Disclaimer: Doesn't belong to me.
Summary: One shot. Or not. She left because it was for the best. Just when she thought her life would continue uninterrupted, even if it were as miserable and pathetic than ever, she is surprised to find the redhead back in her life. Troubles, it seems, are never ending. Modern AU. Warnings: Incest.
A/N: Thank you for the reviews and the follows. I've decided to wrap it up next chapter and continue on my other stories.
For those who asked - here's chapter two.
2.
"But the memories that hang the heaviest are the easiest to recall." - Julie Gregory.
Elsa woke up with a bad headache the next day.
She had spent the greater part of her night talking with Kristoff, and an even greater part of her night was spent out at her studying table, pulling out letters that had long since turned yellow and worn, despite being untouched after being wrapped up in a leather case.
She wrinkled her nose when a critter emerged from the depths of the drawer and she kept her feet well off the floor, eyes daintily following the insect to where it disappeared under her bedroom door.
She had read the first letter with a heavy heart, wishing she had delivered it to her sister, knowing now how stupid it was to be afraid that her sister wouldn't get it, seeing as she was two years younger than her when she had disappeared - but they both knew that Anna was always more mature than her or her actions; they both were - having only each other for support did that.
Dear Anna,
I know you are worried, and probably angry that I haven't comeback home like I had promised. I hope that nasty flu has passed off by now...
She took a heavy breath at that. It had been hard leaving Anna, and she can still relive the terrifying thoughts that were running through her mind as she pulled her scarf tight and adjusted her backpack once again. Her cheek had still burned from the imprint of her sister's lips - reminding her why she was doing all of this in the first place - and she remembers herself looking back up towards the window, knowing that a sick Anna lay snuggled in her bed, believing the lie that Elsa was out to get some meds and some vegetables for soup and would be back in minutes or so.
She wonders what Anna would have done after Mr. and Mrs. Murphy had returned home in the evening - she knows she probably would have been worried. And she knows that the kind family would have been worried too, probably contacting the police to register a missing report or probably contacting the few friends that she and Anna had, trying to contact Elsa.
A fist slams against the table and a glass falls off and shatters on the floor.
She absolutely hates how much she wishes she had the courage to just turn back and return home that day, because she knew despite everything Anna was her home, Anna was her everything. However the stifling curse that had taken hold of her ever since that incident a year back, was growing like a parasite, and sixteen-year old Elsa was too young and too fragile to deal with this any other way.
It was when she felt herself grow breathless and felt her hand curl around the bundle of papers that she finally sat up and put the sheets back into the leather case, dropping it without a glance into the drawer below and kicking it shut.
And she headed into her lumpy mattress for a restless sleep filled with sirens and sounds of hustling crowds and the taste of smoke on her tongue and the despondency heavily weighing her down into the depths of her hopelessness.
Coffee wasn't really her kind of beverage, and despite her meager earnings and lack of a student loan, she allowed herself to indulge in chocolate - hot chocolate beverages making her nights and her days. With bitter fondness she remembers Anna loving the way she made her hot chocolate and the way she herself, as esteemed elder sister would gladly indulge the redhead, not really caring even if Anna would wake her weary self in the middle of the night - the loving sisterly kisses she got later made everything worth it, so did the feeble excuse it gave Anna to slip into Elsa's bed after the feast.
That's what Anna's kisses felt like - hot chocolate on a cold winter day. And like always, Elsa always wished for something more than just that - the memory of her fifteen year old self wishing Anna would peck a little to the right next time she bestowed her with her gratefulness, echoing the yearning she had, has, it was ever growing inside of her.
Even now when it had been caged and laid dormant beneath five years of meaningless and worthless work and studies and basically doing all the facade of having a life or living like she had somewhere to go, someone to be, something to do - but she knew it was all for naught - because she could feel the tingling in her fingers, under her skin, buzzing and warming her up with longing and want, filling her heart up with need and love all over again. She was roaring again, she was singing again - her body was - and she didn't know what meant.
She was sick, she knew - she was thinking about kissing Anna when she knew the girl was going through a hard time now, what with facing the sister who walked out on her and left her at mercy of strangers, and now being diagnosed with cancer and basically having shit thrown at you all over and over again. But Elsa was human, and yes, she did
She pulled out her phone and dialed a quick message to Kristoff. She told him she wasn't really coming to college today, and if everything didn't turn out as good as she wished, shed be back for the afternoon session.
