Joan: 14 years old

It was dumb luck that Robert was the one to approach Joan, after seeing her mope for the fourth day in a row. He figured Elsa or her parents would have done something by now – after all, with Elsa and Robert now together for a few months, they weren't as big of a distraction anymore.

But it was left to Robert to take the leap and ask what was wrong, as they stood together in the Great Hall. Since Robert wasn't quite family at the moment, Joan felt safe enough to answer him.

"I guess I'm wondering what I'm good at."

Robert surely didn't feel safe enough to answer that without more info. "Why'd you start thinking that?" he bought time

"They keep going on and on about how Arendelle loves me. Aunt Elsa loves me so much, people kidnapped me to hurt her!" Joan recalled. "But what's so special about me? Other than being a Princess's daughter and a Queen's niece?"

"Isn't that special enough?" Robert stumbled.

"No! Aunt Elsa's the Queen, she has powers, and she has the best hugs ever! Mom's a hero, she's the best chocolate eater, and she has the best hugs ever too! Dad can make ice as cool as Aunt Elsa, he can ride any reindeer, and he's getting there with the hugs!" Joan credited. "Christian took on an evil prince to save me! And you're a hero who makes swords and got Aunt Elsa to fall in love! How can I compare with that?"

"I didn't know you felt like you had to," Robert said.

"Well, I'm 14! I gotta do something other than play at some point, I know that!" Joan admitted. "The only thing I ever really did was get kidnapped. I can't coast on that forever. So what am I gonna do….to be worthy of all this love I'm getting?"

"You don't think you're worthy?" Robert couldn't believe. "That is the first thing you are. Your family and the people all know that."

"And how am I supposed to thank them? Other than being alive?" Joan couldn't figure out. "I don't know what I can do."

Robert might have thought she was being ridiculous, since he and everyone else seemed to regard Joan better than she was right now. However, thanks to Elsa's stories about Anna and her past unwarranted insecurities, he knew it merely ran in the family. Telling her all the things she was good at and couldn't see wouldn't solve this.

"Forget about what you're good at now. How about what you want to be good at?" Robert proposed. "If there was something you'd really want to do, what would it be?"

"I don't know," Joan answered. "I just want to be good at something that'd help my family. And the kingdom."

"There are lots of things you could do that in. Just pick one," Robert offered. "Even if you don't think you're good at it now, you can be. There's nothing you can't do."

"How do you mean?" Joan wondered.

"You have your mother's people skills, such as they are. And a ruthless determination like hers too," Robert said. "Plus you have your aunt's brains and incredibly selfless heart. With all that, you'd just have to pick anything and it'd get done, no problem."

"You really think so?" Joan checked.

"If I'm wrong, you can make a living torturing me for it. You call dibs now, you'll beat your mom and aunt to the front of the line," Robert promised.

"I don't think I could do that. It wouldn't be royal behavior. No matter how far down the royal line I am," Joan semi-mocked.

"Hopefully you'll never have to rise higher. Not for a good long time," Robert wished.

"Me too. I guess as long as I'm low, I don't have to do much," Joan said. "I'd still kind of like to, though. I can't let Aunt Elsa and Mom do all the work forever. They speak for Arendelle, and….I'm gonna have to at some point too."

"Just not as a Queen. Or the first Princess in line," Robert recapped. "But you can still speak for us. You can talk to important people and use your brains to make them support Arendelle. Like your mom and aunt do. Just with a different title."

"Yeah…." Joan's mind turned. "They have titles for that, don't they? Like diplomat, or ambassador! Or something else that'd let me travel and meet people and do big things for my family! I can do that stuff! Not now, but maybe later!"

"You'd like that? Make sure you'd like it before you do anything else," Robert advised.

"I guess I won't know until I try. Or start learning to try," Joan got more eager. She turned around, in time for both her and Robert to notice Elsa was there.

Before Robert could ask how long she'd been there, Joan asked, "Aunt Elsa? Do you mind if I go to the library? Please?"

"Well….if only your mother could hear that," Elsa commented. "I suppose it'll still have the same impact if I tell her."

"I'm sure it will! Thanks, Aunt Elsa! Thanks, Robert!" Joan praised them both, although she only took Robert's hand and kissed his cheek once he bent down.

