Chapter ten

Carrot and stick

Anna looked like she was ready to throw up. Elsa wasn't far behind her. And they were just in the lobby.

Elsa had allotted some extra time for them to get to their parents' law firm, taking into consideration traffic, weather, and having to convince Anna to even come along. None of those things had presented any major setback, so they were now ten minutes ahead of schedule, sitting in the plush yet still somehow uncomfortable chairs outside the Executor's office. So there they sat, half-blinded by the sunlight streaming through the blinds, seemingly angled in such a way to focus the light and direct it straight into their eyeballs rather than block it. Every single aspect of situation seemed to be directed at making their time there as uncomfortable as possible.

Nobody else was there with them. Even though they still had time, Elsa suspected they wouldn't be seeing any of the uncles and aunts that had been at the funeral. Their parents had had few siblings, and were never close with those they had. Any other beneficiaries of the will would receive a copy in the mail – indeed, so would they.

Their parents had singled out the two of them for this old-fashioned reading, and Elsa was grateful for it. She knew for a fact – and Anna would say as much if asked – that Anna would never have read the will herself. Even if five hundred copies of it had poured through the mail slot like in Harry Potter, she would have avoided then like the plague, leaving Elsa to decipher it herself and pass on the relevant points. This would dilute the impact for Anna, putting off any potential closure to be gained from it, while Elsa would have to double down on the moment as she deciphered the dense legal text and pretended not to understand what it meant. Instead, this reading would helpfully concentrate the painful experience, condensing it into one single point of excruciating pain that would at least be over with relatively quickly.

At least, if that moment ever came. While Anna tapped away at her phone, Elsa stared at the clock on the wall, as if willing the minute hand to tick faster. It felt like she'd been staring for a good three minutes now without it moving.

Maybe it never will. Maybe this is hell. Perhaps I'm really the one who died in a car crash, and this is the punishment I've been allotted for my unholy desires. To be trapped here in this moment, the most painful one of my life, for all of eternity, waiting for it to just be over with until the heat death of-

"Elsa Winters, Anna Winters. Mr. Carver will see you now."

Elsa jumped as the PA system dully read out their names. She glanced back at the clock, which had of course ticked over to the next minute as soon as she took her eyes off it.

A second later, the double doors on the far side of the room opened. James Carver walked out, rendering his own PA announcement irrelevant. He was unusually burly for a lawyer, and currently sported a smile a few degrees broader than the circumstances called for.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the Winters girls," he said, rubbing his bald head like a genie's lamp. "Last time I saw you two, you were yay high."

"Hello, Carver," Elsa said rigidly. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him – probably at a Christmas party she hadn't wanted to go to in the first place. She felt a surge of gratitude that she wouldn't have to deal with him alone.

For her part, Anna had put away her phone and stood up. Her gaze drifted up, down, and all around, focusing on nothing and nobody in particular while simultaneously gravitating away from Carver at every turn. "Hi," she mumbled.

He seemed to have more small talk ready for them, but after a second of studying their faces, he mercifully chose to keep it to himself. "Right this way," he said, gesturing at the double doors he'd come through.

Elsa looked at Anna, who was now staring down at her feet and seemingly uninterested in moving them. After a moment's hesitation, she took Anna's hand again, which seemed to jolt her into motion. She looked at Elsa, allowed a faint smile to scamper across her face, then started walking. Elsa did as well, her footsteps syncing up with Anna's without her even thinking about it.

There was no need to worry about enjoying the hand holding too much. She doubted she'd ever felt any more miserable in all her life than she did right now.

"Clause 12.5.8: Custodianship of funds invested in the Ackerman Associated Mutual Fund, totaled below, shall be transferred to Elsa."

Carver refrained from stating any monetary values directly, since the both of them had identical copies of the will right in front of them. Not that Anna was giving hers so much as a single glance.

Elsa leaned over. "That just means I'll be in charge of the stocks and bonds," she said, summing up the previous 8 items.

"Okay," said Anna in a leaden voice. "You're good with those."

A simple confirmation, and a personalized comment. That was the most she could be expected to contribute at any point in this whole process.

The reading had been going on for a full 22 minutes by now, even though it felt like an hour. Anna knew this because of the clock on the opposite wall, into which she poured as much of her attention and conscious thought into as possible. It wasn't a large amount, but every little bit helped. Elsa was paying close enough attention for the both of them, which was fortunate. If she was in as much pain as Anna was right now, she was much better at hiding it – then again, that did track. She was always the one to eat all the vegetables on her plate first, so as to get them out of the way and enjoy the rest of the meal without them.

