The Chance to Fly, Chapter Three
A.N: Hello dear readers, reviewers and followers. First of all, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read/review/follow this story. The response so far has been great. It's been a long time since I wrote anything like this, but the power of Elsanna pulled me back in, and while I cannot get on board with the pair in a canon sense, I do enjoy a good AU where the two are not related! I'm rambling... So this is the third update in as many days, and here's the deal: I can't promise that the updates will remain this frequent, but whenever I have two chapters written, I'm happy to post one of them. I don't want to end up with nothing in reserve in the event of, duh, duh, duh, writer's block.
That said, on with chapter three!
It was a Monday evening and Anna was enjoying a rare night off from working at Oaken's. It was her first night off in ten consecutive days and she was planning to relax. Not that her job was particularly stressful, but still, it's always good to have a bit of me-time. Currently, 'me-time' consisted of sitting cross-legged on the couch, with a bowl of ice cream (chocolate, with chocolate chunks, what else?) resting atop one knee and her open laptop balanced on the other. She was flicking through a new batch of photos that had been sent from Kristoff earlier in the day. He had left Iceland, having won yet another climbing competition, and was now spending a week in Sweden, not climbing, just catching up with some buddies who lived there.
Kristoff holding a large mug of beer… Kristoff standing by a frozen river… Kristoff eye to eye with a reindeer…
That last picture had Anna snorting through a mouthful of ice cream, a small glob of the chocolate stuff splattered onto her laptop screen, and Anna, not for the first time, was thankful that for the most part she lived alone. She pulled the sleeve of her baseball shirt down over her hand and wiped the chocolate from the screen, continuing to rub at it until the smudge had also been alleviated.
Anna opened her emails and began to compose one in response to her brother:
'Hey Kristoffer,
Sweden looks great! Pretty chilly though. Actually, it's quite cold here now I think of it. Bring me back one of those beer mugs will you? They look cool. Although they might hold too much for a lightweight like you, am I right?!
Your new friend seems like an interesting guy. Love the antlers. I bet he still smells better than you though. Anyway, I'm glad you've found someone you have so much in common with… Say hi from me.
There's not much happening here to be honest. Work is still fine, I have a night off tonight, so I'm going to catch up on some shows… Nothing as exciting as the wilds of deepest, darkest, Sweden, here I'm afraid. Oh! We do have come new neighbours though. They moved in down the hall last week, well, technically they're our next-door neighbours, but does it count as next door if you live in apartments? I don't know. So, the guy is called Hans, he seems nice enough, really friendly. And then there's Elsa, she—'
Anna was interrupted from her email by a knock at the door.
Weird, Anna thought, No one rang the buzzer…
Anna plopped her laptop on the couch beside her, pushed her ice cream bowl across the coffee table and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Better safe than sorry…
Her sock-clad feet skidded to a halt on the wooden floor just before she collided with her door. Anna grasped the handle and pulled the door towards herself.
"Anna, hi!" It was Hans, and he was beaming at her, eyes wide and pearly whites on full display.
"Hey Hans. How's it going?" Anna asked, just a little curious as to why the undeniably handsome man was at her door.
"Good. Yeah, good thanks. Really settling in nicely." Hans replied nodding enthusiastically at Anna.
"Oh great, that's… I'm glad to hear that." Anna said, and her expression must have given away her curiosity in some way because Hans quickly continued.
"I brought this back, I figured it might be your only copy and you never know when you may need to use it!" Hans said, handing Anna a small scrap of paper.
Anna looked down to the paper in her hand, 'Weird Olaf. Maintenance.' Of course. Why did I give him this? I should have just written the number down again for him. God, it even says 'Weird' Olaf. That was mean. He's not really weird...
"So, that Olaf is a bit… strange, right?" Hans interrupted her thoughts. "I mean, he's nice and everything, but quite… Handsy. He gave me one hell of a hug when he showed us to the storage area." Hans laughed at the memory, "He tried to hug Elsa too. Don't think she liked that much!" He laughed again.
He tried to hug Elsa. I wish I had the balls to do that. She didn't like it though… maybe she's not much of a hugger. Maybe she doesn't like much contact. She touched me though… Anna got lost in her thoughts for a minute before noticing that Hans was watching her blankly.
"Oh yeah, that Olaf!" Anna recovered quickly. "He's a bit of an odd one, harmless though, totally harmless." She finished.
"Yeah, I got that impression. Actually everyone has been really friendly to us. It really makes it easier to feel at home, you know?" It was clear that Hans wasn't planning on leaving just yet.
"It's a nice building. Everyone seems pretty cool. I only got yelled a couple of times for banging the front door late at night. I mean, I don't do that anymore—" Anna looked at Hans nervously, concerned that he may be beginning to wonder if she was going to be such a good neighbour after all. Her worry was unfounded though and she found that Hans was laughing once again. He seemed to do that a lot. Maybe that's what attracted Elsa to him…
"A bit of a night owl, are you?" Hans queried good-naturedly.
"I guess so. I work at a bar down the street, so I often get back pretty late." Anna explained.