And then she dumped the empty cup in the sink and made her way to the bathroom.
She pulled her favorite shirt out, made sure all the wrinkles had been ironed out of its surface and at the same time she tried to empty her mind of all thoughts. When she had told Dr. Weselton yesterday that she would do anything, anything at all for Anna, she knew it was the truth that held her together. Didn't the fact that pushed herself away from Anna to protect the younger girl confirm that very statement?
Sure, it would have been all much better if she didn't have such thoughts coursing through her head at all, but she knew that was impossible right from when she was little. Anna was her whole world even before the death of their parents and there was nothing the little version of herself didn't do for Anna. She should have been warned it was only a matter of time before she would fall for the adoring little redhead that followed in her shadows and would have done anything for her elder sister.
The jeans she chose were new - shed been meaning to break them out for something special but seeing as she mostly spent her time in lecture halls and near sick individuals and later at home with her books, she had never had the opportunity.
Pulling her coat tight around her and talking the keys to her worn down Chevy, she lo led the door and made sure she had put the stove off. The last thing she needed right now was an apartment - basically her life, on fire; she had learnt to be grateful for small favors and treat whatever she had like it was her last indulgence ever.
The car started with a rumble and she stalled for a moment, pulling out the way on her Smartphone and starting the narrative navigation.
Anna always woke up late.
"Better get her down before her teacher arrives, Elsa." Mrs. Murphy told the fifteen-year-old helping her out with breakfast.
Elsa smiled as she pulled out the juice from the fridge.
"She was awake when I left the room, Mrs. Murphy, knowing her; she just probably fell asleep the moment I stepped out again."
The elderly lady chuckled. "Oh well, that's our Anna for you - I told Kai she could very well go as 'sleepy' from the snow white and the dwarves back when she was ten."
Elsa took a moment to appreciate the woman who had taken her and Anna in when their parents died three years ago. The woman and her husband had nothing to do with them, they just happened to be there in the hospital the same time their parents and been brought in, apparently collecting Kai's heart medications. They had seen the doctors break the bad news to a thirteen year old Elsa and a ten year old Anna, weeping in each others arms - Elsa distinctly remember s not understanding a word the doctor had said, but when she was pulled away from her sister to go and tale one last look, she had never been grateful for the man who had given her his arm and told her with a toothy, yet sad smile that she needn't do this alone.
And then when she had stepped outside, her mind spinning after seeing their dead parents, she saw Gerda outside, Anna in her lap, her wrinkly hands patting the little redhead sobbing into her neck.
They had adopted the sisters thereafter, claiming that they knew the girls from somewhere - Elsa didn't really question it because her gut, for once, was saying that she had tto trust these people. It also helped that they were wealthy - the whole process of adoption went by in mere days than months or years, and despite the couple's son, who was overseas and had a family of his own, protesting against this, they did what they felt was right.
Elsa sighed happily.
The couple spoiled Anna like never before - and Anna soaked it all up and milked it for all it was worth. And Elsa, although still a little wary from the death of her parents, was happy that Anna was happy.
"What did I tell you, Elsa?"
"Huh?"She looked up from the peanut and butter sandwiches she was preparing.
Mrs. Murphy's old, kind face looked up at hers and smiled toothily. Elsa smiled goofily back, barely holding back a giggle at the shaking tooth Anna had put a wager on. She herself had been opposed to the idea of betting on the old woman's teeth and when it would fall off, but like always, she did what Anna wanted.
"You can call me Gerda, like how Anna does."
Elsa chuckled. "Okay, Gerda."
"Now you better go check on your Sleepy."
Elsa made short work of the staircase as she bounded up on lithe legs. She had been working out, by adding a daily jog to her routine - one which Gerda and Kai opposed, saying that a fifteen year old didn't really need jogging like some obese middle aged guy with clogged arteries. But Elsa loved the activity; it help clear her mind.
Anna was still dozing in bed. Or rather at the foot of the bed, her head snuggled into her favorite teddy and her body wrapped in mouth twins of soft blankets. She never really understood why her sister let the Ac lower the temperature down to chilly levels and then put on blankets.
She sat herself beside the snoring redhead and giggled ad she attempted to make something out of the red hair sticking out at right angles frizzily.
When she found a face she bopped the red head on the nose.
"Anna wake up."
