Friday evening, the present.

Anna hated every moment she was spending here. Birthdays had once been her favourite time. But not so much now. All her friends were there. There was going to be a dinner. Ida said it was a double celebration. Anna's brother had passed his driving test as well as had a birthday. She congratulated him and put on a brave face. Everyone wanted to say hi to Anna but at times, she sometimes wished she had never been the social type in her past.

Because now it was expected of her.

There were aunts, uncles, family friends. The village of Arndell was a small space. The Carney family were amongst the most well known. Anna couldn't say why, but she had been used to it. One of those annoying legacies one was drafted into, fresh from the womb eyes still twinkling to candles.

They were all seated in the eating area. The restaurant was not overly fancy, but homely. It reminded Anna of her trip to the highlands years back. Antique things, wooden furniture. The table was frightfully cold and Anna leaned on it all the same. She was too tired for all of this. Too scared. It was cruel, to ask someone to go through this. She was not overwhelmed like Elsa sometimes was.

Rather, she was anxious. Anxious that she would piss someone off or say nothing. This arresting paralysis of thought was doing her no favours. She wanted to go back into her room. Back to comfort.

When Ida had come up to tell her the dinner out was occurring, Anna said nothing. She wanted to lock her door, to remove herself from the world so she wouldn't commit its mistakes.

That was what she hated about herself. She was frozen in terror at almost all times these days.

But over what, she had no idea.

Months before, things were the same as now, but one thing was missing. Elsa.

She was missing Elsa tonight.

February Past

It had been a school trip. The snows of winter had just melted. She remembered watching Elsa stare wide-eyed out the window at the melting snow. They were sitting next to each other.

"That's the amazing thing Anna: It's all just water. Nothing else."

"Yeah, it is pretty amazing you can get that from just water."

The trip was slow but in the end they reached the long awaited destination of the middle of nowhere. They were to go on a nature walk and photograph a certain style of plant. Anna was only more anxious when she saw that they had to go in groups.

She loved hanging out with Elsa and they agreed to go as a duo into a marshy area. She felt awful. She did it so Elsa wouldn't feel left out.

She quickly decided not to dwell on it. Why dwell on one of your better friendships, she thought.

They had wellingtons on with ill fitting jackets and all the time Elsa complained about how it felt.

"Just pull through this Elsa; we don't want your mum to get mad at you for leaving clothes again."Elsa looked into the distance.

"I'll do my best, Anna." She nodded, more for herself than Anna.

Elsa stridently stood up first and stood solidly waiting for Anna to rise herself. Elsa was looking at her. Really looking at her.

Something was off, she felt. But the older girl paid no mind. Elsa had very staring eyes that could seem almost dead. It was what lay beyond them that made her useful.

The teacher escorted the children off the bus and spoke.

"Ok, children. This whole field and the woods here are safe to travel along. Now, go in groups of two, behave yourselves and be back here by 5 o clock before it gets dark."

Elsa was reasonably motivated despite her feet feeling awful and a problem to sort out in her mind. They both liked some solitude and they rarely got to have it with each other. The pair waited a few minutes before moving, so they could avoid everyone else.

Elsa stood thinking. Anna stood dreading.

"Will we go to the woods?" Asked Elsa.

"It's up to you, Elsa."

Elsa dropped her head down for a split second.

"Oh, don't go doing that. You know I am not good with decisions like that."

Anna wasn't in a mood to doddle.

"Woods."

Elsa started striding ahead and Anna dragged herself just behind her.

"I have no idea what we are looking for."

"Don't worry Anna, I do. Plus, there's still some snow here! I'm going to collect some and see if I can take it home. I want to watch it dry."

Anna gave a false smile. "I admire your enthusiasm. Is snow your obsession thing right now?"

"Yes, it is one of them. I have little mini-ones sometimes. I'm sorry if I am boring you."

"You aren't boring me Elsa."

The red-head yawned. She didn't want to think about the true answer.

