A/N: Wow, thank you for all the wonderful feedback, you guys! :D I just love reading your reviews and theories about what's going to happen in this story. I have the best readers. ^^
Standard disclaimers apply.
*A Beautiful Hope*
Sometimes Elsa wondered if Pitch was ever coming back.
It was funny, because when she was a little girl, it seemed like Pitch came to her room all the time - every night, almost. She had become used to being alone, used to listening to her little sister crying through the walls and knowing they would always be apart. It's for the best, her parents had said. It's my punishment, she'd told herself, and so she learned to live without a friend.
And then Pitch came.
His appearance had been so strange and sudden that she'd thought he was a dream; it seemed so odd that the Bogeyman would come to see her, of all people. But then he returned - again and again- and she realized it was no mistake or fluke; he came because he wanted to come.
For a while Elsa had feared that her parents would find out - would they banish him? Execute him for his crimes? - but they never did. Not even Anna knew about Pitch. It was like a secret. He was a secret.
Her secret.
Pitch was a friend - at least at first. The more he came to visit her, the more their relationship changed. He became a mentor, then a comforter, then a voice of practicality and reason, then a trusted confidant, and now...
And now, Elsa wondered, what are you to me now, Pitch Black?
The trouble was that she had come to depend on him. She relied on him to talk to her, to give her that wry look of his, to knowingly look over at her with those golden eyes...
Elsa let out a slow breath. To think that she had once taken his appearances for granted - taken his heavy glances, the velveteen cadence of his speech, his strong profile and smirking mouth, all for granted - it killed her a little bit, each time she thought of it.
Come back, she thought to him in the darkness. Come back.
And then it became a whisper. A plea. "Come back. Pitch..."
Let it be tonight. Please, let this be the night.
"Please come back to me," she called.
But if his shadows heard her, there was no reply.
A/N: There will be more.