Chapter One: In which Anna begins her new journey.
Anna sighed as she pulled her gloves off and stared into the mirror in front of her. Her blue eyes were bloodshot from standing on her feet in surgery for a minimum of twelve hours, listening to her co-workers in the O.R. She washed her hands, as she did every time after a surgery, and splashed a little bit of water on her face to keep her awake at least until she could get out of the Arendelle Hospital.
Tomorrow was supposed to be somewhat of a big day, considering that a new Chief of Surgery would be announced. No doubt that Dr. Arendelle would like to nominate someone of his family. Anna stepped out, and was cheered up instantly by the arrival of Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven. Sven and Olaf were interns under Kristoff, and Kristoff was one of the best pediatric doctors in the hospital.
Olaf lived with Dr. Arendelle, and shared a special bond with Dr. Arendelle's family. Apparently Olaf had been saved by Dr. Arendelle's daughter, who was also a doctor.
"Hey, Anna!" Kristoff greeted, smiling brightly. If anyone could still be perky after twelve hours of surgery after surgery, it was Kristoff.
Olaf looked a little worn down, but he was still giddy with excitement. "Did you see how she handled that cardio valve surgery?" He whispered to Sven.
Sven grinned and nodded. Poor boy was a mute, but Olaf seemed to do more than his share of talking so it all worked out evenly for the two best friends.
"Hey, Kristoff. Your interns doing okay?" Anna chuckled.
"They'll be fine, trust me. After a good night's sleep, they'll be ready to go tomorrow morning." Kristoff replied, making his way through the lobby of the hospital with Sven and Olaf trailing right behind him.
"They will make amazing surgeons." Anna winked to the two younger boys, who grinned at each other. "So, what was your favorite surgery today?"
"Definitely the triple bypass." Olaf responded, his eyes immediately lighting up with excitement upon remembering the surgery that occurred at least an hour earlier. Sven nodded in approval at Olaf's choice.
"Ah, that one was a doozy." Anna nodded in acknowledgement.
"But you handled it so well, don't deny that." Kristoff chimed in.
Anna shrugged, waving it off with a flick of her hand. It cramped momentarily, but Anna was used to this by now. "Who do you think is going to be the next Chief of Surgery?"
"I don't know." Kristoff loosened his tie and sighed as they reached their vehicles.
Anna nodded continuously for about three minutes until she snapped out of her thoughts. "I'll see you guys tomorrow." She smiled sheepishly and got into her car, rubbing her eyes a little and starting her Ford.
On her way to her house the rain began to fall. Sprinkling at first but soon it turned her windshield into one of those whacky mirrors that you see in funhouses, and Anna's car suddenly collided with someone else's. Everything after that was a blur, a blur of noise, light, flashes, and movement.
After what felt like eternity to everyone else, Anna's eyes flickered open to see an I.V in her arm, and she was surrounded by Sven, Olaf, and Kristoff. No doubt she was in Arendelle Hospital, the place she wanted so badly to escape from right now.
"Hey, Anna." Kristoff grinned. "You okay?"
"That depends on what happened." Anna groaned, slowly using the buttons on the side of the bed to sit up slightly. "I'm back in Arendelle, huh?" She sighed.
"You were in a car accident with several other people. It wasn't your fault, the driver of the other car was distracted because one of his kids was having an asthma attack. He tried to swerve when he saw your car, but it was too late." Kristoff explained in hesitation, afraid of how the feisty redhead would react.
"Oh. Is the other driver and his kids okay?" Anna inquired, trying to comprehend that she had just been injured.
"Yes. Nothing's too damaged, except your vehicles... and you."
Anna groaned and leaned back against her stack of pillows. "How long do I have to stay here? I have a job in this same hospital too, you know." Anna rubbed her forehead with her free hand. Even though she was so accustomed to putting I.V's into her patients, she wasn't accustomed to having them in her.
"The doctor will be in to give you one last exam, and if everything shows up okay, they'll release you." Kristoff smiled. His pager suddenly went off, followed by Sven and Olaf's. "Gotta go." Kristoff said, kissing the top of Anna's forehead and darting out of the room.
Kristoff was always like a big brother to Anna, the two were very close friends but never really shared a romantic connection.
Sven and Olaf waved in unison, and Sven rushed out of the room behind Kristoff.
"Don't worry, Anna. I think you'll really like your doctor." Olaf winked, dashing after the other two.
