Chapter 5: Reunions
Jack tried to hide his enthusiasm all throughout the day. All day he could only think of Elsa. Nothing else could penetrate his brain of his. He didn't even listen to North when he was talking to their pack about their part of the war that is going on. North had been giving Jack weird looks throughout the speech. At the end of the talk, North had asked to see Jack at the end of it.
"You okay?" North had asked Jack.
"Yeah," Jack said.
"You sure?" North raised his eyebrows. "You look like you've dazed in and out."
"I'm fine," Jack said, trying to reassure North.
"Hmm, okay," North didn't look entirely convinced but he let it go.
Jack bounded out of the room and up to his own bedroom. He checked his watch. There was eleven hours until his meeting with Elsa. For so long he had wanted to see her. Jack never stopped loving her despite meeting other people and not seeing her in a very long time. Jack always thought that things would work out between him and Elsa. He always thought that she would have ended up running away with him, marrying him and then starting a family with him.
However that never happened. Elsa had disappeared when she was eighteen. Well, Jack probably found the cause of that. Elsa had probably left because she had turned into a Vampire. That may be the first question he may ask her.
Now that Jack thought about it, would Elsa have chosen him over Mikael if she hadn't become a Vampire? She was dead set on marrying him. Jack always had hope that Elsa would leave Mikael and choose him. He knew that even though Elsa had this crush on Mikael, she still loved him very much. But Jack always had this nagging thought that Elsa would have gone through with the wedding, that she would have ended up having the life that Jack once envisioned with her, she would end up having with Mikael.
Jack lay on his bed as he thought about his past with Elsa. Memories flooded back to him. His history with Elsa was like something out of a fairy tale except instead of the hero of the story getting the princess, some other person does. Jack started to throw a ball around the room. A side effect of being a Werewolf is that he liked balls to chase around. The ball actually helped him process things. He would just have to see how things went. Meeting someone who he had loved and lost was something that he never expected to happen. He had thought he had lost Elsa forever. Now it looked like that may not be true.
Jack stayed in his room for the next eleven hours. He didn't do anything but throw the ball around. His thoughts kept returning to Elsa. It had been like this before, when he was more or less dating Elsa, although it probably have been called courting back there despite them not ever being officially involved. Elsa and Jack had been from two different class systems, they would not have been allowed to be together. They had been the best of friends since they were small children. When they're grown up, Elsa's parents had been a little worried that Elsa and Jack were doing stuff that they weren't supposed to (they had been but no one knew about it as they had been discreet and could keep secrets) but Elsa and Jack manage to convince them otherwise. Looking back, Jack thought that they must have been pretty stupid to overlook the signs. Maybe they did as they believed that Elsa was this perfect daughter who did what she was told – she did for the most part anyway.
Jack saw his watch tick over to eleven-thirty. Jack couldn't wait here anymore. He was getting a little impatient. He couldn't wait to see her. Jack quickly and quietly got out of his bed and slipped out of the den. He had constantly kept checking his back to see if anyone was following him. They would have to be an idiot not to notice their strange behaviour. No one had been following him so maybe they were idiots.
Jack retraced his steps as he tried to locate the park that Elsa had mentioned. It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for. The park, itself, was small. It was just a swing set and a slide. There wasn't much to it. Jack checked his watch again and saw that it was about ten to midnight. Elsa would be here soon and he was starting to get a little nervous. He would be seeing and getting answers from her – answers that he had constantly been looking for. Jack walked over to the swing set and sat down on it. He swung back and forwards on it as he waited for Elsa.
Elsa lay on her bed all throughout the next day. She was nervous. Soon it would be time for her reunion with her long lost love. So many things were going through her mind. What would she say to him? She would probably apologise. She should have told him the truth – the truth about why she shut him out and abandoned their friendship…and relationship. He deserved to know. Maybe he also dissevered the truth about why she chose Mikael Westergaard as well.