She then turned to head out of the hall and start taking her studies seriously. Before she reached the door, she thought she heard Elsa say something.

It sounded like "I love you."

Joan heard Elsa tell her that all the time, when she was much closer – so she didn't think she meant to say it to her. That left….

But although it made her smile, Joan didn't dwell on it too much. By now, she figured Elsa told Robert she loved him all the time.

She never knew she overheard Elsa telling him that for the first time ever.

Or that his part in giving Joan a new life path put him over that last little top in her heart.

Christian: Seven years old

Christian didn't have nightmares about his ordeal with Devin anymore. But he still had the occasional night where he couldn't sleep or woke up too late. On this particular night/early morning, he slowly walked up to his parents' bedroom door.

"Mom? Dad? I can't sleep. Can I have a glass of milk?" Christian yawned as he asked.

"Go ask Aunt Elsa," Anna muttered behind the door, her own sleepy mind deciding that it was Elsa's turn this time.

"K, bye," Christian was sleepy enough to agree. So he trudged down the hall until he made it to Elsa's door, then started knocking.

"Aunt Elsa? I can't sleep," Christian told her. No one answered him - but if he was more awake, he would have heard some muffled noises behind the door.

"Aunt Elsa? Are you awake too?" Christian asked. Anyone else might have heard a few quiet hisses, before Elsa barely spoke out loud.

"I just woke up, sweetheart," Elsa said clearly, if not 100 percent convincingly. But Christian was easy.

"Could you take me to get some milk? Please?" Christian asked, too sleepy to sound extra cute enough. When he didn't hear anything from the door – not anything clear, anyway – he figured it didn't work.

But eventually, the door did open, although Elsa got out of the room and closed it in very short order. She took a deep breath and said, "All right then. Let's get you some milk and get you back to bed. Without delay."

She took her hand and led him down the hall to the kitchen, making sure he walked and looked straight ahead – despite discreetly looking back a few times herself.

When they were out of sight, Elsa's door opened again 10 seconds later. No one was around to see Robert leave and go down the other end of the hall.

That was how their first attempt to spend the night together came to an end.

Joan: 15 years old

Elsa relished the irony on a few levels.

Anna hung around Elsa like clockwork after the isolation ended, even when she was bored out of her mind while Elsa was writing and studying. Now 18 years later, she was doing the same thing with Joan.

Joan was now the one taking studies and work seriously, even with Anna hanging around as the ultimate distraction. Seeing herself reflected in Joan now….there certainly could have been worse ways for her to emulate Elsa.

But Anna wasn't reflecting anyone else from the past except herself. It was cute back then, since Anna was Elsa's sister and starved for any time she could get with her again. But since it was Joan's mother that kept hanging around her, despite being far from alone….it got a little more concerning over time.

When she started seeing Joan look annoyed at it – not playfully annoyed – she figured she had to intervene.

"Anna, how about you spend some time at my study today?" Elsa asked her outside one day, throwing herself on the sword. "If you like seeing Joan work, maybe seeing me read and write will look more exciting now."

"I wouldn't go that far," Anna responded. "Besides, Joan's still new at this stuff. She needs moral support more than you do by now."

"Maybe she has enough of it to survive on her own for a while," Elsa proposed.

"How do you know that?" Anna asked suspiciously. "Did she tell you?" Elsa sighed and decided to get closer to the point.

"I'm telling you before she gets annoyed enough to do it," she informed Anna. "Joan's taking her studies seriously. She's getting herself ready to represent Arendelle in front of the world, just like we do. You shouldn't distract her from that too much."

"I'm distracting my own daughter?" Anna objected.

"You didn't do it as much when she started doing more work last year!" Elsa pointed out. "What's changed now? You've been more….clingy with her since she turned 15!"

"Since she turned 15," Anna repeated with more emphasis at the end. "Not all parents of 15-year-olds are lucky enough to get clingy."

It only took Elsa two seconds to get the deeper meaning. Along with everything else lately.

When Anna knew that Elsa knew, she pressed, "Don't tell me you won't do this when she and Christian turn 18! Or when you get around to having 18-year-old kids!"

"Well….if that happens, I wouldn't be that active by then," Elsa deflected.

