a/n: there's maybe like 4-6 chapters at most after this. we'll get through this is what im saying i know im shitty i know

xxxXxxx

The headaches start a couple days after she meets with Tiana. They aren't like the ones she got when she was close to fizzing out; these are different, more harsh and pronounced and probably from the constant sound filtering into her head.

But she gets a real bad one at work and ends up sitting on the toilet hugging her knees in a bathroom stall. She was trying to write an article, but at some point she couldn't hear her own thoughts over everyone else's. Someone down the hall got a promotion and someone else was excited about their new lawn mower. Half the cafeteria thinks the new lunch special is disgusting, and there's at least three coworkers that thinks she looks like shit today.

Anna can hear it all.

Elsa made it seem so simple, like she could just control it if she wanted to, but it's getting more chaotic by the day. Her head's like a symphony without a conductor, and everyone's playing a different song at the loudest possible level. It's worse than fizzing out or anything else she's ever felt. So she sneaks out of work early and emergency calls Elsa and Elsa does this thing where she touches Anna's head and it turns the volume down.

"You'll have to learn to do this on your own," Elsa says.

Anna says, I know, and she's not quite sure if she actually said it or if it was a projection. And then she feels Elsa's sadness, actually feels it, and it's so overwhelming on top of everything else that it makes her nauseous.

"Elsa can you go back to blocking?"

"I am blocking," Elsa says slowly, "...best as I know how. You're just a lot stronger now. And we're bonded, so when we touch things are more intense. I can't block hard enough for you not to feel anything. I'm sorry."

Anna tries not to think anything negative, doesn't want to hurt Elsa's feelings. But she misses being able to have silence. She misses feeling normal and not having headaches. She misses the way her life used to be.

And while she's sure she'd never want to lose Elsa, she's not sure how much longer she can deal with this.

x

She gets fired two days later.

Okay, she doesn't actually get fired, per se. But she gets put on mandatory leave until she takes a mandatory high-level psychic training class. Because her new record indicates she's well above a 6 with no psychic training to show for it.

She wants to be pissed about it—because she's positive it was Tiana who changed her record, and she's positive it was Tiana that brought it up to HR, and she's positive it was Tiana that suggested putting her on leave—but she can't be, because she knows Tiana was just doing her job. And when they were out for lunch, Anna accidentally listened to the waitress's thoughts on three separate occasions and projected half their conversation. So, while she was pouring her heart out about her messed up situation, Tiana was probably considering how much of a liability she is. And then she got back to work and barely lasted half the day and basically proved how much of a liability she is, so... Tiana isn't wrong. She's right, she's undeniably right.

But Anna's still actively avoiding her calls and emails and text messages (all seventeen unread text messages), because every time she thinks about the fact that Tiana took away her job, her happy place, she gets fucking pissed at Tiana all over again. And she can't be pissed at Tiana, she can't can't can't. Because she knows Tiana's just doing her fucking job.

"— and today's exercise was to show that..." Sarabi pauses mid-sentence at the front of the class and turns her head to look directly at Anna. "I'm sorry Anna, but if you project again I'll have to put you in the time-out helmet."

And then there's this, the fact that the class she has to take is with seven-year-olds. Because that's apparently the age people normally get their mandatory high-level psychic training and the only other options are out of the country.

She's barely made it to the end of her first day here, and she's already over the whole thing. She's normally a happy person, personable, goes with the flow and all that. She really is, but she's been like a volcano lately and this isn't helping. She needed her job, she needed animals and nature and photography and writing. She needed her friends. She needed to be good at something. And instead she has this—psychic training with kids half her height.

"I think she's really, really upset, Ms. S," some kid named Olaf says, and Anna rolls her eyes. He's projected he likes hugs at least six different times to the class, and he's not in trouble.

"It's okay for Olaf to let us know he likes hugs," Sarabi says. "It's not okay for you to use profanity, spoken or projected."

That's not fair at all; it's not like she's doing it on purpose, not like she wants to share her personal thoughts.

