AN: Sometimes I can knock out a chapter in a day, most times, not so much. This was actually pretty fast to write, but I have to admit to not being great at everyday domestic scenes. I tend to skim over them because they're so normal, but they're also vital to this story, so I'm working on improving my rendition of them. Comments, critiques and general reviews are all very welcome.


She likes bandages, Elsa, but I think I might have already told you that. She's kind of like I was as a kid, getting into all sorts of scrapes, and I swear to God she's proud of these little injuries. She lies about them, of course, but its not to protect anyone—it's because she wants to be a badass, like her mom was. Is. I still have the leathers, and I still ride my bike sometimes. But it was you that showed me I shouldn't take shit from anyone. Anyway, back on topic, Joan's wearing a sleeveless tank, that same blue you liked so much. It's summer, for a while longer anyway, but I know she's doing it to show off her bandage. She's got her hair up in a princess braid, but she's tied a bandanna over it. Looks kinda rakish, which I guess is the point.

"We never should have let her read Flynn Rider," Kristoff mock-whispers in my ear.

"I heard that, dad." She pokes her tongue out at him, continuing with as much sass as she can muster—which, being a fifteen year old, is actually quite a lot. "And anyway, I'm way prettier than Flynn Rider ever was."

"Oh, I'm not so sure Snowflake, there was the time he visited Weselton."

"That totally doesn't count—that spell could've hit anyone."

"Sure it could." Kristoff's smiling too much for his own good, so I give him a little smack. He takes my wrist before I can deliver a second one. "I think I've been betrayed…"

I'm holding my tongue, trying to look innocent. That, or seductive, I'm not really sure what I'm going for, aside from distracting him. It works, and when our lips part, I can hear Joan's complaints about such public displays of affection.

"Eww, mom, dad, gross. There are children here."

"Really?" I give our daughter a pointed look. "You've been trying to convince us how grown up you are for months now. This is something grown-ups do."

"Yeah, other grown-ups. You two are my parents, I thought you had, like, standards."

"Oh, we do," I wave an airily dismissive hand at her. "Sometimes we just get caught up in the moment; don't we, Reindeer King?"

"Hey, leave me out of this," and the big lug holds up his hands like this is all my problem. Probably for the Reindeer King remark. You get drunk at a party once, and all your friends remember what you did. But hey, nothing was broken, and whoever photoshopped it afterwards did a pretty good job. That picture is the one in my locket, along with Elsa's, in the middle of her first major performance. That was the most sublime thing I've ever seen, to this day. Elsa could just lose herself in dance. It was like she would let go of everything, and the only thing that mattered anymore was the dance itself. She was a goddess of motion and beauty. Not unlike Joan with a sword. Speaking of which…

"You don't have fencing today, so you can just leave that right there on the counter."

"But mom…"

"No. Look, I know it probably completes your look, but you remember what happened last time?" She winced visibly. Now that had been an entertaining story to bring home. Carrying weapons in public, even those with foiled edges, tended to be a bad idea, even when dressed in obviously historical garb. The chagrined smile on her face as she sat there in the foyer, scabbard across her thighs, talking with Lefou, had been quite a sight. I hadn't known she'd also taken the sword for show and tell. Children.

"Okay, fine."

"You've got the bandage anyway, and you look pretty rough—I think you'll pass. Hmm…" Now comes the part where I take her idea and run with it. She wants to be badass, and I have just the thing. She's asking Kristoff questions in a rather confused voice as I dash upstairs to the master bedroom. My jacket is in the closet. It's a little large for her, of course, but hey, at short notice it'll do. I take it back down the stairs and throw it over her shoulders.

"Mom?"

"…adds to the story, baby. You took this from your vanquished foe, as recompense for making you bleed."

"Mom!" The way her face just lit up, I can see so much of us in there, and sometimes it hurts. Today's going to be a good day for her, I know it. We dropped her off at school and headed to work. Me and Kristoff, we work together. Our workshop isn't exactly large, but it's well appointed, and Audrey is a hell of a machinist. She's kept us going for a long time, and she can weld nearly as well as me or Kristoff can. Brunette, wears a small crystal pendant and overalls half a size too large. She's a bit of a bruiser, but that may have something do with her sister who fights in MMA competitions. We would also have Maurice, who's honestly a little nuts, but has a good head on his shoulders when it comes to process improvement. Except he's at home taking care of his daughter, Belle. She and Adam had a falling out, and apparently it got violent. She's only a little older than Joan, so it shook us all up.

Maybe that's why Joan started asking about me and Elsa. It might be she wants to know about other kinds of love, because she knows of two horribly abusive relationships; mine, with Hans; and Belle's, with Adam. The heartbreaking thing is that it's not Adam's fault. He has severe PTSD from a single tour in Kyrgyzstan, and it took a long time for him to come right. He still doesn't know his own strength, because he was equipped with first generation interface prostheses before he mustered out, and the limiters are unreliable. Worse yet is that his body—or his mind? maybe?—rejects the newer commercial models. Safer, sleeker, less… I'm not sure really. Less… unnatural.

I've often asked Kristoff if there was anything we could do to help, but it's beyond our capabilities. We do medium and heavy stainless fabrication for plant machinery. Completely different discipline to prosthetics work. It still wouldn't help Adam though, because most of the problems are in his mind, and while he does respond to medication, the side effects can be crippling. I talked to Belle about it once, because she knew I had an abusive ex. But this is different, because she really does love him, and he loves her, but there's a wall between them. She told me she'd rather suffer the abuse than see him so broken on those medications. I can't agree, not when I see the red marks and bruises that remind me of my own darker past.

