Disclaimer: I own neither Doctor Doppler, nor Captain Amelia. They belong to Disney.

Note: Amelia is called by the first name "Katherine" in this story, so don't let that throw you.

~~~~~~~

"Are you *sure* you don't want a scarf, Katherine? I brought plenty!"

"For the... seventh time, I'll be perfectly alright without one!" ...then as an afterthought: "What, precisely, do you mean by 'plenty'?" ...then muttered to herself: "Just how many scarves does one need for a three-day holiday in the mountains? Honestly! He would've packed a sled and dogs if he'd have been able to fit them in the suitcase. well... perhaps not *dogs*."

It was then that Delbert ambled into the room, and Katherine was moved to mentally re-define the word "plenty." Swaddled about Delbert's general-neck-area was a tangled mass of wool thick enough to cause Katherine to doubt whether the doctor had ever, indeed, possessed a neck. It was as if he couldn't decide how best to wear a scarf, and so had opted for wearing one wrapped in each and every fashion he knew.

But the outlandish jumble of scarves was not alone in its absurdity. Delbert was also donning no less than three coats, one of which was a deep shade of Christmas Red, all of which were layered over his usual shirt, vest, and cravat. In keeping with the wintry surroundings, he'd picked out a snowy-white shirt, with matching vest, and an ice blue cravat, stuck through its centre with a silver tie pin carved in the shape of a snowflake. (Katherine wondered how he could justify even *owning* such a pin, much less wearing it.) The doctor's trousers were of scratchy-looking grey wool that bulged voluminously just under the knee because they'd been stuffed -- in a rather slipshod fashion -- into a pair of massive, anvil- colored, vaguely anvil-shaped boots. His ears were covered by what looked like two white Persian housecats curled up for simultaneous naps on either side of his face. A third, much larger, much fatter Persian was wrapped around his hands, cleverly disusing itself as a muff. And under the muff- cat was a pair of blue mittens. And under the mittens was a pair of thick woolen gloves. And under those was a pair of thin woolen gloves, for good measure. Taken as a whole, Delbert looked as if he'd just been shopping at Old Man Winter's rummage sale.

Katherine gasped, gawked, gaped, and finally, managed to speak.

"Doctor... you never fail to astound me." She took one more disbelieving head-to-toe glance at this Jack Frost impersonator who was her husband and added, "and frighten me." Then, fighting back laughter, but doing a very poor job of it, she inquired, "So, Delbert, darling, are you quite certain you'll be warm enough?"

Delbert responded with, "Wmmfll, buffffmmr smmh tnnnn srrrffuhht!" He then peeled a scarf away from his mouth and spoke again. "Well, better safe than sorry."

"Right you are, Father Christmas," Katherine answered, snickering.

Delbert tried hard to come up with a clever response, but could only manage to blurt out, "Yes. Yes I AM right, Ms.... Ms. Overcoat!"

"Ms. Overcoat." Katherine chewed the words ponderously, deciding how best to phrase her assessment of Delbert's attempt at wit. "Accurate in a way, yes," she stated, holding up a fold of her forest green overcoat by way of illustration, "but it was... lacking. Shall I tutor you in the fine art of The Insult, Doctor? I assure you, my fees are very reasonable."

"For Heaven's sake, Katherine, when are you going to stop calling me 'Doctor'?"

"I'll make it an anniversary present. What do you say to that?"

"So next Fall, then."

"I'm afraid old habits die hard, Doctor. I'd say it will take at least ten years... perhaps fifteen." At this, she gave him a swift peck on the nose. "Now, let's get out of this cabin before I turn stark raving mad!" She strode to the door and flung it wide open, welcoming in a gust of frigid air.

"Just how far are we planning on hiking, again?" the doctor inquired apprehensively.

"Oh don't be such a namby-pamby! A little walk is not going to kill you. Besides," she purred, "I'd enjoy the hike ever so much more if you came with me."

"Really?" he asked, incredulous. Though they'd been married for the better part of three months, he still had a hard time believing that she actually enjoyed his company.

"Really," she cooed; then, in a tone that was the verbal embodiment of a smirk, added, "If we come across an abandoned sled you can pull it and I'll ride on back."

Delbert didn't have time to think of a comeback because Katherine was already out the door and marching through the snow, calling after her, "Come on, Doctor! Mush!"

Delbert closed the cabin door, waddled down the front steps, and trundled after his wife.

