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Hallo.

I would just like to thank everyone who took their time to read this, and for the reviews, favorites, and followers. I really appreciate it! I finally have a written plot for this story, but it's still flexible, so feel free to give suggestions.

Sorry for the wait! School just started and my teachers aren't as nice this year. I'm glad people enjoyed my last update! Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

So here's the new chapter! I hope it doesn't suck.

(I don't own anything.)

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Chapter 7- (Near) Two Shades Darker

"...Je ne veux pas quitter..."

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A lot (of terrible things) can happen in two weeks.

Because near two weeks later,

1. Jack realized that Bunny had been avoiding him.

2. Jack felt frustrated and embarrassed because Elsa hadn't been talking to him much either, or to anyone, and he had the sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with the first night of french tutoring.

3. He got out of hockey early so he went to Pippa's school to pick her up for once, and saw another kid hit her. When Jack ripped them apart, he spent almost an hour yelling at the punk and reporting him to the principal, and then the whole walk home yelling at his sister for not saying anything about bullies.

4. He found out that his parents were getting divorced

5. He grew a few inches taller. Yoopee.

6. Oh, and it turns out, Jack and Elsa have been dancing incorrectly this whole time.

Mrs. Cinders instructed them a little ways from the rest of the class during lunch break, making the Monday lesson feel a lot more awkward than it needed to be. Her short, grey-blue dress puffed out like a pastry, distracting Jack with the weird way it bobbed around her figure. "Now, the man's hand is on the shoulder-blade, not the waist. Movies make it look like it's on the waist and that the girl's hand is almost on the guy's neck, but it's not. The girl's hand goes on the bicep."

They followed, and Jack's shoulder suddenly felt cold from the loss of Elsa's touch, but the hand now on his arm made up for it. Jack could sense that she was stiffer than last week when they had practiced, but didn't comment. Something was bothering her, and he would rather stay oblivious as to whether it was himself or not. He couldn't even enjoy the fact that he was just barely taller than her.

"Hey," He mumbled close to her, "Are you okay?"

She gave him a closed mouthed smile, and hummed a bit. "Would you mind if we skipped ballroom and do the french lessons after class tomorrow instead?" Her voice was quiet and notably softer than normal, but still held the same clear crisp. "To just get it out of the way?"

Ouch. Since, evidently, Jack's french tutoring was more of a chore for her, he understood why she would want to... get it over with. Elsa seemed to read his mind, or more likely, his face, because she got a guilty look and said, "Jackson, you know I didn't mean it like that."

No, he really didn't- and why had she had she gone back to calling him Jackson?

To further put his mind at rest she reasoned, "I'm a little stressed right now. You understand, right?"

Jack sighed, letting her earlier comment go and leaning his forehead on hers, noses brushing together. It made his heart beat faster and their posture a little uncomfortable, but it already was from the beginning so he didn't care. He could tell she did, though, by the way she went rigid in his arms and red crept up her cheeks. Their footwork, much to Mrs. Cinder's annoyance, blurred into gentle sways instead of the number they were taught, and Jack longed for her to fall into his steps like the first time they danced together. A voice at the back of his head nagged him that the position was far too intimate, and that he was coming on too strong, but he pushed that away because (Elsa was adorable when embarrassed) he had to know,

"But... are you okay?" It didn't sound like a question the second time he asked.

She looked down, eyelashes fanning the faint freckles across her cheeks.

"Yes." He really, really wanted to believe her.

She didn't relax in his arms throughout the entire class.

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Two weeks earlier

Elsa found herself blushing

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and knew

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she was in trouble.

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When the music had stopped and the bell had rung, Elsa retreated from him and classroom 306 as soon as possible, though Jack had fifth period French with her. He shouldered his backpack in gloom, no hurry because the class was straight down the hall and headed the same way his dance partner had taken off seconds ago. Part of him had hoped to walk with her.

She couldn't even share looks with him from the mounds of tests that Mr. O'Hara ordered her to grade. Jack would have fallen asleep from boredom like on any other day, but had been encouraged not to since his first tutoring session. He was about ready to slap himself just to keep awake, but found he didn't need to when Elsa dropped a test onto his desk and left him in amazement before he could say a word.

He had gotten an A, written in Elsa's fine handwriting,

And a smiley face, which rivaled the huge grin that begged to show itself.

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Jack and Ariel seldom talk to one another. He didn't make much of that until he passed her on a stroll to get away from everyone, and saw her with Tooth, crying in the empty music room during nutrition. He just didn't think that tear streaks matched her bubbly personality. They were too close to be acquaintances, but not enough to be called friends. They were always something hopelessly in between and that fine line was always a little blurred. That was the time Jack had finally cleared things up.

