Guess who's back? YES IT IS I!

Alright, alright. Gimme a second to explain my near five month absence. I graduated in May (yay me!) and getting that diploma took more out of me that I care to admit. Hardest semester of school of my entire life, and that's saying something. Anyway, I'll hopefully have plenty of time to work on this story throughout the summer, and my personal challenge to myself is to finish it by August, because then the craziness will just start up all over again and I won't have time to write (#sadface).

So without further ado, I give you...Chapter 26! Please let me know what y'all think. Your reviews are basically the only reason I keep writing this in the first place, and I love hearing what you have to say. It gives me great joy to know that there are people out there who actually like my writing, so let me know! EEEEEEEEEEE. Okay, til next time you guys! Over and out.

I close my eyes and breathe quietly through my nose. In, out. In, out. The piano keys are gleaming up at me, black and white, and my hands hover over the keyboard, but I can't bring myself to press a note. After my confrontation with Jack a month ago, I figured that I would let the music project just hang out for a while, but the deadline is approaching and I'm starting to feel the pressure of losing my partner.

Losing my partner. Why do I lose everyone I love?

I replay our conversation in my head for the millionth time. I don't want to see you….I don't want to talk to you… I probably deserved that. And honestly, he took it better than I would have. But it still hurts.

I stare at the piano, and lightly press a note, which rings out high and clear. I press it again, and again, and sustain the note as long as possible. So much productivity.

"Elsa?" The door creaks slightly as it's gently pushed inward.

"Yeah?" I say, turning my body to face the intruder into my thoughts. It's Anna and Rapunzel, who are both peering at me with looks of concern, the same way they'd look at someone hospitalized with a terminal illness.

"We were just getting ready to go to the football game and thought we'd check to see if you've changed your mind…" Rapunzel starts timidly, "about not going. The game's going to start in an hour, but we wanted to get good seats, so we'll be leaving soon." She smiles her sunshine smile, and it fills a little part of the empty place inside my chest.

I smile. They've been such good friends to me lately, even though I don't deserve it. "I just don't know," I sigh. "What if Jack sees me there are gets mad?"

Anna gives me an exasperated look. "Elsa," she says sternly, "have you ever been to a high school football game?"

"No," I admit begrudgingly. In Arendelle, I was so caught up in my Clara persona that I made it a point to avoid such public events.

"Well, then, you should defer to my superior knowledge in this matter," my sister responds. "Believe me, Elsa, there's no way Jack will even know you're there. He'll be on the field, running around and getting tackled, and he won't be able to make out faces in the crowd, anyway. Don't worry about that." Noticing my hesitation, she adds, "I think it would be good for you to come, to get out of this room and out of the house for a little while."

I think about it. I really haven't left the house all that much since my confrontation with Jack. And I've been kind of avoiding other people, I suppose. I really am becoming Clara again. And the thought scares me so much that I agree in an instant, swinging off the bench where I've been sitting for the past hour or so. But I stand up too quickly, and send the papers resting on the music stand scattering across the room.

Before either of them can move to pick it up, I just wave my hand at the mess. "Leave it, I'll get it later." They look at each other, then nod as I follow them out of the room and close the door behind me.

After I told Jack – well, if you can call what happened telling – I didn't think it was fair to keep the rest of the gang in the dark, so Anna and I systematically arranged meetings with each of them to share the news. As expected, my revelation was taken in several different ways: the Merida way, which consisted of a lot of jumping and disbelief, there was the Hiccup way, with a lot of muttering about the "statistical likeliness" of the situation, there was the casual Flynn way (which I appreciated), and then there was Rapunzel. When I told my golden-haired cousin, she just smiled at me. "I knew it all along," is all she said.

"So," Anna starts, pulling back to keep pace with me, "we've been trying to decide whether or not to bring jackets, since it is the end of September, but we figure that the weather's so unpredictable here that it could be just right without an outer layer of warmth. And if it's too hot for jackets, I don't want to get stuck carrying a useless piece of fabric with me all night." She looks down at her hands and frowns, as if there's already an unwanted jacket in them.

I laugh lightly and roll my eyes. "I see nothing has changed. You both were always the worst decision makers in the world."

Rapunzel laughs a little too loudly. I'm definitely not that funny. "What can I say? I learn from the best. My mom has officially been named the worst decision maker in the history of mankind. Do you remember that time that she spent half an hour deciding what kind of toilet paper to buy at the store?"

"How could I forget? That was the most traumatic experience of my nine year old life!"

"But I'll have to admit, it was exceptional toilet paper."

I grin. "Too true." Flynn ended up convincing us to use that toilet paper to TP Hiccup's house after he got grounded for starting a fire in the kitchen, which was way more difficult than we thought it would be. Also, come to think of it, who thinks of TP-ing a friend's house when they're not even twelve years old yet? That boy's got issues.

"Maybe you should take jackets along, just in case. I mean, won't you be more sorry if you don't bring one and it ends up being really cold?" Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to have to be the voice of reason when it comes to these two? You? Voice of reason? That's a terrifying thought.

Rapunzel punches me lightly on the shoulder. "There's the practical Elsa that we all know and love!"

I smile, but it quickly fades away and is replaced with my serious look. "You guys, remember, though, that you still have to call me Clara. You're the only people who know that I'm Elsa, and I'd prefer if the secret stayed a secret for a while longer, until I know how to deal with it."

My companions just nod vigorously at me in agreement, neither of them saying a word, which is unusual, for them at least. After fixing each in a solemn stare, I nod, too, and we head out the front door. As we're piling into the car, though, Anna turns back to look at me from where she's sitting in the passenger seat and shrieks.

