I don't own Frozen.
People don't typically appreciate prolonged periods of unconsciousness. There is an insurmountable lack, an acknowledged missing, when you return to the conscious state. Missed time. Missing out. Missed opportunities. Missing, miss, missed, misses. Or, the missing of being missed. If you were unconscious, how could you ever respond to a search call, a signal flare… the kind of alert that others performed to let you know that you are worth it and you are missed.
Yet the stupor of the unconscious is safe-haven; it is remote and removed and resplendent in its blankness.
Why do so many seek the blackout? Lethe-like waters of alcohol, coma-inducing nothing of drugs? There must be some redeeming factor to a state of obstinate unawareness.
Forgetting.
It's a memory slippage, the way things were and then weren't, due to a disremembering. Like a tree falling in an abandoned forest (sound? silence?), does an action retain its consequence (guilt?) if you forget the episode entirely? Does losing a part of yourself even matter if you never knew you were a self to begin with? Being unconscious is like an intractable forgetting. Some huge moments you may never recall, but the innocuous actions still possess startling potency in a hazy dream state.
Like sugar water on a wrist.
Or the lending of a skirt, the first experience with sharing in a selfish world.
Promises of future activities, movie-dates and mixed audio discs.
A shock of red hair, and a smile as blinding as the sun.
Little moments that seep through to oblivion, persist in dream-like manifestations. An osmotic anchor for the soul to reality.
Jane had spent eight months of her childhood in an unconscious state.
And waking from the detachment, a little girl with a big power, had nearly sent her back to a state of nothing. This time permanently. This time, willingly.
Awake, she destroyed. Hospital bed linens were singed. The television screen imploded when Jane merely looked at the thing. Nurses would seize as they tucked her in at bedtime. Bedtime tuckings were disbanded after three repeated incidents. The electronic bed had a mind of its own, bucking her up and dropping her flat on an unforgiving mattress, her home for over half a year.
She hated awake, hated awareness. But she feared sleep more.
She feared never waking up again, even if she knew it was for the better.
And any memories Jane might have had… they were no longer. When she was older, she imagined that the initial surge had gone through and wiped every recollection, good or bad, from the deepest recesses of her brain. Whatever malevolent, universal power had done this to her, it wanted her blank. Untainted. A virginal mind, cleared by deletion.
Or partial lobotomy by electrocution.
Waking was consciousness. Jane's awareness that she was dangerous, unpredictable, and afflicted.
Jane had run the day after the social worker came to the hospital in Little Rock, stagnant muscles spurred by tiny jolts of electric life across the myosin proteins and actin sheaths of her youthful quadriceps. Her condition spurred her to research, and research to further solitude. Solitude begat more research, until the cycle left her with computers, an outlet (not of the wall variety) for a mental expulsion.
Physical expulsion was riskier, especially as a child. But at thirteen, she'd made her way to the middle of bum-fuck nowhere, stripped so as to avoid any burns in her garments, and walked into a field somewhere near the Ozarks. For hours, townsfolk from miles away watched as brilliant heat lightening seemed to strike from the ground up, a lonely vector attempting to contain itself, until it hit the clouds above and branched, reaching desperately, for the other half of its pair.
Jane hated the action of waking, because it meant she had to face her fears.
She had to face herself.
Jane woke reluctantly. To slippery flesh, balmy and visceral against her mouth. She started. And in her shock, came the shock. The jolts and Joules and sparks and specks zinging through her conductor of a body and pouring into the person at her mouth.
A.
A.
A.
"No— achhk," Jane surged, off of her back and onto her side, hacking the gallons of sea water in her lungs onto the night sand.
Composure. Get it together. She's hurt. Because of you.
What do you do to combat electric shock?
Femoral and carotid arteries. Pulse.
Check her pulse.
Jane removed her saturated gloves with shaking hands, and placed two fingers at A's cinnamon-dusted neck. She looked paler by moonlight, pulseless.
Succumbing to ventricular fibrillation meant a heart out of sync, and running out of time.
I need a defibrillator.
Jane periscoped her head about, but ducked at the sound of gunshots, covering A's body with her own. She only saw sand, boats, and blue siren lights from up the road.
She should run. Leave the rest of them to their fate, she had already done enough. Her last contact, ocean water and saliva and connection had dismantled her friend.
