Once Upon A Time

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"Who are you?"

It's the first thing she asks, the very first time they meet. Who are you?

I am ice.

I am snow.

I am winter.

I am death.

But he looks at the pretty little thing floating in front of him, clutching a crooked staff in her tiny, tiny hands, and his throat dries up. She watches him with blue, blue eyes full of a child's curiosity. Her hair billows around her, white and messy and pure as freshly fallen snow. He thinks of fae creatures and wonders if she is one of them.

"I am Elson of Arendelle," he manages, glad his voice comes out steady. "And who might you be?"

She straightens up, a large grin adorning her pale face. She flies up the air in a flurry of snowflakes, declaring, "I am Jack Frost!"

Her magic mingles with his, innocent and sweet and Elson responds accordingly. …Or he tries to. He hasn't done this before, but she smiles and she laughs, flying in the air freer than a bird. A small envy nips Elson's heart at the sight of her – neither can he suppress the small anxiety growing inside him that she will rise high, high, higher than the clouds and disappear from him. Perhaps he will wake up and find this meeting to be a bizarre dream, a product of too many days spent alone in a palace too vast and too cold for one person.

He reaches out; by chance or by fate, he catches her ankle and she squeaks as he gently but insistently tugs her down to the ground. Even then, she floats, her bare feet never once touching the ground.

Jack is real. Jack is solid. Jack is magic – pure, unadulterated magic – and he wonders how she has survived in the world for so long. He invites her back to his palace, insistent that her answer will be yes. She draws him in like air into a flame – she is fire, danger, crackling life and little shivers slide up and down his spine when she hesitantly takes his hand. Her skin is cool and soft and paler than his but he tries not to linger on it for too long.

Elson walks proudly, head held high when they come into view of his home. Jack is in awe and curious, so very curious. He answers her questions and she beams at him as if he is the best person in the world, which is something so new and wonderful and unexpected that he nearly weeps. It has been so long since anyone has even smiled at him.

They sit down in a pleasant little room with comfortable chairs placed in front of an exquisite imitation of a fireplace he had carved out some time ago. They talk, they laugh, they exchange sympathetic little noises well into the night and even past the late morning. As they talk, something in Elson exults – Jack is alone, just as much as he. And though he knows it is improper, knows it is most probably too much too soon – Jack is fire and danger, he knows this, he feels it – he offers her a place in his palace. It isn't a sacrifice; he has more than enough space to spare. But something is happening, something that he can probably figure out if he gives it just a little more thought, but he refuses, and it stays out of reach.

Disappointingly, she declines the offer – he can't even begin to imagine why, but she does. However, she promises to visit and Elson decides that that is enough for now.

Time slips between them with Jack making good on her promise. Elson fills his spare time with various endeavors – some noble, some not but that is a story for another day – and listens to the strange and rather fantastical stories Jack has a tendency of returning with. Some of them are rather alarming – she tells of falling into the sea one point, in some odd quest for a sighting of dolphins – but they are altogether received in good humor; she has, after all, returned to him without fail despite whatever she might actually have gone through on her travels.

Still, he worries. Perhaps a little too much. But they are friends – she says so, shyly, perhaps on her fourth visit and he is so unspeakably glad (and, oddly, somewhat irate) that he cannot keep himself from pinching her cheeks. They are friends and it is his right to fret over a young girl travelling the length of the world alone.

There are times, in Jack's stories, when she mentions people. It isn't terribly often, thank goodness, but it happens and Elson isn't sure whether he is glad or somewhat upset when it does. Jack is happy in the telling of those stories, with the little antics that children and sometimes even adults are wont to do. But Elson doesn't even truly understand why she insists on visiting the populace as she does and he doesn't understand why they would make her quite so happy. Wasn't Elson enough? Enough for her to stay? What did he lack that she found in the world? It was a conundrum; one he didn't appreciate.

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One day, she brings him a present.

"Merry Christmas," she murmurs shyly as she practically shoves the clumsily-wrapped package into his hands.

"But I didn't get you anything."

She waves his half-hearted protests away and eventually, Elson slowly, carefully, gently unwraps the gift.

In all honesty, it isn't much. It's not even the sort of thing Elson even likes; it's not useful for anything at all. It's a … trinket. A decoration. 'It' is a little ice sculpture carved in an intricate little design of a snowflake – 'no two are ever alike' – and it fits right into the palm of his hand.

