps onto the California king-sized bed.
Sloane stomps across the room towards Donna and Harvey as if she were a drum majorette in a parade. Her arms move up and down in the air with Pooh clutched in one of her fists. “Snow. Snow. Snow,” she sang in a sing-song tune.
Jude knelt on the mattress, his hands on his thighs, his hazel eyes glistening from the light coming through the bedroom windows shining against them. “Can we go outside now—please!”
Donna gave Harvey a knowing look, telling him I told you so, then she looked over at their son. “After we eat breakfast. I thought you wanted to make cookies with me?” she says as she walks towards him, then brushes a hand to push his blond waves out of his face.
“Okay, outside after cookies,” Jude tells his mama matter-of-factly.
Harvey scoops up Sloane, who finally stopped marching, her hands up in the air towards her daddy, telling him to pick her up and rest her on his hip. She grabs his face with both her hands and presses her forehand against his. “Mornin’ Daddy,” she says softly, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I wuv you.”
Harvey kisses his baby girl on the cheek. “I love you, too, Sloanie. Ready for breakfast?”
Sloane nods her head vigorously. “I want dippy egg,” she demands, furrowing her brow.
Harvey kisses her temple, “Your wish is my command.”
The four Specters, along with Duke and Geneivieve, head downstairs to the kitchen and living room to have breakfast.
Harvey cooked breakfast, eggs over easy or dippy eggs as their kids called them, toast, and hashbrowns, while Donna let the dogs out and fed them and made coffee, and Sloane and Jude hung out in the living room waiting for their breakfast.
As they eat breakfast, the snow continues to fall heavily, showing no sign of letting up. Jude tells Donna and Harvey how he’s building the biggest snowman that New York has ever seen. Sloane clamors on about how she is Elsa, that’s why it's snowing.
Harvey cleans up breakfast while Donna takes Jude and Sloane upstairs to change them out of their pajamas and into their cozy sweatpants and sweatshirts. She also changes out of her pajamas and into her black leggings and oversized sweatshirt.
Once changed, they head back downstairs into the kitchen to start making their chocolate chip cookies. When they get to the kitchen, Harvey is already setting out some of the ingredients on the counter: containers of flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, a small box of baking soda, a container of salt, butter, eggs, vanilla, and, of course, a bag of Nestlé semi-sweet chocolate morsels.
“Cook-iieeeesss,” Sloane shrieks as she skips into the kitchen, Pooh hugged against her chest.
Harvey laughs, “Not quite, my love. You have to make them first.”
Donna and Harvey help the kids wash their hands before they start baking. Sloane and Jude are each on a helper stool, one on each side of Donna, at the island, ready to bake. Harvey let the dogs out again as the baking started. He heard the plow truck coming up their driveway, making its first sweep of the day.
He let the dogs back inside, and they shook the snow off their golden fur, which made puddles of water on the kitchen floor. Harvey grimaces at the wet dogs and the wet floor, then looks over at Donna at the island with the kids, helping Jude measure out flour.
“I guess we should keep some towels nearby when letting the dogs out. There has to be close to a foot out there now,’ he says as he cleans up the puddles of water off the floor and dries off the dogs.
While Donna bakes cookies with Sloane and Jude, Harvey decides to get some work done in his office. Donna spends the next hour baking with the kids. Sloane cracks an egg, which cracks all over her and the island. Both Sloane and Jude eat more raw cookie dough than Donna would’ve liked.
When Donna moves the last cookie from the baking sheet to the cooling rack, Harvey walks into the kitchen from his office. He reaches the table where Donna has the cooling racks filled with the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. He swaps one from a rack and takes a huge bite.
“God, that’s an amazing chocolate chip cookie,” he mumbles with a mouthful of cookie.
Donna chuckles, then smiles, she doesn’t look up as she cleans Sloane’s face and hands. Jude is already clean and off his stool, jogging towards Harvey. He takes a cookie off a cooling rack, just as his daddy did, and takes a bite.
“Hmmmm,” Jude hums. “They are really good, Mama,” he says as he looks over his shoulder at his mama.
Sloane is now off her stool and toddles over to the table filled with their chocolate chip cookies. “Me want a cookie, Daddy! Pweaseeeeee!” she begs as she bounces on the balls of her feet, her hands clutch the edge of the table as she looks up at all the cookies.
Harvey hands her a cookie, “Here you go, peanut.”
Sloane grabs it quickly from Harvey’s hand and puts the majority of the cookie in her mouth, crumbs everywhere; the corners of her mouth, chin, her shirt, and the floor.
“Sloane—,” Harvey mutters, semi-panicked that she is about to choke.
She swallows the mouthful of cookie and plops the tiny piece that couldn’t fit and swallows again. She smiles. “So good!”
Harvey is speechless, his eyes wide. Donna is standing at the island, frozen with her eyes wide at their daughter. Where did this child come from? she thought.
Sloane and Jude run off into their playroom, and Duke and Genevieve follow. Donna and Harvey clean the kitchen after baking the cookies and put the cooled cookies away in containers.
