A/N: You guys are seriously the best? Do you know how awesome all of you are? This story is one of the few I've ever written that has not only gotten the most reviews, faves, and follows in the shortest amount of time but easily has some of the best responses that all make me smile because you all like it so much. It's because of all this positivity in fact that you are getting this chapter tonight! But with all of this good news, sadly, I don't think I'll be able to update until Monday night since I have work for the next three days straight and I'm usually drained by the end of the day. Hopefully, this chapter should last you until then but who knows, maybe some more positivity from you lovely people will get me motivated to write through the exhaustion! ;) Seriously, if I could send Elsa & Jack to every single one of you to give out hugs and have snowball fights, I would. You guys are the best! xoxo

Chapter Three: Ice

For once, Elsa was the first one downstairs and having breakfast, ever since she had become the Queen she had slowly gotten used to being up at early hours like Anna always had since they were children. She always loved the moon and the nighttime, but she had to admit that the daytime had its perks as well. Elsa was almost a bit worried that Anna wasn't up yet, she had always been one of the first up and awake in the castle, but she figured instead of going and waking her up to let her sleep in for once, it was the week of her birthday after all. Elsa just hoped that Anna would like the present she had gotten her for her birthday, Elsa got so lost in thought however that she didn't even realize someone had finally joined her in the dining room.

"You know, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure you have to actually eat food in order to no longer be hungry." Jack smirked as he sat down beside Elsa and one of the staff brought out a plate of food for him from the kitchen.

"Oh, right." Elsa finally snapped back into reality out of her thoughts and realized that she had barely even touched her food.

"You look a little distracted…are you alright?" Jack asked.

"I'm fine." She said and made herself finally eat even though her breakfast wasn't all that warm anymore. "Just thinking, that's all."

"Thinking about anything interesting?" Jack questioned.

"Boring stuff." Elsa shrugged. Despite getting along with Jack a bit better since yesterday afternoon, she wasn't exactly ready to tell him her entire life story just yet.

"I see." Jack nodded; he could understand Elsa not wanting to talk. But she seemed a bit distracted, this time not by her thoughts, but rather by his staff that he had leaned against the empty chair next to him. "What?" He asked and glanced over at his staff to see if it was doing anything strange.

"Nothing, it's just…why do you have that?" Elsa pointed right at his staff with curiosity written as plain as day on his face. "We have the same powers as far as I can tell but I've never had to use a staff."

"It's a long story." Jack said with a small smile. "Maybe I'll tell you it sometime if you want, only if you promise me something."

Elsa seemed to mull over the offer for a moment before looking back at Jack. "It depends on what you want me to promise."

"Spoken like a true Queen." Jack laughed. "I'll tell you why I have this thing," He gestured towards his staff. "If you tell me why you're still so afraid."

For a moment, Elsa's heart felt like it stopped beating right in her chest. How could he have known she was still afraid? Her fear was in far better control than it had been when she froze Arendelle months ago, but she was still afraid of what she could do from time to time and she still had some slip-ups.

"Elsa?" Jack had some concern in his voice and that was when Elsa noticed that she had frozen her glass of orange juice solid.

"Sorry, you just startled me." Elsa sighed and grabbed her glass again to make it thaw. Her love for Anna always seemed to be enough to thaw the ice, but sometimes Elsa worried if the day would come where she would create a freeze worst than the first and even Anna's love for her and her love for Anna wouldn't be enough to defrost the land a second time. "I-I'm not afraid."

Jack could tell he had struck a nerve and that he had to be careful with how he preceded with this conversation. "It's alright to be afraid you know, but you don't need to be afraid of yourself."

"You don't understand." Elsa shook her head and could feel some tears starting to sting her eyes thinking about what she had done. "I froze my sisters heart! I almost killed her; I did in fact for a while. I can't control my powers!" She exclaimed and with that, her powers lashed out again but this time only froze the table and nothing else in the room thankfully, but it still made Elsa feel even more fear set in.

"Elsa, it's okay." Jack said calmly, he figured it would be best if this conversation ended now before the entire room got frozen solid.

"Elsa!" Anna's voice came from the other end of the room.

Anna fearlessly ran into the room and up to her sister before throwing her arms around her and embracing her tightly as if to promise her that she would never let go. In a matter of minutes, the table slowly started to thaw and soon there was no evidence left behind of the once frozen breakfast table except for two incredibly cold plates of food on the table. Jack watched the two sisters and knew that they had a strong bond that could never be broken, he knew why now that Anna seemed to be the only one that could make Elsa thaw out the ice and snow. While Jack had never really fully mastered defrosting his winter creations, he had more control over his powers to begin with.