Her friend.
Her friend.
Jane took a deep breath and found the hem of A's shirt. Iridescent pearl buttons, for she had been in a conference with Ursula that very morning. She yanked it open, and stared at a pinkish torso that was either burnt from the sun or from her own mouth. Jane prayed for the former.
Still shaking, she placed her hands on either side of A's ribcage, whimpering slightly as her fingers migrated underneath the lining of the girl's white cotton brassiere. The swell of A's breasts met padded fingertips, and Jane found herself terrified by the uncharacteristic dullness of her form.
So she tried it.
A jolt.
She removed her hands and felt for a pulse. Nothing. She pounded a few times against A's sternum, pleading for a beat. Desperate for a beat.
Once more, but this time, closer to the source. She placed her right hand back where it had been, but the other migrated under the cinch at A's cleavage, the intimacy of Jane's fingers sliding between pert breasts disregarded in hopes of finding the space where a working heart should thump, triumphantly.
A larger surge this time.
A's body shook as Jane's hands shot power into her prostrate form. Jane pushed down against skin, willing the very unwilling heart to instill life back into a girl who deserved much more life than Jane ever would.
The heart is not so easily changed.
A's cough was a nocturne, the night turned hopeful once more.
Jane's eyes zipped north to A's face, the young girl's dry barking and gasping the most pleasing moment of her entire stay on the island.
A attempted movement, focus floating down.
Jane's fingers flexed to hold her in place, unsure of any possible neuropathy with a jolt originating at A's head. But A was all at once immobile, curled fingers digging tracks in sand as she stared at Jane's hands, then at Jane's face, then back to her hands again.
Jane watched as her jaw relaxed, mouth wagging in confusion.
Jane pulled her left hand from its rather carnal position and lifted it beside her head. She snapped, and sparks flew from her fingers. She saw A's eyes widen, her face expressive, but Jane's lack of social cues hindered her own understanding.
"Jane—"
Gunshots broke the spell.
"Stay down," Jane said, and moved to her feet.
"But—"
"I said stay down."
Jane limped toward the dock, hands wrapped around her howling midsection. Boards creaked underfoot, but the rickety sounds gave way to grunts and impacted blows. Kristoff was down, blood pooling at his right shoulder, caking blonde locks. There were only three guards in black now, but a curious, human-shaped mass was bobbing in the surrounding darkness just off the right side of the dock. Sven was holding the rest of the men off as best he could, but he was tiring. Even an untrained civilian like Jane could see it.
"Sven!" she shouted, distracting the entire group for the split-second she needed. "Duck!" She only hoped the brutish Norwegian was smart enough to listen to her.
Jane threw her hands out toward the side, unable to contain the anger and fear-fueled power. Without her gloves, there was nothing to act as filter or suppressant. The sadness and disgust of lucidity fueled her charging strike. Power shot from her chest in an arching wave, coming full-circle around her slim torso and pulsating outward, smacking each of the three remaining guards in the chest and rendering them unconscious instantly.
"J-J-Jane?"
Jane was on the wet boards of the docks, clutching her ribs, her adrenaline and energy so far depleted she was certain she might faint. A was on her in seconds, cradling her buzzing, tingling form into a half-sitting, half-kneeling embrace.
"You stopped them, you know," A said.
"I probably killed them."
"I don't care. You saved some people today, too."
"A dozen rights cannot undo a wrong. And I don't know what you've seen of me, but you know that this isn't… I'm not right."
A loud gurgling redirected their attention and spurred Jane to give movement the old college try. Sven had Kristoff slung haphazardly over a shoulder, the blonde man's arm limp against the other man's back.
"Kristoff!" A said.
"'M fine," he said, through gritted teeth. Sven jumped down into a boat, knocking the man's head on the wooden ladder rungs leading down into their slip. "Ow…"
"Sven, be careful!"
"'S 'kay," Kristoff mumbled. "I've got a thick skull."
"What happened?" Jane asked.
"Buuuuuuuhhhhhhggggggrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhsssssssssss."
"Thank you, Sven. Kristoff?" A asked.
"Clipped my right shoulder. Through-and-through, though. Hurts like fuck. How did you—?"
Sven pointed toward Jane. "Brrrrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkksssssssssssuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh."
