Chapter 9.
Anna woke up when someone shook her shoulder softly for the fifth time. She didn't want to get up just yet, so she mumbled something while hitting the back of the hand that was touching her as if trying to scare away some annoying fly. The hand retreated, but then it returned to its previous spot, together with another hand that was now shaking her at her waist.
"Five more minutes." She murmured after a yawn.
The shaking became harder and harder until Anna had no option but to wake up. She rolled to her back and opened her eyes to meet the amazing view of the sky above her. No. It wasn't the sky. It was a pair of icy blue irises looking at her. She's seen those eyes before, and they had always had the same effect upon her; her cheeks blush, her breath becomes erratic and her heart starts racing like crazy. However, this effects seemed to intensify because of the closeness. They were so unusually close to hers that it even caused a warmth spread between her legs.
Seriously? Am I all turned on just because a simple stare?
"H-hi." Anna managed to say. "D-did you need something?" Elsa shook her head. "Oh… then what are you doing in my room?"
Elsa giggled softly putting a hand over her mouth. The sight was so cute that Anna couldn't help but swallow, trying to calm her nerves. Then, the most rational part of her brain asked herself why was the girl giggling. Anna looked around her and suddenly noticed she wasn't in her room, but in the corridor outside Elsa's door. The irony suddenly hit her and she started giggling as well.
"I'm glad to see you're alright. I was worried when I heard you screaming last night. Was it another nightmare?"
Elsa's eyes, moments earlier happy, abruptly turned into saddened ones, too much pain reflected in them, and Anna almost cursed herself for making her feel bad. She was tempted to change the subject and make her smile again, but she was curious and maybe it could do some good for Snowflake to talk… er… express somehow what she was feeling.
Anna then made a motion to sit and Elsa moved away from her a little to allow her some space so their heads didn't collide.
"They aren't just nightmares, are they?" Elsa turned away her gaze, as if no wanting to answer this. "They're memories."
Elsa moved a hand to her heart, wrapping it's waist with the other. Apparently the mere thought of those nightmare-memories made her feel real pain in her chest. She squished her eyes shut and nodded slowly. Anna was hoping to get a negative answer, but the truth hit her hard and a tight knot formed in her throat.
"Your father used to beat you."
Her voice was barely a whisper, but Elsa heard her anyways. The girl eyes became red and her expression was one of a person at the edge of tears, but not a single drop came out of the beautiful blue spheres. Anna supposed it was because she had cried all night, her eyes turning completely dry. She extended her arm trying to touch her, to give her comfort, but she stopped when her fingers where just a few inches away from Elsa's trembling body; she didn't want to cause the girl more discomfort.
"Do you… mind if I touch you?" She asked, immediately feeling silly because of the question she had just made. It's not something you usually ask to a normal person, but then again, Elsa wasn't normal.
Elsa looked her in the eyes, her stare revealing a hint of confusion and something else Anna couldn't quite define. Hope? Longing, maybe? Or she just wanted so badly and affirmative answer from Snowflake that she was reading in her expression something that wasn't there?
Suddenly Anna was evolved by a pair of slim arms, platinum blonde hair tickling her chin and hot breathing passing through the clothing of her shoulders. Anna was taken aback by this sudden contact. Sure, she had hug Elsa the day before, but she had put resistance, besides, this was the first time the blonde had initiated a so intimate form of physical contact. Anna hugged her back tightly, smiling at the girl's actions.
"I take it that you liked the hug I gave you yesterday." She said giggling a little. "Don't worry there'll be plenty more. Actually, I think I'll hug you every day for the rest of our lives if you want."
Elsa nodded, pressing her body towards hers even more.
"Okay, don't worry, I'll always be here for you." Then, remembering the screams she heard at night Anna added: "I'll never let anyone hurt you again. Never."
Elsa untangled their bodies, but kept her hands at her shoulders, and looked at her eyes very intensely, thankful and loving, and also surprised. Then she opened her mouth. Anna waited, her heart beating faster with anticipation. Was she finally going to talk? But no sound came from her throat, and a frustrated expression showed on her face. She wanted to say something, Anna could see it, but she was just incapable of doing it.
"It's OK, you don't have to say anything." She assured her.
However Elsa shook her head, her feelings being as clear as words in a book: She didn't have to, but she wanted to.
"You can write what you're thinking if you want. There's a notebook on my room, I'll go get it for you."
Elsa shook her head, stood up, ran to Anna's room and came out holding a note book and a pen. She removed the pen's cap, holding it with her teeth and making a concentrated face Anna just found too adorable, then she started writing on the note book with a little bit of difficulty because she was standing. Anna got up and went by her side to see what she was writing, and when she reached her, Elsa was just finishing and showed the weird writing to her. Despite the awkward position she had written on, the words were surprisingly understandable.