"I'm terribly sorry," Elsa apologized as soon as Anna released her from her embrace and looked directly at Jack. "I think it would be best if I just spent a little time alone to calm down." She said with all the grace and poise that could only be held by a true Queen before excusing herself from the dinning hall and leaving just Anna and Jack alone in the room.

"I guess I should have warned you she's a tiny bit sensitive about her powers still." Anna said. "It's only been a couple of months, but at least she can unfreeze things now." She added optimistically.

"Why is she so afraid?" Jack asked Anna, figuring he might get an answer out of her.

"It's a long story, and it's kinda Elsa's story to tell, though I'm in it, but…you know what I mean." Anna stopped herself. "All I can say is that she's afraid she'll still hurt people with her powers."

"She said she froze your heart, what does that mean?" Jack asked, trying to get a more direct answer out of Anna.

"Well, I was frozen solid," Anna said, a bit of guilt clear in her eyes when she spoke about it as if talking about this very story was like betraying her sister. "But Elsa saved me."

Just like that, whenever Anna mentioned her sister, all light and happiness returned to her eyes. Not the kind of happiness Jack noticed in Anna around Kristoff, that was completely different but still happiness. The joy Anna got from mentioning her sister was the kind of love a sister could only feel for their sister, a true love in it's own right. Jack nodded, accepting Anna's answer and not wanting to push her any further for more answers.

"It seems like no matter what I do around your sister, I still manage to make her hate me for talking too much." Jack said with a slight smirk.

"No, it's fine." Anna reassured him. "She just needs some time to herself for a bit. Don't worry about it, I'll talk to her."

"Just…tell her I'm sorry, and if she doesn't hate me yet I have a story to tell her tonight in the courtyard, no strings attached." Jack said.

Jack could see a glint of curiosity in Anna's eyes at the mention of a story, but she bit her tongue and simply nodded before leaving the room. Shortly after she left, Jack could hear the barreling laughter of North and the higher pitched laughter of a certain snowman that had about as hard a time of keeping secrets as Anna.

"Elsa's one true love, why do you look so sad?" Olaf asked with some genuine sadness in his eyes and tone for once.

"I'm not sad little buddy, I just need to go have some fun, that's all." Jack kneeled down to Olaf's height and smiled. He often did the same thing with his sister back at home though usually he was the one distracting her with fun to keep her from being sad or frightened.

"Oh! I know what we can do!" Olaf cheered back up again. "Let's go for a sleigh ride!"

"Sleigh?" North asked and brightened up. "I know just the thing."

Anna hesitated outside of Elsa's door like she always had, though she knew now that the door was more likely to open than before, she still always had that doubt that maybe Elsa would send her away again. She knocked on the door and waited to hear a reply, any sort of reply, and when there was nothing Anna figured that Elsa just really wanted to be truly alone, but she still had to ask either way.

"Elsa?" Anna asked.

"Come in Anna." Elsa called from the other side of the door.

Anna slowly opened the door at first before she saw Elsa sitting on her bed, her knees curled up to her chest, and though nothing was frozen, the room was colder than the rest of the castle. Anna entered the room and was sure to shut the door behind her and despite being invited in; she still felt the need to hesitate over by the door. It wasn't until Elsa looked up at her with tears threatening to fall from her eyes that Anna joined her sister's side on her bed and rested her head on Elsa's shoulder.

"Are you okay?" Anna asked quietly.

"I just thought that by now I'd be in better control of all of this." Elsa sighed.

"Well, no one expected you to become an expert at it overnight." Anna said. "No one had even ever seen these kinds of powers before you."

Elsa stayed silent and just pulled her knees even closer to her chest, Anna could tell that she was trying to hide, still afraid of what she was and what she could do.

"Maybe you should talk to Jack," Anna offered. "I mean, he seems in control of his powers, maybe he can help you?"

"I don't know Anna." Elsa said.

"He said he was sorry and he told me to tell you that he still wanted to tell you his story – no strings attached…whatever that means." Anna sat upright now. "Did he say something that upset you?"

"No, he just surprised me." Elsa said. "He noticed that I was afraid of myself."

Anna could see how much this terrified Elsa, someone else being able to see that she was in fact still very afraid of her powers.

"Jack could be afraid too. Or maybe he was at some point and found something to help him get over it. You should listen to what he has to say." Anna said.

"Did he say anything else?" Elsa asked.

