"Elsa?" Jack gently pulls my hands away from my face. "I'm sorry." His fingers do not release my wrists.

I crave his touch, any human touch at all. I just want to close my eyes and let someone else hold me up for a while.

"I do want to meet your family, Jack. But not like this. Not in a fabricated dream. I've already met myself!"

He winces and releases my hands. "Yeah...sorry about that. I missed you so I made you appear in my dream too. Not as a queen, but as a normal girl, a peasant like me."

"Would you prefer it if I were not royalty?" I straighten my shoulders. Sometimes I did not want the responsibility of a leading kingdom, but I never have been ashamed of my crown.

"No, of course not." Jack drags his hand through his hair. "You don't understand. I loved you once, long before the magic and the storm. I loved you when you did not know who I was. My whole life I watched you and saw not a queen, but a girl." Jack steps toward me again. "Shortly after your parents died, you visited their tombstones."

"How do you know that? No one knows that!" I turn away, but he catches my hand and holds me there with the burning fire of his gaze.

"I was out walking that night. It had been a rough night and I needed some time alone. Then I saw you. I didn't want to bother you, but I was worried about you. It had been years since I saw you outside of the castle."

I drop my eyes. "You followed me? I knew I heard someone..." My heartbeat catches in my throat. Warmth spreads through my veins.

Jack truly has seen me at my very worst.

Maintaining a perfect image was very important to me as a royal and as a sister. I have always tried to be perfect. I put on a brave front, hiding my fears and insecurities behind closed doors and polite, cold smiles.

I hide my tears from the world, unwilling to let them see my cry.

But somehow Jack saw past all of that. He saw me for who I really am. A sad, lonely girl who needs others.

He saw me in all my brokenness and yet he loves me.

He loves me.

Jack rests his forehead against mine. I can hear his heart beating too fast. Or maybe that is my heartbeat.

I don't feel sad anymore.

I am not sure how it is possible, but standing here in Jack's childhood home, trapped in a cursed dream, I finally admit to myself that I love him too.

Jack has torn down my walls, he's climbed my tower, he's broken down my door.

And now I am letting him in. For he has proven worthy of my heart.

"Jack." I breathe his name. "I-"

His front door bangs open.

"That took forever! For someone who doesn't talk, the Sandman sure had a lot to say!" Pitch's loud voice startles me.

The spell between Jack and I is broken.

Jack spins around. "What are you doing here?"

I tug on Jack's arm. "Pitch isn't that bad. I mean, he's bad, but he was only working for the witch, Gothel."

"Exactly." Jack moves in front of me. "He can't be trusted."

"The peasant boy does have a point." Pitch's yellow eyes flicker over Jack. "What happened to you? You look significantly less powerful."

"Hello to you too, Black." Jack glares at him. "Care to explain why you are standing in my house?"

Pitch shrugs. "Elsa invited me."

I roll my eyes. "Okay, both of you calm down." I grab Jack's hand. "We were not the only ones betrayed by Gothel. I may not trust him completely, but Pitch did help me get to your dreams."

"Fine." Jack squeezes me hand.

Pitch drops into the chair where I was sitting. He leans back. "Are you going to stand there holding hands or are we going to figure a way out of this curse?"

"What did Sandy tell you?" I slip into Jack's abandoned seat. Jack stands behind me, his hands resting on the back of my chair.

"He explained a lot. Apparently that Sand-dwarf knows a lot." Pitch smiles. He doesn't grin, he doesn't smirk or frown or glare. He smiles! "He told me how you can break the curse."

Hope springs inside me. "Really? How? What do we have to do?"

"I may not have ever put much stock into it, but apparently, true love's kiss is a powerful thing."

I refuse to look at Jack. "It can't be that easy!"

"It's not." Pitch stares above me, his eyes burning into Jack Frost. "If you kiss him, you'll wake up. Everyone will. The curse will be broken. But there is a catch...Frost will forget everything that has happened since the storm. He will no longer be a guardian. In order to wake you up, he will lose all of his magic. There is no other way."