2019, somewhere in New England

Anna hears the words, but she doesn't really hear them.

"Do you, Anna Andersen, take this man, Jonathan Kemper, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and health, to love, honor and obey, in good times and woe, for richer or poorer, keeping yourself solely unto him for as long as you both shall live?"

Johnny looks down at her and smiles his hollow smile, the one he always gives her. It doesn't reach his eyes. It never does. She knows it never will.

How did she get here? What happened to her? Her ears are ringing, and she's suddenly painfully aware of the eyes of all sixty of their closest family and friends on them (what a joke - Anna knows, like, maybe a quarter of the guests well enough to have a conversation with them?). Their gazes bore into her until she feels like her skin is on fire.

"I," she starts, because she's been quiet for long enough now that it's strange. "I -"

She can see the hint of a frown setting in between Johnny's brows. Really? Here? Now? she can almost hear him say. Don't make a scene, Anna.

"I can't."

Anna runs.

xxx

Her mind is blind panic. She needs to find somewhere to go, to hide or lay low for a while until she can get her thoughts in order. Thinking things through has never really been her strong suit. But she's running out of time to think - the extra seconds she bought for herself with the element of surprise are quickly running out, and everyone will be out looking for her soon. The farmhouse where the ceremony was taking place is fairly remote, separated from the main road by a miles-long trail that cuts through picturesque fields.

Uber? No. Her phone is in Johnny's pocket. Shit. But the thought of Ubering away from her wedding is enough to make her giggle to herself as she runs - or, really, stumbles, now that the trail has pitched a bit downhill. There's no one here. She's so fucking stupid - what did she think was going to happen? She could just sprint away from responsibility and consequences and magically find a solution?

Then - Anna spots a flash of something metal - hears a low rumble - rounds a corner to see a car idling on the side of the trail. She can hear vehicles behind her and makes a split-second decision that amounts to Fuck it, guess today's the day to terrify a stranger and raps urgently on the car's driver's-side window.

She realizes then that she's looking at – oh, holy shit – the most beautiful girl she's ever seen in her life. Her breath escapes her for a moment. The woman inside the car jumps, drops the book she was holding. Startled eyes meet hers through the glass - electric blue, which Anna only has time to notice because for a moment, the woman inside just stares at her, wide-eyed. Anna knocks on the window again, tap tap tap-tap tap. The woman lowers the window slowly, looking cautious.

"Hi," Anna says breathlessly. "Um, I know this is really weird and I'm so sorry, but I really really need a ride out of here and I can pay you when we get back into town but I just really need a way to get home right now. Pleasepleaseplease I don't know what else I'll do if you say no please."

The woman's blank look of shock softens into something resembling curiosity and, perhaps, a wary concern, which makes sense. Anna is, after all, a woman in a wedding dress desperately begging for an escape.

"And I can explain this," Anna says, gesturing to her dress.

Her mystery savior pauses another moment to take her in, then nods. "Okay. Get in."

Really?! Maybe it's not actually such a great idea to get in the car of a stranger who so easily agrees to it. But that's a thought to deal with another time, when she isn't been actively chased by her previously betrothed. She squeals with relief and sprints to the other side of the car, clambering in, and the girl wastes no time in putting the car in drive and speeding away. In the rearview mirror Anna sees the faintest shadow of Johnny's father's Mercedes.

"Wow. Okay. There we go. That wasn't so hard." She lets in a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "I'm so sorry. And thank you."

"There's no need to be sorry. And you're welcome. Where am I taking you?"

"Um, I just need to get back to the main road for now and…I'll figure it out from there. Kinda playing it by ear," she says, with a humorless chuckle.

The woman nods. "We're about twenty minutes from the road."

There's something odd about the way this girl talks - not in a bad way, just a bit off - and Anna files away a mental note of it. They fall into silence. Silence makes Anna antsy.

"My name's Anna," she offers, finally.

There's a beat of silence as the woman sucks in a deep breath, lets it out slowly, in the same measured way that Anna would breathe sometimes, back flat against the bathroom door as Johnny cursed up a storm on the other side. Johnny. What she did still doesn't feel real.

"Elsa," the woman finally says.

"Whoa! Sounds fancy. Like royalty," she says. No response from the stranger – Elsa – so she tries again. "You know, like, 'Queen Elsa the First! Long may she reign.'"

Out of the corner of her eye, Anna sees the woman – Elsa – crack a small smile. When she notices Anna looking, she hastily rearranges her features back to the serious expression she was wearing before. She does actually look kind of regal.

