Silence had always been welcomed in the past for Elsa. There was something about the stillness that existed in the air when everything was quiet that calmed the storm within her, enough so that silence could exist within for a few fleeting moments. It was when she could get the most work done. It was when she could think the clearest. It was when she felt the most relaxed – like she was almost normal.

She used to stay up into the very early hours of the morning to experience pure silence. Then, at four in the morning, there was no one awake except for her, and therefore only one person who could make a noise – and she was very careful not to. Instead, she would sit on the bench in front of the window in her room and watch the night sky. Sometimes it was cloudy, others snowy, but more often than not, clear and illuminated by the stars and the auroras. And she would stay there until dawn, when she would then mourn the wonderful quiet as servants began to go about their work, and slowly fill the castle with the sounds of life.

Elsa used to love the silence.

Used to.

Now, it is the thing that haunts her nightmares the most. Now it is malicious and cruel, not comforting as it once was. Now it only aggravates the storm – a storm she thought she finally had control over.

It is the shadow that blankets her darkest memory. And there have been many of those in her twenty-one years. But this one only occurred two days ago: it is still too fresh in her mind and as a result makes her dreams far too real.

The silence is unnatural. It is too still, too quiet, too lifeless. It is cold, and eerie, and with each passing second that she must endure it, it reminds her that it is her fault it is there to begin with. It does not belong. It should not even be there. Instead of a roaring silence that only seeks to shatter her heart, mind and soul, there should be just one sound.

When she had collapsed onto her sister's frozen body, her ear had found itself placed over Anna's chest.

There should have been a heartbeat.

There should have been a heartbeat for a number of reasons: Anna did not actually die; the act of True Love saved Anna's heart from being frozen; her sister lived, despite turning to ice; she could not die, because Elsa needed her more than anyone could possibly know and why could the universe not cut her a break just this once?

But there was nothing. There was no steady rhythm that suggested that Anna was even alive. There was no movement that assured Elsa that she was ever going to come back. No one said anything, not even that talkative snowman the Queen had mistakenly brought to life. No one cried aloud except for her. Even the wind had stopped, leaving nothing but that horrendous silence. There was no sound to drown out Prince Hans' words to her: "Your sister is dead. Because of you."

Oh God, how those words tormented her. It would have done less damage to her brain if Anna had let Hans swing his sword into her head. As she held onto her decidedly dead sister – the last of her family, and the sole person in the world whom she loved with literally everything she had – those words festered in her mind and poisoned it like a terrible sickness.

She should have been the one who died, not Anna. She was the monster; the witch; the abomination. She was the one who only ever hurt people, especially her little sister. She was the cause of everyone's pain – the one who put Anna in that situation to begin with.

And the silence only served to point out that awful thought.

Elsa's eyes snapped open and she quickly sat up in a panic. Cold sweat beaded on her face, some of it already crystalizing to frost near her hairline. She brushed a shaky hand through her messy hair and forced herself to take a few deep breaths. "It was just a dream," she whispered to herself, "It's not real."

But it was very late at night, or very early in the morning. The castle was still as everyone but the Queen slept soundly in their beds. The castle was silent.

"Anna's alive," she murmured weakly, "She's alive. She's safe and she's alive."

The silence roared in her ears, like it did two days ago on the fjord. Her nightmare was still too fresh in her memory – her memory was still too fresh as well. And the freshness had disturbed her enough that simply telling herself what she already knew was not enough: she needed proof.

She donned her robe before quietly leaving her room. She padded down the carpeted hallways in her bare feet, knowing how to ghost along the old floors without making a single sound. Eventually, she reached her sister's door.

It was not silent, because, despite the thick wood of the door, she could hear Anna snoring. That should have been enough for her to confirm to herself that Anna was alive and well, but her nerves were still too rattled.

They never had been this bad before, even after the accident that started all of this thirteen years ago.

Thankfully, however, she had something now that she never had then: faith in her own control. And so, with a trembling-but-un-gloved hand, she reached for the doorknob and carefully entered the room.

She could not help but smile. Anna had a limb occupying each corner of the bed, and her hair had been splayed out all over her pillows. She was lying face up, and had her mouth wide open as she slept soundly through the night, completely unaware of her visitor.

'There. See? Anna's fine,' Elsa thought to herself, letting out a sigh of relief as she did.

She would have turned to leave, then, but she found her feet rooted to the floor. If she were to leave, she would eventually be plunged back into the silence of the night – a silence that terrified her more than her ice ever could. And despite Anna's very noticeable sounds of life, the chilling quiet was finding a way to creep into her mind, anyway, making her second guess what she was witnessing with her own eyes.

There was only one sound that would chase away the silence. She gulped before nervously approaching the bed.

She thanked the Lord that Anna was a heavy sleeper, because she would otherwise not try this at all. She lowered herself to her knees beside the bed, and initially just watched her little sister's chest move up and down in a soothing, rhythmic way. Then she carefully leaned in until her right ear was pressed over Anna's heart.

Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump.

The only time Elsa was more happy to hear that sound was when she heard it shatter the silence on the fjord – when Anna coming back to life saved her in more ways than the Princess will ever realize.

Tears leaked from her eyes, but since it was rare for her to cry, and even rarer for those tears to be of happiness, she did not bother to wipe them away. Besides, that would involve moving, and she was not ready to do that just yet.

She remained there for a few minutes before her eyes slowly began to close. She had not realized until that moment that she was exhausted. There had always been something else to take her mind off of that revelation, from paralyzing fear caused by nightmares, to staying up late drinking hot chocolate by the fire with her sister. But now the hypnotic, reassuring sound of Anna's heartbeat was gently lulling her to sleep, and for just this once, Elsa did not try to fight when sleep finally took her in its hold. There was something softer about how it had taken her this time, anyway, telling her that for once, she need not fear her dreams.

