I don't own Frozen.

Jane clenched her abdominals to keep her body upright. Her elbows ached from the unforgiving tile on the dingy, off-white floor, and her toes started cramping due to her ferocious pointing. Her white gown flopped limply down over her head so she breathed through the material. She was bare underneath, but angled her body away from the observation window.

Yoga had never been so strenuous for her before, but at least she'd finally gotten back to some form of exercise routine. She had started stretching and posing in her tiny room three days ago.

Not so coincidentally, she had last seen Anna three days ago.

They (whoever the hell they were) moved her to this solitary grey room with cameras and a massive one-way glass observation window three days ago, after Anna had begged them to unhook her. And she hadn't fought back, at Anna's insistence, primarily because sedative was still zipping through her system during the transport. Her cot squeaked and the blanket was scratchy and the lights were overly bright and clinical all the time; sleep eluded her.

Not that she really wanted to sleep, considering how her body felt like Jell-o that had been solidified and melted, several times over. She told herself to keep doing her yoga. It would strengthen her body even if her brain couldn't take it.

Her brain was admittedly struggling with its current load. Conversations she might have overheard or dreamed up cycled in and out of her head, daring to be recognized and confronted, only to steel away on drifts of forgotten thought. She remembered actions, as well: bodies moving near her, stripping her, placing leads on her torso, at her temples, shocks that she recognized, but never really felt. People that moved in front of her, behind her, and then she had moved, up and down, and she remembered ice and fire in her veins. She saw a man bumbling about with a mustache and a needle the size of a ruler, faceless technicians in lab coats, and even Anna, smiling sadly in her direction, touching her cheek, and then her face morphing, manically, into a sneer she had seen A use on several people in the Caribbean and in Europe. And the most unsteady memory of all, most likely because of its content, was Anna, inches from her, and Hans, that fucking prick, closing the distance between their faces and—

No. It didn't happen, it was nothing.

Jane inhaled deeply and shifted slightly, angling her hips forward to maintain the inverted elbow stand.

Anna had told her to sit tight.

"Wait for me, Jane. Just give me some time to fix all of this. They won't hurt me as long as you do what they say."

Well, what the hell did Anna plan to fix?

There were several manual and electronic locks on the door, but nothing Jane couldn't blast apart with a well-aimed bolt. It didn't make sense, this confounding waiting that Anna insisted on.

Unless she's not really waiting for you.

Jane pushed that demon aside and tried to rein in her overactive imagination. She was practical, always had been, even with Anna and her crazy games.

The way she had spoken, Anna seemed intent on saving her. But Jane wasn't some incompetent damsel in distress; she could blast the entire facility to mangled bits if she very well chose. Three days later, and the drugs siphoned into her system through WGT mandates had (hopefully) been voided. She felt weak, but the yoga exertion was at least fooling her body into thinking she was stronger than she truly was. She remembered, vaguely, images of Anna hooked to machines beside her, leads drooping from her temples and from underneath her shirt. Whatever WGT was doing, they were using Anna, too. She only hoped it hadn't been as physically staggering for Anna as it had for her.

Though she had to admit, some strength was returning. If Jane could hold herself vertical in feathered peacock pose for five minutes, she should damn well be able to fight her way out of this facility.

But Jane knew she wouldn't yet, for one reason.

Anna.

Where the hell was she? Stashed away in some equally depressing room with white walls, observation windows, and that gut-churning embarrassment that came with peeing and defecating in front of cameras? If I even move, what will they do to her? And if the walls come crumbling down, what if I hurt her? What if… what if she's completely fine? And… with someone that isn't me? What if, what if, what if—

She supposed that's why she'd been following their orders so obediently.

For Anna.

Bodiless men stood behind the glass and issued directives for hours on end:

Spark.

Bolt, into the black square on the far wall.

Touch the handhold of the apparatus, and generate enough electricity to make the device beep three times. Four times. Enough to manipulate the electromagnetic field.

Come with us to the warehouse, and surge, and surge again, through coiled wires hooked to a large, blocky device the size of a Humpback whale.