Sarabi's a nice enough teacher, she gets that, but Anna's... struggling to do half the crap these kids can do and it's kind of like pouring acid on her already open wounds.

"Why is it you can hear everything I think?" Anna asks, voice wavering embarrassingly. Deep down she knows she doesn't want to be this upset, but she can't help it. She can't turn it off and it makes her feel helpless. And feeling helpless just makes her upset all over again, vicious fucking — freaking — cycle.

Sarabi sighs heavily, and it makes Anna wish her emotions weren't stuck on being stupid right now so she could at least try and get her shit together. "We can hear your thoughts because the stronger you feel something, the louder you think it. At least until you figure out how to control it. I know you didn't get to take the training classes, but surely you've developed a way to cope with the emotions over the years?"

"Um." Anna's not exactly sure what to say. They had to provide some reason for why Anna needed to join a training class at twenty. And since they couldn't very well explain that Anna made a psychic leap, Elsa made up a story about there being a mix-up on the paperwork for Anna's ability testing—and that's why she was never enrolled in the proper training classes as a kid. The only problem is that there's virtually never a mix up, so the story is shitty, and it's already falling apart. "Yeah, but I'm not very good at it. Obviously."

"Oh." Sarabi frowns deeply and then opens her mouth to say something else but, thankfully, Squirt stands on his chair and cuts in—

"My dad says emotions are like the current, you gotta let 'em flow. Right, Ms. S?"

"Yes, that's very good advice, but we sit in the chairs, not stand on them" Sarabi says, turning to focus her attention on Squirt.

As soon as she does, Olaf is out of his chair and walking over to Anna. He's wearing a red avengers t-shirt with blue sweatpants, brown hair styled in a faux hawk. Anna supposes if she needs to make friends, he isn't the worst she can do. "Why is that person being mean to you? She sounds like a bully."

Apparently Anna's the new hub for social interaction, because Lilo joins them on her other side to let them know that, "Nani says bullies are only bullies if you let them be."

Which is just bad advice, Anna thinks. Maybe it was stupid of her to bring up stuff that she was supposed to keep secret, but she thought she could trust Tiana. She just wanted to confide in a friend; it's unfair to blame her for that. "No, that's just victim blaming. Bullies are bullies because they want to be."

"Yeah, okay," Lilo says, and then she stares wide-eyed, in silence, at Anna for at least five seconds before she shrugs. "There's a bully in my dance class named Mertle. She's mean to me, so I play pranks on her."

"Oh," Olaf exclaims, raising his hand in the air like he wants Anna to call on him. "I know, we should play a prank on her."

"I don't know," Anna says, like pranks are an actual consideration. "I mean she could've just fired me. But she didn't."

"Oh." Olaf puts his hand on his chin, seven-year-old brain obviously working overtime for a solution, then his eyes light up when he's finally got it. Anna doesn't even have to guess, pretty sure the entire class can hear him projecting about hugs again. "I can give you a hug, and maybe it'll make it better."

"Sure," Anna says. After all she's already lost everything she has to lose, and Olaf's apparently a hug aficionado. "But you have to promise me it's the best hug you're ever going to give."

"Every hug is the best hug," Olaf laughs, and then he wraps his arms around her waist, and... it's the first full-on contact Anna's had since her psychic ability increased.

She acutely aware of that, because as soon as Olaf touches her, she's in his head. In his head, like in his head. She can practically see with his eyes and hear with his ears and discern his thoughts so thoroughly that they're almost hard to separate from her own. It's almost too much, Anna's never felt anything like it, but the one thing keeping her from pulling away is that Olaf is so... soothing. He only has happy thoughts, nice and warm and inviting, and he was right. It feels like every hug from him would be the best hug.

Which is just... great, really. The only way she'll ever control her emotions is if she kidnaps Olaf or has a kid of her own.

x

Two days later it all goes downhill during her second class session.

