A/N: Thank you all so so much for waiting patiently and, most of all, enjoying Homebound, it means a lot to me :) I very much hope you enjoy this final chapter before the epilogue!

Christmas day was wearing on, and Elsa and Anna couldn't take of all of Rapunzel's time. There had to be, obviously, time set aside for the blonde to spend with her family. So, they were finally getting back to the car.

The sun was setting, casting a warm, orange glow across the frigid land, and making Elsa's breath look like a dragon's. Goosebumps prickled across her arms as she arrived at the passenger side door with a particular spring in her step, and the coolness of the air almost tasted sweet, just for her.

She hummed as she climbed into the car and slid her cold hands into Anna's warm ones. A simplistic "thank you" was all she needed to say to convey her entire point.

A confident and casual "I'm the best," made Elsa chuckle as they drove off.

Not much longer, they arrived home. As they pulled into the driveway, Elsa laid eyes on her father's car. Just the sight seemed to sucker punch her, tightening her chest.

"Well," Anna said, nibbling her own lip, "looks like dad's home." She looked at Elsa, a concerned expression displaying within the crease of her eyebrows. Elsa only had time to nod before her sister kept talking. "He's probably already locked himself in his room." Her tone was erring on bitterness, but also seemed to be mixed with a softness that Elsa could use as comfort.

"Y-yeah, you're probably right."

Anna visibly clenched her teeth. "He hasn't been working very hard for someone who wants to reconnect." Elsa thought back briefly to when their father suggested something like that, during his biggest argument with Anna yet. Since then, she could put her finger on one time he actually tried talking to them, but does just saying "hi" to them when he walked in late again really count?

Elsa could clearly see the contours of anger and hopelessness in her little sister's face. Her eyes gleamed with it. She could at least ignore her father's lack of connection, because she was used to it. Even when he'd discovered her sexuality, or when he'd found out she could leave the house now, their conversations were curt. For Elsa, that was part of everyday life for the past several years. For a long time, it was for Anna, too. What the elder could not ignore, however, was the seed of hope he had planted in her sweet, caring, and forever hopeful little sister's mind. The seed he refused to water or watch after. And as it died, it was killing Anna inside, that much was apparent. So Elsa could feel her blood running hot with anger towards him, her heart working itself up; solely for the way he'd tortured Anna.

Elsa wondered briefly if he was capable of change. "W-well maybe he won't i-ignore us today." Elsa didn't want to get her sister's hopes up, but there wasn't much else she could say.

Anna looked at her, taking a sharp breath. "I swear, if on Christmas of all days he's not willing to try, I'm done."

That was the first time that Anna had hinted at giving up all on her own. Before, it was because she had puppet master Hans pulling her strings. Now, however, it was her and her alone. An almost completely new side of the young red head, but not a fault. Everyone has their limits, and in regards to her father, Elsa reached hers long ago. She didn't want Anna to have to continue suffering with no dad, but Elsa would shed no tears if he were no longer in her own life. She pursed her lips, stuck between a rock and a hard place. She took Anna's hand. "We'll go in when you're ready."

Anna closed her eyes, calming herself down. When her breaths were even, she opened them once more. "Okay, okay," she nodded, "I'm ready." They both started for their respective car doors, but before either could get out, the younger sibling commented "Oh, and Elsa," planting a quick kiss on a rosy cheek. "Thank you."

Elsa smiled warmly, taking it in stride. "Of course." For what, exactly? You did all the talking, Anna.

The walk to the front door felt like a dramatic build up. Elsa could almost hear the orchestral and percussive wailing, and her heart might as well have been a drum. She didn't know what she wanted as they opened the door. Selfishly, she desired her father to be locked away, out of sight, and out of mind. Selflessly, however, she wished he'd be waiting there for them, or at least waiting for Anna.

Her answer was impatiently waiting. As the two walked in, Elsa glanced around. Her eyes fell upon the couch, where two heads were just turning around. One was her father's, and one was a woman she didn't recognize. Elsa furrowed her brow and looked at Anna, who also looked confused.

"Girls," their father said, standing before they could do anything else. So they stood there, not knowing what to do, as he approached. "I want you both to meet someone."

Elsa sized up the woman now standing next to her dad. She was pretty, blatantly so. She had the same hair color as their mother did, chestnut brown, and was built similarly: petite. She did, however, have brown eyes that complimented her tamed but wavy hair. Elsa felt a weird, empty feeling begin to gnaw away at the pit of her stomach. Her hands anxiously found her sister's. She knew what was going on.

