Happy New Year! Here's your present, six hours early. Big thanks to Kal for proof-reading, as usual he did a great job and is responsible for any lucidity you get out of this thing.


"You have everything?"

"Yes Kai."

"You have the schedule for the arrival?"

"Yes Kai."

"The requirements list for the Queen and her entourage."

"Yes Kai."

"The list for Sicklemore and his entourage?"

"Yes Kai."

"Are you gonna ask her if she packed her toothbrush and a spare pair of underwear too?"

They stood outside the tall brownstone building as Anna put the final suitcase into the rented car. Even in Washington, where the old swampland sometimes seemed to bubble up and make the city a sweltering nightmare, the encroaching winter was starting to make itself felt, and Anna was wrapped up in something wooly and red and hideous her father had given her from some ancient Christmas. Staring there looking at Kai, who looked like a very sombre Christmas pudding in his suit and red scarf, and Tiana, who was seemingly impervious to the weather and had nothing more than a light green dress on and a shawl, she felt like a teenager about to set off for her college dorm. She wondered if Kai was going to ask her to phone every day- oh, wait.

"Keep in contact with the office, you still have the vote on funding for the arts on the calendar, and you'll need to tele-commute for your committee."

"Yes dad."

"Ignore this old political robot Anna. You go and see your family and forget about this town for a while," Tiana said with a lopsided smile at the aforementioned robot. "Take your girl out for a dinner or something. Some real Texan food. Not as good as Louisiana but it's fair enough."

Anna felt a brush creep up her neck and willed it to halt before it peeked over her scarf. "I don't think we'll do anything so…err…informal? Maybe? Plus she'll probably want to talk to Senator Sicklemore a little more than me." No she won't, she thought, and found in it a little thrill.

Tiana rolled her eyes as Kai nodded appreciatively. "You're aware how serious this is at least," he said. He paused, then… "Are you certain you don't want me to-"

"No! No. We'll manage fine," Anna said as quickly as she could without being out-and-out rude. "I know how these things go, plus you know dad will be on-hand." The man of a million state dinners. If nothing else her father would make certain this weekend would go well.

God, a whole weekend. She had spent all last night – really all the nights since the White House reception – wondering if she was making an absolutely gigantic mistake. The first night afterwards, she had spent all night staring up at her ceiling, mentally kicking herself and almost bringing herself to tears. How could she have been so stupid? Kissing her. Like they were in France or something. Everything had been going so, so well, and then that. She had barely slept running through every horrible result that could come from a single moment of idiocy. The next day she had waited on tenterhooks, like a student who knew they had done something bad but didn't know if any teachers had spotted her. In her case the teacher was a reporter, and she scoured every inch of the papers delivered to the Capitol praying she wouldn't spot herself. She hadn't. A dodged bullet, then. The rest of the week had passed kind of in a daze as Elsa's Chief of Staff, the Gerda woman, had talked with Kai to confirm some details. It was still happening. The final night, the night before, she had run through in her mind the exact predicament she had found herself in.

Item one: The Queen of Arendelle was visiting her, Congresswoman Anna Summerford's home for two days and two nights. Said Queen being…well…a queen. Of a nation.

Item two: Senator John Sicklemore of Virginia was visiting her, still Congresswoman Anna Summerford, with the express intention of cornering the above queen. Probably something to do with her mountain and the insane amount of money inside it. He wasn't subtle.

Item three: She, who was still and would probably remain Congresswoman Anna Summerford, had suggestions – not orders, no sir – from the actual for-real President of the United States, to make as nice with the Queen mentioned way back up there. As nice as possible.

Item four: Congresswoman Anna Summerford was looking forward to this weekend more than anything else she could remember in her entire life.

"-God knows you'll need it," Kai finished, as Anna stared into nothing. "Did you hear me Anna?"

"No, but I'll assume you wished me good luck," she replied, and smiled. "I'll see you in a few days."

"Go, before he finds a reason to make you stay!" Tiana almost shouted at her.

She climbed in and gunned the engine, giving the old brownstone one more look. She would miss it, she had to admit. A two-room apartment shared between a dozen or more girls wasn't what most people would call a home, but Anna still loved it there. "Take care you two," she said, pulling out of the parking space, and started the long drive home.


The stars at night,

Are big and bright,

"Deep in the heeeeart, of Texas…" Anna sang under her breath, as she twisted the wheel and pulled up to the big wooden archway that told her she was about to enter the Summerford Ranch. She could imagine she was sixteen again and coming back home after graduating high school. Nothing about the old drive had changed. There was still an ancient scrap of leather that her father had told her had been a Dreamcatcher, a gift from a local and long-gone Native tribe, but was more likely just some old scrap that had been caught in the wind and nobody knew how to get down. The weathered old archway still leaned a bit to the left, her dad's promise to one day get a hammer and whack it back to the centre decades-old now. There was even an old ox lazily chewing on the daffodils in the grass near the fence, just like there was every time she came home. It looked up as she passed by, and she waved at it.

Sometimes Anna wondered if one day she would turn up the drive and it wouldn't feel like home anymore. It was a good half a year since her last visit. Washington just kept her so busy, and then when she did come home sometimes she felt like she was using her family like some kind of quaint English bed-and-breakfast, just sleeping and eating there while she did her work visiting the rest of the state.

Even the house didn't seem to have changed as she drew up to it. A giant white edifice that endless Summerfords going back decades had kept neat and pristine, every generation adding a few rooms or a whole wing, as they'd steadily changed from frontier herdsmen to established cattle ranchers to statesmen. It had started as simple timber, but as they'd grown more successful and the herds had doubled and tripled they'd torn it down and replaced it with a colonial-style mansion like everyone else had. Nothing ostentatiously huge or tacky like Weselton's castle, but a respectable dozen or so rooms on two floors of gorgeous stone that she would put up against an old English country home or the Governor's mansion any day, with a few small guest houses scattered here and there across the property. Her father still corrected people with the words 'ranch house' when they called it a mansion, but he wasn't kidding anyone.

Her enjoyment at seeing the old place was dwarfed though as she rolled he rental car to a stop and saw the person waiting between the two white pillars that held the roof over the huge front doors.

"Darling!"

She smiled. No, she shouldn't worry about coming back one day and finding herself a stranger. It would always be home. "Daddy!"

Old Governor Summerford smelled like polished oak and rum as she practically jumped into his arms and he wrapped them around her. Young children think their parents are immortal, and Anna hadn't quite kicked herself of that belief yet. Her father didn't really age, he just matured over the years. A few greys here and there, maybe a line or two on the forehead, but he still looked just the same as she remembered last time she had been back. The same ratty old tan jacket and slacks, the same Longhorns baseball cap he'd kept for a decade because it was 'ironic'. The same old bushy but well-groomed facial hair that made kissing him feel like rubbing bristles across her face.

