The cold never bothers Elsa - snowflakes drifting past her as she drives her Bugatti down the highway with the top down. She looks over at Anna. Wondering how she's putting up with the wind. But the girl betrays none of winter's frosty affliction as she lets her hair down. Fanning those copper tendrils over her shoulders as she relaxes in the leather seat. Elsa smirks, and revs the engine hard. Letting the wind pick up as the moonlight puts a radiant shimmer in those auburn waves beside her.

"Easy there," Anna sniggers, slouching so hard that her knees press against the dash, "you don't want to miss the turn to Syracuse."

The grin fades from her face as the faintest of memories fliter back. That time they just needed to get away from the palace with all its imposing stony solitude. Taking two horses at a whim and riding down the frozen moonlit fjords. Bruni starting a campfire for them by the shore while they roasted marshmallows and drank Schnapps and sang the night away. Before allowing their feelings to take over and their lips to devour one another and-

Anna shrieks as the car skids briefly on a patch of ice, "Woah - watch it - the roads are frozen."

A bead of sweat trickles down Elsa's forehead despite the cold. Eyes widening at the vividness of her memories. She looks over at Anna. No, of course she doesn't know what you were thinking. Those memories aren't hers to begin with. And then the thought dawns on Elsa. She looks to the moonlight. Hears the roar of her car's engine and tastes the frost on her tongue as snowflakes catch in her hair and Anna's. The gorgeous, cold solitude where it's just the two of them again - and nothing else matters but each other's smile.

You can create new memories.

With her.

A smile returns to Elsa's face. One that persists until they reach Anna's modest, single storey brick home in Syracuse. There's a frosted-over rose bush out the front. The lights are out in the windows. And Elsa feels the light in her soul going out as well - as she ponders that this could be last time they're crossing paths. Though - that spark of life still dances around in Anna's eyes.

"You're home."

"Yea, I noticed," Anna laughs, "thanks for sending me."

The door clicks open, and that thread in Elsa's spirit tugs - freezing Anna in place. The girl pauses. Before she turns around.

"You're seriously going to let a woman walk home by herself, on this dark street, in the dead of winter?" Anna asks.

Elsa peeks over her shoulder at all twelve feet of concrete sidewalk between her car and Anna's doorstep. Bathed in the streetlights' dim orange glow.

"Your home is right there-" Elsa starts, before she cuts herself off at her own self-sabotage. Walking over to Anna's door and offering her arm.

"Yea, that's more like it," Anna sneers, catching the crook of Elsa's elbow, "Way to treat a lady!"

They lock eyes with beaming smiles, before marching off all twelve paces right to the brick steps of her home. And perhaps it's the residual liquid courage in Elsa's veins, or that figment of her own thoughts. Create new memories.

"Is this the part where I wait for you to invite me into your house?" Elsa asks, "Or do I have to watch you disappear from my life forever, again?"

"You don't look like the sort who needs an invitation," Anna mumbles, before she unlocks her door and lets Elsa in.

There's a vague fragrance of Oregano in the air as she steps into the darkness. And not much in the way of space when Anna flicks on the lights. It's small. Yet swept clean to the best of their ability. She looks around at the little pieces of furniture and trinkets left on the shelves. A rocking chair. Photos of a man in Naval Uniform. Anna as a baby, tucked in an unfamiliar woman's bosom. Vacations on the Jersey Shore. An altar with a crucifix and icons of Mother Mary and unlit red candles.

"Where're your parents?" Elsa mumbles.

"Mom's pulling a nighter at another factory," Anna chucks her keys and purse on the kitchen counter, "Dad's serving on a Cruiser in the Pacific."

Elsa runs her fingers over the chairs, the faded couch fabric, the glassware on their shelves. She inhales the herb-scented air, and listens to Anna's breathing between the soft squeak of floorboards. There's hardly a trace of anything in her spirit. No familiarity. No past life. Just a random girl's home. Completely alien and unknown to her. It puts Elsa at peace.

