IV.

Gray skies and black clouds gathered over Bergis and cast a shadow over the district. The snow fell more heavily than before. Elsa sat on the steps of the library again as she'd done before her first encounter with Jack. She wondered why she kept coming back here.

No, that wasn't right – she wondered why she couldn't leave here. After spilling her blood and running out of the library, she was determined to run away and never turn back, to leave and forget Jack and start over in trying to find somewhere that she could belong without hurting anyone. That had been her plan, but before her feet left the library steps, her body halted and sat itself on the cold stones. For some reason, she could not make herself leave, and this greatly bothered her. She had been running from humanity, but she could not run away now.

At her feet, the snow was dotted with red. Stoic, she raised her hand and stared at her palm. An angry red slash cutting across contrasted shockingly against her pale skin. Blood still dripped from the wound, for it was quite deep, but the flow was lighter than it had been before. Elsa was sure that this cut would leave a scar.

The snow on the ground behind her crunched, and in the next moment, Jack was sitting beside her. He casually held his staff against his shoulder and leaned his head on the wood. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed something that rolled down the steps and came to a stop at the base. It was the potato, now hardly possessing the visuals of a proper potato with its crimson-lined gaping hole.

He didn't look in her direction, nor did he say a word, but Elsa knew what he was doing: he was waiting.

"My mother once lived here," Elsa began. She stared down the street to where it met with another street lined with apartments. "I don't know exactly where she lived, but she said that her home was somewhere high. She made a living off of her sewing. I know this much. She never told me much about her life from when she lived here. I don't even know who my father is, but I suppose that isn't important.

"The Frost began when she was two-months pregnant with me. She was one of the last evacuees, and she left all of her belongings and money behind and ran alone to Aunah, the nearest district. For about seven months, she worked as a seamstress to pay for living expenses in the slums. When she had me, she had to take on a second job as a factory worker to put food on the table for both of us. Being refugees from Bergis, we were looked upon unfavorably by the people of Aunah, and they especially scorned us because my mother had me while never having been married. She spoiled me rotten, though, and we were strangely happy people for being so poor."

Elsa paused to allow her heart to calm down before she went into the most painful part of her story. "I didn't realize back then, but she had been suffering from Frost poisoning since the very beginning. She died eight years ago when I was ten." A shuddering sigh escaped through her lips. So much time had already passed since then, but the pain of the memory never lessened. "Afterwards, I began working in the factory."

"You worked in a factory when you were ten?" Jack asked.

"Well, the work must be done somehow." Elsa replied. "Child labor is common in Aunah." She silently wondered how Jack knew about factories. Aunah was the manufacturing district, so almost everyone worked in a factory. Bergis used to be the trade center of Arendelle's districts, so it didn't have factories. "Children who were Bergis refugees were given the most hazardous jobs available, so I worked at the chemical plant. That was the factory that developed and made all kinds of chemicals. It was dangerous to even breathe the air in the structure, and workers died every week. The few friends I managed to make died as well." Elsa tried to remember the names and faces of the other young girls who once worked alongside her: Ariel and her bright red hair; Belle and her bright and curious eyes; Tiana and her bright white smile. They all shone so brightly while frail Elsa stood in the shadows. Perhaps she was envious of them back then; when they died, Elsa had only felt numbness, not pain. Even now, recalling their blurry images, she felt the same.

"I was quite strong against the chemicals. I never became sick during all my years there. Eventually, when I was a bit older, my employer promoted me. I was getting higher pay, but the jobs were more dangerous. I was responsible for retrieving chemicals from the Ice Box. The Ice Box is the freezer vault where chemicals are stored. In there, every surface – the floor, the walls, the shelves, the ceiling – is lined with blocks of Frost. Frost was the only coolant cold enough to be able to withstand the effects of the chemicals."

"Hmm," Jack hummed. And that was all.

"The Frost…" Elsa's voice cut off as her teeth began clattering loudly, and small white bumps appeared on every inch of her arms. Shuddering uncontrollably, she hugged herself and tried to regain control of her body. She wanted to keep the memories locked away. She'd run away from Aunah to throw away the key, so why was she now having to open her heart again?