"Feistypants, earth your work or you won't be welding anything down there." Yeah, I feel like facepalming, except all I'd do was smudge the visor on my welding mask. It's work time, and I have to concentrate. Everything else goes away while I'm welding, it's only me, the torch, my workpiece, and the filler rod. Nothing else exists, only the weld. One seam done, my mind wanders to how crazy Elsa thought I was for that—until she described dancing to me in exactly the same way. Psychologists call it 'flow', which is just a fancy word for getting lost in the moment, but somehow, it fits.

Quarter past one I get a call from Universal Heights; Joan's school. She got into a fight, but she was apparently provoked. I have to admit to being disappointed in her at this exact moment, but I'll listen to her side of the story. Maybe there's a good reason she's fighting. She's combative, even, dare I say it, tempestuous, in much the same way I was at that age. She doesn't often get into this much trouble though, just the usual playground scuffles. She's normally the protector anyway, making sure other people don't get hurt. I guess we're all proud of that. Even you'd be proud of that, right? I'm not sure Elsa's up there, but I keep talking in my head like she is. I like to believe she's watching over us—just my—our—family. Maybe she does it in secret, when she's not off dancing through the heavens being the beautiful angel she always was.

And then I tell Kristoff I've got to head out to collect Joan, and one short conversation later he hands me the keys to our car. He'll take the work van home if I'm not back by closing. The drive doesn't stand out in any way. Just mid-town traffic and a lot of lights. And at the school the first person to greet me is Ms Yzma. She's a haggard old crone that seems to hate everything—but she's got a real mean streak if people try to damage the school. She passed old twenty years ago. By rights she should be dead by now, and I think the only thing keeping her going is pure spite. She plans to outlive the contractors that demolished the east wing of the assembly block when the school had been foreclosed. No one knows who stumped up the money to save the place, it just showed up in the school account apparently, and no amount of digging could find that mysterious benefactor.

Because she was dead. She never existed, in fact. I might have spent a good portion of my life savings on preserving Elsa's legacy, but she spent the greatest part of hers on preserving and preparing for mine. She knew Joan would need a good school. I honestly don't know how much money is left in that trust, but apparently it could run the school for a thousand years and still have change. I have to admit I kinda like that idea. Less so the idea of needing to pull our daughter out of school for the afternoon. And there she is, sitting in the chair, blowing her bangs out of her face, trying to hide the cut on her cheek and her bruised knuckles at the same time. Looks like she got into a good one this time. She's also cradling her left arm a bit, holding tight against the bandage.

"Mrs Bergman, thank you for coming." As always, principal Jones was all business. "Joan got into a fight, as you can clearly see." Well, I had been told as much on the phone, and the evidence was on her face and hands. "This is obviously against school rules; no violence against other students will be permitted. No abuse, physical or verbal. I don't blame your daughter for standing up for her friend, but there are most definitely better ways to do things." There usually are, but I guess, like me, Joan loses sight of them in the heat of the moment.

"He left out the part where they hit Tink first," I gave a Joan a sharp look, then turned back to Jones.

"Is that true?"

"If it is, Miss Belafont isn't saying anything. My office is as far as this goes. No one was seriously hurt, people were provoked, and your daughter thought she was acting in the best interests of someone else."

"I totally was. You know Tink doesn't like violence." I do know, and I know how shy she could be sometimes.

"Even so, you shouldn't have thrown that punch." Yeah, she didn't like hearing that. Lashing out wasn't right, and I would have to have a talk with Joan when we got home. Self defense is one thing, which is all the other kids were probably responsible for. Joan had gone further than just protecting her friend though, due to having my temper—well, my younger temper. I'm an idiot sometimes. Maybe she needs to hear a different part of the story tonight—maybe she needs a lesson, not a story.

"Principal Jones, are we done here?" he nodded brusquely. I rose, firmly taking hold of Joan's uninjured arm. "Right, young lady, you're coming with me."

"But—"

"No buts. You know you're not supposed to fight the other kids." I let out an angry huff. "Damn it, Joan, I thought I raised you better than that."

"I…" I could see the shame and embarrassment on her face, and I loosened my grip on her arm just a little. "You did mom… but… you know, right?"

"I know baby, I know. It's not always easy being different."

"No, I meant… auntie Elsa, it's—she's—sacred. Sacrosanct"—it sometimes surprises me that our daughter knows words like that, but as much as she might be a scrapper 'cause of me, she got her smarts because of you. "If I let just one person say that without doing something about it, then… then everyone gets to, because there's nothing to stop them anymore." Ah, the classic fear/respect dichotomy. She hasn't figured out how to make them respect Elsa's legacy yet, so all she can do is hang the threat of punishment over their heads if they disrespect it. She definitely needs to hear more of the story.

"What about them hitting Tina—did they really do that?"

"Yes, mom, they did. After she told them what a good person auntie Elsa must have been for you to have loved her so much. Then they started insulting all of us, Me, Tink, you, and auntie Elsa. They hit Tink because she wouldn't let go of the idea that auntie Elsa must have been a good person. I guess… I guess maybe they thought they could beat it out of her." She takes a moment to rub her bandaged arm, but she's wearing a savage grin. "I made sure they didn't." I just shook my head. You want your children to turn out like you—but better than you were. Being a better fighter was not what I had intended.

Maybe telling her about Lefou was a good idea—because he wouldn't let me speak ill of Gaston, much of an ass as he might have been to everyone. Respect for the dead, and Lefou taught me some of that. Even if I didn't like someone, their being dead didn't excuse my words. Maybe that would serve as a good lesson, because Lefou had done all that without so much as raising his voice. That's where I'll pick up from next time.