Mikael Westergaard, she hadn't thought about him in about a hundred and seventy years. She never really did have any reason think of him. Ever since her cancelled engagement and her abandonment of Arendelle, she had tried to stop thinking about everything to do with her human life. Some stuff was a lot easier to forget that others such as her sister Anna or Jack. They just kept popping into her mind no matter what she did to stop it.
Elsa was quite fidgety. She couldn't sit still. Her mind was in two minds on whether or not she should go and meet Jack. She did, she really did want to see him again. For so long, she had longed to see his face again and talk to him one last time. But if she did go, she would be digging up the past that she had worked so long to be kept buried.
What would she say to someone who she hadn't seen in over a hundred and seventy years? It felt like everything she could say to him would be wrong thing to say. Well, Elsa just figured that maybe she should wing everything. Jack would have questions, she would answer them. She would ask questions and Jack would answer those.
Elsa continued to debate with herself whether or not she should go. Elsa still didn't know what she should do. She did want to see Jack but did she want all those memories coming back? Thankfully, Elsa was left alone while she made this decision. It was daylight outside so she could pretend she was sleeping. It was easier to think in the quiet and when she was alone.
Eventually the clock chimed half past eleven. Elsa found herself putting on shoes and heading out the door. No need for layers, Elsa had never felt the cold and she had felt it even less since becoming a Vampire. Elsa found Ragnar by the door.
"Hey Elsa," he said. "Where you heading one this find clear night?"
"Oh just fancied a bit of a walk," Elsa lied.
"Want some company?" Ragnar offered.
"Nah," Elsa shook her head. "I think I will be fine."
"Okay," Ragnar smiled at her. "Have fun."
Elsa smiled back and headed out the door. That was close, she thought. The last thing she needed was Ragnar tagging along to her reunion with a man who happened to be a Werewolf. Elsa stuffed her hands into her pockets of her black hoodie and walked onwards. She kept her head down and her hood up. The street lamps were not working apart from the odd one so the only light was from the moon. Elsa stopped at stared up at it. It was slowly starting to get fuller and fuller. Meeting a Werewolf when the moon was full may not be a good idea. When a Werewolf changes, they can lose all sense of themselves and go out of control. Elsa had heard stories of Werewolves killing their entire families when they transform. Elsa wondered if Jack would do the same to her if he was transformed.
Elsa moved on from the stop she was in. The clock above the local Burgess Bank showed her that it was ten to midnight but Elsa did not hurry. Something was telling her to run and leave Burgess. She had spent so long running from her past and now she was walking to it. However, her legs just kept moving as if they had a mind of their own. It didn't matter what her brain was thinking, her heart had always led her to Jack. Maybe that's why she settled in Burgess in the first place, to reunite with Jack.
The park slowly came into view when Elsa turned a corner. The park was in a part of Burgess that Elsa didn't go to very often. When she had first come to Burgess, she explored everywhere but soon she stuck to a routine and a certain area. Elsa looked over at the park. There was no one around except for one figure who was swinging back and forwards on the swings. Elsa stared at the figure. That had to be him. Elsa took a deep breath in. She never ever thought that this moment would come. Elsa allowed another deep breath to fill her lungs before she walked slowly towards Jack.
Jack slowly came into view as Elsa walked closer and closer. Her heart started to beat faster and faster. Jack stopped swinging on the swings but didn't get up from them. He stared at her as she walked towards him. Elsa walked over to him until she was right in front of him. Nobody moved or said anything. Instead, her eyes shifted over the empty swing next to Jack. She took a seat down on it and swung her legs back and forwards a little bit. Jack did the same. Silence encaptivated them for a moment. Elsa wondered who would break the silence first. In the end it was Jack.
"So," he said, "hi."
"Hi," Elsa whispered. She looked over at Jack. His eyes were fixed on her as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Elsa felt a bit like that herself.
"It's been a while," Jack said.
"One hundred and seventy years," Elsa said. "The last time we saw each other was in 1840."
