[Backstory chapter, direct continuation of oneshot #3, Searching] In which Anna officially moves in with Elsa.
Coming Home
Anna sifts through the stranger and collects details like flecks of gold buried in the sands of time.
When she follows her sister through the airport and realises she still has to look up even though Elsa is only wearing flats: Wow, she's taller than me.
When Elsa tries to help her with the luggage and nearly drops it on her own foot: … But not exactly stronger. Got it.
When they get into a small white car: Oh, she does drive.
When Elsa struggles so badly to merge lanes she misses their exit on the freeway: Oh my God. She can't drive.
Anna tries so hard not to grip the door handle for security that she can't remember what she spends the ride rambling about. Her sister is mostly silent, all hums, terse nods and white-knuckled hands on the steering wheel. Anna tells herself it's because all of Elsa's focus is going into keeping them on the road, and not because Elsa, like, hates her or anything. That's absurd.
Right?
When they reach the city, Elsa's driving suddenly improves; Anna suspects it's because there's so much traffic they're barely moving. Sitting at a red light (Elsa slammed on the brakes when it turned yellow), Anna is so captivated by the bustle beyond her window that she nearly misses her sister tentatively asking, "Do you have your license yet?"
Anna snaps her head around too keenly, and winces when she sees Elsa flinch. Is she scared of me? "Sorry? Oh—my license? Ah, no, I kinda, um, failed the test. Twice. But I know how to drive!"
Elsa blinks, and Anna panics—crap, she thinks I'm a total dunce for failing twice—but then the lights go green. Almost immediately, the car behind them honks impatiently and startles them both.
Seeing her sister's shoulders tense up again ignites something inside Anna. She twists in her seat, stares straight through the rear window, and glares at the other driver. She can't tell if they can see her, but she likes to think it was the heat of her wrath that sent them scurrying into the nearest side street.
"What a stinker," Anna huffs as she turns back around. Then she remembers that it's not Kai in the seat beside her, and flushes as she glances towards Elsa. "Am I embarrassing? I'm embarrassing, aren't I? Hans always says so—i-in a nice way, of course. Like, you know, 'you adorable dork' or—"
"You're not embarrassing," Elsa says quietly. There's a pause as she carefully navigates an intersection. Then, "Hans is a friend?"
Oh, Anna realises. I'm not the only one playing detective.
"He's, um, a little more than that."
Elsa's surprise manifests as an especially jerky stop at a pedestrian crossing. "You're dating someone?"
The urge to defend him rises from nowhere. "You'll like Hans! He's a perfect gentleman with the sweetest sense of justice. He just graduated from law school. And he likes chocolate and sandwiches, just like me."
He didn't like you moving across the country, a niggling voice reminds her. Anna purses her lips and pushes the thought to the back of her mind.
"I'm sorry. That question came out strange." Elsa glances at Anna, adding softly, "Sometimes I forget that you're not five years old anymore."
"Well, we're lucky you remembered today, or you never would have found me in the airport. Waaait a minute… why didn't we just go to the information desk and tell them to make an announcement?"
To her surprise, Elsa laughs. "Haven't you had enough of that for a lifetime? You used to get lost every time we went shopping with Mom and Dad."
The memories come flooding in like a storm carving up a forgotten river. "Hey, you got lost all the time, too!"
"You got us both lost all the time."
The warm glow fills Anna's chest and remains there as Elsa turns into a long driveway leading down into the basement of one of the tallest apartments. Elsa takes a full five minutes to park, and then they're zipping up in the elevator.
Following Elsa down the plushly carpeted hallway, Anna discreetly pinches herself. Ow. It's actually happening. It doesn't matter that Hans planted that horrible question in her head ("You haven't lived with your sister in over thirteen years, Anna. How do you know she even loves you anymore?")—she's here. Elsa's here. They'll be coming home together from now on.
Then they reach the door at the very end of the hallway, fitted with one of those fancy keyless locks. As Elsa reaches for it, she seems to remember something and says rather awkwardly, "It's your birthday."
She forgot.
It shouldn't be so surprising—Elsa hasn't been there for thirteen years of birthdays. Their parents would always give Anna 'a present from Elsa', but Anna knows how hard it is to pick out something for a sister she sees once a year at Christmas ("She likes books," Grandpa replied every time Anna called for research). And Elsa's presents are always a little too perfect, as if she still sleeps on the top bunk and can't escape twelve-year-old Anna gushing about skateboards. And after Anna noticed that, it became harder to ignore the voice that kept wondering if those presents were really from Elsa—a voice that is now smugly saying: I told you so.
"Y-Yeah! It was actually two months ago but time sure does fly. It was a super fun day—Hans and I went to an amusement park. I spent, like, two hours at the bottle toss trying to win this cute Baymax plushie. I've got it in my suitcase; I'll show you later. It's the best cuddle buddy ever."
This gets her an odd look from Elsa, but a beep from the lock distracts them both. Elsa opens the door. She steps back, gesturing shyly for Anna to enter first.
"There had better not be a trapdoor in there," Anna jokes. She doesn't know why she's nervous about this moment. It's a door. It's open.
She steps through.
Her first thought is that everything is minimalistic and very white. An open kitchen with an oak splashback against pale tiles. Cream carpet visible through a glass coffee table sitting in front of a light grey leather couch that looks more like a recliner for one than a place to watch Netflix with friends or sisters.
Even the bookshelves standing sentry on either side of the wall-mounted television contain neat rows of books with the stark pages facing outward. Anna opens her mouth to make a quip about finding any books—but then her curious gaze falls on the small dining table with its single placemat and chair.