"Come on, give 60-year-old you more credit than that!" Anna argued. "I want to give 15-year-old Joan all the credit in the world! It's about time a mother got to do that for a 15-year-old girl around here! And keep doing it even when she turns 16!" And there it was.

"You don't have to be Mama," Elsa pointed out. "And you're not going on any boats this year, either. You'll have plenty of time to enjoy Joan as a 15-year-old. No matter how hard she works. Or how often you're around to barely keep your eyes open."

"Even when I fail? Like that time last week? And the time she heard me snore?" Anna asked.

"Even after those times," Elsa assured. "Besides, if you want the castle to really look different with a 15-year-old girl around….you forgot to do one thing."

"What's that?" Anna wondered.

The only answer she got was a snap of Elsa's fingers – and a snowball promptly dropping on Anna's head.

"Oh! Oh, very funny!" Anna commented, as Elsa's laughter indicated she agreed. Anna then turned around to see Robert behind her.

"Oh! Oh, you snuck up on me with that thing, didn't you?" Anna accused.

"Nope. But now that you mention it…." Robert warned, then took his right hand out from behind his back – complete with the snowball it was holding. It connected right on Anna's face, and then a second snowball from Elsa got her on the back of her head.

The last time there was a 15-year-old royal in this castle, there were no moments like this, even when that 15-year-old had living parents. Of course, even if there had been, Elsa wouldn't have had a partner like Robert to help outnumber Anna in a snowball fight.

But taking some liberties to erase the past weren't so bad.

It was enough for Anna to let Joan be with her studies and training for now.

And ignore the potential for any other unpleasant parallels to the past.

Christian: Eight years old

"Christian, stop it!" Joan finally snapped when Christian made too much noise in the library. Which he would normally never do, and only did now because it was the most attention he'd really gotten from Joan in a while. But it would take a while for Joan to see that.

"Sorry," Christian said. "I was just – "

"What? Playing by yourself? Maybe you should go do that by yourself!" Joan scolded. "Some of us have better things to do!"

"They do?" Christian looked heartbroken. Another thing Joan wouldn't register until later.

"Yeah!" she went on. "This essay is really important! I might have to use it if I negotiate with ambassadors someday! I'm sorry I have better things to do than just play now! Just because you don't, I shouldn't have to pay for it! Now please just go away, Christian!"

Keeping almost all of his tears back, Christian conceded, "K, bye," before turning around. But one little tear visibly went down his cheek before he turned his face from Joan. She only registered that, and the rest of the things she hadn't noticed, half a minute after he left.

"Oh geez, Christian!" Joan reacted. She got up from her chair, but her guilt over what happened – and the no longer buried guilt from the past few months of neglecting her brother – made her too scared to go further.

She'd been so busy working and studying, she forgot to have fun with her brother, and yelled at him when he tried to hang around her anyway. She couldn't even promise she'd stop, since she still had too much to learn. Without that sure fire way to make things better, she didn't know how she could face him.

Once again, someone thought she'd gone so far in neglecting a sibling, there was no way back that would work. Once again, her shame made her too timid to even take a first step towards reconciliation.

Once again, a sibling resigned herself to finding comfort in papers, knowledge and training for a future that had to be worth these….sacrifices.

At least they couldn't judge her or make her more ashamed of herself right now.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Robert was the one left to hold Christian, while Anna and Elsa talked amongst themselves and drew parallels – warranted or otherwise – between their old days and Joan and Christian's current days. The fact that they'd let something like that happen between siblings again filled them with familiar guilt, and a familiar feeling that they weren't equipped to fix it.

While they stressed over the negative aspects, Robert tried to think of some positives, for Christian's sake. "You know she's not gonna wait 13 years to play with you, right? She'd be 28 by then. I don't think she can hold out that long," he promised.

"I guess not…." Christian agreed.

"It's not like she's shutting you out because of uncontrollable powers. Well, other than brain power," Robert compared.

"But if she's not doing it to protect me, that kinda makes it worse. Doesn't it?" Christian nitpicked.

"Huh. Okay…." Robert stalled before he could risk agreeing with him. "Well, you know she would if she could! You know that for sure! Your mother didn't back then! She believed it longer than anyone else ever would have, but she didn't know."