"That felt like another lifetime ago," Jack said.
"It did," Elsa stared out into the darkness. Never did it seem to some consuming.
"So," Jack said again, "when did you Turn?"
"A couple of months after I turned eighteen," Elsa said. "I was attacked one night after the theatre."
"I remember that," Jack said. "You were all bloodied and injured. You could have died."
"I sort of did," Elsa shrugged. The Vampires were not called the Undead for nothing.
"You grew ill as well," Jack continued.
Elsa nodded. "That's what happens."
When Humans get attacked by Vampires, venom gets injected into them. Too much, they die, too little, they survive. However, if enough venom gets into the person, it slowly takes over. The venom causes pain beyond pain as it destroys the cells in your body and turns them more Vampire like – for lack of better word for it. High fevers and chills were also symptoms of becoming a Vampire. This lasts for three days and on the fourth, you become…different. You are now an Undead.
"You were different after that," Jack said. "You had changed."
"Talking about change," Elsa said. "When did you change?"
Jack laughed. "You're talking about the more wolfish side to me?"
"Yeah," Elsa nodded.
"That is quite a story," Jack said.
"I'm not going anywhere," Elsa smiled.
"It happened not long after you left," Jack said, "which I still want an explanation for."
Elsa smiled again. "The explanation you shall get. You deserve it. You deserve the whole story but first, tell me yours."
"As I said, it happened not long after you left," Jack sighed. "When you left, there was a lot of panic in Arendelle. People thought that you were kidnapped or worse – dead. Your parents were dead and people thought that you had joined them. Anna, well she was a wreck. I don't know how she would have kept it again if it wasn't for Kristoff."
"Kristoff," Elsa sighed. "He used to sell ice in Arendelle. He and Anna were quite friendly to each other."
"Their love grew after you had left," Jack explained. "I don't know much myself but I heard that they married when Anna was about twenty. They were very happy on all accounts."
Elsa could practically feel a tear come to her eye. "Good. Looks like she got the life I wanted her to have. The life I could never have."
Jack looked sad at this. He paused for a moment as if wondering how he should continue. Eventually he managed to work up the courage to continue his story.
"Anyway," he said, "Anna looked for you, for many years. The exact amount of time, I do not know. I was one of the people to look for you. I had thought that maybe if you had been kidnapped, you wouldn't have been taken far. So I looked. I looked everywhere. I explored the woods nearby."
"The Arendelle Woods," Elsa said. "There were quite a few tales about those woods. One particularly mentioned not going in alone and at night. Strange things happen."
"Well you would find that those fairy tales weren't all smoke and mirrors," Jack said. "I was walking around the forest and I got attacked. I remember these glowing yellow eyes as the beast gnawed on me." Jack pulled up his jacket to reveal his bare arm. On it, were very deep and what looked like painful scratch marks. They were quite long and there were four of them. Elsa remembered being told once that a Werewolf bite is permeant. There is no cure. There is nothing to be done. "I put my arm up defensively and the wolf got to me. I somehow managed to get my lucky dagger out and stabbed the beast. It was too occupied with my arm to notice. The dagger pieced the beast's heart but my arm was badly wounded. There was blood everywhere. I was in pain, a lot of it. I nearly passed out from the pain. Luckily a friend lived nearby. He patched me up but the wound never went away. A travelling doctor said that a bite that never went away was a sign of a Werewolf bite. I didn't believe it until a couple of weeks later when I transformed for the first time."
"What's it like?" Elsa had always been genuinely curious.
"It is very painful to turn into a Werewolf. You get used to it after a while." Jack sighed quite heavily. "What about you? You're a Vampire now."
"I am," Elsa said solemnly.
"Sunlight is now toxic now to you," Jack said. "What's that like?"
"Horrible," Elsa sighed too. "It's one of the many perks of becoming a Vampire."
"Like silver is to me," Jack added.
"True."
Jack stared into her eyes. "The blue I adored is gone."
