For disclaimers, please see part one.

Warnings:
FEELS and icest, though the latter is more of the 'subtly hinted at as being maybe-possibly-barely on the horizon' variety (this might actually be the most innocent thing I've ever written o.0). Overall, this fic is also quite bittersweet (see: 'feels'), so watch out for that.

Enjoy, all the same. :)

Deck the Halls


Some of Anna's fondest memories from her childhood were those from the times near christmas. Mama would teach her how to craft her own decorations (folded hearts and stars, lumps of clay hidden beneath pine branches, candles and twigs of holly), and Papa would sit in his large chair and watch them with a smile while he read aloud from a book of short, seasonal stories. Special enough in its own right, but made all the more so by the fact that Elsa would usually join them – a rarity that Anna had only recently understood the cause for. She wouldn't say much, but instead sit quietly across the table, focused on her own creations and only rarely looking up at all, much less directly at Anna.

But she was there, still; scant feet away for what sometimes turned out to be hours, and Anna would watch her work and wonder what kind of magic it was that let her sister create the perfection that she did. Elsa's hands surely weren't put together any differently than Anna's own, and yet where Anna usually ended up with jagged edges and clay in her hair, Elsa was spotless and her results utterly flawless. The year Elsa turned eleven, she spent the entire season working on a single thing – twenty elongated triangles of paper in which she cut minuscule, meticulous patterns, and Anna was mesmerized but had no idea what it was even supposed to be until the project was done.

Elsa had seamlessly glued the pieces together at the edges, and the end result – after a favor from a local silversmith and a fine coating of shimmering, tiny metal shavings – had been a hollowed out, five-pointed star that shone gold and silver and refracted the light from any angle. It was large enough to safely hold a tiny candle in its center, sturdy enough – thanks to the metal – to have a spiral of flexible gold added to it, and it had been sitting at the top of the royal family's own christmas tree ever since.

Anna's own decorations never did manage to measure up to Elsa's, but Anna never cared. To her mind, any theoretical competition between them was won by her due to the simple fact that at least around christmas, she got to see her elder sister beyond a glimpse in hallways. Even now, the smell of freshly cut pine was enough to have all those moments running through her head as if they happened only yesterday.

The tradition, however, died with their parents.

xXxXx

Elsa had long been a little torn when it came to christmas. The childish wonder at the magic of the holiday faded fast once she started having to hide her own magic (and herself), and most of the fun disappeared as well when her focus shifted from playing with Anna to protecting her. Still, at least during the christmas season, she was able to spend time around Anna, even if the time wasn't truly spent with her. She could be in the same room as her little sister and have both of them be occupied enough that she didn't have to worry as much, and could – from the corner of her eye – watch Anna just be Anna. She could see her happy smile and the glue and dye and clay that tended to end up dotting her face and hands and hair more often than not, hear her ooh and ah when their mother taught her something new, or squeal in excitement when she finished a project of her own.

More than anything, Elsa could forget – if only for a few, stolen moments – that she almost cost her family the life of its youngest member. Their parents never blamed her; Elsa knew that well. But of course, they never needed to. She blamed herself enough.

The year Elsa turned thirteen – when Anna was thus halfway through her ninth year ('I'm half ten!', she'd insist) – was the first time that she'd almost lost the iron control she'd spent the past five years developing. It had been a particularly cruel reminder of how closely linked her powers were with her emotions, because when Anna had stood next to her at the table and offered up the prettiest of all the folded figures she'd made that entire month... God above, she had almost frozen over the entire castle from sheer guilt.

"Elsa?"

She'd been so startled that she'd almost pulled the tiny, sharp blade clean through the paper she was cutting so carefully. Being in the same room as Anna was one thing. It was, however, another situation entirely to suddenly have her little sister standing so close that they were almost touching, and based on the sudden way in which Anna's eyes widened and then lowered in shame when Elsa's head shot up, it showed.

'Run!' her mind screamed while she just sat there and couldn't move. 'Run, you monster, before you really do kill her!'

She was halfway ready to, really. Had, in fact, already tensed in preparation for standing and excusing herself, but Anna... Anna had this look in her eyes that Elsa utterly detested on sight. A half-sad, half-hopeful expression that tugged at the corners of her mouth as she shuffled her feet and only barely dared to even glance up. It was such a fearful look for such an instinctively brave soul; it had absolutely no business intruding on Anna's usually so cheerful face, and Elsa was not going to let herself be guilty of aiding and abetting that look on top of everything else.

