I don't own Frozen. And I might lose a few of you on this, but this starts the beginning of some questionable emotional manipulation. Consent issues might come into play.
The shock was only temporary.
Anna chocked it up to twenty-four hours without sleep, terror for her life, and an adrenaline cocktail with a wine chaser. It was astounding, unfathomable, even, for Anna to calmly book two plane tickets to New Orleans. It was even easier, cathartic really, to jaunt out to the nearest craft store while Jane was sleeping at the Phoenix motel and pick up some laminate and Teslin paper, then to inquire with the kid at the front desk who knew a guy who knows a guy, that could get her access to some holographic overlays and a computer/printer combo with the latest version of Photoshop.
For the right price.
Anna conveniently had access to a half-million dollar stash tucked under her mattress because her girlfriend was an unintentional card shark.
My girlfriend.
It was amazing what time and a bit of rational introspection could achieve. First off, Anna knew nothing with certainty. Hans could be wrong, was likely wrong. The whole scheme, so convoluted and elaborate from day one, spanning utter years… Hans was meticulous, but he made mistakes. Anna had seen it on multiple occasions, knew Hans wasn't infallible. It wasn't like he was so ruthless he would break up a family—
Well, Hans never put much stock in family to begin with. His brothers were a resented chore, so a pair of sisters would be nothing more than collateral damage.
Anna was rubbing her fingers along the magnetic strip on the back of the first finished I.D. when Jane woke from a deep sleep.
"Hey, you," Anna said, and it was so easy.
"Hello," Jane grumbled. She rubbed a fisted hand over her eye and blinked into the midmorning light. "What—what are you doing?"
"I booked us a flight. We need I.D.s for domestic travel," Anna said, and clipped a bit of Teslin paper with a pair of scissors. "I figured you'd want to get out of here as soon as possible."
"You figured correctly," Jane said, and Anna offered her a small smile.
"Are you feeling any better?"
"No. Ask me again in a few hours."
Anna nodded, and returned her attention to the card in front of her. She wasn't eager to revisit last night's events before Jane had sufficiently recuperated.
"Where are we going?" Jane asked.
"I thought we could go back to Natchitoches," Anna said. "Things seemed... very safe there, and it wasn't on the list of compromised properties in my file. We have a flight to NOLA at three and an hour layover before we take a regional flight to Shreveport. There's a rental car with our name on it. I was thinking extra bell peppers and pizza from Mizzoni's tonight?"
Jane swung her feet off the bed and blinked at Anna, then quirked her head sideways and crossed the dim room towards her. She fell between Anna's knees and lay her head in Anna's lap, folding her arms around the backs of Anna's legs.
"Hey, what—"
"I don't deserve you," Jane said. "I do all of this stupid stuff, and nearly get us killed because of it. I'm so… volatile, but you love me anyway. You love me anyway."
"Jane—"
"I promised I'd never drink again. I made that promise to myself," she said, and Anna felt the despairing conviction in her voice.
"Promises to yourself… those are difficult to keep. It's hard being your own accountability," Anna weaved her fingers through platinum hair. "It's a pie crust promise, easily made, easily broken."
Jane looked up at Anna, her expression fatigued and bewildered.
"Mary Poppins," Anna offered. "Said that about promises."
"Julie Andrews. AFI's 100 Greatest Female Stars of the Screen," Jane said, grinning. "She was in the first movie I ever watched with you."
Anna nudged Jane and the blonde cracked as she stood, joints popping, swollen ankle still a putrid, greenish yellow. Anna had fashioned an ice pack and applied it on and off all morning while Jane slept. She had nursed Jane's ankle as well as the vortex of anxious thoughts swirling in her head.
Jane sat across from Anna at her illegal arts-and-crafts table. Anna reached out and grasped Jane's hand. It was clammy and cold.
"You're really not feeling well?" Anna inquired.