"I don't either," Christian said. "Is that why Joan doesn't want to play anymore? Because I don't know as much as her now?"

"Joan loves you. We both know that much," Robert promised. "I haven't known her nearly as long as you have, but I still know it. So why shouldn't you? I also know if you are like your mother back in the day, you won't give up on her. Not after one fight. I mean, after their fights, she still came back and…."

With that unfinished recollection, Robert sought out to finish something more important. Namely, a grand reconciliation/homage.

"Elsa! Anna!" Robert interrupted them. "We all know you remember the past very well. How much of it does Joan know?"

"All of it. Despite how she's made it look," Anna reflected.

"So she knows what happened when Elsa kept telling you to go away. She knows you never went away. And she knows what you did instead," Robert set up.

"What are you…." Elsa didn't need to finish asking before she figured it out – and said, "No" shortly after. "You're not putting Anna through that again!"

"I wouldn't dream of it," Robert promised. "That's why I'm putting you through it. And Christian, once he knows the part."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Joan stayed in her room later than usual on a school/studies day. She wasn't sure if she'd run into anyone on her way down the hall, and she wasn't up to finding out quite yet.

However, they seemed to find her, judging by the knock on her door. A knock Joan knew quite well, thanks to her mother. "Mom?" she asked before she could catch herself.

"No, it's your Aunt," she heard Elsa say, which almost made Joan feel worse. She knew her family was planning to scold her good, especially since they weren't ready to do it yesterday. She just hoped they wouldn't bring out the big guns right away.

But if they were, perhaps it was better to rip the band aid off now. "Okay, I'm coming," Joan conceded, then went to open the door.

Her brief courage to face the music vanished when she saw Christian with Elsa. She kept the door open and stayed where she was, more out of obligation.

Joan inhaled, waiting to be guilted and lectured. Instead, Christian knocked their mother's knock again while Elsa exhaled a breath, almost out of nerves.

Yet Christian spoke first – or rather sung first. "Do you wanna build a snowman?"

"What?" Joan answered.

"Come on, let's go and play!" Christian kept going on cue.

"You still….wait, hold on!" Joan asked. But then Elsa joined right along with the next verse.

"We never see you anymore, come on out the door! It's like you've gone away!" they sang together, although Christian took the next part solo.

"We used to be best buddies, and now we're not. We wish you would tell us whyyyyy," he sang-asked, before Elsa took over the next verse.

"Do you wanna build a snowman? It doesn't have to be a snowman," she sang the last line in a normal voice – the one concession she won in rehearsals.

Now it was technically Joan's turn – and she knew it. If they were following the exact trajectory of the song, she wouldn't be saying anything good.

If she used the original line, she'd probably have to hear the next two, even more painful stanzas. And this one was bad enough.

So instead of playing young Elsa's line, she skipped ahead and stole Christian's next line – or rather, altered it.

"Yes, I dooooo….."

"Great!" Christian cheered, immediately grabbing her hand.

"Wait a minute, wait!" Joan started panicking, which was at least better than almost crying.

"It's okay," Elsa assured. "You don't have to be me today. For one thing, you have guardians willing to use their influence to give your tutors the day off. For another, you're not gonna freeze us if you go play. For one more thing….it won't take you 15 years to learn the most important lesson you'll ever get. Just two, it looks like."

"So what's the lesson?" Joan asked.

"You can't be good at royal stuff if you're not like Aunt Elsa and Mom," Christian said. "That's what Aunt Elsa and Mom said. You can ask Mom outside if you don't believe Aunt Elsa here."

"I can?" Joan checked.

"They're all waiting for us. It's not good to keep guests waiting, you know that," Elsa pointed out.

"Yeah. I still know that much," Joan conceded, giving Elsa and Christian room to take both her hands and lead her away.

When they got to the gardens, it was filled with Elsa-created snow and with Anna, Kristoff and Robert. It seemed they were already playing – although Joan couldn't fathom why Robert had to hold a sword of ice to do it. "What are you doing with that?" she tried to figure out.

"Oh, hello," Robert greeted. "I've spent so much time making swords, I figured I should get good at using them. Elsa made this one for me before she came to get you. Your parents helped me practice, in their own way."