"I don't know how anyone could function on the amount of sleep I do."

"I wasn't sure if it's something you are supposed to point out but...but you have bags under your eyes and I could see you dozing on the bus. I wasn't sure what to do so I just didn't say anything."

"Thanks Elsa. I needed that nap."

Elsa was so thoughtful. In fact she was very thoughtful. She just didn't know what was meant when it was said.

Elsa: What was said was always meant and what went unsaid was never meant.

Huh. I make it seem all so simple, as if I have all of it figured out thought Anna.

Elsa came across some snow and rabidly lowered herself to look at it. Anna sat on the grass nearby. All she wanted was sleep and for this bad mood to go away. More than just bad, it was a depressing mood. All Anna could find in herself to feel was despair. She was deadweight and she knew it. And Elsa, innocent Elsa, she had no idea.

"Do you ever wonder if anyone ever died on an exact spot you are in sometimes?"

"No Elsa, I can't say I have."

It depressed her. It was a horrible day with dead trees, dead ground and Anna feeling like dead weight. She felt so wrong, out of place. Elsa was bullied everyday and never slept enough. She was obsessive and lost and everything found its way to make her confused. And yet she could lose herself to snow and seem better.

But was she really so free.?

Why was Anna not so?

"Elsa, are you happy?"

Her voice cracked as she said so.

Oh no.

Anna could feel herself tired quickly. Her brain had stopped suppressing her emotions. All the thinking about happiness, anyone's happiness, made Anna depressed by comparison. And the day they were in was getting longer, a minute was an hour away.

Anna stood up defensively, hyperventilating, and Elsa turned around and stood up herself. Something in the her mind suddenly became very sensitive. Elsa knew she needed to act. But after, yes, afterwards, she would think about.

"Anna, why are you upset?"

Elsa already decided she had messed up. A good friend would have noticed this before now. But now she could look all she wanted. Anna was holding back a tear and Elsa bore straight into her.

She saw it.

And then she had tears. Elsa told herself all of it was just water. She was not the upset one. She wasn't aware until now that anyone was upset.

But her heart felt suddenly heavier. She was panicking inside. Anna looked right at her, not daring to look anywhere else.

Oh no, no. Anna is upset. I should help her. How!? Oh no. She is getting worse.

A hug.

Elsa ignored her own tears and went after Anna's. She looked like she was about to say something but the impact of Elsa hugging her was a pleasant interruption. The next moment, in the view of the trees, the marshes and the snow, Anna bawled into Elsa's shoulder. She had won the battle of tears with gasping swiftness.

Snivelling, shaking and crying quite loudly, Elsa stoically stood and hugged her best friend. Her only friend, so tightly. Her own tears were quiet.

The words Anna tried to utter came out almost a gargle and Elsa had to force herself to listen to Anna's voice through the tears.

"I-I'm sssso sorry E-Elsa. I don't...I don't know what's with me."

Anna returned, this time to Elsa's collarbone. Elsa herself was crying, but she was much more in control. On the surface. Beneath it, she was trembling to restrain unfettered panic. She was holding up to now. At this moment, all she could think about was making sure Anna was alright.

Anna breathed deeply and spoke again, her face much redder.

"I'm just so worried Elsa. Oh god, I am s-so worried."

Elsa wasn't sure if she was supposed to stay like this, hugging hard, or give Anna space. She just knew that she really, really did not want to let go.

"Anna, do you need a moment? To think?"

Anna saw no alternative. God, I must be freaking Elsa out. Get a hold of yourself, you idiot.

Anna prised her head back far enough to look at Elsa. Elsa's eyes shifted away. Anna knew Elsa found eyes frightening to stare into. And yet, she felt Elsa feared her. That she had scared her.

"Elsa, are you alright?"

She still hadn't looked up. But for Elsa, there was no alternative.

"I am not looking in your eyes. But not because I'm scared. It is because I want to help and I want you to tell me how."

