I've had this sitting in my files unfinished for so long, that I just had to finish it before season four began and cemented the outcome of Elsa's character. Also, I've finished this partly as a way to break in my new laptop without actually breaking it. A lot of what inspired this one shot and its previous one was actually two buzzfeed articles. ( keelyflaherty/once-upon-a-time-theories-that-might-actually-be-true) ( keelyflaherty/fan-theories-about-what-elsas-role-will-be-on-once-upon-a)
I highly recommend reading the first part to this, Emma Frost. Or Elsa's backstory is going to be completely mental to you.
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Elsa Frost:
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Emma doesn't really know what to think. Time had shifted, swallowing her whole. She had nearly ruined her entire existence, and yet warped enough history to cement this reality. She wants to laugh and she wants to scream, because she isn't sure what is even fixed now.
Everything has changed, and she isn't really sure if everything is for the better this way.
"Don't worry, you'll find a home too, Emma."
She hasn't found one yet.
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She remembers her mother's face printed onto wanted pictures and nailed to trees. It's eerie, remembering the way those black inked eyes looked so close to Emma's eyes with a quirk of a smile that looks familiar.
Emma stops sleeping, tired of waking up knotted in bed sheets and screaming her throat raw from an endless tidal wave of nightmares. For a second she thinks she is running away from baby blankets and empty houses before they dissolve into dragons and swords.
The little town moves sluggishly beyond her window and within the crowded apartment she is suffocating. She's tired of suffocating within the crowded apartment where the lives are tied together by rotting family trees.
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Prince Neal.
She never had Henry when he was a child, and she never heard him scream or cry. A small part of her loathes how this child is loved, because this could have been her childhood if she'd been lucky. This is her life stolen.
She feels boxed in by Neal's name alone. It sounds bitter against her mouth, and she hates the fact that Snow and Charming dared to name their child after the man that had left her to rot in prison. His name tastes like fire and ashes against her tongue.
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She looks at different listings around Storybrooke, trying to find a new home. Eventually she narrows in on an apartment across town, and she goes for it. She remembers being shuffled around, packing up old boxes and making them new again.
It's different now, because she's leaving her parent's home and packing up her son's belongings. It feels so different but so welcomed, watching Henry pack away books and asking her question after question about their new home.
whatcolourismynewroom and howfarawayisitfromschool makes her smile and sweep her fingers through his dark curls.
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Emma hates how Marian is a good mother.
She regrets taking her back through time, because now she's only recreated the past. Regina is shunted from her path to a happy-ever-after, and Emma can only regret it.
So she tries to forget it. She averts her eyes when Marian and Rowan are holding hands and Robin can't stop watching Marian live.
"Mom. Can you read me a story?"
She looks at Henry who is looking up at her. He's holding out a worn copy of something that doesn't look like a fairy tale and she's intrigued.
"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? I don't think that begins with a 'once upon a time'."
Henry looks almost guilty. "I kinda lost you to another world for the second time."
That statement slaps her across the face. So she reads him that story, to make up for the stories she hadn't read to him as a child.
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Three days later she picks up another book that Henry might want her to read to him.
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Emma knows something is unsettled. The way her heart feels ripped in a half and frozen.
She's still somewhere between worlds, it seems.
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Emma takes up running through the woods, trying to push past worlds of memories and haze that settles over her shoulders like cobwebs. She loves the feeling of running, the way her lungs burn and how her heart thunders.
She ducks the blast of ice without thinking, skidding to a halt to a woman that appears to be nothing more than a frosted reflection. Her skin is icy and snow dusts her shoulders.
"What the hell?" Emma snaps, hands darting toward her hip where her gun rests.
The reflection disappears in a swirl of ice and snow.
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Elsa finds Belle next.
She's in the library, sorting out book from book. Elsa arrives in a swirl of blue skirts and angry eyes. She can see the touch of the monster against Belle's skin, and she wants to howl with the rage she feels but she can't.
She feels trapped within the urn, being ripped apart and tortured.
"Who are you?" Belle asks as she fumbles for the dagger in her purse. She touches the hilt, trying to summon Rumple towards her. She wants to call this strange woman Emma, with the sharp blue eyes and the thick blonde curls. Books are scattered around the women, and frost slowly creeps across the floor.
"Elsa Charming," The frosty woman nods her head slightly. Her eyes are fixed on the dagger, and a grin of frostbite splits across her face. "Yes. Summon your lover. Please do."
Belle stares.
"Rumple," she calls out.
