Sirens blare in the distance. Elsa frowns and winds her hands together. She's going to work, she remembers that, and the intersection looks familiar, but she can't quite remember if she's supposed to turn here or not. And if she is supposed to turn, which way? Elsa looks around again, even though she knows it won't help.
"Anna?" She croaks. "Help?" Anna doesn't answer. Elsa supposes that might have something to do with the fact that Anna isn't actually there, but why isn't she? Where's Anna? Or Kristoff, for that matter. He's been nice to her, right? Elsa glances around again- there's the Arby's, she remembers the Arby's… pedestrians are giving her odd looks. Elsa knows she's been standing here too long. And there's a reason why she can't afford the attention, she just can't seem to remember it. She fights down a rising feeling of despair. Why can't she remember? What's wrong with her? Stupid, worthless little dead thing. No one could ever love you. That's probably why Anna isn't there.
Elsa sits down on the curb and tries very hard not to cry. She needn't bother, because her old dead eyes can't cry anyway, but she doesn't remember that right now. The siren seems closer. That's not good, she knows, but she doesn't remember why- stupid dead thing, why can't you remember anything? Her mother had always said to trust the police- they're there to help you- but didn't the police take her to Dachau?
That, at least, she can remember. The hunger, that claws at your belly and leaves a horrible, empty pit. That you can never really forget, even when the guards are beating you. That is always there, regardless of how much dirt or bark or sawdust you try to eat. Elsa had made lists, she remembers, of all the foods she wanted to eat when she finally got free. Some days, it was everything with strawberries in it, scrawled into the margins of a Bible. Pages and pages of strawberry foods. Strawberry shortcake, and strawberries and cream, and strawberries on Belgian waffles. Other days it was all kinds of bread on the back of a page of propaganda, banana bread, and zucchini bread, and sourdough and French baguettes, and bagels with cream cheese, and cinnamon and raisin bagels, and…
Except she hadn't escaped, had she? She died, burned in a furnace- not like she would ever forget that. She died, and this isn't her first body though it shows the same ugly tattoo and the same crisscrossed scars. She died, and now she doesn't eat, and her hundreds of pages of food had gone up in smoke with her.
Someone's shaking her. Elsa yells, and throws herself back. "No!" She shakes her head violently. "Nein, Nein!"
"Miss?" The man says kindly, holds up blue gloved hands. Elsa blinks, and tries to focus on him. He's tall, and broad shouldered. Short dark hair, and Asian features. He wears a uniform of some sort.
"Please no," Elsa begs, "not Dachau. Please."
"Dachau?" The man frowns. It takes him a moment to continue. "The old Nazi concentration camp?"
Elsa holds very still, as if he maybe can't see her if she's still enough.
"I'm not a Nazi," The man says and it's clear, even to Elsa, that he's trying not to laugh. Maybe he's telling the truth? "My name's Shang. I'm a paramedic. Are you alright ma'am?"
"Alright," Elsa repeats quickly. "Don't need you. Alright," she says again, just in case he didn't get it the first time.
"Right," Shang agrees, "you look pretty healthy." Elsa smiles shyly, and he continues. "You mind if we take a few vitals real quick, just to make sure?"
"Vitals," Elsa says.
"Just measuring pulse, oxygen, pressure, things like that," the man holds his hands up disarmingly. "No needles, see?"
"No needles," Elsa agrees. There's a large white vehicle parked next to her. It's covered in flashing lights, and they seem much more interesting than the paramedic. A woman comes out a door in the side. She wears the same uniform, has the same short dark hair and Oriental features. She carries a huge blue bag, and some sort of blocky machine.
"Anna?" Elsa asks hopefully. "You know where Anna is?"
"Shang, she retarded?" The woman asks as she approaches.
"Mulan!" The paramedic hisses.
"Sorry," the woman says automatically. She bends down and attaches things to Elsa- some sort of band around her upper arm, and a little sleeve thing for her finger. Elsa doesn't understand, but Shang's patient smile keeps her calm.
"You always like this?" Shang asks.
Elsa shakes her head. "Off day," she says, and thinks for a minute. "It's not always an off day? Um. Um. Can't remember things on off days. Usually better. Sorry. Off day?"
"Sure," the paramedic nods. "Do you know what causes your off days?"
"Tight," Elsa grumbles, and pulls at the cuff, but the woman holds her hands still.
"Patient is pulseless and apneic," Mulan yells abruptly and tears open one of the bag's many pockets.