She's partnered up with her good friends Olaf and Lilo for a projection exercise, when her frustration decides it's a good time to kick in again. It's just that Olaf and Lilo get the exercise right away, and she's been failing at it for the past ten minutes. In fact she can tell the whole class has moved on to something new and she's holding her group back like a huge idiot.

And she... She can feel herself spiraling, feels worse than she did after she first woke up in Honey's office. She tries to not fight the emotion, or let it flow or whatever the advice was, and after a minute she can sort of sense it—feels like something is flowing through her, feels like maybe it's working.

But when she looks up Olaf's scrunching up his face and pressing his hands hard against his ears. There's complete silence all around her so she's not sure why he's doing that, until she feels the sting from her ankle bracelet. Until the sound filters back into the room and she hears her thundering heartbeat echoing through her eardrums. Until Sarabi glides from her desk to Anna's chair in seemingly one step and puts the helmet on her head.

Shit.

x

"You're too unstable for the kids," Sarabi starts off with, and her voice is incredibly caring despite it being obvious she's telling Anna she messed up. "I don't want to take you out of this course, but I need you to be honest with me.

"I haven't lied to you," Anna lies.

"I'm a 9.5, Anna. I've heard every thought you've had since you entered my classroom."

Anna frowns. "That's a bit invasive, isn't it?"

"Not particularly," Sarabi says. "You're twenty-one in a class for seven-year-olds. You also somehow used to have a high-level job at a prominent magazine, but you can barely write a sentence on a paper without projecting it. This hasn't been an issue people have simply tolerated, this is a brand new issue."

"Um..." Anna's really a recipe for disaster, how's she supposed to keep a secret if she can't stop telling everyone everything she's thinking. "I, uh... yes. It's a new problem, but not sure what brought it on."

"Okay, if that's what you want to go with." Sarabi takes in a sharp breath and looks Anna over for what feels like an eternity. "I just need to know that whatever is going on isn't illegal."

"Illegal?"

"Obviously something serious happened, and you don't want to talk about it. It's also obvious you're lying. I just can't piece together the real story from your thoughts yet."

"Maybe because you're not supposed to be listening to them," Anna says defensively. If she weren't wearing the stupid helmet she'd have some real mean projections to shoot Sarabi's way. "I really don't think that's okay to do."

"You're highly sensitive," Sarabi says, instead of acknowledging she was wrong. She taps her fingers on the desk and stares at Anna for a really long time again. "It's extremely rare to see someone so sensitive—so my first thought is it could maybe be psychological, but amplified by your ability level and lack of training. I'm still not sure how you skirted under the bus for so long, but I'm almost positive your recent spike in emotion dysregulation is due to some sort of physical or emotional trauma."

That's one way to put it. "Um."

"But after a lifetime of successful regulation," she continues, "...it would seem that you went through a serious trauma. This level of dysregulation is usually associated with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. You don't have to tell me what it was if you're uncomfortable, but did you go through something traumatic?"

Well, Anna guesses there's the fact that her mind got stretched beyond comprehension, she nearly died, and was in a coma for two weeks. She doesn't really have flashbacks, doesn't know how the mind works or if she's processing it as trauma. But if she's not supposed to be experiencing this many problems with her emotions, maybe it signals that she has some sort of brain damage. Maybe she didn't come out of this unscathed.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." Anna toys with the idea of taking the helmet off, because it's not like she has a lot to lose. But last time she opened up to someone she got fucked over. "Can you help me?"

"Of course I can," Sarabi says quickly. "If you take the helmet off, I'll show you."

And she just sounds so caring, Anna takes it off immediately. Before any of the outside noise can filter into her head, Sarabi grabs her hand. And Anna's mind goes silent, like more silent than it is in the helmet—she can't hear anything. She can't hear anything. Because if it's not her emotions being amplified, it's everyone on the street, or the neighbor next door, or the cashier or the waitress, and it's all so overwhelming. But right now it's just her thoughts, her normal thoughts at a manageable level.

"Now tell me what happened at work?"