Anna didn't have a clue as to what any of what Olaf had just said to her meant. She just wanted to get out of this hospital bed and back on her feet in the O.R. On second thought, Anna would be content taking the rest of the day off at home. At the very least, she just wanted to get out of this wretched bed.
The redhead was just about to throw a fit when a tall blonde walked into her room. She was dressed in a very light blue shirt and black jeans, with her platinum blonde hair held back away from her face in a messy braid.
Anna's jaws dropped open, and she quickly turned her gaze to the monitor next to her, upon hearing the beeping get faster. She swallowed and breathed deeply to calm herself down, and turned back to the doctor.
"You must be Anna Summers." The woman walked over to Anna and shook her free hand. "I'm Elsa, but I suppose you can call me Dr. Arendelle."
It was hard to believe that Elsa was the daughter of the extremely strict Mr. Arendelle.
"D-do you think that I'll be able to return to work today?" Anna stammered, not entirely sure of why she was so attracted to this doctor, except for the fact that she was absolutely gorgeous. And truth be told, the feeling was somewhat mutual.
"Let me just give you one more quick exam and I'm sure you'll be able to get out of this awful hospital room." Elsa smiled, pulling on a pair of white gloves and barely touching a sore on Anna's forehead.
Anna winced a little, but the pain faded quickly. Elsa pushed on a couple of places on Anna's stomach, one spot in particular caused Anna to giggle.
"Follow my finger." Elsa moved her index finger back and forth in front of Anna's face, and Anna shifted her gaze until Elsa finally smiled. "You're free to go. I just need for you to sign your discharge papers."
After removing the I.V, Elsa handed Anna a clipboard with a piece of paper that she needed to sign to be released. Anna's hands worked as well as ever, which was a relief that she'd still get to be a surgeon.
On her way out of the hospital, Anna couldn't help but stop at the receptionist desk. "Is Elsa Arendelle the new Chief of Surgery?" Anna whispered, sort of knowing the answer already.
The receptionist who was simply known as "Marshmallow" around the hospital nodded. He was very tall and always dressed in white and blue, and by the tone of his voice you wouldn't expect for him to be called Marshmallow at all.
Anna couldn't help but smirk as she watched the new Chief of Surgery fill out a few forms before her next patient. It was especially cute the way she furrowed her eyebrows and put her pen behind her ear while she read over the files.
Back at home, Anna passed the time by cleaning her house and playing Fable 3 on her X-Box. Normally Call of Duty would be her first choice, but Fable 3 had been neglected by her for a while now. Skyrim was definitely next.
Anna nearly got knocked out by a Balverine from being distracted by a chime on her cell phone. Luckily she was a quick thinker though, because Anna had been attempting for, what felt like ages, to get the award for completing the whole game without being knocked out.
She paused her game, turning to her cell phone. It turns out that the text that nearly got her Hero killed by a ruthless Balverine, was from Kristoff.
'Did you hear about the new Chief of Surgery?'
Anna couldn't help but suppress a grin at the thought of Elsa. No, she couldn't actually have a crush on her boss! It wasn't in the least bit appropriate.
'Yeah. Elsa seems to be a good surgeon.'
Anna texted back, hoping that the conversation would come to an end soon. She just wanted to avoid questions about Elsa for a reason that she didn't want to admit. Anna found herself wondering about how good Elsa was in surgery, and silently hoped that she'd get the chance to actually witness that.
'She's phenomenal. She performed a heart transplant today that would make a grown man cry.'
'Oh really? Did it make you cry?'
Anna grinned at her own response.
'For your information, I am not completely grown up yet.'
Anna nearly laughed aloud, but her phone chimed again.
'Wait, that's not what I meant.'
Anna snickered, breathing deeply to try and keep her sides from hurting. Her whole body was sore from the car accident that had happened less than twelve hours ago.
'Whatever. Either way you answer that you lose.'
'You're lucky I'm just about to go into the O.R, or I'd seriously be angry.'
Anna just shrugged it off, and sighed deeply as she stretched out on her couch. Now that she was back in her house, she longed to be at the hospital. Because, she thought silently, as much as amazing as her house was, it was empty. And it got lonely. At least at Arendelle Hospital she had Olaf, Sven, and Kristoff to keep her company.
It didn't take long before Anna was asleep on her comfortable couch, and she soon began dreaming about Elsa. Anna jerked out of her sleep and sighed. "I think I love her... and I don't even know her."
