Anna doesn't come home until well after midnight, and by then Elsa has already popped some Nyquil caps to help her sleep. She's only vaguely aware of her roommate passing through the room, shutting door as quietly as possible before shedding her layers, and collapsing into bed. The soft, even rhythm of Anna's breathing filters into Elsa's unconscious and leaves her with vague impressions of piercing blue eyes and fiery red hair. By the time she wakes the next morning, however, wearily dragging her leaden limbs upright, Anna is gone again.
It hits her somewhere deep. It knocks the air out of her lungs, even here sitting in her bed, staring blearily across their space in a rumpled nightshirt, taking in the sight of Anna's empty sheets.
That's how it always is with them.
Soon, Elsa is pushing through the heavy fog of Nyquil and stumbling into the shower, scrubbing too fast and too hard under the spray of water that's too hot. She can't pull herself together fast enough. She can't get out the room fast enough. Anna's bed is empty, and she feels like she'll be empty too if she doesn't leave, like the void will swallow her up and hollow her out. She fears its power. It could take everything, even the anger, and some days that's all she has left.
Elsa grabs her jacket and jogs out the door, barely pausing to lock it behind her.
She's been empty before, and she never wants to be empty again.
/-/-/-/-/
"What do we know about Odysseus so far?" Rumpled and grumpy, Dr. Bourbon paces circles around the floor of the auditorium. "How is he different from the other Greek warriors?" He pauses for a long moment to let the class mull it over, tugging restlessly at the collar of his faded, crewneck pullover. "Well, we know what Homer wants us to know about him, at least, because he harps on it repeatedly. What is he trying to tell us?"
A girl in the front row, with ramrod straight posture, raises her hand.
He points at her. "Yes."
"Odysseus is really clever," she says. "Homer keeps showing him debating over his decisions and trying to pick the best one."
"Yes, good. Odysseus is clever." Dr. Bourbon flashes her a brief twitch of a smile. "This is not to say that he isn't also a strong warrior, it's just that unlike, say, Menelaus, he is also very shrewd. He is a schemer, by nature. Everybody turn to page 65, please, about halfway down the page."
The auditorium is filled with the sound of rustling pages. Elsa holds her copy open in her left hand while she scribbles notes with her right. She's drawing an arrow and adding in a quick note in the margins of her notebook when movement from her right grabs her attention. She glances up.
"Sorry!" a girl whispers to her.
She's tall with short, messy brown hair, a sharp jaw, and a bright smile. She grins apologetically at Elsa, strong biceps flexing under her Foo Fighters t-shirt as she leans in closer.
"I was just peeking at your drawing," she murmurs, and gestures slyly at the sketched pair of eyes peering up blindy from Elsa's syllabus. "It's really good."
"Oh," Elsa whispers, blinking in surprise. "Thanks."
"Are you an artist?"
She shakes her head. "No, I just doodle."
"Cool." The girl smiles again, and glances furtively at the professor. "I'm Sam, by the way," she mutters, under her breath.
"Elsa."
"Nice to meet you."
"Excuse me!" Dr. Bourbon calls out to them loudly without warning, and Elsa nearly leaps out of her chair as every pair of eyes in the auditorium turns to around to look at them. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"No, sir!" Sam answers smartly. "Sorry!"
He levels a look of extreme irritation at them both, and Elsa can feel her face growing hot under his glare. "Next time you're out, got it?"
"Yes, sir."
The professor nods and returns to his lecture, but Elsa can barely hear anything over the blood pounding in her ears. She stares vacantly at the passage they are supposed to be reading from and commands herself to calm down. Sure, she's just been embarrassed in front of 50 people, but it's not the end of the world. She's survived worse.
Much, much worse...
She's trying to remind herself that the time her father got them all thrown out of Red Robin was much more embarrassing when the rustle of paper sliding across the long, wooden desk catches her eye. She turns to read the note that Sam has passed her.
'Sorry about that! I can buy you a coffee after class to make it up to you.'
