A/N: Hey! I did it in a week! Not too bad with classes and such!
I do not own "Give Me a Sign," that song is property of Breaking Benjamin and excellent. It was used at the namesake for this chapter. I also do not own "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," it was written by Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg.
I am going to be making an update to chapter 24 as soon as I can, hopefully before I put out chapter 26. It was brought to my attention that the argument is rather abrupt, and I am going to rectify that by giving a mini "preview" argument earlier in the chapter, hinting at the larger one. All in all, it will not change how the fic is unfolding.
I thought it'd be interesting to write the ending of the previous chapter from Anna's POV, so after that happens, it picks up from the second chapter 24 ended. Enjoy!
57% of patients who are in a coma due to blunt force trauma to the head never wake up. Those who do wake up often times must relearn how to walk, eat, speak, and many other functions.
Anna watched as Elsa briskly walked off into the street. Everything inside of her hurt. Her stomach twisted, gnarled, riddled with feasting spiders. Her heart was screaming as pieces of it tore away, ripping it to shreds, confetti for those who love suffering to dance in. Elsa's mad at me. But she didn't understand, they could run away, they didn't have to face this.
That's a lie, she started to understand. She started to see the betrayal resting within Elsa when she shouted that it was Anna who taught her not to run. It was years ago, and indeed the red head remembered it clearly. She remembered the darkening pain that clasped tightly around her heart and throat when Elsa rejected her. She remembered facing those fears. She remembered how she taught her sister to do the same.
Back then, she didn't run away.
But she couldn't then, and she could now.
So Anna was angry, her blood boiled through her veins, running her like a steam engine.
And Anna was hurt. Elsa was angry with her and wasn't willing to run away with her. It shriveled the younger girl's insides, left her with nothing but coursing anxiety. It weighed heavily on her shoulders with disappointment.
But when she saw her sister crossing the street, that weight vanished.
There were lights, moving fast, too fast to yell to Elsa. A car.
It all happened so quickly that the red head's brain scarcely considered what she was doing passed one undeniable fact: Anna was doing this for the girl she loved undoubtedly, for the girl she would never stop loving.
So Anna jumped forward and pushed the love of her life as hard as she could. She pushed to save Elsa's life, no matter the circumstances, no matter the consequences.
She did it.
She felt an immense pulse of pain on her leg.
Then, everything was black.
Elsa gripped Anna tightly, still crying into her shoulder, still willing the blood not to be there. But it was. It was there and there was a lot of it, spilling, oozing, warm, shining, staining. Anna's hair was burdened with maroon, stuck together in chunks where the bleeding was originating. It was thick. Her braids were loosened from the impact.
Nothing really existed anymore. Time lost all directionality, the world around her was lost to Elsa. She was lost in the darkness surrounding her, lost in the indescribable pain of her wounded heart, lost in her ear-shattering howls. Like a lost wolf to its mother moon, she cried. But she cried to her sunshine, her only light source. Extinguished, gone. She had nothing.
The platinum blonde didn't process noises around her. She didn't noticed the crowd gathering, she didn't notice the driver getting out and running around, screaming. The sound of the very same man dialing nine-one-one didn't roll into her ears, they were closed to everything but her thoughts.
And her thoughts were dark. Shadows come to life, demons torturing her, cold and unforgiving. Her walls went up quickly, ice towering into the sky on all sides. It trapped her in the frozen ocean, her broken heart weighing her down, pulling her like lead under the water. Her lungs hurt, they were in her throat, choking her.
She hurt.
She cried.
And cried.
And hurt, more than she every had before.
It felt like forever, like an eternity had passed in the blink of an eye, but there were sirens. Lights, red and blue, and people. Then someone started to take Anna from her. She fought, screamed, scratched, nails scraping the skin and drawing more of that oh so familiar red. She didn't know, though. Her mind was still broken.
Then, the warm, limp body in her arms was gone. Blue, a face on top of it, and something shiny entered her vision. It guided her passed her howls. Anna wasn't in her arms.
