Warnings: attempted sexual assault, graphic violence
Episode 10: Shape of My HeartBloomington, Indiana, 2000 Elsa is 42 and 20, Anna is 17
The clattering of pots and pans gave Elsa the first hint of her arrival. As the electricity receded, she heard the din of kitchen noise. Not a home, she thought, seeing the industrial off-white tile on the floor and the smell of cleaners punching her in the nose. Cafeteria? Mess hall? She knelt down, noting the stainless steel and aluminum surfaces everywhere, and saw a door with a darkened window to her right. Carefully, she walked to the door, seeing it was an office of some kind, and opened it silently.
Bingo, she thought, seeing several unlocked storage lockers. She found some food service uniforms and put one on, noting with amusement that the black outfit and apron made her look just as much like a ninja as it did a line cook. She decided against the apron and buttoned up the single-breasted black jacket, then found some plain black leather work shoes.
Once attired, she began to make her way around. Definitely an institution of some kind… then she smacked herself on the forehead. Her apron had a Sheraton logo on the lapel - she's at a hotel. Elsa made her way down the corridor and into one of the lounge areas. The whole place looked familiar to her, but she couldn't tell if it was because every hotel looked alike after enough business travel, or if she knew this one specifically.
In the foyer, she got her answer on the "Events of the Day" board: EVHS Senior Prom. The date on the board spelled out in cheap plastic lettering was May, 2000 - Anna's senior prom, and a wave of memories came crashing back. Anna's senior prom had been an unmitigated disaster. Elsa had seen it firsthand, having been home for summer break after completing her first graduate semester at MIT.
Anna had worn a beautiful purple and green ball gown and played the part of an enchanting princess when she left home, and everything went to hell after that. She had gotten into some kind of fight at the prom, supposedly punching another girl - she never did clearly say why - and then getting absolutely trashed with her piece of shit boyfriend, Hans. By 1 AM of her prom night, Elsa had to go down to the Bloomington Police Department to retrieve her very drunk sister and the tattered remains of her gown. She'd been arrested for public drunkenness and indecency but thankfully, she had been a minor and wasn't charged with anything at the time. They'd fought bitterly the entire drive home.
Elsa shook her head, forcing the painful memories of that night away, as she made her way towards the Grand Ballroom. She looked at herself in the mirror; without the apron and hat, her outfit looked surprisingly formal, formal enough that she could pass for a well-dressed guest, albeit a slightly eccentric one.
She opened the door to the ballroom and immediately walked into a wall of sound as Green Day's "Time of Your Life" blared from the hotel speakers and teenage couples swayed awkwardly beneath the crystal chandeliers suspended from the drop-tile ceiling. Elsa wrinkled her nose at the too-warm room filled with the conflicting scents of lust, angst, and desperation. As she made her way to the back of the room, she saw a familiar purple and green gown, its occupant leaning against one of the walls.
"Hey, Princess," she said with a smile, approaching her sister.
Anna's eyes bulged. "Elsa! ELSA! You're here!" She sprang from the wall and crushed Elsa in a fast, furious hug. "Oh my god, I haven't seen you in forever!" Anna relaxed her grip long enough to kiss Elsa on the cheek. "How- how have you been? How long has it been?"
Elsa smiled. "I saw you yesterday, from my perspective," she chuckled, unsure what to do with her hands besides maintain the hug. "How have YOU been?"
Anna pulled her to one of the tables and sat down, joyful glee on her face at seeing this Elsa. "I've been good. We've been good. You - I mean, my Elsa, and I have gotten really close the last couple of years, ever since…"
"You kissed me before I vanished?"
Anna's blush did a fair imitation of the red plastic cup she was holding. "Y-yeah. My bad, sorry about that, I was just- um- I got caught up in the moment. I hope that didn't make you totally flip out or anything," she laughed nervously.
"It was certainly a surprise! So, um… are you…"
"Still in love with you?" Anna grinned. "Sort of? I mean, you're still this amazing angel that appears out of nowhere, like some kind of magical superhero time traveler, and I think that's so amazing. And you love me enough to keep coming back for me when I need you the most…"
Elsa smiled. "But?"
"But… I've sort of fallen in love," Anna blushed, "W-with someone else."
