Fire and Ice (Tadelsa One-Shot)

It's Hiro's night. The showcase went spectacularly well, his microbots wowed the crowd, and now the gang is clustered around him, excitedly offering congratulations and ruffling his hair. 

Aunt Cass proposes a celebratory supper at the cafe and the teens follow, but Tadashi pulls Hiro aside, hoping for a heart-to-heart talk.

Elsa hangs back too, happy but a little nervous about all the people around her. After recent events, she's a bit more comfortable about her ice powers, but still none but her closest circle really know. 

Of course these guys are her friends, but they've yet to connect her to the freak snowstorm in the last few months, and she has yet to tell them.

She'll do it eventually. Just not right now.

Her fingers tingle, and she sees a few minuscule snowflakes begin to form in the air around her--an attack might be coming on.

It's been a long day and I talked to a lot of people, Elsa thinks. I guess that took its toll.

"Hey, um, I think I'll go use the washroom," she tells Honey Lemon apologetically. "You guys go ahead. I'll walk with the Hamadas."

"Oh, okay!" Honey exclaims. "You sure you don't want me to wait for you?"

Elsa shakes her head, smiling, and the taller girl skips away, confident in her high heels, her long hair flowing behind her. She's so self-assured, and Elsa feels a wistful pang--people tend to reduce her to a quivering mass inside with a stony demeanor outside, which is definitely not good for her social life.

Hopefully it'll get better, though. She's so lucky to actually have friends. Mostly because of someone named Tadashi Hamada. She can't imagine what he saw in her, but he befriended her when she needed it, and he makes her feel safe and warm inside--

Could this be love? What do you know about love? 

The snowflakes are gathering faster and Elsa quickly ducks into a cubicle and forces herself to calm down. 

You're getting better, she tells herself, but you're not ready to think about love just yet.

~~~

She's sitting at a bench a comfortable distance away from Tadashi and Hiro, waiting for the two brothers to finish their conversation, when they all hear the screams and see the ominous red glow over the showcase hall.

As if by some unspoken agreement, all three race to the spot, Tadashi in the lead, his hand on his head to keep his cap from falling off. None of them give a second thought to running towards the danger instead of away from it.

When they actually see the hall engulfed in angry flames, however, they pause for a half second. Elsa feels terror rising and she barely registers what's happening until all of a sudden Tadashi's running into the building, Hiro's staring in shock at the figure of his brother as he disappears right into the fire, and the words "someone has to help" are lost in the awful crackling.

Wait, what? This isn't supposed to happen. What is he doing? Elsa cringes as she notices frost forming on her hands, until she realizes she doesn't have to hide it, she can't hide it, she can help, and she dashes into the inferno too. Hiro tries to stop her, but leaps back to avoid being impaled by the icicles she leaves in her path.

The heat is unbearable, and Elsa wills herself to keep from panicking because she needs to control her powers more than ever. She can't afford any mistakes. Slowly she builds up a small storm around her, and it extinguishes the flames before they can touch her skin. But she can't see well through it, and even when she lets it clear a little, she can only see a terrifying landscape of pillars and tables blackened by fire. Elsa wonders briefly if she can make a snowstorm large enough to quench the fire, and she tries, she really does, but she doesn't know if it works, because right now her world is an overwhelming, fiery, furious one.

Tadashi. Find Tadashi and get out of here. 

She doesn't see him anywhere, and despite the swirling snow, the smoke starts to get to her and she coughs. Aren't you supposed to crawl to avoid smoke inhalation? One look at the surroundings rules out that possibility--burning debris lies all over the floor, and the displays look like they could collapse at any time. It's a maze of tiny, winding paths, and she'll be quicker on her feet this way. A half-destroyed showcase display topples over and she jumps to the side.

"Tadashi!" she shouts into the inferno, doing her best to dampen the flames with ice and snow. Her fear isn't helping her to work effectively, though, and she has to concentrate, although by now the fire is so widespread that it doesn't really matter where she aims her magic. 

"Tadashi!" Her voice is strained and hoarse and her eyes hurt from the smoke. If it's like this for her, she can't imagine what it's like for him. 

Then she sees Tadashi, and tries to reach him, screaming his name. He turns, but a crack sounds above his head, and for a heart-stopping instant Elsa sees the ceiling beam descend, black against the orange of the flames--

She feels herself falling with it as she races towards Tadashi--

She closes her eyes. This is it, this is the end--

Elsa hears a sickening crunch but it's not Tadashi. Tadashi is there and he's fine, clutching her arms, searching her face, eyes wide.

He's alive. We're alive. Elsa sits up and realises that she unknowingly made two ice pillars, which stopped the beam inches from their heads. Tadashi is staring at her incredulously, but there's no time for explanations. Not now. The ice has already begun to melt from the heat, and a crash as another display hits the floor snaps the two back into action.

They're not out of the fire yet.

~~~

Elsa expands the snowstorm so it shields both of them. For a while she feels disoriented, bewildered by the ocean of flame, but Tadashi leads them towards the entrance. Is it just her imagination, or has the fire started to subside? Looking up through a hole in the ceiling, she spots storm clouds in the sky--maybe she did manage to make that blizzard after all.

Finally they're stumbling out of the entrance and down the stairs, blessing the chilly night air. Tadashi falls sideways with a sort of moan. It's only then that Elsa sees his leg, and she cries out--it's red and burnt and makes her feel sick to her stomach. She doesn't know what to do, but Tadashi prompts her to rip a piece of fabric off her scarf, and she cools it, applying it to the injured leg.

Hiro is running up the stairs, breaking away from the people who tried to stop him from going into the fire, and falling to his knees next to his brother, shouting his name and calling him an idiot while crying all the while.

The building is a charred, empty skeleton, and the firefighters have begun searching it for survivors. People start to wonder about the snow that's still falling. 

Tadashi tries to say something, but Elsa doesn't catch it. "What?"

"Callaghan. I didn't save him. He's somewhere in there." The boy's eyes are wild, desperate.

"They'll find him. You just sit still. Everything will be fine." Elsa promises, hoping against hope, although she doesn't know that. 

Then the tears come, making clean, wobbly lines on their smoke-blackened faces. Hiro and Elsa have been holding back until now, afraid their touch will hurt Tadashi, but all of a sudden all three are hugging, huddled together on the stairs as the flames lick at the ruins and a gentle snow floats down from the sky.

"You fool. You stupid, stupid fool," she sobs, her head on his chest.

She doesn't know if she loves him but she loves him as a friend and he's safe and they're alive and for now that's more than enough.

Help arrives, and a swirl of white coats and professional voices surrounds Tadashi, but he looks straight at Elsa and asks with amazed disbelief in his voice:

"You have ice powers?"

And Elsa's laughing through her tears as the ambulance takes him away.

illustrations by jin kim