No one arrives. No purple smoke. No magic. No monsters.
"He's a liar," Elsa warns her. She easily takes the fake dagger from Belle's loose hands and destroys it. "I wouldn't trust him even if he did have a soul."
Belle wants to cry and she wants to scream.
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Emma remembers as a child, she loved winter.
She loved building snowmen.
She thinks about this now, as she looks at the frost remaining on the library's floor and as Gold stares at the remains of the lie he gave Belle.
"You killed her, didn't you?" Regina hisses at him. "You covered it up well, but I should have known. You're the reason she and Hook went back."
"Did she hurt you?" Gold's trying to hold Belle's hands, but she isn't relenting. There's something cold in her eyes, and she just latches onto Ruby's wrist.
"You liar," Belle said simply as she furthered the distance between them and her. "Get away from me."
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Emma can't stop remembering her childhood. She thinks about when she was in that group home when she was nine she shared a room with Anne. She was younger and impulsive and loved keeping doors wide opened.
She hated Anne.
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Charming finds the scar first. Her tank rides up just slightly, but it is all it takes for him to piece together.
Emma and Henry at Snow and Charming's apartment for supper, and she's helping put dishes away with Charming as Snow and Henry leaves to go coo over Neal. "What is this?"
She yanks the fabric down and turns angles her body around. "Nothing."
"Doesn't look like nothing." His voice sounds like steel and she wants to cringe.
"I got it when I was a kid. The end."
She tosses the dish rag as Charming grabs her by the wrist. "I care about this."
Emma looks at him, wondering if this is the reality she is living now. A father that wants the history behind her scars and will be relentless to find the answers to his questions-
Reality.
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"I went through time." She grabs Gold by the collar and levels him with a glare.
"I do seem to have heard that tale once or twice." He looks tired, eyes haunted by sleepless night.
She remembers that time she went running through the woods and finding her reflection. "I went through time. And I changed things. Could I change reality?"
"Anything is possible, with magic."
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Elsa haunts the shadows of the town, creeping in the darkness. Emma finds her, because she's tracking herself. She finds the woman hunched over near what used to be Henry's castle. "You're me."
The pale figure whirls around with her eyes wide and frantic. "Who are you?" Ice leaps from her fingertips. "Why are you haunting me?"
"I'm Emma." She sits down on a fallen tree log, watching her carefully. "Who were your parents?"
"Elsa." She speaks quietly, stepping forward. "You look so similar."
"I'm Snow and Charming's daughter."
Within seconds she has what feels like a dagger of ice against her throat, Elsa grabbing her hair roughly and pulling her roughly. "You're dead, Ana. I killed you once by accident, and they tried to kill me. I won't die-I can't die for you!"
"I'm not Ana. I'm Emma." She whispers, watching the cold figure draw herself away.
"Where am I?"
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"He tortured you?" Emma feels rage building.
"He locked me away. Lied to me. I wanted safety, and he locked me in this urn and ripped me apart. He couldn't understand me." Elsa whispered, pulling at the sleeves of Emma's jacket. "I was so afraid of dying, that I couldn't handle it. And he sealed me in an urn."
Emma carefully takes the gloved hand. "I won't let you die."
"Could we be sisters?" There's a strange closeness between them, identities sewn together.
"I should warn you then. You'll have a nephew."
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No one is ready for the moment when Elsa calls Regina mother.
It'd taken her hours to talk Elsa out of her panic attacks at the idea of meeting Snow and Charming, and only relenting when Emma swore to remain armed and ready. Elsa has accepted that these are not her parents, and they also will never be her parents. Emma had already came to that realization, that they would never be able to be father and mother to Emma herself.
Elsa and Henry had taken to one another almost immediately, and she'd been bestowed with the title 'aunt elsa' within minutes of meeting him. Elsa had only gotten a glimpse of Regina from across the street and had flung herself through the traffic in order to fling her arms around Regina's narrow waist and cry out mother.
"Get off me, Swan," Regina had responded, trying to untangle herself from the cold arms.
"Wrong one." Emma tells to her quietly, following in Elsa's shadow. "This is alternate-reality Elsa." There's a second. "My sister."
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There's something that just feels right with Elsa. Like she was meant to belong in Emma's world. Like she should have, all along.
"Don't worry, you'll find a home too, Emma."
She has thought those words again and again until they became numb within her mind. Now they've faded away. "I think I've found my happy-ever-after." She says to no one, but that doesn't matter.
She's created a home, found the two people she'd never found before, and she's found(created) her family.
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She feels settled.
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