"That… that's good, Anna. That's wonderful!" Elsa breathed a sigh of relief. The thought of Anna chasing after her was too much for her, even after a night's sleep on the matter. For Anna it had been a couple of years, but for her the revelation was literally yesterday, and she hadn't come to terms with it at all. "So who's the lucky-"
"Hey babe, wanna-"
Elsa narrowed her eyes at person interrupting her, a pimply-faced, overly-muscled, red-haired jock with beady green eyes and absolutely ridiculous sideburns carrying two red plastic cups of whatever the hotel was serving minors. Hans Westergaard. Oh lord, please don't tell me Anna's fallen for this piece of shit.
"Whoa! Who's your hot friend, Anna?" he exclaimed, staring unabashedly at Elsa's chest.
Both women rolled their eyes. "Hans, sometimes, you're a pig. Scratch that, most of the time, you're a pig," whipped Anna.
Hans threw up his hands. "Hey now, I was only pointing out the truth!" He winked at Elsa, who rolled her eyes again and sighed. "Anyway, I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go dance with the gang?"
Anna looked across the dance floor to see a gaggle of her friends flailing clumsily to NSYNC's Bye Bye Bye and eagerly went to join them, shouting "I'll be riiiiight back, Elsa!" over her shoulder.
Elsa sighed. Why was her sister hanging out at all with Hans? He was responsible for so much of what went wrong later in her life. She contemplated what to tell Anna, how to reinforce that she needed to keep her distance from him, even if her friends didn't.
She took a sniff of the punch that Hans had left behind, grimacing at the sugary, artificial scent. She sniffed it again, something bothering her, then took a sip and nearly spit it out. He had spiked it, and by the taste of it, spiked it with bottom-shelf liquor that on a good day could be used as window cleaner.
Elsa looked around for someone from the school and saw Principal Oaken watching the prom from the adult beverage cart with amusement. She picked up the cup and walked over to the massive man clad in a cheerful sweater, tapping him on the shoulder and holding the red cup out.
"Yes? How may I help you?" he said, confused as to why a strange woman was handing him a drink.
"Sorry, I'm… an employee here. I noticed that one of your students left this behind and I'm certain we are not serving alcoholic drinks to students," she said, pushing the cup into his hands.
He sniffed it and recoiled. "Oh dear, that's no good. Thank you, Miss…?"
"Arendelle."
"Thank you, Miss Arendelle. You didn't get a look at which particular student left this behind by chance, did you?" he asked as his eyes swept the room, looking for a mental list of troublemakers amidst the noise and chaos.
Elsa smiled. "Yes, a young man, probably five-foot eight or so, red hair, green eyes, and he had these… very noticeable sideburns…"
Oaken sighed. "Westergaard. That kid is such a pain in the… never mind. I'm sorry about this. Thank you, Miss Arendelle, for bringing this to my attention. Hoo hoo!" He motioned for one of the teachers nearby to come over and they conferred for a bit before the teacher went off into the crowd.
Elsa smiled and gave her leave of her old principal. She laughed ruefully to herself and wondered if she really looked that much older that he wouldn't remember the valedictorian from a couple of years ago. Her hair had changed from the lightest blonde to pure white over the last two decades, but she didn't think she'd changed THAT much. I suppose he'd be looking for a 20 year old, not a 42 year old woman, she murmured to herself.
She stood up and wandered around the ballroom perimeter in search of her sister, avoiding collisions with uncoordinated high schoolers attempting to impress each other. Thank god I never went to any of these growing up, she thought. Her life had always been academics, since she could remember, and being a child prodigy meant doing little else.
I wasn't gone that long - where did she go, she wondered. I've got to warn her that Hans is up to something, spiking her drink like that, the little asshole. I wonder how many she's had. Elsa looked at the clock on the wall - 11 PM. The prom would be winding down shortly; some students were already making their way to the door, obviously intending to continue the party elsewhere. She headed outside and looked around, the parking lot filled with buses and a few cars.
Elsa centered herself, remembering her years of jujutsu training she took while living in Oslo. She closed her eyes and breathed in the cool night air, extending her senses in every direction. In the distance, to her right, she heard what sounded like uncoordinated footsteps and scraping sounds, and bolted in pursuit.