"I think that about sums it up," Jane grunted.
"We have to get to a hospital on another island. Too many cops around," Kristoff said, blue lights descending upon the harbor. "C'mon A."
And in that moment, Jane made the most selfish decision of her life.
"She can come with me. It'll be faster, safer, us splitting up like this," she said.
"Where's your boat?" Kristoff asked dubiously, though his awareness was shoddy at best. Sven looked panicky, and A just stared at her.
Please don't look at me like I'm a monster.
"I have a seaplane," Jane said, inclining her head to the end of the pier.
"Are you okay to dri— fly that thing?" A asked.
"I'm going to have to be."
"A, you want to go with her?" Kristoff asked.
"I…" A looked over at her, eyes brimming.
"You don't have to. I can take you to the nearest hospital. Or we can go stateside. Or you can leave with them. Your choice."
They all turned at the tramp of boots at the top of the pier.
Sven was starting the boat, Kristoff gone unconscious.
Jane wished she could join him in his state.
"I'm going with her," A said to Sven. The larger man nodded once, turned to his buddy, then motored off into the water, white waves capping in his wake.
"Are you sure?" Jane asked.
"My other ride is gone. Not to mention, you've probably got a few broken ribs."
"I've had worse," Jane said, tiptoeing across the exposed sponson and opening the door to the sleek ICON-A5 two seater. "Come quickly."
A danced across the white flotation device that kept the plane buoyant. She dove over the console and into one of the cockpit seats.
"Where are we going?" A asked, as Jane placed a trim, modern headset about her head.
"Somewhere that you can get some medical attention."
"No going back to the cabanas?" A asked.
"Hey! Stop right there!"
"Police, stop!"
"Come out with your hands in the air!"
"You really want to stay on this island after… everything?" Jane asked, starting the engine with a wave of her hand.
"I very much would not like that," A said, peeking out the window. "But I don't have any of my alias work with me, if I leave without going to the cabana. But honestly, I'm not hurt. I don't need to go to a hospital."
"You don't know that. You're not a doctor, and neither am I."
"You started my heart again."
"It never stopped. It needed jumping, like an engine, to rectify the irregularity in the contractions. Ventricular fibrillation is a common symptom of electric shock," Jane explained. "And I feel like I needed to know that, in case I ever, that is, if I ever did something like—"
"Jane, please. Let's just go."
"Alright.
After a stopover in Havannah and a transfer to Jane's jet, the pair decided to convalesce at a lake house in central Louisiana.
It was a boxy white antebellum mansion, outfitted with columns, second story balcony walk-out, and a wrap-around porch, complete with a screened-in partition and a dangling wooden porch swing. A nudged Jane's arm gently and inclined her head toward the home, a diffident smile rolling over her features as the pair left the taxi at the gate of the gravel drive.
Dawn was breaking over the eastern banks of Lake Sibley. Orange and purple tulip beds edging the porch protested the morning chill with their droops, joined by ferns and crabgrass and wild daffodils that hurdled down toward the lakeside. When Anna had mentioned that Natchitoches maintained a regional airport near one of her many properties, Jane had diverted her course and haggled with air traffic control for a landing. She piloted herself and A back stateside purely on adrenaline, but her ebbing energies and bruised body objected to every step she took over the rocky path.
They came unburdened, having left all of their materials back on St. John. A fiddled about with a ceramic frog in the tulip garden at the front of the house.
Jane rolled her eyes, a pick and tension wrench slipping from her shirt sleeve like a magician's Ace of Hearts. She made short work of the screen door and was already through to the grand foyer before A had emerged from a one-sided battle with the Hide-a-Key.
"You didn't even let me say, 'ta-da!'" A mumbled, following her.
"I need to lie down."
"Can you make it upstairs?"
"I shall endeavor to try."
"Après vous, mon ami," A said, extending a hand toward the banister. On the second floor landing, A doubled back toward the west-facing front of the house. "It's a lakeside view," she said, gesturing toward the curtains. "But I won't draw them just yet."
Jane looked at the brass four-poster before her. Plush pillows with lace patterns and a hand-stitched quilt covered the length of the mattress, home-spun charm and Southern hospitality just waiting to be exploited.
She flopped face first on the bed and was asleep in seconds.
Unconscious.