A hand.
Not Anna's. Rough, larger, yet comforting. A voice, strained from the distance, distorted in fog, lost over time. It didn't make any sense to her, it just echoed away, etching her eardrums with incomprehensible vowels.
Then, the hand was gone momentarily. Elsa felt its cautious touch leading her up. Her knees hurt, stung with a unified cry. They couldn't hold the weight of her heart, couldn't stand the power of her pain. Elsa's knees buckled.
Weightlessness.
Again.
But this time she was caught. Not by Anna. If it wasn't her sister, it didn't matter. She was being held up, guided. A specter showing her the world beyond her own, the bone rattling chill too cold to bear. But Elsa didn't see any of it. Her eyes wouldn't open, her heart wouldn't stop its incessant bleeding. The arrow was stuck in, being torn out slowly and clumsily.
The man in blue put her down inside of a box. A white box, shiny, other people were there, too. And Anna, on a bed. She had a clear mask on now. Oxygen. Elsa's mind put it together, it forced the pieces to fit. She was in an ambulance. That's what the noise was. Police. They had helped her in.
The platinum blonde couldn't tear her eyes away from the agonizing sight of her younger sister, so delicate, so broken. Her stomach shriveled in anxious disgust, her heart ripping itself apart over and over again. The impossible happened. Elsa's pain worsened, it got more powerful, it fed on her weakness. The weaker she got, the more it hurt.
Her tears tickled her nose, her phone laying shattered on the street where she dropped it.
The ride in the ambulance wasn't long, a few minutes at most, but Elsa was too shaken to notice. Anna was suddenly being taken away again, people were yelling things. The platinum blonde screamed out, it ruptured her dry throat, tore her dehydrated vocal chords. But her sister was gone now, taken into a room. The blinds were drawn.
Elsa could do nothing, she was guided to a seat and waited. She sat there letting her icy walls enrich themselves, grow thicker, larger, more deranged. The outside world was cut off to her. It was isolation all over again, but this time, it was worse. This time, she couldn't let herself feel anything, lest she cave and her will to live break.
She was being questioned by a nurse a few minutes later. The voice sounded far off, she didn't respond. It wasn't worth it. But when the nurse left, there was a piece of paper on the table, along with a pen.
Mom. I have to fill it out so they can call mom. Elsa cringed at the realization, but robotically reached for the writing utensil nonetheless.
She focused. The page was blurry and moving from her tears, the words taunting her with terrible laughs. She breathed deeply, feeling the hoarse caress of the air in her throat and lungs. Phone number.
She wrote one number, then had to regain herself, refocus. Another digit, and a few more. It was a slow process, but Elsa got it done. Family relations, contacts, everything. She wrote down the information she couldn't answer verbally. A nurse came by a couple minutes later and took the paper.
She heard things from the nurse. Just words here and there. Some made her heart fill with hope, let it saturated itself, only to stab her with an icicle and rip that hope out. Words like "stabilized," and "lucky." They were false senses of security. They lured the platinum blonde in with empty promises, and ran at the first sign of their friends.
"Concussion," "blood loss," "broken leg," and the worst one. The one that rang in Elsa's mind. The one that brought the last scrapes of hope out of her and brutalized them right in front of her eyes. The one that stopped her heart.
"Coma."
Coma.
Anna is in a coma. It couldn't be real, could it? No, Anna would never leave her Elsa hanging like that. Anna would not do this to me.
But it was real. Just like the car crash. Because of me. It's my fault she's in a coma. If I had just said yes we'd be okay, we'd be in each other's arms. We'd be happy. But Anna's in a coma because of me.
She had to see her. The platinum blonde's legs worked on their own accord, straightening and beginning to move to where Anna was brought. She felt her head go light and stars circle around it but didn't stop.
Her legs made her run, they pulled her as fast as they could to Anna.
Elsa was still frantic, her brain was spinning and toppling. Thoughts were rushing through it too fast for her to comprehend all of them.