"Oh? Do I know the place?" Hans asked. He seemed genuinely interested in her life, and Anna found herself feeling guilty for ever inwardly mocking his sideburns.
"Maybe, I don't know. Do you know Oaken's?" Anna replied.
"Yes! Just down the street? I haven't been yet, but I've heard good things about it. You guys have live music too, don't you?" Hans' face lit up with excitement.
"Yeah, most nights actually. It's a good place, you should come by." Anna said, and she found she actually meant it too. It would be nice to see Hans there sometime. Despite her natural urge to dislike the man who got to call Elsa his own, she discovered that she couldn't help but like him.
"I'm so jealous. Working there must be good fun." Hans said, shaking his head slightly.
"We have a laugh," Anna agreed, "What do you do?" Suddenly she realised that actually she knew very little about the man in front of her.
"Finance." Hans replied, a mock pout appearing on his usually smiling lips, "There are certainly no laughs involved in finance." He added.
"No, I guess not…" Anna wasn't sure how to proceed now.
"But still, it could be worse!" Hans continued, the smile gracing his face once more. It seemed it couldn't remain away for too long. "I actually work for Elsa's father's firm. It's a family business. That's how I met her actually."
Now it's getting interesting…
"Oh? Well, that must be nice at least, you get to work together." Anna said, searching for the silver lining in working in finance. Elsa could be a silver lining anywhere. I'd work in the sewers if Elsa was down there… What?! Anna, that's gross.
"Work with Elsa? Oh God, no. No, she doesn't work at the firm." Hans laughed again, a look of mild disbelief flitting across his features.
"Sorry, I thought that's what you meant when you said you met her there." Anna clarified the point, though she was not sure what was so ludicrous about the idea of Elsa working in finance.
"Well, we did meet there. I was an intern at the time, just graduated. Like I said, it was Elsa's father's firm. She used to come in to have lunch with him most days. She was such a daddy's girl back then…" Hans began to explain his meeting with the blonde down the hall, but by the end of his explanation his words seemed more for himself than Anna. A slight faraway look had appeared in his eyes. Anna watched him, a little confused.
"Was?" Anna ventured.
"Hans!" A voice came from down the hallway a little way and both Anna and Hans turned to look for its source.
A perturbed Elsa was leaning around the edge of her doorframe, not quite committing to being fully in the hall.
"Oh, Anna. Hi." She spotted Anna, and her expression lightened marginally. Then her eyebrows furrowed and she glanced quickly between Hans and Anna. "What are you two doing?" She asked.
"Nothing!" Anna nearly shouted. What are you doing Anna? You actually were doing nothing, now you've made it look like you might have been doing something… For some inexplicable reason Anna had a sudden fear that Elsa thought she may have been flirting with Hans. It was something in the way the other woman's eyes had darted between the two of them.
At the sound of her outburst Hans looked at Anna in complete surprise, before the surprise gave way to plain confusion.
"Uh…" Hans started, still looking at Anna with a look of puzzlement. And then he regained his train of thought.
"We were just talking about that Olaf guy. Remember, babe? The one who tried hug you?" Hans told Elsa, an amused smirk spreading across his lips. "I pity the fool who tries to melt the Snow Queen with a warm hug!" Hans was laughing now, clearly enjoying his own joke.
Elsa's frown returned.
"Don't call me that." She said. The look on Elsa's face sent a literal shiver down Anna's spine. It was clear that Hans' words had upset the blonde, but Anna couldn't help but agree with them, judging by Elsa's current expression, she wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of her either. That's new…
"Sorry, babe. It was funny though! Your face when he wrapped his twiggy little arms around you… Hilarious." Hans' laughter had abated somewhat, but he was still chuckling quietly to himself.
Anna looked between Hans and Elsa, unsure if she should speak or just try to shuffle back into her apartment without being noticed. Elsa was pointedly not looking at Anna and she also chose to ignore the impression of Olaf that Hans was now enacting.
"The office just rang for you. They say can you call them back before you go out this evening." Elsa said, her tone flat.
Hans seemed to finally notice that neither woman was laughing at his antics. He coughed and looked over to where Elsa was still loitering in her own doorway.
"I didn't know you were going out tonight." Elsa added.
"Oh yeah, right. I have a meeting this evening; it's a phoner with Tokyo. We have to do it at their time, so…" Hans trailed off.
"Fine. Just call them back." Elsa seemed to have little interest in Hans' evening plans beyond the knowledge that he would be going out. She turned her blue eyes to Anna for the briefest of moments and then retreated back into the apartment behind her, closing the door with an audible click. Anna felt deflated. That had not been a good interlude with the object of her truly, truly, unfortunate affection.
Hans turned his attention back to Anna. He raised his eyebrows, and pretended to wipe beads of sweat from his forehead.
"Don't mess with the Snow Queen, Anna!" he said with a grin, patting Anna on the bicep a couple of times, before heading off down the hallway to the spot from which Elsa had just disappeared.
"See you around!" Hans called over his shoulder as he too moved out of sight.
What was that? Anna asked herself.