"I'm not, no. I'm… I feel quite disoriented, actually. And I have quite the headache."
"Jane, I… I need to tell you something."
"Okay."
"Last night, when I was in Hans's room, I overheard him speaking with Al."
Jane's eyes narrowed at the disclosure, and her fingers tightened around Anna's.
"I saw more, that is, a bit more violence than I'd thought I would, tucked away in an air vent over a hotel room."
"You went in through the vent?"
"It's like you taught me something," Anna said cheekily, then sighed back into the seriousness she didn't prefer. "I'll just add it to my list of horrors. But what I heard, it made me start thinking. About… well, about you and me."
Anna glanced at the I.D. cards she had magicked into existence. Height, weight, eye color, hair color, D.O.B. There were enough differences to give Anna hope.
"You see, Hans put us together for a reason. I think he wanted— I'm honestly not sure what he wanted."
Though I have an inkling.
"Jane," Anna tried again, staring purposefully into her girlfriend's eyes. "I wanted to tell you, to ask you if … you know I love you so, so much."
The soft muscle beneath Jane's chin jumped and her lips parted, her mouth working toward speech.
"But." Jane said.
"But?" Anna asked.
"You love me, but."
"I don't understand. But? But what?"
"It doesn't matter what."
"Jane, you're not making any sense."
"He knows I'm dangerous. He knows the full extent of what I can do, is that it?" Jane asked, not crying, but the edges of her eyes were downturned, her brows climbing up in the center, expression this close to collapse. "You… he, he's going to use me, isn't he? But I promise, you're different! I can harness it... I can control it around you. But you don't want to tie yourself… it's alright, I understand."
Implications clicked suddenly and violently.
"No!" Anna gasped. "No! Jane, no!"
"Then what about the 'but'. You love me, but…"
"But? Jane, I never said that."
"You sounded like you were cushioning for a blow."
"I—"
Was, in effect.
"It doesn't matter what comes after the but," Jane said, breaths hitching. "It matters that it's there."
"It's not there," Anna said, and all thoughts of confession flew from her conscience, because it's not the right time and Jane's still too fragile. "There is no 'but' at all."
"Then what?" Jane asked, incredulous.
"Only…" Anna fumbled, topic change jarring and unexpected. "I found this binder in Hans's room," Anna said, and stood to retrieve the information from the duffel bag. She selfishly hoped the binder would reveal the relation without her having to.
If we're even related. I'm still unsure.
"I don't know what's in it," Anna said. "But Hans flipped through it while Al was with him. I haven't gotten a chance to look myself. I was a bit preoccupied."
"Playing nurse to an idiot," Jane murmured.
"Idiot, beauty, tomato, tomahto."
Jane smiled, and the moment stilled into serenity.
"Let's give it another day before we dive right back in," Jane suggested. "Allow me to get through this flight and have another night's sleep, and then we'll be back at it."
"You… want to get back at it?" Anna asked.
"You don't?"
"I don't know. Just, with everything that's happened…" Anna traced the metal ring of the binder in her hand, and told herself she wasn't suggesting abandoning Jane's identity search for self-centered reasons. She told herself, promised herself, she was only doing this to keep them safe. To protect them in the best way she knew how.
That's a pie crust promise. Easily made, easily broken.
"I'm trying to get my priorities straight," Anna moved toward Jane, and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. "I have more to… to talk to you about, but let's get somewhere safer first, okay?"
"Okay."
The plane ride was manageable. Jane's body was still roiling, so Anna had a flight attendant bring her a ginger ale and a few salt packets to mix that settled Jane's noxious stomach. They boarded and landed with little hassle, but didn't think it wise to carry so much cash in an unmarked duffel. Jane had done some sort of electric hoo-doo scan and deemed the cash untraceable, neither with marked bills nor tracking device stowed away in the bag.
Which is a relief considering I spent a good three grand already making these I.D.s.
