He shook his head, then realized she wouldn't have been able to see the motion, because she was still facing the window. He took a few steps forward, and the dark wooden floorboards creaked under his bare feet. "Listen, I know what you're going through. I think I can help you understand what's happening right now."

Elsa snorted. "I doubt that." She laid her delicate hands on the windowsill in front of her, her fingers somehow turning an even lighter shade of white as they clamped down on the wood. "Please leave. I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I have to."

He let out a quiet chuckle, taking another step forward, despite the instinctive feeling of danger he'd felt at her words. When he'd died and been resurrected by the Man in the Moon, he'd felt utterly alone—full of power and no one to share it with. He didn't want Elsa to feel that way.

He decided to try his luck—or lack thereof so far—by speaking. "Listen, if you just talk to—ˮ

"I said leave!"

So fast that Jack wasn't even sure how it happened, he was overcome by jagged spikes of ice, sliding quickly across the wooden floor towards him.

He lifted off the ground quickly, avoiding what would have been a very uncomfortable stabbing. When he spotted Elsa, he saw that she was still in front of the window, but her eyelids were shut tight and her hand was thrown out in front of her, her fingers spread wide, like she'd been the one to create the icy spikes.

Jack suddenly understood exactly what North had meant about he and Elsa sharing certain "traits".

He took a steadying breath as he flew silently across the room to stand between her and the window. "You can't hurt me, Elsa," he murmured.

She jumped, spinning to face him. "How did you"—she was backing away now, her lips quivering—"What are—ˮ

She slipped on the bed of ice in front of the spikes.

Jack jumped into action, leaping off the ground as he flew towards her. There was no telling what would happen if she impaled herself on—

But his concern was unwarranted. He touched back down a few feet away, staring at her in shock.

She was levitating.

Okay, so they shared a few more traits than he realized.

Elsa's entire body was tense, her arms locked to her chest and her eyes shut tight. She was horizontal, three feet above the ground and an inch from impaling herself on the glistening points of the extremely sharp spikes.

Slowly, her eyes fluttered open. She stared wildly around, and it appeared to take her a few minutes to process her new aerial view of the room. Her eyes widened when the realization hit.

And she dropped.

Lucky for her, Jack had already been in motion the minute her eyes had opened. When he'd first started out, he'd discovered his ability to fly on accident. Before it had become second nature to him, he'd learned the hard way that it took concentration when it wasn't acting solely as a defense mechanism.

He'd locked his arms around Elsa's small frame just as her levitation had turned off, and he'd been too focused on saving her to slow his momentum—he grunted as his back slammed against the wall.

They were lying on the floor, pressed against the wall next to the door. Elsa was still enveloped in Jack's arms, a fact he was all too aware of. Her skin was as icy as his own, and surprisingly soft through the thin material of her dress.

Elsa's breathing returned to normal, and soon he could only feel the slight movement of her chest against the makeshift cage of his arms.

The movement stuttered and increased suddenly, and he recognized it as sobbing.

"What's happening to me?" Elsa's voice broke several times during the short sentence.

Jack wasn't sure what to do when Elsa's sobs became audible, so he just held her tighter as she cried herself out.

When she quieted down, she shifted. He released her so she could sit up, trying to keep the frown off of his face that she was no longer in his arms. It was harder than he thought, so he settled for pressing his lips into a line as the two of them arranged themselves against the wall.

Man, how could someone look beautiful even when they'd just been crying?

Then she spoke again. It was different this time, much more vulnerable now. It was like a veil had been lifted, blown off in the wake of her intense display of power and her subsequent breakdown. "I'd finally gotten my sister back," she whispered. "She'd found out about my powers by accident, but even after—ˮ

He couldn't stop himself as he interrupted her. "What do you mean, 'discovered your powers'?" Unless Elsa's sister had somehow come through the portal with her, she shouldn't have known anything about her powers. These abilities were given to Guardians after they died, not before.

Without looking, Elsa gestured to the semicircular line of icy spikes still dominating the center of the room. "I was born with my powers, and my sister found out about them much the same way you did." Her voice had grown dead by the end.

Jack was still stuck on the word "born", and all he could say was, "How?" The one-word question instantly reminded him of his monosyllabic inquisitions before walking into this room, and he flushed in embarrassment at the thought.

She laughed, still staring at the floor, and he silently thanked the Man in the Moon that the chuckle wasn't directed at the redness in his cheeks, though it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard in his life—or death, for that matter.

"I don't know how, but it explained why I was the only one in my family with a hair color this light." She trailed her delicate fingers along her braid, bringing it back over her left shoulder, which was a just inch away from Jack's right side. He found himself following the motion—so much so that he was caught off guard when she looked at him and smiled.

His lips parted in shock, and he was immediately struck with the realization that he hadn't gotten a full look at her face until this moment.

Man, oh man, what a pity that was.