During her downtime, her thoughts turned to Anna, and the futility of not knowing would paralyze her, back to blankness, back to the Ice Queen persona she had worked so tirelessly to shed. But maybe that's just who she was, without Anna. Unfeeling and numbing as ice. She remembered why she didn't do things for enjoyment in her years alone; because with enjoyment, there came the potential for disappointment when that joy was removed. If one doesn't experience joy, one can't experience pain either. And there was a pain she hadn't recognized, or refused to recognize, because of Anna; possibly in spite of her. The pain of not knowing, not truly knowing, who she was. Not her identity, that she could do without. But who, if fact, was she, when she wasn't with Anna. When she wasn't cloistered up in her tiny skyscraper of solitude. Was she the kind of woman to sit back helplessly, content in her captivity? It was painful, not knowing where Anna was, but it was equally painful not knowing such simple things about herself.

But having Anna taken from her? Not knowing whether the girl was being prodded, or tortured, or fed?

Painful.

And the uncertainty of Anna's devotion? That brief moment of haze, when Jane didn't know who (herself or Hans) was being conned?

Fucking excruciating.

Jane catapulted herself upright and pulled her robe back down when she heard the beeping of the keypad at the door.

"Alpha," the man said, and plodded across the threshold with a melancholic grin.

Jane sighed. "Which one are you?"

"Bates. I need to draw some blood."

The rubbery tourniquet drooped flaccidly in his palm, and the silver medical tray with needles and vials rattled when it was rolled in by a smug-looking tech. Bates inclined his head and the technician departed with a huff, slamming the door in his wake.

"Your arm, please," Bates said, but Jane didn't extend it. "Must it always be this way?"

"Where's Anna?"

"You know I can't tell you that."

"Just tell me if she's okay. I thought I saw…"

"The drugs are potent. I can't police your subconscious, but I wouldn't put much faith in what I thought I saw under such heavy sedation. I'm sure she's perfectly healthy."

Bates didn't meet her eyes. He cast a forlorn glance at the supplies on the tray, and then a reassuring one in her direction. "You know they'll come back in here and do this by force if you don't let me take the samples. They won't be as nice as I am."

"So I should just submit anyway? No matter how nice you pretend to be, a threat is still a threat, Mr. Bates."

"Doctor," Bates huffed, and reached for Jane's wrist. His touch wasn't forceful in the least, and Jane, as she had so frequently over the past seventy-two hours, found herself giving up despite herself.

For Anna's safety.

"She's really fine, so you know," Bates murmured, near inaudible.

And the pinch at the inside of her elbow might have stung just a little less than usual.

"Your tie is silly," Jane said.

It was a gross non sequitur; she prodded and hoped for reaction. In the back of her mind, she thought she deserved to be a little petulant, even if outright destruction wasn't on the agenda for today. She pushed the other reason for her comment (the one that suggested she'd grown accustomed to some form of interaction, hostile or peaceful) to the back of her mind. And with her speech, she wondered at how much she had changed over so many months.

Blame Anna. Blame Anna for everything. For my doubt, for my trust, for my pathetic dependency—

"I know, the ostriches are tacky," Dr. Bates grumbled. "But my kids gave it to me."

"You have kids?" Jane asked, brows shooting toward the ceiling. "You seem much too young to be a father."

"Well, they're pretty young, too."

"How many?"

"Three, all under six. Their mother's a saint."

"Guess that makes you a demon. Working at a place like this."

And, as if the situation couldn't be any more bizarre, the man's face fell. He eyed her and his fingers clawed at the absurd little bowtie about his neck, the gangly black birds on a blue background shooting her back to her memories of Chicago, of another father with roasted flesh, glassy eyes and a duck tie, with spittle and drool dribbling onto the dark pavement from his slacked jaw.

"I don't like that they're doing this to you," he said. "It's just… med school loans and mouths to feed? WGT pays through the nose for discretion."

Jane's face was blank and unsympathetic.

"It's not a good reason, but I… here," he said, and magicked a bottle of grape juice and an apple from underneath a sterile towel on the second shelf of the rolling medical tray. "I know the food they've been giving you is shit."

