A/N I'm alive, heh. I'm not even trying to give any excuses for this. I'm not even writing this story for viewers anymore, I forced myself to write this for me. I want to finish this thing. It's been too long and I doubt anyone is here anymore. But if by some off-change one of my old readers found their way back here, welcome back, I haven't forgotten any of you. If you are a new reader, hope you have enjoyed this fic so far. Stay along and wait for more, or don't, I'm not making any promisses anymore. Expect one, I promise I'll try my very best to finish this up, I'm almost done, and I really want to do it.


Knock knock.

Agnarr let his knuckles meet the door frame. He didn't wait for an answer before opening the door. He knew there wouldn't be one, knocking was just curtesy to let the person inside know someone was coming.

Behind the door was a too familiar hospital room. There were two beds. The bed at the back of the room was covered with privacy curtains, but the one closer to the door was the one he was interested in. There she laid, Elsa. She was too pale, and she looked so fragile. like one could shatter her tiny bones by just looking at her intensely. And yet she was so beautiful he almost forgot to breathe.

Her platinum hair cascaded down to her shoulders like gentle summer waves on the beach of a lake. Her delicate hands held the book in them like it was made of crystals and gold. Elsa had the same way of holding things as Iduna did, so gentle and careful. A way that he or Anna had never possessed.

And most importantly, she was looking at him with those blue eyes of hers. Agnarr loved his long-lost daughter a little more every time she graced him with any contact.

"Iduna didn't come," Elsa broke the silence. It wasn't a question, just a statement. Her voice was indifferent.

Agnarr moved next to Elsa's bed and sat down on a stool. But he didn't touch Elsa, even though he desperately wished to hold his daughter's hand. "Yeah, she couldn't come today."

"You mean, she didn't want to." Elsa was clearly tired of beating around the bush. She had noticed her birth-mother's absence every time Agnarr visited without her. She didn't sound offended or hurt. Her tone was neutral and business-like. She lowered the book to rest on her stomach.

"I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's hard, seeing you. It's sometimes too much for Iduna, and sometimes it's almost too hard for me too," Agnarr told. It was the cold truth, but he assumed that lying and buttering it up wouldn't help any.

"I figured," Elsa sighed, almost sounding bored. "You don't have to come either, you know."

Agnarr had to force himself not to take hold of Elsa's hand that was now laying on the book turned flat against her blanket covered stomach. "You know it's not like that. She loves visiting you, I love visiting you," he stated. "It's just that being so near to you, but not being able to actually be close, is just so unbearable sometimes. And don't get me wrong, we don't blame you for anything. I just wish you understand, that even though you don't remember us, and you didn't miss us, we missed you so damn much. It's so hard sometimes, to see someone you used to know and who you still know so deeply within your hearth, and still be nothing more than strangers."

"I understand. It's fine."

"I mean, I guess every parent who has lost their child, no matter how long ago, wishes they would come back, and everything will be just like it was before. You don't really think about how life has changed them, that they might not even recognize you anymore. And we thought you for dead, I never thought I would get to see you all grown up. Sure, sometimes I liked to try and imagine how you would look at the moment if you were still with us. But still, I always thought that the body we lowered to the ground, would be all you would ever be."

"It's so weird." Elsa frowned. She was mostly muttering to herself, gaze lowered into abyss, she continued: "To think there's a body underground that is supposed to be mine."

"This is all so weird. I thought I never get to see you again, but then Anna just found you with some crazy luck. Then we thought you would just wither away and die, but by some miracle someone else died with a kidney just for you, at the last moment. There's nothing in this world that I will think as impossible anymore."

Elsa seemed to think about something for a moment. Then she looked at Agnarr. "May I ask you something?"

"Anything," Agnarr said straight away, without a second of hesitation.

"How did it happen? I mean, how did I end up with him?" His name didn't need to be mentioned, Agnarr would always know who she meant.

"You know that I don't really know all the details. No one but he did, I would guess, and he took it to his grave," Agnarr answered.

"But could you tell me what you know and what you remember, please?" Elsa pleaded. "I just need to know where I came from. Why am I like this. Why was my life like that."

"If it makes you feel better, I'll tell you everything I know," Agnarr said and squeezed the blonde's hand. "It all started when your grandpa died, my father. We came for his funeral to Norway."

"It was a hard trip. Iduna was pregnant with Anna and anything having to do with Runeard always made her agitated. They had never gotten along well, and your birth hadn't helped. He saw your albinism as some sort of defect and proof of Iduna's imaginary infidelity. Even though he was dead and soon to be buried, Iduna was on the edge and I, of course, wasn't at my best either. He was my father after all."

