Author's Notes: Elsa is a failure as a bartender. She can't even make a Long Island iced tea right.

First-person POV. Set during, and just after Vagrants.

I can't do this.

The boys at the counter have started leering, and that means Anna's outside again.

I've been keeping behind the counter, safely out of sight, and Kristoff's started going about his work with his lips pressed together in that tight little line. He sends me equally tight looks when he catches my eye, and when he knows I'm pretending not to.

"Kristoff – "

"Yeah, I got it."

I don't even nod at him. I duck out the back door, fingers fumbling with my pocket for that packet of cigarettes I bought last week. There's a lighter in my other pocket, I think – I only picked up the habit recently, I haven't gotten it down to a routine yet.

The lighter makes it out of my pocket, but it slips through my shaky fingers and skitters into a corner.

I don't even swear. I'm terrified she'll hear it. Somehow.

My fingers brush something soft that moves. "Shit – "

It's not a rat. It's a kitten. It looks like it could have been white once upon a time.

It has blue eyes.

Bitterness floods my mouth as I chew on the still-unlit cigarette. Anna's eyes aren't blue, but mine are.

"Cool. Literally. Y'know, like ice? Bcause your eyes are ice-blue?"

I'm biting my lip hard. Stupid. I'm the one who did this to myself, to us. I don't have the right to be bitter over what's past.

"Go on," I mumble, nudging the kitten with my shoe. It stumbles off.

The cigarette's still in my mouth, the end mostly pulp. I bin it before going back in. I never liked smoking anyway.

Kristoff bustles over. "You can go back to work now," he says, not looking at me, "she's gone."

"She's gone?"

"That's what I said." He looks like he's about to say more, but then his mouth snaps shut, and he walks away.

"Oh." I plow through the rest of my shift mechanically, pulling beers and putting together drinks. A Long Island iced tea (the first of the night) gets sent back for being too sweet. I don't remember the proper recipe, and Kristoff has to make it (which he does with his back to me). "Not so much cola next time."

"Okay."

She doesn't come back the next day, or the day after.

I should be glad. Kristoff's stopped giving me those tense looks, and everything can go back to the way it was before.

Except… I don't remember how before used to be like. Time is split between Belle and Anna, and marked by the absence of both. I'd rather die than let another girl in to count the years of my life by.