Everything Carver was saying to them would, in any other context, be intensely boring to her, this much she was well aware of. In this context, the boredom merely prolonged the suffering, stretching it out like the slow peel of a band-aid, and there was no quick rip for this one. She found herself slouching and pushing her chair backwards, solely to get that much further away from him, to lower the volume of the words he was saying by maybe 1 or 2 percent.

She imagined floating above herself, looking down at the three of them from above. That was a mild improvement. Carver's voice was quieter up here, and the clock was louder. She went higher, really scraping her back against the ceiling, and his voice got more muffled. She might've kept going, drifted all the way out of the office, above the town, out of the atmosphere itself – if not for the hand that was tethering her to the ground.

Elsa's hand, clasped in hers, was just about the only source of strength she had to call on right now. She was every bit as perceptive as she had been on the couch before, squeezing her hand reassuringly any time she began to tip over from her cocoon of indifference into abject despair – which, to her own credit, had happened only twice so far. From what well Elsa drew enough strength to comfort the both of them, Anna had no clue, but she deeply hoped it wouldn't run out.

"Clause 12.6: Ownership of property, real estate."

Elsa straightened, and Anna perked her ears up as well. "The house."

Carver nodded. "The deed for the property located at 186 Cool Breeze Way (and associated mortgage) shall be transferred to Elsa. All material goods found within the house at the time of reading, not counting those accounted for elsewhere within this document, shall belong to Anna."

Elsa frowned. "So I get the house," she said, "and Anna gets everything in it?"

"Is that normal?" Anna asked, just as confused.

"It's not unprecedented," Carver said. "A bit more elegant than sawing the house in half. Though there tends to be more…acrimony between the two parties than I'm detecting with you two." He gestured at their clasped hands, to their embarrassment, then returned to the will. "Clause 12.6.1: The above-mentioned property shall be registered as both Anna and Elsa's legal place of residence for as long as it is owned by either of them."

Anna glanced at Elsa, who waved her hand dismissively. "It's just a technical thing," she said. "Most of my mail ends up there anyway."

"Oh, ok," Anna said, but it was clear she still didn't get it. Elsa did.

They wanted to tie me to the house.

She felt a pang of guilt, but she'd expected something like this. They had every reason to try and bring her back to Anna in the event of their own passing. A bit of a carrot to make her stay around, in case she bolted again.

Which you've already started thinking about.

Another pang, but it was inevitable. She'd secured a month of remote work from her boss, but after that ran out, she could hardly count on getting regular extensions afterwards, especially if Wes made good on his suggestion of a promotion to manager. Most other employees wouldn't have even gotten the month she'd requested, and especially with so many of her coworkers leaving for other jobs, he'd be anxious to get her back in the office as soon as he could.

Despite knowing all this for a fact, she intended to fight for every day she could spend with Anna. Spending this time with her was a true delight, and god only knew she had time to make up. To even bring up the topic of leaving right now would be unthinkable. But just as Wes would grow frustrated with her absence, she was sure her presence would lose its novelty to Anna. She'd get back to getting on Anna's nerves before too long, that was just a material property of sisterhood.

And who knows how many more mistakes I'll make by then? Sky's the limit, really.

Anna was already getting curious. That was step 1 of every worst-case scenario in her mind. She'd already been trying – and failing – to tread carefully when it came to that, now that would have to be dialed up by a factor of ten. If there was any solace to be gained from what the will had said so far, it was that her parents had truly never suspected a thing, or else she'd be getting a whole lot less that even what had already been said.

Even assuming complete ignorance, really, she'd gotten a lot more than she had expected. Going off the values written on the page, so far it was around fifty-fifty between her and Anna, with her generally getting the liquid assets while Anna was given more physical objects. The last draft of the will was after she'd been away for years, so she'd expected some form of recriminations for being away so long. Her finances were stable – strictly speaking, she didn't need anything, and she deserved less. If anything, Anna was in greater need than her.

Every talk she'd had with Mom or Dad had contained some form of request for her to spend more time back home, veiled or otherwise. They had avoided a direct confrontation on the subject, instead ending every discussion noncommittally. If there was any time for them to bring the hammer down, it was now. So far, it had been all carrot, no stick.