"What?" I say, immediately shaking through my hair to make sure there are no spiders or other creepy crawlies invading my personal space. "What?!"

At my panic, though, she just laughs. "Sorry, that was mega overreaction," she says, covering her mouth with her hands to hide a smile. "I just noticed that you're not wearing school colors."

"That's all?!"

Now Rapunzel looks at me, too. "It's a big deal for this game, especially, because this is Homecoming," she explains. "So we all have to be extra school-spirited up!"

"But I don't have anything in the school colors!" I protest. In fact, I don't think I even know what the school colors are, to be perfectly honest, but I leave that small bit of information to myself.

Anna quickly unbuckles herself and swings out of the vehicle, smoothly opening my door, too. "Get out of the car," she commands. "We need to fix this immediately." As she pulls me by the hand off my seat and pushes me toward the house, I'm surprised by how strong she is.

"It's not that big of a deal, really," I say, in an attempt to keep my sister from bulldozing her way through the front door.

She snorts. "Maybe not to you, it isn't, but to me it is! How would it look if I, a hopefully soon-to-be cheerleader, was seen with a girl with absolutely no school spirit? Huh?"

"You want to be a cheerleader?" I say incredulously.

"Yup," she responds simply. And we leave the conversation at that.

When we finally reach Anna's bedroom, she lets go of my hand and rushes to her closet. I sit on the bed, trying to rub circulation back into my now-numb extremity and avoiding the articles of clothing that keep flying past my head. "What in the world are you doing in there?" I call over to her.

"I'm…..trying…to find…this….one….specific….Ah! here it is!" Her head appears around the corner of her closet. "How do you feel about this?" She says, holding up a green shirt with the Burgess school mascot emblazoned across the front.

I try to look at it critically, but it's just a shirt to me. "It looks fine to me," I say, unsure of what the appropriate response is.

"Great!" Anna's enthusiasm over my approval of her shirt seems a little overdone, but I don't say anything. "I want you to take this," she says, tossing the shirt to me, "and try it on. And why don't you put this on while you're at it, okay?" She hands me a green hair clip.

I sigh. "Do I have to?"

"Yes," she responds automatically, then softens up. "Please, Elsa. For me."

Darn. She pulled the "do it for me" card. Not fair. "Okay," I say resignedly, walking behind the closet door for a little privacy while I change, which is the work of less than a minute. When I reveal my new outfit, Anna claps her hands together happily, making highly unnecessary "oohing" and "ahhing" sounds as proof of her approval. I take a small bow.

"Thank you, thank you," I say in a showman voice. "I'll be here all…well, all year, hopefully," I say thoughtfully.

Anna's eyes seem to darken a little bit, but her face remains cheerful. "You look great, Elsa. The green really brings out your eyes."

At that, I smile and reach my hands up to my face. It seems so strange to me that Clara is more of a real, physical being than Elsa is. Clara is here, she is with me all the time. She is who people see when they look at me. Elsa is a faint, pale memory. She no longer exists in the minds of most people. No one has seen her in years, not even me. Will I ever get to be myself again?

I turn my attention back to Anna, who seems to be studying me sharply. Just as she opens her mouth to speak, the impatient blare of a car horn breaks the moment. "Oops," Anna says with a giggle. "I completely forgot Rapunzel was waiting in the car."

"Well, come on, then. Let's get outta here!" I say, taking her hand in mine as I sweep out of the room and down the stairs.

"Elsa?" Anna's voice sounds close to my ear.

"Hmm?"

"Do you think you'll ever be Elsa again, in looks, I mean?"

How did she know I was just thinking about that? "I don't know," I say with sincerity. "I mean, I guess eventually I'll go back to my normal self, but who knows when that will be. If I go back to being Elsa entirely, that means the whole town will know who I am again. And they might not accept me back."

Anna's silent as we step outside and half-jog back to the car. "Well, maybe we can feel things out first, would that help?"

I shrug. I'd rather not have this conversation right now. It's not very conducive to my attempts to be in a good, optimistic mood tonight. "Possibly. But let's talk about this later, okay?"

"Sure, but we will talk about it."

I give her a puzzled look. "Of course we will."

She gives me a curt nod, then opens up her door and clambers back into the car, while I do the same.

"Sheesh, what took you guys so long?" Rapunzel says impatiently. "I was starting to think that you had been attacked or kidnapped or something and that I would have to go in and rescue you with nothing but this old rusty frying pan for a weapon and then-"

"Rapunzel!" Anna's voice cuts through my cousin's imaginings with a clear ring.

"Huh?" she asks innocently. "Was I doing it again? Whoops. Sorry, my bad." When neither of us respond, she shifts her attention to the gearshift and the steering wheel. "Allllrighty then, how about we get this show on the road, huh?" The vehicle quickly backs out of our driveway and rushes down the street.

As we drive, I sit in silence in the back, mentally preparing myself for my impending experience. First football game…unfortunately, I don't know a whole lot about football. From years of watching it with my dad, though, I understand the basics of the game, so that should be sufficient. And I know what "intentional grounding" is, one of the few penalties that I understand. But knowing the small details of the game shouldn't be as important, right? It is a high school football game, after all…

I'm still caught in this train of thought when the car comes to a stop. I can see the stadium lights and the field itself, even though we've parked at the back of the school's substantial parking lot. I take a deep breath as I step out of the vehicle. Rapunzel and Anna walk ahead, already chattering excitedly about all the people they'll see and about the players, while I just follow behind, trying to control the racing of my heart. I might see Jack soon…why did I come to this again?