An arm caught her mid stride, she could see into Anna's room, she could see the red head sitting there, she heard the quiet, rhythmic beats of her heartbeat monitor. "Only family can see her right now."
It was painful, the words scratched Elsa's throat like a rusty razor as she grappled with them. How was she supposed to talk through all of this? "I-I-I'm." It hurt so much, nearly made her pass out. "H-h-h-her." Talking has never been this bad, she felt nauseous. She felt the confetti that was left of her vocal chords straining beyond nature's laws. "Si-s-s-" Elsa had to breath, she had to stop to gasp. She had to let her throat calm down. "Sis-si-"
She kept trying. "Si-sister." Finally, she had said it. It burned her esophagus, but she did it. The nurse nodded with an understanding look on her face and moved aside. It disgusted Elsa. How could she understand?
Elsa took in the sight of her sister. A bandage was wrapped around her head and left leg. There was no blood, Anna was clean. Her hair was messy, but it she wasn't pouring blood out of her head anymore, thankfully.
And she was peaceful. Oh so peaceful, her breath falling gently in line, like distant ocean waves crashing on the shore. Her face was pale, eyes resting shut so beautifully, relaxed, oblivious to the cruel world around her. A sleeping beauty.
Elsa grabbed her sister's hand. It was cold, like even Anna was trying to build up her older sister's walls, but Elsa sat.
She stayed there, looking at her girlfriend, willing her to wake up every second. Hour after heartbroken hour droned on. Elsa wouldn't release the hand, it was her lifeline. The constant ring of the monitor was her anchor to reality, an eddy in a rapid, a finger crimp on a wall. Just enough to hold herself up by. Elsa clung to it for dear life. If she let go, she'd surely fall and drown.
And the evening turned to night, the crew dwindled, the hallways dimmed. The beeping continued at the same pace, never straying. And Elsa was scared, for if that beeping stopped, she lost her Anna.
Not long after eight thirty in the evening, miss Arendelle received a phone call. It was from a number she did not recognize. Confused, she picked it up. "Hello?"
Her world went from relaxed to horrid in no more than a heartbeat. The woman felt everything inside of her crash down, her eyes well with hot tears, tracing menacingly cold lines down her cheeks. She helplessly listened as a nurse explained that her youngest daughter was hit by a car and was now in a coma induced by blunt force trauma to the head.
The woman started to panic but calmed herself down with immense effort and self control. The nurse told her the name of the hospital and the location. She could be there by two thirty the next morning if she left that moment, and she planned to.
Yanking on her shoes and a coat and practically sprinting out of the door, miss Arendelle took out her phone. She first called Elsa, but it went straight to voicemail. She took a deep breath against the bouncing knives in her heart and got in the car. She thought briefly about getting Rapunzel and Kristoff on her way out, but she had neither of their numbers and it would be a tremendous waste of valuable time if either one of them didn't answer their door. She did not think to go back and get Anna's phone, her mind was far too busy. For this reason, the woman sped straight onto the highway.
She drove quickly, passing cars, weaving through traffic, she had to see Anna. She had to be there for Elsa, too. She had to make sure her daughters were alright. She flipped out her phone and tried to platinum blonde again. No answer.
A few more attempts at calling and she decided to take a short break and start trying again. Even after doing this, there was no answer. The drive felt significantly longer than it should have, even though she made it in excellent time due to her careless, love-driven speeding.
After two in the morning, Ms. Arendelle screeched to a halt in the parking lot of the hospital that Anna and Elsa were residing in. She sprinted inside and hastily made her way to the front desk. After a brief, urgent explanation to the nurse on duty that she was, in fact, Anna's mother, she had the room number. Down the hall on the right. She ran.
Elsa was tired, so tired. Sleep lulled in her peripheral vision like an elusive shadow, tugging suggestively at her eyelids, nodding her head to the side. But she had to stay by Anna. She had to be there. This is my fault. I will be here when she wakes up.