Perhaps they had decided not to punish her at all, in fear of somehow pushing her away further. That just felt like wishful thinking, though, and as Carver ran through line after line of legalese, she studied every word carefully, listening for any ill intent hidden within.

She looked over at Anna, who was staring intensely off into space again. She squeezed her hand and smiled reassuringly. She'd been holding up extraordinarily well thus far, all things considered – hardly a single teardrop. Elsa had, at times, felt on the verge of breaking down herself. Whenever she got close, she simply turned to Anna and poured her attention directly into her.

She was all she had left. That, it seemed, was enough.

"Clause 19.1: Liquid assets held in Westchester Credit Union."

Elsa and Anna both sat up straight. Carver gave a weird half-smile. "The moment we've all been waiting for, apparently," he remarked.

The two of them looked at each other self-consciously. It had been quite remarkable, how relatively small items had taken up paragraph after paragraph of boring, unimportant jargon, yet now that they were at the most important item, there was barely any will left – under a page, in fact. Elsa deliberately avoided reading ahead, opting to stay trapped in the moment of suspense with Anna.

"Contents of the savings account held in the names of the decedents (total below at time of writing) shall be placed in a trust fund accessible by both Elsa and Anna. From this fund, a weekly allowance shall be paid out to both.

Elsa looked at the two numbers on the page. The weekly allowance seemed very intelligently calculated, coming out at just above minimum wage – for Ohio, anyway. Doing some quick math in her head, it seemed the funds would last for about a decade or two – a nice, lengthy safety net. But it wasn't enough for her to quit her job – or for Anna to stop looking for one, for that matter.

"Clause 19.1.1: In case of certain medical, legal, or other emergencies, greater amounts may be withdrawn as needs demand." He looked up. "There's a whole list of items down there," he said, turning to Anna. "Your parents asked me to verbally specify that returning to college would also qualify for an increased withdrawal."

Anna, who had begun to lean in, now shifted in the opposite direction. She sank back into her chair and looked back at the clock. "Yeah, ok," she muttered.

Elsa leaned forward, hoping to hastily change the subject. "So, when it mentions legal emergencies, does that pertain to criminal cases only, or civil as well?" she asked.

Carver raised an eyebrow. "Why? Planning a robbery on your way home?"

Elsa winced at the attempted joke. "Just curious," she said.

"Civil and criminal, both," Carver said. "You may elect to not withdraw from the fund if you don't want to, of course, but you should have no trouble using the funds for any case, be ye plaintiff or defendant."

Elsa leaned back again, hoping that the conversation would soon devolve into deadening jargon once again.

"Pursuit of damages against Mr. Ackland's estate, for instance."

Elsa sat bolt upright again, feeling as if ice had been injected into her veins.

Carver waited for her to respond, but she didn't say a word. She glanced over at Anna, hoping to god that she hadn't heard what he just said.

Please tell me you didn't hear him say that name. Let us just move on without digging into-

"What?" Anna said.

Elsa winced again. She felt like kicking herself. In her efforts to divert the conversation from an awkward topic, they'd landed squarely on a far worse one.

"Isn't he…you know, dead?" Anna asked.

"Correct, from a heart attack," Carver said, in the same tone one might discuss the weather. "However, the coroner was unable to determine whether the heart attack occurred before or after the collision."

Every word was like a glass panel shattering across Elsa's face. Anna seemed to simply be taking it all in, her face utterly unreadable as she stared ahead.

"If it's the latter, fault for the collision is unmistakably his," Carver continued, oblivious to their distress. "Thus, if you wished, you would be able to sue for damages against his estate – represented by his family, of course.."

Elsa turned to Anna. "It'd be a long, painful process," she said quickly. "We really wouldn't want to-"

"Well, of course not!" Anna said, putting a hand on her chest. "His family must be suffering too. I'd hate to put them through any more pain like that. Who would even think about getting money out of it?"

"Ok, ok," Carver said, raising his hands in a placatory gesture. "It's unanimous, then."

Elsa felt her heart melting. She herself had avoided learning anything more than the other driver's name, knowing it would be all too easy to divert all her grief and anger into him. Here Anna was, thinking of the man with nothing but sympathy, without a trace of anger or blame on her voice. Her compassion was truly unparalleled, just as it always had been.

If she doesn't blame him, though, who does she blame?