"And you think bruised fruit is an adequate appeasement for my situation?"

"No, but…" Dr. Bates sighed, the lines at the creases of his eyes careworn from stress and anxiety. Jane noted the sunken cheeks, the sallow complexion. Her own face had looked like that, only a few months ago, before Anna had breathed new life into her. He couldn't have been but a decade her senior, at most, too young to look so old. Too young, like she'd been, to be so unsatisfied with life's choices.

"I don't know," he continued. "Just… sometimes I think I'm better than the money, that we could get by if I did something more noble, Doctors Without Borders or something. But then I look at my family…"

"And maybe your selfishness outweighs your morals."

"Yeah, probably," he said, and capped the last vial of her blood, then stuck it in a test tube rack. "Doesn't mean I have to feel good about it."

"I wish I could soothe your conscience with tears of gratitude for your benevolent gifts…" Jane said, turning the apple over in her palm. "But I'm not inclined to pardon your actions even if you feel remorse. This is wrong. You know it."

"Yeah. It is, and I do." Bates chewed on the inside of his jaw and pushed his Buddy Holly black rims further up his nose. He contemplated the rolling medical cart, as if simply looking at her was painful for him. "I'm a good man," he said, more to himself than Jane. "I do what I have to to— I don't know. Survive makes it sound too extreme. But even a life as simple as mine can be really, stupidly hard sometimes. I'm a doctor and it's hard. I can't… I can't imagine what it's been like for you."

"A joy ride," Jane returned. "But I don't need your pity."

The look he threw her suggested otherwise.

"Sometimes, the universe forces your hand. It sucks, but, just because people do bad things, does that make them bad people?"

"Answer that question when you've been locked away from your loved ones for two weeks with no foreseeable release date. I'm essentially in prison."

Bates glanced over his shoulder toward the window, then turned away discreetly from the camera in the far corner of the room.

"You could always insist on seeing her," he whispered, and then he rolled the cart out the door without a second look.

After that exchange, Jane paced. For the better part of two hours, she figured. Time was disorienting with no unit of measure besides boredom and anticipation. Until she heard a grunt at the door and the beeping of the keypad.

For one delusional instant, she thought WGT might be lenient enough to allow her a visitation from Anna. She tried to quash that thought, knowing that being overzealous in her hopes would likely be for naught. Though something was still niggling in the back of her mind… she had complied with every one of their orders thus far, and had made no demands. She never really thought to, too scared that the powers that be at WGT might just harm Anna if she so much as stuck a toe out of line. But they never even mentioned the other woman to Jane, not after the incident in the previous holding room where she'd nearly brought the building down, when she'd seen Anna kiss… never mind what she thought she saw.

These circumstances did beg the question:

Why don't I just issue an ultimatum? Threaten them, so I can see Anna? It's not like they can hurt me, and they haven't hurt her, though the drugs—

Her attention returned to the opening door before her.

"Hello? Anna?"

"Sorry to disappoint," Hans said, slipping into the room. He stood tall in his tailored, charcoal grey suit, and crossed his arms over his chest in an offending display of superiority.

She hated him for existing.

"You," Jane seethed, and her pupils flashed with the yellow of streaking lightning. "I thought you above gloating."

"In most cases," Hans said, but he had the audacity to dart across the room and yank her chin down, held firmly in a grasp between forefinger and thumb. "But I wanted a better look at my biggest prize yet."

"Did your previous prizes ever possess the ability to fight back?" Jane asked, and instead of shocking the man where he stood, she rotated his gloved wrist and sunk her teeth into the flesh-covered bone of his wrist.

"Shit!" he griped, and Jane got a certain high off of the metallic taste below her tongue.

"Teach you—"

"I didn't believe it when she said you were a biter," Hans grumbled.

What.

What? How did he know… why would he know that?

"How did—did Anna tell you that?" Jane asked, training her face into her perfected blank mask.

"As if I'd give you an inch after that stunt," Hans growled.

"I could fry you where you stand," Jane threatened coolly.