Lawrence Summerford – never Larry – smiled as he wrapped his daughter to him as tightly as he could and forgot for a second that she was a grown woman and his representative. "How you doing kid?" he whispered into her hair.

"It's good to be back," she said.

"Wasn't what I asked, darling," he said with a smile. "Not good enough to fool your old dad yet."

She drew back and smiled. "Later, okay?" It was so good to be home. She took a deep breath and the air felt purer, not choked with a thousand cars carrying a thousand important people.

"Well come on in, your mother's been cooking all morning."

"Really?"

Even the inside hadn't changed since her last visit, all polished white banisters and paintings on the wall. It reminded her of that awful Weselton's mansion, except where the crooked old industrialist had slathered hunting trophies and paintings of himself holding them over practically every square inch not covered in gold light fixtures, their own parlour only had an old shotgun hanging on the wall. Just below that was a painting of three old and tired-looking men, the original ranchers that had founded the place and built the first log-cabin here, the one on the left in a beaten cow-skin jacket her great-great-great-etc grandfather. The bottom-left edge of the brass was worn away, shiny smooth brass instead of the ornate twisting that the rest of the picture-frame had. Every day when they had gone to work, her father and mother had brushed a hand against that painting for a little luck and grit from their ancestors, and she had done the same.


The mansion – call it what it was – had two kitchens, and they sat in the smaller one. The one that still resembled an actual family kitchen, rather than the bigger one that they used when company came and that resembled an industrial machine more than a place food was made. It wasn't huge, just enough room for a cooker, fridge and other necessary machinery, and a table with a few chairs on it. The fridge still had magnets on them that held pictures she had drawn when she was a kid, yellowing around the edges now and the GOOD JOB ANNA messages from her teachers in fading red ink. Coming from DC to here was like stepping out of time, or dodging through a busy freeway to relax on a grass bank. She could feel herself unwinding just sitting here, chomping away on pecan pie.

Her father went straight to work. "So is she as pretty as real life as she looks in the paper?"

Prettier, she tried to say through a mouthful of pie, which ended up sounding closer to pwiwiuh. Her parents had a long history of trying to understand their daughter through foodstuffs.

"She's certainly captured attention."

"Even down here?"

"We have television in Texas, Anna," her mother chided her gently. She had green eyes just like her daughter, which seemed to glint whenever she found something funny. The freckles that covered Anna though seemed to have skipped a generation, because Bethany Summerford's skin was clear as day. She had always been jealous of that. "Ours is colour and everything."

"Alright mom, alright. Any other technological advances happen while I was up in Washington DC, city of the future?" she asked with a smile, and dodged a gentle slap.

"A whole bunch of schools got a new round of computers this semester," her father said. "Finally."

Anna leaned forward. "Really?" That was one of the things she had fought hardest for in her election campaign. Leif had mocked her mercilessly for trying to put videogames into classrooms, especially when the old ones they already had worked perfectly fine, thankyouverymuch. Even if you sometimes had to whack them a few times to get the colours to show up, and needed to do all your work via passing floppy-discs back and forth. Anna had disagreed, and so had every teacher that had ended up voting for her. She'd fought hard to slide that through committee and get it on someone else's bill, on the grounds that maybe kids should learn about the modern world on a computer built in it, rather than ones from the stone-age that overheated trying to connect to Google.

Her father reached across the table and tweaked his beaming daughter's cheek. "Proud of you scout."

"Just getting started dad."

"Apparently! Kai's been filling me in on everything that you've been up to-"

"He what?"

"Come on kid, you didn't expect me to just sit by and wait for you to call?" her dad said, leaning back and smiling at this act of incredible intelligence-gathering.

"Well, he could at least have told me he was spying for you."

"We're very proud of you dear," her mother said, pecking her on the cheek and sitting down with her own slice of pie. She didn't let Lawrence anywhere near the cooker now that she was retired. Caterers for parties were all well and good but if the family was going to eat anything it was going to be well-cooked, and not burned or half-frozen. "We're eager to meet this queen, from what we've read she sounds lovely."

Anna squirmed in her seat, just a little. First her father reminding her she hadn't visited recently, now her mother reminding her she hadn't written anything at all about this. She really was a horrible daughter sometimes. "She is, she's a great person," she said.

"Are you sure she'll be fine in Texas? Isn't it very hot here compared to…wherever it is she's from?"

"It's called Arendelle."

"If the woman can survive that swampy nest of vipers she can survive us."

Funny, you never called it that when you had a government job. "She'll be fine dad."

"Arendelle...It sounds very exotic," her mother pondered.

"It's in Europe, mother. Norway isn't exotic."

"Well, we can just turn the AC up."


They walked across the immaculate lawn of the mansion's front grounds. If she had been younger Anna might have shucked off her shoes and ran for the nearest tree. The Summerford acres used to have a wonderful bayou tree that Anna had claimed as her own and loved, kept by her grandmother to remind her of…something. She had clambered up and around it for years, so much that her dad used to tease her that the bark had her footprints engraved on them. She'd grown older though, and her attention had been torn away little by little from climbing trees to something a little more…exciting…

"Hey guys!" Anna shouted, throwing open the door to the stables. On cue a couple of huge brown shapes trotted up to her, either because they recognised her voice or – more likely, she had to admit – because of the bag of apples and leftovers she had carried from the kitchen.

"See, they missed you," her father said, watching with a smile as his daughter wrapped a hand around the flanks of the first horse to nibble up to her.

"They missed me feeding them."

"Same difference with these animals," her father said, and Anna stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation as she brought out an apple and held it up on her open palm.

She had loved horses ever since she had bruised one too many limbs to really love climbing up trees. She loved how majestic they were towering above her as a girl, and when she grew up and took her first riding lessons she loved how fast they were. Her first ride it had felt as if she could have travelled the world in a day. Her father had always kept his feet firmly on the ground but he'd let Anna have what she wanted. The Summerford ranch had two stables: A big one at the back where the real work-horses were kept, the ones that the ranch-hands and volunteers kept trained and lean for herding the cattle and travelling. This smaller one at the front of the house they kept for the older animals, because Anna would never, ever, in a million years let her father send off any of her horses to be put down. In the summer the children of the workers were allowed to come play there while their parents were working and feed them, and the horses too old to work got a couple of summers being safe and fat and happy before they departed.