Regardless, they were able to carry fifty grand between them for miscellaneous expenses, which reassured Anna should disaster be lurking up a Cyprus tree in Natchitoches.
The ensuing layover was tiring, the drive exhausting, and the two were so famished they ordered their pizza before they'd even turned down the road to the boxy antebellum lake house.
The night was black as pitch with an overcast sky, and the summer heat blanketed the air with oppressive fondness. Crickets and cicadas seemed near as loud in the stillness of Louisiana as the sirens and honks of cars did on the streets of Vegas. The rickety screened porch complained from their tromps, and the air was sticky inside the unoccupied building.
But nothing really compared to walking into a place spacious and comforting enough to remind Anna of home. Which was interesting, considering she'd never really had one before. But if home was indeed where the heart was, she supposed she'd found her home about six months prior.
The pizza arrived and they finally cracked open the first season of Game of Thrones they had purchased during their last stay. Jane was quickly nicknamed Khaleesi, and Anna spent longer than she should have researching broad swords on eBay. Between Westeros and Louisiana, Vegas and its troubles seemed worlds and eons away to Anna. As did New York, and Scotland, and Amsterdam, and St. John. No place was as important as Louisiana in the summer, with Jane tucked snugly under her chin and Peter Dinklage delivering an Emmy-worthy performance.
She felt the blonde below her shift, and snuck a glance at her companion as Jon Snow rhapsodized over the Wall. Jane's lids looked sleep-heavy and delicate, silky lashes swooping upwards like an asymptote curve.
"Jane," Anna whispered, and shook her slightly. It was earlier than Jane normally slept, but late for Anna. She should head up to bed, too.
"Jane, sweetheart, come on."
"Time for bed?" Jane asked.
"Depends. You ready for the Khal to rip a few more throats out?"
"I can manage without seeing that again tonight, thank you."
They climbed the stairs and Anna opened a few windows along the way. The screens were still intact, so she wasn't worried about creepy crawlies invading. But she wanted the place to air properly, as she planned on staying here until she figured out just what the hell she was going to do.
"Good night, then," Anna said, and turned to her room at the left of the stairs.
"Oh, right. Goodnight, I'll just—"
"Wait, what's wrong?"
"I just assumed I'd—" Jane indicated the doorway to Anna's room with a spastic finger flick.
"Oh! Of course, come on. I didn't mean we'd be separated again."
"Right."
"Right," Anna reaffirmed.
It was a little awkward, standing on the landing with her arms crossed over her chest, yawning with a gaping mouth while Jane scratched her elbow, somewhat at a loss.
"It's just…"
"Huh?" Anna asked. It was late and she was still operating on poor sleep. The flow of conversation wasn't clear anymore.
"The last time we were here we weren't sleeping together. Not, not that we are sleeping together, just… I can't remember not being close to you," Jane said, and slipped her arms around Anna's waist. "I don't ever want to remember not being close to you, not after I've come... after we've come this far."
"I…" but Anna couldn't reciprocate, her yawn too insistent.
Anna found herself snuggled in Jane's embrace under a hand-stitched quilt she'd bought from an old lady at a garage sale. The ceiling fan thrummed above her and Jane's heart beat below her and the air conditioner provided the perfect lull of white nose to tip her off to dream land. She was so happy and so in love that she vehemently denied the relation that might be the source of hers and Jane's connection. But if it was true, it only meant she was in love with her sister. It meant she wanted to watch HBO and eat pizza and kiss and cohabitate with her sister.
And Anna didn't care.
Two days.
That's all it took for them to get back to routine. They cleaned the house together, went shopping together, lounged lakeside together, walked the wooded trails together.
