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She’d been so sure she would make it, but Anna’s knee gave the first telltale tremor a full thirty yards from the goal. She scowled even as she held on tighter to the arm of her best friend, who tensed just slightly to give her a stronger foundation if she needed it.
“We can turn around,” Kristoff offered in the kind of voice that made Anna sort of want to punch him. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but because he could tell she was tired, and he was punchable where the concepts of exhaustion and vulnerability were frustratingly out of physical reach.
She settled for focusing that spite to her legs and took another determined, shaky step. “Not until we reach yesterday’s rock,” she said. She was aware that Kristoff found her stubborn face endearing, but he was aware that pointing it out was generally a bad idea, so it was fine. The rock they had placed yesterday was just visible ahead where the trail forked to head left to the gardens and right down to the plaza.
“Whatever you need,” Kristoff said. He had offered no comment about the mood he’d found her in when he had come to pick her up for their walk, and that effort he made to give her space to open up on her own terms made her feel even worse.
Anna’s frown deepened just a little. “I need my sister to be able to stay in the same room as me,” she said, because it was true and she didn’t have to look at Kristoff if she focused on the rock. Just keep moving. Every day further than the day before.
She could feel him looking at her, practically radiating concern as he searched for words that would help. “Has she gotten any better?” he asked finally.
A little of the tension left Anna’s shoulders and she sighed. “I keep thinking we’re getting there –“ her left knee shuddered and she froze, leaning on Kristoff’s solid arm and gathering her strength for a moment before continuing gingerly. “I can tell she’s trying, but we can’t be together for more than a few minutes before she sees me have to catch my breath or sit down too soon, and then she just…” Anna trailed off with a frustrated noise.
“Hides?” Kristoff suggested. “I can kind of understand.”
Anna sniffed. “She says she’s afraid of hurting me again, but things are different now. Besides,” her frown deepened. “I don’t know what she’s so scared of. It’s not like anything worse could happen.” She leaned on Kristoff and breathed deeply for a long moment. “If I get better,” she said softly, “maybe she’ll finally see there’s nothing to be so scared of.” She buried her face in Kristoff’s soft leather shirt, and he held her close with his cheek on her head.
“I’ve seen the way she looks when she’s with you,” he said over her head. “She wants this just as much as you do. It’s going to be okay.” Anna didn’t answer, and he didn’t press. “You know,” he said after a long moment, “you walked down the stairs by yourself today. Add that to how far you've gone on the path, and you’ve really already passed the rock by now,” Kristoff offered.
It was an out, and it was sincere, and Anna really was more tired than she thought she’d be by this point, but everything in her wanted to keep pushing. She looked up at Kristoff, remembering her promise to him that she would try and accept help at least half the number of times she offered it, and dug deep for the words. “You’re right,” she said. Then, with more effort, “maybe it’s a good time to call Sven over?”
Kristoff smiled and pushed a stray bit of hair out of her face. “Thanks for letting me help you,” he said, then put his fingers to his mouth and whistled for Sven, who had wandered off and was scouting the market for unattended carrots.
“I wish I could get Elsa to let me help her,” Anna said, looking away. “Every time she leaves…”
“Part of you worries she won’t come back,” Kristoff said. Anna sniffed and wiped her face angrily with the back of a hand. “Anna,” he said gently, “she will come back. She’s just as afraid of losing you. She just needs time to realize she doesn’t have to be afraid of herself anymore. Old habits and all that.”
Sven came wandering up, looking put out at being separated from his intended quarry, but Anna hardly noticed him. A sense of unease had washed suddenly over her, exhaustion amplifying its presence in her thoughts as she regarded Kristoff warily. He way saying all the right things, and his smile was sincere and comforting – if wilting a little under her silence. Being weak and vulnerable in the care of someone she was coming to trust was a place she’d been before, and “all the right things” was putting Kristoff a little too close to Hans right now for her liking.
Kristoff looked slightly nervous under her scrutiny. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked, then: “or…is this that thing where girls feel like they have to hold in a belch when they’re with a guy? Because if it’s the second one – ” his smirk was all bravado for her benefit as he jerked a thumb with his free hand – “I promise I can top whatever you got.”