"Touch a hair on my head and you'll never see her again." Hans's voice brokered no argument, but that comment about the biting had her reckless enough to attempt a threatening volley.

"So the idiotic sideburns are still fair game?" she asked, and shot a charge at his cheek.

The muscles in his jaw spasmed and didn't stop. Her strike had been puny, but the hairs riding his cheekbones were singed. Hans's eyes widened and he gritted his teeth in fury.

Hans raised an arm, and a feminine shriek followed over the intercom.

"J-J-Jaaaa— Jane!"

Anna.

"Wait!" Jane screeched, stumbling forward toward Hans.

"Careful, Subject Alpha," Jane heard from the intercom. The voice of that stuffy old man. "Your insubordination doesn't bode well for your little partner in crime."

Because God, it was Anna's voice, and it sounded so high and shrill. And that had to mean she was nearby, for them to respond to Hans's signal, but shit, why was this happening now after three days of stasis?

The scream petered out into whimpers and static.

"Stop!" Jane yelled. "Please, God, okay, I get it… I didn't think you'd… but I get it, okay?"

"I'm sorry, but you must be out of your mind if you see yourself as the one with power in this scenario," Hans snorted.

"You can't…" Jane started.

"You will find that I very much can."

Jane tried to even out her breathing while frantically pacing the grey room. Her reflection in the one-way glass was haggard and crazed: she looked like an animated skeleton in her tattered medical gown and bare feet, hair greasy and eyes dull. She raised a hand to rub her face and her fingers wrapped around her mouth, curling over her chapped lips and a dry chin, as if she could physically force the rising sob back down her throat.

Regaining some semblance of calm, she turned to Hans and squared her shoulders. At this point, all she could rely on was logic.

"You won't kill her. You kill her, and there's nothing to stop me from bringing this place down brick by brick."

"Oh, we would never kill her," Hans returned brusquely. "But you know, injury, in my opinion, is worse than death. Pain can be an effective manipulator."

She never saw the backhand coming. It sent stars bursting behind her eyelids, and Jane was reminded of a glorious light show she had seen one evening while lying on her back near a Connecticut baseball field. The force of the blow sent her flying into the wall, and she collapsed like a paper fan, brittle, drained, and weak… no matter how much yoga she did.

Blood rushed in her ears, as did a significant bit of thumping and white noise. The intercom buzzed and Hans stood above her, grinning, entirely too pleased with himself.

"Control her reactions—"

"More sedative dosages—"

"—stupefy her! She'll be no use—"

"Do you think he hurt her? That was a—"

"Hey, dipshits!" Hans yelled. "Turn the intercom off."

More static, and then a single voice broke through.

"Subject Alpha, you need to accept you position as a custody of this facility. You are a test subject, and will be treated as such," the stuffy voice reiterated. Jane had gathered enough information in the past three days of coherency to know he was the one in charge.

Webster?

Wesley?

Wetzel?

"Will you just let me see her?" Jane rasped.

The intercom crackled to life once again. "Jane?"

"Anna!"

"You heard her. Be a good girl, and maybe she'll get to come visit. Just do what you're told, and she can be your reward," Hans said.

"Are you going to ring a bell and measure my saliva, too?" Jane asked, tone stern.

"My specialty has always been chemistry. I'll drug you stupid, and did, to get you up here. But I have no desire to measure your bodily fluids, that's Weselton's game." Hans said, and aimed a calculating look at Jane on the floor before him.

"What do you want, Hans?"

"We just need to make sure you know your place," Hans said. "It's come to our attention that some people here might consider you—"

"What? Human?" Jane asked, recalling Bates's small kindness.

"—vulnerable. Do not mistake the actions of one for those of the whole. This isn't a beach house, or a suite in Caesar's Palace," Hans kneeled down to eye level with Jane, and grabbed her chin once again. She shut her eyes, and waited. "I own you," he whispered. "I do hope I've made myself clear. No more juice boxes and snacks for our sparky friend."

"Please," Jane implored him softly. "Get Anna."

"No. I told you. You're not making the orders here."

"I just need to see if she's okay. That was her voice, I know it was."

