A loud thump against her bedroom window woke Anna from a sound sleep.
It was the first day of Christmas break, and she had been looking forward to sleeping in as late as she wanted. The clock on her beside table told her that her wish had not been granted.
"Eight?" she moaned pitifully, burrowing her face back into the pillow and willing herself to fall back asleep. Whatever that sound had been, she was going to ignore it. She refused to let anything come between her and more sleep.
Her resolve was broken when another thump sounded through her room, followed quickly by another. She swore under her breath and rolled out of bed, hissing as the chilly air in her room hit her nice warm skin. Whoever was making that noise was going to be sorry.
Anna stalked across the room and threw open her window to see if she could find the person responsible for waking her. She barely had time to register the fact that there was a heavy blanket of snow covering everything before being pelted in the face with a snowball.
She wiped the snow from her face, trying to ignore the way the icy mess began seeping into her pajama top, and glared down at the boy in her yard. It was her next door neighbor, Kristoff. He looked like he was trying to hold back a laugh, and Anna had the sudden desire to push his face into a snowbank and leave him there until Spring.
"Sorry, Anna!" called a deep, familiar voice. "I was just trying to wake you up!"
"Why?" she asked him, "You could have used the front door like a normal person, or at least waited until later in the day!"
"But, yesterday you said that you wanted to build a snowman during the break!" he called up to her, gesturing to the snowfall. "It might be all melted later!"
Anna stared down at him in amazement. He had actually been paying attention to what she said? Why did that thought send a warmth into the pit of her stomach?
Instead of dwelling on that new and strange sensation, she smiled down at him. "Give me ten minutes to get dressed," she said excitedly, her annoyance at being woken up completely gone. She managed to catch the smile on his face before she closed her window again.
Anna was outside in record time, her cheeks flushed with both the bite of the cold air and the excitement of doing something as silly as building a snowman. She still couldn't believe that Kristoff, her seventeen year old neighbor, would have cared enough about her random desire to build a snowman that he had awoken early on the first morning of Christmas break just so he could help her. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her.
He rushed to her side the moment she stepped off the front porch, his eyes bright and his smile wide. "So, Red, are you ready to build that snowman?" he asked enthusiastically.
She beamed at him, rubbing her hands in anticipation. "Yes! But first…" she leaned down and grabbed a handful of snow, preparing to get him back for the snowball to the face she received earlier.
"Anna…" Kristoff said nervously, backing up a few steps and holding his hands up in front of him, "it was an accident!"
She launched the snowball at him, managing to hit him in the ear as he was turning to run from her. "Score!" she cried, pumping her fist into the air.
He turned around slowly, wiping the snow from the side of his face. When his eyes met hers, they were intense, burning with some emotion she had never seen in them before. Uncertainty coiled in her gut and she took a step away from him, then another. When he made a move to grab her, she let out a squeal and dashed across her lawn. He chased her around the house until they came to a corner where he boxed her in, his hands cradling a large ball of snow.
"You know, I just wanted to make a snowman," he said thoughtfully, looking down at the snow in his hand, "but you had to go and get revenge for what was clearly an accident."
"I'm sorry," she choked out, her breath coming in gasps from running around and laughing hysterically. "I surrender!" She even held her hands up in front of her as a sign of truce.
He didn't stop moving toward her, though. That look in his eyes was back, all warm and eager. No one had ever looked at her that way before, so she didn't know how to react. Instead, she felt the warmth curling from her abdomen again, sending a jolt through her heart when he dropped the snowball and put his gloved hand against her cheek. "Kristoff… what…?" she began, but was cut off by his lips, so warm and inviting, pressing against hers.
Her hands, still raised in front of her, were forced up against his chest as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her body up against his. Anna forgot the bite in the air, the fact that he had awoken her at eight in the morning, and sank into the warmth and promise of her very first kiss.
Anna yawned loudly, stretching her arms out as far as they would go. Elsa had dragged her out of bed a few minutes ago and she was still struggling to wake up.
"Come on, Anna," Elsa laughed, handing her a cup of hot chocolate, "I let you sleep in until ten. Do you really want to sleep the whole day away?"
She reached for the mug and grumbled. "You aren't the one working twelve hours a day, standing on your feet the whole time, and then coming home and trying to get another hour or two in on your novel. I haven't really slept since starting this job."
And the dream that she had just been woken from didn't exactly help her state of mind.