Elsa tried to dispel this negative thought from her mind. It was just like her to gloss over this pleasant surprise with a new doubt. Carver had blundered into what she'd feared would be the most dangerous, touchy subject possible, and Anna was totally unfazed. This whole will reading had gone far, far better than she ever could've hoped for.

The was one final passage left in the will before the standard closing language. She read it along with Carver, despite the trepidation that had held her back mere seconds ago. Surely the worst was over, right?

"Clause 19.1.2: For purposes of fraud prevention, any withdrawal greater than $20.00 outside of the state of Elsa and Anna's home address – started in clause 12.6.1 above – shall immediately freeze the account for whichever name was used. Other liquid assets mentioned above shall also be subject to this rule."

"Huh?" Anna said. "Wait a minute. Our home address, that's here in Ohio, right?"

Carver looked at her funnily. "Yes, that's right," he said.

"But Elsa isn't living in Ohio, she lives in California!" Anna protested. "Didn't they tell you that?"

"Well, yes," Carver said. "From my understanding, that was a temporary arrangement, soon to be concluded."

"Well, it isn't!" Anna said indignantly. "She's got a whole life over there! She's happily employed – when was that clause written anyway?"

"Two years ago," Carver said. He frowned at the document. "I admit, under such circumstances as those, it does seem rather punitive."

"I'll say! There's gotta be some kind of workaround for that." She turned to Elsa. "Like, what if we…"

She trailed off. "Elsa?" she said worriedly.

Elsa didn't answer. Her heart was thumping in her throat, and her breaths came rapid and shallow. She barely registered Anna's hand on hers, though that would eventually be what pulled her back.

She hadn't come here for money, or stocks, or profit of any other kind. Closure would've been nice, but even that lofty goal was secondary. No, the main thing she'd hoped for was to receive some final message from her parents – some kind of posthumous statement bearing more meaning than the utterly banal text message that currently held that honor. And by god, they'd given her one, the true meaning unwritten yet unmistakable.

Take care of Anna, and don't abandon her. Or else you deserve nothing.

Even Carver, it seemed, was able to detect the change in mood, as he sped through all the procedural closing comments. A mere five minutes after the last word was read, Elsa and Anna were out of the office, still hand in hand. Elsa gulped down the fresh outdoor air like she'd just run a marathon, and Anna eyed her cautiously, unsure of how to even begin to raise her spirits.

"So…" Anna began, "do we have anything else planned for today?"

Elsa shook her head.

"Then, uh…wanna go…see a movie?" Anna offered.

Elsa looked at her quizzically.

"Like, any movie?" Anna said.

Elsa seemed to pick up on her idea. "Yes," she said, attempting a brief smile.

'Any movie' ended up being a big, dumb action movie called Two Deaths A Day or something like that. It was flashy, bombastic, and loud. Not nearly loud enough, though.

Elsa sat in her stiff, stained chair, curled halfway into a fetal position. Now in the dark, hot tears flowed freely down her face. She had little doubt Anna was aware of this fact, but she didn't care. Since when had trying to hide things ever helped her?

For essentially her entire adult life, she had been terrified of the possibility that her parents might find out her feelings towards Anna. The scenario had haunted her nightmares, and every remotely curt text from them had allowed her mind to speculate that the jig was finally up, that they had shaken down Anna and found the horrible truth. She'd spent so much time worrying about what they would think of her if they knew, she hadn't spared a single thought for what they would think of her if they didn't.

Well, now she knew. They had seen her as a flighty ingrate, who cared so little about her family, she'd fled to the opposite side of the continent just to get away from them. She'd made no effort to convince them otherwise, and now she never would. This was the impression of their dear eldest daughter that they had taken to their graves. Nothing she could ever do would fix that. Her failure was etched in stone.

All that kept her from openly sobbing was consideration for the other moviegoers around her. Even so, she needed some form of release. An urge grew in her mind to get closer to Anna, and for once she found it easy to veto every dissenting voice in her mind. She lifted the armrest between them, and as Anna turned to investigate, she reached forward with both hands. Anna, tears in her own eyes, was more than happy to reciprocate. She embraced Anna with all her strength, no longer able to convince herself that she shouldn't.

How could she have been so foolish to think that isolation would be better for either of them, let alone both? If anything, it was a move of abject cowardice, made in the vague hope that she would find someone else and never have to confront her own feelings. Even after Mariella, she'd refused to take any action but the one she knew for certain wasn't working. How galling of her, to fear any sort of "worst case scenario" that was different from the one she was living in.