Why does this detail hurt so much?
"This place is amazing! I bet myself ten bucks that you had great taste." Even Anna can tell she sounds too loud, too bright. "Remind me to treat myself. I'm craving chocolate fondue right now. Actually, scratch that. I'm always craving chocolate fondue. Any good places around here? Please say yes."
She hopes Elsa still likes chocolate and building snowmen.
Elsa hovers by the shoe cabinet, her left hand loosely gripping her right elbow. "Yes. I'll take you someday. Would you like to see your room?"
Anna catches herself on the verge of saying something stupid like 'Of course! It's the whole reason I'm here.'
"That's the bathroom." Elsa points to a door at the end of a short corridor, then gestures to two other doors on either side. "My room. Your room. I was only using it as a study, so it's very empty after I moved the desk to my room. We can—"
"Relax, sis! I'm so easy. All I need is a—" Anna throws open the door. "—bed."
It's literally the only piece of furniture in the room.
"Woooow. You really weren't kidding about empty, huh?"
Behind her, Elsa sounds apologetic. "I wasn't sure how you wanted to set it up, so I only got a bed. If the mattress is too hard or too soft for you, we can exchange it tomorrow. Or if you don't like the view, you can take my room instead. It really doesn't—"
"I love it." Anna spins around with a grin. "This means we get to go shopping together! But let's get IKEA to deliver to us, yeah? Your Mini Cooper can only fit, like, two-thirds of a flatpack. Ooh, I've seen apps that let you drag furniture onto photos to see how the room looks with—" She's interrupted by a shockingly huge yawn. "Goodness, 'scuse me. Where was I? Right—apps… Elsa? Where are you going?"
Her sister returns with the suitcase. "You just got off a plane; change into something comfortable and get some rest. Dessert and furniture can wait until tomorrow."
"But I'm not—" Another yawn swallows up the rest of Anna's sentence. "… sleepy. Okay, fine. But promise you'll wake me up for dinner, or my rumbling tummy will wake you in the middle of the night."
Elsa promises, and then the door closes with the softest of clicks.
Anna listens, but there's carpet and her sister moves so quietly that it feels like she's back in the big house. Alone. Except she's not.
She checks her phone. Nothing from Hans. She sends him a quick message to say she's arrived at Elsa's place, then looks around at her new room, and decides not to add a photo.
Her suitcase springs open as soon as she unlocks it, spilling her life across the floor. Gerda helped her pack, but none of her neat folding survives the trial of Anna digging for something to sleep in. Anna changes into pyjama bottoms and one of Hans' shirts.
Then her gaze catches on a grey, threadbare sweater.
There's a cartoon graphic of a single slice of pizza. The rest of the pizza is on her father's sweater; a matching Father's Day gift that immediately became a game of chicken. If one of them wore their sweater in the house, the other had to wear theirs, no matter how sweltering the day. It drove her mother crazy. "Can you two please stop wearing those long enough for me to wash them?" she used to sigh.
Now, pulling the sweater over her head, Anna realises in the darkness that it's the little details. It's the fact that their sweater streak was still unbroken when she answered the door to find two police officers solemnly waiting. It's electricity and phone bills that continue to pay themselves, because direct debits don't care that Anna's parents are gone. It's not being able to send videos of Elsa's horrible driving to the group chat because no one else will see them.
A knock on the door startles her. She whirls around with her head still stuck in the sweater and—oh no, bad idea.
"Anna? I forgot to give you… are you okay? I heard a loud noise."
Lying winded on her back, Anna wheezes, "Nothing! My shirt just fell."
"That was very loud for a shirt."
"Yeah, um, that's because I was kind of in it."
The door opens as she sits up. "Did you break anything?" Elsa asks as she helps Anna get her head through the sweater.
"God, I hope not. Keep all your favourite mugs away from me. Actually, keep all your expensive stuff away because I'm ridiculously uncoordinated. As you can see."
"I meant bones, Anna. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Oh." Anna lets out a laugh, rubbing an elbow. "Totally fine. Super thick skull. What did you forget?"
Elsa gestures towards the bed, where she's placed a stack of bath towels. "To give you towels in case you want to take a shower first."
"Thanks. Wow. That's… a lot of colours."
"I wasn't sure which ones you liked."
Anna blinks at her sister. Who might have given her a spare room with nothing but a bed, yet bought towels in literally every colour of the rainbow, just for Anna.
"Oh, and this." Elsa holds out a silver key. "In case the keyless lock fails for any reason. There's a panel you can slide down to open the door normally with this key."
The key feels both light and heavy in Anna's hands. She flashes Elsa a grateful grin. "I'm going to use this every day because that pin code looked so long, I'd forget it every day."
"I don't think you will."
"Hah. You don't know how bad my memory is." And Elsa really doesn't know, does she? There are so many things they don't know about each other.
But then Elsa cocks her head to one side and says, "You can't forget it. I told you: it's your birthday. Month, date, year."
When Anna stares speechlessly for too long, Elsa hurriedly adds, "When I moved in, I was told not to use my own birthday because it's too obvious, so the first thing I thought of was yours—b-but we can change it to your phone number if that's easier for you. Or maybe… Anna? Are you okay?"
The details Anna has collected scatter as she throws her arms around Elsa for the second time that day. Except this time, it doesn't feel like she's hugging a stranger.
When Elsa awkwardly rubs her back, Anna wipes her eyes on her favourite sweater and thinks: That's my sister.