"Elsa I have to tell you something. I don't know if I can even bring myself to say it because it's not only going to change the entire mood of the day…but it's going to hurt you." Her eyes returned to Elsa's, filled with a look the blonde had never seen before that unnerved her to say the least.

"Tell me what?" Sounding hurt already by the mere thought of Anna keeping something from her. Hurt and afraid of whatever Anna was about to say, her back stiffening as she braced herself.

"When you were in Dubai, I was home alone and I did something completely stupid that I regret now, but I started thinking about the boxes in the basement and you weren't here and I was alone and-"

"Anna." Urging her to get to the point.

"Sorry." Taking a breath to reorganize her thoughts. "The day you tried to put the krumkake iron away, I kept that photo of your family you were trying to reach. I kept looking at it and I just had so many questions."

"You kept my photo?" Elsa replied meekly.

"I forgot about it and found it when you were gone. I wanted answers, badly, so I...I started searching your father's name online." She grimaced at her own confession as it flew from her lips.

"You did what?" Elsa's chest heaved, her eyes began to dart around the room, feeling like it was beginning to spin.

"I also...oh God...I also went through some of your boxes."

"What?" Elsa's eyes were as big as saucers and her mouth dropped open as a look of utter shock overtook her body.

"I don't believe you. How...how could you do that?" Her words were breathless, broken and Anna could already hear Elsa's pain resonating in her voice.

"I feel awful Elsa. It's been tearing me up inside and I truly couldn't regret anything more." She moved closer to where Elsa sat paralysed on the couch, only to provoke her into fleeing to the other side of the room, hand on hip with fingers pressed to her lips as she tried to swallow the revelation.

Anna could only watch helplessly as Elsa sank deeper into a state of distress, hands furiously raked through her hair as the words this can't be happening resounded in her head.

"Let me get this straight, you did an internet search on my father and you went through my things?" She clarified with an almost ghostly hollow voice, her hands trembling as they fisted and blanched.

"Yes. And I need to be completely honest. I also purchased a background report on you…and your father." Anna's eyes slammed shut as she couldn't bare to see Elsa's reaction, but that didn't save her from hearing Elsa's ungodly gasp.

"Anna...no." It was as if Elsa was begging for it not to be true.

Anna's eyes slowly reopened and she could see the fate of her blow on Elsa's harrowingly bleak face. There was now a look she had never seen in Elsa's wide and shallow eyes. She could see every bit of trust breaking and shattering before her very eyes.

"What I've done is...appalling. I'm sickened by the thought of my own actions and what I've done to you. But... at the same time...I learned so much that you've been keeping from me. This is a marriage and I'd like to think it's even more than that if possible. We give ourselves to each other, entirely. And I have...but have you?"

"Anna that's not fair. I've given my entire heart...my soul to you. What facts could you have possibly learned that would endear me more to you?"

"Your father's company, it's a shipping company isn't it?" She asked trepidatiously.

Elsa didn't respond and instead gave a nod, too flooded to speak.

"And you said they were wealthy but that was clearly an understatement."

"What does that matter?" She countered, backing further away from Anna.

The tension weighed heavily on the room, so thick that Elsa was finding it difficult to move, inert from Anna's continued barrage as the color began to drain from her face.

"It doesn't, I just didn't know. You've always been more sophisticated than me and now I have a better understanding about the kind of life you must have had before me." Unable to stand the distance between them any longer, Anna got up from the coach and slowly inched towards a shaken Elsa, who now had her arms wrapped defensively around herself.

"Anna I'm not doing this now, not this way. Whatever you found out just keep it to yourself." She turned and bolted for the stairs, walking straight past Anna.

"There's more." Another grimace, this one deeper than the last.

Elsa stopped mid-step and slowly turned her head back towards Anna, fearing the tone of her voice as she looked at her with a familiar look of pain on her face that seemed to be held together by the tight line of her lips. As if this nightmare couldn't get any worse.

Anna steadily made her way over to the staircase.

"Your father, he stepped down from the company. In fact, Arendelle Shipping was bought by another company and is being broken up and sold off."

"That was only a matter of time." She said matter-of-factly. Elsa knew by leaving that the future of the company was something she'd have to live with, whether it prospered or failed.