All the way across the hotel's enormous parking lot, near two parked schoolbuses, she spotted her sister and Hans, just as Hans was attempting to shove her into the backseat of a Toyota Corolla. As she ran closer, their voices became more clear.
"Hans, just get the fuck off me and leave me alone!" Anna's voice, only slightly slurred, still rang out.
The sound of cloth ripping tore through the darkness. Elsa's blood froze at the sound.
"Come on baby, you know you want to have a good time!"
A crack echoed through the evening air, the sound of a palm slapping a face. Elsa was almost to them, watching as Anna slapped Hans across the cheek.
Hans growled furiously and punched Anna in the face as retribution. She shrieked from the pain and fell backwards into the car, and Hans clambered after her gracelessly.
Just as he raised his fist to hit her again, he felt himself yanked out of the car by his collar and onto the pavement.
Elsa stood above him, hands in front of her, eyes ablaze with cold rage. "Leave. Her. Alone," she seethed.
"Fuck you lady, this ain't none of your business!" he shouted, scrambling to his feet.
"Stop it, Hans!" Anna shouted, emerging from the car with her hand covering a bloody nose and what would be a substantial black eye later. Elsa held out her arms, keeping Anna behind her.
"You friends with this bitch, Anna?" he scoffed. "Fine, I'm gonna teach her a lesson and then we're gonna continue where we left off," he hissed. Hans rolled up the sleeves of his tuxedo shirt, pulled back his fist, and swung a wild haymaker, intending to punch Elsa straight in the mouth.
His fist hit air.
Elsa easily stepped to the side of his clumsy punch and stomped her heel into the back of his calf, the pain causing his leg to crumple. As he started to fall, she hit him with a fast uppercut and a devastating hook punch to the side of his jaw, slamming him toward the ground and bouncing his head off the side of the Corolla on the way down.
Dazed, Hans growled wordlessly, rolling over and struggling to his knees. Just as he tried to push himself off the ground, Elsa stomped a heel into his ribs, the impact making a wet cracking sound as several of the bones broke. He doubled over and fell face first into the pavement from the pain, breaking a couple teeth in the process.
"Stay down if you know what's good for you, you piece of shit," she snarled at his prone form, her foot on his neck. "You don't touch her, you don't talk to her, you don't look at her. If I catch you near her ever again… You. Will. Die."
Elsa stood up and grabbed Anna by the arm, looking around the parking lot to see if anyone had observed the fight. "Let's get out of here before there's more trouble, okay?"
Anna nodded, still holding her face with her hand. A trickle of blood seeped between her fingers as her much older sister escorted her to the side entrance of the hotel and into one of the restrooms off the lobby.
After a few minutes of washing and cleaning up the blood, Anna looked almost back to normal, save for a badly torn gown plus the redness and swelling in her cheek. "I… thank you, Elsa. I should have listened to you."
Elsa walked her gently to one of the lounges near the fitness center, on the opposite side of the hotel from the ballroom. "What do you mean, Anna?" she asked gently, sitting next to her on an absurdly overstuffed leather couch.
"You… last time you were here, you warned me to stay away from Hans. I guess… you were right. If you hadn't been there tonight, he- he would have-", she stumbled, words rapidly drowning in tears. The image of Hans' leering face, the sodium parking lot lamps lighting him like a hellish demon, chilled her as her tears fell.
Elsa laid her arm across Anna's trembling shoulders. "It's okay, Anna. You- you're okay. You're going to be okay. We stopped him, and I doubt he's going to try anything that dumb again. Especially if all his jock buddies found out he got beaten up by some middle-aged woman."
Elsa's stomach sank, wondering if Hans and Anna had… gotten together in the original timeline. She suppressed a gag at the thought, but another unpleasant thought reared its head like a hydra's snakes.
"Anna…"
Her sister's cries had reduced to the occasional snuffle, and Anna turned her head to look at Elsa.
"Did you… um, earlier, before everything… you said you had fallen in love with someone else…" she asked, hesitating. Did she really want the answer to this question?
"Yeah?"
"It… wasn't Hans, was it?"
Anna's laugh was a short, sharp bark. "AS IF! Oh my god no, Elsa. He- God no. He hangs out like a perv with my friends a lot at school, but we're not even friends, much less going out. Fuck no, I'm not in love with him. After tonight, if I ever see him again, I'm going to punch him in the face."