"Ariel?" He'd never been inside the music room so he made sure not to touch anything, well aware of how destructive his nimble fingers could be. The polished floors squeaked against his sneakers, moist from the dew outside.

She snapped up from the ball she curled herself into in the corner of the room, regarding him with watery blue eyes and a red pout. Tooth gave him a weary stare, a gentle hand on her friend's back like she would break from anything stronger. The ginger sniffled, wiping her face with her knuckles. She didn't try to smile or say anything. Ariel strongly believed in being true to her feelings.

"Hey." He settled down on his toes in front of her after acknowledging Tooth with a nod. "Are you okay?"

Fresh hot waves of tears gushed down her cheeks and she leapt forward. All he could see was red, and he realized that his face was engulfed by her puffy hair, with her soundlessly crying into his shoulder.

"Daddy found out about Eric. He kicked me out. Tooth is letting me stay at her house."

"Who's Eric?"

She laughed, actually laughed, and said while stepping back to adjust her dress and clean away her running makeup. Tooth helped her straighten her blue hair bow, "I forgot that you did not know."

He waited for her to explain in her accent and choppy english.

"Daddy has a close mind. He doesn't approve of me seeing boys. I started dating Eric in secret a few months ago."

Tooth gave her sympathetic smile and cuddled her from behind, leaving Jack to do the same in the front for a group hug.

Jack skipped classes to buy her chocolates and ice cream, and helped the two of them eat the whole box at Tooth's house while the girls gushed about teeth and forks and gossiped. Jack spent two hours learning about Ariel's dining etiquette club and the ongoing rumors that Glinda Goode and Elphaba West were roommates, and that Belle O'Hara had already moved in with her short-term boyfriend instead of hockey practice. They spoke of crushes, also, and Jack found difficulty in shrinking into himself when Tooth would send him her hopeful glances.

Friends. They were friends now, even though they went back to rarely saying a word to each other the next week.

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Near twenty-four hours later, Jack found that the last few days have been rough on some of his friends, too. Merida had a huge fight with her mother. Bunny still hadn't talked to him. Tooth was quiet for once. Tiana was over working herself every night to help her now single mother. Rapunzel had been grounded for sneaking out. Sandy has insomnia so he falls asleep during lessons. Anna claimed that Elsa was shutting her out. North, Lottie, Kristoff, and Flynn were at hard work trying to keep everyone's spirit's up. No one knew what was wrong with Elsa.

No one knew what was up with him either, but they didn't ask. He didn't know if he should be thankful or not. He pushed the cafeteria food around on his tray, his stomach flipping at the thought of eating. Like Anna, he couldn't take his mind off of his sister. Pippa had tried to tell him that bullying wasn't a regular thing for her, but he couldn't be so sure. He couldn't imagine what was going through the minds of anyone who wanted to hurt a cute little girl, and he didn't want to. He wanted to tear them apart.

And he couldn't forget about his parent's divorce. He should've expected it, with how little any of his family interacted with their distant father. The worst part of it was how indifferent both sides of the broken marriage were. There wasn't any crying or shouting- no "please don't leave me's" or blame... but no peace, either. It's like they didn't- no, they just didn't care anymore. It made him even sadder that maybe it wouldn't even make a difference if they stayed together.

But why couldn't they, just for the sake of sweet Pippa, who cried late into the night? Why couldn't they for the sake of Jack, who lost countless hours of sleep trying to soothe those cries, something they should have been doing? They had to care at least that much, right?

Wrong. The bullies and his parents had two things in common.

They had hurt Pippa.

Jack wanted to tear them apart, too.

"If she just opened her damn door!" Anna clawed pink polished nails into her pigtails in exasperation, still heated about Elsa's increased emotional distance from her family, "In, like, the first time in forever, we can be close again! Doesn't she want that?"

She deflated, slumping into the cafeteria table and resting her head in her hands. "Maybe she doesn't. Maybe she hates me."

"If that were possible, yeah." Jack scoffed back. He combed a knuckle into his chocolate hair, "But it's not. She doesn't hate you."

If that had helped at all, she didn't show it.

So he mumbled, almost incoherently, to the ones next to him, Tooth and Bunny, "I talked to Elsa yesterday. She's just stressed."

Tooth glared daggers at him. "Jack, what would you know?"

Jack blinked, baffled, and tried to remember if he did anything to her to piss her off. Apparently he hadn't been clear? "I… talked to her?"

"Yes, we got that, but are you living under the same roof? Is she your sister? You can't speak for them because you don't get it." She snapped.