I'll protect you too.
I'll never hurt you.
I promise.
"Oh, Elsa!" Anna didn't think it twice, she just hugged her and felt a smile spread on her face as Elsa hugger her back. Her body felt so soft pressed against her, their breasts were actually touching, but she consciously tried not to think about it too much, since she wanted this to be just friendly, not sexual. She found that Elsa was taller than her, not too much, but still she was a little surprised about this because the girl always tended to bend while walking, and that, together with her arms wrapped around her torso and her innocent and harmless expression made her look smaller.
Anna was very, very happy, because this was the first time she had expressed that she cared about her. Anna found it adorable and astonishing at the same time, because to her it was incredible that a woman who had clearly went through situations that would've made other people go crazy and lose all sense of love and affection, could still have positive feelings and show them to someone, someone who she actually cared of. This made all the tiredness she had been feeling since she found the girl worth it.
Suddenly Anna heard her stomach grumbling and reluctantly pulled away, not really wanting to end the embrace.
"I think we should eat breakfast, I bet you're hungry too."
They headed to the kitchen and Anna searched at the refrigerator for things to prepare a proper breakfast, but she only found milk, butter, marmalade and eggs. She started thinking about what she could do with this ingredients and an Idea popped into her mind.
"Do you like pancakes?" She asked excitedly."
When Snowflake nodded Anna almost jumped and ran to grab the flour she had brought with her when she moved to the mansion, then she pulled out a casserole and was about to start making the dough, when she saw the girl staring curiously at every move she made.
"Would you like to help me?" She asked with a smile.
Elsa nodded and walked until she was in front of Anna, who then gave her the bowl, the flour and a cup saying:
"Here, take the flour, pour it on the cup until it's full, and then empty it on the casserole."
Elsa took the flour and did what Anna said, however she inclined the flour bag too much, making it spread on the table. She was startled by it, her eyes went wide and she looked at Anna with an apologetic gaze, but the redhead just giggled and told her:
"Don't worry, it's alright, I've done worst things at the kitchen. I remember the first time I tried to make pancakes, I was eight years old and I was in my house having a sleepover with my best friends, and I said 'Hey, why don't we make pancakes for dinner?' They all agreed, and it was so late at night that my parents were asleep and didn't notice, and I was like 'I like chocolate, let's put chocolate on the dough, and honey, and maple sauce, oh look, I found a candy, let's put it there too.'" Anna was acting as she was telling the story, only instead of pouring strange things on the dough, she was putting the right ingredients on it. It was so hilarious to see her strange faces and excitement that Elsa giggled behind her hand. This only encouraged Anna to keep going. "And then, after we had mixed the strange dough of all flavors and colors, we somehow managed to turn on the stove, put a pan on top of it and spill the dough on it, then it all started to smell like smoke and my parents walked in to find a kitchen full of children, flour, milk and some other ingredients spread on the ground, and a stove fuming because of a strange substance burning on a pan. They promptly turned the stove off and asked for explanations, and all I could come with was 'Well… it all started when a bunch of stones covered with moss came rolling and they turned into trolls and they wanted pancakes, but we tried to stop them, that's why there are so many things spilled around, however they were stronger and made that strange thing that was on the stove.' My parents obviously didn't believe me, so they punished me…"
Anna was interrupted when Elsa's eyes went wide and covered her mouth to stifle a gasp that escaped from her lips. For a moment Anna was confused about Elsa's reaction, but then she suddenly understood what was going on inside her head and quickly ran to explain it.
"No, no, no, not physical punishment like beating me or something, actually they never in my life hit me, not even once. They just made me and my friends clean our disaster, it took a bit, but finally we let the place just as clean as it was before and we were rewarded by real pancakes my mother had made, not the strange abominations I was trying to do.
Anna giggled at the memories and Elsa smiled, every hint of worriedness that was in her face before dissipated. Anna then gave her the bowl containing all the ingredients and told her to mix it with a spoon while she was preparing hot chocolate and melting some butter in a pan, to fry the pancakes on it latter.
Everything after that went just fine and they ate breakfast while Anna recounted other cooking accidents she had had on her childhood and teenage, earning a smile from the blonde every time she said something particularly funny. Anna blushed every time she saw that ever so cute beam and fought to keep herself from jumping over the girl and kiss her that very instant. Elsa looked so beautiful when she smiled that Anna made her new personal challenge to keep her smiling all day.
Anna had some things to do that day, but she wanted to spend as much time as possible with Elsa, and the only solution she could find was to make Elsa help her. First, she had to fix the little garden that was on the entrance path of the mansion, so she gave Elsa boots, gardening gloves and appropriate clothing, and found some for herself too, then she grabbed a pair of huge scissors made specially to prune the trees that were outside. Obviously no one had used the gardening tools in a while, because they were rusty and dirty.