Hans scoffed, then turned toward the one-way observation window.

"I'll do what I can," he said, though he clearly didn't mean it.

He tapped once, twice, and then waited.

"Sorry. Unavailable at the moment," he said, smug.

Jane thought he was hoping for a rise. She would not give him one, firstly, because he didn't deserve it. And secondly, she didn't think she had it in her. Not now. Not without some confirmation of Anna's safety. If they couldn't even offer that, what was keeping her here?

Her head spun, turvy-topsey in distress, and her mental reeling translated to bland, external acceptance. She was sure she appeared broken and battered to her captors, especially to the chauvinistic fool currently staring her down like a predator.

Jane was consumed with the overwhelming urge to spit in Hans's sea-green eye, but if Anna was on the other side of that window…

She sighed heavily instead. No use flying off the handle when she didn't know enough.

"You said I would get to see her if I behave," she began. "I have. Please," Jane begged, and the word was ash in her mouth. "I'll do whatever you want me to. I promise. Just let me see Anna."

"I said you might get to see her," Hans said, sauntering toward the door. "Give it a few more days. Let's see if you truly understand the situation you've gotten yourself into."

"You mean that I was shoved into?"

"You see, it's that kind of snark that makes a visit from Anna less and less likely," Hans chided. "Submit, and then unexpected rewards will feel exponentially better."

Jane bit her lip and forced herself not to wretch, not to call him a sick bastard, not to throw a bolt and kill the man where he stood. Instead, she pushed all feeling down, away, and turned her cool, compliant stare toward him.

"Yes," she said smoothly. "I understand."

Hans slammed the door in her face.

The fractured pieces were slowly coming together, and the universe, as Bates had said, seemed to be forcing her hand: the longer she stayed, the stronger they would become; the more they would incapacitate her, the more they would exploit her, and possibly harm Anna.

Deduction: she had to get out.

But acting without a plan? Terrifying. Acting with something, no… someone at stake? Near debilitating. Fleeing with Anna still in custody sent guilt to her gut and goosebumps down her spine. But she had always run, and escaping was her specialty. It almost seemed necessary.

The cogs of her mind were rotating, functioning better, if not fully. Three days out of a drug induced haze could do that to a person. Without Jane on the premises, WGT would have no reason to threaten her by harming Anna. If Anna was the flint and steel needed to set the blaze, Jane would just have to remove the kindling… herself. WGT could have Anna as some pseudo-hostage, and it wouldn't matter. Because if Jane was free, the tables turned: infiltration and acquisition were her specialties. There was no facility standing she couldn't compromise. Getting Anna back wouldn't be easy; they would certainly use her as bait, up security tenfold. And she lacked knowledge concerning the security measures in a place like this, but it was something she could check on her way out.

But at least Anna would be uninjured and alive.

If they're keeping her in another part of the facility, another floor, another building, hell, another compound…

She would have to leave first. Speed was of the essence, what with cameras trained on her night and day. She couldn't very well stop and search for Anna, wasting precious time taking risks that would likely result in her recapture and a more torturous imprisonment. They couldn't kill Anna; they would essentially do away with their only leverage. It was a precarious see-saw she was riding, equilibrium tentative and wavering. Being locked up and alone might be emotionally taxing and wearisome to most people, but Jane had spent the majority of her life in a self-imposed solitary confinement. She did her best planning while locked up and alone. Her brain and body were finally catching up to her intent, and with another day or two to regain some strength and observe their procedures, she could very well make a break for it.

Without Anna.

I'm running away… to save Anna.

Jane curled into herself on the scratchy bed in the isolated room. The lights dimmed, but they were still bright enough to disturb her attempts at sleep. But she needed sleep. If she was going to get out, study the facility, and rescue Anna, she would need to be in top form. It was a job, like any other, only this one held higher stakes.

And if she could take down WGT in the process, well, that was an added bonus.

Filler chapter, just so we all get a sense of what Jane knows (or what she THINKS she knows). Anyway, I think this will go beyond 50 chaps now. Not too far, but a little more. Critique appreciated!