"Yeah, he's starting to get good! Think fast!" Anna called, before backing up to throw a snowball at him. Once it got close enough, Robert swung his sword at it – but he missed. The snowball itself didn't, though.

"I think you got an inch closer that time!" Kristoff encouraged as Robert wiped his face clean and Joan started to laugh.

"Can I throw the next one?" she requested.

"I think we should give him a break," Anna said. "Besides, I don't think your aunt and brother sang-asked you if you wanted to throw snowballs."

"Oh. So the snowman first, then?" Joan checked.

"Right. Just stand still and let me get the material for you," Elsa said.

Joan did what she said, waiting for Elsa to put on a show. Then the show dropped right on her head.

After the giant piles of snow covered her, Elsa's magic shaped it so that Joan was covered in two perfect, giant snowballs from the neck down – with her bare head serving as the head of the Joan snowgirl. She even made two stick arms fly in and land underneath Joan's free arms.

"There we go! Couldn't have built the Joan snowman without you!" Christian laughed. The others were somewhat more hesitant – after all, it was a calculated risk they were taking. Joan could be too far gone to appreciate childish pranks like that, for all they knew.

Once they heard a rather un-lady like guffaw from Joan, however, the floodgates opened.

Joan's childish laughter rang louder than the others, as she wiggled around as best she could in the snow. However, it made it even easier to detect when Joan stopped laughing – and when she seemed more on the brink of crying.

"I'm sorry, guys," Joan got out. "I know I've been a boring jerk. You guys do so many great things, for me and everyone….and what have I ever done? I get kidnapped and I shut you out for books! That's why I did all that learning in the first place! And look how that turned out!"

"I am," Anna promised. "I'm seeing a young, needlessly insecure girl getting help from friends and family. Trust me, your jealousy has nothing on mine right now!"

"It doesn't?" Joan asked.

"Not one bit. Don't know where you got this maturity from, really," Kristoff stated.

"You can only have so much of it, though. I learned that in harder ways than you'll ever have to," Elsa promised. "It also helps to have a best friend who'll never leave you alone. Even when you actually want to be."

Christian took that opening and climbed up on Joan's snow. "Do you want me to put a book in your twig hands? So you can read and play all at once?"

"No, that's okay," Joan smiled. "I just want you to….just don't let me get too boring to play with you again. Okay?"

"Okay. Does that go for everyone else?" Christian asked. "They figured this out more than I did."

"Well, don't go giving your parents too much credit," Anna deflected. "Robert got our act together more than we did."

Despite not seeking the credit, Robert admitted, "Well, I kind of created the boring Joan monster to start with. So I kind of had to thaw it out."

"I guess you're better at thawing than cutting," Joan set up, then took some snow from her snow-waist and threw it at him.

Of course, in her position, she didn't have the best aim or distance. But perhaps that made it easier for Robert to bend down and cut the low incoming snowball in half, before it could land five feet shy of his feet.

"That counts! It completely counts!" Robert jumped ahead, and no one argued with him.

Elsa just smiled, putting more snow on Joan with her own bare hands. The rest of the family went over to follow suit, padding more snow to cover her up. Kristoff even put a carrot in front of her nose to keep selling the illusion, before Christian snuck a bite of it.

"You know, a snow girl's nothing without her snow brother," Joan smirked. "What do you say? You want a snow body and a carrot nose of your own to bite off?"

"Do I!" Christian agreed. Since they didn't have to surprise or prank him, Elsa merely dropped a big pile of snow next to Joan, then helped put Christian into it without dropping anything on his head.

As the rest of the family made the pile into a snowman all around Christian, he took special notice of Robert. "I think I got my sister back now. Thank you, Uncle Robert."

No one but him heard that last part. He almost thought he dreamed it up. The fact he could have dreamed it up opened a whole new can of worms. But he figured out it was real, which made the already open can of worms grow even larger.

Christian had never officially lost his sister, so he didn't officially get her back. And for all the time Robert had spent with this family, he still wasn't an official part of it.

He told himself he had to take it slow, since he was part of Elsa's first real romantic relationship.

But maybe the time to show he wanted this to be Elsa's last romantic relationship….was coming sooner than he'd thought. Or dared to hope.