Both girls headed to the little space full of plants and Anna looked around her wondering where to start. This was going to be a very long and exhausting day.
"So… what would you like to do first? Kill yourself trying to give form to those trees, or cut your hands by ripping off the weeds?" Elsa looked at her with a worried expression, and Anna giggled a little. "Relax, I'm just joking… kind of." She whispered the last part.
Anna decided to get rid of the weeds first, so she told Elsa to grab them from the base and pull hard to get them off of the ground. The girl was reluctant about this, not wanting to kill the poor plants who didn't have the fault of not being ornate, but Anna told her that if the weeds didn't die the others and more desirable ones couldn't grow as beautiful as they should and the garden wouldn't look that much pretty; she told her that, to achieve something, you should make some sacrifices. This, Elsa understood and promptly she was working hard, pulling weed after weed.
In one occasion, Elsa was pulling very hard from a particularly strong stem, so when it finally got out of the ground, she was propelled backwards, soil and leaves flying around her while she hit the ground. Anna couldn't help but laugh like crazy at the sight of the blonde hair becoming dirty with grass and mud and Snowflake trying to spit out a leave that somehow ended in her mouth.
Finally, after several hours of ripping off as much plants as they could, they decided to take a break and drink some water. Anna couldn't help but notice that Elsa was sweating profusely, even more than herself, and that her cheeks were extremely red and, by the way she was touching her head, she could tell that she had a huge headache. She supposed it must be partially because of the heat of the outside and partially because the girl hadn't done any physical effort in years. She felt guilty and a little bit worried that maybe it had been too much for her, but as soon as Elsa drank some fresh water, she looked considerable better and Anna didn't worry anymore.
The redhead decided not to get back to work for that day, and seeing how dirty they were, she figured they should take a bath. The previous days they had both took baths by themselves, individually, but today she thought it would be a good idea to do it together, seeing the current state of Elsa's hair (it was actually black now, because of the mud, and had many leaves attached) and the fact she didn't look quite well just moments before.
So Anna told Elsa to wait for her at the bathroom as she went to turn on the boiler. When she got into the room she was surprised to see the girl fighting to get off of her voluminous gardening clothes, getting lost inside the big things.
"Hold on, Snowflake, I'll help you." Anna said with a smile.
Then she pulled up the huge long-sleeved brown sweater, blushing a little when her fingers came into contact with bare skin, then, when Elsa was finally out of the outfit, she tried not to stare at her too much, but failed miserably.
"I-I'll fill the tub, y-you take off the rest of your clothes."
Anna then, got to the tub and opened the faucet, allowing the hot water to fall into the porcelain container, focusing hard on the drops of water just to avoid the temptation of turning her head to see the beautiful naked body behind her. She was so concentrated that when she felt someone poking her shoulder, she literally jumped up and quickly turned around, but she didn't noticed the soap laying on the floor beside her, so she stepped on it, tripping when it slipped on the wet floor, and she landed inside the tub in a very awkward position.
Anna would have felt the stinging pain on her head if she hadn't been distracted by the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. She opened her eyes, which she had closed while falling, and saw Elsa laughing. This time it wasn't just a little giggle, quiet and shy, but an actual burst of laughter, still hidden by her hand, though, but it only served to make her look cute, which together with the fact she was completely naked made her look totally ravishing.
Anna knew that if there had been any other person laughing at her in a situation like this, she would had felt offended and ashamed, and maybe even a little upset, but she just couldn't feel those things since this was the first time she had ever seen Snowflake laughing like this. She actually was proud of being the cause of Elsa's fun, well more like her clumsiness being the cause of Elsa's fun, and couldn't help but start laughing out loud as well.
They both kept laughing till their lungs couldn't take it anymore, so Anna got out of the tub, her clothes dripping and getting the floor even more damped (She hadn't close the faucet yet, and the water was now spilling off the tub), then she said:
"Okay, enough laughter for now, get into the tub."
Elsa agreed and quickly submerged her body on the water, while Anna turned the faucet off. Then the redhead proceeded to unbraid her hair, just as the first time, while Elsa took a sponge and started washing her skin, but Anna noticed she had still the rough and dirty gardening gloves on.
"Take those gloves off." She said. "They're dirty."
Elsa shook her head and continued doing her thing. Anna sighed and got up to approach to her and take off her gloves by herself, however, Elsa noticed it and quickly hided them under her legs.
"Please Elsa, you can't wash yourself with those things on your hands, they are so big and god knows what things they're stained with! They could have dog's crap for all we know!" She made a disgusted expression after that. "Besides I don't know what the big deal is, it's not as if your hands were going to attack you or me if they're not covered." Elsa looked at her with a face that was clearly telling 'That's exactly what they'll do'. "Does it have something to do with you thinking you're a monster?" Snowflake just nodded, a pained and sad expression taking place on her face. Anna sighed. "We've talked about this, you're not! What would it take to convince you otherwise?"
