I don't own Frozen.

Anna assumed Jane's default position of crossed arms over a torso. The pair marched through a reluctant early morning, halting in front of a sizable reflecting pool on the west side of the Rijksmuseum. Before the entrance of the castle-turned-exhibition-hall were cut out letters, 'I Amsterdam' propped Jenga-like twelve, fourteen, seventeen feet into the air. The I, the a, and the m were painted red, the remaining letters white. A modern marketing campaign for an aged building with ancient exhibits. The nominative, active I, as part of the city. Making history relevant.

"They guard the central axis and the atria pretty securely, though things have been a little slip-shod since the 2013 renovation," Anna told Jane. "There's a maintenance entrance underground in the north hall, or you can try the fire escape on the second floor of the new Asian exhibit."

"What about cameras?"

"Normally I prepare for stuff like that, but since this is just a spur-of-the-moment jaunt, I was hoping you could…"

Jane rolled her eyes. "Of course."

"I found an unlocked window in the library here in 2006? O-seven? Anywho, I don't think they've bolted it since."

"And if it is locked?" Jane asked.

"I can attempt to pick it, if it's unarmed. If it is, then we'll try the Van Gogh museum. It's around the corner."

Anna led Jane around the building and through a primly manicured courtyard, shadowed bushes vomiting color and texture for spring's bloom. They skirted the edge of a fountain, one and two Euro coins glimmering from the concrete bottom and into the sinking moon's reflection. A moonful of money.

That was a mistake… not the moon.

Anna's eyes snuck skyward to the lunar quarter, and then raced toward Jane. She looked fine. Distant, but fine.

She's been distant before, I can fix this.

But Anna hadn't kissed Jane before. Not when her life wasn't in imminent danger. And gracious, what a kiss. Anna's libido had been bellowing for the better part of fifteen minutes when their mouths finally fastened together on stage; like an unaligned zipper straightening properly after a forceful tug. It cinched two sides of a garment (or four lips of two people) and the mechanism kept them close, linked, fitted and sewn, until the buzzer beeped and Anna returned, knowing she was neither lover nor clothing contraption.

Just how much of a masochist am I, holding out for the hopeless?

And what's worse, Jane had run away. To her room, which was just down the hall, but it might as well have been crossing a hemisphere. Retreating, after what felt like months of pursuit on Anna's part. Anna didn't know she had been pursuing her, never set out as a hunter, but coming to know Jane as she did, it was like the blonde needed reassurance that she was very much worth the pursuit, worth the effort expended and worth Anna's (or anyone's) attention. The idea of self-worth—or a lack of self-worth— worn away by electric exceptionalism, by personally mandated isolation… it was wretched.

And then Anna had heard her… "A, god… A—A—A!" She had removed the EP faster than Jane removed the miniature Thinker from the Moore vault. There was no mistaking what Jane had been doing, what Anna had considered doing after two miniature mixers of rum and Diet Coke. Inserting and retracting those electric fingers, knowing Jane had been picturing her, thinking about her while she touched herself— no. Heady and cloudy as she might have been at the time, there was no way Jane was feeling anything genuine.

The performance had obviously affected them, Anna had admitted as much to her friend while she was speaking (begging) outside of Jane's door. Jane's reaction was symptomatic of the illness that was their cosmic performance. Returning to the States would cure Jane of the affliction, and Anna would have gotten her hopes up for nothing.

And so I'm making it better. I'm being her friend. Making the awkward go away. Because that's what friends do.

After this excursion, Anna would be happy to leave Amsterdam. The city could have been, should have been, would have been, if only she and Jane were more than an amalgam of mishaps and misdeeds in a young woman's life. She had done it half right: five-star hotel and springtime booking. But this was no pleasure cruise. They had come for Hans, not for romance. Though Anna couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't give up on her affection. Not yet. Not while it was subtly requited. Not while Jane stayed. She had run to her room, not to her jet. And even if Jane didn't stay, Anna would go after her.

