Chapter 10

"Be careful!" Emma's mother called from inside the house, as Emma pulled her brother out the opened door.

"We will!" Jack shouted behind him, laughing as he was pulled along. It was finally winter, and Jack had promised Emma that they would go skating on natural ice. Not that Elsa's ice wasn't fun, but the other kind always just felt different to Emma. And anyways, whenever Elsa was around, Jack was too busy being love-struck to hang out with his sister. But today, it would just be the two of them, out having a good time.

"Race you to the forest!" Emma called, immediately taking her chance to get an unfair head start. She heard Jack close behind her, and catching up. He was so much taller than she was, it was just no fair. He waved as he passed her, and she started to struggle just to keep him in sight.

She finally reached him at the forest behind the castle, where he was leaning against a tree like he'd been waiting for her for ages. "How many wins has that been for me this year?" he asked. "Ten? Eleven?"

"Just wait until I get taller," said Emma, punching him gently on the arm. "I'll be blowing right past you."

Jack laughed, and gestured into the woods. "After you," he said, a too-polite grin on his face.

"Not this time," said Emma. "I know that look. I think you should clear a path, just to be safe."

"No, no! I insist that you go first. It's only the gentlemanly thing to do."

Emma laughed and shoved him forwards, expecting a tripwire that didn't come. Jack laughed, and teasingly said, "Just keeping you on your toes. You'll never know when I'm just leading you on."

Emma laughed, and said, "Let's just go, before it gets too late to go skating for very long."

Jack smiled, and did indeed lead the way to the lake.

When they made it to the clearing, Emma hastily pulled on her skates, glad that they were finally doing this. She skated out towards the center of the lake quickly, falling over to Jack's chorus of laughter. "That's what you get for not being patient," he called, still lacing up his skates.

"It's been a while since I've been on this ice! Elsa's stuff is much less bumpy!"

Jack skated out to join her, a grin on his face. She got back up and started skating away from him, sticking her tongue out. Then she heard it. A low, dull crack. She looked down at her feet, and saw small fractures lining across the ice. She looked up to see that Jack had stopped moving, stopped talking, and was looking at her feet. Then, he looked back up at her face. "Jack," she said quietly, scared.

He knelt down and took off his skates, saying, "It's ok. It's ok! Don't look down, just look at me."

"Jack, I'm scared," she said, glancing back down at the ice cracking beneath her feet.

"I know, I know," he said, taking a tentative step forward and wincing slightly as the ice cracked beneath his foot. "But you're gonna be alright. You're not gonna fall in. Uh… we're gonna have a little fun instead!" He tried to sound cheerful, even though Emma knew he must have been scared.

"No, we're not!"

"Would I trick you?"

"Yes! You always play tricks!"

"Well, alright, well, not - not this time," he said, his voice trembling just a little, no matter how hard he tried to cover it up. "I promise, I promise, you're gonna be - you're gonna be fine. You have to believe in me." This he said with more confidence, so she almost did.

"You wanna play a game?" he asked, voice suddenly forcing cheerfulness. "We're gonna play hopscotch, like we play everyday. It's as easy as one," he took a step, ice cracking beneath his feet. "Woah!" he said, pretending to trip to make her laugh. "Two," he took another step. "Three!" and he bounded back onto safe area. He looked around for a moment, and saw a large stick with a hook shape at its end. "Alright," he said, picking it up. "Now it's your turn." He positioned the stick to grab her.

"One," he said, and she took a step forwards, gasping as the ice cracked beneath her. "That's it, that's it," he muttered. "Two," she gasped, convinced the ice would give in. "Three!" and he hooked the staff around her, propelling her to safety. She smiled up at him, not registering how far he had slid on the ice, back towards where she'd had come. She stood and laughed once.

Suddenly, Jack wasn't standing there anymore. "Jack!" she shouted, reaching for where he had been, where there was now just a hole in the ice. "Jack!" she shouted again, this time more desperately. "Oh, Jack," she moaned, slumping to her knees, tears starting down her face. The tears wouldn't stop. They kept coming, harder and harder, the sobbs shaking her whole body.

She pounded on the ice, still unable to stop. This was all her fault. Jack would have happily brought Elsa, but Emma had wanted them to be alone. To have fun. If Emma hadn't been so reckless, they wouldn't have been so far out when the ice started to crack, and they could have made it back. If only…

Hours later, and long after dark, Emma found her way back home. She didn't know what to tell her parents, didn't know if she could. But she did know that they had to be told. Then Anna and Elsa and Kristoff. And she had to do it. She looked at the door to her house, the door she'd pulled him through earlier that day, and pushed it open. Her parents rushed to the front of the house. They looked like they'd been worried.

