"Anna, please, that's your fifth cup of coffee this morning," said Kristoff to his girlfriend. "Do you want to spend the entire day squatting over a chamber pot or something?"

"I need something to keep myself awake today," said Anna wearily. "I spent the entire night worrying about Elsa."

Kristoff smirked.

"Is there any time you're not worried about her?" he asked her a little cheekily.

"Oh, ha, ha, ha, you're hilarious!" said Anna sarcastically. She knew that Kristoff didn't mean any harm, but her patience was thin today.

She took a deep breath as she looked around the small coffee house where they were seated. Normally, the pleasant atmosphere of the place was enough to cheer her up when she was feeling a bit down. But on those days she was usually sad about something trivial that didn't really matter. Today she had very genuine concern for her sister's well-being.

"Elsa's not acting...normal," Anna began explaining to Kristoff, hoping that he wouldn't respond by attempting to tell another joke.

"I know she's been feeling low lately," said Kristoff. "But can't you understand why this bothers her? I mean, if it had been you who had accidentally frozen your sister's heart, don't you think you'd worry about it happening again from time to time?"

"It's not that," said Anna as she shook her head. "Elsa knows that's not going to happen. She has complete control over her powers now. Well, for the most part at least. Sometimes she'll freeze a glass of water by mistake, but apart from that..."

"It could be a bad memory that's getting to her," suggested Kristoff. "Something involving your parents maybe?"

Anna sighed.

"If that is the case, she won't tell me about it," she said sadly. This was true. Although Elsa had opened up to Anna about almost everything, the one thing she would almost never talk about were the years she spent locked in her room while her parents...did whatever it was that they had done to her. Anna had been told as a child that these were "royal lessons," preparing Elsa for the day she'd become queen. Of course, that all turned out to not be entirely true.

It wasn't that Elsa was not telling her about those days because she was holding anything against Anna, either. It was that she felt guilty speaking badly about their parents now that they were no more. Anna tried to tell her that she shouldn't feel that way, and hoped that her sister would one day be able to get those things off her chest. But she guessed it would be a long time before she was actually ready to do so.

"Look," said Anna carefully, wondering if she should even be telling Kristoff this. "I think...I think that Elsa might be getting sick..."

"What makes you say that?" asked Kristoff, slowly sipping his coffee.

"She..." Anna started to say, but suddenly she worried she might start tearing up in a public place if she got into the details, and she didn't want that. Then again, she had already begun the conversation. It wouldn't really be fair to leave Kristoff in the dark now.

"Yesterday, I saw her walking funny," she said, briefly contemplating if that statement would even make sense to his ears. "And then I heard her cough. Badly. And last night, she was in my room. She coughed again in her sleep, but it was even worse than it had been in the afternoon, and..."

"Easy, Anna," said Kristoff, who could tell that she was getting upset. "Let's just say that you're right. I cough from time to time. And you told me I walk funny."

"This wasn't a 'funny' funny kind of walk," Anna said. "It was a...I don't know how to explain it."

"People get sick, Anna," said Kristoff. "And they also get better. There's no need to believe it's something awful at this point. Don't you remember Elsa ever feeling under the weather before?"

"No," said Anna.

"No?"

"I don't...I don't ever remember Elsa being sick," said Anna slowly. "I only realized that last night. Now, maybe she had a bug or whatever without me knowing it during our time apart...but even then I would've heard her coughing and sneezing from when I was waiting outside her door, don't you think?"

Instead of making her feel better like she hoped that it would, saying these words to Kristoff out loud only caused her to feel more scared about everything.

"Maybe her magic provides some kind of immunity to this sort of thing?" Kristoff asked.

"If that's true, then why would she get sick now?" She placed her hands over her face. She was going to go out of her mind if she kept thinking like this.

"Have you asked her about it?"

"No," Anna admitted. "I don't think she needs for me to do that right now."

"Why not?"

Anna wasn't sure what to say. The honest reason she hadn't asked Elsa about this yet was because she was afraid of what her answer might be.

"I just...she's going through enough already, you know?" she said, awkwardly fiddling with a napikin that was on the table.

She knew this was a bad answer. But she also didn't really care right now.

"Well, I unfortunately have to get going," said Kristoff as he stood himself up. "I've got a lot of deliveries today, and Sven will be wondering where I am soon."

He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

"If you need to talk more later, let me know," he told her.

"I will," said Anna, turning her head towards the window. "And thank you."

She frowned as she watched him leave. On some level, she felt a little bad for the way she treated Kristoff sometimes. She couldn't always offer him romance when he was in the mood for it. He was very understanding about this, seeing that Anna sometimes needed him to be there as a friend and nothing more. Still, she wondered how he felt knowing that Anna might be the only person who would put her sister over her boyfriend when it came to her priorities.

She placed some money on the table (refusing the coffee house's offer to give it to her on the house due to her royal status), picked her cape up, and stepped outside. The sun was bright today. Wherever Olaf was, she knew he must be happy. Of course, Olaf was always happy no matter what was going on. She often envied him for that.

She attempted to convince herself that Kristoff was right...especially since he probably was. Maybe Anna was blowing all of this out of proportion. Maybe Elsa had been sick in the past, and the trolls had erased that from her memory without her knowing it. In any case, she knew that she at least had to try to calm herself down.

She decided, once she got back to the castle, to commit her afternoon to doing things that would keep her distracted. She went to the royal library and took what felt like every book off the shelf, struggling to pay attention to the words in front of her, but all she ever read was "Once upon a time, there was a great battle from centuries ago, and Elsa was coughing horribly, and..."

Okay, so reading wasn't working.

Next were jigsaw puzzles, a universal cure for boredom...and also a known cause of it. That did no good. A trip to the garden maybe? No, that was where she had first noticed Elsa was acting sick...

The only thing that succeeded in keeping Anna occupied were her frequent and urgent trips to the privy. Kristoff had been right when he had warned about all that coffee.

It wasn't until evening, when she was talking to her old friends the paintings on the wall, that she caught a glimpse of Elsa, who was being surrounded by council members and advisers and other people who Anna couldn't for the life of her name.

"Are you sure you're okay, you're majesty?" one of them asked her, sounding concerned.

"Yes, I am," said the queen politely as they went down the hall. "I apologize for the inconvenience I caused."

"You have nothing to be sorry for, your highness," said another man. "But I've never seen you...do that at a meeting before."

"I must make a confession, gentlemen," she said with perfect grace and composure (Elsa had this stuff nailed). "I haven't been sleeping terribly well lately. I promise we will continue our conversation tomorrow, but for now, I'm afraid I must retire early."

"Of course, your majesty," all of the men said, gently bowing before their ruler.

Anna, obviously, had no idea what was going on, but she didn't like the sound of any of it. There was also something...unnatural about the way Elsa was walking down the hallway. Like she was a soldier trying to hide a limp in her leg. Whatever it was that was wrong with her, she was clearly doing her best to conceal it from her council.

She didn't dare ask what was on her mind until Elsa was out of sight.

"What happened?" she asked one of the men.

"Queen Elsa fell asleep at a meeting, your highness" he answered simply. "None of us have ever seen her do that before. But she kept letting us know she was fine when we inquired about it."

Anna felt that sinking feeling in her heart once again.

"Has she ever asked to retire early?"

"No, your highness," the man answered. "She has always seen through meetings until the end, no matter how long they take. But she is human. Everyone needs their rest sometimes."

And with that, the men all left, quietly talking with each other, leaving Anna all alone, with only the pictures on the wall to keep her company. She got no comfort from them.