"Just that he'd tell you his story tonight in the courtyard." Anna said.

"I'll go." Elsa said, which made Anna smile a bit.

"See, I knew you two would get along." Anna said in her usual chipper tone.

"How do you do that?" Elsa asked with a smile.

"Do what?" Anna asked confused.

"Be so…happy all the time?" Elsa asked.

"I don't know," Anna laughed. "I guess it's just easier to be happy instead of sad all the time. Life's too short to be so sad."

"I'm really glad you're my sister Anna." Elsa smiled with an ear-to-ear grin now.

"Me too." Anna replied.

Jack had experienced a sleigh ride with North more times then he could count in his lifetime, and each ride seemed a bit more dangerous than the last in terms of speed, but when Olaf found Kristoff and North added Sven to the sleigh ride, it seemed even more fast and dangerous but all the more fun as well. But for once, even having as much fun as he had today didn't even seem to be enough to make him forget that he had managed to do something wrong with Elsa – again. The moon was just starting to rise in the night sky when Jack walked himself out into the courtyard and sat in front of the fountain. The sky was crystal clear in Arendelle tonight and though it was a little chilly, it wasn't anything Jack couldn't handle. All of the stars were shinning brighter over this kingdom, or so at least Jack thought, and even the moon seemed brighter than it had back home. It was his favorite kind of moon as well, a full moon hanging up in the sky and lighting up the entire kingdom.

"What do you think?" Jack asked as he looked up at the moon. "Think she'll show up or that I'll get stood up?"

The Man in the Moon, as always, never really answered Jack back, at least not with words and like most of the time, never right away. If he was lucky, he might get an answer in Elsa either arriving here tonight or him staying out here until he's barely keeping his eyes open and waiting for the Queen to show up.

"Alright, fine, keep your silence, one of these days you'll give an immediate answer." Jack said back to the moon with a smirk on his face. He knew that day would never really come, but it made him feel better thinking that possibly, it would.

He spent his time waiting in the courtyard by trying to make the perfect snowflake, but none of them ever really seemed perfect to Jack. He moved on to freezing and attempting to unfreeze the courtyard, he only managed to get some minor thawing around the edges of the courtyard and knew he'd have to have Elsa try and thaw what he'd done. The moon was slowly inching it's way up higher and higher into the sky and Jack was debating on heading back inside or not when he finally heard the doors to the castle open behind him and he saw Elsa standing there. She was looking down at the courtyard in shock and seemed to be wondering how she managed to freeze the place already without her knowledge and Jack felt the need to explain.

"Sorry, I got a little bored. I'm good at the freezing things, unfreezing something this big though…not so much." Jack sighed.

"That's fine." Elsa smiled and with a wave of her hand, the courtyard thawed out and returned to normal. She seemed much happier than she had before, more sure of herself really.

"So, you showed up." Jack smiled. "First time a girl's ever shown up anywhere I invited her really."

"I find that hard to believe." Elsa said.

"You remember yesterday, right? Add that side of me on top of the freezing things and not a lot of girls exactly line up to date you, despite being a Prince." Jack said.

"I see." Elsa nodded and Jack noticed she was trying to hide a hint of a smile. "Mind if I sit?" She asked and gestured to the spot beside him on the fountain.

"Hey, it's your castle. I think you can sit pretty much anywhere." Jack shrugged.

Elsa sat carefully down beside him, as if she were worried he would actually mind her sitting beside him, but he made sure not to move an inch to let her know he was comfortable with her. Sometimes despite showing flashes of bravery and authority as a Queen, Elsa reminded Jack of the baby reindeer back home, they would always shy away from sudden movement no matter how gentle you tried to appear. Once Jack was sure Elsa wasn't going to flinch away, he started talking.

"So, your majesty, you must be at least a little curious about me if you decided to show up tonight." Jack smiled.

"Like my sister told me, it's not everyday I get to meet someone with powers like mine." Elsa said.

"I'll have to remember to thank Anna later for that." Jack said; Elsa glanced at him for a moment before looking back up at the night sky. He would have to make a note to remember that Elsa seemed to like the nighttime just as much as he did. "So, where do you want me to start?"

"How long have you had your powers?" Elsa asked.

Jack smiled and knew exactly where to start his story. "Well, let's see now. I was about fourteen and if you can imagine it, I was an even bigger trouble maker back then than I am now."

"Oh, I can imagine it." Elsa smiled.

"Either way," Jack laughed. "Like most fourteen year old boys, especially Princes, I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing."