"Bjorgman," a doctor announced to tell it was Elsa's turn. A male doctor.
Elsa and Kristoff both froze. There was only the two of them and some middle-aged man in the waiting room. There weren't really other options who else he could mean than Elsa. Bjorgman wasn't that common surname. The doctor quickly scanned the empty room and walked towards them.
"You're Bjorgman, right?" he asked Elsa, making intense eye contact. Elsa's whole face drained from blood and her mouth was uselessly gaping with shock. She tried to stammer an answer, anything, but only managed to make strange, high pitched squeak.
Kristoff rushed to help his sister out, after his initial shock wore of: "We requested a female doctor."
The doctor looked displeased. He frowned his sparse, grey eyebrows, wrinkling his forehead. He actually looked a little scary for Kristoff too, he couldn't even imagine how Elsa was feeling. "We don't have enough doctors to please every single whim you people have. I'm just removing her cast, it's not like I'd be thrusting my fingers up to her vagina or anything," he said with annoyed tone.
Elsa shuddered, she was getting extremely uncomfortable. She couldn't handle even vaguely vulgar words and even less any sexual innuendos. The doctor was way too close to her and she felt like his presence was sucking all air out of her. His own air was weighting Elsa down, like she was a useless fragile sand castle that crumbled under the tiniest pressure. Elsa was shaking like a leaf, and she felt hot tears burning in her eyes. She held her head low, trying to stop his stare from wounding her. She didn't cry for sadness or pain anymore, but the unadulterated fear like this still made her eyes involuntarily spill out fat, salty tears. She hated her own weakness, now more than ever. She didn't want to show that man what an utter failure she was.
"That was extremely uncalled for, and highly unprofessional. I'll make a complaint of you. Elsa has right to choose her doctor, and she wants a female one. We know our rights," Kristoff was fuming. How dared that man treat his sister like that? Why was there people like him in a work where they were supposed to help people?
"Whatever," the doctor huffed. Then he stopped a female nurse passing by: "Hey, Rebekka! Remove this girl's cast from the right leg."
"But I have—," the nurse started.
"I don't care if you're busy! Do it now," he barked at her, and stomped off.
The plum nurse turned to them, and smiled kindly. She spoke to Elsa, who was still hanging her head low, with reassuring tone: "Don't mind him, he's just an old grumpy man." Then she lifted her head and looked at Kristoff. "Let's go to see that cast in the room, shall we?" She nodded towards the room the doctor had came from, and Kristoff pushed Elsa's wheelchair into there.
The nurse looked Elsa's records and x-rays from the computer and then started removing the cast from her leg. She was extra gently, as she could clearly see that Elsa was still on verge of tears. Kristoff was holding Elsa's hand, whispering reassuring words to her ear, and running comforting circles on the back of her hand with his thump. Elsa kept quiet.
"Okay, all done. Remember that your leg is far from healed, it just doesn't need the cast anymore. There's metal inside of your leg, keeping the bones together. But your leg can't manage walking yet. Usually I would say, that you could start walking with it by taking the weight off of it with crutches. But that isn't possible, since your wrist is also injured. But good news is, that we can take your sling of. Your shoulder fracture has healed beautifully. I bet you can't wait to have that awful thing of." With that, Elsa lifted her head up, and gave the nurse a shy smile. Elsa was like a puppy, she seemed to melt all the hearts with a tiny smile.
The nurse helped the sling off, and Elsa tried the ranges of her arm's movement. "Be careful, it's still healing," Rebekka warned. Elsa pursed her lips and put her hands quickly on her lap, like child caught doing something naughty.
"That's better," Rebekka said with a chuckle. "Come here the next week, and we'll see what to do with that cast on your hand then." Elsa's face lit up like a Christmas tree for the idea of being cast-free in a week.
"Can we get ice cream to celebrate my newfound freedom?" Elsa asked Kristoff with an uncharacteristic smirk.
"Of course, princess, we can do whatever you want to," Kristoff chuckled and kissed his sister's temple.
"You could ask Anna to come too," Elsa added shyly.
Kristoff was beyond pleased to hear that. It was the first time Elsa had initiated association with Anna. Before this, it had always been Kristoff bringing Anna to Elsa, or Anna trying to gain Elsa's attention. For the over two weeks they had known Anna, Elsa had actually seemingly want nothing to do with her. She has tolerated her presence, but nothing else. Though Anna did say that they had great time filling those applications.
"Let's go and get Anna and Sven then," Kristoff grinned like a fool.
"Okay, what flavor do you girls want then?" the young guy in the ice cream booth asked with a wide smile.
"Chocolate!" Elsa and Anna breathed out simultaneously. Then they turned to see each other and giggled softly, but awkwardly. A shade of pink covering their cheeks.
"You two are sisters, I can see that," the boy chuckled, darting his eyes from girl to girl to confirm their similarities.
"Oh, no! We're not sisters," Anna rushed to explain and Elsa softly shook her head to invalidate the boy's guess. "I wish we were though! But we're just friends." Again Elsa showed her agreement with Anna by nodding her head.