"I can't," Anna says, but she's already thinking about it. And if she's thinking about it, she might as well talk about it. Sometimes her thoughts or even louder than her words. "I just... I told my boss I was having a hard time, and then she went behind my back and I'm basically fired."

Anna clenches her teeth together for the inevitable wave of frustration, but instead she feels it at a normal level. She grabs Sarabi's hand with both of hers and just sits in it. Takes in deep breaths, and enjoys feeling normal for a second.

She can talk about it. "Tiana isn't a bad person, and I know that. I just have... felt like shit lately, and work is the only place I feel happy or feel like I belong. And I don't think she understands that, because if she did she wouldn't have done it." Anna pauses, genuinely in awe. She feels good. "How are you doing this? Why am I not going insane?"

Sarabi shifts her hands so that she's cupping both of Anna's between hers. "There's so much dissonance happening with you, Anna. You're bonded? I hadn't noticed before because everything is so muffled beneath your emotions. But, dissonance... that makes things a bit different."

"Good different?"

"Actually, yes." Sarabi smiles, small and comforting. "Dissonance happens normally after a concussion. Everything gets amplified and your mind is struggling to get back to a normal place. You get intense headaches, mood swings, everything associated with a concussion—but at your ability level it's just so much worse. The good news is it's treatable; a lot easier to work with than PTSD. The bad news is... with dissonance symptoms you're too dangerous for the children. We'll have to find you somewhere else to get help."

That's good to know about the help, but Anna needs the course, needs it or she can't go back to work. It needs to go on her file. She doesn't have it on her file. Shit.

"I'm sorry," Sarabi says, so strained that Anna's heart breaks. "I can't let you back into the course until you get your head taken care of. But I promise there's a spot for you as soon as you're better."

xXx

Anna's mostly numb on her uber ride home, but she's tearing up by the time she makes it to Elsa's apartment door. She can't take anymore. She can't can't can't, and she knows one-hundred percent this whole thing is her fault and maybe she deserves everything coming her way, but. She just needs a break. She just needs one break, that's all she needs. One week, or even just a day, where she doesn't feel like she's getting punched in the face by every part of her life.

She keeps trying to wipe away her tears or will them to stop, but every time she blinks there're more. She can feel the tug at her lip that signals she's seconds away from full-on crying. And she can't stop thinking about how shitty she's been making Elsa feel, how she's still making her feel shitty with her crying and complaining, and she knows Elsa is trying. She knows everyone around her is trying, even Sarabi and Tiana, but she's—

"You're projecting to the entire building," Elsa says, and Anna hadn't even realized the door opened, but now she's being pulled inside. Elsa's hand is the only thing keeping her from making the weird hyperventilating sounds that happen when she sobs. "You're okay. It's okay. You're just having a bad week."

Shit. "No, Elsa. I'm having a bad life," Anna says, and she sounds so broken even to herself.

Which is why it's weird when Elsa starts smiling, except she puts her hands over Anna's ears and helps calm everything down. With things getting quieter, Anna can hear other thoughts filtering into her head from the apartments around them. At first she tries to block them out, but then she realizes they're sort of comforting. There're loads of them, but none of them are too loud or over-powering. It's almost soothing, enough that Anna starts tuning in to individual thoughts and... huh. "Elsa, people are telling me it's okay."

"I know, it's pretty cool. You have to be above a 6.5 to live in this building," Elsa says, still smiling. "It's partially why I told you come back to my apartment today instead of yours. Happens every other month—someone comes home drunk or gets broken up with or has great sex, and the whole building hears about it. We look out for each other. I thought it'd be a good environment for you."

Anna puts her hands over Elsa's and closes her eyes, listens in to everything around her. Between Elsa and the rest of the building things are starting to feel a little more manageable. But, like, okay. She knows it takes a village or whatnot, but she can't keep relying on other people to get her through basic emotions.

It's a little bittersweet thinking about her regulation, but Anna's also in Elsa's home.

