How do I start? What do I say?

It was now Saturday morning.

Should I tell her everything all at once or just piece by piece?

Saturday morning at 3 AM.

Should I just wait until Sunday?

Elsa had been lying awake in bed since 10 o'clock, running laps inside her head trying to decide a way to break the news to Anna.

Yea, that's what I'll do, I'll just wait until Sunday. Give myself time to think.

For the past five hours she had thought in circles, constantly repeating the same ideas to herself, hoping that they would sound better after she heard it again.

But then what if I forget? Or what if something weird happens and I don't get to tell her?

Her bed had become damp from her sweat, her pillow had become deformed and hot, and her bedspread had pulled out of the foot of the bed and now laid crooked across it, a corner of the blanket touching the floor below the girl.

No, I have to tell her tomorrow. I can't just ignore it for a full day. I just… How should I tell her?

Elsa reached behind her head and pushed her pillow flat against the headboard so she could sit up more comfortably. As she pushed herself up she slammed her head into the wall behind her.

"Ow, fuck!" she yelled out. She reached up to rub where she had hit her head when she noticed she was still wearing her headphones from when she was listening to music earlier. The blonde pulled them off her head, pulling her hair into her face in the process. She spat out a few hairs that worked their way into her mouth and slicked back the rest of her hair with her hands. Then she sat silently.

The clock across the room ticked softly. Her computer hummed gently.

Then Elsa heard a shuffling in the room adjacent to hers.

Fuck, I woke Anna up.

"Elsa?" came the girl's voice from the other room. "You okay?"

"Yea," Elsa said, unenthused.

She heard Anna open her bedroom door, and soon enough she opened Elsa's door and stepped into her room.

"Can't sleep?" the redhead asked.

"No," Elsa replied.

"Yeah, me neither."

The two sat quietly for a few seconds. The room suddenly felt cooler from the door having been opened.

"So," Anna asked, "what's keeping you up?"

Well shit. Might as well tell her so I can sleep.

"Well… I've been thinking about how to keep us out of the foster system," Elsa said. It was vague but it was a start. Anna walked over to Elsa's bed and sat down beside her sister.

"You been looking up jobs?"

"N- no, not exactly. I mean, I don't think that would get us out of this. It might get me out of it but not you."

"So…" Anna said, "what do you got?"

"So far nothing."

They sat silently again.

Fuck it, I'll just tell her.

"I, uh," Elsa began, "I actually talked with Olaf for a bit about taking up a job with him. He said it would pay well enough to keep us out of foster care."

"Oh, that's awesome, Elsa!" Anna said.

You wouldn't think it's so awesome if you knew what it was, I bet.

"What is it?"

Brilliant.

"Well, uh… I… Uh, Olaf didn't really say much a- about it, he- he just-"

"No, I mean with you," Anna said. "You're not nearly as excited as you should be about something like this."

Elsa sat up in bed. "I don't know. Hey, let's go down to the living room and we can turn on TV or something," she said, trying to dodge the subject. She didn't wait for Anna to answer. She immediately stood and headed out of the room. Anna somewhat reluctantly followed suit.

Elsa was halfway down the stairs when her sister called out to her. "Elsa, seriously, what's going on? I can tell you're trying to pretend like nothing's wrong here but you're not doing a very good job."

Elsa didn't respond. She continued down the stairs to the living room, sat down on the couch, turned on the TV, and immediately began turning up the volume to drown out Anna's voice.

Anna then walked up to Elsa, grabbed the remote from her and pressed mute.

"Elsa, I'm serious," she said, "you can't just ignore me like this. Tell me what's wrong. Humour me."

"God, Anna," Elsa began, "it's not something that I'm really that interested in talking about right now."

"But it might be good for you or something to talk it out with me!"

"Talking about it would be just about the worst thing for me right now," Elsa said. She grabbed back the remote and turned the volume on again.

"See, that only makes me want to know even more!" Anna said.

Elsa paused. The monotonous tone of a reporter on TV provided ambience.

"A- Anna… It's just…" she began. She didn't finish her thought.

Anna could tell her sister didn't want to talk, so she reluctantly dropped the issue. She sat down heavily beside Elsa, causing the springs within the sofa to creak. "Whatever," she muttered.

Elsa sat silently, holding the remote up as if she were planning on changing the channel, but she didn't do anything. She just sat there, deep in thought.

"You gonna change the channel to something worth watching or what?" Anna asked, her tone now irritated.

Elsa didn't respond.

Anna groaned and shuffled around on the couch.

"It's just…" Elsa finally said, "I feel like this whole thing is my fault."

Almost immediately Anna's irritated demeanor was exchanged for a sympathetic one. "Oh Elsa, it's not your fault," she said. "How could any of this possibly be your fault?"

"I just…" Elsa said, "I don't know. It just feels like I could've done more. Like maybe I could've tried to be closer with our parents I could've seen there was something going on and I could've st-"

"Elsa, our parents didn't die because of you, ok?" Anna said, desperately trying to reassure her sister that she wasn't responsible for all the misfortune the siblings had faced.

Elsa paused. Anna looked at her intently, trying to gauge her sister's feelings. Eventually Elsa simply let out a sigh and slid down into the couch.

The TV was tuned to channel 53, the local news for Eagle Valley. Elsa still held the remote, but she didn't change the channel. She appeared distant and unfocused on what was on the TV, her thoughts clearly elsewhere.