The bag emptied about as fast as she had filled it, with Anna stuck between three horses that were nuzzling at her hair and clothes looking for more food. "How do you mean?" she asked, wiping table-scraps from her fingers and letting the horses lick them clean. Her dad cringed at those huge teeth, but he had to admit Anna had a way with the animals.

"Listen darling, when you're finished with the beasts we do need to talk about this."

"I know, I just wanted to unwind for a little bit," Anna admitted. She brushed her hands free of horse-slobber. "Daddy, I know I landed this on you a little soon, but I was hoping if we got those caterers from Austin for the town and called up your old drinking buddies who actually have important jobs, we could make it seem enough important people were here that a party would be-"

"Actually I was thinking about something smaller," Lawrence Summerford said.

Abruptly Anna's conversation-train derailed and slammed into a wall. Her dad? Something smaller? What?

Her father went on. "We were talking and ultimately your mother and I think a huge star-studded party isn't exactly…appropriate."

"Appropriate for an actual, for-real queen?"

"Mmmhmm."

"The kind you'd have killed to entertain way back when?"

"Mmmhmm."

"Daddy, you're a stinking liar," Anna said, and punched him lightly on the arm.

"Oh don't get me wrong," Lawrence said, rubbing a hand down the nose of a still-hungry horse, which turned away from him the instant it realised there would be no more apples. "I'd love to. But the way I hear it, parties are all our particular guest has been to recently." Well, God knows that was true. "Something smaller and more intimate might be more appreciated," he said. "Which might mean a repeat performance," he went on with a smirk, still a politician beneath the veneer of retirement.

Anna felt a small blush materialise down her neck at the word intimate, and ignored it. "That…that actually sounds good." Just the few of them. A break from having to keep up appearances. Not that she would slob out or anything, god no. She wondered if Elsa was bringing any formal wear.

"Well, we agreed. It'll be just the family and…"

Oh, god, she had just remembered. "And the senator."

"Yes, well," Lawrence said, and Anna heard the very noticeable change in his demeanour. "Unlike our other guest the good Virginian won't be staying on the ranch. His man made that pretty dang clear. No, his eminence the senator is going to be staying at the Austin Sheraton."

"Mom couldn't have taken that well." Bethany Summerford prided herself in the ancient art of southern hospitality, and being refused the chance to demonstrate it wouldn't have sat well with her. Especially not from another southerner. Wait. "Wait, you said 'unlike'." She blinked, and processed the thought for another second. "Is Elsa staying here? On the ranch?"

Her father looked at her like she had just spouted words at him in Esperanto. "Of course."

"The Queen can't stay here," Anna babbled.

Her father looked at her, faux-puzzled. "Sure she can. We have the guest-house all cleaned regularly, and they say it's fine. She'll love the place, same as you did when you had those sleepovers with your friends."

She tamped down the panic growing in her heart before it could overwhelm her. If he was talking about the guest house he was right. Their great-grandfather had built it for his mistress (long story, seldom-told) and he had really liked his mistress. It was a single story, richly decorated and could fit a family of six comfortably, or a single woman extravagantly (thanks, great-granddad). It was fine, it was fine. But wait. "Who's 'they'?" she asked.

Her father smiled like he had been waiting for her to realise it was her birthday, and she hadn't opened her presents yet. "You aren't the first of your little conspirators to arrive, darling."


"Well well, someone's been busy."

The tall blonde turned at the sound of Anna's voice, lowering the map of the ranch he was holding. "Congresswoman Summerford," he said with a smile.

"Agent Bjorgman," Anna replied with a smile of her own. "How's things, Kristoff?"

"Busy," he replied. "Your fault."

"Sorry."

"No don't be, your family's been great to us."

"Us?" she asked, again. Yeesh, that was becoming a habit.

"Hello, congresswoman."

Anna turned to see a dark-haired beauty sitting – no, lounging – in the upholstery of the living room's big chair. For a second her brain fought to make the connection between the gorgeous sleek creature she had met back in Washington, and the woman in the flannel jacket, white shirt and jeans that lay draped over the guest-house furniture now. "Miss Voll!"

"Call me Eva, please," the queen's press secretary said, unfolding herself from the chair as she stood to shake Anna's hand. "This seems like a surprise?"

"Da- my father likes his little tricks. I'm sorry I wasn't there to greet you. You've been looking over the place? How is it?" she asked, the final question coming out maybe a little faster than she had wanted. The question was suddenly very, very important to her. "We can change stuff around if you need to."

Kristoff looked out the window. "No, it's great, really. My only concern was security but you can't see this place from any roads and the fields aren't long enough to hide anyone approaching."

"Cows make sure of that," Anna blurted out, and wasn't sure why.

"Well, comfort was my concern," Evangeline, Eva, said. "And there are…" she waved her hands around the living room. Like the mansion, the place was mostly wood, decorated in warm colours. Anna noticed with a cringe that most of the paintings seemed to be of serious-looking men standing next to massive cows, and remembered that they used this place as a dumping-ground for art they didn't like but couldn't toss out. Apart from that it had every convenience you wanted in a modern house. Several more, probably. "…almost no problems at all, congresswoman," the woman finished with a flourish.

"Call me Anna. Almost?"

Eva shrugged. "The fridge needs stocking."

"We'll get it done," Anna replied, instantly.

"You all okay in there?" Lawrence said, walking into the living room.

"Everything's great mister Summerford," Kristoff said, and Anna finally noticed that he wasn't actually in a black suit anymore. Like Eva he had dressed down, like her in flannel and jeans. Huh, maybe it was a couple's thing. Even though they had met more than a handful of times she realised she didn't know anything about these people she was putting up for a weekend. She'd known more about Alice after their first conversation. Have to fix that.

"This is an amazing place you have here though," Eva said, pushing back a curtain and staring out the window.

"Five hundred acres, one of the biggest ranches still privately-owned," her father said proudly.

"I can't wrap my head around that. Where I grew up you couldn't walk more than a few hundred meters before hitting a mountain or a valley. Certainly neither of them had herds like this. A handful of goats, maybe," Eva said softly.

"Totally self-sufficient. You could feed an army here," he said proudly. Hold one off as well, Anna knew. From outside all you saw was the waving fields and the stray cattle grazing, but the house and the barns all had excellent fencing. Summerfords hadn't gotten this far by being fools. They had no problem sharing what they had, but always they kept it safe.

"It's an amazing place mister Summerford," Kristoff said, holding up the map and handing it to him.

"Call me Lawrence," her father said, totally charmed by these two strange Europeans in the matching suits. Anna could have laughed, except then they'd have asked why she was laughing, and she'd have laughed harder. Then, she was abruptly brought back to earth.

"When's her majesty coming?"