For the first time she's in Elsa's home. And Elsa's touching her and not blocking and sharing emotions and parts of herself she's never shared with Anna. And this whole time Anna's filtering in and out other thoughts and... she's not fizzing. There's so much going on and she's taking it in comfortably without fizzing. Maybe she's having a hard time getting regulation down, but she's not dying anymore.

That's important. Anna knows that's really important for Elsa. She's probably been waiting so long for this moment.

After another few seconds Anna feels Elsa runs her thumbs over her cheeks and she opens her eyes. Elsa just sort of smiles for a minute, and it's enough to let Anna know that she's right, without Elsa having to comment on her thoughts or admit she's listening to them.

"There's something I want to show you," Elsa finally says, "I really think you'll like it."

She lets go of Anna's head to grab her hand, and then she speed walks them toward a room in the back of her apartment. When she opens the door there's no furniture inside, but there're weird black squares all over the walls around the room and an advanced looking electronic panel on the wall next to the door. Elsa shuts the door behind them and then lets go of her hand to stand next to the panel.

"I work in insulation," she says, and Anna isn't sure what that means, but it probably has something to do with the wall things. "We do research on ways to contain psychic energy. Which mostly involves testing insulation stuff all day—which is great because I spend most of the day trying not to hear anything."

Oh, oh fun. This is the first time she's learning about Elsa's job. "So what's it mostly used for?"

Elsa folds her arms across her chest and smiles awkwardly, like she's unsure when she talks about herself. "We've been working with a lot of super psychic mental health facilities. They needed a way to insulate rooms and buildings so that psychic energy couldn't penetrate the walls—in or out—or flow inside the room. It was tough, but we finally figured out a good solution, and I thought... this is perfect."

Anna snorts. "Did you steal all of this from work Elsa?"

And Elsa's laugh bursts out of her, warm and pretty. "I invented it. It's my intellectual property, I figured I could have it."

"That's not how it works," Anna says, playfully.

Elsa smiles, big and happy and presses a button on the wall. "No, this is how it works."

The first thing Anna registers is that she can't hear or feel anything. The second thing she registers is Elsa running over to hug her. And she doesn't jump into her mind. She doesn't get lost in her thoughts. She doesn't feel her feelings. She just feels Elsa, warm and soft and inviting, smells like spring flowers and happiness.

Anna squeezes her arms around Elsa's waist, so tight that it's hard for her to get a good breath in. This is amazing. "I'm sorry I've been such a brat lately," she says, nuzzling her nose into the crook of Elsa's neck. "I don't mean to upset or offend you when like, when I'm going through stuff."

Elsa doesn't respond for a long time, and it's sort of unsettling—but then she pulls away just enough to sit on the floor and pull Anna with her. Anna settles comfortably between her legs, with her shoulder leaned against Elsa's chest and Elsa's arms around her. Elsa's still silent for a few more seconds, but then she says, "Less than one-percent of the world's population tests above a seven, Anna. Most people can't even fathom what it's like being such a high level, and your mind is being forced to experience it. It's okay that you feel overwhelmed, it's not offensive."

Anna presses her forehead against Elsa's cheek and pulls her hand into her lap so she can play with Elsa's fingers. It's been such a long time since she could just touch Elsa. "Sarabi thinks I have a concussion, and I think she's right. Like, it wasn't a physical hit, but things definitely got shaken around up there."

"That makes sense, has she worked with concussions before?"

Anna shrugs. "Maybe, but she wants me to find a specialist."

Elsa pulls her in closer with one hand and locks their fingers together with the other. "It can't be that hard considering the amount of athletes and professional teams in Arendelle. There's probably loads of specialists."

Which is true, Anna knows that. It's not exactly the end of the world, but it may be the end of her career. "Yeah, it's just... I'm too dangerous to continue with the class. At least until I get everything worked out."

"That's reasonable," Elsa says softly.