"Anna, Elsa, this is my girlfriend, Megara." The only man in the room was gesturing to each of his daughters as he spoke, then to the new woman, his free hand placed upon her back.

Megara stepped forward, outstretching her hand to Elsa first. She reluctantly relinquished Anna's extremity and met the handshake. The lady's hand was warm, but not as soft as their mother's used to be. "It's nice to meet you, Elsa." She smiled politely before moving on to Anna.

The handshake was repeated, but this time the lady said "it's very nice to meet you, Anna, I've heard so much about you."

Elsa frowned. Dad makes it very clear who his favorite is. Or maybe Elsa was just overthinking the situation. She let the uncertainty fester within, broiled in bitterness. She'd thought that her father had started to care before, but was that all just an act? "It's nice to meet you, too," she let Anna say for both of them.

"We've um, we've been seeing each other for a little while." Based solely on physical appearances, it looked to Elsa like he was trying to replace their mother. She kept her observation on the down low, however, for Anna's sake. How could that woman be with him? Knowing what he'd done to Elsa, how he'd left his own daughters to fend for themselves? She had to know he turned into a neglectful monster, right? That he didn't even care if Elsa ever recovered. Elsa couldn't help but feel upset.

Anna, on the other hand, actually seemed genuinely happy. That made sense, though. They weren't being outright avoided, and that definitely meant a lot to the younger girl. She engaged in small talk with the new woman and it all seemed pleasant. That being said, Elsa definitely let her sister do most of the talking, and pay most of the attention, for that matter. If her father clearly favored Anna, why should Elsa fancy talking? All she did was remain polite.

They all found themselves sitting in the living room talking, getting to know one another. Elsa and Anna sat thigh to thigh, but nothing more than sisterly. It started as generic small talk: how the older couple met, their favorite parts of Christmas, and favorite desserts, hobbies, and Elsa really didn't care to keep listening, as she had only been asked one question thus far. "What do you like to do?" Meg pointed her attention to the platinum blonde.

"I um, I like to read," she truthfully answered. "Mostly fantasy stories," she added, allowing her to actually display a small part of her personality. Just because she wasn't all that interested in talking didn't mean she should be curt.

Her lips naturally curled up when Anna started rambling "you should see how many books she goes through, I mean, sometimes it feels like we're finding her a new book every single day."

The woman chuckled "I sure wish I still had the time to read like that. It's always nice to escape into a good book."

Elsa actually felt her heart flutter for a moment. "Yes," she agreed, "it really is."

Megara continued focusing on the elder sibling, making her feel included. "So you read, and if what Anna said earlier is true," she gave the redhead a teasing look, "you're quite the mathematician. Have you looked into graduate programs?"

Being caught a little off-guard, Elsa took a second to organize herself before looking like a fool. This woman was gregarious and actually interested in her life. Not to mention tactfully and politely avoiding talking about her phobia. Maybe she misjudged her. Her earlier question still stood, though. How can she date him knowing what he's done to us?

"A few, yes, but I don't- I don't know yet." She glanced at Anna.

The woman nodded. "That's understandable, it's a big life decision. I took a year off before going back to school, just to be sure that's what I wanted to do."

Elsa smiled. "Yeah, I might do that."

After nodded approvingly, Megara turned to the younger of the siblings. "And Anna," she segwayed, "is there anyone significant in your life? Any boyfriends or girlfriends?" Elsa's eyes went wide. She must have talked about Anna's schooling before, because that was not at all the same kind of question she asked Elsa.

Face red as a tomato, the younger sister looked at her own significant other. She had sort of a mischievous look that made Elsa's heart stammer and struggle for normalcy. For a split second, she thought Anna was going to spill the beans. "No, not um, not right now. It's just me, yep, just little old me." Again, she gave a passing look Elsa's way.

"There's no rush, you're young, I'm sure you'll find someone who's right for you." She turned to Elsa. "How about you, Elsa? Any boyfriends? You're quite a pretty woman." There lay the answer. She was told Anna was bisexual, but nothing about the elder.

She didn't know what to say. That opened up a whole new world of possibilities. Meg seemed genuine and caring, despite Elsa's first judgement of her. And now she wondered if her father even mentioned anything about her. Maybe this woman wasn't dating him despite what he'd done, maybe she was blissfully unaware.

Fortunately, Elsa didn't have to talk first. Anna's voice was skeptical and indignant. Even her eyebrows were pressed together in seriousness. "How much did our dad tell you about Elsa, exactly?"

The woman looked unprepared and concerned. She looked over at her date, eyebrows furrowed. Their father, in turn, looked like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Not much," she said, chewing the inside of her cheek, "just that she's very shy, really."