"Our bad mood during the trip had made it hard for you to sleep, you were such an intuitive child. The noise in the church service was agitating you, echoing sounds made it impossible for you to sleep. Iduna was exhausted and moody and I wasn't really helping. Then you started crying and we decided that it would be best if we put you outside to sleep in the stroller. You always slept so well in the cold."

"Iduna dressed you and put you in the stroller, but it didn't calm you. She pushed you a little farther from the church door so the voice wouldn't bother the service. Iduna tried to calm you down, but when she couldn't, she had to come back inside and calm herself down before she would do something she regretted."

"After calming down a little, you had also quieted down. Iduna thought you had fell asleep, so she decided to wait a moment longer at the lobby of the church before moving you back on the better spot to sleep at. But when she went to get you, the stroller was gone. Iduna ran back to the church, screaming and crying so hysterically that it took us a while to understand what was happening. When I did, it was the scariest moment in my life."

"We look everywhere for you. Every day and every night, with police and the people of the town, but we couldn't find you. The stroller was found abandoned, not that far away, but you weren't anywhere to be found. Until—." That's when Agnarr's voice finally gave under the pressure. The memories were just too painful for him.

When Agnarr's eyes had closed in pain and his voice had wavered away, Elsa squeezed his hand harder, to support him in this emotional journey. The things she was hearing were a lot for her too, but it was hard for her to truly grasp that this story was really about her. When Agnarr felt the pressure on his hand and opened his eyes again, Elsa found his gaze with her own and silently encouraged him to go on.

"Until they found the body. It was like the whole world had collapsed. There wasn't much left of the child, the body was too damaged. But it was approximately a three-year-old's corpse and the clothes found with the body were yours. You were also the only missing child fitting the description, so there wasn't a reason to doubt that it was you."

Then Agnarr lifted his gaze suddenly and looked Elsa in the eyes with intensive stare, all the while holding her hands with a strong grip. "If I had had any doubt that the child wasn't you, I would have turned the world upside down to find you. I am so, so, so sorry I didn't see that the body was wrong. I swear I wouldn't have ever given up on you. I'm sorry."

Agnarr's eyes were glistening and so were Elsa's. There was so much regret and sadness on the air that it was almost unbearable. Elsa lifted her hand onto his cheek and wiped away an escaped tear with a sad smile on her face. "I'm sorry, too, you know. For not remembering you."

Agnarr shook his head vigorously. "No, no, you have nothing to be sorry about. Oh, Elsa, you were just a baby. We lost you and we stopped looking for you. We buried someone else's child under your name. Every night I lay on my bed and wonder, if I had just looked at that body, really looked at it, would I have recognized it wasn't yours. It hurts so much to know that we just gave up on you, when you really needed us."

"But, whose body was it then?" Elsa asked, even though she seemed to already have an idea.

"I'm not sure, I don't think we'll ever know for sure. But, if he raised you as his own daughter—," he trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

Elsa shuddered. She didn't want to dwell on that idea any longer, so she quickly went back to the earlier subject: "I don't blame you for that. For anything, actually. I'm done finding the culprits for my life. It doesn't matter anymore. My life was the way it is, Weselton is dead, and blaming anyone won't give me my childhood back. My past, it's just that, a past, and now it is time to go forward."

Agnarr swallowed hard, trying to push his emotions down. If Elsa wanted to go forward, he wanted to support her on that. Even if he, himself, wasn't ready to let go of the past yet. "Whatever you need. I want nothing more in this world than for you and Anna to be happy. If you want to bury the past and never talk about it, we can start on the clean table and do just that."

"No, silence isn't what I want," Elsa pursed her lips. "I don't want to live in the lie and pretend that nothing ever happened. It did, and it changed us all. I just don't want to wallow or drown in the past anymore. I don't want to endlessly sit here and wonder what choices were wrong and what everyone should have done. I want to focus on things that will make it better, I want to let go of the hold that the past has on me."

Agnarr needed a moment to think and absorb everything Elsa said. Then he took a deep breath and asked: "I understand. What it is that you need then, to go forward?"

"Well, there's this one thing I really need to do. And I'd love to do it with Anna, if that's fine with you," Elsa asked, suddenly feeling shy.

"Anything."


A/N Okay, so to all no my non-Nordic readers, it's common in Nordic countries (probably other places also, dunno) to have babies sleep outside in a stroller. Crime rates are low and stealing babies is not really a thing, expect in this story. So it wasn't shocking neglect from Iduna to leave Elsa for a moment alone there, it's a cultural thing, don't be too harsh on her.

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed this chapter. Have a wonderful day!