Chapter Four

The first time they kissed, Anna was two months shy of her seventeenth birthday.

It started as something fun. The gang had decided to hang around Merida's home, fooling around. Video games gave way to an impromptu karaoke session which gave way to a game of Truth or Dare. And Anna was dared to kiss Hans. To be exact, she was given the choice between Hans and Elsa, and she chose Hans. Anna had been dreaming about kissing Elsa for months now, and it was exactly why she could not choose Elsa. She did not want to know firsthand how soft Elsa's lips would be, how they would feel against her own. She did not want to know, and then to be denied them again once and for all.

Hans was safe. And so she kissed him.

To her dismay, Elsa was strangely closed off for the rest of the night. She still laughed and joked with the others, but Anna was sensitive to Elsa's every mood, and knew that the girl had withdrawn. She avoided looking at Anna, and didn't speak directly to her.

Adgar and Idun were away that night, having gone to the city to settle some business-related affairs. And as always when such trips came up, Elsa stayed over at the Andersons' place. Anna loved it when Elsa stayed over. Her massive crush had developed over time into something that Anna was afraid to address. Something big and intense and sweet and warm all at once. She loved everything about Elsa. Her quick sarcasm that only Anna was privy to. Her agile mind. The way she hugged herself when she was feeling insecure that always made Anna feel like pulling her into a tight hug to shield her from everything. The way she looked and carried herself. The way her eyes sparkled when something caught her interest. The way she would cling to Anna in her sleep whenever they had a sleepover.

The list was endless.

It was agony sometimes, to have Elsa, and at the same time not have her. Mostly Anna didn't think about it. She was basically Elsa's every link to the outside world, and Anna reveled in the fact that the older girl depended on her so much. So much, that sometimes it was easy to pretend that she was Elsa's one and only.

Their short walk back to the Andersons' was quiet. Elsa could not pretend that nothing was wrong now, and had given up her facade. She was broody, and when Anna tentatively asked her what was wrong, she shrugged the hand Anna placed on her arm away.

"Nothing. Just leave me alone."

They had had disagreements before; with so many years of friendship it was unavoidable. But this was new. Something strummed in the air between them, something Anna could not grasp or even attempt to penetrate. This Elsa was one that Anna did not know how to handle. Not even when Anna had been making up songs about snowmen on a balcony had things been like this. Back then, Elsa had wanted to be her friend, but fear had made her closed off. This Elsa now was closed off because she seemed to want nothing to do with Anna at all.

Anna's parents refrained from asking questions about the obvious tension between the two girls. Anna was grateful. She was already a wreck. When bedtime came and Anna went into her room to see Elsa on her way out with a pillow and no blanket – the cold never bothered Elsa- she could stand it no more.

"Elsa, please. Please talk to me." She didn't care that she was begging. Elsa had always slept in her room, on her bed, always.

"There's nothing to talk about." Elsa said shakily, hugging the pillow to her chest. She looked small in her pale blue nightdress, bright hair in a loose braid. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She was near tears, Anna realized with a start. She went to her, pulling Elsa, pillow and all, into a hug.

"Are you angry because I kissed Hans?" she said softly, running a hand soothingly down Elsa's back when the older girl stiffened at her question. For a while, Elsa did not answer, but Anna kept her in the hug patiently. She had no idea how this conversation would go, but she would try everything in her means to wipe that look of defeat from Elsa's eyes.

Elsa nodded, head bumping against Anna's shoulder.

Anna's heart leapt. She had never thought, never hoped… but now the hope flared as hot as flame. Her heart thundered, and it took almost everything Anna had to fight it back. She would not, could not, should not, because if she hoped and the outcome came short, she would never recover from it.

"Elsa, did you want me to kiss you?" she said softly, and her heart lodged in her throat as she waited for the answer.

Elsa was quiet for the longest time, stiff against Anna. The temperature dropped and frost clung to the fingers holding tightly on to the pillow, but Anna held her through it, rubbing Elsa's back slowly.

"Why did you choose Hans?" Elsa whispered against her shoulder. "Do you like him?"

It wasn't the response Anna was dreading, but it wasn't the response she was hoping for either. "Hans is my friend, of course I like him."

Elsa pulled away a little to send Anna a glance that said clearly you know what I mean.

"He's my friend, and that's it." Anna was suddenly tired of all this. All these months of harboring secret feelings for her best friend, all these months of Elsa Elsa Elsa Elsa being her first thought once she woke up in the mornings and her last thought before she fell asleep. "Elsa, why are you angry at me for kissing Hans? Did you want me to kiss you instead?" she tightened her grip when Elsa tried to shy away, "Don't avoid the question."