~~~~~~~

* "Let's go for a hike, Doctor." "The fresh air will do you good." "A little walk won't kill you." No, it won't kill me. It will bring me within an inch of my life, panting and aching and praying for mercy. But oh no, it won't kill me... no matter how much I beg it to.*

Delbert was in agony. The first leg of Katherine's "little walk" had turned out to be a four mile hike. She flitted gracefully over the snow, sidestepping the deeper drifts, and occasionally swinging herself into a tree and traversing its branches. She seemed to know the location of every snow-covered rock, half buried tree stump, and other such footholds along the entire route. The hike, for her, was something akin to strolling down a large, snowy cobblestone path. Delbert, however, knew no such secret footholds and had no hope whatsoever of swinging himself up into a tree. He trudged straight ahead, ploughing through drift upon drift of deep, heavy snow. Four miles later, Katherine was walking leisurely a good twenty yards ahead of a winded, sweating, struggling, red-faced Delbert.

"Come, Doctor," she called in a sing-song voice, "we mustn't waste our holiday dilly-dallying in the snow drifts!"

Delbert's mind cried out against the injustice of her taunt. *Dilly- dallying?! I hike all this way because she INSISTED, I nearly KILL MYSELF just trying to keep up, wading through snow UP TO MY KNEES the entire time, and she calls it "DILLY-DALLYING"?!*

His mouth, however, only managed to cry out: "Can... *GASP!* ...we... *HUFF!* ...take... *WHEEZE!* ...a break... *PANT!* ...now... *GULP!* ...please?"

Katherine smiled. Delbert was always so polite, even when he sounded about ready to faint. In turning to grant his request, however, she saw that he wasn't just *about ready* to faint; he *was* fainting. Acting on impulse, she ran, arms outstretched to catch him. Unfortunately for the now unconscious doctor, Katherine was still seventeen yards away when he hit the snow.

She reached the place where he'd dropped face-first into the powder, crouched down beside him, and rolled him onto his back. His face was an ice sculpture carved by an idiot, or possibly some more advanced species of primate. Katherine brushed through the crudely-sculpted Snow Delbert, to the face of the Real Delbert. His eyes were lightly closed, his lips softly parted, as if he expected a kiss. What he got, instead, was a slap across the face and the words "Doctor! Doctor, come to!" shouted at him. And oddly enough, this wasn't the first time he'd received a slap en lieu of a kiss.

But the doctor didn't "come to," as he'd been ordered. He remained a limp doll in Katherine's arms: Raggedy Delbert. She began to disentangle him from the Gorgon's knot of scarves tied around his neck, all the while shouting things like "Delbert! Can you hear me? Come to! I won't make you hike another step, I swear!"

"My word," she murmured, wresting a single scarf from its brethren, "it's a wonder he made it this far before fainting." She stripped her Raggedy Delbert doll of all his scarves, and coats, and his muff, mittens, and gloves. He looked as if he'd lost twenty-five pounds. In fact, he might have; the wool that had encased him was heavy with sweat.