"Later this afternoon, an hour so before sundown," Kristoff said, checking his watch.

"Well, you three just call me if you need anything," he said, and turned to leave. A second later they heard the engine of the small jeep that had brought Anna and her father here, parked next to Kristoff's rental.

"Seriously Anna, this place removes a whole headache for me and the rest of the guys, thanks so much."

"Well I can't really take credit for building this place but you're welcome," she said, and smiled. "Are you sure there's nothing else I can do besides stock the place?" She'd get her mother to bake a pie for it. She'd fill the fridge up herself.

Kristoff looked over at Eva, who was still staring out the window. She turned and exchanged a look with him. Then she smiled. "I was told there were horses?"


"Doesn't every little girl?"

Anna knew she hadn't really needed to ask, by the way the older black-haired woman gently stroked the neck of the horse in the stall.

They were in the stables, the real stables. The horses kept here were healthy, in their prime, bred to work. The one Eva had her hands on shuffled around a little but otherwise stood stock-still and the let the unfamiliar human run a hand down its side. Around them serious-looking men with serious expressions passed them with small nods and little else as they went about doing the work involved keeping a couple of hundred cows fed, watered, milked and healthy.

"Kristoff's right, in Arendelle we don't have anything like this at all."

"The mountains?"

"The mountains," Eva agreed with a nod, in that voice she had that made Anna's bones tingle. God knew what it did to men. "No room for beasts like these there. We had mountain-goats for meat and milk but if you tried to ride one of those you'd be kicked off and down a gorge."

"What's it like?" Anna asked, hungry for any kind of knowledge about Elsa's kingdom.

Eva let go of the horse and together they walked back to the entrance of the massive barn-stroke-stable, stopping occasionally to let a worker pass. "Cold," Eva responded. "Small, too. Like Norway, but smaller."

"I've never been to Europe," Anna had to admit, and felt like a small-town girl facing off against a well-travelled socialite.

"You have a very important job, and America has as many cultures and climates as Europe does," Eva said, and Anna wondered if she had felt Anna's embarrassment and tried to soothe her. "A small country isn't so bad though. It's more…cosy."

The sunlight streamed down onto their faces as they exited. Winter wouldn't touch Texas for a few more weeks yet. "Everyone knows everyone?" Anna asked.

"No, but everyone knows everywhere. You know when you meet someone they grew up more or less like you, they…knew the same kind of things you did." Eva said. "There's a community in that, like a town but larger. We look out for each other, when the real cold descends."

"That must be nice," Anna said, thinking of the schools with rusting paint and textbooks a decade old that were never replaced because the district they were in didn't have enough votes, or the wrong kind of votes. "It must make ruling it easy."

"Compared to America?" Eva asked. Anna nodded. "I'd imagine. But the pressure is greater."

The two women leaned up against a fence that linked the working area with its cars and machine to one of the grazing fields. The cattle would be munching for a few hours more and the area near the fence thronged with brown-skinned animals. A couple came closer to the fence, but quickly wandered back to the grass when they realised the two shapes weren't food. "How so?" she asked, leaning against the wooden poles.

"There's no-one but her," Eva said, staring out at the cattle, and Anna didn't need her to explain any further. "In the end every decision is hers. All the credit and all the blame."

"You help though."

"Of course."

"You and Kristoff?"

Eva looked askance at Anna. "Kristoff and I?"

Anna felt that damn blush coming back again as she realised she may not have been as insightful as she thought she was. "I thought with the matching outfits and everything. I'msorryIjustassumed-"

Eva laughed and it was magical. "No. Kristoff is a good man but just a colleague. He would laugh at the idea."

"He wouldn't. You're very beautiful," Anna said.

Eva smiled at her and pushed a lock of raven hair out of her eyes. "Thank you Anna. If we were in any other situation I might respond, but…"

"Respond to what?" Anna asked, curious as the woman smiled and looked away from her.

Eva blinked, and the smile and confidence flickered for the first time since they had met in the flesh. "To your…oh. I'm sorry, I thought you were…"

"Were what? Oh, Oh!" She'd made a fool of herself again. "No, I didn't mean anything by it, I was just saying! I mean I meant it, because you are, but…" She felt the blush creeping up and silently commanded it to stay below her neckline.

"Is it going to be a problem?" Eva asked.

Anna shook her hands in front of her like she was waving off an attack. The only thing she was trying to ward off was her own stupidity. "No, no, of course not!"

"I only ask because I have the impression a lot of people in this part of the country are-"

"Not in my home," Anna said firmly. "And the rest of the state doesn't matter." Of course she knew the stereotypes people had about her home. So sad that apparently it extended over the ocean to countries halfway across the world. One day she'd help that change, but probably not when she was a congresswoman still on the younger side of thirty. The ideas she had jotted down in a notebook locked in her desk drawers would remain there for a little while longer.

Eva's smile came back. "Thank you Anna," she said. A muffled beeping came from her waist, and she reached in to reveal a small mobile that she started speaking rapid Norwegian - or at least Anna assumed that was what it was - into. After a few seconds of rapid-fire talking with whoever was on the other end, Eva put it away and looked at Anna. The words she spoke made a thrill shoot through her.

"She's here."


Her father tugged at his suit as they stood at the doorway, with the farm-hands that weren't currently working and the staff that weren't inside preparing stood around them. To Anna it felt like school picture-day, or back in Washington waiting for a committee head to arrive so they could all get back to work. Which it kind of was.

"Tie," she hissed toward her father, who cursed and quickly yanked the offending article of clothing up around his neck. He had always hated them, and wore them only when totally necessary. The arrival of a foreign queen definitely counted as one of those times. Anna fidgeted and checked her shirt for the tenth time as beside them the photographer practically hopped from one foot to another snapping pictures of them with his heavy-duty camera. She hadn't wanted him there but the editor from the Statesman had convinced her that giving them a few pictures would be a small price to pay for being left alone for the weekend and not, as he put it, "forcing them to take more intrusive measures to gather news of significant importance to the state". The asshole. Hopefully the sun would set fast enough that his gear wouldn't catch the sweat she imagined was dripping down her neck in a cascade. She was wearing a light cream skirt that almost reached her ankles with a matching off-white shirt, with cream shoes and a few necklaces, and she hoped it wasn't too informal.

Oh, god, she felt sick. She didn't know how she was going to react, not after how their last meeting had ended. Suddenly the light peck which she had laughed off as just a confusion between cultures rose up in her mind and demanded attention. The closer the long black car got to the mansion the more nervous she felt. How was Elsa going to greet her?. Maybe her immense screw-up had turned this into a duty Elsa couldn't get out of and they'd spend the entire weekend being polite and distant to each other. Maybe she wouldn't even stay the weekend. God, the shame of it. This was a horrible mistake.