"Yes, Anna?" she therefore said, and found a smile somewhere when Anna stared at her with wide, excited eyes, even as she wondered if her voice shook as much as she thought it did. And how long it had been since they'd last held each other's gazes for this many seconds.

Anna really did have the prettiest eyes – especially when she was happy.

"Here!" With a wide, far less hesitant smile, a folded star (with a few bent edges, but that just stamped it as Anna's work) was offered to her in two small, freckled hands, and Elsa hesitated for only the briefest of moments before accepting it with her own careful (gloved) fingers. "It's the best I've made!" Anna proclaimed proudly, and then frowned. "It's not as pretty as your things, though."

No, maybe it wasn't, Elsa thought. But it was undeniably of Anna's making – marked by cheerful enthusiasm much more so than by calculated caution – and she treasured it.

"It's pretty because you made it," she offered in somewhat shy return, and wanted to cry at the beaming smile that earned her. "Um..." Uncertain, she glanced to the small stack of decorations that she'd completed herself. "Do you... want one of mine?"

"Can I?" Anna sounded almost breathless. Was, in fact, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she looked to the table, to Elsa and back again. "Really?"

"Sure," she confirmed, and very carefully did not clench her hands around the star they still held as Anna took the straightest possible path and crawled onto the table itself by way of Elsa's lap.

She was so fearless, Anna was, and Elsa wondered for anything but the first time what it was that made Anna want her presence as much as she seemed to sometimes, because she really didn't have anything to add to any of her sister's experiences. She was... just Elsa, while Anna was everything anyone could ever hope to be. Kind and warm and helpful, eternally positive by nature and infectiously emotive to the point where even Elsa smiled at the sight of an upheld, folded heart where the interweaving strips formed stars. Anna questioned with no more than the look in her eyes, and Elsa responded in the exact same way.

Her heart all but leapt from her throat when Anna dove into her arms and wrapped her up in a surprisingly strong hug for someone so small, but the gloves meant that she sent only the thinnest layer of frost creeping around the edges of the star – which she'd thankfully managed to move out of the way – and that was easily enough removed without Anna being any the wiser.

'Don't you dare deny her this,' she firmly told herself and – after a halfway fearful glance to her mother's misty-eyed smile and her father's gentle understanding – carefully folded her arms around her little sister in turn and allowed her cheek to rest against soft, copper hair as she closed her eyes. 'Right now, she loves you. Let her.'

And damn it all, she could at least give Anna this one moment. It might be the last one they'd ever have.

The hours spent quietly in Anna's company during christmastime had come to a sudden, painful stop the year their parents had died. Anna hadn't offered (why would she? She buried them alone) and Elsa hadn't asked (how could she? She had no right). Yet, every morning on the day after her birthday, Elsa would find something slipped into her room from beyond her closed door. A folded heart, a papercut star, a garland made from the tiniest pieces she'd ever seen... But after completely losing two of three, Elsa hadn't dared return the favor for any of them.

Anna had to be safe. She had to.

xXxXx

Anna wasn't really sure what she was doing. She was at least pretty sure that it was kind of stupid, but not stupid enough for her to just stay her whimsical butt in bed instead of wandering down night-darkened, winter-chilled hallways at way too early in the morning.

Ah, well. She gently nudged open the door to the queen's chambers and peeked around the frame, and then promptly rolled her eyes at the sight of the very awake occupant. Elsa was dressed for bed – even in bed – only she was sitting up with a book in her hands in the gentle glow of the single lamp, with her hair loose and spilling over her shoulders in soft waves as she read.

"Do you ever sleep?" Anna wondered as she entered without any further preamble, and closed the door quietly enough behind her for a soft chuckle to be audible.

"Do you?" Elsa returned reasonably, with one corner of her lips quirking as she settled a strip of fabric between two pages and silently closed the small tome in her hands. "Aside from in the late mornings, I mean."

"Har har." The low laugh made her smile all the same, and she crossed over to the bed to perch on the edge of it. "You do sleep though, right?"

"Yes." The sky-blue eyes rolled in fond exasperation, and Elsa's lips shaped an easy, half-grin. "I even do so at night," she went on, and pulled her duvet-covered knees up enough for her to loosely wind her arms around them. "Though I don't need as much, these days. It might be the weather."

Anna sent a brief glance towards the large window and the snow-covered sill outside. "You mean, you're getting energy from the cold?"

"Maybe." The silk-clad shoulders shrugged once, and Elsa curled enough to rest her cheek on her knees. "It's not beyond the realm of possibility."

