Chapter 1

If you were that old, and that kind, and the only one of your kind, you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry.

-Amelia Pond

Just knock, Anna. Please, just knock.

Elsa had left the bed and was sitting on the floor, her doll still in her arms, her nightgown glowing pale blue in the moonlight gleaming through her window.

The sky's awake, Anna. C'mon, just knock. I can control it, I won't do it again.

Her feet started to feel tingly from sitting on them, but she stayed, staring at the door. It looked unreal, like a painting. Except that paintings never, ever move, and she just knew...

We can just play dolls. I can handle dolls! She held out her stuffed baby, whose nightgown matched her own, and stroked its soft white hair.

A bead of light thumped onto it's face and splattered. Another fell, and another, and Elsa buried her face in the soft warmth of the doll's nightgown. She shuddered as silent sobs bled into her toy. They won't hear me cry again tonight. I can be a good girl. Don't let them know...

She remembered her father's face, looking at her gravely as he wiped away her tears. "Be strong, Elsa," he had said, every night. "You have to be strong, for both your sakes."

I'm sorry I'm not strong, Father. But you don't have to see; I'll make you proud.

She pulled away from the doll, sniffing, and looked at it again. The nightgown was limp, the cloth face smudged with tears, and the hair damp. The warmth was fading from it as the moisture caught the air, and then it started: fragile swirls curled delicately from Elsa's fingers, seeping into the doll's cloth and stuffing, hardening and freezing and sharpening the toy. She gasped and dropped it, and it clattered as it fell.

Elsa rolled onto her back and let her arms flop to her sides. She was too tired to cry again, but the pain was as sharp and cold as the doll beside her. She felt sleep tugging at her, inviting her to escape her loneliness for a little while, when she glanced at the window. Frost was forming on it, catching the moonlight.

But it was growing rather fast. She blinked quickly, and rubbed her eyes. Could she be dreaming? No, because as she flipped onto her belly to see better, there was glittering ice covering the middle of her window in a big circle.

Frost doesn't start in the middle...it starts on the edges.

Elsa sat up, ignoring the numbness in her legs, and then she saw the strangest thing; a circle was being melted through the ice, like an invisible finger was drawing it. Two eyes dotted inside, and a wide sweep gave the face a big smile. Squiggly hair was next, and then a rather poorly drawn triangle for a dress.

Elsa jumped up and ran over. Hardly thinking, she touched the glass with her own finger, and started to trace the outline of her doll in her own patch of frost, a smaller version of the image on the other side of the glass. The other frost stopped growing, and the picture stopped in the middle of drawing a leg. Elsa held her breath, waiting for it to continue, but instead, after a few moments, a handprint slowly appeared in the window. Elsa's eyes widened as she looked at it. Could it be...? She looked at her own hand, hesitated, then pressed it against the frosty handprint.

She felt, beneath the chill, warmth.

Elsa blinked, and then she could see him.

She was so surprised that she tumbled off her window seat, thumping loudly, but scurried to her feet again and rubbed her eyes. Sure enough, a older boy with hair as white as her own was outside her window, his own eyes slowly getting bigger and bigger as he stared at her, his mouth hanging slightly open. He motioned with his pale hand towards himself, and Elsa nodded, staring at him.

His entire face sprang into the biggest grin she had ever seen, his eyes bright with their own light, and he did a backflip. Elsa gasped, because she realized then what she should have already known before.

He's flying! He's actually flying up to my window! She grinned and giggled slightly before stopping herself with her hand, and another thought melted into her mind. He has powers like me.

The boy's mouth was wide open with laughter, and then his face brightened with an idea. He started dragging a finger through his frost. Jack, it said, in sloppy handwriting, and the K was backwards.

Elsa giggled again, and wrote, Elsa. She drew the S backwards, to make sure it would look right from his side of the glass.

Jack started to write something else, but then Elsa heard footsteps. There were voices coming up the hall.