"All thanks go to my parents for that, I suppose. If I may ask, what, um..." Elsa glances away from the road to look at Anna in all her wedding finery. "Are you getting married?"

Anna smooths down the folds of her dress proudly. All things considered, she does look damn good. "Yup! Or, well, I was, I guess. Not anymore. Obviously. Or maybe it's not that obvious. In case it's not obvious, I'm running away from my own wedding."

Elsa lets out a quiet chuckle. Anna likes the sound – it's warm. "Right."

"It's a long story. I'll tell you eventually, but for right now…I don't know. I don't really want to think about it yet, to be honest." Her voice dwindles to a mumble.

"Okay," Elsa says. "Talk about something else then."

She realizes why Elsa's speech sounds so odd. It sounds…stilted, rehearsed, like Elsa's running every word through a mental proofreader a million times before she says anything. There's that regality again. Even the way she sits in her seat, Anna notices, screams practiced – back ramrod straight, dainty fingers placed just-so on the wheel. Something about her just seems taut.

And she notices, again, how pretty Elsa is. No, not pretty – gorgeous, ethereal. Her hair is so blonde it's almost white, drawn back into a single heavy braid that rests on one shoulder. Her features are delicate, dainty, and of course there are those eyes.

"Anna?"

Whoops. How long was she just sitting there staring? "Sorry. Just lost in thought. And it's An-na, not Ahh-na, by the way."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Ahh-na does sound prettier, though. Anyway. What was that about talking about something else?"

"Well," Elsa says, in her measured, careful way. "I was just saying that if your wedding is a, ah…sensitive subject…you could talk about something else to take your mind off it, if you like."

Anna perks up. Talking is a talent of hers. "Okay! You pick."

Elsa gives her a sidelong glance. "I – pick what?"

"What we talk about!"

"Oh." She fidgets with the end of her braid. "Uh...what kind of food do you like?"

"Oh my gosh," Anna starts. It's oddly kind of this stranger to offer her this out, to ask her questions as if she has any reason to care about anything other than when she can fulfil her bare minimum moral duty and get Anna out of her car. "Anything and everything, really. I love chocolate. Pasta. Baked goods. Um…you can never go wrong with fondue. Love a good aebleskiver, you probably haven't heard of that but you need to try it if you ever get the chance. I dunno. I'll eat anything." She pauses to take a breath. "What about you?"

Elsa appears to genuinely and thoughtfully consider the question. "I don't really know. I've always been too busy to really relish food the way it should be appreciated. I suppose I like chocolate too."

"What? You don't like food?"

"I just don't have the luxury of enjoying food very often."

"Why would you ask me a question if you didn't have an answer for it?"

"The question was what kind of food do you like, not what kind of food do I like." Elsa says this completely seriously, without a hint of humor. It's oddly endearing.

"Oooookay. Well, ask me something else. That you can talk about too so it's not just me babbling at you."

"Fine. What is…your favorite season?"

Anna's seriously playing 20 questions with a stranger on her wedding day. It's really only a matter of time before they work up to are you a virgin? "Honestly? I like them all in their own way."

"That is not an answer."

She snorts. This girl is so weird – yet Anna finds herself a little charmed by her earnestness. "Wow, alright. I guess…if I had to pick one…I'd say winter."

At that, Elsa glances over at her, the hint of a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. "And why is that?"

"Well, summer's nice, you get to be outside and stuff, but there's bees everywhere and you're always sweaty. Spring is basically like three months of nothing. Fall is fine but it's cold enough to be cold but not cold enough to appreciate being warm."

"You've just given me reasons for not liking spring, summer, and fall, but no mention of winter yet."

Anna laughs out loud, and this earns a quiet chuckle from Elsa. Maybe she does have a sense of humor after all! "If you don't stop nitpicking my answers I'm going to jump out of this moving vehicle and walk right back to my wedding. And you didn't let me finish! Winter is just so cozy. It's always just made me think of home. I love when it's all snowy outside and you're building snowmen and it's freezing but you know you have a warm house waiting for you. Just the feeling of being all warm around a fire, drinking hot chocolate with people you love. I guess you can do that in any season but that's just what winter reminds me of. You know?"

Elsa is silent, at that. Anna wonders if she weirded her out – she knows she's too long-winded. Reel it in, Andersen, you don't actually know each other. "I can't say that I do know. But that's sweet. It's good that you have memories like that to look back on."