"I just thought… I was hurt…" Elsa's breath ghosted over her neck, sending shivers down Anna's back. "I thought you would always choose me over everyone else."

"I'll always choose you over everyone else, Elsa."

"Then why didn't you?" It was the hurt, the catch of it, in Elsa's voice that gave Anna the courage she needed. She could never stand seeing Elsa hurt.

"Because I wanted it too much." Anna whispered. "I wanted to choose you over Hans, too much. And that's why I couldn't."

There was silence after that. Elsa let the pillow drop and wrapped her arms around Anna.

"I wanted you to choose me, so much. And when you didn't, it hurt so badly." She whispered.

The hope was the sun in Anna's breast, the heat of it, the power of it strumming in her blood, in her ears. Her voice trembled from it. So many months of wanting, wishing, waiting; finally she could ask.

"Elsa, can I kiss you?"

Elsa responded by tilting her head and brushing her lips against the corner of Anna's lips. Anna tilted her head too, and their lips met. And the world shifted, rotating slowly around them, and gradually falling away, leaving them suspended in the weightlessness of their quiet joy.

There you are; what took you so long?

It wasn't Anna's first kiss obviously; she had lost hers in second grade when Kristoff planted one on her as a dare. It had felt nothing like this. She clung to Elsa, feeling the gentle, soft pressure of those full lips, and all other kisses faded forever from her mind.

It wasn't Elsa's first kiss either, hers was Flynn, the result of a drunken night at Ralph's place – Flynn had been drunk, not Elsa, and had taken Elsa completely by surprise; luckily he had been too drunk to remember the ice down the back of his shirt in retaliation. But as Anna deepened the kiss gently, the feel of her, the scent of her simply wrapped around her, and Elsa's previous kiss disappeared from her mind too, and Anna was the first for her.

She clung to Anna when the younger girl gently broke the kiss, burying her face in Anna's shoulder. She had wanted this for so long, so long; and if Anna pulled away now, she knew she would crumble into pieces, never to be put back again.

Anna, the sunbeam of Elsa's world. The embodiment of everything good and kind in Elsa's world. She did not know when these feelings for her best friend developed, by the time she was aware of them, she had been fifteen and it was as though she had always felt that way about Anna. Never in her wildest dreams did she think that Anna might feel about her the same way. Anna was so popular, so beautiful, she could have anyone, Elsa never had a chance.

But Anna wanted her. I'll always choose you over everyone else, Elsa.

"You stinker." Anna said shakily. "Why didn't you ever say anything? You've made me so utterly miserable for so long."

"I've made you miserable?" Elsa said incredulously. "I was the one who had to look at you hanging around with your friends and dread that you'll realize one day what a sorry excuse of a human being I am and renounce me forever."

"Oh please," Anna rolled her eyes, "Have you seen yourself in the mirror? You're the most gorgeous person ever to walk the Earth, people will do anything to be with you, why would you want anything to do with little ole me?"

It was a stunning revelation for Elsa, to know that sunny Anna harbored the same insecurities as she did.

"I thought… it was so obvious how I feel about you." She said shyly. "I'm always so… so stupid around you. I never knew what to say."

"Really? I couldn't tell. And did you never notice how I tend to ramble on and on whenever I'm around you?" Anna said.

"I thought that's what you always do." Elsa said, chuckling. Her heart had never felt so light before, as though a burden she had not known was there had been shed.

"It is." Anna admitted grudgingly, "but I tend to ramble more when it's you, especially when you're looking at me."

Elsa pulled away a little, fixing Anna with a playful gaze. Sure enough, the blush rose swiftly up Anna's neck, and as they were so close, Elsa could see her pupils dilating. Had Anna always looked at her that way? Like Elsa was the one and only in her eyes. Why had she never noticed?

"Stop it. I can feel myself blushing. Stop." Anna planted one hand on her face and pushed her away with a laugh; and any awkwardness their kiss might have generated simply dissolved. They were still the same, best friends; only now they were something more. So much more.

The world was so beautiful, and Elsa had never felt so alive, so unstoppable. Finally, she belonged.

There was still one thing she needed to hear from Anna, though.

"Anna. What are we now?" she said, feeling ridiculously shy.

Anna's reaction was perfect, as was her response. She blushed and looked down at the floor. "Elsa… will you be my girlfriend?" she said to Elsa's feet.

Elsa felt as though she would never stop smiling. "Yes."

Elsa woke, twenty six years old again, lying on her childhood bed in her parents' house; the dream was vivid, all the more so because it had been real. She stared up at the ceiling through tears, the taste of their first kiss on her lips, the memory of it a terrible ache in her heart.