But Jack gives it to him, she gives it to him and he accepts it without complaint or even a 'thank you'. She has stolen his voice, his words, and he chokes on the air as he holds the gift up to his eyes and nods as if it were merely acceptable. Yet, his heart is so full it feels as if it will burst and there's something pricking his eyes. He squeezes Jack's hand, hoping that it will be enough; later, he carefully places the sculpture on the nightstand next to his bed. He holds it, sometimes, feeling the edges and tracing its pattern and he feels warm.

Someday, Elson will give Jack a present, too. Something that will mean just as much to her as her gift means to him.

But … she wants the world. Yet, what is in the world?

Elson thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks. He can't come up with anything feasible right now but an idea will come. He has time – they have time. All the time in the world.

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With an almost painful slowness, Jack's visits lengthen and sometimes she now stays in one of the guest bedrooms in the palace. Elson lets her lure him away from his workrooms, happily participating in her little games for as long as she'll have him. One day, during a walk outside after a heavy snowstorm, Jack abruptly runs ahead of Elson – and promptly hits him straight in the face with a snowball. The game is on. Hastily-packed clumps of snow flies in the air but there are no winners in the end. Only two very out-of-breath people lying on the snowy ground side by side, panting as they insisted on who managed to hit who with the most snowballs.

Face still flushed, Jack rolls onto her side to face Elson better. She thus begins an impressively lengthy monologue about just how exactly she has won, but Elson finds himself a bit too focused on her flushed cheeks, the slight pout of her lips, the messy state of her hair…

He kisses her.

It's small and light and chaste but it shocks Jack all the same. Elson wants to ask if it's her first – surely, it must be because he might just go mad if it isn't – but that would break the moment.

He kisses her again, a little longer this time, and he finds that he doesn't quite know what to do with himself. Elson is deep in unchartered territory and he tries moving forward cautiously. But Jack is soft and cool and sweet and he draws closer to her, the weak little moth to her fire. He wonders, a little guiltily, if she knows what's happening or whether she understands it – she is young, so much younger than he is but he knows she must have seen this before, young couples sharing kisses in the winter snow. It is, if he remembers correctly from his own time growing up, considered romantic.

For a long while, Jack gapes at him and he laughs and traps her in his arms, refusing to let her rise and fly off into the horizon. Not now. Not today.

"Stay," he murmurs, pressing his lips to Jack's cheek. "The children can wait."

Something changes between them that day, something unspoken and so beautiful that Elson can hardly describe. They are freer with their actions now, although there are some places they haven't dared yet venture. He basks in the physical contact that Jack is wont to tentatively share with him, practically glowing when she reaches out for his hands or, on the rarest, most glorious occasions when she kisses him. They are clumsy with each other at first, unknowing and inexperienced concerning anything related to intimacy. They take things slow, letting them sweeten as time passes by. Jack's visits quickly become longer and more frequent, and Elson wonders when it is that she will finally – finally – consent to stay.

On a lazy afternoon, with their hands intertwined as they sit close together on a thick rug Jack had brought back from a distant country, she suddenly asks, "What are we?"

Elson starts at the question but knows that this talk is overdue. Still, he clears his voice and tries to collect his words, finding that the speech that he has constructed in his head some months ago has inconveniently dissipated. "Well," he says slowly, buying himself time. "We are … together."

"More than friends?" she asks, anxiously, hopefully, and he gently strokes her snow white hair, pulling her closer to him until she is up against his chest. He tucks her head under his chin, wrapping his arms securely around her as she clings to him like a large child.

"Much more than friends."

"What, then?"

"That … is a tricky question. One that you will have to help me answer." He pulls away from her then, and makes her face him, makes her meet his eyes. "I love you." He says the words clearly without any hope for misunderstanding, and waits with a loudly beating heart for her answer.

"You love me," Jack whispers, her eyes wide at hearing it for the first time. She is lovely and sweet but Elson will not kiss her until he hears her answer.

"I love you."

"I…" Jack pauses, her eyes flickering slightly, and Elson's heart sinks. "I love you very much," she decides with a deliberation that almost insults him. Her cheeks blush brightly at the statement and Elson cannot stop the soft smile from forming on his lips.

"You sound as if you had to think about it," he teases, pressing his lips to her forehead. It occurs to him, then, that perhaps she hasn't before given much thought about love – what it is, how it feels, and the way it takes over your heart and your life. It's not something they've talked about overly much but it might be the case and it worries him; what does Jack think they've been doing together all this time? Was this a game to her? Elson very dearly hopes not.

"I – well, I haven't really thought about – that – before. About love." She stops, trying to gather and organize her thoughts. Quietly, Elson sits back, watching and waiting. "I … I like being here, so very much. And I like – I love – being with you. A-and," she adds, blushing even brighter than before, "I like kissing you."

