Chapter thirteen

In her room

Knock knock

"Come on in," Anna said.

Elsa opened the door, then did a double take when she looked over at Anna's bed. "Ooh, sorry, I'll come back later," she said, backing away.

Anna excavated a hand from under the covers and beckoned. "Get in here," she said.

Elsa walked in, sheepishly removing her latex gloves and putting down the bottle of cleaning agent. "I'm sorry, I didn't think you were still…I mean, well…you came down for breakfast," she said.

"Sure did," Anna said. She pushed herself into a sitting position. "So what brings you here on this fine Monday morning?"

"Well, you see…" Elsa began, then gave up trying to phrase it tactfully. She gestured broadly at the room around them. "This. All of this."

"What, you wanna clean up my mess?" Anna asked. "That's – well, it's a real Elsa move."

Elsa folded her arms. "I'll take that as a compliment," she said. "But like I said, I don't want to disturb you, so I'll come back later."

"Nonsense," Anna said. "You came all this way up here, so I'll let you get to work." She struggled and squirmed, disentangling each limb from her blankets as one would a spiderweb.

"No, no, I don't want to bother you," Elsa said quickly. "You seem comfy here."

"It's fine," Anna said. "I'll just sleep in your bed instead."

Elsa blinked. "You…what?"

"Yeah, I do that sometimes," Anna said. With a grunt, she rolled out of the bed and fwumped onto the floor. "When I want to sleep in a clean bed, you know."

"Uh…sure, okay," Elsa managed. Her objective of not accidentally guilting Anna into helping her clean seemed to be a rousing success, but she'd been given so much more information to parse in such a short time. "My bed's fine…go ahead."

"Thanks, Elsa," Anna said, clambering to her feet. She gave Elsa a quick peck on the cheek as she walked past her. "I'll pay you back for this, I promise."

Elsa's hand went to her cheek. "You just did," she said under her breath.

As Anna headed out the door, Elsa snapped out of it. "Wait, is there anywhere I shouldn't-" she called.

The door swung shut.

Elsa sighed. "Right, then." She turned around to face the herculean task before her.

It was a mess of a far different character from the basement. While that had been a flat, consistent carpet of junk, this was akin to a junk volcano, with a mountain of detritus centered around the bed. Her cleaning agent would be useless if she couldn't find an open surface to spray it on. Even if Anna had stuck around to help, there was hardly any room for the both of them to move around. Besides having her remain in bed and just nudge stuff around, what else would even be viable?

Looking for a place to start, she settled on the trash can in the corner. Currently it was overflowing, but upon closer inspection, the lion's share of the volume was taken up by cardboard and styrofoam takeout containers. Elsa placed her fists on the top of the pile, then slowly descended from a standing position to a kneeling one. Once she was done, there was plenty of open space in the can, though not nearly enough to house all the trash in the room.

Taking a closer look at the mess revealed it to be more heterogenous than it first appeared. Discarded articles of clothing were just about everywhere, but weighted more heavily towards the corner of the room, where a cracked plastic hamper sat half full, the pile of clothes around it a testament to both sloppy hygiene and poor aim. The nightstands to either side of the bed played home to a collection of cups and bowls, some plastic and some actual dishes she'd noticed the absence of from the cupboard. Interspersed with these dishes were a series of soda cans, beer cans, and cans of Chef Boyardee, which she picked out and set aside to be placed in the recycling bin as she threw away the trash surrounding them. Curiously, the later were completely clean on the inside – it seemed Anna was willing to wash out her empty soup cans, likely to prevent any issues arising with bugs.

Most telling, though, was the computer upon the desk. At first glance, it appeared just as out of place as the rest, with the monitor crooked, the CPU sticking out from underneath, and the gamepad and mouse on one of the nightstands. Closer examination, however, revealed a method to the madness. Visualizing herself lying in the bed, Elsa noted that the monitor was at the ideal angle for someone sitting against the headboard, the mouse scrolled just as smoothly on the stand as the unused mousepad, and the CPU was just in range to be turned on with one outstretched toe.

This was no typical Anna mess. This was a nest, with the intention of long-term occupancy.

How long has she been like this? Since before the crash, that's for sure.

How could Mom and Dad have let her end up like this? They'd been quite helpful and supportive when she herself had gone through a depressive phase. Then again, Anna had been there for her as well.

Well I'm here now. And there's not a chance in hell I'd leave before getting her out of this. Cleaning her room won't do that, but it's as good a first step as any.

The trash can was now three quarters full, and the mess on her general vicinity now contained mainly objects to be stored away rather than thrown out. She began scanning the furniture around her, looking for anything not immediately overflowing with clothing. Her eyes fell upon the nightstand nearest her, which contained two small drawers. The top one held such treasures as a "lockpick collection" – literally four paperclips bent straight and taped to a piece of cardboard – and other detritus Anna might get mad at her for throwing out. The bottom drawer held…magazines.