"Elsa the reason why he stepped down was because of illness. I had a hard time translating the news article but it said he needed to focus on his treatment and was in a fragile state." She slowly approached Elsa who was frozen on the stairs, gripping the banister with white knuckles as if her ability to remain standing depended solely on the frame itself.

"Why are you telling me this?" Elsa breathed heavily, the anguish penetrating through her words.

"I thought you should know. I thought you'd want to know." Her words sheathed with the utmost sincerity.

"I don't. This doesn't change anything." The blonde's grip on the banister tightened, so hard she thought she'd shatter the wood into splinters right there.

"I told you because...I never got the chance to say goodbye to my parents and I'd give anything...anything to have seen them one last time. I'm not saying he's dying but he could be. I don't know, the article was three years old. But you should take some time to think about this."

With a blink Elsa turned and proceeded up the stairs in a huff.

"Elsa please don't walk away from me." Picking up her pace as Anna hotfooted up the steps.

"Anna, just leave me be." Her voice cracking and shaking as hot tears pooled in her eyes, a hand jutted out urging Anna to stay away.

"Elsa stop, please." She grabbed Elsa's hand and tried to turn her back around, causing her to sink down and awkwardly sit on the steps. Anna knelt down on the step below and gently held Elsa's upper arms so that she couldn't run away.

"Please talk to me. I can see your mind's a whirlwind right now, if you would just let me in. This could all come to an end." She implored, heartbroken by the storm of emotions swirling in Elsa's eyes.

Anna was losing her strength, it was draining from her faster than she could speak. There was no sign of the bright eyed free spirit, just a sullen face with pleading orbs.

"I can't live like this any more. Since the day I met you've had this pain behind your beautiful eyes. Always holding something back. It wouldn't hurt so bad if some part of you didn't wish it could be different. Didn't wish that you could change it. But your chance is going to slip right through your fingers and you'll never get it back if you keep shutting it out." Her voice was quiet, loving even, but her words were strong and powerful.

Elsa's breathing was rapid, sharp gasps for air were the only thing holding back her cries.

"Aren't you tired of running from this, from your past, from him? From everything?" The grip on Elsa's arms loosened and Anna took hold of Elsa's hands, stroking them palm side up, as if to coax a reply out of her.

"We've weathered every storm together. We can get through this together, it doesn't have to be this way. If you'd just tell me what happened, just finally let me in so that I can help heal this wound you've had for far too long. You're fighting it now, I can see it on your face, in your eyes."

Elsa looked down at their hands before steadying her breathing long enough to speak. Reddened eyes glazed with tears gazed back up at Anna.

"How could you do this to me?" Her words barely above a whisper.

Anna's face was flat, solemn yet her eyes stayed on Elsa.

"Is this what you meant by working on us? By destroying us? By destroying me?"

Anna shook her head, she'd never meant for any of this to happen. Never meant for it to spiral out of control like this.

"No. I just want to end the pain. You could end it, for all of us."

Another sharp gasp and Elsa half swallowed a sob.

"I can't." Pushed as far as she could go, Elsa pulled her hands away from Anna's as she turned and hurried up the stairs into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

Anna collapsed on the stairs and cradled her head in her arms. She'd given it her all, but it wasn't enough. Left with nothing but the horrid feeling of knowing she'd violated Elsa's trust and the tremendous agony of defeat as she was unable to break down Elsa's walls yet again.

Tears dripped from her eyes and pooled onto the carpeting of the stairs as Elsa's own sobs could be heard from a distance.

What are we going to do?

Anna had fallen asleep in the guest bedroom, still in her clothes and makeup from the night before, the sound of a rustling gym bag catching her attention. Immediately fearing Elsa was packing a bag to leave she flipped over the bed to try and catch her in a fleet of panic before she left. By the time she made it down the hallway Elsa was already on her way down the stairs, dressed in long black yoga pants and a lime green workout shirt, her gym bag and purse slung over her shoulder. She didn't turn around but she could feel Anna hot on her trail.

"Elsa wait, stop. Elsa, please." Anna cried.

Elsa kept right on moving, grabbing her keys off the kitchen counter before opening the front door in a hurry.

"Stop, please! Are you leaving? Me? I mean... are you leaving me?" Anna was panting and nearly out of breath from chasing Elsa, grabbing at a sharp pain in her side as she bent over in the entryway.