Finally.
Jane awoke to the sound of rocks in a blender. It wasn't deafening, but the dull roar banged against her doorway like an attention-starved sibling, eager and persistent. She rolled over and winced, her torso screaming at her to stay down. Jane gingerly removed her clothing and shuffled to the en suite opposite the bed. She fumbled about for the light switch but, in her frustration at not locating it, sent a surge into the general vicinity of the room. The light above brightened. The chain dangling from the bulb was quaint, she supposed, as was the whirring ceiling fan it was attached to. There were no vents for central air in the old home, but the window to her right coupled with the spinning blades overhead suggested a dated efficiency and an inhabitant who didn't frequent the place enough to require a cooling window unit.
Jane turned the dual taps and scrubbed at her face, sand and blood funneled down the drain. In the midday light she could see savage welts and abrasions on her skin, and a decent shiner swelling her right eye shut. There was a knot on the back of her head and a dull throb in her skull.
Sleep was better. The pain was subdued.
Jane opened the medicine cabinet and, hallelujah, aspirin. She swallowed three and chugged water from her cupped hands as she ran a bath. The claw-foot tub, not lacking in aesthetic appeal, was impractical for injury. It took ages to fill, and Jane's stiffness and bruised limbs made maneuvering over its high lip a significant challenge. When her full body sank under the water, her muscles didn't just scream. They wailed. Dunking her head underneath was torture, her black eye less than pleased with the heat of the bath. She knew better than to inflame her skin before icing her injuries, but she desperately wanted to be rid of every remnant of the St. John affair. Bruises and sunburns and superficial lacerations were not conducive to leisurely baths, but Jane forced her hand to scrub her body: sand from crevices and salt from skin and… saliva from lips. She licked them and felt a tiny split, the copper taste of blood hitting her tongue and waking her further.
Removed, toweled, and dry, Jane drained the water and combed out her tresses. She went back into the bedroom to search for clothing. The closet wasn't bare, but she hadn't the will or the energy to try multiple pieces to see which best fit her and which fabric she could bear against her raw skin. Ditching the closet, she reached back around the bathroom door and donned a white cotton robe with yellow flowers on it. Trekking barefoot down the (admittedly gorgeous) staircase, her ears picked up at the noise of more gravel thrown against blender blades.
Following the sound, she stood in a high doorway to a kitchen with twelve foot ceilings and elaborate crown molding, watching as A wrestled with a long plastic stick and a hunk of ice the size of a basketball. She hacked at the ice like a miner wielding a pick axe.
"Get… in… there—oh, Jane! You're up!" A jumped as the ice slipped against the plastic red funnel, the grinding sound growling louder as the bottom of the device spit finely shaved ice into a clear Tupperware container.
The scene was so pedestrian and domestic Jane nearly pinched herself.
"Snow cones?" A asked brightly.
"You have a snow cone maker?" Jane asked. It came out raspier than a jazz singer. Jane cleared her throat.
"I bought it! A good investment, I think."
"What flavors do you have?"
A's face fell. "Damn. Knew I forgot something."
Jane couldn't very well blame her. The paper bags littering the kitchen island and counters were overflowing with enough goods to supply a military detachment for weeks. Toiletries, groceries, clothing, first-aid supplies, DVDs— was that a fishing pole?
"Were you intent on buying out the nearest all-purpose store?"
"I didn't know how long we were going to be here," A responded. "Be prepared. I knew a guy in Kenya who said that all the time." She wrestled a bit longer with the ice chunk and the machine rivaled jack-hammer decibels. "YOU SHOULD JUST BE HAPPY THERE'S NOT A TARGET HERE. I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT MORE!"
Jane waited until A had finished the grinding procedure.
"And you thought we would need twelve cans of low-sodium soup, two whole roast joints, four gallons of ice cream—"
"Okay, so I might have gone a little overboard. You can stick that ice cream in the freezer… just there… But how am I supposed to know what you like to eat? For all I know, you eat, like, batteries or something."
Jane slammed the freezer door shut.
"What?! Batteries? That's absurd, of all the ridiculous—"
"Jane," A said, smirking from her position at the ice shaver. "I'm kidding. Please, have a seat."