It's not like I could stop chasing her. She just doesn't think she deserves it, but—

They reached the window to the library wing and performed a fancy maneuver that left Anna's legs scratched and pinky from the thorned bushes around the building's exterior. Two drops of blood pooled from a thin scrape on the meat of her calf. Jane fretted. Anna rolled her eyes. The hinged window opened with a boisterous creak, causing the pair to freeze for the better part of five minutes. When no security approached, Anna threw a leg over the sill and clomped to the carpeted ground, Jane following, tread silent as a sniper. The rainwashed window was opaque with grime, spotted and sunbleached. But dawn was breaking, and Jane was beautiful in its silhouette.

I'm in love. I LOVE her. I would give anything to make her smile again.

Anna sneaked stealthily through the hallways, forcing Jane to pause for fifteen minutes while she clocked security rounds. They played 'I Spy' to pass the time.

Shuffling behind a portly security officer, Anna held her arms out in a rounded shape, then shook her shoulders back and forth while mimicking his footsteps. Jane clapped a hand over her mouth, but it made enough noise for the man to turn. Anna dove and rolled behind a freestanding sculpture and Jane melted into the wall, the guard shrugging contentedly and continuing on his inattentive patrol.

Anna knew right where she wanted to take Jane: the Masterpieces collection. Seventeenth century Dutch Golden Age works, those reminiscent of religious Baroque classicism but likewise deviating from loftier subjects to the mundane. So many artists latched onto dramatic scenes, high stakes and alienating story lines from unknown histories. But as the Golden Age progressed, the middle class somehow weaseled its way onto the canvas. Especially with Vermeer.

The pair made their way into a dimly lit hall with narrative paintings, all of the stories Anna loved to read. To read through viewing. Anna could stare at brushwork for hours, analyze perspective and question viewpoint as well as texture, tone, line, light and shadow. Rembrandt's shadow. The conundrum of Velázquez's true subject. Caravaggio's hearkening back to humanism during the High Renaissance. Belligerent land and cityscapes that foreshadowed the modernism to come.

Anna pirouetted around a corner and halted outside an open viewing room. The demi-bulbs weren't lit yet, which enabled Anna to see the red alert lines on the floor motion sensors.

"Wait," she whispered. "Look…"

"Sensors?"

"Yeah, could you…?"

Jane waved her hand and the light puttered out. Anna stuck a tentative foot into the room, no tolling from alarm bells or shrieking whistles.

"May I inquire as to what you would have done if I hadn't been here?" Jane asked.

Anna's grin turned wicked.

"I would have set a possum loose in the gallery."

"A what?!"

"A possum. Devilish little things."

"I know what a possum is. How the—"

"Just throw it right in there. With a glove, though not like yours. More gauntlet than glove, haha! The guards think the possum sets off the alarms. And then it scares the shit out of them when they go to move it, but it's really just been playing possum. It goes bolling about, avoiding capture, so the guards have to turn the security off while they catch it—"

"Allowing you to slip into an adjoining gallery undetected."

"Why yes, that would be the plan."

"Are possums even native to Amsterdam?" Jane asked incredulously.

"Does it matter? They're terrifying marsupial scavengers with a hiss louder than a tomcat and a temper worse than a wolverine. Not to mention, they bite. Here we are," Anna said, gesturing to the gallery with a flourish. "Have a look around, tell me what draws your eye."

At this, Anna pointed to a portrait of a bonneted socialite circa 1650 whose eyes were crossed and dazed.

"Very funny," Jane said.

Jane took a slow turn about the room, Anna savoring the blonde's expressions like pilfered candies. Jane's scrunched nose was soured neon gummy worms. Her pursed lips, cherry Jolly Rancher. Her arched eyebrow was fluffy cotton candy. Anna was waiting on the awe-factor. The slack jaw, breath-catching, one-in-a-million sight that hit your heart and your brain with color or subject or technique.

The Chocolate Face.

Paintings had done that for her. Left her with the same rich, unfiltered sensation that the most perfect chocolate square did when it dissolved against her taste buds. Sweet and savory, but leaving her parched. Made her want to eat more, want to see… more.

Literal eye candy.

"These are all very nice," Jane said.

"Nice?"

"Yes, nice."

"But—but—but—"

"That one man there looks like a pedophile. He's squeezing that child's head so tightly it's coming off his neck."

"That is one of the foremost religious paintings of the sixteenth century!" Anna sputtered.

"I'm sure there were pedophiles in the sixteenth century."

"Jane!"

"What?"