Even if she didn't deserve Anna – and she didn't – Anna deserved nothing less than every iota of fraternal love she held for her. She would stay for just as long as Anna wanted her to stay, this she resolved to do here and now. If she did eventually leave again, it wouldn't be out of some paranoid delusion that she was somehow brainwashing Anna to be just as broken as her – she'd only discredit Anna further by thinking such things. She owed her that much, and so much more.

Even as she made the pledge, her rational brain started picking at it, convinced she was only acting on emotion rather than common sense. But fuck that – if common sense had told her she was on the right path for the last five years, maybe it was just as broken as the rest of her.

Anna deserves a good sister. And if I'm all she's got, I'll try my hardest to pretend to be one.

xxxxxxx

Any hope Anna had of following the movie was lost the second Elsa wrapped her arms around her. Not that she was complaining.

Nobody gave hugs like Elsa. They had an uncle who'd throw out a good rib-cracker every Christmas, but Elsa knew the perfect pressure to hold at, as tight and secure as a weighted blanket and never painful. As they'd grown older, Elsa had become more and more stingy with them, insisting that grown-ups just didn't hug like that. Of course, Anna would eventually learn the true reason, but she'd never stopped longing for those lost, perfect hugs. Here in Elsa's arms, she'd never felt more like she belonged.

As the will reading had gone on, she had been worried that Elsa might face some kind of retribution for being gone so long. Though she had felt guilty for thinking it, she'd also hoped that there would've been something in the will to try and convince her to stick around, as if Mom and Dad could solve this problem for her like they'd done so many times before. But this had been beyond the pale. To essentially leave Elsa with nothing if she didn't abandon everything she'd accomplished in the last five years? It was far harsher than anything they'd been willing to do back when they were…

She winced, ashamed of her own thoughts. Elsa noticed, and squeezed her tighter. Surely, she could relate.

Really, Anna thought, what right do I have to complain about their ultimatum? At least they tried for a practical solution.

For all the pain she'd suffered from her separation from Elsa, just what had she done to try and close the gap? Beyond the vague 'wish you were here' sentiment in her texts, she'd done nothing to challenge Elsa's self-imposed exile. She could blame her initial shock for letting Elsa walk out the door, but as days and weeks gave way to months and years, she'd never made a full court press even when she wanted nothing more than for Elsa to return to her. And why, because Elsa had feelings for her? Why should that come between her?

And how much effort have I put in to see eye to eye on her on that front, either?

She blinked. The thought surprised her, even coming from inside her own head. Really, though, that kind of proved her point. Elsa had told her, in no uncertain terms, just how she felt about her all those years ago. But in the years to come, Anna had barely thought about it. Every time she tried, her brain rapidly switched tracks, pulling out any topic other than this, the most important topic.

Well, no time like the present, right?

Anna put all her effort into switching her train of thought onto those forbidden tracks. Being here, in Elsa's arms, was all she'd wanted for the last five years as a sister. But what did it mean beyond that? In a very real way, Elsa loved her more than any normal sister could. It was almost disrespectful to ignore that level of affection, the extra love that Elsa seemed to have accepted as unrequited. For all the thought she'd put into it, it might not even be unrequited!

So what if she'd never pictured the two of them being together? She never would've pictured herself being with Kristoff until he'd asked her out, either. The more she inspected the mental barriers in her path, the more artificial they seemed. When she cut through all the cultural stigma and personal "I don't wanna think about it"s, how exactly did she feel about Elsa?

Well, she saw her as beautiful, of course, but Elsa simply was beautiful. It was a physical property of hers, just as a frog was green or the sky was blue. She'd have to dig deeper than that. She loved Elsa, she wanted to be with Elsa, she had missed Elsa greatly, the house had seemed empty without Elsa, her bed was cold without Elsa, her calls and visits with Elsa had been the highlights of the past year – these were all just normal sister things, right? How could she say if they were or weren't?

She glanced up at Elsa and smiled. Elsa, for all her tears, smiled back.

Honesty was what she needed. Elsa had been honest to a goddamn fault, but it seemed she hadn't returned the favor, to Elsa or herself. She needed to give herself a good, thorough look, determine exactly how she felt about Elsa, and tell her. And if that meant spending the next few days together, all the better, right?

She nuzzled deeper into Elsa's arms. Elsa, who had been considering loosening her hug, instead redoubled it.

I'll do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this, Elsa. For the both of us.