That night, Rapunzel barely slept. After speaking with Varian for a bit, she'd gone to talk with her father and question him about his treatment of Varian. His only response had been that after everything Varian had done it just wasn't safe to have him around, and Rapunzel understood that, but the way Varian was chained up, and the way the guard spoke about him still felt wrong.

Talking with Varian had been nothing like she'd expected. The kid was way different, than what he'd been like, last time she saw him. There were no harsh words, no anger burning in his eyes. Instead, he was quiet, to the point of her barely being able to hear him at times, he flinched at almost everything and would sometimes either break down sobbing or just stare off into space as if he wasn't even there.

He'd been more than willing to help her sort through her thoughts and feelings though, and had even been a great help not only understanding her own feelings, but even Cassandra's perspective a bit better.

Rapunzel had at one point offered to free Varian from the chains, just for their talk (as her dad had barely allowed that), but Varian had gone into full on panic mode, sobbing, shaking and rambling about how he didn't want to hurt her, that he was a monster and that it wasn't safe. She'd tried to calm him for a while, tried to make him understand that there wasn't even any way for him to hurt her in there, but all of it had just made it worse, until she finally stepped away from the cell door, put the keys back into her pocket and promised him that she wouldn't get near him and, even after that, it had taken her quite a while to calm him down. After that he'd requested that she'd leave and, not knowing what else to do, she complied.

Now she was pacing back and forth in her room, trying to figure out what to do. She didn't agree with the way her dad and the guards had gone about Varian's punishment, but she wasn't sure to what degree, and obviously Varian had some problems they're needed to be worked on, some clearly caused by the punishment. A knock came from her door. "Hey, sunshine." She smiled weakly at him. "Hey."

"Everything alright?" He gave her a worried look. She stepped aside to let him into her room. "Not really..." He looked at her for a moment, noticing the stress and upset painted all over his face he pulled her into a tight hug, running his hand through her hair. "What's wrong?" Rapunzel broke down, telling him everything. She was actually almost expecting Eugene to side with her father, but he was absolutely horrified when she described the treatment Varian was getting, and her father's opinion on it.

After a bit of talking, they both agreed that they needed to go about this differently and, after a while, they came to the conclusion that if Varian wanted to be better, they'd be there to give him that opportunity and guide him. From what Rapunzel described, Eugene could think of a lot of things which would probably be a challenge, but seeing how relived the thought of helping Varian made Rapunzel made him push all those worries to the side. Didn't Varian deserve a second chance? He was just a kid, after all. A scared kid who'd lost his only family and felt helpless.

Eugene had done some bad things through his life, things he weren't proud of. Sure, none of them were as bad as what Varian had done, but that didn't mean that the kid was irredeemable. He deserved a second chance. Now the question was just, would he take it?