"This isn't, you're not— how can you even say that? You're doing this wrong."

"What wrong?" Jane asked.

"You're doing art, wrong."

"I don't think one can do art incorrectly."

"Well you're just one impossible girl, because you've certainly managed it. Come here," Anna said, dragging Jane to stand in front of a massive canvas, several times the size of their two bodies stretched out against each other.

"What do you think of this one?" Anna asked.

"I think it's too big and that man looks like a curly-headed woman," Jane returned.

"This is 'The Conspiracy of the Batvians under Claudius Civilis', commissioned in 1661. It's Caravaggio's largest piece in catalogued existence."

"The bigger the better, is that it?" Jane asked.

"It's not about size. Look, see how there's no light source coming from the canvas?"

"If the canvas itself was glowing, archivists should look into extraterrestrial traces."

"Jane!"

"No, I don't see the light in the picture," the blonde huffed.

Anna grunted. "There's not a lamp in the corner, Jane. No electricity in the seventeenth century. The light comes from outside of the frame of reference," Anna spread her fingers and made a pushing motion toward the painting. "Add that to the men at the table who are front lit, but have their backs to the viewer, he's just playing at luminescence. He is introducing light that shouldn't be there, a type of exterior invasion. In the same way, the viewer is invading with his gaze."

"That sounds inappropriate."

"Artistry is socially and culturally accepted encroachment!" Anna said.

"Save the histrionics and tell me how you really feel, A."

"You're doing it again."

"No, apparently I'm not doing it," Jane replied. "I mean, as I said, they're all quite nice. I'm sure if you sat down and talked me through each of them I would come to appreciate them, but they just seem a little depressing."

"Well, they are meant to be cathartic."

"I don't feel purged. Just… blah. And don't tell me those swords aren't pointy phallic symbols," Jane quipped.

"Maybe we should try a different time period with you," Anna said, darting through the hallways of the east wing. She had nearly grabbed Jane's hand, but thought better of it. They still weren't back to normal, whatever normal was for them.

Anna almost ran by the special touring pieces, but stopped at one oil work on loan from Brussels.

"Stand here," Anna instructed, and motioned to the painting before her. "What do you see?"

"There's a man plowing his field. And poorly, too. Those curved rows will be difficult to irrigate."

"I see death," Anna said.

"Death?" Jane asked.

"Murder by cardinal sin, hubris."

"Am I getting a morality lesson here? Because you're hardly one to talk."

"No. I want you to understand that the visual is not always visible," Anna said, eyes focused on the painting before her.

"That's nonsense."

"No. It's criticism. It's an understanding, in art, in life. Just because the eye doesn't see something, something in the visible sphere, it does not mean that something is not visual, that it cannot be perceived. 'Visual' is an adjective that links itself to sight. It is aligned with it, but it is not, in a scientific sense, seeing. Visual is synechdoche, the unseen parts, indistinct, for the sake of the whole. Impressionism is actually a better example of this. Suggestion more so than actuality."

"Why don't you teach, if you're so enamored with this?" Jane asked dryly.

"Because if I can't hold the attention of one computer nerd, how am I supposed to explain iconology to a horde of hormonal teenagers?" Anna retorted.

"What's this one called?"

"'Landscape with the Fall of Icarus'. By Bruegel, though its origin is debated, since this was done up in oils as opposed to his preferred tempura. Who incidentally, painted the construction of the Tower of Babel. Bruegel was quite interested in pride as leitmotif."

There was a pause as Jane studied the canvas, then turned to Anna.

"You're somewhat amazing," Jane said.

Anna snorted. "What?"

Her eyes had been focused on poor Icarus's bobbing sandals, forever above water, within reach of rescue. But the dense young man's head was habitually waterlogged, having been submerged for the better part of a millennium. Anna's head was starting to feel the same, because Jane was looking at her with the Chocolate Face. With the expression she had been hoping would leak onto Jane's features after she had been blown away by her first masterpiece.

Does… does that make me the masterpiece?

"You just relate to all of this better than I do. You're so smart, and attentive. I didn't see murder."

"That's sort of the point, though," Anna continued, reassuring. "That life goes on, even while atrocities occur. Passersby don't notice the death happening right alongside him. Like the redlight district. All that stuff happens daily, and bakers still bake bread, bankers still deposit money, astronauts still go to space." She turned back to the painting, unable to withstand the scrutiny of Jane's stare. Anna suddenly felt sympathetic for the artwork, under glaring, judging eyes all day every day.