Kristoff detached himself from the deepening shadows where he and Eva had been standing apart from the ranch staff, and stepped forward to open the door of the car as it came to a halt. At first Anna thought there was a second door behind it, but then the looming bulk of Kristoff's boss, Marshall-something, stepped out, and Anna saw past him to the person inside.

Her father leaned down towards her ears and whispered; "Snap." She didn't reach back up and tear his lips off only because Elsa was looking towards her, and she was entranced and panicking all at once. They were off-colour mirrors of each other. Elsa was wearing a skirt-and-shirt as well, only hers was shaded light blue. The hair was still in that long, impossible braid, entwined with something that could have gold ribbon or – and Anna wouldn't have been surprised – gold filigree. The jewellery around her neck looked like sapphires and diamonds. Anna looked closely and her heart almost stopped when she spotted the pendant, her pendant, dangling there as well.

That was when Anna knew things were going to be alright.

"That's my cue." Her father stepped forward with a thousand-watt smile and held his hands out. "Your majesty, welcome. It's an honour."

And did Anna imagine it but did it take a second before Elsa stopped looking at her, and instead switched her gaze to her father? "Mister Summerford, I've heard so much about you." Elsa looked past him. "About all of you. It's a pleasure to be in Texas," she said as the photographer snapped away.

"A pleasure to host you ma'am." Senator Daniel Sicklemore stepped forward with a smile to light the heavens and reached out a beefy hand. As Elsa smiled back politely and reached out her own he grasped it and held it for a good few seconds. Making damn sure, Anna noticed, that he gave the press-man a few good angles for the paper. Finally after what had to feel like an uncomfortable amount of time he let go. Asshole. She'd apologise to Elsa later. She stepped forward as fast as she could without looking worried.

"Your majesty." She gave a small bow and looked back up to see Elsa staring down at her. She was prepared this time though, and her heart merely skipped a beat rather than stopping entirely. "Hello again."

"Anna," Elsa said with a real smile. Bang, another skip.

"Everything's ready if you'd like to come in?" she gestured behind her, to where the lights of the house projected a warm golden glow against the early-evening sun.

Elsa nodded, and looked sideways to where Sicklemore was hovering like a fat, sweaty moon. He wasn't handling the heat well at all. When she spoke Anna barely recognised Elsa's voice. It sounded fake, rehearsed, like she was putting on a play. "Senator, I know you've come a long way, but I'm quite exhausted by the schedule for this week and I was so looking forward to a relaxing night. I know this may be a disappointment but would you mind terribly if we postponed any conversation until, say, the morning after tomorrow?" She beamed at him, but the smile was like those of a porcelain doll, all frozen and unreal.

He didn't notice though. Anna could practically see the man doing calculations in his head. He might not have liked the number he came up with, but one day with the queen was still one day more than his competitors were getting. He smiled and wiped his forehead again. Anna hoped he was taking that damp handkerchief with him. "Of course your majesty, not a problem at all." He glanced at Anna. "Miss Summerford will be a most entertaining host 'till we meet. On Sunday, ma'am." Without another word he strode back to the limo – of course – he had taken to the ranch, and climbed in and sped off without so much as glancing back.

"I think I annoyed him," Elsa said, her voice back to normal as the two women watched the car travel the paved drive that led to the ranch gates, a half-mile up the road. Good riddance.

"He wanted your attention for the whole weekend, not just the last day of it," Anna said.

"Well, he can't have it," Elsa said with a force that sent a thrill down Anna's spine. She came here to see me! Me, me, me! Elsa smiled, and looked at Anna's father. "I've never been to a ranch before sir, and now that mister Sicklemore has left I feel more awake, suddenly. Is there a tour?"

"Call me Lawrence," her father replied, and beamed. "I-"

"I'll do it," Anna said quickly. "I mean…" she ignored the strange glance her father shot her. "I can escort her." She glanced at Kristoff, standing just behind Elsa. "That's fine, right?"

"I hope it'll be as good as the one you gave to me in Washington," Elsa said, and smiled as those eyes bored through Anna's eyes and into her soul.

"How about that drink?" Lawrence asked, recovering as best he could.

"I'd love one," Elsa said, and reached out a hand. Before Anna could properly react Elsa had roped her arm through Anna's as they both turned to go into the mansion. "Lead on." Anna didn't know if it was a scent or just some sort of natural aura, but that close she was…intoxicating.

Oh, god.


"I wasn't expecting everything to be so…" Elsa trailed off, waving a hand around like the word she wanted was somewhere in the air and she could grab onto it.

"Green?" Anna asked with a smile.

"Am I showing my ignorance?" Elsa asked with a smile.

It was unbelievable. She didn't believe it. There was just something so utterly unreal and dreamlike about where Anna found herself. They sat on the back porch of the mansion, which in a smaller house would have easily fit an entire five-man band. She looked and tried to avoid looking as if she was staring as Elsa sat in one of the loungers, one leg crossed over the other as her dress hung down the chair, and a glass of her mother's sangria in her hand. On the table beside them was a pitcher filled with more, and a plate stuffed with sandwiches. If it wasn't for the tiara that adorned her head and the presence of Kristoff and the other huge bodyguard standing out of the way but still very much there on the porch with them, they could have been entertaining a family friend.

"Whenever my father showed us old cowboy movies this wasn't what was in them," Elsa admitted. The mansion stood on a slight rise and below them they could look and see for miles, past the small garden with the unkempt bayou tree, out across the fields filled with corn and cattle. The second that they had walked through the large double-doors that led to the porch the young queen hadn't stopped looking out at the ranch.

"Some places down further south are like that. But we've always kept this place a garden," Anna said, catching a good-natured scuff on the arm from her dad seated one chair over.

"Who's this 'we'," her father asked jokingly. "As I recall a certain someone headed north the second they were old enough to run for office."

"It's beautiful," Elsa said, seemingly not hearing the familial joke, still looking out over the ranch.

Anna watched as she took another sip, using her delicate hands to raise the glass to her lips. There was no mark there, no rings. Why did that matter? She looked away and took a heavier gulp of her own glass than she had meant to. That was another thing she had missed in DC. Politicians drank wine by the gallon, she had discovered, probably because most of it was so awful. She tuned out as her father proudly ran through a list of the ranch's attributes. Heavens knows she knew the list off by heart.

"…and the stables of course."

"Stables?" Elsa asked, jerking Anna out of her disinterest and her father out of his spiel.