Ah. Elson smiles, pecking her lips lightly. "Do you, now?"

"Y-yeah. Is this … love?"

It might be. It can be and if he has anything to say about the matter, it will. Elson kisses Jack deeply and she tries to match his pace, tries to breathe through it, through the heat that comes with being so close to him. Her skin chills Elson even as he presses closer to her and she is cool and soft and lithe against him. He engulfs her almost completely, a greedy hunger rising up within him with every touch, with every little sound she makes. "I love you," he breathes over and over. "I love you…"

But now is not the time – not yet, even if it's so tempting and Elson feels as if he might die of want when Jack gently but insistently pushes away from him. It's not time, not now … but someday. Very, very softly, he presses his lips to her fingers, a small promise for the future.

"We are lovers," he says, his throat dry as he takes in how ruffled he's made Jack. It's a bit redundant, but speaking the words out loud sends a thrill up his spine, at knowing the fact, at being able to finally say it. As an afterthought, he adds, a bit suspiciously, "you can only do this with me."

Jack's laughter echoes through the small room but she promises that, yes, he is her only one.

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There are days, Elson notices, when Jack holds onto him and simply refuses to let go. There are also days when she wanders aimlessly within the palace with an odd melancholy that nothing can chase away. Everything passes in their time, of course, but they do happen and he wonders at her odd moods. Her smiles don't touch her eyes, then, and he has the odd feeling that she might simply be humoring him. Yet, it is in Jack's nature to be happy, to be alive and so he never worries about it too much. As long as Jack is with him, she is safe.

Sometimes, she comes to him in tears, weeping about some unfortunate soul or other. He gladly holds her, then, whispering reassurances in her ear as she clings to him in all her misery. Jack, Elson realizes, despises just how cold winter can be as she grieves over a disturbingly small corpse she had found at the edge of the nearby forest the other day.

"Children are fragile," Elson tries to reason through her tears. "And all living things die, eventually. It was just the little one's time."

"It shouldn't have been!" she insists stubbornly whenever he says so. "Not so young! It's not fair."

With a touch of amusement, he responds, "life isn't fair."

"I can't see how you can smile while we talk about something like this." Jack sighs softly, running a pale hand through her snow white tresses. "Don't you care?"

"Everything must pass away," Elson says diplomatically. "You know this; our very season marks the death of a year, of living things."

Petulantly, she crosses her arms, glaring at the floor. "That doesn't mean I'm happy about it."

He holds her, then, and kisses her lightly. "Certainly, you do not have to be. You love children," Elson murmurs, almost jealously.

"Of course!" She laughs softly. "Don't you?"

He only smiles and kisses her again.

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Elson smiles widely as he leads a blindfolded Jack down the hall. He has a gift, a surprise, one on which he has worked for several years now. It's been difficult to put together but it is finished and this will be it. Jack won't leave anymore after this; everything she wants, that she can ask for, will be right here at the palace with him and she will never leave ever again. She will finally – finally – be his as he has been hers for so long now. Excitedly, he leads her down, down, down to the levels of the palace well beneath the earth. No natural light falls here and so a simple spell has the walls give off a gentle glow.

They enter a special room together, the room with the gift. Once there, Elson unties the blindfold.

Jack blinks, looks, stares. He knows she can feel the life magic in the room, the aura it exudes. Eagerly, he watches her slowly approach the large ice statue with something close to trepidation in her eyes.

"Do you like him?" Elson asks. "I know you love children, so I did this – for you."

"A sculpture of … a child?" She swallows. "It's very … lifelike." Slowly, hesitantly, she touches the statue–

Jack jumps back, screaming as if she'd just been burned. Her voice rings in Elson's ears and he is by her side in no time.

"What's wrong? Why do you dislike it? I made it just for you!"

"He's alive!" she screams. "He's – he's one of the little boys in the village!"

"Yes, yes, he is. What of it?" Elson pulls Jack into his arms, rubbing her back, willing her to calm down. "I thought you loved children."

Her small fist lands on Elson's shoulder as she shouts, "You turned him into an ice statue! You – why would you – why–?!"

He catches Jack's wrists, gently but firmly stopping her rather ineffective violence. "As a gift," he says confusedly. A small ache blooms in his chest; he had only wanted to make her happy. "You adore children. You – leave for them. I thought, perhaps, that if we had one here, you might … stay." He looks at her hopefully but even that is dashed as she spits, "well, you thought wrong! You – you didn't do this for me! You did this for yourself."