Jack stared, a pang of hurt ran through him. Who was this and what happened to sweet Tooth? He skated his sight around his angry friend to see if Buns was thinking the same thing, but he gave him the cold shoulder, averting his concentration to his baby carrots. Anyone else who still had the energy to sent Tooth the same curious faces.

"What's up, Tooth?" Jack sighed, regarding her with slightly narrowed blue eyes and lowered eyebrows. From the hell he was currently going through, he had no patience for PMS or the silent treatment.

"Elsa's all you talk about- it's none of our business, okay?"

"If it wasn't Anna wouldn't be talking to us about it. What's your problem?"

Tooth let out one of the weirdest noises he's ever heard- somewhere along the lines of a growl and a choked sob, slinging her red side bag over her shoulder. She ran from her seat with tears gathered around her blue eyes, so dark they almost looked the same purple the feathers in her hair were.

"Tooth!" Jack called after her, eyes wide as saucers because whatthefuckwashappening.

Bunny cursed, shooting up with his grey bag, worry flashing in his eyes as he sprinted after her.

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"Je ne veut pas quitter."

"You're getting better." If Elsa's smile reached her eyes, Jack might have glowed at the praise. Only might have because there were too many things, too many people to worry about rather than his grade in French. He never liked drama, but it seemed to like him a lot this month. He yawned, making Elsa's blonde head snap up from her textbook and note the bruise-like bags under his eyes and his fingers massaging his temples. Anna sat soundly next to him, only taking caution to her sister, like any sudden movements would scare her away.

"Why don't we take a break?" She pretty much whispered. She set the neat pile of notes down on her nightstand. "Are you hungry?"

"No, thanks, I just have a headache."

Anna pursed her lips, "We have Advil in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom."

Elsa nodded as she left down the hall, "I'll get you some water."

Jack didn't remember his feet taking him the bathroom, and wasn't fully aware until he held two capsules in his hands: the Advil…

…and the Prozac.

Antidepressants.

Jack felt his stomach drop and his mind stopped working. The bottle weighed so much more after reading the label with his arms turning into jelly and his legs into lead. It was suddenly very hard to swallow. In his scrambled state, he was somehow able to bring himself into Anna's room, where they had chosen to have that week's tutoring session.

"Anna." He managed.

"Hmm?" She eyed the pills and on instant she gasped, looking like a deer in headlights. "Jack!" she hissed. "What are you doing!"

She stole them from his grasp and gave him a pointed stare, nose crinkling, and eyes burning into his.

"Are those yours?" He croaked.

She paled, looking around for who could only be Elsa as no one else was in the house. With the coast clear, she pulled him towards her, foreheads just inches away. "They're Elsa's."

His stomach sunk lower. "She-"

"Jack, this isn't something she tells people. She can't know you know, okay? Don't say anything about it-"

"Am I interrupting something?"

Both sophomores jumped away from each other, widening the small space between them moments ago. Anna slipped the pills behind her back discreetly, while Jack fought off the blush rising into his cheeks with the suspicious grimace he received.

"No. Nothing." Anna said.

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Yes, a lot of terrible things can happen in two weeks,

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But one good thing can easily make up for it.

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"Jack?"

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That night

Pippa stood only up to a little higher than his waist, being short for her age. Her warm brown eyes resembled melted candy, and he couldn't think of anything sweeter.

"Is Dad leaving us?

When he had no answer, or he did but couldn't bear to say it because

It would hurt…

Pippa,

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She said, "It's okay."

but for different reasons, because she understood so much more

and knew so much more

than he liked to think.

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Jack liked to think that he was trying to protect her

And he didn't want her to hurt.

Of course, that was true.

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But he liked to think that

Days in the rink, skating on frozen lakes in winter, climbing trees, pretending to shave, the man in the Santa suit on Christmas Eve

and the man in the pin striped suit

the man he loved to the moon and back

but was now as distant as the moon

didn't matter.

and

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It didn't hurt him at all.

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But it did.

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It twisted, it chewed, it broke

It froze his heart.

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Jack wondered if he looked as fragile and precious as his sister did when he was younger.

Or if he looked as small and helpless in the hall at that moment, when he realized he was on the brink of

tears.

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"I love you, Jack,"

She said sleepily, and she went to bed without needing him to tuck her in

that night.

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Love had a strange way of melting frozen hearts.

-;-

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Sorry if it's terrible.

I'm thinking about adding more to this chapter if I ever have time because I feel like I forgot to put in a few details but meh I'll figure it out later.

-Mawhn

(Thank you to dessertsnowqueen for the ballroom dancing info ;)