"My poor Doctor," she sighed; "you really did give your best effort, didn't you?" She set his head in her lap and brushed snow-encrusted strands of hair away from his face. "I shouldn't have pushed you so hard. I do sometimes forget that you and I are... on different levels. Well, you won't have to walk for a while now. Let's get you home." She laid him atop the pile of discarded winter clothes, hoisted the entire snowy bundle into her arms, and set off towards the cabin.

~~~~~~~

Now it was Katherine's turn to endure agony. She was strong, yes, but Delbert was forty pounds heavier than she when his clothes were dry, and an extra twenty pounds heavier when they were soaked through with perspiration and melted snow, and he happened to be wearing (or cradled amongst) at least fifteen pounds of superfluous winter gear. After only ten minutes of carrying the doctor, Katherine's arms ached and burned in retribution for her foisting so much weight upon them. She searched her thoughts for something that would motivate her to continue on.

*It keeps me warm, at least.*

*Take it as an exercise in endurance.*

*It's wonderful training for all those times I'll have to... carry a wounded crewmember four miles across a frigid mountainside?*

*Alright, how about this: I'll be able to taunt him for years to come about the time he was rescued by his own wife after he fainted in the snow. There we are! That's the one.*

Once she'd found the proper motivation, the going seemed much easier -- almost enjoyable. The mountain air swished, brisk and clean, across her face, nearly making up for the burning in her arms. The entire terrain was a shimmering blank; the sheer absence of color made it beautiful. The white was interrupted only by trees that quietly, gracefully pointed their boughs (*or bows*, Katherine thought) towards the etherium. Birds manned the trees, trilling unknown space-chanties. Katherine smiled slightly. Then, because it would keep her mind off of the pain spreading throughout the top half of her body, and also because there was no one conscious to hear her, she slipped into a throaty, wavering alto and quietly sang:

"Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down

(To me way-aye, blow the man down.)

Oh, blow the man down, bullies, blow him right down

(Give me some time to blow the man down.)

As I was a-walking, way out in the snow,

(To me way-aye, blow the man down.)

My poor husband fainted and down he did go.

(Give me some time to blow the man down.)"

"...didn't know you sang," muttered Delbert, rousing from his swoon.

Katherine, out of joy that Delbert had finally come around, or elation that her arms would soon be free of their burden, or (most likely) surprise at his intrusion into her musical soliloquy, leapt just sharply and suddenly enough to lose her grip on the doctor. He tumbled headlong into a nearby snow bank. If he had been half-conscious when he'd first spoken, he was now fully-conscious. In fact, he was now agonizingly conscious of just how cold snow is when you're unexpectedly plunged into it after having been stripped of your coats, scarves, and gloves.

In purest oratorical fashion, the good doctor laid forth his assessment of his current situation:

"Cold! Oh! COLD!"

"Oh dear, and you were just starting to dry out, too," Katherine stated, as if she had just dropped a stack of freshly-cleaned laundry, and was sorry to see it dirtied again.

Delbert, looking like some odd, bespectacled snow beast, frantically shook the freezing slush off of himself. He was shivering violently, and his skin had turned a shade of peppermint candy pink from the shock of cold.

"C-c-coat! Please!"

"Which do you want? The red one with the fur collar, the grey one with the charming little snowflakes stitched on either sleeve, or..."

"It d-doesn't matter! F-f-or the love of God, Katherine, a coat! Any c-coat! Now!" Delbert shouted, grasping at the bundle of coats in Katherine's hand.

"'Now'?" she quoted, yanking her hand away from his. "Is that an order, Doctor?"

"Yes! I mean, n-no! I mean... I-I don't care! Maybe! W-w-would you j- just give them here?"

He clutched for the coats that were now being held behind Katherine's back. She spun to the left, whisking the cloth away from his icy fingertips. He reached to the left; she spun to the right, laughing. He lunged to the right; she held the coats high above her head with one hand and pushed him away with the other. Finally, he backed up and, letting out what Katherine supposed was meant to be a cry of fury, ran directly towards her.

"Oh-ho! The years of evasive tactics training are finally paying off!" she cried, stepping aside just enough to elude the doctor as he came charging at her.

*Why does this remind me of my childhood?* Delbert thought as he missed both Katherine and the coats completely, lost his balance, and found himself sprawled flat in the snow for the third time that afternoon.