Later that evening, Anna had showered and changed into her pyjamas. She was back on her couch with a replenished bowl of ice cream – it was still 'me-time- after all – there was a demo CD from Oaken's humming away on the stereo, but she couldn't quite shake her thoughts away from earlier events. She had witnessed another side of Elsa. The other day when they had met, or rather converged, at the front door downstairs, Elsa had seemed… warm. She had been kind and even maybe a little flirtatious. Sure, that was probably just Anna's hopeful imagination, but the vision of Elsa looking back over her shoulder at Anna, the words, 'I'll look forward to it,' the gentle squeeze of her arm… those moments had been circulating in Anna's mind ever since.
Tonight though, Elsa was different. She was very short with Hans, she had visibly recoiled at his calling her the Snow Queen, and yet Anna had to admit that, in the moment, the title had been fitting. Elsa's icy blue eyes had pierced Anna; she would even go as far as to say that Elsa had been a bit scary. 'Don't call me that.' The words hadn't been a request, they were a demand and they had to be obeyed. Something about Hans' behaviour in the hallway had rubbed Elsa the wrong way. And the way that the blonde had looked at Hans and Anna… Her expression had given nothing at all away, but Anna had felt uncomfortable, like she was caught in the act of some kind of betrayal. It was all very confusing. But there was something else about the altercation that was worrying Anna; when Elsa had fixed her gaze on Anna, her face furrowed in a frown, her eyes daring Anna to laugh along with Hans. That look… Anna had found it to be… a bit of a turn on.
God, Anna, you really need to get a grip. You seriously cannot keep lusting after the Snow Queen… No. Don't call her that. Not even in your head.
Anna sighed. The evening had been puzzling but she was tired and she now made a conscious effort to put it out of her mind. She dug into her ice cream and funnelled a spoonful into her mouth. She opened her laptop and maximised the email she had been in the middle of writing to Kristoff. She was partway through re-reading her words, shamelessly making herself chuckle at the comparison between Kristoff and the reindeer, when she heard a noise. She reached over for the remote that was lying dormant on her coffee table and turned down the volume on her stereo.
She waited. The apartment was silent.
It was not uncommon for noises to permeate into her apartment from other residents of the building. In fact, the previous tenants in Hans and Elsa's place had been avid fans of jazz and Anna had often increased the volume of her own music to drown out the improvised blarings from the next apartment over. Anna listened again. There was a noise, but it was very quiet.
Anna stood from the couch and made her way into her bedroom where the wall directly joined to next door. She couldn't deny feeling like a total creep, but she pressed her ear to the wall and waited for a moment. The noise came again, and much clearer now she was in her bedroom. It sounded like… muffled sobs. No. That can't be right. Maybe it's laughter, Anna thought to herself, I hope it's laughter… But it wasn't. The sound came again, and louder now. It was definitely the sound of crying, the sound of a woman crying.
Anna took a shuddering breath. It had to be Elsa. There was no other woman living next door. Hans had gone out for the evening, and it certainly wasn't a child's cries that Anna could hear, so it couldn't be Kai. Though any child in the apartment would surely wake up if he heard his mother crying like that.
Why though? Why would Elsa be crying? She seemed angry earlier, but not… tearful. The noise continued and Anna could feel it slowly breaking her heart. Don't be so dramatic, Anna. It's not breaking your heart. It's just not a nice thing to hear. It really wasn't. The sobs sounded dreadful, hopeless. Anna could practically hear those noises wracking the chest of the woman that made them. But what could she do? Go and knock on the door? And say what? "I can hear you crying, do you want a hug?" It was ridiculous. She doesn't even like hugs, apparently.
Nevertheless, the noise continued and Anna was helpless to resist. She quietly left her room, and made her way through her apartment to the door. It was like she had lost control of her feet, they continued to move without her consent. She had no idea what she'd do if Elsa answered the door, what she could possibly say to the woman.
Anna reached the hallway and, though no longer able to hear the cries, she continued until she reached the door of number seven.
Go on then, you made it this far, you may as well knock…. Knock. Anna, knock. Why aren't you knocking? Have you forgotten how to knock? Anna struggled at the door, unsure of how to proceed.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Anna's hand had decided for her. She waited. There was no answer.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Nothing.
"Elsa?" Anna called through the door. "Are you alright?" She asked cautiously. Elsa would certainly be able to hear her. If Anna could hear footsteps on the hall outside her own door, Elsa could definitely hear someone calling her.
"Elsa? I know you're in there…" Anna tried again. "It's just me, it's Anna…" She waited for a few minutes, but no response came. It was clear that Elsa did not want any help from her friendly neighbourhood eavesdropper.
Feeling more helpless than ever, Anna wandered back along to her own apartment and entered. She shut her laptop on the way past, dropped her ice cream bowl into the sink with a clunk, and returned to her bedroom.
Anna listened for a few moments, but no noise came. Elsa had stopped crying. Or rather, she knew that Anna must be able to hear her, and was now crying silently. Either way, Anna kept on listening for a while. She wasn't aware of when she stopped listening, but at some point, some time later, Anna must have fallen asleep.