Author's Note: Alas, this fanfiction has been bumped back to the top of my profile page!
I thank all of you for your tremendous patience as I went through the final semester of college. There was so much going on, I could hardly stop to think about this fic. But I've gotten back to it, and my most recent writing was so long, I decided to cut it into a double update. This is the first part. The second will hopefully come out within the next few days.
Three weeks later they were back in Anna's garage, making progress on their little widget. They had chosen one of Rapunzel's many blueprints for the robot, and were finished with most of its wiring. The garage door was open, letting in the late winter air. It was to keep them moving, Merida had said, to get their productivity flowing.
As they shuffled around the cement floor, Vanessa worked on her laptop near the door to Anna's house. She was in a black wicker chair she'd pulled out from the clutter in the garage, dusting off the cobwebs until it was as good as it would get. She tapped the keyboard idly while the others worked, updating their campaign blog.
"So what does this website of yours entail, exactly?" Merida asked at one point while trying to map out which way a wire should go.
"It's talking about our involvement with the competition and that we might do events if we get funding or recommendations."
"Don't really get the point, when I'm already paying for supplies and it's the judges who decide the winner," Merida muttered to herself as she turned the robot onto its side.
Vanessa kept going as if Merida's statement was too inconsequential to be paid any attention. "We'll see where the plan takes us," she decided. "But it will be more fun for our supporters if they get updates on what we're doing. I already said we'd do photos and videos when I was asking around—"
"You said what?"
"So people are interested in the team. Right?"
Vanessa's face was not challenging but innocent, one eyebrow raised as she awaited a response. Anna watched with Rapunzel as Merida rose to her knees and stared at Vanessa with an unusual cloud of emotion in her eyes. But she said, "Right," and went to looking quietly at Rapunzel's blueprint.
Vanessa nodded, an appreciative gesture in the flutter of her eyelids. When she slid out her iPhone to take photos of the crew they did not protest, hunching at their spots on the floor to focus on their robot. Anna felt a hotness creep up her neck at each snapshot as Vanessa posed around them. At the fourth click Anna started moving her head down so the camera couldn't record her face. A minute later Vanessa lowered the phone. "Okay, I think we should do a group shot of you standing."
Metal scraped across the floor as the three got to their feet. "The robot too," and Anna bent down to get it. "Good," said Vanessa, raising the phone again.
Merida waved Anna to the middle. Anna grunted in surprise and quickly shuffled between her and Rapunzel. She turned to Vanessa, uneasily showing her teeth. One side of the robot had not been completely attached, and the casing swung by the hinges until the final screw popped out. The metal hit the floor with a crash, making them cringe. Anna rotated the robot. They smiled. The flash went off.
Later while they were cleaning, Vanessa went outside to receive a call. A few seconds after she left the garage Rapunzel leaned to Anna and said, "I really wish she wouldn't do that."
"Oh really?" said Merida, like it would have been absurd to think any other way. She sat on the hood of Mrs. Arendelle's blue Prius, dropping loose screws into a Ziploc bag. "Well, you know Vanessa anyway," Merida went on. "Whatever you're doing, she has to be a part of it."
Rapunzel looked down. Anna was still on the floor, putting the robot into a small cardboard box. She didn't say it, but there was a twinge of guilt in her stomach. They'd let her take the photos, but Vanessa didn't get angry when Anna hid her face from the camera lens. So did she have the right to be upset?
The next Friday some people gave head nods and waves to Anna in the halls, but for the most part she was ignored. She supposed the website hadn't got much attention yet.
She sprang from her desk after English to go to lunch, Merida following behind. They checked on Rapunzel, who had packed her things slowly in her seat. She didn't make eye contact with them.
"She didn't chew you out that badly, did she?" said Merida, flicking her head to Mrs. Wanda at the whiteboard. "At least, not any more than usual."
"No," said Rapunzel. She stood and shifted her gaze to the wall, rubbing the straps of her bag. "My grandmother's really upset about my grades," she said. Her eyes flickered down as her voice became quieter. "She asked me if I wanted to be a starving artist on the street. I said no, and she said I was on my way because I've never proven I can do anything besides…" she swallowed, "making pretty pictures on cheap canvas."
"Typical Gothel," Merida said darkly as Anna patted Rapunzel's shoulders.
Rapunzel eased the strap farther up her shoulder. "She's refusing to let me do any school-related stuff that's not academics. I told Vanessa this morning, she saw me at the courtyard looking really upset. So she offered to tutor me after school when I'm normally in art club. She said it might be better to meet for the first time at lunch, since she's leaving today to spend the weekend at a relative's."
"So away from all the distractions," said Merida, and Anna knew what it meant.
Rapunzel nodded meekly. "We're going to the computer lab. Sorry, but I really need the grades."
They were the only students still in the room. They filed past Mrs. Wanda's scrutinizing glare out the door into the school's main stairwells. Posters for upcoming events were taped along its walls. Anna and Merida stopped two floors down, where the entrance to the Commons lay. Rapunzel waved a weak goodbye and continued towards the sub-basement. When the sound of her shoes faded, Anna and Merida turned to each other.