Elsa stopped and turned back, wanned and bleary-eyed. There were dark grey circles under her eyes, her beautiful blue irises were bloodshot and she looked beyond tired.

"I'm going to the gym. I'll be back later." She spoke so softly and Anna could tell last night had not only taken a toll on Elsa, it had downright broken her.

"Okay." Relieved to find her wife wasn't leaving her, though it probably wouldn't have shocked her. She was actually kind of amazed Elsa had even spoken to her.

The last thing Elsa wanted to do was see Anna, let alone talk to her, but she wasn't the kind of person who was cruel enough to make her worry about her whereabouts when she was the one carrying their baby.

She quietly closed the front door behind her and Anna watched out the window as Elsa got in her car. As soon as Elsa shut the door she folded her arms over the steering wheel and wept. Everything was still so raw. She'd cried the entire night and just seeing Anna brought everything back. After a few minutes she gathered herself, wiped the tears from her cheeks, backed out of the driveway and got as far away from their home as she could.

While Anna sat at home ruminating about everything that had transpired, Elsa was on a mission to undo as much physical and psychological stress as she could from the night before. She was a grown woman and, although devastated, was able to process and comfort herself and keep one foot in front of the other. The baby however, could not. She was more concerned about what such stress could do to a helpless fetus than she was about herself. Thoughts of cortisol levels and long-term effects of exposure to stress were the only things on her mind. Ever the good mother, she devoted the entire morning to taking care of herself and the baby.

First up was a prenatal yoga class.

After stretching and posing for the better part of a half an hour, Elsa's body began to feel much more relaxed and a sense of calm melted her worries way, for the moment at least.

Tranquil music accompanied the dim lighting of the room as the instructor began the guided meditation part of the class.

"Imagine your baby in the womb. Warm and safe. Imagine their tiny fingers...and their tiny toes. What are they doing? Are they sleeping? Are their eyes open or close? They might even be kicking. Just bring your awareness in."

Elsa's thoughts drifted to the baby, no kicks but there was what felt like a hand running along her lower hip. Possibly baby exploring her surroundings, or maybe simply returning some much needed comfort to her mommy.

"You may be at the stage in pregnancy where the baby cannot only hear your voice, but the voices of people around you. Just imagine what that feels like."

Realizing the instructor meant that in the most positive way, Elsa couldn't help but remember of all the awful things their baby must have heard last night.

We give ourselves to each other, entirely. And I have...but have you?"

Is this what you meant by working on us? By destroying us?

I can't live like this anymore.

Her brows twitched, knitting together as her lips turned down into a frown.

"And let's finish by sending all your love and all your energy down to the life force within you."

Elsa secretly added, and all my apologies, to her own personal meditation. Wracked with guilt that their precious baby was always the innocent bystander in their marriage. All she ever wanted to do was protect her, nourish her, give her everything she deserved and needed for the best chance at life. Not only to be healthy, but it was gravely important to Elsa that her baby know she loved her more than anything before she even took that first breath of life.

After yoga Elsa felt it was still too early to go home and decided to get in a quick swim. Swimming was glorious, simply devine. Yoga was definitely relaxing and rejuvenating but swimming provided the perfect weightless environment to relieve her joints of those nagging pregnancy pains. That and the motion of Elsa's body rocking side to side as she swam always lulled the baby to sleep.

On her way out of the locker room, dreading the thought of heading home to the most awkward and uncomfortable house on their block, Elsa stopped in lobby as she passed by the gym's spa. Standing still at the fork in the road of decisions, go home to Anna or check out the spa, she proceeded with the latter.

"Good morning, welcome to Vista Spa. How can I help you?" A young woman with a slicked back bun chimed.

"Do you do prenatal massages?" Elsa inquired. Never having had one, today seemed like the perfect day to spoil herself and the baby with a spa treatment.

"We do. And it's been really slow this morning. I could fit you in right now if you'd like."

"That would be perfect. Wait, what else can I get done?" What better place to hide out for the day than in a spa?

"Pretty much anything you'd like. Everything is organic and non-toxic. Our nail salon doesn't do acrylics or use any harsh chemicals so it's very pregnancy friendly."