Anna audibly scoffed, blatantly agitated. She bit her lip hard, putting her arm protectively around Elsa. Her voice was strained, and her eyes were watering slightly. She visually mirrored how Elsa felt inside. "Dad," she demanded, her voice low and inimical. "How? How could you just erase Elsa?"

Megara interrupted the busted man's gibberish. "Wait, what? What does she mean, Agnarr?"

Anna just stared in disbelief for a few moments. Elsa felt suddenly and jarringly self-conscious as all thoughts and curiosities turned to her enigma of a life. She hugged herself. "How the Hell do you expect to reconnect if you still ignore Elsa!?"

"What is she talking about!?"

The father shifted in discomfort, blinking his widened eyes several times. His forehead glistened. At the same time as feeling slightly under pressure, Elsa felt a bolster from her sister's, and even this new woman's, defensiveness.

"I- I can- I can explain, it's just- it's"

"No," Anna interrupted, standing and waving off his pleas, "stop. I thought we were passed this." Her voice wasn't angry. Rather, it was trepid with the weight of disappointment, who's heaviness also acted on her neck and hung her head low. Tears were audible in her tenor. All eyes on the youngest of the group, she clasped her darling's hand and spat "come on, Elsa. They have a lot to talk about." She turned and made deliberate eye contact with her father, making sure to fill her vision with malice and hurt that he'd struck her with.

Elsa was not at all opposed to leaving the room, willingly tailgating Anna upstairs with their fingers tightly tangled together.

The younger wasted no time marching right into her elder's room and flopping face first onto the bed. Elsa pursed her lips, closed the door, and sat next to her sister's face-down form. She rested her hand on Anna's back, who mumbled into the mattress. "I- I can't believe him, it, this whole thing." Anna sniffled.

Rubbing Anna's back, Elsa quietly muttered "I know" in as soft and cradling of a voice as she could.

Anna suddenly sat straight upright, winding up right next to her sister. "I just I really- I thought like, hey, he's finally reconnecting, and I- I believed it, I believed he was reaching out to us."

The cracking and defeated softness in Anna's voice made Elsa's face strain as she held back any tears.

"God, I'm so stupid!"

"No, no, Anna," Elsa rushed forcing eye contact. "You're not." Her heart felt kind of like a wet rag plopped in her chest. "I- I thought that m- maybe he changed, too." She looked down timidly. "And I actually liked Meg."

The creases in the normally bubbly girl's forehead betrayed heartache, both vicarious and internal. "I did too, she just seems so caring."

"Yeah," Elsa nodded. "I was w- wondering, h- how someone so sweet could look past everything that h- he did." Her voice was strained now, trudging through her throat. scratching and uncooperative.

"And now it makes sense," Anna commented almost inaudibly.

Moving her head in agreement, the elder let silence slip between them, only partially broken by the rumbling of Meg's distant voice. The quietude stayed, extending its welcome like a disagreeable guest. Soon, it felt like an intruder in their room, but neither girl knew what to say, so they let it hang heavily there.

Until they heard audible noises from downstairs, that is. "How could you not tell me that?!"

Farther voices were there, but the words were garbled in the walls, unintelligible. And then they quieted to inaudible altogether. Anna sighed. "He's gonna get away with it." There was no hesitation or doubt in her words. She spoke with an air of confidence and defeat at the same time.

Elsa pursed her lips tightly. Her sister's words felt sort of like a slap to the face. "Maybe he won't," she simply countered.

Looking and sounding as bitter as a grapefruit, Anna retorted. "You know just as well as me that he's gonna make up some lies and win Meg over. He's gonna trick her. After all, that's what he does. He tricks people." Elsa knew the last part wasn't about Meg, and it stung to see her sister bereft like that.

She was right, though. Their father had consistently lied and hidden things for at least five years now. Why would he change his game plan all of the sudden? With the truth backing her into a corner, Elsa's mind slithered into the first option it could find. "W-we could t-tell her our side. L-let her decide what to do." Elsa hugged herself.

This silenced the younger for several seconds. Elsa's breath felt baited. The pause was so strained and gratingly drawn out that the elder began to wonder if her sibling would even respond. There was clearly something happening behind Anna's eyes. Doubt even began to leak into Elsa's mind. Did I go too far?

"We could," the younger finally whispered, her voice hoarse. "But would that be the right thing to do?"

This gave Elsa pause. She tried her best, in her mind, to weigh all of the variables, but this was an equation she just couldn't seem to balance. "M-maybe, I mean, Meg deserves to k-know who she's with, right?"