And Anna, for all her blustery bravado and fearless cheek in the face of danger, still had yet to let Jane in on the overheard conversation from Hans's hotel room. She had tried, several times, to catch Jane's attention and mention it to her: "I wanted to ask you… whether we needed any mosquito spray for the lake!"; "Jane, you should know… that… there's more toilet paper under the sink."; "Back in Vegas, I overhead… someone… talking about this great chicken recipe that we should try if we're ever feeling super domestic!" Anna knew it wasn't just something she could mention, but her years spent studying human behavior taught her that broaching a topic with a certain demeanor, with a certain tone, could drastically alter the course of the conversation. Could turn a tense exchange cordial, pleasant even.
She wasn't expecting pleasantness, but she wouldn't break Jane again.
Anna would never push her like she had in Vegas, ever, ever again.
To Anna's disappointment (or relief?) Hans's binder contained nothing more than a cash flow outline of funds transferred from Al's oil share holdings and savings to WesGenTech's Special Projects fund. It held detailed schematics of cruise ships, computer gaming rules and regulations, a terms of sale agreement, wavers for tourists aboard the cruise line, paper work, red tape, and bureaucratic bullshit. Bullshit, Anna realized, Hans could turn to at a moment's notice should Al have requested further specifics on B4. As long as it was all on paper, Al was in the clear. But when Hans got the call from his assistant, that Al's side was looking for more physical evidence of the project's advancement, the binder wasn't enough any more.
But a bullet was. Fucking Hans and his plans and his… wild theories.
Despite avoiding the topic with Jane, she did a lot of thinking about it herself.
Sisters.
Anna resented it. Resented a life lived without a sister. She wondered how different she would've been with one, how different Jane would be had Anna stayed with her from birth. Would Jane resent her? Saddled with a younger sibling the whole of her life, still sacrificing in some circuitous manner for Anna's well-being, even in adolescence? Would Anna have had supernatural capabilities? Could she have outshone Jane? Would she have been the hermit, the recluse, the one bordering on mental instability because she had possessed otherworldly powers, abilities both unique and damning?
Funny how one notion, one connection introduced into a life, like a contaminant in a water supply, could alter the perception of a place, of a person, so fully. And funny how that person, despite the new lens though which Anna viewed her, was remarkably unchanged.
Still susceptible to hurt.
Still resilient despite it.
Still loving.
Still lovable.
Anna shouldn't care so little if it were true. She should be more appalled, or scandalized, or cheated. No, Anna felt appropriately cheated. That would explain the guilt curdling in the depths of her soul. But the fact that she could disregard said guilt, could easily displace it in favor of unyielding love… that wasn't right. Wasn't what Jane deserved. Jane deserved more than fragmented, surreptitious intimacies.
Anna was in love with a woman who might be her sibling.
Too bad Anna honestly didn't care.
And her carelessness frightened her.
It was too easy to forget Hans's suggestion when she wasn't staring him in the face (out of sight, out of mind). Too easy to stick her earbuds in her iPod and pick up a bottle of all-purpose cleaner and start work on the kitchen. Too easy to put the confession on hold for one day more. Too easy to think how wrong Hans was, how they weren't really sisters. Too easy to think that Jane wouldn't care, even if they were. Too easy to clean her kitchen with a Magic Eraser and a smile while accompanying Mr. Jackson on his songs.
"It's black, it's white. It's tough for you get by! Hoo! It's black, it's white, it's tough—"
"What are you doing?"
Anna whipped around and yanked out her earbuds.
"Jane! Sneaky, sneaky," she chided. "Still popping up behind me after all this time."
"Can't help it. Force of habit."
Over the sterile smell of cleaning product Anna caught a whiff of something hot and sweet, and her shoulders sunk into the scent.
"I forgive you it you brought me food."
"Pancakes," Jane said, dropping the take-out container on the countertop. "We were both up pretty early for a Saturday, so I just figured…"
"Gimme!" Anna dropped the cleaning product to the floor and barreled over the kitchen table toward Jane.
"Yours are the chocolate chip, and I got blueberry. And don't you dare use all the syrup this time!" Jane said.
"You can have some of mine, you big baby."