Jane sat on an old metal swivel stool, fiddling with her hands. She'd left three pairs of her gloves back in the maintenance shed on the island. Not that they would be useful to anyone other than herself. But she felt better with them on, and her hand-rubbing only worsened when they were absent.
"Here," A directed. "Lean your head back."
Jane tilted her head and winced as a cold plastic baggie filled with shaved ice made contact with her swollen eye socket. A's other hand found the curve of her jaw line, the young girl rubbing her fingers over Jane's cheekbone absentmindedly, tracing an oozy scratch.
"Doesn't just make snow cones, that thing. And you need some Neosporin," A said. "You still refuse to go to the hospital?"
"I won't go if you won't."
"I told you, I feel fine."
"And I will be fine, after rest," Jane argued. "Hospitals and I… things don't always work."
"What do you mean?"
Jane debated telling Anna about the malfunctioning monitors, misread EKGs, the utter lack of technological application for measuring her body's vital signs. "I've had worse injuries," she said instead. "This feels like bruised ribs, a hairline fracture at most."
"Really?"
"I climb skyscrapers for a living, even angels fall."
"What about the rest of you?"
"I don't want to, but an ice bath would probably be good. For the muscle tension."
"I bought water-proof Band-Aids. They have rainbows on them."
"Thank you."
"Jane?"
"Yes?"
"I'm trying really hard to ask you about your injuries and not the fact that you can shoot electricity from your hands, but… it's proving more difficult than I imagined."
"I'm surprised you lasted this long."
"Really?" A's grin seeped outwards like liquid staining fabric. "Would you say you were… shocked?"
"Good Lord, here come the puns," Jane said, wrenching her head away from A's hands. She snatched the cold compress and shoved it back to her eye with more force than she intended, and only succeeded in hurting herself more. "How ever did you hold that one back?"
"I thought it up while I was at the store," A said happily. "But seriously, don't you think you owe me the tiniest bit of an explanation? I mean, you did electrocute me and—"
"I'm sorry," Jane murmured. "I didn't mean to, I swear. Sometimes, I can't control it, and everything goes haywire. I never meant to hurt you, and asking you to come with me… this was a bad idea. I don't even have my gloves!" Jane stood from the stool too quickly, bumping into the island counter. Pain blasted through her rib cage and she buckled over, holding her arms across her abdomen.
What were you thinking, asking her to tag along? You nearly killed her once, you'll only do it again if you let yourself get closer…
She opened her eyes and peered into A's concerned face. The girl was kneeling before her, pressing gently upwards on her shoulders, supporting her, aiding her, as if Jane hadn't stopped her heart only hours before.
Just who is this person? Who helps the thing that wounds them?
"Let's go in the living room," A said. "You can tell me as much or as little as you want. Then we'll eat something. Then we'll get you into a bath full of snow cone ice. Then I'll probably ask you more questions, but you don't have to answer them."
"Why are you doing this?"
Why did you come after me?
"You asked me that before."
"No," Jane said, sitting delicately on the cushions at the bay window seat. Gauzy white curtains floated in the open window, the crisp March air of a Louisiana afternoon the best that spring could afford. Coolness hit her split lip and it stung.
A faced her and Jane couldn't tell. Couldn't tell sincerity from guile from infatuation from subterfuge. She was in no state to think, or move, or try to negotiate her own actions, let alone another's. So whatever response A provided, Jane would simply have to accept for the time being.
"What makes me so different from everybody else?" Jane asked, eyes fixed on a flapping tulip petal. It seemed to be straining against the stem. "Aside from the obvious, that is."
"I believe, and please, do correct me if I'm wrong in this assumption," A said, affecting Jane's manner of speech. "That, given the right parameters and a bit of time, we could truly become friends. Not criminal comrades, but honest-to-goodness friends. And I would like nothing more than to hear your story."
The tulip petal resisted as long as it could, but the breeze had other ideas. The flash of orange darted along the gravel drive, unanchored and unhindered and free for the first time in forever.
Jane told A everything she knew.
A/N: Am I forgiven?! Am I?! Can we stop with the death threats now? Please?! This was originally two shorter chapters, but I'm farther ahead in my writing schedule than anticipated so YOU guys get a bigger (hopefully better) chapter. I can never express my gratitude for all of the feedback this piece has gotten. So, yet again, followers, favors, reviewers, thank you.