Anna's senior year of high school keeps on going on, and with developing friendships and complications to boot.

Chapter Text

“Dammit.” Anna groaned as she waited a moment for her character to respawn.

Kristoff laughed. “Don’t be a sore sport,” he said.

“Yeah yeah, whatever.” She huffed and retaliated with a quick series of attacks as Sheik before changing back into Zelda.

Kristoff, to his credit, played the Ice Climbers masterfully. By the end of the match, however, she’d made a comeback.

“Victory!” Anna punched the air.

“Well done.” Kristoff set his controller on top of Sven’s head and stretched.

Anna slumped back against the couch. She took care not to pull on the sheet covering it. “Why do you have an old gamecube anyway?” she asked.

Kristoff shrugged. “Most of my stuff is secondhand. I saw the console and a batch of games for about $10 at a yard sale. I moved here with nothing and was going crazy. I figured $10 was about as good as I was gonna get as far as cheap entertainment. It’s worked out well enough since then.”

“Huh...” Anna paused. They’d been friends for a couple months and studiously avoided certain topics, but she figured it couldn’t hurt too much to ask. “What was it like, first getting here with, um, with nothing?”

Kristoff laughed, a rough honest sound. “Hard,” he said. A pause, then he continued, “It was so, so hard. I had Sven, my car, and a few bucks, really. Thankfully, it was spring when I left, so the weather was fair enough. I slept in my car.”

“You barely fit in your car.” Anna could barely imagine him dozing off in the thing, let alone living in it.

“I managed,” he said, voice dry. “Anyway, I basically picked up free papers, used internet at the library. Eventually, everything worked itself out. It’s been a couple years now. I didn’t even apply to community college for the education.” He chuckled. “I found a program that would let me rent for dirt cheap if I was a ‘working student.’ I figured it would be cheaper to take a class or two every semester than to rent a market price place and... I was right.” He shrugged. “Now I’m on-track to get my associates.”

“Student housing...” Anna snapped her fingers. “Is that why you were at the motel?”

He sighed. “Basically. They do turnover and cleaning between semesters. I tried talking to the landlord, but he still had to kick me out for a few days. It’s supposed to be for ‘working students,’ but there’s still this obnoxious assumption that, between semesters over break, residents are going home or staying with parents.” Kristoff shook his head. “I wasn’t the only one left shit outta luck due to the policy, but I was the only one with a dog to care for.” He ruffled Sven’s ears. “Everyone else paired up to split motel fare somewhere around town.”

Due to her own sensitivity to parental involvement mentions, Anna couldn’t help but notice the distinct lack of Kristoff’s family in his explanation. In fact, he never mentioned them at all.

Granted, although he knew she was under 18, he hadn’t asked once about who she lived with. Something about the mutual silence on the issue felt both comforting and oddly hollow. Since they’d become friends, she could name his favorite foods, video games, and a significant portion of Sven’s medical history. She could not, however, say why he’d moved to town or where he’d moved from.

At some point, they continued playing, but the questions played in the back of Anna’s mind. It was easy to pretend all was well, but... she wasn’t really sure she wanted to anymore. She did enough pretending all day every day. Maybe it wasn’t too much to want one person she could be honest with.

Her distraction was clearly coming into play as well. After tanking three matches straight, Anna set the controller down and sighed. “I grew up in Tennessee,” she said abruptly.

“Huh.” Kristoff relaxed a bit, setting his controller on top of Sven. The dog liked to try and balance it on his head, like an odd hat. “I’ve never been there.”

“It’s warmer and has mountains,” Anna said. She couldn’t help but smile at the thought. “I miss it a lot sometimes.”

She knew the next question was coming before he said it. Anna tried to relax into the couch. Kristoff couldn’t ‘ruin’ Adgar’s reputation. Not that Adgar seemed particularly concerned about that lately anyway.

“What brought you here?” Kristoff asked.

She breathed in, held it a moment, then exhaled. “My mom died,” she said. “Car accident.” She continued before he could say anything sympathetic, or she could have second thoughts. “It was just us. After that, I moved up here to live with my—” Her voice caught. Anna struggled for a moment before choosing a term. “With my birth father,” she finished.