Elsa glances sideways at Sam who is studiously avoiding her gaze. She gazes back down at the note. It's sitting on the desk like a challenge waiting to be accepted.
Lifting her pen, she reaches over and scrawls a quick response.
'Yes, please.'
/-/-/-/-/
They walk across campus to the famed Arendelle Espresso Bar immediately after class, packing up their things and ducking out of the auditorium before Dr. Bourbon changes his mind about letting them off easy. The air is crisp like peppermint against Elsa's cheeks as they emerge from the dark into the bright, blue world of autumn. Behind her, the awkward, cubic Whitworth Building looms against a red and gold backdrop of changing oak trees, a standout addition tacked on in the mid 1980s, complete with mocha-colored linoleum floors and painted brick walls. It clashes spectacularly with the rest of campus. Elsa takes a deep breath and wraps her scarf tight around her neck, falling in step with her long-legged classmate.
Samantha Bloch, as she formally reintroduces herself, is extremely friendly, perking up like a fresh daisy under the midday sun. Elsa shivers and pulls the lapels of her jacket tighter as a chilly breeze picks up, but Sam just slings on the red flannel shirt tied around her waist, unfazed. She walks with purpose along the wide path winding between twin science buildings, striding effortlessly through throngs of harried pre-med students, the ones that always seem like impenetrable moving walls when Elsa is walking by herself.
"I'm from Minnesota," Sam says, as they cross over the Lowell Creek bridge. "Duluth, have you heard of it?"
"I think so." Elsa frowns as she tries to place it. "Maybe in a song or something?"
"Man, who would write a song about Duluth?" Sam laughs. "I love that place, but it's not exactly a big deal, if you know what I mean."
Elsa is from the middle of nowhere herself. She knows exactly what Sam means.
"How'd you end up all the way out here?" Elsa asks, suddenly curious.
"My uncle works in the dean's office. I get a family discount."
"Nice."
"What about you?"
"I'm not far from home," Elsa replies, loathe to admit to herself that she now feels much less adventurous than she did before. "I'm from Pennsylvania."
"Where in?"
"Outside Pittsburgh, she replies, nonchalantly, and conveniently neglects to mention that it's actually rather far outside Pittsburgh.
Whatever. There's no point in explaining.
"So you're a gross Steelers fan, then," Sam jokes, wrinkling her nose.
Elsa smirks. "I might be. What're you, a Vikings fan?"
"Patriots, actually." Sam thumps her chest proudly. "My extended family all lives in Cape Cod, and anyway, I've had a crush on Tom Brady since the fifth grade."
Elsa makes a gagging sound, which draws a good-natured laugh out of Sam, who just shakes her head and holds up four fingers. "Whatever. I can't hear you over the awesomeness all the Super Bowl trophies we have."
"Four? That's cute. You are talking to a Steelers fan, you know."
Sam snorts and gives her a light shove.
They continue to chat as they weave their way across the quad towards the student life center. It's more or less like weaving through traffic, dodging herds of students rushing to and from class, flowing downhill toward the cafeteria for lunch. Sam seems to have a natural skill for it, something that could maybe be chalked up to her height and athletic build were it not for the innate grace with which she navigates the crowd, head held high, smiling absently into the sun as Elsa trails along behind her. They file into an outdoor patio filled with people bent over laptops, cellphones, and books, nursing tumblers and mismatching mugs. Sam holds the door for her as they enter the building.
The sour, earthy scent of coffee is immediately overpowering.
"Get whatever you want," Sam offers, jumping in line. "It's on me."
Elsa smiles nervously and peers at the menu on the wall. It's a glorified chalkboard framed in beat up plywood with quirky names and prices written across the front in rainbow chalk. In the bottom leftmost corner someone has drawn a very detailed housecat, curled up asleep beneath an improvised coffee-bean plant. In the opposite corner, an emperor penguin wearing a sash of blue and orange waves a flag that reads, 'Go Arendelle!'