Elsa was having a terrible Monday morning. It was only her first day at work, and she had been living off of different flavors of 5 Gum since about 5 AM. And what made it worse was the fact that the vending machine had just eaten her last dollar, and she was starting to get incredibly pissed off.
Now, Elsa rarely cursed, but today really called for an exception to the rules. She was muttering curse words under her breath, attempting to shake the vending machine. Not that it was doing much good, because Elsa was somewhat tiny and when you're in a fight with a colossal piece of machinery that contains popcorn, chocolate bars, and things of that nature, not many people can win. Especially not someone like Elsa, who only weighed 115 lbs. at the most.
Finally the blonde-haired Chief of Surgery was about to give up, when a feisty redhead that we've already had the pleasure of meeting, turned the corner into the break room to see Elsa panting at her unfair fight with the monster-machine that ate her very last dollar bill.
"A-are you okay, Dr. Arendelle?" Anna raised her eyebrow.
"Elsa," she corrected carefully, "and, yes, I'm alright. Just frustrated that..." Elsa trailed off as she looked back at Anna, the freckles and lovely red hair was enough to give her away. "You're Dr. Summers, right?"
"Anna, but yes, around here on duty I am Dr. Summers." Anna grinned, studying the vending machine, trying to come up with a solution to the Chief of Surgery's problem at hand.
"Ah. Oh, it ate my last dollar. I was trying to shake it, but it didn't do much good at all." Elsa laughed shyly.
"Well, you're only 100 pounds, but between the two of us I'm sure that if we get enough momentum going, we'll succeed." Anna set her coffee down and rolled up her sleeves slightly. It was only when Anna seen Elsa's reaction, did she slow down.
"You were in a car accident and you're already offering to help me commit vandalism in just six hours of recovery?" Elsa asked, hesitating at first.
"That thing has robbed me of exactly fifty dollars in one visit, it owes me." Anna scoffed, receiving a strange look from Elsa, but relief washed over the redhead when she cracked an absolute gorgeous smile. On one hand, Elsa was terrified that Anna would hurt herself, but the redhead seemed to have perfect coordination...
"Okay, yeah, I've never done this before though." Elsa took off her white coat and tightened her ponytail.
"Hit the vending machine with your forearm, that way you're less likely to dislocate your shoulder." Anna explained, running forward and ramming into the giant machine with as much might as she possibly could.
Elsa followed Anna's lead, and soon the two girls were making all kinds of noise in the break room. Finally both girls hit the vending machine at the exact same time, and snacks fell.
Elsa smiled gratefully at Anna. "Thank you so much, I don't think anyone's been so nice to me before." She chuckled softly, kneeling down and beginning to pick up the- thankfully, wrapped- snacks.
The redhead knelt down next to her, and began helping her pick up the cinnamon rolls, popcorn, and granola bars. "Well, I guess I'm not so made of stone. I was reminded of that in the unfortunate car accident."
"I know the feeling. There's just so much stress lately, I've been having trouble thinking about anything other than being the new Chief of Surgery." Elsa sighed, cradling her head in her hand for a moment before she placed the snacks on the break-room table.
"I don't think this will be much distraction, but me and a couple of friends were going to get together at my house later to play video games... and maybe you'd like to join us?" Anna faced the question bravely, but inside she was anything but brave. She wished she had a teddy bear that she could cuddle.
And that was when Elsa smiled widely. "I would love to play video games with you. It'd be the perfect distraction."
Anna's jaws nearly hit the floor at Elsa's calm response. Elsa Arendelle actually wanted to play video games? She was nothing like her father.
"Oh! I'm so sorry, I have a meeting I simply cannot afford to miss tonight. Do you think I could possibly take a rain-check on the video games?" Elsa bit her lip awaiting Anna's response.
How could Elsa possibly get any cuter? Anna didn't think it was possible from the way she just wanted to pull the blonde into a tight hug. She didn't, but she wanted to.
"Of course! No worries." Anna was excited just because of the fact that Elsa would've said yes.
About that time, both girls' pagers went off, and Anna and Elsa made their way to the O.R. The thoughts that were racing through Elsa's mind were disappointed because she really did want to play video games with the redheaded doctor. But Anna's thoughts were simply elated. Perhaps she really did have a chance with the Chief of Surgery.
Suddenly, Elsa stopped and turned to look at Anna. "Didn't you just get discharged?"