Something in his expression seemed to catch. He caught the controller when it fell off Sven’s head without looking at it. Anna felt the urge to clarify exactly why things were awkward. If she was explaining the basics of her familial mess, she might as well include some of the messy parts. “I’m his bastard affair child,” she added. “Not exactly a welcome family addition.”

He coughed in surprise. “I can imagine!” A pause and he cleared his throat lightly. “That’s.... that’s gotta be a rough spot.” His eyes softened. “I’m sorry about your mom, and about the family situation.”

Anna shrugged. It was easier to just set the mom part aside and keep moving. “It has its ups and downs.” A pause. Anna reflected for a moment. “Well, mostly downs lately.” She waved a hand. “What kills me the most is how everything is so... inconsistent. I hate lying.” She ignored the niggling feeling that, by leaving Elsa out of the discussion, she was maybe lying by omission. “I would rather not belong to the family than have this... tacked-on, second-thought existence where I don’t really fit in anyway.”

“That’s totally understandable,” Kristoff said. His voice seemed to take on a more vulnerable quality. At some point, Sven had crawled halfway up onto Kristoff’s lap. He ruffled the dog’s ears. “I... kind of chose something similar, in regards to my own family,” he said. “So I get where you’re coming from on that front. What’s going on with your... home life, uh, right now?”

Anna tucked his admission away to ask about later. He didn’t seem to want to get into his backstory at the moment. “Recently, my birth father got this burst of enthusiasm for being a ‘real family’ or some shit, so now he wants to go public and be this big family thing when it’s never been that way.” Anna chuckled. “It would be hilarious, how out of touch he is, except for how frustrating it is.”

“Are you planning on staying with them after you graduate?” From anybody else in her life, there would have been some kind of assumption in those words. From Kristoff, they were just a simple question. He was just some dude with a dog in his lap. He wasn’t assuming she’d stay. He wasn’t assuming she’d leave.

Anna shrugged. Frankly, she hadn’t really considered it. “I... don’t know. I have a bunch of college acceptance letters I need to answer, but I keep putting it off because I.... I know I can’t pull off any of these colleges without them. I don’t have the scholarships and drowning myself in debt sounds like hell to me.” Anna wrinkled her nose. “I actually really envy and admire you for pulling all this off,” she admitted.

“Thanks,” he said. A smile pulled at his cheeks from the prise. “You’re not obligated to stay if staying is just going to make you miserable,” he said. “It sounds like you’d rather try and swing it alone then keep on feeling like you owe them for their support.”

“Kind of?” Anna reached out and pet Sven, then wrestled with the dog for a minute to pull him into her own lap. “It’s more like... the longer I stay, the more I might as well just shrug and be their ‘real’ daughter, you know? How long do I claim I’m not before I’m just some reluctant adoptee who hates her parents or something? I already feel like I owe them for their support, and if a ‘real family’ is what he wants, then do I owe it to him to just go along with it?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I don’t think you have to put it on that kind of binary either.” He paused, fiddling with Sven’s tail. “You... you’re currently a kid, legally speaking. And, culturally, most people would say you’re a kid until you graduate high school and are eighteen, in general.”

“Yeah, I guess.” She nodded.

“ Kids need adults to raise them,” he said. “It’s one of those big societal things that holds civilization together: adults don’t just throw kids out to fend for themselves.” He scratched at his chin. Anna could tell he hadn’t shaved in a couple days. “So... I would say you don’t need to consider yourself in any sort of weird debt until you’ve graduated high school. However affair-awkward things are, your father owes it to you to raise you and take care of you until you can do so on your own.”

“And after that...?”

“Well after that it’s up to you,” Kristoff replied. “If you continue to accept his money and his care after you’re an adult, you’re kind of accepting a familial role in that regard. He might expect, and not unreasonably, that your perspective on being a ‘real family’ might change.”

Anna grimaced. “So... after graduation, I should leave?”

Kristoff was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “I’m not telling you to do anything in particular.” He laughed and it sounded a little bitter. “I feel barely qualified to be responsible for my own life-altering decisions. No way I’m taking charge of yours.” He paused and tilted his head. “Isn’t that what you want anyway? To kind of... take charge of your life? Make your own decisions, captain your own ship, all that?”