"I've never been here before," Elsa admits, though she's already heard plenty about it through the grapevine. "Is their chai any good?"
Sam pulls out her phone to check a message. "I've only had the drip coffee, but my roommate won't shut up about their chai lattes, so I would just go for it."
Elsa nods absently, suddenly annoyed when she realizes where her thoughts are headed. She bites her lip and tugs on her braid, trying to sort through her feelings. It's incredibly frustrating, like sand running through her fingers. She keeps digging and she never gets to the bottom. There's always more sand to sift through.
"Do you see your roommate very often?" she asks.
"Pretty much every day." Sam stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jeans and rocks on her heels. "Unless she's asleep when I get home."
Elsa frowns, adjusting the straps of her backpack as the line shuffles forward. "Do you guys get along?"
"Sure," Sam smiles, and it's a little lopsided. "I mean, we're pretty different, but she's nice. We both love the Walking Dead, so there's that."
"Sounds nice."
"What about you?" Sam elbows her lightly. "Do you get along with your roommate?"
Elsa's chest constricts a little, and her throat feels sort of tight as she struggles to find an answer that won't sound completely bitter.
"I don't see her all that much," she replies, eyes fixed carefully on the bearded man preparing drinks behind a large, silver espresso machine, "and we've hardly talked, so I'm not sure." She thinks of the incident in the cafeteria, Hans' sneering face, and corrects herself. "Actually, not really."
Sam shoots her a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry. That sounds like it sucks."
Elsa breathes slowly in and out. "It's fine."
"I'll give you my number so we can hang out, you know, in case you get lonely."
"It's fine, really."
"Well, I'm giving it to you anyway," Sam says, without skipping a beat. "I think we should be friends."
"Friends?"
"Yeah!"
"Okay," Elsa agrees, surprised.
She hands over her phone and lets Sam enter her number, noting the chipped, lime green polish on her nails as her thumbs fly over the screen. A knot loosens in Elsa's chest. Whatever they're doing here, together in the crowded cafe, it's nice. It's really, really nice, because she does miss Jenny, actually, and her mom, and the frustrating familiarities of her burned out little town. This is nice like that, but also in a totally different way. It's also exciting. It's also new and fresh.
Sam hands back her phone and Elsa stares at it, awed. There's a new name in her contacts list.
She hasn't made a new friend in a very long time.
/-/-/-/-/
Burns, as it turns out, behave differently than cuts.
Elsa sits on her bathroom floor after dinner, peeling layers of soaked gauze away from her skin. She had tried to study at her usual spot in the corner of the library for a while, until the blood started seeping through her jeans, and she had to leave to take care of it. Elsa frowns and curses her stupidity. The wounds are open and weeping, and she knows instantly that she pressed too hard with the straightener, Anna's straightener, the one she's already cleaned meticulously with the rubbing alcohol from her shoebox of paraphernalia.
She grits her teeth as she reads from WebMD on her phone. Cuts are her speciality. She knows nothing about caring for burns, clearly, as this one is already at risk of being infected.
It's a pain she didn't anticipate. One she can't control.
How ironic.
She scrolls through the webpage with her thumb, scanning a list of known treatments. The only things that will apparently help are things she doesn't have, and a trip across campus to the nearest Walgreen's sounds awful with a leg that is literally a throbbing, oozing mess. Elsa pours the rubbing alcohol over her thigh before she can chicken out, and bites back a scream, panting hard until the sting subsides. Then she wraps it back up in fresh gauze, picks herself up off the floor, and throws on the loosest pair of flannel pajama pants she owns.
There is one person who is bound to have the medical supplies she needs.
Elsa makes the short, albeit painful, trip down the hall to the RA's room, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one is coming. It shouldn't take as long as it does to work up the courage to knock on his door, but she's more than a little anxious, not to mentioned pissed off and embarrassed. This thing, whatever it is, with her roommate, has got her really strung out. She's making mistakes that she's never made before. She's losing her grip, and she absolutely doesn't want to be reminded of what happened the last time she lost her grip.