Anna slowly came-to when she felt something heavy resting on her chest. Initially, she thought it was part of her dream: a nightmare about a constricting cold clamping down on her heart as she turned completely to solid ice before she could place herself between her sister and a sword. But as she slowly became more aware of her surroundings, she realized that the weight was outside of her chest, not within.

She opened her eyes, only to be met with her sister's sleeping face. Elsa had her ear pressed to Anna's heart, and had subconsciously wrapped her arms around Anna's body. She was breathing softly as she slept, but every now and then, her placid face would tense with worry. Whenever that happened, she seemed to nestle closer to her sister's heart, and after a moment, would let out a contented sigh.

Anna felt tears prickling in the corners of her eyes. This was a side of her sister she had never seen before, nor was it one she thought ever existed until just a few days ago. Elsa had always been the strongest, bravest, most regal person Anna had ever known, even before she became Queen. As children, Elsa was the one who she would turn to whenever she had a nightmare, or a scary thunderstorm would roll in to shake up the sky. Elsa was the one who would chase away the monsters under Anna's bed. Elsa was the one who was not afraid of anything.

But that was when they were children, and it was before the separation. Now, only one word could describe her older sister: fragile. Elsa was not supposed to be fragile. She was not supposed to have so many cracks and nicks and scars marring her soul. She was not supposed to be the one running to Anna when she was scared, although Anna was more than willing to be there for her.

Anna knew Elsa was exhausted, and she knew it was more than just a physical affliction. She could not fathom how much strength it took for her sister to make herself look so composed and relaxed when Anna now knew that anxiety was eating her alive. She had no idea how Elsa was able to hide those cracks and deformations in her soul from the public so flawlessly. But, she supposed, that was why Elsa was Queen.

If only she had known. Now that the excitement of the whole Eternal Winter problem was over, she had a clearer head to look back at exactly what had happened. And there was one moment that she found herself dwelling on: back in the ballroom, when Elsa had asked to speak with Anna in private.

Anna had thought at the time that it was regarding Prince Hans. She thought it was going to be some sort of lecture about how it was stupid to marry a man she had just met that day (which, in hindsight, was something she now agreed with). But now that she was not fuming with anger and disbelief that her sister could be so heartless to stand in the way of "true love", Anna could see what she had not then: Elsa's desperation. They were strange actions to see, then, but after everything that unfolded after that moment Anna realized that the way Elsa's mask melted away for an instant – the way her eyes widened and darted quickly around the room, the way her posture was significantly less straight and rigid, the way her hands were clasped tightly together in an almost pleading fashion, and the way her voice faltered – it was all a sign that anxiety had tightened its grasp just a little too much on Elsa's heart.

Anna still did not know what exactly it was that Elsa wanted to talk about, but she had a feeling now that she knew. Elsa was going to tell her everything. She was going to share her biggest, darkest secret with her sister in the hopes that Anna may understand why there were some things she could just not push her on. She had removed her queenly-façade for that one moment and offered to let Anna know who she truly was.

And Anna slammed the door in her face. And Elsa had no choice but to close up again. She had to once again become that stranger to Anna who exuded regal dominance and authority – not her sister in any way.

And when she presented a firm, yet calm argument over what love was, Anna blurted out words she wished she could take back with every fibre of her being.

"Anna, what do you know about True Love?"

"More than you! All you know how to do is shut people out!"

Anna looked down at her sister again, who was still sleeping peacefully. She noticed the dark semicircles under Elsa's eyes. She noticed the formation of stress lines on her face despite her being too young to already have them. She noticed how, even though it was clear that Elsa was at peace, her brow was still furrowed in concern and her mouth was ever so slightly downturned – she used to sleep with a gentle, little smile. She noticed, with a sinking feeling in her gut, drying tearstains on her sister's cheeks.

She was reminded then of what she should have always known, especially before she shouted out the most hurtful thing she could come up with. Elsa never wanted to shut people out, because Elsa has more love in her heart than anyone Anna knew. Elsa would never willing hurt her sister like that: she only did so because she had been faced with the horrible choice of either protecting Anna from physical pain caused by her powers, or protecting her from emotional pain from having to shut her out. Anna had always been so concerned about how she had felt during those thirteen years of loneliness. She had never stopped to consider what those years had done to Elsa.

Elsa let out a small whimper as her grip on her sister tightened. Her eyes squeezed shut a little more, and she tried to calm herself with the sound of Anna's heartbeat again, but this time it failed to be working.

Anna gently stroked her hand through Elsa's hair, her touch eventually soothing her older sister. There were a thousand different things that came to her mind to say out loud. That was always how she responded: with her voice. But that would wake Elsa up, and Anna had a feeling that once she was caught, she would want to leave and go back to her own bed, where another nightmare was definitely waiting.

And so Anna let the soft silence of the night speak for her, because if she were to say anything, it would block out the sound that Elsa was so desperate to hear. And after everything that had happened to them, Anna wanted to make sure that Elsa would never be unable to hear her heartbeat ever again.

Author's Note:

Hey, everyone! I just wanted to thank you all for reading and reviewing. It's been really great to hear your feedback and responses.

Anyway, this one was a short little story inspired by the popular theme: "Elsa/Anna has a nightmare and needs to hear the other's heartbeat." I wanted to use it to form some character development between the two without actually having them talk to each other, because a lot of my other stories use a lot of exposition and I wanted to get away from that for a bit.

I hope you enjoyed it, and don't worry: there will be more soon enough!

Thanks again!