"Of course!" Lawrence said happily, already onto his second glass of sangria. Hopefully mom took the pitcher away before he could grab a third glass, he wasn't a young man anymore. "You need horses if you have cows. Jeeps and such are fine of course if all you want to do is get from one place to another but for delicate work you need a living animal."

"I've seen them, they're magnificent," Eva asked, sitting on a chair of her own just outside the circle of Anna and her family and the queen. Compared to the cat-like lounge she had displayed back at the guest-house, here she sat almost ramrod-straight.

"You have an interest in horses? Most young women do I've found, it's been a great help grabbing their interest through the years," her father, and winked entirely unsubtly at his wife.

Elsa didn't seem to have noticed though. "I never really thought of it," she said wistfully. "I've seen movies and so on but all we ever had back in the kingdom was goats and the occasional mountain bear."

"We could show you," Anna said, before she could stop herself. "I mean that's what they're there for. Apart from herding, I mean." Her heart had grabbed her brain and galloped away with it and suddenly she couldn't stop speaking. "There's some beautiful scenery down in the rest of the farm. I mean ranch." She shut her mouth before it could motor away from her.

She held her breath, and hoped, as Elsa turned to look at her, her lips slightly parted in surprise and that flawless skin coloured with a faint blush from the sangria, because what else could it be from? I mean, really? "I…"

"Tonight?" Anna heard Eva ask from her seat in surprise. "I don't know if we can-"

And her father, that beautiful old man, spoke up from his chair and cheerful haze. "I don't see why not, you get some beautiful sunsets down by the river. End your first day with something really special. One of the prettiest things on this whole place, besides my daughter here that is."

Elsa nodded, and Anna didn't know which part of the statement the queen was agreeing with. She wanted it to be all of it. "I'd be happy to show you the way," she said, trying to focus her will like a superpower onto the other woman. "It's really something." She swung for the fences. "At least you'll be able to take something away with you after Senator Sicklemore visits."


"Like this?"

Anna nodded, and was glad that Kristoff and Marshall – see, she finally remembered – were looking outwards, and that Elsa was so focussed on climbing onto the stallion's back, because she couldn't stop watching. "Now just haul yourself up," Anna said, and tried not to watch too hard as Elsa swung her leg up and over the animal in a single second, told herself she was only watching Elsa's legs so closely to see if she was about to slip and fall.

Elsa turned, and she could see the faint blush of sweat there and the look of triumph on her face. She looked radiant. "You look like a natural," Anna said. She really did. Dressed in some clothes borrowed from a workhand with roughly the same sizes – there wasn't a single chance she was getting a leg over anything in the dress – Elsa looked like she belonged on a ranch. The fabulous light-blue had been replaced with a long-sleeved green shirt and the skirt had been replaced with a hardy old pair of breeches. For her part Anna had changed into her old riding gear - barely. All that terrible Washington food had taken it's toll and the leather breeches had been just a little tighter than usual.

Elsa's illusion of beginner's luck was ruined a second later as the brown breast whinnied gently and trotted a few inches forward, and Elsa had to grab the horse by the neck-hairs to stop from falling. She gave a little panicked squeak as she grasped that did strange things in Anna's chest, and she laughed before she could stop herself.

"Fine, show me how a Texan does it then," Elsa said, eyebrows furrowed in a small frown that looked adorable more than angry.

"Challenge accepted, your majesty." Anna whistled, and as if on command the other unlocked stall opened and by years of training the horse trotted towards her, waiting patiently for its rider. Anna made sure she kept eye contact with Elsa, not breaking it for a moment as she gripped the saddle and swung herself up and over in a single smooth motion. To rub it in she kicked gently and sent the horse a few paces ahead, turning back to see the reaction and catching Elsa staring in what she hoped was amazement.

"I'd clap but I'm afraid I'd fall," Elsa replied, holding with both hands to the front of the saddle.

"It's a gentle one," Anna said. She had made damn sure of it. The mare was old, almost ready for her retirement in the front stables, and good-natured and used to being ridden by strangers.

Elsa looked down at the leather straps in her hands. "How do I…?"

Anna smiled. "How many cowboy movies did your father show you?" she asked, keeping her eyes on Elsa.

"Enough to know I didn't like them much," the queen admitted. "But I do remember you say 'whoa' to do something."

Anna smiled. "That's for stopping. But the rest isn't so hard, not with these horses." She tugged the reins and trotted her horse out of the barn, and turned back. "Try squeezing gently on it's flank with both calves."

"Won't that hurt her?"

You wonderful person. "No, they're tough."

Anna watched as Elsa did so and the old mare gently began to walk forward. She watched for that little look of thrill that everyone got the first time they got up in the saddle. There was a special joy in sitting up on a real saddle on a real horse, and feeling in total command of the huge beast underneath you.

"Whoaaa," Elsa said, and her horse came to a halt instantly. She beamed.

"Your majesty…" Kristoff said from below them both.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Elsa said, already it seemed a little out of breath, not looking at her bodyguard but at the ranch that spread out before them, and the seemingly endless countryside spread out before her. "How far to this river?" she sked.

"Congresswoman, your majesty, if you'll wait while we get a car to-" Marshall started, but Elsa cut him off.

"No, I'm certain I'm fine. Anna knows the land, I'm sure she can guide me back. We'll be perfectly safe. After all, nobody else knows we're here. Where to?" she asked, looking directly into Anna's eyes. On top of the horse, dressed in rider's gear and with that slight flush in her cheeks, she was the most beautiful thing Anna had ever seen.

That was when Anna finally knew she had to do something, before she drove herself mad.

Something incredibly stupid.

But she had to know.


She wasn't a natural, but she was a lot better than some adults Anna had known, people who couldn't sit a horse if the horse had been lowered into a pit in the ground and tranquillized. After a few minutes of jerky bouncing Elsa managed to synchronise herself with the mare, and they had trotted at a brisk but steady pace away from the work-stables, down onto the paths between the fields that led into the southern part of the ranch. Anna could still feel Marshall glaring daggers at her back as they had left his sight. She imagined that was the way her old boyfriends had felt picking her up, when her father had all but threatened them with death if they didn't bring her home on time. Oh god, that wasn't a comparison she wanted to make right now.

She was blushing and she couldn't stop. But she wasn't going to chicken out.

She still had to do it.

"Elsa I-"

"Anna I…" Both of them stopped at once. "You first," Elsa said.

"It's not that important," Anna said, pretending to be very concerned about leading her horse down the middle of the gravel pathway. This far away from the ranch there was nothing but fields to either side of them, and at this time of year nothing much growing. The workers had already began to pack up for the night and weekend, and Anna doubted there was anyone within a good quarter-mile. She caught a flash of red in her peripheral vision and looked up as the fences took ninety-degree turns and swept away from them both as they stood side by side on the grassy and untamed field that served as the southern border for the ranch.

