He received the text just as he was about to text her, concerned by the late hour with no word.

Bad day. Will be in The Room. Please remove your things so I can use.

The Room, of course, being the extra bedroom that had somehow evolved, over the past few months since they moved in, to be the room whose primary use changed to be whatever the user needed it for most. Much like the Room of Requirement in Harry Potter, as Tadashi liked to call it whenever it was used for something new, as Elsa would roll her eyes. "Must you be even more of a nerd?" She would ask.

First, it had been a storage room for boxes from the move as the couple slowly but surely unpacked their lives into their new home. More recently, it had acted as a storage room for items without a set home; a workroom and lab for the two robotics scientists to design and test within; and a place where each could practice a pastime in peace, such as Elsa's occasional painting when the mood struck and Tadashi's Tae Kwan Do. Interspersed between these uses, however, was the use of the room as a safe haven- a room within which its inhabitant could exist, alone, and let loose. Such a "bad day," as today, Tadashi knew, would soon see Elsa huddled in the room's center, unleashing whatever powerful emotions had needed to be tucked away for hours, pressed down and hidden, lest the ice and snow that swirled within be set free and expose her to the world which just wouldn't understand.

He sighed heavily and ran his fingers through his hair, concerned about what had happened that had set her over the edge and worried for her state of mind when she came through the door. He knew he wouldn't hear what had happened until much later, hours probably, when she had released enough to venture out through the door and into his waiting arms. He reread her curt text, clipped to the point at which it betrayed no emotion, as he knew she had intended. Cold, lacking emotion, it reflected her current withdrawn state. No sentiments could be given, be they verbal or written, in order for her to keep the ice at bay.

He searched The Room and removed whatever it contained that could be ruined by tempestuous winds and crystalline ice. Robotic limbs, wires and transducers, her bottles of paint…oh, there were those photo albums!

Just as he was transferring his last handful of items onto their bedroom floor, he heard the door creak open and soon after shut with a soft click as Elsa gently pushed it closed. It was a wonder to Tadashi that she held her composure at all times- even upon entering the house on a day like today, she wouldn't betray a single snowflake of what was raging within her until the door to the extra room was closed and she was quarantined.

He stood at the upstairs bannister in the middle of the hallway as she ascended the stairs at a steady clip, head down and brows knotted together. Right hand on the handrail, quivering slightly, and the left methodically clenching and unclenching, she didn't look up until she had nearly walked into him in the hall. Their eyes met, his dark ones shadowed with worry, but she couldn't stand to see the concern in them and the unasked question of what had happened- she just wanted to forget. So she quickly averted her own, missing the apprehensive look etched on his face, and took the last few steps into The Room at a rush. Once again the door shut softly, the click of the lock sounding following after.

Silence, for a few drawn-out, anxious seconds, then an audible WHOOSH! And the storm began.

It felt like he was dying every time this happened. The worry ate at him, gnawing at his insides, his heart, with the knowledge there was absolutely nothing he could do but wait while his beloved was hurting behind the door. He heard the storm begin as it always seemed to, in his experience- a large, powerful gust that began with a shocking intensity that tapered down to a constant whistling accompanied by the whooshes of squalls hitting the walls and rattling windows. At times there would be unexpected blasts of sound that made him jump even when he was downstairs and on the other side of their home. Perhaps these bursts occurred when the memories resurfaced; finding their way up past the frustration, anger or grief, whatever it was this time. He couldn't know yet; it would be a long while before she would be able to share what had happened with him.

It truly wasn't fair, he thought. These powers, her gift, as he hastened each time to call it, were, in some ways, a curse. He only recently had begun to understand its implications in a way that others refused to or couldn't. They didn't know what troubles the whiteness blanketing her insides could cause during moments when emotions raged: where others could simply scream, retort back, fight, or simply let tears trail down in silence, the woman he loved was unable to let herself feel, let alone express, those intense emotions in public.

His mind ran through the last couple of times this had happened, wondering if today's events shared any similarities. Arguments over her theories and work with peers, thinly veiled insults in response to competitive natures- why must people be so cruel when they felt threatened? Or having to present groundbreaking ideas and technology at conferences for the firm- her work and knowledge preceded her, and she would be faced with a swarm of people pressing in around her on all sides, questions droning in her ears like the buzzing of bees as the room grew larger and started spinning around her.

He would wait a little longer before today's events would become clear. He had become quite good at being patient, he found. Funny how that could change when there arose a need for it.

Standing silently just outside of the door, he listened as the wind continued to howl and new sounds awoke to meet it. The splintering of ice crackled and he imagined it beginning to crawl up the wall in tracts converging in the center from its creator. The glinting prisms spread outward in facets, dendrites branching tree-like as the ice climbed higher and higher and formed connections like vines in the jungle. Beautiful, as he always saw afterwards, yes, but eerie in its pristine ferocity. A thin sheet would have formed underfoot by now, much like the ice rinks she loved to skate on when they went out together. Snow, which he would be finding for days hidden in the crevices of the room, would be swirling around caught up in the merciless gusts of wind. He smiled at the thought of the same light flakes she would scatter on the top of his head with a flourish, with a snicker and snort when teasing him.

But there would be none of that today.

The sounds of her emotions turned to living physicalities seemed serene, however, in comparison to her heart-wrenching groans that could at times be heard in accompaniment with the winds and ice. It sounded as though they were torn from her body, wrenched out of her throat by sheer emotion. In them, he heard the frustration and the despair, the anger and the sorrow. Come a little while, they'd also trace the relief she felt in her release and a returning to normality. He'd come to recognize the varying strains and knew to remain by the door when those started to appear- she'd soon resurface, and she needed him to be there for that- he needed himself to be there for that, for her.

Some time later, those sounds came. The winds lessened until they were a light breeze, the only sound of ice that of breaking glass as she took small, careful steps to survey the damage and head to the door to leave once recuperated…

Right into the arms of her love, his eyes soft and smile warm. The door was open, as were his arms, and in she fell.