"Elsa," Anna says, "you've got a key, right?"
"Um?" Elsa bites her lip and looks around. She pats her pockets absently. "Anna?"
"That's me," Anna agrees.
"Ok," Elsa smiles, but the smile melts away quickly. "I don't have a key. I'm supposed to have a key?"
"Did you check your pockets?" Anna asks.
Elsa frowns, and pats her pockets again. She passes over the key with a sheepish grimace. "I…" she trails off. "Kristoff?"
"Yes Elsa?" Anna asks as she unlocks the door. It's made of warped, green painted wood, but the paint has peeled away at the edges and faded where it hasn't peeled.
"Kristoff said I did good?" It takes Elsa a few moments to figure out what she had wanted to say.
"Yep," Anna agrees. She wants to give Elsa a hug, but the litch keeps glancing over her shoulder and shifting from foot to foot, so Anna decides against it. "That's why you get the day off," she says instead.
Elsa eyes Anna hesitantly. It had looked like she was about to get a hug, but then it didn't happen. Elsa thinks she remembers liking hugs but she isn't sure. She wonders if there's a way to get that hug after all, but Anna is motioning her into the little apartment, and she follows hesitantly.
It's not a shabby place- Elsa keeps it clean and free of clutter- but she has few belongings to make it feel lived in, and many of the lights are dim or flickering. Elsa stands awkwardly between the little living room and adjoining kitchenette and gives a little nervous flap of her arms. "My apartment," she mumbles. "This is… I think it's my apartment? I'm sorry. Es tut mir leid."
"So," Anna frowns gently. "What do you do?"
"I…" Elsa thinks for a moment. She sits primly in one of the battered wooden seats because she dimly recalls that humans don't like to stand for too long. "I make coffee?"
"I meant 'what do you do for fun,'" Anna says, and pulls over the other chair. "You don't have a table?"
"No table," Elsa confirms. "Um?"
"Right," Anna sighs. "This is going to be a long day. But don't worry, we're going to get you some hobbies before it's over." Anna stands and pokes her head into the single bedroom. Small, hard, bed and an old armchair. There's a battered, leather-bound book peeking out from under the foot of the bed.
"Hobbies?" Elsa follows slowly.
Anna frowns, and kneels by the bed. "What's this?" She holds up the heavy tome. The pages are yellowy and uneven.
"Hide it," Elsa demands. She bites her lip and bustles over. She flaps her hands with a sort of peculiar desperation.
Anna slides the book back under the bed. It doesn't seem to have a title. "Better?" She asks.
Elsa shakes her head vigorously. "Hidden better," she demands.
"Ok?" Anna squints. She puts the book in her satchel and buttons it closed. "Does this work?"
Elsa eyes her uncertainly, and then nods firmly. "Better," she sighs.
"Alright," Anna says. "Good. I'm going to IKEA. You need furniture. Are you good alone?"
Elsa squints. She straightens her shirt. "Kristoff said I'm good?"
"Good," Anna smiles. "I'll be back soon. Don't leave your apartment. Um. Here's my phone. This is the YouTube app. Look, cat videos. Everyone likes cats doing stupid stuff. I'll be back soon. Just… just keep clicking next video until I'm back. Did you get all that?"
Elsa screws up her face in concentration. "Next video?" Anna nods. "No leaving?"
Anna nods again. "Awesome," she says.
Anna has some trouble navigating the stairs with the heavy box, but she manages. The door gives her some trouble as well, but she had left it unlocked so she manages that too. For a moment, Anna worries that Elsa has wandered off- it was a spectacularly poor idea to leave her alone- but no, there she is standing in the center of the living room, giving the phone a concerned frown. Anna sets down the box.
"What's wrong Elsa?" She asks.
"The cat," Elsa replies. "He just… keeps jumping. And it keeps not working. Um? It keeps…" Elsa straightens her shirt.
"Oook," Anna says. "Um. Anyway. I got a table. You want to help build it?"
"Table?" Elsa asks. "Um?"
"C'mon," Anna says. She rummages through the box and produces a small bag of screws. "Here, hold this. Be careful not to drop any."
"I'm careful," Elsa agrees, and holds out her hands. "I don't drop things."
It takes them a few hours to build the table. Elsa doesn't drop any of the screws, and she always hands over the right one though it sometimes takes her a little while to figure out which one that is.
Anna puts in some real effort into finding Elsa a hobby. She tries video games, board games, movies, fingernail painting, music. Everything is met with the same blank stare or earnest, slightly befuddled, concentration. Anna hopes it's just because it's an off day, because the alternative is just too sad for the little litch. Eventually the sun starts to set, and with it, Elsa seems to run abruptly out of energy. She yawns hugely, mutters something vaguely reminiscent of "bed" and totters into the back room.
"Bed," Anna repeats. "Of course." She sighs. "Fucking crazy ass Litch." She sighs and follows Elsa to the bedroom. "Oh hell no," she says when she sees Elsa laying primly on the center of her bed, arms crossed over her chest like a corpse in a casket that's open for viewing. "You were just telling me about not taking care of yourself on an off day," Anna scolds. "Shower."
"Shower," Elsa agrees absently.
"You need to get up to shower," Anna says.
"Up," Elsa replies, and stands.
"Shower," Anna points towards the bathroom. Elsa wobbles a little as she walks to the bathroom. She forgets to close the door, so Anna screws her eyes shut and slams it blindly. She hears the shower come on. Anna jots down a few notes about the day while she waits. If only she can remember it just right- she's sure that no one could possibly hate the lonely little litch if they saw how adorably helpless she was.
"Elsa?" She asks after a moment. "You're not drowning, right?"
"Not drowning," Elsa gurgles back after a moment. Anna goes back to her notes.