She shakes her head quickly and clears it.
The door in front of her waits, silently. There is music playing behind it, and she can hear a sink running. Elsa steels her resolve, raises her hand, and raps twice.
"Just a minute!" comes the call.
Moments later, a muscular boy with a shaggy blonde hair and tawny, brown eyes answers the door holding a styrofoam cup of instant ramen in his hand. The front of his striped bathroom hangs open to reveal a white undershirt and basketball shorts as he shifts from foot to foot in his reindeer slippers, chopsticks clutched casually in his other hand. The sound of the Rolling Stones spills out into the hallway, and when Elsa peers around him she catches sight of a record player spinning on the desk under the window.
"Um, hi," she says, blandly. "How are you?"
He quirks a heavy brow at her, but Elsa is too busy noticing things like how big his nose is and how rosy his cheeks are to respond. He could be Derek Marshall's attractive older brother.
"Hi." He leans up against the doorframe. "Remind me of your name."
"Elsa."
"Kristoff."
"Nice to meet you."
"Likewise." He scoops up a bundle of ramen with his chopsticks and shovels it into his mouth, chewing and quirking his head to the side as he studies her thoughtfully. "I don't think I've seen you around." He swallows. "Wait, are you Anna's roommate?"
Elsa's stomach drops. "Yeah?"
"Cool." His smile is friendly, even if a little disinterested. "She said good things about you."
Elsa grits her teeth and tries not to roll her eyes. Her leg is still throbbing and it's going to hurt even worse when she has to rip the bandages off again to apply burn cream. The fact that Anna can apparently find time to make conversation to the RA about her, all the while avoiding being home often enough to talk directly to her, makes it sting just a little bit more.
"When did you meet Anna?" she asks, reflexively, and immediately hates herself a little bit for it.
Kristoff shrugs. "At a some frat party the other day. We talked. About you mostly."
"About me?"
"Yeah," he takes another bite of his food and rolls his massive shoulders. "So, what's up, dormie? What'cha need?"
Elsa brushes off her shameless curiosity. "You have a first aid kit, right?"
"Yeah?"
"I need burn cream."
Kristoff studies her evenly. "'Kay, yeah, I haven't got burn cream, exactly, but I have analgesic burn gel. It's ostensibly the same."
"That's fine," Elsa says, impatiently. The pain is starting to get really distracting. "Whatever you've got is fine."
His expression twists a little, and suddenly he seems legitimately curious about her. "Everything okay?" he asks, lightly.
Elsa doesn't like it. "Yeah. Just burned myself, obviously."
Kristoff hums, looking completely unsurprised. He does a quick scan of her body, raising an intrigued brow. When he quirks his lips she knows that he's onto to her. It chills her immediately.
"I've got you, chica," he says, knowingly. "Wait here."
He disappears back into his room, and Elsa folds her arms tight across her torso. She doesn't like the way he looks at her, like he's in peaking in the windows trying to figure out who's home. She hates that it feels so invasive, that her hair is standing on end.
"Here." He returns with a packet of burn gel and slaps it into her hand. "This should hold you over until you can get to the pharmacy."
Elsa takes the packet and thanks him brusquely.
She can feel his eyes on her back as she limps back to her room.
/-/-/-/-/
"That's what I've been trying to tell you. We're officially dating now! He's taking me to dinner tonight!"
Two days later, on a rare Saturday night when they're both in the dorm together, Anna is curling her hair at the vanity mirror in the corner, iPhone wedged between her cheek and her shoulder, doing an odd little dance as she reaches for another roller. She's wearing a burgundy dress that hugs her chest and flows over her hips, and Elsa is determinedly not looking at her.
"I sent you a photo… Yeah… Did you see it? I know, right?! He's so flippin' cute!" Anna sticks a bobby pin between her teeth. "I tol' 'im ish doeshn' needsh t'be- huh?" she extracts the pin from her mouth and pulls back her bangs. "Sorry. I told him it doesn't need to be a really fancy place, but he insisted."
