Chapter Eight

It had been a heat of the moment kind of thing when she decided to be a teacher, and Elsa was reminded again just why she never did things during the heat of the moment. She had bribed Principal Weselton with the promise of huge donations, she had called up the school board and cajoled, demanded, threatened. Now that she was starting the school year in a week's time, she was reminded that she knew nothing about being a high school teacher.

How could she, when she never had the proper training, and had never even set foot into a high school before?

English should be an easy language to teach, right? She only spoke it every single day. She had studied the mandatory literature. It shouldn't be too hard to convert what she knew into lesson plans, right?

She had no idea how to write lesson plans, and seriously considered running headfirst into the trunk of the tree nearest to the park bench she was currently sitting on.

It was a beautiful day. She had taken the time to walk down main street, looking with fondness at the familiar shops, and with interest at those not familiar. After checking through the window to see that Kristoff was at the counter, she had even gone into his café to grab a coffee and a cookie. The cookie was palm-sized, and now it sat snugly inside her stomach along with the éclair and fruit tart and brownie she had been unable to resist buying as well.

People were taking advantage of the day as well. Families were picnicking out on the grass. Someone had started a ball game that had people of all ages and from different families joining. She was surprised that she knew some of them. Ivan McDonald was at the bat now, with young Ben Terry on second – who had been a ten-year-old when Elsa had left- and old Ben Terry – the boy's uncle - on third. In the field was Nick Wilde, who was instructing a couple of wide-eyed, ecstatic boys, no doubt on the finer points of being a fielder. Elsa watched as the ball connected with a wild swing of Ivan's arms, and people began shouting and laughing as the ball soared high with one of the boys tearing after it. It was flung back with almost savage brutality as Ivan rounded the bases and headed single-mindedly for home, where a burly Ralph was guarding the plate. The collision made Elsa look away.

"Safe!" called the umpire, and on cue shouts went up and people began arguing about the call. Children and dogs ran in to join the excitement.

She had missed this, she realized with a jolt. Missed the life in a small town. She sat and watched, her notes forgotten for the time being, as men, young and old alike, went nose-to-nose with each other with vows of retribution; and with some surprise found that the drama made her feel relaxed and slightly amused. There were changes in the town, yes; but the old community spirit was still the same.

"Having second thoughts about starting school next week, huh?" said a voice, and she looked up into a mane of fiery, bushy hair.

Then again, she reminded herself, this was also a part of life in a small town. You ran into people you didn't want to see all the time.

"Hi Merida." She said flatly, a little surprised that the other woman had greeted her with words, and not with a fist. The Merida she had known from before would have punched first, and second and third, then only maybe would go around to the questions.

She was acutely aware that she was clad in a crumpled floral dress, with a wide-brimmed hat to ward off the sun – she loved the sun as any sane human being, but her skin burned too easily. Her hair was in a messy bun, and she was sans make-up as she had only wanted to be alone with her lesson-planning when she left her apartment for the park. The notebooks and papers and highlighters and color pencils were littering the rest of the bench.

Merida was in a simple t-shirt and jeans, and looked magnificent. There had been a period of time when she had tried to tame her wild mane of hair, but she had grown out of that phrase now, and those glorious curls tumbled everywhere. Her body was slender and firm from all the hiking, swimming, riding Elsa was sure she still loved.

Sven was with her, already sniffing with interest at the pencils on the bench. When Elsa reached out to retrieve them, he gave her fingers a wet lick, yapped, wagged his tail, and tried to clamber up her knees into her lap. That brought out the old yearning for a dog of her own. A wish that was sadly unfulfilled first because Adgar had been allergic to dogs, then because her apartment in the city did not allow pets.

"He's friendly." She said, scratching the pup under a furry chin and sending the pup into raptures.

"He's a poor judge of character." Merida said.

Elsa's head snapped up. "Look, if you're here to give me grief about what happened, do it and be quick. I will allow you the first slap or punch or whatever, because I think I deserve it. Anything after that and I'll be suing you for harassment and emotional distress."

"I'll keep that in mind." Merida retorted with a glare that met Elsa's own. Sven, oblivious to the tension, managed to pull himself into Elsa's lap, and licked the woman's chin happily. Elsa's eyes softened as she cuddled the pup to her, and she didn't notice that Merida's eyes had softened too.

"What's this?" Merida stooped, came back up with a piece of paper covered in tiny handwriting so neat that Merida wouldn't be surprised if it had been typewritten.

"Give that back!" with the pup in her lap, Elsa was hampered, and Merida easily skipped out of her reach as she leisurely began reading out loud.

"Good morning everyone. My name is Miss Elsa Arendelle and I will be your English teacher for this year…" Merida gaped, scanned the rest of the text quickly, before looking up to see Elsa's flushed face. "This is your lesson plan? You wrote out your entire lesson? What are you… are you planning on memorizing it and reciting it entirely to your students? Did you do the same for the meetings you attended in that big company in the big city?"

"That's none of your business." Elsa said primly, but the blush was crimson and a dead giveaway.

"Your students will hate you. As will their parents. Why are you even a teacher when you obviously know nothing about being one?" Merida said bluntly. She remembered the shy teenage Elsa Arendelle, stammering through a greeting when their gang had surprised her with a birthday party. And here she was, the young Elsa superimposed onto this older Elsa. She was just as scared, just as insecure, only now she had learned to hide it better.

Merida hated it when Kristoff was right.