"Though my favorite part is how content supersedes medium."

"I'm not sure I understand," Jane said.

"See, it's like this. Icarus escaped the prison of King Minos with these wings, right? Because his dad built the labyrinth? Have you heard that story?"

"No, I haven't."

"Famous story, we'll get to it later," Anna said. "But he got a little to big for his britches, too cocky with a contraption his father had warned him about. Don't fly too close to the sun, or the wax on the wings will melt, and you will fall into the ocean. What do you think he did?"

"He flew too close to the sun."

"Exactly. So what do you see right there?" Anna asked, pointing to the bottom corner of the painting, Icarus's little legs cocked at odd angles.

"Wings. Those are the feathers from his failed wings."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, what else could they be?"

"Waves. Capping his body."

"I suppose," Jane said, screwing up her face, moving in closer to the canvas. Studious. "It does look like the sea foam is covering his splash."

"So which is it?" Anna guided her. "Death, or means of escape?"

"Can it be both?"

"Both. Either. Neither, probably. That's sort of the point. When the content becomes so piercing, even the medium, the paint and the canvas can't contain it. Doesn't do it justice. The artist's intent no longer matters, because the viewer interprets it as his own."

"But what's all that supposed to mean?"

"It's applicable to life. Take us, for example," Anna said. "Take my actions: theft, burglary, striptease, embezzlement, forgery. Put those within the legal system, a medium, a means of explanation, of representation. I am unlawful. But does that make me bad? You've stolen as much or more in dollar amount than I have."

"Pots and kettles, A," Jane said.

"The key is the morality question. Without getting in too deep, painting and being are two systems. Artists try to negotiate the system of color and canvas while we negotiate morals and laws. Just because others see something as one way, does not mean your way of seeing is any less correct, any more true than theirs. Painting and artistry teach you different ways of looking at the world. It trains and hones the eye. Lets you appreciate your own truth."

"Well, it certainly trains and hones the brain, if you're any result of artistic tutelage."

"Are you calling me clever?" Anna teased.

"I never thought you an idiot, if that's what you're implying."

"First, I'm amazing, now I've got a brain. It's good to know you aren't just putting up with me for my rockin' bod."

Jane inched away, though they had not been close to begin with. Four eyes left the painting and paired irises met swiftly, apologetically, but the scuffle of boots put further conversation on hold. They separated and hid, waiting until the heavy tread of security filed past.

The sound weighed heavily on Anna, like the burdened footsteps of pallbearers. Everything was going so well until she became careless, too frothy, despite knowing how literally Jane took most statements. Anna was getting rather good at apologizing. And that was a talent she didn't appreciate.

"Jane?" Anna whispered.

"Yes?"

"Where'd you go?"

"Up here," Jane said, contorted inhumanly atop a statue's head.

"Jane, you'll break it!"

"It's rock, I think it can withstand a bit of pressure," Jane said, and flipped down gracefully.

"I don't know why I'm surprised," Anna said, lip quirking despite herself. Her shoulders rose and fell in determined preparation. "About what I said, earlier, classic ramble, me not thinking, I didn't mean it how it—"

"There's no need," Jane said, raising a hand. "I know you were merely joking."

"Yeah, joking. Just, it's cool, nice, really, to be complimented. Just me."

"Just you?"

"You know, not Madame Rose. Or Janene or Madison Hannah or Sarah O'Conner. Me being silly ole' me, and I get a compliment. It doesn't happen often."

"I don't think… I…" Jane pursed her lips together, turned her head away and stared at a portrait. As if the wigged man would give her the words to say.

Adorable.

"I think it best that we move on to the next gallery, shall we?"

"Sure thing," Anna brightened.

They maneuvered quietly down the hall into a gallery designated for land and cityscapes.

"You know," Jane said, without turning toward Anna, "the past is in the past. It would be a shame to go back and harp on it when we've got so much to do over the coming days."

"I couldn't agree more."

And that was the end of that subject.

"I like this one," Jane said, after ten minutes in the room.