"Yeah, well." She flopped onto both her own back and – judging by the bumps she could feel – her sister's feet. "Nothing is, where you're concerned."

Elsa gave her a look, and poked out the very tip of her tongue. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"As you like, Your Majesty."

"Why thank you, Your Highness." The reply was quite possibly the driest Anna had ever heard. "May I infer from that that you came here solely to toy with me?"

"You may not." Anna turned up her nose – as well as she could, at least, given the fact that she was currently lying down. "In fact, I'm here to-" And now she could feel the heat rising to her cheeks as well as the suddenly curious look she was getting from those blue eyes, and sighed. "Well, it's dumb, really but-" She fished the small object from the side pocket in her robe, and closed her eyes as she held it out. "Here."

"A Christmas ornament?" Elsa's voice was strangely soft, and the cool fingers that brushed against Anna's palm when they claimed the tiny, folded paper star were almost trembling.

"Yeah, well..." She cracked one, cautious eye open and watched the tiny tugs at the corners of her sister's eyes and mouth. "Tradition, y'know? Like I said, it's probably dumb, but... habit, right?"

Elsa just watched her for long, silent moments, and then there was a faint, upwards pull at the corner of her mouth that curled her lips into the gentlest smile Anna thought she had ever seen.

"Elsa?"

"Come with me," her sister asked as she slid free of the covers and stood, and kept the silly little ornament safely held in one, bare hand while she extended the other to Anna. "Please."

Anna rose because she couldn't imagine ever turning Elsa down for any reason, and let herself be led down familiar hallways with her fingers safely twined with her sister's. She decided for anything but the first time that Elsa's cooler skin was a bit of a blessing in disguise, because whenever they held hands, her own always seemed to grow clammy. Why, she couldn't quite pinpoint, but she guessed that it was because everything with Elsa was at once both so new and so hauntingly familiar – every moment between them was so sweet that it ached, and everything that brought them closer left her both breathless and uncommonly tongue-tied.

It felt wonderful, and when a very familiar door was pushed open and she was tugged into Elsa's darkened, childhood bedroom, also more than just a little surreal.

A sentiment Elsa seemed to share, apparently, because she took all of two steps into the room itself before pausing. "I'm sorry it took so long."

"Better late than never." Anna gave the hand in her own a gentle squeeze before releasing it entirely, because the room was pitch black when the door closed behind them, and if anyone was to know where a working lamp could be found, chances were very much in Elsa's favor.

"Mm," was all Elsa gave in reply, but Anna had learned the inflections in her voice well enough over the past months to interpret it - even when it came mixed with the sound of a match being lit.

"Hey." She found a silk-covered shoulder in the flickering light, and studied the way that the red glow of the match turned those eyes almost violet when Elsa looked up. "Stop it. It's in the past."

"Mm." The tone was different this time, and Anna gave the shoulder under her hand a little rub as Elsa sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry, it's just- there are so many things I wish I could change."

"And I get that," Anna promised softly, and claimed the match between careful fingers because she could see the lamp in the faint light. "There's a lot of things I'd like to change, too. For one, I'd have liked to have gotten my hands on a battering ram and just beaten this door down." She grinned at the wick as she held the match to it and heard Elsa snort behind her. "But we can't. So we might as well move forward and do it together."

"As long as we get to bring our past with us in some ways." The familiar voice was coming from an odd direction, and after turning up the wick a little higher to strengthen the flame, Anna turned to see Elsa halfway under her childhood bed. "Such as-" A grunt, and the violet-covered body was back in full view, along with a medium-sized, ornate wooden chest. "-this."

"'This'?" She watched curiously as Elsa got to her feet and lifted the chest onto the bed, and wondered if the red tint to her sister's cheeks was due to exertion or embarrassment for all of two seconds before the chest was unclasped, upended, and left a massive pile of paper... things spreading over the covers like a particularly colorful pile of sand.

"This," her sister confirmed around a sigh, and sorted carefully through the stack before collecting a single item and stepping back over to Anna. "Was this intentional?" she then wondered with a slight smile, and held up both of her hands. In each was a small, folded paper star – one that Anna knew well because she'd made it all of maybe three hours ago, and the other... the other took a few seconds, but when it finally clicked, Anna had to cover her mouth with one hand to keep from sucking in so much air that her lungs burst.

"Elsa, that's-"

"The first one you gave me," her sister finished quietly. "The rest of them are in there, too."