He'd just risen to his hands and knees when three familiar bits of cloth (and the coats they were attached to) were dangled in front of his nose.

"My apologies, Doctor. I really will hand them over this time."

Huffily, Delbert reached for the tangled parcel of wool, declaring, "Well, it's about t-- "

He didn't get any farther than that, because it was then that Katherine snapped the whole fleecy bundle out of his reach, and exclaimed, "Oh Doctor, you are so astonishingly gullible!"

Delbert, determined to remain the adult of the two, responded in the most rational, mature, and prudent manner possible: he pitched a snowball directly into Katherine's face.

Suffice it to say her initial reaction was not one of amusement.

Though the snowball had seemed a good idea at the time, Delbert now realized that he may have called the Wrath of the Captain down upon himself. However, much to his relief, the scowl soon cleared from Katherine's face and the fire in her eyes quickly returned to its normal, steady burn. She smoothed out the front of her coat and flicked her head from side to side as if to sling off the last bits of her fury.

"I suppose I deserved that. Here are your effects, Doctor," she said impassively, and held his winter clothes out to him.

Delbert leapt at the prospect of warmth, but pulled back at the last second because it all seemed too easy.

"So... you, you aren't angry, then?"

"Not in the least," she assured him, smiling sweetly.

"You're sure?"

"Certain," she replied, smiling again.

"Alright then," he said warily, and took the bundle from her hands, bracing himself for her swift and sudden retaliation. But none came.

Delbert pulled on his coats one after another, and began to drift into a splendid warmth-induced stupor. He was not going to be cold anymore, nothing else mattered. He wrapped his neck generously in scarves, and stuffed his hands into gloves, gloves, mittens, and muff (respectively.)

"Well, we should probably start walking if we want to make it back to the cabin before sundown," he suggested, gesturing vaguely towards where he supposed the cabin to be.

"We've got a while yet," Katherine answered serenely, "let's take a little rest."

She seated herself on a snow-covered rock, holding her arms behind her back as she so often did when on board her ship. Delbert, who had had quite enough of all things white and cold for one day, scoured a rock free of snow and then seated himself upon it, opposite his wife. She seemed oddly at ease, perched atop her icy throne. Her elbows moved in tiny, subtle circles behind her as she spoke.

"Have I ever told you about my third year in the Academy, Doctor?"

Delbert made a quick scan of his more accessible memories. "Not as such, no."

"Well, to begin, the vast ignorant majority tends to think of an education at the Interstellar Academy as consisting of a few lessons in navigation, terminology, protocol, what have you. Finish it off with two or three final exercises, and you're on your way; as simple as that. However, that aforementioned ignorant majority fails to appreciate the *variety* of subjects that we study at the Academy. For instance, though I have *never* worked as a rigger, I could spout enough information on knot-tying to bore you -- yes, even you -- to sleep. I'm also well-versed in the history of shipbuilding and, odd as it may seem, figurehead design."

"But your ship doesn't have a-- "

"Long story," she cut him off mid-observation. And then, grinning furtively to herself, drawled, "a rather good one, actually..."

Delbert looked hopeful. When he was five, six, seven, his mother had read to him nearly every night. Even now at forty-three, his ears still perked up -- visibly -- at the prospect of story-time.

"...which is precisely why I'm saving it for just the right occasion," Katherine finished.

Delbert hid his disappointment by pretending to adjust his muff, which was a reasonably engaging task, seeing as his digits were now rendered useless by layer upon layer of imported Aucturian wool.

"Anyhow," continued Katherine, her train of thought unbroken, "in my third year at the Academy, I was required to take a course in gunnery. Maintaining and operating the long-nines, mostly. And though I was not particularly fond of the cannons, my instructor insisted that I possessed a natural aptitude. As a matter of fact, in my end-of-the-term evaluation, he wrote that *no one* in the class was my match..."

She let a pause hang in the air as she rose to her feet and stepped to one side, revealing her hitherto secret handiwork: a neat pyramid of glistening white snowballs. The one that had formed the apex of the pyramid was missing. When Katherine drew her hand out from behind her back, Delbert saw why. She smirked, indulged in a triumphant arch of her right eyebrow, and finished her sentence:

"...for accuracy."

