A/N. WOW. I'm so sorry this chapter took so long. Everything's been crazy lately and I haven't had a lot of alone time to write. But, it's here now!

Just so everyone's aware, I do keep making references to their childhood for a reason. You'll understand what happened. All will be understood next chapter. Thank you for sticking around. Get to reading now.

Chapter Three

In a distant memory, he recalls his moments of their childhood.

Recollect paints a bittersweet portrait of the familiar backyard where he sits in a plastic chair across a pure white table that summer. It also paints in an image of her mother with a floppy hat pressed far on her head as she works in the vegetation of the garden. She's peering upward at them every other moment, a grin on her face before becoming distracted once more.

The same cap on her head, Anna's distracted as well, her eyes round and doe as she gawks at the clean wood of the fence. She starts at the sound of a car speeding past and the distant sound of a dog's curious bark.

There's the urge she posses and it's to throw caution to the wind, leaping from the chair and over the fence. She'd wanted nothing more than to thoroughly explore every inch and every corner of the world surrounding her. A grand adventure, as she describes it.

"Hey," she mumbles to the boy across the table. When he turns, he's greeted with a beaming smile. She rests her cheeks against either heel of her palm and the joy emits gaudily from her. "Let's have an adventure!"

He looks at her, adjusting the small child in his lap. As if triggered by the idea, she slaps tiny palms into the table.

Anna responds to his wordless inquiry, "For my birthday. After the party, let's go."

Kristoff cocks his head, though intrigued. "But... where?"

"I don't care," she admits. "Anywhere. Not even just for my birthday.. Let's go everywhere after."

"Everywhere?"

"Yup!" She clasps her hands together. "Everywhere. Me and you."

"Can we do that?"

"Why not?"

Kristoff never forgot that.

When Kristoff originally pictured a reunion, he'd imagined the overflow of joy and happiness, filling every edge of their bodies, obvious tears, and an embrace he'd longed for over the years.

That wasn't happening.

A pregnant silence engulfs the both of them. The taller swallows the many sentences that'd planned to develop. Kristoff remains wordless, as he usually would and yet this time, he finds himself longing to shatter the habit.

He stares at her.

She stares at him.

The latter's heart throbs mercilessly against her chest and she catches a quivering lip between her teeth. There's the noticeable pull of regret and betrayal to her chest, her emotions are, however, barricaded by the undeniable missing that arrives at the sight of him.

"Hi," she says. Her lips twitch, trying a smile. It doesn't work.

Kristoff's wary of her greeting. His trust has now run quite low and Anna had once owned practically every existing part there was. The absent trust is sharp from his eye to hers and he begins to bend. He's reaching for a floral binder, packed with neat papers in their designated places and extends his arm to her.

It was his closest alternative for a handshake. "Hey."

She, though hesitant, grasps it from his much larger hand, offering a wordless nod as her gratitude.

The silence overcame them again. Anna pitches to shatter it first, "You look... different."

His brow arches, "Is that bad?"

"No!" She retorts, visibly cringing. "Not at all, no - that's not... no. You're just not, you know, Kristoff-y."

"Right.."

"It's just, like, I know for sure when I left you, you weren't this large!" Another cringe. "I'm probably just.. short. But, you were definitely not way up there, you know? I mean, you're not big big, like fat big, you're actually in very nice .. shape."

Kristoff gapes at the girl before him, his head cocked and hands swaddled in the worn-in sweatshirt's pockets. The particular girl before him has her head lowered in regret of her ramblings. She brings a hand up to cup over her forehead as the mental image of slapping herself is embedded shamelessly into her mind.

"You're definitely not different."

The voice raises her chin, her expression curious. When she does meet his eye, the sight she's graced with is only a hint of a smile, though a smile nonetheless, and something knowing in brown hues. The gentler expression eases some of the harsh tension packed heavy into her shoulders.

"Is that bad?" She mimics.

"No," he says. "Not at all, no."

Neither one speaks when they sit in a discovered location beneath the west hall's staircase.