The suspicious voice in Anna’s head shattered and she gasped a little in a relieved smile, feeling silly. She giggled as Kristoff wobbled Sven’s lower jaw and said in that dumb but endearing voice, “It’s true! Beware the lutefisk!” She gripped his arm tighter for support and tried to stop laughing long enough to pull air back into her lungs, feeling lightheaded but perfectly safe. Kristoff chuckled, looking more than a little relieved himself, and his arms stiffened to hold Anna up as her knees finally gave way.
“I got you,” he said, and he swung her up on Sven’s back smoothly before climbing on behind. “Okay?” he asked.
Anna leaned back against his chest – he stiffened a little in surprise, which also made her feel better – and smiled. ”Perfect,” she said, and only then did he relax his arms around her waist as Sven turned and headed the way they came.
Anna may not have walked as far along the same path today as yesterday, but it was still a respectable distance and Sven was moving with a slowness that indicated he’d managed to snatch more unattended produce than he would have them believe. And so it was that by the time they arrived back at the castle, Anna had fallen deeply asleep and only stirred and mumbled something unintelligible as Kristoff maneuvered them both off of Sven and adjusted her more comfortably in his arms.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Sven as he turned to go inside. As his eyes adjusted to the cool dimness of the foyer, he heard a gasp from above and followed its source to spot a flash of blonde and blue hurrying down the steps towards him. He realized Elsa’s distress a second before she opened her mouth to call out.
“She’s fine!” he whispered as quickly as he could. “She just fell asleep.” Elsa’s worried face cleared and her shoulders lowered in relief.
“Sorry,” she whispered back. “For a moment, I thought…” Her eyes were on Anna, and Kristoff could see the stress in the firm lines of the young queen’s expression and in the way she tugged slightly at her fingers as she approached. Anna had told him about the gloves Elsa had worn most of her life; he reasoned this was probably a habit left over from then.
“Sorry to spook you,” he said, keeping his voice low as they walked together towards the steps.
“No no, it’s fine,” Elsa replied. “Thank you for walking with her.” Anna snored gently between them, and a soft, fond smile passed briefly over Elsa’s features before she became pensive again. The worry Anna had described was there in the way Elsa’s hands seemed to want to reach for her sister but couldn’t seem to commit to the action.
He paused at the top of the stairs and said sheepishly, “I didn’t think to ask if it was alright to take her to her room.”
Elsa blinked once. “Of course it is.” She drew herself up just slightly. “You are welcome in any part of the castle, Kristoff.” She didn’t fully smile, but her voice was kind and certain. “Her room is this way.” She led him down the long, quiet hall, excusing herself once to yawn into a closed fist. They passed a white door that stood slightly ajar, its surface adorned with a blue snowflake pattern.
“Is that one yours?” he asked.
Elsa hesitated. “Yes,” she said finally. “Why?”
“No reason,” he said. Then, carefully, “A little on the nose though?”
Elsa looked at him strangely and he held his breath, worried he’d overstepped. She laughed a little, covering her mouth with her hand, and he relaxed. “I suppose it is,” she said, still smiling as she pushed gently on the next door across from it and stepped inside.
Kristoff looked around as he stood in the doorway behind Elsa. It was big, he thought at first, then he decided that it wasn’t big so much as it just gave the impression of incompleteness. There was more room in here than Anna would ever need, and one side of the space had nothing but a large rug with a pillow and a pile of books that looked largely untouched in contrast with the ones splayed in piles around the canopy bed in varying states of use. Elsa carefully bookmarked the open volume lying in the unmade spot by the end table and then stood off to the side, holding the old book to her chest with both hands as Kristoff laid Anna gently down on the soft surface and smoothed her skirts. He realized she was still in her boots and looked uncertainly at Elsa, but she was watching Anna with such a wistful expression that she didn’t notice.
“Should I…?” Elsa jumped just a little and looked at him. He gestured to her boots.
“I can get them,” she said, but her hands tightened a little on the book and she did not step forward when Kristoff moved out of the way. She looked small and uncertain, less queen of Arendelle and more sister of Anna. He could see that his reassurances to Anna about her sister’s equal desire to be with her had been nothing but truth.
“You’re not going to mess it up,” he said gently.
Elsa looked pained. “I already have,” she said. “I shut her out for years and years because I thought that was best for her, and I hurt her when she got too close – just like I feared.” She flexed her fingers along the back of the book. “I thought everything would get better, but I still freeze things without meaning to.”
“She said you leave,” Kristoff said. "When something reminds you of what happened."