Elsa held tight to the lifeless hand in her own, feeling the smooth curvature of the fingers, reminding herself that Anna was really right there. Anna wasn't dead. She was going to survive, she was going to wake up, she had to.
So the platinum blonde stayed awake, sitting by her sister's side like a loyal dog, forever on watch. Her attention to the girl did not waver, it did not break. Not even at nine, before she was drowsy, when a nurse approached. Elsa heard but didn't respond, save for a passing glance. Her walls were up.
"This was around your sister's neck when we picked her up," the nurse explained in a soft voice. She was probably frowning at this point. "I'll leave it on the table." She did.
Before the woman left, however, she turned back around. When she spoke again her voice carried a sort of sincerity that managed to leak through Elsa's thickly built barricades of misery. "She's strong." That's when Elsa glanced at the nurse, new tears running hot down her cheeks. Shalaryne, the name tag read.
For the next hours, Elsa put all of her attention, all of her focus into mentally begging Anna to wake up. She needed her sister, she needed her girlfriend.
But Anna's breaths stayed slow and laxed, remained comfortably shallow. It did nothing to help Elsa around midnight when she started to drift off to sleep.
She fought.
And fought.
Elsa struggled to maintain her consciousness until passed two in the morning. She was losing, her head jerking back up more than once a minute, brain shutting down even more, if at all possible. But then something happened to pull her back to the land of the awake.
"Elsa! Oh, Anna!" The voice was rushed, scared, relieved, and heartbroken all at once.
The platinum blonde recognized that voice, of course she recognized it, even in her state of mind. But she didn't have the energy to respond. So, she sat some more, she waited.
A hand rested lightly on her shoulder, she could hear the tormented sobbing of her mother. It sent yet another piercing flame through her heart, taxed her already burdened mind even more. She wanted to say something, her lungs yearned to speak, but she couldn't. It wasn't working, no matter how hard she tried, Elsa couldn't get herself to budge an inch.
Then, the hand was gone, the miniscule comfort abandoning Elsa, leaving her alone once more. She barely saw her mother move forward and cup Anna's face in her hands. She scarcely noticed the woman hurling tears, begging her youngest daughter to wake up.
It stung. More than Elsa knew anything could, way more. It still didn't seem real. Anna is in a coma. No, the platinum blonde would wake up. Yes, she'd wake up and be in the hotel room, cuddling with her Anna, the soothing body would be pressed against her own. This was but a nightmare.
Yes, that's what was happening. I'm dreaming. And for a moment, just a fleeting instant, Elsa almost believed herself. But not quite. On the contrary, it was all too real.
Miss Arendelle sat in silence with her daughter, both keeping watchful, protective eyes on the red head laying unconscious on the bed in front of them. Elsa had already run out of tears, it took her mother a couple more hours to. They stayed, wishing, wondering, and scared.
At almost five in the morning, Elsa's mother spoke again. The platinum blonde's ears and brain were a little more receptive to auditory stimuli, but still not enough. "We should get some rest, honey." The woman wiped under her nose directly after talking.
With all of her will power, Elsa shook her head ever so slightly. She felt her lip trembling, the tears rolling on back through. Like steamrollers, they flattened her will.
"Please, honey, you need some sleep and I do, too."
Once again, Elsa twisted her head from side to side. Only this time, salt water droplets were leaking from her eyes and blazing a trail down her cheeks. Her mother seemed to give up.
"I'm going to get you some water." Then she was gone.
Elsa was all alone in that room again. She was lost in the woods, her guiding light lay doused in water right in front of her, the flame extinguished. In its place was smoke whisking through the air. The last remnants of Anna's life, the straggling trails to mark the halt of her bright light, to signify the last time she'd brighten her older sister's day.
But the platinum blonde stayed as strong as possible. She pushed through for her sister, for her lover, for her world. She pushed through for Anna.
She did not drink the water her mother brought, she didn't even glance over when it was placed on the table. It was on accident, ignoring her mother, but Elsa couldn't help it, her mind was still overwhelmed.