Elsa frowned. Of everything she'd seen so far, this was the most puzzling find. Since when had Anna ever read magazines? Even when they were little and didn't have smartphones, Anna wasn't much of a reader. Especially of such diverse titles as the Sears catalogue, Sports Illustrated, Women's Health, Men's Health –

The realization dawned on her, granting a fierce blush and a warmness in her face. She quickly slammed the drawer shut, then had a momentary panic Anna might have heard her.

So that's what she does when the internet's down, I guess. Well, I'm sure as hell not checking what's in the other nightstand.

She tried to return to the cleanup operation, but of course now her concentration was shot. Her mind, seemingly of its own accord, started trying to analyze the collection from the small glimpse she'd gotten of it. As a whole, it was…egalitarian, it could be said, but the top of the stack had been more skewed towards women, and the models were-

I'm sorry, what the fuck is this? One moment you're trying to figure out how to help Anna, and the next you're distracted thinking about her libido? If that isn't fucking typical for you.

Elsa hung her head in shame. She clenched her fist tight, digging her nails into her palm. After a few seconds of simply registering the pain, she returned to the business of cleaning, with one hand this time. Despite herself, she still had a job to do. The pain was helpful in that it cleared her mind.

I will help you through this, Anna. No matter what happens, I'm not going to just leave you here, alone and miserable.

Only I deserve that.

Elsa's room was, somehow, cleaner now than it had been while she was away. That was irksome.

Anna walked around Elsa's room, feeling like a coal miner in a ballroom. She had indeed slept in this room once in a while, not just to experience anew the joys of a clean bed and visible floor, and thus was able to pick up on subtle hints that its previous occupant had returned. The bedsheets were freshly washed and starched, a phone charger and laptop now adorned the desk, and the collection of crime novels on the bookshelf had doubled in size. Overall, though, it was just as clean as the day she'd left it, leaving only two possible explanations: that Elsa had become even more fastidious in her absence, or had ceased all biological functions entirely.

Even peeking into the closet revealed little in the way of disorder. Her clothing, business or otherwise, was all neatly ironed and hung on an array of black hangers, with her suitcase tucked away in one corner.

Hang on.

On a hunch, Anna fished out the suitcase and cracked it open. She smiled.

Busted.

Of course, Elsa had fully unpacked her case the day of her arrival, but now it contained the roughly 5 percent of mess that she hadn't properly cleaned up. A few old linens, stuffed animals that didn't make the nostalgia cut – nothing huge, but it at least reassured Anna that even her sister was not the ultimate cleaning machine she appeared to be at times.

Also, it's good that the suitcase isn't even remotely packed. If it was, that would mean…

Anna quashed the thought, attempting to silence the rising unease in her stomach and achieving at least moderate success.

She's not leaving for at least a month, she said so herself. Want to get her to stay forever? Give her a good reason to.

She zipped the suitcase back up, then stowed it away exactly as she'd found it. She headed over to the bed and climbed into the sheets, but she was anything but drowsy now. She took a deep breath and focused on the herculean task before her.

Remember, this has to be genuine. If you just pretend to feel it just for her sake, she'll catch you in an instant. We're looking for real, honest feelings here.

So where did that leave her? Just looking back over two and a quarter decades of memories, trying to reevaluate exactly what she'd felt at every moment? How long would that take?

Well, journey of a thousand miles and all that.

She closed her eyes, put her hand to her forehead, touched her scar by mistake, repositioned her hand, and remembered.

Let's see. Back in sixth grade, Elsa helped me stand up to a bully I really didn't like, and I felt super warm inside. That one time in Girl Scouts, we did that back-to-back climb up a wall like in Emperor's New Groove, and I felt so full of adrenaline I thought I might explode. That one beach trip, we ended up in the showers together. Still wearing swimsuits, but the water was really cold and…

Five minutes later, she opened her eyes. "Well, that was a waste of time," she mumbled.

Across the few dozen memories she'd shuffled through in rapid succession, she hadn't learned a single new thing. Of all the emotions she'd felt, "consumed with lust" didn't seem to accurately describe any of them. Elsa was very good looking, and she enjoyed being with her – these two facts, she was already well aware of. So what was Elsa feeling that she wasn't?

Hmmm, now there's a better angle.

Anna rolled onto her side and started over.

Coming at this from the top down, hoping to unearth an epiphany lost to time, that was doomed to fail. She'd basically tried that as soon as Elsa left, looking back on all their interactions and seeing what she hadn't before. But she'd only viewed those moments through her own eyes, asking herself how she felt now, knowing what she did. Not once had she tried to see things from Elsa's point of view. She was, at the very least, somewhat capable of telling how her sister was feeling at any given moment. So why not put that to good use?

She pulled the blankets in tighter around herself, truly nestling herself into Elsa's bed. She thought of Elsa's headspace, all rules and barriers with a dark secret underneath, and tried to go there herself. She breathed deep, and tried to hear, see, and think as Elsa did.

See her how she sees me, she thought, a smile unconsciously forming on her face. See her how she sees me.