Elsa looked ready to bolt, or cry - actions he understood to be linked. Her voice trembled just a little. “I can’t hurt her again. She’s waited so long for me, and I owe her complete control before we can be together.” She bit her lip, watching Anna sleep for a pained moment. “I love her,” she said quietly, “so her safety has to come before being the sister she’s been waiting for.”
“Running away kinda sounds more like fear than love,” Kristoff said. It also sounded relatable, but he kept that to himself.
Elsa frowned, looking a lot like Anna had earlier. “I don’t want to leave her alone,” she protested, “but love means doing what’s best for her even if it’s hard. Like what she did for me.”
“I’m not clear on the ins and outs of magical gifts,” Kristoff said, unperturbed. “but it feels like maybe if your decision to leave her alone was made out of love, you wouldn’t freeze household objects at the thought of doing it.”
Elsa considered her hands. “I don’t want to hurt her more than I already have,” she said, and the lace of frost expanded just a little, so that it now covered around half of the back cover that he could see with an elegant swirling pattern.
Kristoff sighed and dug a finger in his ear. “I’ll be the first to admit I’ve never seen someone make stress popsicles before – well, not magically – but plenty of people mix up fear and love.”
“Like who?” Elsa challenged. She set the book down as though preparing for a fight.
Kristoff glanced sideways at Elsa, then back at Anna. “Well I do sometimes, for starters.”
Elsa looked taken aback. “What do you mean?” Kristoff was quiet for a long moment. “I’m sorry,” Elsa said. “That was a personal question.”
Kristoff’s mouth quirked a little. “We’re in personal territory,” he pointed out, and then he took a deep breath and looked over Anna at the light streaming through the far window to bathe half the bed in a warm, shining square. “When Anna says she wants to be with me,” he said, “there’s a part of me that wants to take off into the woods and never come out.”
He saw Elsa’s stunned expression out of the corner of his eye. “Why?” she demanded, privacy concerns apparently forgotten.
He crossed his arms and turned to face her. “Because I can’t think of a good reason why the princess of Arendelle would insist on hanging around a guy who smells weird and talks to reindeer,” he replied simply.
Elsa’s defensive posture relaxed. He wondered what she’d expected him to say. “Anna doesn’t think that,” she said kindly. She added, “and neither do I.”
“Thanks,” Kristoff said. “Just. She’s been in a castle for ten years…it’s only a matter of time until she realizes there are probably a hundred guys in the city alone who could give her anything she wants – not to mention all the ones in every other kingdom.”
Elsa crossed her arms, looking deeply unimpressed. “She had someone who could give her whatever she wanted.” At Kristoff’s blank look, she raised an eyebrow. “His name was Hans,” she said. “You may have met.”
“Ah,” Kristoff nodded, recovering. “Sideburns? Punchable face? I might know who you mean.” The tension broke, and they both smiled. “The point is,” Kristoff continued, “I could tell myself that giving her the chance to find someone better would be for her own good, but it wouldn’t be true.”
“Because you’d only be protecting yourself,” Elsa said, nodding.
Kristoff nodded. “I’ve known Anna for three weeks,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t feel like that’s enough time to try and guess what’s actually best for her, especially with that fear just waiting to fill in the blanks.” He looked away, back to Anna. “She says she wants me, and I have to believe her or I really will mess up everything.”
Elsa rubbed the fingers of one hand over the back of the other in thought. “Our parents kept us me away from Anna so I couldn’t accidentally hurt her,” she said. “It was for the best.”
Kristoff considered. “Didn’t they also tell you it was better to try not to feel anything?” Elsa glared at him. “I’m not trying to insult anyone,” Kristoff said, raising his hands. “Just. Even I know that never ends well. And I grew up with rock trolls.”
Elsa’s chin jutted. “They wanted what was best for me and Anna,” she said. Her voice rose involuntarily, and she flashed a look at Anna, who did not stir. She exhaled slowly, stiff shoulders melting in resignation. “Fear, not love,” she guessed.
“Fear can come from love,” Kristoff said gently. “They’re easy get wrong even if you can tell which is which.”
Elsa’s fingers flexed and her brow furrowed. “I can see what you’re saying,” she said slowly, “but staying away still seems the only way to keep her safe. Even if it is from fear.”
“It would be,” Kristoff agreed, “if that was what she wanted too.”