"You don't need this." She handed Elsa the paper, huffed out a breath. "Look, being a teacher isn't about getting your point across. It's about communication. You can't recite an entire lesson and that's it. You need to interact with your students. The first day is kinda important if you want to have a good impression on them. So instead of this…" she pointed to the paper, "you just relax. Begin the class by introducing yourself. You're just talking, conversing. Get the kids to talk back by asking them to introduce themselves. You'll know some of their families, so establish some connections by asking them how it's going with their families. And after that, since it's language you're teaching, ask them to use the remaining time to write a short essay on anything about themselves, to be handed in by the end of the class. So there's your first class with the time well-spent, and you get to know your students and can gauge their command of the language from their writing. Now that doesn't sound too bad, does it?" Merida shrugged.

Elsa looked stunned. "That's… that's actually very helpful. Thank you." She hesitated. "Why are you doing this, Merida?"

"I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing this for your students."

Elsa peered curiously at her. "Whatever the case, I thank you, Merida."

Merida gave a short nod, and debated with herself. Subtlety was not her strong point, and she had been dying to know anyway. She looked closely at Elsa's face, and asked. "How's Eric?"

Elsa looked up at her, confused. "Eric?" she blinked, "How do you know Eric?"

"I don't. I know his girl, that's all." Merida said, still looking at Elsa closely. The other woman looked even more confused.

"You know Ariel? She never mentioned knowing you. They're both fine, on their honeymoon in Germany."

"I see." And Merida did see, quite clearly now. "And how's Adam? And Phillip?"

"Adam…? Belle's Adam? I don't… why are you asking about the men in my friends' lives? How did you even know them? And which Phillip did you mean? My friend Aurora's Phillip, or that big client my father's company is…" Elsa stopped, the comprehension trembling into her eyes as she stared at Merida. Merida watched as the emotions chased each other across her face; anger, sadness, hurt.

"Which one of them did Hans say is my boyfriend? Or was he being creative by saying I'm juggling all three of them at once?" she said tiredly, looking down instead at the puppy in her lap.

"Oh he didn't make it that interesting. He needed to make it realistic, not interesting. So no, not all at once. Phillip was that guy who swept you off your feet within that same month you left River's End. Quite a romantic affair when he asked you out, with flowers and candlelight dinner at the most expensive restaurant in town, with life music playing in the background. He could afford it after all, being the heir to some fabulously rich guy. It was love at first sight, apparently."

"Apparently." Elsa said bitterly.

"Then you dumped him in your third year of college and took it up with Ariel, student assistant of your Human Resource class, which you were failing. But then you couldn't really make up your mind which team you wanna go after, so a year after getting together with Ariel – after you passed the subject, of course - you broke it off and took up Adam. Tall, muscular, star quarterback of your college football team, with that really fearsome nickname of The Beast, because of both his powers on the field, and his stamina and size in bed – oops, Hans was so sorry he let that bit of information slipped, especially when Anna had been in the room too. As of two years ago until now, it was supposed to be Rich Guy Eric, royalty or related to royalty – Hans wasn't sure which - whom you met in the gym down the street where you live." Merida crossed her arms. "You led quite a busy life, apparently."

"Apparently. Is this why everyone is so mad at me? Because I'm not just a coward, a terrible friend, a heartbreaker, but also a user of both man and woman alike?" Tears welled up, and Elsa rubbed them away angrily. She had thought she had no tears left; but knowing the hurt Anna must have gone through tore her up from the inside. "And Anna believed it. Believed that I replaced her so easily, just dismissed her and everything we had together the instance I left. Wasn't Hans Anna's friend? Why did he hurt her like that?"

"You weren't here. And you left so suddenly, so sloppily. What else could she, or any of us, could have believed?" Merida said. "You replaced Anna, and you replaced us, too. Hans mentioned a bunch of new friends, and told us not to worry about you. We were angry, because you had new friends while you cut the rest of us off, and because you kept in touch with Hans, but not with any of us. We thought… we didn't know what to think."

"You thought I kept in touch with Hans because he was rich, and the son of the town mayor. He was more important than the rest of you. You thought I renounced you because I had nothing to gain from you." Elsa said.

Merida shook her head. "What else could we have thought? You weren't here to refute anything Hans said. We couldn't contact you. It was a logical explanation, and when Hans slowly pushed us toward that direction with his stories every time he came back for a visit, it became the only explanation. He manipulated us." The anger was boiling up into fury now. "He won't do it again. As for you, things would have been so much easier for everyone if you'd bothered to keep in touch." She eyed Elsa, balling her fist. "You said one punch. I've waited years for this. Are you ready to take it like a woman?"

Elsa swallowed the tears, faced the redhead defiantly, and simply came undone when the fist made contact with her cheek softly, a gentle nudge along her cheekbone. For a moment Merida held her gaze, then she sighed and used that fist to gently knuckle away a stray tear.

And now Merida sat down, pushed aside the stationery on the bench, and gathered Elsa up into a hug. "There now, lass. Don't cry anymore. I'm sorry."

"I was so stupid." Elsa pressed her face into Merida's shoulder, shutting her eyes tight against the tears. Hans betrayal had made angry tears well up; but Merida's one action made her want to bawl her eyes out. She didn't know how much she had missed Merida until now.

"You believed in him. So did we. So we learn from our mistakes. He won't like it the next time he comes back." In typical Merida fashion, she was already planning the amount of hurt to be dealt out. "We will start with itchy powder in his socks. Toothpaste in his Oreos. Laxatives in his tea. And then… acid, I believe, is the answer. We'll pour it over that face he's so proud of. See how he likes it."

Elsa gave a little laugh. "Oh, Merida. I've missed you."

"Aye, I know lass. Who won't miss me?" Merida bumped her head gently against Elsa's when Elsa chuckled weakly. "I've missed you, too."