Elsa stared back. "But your blue is still the same I remember which is nice."
"So much change but yet so much is the same," Jack sighed. He paused. "So, I don't really know what else to say."
"I know. What can you say to someone who you loved and lost?"
"I do have a few questions though," Jack asked.
"Go for it," Elsa swung her legs up and down before coming to a slow stop.
"Would you have married Mikael?" Jack asked.
Elsa took a deep sigh. She knew that this question was coming.
"Yes," Elsa said. "I knew I had to. Mikael wasn't actually a bad guy. He was nice and he cared about me. Well not in the way you were."
Jack bowed his head. "I had hoped that you wouldn't have."
"I can't say what would have happened on my wedding day," Elsa said. "Who knows, I may have left Mikael at the altar."
Jack cracked a smile. "Maybe." There was a pause while he gathered his thoughts. "So what happened after you disappeared?"
"I just ran," Elsa shrugged. "There isn't much to tell. I travelled for a while before I came to the states in the early nineteen hundreds. I stayed there during the War before getting comfy and then the Second World War broke out and by the time that was over, I was comfy in Burgess. I had met a fellow Vampire who helped me into one of those convents. That's basically my life."
"Why did you leave?" Jack looked upset. "It was like one day you were here and then the next, you weren't. The day Anna said that you were gone, it was like the worst day of my life."
"Ah," Elsa sighed. She looked down. "That." Elsa struggled with how she was going to explain that story. "The day I left also happened to be the same day my parents died. You have already said that people thought I was kidnapped or had died. I obviously didn't die but I left voluntarily, not by force. The reason I left is a dark secret that I have carried around with me and it has haunted me. I left because I was afraid of my inner monster."
"You mean your Vampire side?" Jack was slightly confused.
"Yes," Elsa nodded.
"So what happened?"
Elsa took a deep breath. "I killed my parents."
Jack nearly fell off his swing. "What?" he spluttered. He managed to compose himself.
"Yeah," Elsa could have cried but she resisted. "It was all one horrible night. My parents had become terrified of me and for good reason. One night they came to me and in a flash, they were gone." She bowed her head. "Anna saw the whole thing. That was the moment when I realised the monster I had become. If I stayed, Anna could be hurt and I could not let that happened. So I left that same night."
Jack bowed his head again. He seemed to understand.
"There is more to the story, isn't there?"
"Nothing else that's important," Elsa wanted to leave the story there. She didn't want to go into those memories anymore. They were always painful. Maybe one day she may be able to tell the whole story. At least she told Jack the truth. She turned to him. "What happened to your family?"
"Well from what I found out, Pippa married who she wanted to marry and gave Mum the grandkids she wanted. I only saw them once. I had left many years before but I wanted to see the kind of life they were having. I saw Pippa playing with her two sons and three daughters. They all looked so happy. It made me happy to see that."
"You haven't mentioned your father," Elsa said. "Mr. Vincent Frost."
"Ah him," Jack's face darkened and Elsa knew why. Vincent was a horrible father to Jack and to his family. He would abuse them – physically, mentally and emotionally. Not only that, he would pop pills and drink. When he drank, he turned even nastier than he was before which was hard to do as he was a nasty man.
"I'm guessing things didn't go down well," Elsa said.
"You're not the only one who did something bad," Jack said. Elsa gave Jack a look which showed her confusion. "My father was a cruel, cruel man and this you know. One day, he was abusing Pippa which happened to be on the full moon. I transformed for the first time and attacked. My father didn't survive."
"I'm sorry that you had to do that," Elsa said. "Although I'm not going to say he didn't deserve it."
"That is true," Jack said.
"So I told you what I got up to," Elsa said. "What about you?"
"After I became a Werewolf," Jack explained, "my family got nervous. Although Pippa never did."
"Same with Anna," Elsa interjected. "She was never afraid of me when I always thought she should be because I knew what I could do."
