A.N. This one is a little rushed and pretty short, but I promise tomorrow's will be more satisfying. Thank you all so much for your favorites and follows, I fangirl every time I get an update.

Flames=Leo Valdez

Don't rain on my parade, it's gonna glow in the dark. I like it better when you can't keep warm. Don't ruin a perfect thing, the boy on the blue moon dreams of sun.

There was some part of Jack that knew that he was being stupid. Actually, all of him knew that he was being stupid, but that didn't stop him from making the same mistake over and over again.

Every year.

The person who made the whole quote about not making the same mistake twice obviously hadn't met him.

It was always the week leading up to Elsa's birthday and the week after that were the worst, which was the worst possible time for him to be distracted, as it was also the week leading up to Christmas and the winter solstice.

Las year he had promised that he wouldn't come back, no matter how much he wanted to. Yet here he was again, hesitating outside of Elsa's bedroom window. He hovered somewhere off to the left, his back pressed firmly against the wall as he tried to pluck up the courage to knock, or better yet, turn around and leave.

But he knew there was no way of that happening. He couldn't leave Elsa any easier than he could rip out his appendix.

So in the end, he did what he normally did, which was silently and cowardly sneak around far enough to see in the window. Not in a stalkerish kind of way, but in the way that Jack used to check on Elsa when she was younger, just to make sure that she was alive and well. Just to make sure that she was still hanging on, no matter how hard it might be.

There had been a couple of times when Jack had almost said something before his first conversation with Elsa. He hadn't initially planned on waiting that long, but things don't always go according to plan. One was the first time he saw Elsa, when he was passing by Arendelle on his was to Corona. A little girl was sitting in a castle, wide eyes looking out a large window. Ice was slowly beginning to freeze the glass, and it wasn't from the cold air outside.

He had almost said something then, it wasn't every day that you met someone with the same powers as you, but Jack decided to keep his distance.

The next time it was her thirteenth birthday.

By this point, Jack had learned her name.

Elsa.

Sometimes he would whisper it in an undertone just to himself when he passed her the castle, now that the elusive girl finally had a name.

Her name was Elsa, and someday Jack wanted to be her friend. He just needed to pluck up the courage to talk to her.

It wasn't until her sixteenth birthday that he finally did.

Jack was painfully aware of how cliché the visit on the sixteenth birthday was, but that's how long it took him—ten years. Ten years to befriend the one person who might finally understand him.

And she was everything that he'd hoped for, and more.

Elsa was like a bright star spinning through space. She hid behind the shadow of the moon, but sooner or later someone was bound to notice her. And when they did, they couldn't help but notice that she shone with a brilliance that far surpassed the sun.

He hoped that she would shine bright enough to block out the emptiness. For a while, she did.

Elsa was hope.

She rose him up and showed him that there was something more in the world and then she let him fall, except it wasn't enough for him just to fall. She froze his heart.

Focus, Jack chided, shaking himself out of his thoughts.

Sometimes after making sure that she was okay Jack would return back to his previous position, back against the wall beside her bedroom, watching the sky and wondering if she was watching the sky too and thinking about him.

In his lowest moments Jack considered breaking the window and demanding an answer as to why she had shut him out.

As much as he loved Elsa, he hated her an equal amount, if not more.

The saying about not making the same mistakes twice might've been wrong, but the one about love and hate being eerily similar wasn't wrong. The thing about his hatred of Elsa was that it was mixed with self-hatred for not being able to get her out of his head.

Jack loved Elsa and wanted to do everything he could to help her and take some of the pain away, but she never did any of that for him. Being around Elsa was enough, or at least he used to think that it was enough. Elsa made him happy, but then came the moments where she'd unload all her problems on him, or push him away for a couple of years and then pull him back into her life with a smile and a kiss.

The pathetic part was that he went along with it, every time.

He'd be cast away and then reeled back in. Cast out, reel in. Cast out, reel in. It was an endless cycle that Jack didn't need to be trapped in. It wasn't like Elsa was forcing him to be with her or anything, all and any pain he was feeling was self-inflicted.

Elsa spent so much of her time ranting to Jack about how she felt and her issues that she never stopped to think that maybe Jack was falling apart too, and that maybe it was taking all of Jack's willpower to hold it together for her sake, slap a smile on, and be an anchor. Anytime he tried to say anything to Elsa she would space out and nod every now and then, but it was clear that she wasn't really paying attention. Take and take without ever giving back.

After a certain point, Jack stopped trying.

Their relationship had been poisoned for a long time, and while some part of Jack knew that he couldn't help feeling guilty all the same. Like that maybe if he had just tried harder, or tried to visit more than once a year things could've worked out differently.

But he needed to let it go. Let her go. Last time had made it clear enough that he was nothing more than a distraction in her latest determination to block out the rest of her troubles. And when she got in too deep he was disposable.

Every year, Jack came back.

This was the last time, he promised himself. This was the last time.

He allowed himself this last look before he stepped out of Elsa's life forever. She was sitting on her bed, facing the window. He immediately recoiled, afraid that she had seen him, but her head was focused on her lap, where he saw his charm bracelet around her wrist. She was playing with the snowflake charm, rolling it between her fingers.

Jack felt his hopes begin to rise, but he firmly stomped them down. She was just feeling nostalgic, it didn't mean anything. It wasn't like she actually cared or wanted him back in her life or anything, he was letting his wishes influence what was actually happening. People felt nostalgic all the time, he reasoned with himself. He almost believed it, except for that pesky little nagging sense of hope in the back of his mind. He pushed it away.

No more. He was done.

Jack turned to leave, but something still didn't feel right. There was a sense of things left unsaid and unsolved, and it was driving him crazy. There was one last thing he needed to do.

He made a gesture with his staff, and a glittering heart appeared in his hand.

One final charm, just for luck.

He was making a risky move, and he knew it, but Jack couldn't resist. He never could, and that was the problem.

Edging forward, he reached Elsa's windowpane. Thankfully she wasn't paying attention, otherwise he would've really been in trouble. Jack placed the hand holding the charm on the glass, ice freezing the charm in place.

Without looking back, Jack turned, about to fly away. "Happy birthday," he said to himself almost out of habit.

In that moment, two things happened.

The ice caking the window shattered the glass.

Elsa's head snapped up at the noise, her eyes locking with his.