Alright. I promise there will be more characters in the next chapter. And to all you people out there who are concerned with this story being over soon, please, do not worry. I am nowhere close to finishing. It's just taking me longer to update because between work and classes now I have less time to commit to this, but I will continue, never fear. Thank you for following/reviewing/reading my story, I'm so glad to share it with you. And keep asking fun questions, because I'm really enjoying hearing what you have to say. Also in the next chapter, expect Jack to come back into the picture, because we haven't seen him in a while, I think. We are long overdue for a Jack sighting. Until then, my friends!

I'm sitting on my bed with Anna, for the first time in what seems like forever. We've just been hanging out in here, talking and laughing, for most of the afternoon, and my parents haven't come to check on us.

"Okay, so explain this to me again," my sister says, "why did you have to leave?"

I sigh and look up at the ceiling. I've tried explaining twice now, but she just doesn't understand. "I was afraid. I thought that I would get into even more trouble if I stuck around town, and besides, everyone was treating me different anyway."

"You could have stayed, it would have passed eventually."

"Anna, if there comes a time that you're publicly feared and slandered, then you'll understand what I was going through." I feel a little bad for getting frustrated, but Anna and I have never been able to go a full day without fighting about something.

She puts her hands up in a defensive movement. "Okay, okay, I was just asking a question."

I smile. "Sorry, touchy subject I guess."

She laughs, a really big laugh, throwing her head back and sending her braids flying. "True, and maybe we should change the subject now. What else can we talk about?"

I lean in conspiratorially, and she does the same. "I've been dying to ask," I say, "what are all of our gang members like now? Rapunzel and Hiccup and the others? What are they like?"

Anna looks thoughtful for a moment, looking down at the unopened letters that are laying on the bed between us. "Hold on a sec," she says, suddenly jumping off the bed and rushing down the hallway. She returns a minute later clutching her laptop to her chest and throws herself back on the bed beside me. "I figured it would be easier for me to show and tell at the same time," she says in response to my questioning look.

"So first things first. How much do you know about what's happened since you left?"

"Nothing at all."

Anna just stares at me. "You don't know anything about any of them?"

I roll my eyes. "I only ever talked to mom, and I don't think you and Rapunzel kept her very well informed."

"You never looked them up on Facebook or anything?"

"I don't have Facebook."

"You don't have…? Well, I guess that makes sense," she says thoughtfully. "Okay, well, I'll just start from the beginning then." She types quickly into the search bar at the top and the screen switches to what I can only assume is Rapunzel's Facebook page. "Rapunzel is super into arts and crafts, but especially painting. She and Flynn started dating over a year ago."

"Finally. I thought they'd never get together."

Anna agrees. "I know. They almost didn't, but Flynn cleaned up his act a little and her parents are okay with it now."

I nod. Flynn was always one of the most reckless of the group because he wasn't afraid to get in trouble, which was great when we needed someone to be daring, but bad because it got all of us into more trouble than necessary sometimes. I can understand why my aunt and uncle wouldn't want Rapunzel to be dating a guy like him. At the same time, though, Flynn is a fantastic person – funny and genuine and confident – and I've always wanted him and Rapunzel to be together, even before they liked each other.

We spend a little bit of time flicking through her pictures while Anna makes short comments about what was happening in each. Most of them are snapshots of Rapunzel and Flynn being annoyingly adorable. I can't help but smile every time I see them together. I'd better get this under control before I see them again in person, or they'll think I'm the biggest creep to walk the planet. Which is probably true, considering that Anna and I are Facebook stalking them right now.

"Okay, who's next?" I ask after a few minutes of this. I'm anxious to know about everyone.

"Merida," Anna answers briskly, clicking on one of the names tagged in Rapunzel's pictures. The screen changes abruptly and I see a picture of Merida as I remember her, from three years ago. "She hasn't changed a bit," I say out loud, and Anna laughs.

"You don't know the half of it," she says, still giggling.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Do you remember when she got really into archery, and we all just kinda thought that it was a phase she was going through and that she would grow out of it?"

"Yeah. Lemme guess, she didn't, and she's still really into it."

"Yep. But she's not just into it. She's really good at it. Like, really good."

I think about it for a minute. Merida always was the outdoorsy type, so it doesn't surprise me much that she stuck to that as she got older. "Do you still see much of her?" I ask.

Anna nods quickly. "Oh yeah. Rapunzel and her are inseparable most of the time, which is funny because they're opposites, but I'm glad about it." She starts clicking through some of Merida's photos and then stops and hits me lightly on the shoulder. "Watch this," she commands excitedly and clicks another button. "Now you'll see how good Merida can shoot."