"Very nice to know. Can I do the prenatal massage and then a mani pedi?" Elsa cocked one eyebrow as if she were asking for permission more than availability of services.

"Yes, absolutely. Just give me a few moments and we'll take you back for your massage."

After only having to wait a minute or two a massage therapist who introduced herself as Luna promptly took Elsa back to the locker room to prepare for her massage.

The locker room was beyond gorgeous, breathtaking even. The smooth cream colored walls were lined with plush leather recliners separated by sheer white privacy curtains. The inset ceiling was painted to mimic a vibrant midday sky, azure blues with fluffy white clouds looked down upon an intricate bamboo print carpet. A room that for anyone else would have evoked peace and serenity.

Elsa stared at the big blue sky, clutching at the tightness forming in her chest. She knew perfectly well what she was doing. Of course she really was trying to take care of the baby first and foremost but she was also doing exactly what Anna had said she was. She was running. Physically and mentally. She had run out of the house as fast as she could to escape the tension that still loomed over it and of course to avoid having to see Anna. And now she had reverted back to her old ways of pushing her feelings as deep as they would go. But as she looked out at the oasis that was the spa, her thoughts began to catch up with her.

Like a life preserve in a restless ocean, Luna's gentle voiced jolted her from her thoughts to let her know that she was ready for her. Elsa followed Luna down the hallway and into the treatment room. Although much more dimly lit, the treatment room evoked the same celestial mood with its dark sienna walls and nature inspired music pouring from the speakers overhead.

"Any areas in particular you'd like to focus on today?" Luna asked as she folded back the sheets on the message table.

"My lower back, it's been really tight and achy." Elsa turned a bit to point to the exact area on the small of her back.

"And what would you like the goal for today's massage to be? To relax? To work on problem areas? Toxins?"

Elsa's immediate instinct was to say relax but she could sense her emotions from the locker room had carried over and were growing stronger by the minute.

"If I may be honest, and I mean very honest, I had a somewhat upsetting...argument with my wife last night and I have a lot on my mind. I just want to rid my body of as much stress as I can for the baby...and me." She may have been in low spirits, but standing in nothing but a dark brown spa robe, Elsa was ever still the pinnacle of grace and eloquence.

"I should also warn you that I can already feel my hormones are not on my side today and, as embarrassing as this is to say, please ignore me if I happen to cry during this massage." Her request drawing a blushing smile from her face.

"You needn't worry. You would not be the first nor the last mother-to-be that has cried during a prenatal massage. It's very common and crying is a form of stress relief."

A reassuring smile from Luna was all it took to feel more at ease, and frankly less embarrassed.

"I'll give you some time to disrobe and get comfortable on the table. The abdomen and chest areas of the table have been hollowed out to accommodate a pregnant woman's body, so it should feel quite comfortable."

As Luna closed the door Elsa untied the buttery soft microfiber robe, letting it sweep down the length of her porcelain back before placing it on a hook and slipping in between the smooth sheets of the massage table. For the first time in over five month Elsa got to lay on her stomach, something she realised she'd taken for granted and missed so very much this deep into the pregnancy. Settling herself into the face cradle she stared down at the dark wooden floor below and began to fear being left alone with her thoughts for too long, anxiously awaiting Luna's return and provide a much needed distraction.

A moment later Luna returned and dimmed the lights even lower, recreating the feeling of candlelight and leaving Elsa to stare into a black void of space rather than at the hard wood floor she'd been enjoying as it gave her something concrete to focus on.

Devoid of the sense of sight, Elsa's ears perked when she heard Luna pump some heavenly smelling lotion into her hands, slowly working tones of sweet almond and jojoba into the expanse of Elsa's lower back. Luna continued to moved swiftly about Elsa's body, giving attention to her upper back and shoulders, both of which were knotted and tight. Somewhere around twenty minutes into the the hour long massage Elsa began to drift away from the light pressure of Luna's hands and back into her head.

Two things were plaguing her and battling for attention. First was the gut wrenching admission of Anna's actions. Not only did she go through the boxes that Elsa herself hadn't gone through since she came back from Norway over six years ago, with the exception of the krumkake iron, but there was also the somewhat more disturbing idea of Anna searching and paying for information on her own wife and father-in-law. All that was difficult enough to swallow but what had really been the crushing blow that evening was learning about the news of her father.