Anna nodded in thought. She, too, looked like she was mentally straining for a definitive answer. "B-but now?"

"What do you mean?"

Continuing, the younger shifted uncomfortably. "I mean, if we tell her soon, she's going to break up with our dad." An expectant look fell upon Elsa.

"It's right for her to know who she's with," Elsa declared, unsure of where her sister was going, but her position beginning to cement in her own mind.

"Yeah, but, well, what if she found out later? Like, say we waited a few months and told her, would she still break up with him?" Anna sounded conflicted, like a mouse trying to find a way out of a trap.

But she had a point. Elsa had no immediate response.

"So if we told her now, would we be ruining dad's and her happiness?" As the question marinated in the elder's mind, a growing pit clogged her stomach.

"Does it matter?" Elsa nearly spat it with the tears breaking her voice and threatening to fracture her vision. "After everything he's done to me? To us?" She was standing now, and she didn't even realize it. Painfully jabbing her own chest while she answered to Anna's face, and burning off some anxiety by pacing directly after.

Anna rubbed her eyes, then hung her head downward as she thought. Her mouth moved several times, as if practicing for speech but losing its sound. At last, the stressed red head said "I don't know," eking above the audible threshold.

Elsa continued pacing. "Do you really care if he's happy? He's hurt both of us so many times, Anna, I- I don't- I- I just don't care." A stonewall of realization stopped the elder in her tracks as she spoke. She really didn't care, not anymore.

"I don't know!" Anna said, this time adding more audible and visual reinforcement by raising her voice and standing antithetical to Elsa. "But does that really give us the right to ruin it?" Her voice was not loud, but not soft. It was stark and commanding, albeit hushed.

"Anna, it's right to tell her!" Elsa was surprised at how raised and pleaded her voice came across. It felt thick in her throat. "Shouldn't she know what she's getting into?"

Though the youngest seemed to consider this for a moment, she reiterated an earlier point. "But not necessarily up front, people keep secrets! And- and telling her now would be sabotage, Elsa."

Anna had a point, and Elsa couldn't stop that observation from stabbing into her thoughts. It cracked her own presupposition and let doubt infiltrate her argument.

"But you're right," came a now much softer, lower, and cradling voice from her lover. "She deserves to know. But does it really have to be now?"

Now, it was Elsa's turn. "I- I don't know," she defeatedly admitted.

"Plus," Anna whispered, placing her warm hand gently on Elsa's freckled cheek, her own glistening with just the suggestion that tears were there moments ago. "Like you said, who cares?"

"Wait, what?" Elsa blinked several times. Her heart felt oddly still, but at the same time stressed. The silence ensuing from the implication of Anna's words was deafening, and Elsa swore she lost her ability to feel any sensation upon her skin. At least for a moment.

Anna stepped back and shook her head at the floor. "I- I just- well I just don't know if I want to keep playing this game with him." She made meek eye contact with her sister, like a lost puppy. "Especially after, well you know, after tonight. After he showed he's never really going to try, he's gonna keep ignoring you and lying to me." She looked back up. Elsa was still frozen. "He had his chance. Lots of them, actually, so I don't know if it's worth caring anymore."

The rush of conflicting emotions that followed was incomprehensible to Elsa. She wanted to cry, laugh, whine, cheer, smile, hug, and step back to think all at once. She needed- she needed- she didn't know. Her eyes were burning with tears, but her cheeks were almost sore from how widely she was smiling. Her heart dribbled sadness for Anna's severed connection, but beat whimsically that they both agreed on moving on. Her stomach- well that just felt like an angry sack of butterflies.

A whimper escaped her mouth as she fell, catching her arms around her sister. "Oh Anna, my Anna, I- I- I love you so much." She looked at her sister's face to find the visage singed with just as many fighting emotions as her own.

"I love you too, Elsa, more than anything else. And- and I need you to help me move on."

That felt like a cotton wad forced into her throat, but it was welcome. "I'll be here every step of the way," she nearly cried.

Anna buried her tear stain and hair covered head on her older sister's upper chest, clutching tightly. It took Elsa a long time to figure out that she wouldn't ever have all the answers, and neither would anyone else. Life isn't gift wrapped for anyone, and sometimes the only solution to a problem was to simply leave, to go and move on, to make your own life.

And that's exactly what Elsa and Anna had to do now.

A/N: There will be an epilogue! It'll be a look in to Elsa and Anna in another pivotal moment in their lives (not marriage :P) So stay tuned for that :)

As always, leave your questions, comments, concerns, and/or angers below!