"Jack? What're ya doing lyin' out in tha snow?"
Jack stared up at the sky, Merida in his peripheral. "Chillin'." He sighed.
"How long ya been playin' snowman out here?"
Jack blinked, "An hour?" He guessed.
Merida sat next to him, "What's on yer mind, laddie?"
"I was just, thinking about Flee."
"Oh." She leaned back. "Yer not blamin' yerself over it again, are ya?"
Jack shrugged.
"Ya did what ya could, Jack, besides you saved her tha same."
"But she wouldn't have been in that situation if it weren't for me. And then I wouldn't have died, and we could've just lived normally."
Merida sighed, "I know ya miss her. But she lived 'cause'a ya. Ya saved her, and she had a good life right?"
"Yeah." He closed his eyes as a thin cloud of breath escaped his lips.
"She'd want ya to live too Jack. Even if tha means havin' to live without her."
"Maybe."
"Are ya alright?"
"I guess." Jack dug his hands into the snow pile beneath him.
"Is somethin' else botherin' ya?"
Jack sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. "I just feel like I'm not needed. I'm always messin' around and screwing things up."
"Why da ya say tha?" Merida laid her arm around his shoulders.
He paused for a few moments and fidgeted with the lacing around the end of his trousers. "Ever since I got here I've gotten nothing but the cold shoulder from Elsa. Then I try to go talk to her and I startled her and almost lost her mothers necklace. I mean, I saved it, we started to talk about her parents and it was going okay for a minute but then I brought up Flee and." Jack rubbed his eyes. "I don't know, I just made it more awkward with every word and I couldn't hold my tears back so I told her I was going to bed."
"And ya decided ta sleep in tha snowbed?" Merida wiped half melted snow from his hair.
"I just don't know how to talk to her ya know. It's either I say something snarky, and piss her off. Or I bring up something sad, and one of us cries."
"Well, the only way ta get ta know someone is ta talk ta them. Maybe ya could go see if she's alright now?"
"Yeah, I might." Jack's words trail off as he bites his thumbnail.
"Let me know how it goes lad, I'm gonna go in 'fore I get frostbite."
Jack nods as Merida stands to leave, "And just, be yerself." The crunching of her footsteps fades as Jack starts to lay back in the snow. In the corner of his eye, a castle window lights up and a woman's silhouette comes into view.
"Elsa." Jack sits up, eyes fixated on the illuminated room.
YOU ARE READING
A brave and tangled love (Meripunzel)
Fanfic*this is the original story, I am the sole owner and writer for this fanfic and no one has the right to sell it or pass it off as their own* I wrote this because there seemed to be a lack of meripunzel fanfiction. The story of Brave still happened...