"Then why did you take it?" Elsa asked her, taking a seat at her sister's small kitchen table and looking up at her quizzically. "Your share of the inheritance is more than sufficient to keep you afloat until you sell your book."
Anna shrugged and took a long drink from her mug of hot cocoa. Warmth instantly flooded through her, shooting through her extremities and curling pleasantly in her belly. It had just the right amount of whipped cream on top, too. Elsa knew her too well. "Hans couldn't find anyone else to play Mrs. Claus and he asked me to do it as a personal favor. I was just lucky the costume fit me as well as it did," she said with a tired chuckle.
Elsa's eyes narrowed skeptically. "The costume just happened to fit you?"
But Anna wasn't paying attention to Elsa or her questions, her mind was drifting back to the dream she had had… well, memory if the truth be told. She hadn't thought about that day in a very long time, years in fact. Just being around Kristoff again was dredging them all back up, all those old emotions and memories, like their first kiss in her snowy front yard. She still remembered the warm feeling in the pit of her stomach that had started that day and lasted all through the first few weeks of their relationship. It had been a perfect year, like something out of a dream. She wondered what might have happened if her parents hadn't died and she had stayed in Arendelle with Kristoff. Would it continue to have been perfect? Would something have eventually torn them apart anyway?
She sighed and stared into the now empty cup of cocoa. It was ridiculous dwelling on the past and what might have been. She and Kristoff weren't kids anymore, they weren't young lovers with stars in their eyes. She figured the only reason she had dreamed about him at all was the fact that she spent twelve hours a day with him. She had Hans and she was happy with her life and how it was going. Wasn't she?
"Anna!" Elsa said loudly, shaking Anna's arm. "Hello?"
"Hmm?" she asked, looking up from her mug and into her sister's clear blue eyes.
Elsa chuckled. "Isn't it a little early in the morning to be daydreaming, Anna?"
She smiled sheepishly and set her mug on the table. "I guess I have a lot on my mind lately."
That was the understatement of the century.
"The last time I saw you this way over a guy, you were fourteen," Elsa said with a soft smile.
Anna cringed. Another reference to Kristoff, however vague. He seemed to be plaguing her this morning, slipping inside her mind and taking over everything. She couldn't tell if she was so focused on him because they were working together, or because just seeing his face brought back all those old feelings. What would Elsa say if she knew that she was preoccupied not because she was infatuated with Hans, but because it was how Kristoff always made her feel? What did that mean for her and Hans?
"Yeah," Anna said with a forced laugh, "I guess I'm just predictable that way."
"So…" Elsa drew out the word as she grabbed the cocoa mugs off the table and placed them in the sink so she could rinse them out later, "You haven't said more than a few words about this new man in your life and I'm curious."
Anna hesitated, wondering what she could say about Hans. Shouldn't she be bubbling over with wonderful things to say about the new man in her life? She decided to cop out, it was easier. "What do you want to know?" she asked, hoping that Elsa would pick up the slack in the conversation.
Elsa leaned against the counter and gave her sister a curious look, her eyebrows knit together and pursed lips showing her confusion. "You could always tell me how you met him. I was surprised when you told me you were seeing someone only a few weeks after you moved back home."
Anna bit her lip and leaned back in her chair, putting space between her and Elsa. It wasn't that she didn't feel comfortable telling her sister about Hans, it was just that Elsa's tone made her a little unsure of herself. It was true that Hans swept her off her feet shortly after they met, and she had thought that it was incredibly romantic… until now. With the memory of her first very romantic kiss with Kristoff lingering in her mind, she wasn't sure Hans stacked up at all.
"Um, we met at the mall," she said simply.
One platinum eyebrow raised questioningly. "And?" Elsa prompted. "Is there more to the story?"
Anna shrugged.
"Usually I can't get you to shut up," Elsa said quietly, taking the seat next to Anna's. "What's up? You've been unnaturally quiet since you woke up this morning."
"I guess I'm just tired," she lied.
Elsa didn't look as though she believed her, but she didn't press the issue. "Well, how about you go shower, and then we can run out and pick up our dinner from the market. If we have enough time we can make mom's cookies."
Anna perked up at that. "The pie dough cookies?"
"Those are the ones," Elsa agreed. "Now scoot, I only have you for a few hours before you have to go back to work."
Anna smiled at her sister and did as she was told. Honestly, she was just grateful Elsa hadn't pushed her. She wasn't sure she was ready to discuss what was going on in her life right now. Kristoff was complicating everything.