Of course she knew that plan wouldn't work anyway, so she held the nose clamped between her fingers for a few moments.
She counted five complete seconds before her sister gasped loudly and sat up pushing the hand away from her nose with a grunt that would have shamed their retriever.
"Elsa!" The redhead whined at the sibling laughing loudly. "I could have died!"
Elsa snorted. "I doubt plugging your nostrils temporarily would have killed you, Anna."
Anna huffed, her petite form pulling itself out of the tangled mess she had formed a cocoon in.
"Still, Elsa!" She told her laughing sister somberly. "I need air when I sleep."
Elsa chuckled fondly as the redhead freed herself only to turn her back to the order and fall right back onto the pile.
"You need air even when you aren't sleeping, Anna." Elsa told the girl, pushing herelf onto the bed and snuggling behind the fuming redhead.
"That was a mean trick, you meanie!" Anna pushed herself away from Elsa and the latter knew it wouldn't take much to made Anna snuggle into her. "I really don't want to see your bullying face ever, ever again!"
Elsa should've known that she would be doing exactly that in a year or so. But at that time she really had no idea what the future was holding out for them. Instead she pulled Anna towards her and told the pouting girl - "You need to brush more often. Your mouth stinks."
"You are such a stinker, Elsa!" Her sister whined, but Elsa let her fond smile grow to encompass her entire face when the redhead turned and snuggled into her embrace.
"I'm sorry." She told the girl and got a sloppy kiss on her cheek instead of an answer. Elsa mock-ewwd and withdraw back with an adorable Anna still clinging on to her neck and giggling now.
"I demand you carry me to the bathroom as part if of your punishment."
"Of course, my queen."
"Princess, you bozo, I'm not queen yet!"
Elsa drove for about forty five minutes half of which she spent taking wrong turns and getting jammed in traffic signals and shouting at a jerk cyclist who thought he could outrun her car only to have a brush with death. She spent a few minutes by the side of the road, tinkering with her phone when it decided to die halfway through its narratives. It never resurfaced so she sighed and asked a local for directions to the address.
So a few minutes later she found herself, parked on the right side of the street this time - after having being relocated by an elderly woman that she wasn't supposed to park where she had initially - and she was nervous. Very, very nervous. She took a moment to switch off the car and gather her thoughts, dumping her useless cell phone into the shotgun seat and eyeing the house a few feet in front of her on the opposite side of the road.
It wasn't an apartment like she had thought before, it was a modern bungalow, quite spacious and having a front lawn very like the one Elsa and Anna did when at the Murphy's. A beautiful cobbled path led to the porch and Elsa's eyes teared up when she saw Anna's red bicycle up there. A little worn and a little rusted, it somehow stood the test of time and was still standing.
She took a deep breath and looked away, towards the garage that was half open - she could see Hans' black car inside - and she tried to push away the thoughts that had gotten hold of her again, bittersweet at the realization that Anna was her own person now, and whether or not she chose to live with her boyfriend was none of Elsa's business. She had given up the right to care or worry or be jealous the moment she had turned her back on her sister.
Again with the reminiscing, she chided herself, rolling up her window and pocketing her key.
She needed to see it from a different perspective - like trying to sell a product to an unappealing client - and she snorted at that because if there was one thing she wasn't good at, besides other more obvious faults, it was her social skills. She'd be surprised if she managed to say more than stilted half-replies when she did confront her sister.
She felt like she was walking to her sentence when she crossed the road and cautiously made up the path to the porch.
She didn't really want to over think all of this, so she just pushed the button until a bell rang so shrilly, a dog next door started barking its head off and waited, warily looking at the bicycle towards her right.
She willed herself to stay put when she heard loud stomping from somewhere inside the house - she momentarily panicked because for one, she recognized the footfalls and it was plain déjà vu and for the other reason, she didn't really know what to say to her sister.
But when the door clicked open and she saw it sway open, her eyes widened and her hands tightened around nothing in the coat's pockets.
It was too late now.
"Hi, how can I hel-"
Elsa watched painfully as Anna's face transformed dramatically from perky to withdrawn in a matter of moments. She barely had time to open her mouth when the door slammed on her outreached hand and she was left with a more physical expression of the pain she had inflicted years ago.
"Ow, good heavens.." She groaned and she doubled up, nursing her injured fingers in her other hand, the inner masochist in her glad.
Then she heard another set of more refined footfalls beyond the locked door.
