Spending time with Elsa had become a routine for Kristoff. He would ride a bike instead of bus to school every day. His parents wondered why's that, but he just said he liked to explore the forests after a school, he was getting bored with the nearby ones. His parents were quite content with that, since biking was healthy and good exercise, even though him wandering in forests without Axel was quite strange. Every day he would leave a little early to bring Elsa some food he could take. Often it was leftovers from yesterday's dinner, which she could heat up with the Trangia he had brought there. The worst days, he could only give her a fruit or some other snack. He felt really bad when he wasn't able to provide her with a real meal, but she never complained, just thanked him for the little he gave. Some days he went straight home after school, but often he would stop to Elsa's to spend some actual time together. They would study together from Kristoff's school books, which usually ended up with Elsa studying and Kristoff reading comic books next to her. Then they would share Kristoff's meal which he brought from home or bought with his pocket money. No matter what they did, they always had fun together. It was so nice to have a friend, he had never known.

Weekends were special. Then Kristoff would take Axel with him to see Elsa. She absolutely adored the dog. They would run around the yard and pick some berries for Elsa to eat. As the fall creeped closer, they would also find some mushrooms nearby. Sometimes they went to fish at the lake. If they were lucky, they were able to eat some fish, well mostly Elsa was able to. Kristoff felt bad eating any more than she was insisting because he knew how little she got food. They had also swam in the lake when the days were still warm, but now it was getting a little too cold for them to do that anymore.

It was Saturday morning when Kristoff was packing his stuff in a hiking backpack. It was one of the nights he would say that he wanted to hike over night with Axel. In reality, he would have a sleepover with Elsa. He felt bad about lying, but the sleepovers were the best! They would tell each other scary stories and then all three of them would sleep tightly nestled together, since both of the youngsters were scared of every creak of the old house. Neither of them wouldn't admit of being scared, of course. Elsa would say that she wasn't afraid of anything after she had slept near a bear once, when she was still traveling. Kristoff wasn't sure he believed the story, but he was sure he didn't believe of her not being scared of anything. Kristoff had never met as nervous girl as Elsa was.

After he had packed all the gear he and Axel needed, and food for all three of them, he was ready to go to see his friend. He yelled a farewell to his parents and was ready to dash out of the door, but his mother stopped him.

"Kristoff, are you going to sleep in the forest again? Couldn't you stay home with us, the nights are getting cold."

"Mom, you know how important this is for me. I'm not cold, I have a sleeping bag."

"I would feel better if you were safe and sound in your own bed. Aren't you scared of the darkness and being all alone there?"

"I'm not alone! I have Axel with me, he'll keep me safe. I gotta go now, mom."

"I know, I know. Who could chain your free spirit? If sleeping in forest is the thing that makes you happy, then you must go. I love you so much, have fun." A tight hug and then stern look at the dog. "Remember to keep my baby boy safe, Axel."

"He will! Bye mom! Bye dad!" And with that, Kristoff left the house. The day of mid-September was cool but sunny, really beautiful day to bike.

When Kristoff and Axel arrived to the house, it was quiet and seemed empty, as always. Elsa didn't really do anything else than read the books he brought her on the attic when she was alone. She was so afraid of getting caught when he wasn't there to assure her that she would be fine. Kristoff walked in the house and yelled for Elsa to come down. But he didn't get an answer. He walked to the living room and saw that the ladder was up, so Elsa was there. He yelled again, but only got some incoherent mumbling for an answer. He waited for a moment and then decided to circle around the house and climb to the attic from the window.

He got up and saw Elsa sleeping on the nest she had made for herself. She had a blanket all way up to her head. It was the thick, fluffy blanket which for Kristoff had spent almost all of his saved pocket money. Elsa never complained about the cold, but Kristoff knew she ought to be freezing at nights, thus the blanket. She seemed to like it, but he wasn't used to seeing her sleeping at that time of a day. She had been sick for some time now, probably flu or something, making her more tired and less enthusiastic to do activities, but she never slept through his visits. Now Elsa didn't show any interest on getting up. Kristoff was worried that she was getting sicker. Maybe the nights were too cold for her. And what about winter? She couldn't survive winter there. Kristoff had to find another solution. He positioned himself next to Elsa, which seemed finally wake her up. Then he stopped her from getting up, and they cuddled together. Kristoff started thinking about a possible solution for their problem.

They just laid in the silence, until Kristoff figured it out: "You'll have to move into my house."

"What? Are you crazy? I cannot just move into your house," Elsa cried out after Kristoff's words registered in her brain and pulled her out of her sleepy haze.

"Hear me out. You cannot stay here, it's too cold for you. I need you to get healthy again." Elsa tried to protest, but Kristoff cut her off. "No buts. You could live on our attic. I have a hiding place there that I sometimes use when I just want to read comics alone. It's not as warm as it is inside of the house, but it's still warmer than here. You would have to be more careful with the noises while there's people home, but I know for sure that you're quiet anyway. Also, you could use shower and warm up in the house when there's no one home, and it would be easier for me to bring you stuff. Doesn't that sound great?"

"I really don't know, Kristoff. That all sounds quite dangerous. What if your parents or siblings find me?"

"They won't. They haven't ever found me, they won't find you. I'll take you there at night and I'll visit you only when I'm sure that no one is following me. You will be fine, just say yes."

Elsa hesitated for a moment, considering her options. Then she whispered softly: "Yes." A warmer place to sleep in sounded so nice. She didn't want to admit it, but she was freezing. Also, she really wanted to have a warm shower, or even cold would do, she just wanted to be clean again.