"Perhaps," he says, almost as if to himself. "I'm sorry you dislike it. Please, let's go back upstairs and you can tell me about–"

"We're not doing anything until you turn him back!"

Elson stops. "Jack," he says quietly, controlling himself, "ask me for anything, anything at all except that, and I will gladly give it to you."

"Turn him back!"

He closes his eyes, running a hand down his face. He had spent so much effort in making the perfect gift for Jack and she was… "I am very sorry, but I can't."

"Why not?!" Tears drip down Jack's face and something inside Elson explodes into a panicked haze.

"Jack! Don't – don't cry. Please." He wipes away the salty liquid away from her cheeks even as she stubbornly pushes him with all the strength in her slender arms.

"Don't touch me!"

"Jack!" His voice has grown angry and louder than hers and she watches with terrified eyes as he grabs her forearms, saying, "I love you! I did this for you!" He rests his head against her chest, right where her heart should be, and listens to the steady ba-thump inside her. "I love you," he whispers. "Tell me you love me, too."

"Turn him back," she begs, her voice thick with emotion. "Please, Elson, if you care about me at all…"

"I can't."

Nothing is the same after that.

Elson doesn't understand anything anymore. Life has turned into a confusing haze and he's not quite sure how to clear the mist that has drifted over them. Jack is cold and unreceptive, her visits few and far in between. There's a tension in the air whenever they find themselves together in the same room. Nothing is right anymore but he has no idea how to fix this mess. His actions can't be undone and Jack … she hates him now. Still, he is right about one thing; she returns for the little boy. For him and not Elson, Jack returns to the palace time and time again despite everything.

He hates the boy. He hates the children Jack so loves. He hates the weather that apparently cannot function properly without her help and the fact that she thinks spreading frost over window panes was ever more important than him.

Elson hates her – even if he knows it's a lie.

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"Elson."

He looks up from the papers, right in the middle of recording the results of his latest experiment when he looks up and sees her. For the first time in nine months (nine months, three weeks and four days) she has knowingly, willingly walked into the same room as him. Her expression is … sad but still closed off. And yet, Elson is willing to take what he can get.

He has never, not once, stopped being hers.

Elson immediately stands, waving her into the room and she shuffles forward, looking awkward as she approaches. For a while, they are silent; Elson has no idea how to break or ease the tension between them and he suspects that neither does Jack. But she is the one who has come to him, she is the one standing in his workroom.

So, he waits.

Finally:

"I hate this!" The words burst out of Jack, almost explosive and Elson startles again at her suddenness. "This is – everything is all wrong. I've been thinking about it for months and I still don't understand any of it."

A bit wearily, he says, "as I have told you time and time again, I meant it as a gift to you. I see now that I had made a grave mistake. I am sorry. What more can I say?"

"Don't you understand that – that doing it was wrong? How could you ever have thought that I would want – that?!"

For a time, Elson is quiet, thinking, measuring his words. "No," he says, knowing full well that what he says next may doom their entire relationship and yet also knowing that kindly lies will destroy it – destroy them – anyways. "I did not consider it wrong." He pauses. "Perhaps, when I was younger, if we were in a time when I still remembered the things that are important, I wouldn't have … done it. But I've lived a long life, Jack, and I've forgotten many things." His voice his burdened and he sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I wanted – I still want – you to stay with me. But not like this." Bitterly, he smiles. "You hate me now."

"I did – I still do, I think, a little bit." She bites her lip. "Don't you even care?"

"About you? Of course. Always, Jack – always."

"Not me – Henrik."

He blinks. "Who?"

Jack closes her eyes for a long moment. "The boy you froze."

"Oh. …No."

Elson can only look on wistfully as Jack shakes her head sadly. "I don't understand."

"Perhaps, that is because there is nothing to understand. This is who I am."

She glances at him sharply before firmly looking away with crossed arms, wondering. "Is this love?"

Elson reaches out but Jack only swats his hand away. Still, he says, "I love you."

"Are you sure that's love?"

The accusation burns him, searing into his skin, his ears, his mind, his heart. There is a truth there, a truth Elson wishes was a lie, but it exists, and it hurts him more than anything else. And Jack – fire, danger, crackling life itself – drives the knife deeper.

"Why did you really do it? Don't tell me that it was a gift." She shudders for a moment before continuing. "Tell me the real reason."

They stare into each other's eyes, a battle of wills. Their magic comes alive, for the first time, antagonistic.

"Do you really want to know the answer?" he breathes, leaning forward on the desk, consciously invading Jack's personal space. Something menacing is rising within Elson, vindictive and destructive, that wishes he would despise Jack, if only he is capable of it.