Soon after they finish cleaning the kitchen, Jude toddles into the kitchen. “Can we go outside and play in the snow now—please,” he begs, his mouth pouting.
Donna looks over at the Google Home on the counter to check the time; it's just after noon. She looks back at Jude. “It's close to lunchtime. Do you want to eat first or play outside first?”
Just as Donna finishes asking Jude what he wants to do, Sloane toddles in with Duke and Genevieve at her sides. “Outside, Mama!” she shouts.
Harvey looks at Donna, then at Sloane and Jude, “Outside it is then.”
Likely for the Specter kids, their family was a ski family, well, Donna and now they by default were a ski family, while Harvey stayed in the lodge, they had all the snow gear they needed. They all bundle up in their snow pants, ski coats, scarves, gloves, hats, and snow boots to head outside to their backyard.
The Specters step outside into the crisp winter air; the snow is still falling heavily, and the wind creates small drifts against the house. The snow was perfect for building a snow—soft but packable.
Jude and Sloane dash into the snow-covered yard, giggles and squeals echo in the air. They threw themselves into the snow and started to make a snow angel. Sloane yells, “I’m Elsa!” as she makes her snow angel.
Donna jogs over where they were making their snow angels and joins them. Harvey had grabbed one of the dogs’ tennis balls and threw it out into the over a foot of snow, Duke and Genvieve chase after it.
After the snow angels, Harvey shows Sloane and Jude how to make the perfect snowball.
He grabs a handful of snow and starts packing it together in his gloved hands, “See, you pack the snow nice and tight like this,” he says, showing them the perfectly shaped snowball. “See, perfect for me to do this,” he continues, throwing the snowball at Donna, hitting her on the side of the head.
She turns slowly towards him, her tongue in her cheek. “Oh—I see. That’s the game you want to play, Specter,” she says as she walks slowly towards him, grabs a handful of snow, and starts packing it together into a snowball.
Harvey smiles his Cheisure cat smile. He grabs another handful of snow and starts forming a snowball in his gloved hands. “Sloane, Jude, get your snowballs ready. Mama just declared a Specter snowball fight.”
Sloane and Jude form snowballs in their hands just as their daddy had shown them, and all four Specters are ready to start their snowball fight.
“Wait,” Donna yells. “We need teams. It can’t be me against you three.”
Harvey looks down at Sloane and Jude, then back to Donna. “Do you want to do boys versus girls?”
Donna smirks. “Sounds good to me. Come on, Sloane, let’s show these boys what we’re made of.”
Sloane giggles and runs towards Donna, her snowball still in her hand. “Let’s go!”
Donna throws her snowball, and it hits Harvey square in the face. “Let’s go, Specter!” she yells as she grabs Sloane’s hand and runs away from them. Sloane tries to throw her snowball at Jude as she runs next to her mama, but it falls right at her side.
Harvey wipes the snow that remains from his face, and Jude chuckles softly at his side. “Oh, it's on, Specter!” he yells to Donna as he watches her run away with Sloane. He grabs another handful of snow and starts to pack it together into a snowball. Jude follows suit, and the two Specter boys run after the Specter girls with their snowballs in hand.
Their giggles and screams rang across the yard as the four Specters pelted each other with snowballs. Sloane even managed to tackle Jude in the snow, and Harvey quickly intervened, telling her, “This is a snowball fight, not tackle football.”
After their snowball fight, they went back inside, chilled to the bone. They stripped out of their snow gear, abandoning it in a pile near the door. Donna suggested giving the kids a warm bath while Harvey made lunch: grilled cheese and chicken-flavored ramen noodle soup.
After baths, they are back in their cozies and have lunch. After lunch, Donna cleans the kitchen as Harvey decides to shower and change. Donna does the same after him.
Later, the snow continues to fall, but it begins to slow. Donna suggests they watch a movie and make hot chocolate. Harvey turns on their gas fireplace to light the fire while down starts making the hot chocolate. Each of the kids picks a movie: Sloane, Frozen, and Jude, Cars.
Sloane curls up next to Donna on the couch with her Pooh, her soft Anna and Elsa dolls, and rests her head on her mama’s shoulder. Jude sits next to Harvey with Tom, his tomato lovey, and his favorite blanket, the NYC-themed blanket he has had since he was a baby.
They sat on the couch with their mugs of hot chocolate and shared a plate of chocolate chip cookies that they baked earlier.
Sloane sang every word to every song as they watched Frozen. She sang Let It Go! the loudest. Jude even had to cover his ears.
Sloane fell asleep halfway through Cars, the corners of her mouth covered in chocolate, her Pooh cuddled against her chest. Jude mouthed all the lines to the movie.
“This was the best snow day,” Donna declares as she brushes her fingers through Sloane’s curls as she sleeps.
Harvey smiles, looking over at his sleeping daughter, then down at Jude, staring at the movie. “Yeah, it was. And we get another one tomorrow.”
Donna chuckles, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
As the snow continued to fall outside, the snowplow roared up and down their street. Donna and Harvey enjoy the quiet moments together inside, knowing these are the moments their kids will remember forever.