When Elsa didn't answer and just turned her gaze to the water to avoid looking at her, Anna knew it was useless to argue with her at the moment. After all, so many years of believing she was a monster weren't just going to disappear by simple words. So Anna gave up, instead of trying to convince the blonde otherwise, she just went out of the bathroom to find a pair of clean gloves for Elsa and returned as soon as she found them.
When she returned Elsa was staring blankly at the water, immersed in her own thoughts. Anna cleared her throat to gain her attention before speaking.
"I brought you clean gloves, so you can wash yourself without using that dirty things to cover your hands." She said while giving them to her, but seeing she didn't reach for them, she added: "Let me help you."
Elsa didn't put resistance when Anna grabbed her left arm, which now was resting over her knees, to pull the glove off. The glove has very large, so much that it covered her limb until the elbow, so it was hiding the scars that were there in her forearm. Anna hadn't seen them since the cops took off the handcuffs three days before (The handcuffs also reached till her elbow, so she didn't saw them before, and after, the girl had always used long-sleeved shirts), and apparently Elsa hadn't either, because the moment her eyes landed on them, they became wet with tears, and she was about to cry, but she quickly regained her composure enough to grab the clean glove Anna was grabbing and put it on her uncovered hand, but the glove was short and couldn't even reach the first letter of the scar.
While Elsa started crying, Anna was shocked because now she had a new perspective about this: Elsa's parents had done this, maybe even when she was only a child, and she could project perfectly in her mind a scene of a platinum blonde little girl begging to her own father, or maybe even her mother, not to hurt her. Anna started crying as well, wondering why someone would do something so horrible. What only worsened the situation was Elsa's lips forming silent words: "Papa... no". Now Anna knew exactly who had done this, and a horrible idea started forming in her head.
"Elsa… th-the dream you had last night… was it about these scars?"
She nodded and hid her head between her arms crying harder. Anna's heart broke in two and she didn't waste even one second to hold her tightly, trying to give her some comfort. The temperature descended and Anna started shivering badly because her clothes were wet, but she didn't care, at that moment she just knew that Elsa needed her, and it was all that mattered to her.
Finally, after several minutes, Snowflake stopped crying and wiped away her tears, giving an apologetic look to Anna. Anna caressed her cheek and gave her a little smile.
"Well, now that you finally stopped crying, take off your other glove and continue with your bath." She said with a soft voice, more asking than demanding."
Elsa did what she said, throwing the dirty glove on the ground and shoving her hand on the clean one Anna gave her. Of course this reveled more scars, but she was done crying for today. Anna then noticed that too much time had passed and that the water was probably almost cold right now, so she introduced her hand on the water to check on the temperature. She screamed with surprise and withdraw it quickly when she felt how cold it was, probably as cold as the water of a frozen lake.
"What the…?" She said wondering how could it have happened. There had been too much situations evolving decreasing temperatures and ice since she arrived to consider them as just coincidences, and the explanation about being near the North Mountain just couldn't cover them all. Then she saw Elsa looking totally guilty and forming words with her lips: 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry'.
Do these strange phenomena have something to do with Elsa in some way?
Yeah, of course, she could be a cryokinetic sorceress who can alter the climate. You really should sleep a little more, you're turning crazy, just look at what you're thinking!
Anna shook her head trying to get rid of those ridiculous thoughts and suddenly remembered the blonde girl was still sitting on a tub full of freezing water.
"Oh! I'm sorry!" She said taking her by her arms and helping her to stand up and get out of it. "I don't know what happened, probably just the heater being damaged, but whatever, I'll just prepare another bath for you, okay?"
Elsa nodded and Anna promptly proceeded to prepare more hot water for her.
After both girls took a bath, Anna prepared the meal and they both ate. Then Elsa went to the library to read some books and Anna, meanwhile, used her laptop to search on internet about something that could cause the drops of temperature that had been plagued the mansion all this time. She didn't find anything useful, all were either crazy explanations that recurred to paranormal activity or magic to explain it, or simple answers like the climate changing and other things like that, nothing believable.
Finally, after hours of searching, she decided she wasn't finding anything any time soon, so she went to the library to find Elsa and asked if she wanted to watch a movie with her. The girl agreed and they both sat on the sofa, in front of the T.V. watching some kids movie (Chosen by Elsa) while eating popcorns that Anna had prepared on the microwave.
One hour after, both girls fell asleep, Anna's head laying on Elsa's shoulder, because of how worn out they were due to the intense day they had had. It was a good thing, because, even if they didn't know it yet, the next day was going to be very reveling and full of emotions.