And she lay against the table in the dark of the room she could only think of how ignorant she had been about the assumptions of life. She'd spent the better part of her adult life trying to rid her body, mind, and soul of her family and everything related to them that she never stopped to think about what would happen when the last grain of sand fell through the hourglass. She felt like a fool for not thinking about how this arrangement would pan out once someone died or how she'd even feel about it. What would it mean if Agdar had died?

Trying to allow one thought or a single question to come through her consciousness was impossible. Once Elsa let herself think about one tiny fraction of the situation the whole thing came undone at the seams. Her mind was too weak, too tired, too exhausted from years of pent up emotions and neglected memories that it could not longer maintain its ability to hold up the barriers.

Luna was beginning to lightly stroke the arches of Elsa's feet when she heard the first cries break free. But just as she said, Luna didn't mind and kept right on working on Elsa's arches.

At the top of the table, Elsa felt like her heart was starting to bleeding as memories from her life flashed by in a personal montague. What if the battle was over? Had she lost or won?

The memories of the man whose very presence made her tremble with fear faded for the briefest of moments and all that was left were the cries of a child who'd been defeated by the hands of time.

Father.

She begrudgingly admitted to herself that Anna was right, she needed to take some time to think about everything, to find out what the truth of the matter really was, if she could even summon the courage to do so.

The end of the massage was drawing near and Luna gave Elsa some privacy to slip her robe back on before returning to the locker room.

Lifting herself from the table, Elsa wiped the tears away from her now scarlet cheeks and slipped the robe back around her frame, tying it off just above her baby bump before meeting Luna in the hallway.

"Was everything to your liking today?" Luna asked pleasantly.

"Yes. I did some serious thinking on that table." Giving a small chuckle to herself.

They walked back to the locker room and Elsa said her goodbyes to Luna, who stopped in the doorway on her way out to say one last thing.

"Elsa?"

The blonde looked back over her shoulder.

"Whatever it is, you'll be fine." And with that, Luna disappeared back into the hallway.

As Elsa was busy moving on to her mani pedi, Anna was also trying to get on with life but had only accomplished nothing more than a shower by noon.

After getting completely ready to go absolutely nowhere, she went back to the guest room to make the bed and tidy up the room. Each time she buzzed back and forth between the guest room and their bedroom Anna had to pass by their elaborate photo wall in the hallway. From floor to ceiling, perfectly placed thick black framed photos from their entire relationship covered the wall. There was one of them at a luau in Hawaii complete with leis, sunkissed cheeks, and mai tais in their hands. A black and white close-up of them blissfully kissing on their wedding day in their exquisite white dresses hung in the center, surrounded by a slew of screensaver worthy photos from their honeymoon in Bora Bora.

This is not helping. I gotta get out of here. She bemoaned to herself.

Anna couldn't take being in their empty home a minute longer. Besides, it's wasn't like Elsa was going to want to talk or even look at her once she eventually did get home. So she went to her phone and called her old standby.

"Merida? I really need someone to talk to. And I really need to get out of this house."

Merida chuckled then sighed on the other end of the line.

"Come over to my place. I'll make you some coffee and we'll talk."

Anna was already on her way out the door before Merida finished her sentence.

"You know you're the only person I know that has green and blue plaid wallpaper in their kitchen." Anna's eyes surveyed the myriad of lines and stripes that stretched across Merida's walls.

"It's my family's tartan. How do you want your coffee?" Merida asked as she fetched two mugs from her cupboard.

"More sugar and milk than coffee please." Anna murmured dejectedly as she lazily ran her fingers through her bangs, swiveling back and forth on one of Merida's barstools.

"You sure you don't want me to add some Baileys in there? Might make you feel better?" The redhead grinned mischievously as she took up a seat on the stool next to Anna, handing the redhead her cup of overly sweetened coffee.

"No. That got me into trouble last time. Well, not trouble but I don't think Elsa was happy about it."

"Is that what she's mad about?" Raising a russet eyebrown to the redhead.

"Oh my God, how I wish that was the thing she was mad about. Actually, I'm not even sure she's reached mad yet. She just looked...sad. Devastated even."

"What happened?" Merida asked softly.