She looks pensive, almost sad. Anna feels an inexplicable rush of sympathy for this utter stranger. She wishes she could get to know her well enough to discover what lies underneath the way Elsa looks out the windshield; she hopes Elsa has someone in her life who loves her. "Okay, it's my turn to be invasive. What's your favorite season?"

"Spring." Elsa smiles. "Mostly because it means winter is over."

Anna groans. "That's boring. I gave you something deep."

Elsa doesn't say anything, just keeps driving with that small, lopsided smile on her face. The road winds on and on, past fields full of bright strawberries, crawling grapevines, apples waiting to be plucked from their branches. The sun is high in the sky – it's probably just past noon. She would've been so sweaty by now if she had stayed.

The venue had been Johnny's idea. Anna had dreamed of her wedding day for as long as she could remember, had had a Pinterest board for it and everything. She'd had it all planned out: what kind of dress she would wear, what kind of decorations she wanted (rustic, but classy), and that it had to be a ceremony in a church back home, so her whole family could make it.

Then she got engaged, and she told Johnny about all her plans, and he'd smiled down at her and said, Oh, Anna, you're so cute. But you know my grandparents have all that property out East, right? Both my brothers got married there. It's tradition; my family expects it.

She hadn't registered then that the feeling in her chest was her heart sinking. She had told herself: he's so sweet, he's such a planner, he loves tradition. Her parents couldn't afford the trip out to New England, so she had told them, it's okay, this part is just for his family, he said we can have another ceremony closer to home with you guys.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"We're here," Elsa says. They're parked in a large lot in front of a building that looks like a highway rest stop.

For a second, Anna just looks at her. She keeps forgetting that she has to actually keep moving forward with life now, and that it's not over just because she managed to be brave for the split-second it took to run from the altar.

She takes a deep breath and decides the best course of action is to just act as cavalier as possible about the whole thing and hope her false confidence translates into some semblance of a plan that will actually get her home. "Well, I guess this is it then!"

Elsa's eyes follow her movements as she gathers up the folds of her dress and gingerly steps out of the car. "What are you going to do now?"

"I think I'll, uh…" She trails off. "I guess maybe wait for a bus? Call an Uber to my hotel?" Wait, shit, shit, shit, she doesn't have her phone and Johnny will probably get back to their hotel faster than she can.

"You're going to wait for a bus or call an Uber," Elsa repeats, her voice skeptical. She keeps watching Anna with that careful, wary gaze. "Then what?"

"Well, then I go home. Start putting the pieces of my life back together."

"Where is home for you?"

"…Ohio," Anna says sheepishly.

Elsa looks away, stares down at the steering wheel, chewing on her bottom lip. Her brow is furrowed like she's deep in thought. She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. "God, okay," she mutters, more to herself than anything else. She turns back to Anna. "Get back in the car."

"Wait," Anna falters. "What?"

"I said, get back in the car."

Anna does as she's told.

"Listen," Elsa says. "I'm headed west too. I leave tomorrow. I could take you…closer to home." Anna's shock must be written clear on her face, because after a beat of silence, Elsa adds, "if you wanted, I mean. To save you a plane ticket. Ohio is on my way, anyway, so, you know. Why not do a good deed while I'm at it."

She sounds like she's trying to convince herself as much as Anna, but hey, who is Anna to look a gift horse in the mouth? "Wait, are you for real? You're seriously offering to take me to Ohio?"

"It would appear so."

"Oh my gosh," Anna says. Holy shit. Who the hell is this girl, this mystery guardian angel seemingly dropped from the heavens right when Anna needed her? "I mean, well…yeah! Of course! I would love that!" She wrings her hands together. "I'll need to get my stuff from my hotel somehow, which…I don't really wanna see my fiancé again but I'll deal, I guess, and I can be ready to leave whenever you want. And I'll pay you, I promise. For gas and stuff."

Elsa scoffs, but it's not unkind. "There's no need for that."

"Well, fine, if you insist. I'll repay you in…good company! And good conversation."

Elsa's eyes are on her, searching, taking her in. Something about those blue, blue eyes makes Anna feel…exposed, vulnerable. She wonders for a moment if she's making a mistake. If there's anything she should have learned by now, it's that she trusts too easily, lets down her guard too fast and lets people in and lets them hold her heart in their hands and do with it what they will.

But then Elsa smiles, and it's warm.