"This is what I mean about Vanessa," Merida said. "It doesn't matter what we think, she just goes ahead and does what she wants."
"She thinks it's for the best," said Anna, but there was a shred of doubt in the back of her head, that same grinding hook she sensed that day with Kristoff at the arcade. She lifted her head, saw Merida poised upright with her arms crossed. "Okay, so maybe sometimes I do wonder if she's controlling," said Anna, and it surprised her how much she meant it.
Merida flung her arms to the sky in mock reverie. "You've figured it out. The things you learn day by day."
"I still think we should get her a chance," Anna murmured.
"We've given her lots of chances. But how's about this," said Merida. She pointed at Anna. "We lay down the law, real hard. Rapunzel, too. We tell Vanessa that we think she's interfering with our lives and that we want to make our own choices. She can't ignore three of us saying the same thing, right?"
The lack of conviction returned. "Right."
"Come on, Anna. You need to do something for yourself for once. And this is a start." Merida beckoned her forward. "Now come on, let's see if we can nab anything from the lunch line before we have to resort to the vending machines."
She took Anna by the wrist, and the last thing Anna glimpsed as they tore down the empty staircase was a flyer advertising the upcoming spring dance taped to the wall.
From the corner of her eye, Elsa saw Anna and Merida stumble into their lunch table forty minutes into the hour. They must have been worried about the time because they ate their salads incredibly fast, leaving a quarter of time left at the end. Elsa watched Anna slump beside her tray, rotate her head slowly to the clock between the staircases, and hit her head on the table. She and Merida didn't move for a few minutes.
Elsa wondered where the others were. It didn't seem polite to ask, so instead when she saw Anna at her locker at the end of the day, she walked over and said, "I got a B-plus on my last history quiz."
She saw Anna pause before turning around, biting back a sharp breath. "Great!" Anna said, after catching herself. Elsa twiddled with the strap of her purse, smiling.
They headed down the hall. The school was nearly empty with such a short time before the buses left, only a few errant students dashing from faraway classrooms. When they passed the bulletin board by the administration office, Anna stopped. Elsa looked back, confused.
It looked as though Anna was trying very hard to word something. Elsa could see the gears turning as her mouth rolled. Her eyes circled to the wall before finally switching to Elsa. She spoke.
"You're not…doing anything on the night of the dance, are you?"
Elsa was stunned, and couldn't reply. She could see Anna shift into a panic mode. "I mean, if you were doing something then that's fine, I mean, I thought I'd ask, since it's a fun school thing, andmeridaandrapunzelandme have gone every school year, partly because we like to dress up for whatever theme the staff decided, though I don't think Rapunzel's grandmother will let her go this year because of her grades, and I've never brought a date, at least not to the spring dance since I haven't dated anyone at this school, but if you weren't doing anything and if you're free, you know, you can come with me, on a friends basis, or maybe even a study partner basis, because we haven't hung out that much so I don't know if we'd be considered fr—"
"I'd love to come," said Elsa.
Anna's rambling immediately cut off. "Wait. You would?"
"Yes," Elsa repeated, and the shock that flooded through her gave way to elation. "Yes!" she said. "Yes! I'll go."
Anna jolted, and there was an involuntary rustle in Elsa's feet. "Wait, wait, hang on!" Anna said, as relieved smiles burst from their faces. "Hang on." She rushed to the billboard. "Okay, so it says this year's theme is the early 1900s."
"We could go in flapper hats," said Elsa.
"Flapper hats…that's the 20s, right?"
"Right!"
"The 1920s! That's a plan," said Anna, stepping toward the school's front doors as she maintained Elsa's gaze. "Dance starts at 6 on Sunday. Meet you at the courtyard?"
"At the courtyard," said Elsa.
"All right! Awesome! See you then!"
"See you then!" said Elsa, and Anna bolted outside. The voices of their peers outside faded as the large double doors closed back in. Elsa was alone in the lobby, standing by the administration office. The weight of her commitment sank in. Her feet shook, almost unnoticeably, before her entire body shuddered. She went to her car and drove home. At the door she greeted her mother, trying hard to keep down the squirms. Her grin was still too wide. "The upcoming dance has an early 1920s theme," she said. "Can I go?"
It was an easy answer; her mother was delighted she decided to attend a large social event. "You must really like the flapper style," she said, giving Elsa a wry look.
Elsa nodded, trying not to wince once the thoughts started swelling. They squeezed down to build in her chest as she did homework at the kitchen table. By the time she got up it felt like she'd been crammed into a bottle. She couldn't keep still, so she gathered her textbooks and headed to her room. The books went on the shelf next to her ceramic statue of a church. She placed her hand on the shelf's wooden surface to stand. Dimly in her mind she felt something was wrong. She turned around regardless, toward her closet.
She hesitated, and then stumbled in her fervor to reach it. Elsa giggled to herself as she flung open the closet door, arms and waist shaking in delight. She pulled out her vintage clothing from the back hangers, one by one, to find a good combination. It half-crossed her mind she might call Anna to coordinate a match, but even if she had Anna's number she couldn't bring herself to pick up the phone, she was so excited. At the end of her planning session she flung her outfit of choice on top of her bed and fell back beside it, delightfully terrified.