Author's note: 2nd Chapter's up! Hope you guys like it, and if you do, don't forget to leave a review down below and let me know what you think :)

Disclaimer: I do not own anything except the story line and plot of this story.

CHAPTER TWO: Jack
Very Little Faith and Too Much Remorse

Jack stared through the windows, precariously balancing himself at the top of Princess Elsa's window. No blood rushed to his head as he hung upside down. His dark brown cloak was securely tucked underneath his thin body. His staff leaned against the slope of the castle roof just a few inches from his reach. It was a cold winter afternoon in Arendelle, and it was probably one of the harshest winters they've had. Not a soul was outside, but Jack vaguely noticed. No one could see him anyway.

It had been a century since Jack rose out of that lake. He had spent years looking for answers, and nights looking up at the Man in the Moon. The Moon was still unresponsive, and some nights he didn't feel like asking him questions at all. He knew his response would always be silence. No peculiar or glowing moonlight, no glittery magic. Just silence. Jack had watched time fly, had watched the seasons change, had watched people grow old and eventually, die. He had watched society grow more advanced by the day, but he still preferred to be away from people. Seeing crowds made him reminisce his first night in Burgess. When people passed through him, it was like drowning in a pit filled with ice cold water. He couldn't breathe, and though he was impervious to cold, he shivered all over. It was as if they took a part of him as they passed, leaving him empty and nauseous and completely aware that he was alone…

Jack suppressed a shudder. He hated it when he absently recalled what it felt like.

Little Elsa was reading her book, The Spirit of Winter, on a couch by the window. Her eyebrows were scrunched up in concentration, as if she was trying to memorize the book word for word. It was raining snowflakes in her room, but Elsa seemed to neither notice nor care. Jack smiled. He had always been attracted to people who read stories about him or mentioned him, hoping that they would somehow believe in him. But none of them had such a strong pull on him—no one except Elsa.

Jack had been flying around Norway spreading his winter magic that night. He was supposed to leave for London when he had passed by Arendelle. Most of the village lights were nothing but tiny flickering pinpricks from a distance. People were well asleep; the air was still and peaceful. Jack had noticed a faint evening light coming from one of the windows of the castle. He had raced towards it in excitement of what he would find. It had always struck him as odd when people weren't sleeping in during the winter, and his curiosity as to why people were still awake at this hour got the best of him.

That was the first time he saw Elsa since before she was alienated from others. Yes, Jack knew her. He knew about her identity, about her powers. He had been there when Elsa and Anna were playing in the ball room, partaking in the fun without them noticing his presence—an invisible third wheel. He had snuck in through one of the windows and had been playing in the snow with them before Elsa had accidentally hit Anna with her powers. He had followed them to the Valley of the Living Trolls, concerned for both of the sisters' safety. It was then did he realize how powerful Elsa had become.

Her beautiful blonde hair had been in a loose, messy braid, so Jack had assumed that she had just woken up. Her striking, crystal blue eyes, however, were puffy and swollen. Had she been crying? Jack had asked himself. She bore a great resemblance to her mother: same pretty pale face, though her mother's eyes had been more of a blue-gray than Elsa's crystalline blue. He had hovered by Elsa's window while her mother read to her the story of Jack Frost. He had smiled whenever his name was mentioned. Elsa behaved like a good audience; she gasped, laughed and oohed at all the right times. Jack had been too absorbed into the story and into the sound of Elsa's little voice that he hadn't realized it ended until she came bounding up the window. Instinctively, Jack had flown upward, hiding behind one of the nearest spires on the roof. He could just make out Elsa's beautiful pale face behind the partially frosted glass, eyes gleaming with hope and excitement of seeing the Winter Spirit from her book—

Jack was startled out of his wits when Elsa gave a small yelp from down below. He nearly fell off the roof, if he had not quickly caught himself. After repositioning himself, he peered down at her worriedly through the window. Her book lay abandoned by her knees. She was kneeling on the couch by the window, her hands held in fright near her heart. To Jack's horror, frost crawled up the window from where her hands touched the sill. Elsa was breathing heavily in terror, her gaze flitting from her hands to the newly frosted window. Before Jack could intervene, she ran to the door, pulled it open, and disappeared into the hallway.