She was absolutely breathtaking. Her lips were a dark shade of rose, and they were currently parted in a particularly captivating smile, showcasing small and straight ivory teeth. Her eyes were big and beautiful, and a dark shade of glacier blue that rivaled the colors in her dress.

Her smiled faltered and those bright blue eyes lighted with confusion.

"What is it?" she asked.

He'd forgotten how openly he was staring at her, and cleared his throat awkwardly, shaking his head. "Nothing. Why don't you keep telling me what happened," he suggested, and immediately wished he hadn't.

All remaining traces of Elsa's smile vanished, and the blue in her eyes grew dark as she looked down at the floor. "Even after that, after I ran away, my baby sister still refused to give up on me. In the end, when Hans"—he could see the anger flash in her eyes even though she wasn't looking directly at him—"tried to kill me, she sacrificed herself for me. I was more than lucky that her sacrifice was the act of true love that resurrected her. I don't know what I would have done if she'd died that day."

Jack struggled to find something to say, anything to make that beautiful smile return. His heart lifted when it came back on its own.

"Hans was sent back to his kingdom, and not long after, we were planning my sister's wedding, to the newly-appointed Ice Master, Kristoff." She laughed "Anna had insisted that she wanted a winter theme, but I knew that she just wanted me to be the one to decorate. Naturally, there was some upset in the kingdom that Anna wasn't fulfilling her duty as a princess by marrying a prince, but as queen, I put a stop to those protests immediately. Anna may have made a mistake with her first engagement, but I knew that Kristoff was the right choice for her."

His mouth fell open. Elsa was a queen? He had to force the surprise out of his system when he noticed that her face had grown somber again.

"Anna and Kristoff were on their honeymoon, in my cousin's kingdom, when I heard the news. It seemed that Prince Hans had more power than we thought, and he was moving through several kingdoms, destroying everything in his path." Her voice was like a dagger as she said, "With fire."

The shock came back in full force. Not only had Elsa been born with the powers of winter…she'd actually met someone with the power of fire.

Jack had always assumed that the worlds of magic and the mundane were separated by death. Now, he realized, that separation was non-existent.

"In the same message that told me of Han's power, there was a warning. It was suspected that he was on his way to the kingdom Anna and Kristoff were staying in." She bit her lip. "The message had been sealed and sent to me, and I didn't show it to anyone else. I just left. I created a raft out of ice and propelled myself across the ocean." She leaned the side of her face into her hand. "I reached the kingdom when Hans did, in time to save my sister, but apparently not in time to save myself."

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, not knowing what else to say.

A fierce smile lit up her face as she glanced up at him. "It's okay. I got to save my sister—and I took Hans down with me."

He lifted his eyebrows and smirked in response. "Well, I want to say I'm surprised, but…." He nodded to the middle of the room, where the icy spikes illustrated he silent half of his statement.

She laughed. "No, I guess you shouldn't be." Then she frowned, her forehead creasing. "How do you deal with this? With being…dead?" She seemed to trip over the last word.

He opened his mouth to answer, then stopped himself. He'd been about to say that his friends—the other Guardians—were helping him deal, and sure, that was true now, but…. In the beginning, it had been something else entirely. He glanced around the room until he found his wooden staff, which had ended up on the floor beside him. He picked it up with his left hand and showed it to Elsa.

"You need to find something to hold onto," he said.

Elsa reached for it tentatively, then rolled it in her hands. "What is it?" she asked, looking up at him again.

Now he was the one to look at the floor. "I died with it."

He felt the light pressure of her hand on his arm, and met her eyes, which were tight with concern.

"How?" she whispered.

A lump formed in his throat, and he knew he didn't want to relay the details of his death out loud.

But he knew he would. Elsa had opened up and told him her story—she deserved to hear his.

He took a deep breath. "I was on a frozen pond with my little sister, but it turned out that it wasn't frozen enough. The ice was cracking underneath her feet, and I had her grab the other end of that"—he pointed to his staff, still in Elsa's hands—"and then I swung her to safety. Then, before I could react, I fell through. When I woke up, my hair was white and my eyes were blue, but I had no memory to tell me that I used to have brown eyes and hair. In fact, I didn't have any memories of my human life until recently."

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. Then she rolled her eyes, sighing. "That doesn't seem to cover it, but I can't think of anything else to say."

He shrugged. "Sometimes, that's all there is to say."

She looked down at the wooden staff in her hands, then handed it back to him, looking up at him curiously.

"Something to hold onto?" she asked.

He gave her a small smile and nodded.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, exhaling sharply. She stood up so fast that her petite form seemed to blur before his eyes.

When she walked to the left, stopping in front of the door, he got up and followed her. He stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her—though his shoulder stood a couple of inches taller than hers—and nudged her playfully.

"You ready?" he asked.

She glanced up, and those deep blue eyes were like steel.

"Ready."