But miss Arendelle was not going to give up on either of her daughters. She placed herself beside Elsa once again and waited with her.
Hours more went by of that steady beeping, of no improvement in the auburn haired girl.
Then, the first thing that lured a true response out of Elsa happened. "Elsa, you should call Kristoff and Rapunzel. They- they deserve to know."
The platinum blonde looked away from her sister for the first time in nearly ten hours, and spoke up for the first time in longer still. Her voice didn't agree with her, it rasped through her throat, getting caught in a lump halfway up. "O-okay."
With great difficulty, Elsa got up. She reluctantly and very slowly walked to the computers available for public use. There were three, and luckily, one was open. She sat down and, using all of her attention, searched for a phonebook online. After finding Rapunzel's and Kristoff's numbers, she went to the front desk. They allowed her to use a phone that was set aside for the public to use, and she dialed.
Elsa called Rapunzel first. It rang a few times, then the platinum blonde was faced with a confused sounding "Hello?"
Swallowing a sniffle, she responded. "A-A-Anna's in a co-c-coma."
There was a long silence from the other end. Then a breath, quick but drawn out. A quiet, disbelieving voice emanated from the speaker. "Elsa? What? What happened?" Rapunzel was speechless, she could barely think.
"S-she got h-h-hit by a c-car." Elsa's voice was raspy, strangled, and distant, her breathing uneven.
"Oh my God, Elsa, where are you? Are you okay?"
Painstakingly, the platinum blonde told the girl the name of the hospital she was in. Rapunzel knew that she was in Washington DC, so it was easy for her to find the address.
"Elsa, me and Kristoff will be there, I'm leaving now, hang in there, okay?"
"Oh-k-kay." The sobbing crept back up behind Elsa, her upper lip quivering.
The conversation was ended there. Elsa hung up and retreated to the chair in which she was previously residing. Sitting on the table, now in the morning light, a glint stole the platinum blonde's eye, resting on the nightstand beside Anna. A glimmer of silver, reflecting a golden ray of sunlight seeping through the window, the one pure thing in a world strewn with black ash and misery. A locket, shining proud, sturdy, permanent. Just like what it was chosen to represent: Elsa's love for Anna. Shalaryne brought this back.
She felt a dam inside of her break, millions of pounds of agony freshly rushing through her. She slowly and with thoughtful movements picked the locket up and draped it around Anna's wrist.
"Forever," she barely breathed and squeezed Anna's hand tighter.
Her and her mother sat, listening and watching intently for a sign, any sign that the strawberry blonde would wake back up, that she'd be okay.
They sat for hours, one of three or four nurses checked up Anna about every twenty minutes, just as Shalaryne had every hour for the passed night. One would come in and make sure the girl's vitals were in the clear and give Elsa and her mother a concerned look.
About two hours later, miss Arendelle got up. "I'm going to get something to eat from the cafeteria, would you like something, Elsa?"
The blonde slowly shook her head, unable to conjure strength for a voice.
A hand gently brushed Elsa's shoulder momentarily, spreading a tiny seed of comfort into her. "Okay." And then her mother was gone.
More waiting.
Then, her mother was back, after about fifteen minutes. She placed another water bottle on the table. "You should at least drink something." Then she produced a fruit cup. "I brought you something to eat when you feel up to it." There was a certain hollowness in the woman's voice, like she wasn't all there.
Elsa silently reached for the water. Her throat was aching up a storm from her crying and she knew she was most likely severely dehydrated. So water made sense. It soothed her throat, the cool liquid splashing refreshment into her tired body. She felt the chill in her chest as the water trickled into her stomach.
But food, she wasn't ready for that. Her stomach was barely accepting the water, it would detest to have any sort of solid item stuffed into it.
Hans sat in his room, his nose bandaged, a fresh rag had just been placed across it. It wasn't broken, but then again, Kristoff did not give that punch everything he could. Even Hans admitted that that kid had power behind him, he could only be thankful that it was a warning.
But he wasn't thankful, not in the least.