"I told her. I told her what we talked about but I told her most of that stuff at group and she was fine after. Then she bought me a car and gave me jewelry and I felt so guilty keeping all the other stuff from her. So, I told her. I even told her stuff that I didn't tell you about." Anna stared at her reflection in her mug, disappointed in the person she saw staring back at her.

"You gonna tell me now?"

"I went through her boxes. Which doesn't sound like a big deal but these boxes, they mean a lot to her and if you touch just one she has a panic attack. I mean literally, it's almost happened twice. But the thing about searching her dad...I didn't tell you that I found out he's sick. Or dead. I don't speak Norwegian and Google translate sucks so I have no idea which it is. But I basically told her that her father, whom she hasn't spoken to since their huge falling out six years ago, is either dead or dying."

"Okay first, are you sure you don't want some alcohol in that coffee because what you just said is pretty serious." This time Merida wasn't joking.

"No. I suppose I deserve to wallow in my own misery." Anna lamented as she brought both palms to her forehead, fingers splayed into her copper tresses as she tried to heed off an impending headache.

"Second, I know Elsa is going to need a lot of time to think about this before she's ready to talk to you again. So give her that because you just threw everything and the kitchen sink at the poor lass."

Merida diligently took as sip from her coffee and licked her lips before continuing.

"The other things is, although what you did was a huge breach of trust, what if you hadn't found that article? What if she'd found out years later and it was too late or felt even worse for not knowing that he died sooner? Whichever it is." Wagging a finger back and forth.

"That's what I thought. I thought she'd at least want to know so she could make some decisions if needed. Or know that she's officially free from him. If that's what she wants. I don't even know any more." Anna felt like the more she talked the more she confused herself. At least Merida was making some sense out this debacle.

"She might have wanted to know but let her get over this first before you move onto the real story with her dad. Be strong my fellow redhead. This too shall pass." She chirped as she playfully roughed a section of Anna's hair in a gentle noogie like fashion.

"Thanks."

The avoidance game continued into the evening as Elsa tucked herself away in her office and Anna vegged out in front of the TV.

Tired of surfing through the endless channels of nonstop reality shows and news, Anna gave in and decided to head up to bed. At the top of the stairs she paused when she heard Elsa's heavenly voice coming from the nursery. She crept as quietly as she could until she was just outside the room, pressing herself against the door frame as she listened in on Elsa singing Baby Mine while rocking in the glider. She had listened to the playlist, she had learned the songs. Anna's slumped down onto the floor and drew her hands to her heart. It hurt, it ached.

What have I done?

She knew they should be in their together, serenading their baby with the same song Anna's mom had sung to her countless times, but never it sounding the same as Elsa's enchanting version.

That voice, it was agony and ecstasy at the same time. Ecstasy as it always took her back to the night she'd fallen in love with that voice, with Elsa. It was probably making their baby fall in love with her at that very moment. And agony because she wasn't a part of it, they weren't sharing the moment together in the way it should have been. The way they had always dreamed it would be. She turned and touched her hand to the wall, wishing it were caressing Elsa's ivory skin instead of the flat cold surface; listening as she shed a tear for what could have been.

The mattress creaked under her weight as Elsa crept into bed and snuggled into her many pillows. Feet away Anna lay wide awake with a soft gaze fixed on Elsa elegant back, watching the sheets move with the rise and fall of her breathing.

"Elsa?" Anna whimpered, brushing her fingers against the back of Elsa's shoulder, only to recoil her hand when the blonde flinched away.

"Please. Please talk to me." She pleaded, waiting for Elsa to acknowledge her in any way, shape, or form.

"Not now Anna." Elsa's voice was even more despondent that Anna's.

"Then can you please just look at me. Just look at me once so that I know you can still see me." Her voice cracking.

After a few moments and a heavy sigh, Elsa rolled over and Anna looked straight into her eyes. They were filled with sadness, the same sadness Anna had always seen a sliver of only now it was amplified. As much as Anna knew she was hurting, she knew Elsa must have been hurting even more. Without a second thought Anna brought a hand to Elsa's cheek but was again rebuffed.

"I need time."

"Please Elsa, I'm your wife."

"I know. That's why it hurts so bad," Rolling back to face away from Anna with a heavy heart; consumed by sorrow as they fell asleep, backs facing each other. Two broken hearts, one bed.