"Great! Now, let's get downstairs to eat and play with Axel, he's probably getting antsy for being left out."

With that they started their day. Just hanging and playing card games. Nothing physical since Elsa was quite drained and shivered just from a thought of removing her blanked. They still had nice time together.

When the darkness of autumn night finally came, Kristoff and Elsa packed all of Elsa's possessions they could and started the journey. Elsa sat on the rack of the bike, while Kristoff pedaled them through the night, and Axel was trotting next to them. The load was quite heavy on the bike and Kristoff was sweating just after a kilometer. Elsa was quite light and skinny for a girl of her age, but her weight added with all of the gear's weight Kristoff had in his backpack, was a lot of extra weight for him.

Elsa wasn't comfortable either. She was freezing because of the cold air and the draught caused by the speed they were going. The naked flesh on her thighs was turning red and they were almost hurting from the cold. She also had cramping pain in her lower abdomen, which shot through her whole body whenever there were a little bigger bump on the road. She was used to the pain, she had had it quite some time now, but the pain had increased noticeably with the jolting of the bike. She was gripping the rack, with her knuckles white, to tolerate the pain, and she wished that the journey would be over soon. It wasn't though, and there was nothing she could do about it.

When they got to the yard, Elsa was awestruck. The house was beautiful, old farmhouse. Its lower storey was red and the upper one was yellow. The windows where white with flower pots under some of them. The milieu was absolutely lovely, and she felt like breathing in peace and happiness. Even though she hadn't lived uncomfortably before her escape, by any means, she had never really felt homely like she felt now. The houses she used to live in, always felt cold and scary. And her rooms were always more like prison cells for her, despite their generous sizes. For a moment Elsa felt bang of jealousy ran through her. Why couldn't she live in a house like this when Kristoff could? What would she give to have a loving family around her like he had, have siblings and a dog to play with? Why was life so unfair? She quickly shook the thoughts away and felt ashamed of herself. Kristoff deserved all of this, he was such a kind spirited person who deserved all the good in his life. Elsa didn't deserve happiness like that, she wasn't pure like him. Luckily, Kristoff's kindness let her to get nibs out of his life and she was too greedy to refuse them.

Elsa followed Kristoff towards the back of the house. On their way, he picked up a wooden ladder. When they reached their destination, Kristoff quietly laid the ladder against the wall and climbed all way up to the attic window, opened it, crawled in, and motioned Elsa to follow him. Elsa did as she was told and climbed the ladder up, and then Kristoff helped her in. The attic was almost pitch black, but Kristoff seemed to know the way without light. They reached some kind of wall and Kristoff kneeled on the floor and started removing the lower planks. It seemed like an easy task and was over soon, then he crawled into the blackness behind the wall. Elsa was hesitant to follow, but Kristof peaked his head out of the hole and encouraged her to follow him, before disappearing again. When Elsa was almost all the way inside the darkness, something lighted the area. It was strange tube-ish lamp hanging from the roof. It didn't have any kind of cord, so it probably worked with batteries.

Now she could fully see the room she was in. The roof was low and sloped, she could sit her back straight only on the side that was higher, she couldn't stand up in either side. The room was really long, but from the wall she came in to the opposite wall, she could almost reach both sides just by sitting with her legs straight. The room reminded her of a tunnel. On her left was Kristoff and the place he was most likely talking about. On the floor was an old rag rug, covering the wood under it. Then there was a mattress, which had seen better days, but which would still be better than anything Elsa had slept on in a while. On the bed, was four pillows, but no blanket, luckily she had brought her own. The back wall was hidden behind some kind of sheet. It looked like there might be something soft between the wall and the sheet, for some kind of insulation maybe? Next to the bed was some kind of old, tiny bedside table with one compartment. There was tiny night lamp on it, but it wasn't on. On front of that table was a cardboard box packed with comics and maybe some other magazines too. There was also a beanbag at the end of the mattress, but that was about it. The nest looked way more comfortable than her old one, though. Elsa was already in love with her new home.

Kristoff unpacked her stuff from his backpack. It wasn't much, just her fluffy blanket, the book she was currently loaning from Kristoff's father, a flashlight, a small pillow, the beautiful knife with decorated wooden handle which Kristoff had given her, a comb and a bottle of soap. She didn't own much. She didn't have any personal belongings from her life before, other than the clothes on her. How much she wished she had had the only picture of her mom and her favorite stuffed animal, Sir Jörgen Björgen, with her when she escaped. She felt bad for leaving them behind, but there was no way to get them back anymore.

"Do you like it? I know it's quite cramped and everything, but at least it's warmer here." Kristoff pulled Elsa out of her gloomy thoughts.

"I love it. It's really cozy. Thank you, Kristoff," Elsa said sincerely.

"Okay, great. I gotta go now, but I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay."

"Try to be quiet. Good night, Elsa."

"Night."

And with that she was all alone, again. She didn't have to look strong anymore. Elsa felt like all the energy had been sucked out of her, she felt exhausted. She was shivering from the feverish cold she was feeling and didn't want anything more than curl on the bed, under her fluffy blanket. And that was exactly what she did. Then she let the sleep claim her weary body into disturbing dreams.

A/N And here we are! I was able to write this within a week, and I try to do the next one within a week, too. I hope you liked this chapter, and please, leave a comment to let me know your opinion. See ya!