Hello guys, I'm back here on the 1st with a new chapter for you. It's not long, but it does have a charming and crucial exchange between Anna and Elsa. I think it's safe to say this power duo will be sticking together as much as possible.
Get on with the reading and let me know what you think.
-Whovian123
Disclaimer: I do not own frozen.
My back is tight, so are my knees. Why was my body curled tight as I slept? Why am I upright? Is it the wall that is keeping me from falling over? What is the warm weight atop my shoulder? Why is it so comforting?
I pry my raw eyes open; they are eyes that have cried far too freely in the hours before slumber claimed me. Anna, it is Anna's head that rests atop my shoulder. She is asleep and her face is worry free. Her brow is not creased in the slightest. She is calm, but she will not be when she wakes up.
I told her about the bump. I remember how her fingers skated across my stomach, the way her voice broke around the vowels of my name. She will panic when she wakes, for several bliss filled moments she will be calm, and unaware, but then she will remember. She will remember the way we all do after sleeping away the knowledge of awful things.
"What?" Anna murmurs, her nose crinkling and her hand coming up to rub the world back in to her eyes.
"I didn't say anything."
"Oh, I thought you did." With that she decides that the world can wait, worms her way further in to my side, and leaves her head on my shoulder. She leaves her eyes closed and her body relaxed. I wait several moments, letting the night come back to her and waiting for the subsequent shrieks of "Whore" and "Harlot".
Anna does tense after several moments. I brace myself against the shouting I am sure will come, but am met only with silence. The pressure of Anna's head atop my shoulder lessens as she remembers how to move and decides that she cannot stand the thought of being near me any longer. I let her pull away, I know it do not deserve her, whatever promise she made last night are not promises I will hold her to.
Last night I was scared, and so was Anna. Last night we said what we needed to say to feel strong enough to deal with this, but Anna is not bound to me. She is not bound to my son; she has no obligation to raise him.
"Does he know?" Anna's question confuses me. Why is she not shouting? Why has she not branded me a whore? "Have you told Hans?"
"No. No I haven't. He doesn't know."
"You can't let him find out. He might hurt you." Anna insists.
"He wouldn't, this is what he wants. This is what he has been after from the beginning, this and Arendelle." I explain, trying to ignore the persistent memories of my wedding night. Every time I blink I see his face in front of mine, the smug grin and dark eyes that cast me aside so easily. "He says he needs an heir, a child with claim over the throne. He says that I owe him a son."
"Blasphemy," Anna declares, "you don't owe him anything, you never have. He doesn't deserve anything, not from you, not from anyone else. He has no claim over your body. You must know that."
I nod, of course I know that, but it is harder to remind myself of such things when he has me pinned to a wall and is threatening the lives of my family. When he is determined to either take, a life, or my body, it is easy to surrender the latter secure in the knowledge that the former is safe a while longer.
"Don't tell anyone." I plead.
"Soon enough I won't have to tell people, it will be obvious just by looking." Anna's words gain momentum as she starts to panic. "Are you certain? Completely sure of it?"
"Yes."
"Ok." Anna calms down, knowing that panicking has never solved any of her problems and that it will likely have the same effect on mine. "Elsa, there isn't a way around this."
"I know."
"You're going to have to announce it at some point."
"Not yet, please Anna, not yet. It's not even been three months; anything could happen in the next six." I beg, not knowing quite what I mean. Would I dare harm it, could I fight the urge to protect my son?
"What will happen when Hans finds out?" Anna stands. "What is the absolute worst that can happen?"
I struggle, not knowing myself the very worst things that Hans could do. What would he do? Would he find some reason to be angry, would he justify punches, or burning? Would he kill my mother? Would he decide that he no longer needs hostages because I can no longer disobey him? With his heir on the way there is no longer any way I can destroy his plans. He would no longer need leverage over me.
When I do speak it is only to tell Anna the truth, the absolute worst thing Hans could do. The one thing from which I would never be able to recover from, the one thing which would render me an obeying mess. "He could kill you."
It is simple. With Anna gone I would be too. I could not fail her so grandly and ever speak again. If Hans killed her because of me I would die with her. Anna has always been there. Granted for thirteen years she was there from behind a door, but a door is just a door and it could not hide the soft words she spoke.
"Why would he kill me?" Anna does not sound scared, she is not as scared as she should be.
"Because he needs me to be broken." I worry that I will explain too much. "He uses lives as leverage, and when he knows it will hurt the most he cuts them from this earth."
"Who else does he have?" Anna's face grows far more worried than I have ever seen it. "Who has he killed?" Anna stares down at me. "Who else does he have on that boat?"