“But she has no regard for danger,” Elsa said. “Anyone else would’ve kept their distance after…” she gestured in frustration. “All of that,” she finished lamely. She looked up at him, pained. “She was frozen solid because of me. How could she not be afraid after that?”
“I certainly would be,” Kristoff agreed before his mind caught up. “No offense,” he added quickly. “I’m just saying I agree that it’s unusual. But have you considered that she’s seen your worst and it doesn’t scare her nearly as much as losing you again?”
The words were kind, but Elsa flinched. “I…” she seemed like a statue for herself for a long moment, frozen in dawning realization. “She’d rather be a statue than lose me,” she said incredulously.
“She knows what the risks might be better than anyone,” said Kristoff.
“And she’s more afraid of being alone again,” Elsa finished. She rose from her seat on the trunk and moved closer to perch carefully on the edge of Anna’s bed. She lifted a trembling hand to hover over Anna’s hair, and then took a deep breath and let it rest on her sister’s cheek. Kristoff busied himself pulling up a sock so that the tear he definitely hadn’t seen could slide with plausible deniability down Elsa’s face.
When he stood up again, Elsa was dry eyed and watching Anna with a small smile. “I understand what you mean now,” she said. She looked up at him. “Wanting to hide in the woods at the thought of being at the center of that much love.”
Kristoff shuffled a little, embarrassed. “Well I’m staying until she tells me otherwise,” he said.
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” she said, smiling. “You’re a total upgrade.”
He huffed a laugh as she stood and gestured to the door. “You look like you’ve had enough sharing for one day,” she said kindly. “Shall I walk you back down?” Anna stirred on the bed and said something that sounded like Sven trying to pronounce “apple.”
“I remember the way,” Kristoff said. Then, hurriedly: “but thank you.”
“Thank you,” Elsa said. “Will we see you tomorrow for dinner?”
“Ah…yes?” Kristoff said hesitantly. “That sounds good. To me, I mean. If it does to you –”
Elsa rescued him. “It does,” she said, smiling. Some of the hard lines of her face had melted, and she looked worn but lighter. “We’ll see you then.”
“You got it,” Kristoff said, waving once awkwardly as he sidled out and back down the hall.
Elsa crossed to the door and looked out before pushing it to rest loosely against the frame. She turned back to Anna and knelt to tug gently at the laces of her boots, surprised to find herself swiping away a renegade tear as she tucked her sister in and threaded her fingers just briefly in the soft red hair near her temple. She felt a pang of something and held her breath, but no ice came. The feeling was strong, and there were echoes of fear in it, but it reminded her more of ice castles and cold sisters gasping back to life. Joy. Wonder. Home.
Anna stirred again and her eyes cracked open muzzily. “Elsa?” she said, voice thick with sleep.
Elsa jumped a little. “Sorry,” she whispered, “I didn’t mean to wake you.” She stroked Anna’s cheek, and her sister’s eyes closed again with a contented sound that warmed Elsa straight to her bones. “Get some rest,” she said. “I’ll see you when you wake up.”
Anna frowned as Elsa’s hand withdrew from her face, and her eyes struggled open again to focus on Elsa. “Stay?” she asked.
Elsa hesitated. “If you want me to,” she said finally. She giggled a little as Anna’s eyes closed with a huff and her hand flopped out to tug insistently and sleepily on Elsa’s dress. “Okay, okay,” she said. “I’m coming. Scoot over.” Elsa slipped off her shoes and tried not to fall over on top of Anna as she was pulled firmly onto the bed beside her semi-awake sister, who scrunched as close as she could as Elsa pulled the blanket over them both and rested her cheek on Anna’s head.
Anna was asleep again even before Elsa’s hand came up to lightly trace her arm, but Elsa stayed awake for a long time, marveling at Anna’s deep, careless breaths and solid warmth against her. She felt like she could do anything she wanted right now. In fact...she paused stroking Anna’s arm and twisted her fingers just slightly. A brilliantly clear sunflower materialized in her palm, catching the window’s light and splintering it into a million little sunbursts that danced along the wall with her every movement. Elsa unmade it effortlessly and stared at her hand in awe, flexing her fingers and letting them rest on Anna’s back. The joy coursing through her was almost as tangible to her as the flower had been, and as Elsa finally began to drowse under the magic of the summer sun, she felt certain for the first time that the feeling would still be there when she awoke.