One's anxiously at her lip, the other's head dangles low. He looks at her and he takes this moment to allow his eyes to hover, to notice a now grown Anna, and he notes the several references from their childhood still present. The brightly colored, floral dresses and her pigtails, always her pigtails.

"Where.. have you been?" Kristoff inquiries. She turns her head to the man aside her.

"Places," she says, an uneasy laugh following. "Everywhere."

"Everywhere, huh?"

"Everywhere."

He's eyeing her despite the bittersweet memory that occurs to him. Alas, the familiar silence lowers into the that particular space beneath the stairs.

He ponders the meaning of "everywhere".

"How about you?" She's smiling, but something stings her beneath her own words.

He considers the question, searches for an answer, and can only devise, "Here."

They'd glanced in unison and their eyes repelled much like equal polarities. A period had passed they realize as the bell sounds and a commotion arises with students who pour from their classrooms. It fills in their quiet and stays that way for the brief few minutes between periods.

Kristoff finds himself distant from the moment, lost in his own memories. Anna had quite clearly done the same and as the noise dies away, he hears a faint sniff at his side.

He twists his head, his brows furrowed, and a question has built within his throat, though it doesn't escape. She still answers it.

"You.." She whimpers. "You didn't come to my birthday."

There's the instinctive anxious twitch of his hand and he becomes very aware of his heartbeat.

"We'll have cake and everything!" Anna exclaims, her hands clasped together at her chest.

The heat of late June beats incessantly on pale, full cheeks and it tints them a crimson color. Joining the obvious color was the way her eyes had grown, imagining streamers and a layered cake smothered in a thick, chocolate coating. Across their usual table is Kristoff, his baby sister now facing him on his lap. She busies herself with his wrinkled shirt pulling, clutching, astonished by the fabric's movement.

His vision is pointed past the infant to his friend. His expression claims discomfort, "Just us, right?"

Her shoulders lower right along with her expression, and she graces a solemn nod. "Mhm," Anna mumbles. "You're my only friend."

Though his instinct remains to be to stray from peers, the guilt in his features is far evident and he had the ability to identify the dejection in her own. "I can talk to other kids," he offers.

The soft skin of her palm tingles, and while her eyes grow round and hopeful, a smile pries reluctantly at her lips. "Really?" It gifts her the chance for other children to arrive in her home for her to befriend, and the thought alone prompts her to swing around in her seat, near striking the chair off it's legs. "Mama!"

Iduna glances from the bushes, petrified as the shout of her daughter's voice triggers a sore memory, "Anna? Are you okay? Do you feel sick?"

The child seems untroubled by the response, and her smile causes a crinkle beneath her eyes. "Nuh-uh," Anna hums with a rapid shake of her head. "I wan'na have other kids at the party!"

"Who?"

She points to the boy across the table, "Kristoff's gon'na tell his friends!"

Iduna's eyes then move to him and despite the uneasy tightness Anna's proposal prompts, she offers a heedful smile. "How sweet of you." Dusting her pants, she steps to the table. Iduna pries the dirt matted glove from her hand and places it on his shoulder. "That's a kind thing to do for Anna."

A flush spreads from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. His shoulders roll beneath her touch and he slumps into his chair offering only a shrug.

"Can they come, Mama?" Anna asks. Cerulean eyes beg. "Please?"

Iduna feels a guilty burden. She sighs, sliding her hand along the side of her face. "I'll talk to your father," she says. The bead of sweat on her daughter's temple prompts her to cup that hand at her forehead instead. "For now, it might be time to go inside. You're getting warm.. we wouldn't want you sick again, right?"

A nod and Anna raises her arms to be hoisted. "Okay, mama."

Swinging her child onto her hip, her eyes shift to the boy. He's sitting cross legged in the chair, the infant cradled to his chest. "Kristoff, honey?"

He looks to her.

"Would you like to stay longer? You can have lunch with us."

Kristoff considers her offer, a falter in his comfort. His eyes are at the tall fence in direction of his home. The thought wrings a wince and he nods.

"Okay." There's a smile as she holds out her hand. "Come on, then."