He was pissed. His brain was fuming, spouting steam out of his ears. He was going to get revenge, one way or another. And really, how hard could it be? There are innumerable ways to get back at that group of sickos. Elsa and Anna he still longed to harm, but now Kristoff and Rapunzel were under his radar, too. They accepted the monstrosities, the sick, twisted love that the sisters shared.
It was hideous, unimaginable, disgusting, revolting, and everything in between.
Monday he was going to spread the knowledge around, less directly this time. He had to get people to believe it, so he couldn't just go around blabbing blatantly, he needed proof. And seeing their public track record, that shouldn't be too difficult.
No signs of improvement showed their face, but Elsa remained right at Anna's side.
A few hours after the platinum blonde called Rapunzel, the doctor in charge of caring for Anna walked in to check on her instead of a nurse like normal.
He checked the girl's vitals, all the while being ignored by Elsa but watched intently by miss Arendelle. When he was about to take his leave, he turned and inhaled as if he was about to say something.
But Elsa's mother beat him to it. "How's she doing?"
The man took a deep breath and ran a hand through his short hair. When he drew air again, it was sharp. At first, he held eye contact with the older woman as he spoke. "She was hit hard, she's lucky to even be breathing after that."
It was only when he heard Elsa's strained inhale and noticed her hand over Anna's that he switched his attention. The doctor moved in closer to the platinum blonde, who now had new tears tickling at her face, just barely sliding down her cheeks.
"But," he said reassuringly, "she's a fighter, she's strong. I can't tell you anything for sure, but don't lose hope."
Elsa's insides were burning with a new feeling. Hope, maybe. Despair, possibly. Both, more likely. Whatever it was, it whirled through her stomach with a life of its own. It made her uneasy but calm at the same time. "T-thank you."
The man gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder before taking his leave.
"Anna will be okay, Elsa." Her mother was wrapping her arms around her now. It felt comforting, like a tiny, almost invisible line thrown into Elsa's ocean of despair. It was a distant candle in the pitch black forest of her loneliness.
The platinum blonde simply affirmed with a gesture of her head and leaned into the embrace.
Another few hours went by, Elsa was starting to feel the effects of having stayed up through the night. Her head hurt, it throbbed in time with the pulse of her heart. Her throat was parched, chapped through and through, she could almost feel the scrapes of skin peeling off.
Elsa's eyes were heavy and simmering fires kept themselves thriving underneath her eyelids. Her mind was not processing things fully, when she tried to look somewhere else, the world lagged behind. Rich purple bags plagued under the girl's boodshot eyes, staining the surface of her pristine skin with shining bruises.
She was once again drifting off to sleep when there was a voice. Loud, rushed, in the doorway. "Elsa!"
Rapunzel was upon her before the platinum blonde even had time to look over her shoulder. Slender arms pulled her close. Elsa reflexively leaned in. It helped set her heart and stomach at ease. She looked up at the brunette, emeralds shining back down at her. Salt water tears streaming down her neck.
That's when Kristoff decided to make his entry. He stepped from behind the doorway, unable to meet Elsa's gaze.
She was confused and hurt, but understood. He abandoned them, he practically ignored Elsa and Anna because of their relationship. The platinum blonde felt a mixing feeling in her gut, she didn't expect the burly blonde to show up. But of course, maybe this was what he needed to get over the whole thing.
Overall, Elsa was extremely uncomfortable with his presence. Luckily, he spoke first, in a soft tone. "Hey, Elsa."
There was a long pause. The platinum blonde stared at the boy intently, and only after several seconds did he look up to meet those ice blue eyes. His own were overflowing with regret and concern. Elsa couldn't talk, even though she wanted to. She knew he meant no harm by pushing her and Anna away, and even if it did hurt, she couldn't blame him. She wanted to make amends.
But her words were stuck, lost in the tidal waves around her.