"Mulan," Shang sighs. "Treat your patient, not your monitor."
"Right," Mulan agrees. "Sorry. So…"
"So take it manually," he prompts.
"I'm alright," Elsa says, but is promptly ignored. "Kristoff said I did good," Elsa mutters.
"Uh, you're gonna kill me," Mulan says, her fingers on Elsa's wrist. "I can't find a pulse manually either."
"The hell're they teaching EMTs these days?" Shang growls and places his fingers on Elsa's wrist. "Have to teach you everything in the field, but don't worry, I'll make a proper medic out of you. Huh." He shifts his grip. "Huh," he says again. "Miss, I'm going to touch your throat, all right?"
Elsa leans back wearily. "I'm alright," she protests weakly. Shang puts his fingers on her throat.
"Huh," he says. "Ma'am? Do you have any sort of heart implant? A ventricular assist device, maybe?"
"No devices," Elsa frowns. "Heart doesn't beat," she adds helpfully.
"Your heart doesn't beat?" Shang raises his eyebrows. "Mulan, you want to call medical control for me? Ma'am, why don't you think your heart beats?"
"Heart doesn't beat," Elsa repeats slowly. She frowns and thinks for a moment. "I don't breathe?"
"You don't breathe?" Shang frowns. "You mean you have sleep apnea?"
"No," Elsa looks around. "I… where's Anna?"
"I don't know any Anna," the paramedic says. "What do you mean you don't breathe?"
"I…" Elsa opens and closes her mouth a few times like a fish out of water. "Because dead?" She smiles like she has just won a very close race.
"You're… Dead?" Shang goes pale. "Mulan, hold off on that call."
"Dead," Elsa confirms. She holds up her wrist shyly. "Died. Dachau. Please, no."
"You died," Shang repeats.
"Died," Elsa confirms again. "Don't make me go back."
"Back to Dachau?" The paramedic frowns again while Mulan lurks at his shoulder. "What year do you think it is?"
Elsa shrugs uncomfortably. "Off day," she says. "Bad at years on off days. I'm. Um, is it forty?"
"Nineteen forty?" Shang glances at his partner. "No, it's twenty-twenty."
"Oh," Elsa mumbles. "Was close."
"She's a freaking litch?" Mulan says. "Shang, she's a goddamn litch."
"I kindof figured that out," Shang growls.
"Well," Mulan gives a frustrated gesture. "What're we going to do?"
"We're supposed to call the plague police," Shang says, and Mulan cuts him off.
"Not going to happen," she growls. "I got into this job to help people."
"I agree," Shang scowls. "Miss, is there anyone we can talk to?"
"Anna?" Elsa says hopefully. "Um. Kristoff?"
"Is Kristoff your boyfriend?" Shang asks. "Mulan, get county to send us a cop. Ask for seventy-one-seventy-one. If he's not working today, tell them not to bother. You got that?"
"Not my boyfriend," Elsa says. She thinks very hard. What was she doing… work! "My boss," she says proudly.
"Got it," Mulan says and returns to the cab of the ambulance.
"Your boss," Shang nods absently toward his partner and gives a vaguely positive gesture. "Where do you work?"
"Coffee?" Elsa frowns. "I… I make coffee?"
"Good!" Shang smiles. "Do you know where?"
"Um?" Elsa's lip trembles like she's going to cry. "Near? I… trying to find? Um. And no Anna? And…" why is it so hard to remember? What's wrong with her, pathetic little dead thing? "And no Anna but ich liebe Anna." She wants to say more, but she doesn't know what else she's supposed to say.
"Alright, that's fine," Shang says. Mulan reappears, and a minute later, a police cruiser pulls up.
The man who steps out is short and stocky, like a brick in a police uniform. "Eyy," he says, and his voice is like gravel. "What we got here? Need me to arrest the rookie?" He cracks his knuckles.
"That won't be necessary," Shang says quickly. "You're brother in law is dead right?"
"Who wants to know?" The officer glances around militantly.
"We have a litch patient," Mulan gestures to Elsa. "You know what's wrong with her?"
"Ahhh," the officer shuffles over toward Elsa. Elsa scoots back.
"No!" She yells. "No secret police!"
"Heh," the officer nods. "Eyep. It's a stupid day. Po gets em sometimes. Don't worry girl, I might be ugly, but I ain't gonna bite.
"She thinks she's in Nazi Germany," Shang says. "Try be gentle with her. She works in a coffee shop. You know any coffee shops nearby that employ a litch?"