She turns around to see Anna staring at her with clasped hands.

"I brought you here for a reason," Anna whispers, unwavering gaze locked onto Elsa's, "I want you to know that this is…this is me. This is my life. I moved to this house from Brooklyn. I am the only child of Irish-immigrant parents. I was brought up Catholic. My heart longs to be with wildlife, with nature. I love art and music. I-I've, I've always had a preference for ladies. Romantically, at least."

Elsa swallows back the throbbing in her throat, "How do you do with blondes?"

"Love them," Anna smiles, momentarily looking down at the frayed rug, "though I may not be amenable to icy cold ones who constantly behave like they're on another planet-"

The sound of Elsa's chortle lights up the tiny home.

"-And to whom I'm inexplicably drawn towards."

The laughter dies quickly as Elsa looks her dead in the eyes. Dim lights accentuating every freckle on her nose - lending an otherworldly glow to her soft eyes. And putting that strain in her heart again. A fear that this fluke of a night, a second chance at making things right would evaporate in an instant and she'd be back in the hollowness of her grandeur with nothing but broken memories to curse at.

Anna extends both palms towards Elsa, and shrugs, "So, this is me. This is my life. There's nothing more than this. No far-off dream or vision or any of the unfathomable feelings you and I feel towards each other can change any of this-"

Elsa steps to within an arms' length, "Listen, Anna, I-"

A finger perches on Elsa's lips - the sudden touch of Anna's fingertip shutting her off, "-but if you see me as that. And nothing else. I think I could live with you. Well, I mean I could accept your presence, the fact that you exist. Without breaking down and running away. The least you'll get is an admission that what I did might've been a bit far-fetched."

And when Elsa's slender fingers snake around the rough ones holding her words hostage - she feels the girl voiding every trace of tension in her pent-up words. They lock eyes as fingers interlace one another. Immediately, that red thread of connection rears its ugly head again. A single line from the pit of Elsa's soul coursing its way through her fingertips and searching deep within Anna's body for any semblance of her sister's past. At the last second, she ponders letting her go. Severing the bond. Just to give Anna a chance. But before she can react, the girl's tugging her down the hallway. Pointing out her framed drawings since her childhood.

"...This one's from Nana's house in Queens. This was one I drew of a Partridge outside our Brooklyn home. Triphammer falls. Central Park in Autumn, red and gold in the sunset."

They walk past her parents' bedroom - cleaned and dusted and waiting for her father's return from service in the far off oceans.

She picks out a violin from a chest filled with clothes and childhood toys, and plays Elsa a few notes. Out of tune, but still sharp as ever. There's a vase full of a dozen burnished, steel roses which Anna conveniently skips over on her way to lighting candles for Mother Mary. Making the sign of the cross and uttering a short prayer. And it's only a few more short paces before they end up in Anna's bedroom. By a shoulder-wide window, Anna points out a tree where she watches pigeons roost in spring. And her desk, where she used to read a chapter of a novel before bedtime.

She finally gets to her bed. Merely a single mattress draped in threadbare blankets.

"This is my bed," Anna's voice turns sombre, "and out of all the places in my home, it's my favourite one."

Something stirs within Elsa, "Because you like sleeping?"

And Anna turns to Elsa. Their fingers find each other's once again.

"No," she whispers, eyelids fluttering shut, "because this is where I go to sleep each night, and this is where I dream of you."

The breath in Elsa's throat catches as Anna steps closer. So close she can feel the girl's breath on her chin.

Elsa whispers back, "How would you like to turn this dream into reality?"

Anna's lips purse into a line. Tears well up in her eyes. She shakes her head.

"I don't want to," Anna nuzzles her chin, warm tears dampening the woman's cheek, "because something tells me a reality with you would be far sweeter than any dream of any past life we've had together."

It's not a dream.

But the words evaporate from Elsa's mind the moment those tender lips close against hers.