The river swept by below them and it was everything Anna had hoped it would be. Sometimes in the hot summers the entire thing grew stagnant and dank as the rains slowed and the upstream banks' mud slipped into the water. Today though it flowed smoothly, with that gorgeous quiet sound that people described as 'babbling' but Anna had never really been able to put a word to. The sun was setting from their right, casting the sky and the water below them with beautiful oranges and reds. The stones on the small rocky shore shone, and the still-green grasses waved in the evening breeze. If she had made a wish on a star it couldn't have looked any more perfect.

Anna's horse jinked under her, moving closer to the other horse for warmth, bringing the two women closer together. It's like a dream, she thought. "What were you going to say?" she asked.

"These few days have been a dream," Elsa said in almost a whisper as she looked out over the river. "Ever since I arrived in America and met you at that party, it feels like you've been a rock for me." Elsa took a breath. "It felt like it was keeping me going sometimes, waiting for moments like this where I could meet you again."

And the bottom dropped out of Anna's chest, just like that. Gone.

"Now what were you going to say?" Elsa asked, apparently entirely unaware she had just taken hold of Anna and squeezed.

"I wanted to apologise," Anna said as the brakes came off. She couldn't stand not knowing, she needed to clear it up.

Elsa looked away from the river that looked like it was on fire and over at Anna who was suddenly incredibly, intensely there beside her. "Apologise for what?" the queen asked.

Anna gulped down air, because she'd be damned if she was going to stutter halfway through this. "For kissing you goodbye outside the memorial, back in Washington. It was just an accident."

Elsa reached across to put a hand on Anna's shoulder, the horse underneath her feeling her weight shift and canting sideways as its rider ordered, and now they were close enough that their legs were almost touching. "Anna, you don't have to apologise for that."

The rush of relief Anna felt was almost a physical thing. "I felt so stupid." She laughed, disturbing her horse. "I just wanted you to know." She opened her mouth again but no words came out. "I…" she managed.

Elsa leaned over, closer to Anna. Far too close. When she talked it was stop-start, as if the same semi-muteness that had suddenly seized Anna was contagious, and she'd caught it. But that was impossible. People like Elsa didn't get embarrassingly tongue-tied. They were barely an inch apart now. Elsa's eyes filled Anna's world.

"I'm just so glad we could come here," Elsa whispered. She licked her lips and when next she spoke every word seemed to make the world around them go silent. "I couldn't stop thinking about you."

And suddenly it was the easiest and quickest thing in the world for Anna to lean forward that last half-inch. To close her eyes and put her lips gently against Elsa's.

Is this real?

She tasted…creamy. Like vanilla, or like how she imagined saffron tasted. Her mouth opened slightly and Anna felt Elsa's breath press against her lips and then into and down her throat. She twisted her head slightly as their noses touched, but it wasn't good enough. She wanted to press further somehow. She wanted more. She licked her lips to wet them and felt the sensation of someone else's flesh against her tongue, and in that second she wanted to press it further. She wanted to…she…wait. WAIT!

She wrenched herself backwards so fast the horse underneath her whinnied in panic and trotted backwards, and suddenly her brain was back in full control and was screaming at her and holding up her memory of the past few seconds, playing it back at her in full sensory range.

"I'M SO SORRY!" she shouted in panic as Elsa looked at her with wide eyes. Terrified eyes. Oh my god. Oh my god. What have I done!?

"Anna, please, wait!" Elsa shouted, but Anna could see the fear there in those blue orbs.

The horse underneath her, hearing the fear in it's masters voice, panicked, and it took all of Anna's concentration to avoid being thrown to the ground. Her mind beat on the inside of her skull screaming idiot, idiot, idiot like a chant. She had fucked up. Immeasurably. Catastrophically. "Elsa I'm so sorry," Anna said as she brought the beast back under control. The sunset had done its job and was already being replaced with the greys of the evening. The queen's detail would expect them soon. Fine. She took a deep breath. She couldn't fix this. But she could mitigate the damage.

She wanted to cry.

"I'm so sorry, your majesty."

"Stop saying that, please," Elsa whispered, still with that look of hurt on her face. Anna had done that, to this perfect creature that had trusted her, and she had taken that trust and abused it. Abused her.

"We should go back. I'm sor- If you want to leave I-"

"No!" Elsa almost shouted. "I want to- I mean I don't want to-"

Anna wanted to look at Elsa but the shame kept her head turned away. If she could see herself she would be bright red she just knew, and she thanked god the encroaching darkness was hiding the wetness threatening to break out around her eyes. "We should go back," she said flatly.

"I…okay," Elsa said. Even now she sounded so kind, for a wretched woman that had taken advantage of that kindness no less. "Okay."

They turned their horses around and began the slow canter back to the stables. Once or twice from her peripheral vision Anna swore that Elsa looked towards her a couple of times, but she didn't look back.

They rode in silence, until the glittering stars above were drowned out by the light being spilled out into the heavens from the huge building ahead of them. From the stances of the three people waiting there, they were less than cheerful.

"Your majesty, congresswoman," Marshall said, his tone clearly wanting to say more but keeping his mouth shut out of diplomacy. That evening Anna would have taken the tongue-lashing and accepted it without complaint.

Elsa climbed down without help, Kristoff catching her as her boots hit the dirt and she stumbled. "Thank you for the ride Anna," she said.

Anna just nodded as she stabled her mare. She turned back to see Eva, the press secretary, staring at her, with an expression on her face that could have been puzzlement or worry. "Are you alright?" the dark-haired woman asked.

"Just tired," Anna responded, and realised as she said it that she really meant it.

Eva's gaze too said that she wanted to say more, but like Marshall she turned away, back to the queen. "Everything's ready at the guest-house ma'am, if we're still staying there."

Anna's breath hitched in her lungs at the words, and she only breathed again when Elsa said I am.


She shut the door of her bedroom behind her and leaned against it, slid down to the floor until her knees were up to her chest and she had her head in her hands.

She had no idea what to do now. Or even what to think.

Anna had had boyfriends. She'd broken up with them eventually, or they had broken up with her. Her first crush hadn't liked her back. Her on-again-off-again squeeze through high-school had a wandering eye she had finally tired of. The next had needed a scholarship more than he had wanted her and they had parted on good terms. The boy she had gone to her senior prom with had simply not grown up and she had surpassed him emotionally and then professionally. Then her career. The election. Washington. After she had grown up she had simply never had the time. Sometimes she would meet men she liked and saw potential in, but she would always weigh them up against what she wanted for her life, and found them wanting in some way. She had never been desperate for company, but it was something she thought about sometimes on long nights. And of course her mother asked every time they talked.