Jane smirked over a forkful of pancake.
"Is that Michael Jackson I hear?" she asked.
"Good ear!" Anna said, gobbling down a bite of hot cakes. "God, these are amazing."
"Can I show you something if you promise not to make fun of me?"
"We're past the stage of me not making fun of you," Anna said.
This repartee. So. Easy.
"Well, I intended to break this out in Vegas, practiced and everything," Jane set her fork aside. She found Anna's iPod and withdrew the cord, then turned the device up as high as the Michael Jackson tune would go. "Are you ready?"
Anna nodded enthusiastically.
Jane twisted on the spot into the most perfect moon walk Anna had ever seen, and then hitched her right leg up, swatted the ankle from both sides, performed a tight soutenu turn, leapt to her tippy toes, and grabbed her crotch. Classic Michael.
Perfect Jane.
"That was so. Fucking. Cool!" Anna bounded up, breakfast forgotten, and twirled Jane in her arms. "You are brilliant!" Anna praised, and kissed Jane's lips for the first time since their night in Vegas.
No matter how much she asserted that she didn't care, her body seemed to keep its distance. But when Jane's smile eclipsed the kitchen, she wondered why she'd ever hoarded her kisses so greedily.
"I love you," Jane said.
"If you dance with the pancakes— wait," Anna said, for she feared she hadn't heard her correctly. "You…"
"I love you."
"You… love me?"
Disbelief.
"I do, A. So very much."
"I… I…"
Something inside of her cracked a little, but it wasn't enough to bring her heart down. Anna cupped a hand over her mouth to hold back a joyful sob, and she threw her arms around Jane's neck and squeezed tighter than a set of extra-small Spanx.
"Jane, I love you. No matter what happens, I love you."
"Love," Jane said. "Of course. I do, I… truly, truly love you."
Jane dipped her head and their lips met. Overabundant joy flooded Anna, mixed with giddiness.
How can this be wrong?
"Let me make love to you," Jane whispered against her mouth.
And that cracked a little something more of Anna's insides.
"Wh-what? Now?"
"Yes," Jane said, and moved her hands to Anna's waist. "I… I've come to realize that I'm not perfect. And if I keep waiting for that, waiting for the perfect night, the perfect moment, then I would've never told you how I love you. I'll never get the chance to… to touch you, to love you. I want to… to show you how much I love you."
"It's s-s-seven thirty," Anna stammered. "On a Saturday morning. My hair's in pigtails and I smell like citrus cleaner!"
"And I love you."
It was as simple as that.
"I…" Anna gulped. "Jane… if we're… before we do this, there's something you should know."
"Yes? Are you… nervous?"
"No! Well, yes, but that's not it. I'm— you see, I've been trying to tell you, for days now Jane…"
Anna looked up into Jane's eyes, and it wasn't just love. It was unfiltered trust, complete and unconditional. Vulnerability.
Jane never fell. Jane climbed, but never, ever faltered. But this time, she allowed herself to fall. To fall for Anna. To fall in love with Anna.
Anna was juggling so much information at the time, but she would never let Jane flatten herself like a pancake on pavement, not chocolate chip, not blueberry. Anna would throw everything out: Hans, WesGenTech, Al, Ursula, guns, oil shares… sisters? She'd dispose of it and extend her arms and catch Jane and Jane would never fall again.
Was it manipulative? Was it a lie? How could Anna be lying, when even she didn't know the truth? But if it didn't matter, she should just tell Jane, shouldn't she?
Jane must have noticed her tumultuous expression, for she brought a hand to Anna's cheek and brushed her thumb over Anna's freckles. Jane glimmered, utterly blinding, and kissed Anna tenderly.
"It's okay if you've changed your mind," she whispered.
"No, Jane…" and she felt Jane splinter, and she could feel herself snap along the internal cracks, and she wondered if things were irreparable or simply in need of renovation.