Huddled up behind her laptop, Elsa rolls her eyes.
"Some steakhouse," Anna replies, to whoever is on the phone. "No… Well, maybe, I don't know. I like steak." She giggles. "I do! Really!"
She hops unsteadily on one leg as she slides a leather pump onto the opposite foot. Elsa peers over the top of her screen in spite of herself. Anna's only just managed to get the other shoe on her foot when the phone slips and crashes into onto the counter.
"Shit!" she jerks, eyes widening, and drops the curling iron on her foot. "Augh! Son of a bitch!"
She's hopping around in front of the vanity for an entirely different reason now and Elsa has to stifle her laughter as a crackly, disembodied voice floats up from the phone on the countertop. Wincing, Anna retrieves it and presses it against her ear.
"Sorry. What?" She huffs as she retrieves the curling iron off the carpet. "No, I dropped my phone. I'm trying to do too many things at once. Can I call you back later? Yeah, after the date… All the details! I promise! Okay...okay...love you, too. Bye!"
Elsa takes a deep breath, rolls her shoulders, and stares with renewed focus at the blinking cursor in her Word document. She has 500 words down already. If she can just get 200 more...
"You have a paper?" Anna asks nonchalantly. It's the first thing they've said to each other besides 'hello' or 'goodbye' in over a week, and her roommate's casual tone is just a bit too forced to sound genuine. "Isn't it kind of early for papers?"
Elsa's pretty sure it's never too early for papers in college, but this isn't a paper. Her history professor is forcing them to journal about their assigned reading. She glances up from her screen to respond, but the words die on her tongue. Anna's got her hips locked against the counter, leaning over a pile of makeup containers while she applies mascara. The fluorescent light has washed out her fiery hair and rosy cheeks. Her teal eyes seem to glow like gems from a mask of white as the wand curls delicately over her lashes. Her teeth sink into plump lips, and dig in, forming soft grooves, before retracting again. Anna plunges the wand back into its tube and fans her eyes with her fingers.
"I, uh…" Elsa begins inarticulately. "It's...yeah."
"Oh, jeez, sorry." Anna licks her thumb and leans in to brush away an errant black mark. "I'm probably distracting you."
The impulse rises in Elsa to be mean, but she squashes it. "No, it's fine."
Anna smiles in the mirror. "What class is it for?"
"Am Civ."
"One or two?"
"One."
"Hm." Anna pokes a dangly feather earring through her ear. "I tested out. Is it interesting?"
Elsa peaks down at her half finished sentence about the now mostly eradicated indigenous peoples of Florida. "It's kind of sad, actually."
"Yeah. It seems like most of history was pretty much just depressing or awful." Anna's pale fingers slide into her bright red hair as she works to remove the first of several rollers. "What horrible atrocity are you writing about today?"
"Andrew Jackson." Elsa unfolds her stiff legs so they're hanging off the mattress. "I guess he killed a bunch of people."
"God, who didn't." Anna sighs dramatically. "I swear we spend all our time reading about mass murderers."
"The winners write the books."
"What if the indians won?" she muses, "excuse me, Native Americans. Jeez, we still call them indians just because Columbus was an idiot. Do you think it'd be like Pocahontas?"
"What, like with singing?"
"No," Anna snorts, "obviously not. I mean like, what would the history books say if the settlers lost?"
Elsa leans back against the wall. "Hm. That we sunburn easily, probably."
Her roommate laughs as she removes another roller. "Probably."
A brief silence passes between them, but the temperature in the room has warmed considerably. Elsa is even a bit giddy as she congratulates herself for being functionally sociable. Anna has finished removing her rollers and is now fluffing her hair in the mirror, turning this way and that, trying to catch every angle. Satisfied, she grabs her purse, slides into a long, obviously borrowed cardigan, and walks over to the door next to Elsa. She grabs a scarf off the coat rack on the wall and winds it around her neck as she checks her watch.
"Shit, I'm already late."