"I didn't make that many," Anna muttered a touch dumbly, and took the old, surprisingly pristine ornament between trembling fingers. "Did I?"

"No." Elsa's chuckle was a little wan. "Not for me, at least. Some of them are yours that Mama or Papa brought to me, and some of them..." She sighed. "A lot of them, really, are mine. Ones I made for you, but... never gave you."

"Why not?"

"I..." Elsa's eyes dropped. "I suppose I just didn't dare to."

"You didn't dare?" Anna was well aware of the fact that her voice was not only deepening, but starting to tremble with scarcely suppressed emotion. "Dare?! For all those years I thought that y- that I somehow did someth- and you didn't dare?!" she demanded, and only at the last second reminded herself to set the fragile paper down gently instead of with a smack. "How in the hell-"

"Because I was scared." Elsa's voice was very soft, and the hand that came up to cup Anna's cheek was hesitant, though she wasn't anywhere near foolish enough to push it away. "The longer I took, the more frightened I became, and the more frightened I became, the harder it was for me to convince myself to reach out to you in return."

"Dammit, Elsa! Don't you underst-" She cut herself off before her voice rose too high, and pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead as she took a purposeful, slow breath. "I was the absolute last person you should have been scared of," she whispered hoarsely.

"No." The negation was soft, but firm, and the only thing that stopped Anna's temper from flaring too brightly was the sensation of careful fingers curling around her own hand and cradling it. "You were the very first." Elsa's eyes were deep and blue and apologetic, and her half-smile oddly wistful. "Because you were the only one whose opinion of me truly mattered. You still are."

On some level - several, actually - Anna could understand that, but... "Ungh," she groaned, and butted her forehead lightly against her sister's with a scowl. "You're an idiot."

That earned her a low, wry chuckle. "On that, we agree."

"Hrmph." She stuck out her tongue in exchange for another smile – warmer this time, somehow – and then just let their foreheads rest against each other with a sigh while their fingers twined between them. It was late, she was tired and by all rights she really should be feeling totally exhausted right now, but she wasn't. She just felt... tranquil, almost, she decided, and moved forward into an easy embrace that had her arms winding around Elsa's shoulders while Elsa's settled around her waist in return. Easy and simple and right and lingering and-

God, she'd missed her all those years. Missed this.

"You think we can fit them all on the tree?" Anna wondered halfway to herself as she studied the pile, and felt something inside her warm like a large rock under sunlight when Elsa's arms remained exactly where they were.

"We could always have another one brought in," was the pensive comment after a few seconds, followed by a soft hum of consideration and a single nod. "I'll talk to Kai in the morning."

It was an utterly preposterous notion – who on earth had two christmas trees? - and yet, it was so incredibly fitting. One for each of them, for two distinct lives lived so very separately. Two trees decorated with bits and pieces from what little shared past that they had, and with ornaments made by both of them on each, to symbolize their growing closeness and the re-entwining of their lives. It was perfect, and the sheer rightness of the idea filled Anna's chest to the point of bursting – to where she could either cry or laugh, but she had to do something to release the emotion or she was simply going to pass out.

There was a single instance of a hiccuping, half-sob as she tightened her hold and all but sank into her sister's arms, but overall, Anna chose to do the latter. And it took less than handful of heartbeats before Elsa's halfway-watery, halfway-relieved laughter joined her own.

Next year, Anna vowed within the privacy of her own mind as Elsa's lips dusted a kiss to her cheek and gentle fingers curled around the back of her neck, they wouldn't need two trees. Though a bigger, single one might be a good idea unless they wanted the poor evergreen to be crushed under the weight of the decorations alone.

"Merry Christmas, Elsa," she murmured into her sister's shoulder, and felt a soft breath stir the hairs at her temple.

"Yes, it is," Elsa agreed, and there was a soft smile pressing against the side of Anna's face. "Merry Christmas, Anna."

xXxXx

Notes:
Ouch.

I pulled a couple of things from my upbringing in terms of the few traditions I've referenced – most notably how late the tree is decorated (which I don't think is terribly common, but feel free to correct me). In my family, that's always done on the evening of December 23rd, so guess what I'll be doing tomorrow? Or later today, local time.

(I'd say I'll be driving my brothers crazy, but all of us are equally anal when it comes to dispersing the ornaments evenly. Mom left the task to us three stooges years ago – now she just snickers from the sidelines while we pass a single piece of tinsel back and forth for ten minutes. Nyuk nyuk nyuk!)

Written for Elsanna Week, day two on 122214 – Deck the Halls.