"Where…?" Emma's mother started, looking at her daughter who was very, very alone. Then Emma started crying again, and ran into her mother's arms. "What…?" Then her eyes widened, as if she'd realized what had happened, and pulled Emma closer to her. The tears started leaking down her face, silent tears, as she tried to stop her daughter from knowing, but Emma felt them drip on her head.

"I-I-I'm so-so-sorry," Emma choked out. Her father slumped into a chair, rubbing his eyes. Trying to be strong.

Darkness. It was everywhere. It was dark, and it was cold, and Jack was scared. But then… then he saw the moon. It was so big, and it was so bright, and it seemed to chase the darkness away. Jack felt himself being lifted out of the water, the ice once again crackling around him, and he took a big gulp of clear winter air.

He felt his feet planted on the ice again, the ice now whole beneath him. As he stared up at the moon, as it chased the darkness away, he wasn't scared anymore. He knew the moon had saved him again, but why it had, and what it wanted him to do, he had no idea. He looked down at his hands, which he recognised as paler than they had been before.

Jack looked back up at the moon, and slipped on the ice. Regaining his balance, he started walking forward, until his foot hit something. It was the stick, the one that he'd used to save Emma. It looked more like a staff, really. He nudged it with his toe, and frost spread over it. Intrigued, he bent down and picked it up. It felt somehow… right in his grasp. He noticed more frost starting to line it, and dropped it. Where it landed, beautiful patterns of frost appeared on the ice. He looked down at the staff, a smile curling about his lips.

He ran over to the nearest tree, and gently tapped it with his staff. Ribbons of frost appeared, spreading across the bark. Jack touched them, his smile only widening, before turning around and tapping another tree, leading to the same result. Jack smiled, excited at everything he could do with this and ran, full-speed to the lake, trailing the staff along behind him as he clumsily sped over the ice, tripping and sliding and spinning and laughing.

"Woah!" Jack cried, as he was thrust into the air, as if by a gust of wind. He bobbed unsteadily, trying to regain his balance, when he looked down. And what he saw was beautiful. The lake had intricate patterns of frost all over it, glistening white in the moonlight. Woah, he thought, I could get used to-

Jack fell, thudding on branch after branch before finally grabbing onto a big one. He laughed to himself as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. He couldn't wait to show Elsa. He knew she couldn't fly. He perked up, seeing Arendell through the trees, and dashed off to see her.

Elsa didn't believe it at first. She couldn't believe it. This was just some very, very inappropriate joke, and Jack would laugh at her for ever thinking it was true. He was still there he… he was.

But Elsa knew it was true, seeing the way that Emma's eyes avoided hers, the red rims, the hair that was usually so well cared for left un-brushed. Anna's eyes filled with tears, and she clutched Kristoff's arm.

Elsa was numb for a moment, but then she clasped her hands to her mouth and ran to her room, locking the door behind her. She sat there, with her back against the door, as she had so many times before, and cried.

Jack rushed to the castle as fast as he could, hardly being able to keep in his excitement about showing everyone what he could do now. He let himself into the castle from a window on the top floor, anxious to surprise everyone with his new-found ability. He rushed through the halls, hardly noticing that wherever he went was already quite cold. Then he heard something, and stopped dead in his tracks.

He'd heard that sound before, but it had been a long time since that day at the lake. Years. And and after that, Jack had never heard Anna cry so hard. He pushed open a door at the end of a long hall. Anna sat there, Kristoff hugging her close to him, his shirt becoming wet from her tears.

"A… Anna?" Jack asked worriedly, dashing over next to her. "Hey, Anna. What happened?"

"I'm so sorry," Kristoff said gently, his voice thick. Jack looked at him and saw that his face was wet, too.

"Anna!" said Jack, trying to pull her away from him, to ask what happened. But his hand went right through her. He gasped, looking down at himself.

"H-he's go-gone," said Anna. "H-he was al-ways there for me, and I did-didn't… cou-couldn't..." She cried even harder, and Kristoff rubbed her back, barely holding back his own sobs and saying, "I know. I know."

Jack took a step back, looking down at himself. "Anna…" he said. "Is it… are you missing... me? I'm right here!" He felt hysteria building in his chest. "I'm here, Anna! Anna! Please…" his voice cracked slightly, and a tear rolled down his cheek.

"Please," he whispered. "Please see me."

To be continued...