"Elsa, where are you?" Jack whispered to himself.

He had searched every nook and cranny of the castle, looked past every window and checked the gardens and the courtyards and still he couldn't find Elsa. His anxiety grew and grew as the minutes passed without any luck of finding the gifted girl. Dread filled his entire being, flooding his brain with memories that caused his heart to ache. He felt sorry for Elsa. He pitied her for having been gifted with powers she can't hope to control. Seeing Elsa's young, crying face when she had accidentally hit her sister had multiplied the guilt Jack felt tenfold. If only—

Jack stopped by the King and Queen's windows. They were larger than the others, and more trapezoidal than triangular. The red velvet curtains were drawn, but one of the windows had not been fully covered. He perched cautiously on the window sill and peeked through the curtains. He could only see the King in there; slick light hair that looked like gold in the firelight and a perfectly trimmed pencil moustache. He was kneeling by the fire, his green eyes shining like emeralds. In front of him stood Elsa.

"Finally," Jack breathed.

The flames made Elsa's eyes look like gleaming sapphires. Her cheeks were slightly pink, from the heat or probably just tricks of the light. Jack noticed that she looked suffocated. Her breathing was shallow, as if she might faint at any second. She shifted her weight from one foot to another, inching away from the fire with every movement. He sighed. He knew the feeling; they were both sensitive to heat. The King was holding something white and small. A handkerchief, maybe? Jack leaned in closer. In the King's hands were a pair of white kid gloves too small to be his, but just right for—

"Elsa, give me your hands." Elsa didn't move. She stared in shock at her father. He reached for her trembling hands so that he could put the gloves on himself. "It's alright, sweetheart," he said reassuringly. With a sigh of defeat, she gingerly raised her hands, sucking in a deep breath while the King slipped the gloves on. To her surprise, her father's hands did not freeze, unlike her window earlier. The King closes Elsa's hand in his, saying, "The gloves will help. See?" Elsa glanced down at her new gloves. Her hands stayed enclosed in her father's. A minute passed, and still it did not freeze. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Conceal it," the King said.

Elsa smiled. "Don't feel it. Don't let it show."

They said the last bits of the sentence in unison. Elsa glanced at the window where Jack was hiding. She and Jack locked eyes for a fraction of a second before he turned away from the windows, letting the breath he was holding in the entire time out. Did she see me? he thought, but he didn't dare look back to make sure. His hand felt cold. He opened his palm to reveal a single snowflake the size of a baby's closed fist. He stared at it as it wove in and out of his fingers before finally drifting off with the wind.

It wasn't your fault.

Jack shook his head in frustration. It was almost midnight, and the snowfall in Arendelle tripled in a matter of hours. He leaned casually against one of the castle spires near Elsa's window. The wind whipped his snow white hair and caught in his coat, making it swish like a cape behind him. She had fallen asleep with the gloves still on, hugging her book tightly like one would do with a stuffed toy. From the roof, Jack could see a little smile on her face as she slept peacefully.

He never thought that it would come to this. He never expected Elsa to get cut-off from everyone else. He certainly didn't expect that she'd hate her powers so much. These terrible turn of events filled Jack with guilt. If only he could just turn back time, and undo what he did…

His chest ached with remorse. He could feel it deep down in his gut that Elsa believed in him with her whole being. Jack was overwhelmed with joy, of course. Someone actually believed in him! For centuries, he felt invisible to everyone. He felt like a ghost of the past just passing through, trapped in time, forever unseen. Elsa will be able to see him; he just knew it. But what if she finds out his secret?

He couldn't help but think that whatever he was doing was even right at all. All this time watching over Elsa as she and her powers grew reminded him every second of every day that it was mostly his fault. He couldn't even let her see him. Besides, how could he even show himself to her without remembering what happened that night? The least he could do after what happened was to watch over her, and to keep her safe at all costs.

"I promise, Elsa," Jack said, his voice carried by the winter wind. "I'll make you happy again."