In a month's time Anna found herself right back where she started. Bare feet on a trimmed lawn. Staring at the sunrise. No matter how many people died around her or who broke her heart or which century she woke up in - the sun would rise. Same scarlet-kissed clouds in Maryland or Ukraine or Arendelle. If nothing ever worked out and the world fell to pieces maybe she'd still stand here. Waist-deep in seawater. Gas mask over her face, watching the sunrise through clouds of smog one last time before humanity heaved her last sodden breath.
Perhaps it's the pigeons that leapt into the sky from the hedgerow. Or the fluffy clouds stained pink and blue. The thought of a day where there'd only be fire in the sky and water beneath her feet compelled Anna to go on a five mile run. Without earbuds. Soaking in the birdsong and gentle breeze that Elsa always loved. She made it to the edge of the brook where Elsa used to gather daisies. Heart rising in her throat as she imagined her in some far off, similar forest. Strolling through nature. Would she be thinking of me? Eyes fractured with tears - but Anna bit her tongue and hotfooted it the rest of the way home.
The only other good thing to come from this chapter: Hans had finally stopped pestering her. Instead choosing to harangue her over emails rather than in person. Not that there was much to argue about. Not when the last hope for finding humanity's cure to its global sickness laid squarely on her shoulders. They were the same rank now anyway. Anna had her own staff. The full complement of NSA's spying apparatus at her control. All she occupied her days with was sending her team of analysts on wild goose chases across the world. Greenland. Canada. The uninhabited wildernesses of Siberia. Poring over high-resolution Satellite imagery and feeling her breath hitch each time she thought she saw a blonde woman.
Because what was love, if she had to possess someone to keep them from running away? How different was she from the NSA if she had to lock someone In a fake reality just to bend them to her whims?
The one thing her mother taught about love: it was completely enough to know Elsa existed and was safe. That you could care for someone from afar and not hear a thing in return. Not want anything in return. No matter what the cost to herself. How much her heart ached by day seeing Elsa's name on dossiers and reports. Her pictures on big screens. Weeping silently into pillows at night as the gradual scent of Elsa's presence faded from their house. A dead void made even colder as she turned on the TV and watched wildfires and floods sweep the planet. Presidents and Ministers squabbling over who was to blame for this catastrophe. While the one woman who could solve this languished in some far off wilderness. And in her heart. Humming a mystical Danish forest song and setting her senses alight with each memory of her touch.
The President was called in. NATO and the EU got involved. Even Russia, with all its belligerence, offered FSB assets to track Elsa down. She'd nearly cracked when her mother called and notified she'd placed HUMINT assets across Europe. Scouring every street corner and student hostel and train station for Elsa's whereabouts. Stop it. Anna wanted to yell her lungs out at each accursed meeting. She doesn't want to be found. Before the meetings would inevitably turn towards their impending doom. Rage and guilt stacked on top of each other like a poisonous lasagna she had to swallow in silence. Forced to relive the moment on the beach every day in painstaking detail.
She just left.
Got on top of a water horse and rode it over the seas.
Yes, a water horse.
No, I hadn't consumed any narcotics that day. Only a lobster roll.
As expected, she had to recount each Danish word in Elsa's spell. Listen to Academics dissect and analyse a song that'd rolled off Elsa's lips like honey. Watch them reconstruct Elsa's voice with AI and blast it over loudspeakers on the same Portland beach to no avail. Meteorological analysis and spectral imagery and a litany of technologies couldn't stave off the fact that mankind had driven itself to the brink of self-destruction. Ignored all the warnings and killed all their messengers and now, searched fruitlessly for the magical pill. Deep within the darkest parts of her soul, Anna felt tempted to let the world go to hell. Or she'd simply became too jaded to believe they wouldn't immediately return to polluting and destroying the planet if Elsa chose to come around.
In thirty years she'd never believe it'd come down to herself. The hinge of humanity and eight billion lives. Resting upon one redheaded woman smoking in her backyard and an icy-cold blonde on the other end of her heartstrings. Forever calling out to each other over the expanse of an ocean and two hundred years of kinship. All the secret government projects that brought them together and drove them apart and still Anna felt Elsa tugging at her.
The pristine sounds of nature hammered at her brain again. No longer permanent. Instead, she headed inside and was drawn to the pile of mail that Susanne had dropped off earlier. College alumni donation drives. Veterans' association letters. Amongst them, pictures of her childhood with a note from mom - Put these up at your place, don't forget us. We never forgot you.
Anna smiled at a picture of a prim, freckled redheaded girl at Disneyland standing next to Rapunzel. Two lost princesses.
She found another letter, breath seizing when pressed flowers fell from the open envelope. Daisies. The same kind Elsa used to pick on their walks. Slim postcard, picture of the Fjords she loved and longed to return to. As she traced the delicate curl and swoop of her handwriting, it felt like she was right there herself. Basking in the warm breeze with Elsa.
Dear Anna
Forgive my absence. I've visited some old friends who used to live in the valley of ancients. Their wisdom had been tested through time immortal. It was my hope that they'd help me unravel the inexplicable connection I felt when I first laid eyes on you. They've confirmed what I believed to be true. I sense you know it too.
The first time I watched you die, I told myself that I would've known you in another life. One where we could be together without the trappings of royalty. The fickle whims of men in power who would want us as a means to an end. I still tell myself that fate has been gentle to me. I never really deserved a second chance, which was why I feared so much that I'd squandered it with you and allowed my feelings to lead me astray.
A part of me burns with rage when I think about the future that was stolen beneath my grasp. The lie I had to live out in hurtful ignorance. That we could've led a full life together. To spend decades knowing each freckle on your face. All the ways your voice could light my heart. I'd love your children as well as I'd loved you. We could picnic by the Fjords and think of names for each bird that greeted us. And I would've never, in two hundred years, grown tired of your smile.
I suppose it's selfish of me to desire such things. To ache for a third chance to know you.
But then again, fate has been gentle to me. She's given me back six of the best months I've ever lived in either lifetime.
What I wouldn't give, to wind up right back where we started.
If only for a day where we could be sisters again.
-Elsa
Hands shaking, Anna set down the letter. Words rolled round in her mouth until she could taste each one. She shut her eyes and saw Elsa clearly. Wind in her white dress and salt-kissed hair. Blue eyes gazing at the far off oceans, waiting for her reply.
She'd prepared for this moment well enough. Searching through her internet history for that one video of the Fjords they'd gawked at together. Holding up Elsa's postcard until the images lined up. A burner phone from Best Buy. Prepaid SIM card bought off the rack at 7-11. With the fate of humanity hanging upon a thread, Anna put her feet up and started checking Expedia for plane tickets to Oslo, Norway.
Searching for the one timeless bond that'd never let her go after two hundred years.