"Yeah," The officer nods slowly. "I think I maybe know a place. Some idiot lady called us to complain a while back, said litch's a shouldn't be allowed to work with food, but there's no law against it, so, ehh."
"Ey prof," Anna greets brightly. Her professor looks up wearily, glances discreetly about her desk to make sure there isn't anything breakable near the red haired terror. None of the faculty think Anna would intentionally destroy anything, but she has an unfortunate history of tripping around valuable, breakable, objects.
"Anna," the professor says, placing one long gnarled finger on the xeroxed pages to mark her spot. "How can I help you? If this is about the grading curve again, I've already given you my answer."
"Not exactly," Anna replies, and fails to notice her sigh. The redhead holds up her battered satchel hopefully. "I found a thing, and I didn't know how to read it, and I didn't know what language it was in or anything, but you're like the smartest person I know, and you teach college anthro, and I thought, 'I know, I bet professor Gottle knows,' and then I remembered that we also get extra credit for bringing in 'primary sources,' or whatever, and that pretty much settled it?"
The professor casually moves her coffee cup farther away from her student. "You've missed quite a few classes recently," she begins, but Anna cuts her off.
"I know," Anna says quickly. "But in my defense, I met this really interesting litch, and I was trying to primary source, or however you use that word, and it occurs to me that I maybe shouldn't tell everyone?"
"I'll keep their secret," the professor sits forward somewhat.
"Right, well," Anna holds out her satchel gingerly. "I'm kinda borrowing this from her- him, the litch is totally a guy- and HE was totally ok with me borrowing it, I think, but we have to be suuuuuuuper careful not to tear it?" She produces an ancient book, bound in some sort of pale leather. It's pages are uneven and yellowed and covered in strange hieroglyphs. It's the book she had found in Elsa's apartment. Anna sets it reverently on Gottle's desk, but in so doing she knocks into the coffee cup. It teeters. For a moment, it looks like the cup will stay upright but then, with the ponderous slowness of a collapsing tower, it falls and spills its contents all across the aged book. Anna stands numbly still, but the professor hastily blots at the battered cover with a fistful of paper towels- it's wise to have such things easily accessible when Anna is your student.
Miraculously, the cover seems unmarked. The pages too, when the professor gingerly opens it. She furrows her bushy greying eyebrows. "How old is this?" she asks.
"Dunno," Anna shrugs.
"Right," the professor squints. "You got lucky. I thought for sure that it was ruined." She examines the pages. "What is this, Anna?" She asks.
"Dunno," Anna shrugs again. "Can't read it, remember? Can you?"
"Read it?" The professor blinks owlishly. "Maybe?" She turns a few pages. "Jesus, how old is… 'Property Of Nagash, fifth prince of Egypt?' Nagash, Nagash," she rifles through a stack of papers, and enters a few commands on her nearby computer. "Oh," she says. "Ohhh. Anna, you got this from a litch?"
"Yeah?" Anna nods uncertainly. "What is it?"
"The third spellbook of the first litch," Gottle says. "This is… damn."
"Oh," Anna frowns. "That's awesome! Can you translate it?"
"It's in ancient Egyptian," the professor frowns. "And…" she reads more. "Yes, I'll do it," she grins like a cat that has just figured out how to get into a canary's cage.
Anna wonders what her professor read but before she can ask, her cell phone rings. Wh— Kristoff. He never calls her… "I have to take this," she says, pressing the answer icon. "Hey Kris," she says. "What's up?"
"Elsa's here," Kristoff replies without preamble. "A cop brought her."
"A cop?" Anna squeaks. "Is Elsa all right? They're not arresting her, right?"
"No," Kristoff replies. "Elsa's fine. Or, well, confused and jumpy, but… you need to get over here."
"I'll be right there," Anna runs from the room, leaving her professor frowning at her desk.
AN: So, I tend to get follows for a few weeks after posting a chapter. Still getting follows from the last one; if I really want to maximize follows, I should wait to post this chapter until I stop getting follows from the last one, but, well, this chapter is done and I would feel bad holding off posting it...
Anyway, my great uncle fought in the battle of the bulge in the second world war, got captured, and spent the rest of the war in a concentration camp. He used to talk about how hungry he was there, and how he would always write down lists of food he wanted, and it would somehow make him a little less hungry. Fun story. Anyway, Elsa's actions in Dachau are loosely based off of my great uncle's experiences. Kewl story right? Ahem.
As always, Follows/favorites/reviews are awesome...