In not a single one of those break-ups or decisions to forgo a relationship had she ever considered for a moment that it was because she was searching for goods in the wrong half of the store.

"Anna? Are you alright?" a muffled voice came from the other side of the door. "You came back very fast."

"Just really tired, mom," she said through the door, and god was that ever the truth. Not the whole truth, but she felt exhausted. She stood and almost ripped off her riding jacket, throwing it on the floor and letting it lay there.

She wondered what Elsa was doing, out there in the guest house. It was only a short drive away. If she squinted out of the window she could probably see the lights there. She- No! She couldn't think like that. Well, no, that wasn't true. She wanted to think like that, she just couldn't afford to. She had still guaranteed that Sicklemore could get his words in with the queen. Then she would leave, and most likely never come back.

But god, she didn't want it to end like this.

She didn't want it to end.

"Anna?"

"Yes mom?" Anna asked.

"If you have a minute before you turn in, there's someone here to see you." Her mother sounded…puzzled?

Anna turned and opened the door. Her mood wasn't lifted a single iota when she saw Eva standing there. Even at night the woman looked amazing. Was this the kind of thing Anna should have been searching for all along? "Yes, hello?" she said, and braced herself for the worst. Yes, congresswoman, we're just here to say that unfortunately we won't be able to stay for-

"Well, good evening to you too Anna," Eva said. The older woman stared at Anna for a second, and then a lop-sided grin broke out on her face. "It seems like the ride took quite a bit out of you, you look like a ghost."

She couldn't muster the energy to smile back. "It did, I'm sorry. Is everything alright? Is there anything we can do for you?" God, but she just wanted to collapse into-

"Yes. Can you spare a half-hour?"

"When?" she asked. " Wait, right now?"

"Right now," Eva said with a nod.

Anna reached down for her jacket and put it on as they descended the stairs that led to the main foyer. Well, maybe she just wants to say she's leaving personally. If she…hold on. She stopped as she spotted someone in the hall. "Marshall?"

And yes, there he was. The main agent of the queen's protective detail stood in the lobby, without his queen. The huge man turned and looked up at her like she was an irritant who had stepped in his way while walking, which for him was as a frown that would have given a professional boxer pause. That was nothing though compared to the glare he shot at Eva. Professional boxers would have ran.

"I know you're tired, thanks so much," Eva said, pointedly not looking at the hulking security man as they passed him and left through the front door.

"What's going on?" Anna asked in confusion born of tiredness glancing back to see Marshall standing by the mansion's doors, not following them. Wasn't it illegal or something for the Secret Service to just wander away from their bosses?

"Better if she explains it herself," Eva said, as they walked towards the small jeep. She gestured at the driver's seat. "Do you mind?"

"Sure." Anything to distract me, Anna thought as she climbed in and started the engine up. Technology was so much easier to handle than people. Maybe if they'd been in separate cars instead of horses she wouldn't have gotten close enough to do something so stupid. She pulled out violently enough to make Eva grab the edge of the door frame and look at her in surprise. "Sorry." They passed the rest of the trip in silence, as the mansion receded behind her and the smaller lights ahead of them grew bigger little by little as they approached the guest-house, night now wrapped entirely around the ranch.

"Are you alright, Anna?" Eva asked from the seat beside her. Anna had used the excuse of having to drive to keep quiet and her eyes away from the other woman but really she could have driven this route with her eyes closed.

"I'm fine, just tired," she replied.

"This shouldn't take long," came the reply as Anna rolled the jeep to a gentle stop. She saw a black shadow detach itself from the wall and transform itself into Kristoff Bjorgman.

"Hey Anna. You look like I feel."

Anna still had the enthusiasm for a small smirk. "Then I'll send flowers to your parents after the funeral." Her eyes glanced sideways to the door. "So what's…I mean…"

Kristoff shrugged. "She just wanted to talk, she said something had been bothering her since Washington and she wanted to get it off her chest before it could ruin the weekend.

It's already ruined, Anna thought automatically, but suddenly there was a small glint of hope in the blackness of her soul. Forgiveness, so soon? "Is it okay if I…?"

Kristoff gestured. "Go right in?"

Eva moved past Anna to stand next to Kristoff. "Errr…"

"Just you."


She stepped over the threshold and almost jumped out of her skin as the door latched behind her. Lock it down and get this over with.

"Hello?" she asked. The response came a second later as she heard Elsa speak. But it didn't sound like Elsa. It didn't sound like the warm and confident royal that Anna had liked so much from the first time they had met. It sounded like a scared teenager hearing an unfamiliar stranger in her house.

"Through here," the voice said.

Elsa turned as Anna walked into the room and she stopped dead just over the threshold. Any confusion about her situation was blown out of her head instantly the second Elsa's eyes met her own. She had changed back into the off-white skirt-and-shirt combination she had arrived at the ranch in and it swirled around her as she looked into Anna's eyes. The warm light gave her platinum hair an almost golden glow that made her braid look like a glittering waterfall down her back. She was truly beautiful.

"Elsa I-"

"Please just let me talk," the queen said, so fast Anna barely heard pleasjusletmetalk, as she stepped forward to meet Anna in the middle of the room. It took all of Anna's willpower not to flinch backwards as Elsa came close. Too close. As close as they had been when Anna had kissed her.

"Elsa I-" Anna tried again, but was overrun by the words that came from the queen like a dam had burst.

"What you said made me feel happier than I've felt in a very long time," Elsa said, leaning forwards the same way Anna had back by the river, and this time she really did flinch.

"I don't understand," Anna said, her mind only capable of thinking; again. Again only a breath apart. Again Anna could feel Elsa's everything near her. The cobalt-blue eyes that she felt like she could fall into and be swallowed up by. The flawless porcelain skin that Anna wanted to reach up and brush a hand down. The slight breath that tickled at her senses like a maddening caress.

"Did you mean it?" Elsa asked, her hands clasped at her chest. Anna could see the gloves moving as Elsa rubbed her hands together. Elsa nervous? Impossible.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you," Anna said, and she didn't know if she was repeating herself or asking if that was what Elsa was referring to. But she meant it. God, did she mean it.

The words seemed to have an almost physical effect on Elsa. She swallowed and Anna saw every detail of the motion. The way her lips parted slightly, the way her throat moved, the way the light shifted against her skin. "I wasn't upset," the queen whispered.

And this time it was Elsa who leaned forward that final half-inch, and placed her lips against Anna's.