SURPRISE I'M NOT DEAD!

P-P-P-PRANKED! Got ya!

Haha actually I may or may not have gone on a two year hiatus for no real reason?

Anyways to anyone still reading this, thank you all so much for being so patient, I know that it has been many months, (or COUGH COUGH two years but let's not mention that hahaha COUGH) and I apologize for the wait.

And an extra special thanks to any and all followers, favoriters, or reviewers. You all make my day :D

Alrighty let's get into some backstory!

Chapter 8 - Weird Leaves

"Elsa come on! Let's go build a snowman!"

Elsa chuckled at her younger sister's antics.

"Anna, we just got into our skates, we should make use of them before playing in the snow."

"Fine." said Anna, huffing as she stepped into the rink.

Elsa followed her sister, sighing for a moment before pushing off her feet, gliding around the rink in beautiful spirals that made her feel a sense of freedom that the enormous mansion had never afforded her. Anna was too young to truly be able to skate, but she tried her best anyway, repeatedly falling, and in the refreshing way most young children do, the redhead would simply get back up, beaming as she pushed forward.

"Elsa you're flying!" shouted the seven year old aspiring snowman builder.

Her platinum blonde sister laughed in response, enjoying the feeling of wind on her face. Elsa always favored winter, the time when she could skate non-stop and watch each individual snowflake fall from the sky and join its siblings on the ground, forming a white blanket on the earth that made everything somehow warm and cold at the same time.

So Elsa leaped. She twirled and spun, soared and flew, perfectly landing and gliding on.

But then time stopped.

Els slid backwards, feeling herself pulled off the ice, twisting back the way she had came.

And suddenly everything was red.

...

"Elsa! Elsa wake up! Please! Please wake up, wake up, wake up!"

Elsa's eyes fluttered open, squinting as light flooded her vision. As her eyes cleared she spotted a figure… that seemed to have a halo around its head? Was it an angel?

And then she blinked and her eyes refocused, leaving what in her mind was the opposite of an innocent angel: Jack Frost.

And that's when she realized he was holding her by the shoulders, and that her face was wet. She was shaking, sobbing against her will, crying as she tried to push back all the memories that tried to break through the dam she had built all those years ago.

"Elsa," Jack repeated as he wiped some of her tears and looked into her eyes, trying to understand what lay in their depths. "Is everything okay?"

The platinum blonde sniffled, stopped crying, then blinked incredulously at her fellow teen for a solid fifteen seconds before Jack came to the realization that "oh yeah, we're stuck on a deserted island and no one knows that we're here."

Jack's face visibly reddened. "Sorry that was a stupid question."

The white-haired boy looked at her questioningly, trying to gauge her reaction. Her eyes were red from crying, her hair standing on end from all the shaking she had done, but the tears had stopped.

For a moment there was complete silence.

And then Elsa broke. She broke so hard that she rolled to her side and started crying and shaking again, but not from fear or sadness. From laughter.

"IS EVERYTHING OKAY? IS EVERYTHING OKAY?" She practically shrieked, doubled over by the sheer stupidity of it all.

"Hey Elsa," the platinum bond said to herself, deepening her voice and doing her best impression of the male in front of her. "I know we're stuck on a deserted island, really could potentially die at any moment, by any means possible, and you're crying, and we just slept in a cave on a pile of leaves and so on and so on… but I just wanted to check. Is everything okay?"

And suddenly Jack was cackling.

Maybe it was the excessive amount of berries they ate, maybe it was the suspicious smelling leaves they had slept on, maybe it was the whole disaster situation…

Or maybe they were just two friends, laughing at the hilarity of a situation that they were too immature to care about the consequences of, because just for a moment, a single moment, it was nice to stop worrying and to just laugh with another person.

"Nah," Jack thought to himself as tears slipped out of his eyes from the sheer amount of laughter ripping from his body. "It's definitely the weird leaves."

As their laughter died down, Elsa took a deep breath and tried to figure out what to say Jack. She couldn't say nothing was wrong, but she didn't want to go back to that dream. To that time.

Jack let out a few last chuckles as he sat up, holding his side as he tried to relieve a cramp.

"You know," he said, taking a steadying breath before continuing. "There's a reason you're valedictorian and I'm not."

There it was again, Jack thought to himself, secretly pleased. That mega-watt Elsa smile.

"Look," Elsa said as she began weaving her hair into her classic side braid. "I don't want to talk about it, so please don't ask, but sometimes I have bad dreams. Nightmares. And I'm not going to lie to you, this may happen again. The waking up crying thing. I'm sorry if I wake you up but please Jack… I don't want your pity. Don't look at me as if I'm broken… I'm fine. Really. Everything is okay." Elsa chuckled as she said the last sentence, allowing herself a moment to look anywhere but at the boy in front of her.

