Day Three – Tuesday

I scowled as I drove to the café, still furious that Anna had decided that we needed to swap roles suddenly. Why did she have to take Olaf to school? I was perfectly good at it.

You see, we had adopted Olaf a couple of years ago (the one time that it was me acting impulsively) and since then I'd always driven him to school and picked him up afterwards, taking him to Arendelle Café so that I could go to my evening job and then Anna would take him home from there. It worked, and it made sense, and there was no need to change it.

Until it didn't work any more apparently. Anna had decided to switch it around, so that she took Olaf to school and I picked him up from Arendelle Café, which was a totally stupid idea that messed with everyone's schedule.

I sighed, waiting at the lights. Of course, I hadn't been able to argue with her, had I? No, that's me: Elsa the 'Ice Queen', feared throughout college and the library for my non-existent temper and cold logic, a complete pushover when it came to Anna or Olaf.

After shutting her out for 13 years, there was no whim of hers that I wouldn't agree to, even if it annoyed the hell out of me.

I pulled up outside the café and slammed the door of the car, following a familiar sound of giggles. "Your turn!" Olaf shouted. "Your turn!" I turned the corner and stopped in shock.

The entire kitchen, and I mean the entire kitchen, was covered in icing sugar and Olaf was sat in the middle, also covered in icing sugar. The reason why soon became apparent. Taelor was crouching down in front of him, smiling. "Your turn," Olaf urged. Taelor sighed and fell over backwards, waving his arms and legs. I stared.

They were making icing sugar angels. I stared for a moment longer, and then burst out laughing. Olaf and his insistent questions! He was always begging me to 'make a snowman', as Anna had. Taelor sat up, guiltily, and I noticed that he had icing sugar in his hair.

I laughed again, the mess of icing sugar and the hopeless adorableness of the both of them chasing away dark memories of Anna's wishes to build a snowman.

Day Four – Wednesday

I saw Elsa at the café again today. I wasn't playing with Olaf this time, because I had a doctor's appointment (happens once every month, they check my voice, or rather, lack of a voice) and I saw her car pull away as I was getting in Jon's car (I didn't have a car yet and he'd offered to drive me).

Olaf saw me and waved enthusiastically. I waved back. Elsa glanced at me and smiled, waving briefly. I felt a huge grin work it's way onto my face when I felt how happy Olaf was to see me, even though we'd been talking only five minutes ago, and Elsa wasn't unhappy to see me either.

I sat down in the car, grinning at Jon. He shook his head. He still wasn't sure about Elsa, but I'd managed to persuade him to leave it be for the moment, which was great as he'd stopped annoying me about it.

I normally hate doctor's appointments, but I couldn't stop grinning all the way there, and whistling along to the songs on the radio (which prompted Jon to turn it off – I'm terrible at keeping in tune).

Day Five – Thursday

I'd told Anna that I couldn't pick Olaf up today. I had a work assignment that I had to finish. Thankfully it was English, not Art. Art takes me ages, because I try to focus on doing it right, but English can be dashed off in a few seconds.

I flipped through my notebook, ticking carious completed assignments, and stopped. Oh great. Poetry. I'd forgotten that we were doing poetry. I looked at the poem in question which I had to analyse, in near disgust.

I'm not generally dead set against poetry, but my English professor insisted on always doing love poetry, and then making us write our own and read then to the class. I shuddered. I'd very nearly iced the room on those occasions, and had had to call in sick the last time that it happened. I heard a rumour later which said that half the class had also called in sick. Mysteriously enough the professor had stopped giving us those assignments.

Instead we just had to analyse poetry to death, a terrible fate for those of us who actually enjoy it. I sighed again. Time to get it over with, Elsa.

So this is what they all call love

The helpless feeling in the heart

That reaches down into your soul

And rips the world apart?

The sudden stutter in my voice

My hands are shaking still!

I never knew the thousand ways

A gentle smile could kill.

And such the way you looked at me –

It is beyond my art –

To tell you true what I felt there

When your eyes caught my heart

I picked up my pen. Right. Begin with rhyme scheme...

For a few moments all the noise I could hear was the sound of my pen scritching on the paper and the lines of poetry in my head. Somehow my professor had managed to choose a halfway decent one.

Then I heard Olaf knock on the door. "Elsa," he called. "I know you're working, but Anna had to stay at the café and – "

"What?" I interrupted, standing up in a rush. "Did you come by yourself?" I asked, striding to the door, and mentally writing a speech to deliver to Anna later for being so irresponsible.

"No," Olaf said. I opened the door, about to ask who had brought him here then, but someone else answered.

"I did," Taelor said.

I smiled nervously at Elsa, aware of the fact that she was in complete and utter shock; even as she welcomed me inside and offered me a coffee, something inside her was panicking. "I wanted to show Taelor my drawings of the snowmen," Olaf called, running towards his bedroom, leaving me with an increasingly agitated Elsa.

Desperate for something to distract her, I glanced around the room, my gaze settling on some poetry on the table. "You're studying poetry?" I asked. She nodded.

"And Art."

"Which college do you go to?"

"I attend Southharbour University," came the stiff reply. I winced. Way to offend the most beautiful girl in the room. She smiled, and I felt something in her mind relax. "Do you attend college or university?" she asked. I shook my head.

"Neither. Couldn't face it," I admitted. "At my school, everyone knew about me, you know? Most of the kids in my classes knew sign language and everyone was used to making way for me, but at a college..." I shrugged. "There wasn't really anything that I wanted to study anyway. My language teacher almost exploded when he heard that I wasn't going to continue studying, but it's for the best." Elsa nodded sadly, and I felt that my words had struck a chord for her.

"Well I'm sorry to hear that. You were good at languages?" I nodded.

"Did French, German and fast track Spanish for GCSE's and French and German for A level. Jon thought that I was mad when I told him." She laughed. I grinned. "I was good at maths as well. I took Further Maths for A level." She raised an eyebrow.

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Jon was ready to call an asylum by that point. He coasted through with Cs in everything but computer studies, see. Working hard is just weird to him."

At this point Olaf rushed back in. "See?" he said, waving a piece of paper. "This is my best one," he added proudly, holding it out. I exchanged a smile with Elsa as we both acted appropriately impressed by Olaf's drawing. As we did, I noticed that she wasn't wearing gloves.

After Taelor left I was a wreck. I sat down at my desk again, Olaf playing some game behind me that involved cars and trucks and lots of crashes. I put my head in my hands, trying to get myself under control.

I couldn't believe that I had been so stupid! I'd let my guard down badly, and everything could have gone wrong because of it. What if Taelor had noticed the frost creeping across the table? Or the way the door handle froze when I opened it? I sighed, trying very hard not to face the part of me that had wanted to break down and tell him everything.

That was ridiculous. No, it was stupid. Anna accepted it, yes, but she was like Olaf – so convinced that my powers would never hurt her, despite the evidence to the contrary. Yes, Kristoff also accepted it, but he loved Anna, and he had never seen the full extent of my powers, the damage and destruction that I could wreak. But then again, no one had.

There was something about Taelor, though, something that made me believe that he would be like Anna and Kristoff and Olaf; that he would accept me and trust me, and never reject me for my powers. Something that made me think that he understood me, even the deeply hidden parts of me.

No! I shook my head. I couldn't go on thinking like this. Taelor would never accept my powers, and I just needed to forget whatever it was about his smile and his serious emerald eyes that made him stick in my head.

I picked up my pen and returned to the poem. "I never knew the thousand ways/A gentle smile could kill." I smiled mirthlessly, Taelor's smile in my mind. How apt.