"Ah yes, 'The Golden Bend' by Berckheyde. But where's the—" Anna drifted off and dallied in the general vicinity of the painting.

"Where's the what?" Jane asked.

"Oh, here it is," Anna said, pointing. "Its sister painting."

"Paintings have siblings?"

"Sort of. Series, collections, recurrent subjects. It's just the same subject, this particular canal, painted from the east as well as the west. What do you like about them?"

"Well, the lighting is intriguing. How the front is completely dark because the sun can't shine through, but the alleyways are still lit. The light even makes it onto the water, and the reflections! I didn't even look at those!"

"Now we're getting somewhere," Anna grinned.

"Not to mention that I could scale those stone fronts in under five minutes, what with those window sills and stone moldings."

"That's not quite—"

"But the alley there, that's flat stone, worse than sheet rock, no grip whatsoever," Jane said, face centimeters from the canvas. "But those statues look secure enough to anchor a rigging hoist, it wouldn't be too difficult to—"

"Jane, you can't climb the walls of the painting."

"Why not? That's a real place isn't it?"

"Doesn't matter. Those buildings are four hundred years old, who knows if they're still standing? And I'd question the structural integrity if they were."

"You're being awful."

"Ok, so I've been thinking about this for a while now," Anna said.

"What, you being awful?"

"Watch yourself," she said, holding up a challenging finger to Jane. "I've decided the English language is wrong. 'Awe' is a cool feeling, right? Like, awe-inspiring. So why is something that's bad awful? And something that's good is awesome? I don't want some of the awe, I want to be full of it!"

"You certainly are full of it—"

"Jane, pay attention, I've moved from art theory to linguistics."

"Will it ever end?"

"No, but don't you see? Maybe awe started out as terrifying, but I think it's kinda deviated from the negative into something better, more like reverence. Like wonder, you know? So, from now on, I want to be full of wonder. I don't want just some of it."

"Email me your Treatise on the Destruction of the English Language as soon as we get back Stateside," Jane said, smiling.

The sun breached the horizon fully now, dawn beams drifting in through the skylights overhead. Lit paintings watched the conversation in silent approval.

"We should probably get going," Anna said, tilting her head back toward the open hallway. "Security shift will be changing in the next hour."

"I'll need you to speak with the airstrip attendants to negotiate refueling," Jane said.

"London, then?"

"Hans was there," Jane began, "but he's making his way north."

"How far north, and did I pack appropriately?"

"Quite far, and probably not. Headed north to York, but I think his destination is Scotland. Nearer the bigger cities. Glasgow, maybe Edinburgh from the looks of geographic trajectory."

"Oh joy, the one accent I can't do properly." Anna whipped a box cutter from the inside of her back pocket and flicked the blade up. "This one, then?"

"And its sister, if that's not too greedy," Jane said.

"I'm hardly one to talk. And you'd not want to split up a pair," she said, carefully slicing through the framed border of 'The Golden Bend' canvas. She rolled the paper up delicately, handed it off to Jane, then set to work on the other.

After sneaking past a separate set of patrols and a few malfunctioning security cams, Jane and Anna walked back to the Amstel for their final few hours on the mainland. They both had canvases tucked securely into their armpits, and chatted about art and words and morality. Then it turned to pancakes and cronuts, and Dutch breakfast poffertjes.

Once back in their room, Anna kept catching Jane sneaking glances at her newly acquired paintings.

We'll need to get cylinders to get them transported properly, and I can buy her a frame, finally get some life into those white walls at her apartment—

"Hi," Jane said, standing right behind Anna.

"God, don't do that!" Anna jumped. "You move like a damn ghost, you—"

She couldn't finish the sentence, because Jane had hugged her.

"What—"

"I just wanted to say thank you," Jane said. "And you're extremely awful."

"I think you're awful, too."

They ordered traditional room service before they flew to Scotland.

Philosophical fluff to make up for the unsettling tone of the previous two chapters. Might have lost a few people in the middle there with all the art, but I suggest googling the named pieces (especially Icarus and The Golden Bend) to help make sense of the chapter. I can't draw a lick, nor have I taken art history. But I love it when Anna teaches Jane something, so a little bit of theory worked its way in. Thoughts on the sort-of-reconciliation? And thanks to everyone for being so supportive. We're trucking right along.