"I know, but." Anna swallows and tries to take her time with this. She's gone through enough emotions for one day. "At work Tiana made it an issue of me not having a training certificate. I still need that class to go back to work. I just feel like if I'm out for months or maybe even a year... there won't be a job waiting for me."

"I know you love your job, but this is your—"

"I know," Anna interrupts. "I have the right priorities. It's just hard preparing to not have my dream job anymore."

"Hey, it's okay." Elsa shifts so that her lips are pressed against Anna's forehead. And Anna's a bit grateful for the room, because her heart is definitely beating faster. "Once we get this figured out we can figure anything else out. We can do anything we want, or go anywhere we want."

"Like where?"

"Anywhere, anywhere we want. I think I'd prefer some place cold. I love cold weather, always found it comforting." Elsa's soft, soft lips are rubbing against her forehead with each word, and Anna can't think straight. "Some place that's just cold year round."

And Elsa's opening up about what she likes and what she finds comforting. Anna's heart is exploding.

It's just... It's weird, but every time she learns something new about Elsa, she somehow likes—maybe loves—her even more. And she's aware it's the bond—aware that her mind takes to Elsa more the more she knows about her. It's why the force-bonding special had the warning about victims getting to know their abusers. It's why old bonded couples are so completely in tune and in sync with everything. Because when you know every single thing about a person it becomes nearly impossible to not love them, so—oh.

Oh.

An anvil drops inside Anna.

Because she's known this the whole time. She's been aware of this all along. But what she's never put together is that the one person that probably knows her better than she knows herself is Elsa. She's never processed the fact that Elsa knows all her secrets and her memories, and her fears and hopes and dreams and dumb, sappy fucking thoughts. Elsa knows absolutely everything about her, so while Anna's been going on and on about how much she's into Elsa she's completely missed the fact that... she probably means the whole entire universe to Elsa at this point.

It's probably been that way definitely since she moved in, and maybe even since the hospital room. And Anna's just missed it.

"We can go some place cold," Anna says. She sort of wants to go on a sap-fest about how much she appreciates Elsa, but it's a lot harder to do verbally than it is to have Elsa listen to her thoughts. "A while ago I said I wanted to make you happy, and I'm still sticking by that."

Elsa leans forward like she's trying to curl her entire body around Anna. "I'm sorry I was so frustrating, but I wanted to give you a choice. I mean I know there isn't much of a choice in who you have to spend your life with, but I didn't want to take away—I wanted to let you choose to—if you wanted to love me."

It all makes sense now, it all makes so much sense. Elsa's been painfully aware of what happens if she lets Anna in. She's known the whole time. And maybe she's been blocking Anna out as a way to give her a chance to be independent, to let her develop her own feelings. Yeah, sure, Elsa's been afraid she might hurt Anna, but beneath that this whole thing has been about Anna's autonomy.

And that thought is kind of making it hard for Anna to breathe right now.

Anna sits up straight to look Elsa in the eyes. And then she looks down at her lips and back at her eyes again, and—Elsa kisses her.

She pushes in, fits their lips together and sucks a little. Anna squeezes her eyes shut, brain instantly blank. She relaxes her mouth enough that Elsa can lick across her lips, slip her tongue between them. And then she makes an embarrassing sound to make up for the embarrassing thoughts she can't project right now.

She feels like she's on fire from her head to her toes, kisses back eagerly. It's Elsa, Elsa's got her arm wrapped around her and she's kissing her mouth like she owns it, Elsa's teeth are biting into her bottom lip like she needs it. And she tastes—god, Anna's so glad Elsa can't hear her thoughts right now—but she tastes amazing. And sure, maybe mouths just taste like mouths, but Elsa's tastes like Elsa's. Like warm vanilla sugar and happiness. So pound cake, basically Elsa tastes like pound cake.

Anna presses in deeper, unlocks their hands so she can grip Elsa's arm. And then Elsa nibbles at her lip a bit harder than before, smiles big against Anna's mouth and says, "You know, I'm strong enough to still hear your thoughts while we're kissing in here." She laughs, loud and full of life. "Pound cake."