Anna said nothing, thinking over her answer. She sniffled, but it sounded like half a word.

Elsa took Anna's cheeks in her hands and raised her head. Then, against all instinct and security in Elsa's own mind, she looked Anna right in her eyes.

Those pale blue dots, leaking onto her face, were the eyes of her friend. Elsa wanted Anna to know she was not alone. That Elsa really did care and was not cold to her feelings, even if neither of them knew what was wrong. Even if it seemed like all of the universe had decided to hurt them.

Anna was awe-struck through the droll. Elsa never looked into people's eyes. Ever, as far as she knew.

"Oh my god Elsa. You brave thing, you. I hate myself for bothering you with this. I really do." She hyperventilated sharply.

Elsa's eyes lowered, evidently quite overwhelmed and for a moment they were squeezed shut. The elders own, lesser tears began to sting.

"Anna, I think you are worth quite a bit of bother. I might even say a heap of bother." Elsa's lips made a small smirk and her eyes opened.

"Thank you, Elsa. I'm just scared about the future. And about myself. I think."

Anna plopped herself down on a rock. Elsa was staring at the snow.

I stopped crying, so she stopped listening. You sad fool.

Elsa abruptly asked "What parts of the future scare you Anna?"

Have more faith. She was listening.

Anna didn't know where to begin and she felt a quiver to think of her saturated feelings. Feelings so banal and everyday now that they bored even Anna. But pain was constant and persistent, especially psychological pain.

"Does all of it count?"

Elsa was confused and took a minute to answer.

"Do feelings count? As in, numbers, or as in, that they matter? Or was that question rhetorical?"

Anna rolled her eyes at herself. She hoped to heaven Elsa did not see it.

"Yeah, sorry it was rhetorical. Well actually, more like exaggeration."

Elsa was honestly stumped over what to say. What to say to comfort the afflicted? She boggled over this often. But her loyalty to Anna ensured she would not rest until Anna was feeling better. So she sat beside Anna and placed a hand very gently, almost agonisingly so, on her shoulder. Elsa was doing her damnest to be slow and thoughtful, even maybe subtle.

"Now, now. It's ok. And if it's not, it will be. Probability demands it. Time will pass, you will see this snow turn to rain and it will make you sleepy again. You will be ok."

Anna was not all that re-assured, purple though Elsa's prosaic comfort was. Anna knew she was trying. But it was a case of a computer program uploaded to a different system. Elsa was not all that adjusted to providing comfort. Anna knew this and also wished she did not.

Hmm, then again few people ever seem to comfort Elsa. That's how you learn.

But despite it all, Anna did feel different. Not better, but different. She had been so caught in herself she was almost forgetting Elsa was there. And Elsa was there. Motionless, waiting for words to be said. Then Anna realised that's why it was so quiet.

"I hope it gets better. I do."

Elsa continued rubbing Anna's shoulder.

"Hope is easily said Anna and hardly done. You're stressed. The weather doesn't help. Cold dark weather makes low dry moods."

Anna was feeling a little eased. Elsa was right. It was a miserable day. It was part of the reason for her angst.

"Anna, what do you want to do?"

"I don't know."

"We can sit here and let you relax. I can hear birds. You like birds."

She reached into her pocket.

"And I have chocolate for you. I won't need it."

Anna smiled a tiny bit. The sight of chocolate made everything a little better.

"Are you sure, Elsa?"

Elsa made out to be displeased. "Anna, I've offered you chocolate. I wonder, does that mean I offered you chocolate?"

Anna sniffled a smile and a quick laugh. "Ok, bossy boots. I shall take your chocolate."

Elsa looked pleased with herself. "And you shall enjoy it."

"By all the gods, from Yahweh to Zeus, I shall enjoy Elsa's chocolate" And Anna puffed out her chest. She hyperventilated right after it.

She nibbled into it and looked off to the distance.

"Better?"

Anna seemed relieved.

"Yeah."