Elsa breathed an enormous sigh of relief. "Thank goodness for that. I was afraid you had somehow fallen for him."
"Definitely not!" she snorted and giggled, sounding a bit like a pig with hiccups.
"Ok, so… if Hans isn't your boyfriend, how were you planning on getting home tonight?"
Anna smiled and pulled open her little green clutch, fishing out a vivid pink Nokia 3310 phone. "I'll just call… you!" she laughed. "And by you, I mean my Elsa, not you." She took a minute to dial and asked her sister to come get her at the hotel.
Elsa contemplated her sister as she chatted on the phone. Got into a fight. Tattered gown. Hans. A version of her coming to pick her up and get everything sorted out after a tumultuous evening. All the pieces were there, but with a different outcome. Anna wasn't totally smashed, and she wasn't with Hans. Time seemed to be maintaining its general flow, but the specifics were changing. The thought gave her hope.
"Earth to Elsa!"
She started, not realizing she'd been so lost in her thoughts that Anna not only had finished her phone conversation but was vigorously waving a hand in front of her face.
"What were you thinking about there, Elsa? I really lost you there for a moment," she giggled.
"Oh, sorry. Umm… well, I was thinking… so, if it's not Hans you're in love with, who is the lucky person?" Elsa leaned forward, her curiosity getting the better of her.
Anna immediately blushed hard, her face and ears turning red. She squirmed uncomfortably. "Uh… you… you don't want me to answer that."
"Why? You said earlier that you weren't still in love with me," Elsa said, puzzled at her sister's reaction. "Were you… were you not telling the truth?"
"What? No, I swear, I was telling the truth. Even if I'd had a little bit of that special fruit punch. I was totally telling you the truth, Elsa," she said louder than she'd intended to, her face and ears still red.
Elsa scratched her head. "Okay, I'm confused."
Anna sighed and looked at her, as though expecting her to know the answer from her thoughts alone. "Elsa… I'm not in love with YOU, but… I'm in love with you," she said bashfully.
"Now I'm really conf-" Realization dawned on her. "Oh. OH. You're- oh. Does… does she know?"
"I'm not sure. I mean… I'm not the world's most subtle person-"
Elsa broke out into a fit of coughing.
"Hey, you stinker! That was mean. Anyway, as I was saying, I'm not the most subtle person, but I haven't told her to her face, if that's what you mean," Anna looked at her shoes as she muttered the latter part.
Elsa cleared her throat. "How… how long has this been a thing?"
Anna looked up at her with a weak smile. "Since the last time you left. Right after you vanished… I was so all over the place emotionally, I went to talk to her in her room. That was the start of it for me. She was so caring and understanding- just like you. Which, you know, makes total sense because she is you."
"And she's never reciprocated?"
"No, no she hasn't, and not for a lack of effort on my part!" the redhead grinned saucily.
"Elsa?"
Both turned their heads at the familiar voice as Elsa's 20-year old self walked in the hotel doors and had come to a dead stop in front of the two women.
"You got here super fast, sis!"
Younger Elsa broke from her surprise and ran over to Anna, hugging her. "Of course I did, you said you were hurt." She immediately began inspecting Anna's injuries. "You're going to have one heck of a black eye tomorrow, Anna."
Anna grinned. "I know, but this Elsa saved me, thank goodness. I don't know what would have happened without her." She gently rubbed the elder Elsa's arm, sending shivers down the adult woman's spine.
"Okay. Well, let's get you home and cleaned up. Thank goodness Mama and Papa are away for the weekend." Both Elsas helped Anna to her feet and to the younger's car for the short drive back to their home.
"Hey."
"Hey indeed, my younger self. Is Anna okay? Are you all right?" Elsa asked, looking at her youthful countenance with concern as she motioned for her to have a seat on the living room couch.
Younger Elsa exhaled, her shoulders relaxing and letting go the tension stored up in them. Despite her fatigue, she gracefully lowered herself to the couch next to her older self. "Anna's asleep. The excitement of the evening wore her out. Me… I'm… not okay. Seeing Anna like that and then seeing you was such a shock. I- what she said in the car about what happened, I got so scared for her. How… how did you stop that?"