Far too much of this is making sense for Anna now. She is so inquisitive and has always found the answers she wants; even if she knows she will not like them. I want to tell her, more than ever, that our mother is alive, that she is not gone. I want Anna to know that I am doing my best to give her the family she deserves.
"I can't." My voice stumbles and falters, not knowing what I can say.
"But you do know you know exactly who is on that boat; you know exactly who Hans has killed. That's why you did this, that's why he is our King, why he's your husband." Anna's voice is sharp. It is all making more and more sense to her, she understands far more than I have ever wanted her too. She does not need to know this. She does not need the fouler details of my life.
"Anna, this is not important, not too you. You don't need this." I try to insist; try to have her change the subject.
"Yes I do. My fiancé is on that boat with whomever Hans has been threating you with?"
I stand. My legs feel weak, but not as weak as I felt on the floor. I need Anna to understand that I am doing everything for her. I am doing this for her and for our family. I part from the wall and come to stand beside, the now angry, Anna.
"I know I am not giving you the answers you want. I know I have not been for quite some time now." I reach my arm around Anna and pull her to my side in the hug that softens the rigidity of her expression. "I know that you are scared, and I know this because I am too." I find that I am trying to ease Anna's worries as much as I am my own.
"What do we do then? If you don't know what to do then who will? Who is going to die when we run out of ways to hide?"
Anna deserves an answer, she always has, but I do not give her one. I wait. I remain silent. We wait together, not knowing what we are waiting for, only that it has not come yet. What is there still to come? What will Hans do when I dare come to face him? Will be prove himself wiser than I suspect and discover the near existence of his son? Do I dare hope that my mother will be granted a future?
My chest feels tight, as if taking a deep breath is not something it is willing to do. I have convinced myself that I can feel it, that I can feel the heir inside me. I do not know if it is entirely in my head, or if some of the feeling is grounded in reality. It would be far too soon to imagine a kick, or proper movement of any kind, but still, he is there.
"So I am to be an Aunt." Anna muses in what must be an irrational moment of mirth. "I am going to spoil the little devil rotten."
"Don't you dare." I warn, playing in to the stunning normalcy of the situation.
"Just try and stop me. I'm going to be the best aunt, the aunt to end all aunts. There has never been an aunt as great as me."
I laugh.
We settle in to silence again, but this time it is a calm and comfortable silence. Perhaps we have dared to be optimistic. Perhaps we are fools, but we are happy fools. We might not be safe, but we feel safe. Right now I am confident that Hans cannot hurt me. For these seconds I know that I am brave, maybe not brave enough, but still just a little bit brave, and a little bit is better than nothing.
I suppose sometime soon I will have to make my way to the dining hall. I will have to eat, no longer just to please Hans with a polite appearance, but now for the son I have decided I cannot let go. He may eventually be molded in to a frightening king, but for now he is innocent and desperate for life. He will have an aunt, I know this now. I can be assured in the fact that while I am buried and gone he will have one person in whom he can confide.
I can leave him with that. I may not succeed as a mother, but I can be sure that Anna will succeed as an aunt. Children have always loved her. Little girls flock to her when she visits the markets, and little boys blush as they offer her flowers clenched in their tiny fists.
Anna will love him. Loving is second nature to her, she does it so easily. Hans nearly used it to our doom, but now it is strength. She can love my son. She can love him as I never could. She can give him her heart because that will be what he needs; he will need what I cannot give him. I hate that I could not love my son. I wish that I could, l long to be able to but Hanses eyes will always belong to him whether they are on his face, or my sons.
I pull Anna tighter to me, hugging her because it is all I can do. The words to thank her will never be enough. She gives, and she gives, desperate for family and love in return, and I will do my best to get her those. Right now it is my fault that she does not have her family, and it is my fault that her fiancé is not with her. If I die she might get them back. If I die for Hans and my son Anna might be granted her family back, and even if it is not a guarantee it is still better than me being alive.
Well? How did I do? Let me know with a review! Consider this and the next few chapters the calm before the storm...
I'll have a new chapter up on the 6th, I promise that one will be a bit longer than this one was.
-Whovian123
Aggregate Dragon: Thank you. I think it's safe to say she takes it a little less well in this chapter, but when the dust settles family really is forever.
Loridhhp: Thank you. I had been waiting to write the scene where Olaf decided that all Elsa really needed was Anna for so long. It has always been part of the story, right from the beginning.
Guest: Thank you. Also I cannot PM you unless you have an account, and sign in to review with that account.
Phill: Thank you, and sorry for the inaccuracy. It didn't even occur to me to at least Google that before I started writing. I am glad it does not serve as a deterrent to your continued reading though.