"Oh, you two look kind of similar, though." All three of the customers gave him quizzical look. "I mean, if you ignore the hair color and stuff. You have similar face structure and stuff," the boy muttered the ending, looking embarrassed.
"I guess you're right. If we colored Elsa's hair red, you two could easily be sisters," Kristoff helped the poor guy out. He didn't really think they looked like each other at all, but maybe they could with same colored hair.
"Or maybe I could colour my hair blonde! I love your hair Elsa, it would be such a shame to colour it," Anna gushed.
Elsa flushed red for the compliment and stammered out: "I love your hair too. You shouldn't color it either."
"I think you both have really beautifully colored hair, no coloring needed. Here's your ice cream," the boy smiled with an easy smile and offered their ice creams. Elsa's face turned even redder and Anna basked with the compliments. Kristoff paid for the ice creams, grinning at his girls.
When they were out of the boy's hearing range, Elsa giggled behind her hand: "That was so awkward. His rambling reminded me so much of the first meeting with Anna. You two would make a perfectly awkward pair. Maybe you should ditch my brother?"
"Hey! I'm not like that at all," Anna protested firmly. Elsa and Kristoff both turned to look at her with meaning gazes. "Okay, maybe I am, but don't pretend that you haven't ever embarrass yourself by rambling like that," she pointed at Elsa.
"I don't ramble," Elsa stated simply, with straight face.
"Elsa doesn't ramble," Kristoff echoed his sister.
"Gah-lee, Kristoff! You should be on my side!" Anna exclaimed dramatically.
"Sorry, babe," Kristoff chuckled and playfully hugged her with his left arm to his side. Anna blushed crimson red for the new pet name. Elsa glanced at the pair knowingly, locking eyes with Anna for a brief moment.
The group walked along the river of Nidelva. Elsa rarely enjoyed these kind of casual evening strolls around the city, but today she was in a great mood. The day wasn't terribly hot, which was great for Elsa, since she had to use clothes that hide most of her skin. It was for two reasons: Elsa's skin was really sensitive and it burned just by her thinking about going outside. The other reason was that she couldn't stand sight of her own naked skin and she liked it even less, when other people looked at her.
Elsa loved winter, when she could hide every inch of her skin. She had learned to tolerate heat quite well, but people would always look at her weirdly when she was wearing a turtleneck, or something similar, when it was burning hot day. She kind of missed her home in Tromsø, where it was rarely hot enough for people to look twice at her attire.
Today, luckily, wasn't one of those days anyway. The day was quite cool, with sun half-way hidden behind the clouds. Elsa enjoyed the chill summer breeze and closed her eyes. She just let Kristoff push her wheelchair, and for once, enjoyed the ride.
Anna was walking next to her, she didn't seem to enjoy the cool weather like Elsa. They had finished their ice creams some time ago, and the cold comestible probably hadn't helped any. Anna was shivering in her spaghetti strap, green dress. This was the part, where the boy would give his jacket to the girl in a movie, but Kristoff was only wearing short-sleeved shirt.
Elsa sighed deeply and removed her own loosely knitted, long and grey cardigan. Then she offered it to Anna: "Here, you look really cold."
"Oh, Elsa, I couldn't. It's really chilly out here, then you would be cold," Anna said, even though she was really tempted to take the cardigan.
"The cold doesn't really bother me. Just take it," Elsa said, with a tone so regal and commanding that it was hard to believe that the meek girl on a wheelchair could make it.
Anna took the garment and put it on her, still feeling some of Elsa's warmness radiating from it. She felt instantly better, mostly because how much Elsa's gesture warmed her heart. She thanked Elsa full-heartily and Elsa just smiled back at her.
Elsa didn't dare to turn to see her brother, because he knew how much the gesture really meant to Elsa. She didn't want to make it a big deal, but it was. It wasn't the cold that was a problem, but that Elsa had only sleeveless, button-up blouse under the cardigan. It was the first time she was in a public place with her arms showing since she was a child still living with her father. She felt so naked and insecure, but the breeze actually felt quite nice on her uncovered skin.
"Shouldn't I be the one giving jackets to Anna? Elsa, are you trying to steal my girlfriend?" Kristoff broke the short silence with a teasing tone.
"Yeah, you suck at this. You need your sister to take care of your girlfriend. You need to start brushing up your boyfriend-skills, Kris, or that ice cream booth boy really starts to have some changes," Elsa turned her head to see her brother and grinned.
Anna managed only lightly chuckle at the teasing. She was too stuck with the term 'girlfriend'. It was the first time either of them had used a label on their relationship. Anna guessed, that now it was official, she was Kristoff's girlfriend. And the best part was, that Elsa seemed to approve. Anna didn't know how her day could have gotten any better.
A/N A little shorter chapter again. I don't really have much to say about this one. I hope you liked this chapter, let me know your thoughts, they're always appreciated. See you the next time, and stay safe!