Elsa feels a knot form in her chest. "I...like your dress," she says, twisting the end of her braid. "It looks good on you."
The redhead blinds her with a dazzling smile, and her heart skips a beat. Whatever awkwardness there was between them evaporates.
"Thanks!"
"You're welcome."
"You should wear your hair down more often," Anna says, and her fingers reach towards Elsa's braid for a split second before she twitches and retracts them. "It's um...well, you look hot with it down."
Elsa swallows thickly. "Thanks."
Anna giggles. "I bet you get all the boys."
"Oh, yeah," Elsa twists a lock of white gold around her finger, "hordes of them. You can borrow a few if you promise to return them when you're done."
They laugh together and Elsa's head feels light, almost airy, until a soft hand settles on her arm and she flinches away. Anna gives her a strange, probing look.
"Sorry," she says, though she doesn't look very sorry at all.
"Sure." Elsa's fingers tap nervously against her laptop keys.
"I'll be back around midnight."
"I'll be asleep by then, probably."
"Okay."
"Have fun?"
Anna's answering smile is a little stilted. "Thanks. Good luck with your paper."
After she leaves, Elsa catches a whiff of lavender perfume, and glances down at her screen to find that she has typed a string of gibberish.
/-/-/-/-/
She doesn't see her roommate for another week.
It's kind of a relief.
/-/-/-/-/
"Are you sure she's still alive?" Sam asks one night.
They're sitting across from one another in the cafeteria, surrounded by books and papers and trays of breakfast food. It's some event that the school does for midterms and finals, allowing the students to camp out and study while they eat. Elsa, who normally has to sneak bagels and muffins into the library, is immensely grateful for it. She rolls up the sleeves of her sweatshirt so she can eat chunks of her pancakes without dragging her arm through syrup. Across from her, Samantha has her long legs splayed out under the table, jostling the metal legs whenever she moves, which almost constantly now after three cups of coffee.
"I have no idea," Elsa says, stuffing a french fry in her mouth. "Haven't seen her since Saturday."
"You should text her."
Elsa shrugs, nudging Sam's knee away from the table so that she can make a quick, steady note in her copy of The Iliad. "I don't have her number."
Sam chews thoughtfully on the end of her pen cap. "I mean, she must come back sometimes to get her books. At least a change of clothes, right?"
"It's really hard to tell," Elsa says acerbically. "Her side of the room is such a disaster that it's impossible to tell what's been moved around."
Sam frowns, because the comment sounds uncharacteristically bitter coming from someone as cool as Elsa, but she decides to leave that stone unturned. She musses her hair for the umpteenth time, a nervous habit exacerbated by stress and caffeine. It's already sticking up on one side, and now it looks like a complete bird's nest.
"I mean, maybe she just had a good time with Hans."
Elsa arches a brow.
"A really, really good time."
"Yeah, but right before midterms?" Elsa shakes her head irritably. "How can someone be so irresponsible? When does she study? She won't get to have her stupid college boyfriend if she fails her classes."
"Yeah, uh, I dunno," Sam says, eyes widening a bit. "That does seem risky."
"Risky? It's totally childish."
"I mean, if you're worried, maybe you should tell campus security."
"I'm not worried," Elsa snaps. "I barely even know her. Why should I care?"
"Good question."
Elsa glares up at Sam who raises her hands in a sign of surrender.
"Sorry, sorry. Dropping it now."
They go back to studying in silence.
/-/-/-/-/
Anna finally returns Thursday morning as Elsa is getting ready for her last midterm. She's wearing leggings and a Delta Chi sweatshirt that is three sizes too big as she cruises through the door, tossing her book bag into the growing pile of detritus on her bed.
"Fancy seeing you here," Elsa greets acidly, but Anna just flashes her a smile.
"Yeah, I know right? Crazy!"
She flies into the shower immediately, slamming the bathroom door behind her, effectively cutting off any further communication.
Elsa is extremely annoyed for the rest of the day.
/-/-/-/-/