The litch emerges a few minutes after, sodden clothes dripping all over the carpet. Anna groans. "Did you take off your clothes to shower?" She asks. Elsa nods. "Why are they all wet then?" Anna demands.
"Shower," Elsa says. She bites her lip and thinks for a moment. "Shower?" She frowns.
"All right," Anna replies. She rubs her eyes. "Fine. Get changed." Elsa looks at her oddly, head cocked like an owl's, so Anna elaborates, "Get out of your wet clothes and put dry ones on."
"Clothes wet," Elsa looks down at herself and agrees. "Um?"
"Take off the wet ones and put dry ones on," Anna repeats. "How does Kristoff do this?" Elsa's hand go jerkily to her top button.
"Oh," Anna says, turning her back to the litch. "You're going to do it right here. Ok." She hears the distinctive slap of wet clothes hitting tile, waits a moment longer, then turns back. She had expected Elsa to be clothed again, but there the little blond litch stands, naked as the day she was born- however long ago that may have been. Elsa is skinnier than Anna had expected; her ribs stand out starkly against her pale sides, and the sharp edges of her hips strain against her skin. Her arms and legs are thin like twigs, and grotesque, silvery, scars pattern her back and sides like a tiger's stripes. A flash of rage ignites in Anna's heart- like she's always imagined it would feel to be a dragon just about to breath fire. She wants to take whoever did that and… she's not sure really. Something violent, but no; they're long dead. Of old age, or of the trials for their war crimes. Anna sighs, and flexes her freckled hands. "Oh Elsa," she sighs and closes her eyes, less to preserve the litch's modesty than to get away from those horrible scars but they stick in her mind and refuse to let her go. "Clothes, Elsa," she says.
"Clothes," Elsa agrees, and Anna can almost hear the little frown of concentration in Elsa's voice.
"Are you dressed?" Anna doesn't open her eyes.
"Clothes," Elsa agrees again, so Anna risks a glance. Elsa is wearing a faded old tank top, and long floofy pants.
"Good job," Anna says.
When Elsa wakes the next morning, she finds herself wrapped around Anna. Who am I? Elsa. Litch. Witch. Barista. Where am I? Her own shitty little apartment, except… where did that table come from? At least it isn't an off day…
"Anna," She asks. "Where did this table come from?"
"Huh?" Anna mumbles groggily. "Wassit?" She nuzzles into Elsa and the litch tries very hard not to pay attention to exactly where Anna's head is resting. "You're soft," Anna mutters.
"Thank you," Elsa replies automatically. She gently pushes Anna off of herself anyway. "Did you paint my nails?" She scowls.
"Was tryin to find you a fun thing," Anna rubs her eyes and sits up. "Oh my god I'm so sorry I didn't mean to sleep on you and please don't hate me?" The words come out in a waterfall rush.
"I don't hate you," Elsa says, lying carefully still and enjoying the pitter-patter feel of Anna's heart in the intangible winds of magic. "You painted my nails blue? Baby blue? Really?"
"It looks good," Anna insists, and scrambles off the bed.
"Huh," Elsa says. She considers her hand dispassionately. "We didn't… do… anything last night, right?"
"Um?" Anna blushes furiously. "No, I wouldn't. I mean, not with you… not that I… I wouldn't be against it… but. Ahem. Didn't do anything. You don't remember?"
"I never remember my off days," Elsa slides smoothly out of bed and casts about for acceptable day clothes. "Thank you for the table."
"Oh," Anna shuffles awkwardly. "You're welcome. I mean. No trouble, really."
Elsa gathers up her clothes with a sort of mechanical efficiency, and retreats to the bathroom. "Do you know if Proposition ninety seven passed?" Elsa asks from behind the closed door. "I had meant to vote, but…"
"Yeah, you had an off day," Anna agrees. "I don't know if it passed or not. Why's it matter? It's just some anti plague stuff."
"Stuff like provisions to make sure that corpses are disposed of appropriately," Elsa opens the door. She's dressed well, if a little too modestly for Anna's taste. A tight-fitting grey knit woolen sweater, pleated blueish skirt, and shiny black flats. Elsa straightens her sweater unnecessarily.
"I guess," Anna shrugs. It's a conscious effort to keep her eyes on Elsa's pallid face. There are hints of freckles, long buried by her undead pallor. She hadn't noticed them before. "Isn't it mostly stuff to give the CDC more scope, set up additional clinics, things like that?"
"Mostly," Elsa grabs her keys. "It all seems pretty reasonable, except there's that one line that says families have three days to claim a corpse before the government takes care of things themselves. That's a euphemism, by the way, not unlike Germany's 'final solution'. I'm worried they might count me as an unclaimed corpse."
"Oh damn," Anna puts her hands to her mouth. "Jesus. I. That couldn't happen here. Not in the U.S. we're not Nazi Germany."
"I hope you're right," Elsa shrugs, "but that's what we thought all those years ago in Germany too."
"We're better than that," Anna says fiercely. She checks her phone. "The Proposition passed. Doesn't mean they mean it like you're thinking."
"I hope not," Elsa replies. "I need to get to work. Do you have class?"
"Not today," Anna says. "I'll go with you. Keep you company and stuffs. Unless you'd rather be alone or something?"
"I wouldn't object," Elsa says.
AN: Elsa's off days are hard to write, hence the delayed chapter, but I'm not unhappy with how this chapter turned out. As always, Reviews make sure that future chapters are better, so if you enjoyed, it's in your interest to help make sure that you enjoy future chapters even more. I won't get upset with criticism, and I'll never tire of complements, so both ends of the spectrum are awesome.
On a related note, I've been blown away by the support for this story. Ten follows per chapter thus far? Wow. I never thought I would have anything this popular. Especially considering how odd all my stories are… A huge, heartfelt thank you for everyone. Give yourselves a big hug from me.