Delbert watched, dumbstruck, as snowball became snow-blur, became snow-blotch, became icy, stinging sensation in his forehead. He went to loosen a hand with which to return fire, but found that his two wads of wool (and the hands that squirmed inside them) had become firmly lodged within his muff. Katherine, like the brilliant strategist she was, saw that the odds were stacked high in her favor. She battered the good ship Delbert with a spectacular volley of friendly fire, her windmilling arms two long nines to be reckoned with. Dazzling white fireworks erupted all over Delbert's bundled form and befuddled face as he ran -- or rather, flailed -- for cover. However, no amount of ducking behind rocks or tree trunks would save him from Katherine's deadly aim. He jerked his arms in frenzied spasms, desperate to free himself from the jaws of the fuzzy, white muff. But the muff stayed on, Delbert's hands wedged securely inside of it.

Then came another barrage of icy projectiles. Bang! His nose was frozen! Bang! Snow dripped down his neck, beneath his scarves! Bang! He saw only white out of his left eye! Panic-stricken, he rued the minute he'd tossed a snowball at Captain Katherine Doppler: fearless commander of the RLS Legacy, survivor of storms, thwarter of pirates, hurler of packed snow.

"I surrender! I SURRENDER!" Delbert shrieked.

"Sorry, couldn't hear you! Deafened by the siren-song of retribution!" Katherine called back, launching another round of snowballs in his direction.

Giving up on diplomacy, Delbert set all his hope for survival on freeing a hand from the muff. He mustered every iota of strength available to his doughy body, and, with a final, magnificent jerk of his arms, sent the muff soaring through the air...

...and directly into a mound of snow precariously balanced on a treetop, which just happened to be directly above Katherine.

For 0.83 seconds, by Delbert's count, Katherine stood glaring defiantly at the overhanging snow, silently challenging it to loose itself from its branchy manacles and bury her to the waist in a barrage of wintry refuse. The snow then proceeded to loose itself from its branchy manacles and bury her to the waist in a barrage of wintry refuse. And Katherine looked shocked that it had accepted her dare. She also looked cold. Very cold. And very stuck.

Deciding that they were fairly even now, Delbert performed a modest jig of victory, and then offered his hand to Katherine. She slapped it away.

"I can manage, thank you very much," she stated, maintaining the highest level of dignity one can maintain while half-buried in snow.

She then nimbly extracted a leg from the pile of snow, delicately planted her foot, and, in one smooth, graceful motion, plunged back into the snow. Delbert offered his hand again.

"Come on, let me help you out of there."

"No, thank you," she replied grandiosely.

Again she tried to climb lithely out of the frosty quicksand sucking at her legs. Again she sank back into the cold. Climbed again, sank again. Then once more. Losing her patience, she began thrashing about, sending up sprays of white. She also began muttering some shockingly unladylike phrases under her breath. From where Delbert was standing, it looked as if Katherine was trying to subdue the snow with a combination of kicking and strong language.

When Katherine had struggled for the better half of ten minutes and had received, for her pains, a thick coating of snow inside both of her boots and a tingling sensation throughout the lower half of her body, she sighed and took hold of Delbert's outstretched hand. What she regretted the most was that she'd lost the right to taunt him about his fainting, because he now had equal ammunition to toss back at her.

"I do believe your dear muff was lost in that modest avalanche," Katherine informed Delbert, nodding towards the crumbling mound of snow from whence she'd came. "A casualty of war, I suppose."

He shrugged. "I have a few extra ones back at the cabin."

"You know, Doctor," she mused, shaking clumps of snow from her coat, "somehow that doesn't surprise me." She smiled and offered him her arm. As they walked towards the cabin, she began to hum "Blow the Man Down" under her breath. After the first chorus, she paused and asked, "Doctor. can you think of a word to rhyme with 'muffs'?"

"Cuffs. Why?"

"You'll see." Katherine grinned slyly and set to humming again.

Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed that. It was inspired by my first time *ever* being snowed in. My thanks, as always, to my dear beta-reader, Vic. I'd imagine it was kind of strange to hear Amelia being called "Katherine," but I chose to do that because this fic takes place when she and Doppler are married. So, Delbert probably wouldn't still call her "Captain," and it would be confusing if I referred to both of them as "Doppler." The first name "Katherine" was a product of a discussion at the A&D forum on GoblinQueeen's site: The Spaceport Crescentia. "Blow the Man Down" is a traditional sailor song; the lyrics used in this story (with the exception of the two lines Amelia made up) were taken from the book "Songs of American Sailormen" by Joanna Colcord.