Quick note about the books - Currer Bell was Charlotte Bronte's male pseudonym. Likewise, Acton and Ellis Bell were her sisters'. they didn't drop these names until 1849 (I think), so for the purposes of this fic, the Brontes/Bells are still publically believed to be men.

I have many headcanons about Anna's favourite books, but here, it's Jane Eyre that Anna likes. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a darker book by Anne Bronte.

Equally, I'm sure you all know, but the Hans Christian Anderson Little Mermaid involves a fair amount of talk about shipwrecks and mermaid dragging people to their death at sea. :)

Hope you enjoy! It's been a while since I've done a proper foray into snow sisters, and I missed them.

Anna couldn't sleep.

It was weird for her. Usually she was out like a light, asleep way before Kristoff, but tonight – and the night before that, and before that – she just couldn't.

She was having bad dreams.

And whether it was the fear of the dreams that stopped her sleeping, or if the lack of sleeping brought the dreams, she wasn't sure.

But what she was sure of was that if she lay in this bed for one minute more she was going to go mad.

Kristoff was laid with his back to her, snoring quietly. As she slipped out of bed, she tried not to pull the covers back too much: the last thing she wanted right now was a groggy Kristoff complaining that she was letting all the cold air in.

She rooted about for one of his jumpers – quietly, stock still whenever he seemed to shift a little in sleep – pulled it on, lit a candle and slipped out of the room.

The castle was silent at this time of night. The lamps were out, and the only light came from the moon and the meagre flame of her little candle. She padded down the corridors, basking in the silence.

She wasn't sure what she wanted, but she had a half-formed plan to go to the library. She could find a book, curl up in one of the reading chairs and keep her own thoughts and worries at bay for a while.

The door opened without a sound. It was kind of spooky at this time of night: dark rows of books, the pale moonlight, and Anna imagined herself a gothic heroine, intrepid in some foreign castle, an unravelling mystery of supernatural and –

A rustle of pages.

She jumped so much she almost spilt the candle, and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Imagining a gothic adventure was one thing, but finding herself shut in the midnight library with an unknown presence was quite another.

She crept among the rows of books, listening. The dramatic in her said to blow out the candle, remain undetected and creep up on the mysterious rustler, but another, more sensible part reminded her that it was extremely unlikely that it was anyone in the library but a servant, another restless sleeper like herself, and that if she blew out her candle she would almost certainly fall over.

The hint of a pool of light pricked her eyes, and Anna made her way towards it.

She rounded a bookcase, hand carefully cupped over her candle-flame to see –

"Elsa?"

Her sister – also in a nightgown but wearing a slightly more regal robe over it rather than, you know, an ice harvester's jumper – looked round in surprise.

"Anna. What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you to same thing." Anna put her candle down next to Elsa's slightly more effective candelabra and sat in one of the other reading chairs. "It's one in the morning."

"Already?" Elsa put down the book she'd been reading and rubbed her face. "How did that happen?"

Anna smiled, and tried to read the cover of the book upside-down. "The… Tenant of Wildfell Hall? What's that?"

"Good," Elsa replied, swivelling it round so it was facing Anna. "It's new. It was only published last month. It's by the brother of that writer you like. What was his name, Carson Bell?"

"Currer," Anna replied. She picked up the book with interest. "Currer Bell."

"How very British."

Anna flipped through the pages curiously, before realising she was getting distracted. "Putting the British aside for a second. Why are you up so late?"

Elsa shifted a little in her seat, avoiding eye contact. "Oh, you know. Why are you?"

Anna shrugged. "Can't sleep."

"Kristoff snoring again?"

Anna grinned – though that quickly faded. "It's –" she sighed, and leant forward to rest her chin in her hands. "Keep having bad dreams." She looked up at Elsa. "It's the anniversary next week."

Elsa nodded, briefly meeting her sister's eye. "I know."

There was a moment.

For the past four years, they had spoken about their parents only really in passing. For her own part, Anna had felt like it had never been the right time to talk about it. She'd been on the verge, several times – but something else had always come up, or they'd been busy. There had been politics and weddings and harvests and trips – there had always been current issues to deal with.

Any discussion of how the loss of their parents had affected them had been… buried.

"I still miss them, Elsa."

Elsa nodded again. "Me too."

A whole world swelled between them.

"Are your bad dreams…?"

"Yeah. I made the huge mistake of getting some Fairy Tales out of here –" she waved a hand at the library around them, "– recently. Hooo boy. I forgot, The Little Mermaid was in there."

"Oh, Anna," Elsa leant forward and took her sister's hand. "Anna."

Anna grimaced. "Kristoff found me an absolute mess. Bless him."

Another moment. Elsa looked down at her sister's hand, still held between her own. She played with her fingers.

"You know, we've never really talked about it. Properly."

Anna caught her eye. "Should we?"

"Probably."

There was a pause. The velvet silence of the castle made it feel as though they were the only two in the whole world.

"Sometimes, I feel angry," said Elsa finally, very quietly. "I feel like they left me. You and me had – no relationship to speak of at the time – and my powers were still so… volatile. It feels like – and I know it's not, I know this is completely wrong – but I feel sometimes like they abandoned me."

Anna nodded. She felt as though these were things that shouldn't be said – but they rose, unbidden, and demanded to be spoken. "I know what you mean. They didn't, obviously – obviously not – but it was kind of… we were just kids. On our own."

Elsa smiled a little. "I was the same age you were at the Great Thaw."