Gut herself, gut Jane, and install this new life. Same structure, foundation, but take out the kinks that didn't work. Start with something more solid. Something truer. What was something true that Anna could share, that Anna could begin anew with?
"I want you," Anna said. "So much I can taste it, Jane."
"Does it taste like chocolate? That might be the pancakes."
"It tastes like hope," Anna confessed, almost embarrassed. "Tastes like mint. Tastes like… love."
"A…" Jane said, and rubbed soothing circles on her arms. "What is it you wanted to tell me?"
"That I might be your… Anna."
I can't do it. I can't be the one to cripple her.
"Pardon?"
"My name," Anna clarified. "My name is Anna."
"Anna?"
"No, Ahhna."
"Anna," Jane repeated, the inflection still incorrect.
"No!" Anna was determined. She drew her hand over Jane's breast and kneaded softly.
"Mmm...Ah—ah— oh, Ahhhnna!" Jane moaned.
"Yes," Anna squeaked.
"Anna," Jane tested it again, vowels rounded, emphasis bouncing over the two insistent syllables. "Anna…" Jane observed her, then kissed her sweetly, mouth seizing Anna's lower, fleshier lip in gratitude, in passion.
"Anna, I love you," Jane mumbled at her lips. "Anna, I love—"
Then there were sharp nails at Anna's waist, scraping through her shirt to the freckled skin below.
"Anna, I—"
Jane removed her mouth from Anna's and gasped, inhale sharp as crushed glass.
"Anna—"
Jane shoved her back, then clutched the sides of her own platinum head.
"What's wrong?"
"Don't!" Jane said, her hands moving from the sides of her face toward the bridge of her nose. "Anna—"
"Jane, what's going on?"
I know what's happening, oh God, why is this happening—
"Anna…" Jane clapped her eyelids closed, forced her lashes into her cheeks, as if she could squeeze her eyes shut enough to remember… or possibly to forget.
"Jane, what's— what can I do?" Anna asked, crestfallen. Jane had collapsed, quietly gasping, to her knees before Anna.
The selfish part of Anna wanted Jane to remember, wanted Jane to be the one to stop this. Because Anna couldn't. She couldn't remember, couldn't stop this, but she wanted to.
But sometimes wanting isn't enough.
Sometimes loving isn't enough.
"Something's happening," Jane said, hands back at her temples. "Something's not right here, Anna. Anna… every time I say it… it feels so damn familiar."
"Jane, it's not—"
"Why do I feel like I've been searching for that name since before I can remember?" Jane asked her. "Why do you feel… why do you seem like my end-game? Like all roads lead to you? To A— to Anna," Jane finished.
"Jane, tell me what's going on in your head," Anna commanded, dropping to her knees in front of the agonized blonde.
Jane jerked her body away from Anna's hand. "It's burning," Jane whispered. "It feels like memory."
"What do you remember?" Anna questioned.
"Did I… did I know you?"
"I… don't know."
Do I?
"What does that mean?!" Jane asked, on the verge of hysterics.
"I don't know, I'm not sure of anything, Jane."
That was truth.
"I've known so many people, over so many lives… our paths could have crossed before," Anna conceded.
"No, that's not what this is," Jane insisted, determination overrunning uncertainty. "This is more substantial. The heaviest thing I've ever recalled, like it's pressing down on me, like you're something— you're something I should believe in. And I believe I love you. That I'm supposed to love you."
"That's enough for me," Anna said.
"No, Anna, there's something wrong here, I just can't see it—"
"I don't care," Anna said.
And she didn't. She truly didn't. Anna cared for many things, for animals and orphans and the abused and the abandoned. But now, in this moment, she couldn't care less if Jane was her sister or cousin, a stranger or relative, a friend or master or queen or servant or thief or grifter or—
"I love you," Anna settled upon.
Something was crashing over her: waves or magma or steel or rock. It was heavy and it was debilitating and it was crunching her bones but Anna didn't care.