"They loved us," Jack said. "It's what they did." He smiled before he continued. "Afterwards, like you, I travelled a lot before I met The Guardians. I stuck with them and they have done wonders for me. I suppose like that Vampire friend of yours."
"Yeah," Elsa said. "Maybe."
There was a silence before Jack started to crack up.
"What?" she said pushing him.
"I was just remembering the time you had to sneak me out of your bedroom in the early hours of the morning," Jack said laughing. "Your father nearly caught us because he had to leave for Paris that same morning."
Elsa started to laugh. "I had to shove you inside a suit of armour. Dad nearly caught you because you were creaking."
"What about the time when we fishing on the lake? We caught nothing over six hours."
"Or the time we got lost in the woods? Your Uncle Klaus found us huddled under a tree cuddling for warmth. It had rained that night."
"What about when I ate a part of the wedding cake intended for your Aunt and Uncle and you took the blame for me?'
"Oh I got quite the punishment for that," Elsa laughed. "Or that time you cheated off me in school?" Elsa smirked when she said this.
"I was like nine!" Jack said. He pretended to sound offended.
"You were only allowed in my private tutoring sessions because we were friends," Elsa said. "You kind of took advantage of that."
Jack laughed and then paused. "What about our first kiss?"
Elsa realised just how close their faces were when he said that. Their noses were almost touching. Elsa's eyes closed. She could feel Jack's breath on her face as Jack drew even closer. Elsa could remember the smoothness of Jack's lips. They were always so seductive and addictive.
Suddenly Elsa felt the warmth of the sun on her. She pulled away and looked up. Somehow the sun was coming up. She had no idea where the time had gone but it looked like the sun was up.
"I have to go," she said. She turned to go but Jack pulled her back. Elsa felt something in her hand. It was a piece of paper. She looked at it. It had an address on it. "What's this?" she inquired.
"I don't always live with The Guardians in the hideout," Jack explained. "We all have some kind of safe place where we can go. That's the address of my apartment. Please use it. I don't want to say goodbye."
Elsa smiled. "I will try my best to swing by. I do not want to say goodbye not after I finally got you back. You have always meant so much to me even though I thought you were dead and were gone from my life. I just wished we could have more time back then but I guess we have it now."
"Yes," Jack said.
Elsa realised that Jack was holding her hand. His hand felt as smooth and nice as it did all those years ago. Elsa then realised that she needed to go.
"I'll see you soon Jack," she said.
Elsa then raced off back into the direction of the convent leaving Jack grinning behind her. Elsa didn't feel bad that she had gone to see Jack. She felt elated at the fact that she had finally seen Jack again after all this time. It was like picking up where they had left off all those years ago. It was like Elsa's life had finally lightened up. Maybe all it took for her to have her love return to her.
The convent came into view and Ragnar was waiting for her. Elsa wondered if he had been waiting for her to return.
"You were gone long," he commented when Elsa came through the door.
"I had a good long walk," Elsa smiled before she went up to her room and out of sight.
A/N: I hope that everyone enjoyed this chapter. Please review =)
Reviews:
ElsaTheSnowQueen2: Yep, Jack and Elsa are from each other's past (this chapter and maybe the previous one too answers that). This chapter should answer your question on their meeting.
Guest: First off thanks so much for that compliments. I've written a few stories that have Elsa, Jack, Anna, Kristoff, Rapunzel and Flynn. A Royal Encounter and it's sequel A Royal Lifestyle, Magical Mischief Mayhem, Resurrection, Somebody I Used To Know - quite a few of my stories have all of them actually.
itsmorefuninthePhillipines : Well I am also writing Starstruck alongside this story and it takes time to write chapters plus I am doing stuff pretty much every day as I'm freeeeee.
archbaldmatthe1: No I am not doing any crossovers with any of them.
fireninjafox: Thanks!
heartfulymi: Thanks so much!
Kat-IlluminatedPurity: That makes me so happy! Hmm, on Tooth, potentially. Not sure yet. I had a few ideas on that.