But suddenly she couldn't look anywhere else as he put his hand on her shoulder and stared at her, no pity, no shame, just respect.

"Elsa, you're the bravest, smartest, strongest person I know, and that's saying something considering that I've met myself." Elsa rolled her eyes but couldn't hide the small smile that crept up her face. Jack smiled back and continued. "But everyone has got cracks Elsa, that's what makes us human. There's nothing wrong with showing your emotions or admitting you're afraid. In fact that's one of the bravest things a person can do." Jack sighed as he tried to find the right words for what he wanted to say.

"Look, what I'm trying to say is that, I just… just because you can be strong enough for anything, which I know you can be, that doesn't mean… you shouldn't have to go at it alone. I guess all I'm saying is I'm here for you, no judgement, no pity, just understanding."

He waited a moment to see if Elsa would respond. When he realized she wouldn't, he tried to stand up but was yanked down by the hand he didn't realize she had grabbed.

And suddenly all of Jack Frost's dreams came true as Elsa, Snow Queen of the school, pulled him into a tight embrace and whispered two words in his ear.

"Thank you."

…

It was noon by the time Elsa and Jack left the cave, eyes cleared from previous tears and sides free from laughter cramps. As the teens searched through the forest for scraps of wood for a potential fire that night, they continued their previous conversation.

"You know," Elsa said, inspecting a twig before tossing it aside in dissatisfaction. "All that stuff you said for me, I would do it for you to. I'm not going to judge you or pity you, and I'll understand the best I can."

"Ha," Jack responded dryly, adding another piece of wood to the growing pile in his hand. "Not pity me I believe, but not judge me? Come on Elsa."

Elsa's eyebrows drew in as she looked at the white-haired boy with a confused face. "What do you mean? I don't judge you."

In response Jack raised a brow of his own and placed his non-occupied hand on his hip. "So you're saying you don't have a preconceived image of me that I'm a playboy who happens to be good at sports?"

Elsa paused for a moment, thinking about her words carefully before responding.

"I'm not going to pretend that I don't look negatively upon your player tendencies. I guess I'm the kind of person who can only really consider a long term monogamous relationship for myself. And it upsets me that you seem to treat a lot of the girls like they're not people but awards, a cool thing to show off for a small time before you get rid of it. To be fair the girls you go for generally see themselves that way which is even more horrible but that's not your fault, just the society we were raised in. But I digress, I respect you as a leader and athlete and consider you a friend, but I cannot condone the way you've used your relationships."

Jack seethed for a moment before reigning himself back in.

"Elsa I understand from your perspective how it might seem that way. You see me talking to girls at the rink and most likely hear the gossip, as much as you try not to. But surprise surprise, gossip isn't that accurate. I will admit I have been in some not so real, short-term relationships, if you can call those relationships. But I never treated those girls with anything other than respect. The only girl I was ever really involved with used to go by the nickname Tooth, and when I realized she had fallen in love with my best friend Bunny instead of me, well who was I to stand in the way of that? Just… I don't know, ever since that I've just been coasting I guess? I don't mean to toy with people's' hearts… but I guess it happens anyway."

Elsa let out the breath she didn't realize she had been holding. Some part of her felt relieved, she had always wanted to believe that Jack was a better person than he let on, and now she could.

"I'm sorry I misjudged you," Elsa said as Jack waved away her apology, assuring her it was fine. "I can see now you're not exactly who I thought you were, and even though this whole situation sucks, I'm happy I'm getting to know you. The real you."

Elsa could see he was practically bursting at the seams with joy so she tried to come up with something to amend her statement, but alas she was too slow.

"Don't worry gorgeous, you don't have to be jealous of those exes" added the old hockey captain as he pointed fingerguns at the platinum blonde. "I'm currently single and ready to mingle." Jack threw in a wink at the end just for good measure.

And he just had to ruin it didn't he? Elsa blinked at him a few times before sighing and continuing her search for sticks.

Jack Frost may not have been the heartless playboy she originally made him out to be, but he was still an annoying flirt.

So why was her face so warm?

"Probably the weird leaves." Elsa thought to herself, ignoring a nagging thought in the back of her head.

I tried to make the chapter nice and long for all of you! I can't honestly say when I'll update again, I never know when I'll be inspired to write another chapter, but I'll try to do it ASAP. Or at least in the coming year.

Got any thoughts? Leave them in the review box! I always love reading them :)