"And I love you," Jane resolved again, the affirmation both shrapnel and symphony to Anna's ears. "Anna, I love you," Jane was firmer this time, and her hands found Anna's waist.
"I know."
"Anna, I love you, but I'm dangerous—"
"I don't care."
"We also need to take into consideration my—"
"I know," Anna said again, her voice low, her eyes bright. "I know, but listen to me, Jane. I. Don't. Care."
The blonde studied her carefully, sadness replaced with calculating scrutiny. "What do you mean?" Jane inquired.
Anna's hands crawled toward the hem of Jane's shirt. She rolled the fabric upwards, and ducked her head down. She was practically bowing before Jane, sat on her knees with her head in the blonde's lap, kissing the pale white flesh of her belly.
"I—"
Kiss, the miniscule pooch over the abdominals.
"Don't—"
Kiss, the firmer skin at the base of the sternum.
"Care."
Kiss, hard, echoing bone above Jane's heart, thumping faster than Lamborghini pistons, steadier than unfurling bungee cord.
Anna tugged Jane's shirt over head and Jane studied Anna, as if she was seeing her for the first time.
For all Anna knew, Jane was. Seeing her as her first love, or maybe… maybe she could convince herself that Jane knew about their (possible, unlikely) relation, staring like she was.
And then at least we're still fucked up together.
"Say my name," Anna requested.
"Anna," Jane repeated, and the word made Anna shiver, made her close her eyes, focus on her spine. She straightened, like a hose suddenly connected to a flowing tap, flexing into the name on Jane's lips.
"For the record, I don't understand everything," Jane said.
"For the record, neither do I," Anna returned.
"I want this, but what if something bad happens?"
"I love you. You love me. What could happen?" Anna reasoned. Or maybe it was A, the conniving, Machiavellian bitch that she was. She had gotten what she wanted for so long, and A knew just how to satiate her deepest desires, how to quell her most twisted of urges. A wanted Jane, Anna wanted Jane, and what's worse…
Perhaps Jane's sister wanted Jane.
How can I be so many people?
How can I claim to know someone else enough to love them when I don't even know myself?
"Jane—"
"Anna—"
"There's no coming back from this," Anna said, offering Jane a final out. "We know better."
"I know. I don't understand, but I… I know that. And if you don't care… then I don't, either."
"I just want you," Anna echoed Jane's sentiment from when they had staggered outside of Elysium, before Anna had followed Hans, before she'd watched him put a bullet in a man without flinching, before she'd overheard, and her entire universe imploded.
"One more question," Jane stated, and she traced the lines of Anna's face with tissue-light softness. "What's your surname?"
"Arrendale. Anna Arrendale."
Jane trembled, but her hands didn't leave Anna's face.
"I love you, Anna Arrendale. Anna, can I touch you?"
"Yes," Anna whispered.
Jane kissed her briefly, chastely. Her blonde hair was unruly, her body flushed and blotchy from Anna's grip. Anna had held her so tightly that a reddish palm print was fading from Jane's rib cage.
Jane's face was implacable, determined, as the Ice Queen should be.
As if she would ever refuse her love. As if Jane could resist Anna. Anna, her equal and better in some aspects, her inferior in others, her partner in most. Anna knew it, knew Jane's dependency, knew her attachment, knew she just needed one reason, one single directive and she would yield, so willingly, at Anna's insistence.
"Jane," Anna asked. "What do you see when you look at me?"
Jane brushed the sides of Anna's head, petted the baby hairs with careful strokes. Anna closed her eyes and relished the touch.
"My chance," Jane replied.
Jane took her hand, sweating, quivering, and stood. She led Anna upstairs toward the bedroom.
"There are precious few at ease, with moral ambiguities, so we act as though they don't exist."- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
And that's about all the justification I have for that chapter. But remember, this is a story about good people who do bad things. Thoughts and critique are always welcome.