"Yes."

"Perhaps," he says, honey lacing venom, "I did it because I was jealous. Perhaps I did it to punish you." Abandoning his papers completely, he walks around the desk. To her credit, Jack does not budge, does not flee, doesn't so much as tremble beneath his glare. "Do you realize how utterly maddening you are, little girl? Your touch, your voice, your smile, your smell – you haunt me." Elson slams his hand down on the desk and Jack does a satisfying little jump. He has no idea where his words are coming from but they will not stop and he realizes that they are all horribly true. "I think of nothing except you, I would give my life, my soul for you! And yet you insist on flying off to those screaming little brats who don't know any better, who can't even see or touch you." He breathes heavily, stepping close enough to Jack to smell her scent, and even as he hates, as he resents her, something deep in his heart thrills to be so close again. She watches him with terrified eyes and rightly so. "Explain it to me, Jack! Why do you prefer them? Why can you not just have been happy here with me?" He grabs her shoulders, shaking her, screaming, "Why?"

Jack flinches, jerking away from him. Her eyes – so blue, so big and blue, he feels like he's never really appreciated them before – are wide and panicking. It insults him; does she think he will hurt her?

"Let go of me," she whispers. Elson acquiesces. She steps away from him, closer to the door. She trembles uncontrollably, unshed tears filling her eyes. "I'm leaving."

Her words are … final and somehow, he understands. She is leaving, leaving him. Maybe for a day, maybe for a month, maybe forever.

"Wait!" he grabs her wrist tight, too tight, and she whirls around, pushing him away with a strength he didn't know she possessed. She shouts at him, tries to pry his fingers off her but he can't hear, can't breath, can't think because she is leaving him. Leaving him! Elson tries to pull her close but Jack simply isn't having it. They struggle together and Jack just won't be quiet, won't stop pushing him away, won't simply calm down and explain to him like he'd asked her to. She just. Won't. Stop–!

A choking sound startles Elson and he realizes – they are on the floor; Jack is beneath him, beautiful even while fighting for air as his hands squeeze her fragile neck.

It's so … easy. Or maybe he's just strong. But a little more pressure in the right direction and he can imagine her head just … snapping with a crack that he might not hear but will definitely feel. His heart beats loud in his ears, tempting him, daring him to–

"Els'n."

Jack's strangled voice drags him out of his thoughts, back into reality. She is begging him, he is … hurting her. Slowly, his fingers relax and he sits back on his heels, watching in odd fascination as Jack gasps, greedily breathing in the cold, cold air. Her hand rubs her neck; angry red bruises are already appearing but Elson forbids himself from looking at them properly.

A sob forces him to look closer, however, and he sees that Jack is crying. Again, he is at a loss and he stares at her in guilty silence as she wails like a frightened child. Looking for comfort, for security. Unwillingly, he sees that discoloration on her neck and he remembers it, that wicked desire to hurt, to destroy, to make Jack as empty and broken as Elson is.

"I thought," he says, falteringly, "that I could give you what you needed." Elson glances at Jack, his fingers hovering over the bruises on her neck. It makes such a pretty contrast… "I thought I could be enough for you – good for you, even."

She curls up protectively on the floor, tears still leaking from her eyes as quiet sobs wrack her chest. He caresses her cheek, moving her head slightly so he can plant a tender kiss on her forehead.

"I love you," he says, and means it. He stands, feeling a rush of affection as he looks at her for what might be the very last time. Finally, he manages, "Go. I won't stop you."

Jack doesn't question him, doesn't even look back as she jumps up from the floor and flies out of the room as fast the wind will take her. The door slams shut behind her, leaving Elson alone in his workroom.

Life becomes colder, more hollow; nevertheless, the days drag on by. Eventually, inevitably, Elson finds himself taking the familiar stairwell down to the room holding his mistake. The ice statue, the boy – Henrik – still stands in the middle of it, untouched by time. He wonders, fleetingly, what it must be like to be a statue and alive at the very same time. Horrible, he decides. It must be horrible.

Hesitantly, he places a hand on the little one's shoulder, feeling the life that still resides within the ice.

"For what it's worth," Elson tells the statue, "I'm sorry."

It's all he says – it's all he needs to say. It doesn't change anything, doesn't change Elson, doesn't change the boy's current state, and Jack is definitely not coming back… but it does make a difference. He knows it, deep inside himself.

And, despite everything, he smiles.

Someday, he will make this right.

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Author's Note: Thank you for reading this fic! I hope you enjoyed it.

Feedback is greatly appreciated. (This is my first time writing something like ... this.)