We settle into silence and watch. The video itself isn't a very good quality, obviously taken on someone's cell phone, but it doesn't take away from Merida's bowmanship. My redheaded friend stands on a field, yelling something that I can't quite make out, then takes an arrow from the quiver on her back and sends it straight into the bulls-eye at the other end of the field. Then she walks down the line, never stopping, and continues to shoot arrows at the other targets, nailing each one in its dead center. The crowd in the background, which was initially very noisy, quiets as she reaches her last target. I can hear someone whisper – probably the owner of the phone this was taken on – that there's already an arrow in the last one. Merida stands still for a few seconds, and then releases her arrow. The crowd's on its feet before it even hits the target, and the video gets really jumbled at the end, so I can't really see what's happened, but Anna fills me in. "She hit the bulls-eye. The arrow went straight through the other one, straight through the target itself actually. I have no idea how she had the strength to shoot it like that. She told me she doesn't really know either. But it was amazing, Elsa."

"Man…" I whisper quietly. I've never really cared about archery until this moment, but now I wish I could learn. Maybe Merida would teach me if I asked.

"Now," Anna says, returning to her brisk manner, "back to business. We'll look at Hiccup next." The screen switches again, now showing me the picture of a tall, almost gangly looking boy with wispy hair. It's just what I would expect Hiccup to look like. "So what's he all about these days?"

"Guess."

"Inventing things? He was always pretty tech-savvy."

"Bingo!" Anna beams at me, and I remember again just how much I missed her. "He's really good at what he does too. All of our friends are extremely talented people," she says. "He doesn't always act the coolest – he stutters a lot in front of this one girl, Astrid – but he's still the same Hiccup. Oh and he has a cat that he calls Toothless. It's the naughtiest and cutest cat ever, and its super protective of Hiccup."

I make a note to look more into their profiles later. Anna seems to be giving me on the basic information. "Okay, who's next?" I ask.

She thinks for a moment. "Well, there's Sophie, but she's not up to much except hanging out with me. She's my best friend, like she was then, and we do almost everything together. And you know about Jack already."

I know about Jack? I don't know a thing about him except what other people have told me, and even those people didn't know him very well. Second hand information is all I have. And I tell Anna so.

"Well, in that case, let's take a look at him then." She switches to his page. "Jack's probably the one that changed the most out of all of us," she starts, but I silence her with my hand. I stare at the picture in front of me, that shows Jack as he looks today. Dark hair instead of white, a sly smirk on his face where there used to be a mischievous grin. Anna watches me stare at him for a little while, then scrolls through his pictures as well.

"Jack's stopped hanging out with us as much as he used to. He has some other friends now, ones that Rapunzel doesn't really like, but I don't mind them much. They're all troublemakers though, and I know his mom is worried. He still acts the same most of the time, but sometimes he gets into weird moods where he won't talk to us. I think being bothered by those stupid guys was harder on him than any of us thought."

"Well obviously. Look how much he's changed. He dyed his hair because of them."

"True. It doesn't look too bad though. Girls seem to like it."

I give her a sharp look. For some reason, girls liking Jack never occurred to me before. It's a little strange of me to feel possessive of someone that doesn't know who I am, but I realize that I am feeling possessive of Jack. He's mine. My best friend. My first crush. I think I still have a crush on him. I think I always have.

"Elsa?" Anna's timid question jerks me out of these thoughts.

"Hmmm?"

"Do you like Jack?"

I laugh a little. My little sister can read minds. "Of course I like him. He was my best friend."

"No, I mean, do you like him like him?"

She's perceptive, too. Maybe Anna should be a police detective. "I've liked him liked him for years, now."

She smiles. "I knew it."

I return the smile, but now I feel a bit sad. "Well, it doesn't matter anymore. He doesn't even know who I am."

"Are you gonna tell him?"

I sigh. "I don't know. Do you think I should? Do you think he would be angry with me for not telling him before?"

Anna's quiet for a while. Then she reaches over and touches my brown hair softly. "I think," she says slowly, "that maybe you should feel it out before you do anything. I can see it going either way. I think he would be thrilled to see you again, but I think he would be angry, too. When you left, he was upset. Really upset. He would come over every day to ask about you. He and Hiccup tried for a long time to find you. He told me once that he was angry at you for leaving and not telling him, but I didn't know what to say. He might be okay with it now, though. Who knows?"

Her little speech leaves me with more things to consider. "I've been trying to figure out what he thinks about me for a while now, ever since I found out we were partners in that Music Exchange thing. But I'm not getting a whole lot out of him."

"Wait. You're Jack's partner?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you'd know. Mom's in charge of that assignment stuff, isn't she? I thought she would have told you that."

"She didn't." Anna's face has gone white, and I'm starting to feel nervous.

"What is it, Anna? You're scaring me!"

"You'd better decide right here and now if you want Jack to know or if you want him to find out later. Jack told Flynn a couple days ago – and he obviously told Rapunzel, who told me – that he thought his Music Exchange partner might know where Elsa is."

"What?! Where did he get that idea?!"

"Some guy from Burgess got in touch with him."

"Some guy? What guy?" If Bunny or North or Sandy ratted on me, I will personally kill them. And I will enjoy it.

"It was a weird name, gosh…"

"Think, Anna. What was the name?" I will track them down and hurt them.

"Pitch. His name was Pitch."

I can feel my body deflating, like an old birthday balloon that's been tossed around too much. "Pitch," I repeat, and she nods. "I should have known."