Elsa laughed quietly, running her fingers through her white hair. "When I turned 30, I moved to Oslo and started at the university there. I couldn't study all the time, so I started taking martial arts on campus at first, in a self-defense and fitness class. After that semester, I joined the instructor's school, a little-known school of jujutsu called Takagi Yoshin Ryu. I eventually ended up getting a few black belts in it."
"A few?" gasped her younger self in wonder. "How many are there?"
"Well… technically, probably about 10. I only got four of them before I moved back to the States to start building the project that would lead me here, but I kept up with it. And as you heard tonight," she smirked, "it comes in handy sometimes. So, something to look forward to for yourself in about 10 years."
Younger Elsa nodded and stared into the distance, her eyes getting watery.
"What is it? What are you thinking?"
"I- if you hadn't been there tonight… he- he- Anna would have been…" she stuttered, the thought of her sister being assaulted overwhelming her. Tears began to run down her cheeks. "What- what if Hans comes back, looking for revenge? What will I be able to do?"
Elsa wrapped her younger self in a warm hug. "Hey, hey, hey… that didn't happen, okay. Anna is fine, she's safe, and the only thing Hans is going to be looking for is his front teeth. Anna's safe, Elsa, I promise. We kept her safe."
"I couldn't bear it if something happened to her. She and I have become so close the last few years, I don't know what I would do without her," she mumbled into her older self's shoulder, tears beginning to slow.
Elsa thought back to her own life as her lookalike settled her nerves. She and Anna had been close when they were young, but drifted apart around the time that Anna had started drinking and partying, about two years prior to the time period she was in now. None of that had happened, and now Anna was incredibly close, so close that her younger self felt almost dependent on her?
"Elsa… how close?"
Her younger self looked up. "Hmm?"
"You said you've become so close with Anna. Just… how close are we talking?" she said curiously, looking down into the same sapphire eyes she saw in the mirror every morning.
Younger Elsa blushed. And blushed. And blushed so much that the tips of her ears were as red as Anna's hair. "W-what do you mean? What are you-" she swallowed, nervous, "you suggesting?"
The older woman laid back in shock. Was her younger self smitten with her own sister? Was such a thing even possible? She'd never felt that way towards Anna growing up. "Are we… are you in love with Anna, Elsa?"
The younger girl hid her face in her hands and mumbled, still blushing furiously.
"What did you say, Elsa?" she asked softly.
"Y-yes. Yes, I'm in love with Anna. P-pl-please don't tell her. She would be so hurt by it," she choked.
Elsa burst into another coughing fit, suppressing her laughter. "Wh- how- what do you mean, she would be so hurt? Elsa, she loves you!"
Her younger self looked despondent. "Of course she loves me. I'm her SISTER. That's the problem! I… sisters aren't supposed to want to love each other like… like the way I feel about her. I'm disgusting! She would be disgusted by me," she wept.
"It's not my place to speak for her, but… she won't be disgusted by you, Elsa. Be- be honest with her. The Anna I knew growing up was so hurt by me shutting her out all the time. Our studies - my studies, because you've made time for her where I didn't - always made her feel like she didn't matter." She gently stroked her younger self's hair, still light gold compared to her own snow white hair. Her hair had gone completely white just after Anna's funeral.
Tingling sensations began in her fingertips and she knew what was about to happen. She firmly cupped her younger self's chin. "Elsa, listen to me, okay? I'm about to leap back to my own time. Be honest with Anna. Like the cliche goes, tell her the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God."
Her younger self nodded and bit her lower lip. "You- you're sure she won't hate me? She won't find me repulsive for… for feeling like I do?" Her eyes widened, watching small electrical sparks dance across her older self's skin.
Arcs of electricity jumped from Elsa's skin to the couch and floor. "I'm sure, Elsa. Tell her the truth, and trust in your sister's heart, okay?"
"Thank you for saving her tonight. I- I wouldn't have been able to do that."
Elsa smiled, feeling time's grasp on her. "You will," she grinned, as she disappeared in a flash of light.
Author's Notes
We've jumped ahead two years here. Recall before the last leap, Anna had confessed her feelings about Big Elsa; here, we see Anna's transferrence of those feelings to her sister in her time, and Younger Elsa's resistance to admitting her own feelings.
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