"The Frost doesn't kill immediately, and it slowly spreads throughout one's body until they eventually die. Like my mom, the process can take years, but death will eventually come. Knowing this, I felt like I had been given a death sentence. I suppose that I didn't care, really. My mother was dead, my friends were dead, everyone hated me for being a whore's daughter, and life was horrible. At the time, death didn't sound so bad, and working in a place where the Frost was very concentrated, I knew that it would come soon.

"Two months later, I was still working in the Ice Room with no signs of health deterioration. The other workers whispered about me, and even my employers were suspicious." She chuckled bitterly. "I'm almost positive that it was one of them who locked me in the Box overnight one day. From the inside, I pounded on the doors and screamed as loudly as I could, but no one came to rescue me. Hours passed, and when night came, everyone left to go home, and I was left alone. I couldn't free myself, and since I withstood the cold well, I decided to sleep."

Jack chuckled. "That wasn't a smart idea."

"It doesn't matter since I didn't die. The next morning, someone opened the vault door and nearly fainted when she saw me sleeping against the wall. I was taken to the hospital, and the doctors there speculated that I was somehow immune to the Frost. They thought that since my mother was affected with Frost poisoning when she lived in Bergis, I'd developed immunity in her womb. This began a series of experiments and studies of my body, and the doctors took quantities of my blood to create vaccines that would make others immune to Frost as well." She shuddered at the memories of needles prodding her body and machines beeping unemotionally all around her. "That year was one of the worst I'd experienced until then, but at the same time, I was happy to be needed. No one looked at me like I was worthless anymore. They looked at me as if I was their… their savior.

"The vaccine took a year to develop, but it was eventually distributed firstly to the workers in the chemical plant. It was successful, and the number of deaths each month dramatically decreased. Then, other people whose work required contacting chemicals or laboring near the Frost received the vaccine. The vaccine was limited and expensive, so not everyone had access, but over a quarter of everyone in each district had it running through their veins by the end of the second year. They all called it a miracle. They called… they called me a miracle."

Elsa's breaths were short and rapid, and her heart pounded inside her chest and only made breathing more difficult. She clenched and unclenched her fist over and over, swallowing pained cries when her nails dug into her wound. Her mind blanked, and her words caught in her throat and choked her as she tried to speak. "A – and th – then, at the end of the third year, they… they… th – they…"

"They?"

"They died." Her words were almost inaudible and lost in the whistling wind. She felt ashamed and guilty for speaking them when she had no right to feel the stormy emotions she now felt. "Every single person who took the vaccine died. Their blood boiled and they fell over on the streets, dead. The doctors were horrified and couldn't see why the dead had died so suddenly and consecutively. Then, they later realized why I was immune to the poison of the Frost. It was because –" She tried to continue, but her body shook so hard that her words were lost in her tremors.

"Because your blood was more poisonous," Jack finished. He fixated his gaze on the potato.

She stared at his still expressionless face. Hesitantly, she said, "Don't you have anything to say?"

"Should I?" He raised his head toward the thundering sky. "The storm is getting stronger. We should go back inside."

"Were you even listening to me?"

"Yeah, sure. Some people died. So what?"

"I killed them, Jack," Elsa choked, unable to believe that she had heard those words. A bitter and frustrated cloud for his apathy boiled inside of her chest. Her icy hands twisted in vain to battle the falling temperature. "Because of me, they will never breathe again. I should have known what my blood could do –"

"It's not your fault –"

"If only I'd realized in time –"

"There is no way you could have –"

"If only I'd never been born –"

"DON'T SAY THAT!"

Elsa jumped, startled by his sudden volume. Jack reached out and grabbed her shoulders, brashly pulling her close so his eyes were inches from hers. Those blue irises speckled with gold and hazel were not cold nor empty, but they burned with the intensity of a thousand fires. Elsa wondered how such blue eyes could appear so ablaze.