"Life lasst longer than we can imagine just now. 20 years or more, we will find this time small. Because the more days we live, the shorter they seem."

"Elsa what's your point?" Anna asked nothing but confused.

"The long days will get shorter. Thus the bad days will too."

"But won't the good days go the same way?"

"Of course they will. That's the nature of time. But you will make it count. Because no matter what you do, you make people happy."

"Why am not happy, then. Why did I break?"

"Because bad things happened. You messed up at school and then it all piled up. Before you knew it, everything seemed infinite. You are not broken Anna. Don't say that. All your bones are fine."

Elsa stopped, realising what she might be doing.

"Sorry, am I helping?"

Anna didn't know what to say.

"You aren't harming"

Elsa wasn't satisfied.

"That's not what I asked."

"Look, why does it matter to you? You don't worry about these things."

"On whose account, Anna? Have you ever asked if I think about the way others see me or whether I see myself as a good person? I know I am strange and I miss a lot but I see a lot, Anna. I think I see more than everyone thinks I do."

Anna wanted to cry out of guilt and shame. What kind of person was she, to question her friend like that? A friend she knew was never sure of herself when it came to matters emotional?

"So when I tell you you're not broken, I say it because I mean it and because I have put alot of thought into it."

"Why does everyone else say it and yet it's only when you say it seems..."

"Real?"

"Yeah."

Anna sobbed quietly again. Elsa was looking everywhere but at Anna. She knew she couldn't look at upset people well. It would make her feel the same. She already felt it; she just didn't have tears coming back yet.

"I don't know Anna. If I knew, I would tell you."

Anna knowingly looked at Elsa. She must feel so out her depth she was drowning.

That door has opened and this time I feel it.

What she felt was whatever misery the world had cast upon her. Anna was scared for her friendships. Some people, she hadn't spoken to in months. Good people who did no wrong. Elsa. Sweet Elsa who stood by her and didn't meet Anna out of any kind of social need but because she wanted to.

Perhaps it was better to have a friend who was different.

But what do I mean by that? What gives me the right to think of Elsa as different or special? And why does it help me? You are stupid Anna. As if I alone understand Elsa. As if all Elsa is to you is some emotional dry wall for you to paint in thick dark sadness.

Anna was not to know that Elsa felt no one understood her. Elsa, so alone yet she was friends with someone who so desperate to avoid it but powerless to stop it herself.

And Elsa, so desperate to help her friend, the only one she had to name.

It would have struck them strange that two brains so close and bonded by years could keep such interesting things from each other. All in the name boundaries that were never set by people they did not know. It was amazing what your elders made you believe without meaning to.

Because if one knew what the other wanted to ask, many questions would come answered.

All this out of fear and out of worries of causing each other pain.

Both of them, especially Elsa, suffered a different pain from all the other ones: The pain of ignorance.

"I have one theory about us." Elsa said with an astute expression.

"What's that?"

"We work well because we are so different. You make everyone feel better about themselves because you can't help it and I haven't got anyone in my life that does that for me. And you look for me once you are tired of the comforting words and euphemisms everyone tells you. If I offered you a comforting lie, you would feel insulted.

You are so unlucky Anna, to be so nice and kind and beautiful. Because everyone takes it for granted and I hate it. They ask you to go to something or other or hang out in droves and for long times and you go because to them you are Anna and Anna wants to be around everyone and for you its being nice and its being fair.

It exhausts you and no wonder." Elsa was feeling entranced in her own monologue and she felt compelled to speak in a way and manner that until now she was too afraid to step to.

Anna had never heard Elsa so emphatic before.

"It angers you?"

"Yes Anna. Because we are like sisters. "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." We chose to be friends. I see you only so often but when I do it is never for nought. You make me feel less alone and I take you seriously. I don't want to sound presumptuous but I think if you were taken more seriously, you wouldn't feel like death everyday and you wouldn't give me that look I hate to see but know you can't help: The look of utter defeat in your eyes in school and in your room. The exhaustion you feel. Your family would think twice before they just called you lazy or silly for wanting more sleep or taking breaks.

