Jack awoke a few hours later to an explosion of pain in his shin. Instantly he was up, shooting into the air and hovering a moment above the bed as he tried to get his bearings. It was light outside, the morning sun filtering peacefully through the window on the other side of the room. He felt a vague sense of dread about something but couldn't quite put his finger on what it was as his mind struggled to catch up to his body.

And then the sound of rustling blankets reached him and he looked down realizing where the pain in his shin had come from.

Elsa, still asleep on the bed below him, was thrashing around wildly as if attacking some unseen entity.

"Elsa!" Jack cried, panicked. He landed lightly on the ground beside the bed and reached out to grab her shoulders, trying to dodge her flailing fists, "Elsa, wake up!"

She was not to be deterred, however, and her fist caught Jack square in the jaw before he could duck away.

"Ow!" he cried as he released her shoulders and backed away from the bed, choosing self-preservation over chivalry for a moment as he tried to think of another tactic to wake her. And then suddenly, the flailing stopped and the princess lay motionless on the bed.

"Elsa?"

Jack cautiously approached the bed, slowly and then all at once as he noticed tears had begun to squeeze from the corners of her closed eyelids, her face crumpled in pain. Again, Jack grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her, "Wake up!"

This time he was successful and Elsa woke with a start. Her eyes were wild as she sat straight up, sucked in a breath and let out a bloodcurdling scream. Jack felt his body go cold as snow began to appear, wisping around the room.

When the scream stopped, Elsa's head began to swivel as she frantically searched the room for something that seemingly existed in her mind alone.

Jack stood frozen for a moment in shock. He had never seen anyone in this state before, much less Elsa. She who fought to always be in complete control. It scared him.

After a few moments of shock, however, he came to himself and sat down on the bed in front of her.

"Hey, it's okay." Jack wanted to reach out and take her in his arms, but wasn't sure that was the best idea at that moment. "It was just a nightmare, Elsa. It's okay."

Her breaths came in ragged sobs and she shook so hard he could feel the tremors through the bed.

Around them, the snow grew thicker until a full-blown blizzard swirled around the bed, tearing at her bed curtains and pulling everything from the shelves around them.

"It's okay," Jack repeated, taking deep breaths that he hoped the incoherent princess would feel and imitate. When she didn't respond, Jack scooted closer to sit beside her and began tracing slow, methodical circles on her back. Her muscles were pulled so taut he felt they might snap beneath his hand and her breathing only grew shallower as the storm gained speed around them.

Then without warning, Elsa leapt from the bed and flew across the room to her private bathing chamber, taking the swirling storm of snow and ice with her. She slammed the door closed behind her and in the next second Jack heard the sound of retching coming from the other side of the thick wooden door.

He didn't know what to do as the retching escalated to vomiting. He could only stare wide-eyed at the closed door that stood between him and the princess being violently sick on the other side. Everything was happening so fast that he felt he couldn't quite keep up.

By the time his brain got hold of his body once more, all noise had ceased from within the bathing chamber. Soundlessly, Jack stood from the bed and crossed the room, every step growing colder as he neared the bathing chamber door.

He pushed it open, revealing the room to be completely coated in ice, and the princess, curled in a tight ball, shivered violently at its center.

With a wave of his hand, the ice swirled itself out of existence. Then he crossed the last few feet, gathered the shaking girl in his arms and carried her back to her bed.

Elsa's POV

The scream tore from Elsa's throat before she was even fully conscious. It had been building for what seemed to be the entire night.

And when it cut off she couldn't keep still, her eyes bouncing from one corner of the room to the next, looking for something she couldn't quite remember. Shadows danced at the edges of her vision, taunting her, laughing at her. Flashes of memories streaked across her mind, glimpses of blue lips, a torn dress, a wave crashing over her as she felt her lungs fill with water.

As if from miles away she heard a voice, trying to calm her, reassuring her that it had just been a nightmare. There was nothing to worry about. But the voice didn't understand. It didn't see what she could see. It hadn't felt what she felt.

Her breathing grew shallow as more flashes from the dream plagued her mind with such vivid detail that she wasn't convinced they weren't memories.

Nausea rolled in her stomach making her throat ache as she felt someone lay a soft hand on her back. But still she could make no sense of what she was seeing, what she felt. What had been the dream and what was real?

Again, she saw a shadow flicker at the edge of her vision, and heard an echoing hiss, "You killed them, Elsa and you'll kill them all."

Immediately, her stomach flipped and then clenched in an excruciatingly tight knot and she knew she was going to be sick.

She didn't even feel her feet touching the ground as she dashed across the room, her storm following her, suffocating her as she slammed the door shut.

Bile rose in her throat as she fell to her knees and huddled over her chamber pot, her stomach seizing, setting off a fit of retching. It felt like her body was trying to rid itself of anything and everything in its attempt to expel the memory of that dream.

No. Not a dream. A nightmare.

Her nose and throat burned from the acid as her stomach emptied itself again and again. She was out of control and she couldn't help but hate herself for it.

The dry heaving continued for a minute, even after her stomach was empty. And then mercifully, her body gave up on vomiting, finally realizing there was nothing left within her for it to expel. Instead, it became wracked by a fit of shivering. She fell away from the chamber pot and pulled her legs tightly into her chest, trying to keep her body together as it tried its best to tear itself apart.

The door swung open beside her and she had to shut her eyes tight against the brightness of the sun that almost blinded her. And then there were strong arms beneath her legs and shoulders and she was being carried across the room and placed gently on her soft sheets. Hands pulled her blankets up to her chin and then tucked them in carefully around her. She didn't open her eyes, afraid that what she might see would be more terrible than the images that still danced behind her eyelids.

But slowly, warmth seeped into her spasming muscles and they began to relax. She heard footsteps padding around her room, growing closer and then a thunk that sounded like a bucket being placed on the floor beside her bed. She flinched involuntarily when the bed dipped and someone sat next to her on top of her blankets. But then those strong arms wrapped themselves around her and held her as she slowly regained control.