"...and I heard something fall, Your Majesty! Shouldn't I go in? The head maid said to get you first, but surely-."

"You did the right thing." Elsa's father's voice was a bit panicked and breathless. "If you ever hear anything odd, alert me first before going in."

Elsa made a shooing motion with her hand, more urgently when Jack looked confused, and he ducked away from the windowsill just as the door opened, and her father walked in with the glare of bright yellow light at his back, a candle in his hand.

"Elsa!" he panted, and stopped. He saw the frozen doll on the floor, the frost on the windows with writing in it, and then his little girl, squinting away from the brightness of the light from the hall.

"What happened?" he asked, shutting the door firmly behind him and setting the candle down over Elsa's fireplace.

"I...I couldn't sleep."

Her father struck a match and lit a flame underneath the logs in the fireplace. A small flame began to grow under his hands, and he didn't see Elsa wince. "Bring me your doll."

Elsa hopped off her window seat and picked up the doll. It was a tad wet and soft, since it was left to thaw on its own, but now it started to freeze again. She hurried to her father and handed it to him, dropping her eyes and holding her hands behind her back as he took it and held it close to the warmth of the fire.

"Why couldn't you sleep?" he asked, as water dripped from the corner of the doll's nightgown.

"I just couldn't." It was a lie. I have to show him I'm strong. "The moon was too bright," she added weakly.

That seemed to make her father feel better, because he sighed and smiled ever so slightly. "Anna told me the same thing when I put her to bed," he murmured. "Something about the sky being awake. Silly thing. When she puts her mind to something, she doesn't back down, especially when it comes to staying up past bedtime."

Elsa held her breath and looked down. I must be strong. He doesn't realize what he's saying.

"Here," he broke her thinking, holding out the thawed doll. "Now, think. Don't feel. Don't let it freeze."

She hesitated, fear boiling in her stomach. "Take it," her father said.

She reached out and touched it, and ribbons of frost branched out from her fingertips. Her father sighed and held it over the fire again, this time saying nothing. When the frost disappeared, he held it out. "Again," he said. "Don't feel. Think about warmth."

Warmth? Elsa closed her eyes and reached out. She felt the doll between her fingers. Blankets and hot tea, she thought. A fire in the winter. Warm hugs. The smiling face of a snowman rose in her mind, and Anna's joyous laughter rang in her ears. The doll snapped as it iced over, this time thick as glass over the whole doll.

Elsa opened her eyes and saw her father's saddened face. "I see," was all he said, and he stood up, took his candle, and walked to the door.

"Father? Father, where are you going?" she asked, jumping up after him. "I'm sorry! I can try again, I'll get stronger!"

"Stay here, Elsa."

"Father!" Tears were springing back to her eyes, but the door opened and she had to cover her face with her hands. Then the yellow light disappeared, and she was alone again.

"Sir?" came the maid's voice from outside.

"Make sure that no one is allowed in that room except the queen and myself." The King's voice was sad and tired.

Elsa stood staring at the door, her eyes getting used to the pale blue light again. The light from her fire was dying, but as she looked back at her window, it was already melting the thin frost that she had been writing in.

Could I have been dreaming? she wondered, climbing back onto the window seat for a moment to look out and around. There was no sign of Jack, the flying ice boy.

She sat back, and was about to get down and into bed, when she saw, in the corner of the frost from outside, that the words see you later had been scrawled into the frost. It was not her handwriting, and the R was backwards. She grinned, hopped into bed, and snuggled into her blankets.

Maybe she wasn't completely alone, after all.

Hope you liked it! :D I've been mulling this idea over in my head for a while now. I like to think that Jack and Elsa would have been friends, but I don't really feel a romantic connection between the two. So what would have happened if Elsa had had a friend like Jack who understood her? And how will this friendship between two frosty outcasts effect those around them? Only time will tell! Ten Chapters, and updates on Tuesdays, hopefully (I know it's Wednesday, but I hadn't gotten a chance to upload til just now)...anyway R&R, and I'll see you all next week!