Kristoff and the brunette girl crossed to Anna solemnly. Rapunzel smiled sadly down at the girl and hugged her very gently, so as not to disturb her IV. She let quiet sobs pass through her throat and stained the red head's hospital gown with her tears. "You'll be okay, you'll be okay." The girl couldn't stop her tears, her best friend was in a coma, she could barely process the fact and it didn't feel real until she actually saw it.
The burly blonde also showed his concern for Anna as he got to the bed. He looked down with sad, tired eyes. "You'll pull through this, feistypants. You have to."
They stayed there for a long time and Elsa thought. She thought about Rapunzel. She came. That in itself was sufficient proof that the girl wasn't going to turn her back on the sisters. It lifted a massive weight off of Elsa's shoulders, allowing her to focus all her strength on the real problem on hand: Anna.
They all stayed there quietly for several more minutes.
Rapunzel bit her lip and was the next to speak. "Elsa, Kristoff has something to tell you, alone." She sounded like she was walking on eggshells.
The burly blonde sighed and ran his hand through his blonde strands of hair. Elsa felt a knot tighten even more in her stomach, though she was previously adamant that it wasn't possible. Words came like a cactus through her throat. "About w-what?"
"Follow me," Kristoff said.
Elsa looked over at Anna and clenched her fingers around the girl's hand. Rapunzel caught on. "Let's wait outside," she suggested to miss Arendelle.
The woman looked from the brunette to Kristoff to her eldest daughter in confusion. When Elsa gave a tiny nod, she rose from her chair and followed Rapunzel out.
Now, they were alone. Elsa felt the air becoming physically thicker, harder to breathe as she waited. The monotonous beeping of Anna's heart monitor gave the entire situation and overbearing ominous feel, dark clouds from above, doom just around the corner.
"I'm sorry."
"W-what?"
With a deep breath, Kristoff elaborated. "I said, I'm sorry. For everything. I was wrong to push you and Anna away, and well, I have some explaining to do."
Elsa could almost taste the trembling in her friend's gut.
"I told you the truth when I explained why I need time, but- but not all of it. The truth is- the full truth, that is- is that I, well, I kinda like you, Elsa. As more than a friend." As he spoke the burly blonde rubbed the back of his neck. "And even though I was... uncomfortable with you and Anna's relationship, I was, well, I was also jealous." He looked at the ground. "So, I-I'm sorry."
The platinum blonde let the words sink under her skin and mend into her brain. She never had any clue, no inkling of an idea that Kristoff liked her like that. And right now? What that really the best time to drop that kind of thing right onto her back? While she was carrying the weight of Anna's injury?
No, it wasn't. Kristoff's timing, Elsa surmised, could scarcely be worse. It was ludicrous, like he was purposely trying to fill her walls of ice with water, determined to see her drown with an iron ball chained to her ankle.
After almost a minute of silence on Elsa's part, Kristoff spoke once more, his voice almost pleading. "Say something, please."
The platinum blonde drew in a deep, full breath, letting it slide out of her lips after. "I-I n-need time t-to th-thi-think."
Kristoff nodded in understanding as Elsa sniffled. "However long you need." And at that he took a step towards Anna. He patted the red head's small, tender hand in his own and examined the IV line as he spoke. "Anna, you'll be okay. I'm sorry for what I did, I-I... Just please wake up. I know you'll fight through this. You're too stubborn not to." A tear dibbled down his cheek.
He turned to cross the portal into the hallway but Elsa stopped him. "Y-you don't have to l-leave."
Seeming as relieved as one in his position could be, the burly blonde turned back around while beckoning the women waiting outside towards the room. "Thanks." He took a seat on the opposite side of the bed as Elsa and huffed out a breath. "I-I heard that letting them hear your voice can help. That they can actually hear it."
Elsa looked up at her friend, feeling absolutely powerless. "I-I don't know if I c-c-can."
Kristoff understood. He knew that Elsa was never the best with words and she used actions more than speaking to show her feelings, so where would she draw the right things to say to Anna while the girl was in a coma? That was asking the impossible from Elsa, so he found a compromise. "Then sing a song."