Anna flapped a hand. "Pfft. I was a kid then, too. Honestly, sometimes I think about it, and how naïve I was, and…" she squeezed Elsa's hand. "It's only recently I realised how much you looked out for me."

"I'm your big sister," Elsa wriggled back into her chair, stretching a little. "It's what I do."

"We've both come a long way, huh?"

"Yeah."

There was another pause.

"I sometimes find myself wanting to show Mama things," Anna mused, staring unseeingly into the dark beyond their candlelight. "When I finish a picture, or one of the charity projects, or – you know, sometimes I just wish I could introduce her to Kristoff." She rested her chin on her hand, elbow on the arm of the chair.

Elsa smiled sadly. "Papa could have walked you down the aisle."

"I mean Kai did an excellent job, but – yeah."

Another pause.

"Papa would never have approved of Kristoff though," Elsa chuckled. "Can you imagine?"

They shared a grin, imagining their father – stern, upright, immaculate – meeting Kristoff – gentle, slouchy, scruffy – and in the pause, Elsa stole a look at her sister.

"I wish they could see us now."

"I wish they could see you. They'd be so proud of you, Elsa."

And Elsa felt the lump in her throat grow, become almost painful. Her eyes stung, and she wiped them on the sleeve of her robe. "Do you really think so?"

"Yes," Anna dragged her chair forward – the scrape through the quiet dark of the library made Elsa jump – and she took both her sister's hands in her own. "Elsa, they'd be so proud of you. For so many reasons. Because of the Queen you are, because of your powers, because of us being together again… I mean, Papa might have a few things to say about those dresses, but I reckon he could see past that."

Elsa smiled; laughed a little. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Suure," Anna smiled in earnest at her sister – her ridiculous, incredible sister, doubting her own achievements, honestly – then faded into a ponderous quiet. "Do you think they'd be proud of me?"

"I think they'd be worried about you. Climbing roofs, climbing mountains, fighting bears –"

"I told you, that was a complete accident, Kristoff thought the cave was empty –"

Elsa shook her head. "But of course they'd be proud, Anna. You're incredible. You've become the kindest, most fearless, most – joyful person I know. Of course they'd be proud." She kissed her sister on the forehead.

"Have you –" Anna hesitated. "Have you… been to the graves?"

Elsa nodded.

Anna mirrored her.

"We should go together sometime."

"That would be nice."

They smiled at each other. Sometimes, Anna found it hard to believe that they'd barely spoken to one another for thirteen years. How could she have lost her best friend for so long? They'd missed out on one another for years, and really, no amount of love or laughter could truly make up that lost time: they would never get those thirteen years back.

"I don't think they did the right thing," said Anna, quietly. "Keeping us apart. I know they thought it was best, but – I mean, I know it's given me this whole thing about being loved. And I don't know, but I sometimes think – it's given you a whole thing about yourself. And being dangerous, or bad, or something."

Elsa felt a lump in her throat, and struggled to get the words out. "But it doesn't feel right to say that. They didn't mean it."

"I don't think any of us mean to hurt each other."

Anna transferred herself to the arm of her sister's chair and perched there. Elsa rested her head against Anna's knee.

"We could go this weekend."

Anna nodded, running her hand through Elsa's hair to break up the plait she'd made absentmindedly. "That sounds good to me."

"I'm so lucky to have you, Anna."

"Are you kidding? I'm lucky to have you."

They sat in silence for a while, content in each other's company, letting the quiet and the dark become soft around their pool of light. Elsa found Anna's hands in her hair incredibly soothing. Her breathing slowed.

A nudge.

"Excuse me, your majesty. If you're falling asleep we should get to bed."

Elsa sat up, out of the gentle pull of sleep. "Urgh. You're right." She stretched.

Anna yawned and passed Elsa the candelabra. Her own little candle had halved in size, but it was enough to get her back to her room.

They crept through the corridors, whispering. Whenever a floorboard creaked they both froze, feeling sure they'd woken up the entire castle, and stifled giggles at the looks on each other's faces.

When they reached the second-floor corridor, it was time to go their separate ways.

"It was good to talk about things tonight," Anna whispered. "It's been kind of… weighing on me."

Elsa nodded, her face uplit by the candlelight. "Its strange we haven't spoken about it before."

"It is."

"I'm here… anytime now, Anna."

Even after almost five years, it was strange to say.

Anna squeezed her hand in the darkness. "I know. Me too. For you, I mean."

They smiled for a moment.

Then Anna let out another huge yawn.

"Right, bed," Elsa grinned and nudged her. "Otherwise you'll never be up tomorrow."

"Kristoff better not have taken all the sheets," Anna grumbled. "He's an excellent bed-warmer, but he is a selfish sleeper, Elsa."

Elsa grinned again and shook her head. "I do not envy you. The cold never bothered me, etcetera, etcetera."

Candles carefully held aside, they hugged. Anna encased her fragile, chilly sister with all the warmth she could, and felt an inexpressible comfort as she breathed in: as ever, her sister smelt like fresh open air.

"Goodnight, Elsa."

"Goodnight, Anna. See you tomorrow."

As Anna climbed back into bed, she blew out the candle and wrestled some covers back from Kristoff. She snuggled up behind him.

He stirred slightly, and rolled towards her.

"You're cold," he mumbled. "Where have you been?"

"I met Elsa in the library."

"Mmm," he murmured sleepily, already drifting off again. "That's nice."

"It was." She kissed the end of his nose, closing her own eyes. "It was really nice."

When she fell asleep a few minutes later, it was without bad dreams.