Anna leaned over her sister and grabbed the remote from her hand. Elsa's state of disconnect remained intact. The redhead settled herself back in and changed the channel to 91, a children's channel. A Mickey Mouse cartoon was on.

The duo sat in silence for a while, Anna focused on the cartoon and Elsa focused on nothing in particular.

Eventually the older sibling began to shuffle around on the couch in an attempt to find a more suitable position. Anna glanced over to her briefly before shifting her focus back to the cartoon.

"I didn't know you still watched cartoons," Elsa said.

"Well, duh," Anna said. "Who doesn't like cartoons?"

Elsa grinned slightly.

"I figured out your song," Elsa said, trying to start a conversation on a topic other than her emotional state or the job Olaf had offered her.

"Yeah, I know," Anna replied, "you played it for me already, remember?"

"Oh, that's right."

The pair fell silent again. Beneath the sound of the cartoon the living room clock ticked softly.

After a few minutes Elsa, suddenly energetic, sat up straight and asked "hey, wanna write something on the guitar with me?"

Anna peered over at her sister quizzically. "I- I'm not that good on guitar you know…" she said.

"Eh, it doesn't matter," Elsa said. "You could play piano or something."

"Yeah, whatever," Anna said.

"Alright, I'll go get the guitar."

Elsa rose and headed up the stairs. She walked to her own room and began opening the door when she remembered that the guitar wasn't in her room, it was in her parents'.

She paused.

Eventually the blonde released her grip on the doorknob of her room, but instead of going to her parents' room to fetch the guitar, she headed back downstairs.

"I don't know where the hell the guitar is," she said, still walking down the stairs.

Anna stood. "I'll go look for it then," she said as she started walking. She passed Elsa at the bottom of the stairs and continued up the flight to the second story of their home.

Elsa sat back down on the couch shamefully. She watched a bit of the cartoon on TV to pass the time. Mickey Mouse was chasing around a bulldog who had kidnapped Minnie.

After a minute or so Anna called out to her sister. "Elsa!" she said. "Come here!"

Crap.

Elsa reluctantly stood and returned back upstairs. She peered down the hall and saw that their parents' room's door was open. The blonde walked over to the entrance to the room and looked in to see her sister struggling with the guitar case.

"What's up?" the blonde said.

Anna looked up at Elsa. "Oh, hey," she said. "Can you give me a hand with this?"

"Y- yeah, sure," Elsa said. She stepped into the room cautiously and made her way over to Anna, who was bent over the guitar case which now lay on the girls' parents' bed.

"Here, let me see," Elsa said. she leaned in and began fidgeting with the latches on the case.

"Thanks," Anna said.

After a while Elsa got the case open. "There you go," she said, pulling the top of the case open. The room filled with the smell of concentrated cedar.

Anna removed the guitar from the case and strummed arbitrarily across all six strings. "Alright, cool. Come on," she said, making her way out of the room.

Elsa shut the case and latched it. She then took it off the bed and put it in the space between the wall and a chest of drawers, where it had likely been when Anna found it. She then smoothed out the wrinkles left by the case on her parents' bed.

Then she just stood there.

It was the first time she had been in her parents' room in over a week. She looked around. The king size bed took up most of the room. Almost all the furniture was made of walnut. The bedspread was a rich shade of red. In one corner of the room was a bookshelf, filled with leatherbound classics.

Elsa stood there a while longer.

"Elsa!" Anna called out from downstairs. "Come on!"

The blonde slowly made her way out of her parents' room and headed back downstairs.

"Hey, Elsa check this out," Anna said. Elsa was still making her way down the last few steps. The redhead strummed an E chord. A few of the frets buzzed.

"Cool," Elsa said drily. She made her way to the couch and sat down. She then took the guitar from Anna.

"Hey," she said. "Do you think I should go for Olaf's job?"

"Psh, I don't know," Anna replied. "That's up to you, really."

Elsa paused.

"I- I think it would help, if that's what you mean," Anna added.

"Yeah."

The TV had been muted, leaving the room silent save for the ticking clock.

Elsa raised the guitar up to play, scooting back into the couch and accidentally sitting on the TV remote. The TV suddenly changed channel.

Elsa looked up to see what had happened and noticed that the TV was now back on channel 53.

She left the channel as it was, placed her hand on the fretboard of the guitar and strummed a chord before Anna interrupted her.

"Hey, isn't that that kid you were asking me about last night?" she said. "John W or whatever? Looks like he went missing."

Elsa's heart dropped. She looked up to the tv screen to see that it was indeed the boy she had asked Anna about the previous night who had gone missing, the boy she had just left out to die in the desert mere hours ago.

John Westergard.

A/N So once again I left you all hanging... Sorry... Again... Anyway, like I said, this chapter is quite a bit more important than last chapter, so, hopefully it was worth the wait for you guys. Regardless, sorry for the severe lack of updates in November. If it means anything to you all, the last two weeks of school I had before thanksgiving break were absolutely chaotic, so it's not like I was just being lazy. As for during thanksgiving break, I was away from a computer for all but I think two hours worth of time so I didn't really have a chance to work on this. Just a heads up, I'm not sure how things are gonna go for me in December, but I have a feeling that it's gonna be a lousy month regarding updates because of the holidays and all that. At any rate, I'm still committed to this thing, so please don't think I'm giving up on this unless I say otherwise.

Happy reading,

for-the-first-time-in-never