Miss Arendelle and Rapunzel were back in the room now, standing behind the platinum blonde, but she did not notice. Instead, she rested her head down against Anna's hand, rubbing her thumb in those oh so familiar circles. And she sang. Her voice was untrained and quiet, notes scarcely hit correctly, but it carried an appeal nonetheless. It was brittle, so delicate floating in the air. And sad, so sad. So distant and longing, so hopeful, so... broken.
"Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
And the dreams that you dreamed of
Once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow
Blue birds fly
And the dreams that you dreamed of
Dreams really do come true ooh oh
Someday I'll wish upon a star
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where trouble melts like lemon drops
High above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me
Oh, somewhere over the rainbow bluebirds fly
And the dream that you dare to,
Oh why, oh why can't I?"
She was lost in the song, tears running cold and hot and everything in between down the soft curve of her nose, dripping from her cheeks. She wept into the song, letting her internal struggle free into the air like a bird for all to hear. She was still aching inside, still drowning in ice cold water with a thrashing storm above, unsure of which was was actually up.
Her three spectators just sat and listened, fighting the welling mist in their own eyes.
Swimming.
Anna was swimming.
But what do directions matter when your pool goes forever in all of them?
But it wasn't water. No, Anna was swimming where she could breathe. She drifted through the nothingness of air.
It was air, right?
Anna couldn't be sure. All she knew was that she felt like a floating feather, lifted by nothingness, moving by sheer willpower.
She felt something inside but didn't know what it was. Maybe it was everything, maybe everything she's ever felt was tangled inside of her, creating giant knots and wiggling worms inside of her stomach. Making warm fuzz and cold fear in her heart. Everything.
Yes, that was it. Anna was experiencing every feeling she had ever felt in her life. Angry but peaceful, joyful but despaired, scared but fearless, determined yet broken. All of it.
And her life, it was all there.
She remembered every moment, every detail. It ran passed, she almost couldn't keep up, like a movie running in fast forward. But she could slow it down sometimes. Only at her favorite moments. The seconds, minutes, hours she'd spent by Elsa's side. All of them, as long as they were close, Anna was happy. Watching "The Lion King," Elsa picking her up when her and Hans broke up and from counseling, Elsa's graduation, their first date, their first kiss and every one henceforth, the days in London, at home, hugging, cuddling, their first day in Washington DC, and then-
Wait, what happened after Washington?
Anna couldn't remember, it all just went black, but she remembered an argument. What came next? The memory was fickle as a bar of soap, slipping just between her fingers right when she thought she had caught it.
Oh, there it was. A car. Pushing Elsa, being hit and then- I must have been in the hospital. I need to find where Elsa got off to, she was right, we have to talk to Rapunzel, we can't run. This would have made the red head anxious if she wasn't already feeling everything at once.
But Anna couldn't for the life of her remember when she left the hospital or if they had returned home yet.
Then, she was standing, not floating. Standing on blackness, there was a light spilling into the infinite nothingness. It trickled like gold, not blinding, not even bright, just known. It was alluring, calling her name with a voiceless holler, pulling her in like a fish to a lure.
But there was a sound, too. It was from behind her, so distant, maybe across the infinity. But it was singing to her, she knew it was, there was something in the way that it presented itself that showed her.
And it was beautiful. There was no practiced skill behind the singing, but rather a natural melody as it echoed through Anna's world with a vague origin. It was so longing, like it needed her. And it was so familiar, she could almost place it...
Almost.
But she couldn't.
Where is it from?
The singing was serene, a siren's song of false safety, an illusion of pleasure. She wanted to run to it, she wanted to find it's maker, it was calling her to do so. It was her mission to find whoever was singing to her.
But it was also her mission to enter the light, and that was in the opposite direction.
Anna had to choose, and there was no rush.
A/N: So why did I choose "Somewhere Over the Rainbow?" Well, because every time I listen to it I get the feels, and the lyrics lend themselves to this situation very nicely. Plus, who doesn't like that song?
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