The Rabbit and The Android

Elsa let her car pull itself into the safehouse, parking next to the hover-tank after the garage doors closed. The whole way back from the House of Gold Leaves, she had let her autodrive take care of things since she was in no condition to drive. Her mind was a complete blank.

Physically, she was bruised and cut in several places, but her wounds were not life-threatening. Emotionally, she had been to hell and back, having done the hardest thing she ever had to do in her life so far.

Anna's motorcycle was already in the safehouse, which assured Elsa that she was already back safe. Still, she remained sitting in her car after the engines were turned off, staring at nothing in particular. When a gentle knock came at the window, Elsa barely registered it, glancing over and seeing that Anna was on the other side.

Elsa could see that Anna had also been through a physical wringer. She had stripped down to her underwear and her entire body was covered in a fine sheen of medi-gel, due to the score of purple bruises dotted all over her skin. Even so, her eyes were bright and she wore a hopeful smile.

That smile faded when she realized Elsa was alone.

Wordlessly, Elsa reached over to the passenger seat where the book was sitting and picked it up. Then, she opened her door and stepped out. It was clear enough from her demeanor that although she had survived, she had only been partially successful in her mission. The Soviet IFF codes she had acquired were safely stored inside her head. On the other hand, Lizzie could not be saved.

"I'm sorry," Anna said quietly, reading all that from Elsa's face alone. "I'm so sorry."

Elsa looked at Anna and tried to say something. When she opened her mouth and no sound came out. She tried instead to make herself feel something. Anything beyond the emptiness and the defeat she felt now. But there was nothing. Nothing to fill in the vacuum left in her heart and nothing to alleviate the weight of all the lives she had failed to save.

"Shh, it's okay," Anna pulled Elsa into a hug. "You don't have to say anything."

Elsa didn't return the hug. She was still in shock. After lingering a moment longer in Anna's embrace, she gently extricated herself and limped over to her workstation. There, she removed the chip from the slot behind her ear and inserted it into her terminal.

"OLAF," Elsa croaked, her voice barely audible. "Transmit these to the Maximus."

"At once, ma'am," OLAF did as he was told.

"Elsa, come on," Anna came up behind her and gently led her over to the small bedroom of the safehouse. "Let's get you cleaned up."

"Okay," Elsa replied, letting Anna guide her.

Neither of them said much for the next little while. Anna helped Elsa get out of her bloody clothing, then cleaned her up and dressed her wounds with medi-gel and bandages. All told, she would have a few more scars to her collection, nearly matching Anna in the amount she had. When that was done, they climbed into bed. The entire time, Elsa was staring at the cover of The Velveteen Rabbit which sat in front of her, Natalya's book that she had been reading before her final rest.

Elsa was lying on her side, her head resting in Anna's lap. Anna was sitting upright and simply ran her fingers through Elsa's white hair.

The events of the day were flashing through both of their minds, and it had certainly been an eventful one. It started with them crossing the Martian desert to reach Cinnabar Bay, where they acquired the hover-tank from the Crimson Corsairs. It ended in a bloodbath at Red Square and the House of Gold Leaves.

In just one day, Elsa and Anna had broken the fangs of some of the biggest gangs in Arcadia. The Crimson Corsairs were wiped out. The Verenkovs were leaderless and all but destroyed. The Yakuza and the Triads – two gangs they didn't even have any dealings with – were decimated. It was a good thing they had done for the people of Arcadia and especially for the citizens of the sub-city.

A measure of peace had been restored. Small, but not altogether insignificant. Still, to Elsa and Anna, it didn't feel like they had performed a good act.

Their victory had simply cost too much.

To Elsa, the list of people she cared about had another name crossed off. This time, she had been the one to cross it off herself. She wasn't sure how to move forward with everything. She wasn't certain of what to do next. She didn't even know if she was still doing the right thing.

"Anna?" Elsa said, her voice quiet and hoarse. "Do you still trust me?"

"I do," Anna replied without hesitation.

"Do you still think I'm doing the right thing?"

"Of course."

"Even if some of the people we care about get hurt along the way?"

"Yes. This is their fight too."

Elsa shut her eyes and rolled onto her back. "Lizzie, she- she didn't- I tried to get her to remember, I did, but she- she- I had to-"

"It's okay, I understand," Anna said. "I think she would have wanted the same thing. She wouldn't have blamed you."

Elsa opened her eyes, staring up into Anna's face. There was no blame there, no guilt, no condemnation. There was only kindness, understanding, and the kind of certainty that only came from the purest of love. Beneath Anna's gaze, Elsa felt unworthy.

The cause she had taken up was getting everyone she cared about hurt or worse. At this point, she could turn her whole back on the world if it meant that nobody else died on her account.

As if sensing her thoughts, Anna didn't let her give up that easily. But instead of repeating a conversation about the difficulty of their mission, which by this point, they had already done a few times, she reached over towards The Velveteen Rabbit and picked it up. Then, Anna began to read out loud, her voice calm, steady, and even.

At first, Elsa refused to hear her, tuning out her voice as she stewed in her own thoughts, mentally berating herself for her failures. However, when Anna reached a certain passage of the book, she couldn't help but listen and feel her own heart thrum in response to the words.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are real, you don't mind being hurt."

That last line was particularly striking for Elsa. Once upon a time, she considered herself to be an android. A synthetic being with a head stuffed full of false memories. She never thought of herself like that anymore, for she knew she was human and that she was real.

The pain she felt now and the grief she carried in her heart only further proved that fact. Her memory was a gift because of Nora and her experiences with Anna that were given new life, purpose, and meaning. Her memory was also a curse because of the mental scars she had from the traumatic experiences she lived through. Still, the duality of memory was, in and of itself, the most defining trait that made a human a human.

Continuity of experience and an unbroken stream of consciousness was a central tenet to identity and personhood. In that regard, Lizzie died long before she was ever turned into Natalya and long before Elsa ever shot her. The same little girl who helped Elsa all that time ago was dead but she wasn't gone and she was no less real.

Lizzie's life was real, her struggles were real, and her death was as real as any other human's. If pain was the price of being real, then she gladly paid it. If suffering was integral to the human experience, she suffered without question. If to hurt was to love and to love was to hurt, she hurt willingly.

Elsa knew these things herself from experience.

It was only in the deepest, darkest, depths of despair that love, light, and life shined through. Good must be balanced with bad. Too much of one would rob all meaning of the other and both were equally necessary.

As heartbroken as she was now, Elsa took comfort from the fact that Lizzie's memory would live on through her. The weight of the scars she carried paled in comparison to the tremendous love and support she received from the people who had chosen to help her. She was more than an amalgamation of suffering. She was more than a collection of traumatic experiences. She was more than a person whose life had once been defined by pain, isolation, loneliness, doubt, and fear.

Elsa was a vessel of everyone she ever cared about. A patchwork collage of everyone who was ever important to her. A mosaic of everyone she ever loved.

Nora lived on in Elsa. Theodore lived on in Elsa. Rufus lived on in Elsa. Lizzie lived on in Elsa. In each of their own ways, they left a small piece of themselves within Elsa, who in turn carried them in her heart, mind, and soul. All that was good about her came from herself and more. Anna was there as well and she had been the one who picked up all of Elsa's broken pieces to put them back together, and she, the same for Anna.

If Elsa was going to honor their memory and make their deaths mean something, she had to keep pushing. She couldn't abandon her mission now just because of the hardships she had to endure so far.

Having attained some level of acceptance and some amount of peace, Elsa shut her eyes, listening to Anna's voice as she continued to read.

Before long, she was fast asleep.