"Anna!" The deep voice of whom she presumed was Hans called out. "Anna! Who was at the door?"
There wasn't any answer and Elsa debated whether shed be able to make a run for it before Hans opened the door.
"Anna! Was it the neighbor again?"
The door pulled open to reveal a redhead, his sideburns drawing her eyes even as she was bent over - which she hastily corrected and gave the man an apologetic smile.
"I'm sorry, I must have gotten the wrong address." She said stiffly, her throbbing fingers returning back to her pockets.
The lithe man raised one of his eyebrows. Again, Elsa's eyes wavered from his green eyes towards the distinctive sideburns that lay on either cheeks, framing his boyish face.
"Really, Elsa?"
It was awkward being addressed so informally as much as it was awkward being caught lying.
She sighed. "Maybe I can come some other time."
Hans stepped to the side and shook his head. "We need to get this done. Anna is refusing transplant even when she knows it will cure her completely. We don't have 'some other time'"
Elsa had never felt as stupid as now, having her sister's boyfriend - who was probably eighteen years like her sister - tell her she needed to man up and get it done to save Anna.
"Okay." She told him determined yet resigned as she stepped past him into the cozy house. She lingered behind him unsurely as he took her coat and hung it in the rack by the door and told her to not worry about getting the floor dirty.
As she walked behind him she glanced surreptitiously along a corridor to where two does lay facing each other and at the end she could see the door to a sort of storeroom.
"Please, have a seat." Hans said confidently and again Elsa was brought to notice how he seemed to be making up for every deficit she had. Sitting primly on one of the sofas, she watched as he made his way to the kitchen that could be seen over the counter - it was clean and organized, and as she watched him stir fry something in the pan, after putting on an apron of course, she realized that it was clearly his domain.
Her sister wasn't particularly known for her culinary skills, even now, she noted.
The living room, on the other hand was an absolute mess. She herself was sitting on some sort of squeaky toy, and she pulled it out from under her and placed it on the coffee table - or rather on top of some art supplies. Funny, Hans didn't look like the art type - and a economic studied book lying neatly upon a side table proved that - and Anna had never expressed her interest in art.
Again, she didn't let the thought that she didn't know anything about Anna now, affect her. She was here for a reason.
"Do you want anything? I just made bacon and some scrambled eggs!" Hans called out from the kitchen.
She told a hasty but polite 'no, thanks' and Hans nodded and went back o organizing his breakfast.
Elsa thought he looked cute as he muttered to himself and went about puttering in the kitchen, but at the same time she wanted to be the one in the 'kiss the cook' apron, preparing her sister breakfast.
Again with the bitter taste in her mouth.
"Um, actually could I have some water?"
Hans promptly got her a glass and after arranging the breakfast on the table called out.
"Anna! Breakfast is ready babe!"
Elsa hoped she masked the disgusted expression at the endearment.
Hans stood before her, and she cursed at the fact that she could see why Anna had fallen for this man, charming ass that he was.
"I've laid out three plates, Elsa. I think you should join us." He made a sweeping gesture towards the dining table.
Elsa sighed and sat in the nearest spot.
Hans stood there for a while, while she sat glancing awkwardly between the plate and Hans, waiting for him to say something while negotiating with herself to somehow ingest the meal in front of her.
"Anna! Baby!" Hans disappeared around the corner with an apologetic smile to Elsa and motioned her to consume his hand made meal.
His voice muffled after she heard a door open and wondered how Hans would manage to convince the girl about coming out.
Leaving her plate untouched, she placed her elbows on the table and massaged her temples, the headache making a sudden appearance now that she was left to wallow in her own thoughts.
"I'm sorry. She's stubborn; she isn't ready to come and talk."
It was all it took for Elsa to give Hans a stiff apology and grab her coat and march up to her car. Eyeing the redhead across from the street, as he waved her bye and shut the door, she felt her throat tighten as her eyes welled up with tears - she put the car into gear and drive hastily, stopping sometime later in a parking spot and bursting into tears.
Again, she knew it was easier to just forget this all happened and forget Anna. But Like she had said, she would do anything for Anna - even if meant cutting her own throat open.
A/N: I may just use smut next chapter. Elsa gets too angsty at times. I was inspired to write this after seeing the first episode of once upon a time. And i'm happy to say I've never been more pleased by how precisely the actresses have been cast.