Winter's Heart

Sometimes, Anna feels sudden pain in her heart.

It's nothing physical, not any sort of sharp pain like described in their medical libraries – Anna had a lot of spare time as a child – but at the same time not anything like the furious betrayal she had felt when Hans showed his true colors. It's something more than physical, but definitely not metaphysical because Anna is sure that whole field of philosophy makes no sense at all. Anna can actually feel it in her heart.

It reminds her of being crystallized into eternal, flawless ice. Anna can barely remember the actual specific moment. All of it – Kristoff running towards her, Hans standing there with a sword in his hand, Elsa about to die while she just stood there in horror – is little more than a distant haze. But there's one thing she remembers. Anna remembers the feeling of ice snaking out of her heart.

"Hey, you doing all right?" Kristoff asks when Anna stops mid-sentence. He pulls away from their hug and looks at her closely, lips pulled down in his trademark cross between a grimace and a frown. Anna thinks it's charming after you get over how weird it looks.

"Y-Yeah! I'm, I'm fine," Anna says, but she still sits down on the edge of a fountain. "Just felt a little out of breath, you know, I talk a lot so, well, that happens."

"You do talk a lot, but that's why I'm worried. I mean, you, uhh, you can talk for way longer without getting out of breath," Kristoff says, deftly avoiding her retaliatory smack. "Wait here." Anna watches him run back inside, maybe to get her water, or maybe to get her a jacket. By now Anna knows Kristoff is more observant than he lets on.

Out in the courtyard during the summer afternoon, with the sun shining brilliantly bright, and Anna suddenly feels her heart skip a beat and a chill spread through her veins. Anna bows inwards a little, clutching her arms to keep warm, but she knows the chill will pass in a moment. As expected, by the time Kristoff gets back with a coat, Anna feels warmth on her skin again.

Anna looks around the courtyard, and then up around at the windows, sure she feels someone watching. She catches a glimpse of blue and then nothing.

"Something up?" Kristoff asks.

Anna thinks it must be what heartbreak feels like, ice spreading out from her heart and into her veins, not painfully cold all at once but persistent, trickling through her blood so she can't ever get it out. It's agony and loneliness and resignation all at once, and sometime when the pain comes while she's out in public, Anna has to try hard not to cry. When she's alone, she clutches her chest and lets the tears fall. She doesn't even know where the emotions are coming from.

"I must be imagining it," Anna says back, but she knows otherwise.

Is this you…?

Elsa watches as Anna lets herself be held in Kristoff's arms, and her heart hurts.

She revels in the cold, but it's a different sort of cold that strikes when she watches them, and one she can't protect herself against no matter what powers she might have. It's hard to breathe, knowing that her time with Anna has been wasted. No matter what she does now, nothing can make up for those years of separation. And no matter what she does, nothing will ever make it possible for Anna to love her the way Elsa desperately wants her to.

Elsa wishes it were her holding Anna.

Elsa wishes it were her telling Anna she loved her.

"Conceal. Don't feel. Don't let them know," Elsa whispers. It would only make Anna unhappy to know, and that's the last thing Elsa wants. She already owes Anna too much to make up for, so when Elsa sees Anna in pain, she resists rushing down and lets Kristoff comfort her in her place.

Conceal. Don't feel. Don't let them know.

She's abided by that creed up until now. Keeping it up shouldn't be too hard.

Except there's still a shard of her ice in Anna's heart, and when her own heart bleeds, she can see Anna suffering for it. Elsa cannot let herself cry, so Anna cries in her stead not knowing why.

Elsa's made Anna cry all her life, so why should this be any different?