He breathed heavily, shoulders heaving, white clouds escaping through his lips with each exhale. The long fingers clenching Elsa's shoulders held her so tightly that she hurt. Uncomfortable with their close proximity, she broke away from her gaze momentarily only to have her it slowly return to him.

"Don't," he said with his voice quieter and more controlled than before yet still shaking. "Don't ever, ever believe that you shouldn't have been born."

"Jack –"

"Don't. Please."

His voice cracked. The fire had faltered to a desperately flickering ember. An edge of helplessness now entered his stance, and he looked on at her with a pained expression. Elsa could not speak.

"Because if you do," he continued softly, "I may just have to kill you."

Dark tendrils clenched her heart, and Elsa felt another wave of fear. Unlike earlier when she ran from Aunah after receiving numerous death threats and being the target for street stoning, she now had no place to run in Jack's iron grasp. However, contrary to his words, there was not the slightest hint of a murderous air around him. Instead, his eyes were filled with desperation and pleading and seemed to break at the word "kill."

She touched his hands and whispered, "Okay."

He nodded and drew back his hands. Using his staff as support, he rose to his feet and extended his hand to Elsa. She hesitantly took it, and he held her hand firmly and pulled her up. Around them, the storm raged.

Even through the wind, his voice was clear. "Thank you for being honest with me. You did well."

"You forced me to spill my guts," Elsa countered. "We had a deal, remember?"

She stared at him firmly. She'd confessed her past in order to find out some truths about Bergis. What was the cause of the Frost? Will it ever stop? Who was Jack? Why was he living alone here, and how was he surviving the poisonous snow? Endless questions jumbled in her mind, and she was sure that Jack knew their answers.

But he only smiled ambiguously and tapped his finger to his lips. "Perhaps another day. Let's go inside for now." He turned and climbed the stairs toward the library entrance.

Elsa followed slowly behind him. His unexpectedly mild reaction to her story left her deeply confused. He was nothing like the citizens she'd left in Aunah. Not once was there a hint of disgust in his voice. Not once did he reject her for her crimes. Not once did he express that she should never have been born. She couldn't decide whether she should be offended or relieved. He didn't reject her, but he didn't say that he accepted her either. Maybe he didn't care at all.

Or, Elsa thought, he didn't find in my story to be horrified about.

That theory led to three conclusions: he knew about Elsa's curse from the start, he didn't find mass deaths appalling, or he was guilty of an even worse crime.

"Elsa?"

"Yes?"

Jack stood at the threshold with his foot propping open the door. He faced her direction, his silver hair concealing part of his eyes. He was so beautiful that Elsa could not imagine him committing any sort of evil.

"Will you be living here from now on?" he asked. His gaze was patient and expectant.

There was nowhere else to go, and it appeared that Jack would not reject her. "Yes," she replied.

A smile spread on his lips, and he motioned her to come. She quickened pace and slipped past him into the library, and he closed the wooden door behind them. The howling of the gales outside promptly stopped, and the only sounds to be heard was the crackle of the hearth and their own rhythmic breathing.

From the corner of her eye, Elsa spotted The Snow Queen on the table. She retrieved it and held it out toward Jack. "I was going to keep it hidden," she admitted, "But I damaged your book. I cut my finger on a page, and the paper dissolved."

He gently pushed it toward her, still grinning. "It is your book as much as it is mine now." With a dramatic sweep of his arm at the room, he laughed and spun excitedly. "Everything you see here – everything here and out there – is yours and mine. It's – it's ours." He stopped and leaned on his staff, blue eyes shining. Breathily, he said, "You and I – this is our world where no one can come between us and our right to live."

His smile was contagious, and Elsa found herself grinning just as stupidly as he. When he offered her his hand, she took it without a second thought. After years of being rejected, she'd found a place where she belonged and didn't have to be afraid.

There was no one here who she could hurt. There was no one here who could fear here. It was just her and Jack in this cold and forsaken world of their own.

And for the first time in forever, she was happy.