imaginary [jelsa one shot]

//written for hepburnette's (noelle's) jelsa one-shot competition//

"Darling, do you think we should take her to see the trolls? Ever since Anna had the memory of magic taken away, Elsa has been a little bit off, so distant and strange. But now with this whole Jack Frost fiasco, has our daughter become insane?" Queen Cordelia questioned her husband, her voice thick with concern for her eldest daughter.

Her beloved husband, King Sebastian only sighed in return and rubbed his temples in frustration. Recently, their daughter Princess Elsa had been reporting incidents involving a certain boy that she called Jack Frost. After consulting the kingdom's doctor, it had been diagnosed that Elsa had come up with an imaginary friend to make up for the loss of her sister's company.

"I don't think that she's insane my lovely, only that she is ever so lonely. She has had to live in fear her whole life. Fear of someone finding out about her powers. She's only a young girl, there's only so much that someone can take" King Sebastian stated, trying to comfort his distressed wife.

Little did they know that two people were standing right down the hall, listening to every word that left their mouths. Elsa turned to the boy standing next to her with tears in her eyes. "Jack, why are they saying these horrible things about me? I'm not insane, I know I'm not. Why can't they see you Jack?" Elsa cried out, sliding down the wall until her head rested in her knees and she began to sob.

"Elsa, I've told you remember, they can't seem me because they don't believe in me. I wish that they did, but they don't". Jack's voice was calm and patient, yet Elsa could sense the hurt in his voice at the thought of people not believing in him.

"I wish they believed in you too". Elsa muttered quietly. Only when she heard the sound of her parents' footsteps approach her did she stand up from her place on the floor. When her parents came around the corner, their hearts broke at the sight before them. Their little girl was read faced with tears stains streaking across her face and it was obvious that she had heard the conversation.

"Elsa you have to stay in your room! You can't risk hurting your sister, just please. Stay in there. Maybe Jack Frost is in there", Queen Cordelia pleaded, earning her a disapproving look from her husband for encouraging such behavior from their daughter. Instead of acknowledging her husband, the Queen continued to coax Elsa into her room, until she was finally inside, and the door was locked. From the outside so that nobody could get in.

Jack Frost had always found his way in. And Elsa secretly thought that if it wasn't for that, she wouldn't have survived for all of this time. But she never voiced those thoughts. She didn't want to scare Jack away, she had scared away everyone else. He was the only one that she had left.

It was about a decade later when the King and Queen left their kingdom of Arendelle to go off on their own for two weeks. Or what was supposed to be two weeks. When the news of their deaths reached the castle, the two princesses were torn in half. Not one but both of their parents were gone. Now they only had each other. At least that was how Princess Anna saw it. Princess Elsa on the other hand, had Jack.

She had stopped voicing her thoughts of Jack Frost. The kingdom was beginning to think that the reason the gates were always closed was because Princess Elsa had spiraled down into a deep madness. Despite the shortened staff, rumors were spread throughout the kingdom. Rumors of how Princess Elsa had fallen in love with an imaginary boy that she had conjured up in her own mind.

So Elsa had learnt to keep quiet.

Jack would sneak into Elsa's bedroom every night, using his staff to pry open the window that was always so tightly shut. He knew that the staff probably had better purposes to serve, but it was far easier than breaking the window open. Something far harder to explain to the castle's staff.

It had become a daily routine for Jack, do his routes around the world, making it snow here and there, having frost coat the windows of cities near and far. But he would always return to Arendelle. There was nobody there that could see him, not even the children, so small an innocent. No one could see him but Elsa.

Sometimes he wondered if Elsa thought that he was imaginary. Some sort of companion that her brain had conjured up to keep her company. He was scared that one day she would stop believing in him too. That she would think he was nothing more than a figment of her imagination. When one day Jack had confessed these thoughts to Elsa, she had smacked him hard on the head and told him not to think such silly thoughts.

Jack tried not to, but it was hard.

When Elsa's parents had passed away, Jack had began to train Elsa to control her powers a little bit better, although she never gave herself a chance to improve. Jack always thought it was funny that Elsa was the only person in Arendelle who believed in him, and yet she found it so difficult to believe in herself. As Jack had watched Elsa grow up, he saw the way her parents would tell her "conceal, don't feel, don't let it show". He knew what it was like to feel invisible, hell he knew it was like to be invisible. So he didn't really agree with the teaching methods of the King and Queen.

But he knew that Elsa did. When they had passed away, Jack did his best to try and train Elsa, to learn how to control her powers. Yet she only believed that she had to conceal her powers, to never let anyone know about them. So, it was very difficult for Jack to do anything when half of the time she refused to show him her powers at all.

 "Elsa please, don't be so afraid, You can do it, just, let go". Jack coaxed, his voice calm and smooth as he stood behind Elsa, his chest pressed against her back. He could feel her trembling in front of him as she slowly removed the gloves that had quickly become a permanent fixture in her life.

"Elsa, you can do it, you don't have to let fear control your life". Jack rested his arms around her wrists as she flicked her wrists forward, casting out sharp icicles that looked like they could pierce anything. Including a body. Elsa began to shake even more, her body leaning back against Jack's for support. More frost and ice came from her hands, floating about the room. That's when Elsa began to panic.

"Jack! I can't control it! I don't know what to do! Please leave Jack, I'm going to hurt you!" Elsa screamed, her body trembling and tears filling her blue eyes like they had done so many years before. Because she had always been so scared of losing Jack, and she knew that if something happened to him now, it would be her fault. "Please Jack!"

"You could never hurt me", then Jack saved Elsa the only way he knew how. He leaned down over her, his head and neck bending at an awkward angle as he titled Elsa's head towards his. Both of their eyelids fluttered closed, but not before blue met blue, and then lips met lips. 

Lips slightly chapped from the freezing room brushed across each other, light and innocent. Ice cold lips that somehow managed to melt into one another. And then their arms began to wrap around one another, keeping each other safe in the cold. Knowing that they would do anything to keep each other safe. That was when Jack and Elsa became one, one body of intertwined limbs, not knowing where either one ended or started.

It was only then that the frost melted. Elsa could control it, the icicles began to shrink, becoming smaller and smaller until they were almost nothing. The frost hovering in the room disappeared until one small snowflake was left. As it fell it brushed the soft skin of Jack's cheek, making him grin into the kiss, before slowly pulling away. The smiles didn't leave their faces for a long time.

The people of Arendelle thought that they were imagining things when they saw a boy and a girl creating snow all around them. If only they knew, nothing about these two were imaginary, and certainly not their love.