If I felt the way you did, I would be dead by now. I couldn't cope."

Elsa looked with cold but life-filled eyes right at Anna. She had meant every word but now she was exhausted.

"Elsa, are you alright?"

Elsa grimaced as her brain caught up to her.

"I've made it about me again. I'm sorry."

Elsa did not cry but Anna knew the girl had emptied herself of a great deal of feelings. And it was so unlike Elsa it left Anna reeling. She only did this occasionally when she felt really sure of it all.

"We should talk more about each other Elsa. I think you were harsh on everyone but...it's kind of true."

"Anna, I know nothing about people but I know a lot about you. Others are strange and their motivations I don't think I'll ever understand. But I recognise when someone is being pushed too far."

"But how did you know all that? How?"

Elsa gave it a thought. It had all been up there, in her mind, worrying her. She spoke for a long time, as she always did. It made just as little sense to her. Emotions tended to blur lines and enchant memories. It was a lovely thing, but it boggled her like so many things did. Elsa hated unknowns so much.

"I guess I'm more perceptive than I realised."

The sun was almost gone. It was February yes but the sky remained convinced it was winter. Elsa didn't mind.

They stood up and began their walk back. For two girls so young and barely above ten, they had spoke a lot about things some much older would never admit to thinking or believing, even if it was just to themselves.

"I think we could all learn from you Elsa, if we listened." Cus that doesn't sound condescending.

Elsa turned to Anna and smiled jokingly.

"Now now, gingerlocks, I've been saying that for years."

"That you have Blondie. That you have."

Back to the present

It was Friday. Each day of the week, John and Elsa had been meeting at his house and listening to select songs John would pick out for her. In exchange Elsa would suggest TV shows. John liked the sound of House. He had a television in a sitting room. It was really more of a glorified hallway, lined with books.

"So he's a renegade doctor?"

"No. Well, he is but he's more of a Sherlock Holmes if he was a doctor. The cases are interesting and it's routine. There aren't too many big changes per episode. I guess you can say I like it samey."

"Ok but you know I get restless just watching things. Are you sure?"

"You'll like it."

"Ok Elsa, I shall try it."

And they watched it. They were halfway through the pilot when John's mother, as always, entered his space with no warning. Annoyed at this overture more than usual for breaking the tenuous concentration onto the screen, John stood up slightly to angrily.

"Son, this came for you."

He took it and said a dead thank you before turning his head to Elsa.

"Just a second."

He took a knife from a drawer built into the wall and opened the letter cautiously. He wasn't telling Elsa, but this letter was tinged with uncertainty and fear for him. She found the blade more drawing.

"You keep a knife?"

He spoke computically, with little attention paid to anything beyond the letter.

"For opening letters. Plus with our not being in America..." He took out the slip of paper carefully and with as little touch as he could.

"...No need for...a gun."

"What do you mean? That doesn't make sense."

But Elsa stopped talking, stood up and realised John wasn't looking at her at all. He wasn't listening. He was not even really breathing.

The awful thing about it was how suddenly it took hold of him. He seemed relaxed before and Elsa was beginning to feel at ease being around him as well. Their steps were slow but their similarities played to their strengths as people. Plus on House, the case had just gotten interesting.

But he was paler than ever. He had taken on the robes of a corpse and the shock of the wounded.

The note was simple, not even long. But it meant everything to John. Not all things good, nor all things bad.

Dear John,

Meet me, in our spot.

May 12th. Saturday.

We will have a talk of things.

Love Isabelle.

Authors commentary:

Yes, we will finally learn a bit about Isabelle. Ill have to correct past entries of her name. Hope you are liking where i am going with this. Any reviews are appreciated.

Authors Notes:

This one was all set to go about 4 days ago but i just couldnt get onto editing the thing for some days, i was out of energy for some time. Took me longer than it should have.

I will update when i can. Thank you.