Sven shifted in her lap, placing his big head against her shoulder. He looked at her with big eyes, as though he were waiting on her answer too. It took significant effort for Anna to resist shrugging and saying, ‘I guess.’ In light of their conversation, that seemed too blithe. She cleared her throat. “Yeah. Um. Yes. No matter what I decide to do... I want it to be a real, genuine decision.” Reflexively, she frowned. “Not something I choose because it’s the default, or I’m backed into a corner or... or that’s what someone else thought would be best for me.”

Every time she saw Elsa, Anna had something she wished she’d said before they’d broken up. It was a steadily uncomfortable feeling.

Kristoff fiddled around with the controller a bit, picking a new character and changing the color five times, then repeating the process with a new character. “Family stuff is hard,” he said at length. “I’ve clearly made some choices that put me at a certain distance from mine, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right decision for you or anything.” He sighed. “I’m here if you wanna talk about it, but... beware of romanticizing my infinitely enviable life.” He stuck his tongue out at her, but his words were clearly more than a joke. “The ‘start from nothing’ escape plan isn’t easy, and I’m not even talking about money logistics stuff. I mean... it’s lonely.”

Anna would have hugged him, but she couldn’t reach around Sven. She settled for kind of patting him on the shoulder. He smiled at the gesture. “Thanks,” he said. “Just... we can talk more about it later if you want, but just know that, no matter how awkward things are with your interim family or whatever, you will miss them if you choose to jet.”

She sighed and tried to play around Sven before gently pushing him off her lap so she could reach her controller with two hands and change characters. Sven heaved a dramatic sigh for a dog, then settled in on the bowed couch between her and Kristoff. “Yeah...” she sighed. “Why is everything complicated?”

“Because most Link players don’t balance using his long and short-range attacks,” Kristoff replied, noting her choice of character.

“Whatever,” she said, laughing. “Lemme just boomerang-sword-bomb-arrow you into the ground first.”

“Don’t forget the hookshot.”

*

“Anna, wait a moment!”

She froze on the stairs and turned around. “What are you doing home so early?” She tried to keep the question neutral-to-surprised, but it came out a little harsher than she intended.

Adgar blinked. “Oh, well I keep meaning to initiate a healthier work-life balance, so I finally decided to just take the plunge and start going home earlier one day a week.” He smiled. “And, since I’m home early, I was able to grab the mail for once. You’ll never guess what came!”

Anna took a few steps down the stairs. For some reason, her first guess had been that Elsa sent a letter, except that idea was like a decade out-of-date. “What showed up?”

He turned around and started walking toward the kitchen. “Well, a few reminders from colleges, for one. We’ll have to sit down sometime soon and start talking about where you’ll be accepting.”

“Yeah...” she said, frowning behind his back.

“And... your third quarter report card came in!” Adgar sounded giddy.

“I assume it’s good?” Anna asked, walking to stand beside him at the counter. She picked up the opened envelope and pulled out the paper inside.

“See for yourself,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder as she unfolded the results.

Anna raised her eyebrows as she skimmed down the page. “Oh hey,” she said, “Straight As.”

Adgar enveloped her in an awkward hug. “Congratulations, Anna,” he said. “You’ve worked so hard, and I’m proud of you.”

Despite her misgivings, Anna slowly relaxed and hugged him back. “Thanks,” she said. His praise felt tacked on; it didn’t seem to stick to her very well. She’d seen him pour that same praise on Elsa, but it had never really been for her. Anna set the feeling aside and smiled. She couldn’t deny being pleased with herself, and that was more important than familial awkwardness. She’d never been inherently talented at school stuff, but she really, honestly, had been working hard that quarter. She deserved those As, and fucking finally too.

He gave her a quick squeeze before letting go. “I’m so lucky to have two brilliant daughters,” he said.

Anna cooled. Her smile disappeared as she yanked out of his embrace. “Stop that,” she snapped. She’d wanted this acknowledgement like nothing else as a child. Even after her mother died, she was still open to it, but he hadn’t extended it then and she certainly didn’t want it now.

Adgar deflated as he took a step back. “Anna...” He sighed. “How about we grab dinner out, just the two of us. We can celebrate and maybe talk about—”

“No! Stop that too!” She stormed around to the other side of the counter. “Just... stop saying shit like that!” For a moment, the offer had her imagining a more normal past arrangement. Plenty of kids with divorced parents had a ‘dinner night’ with the parent they didn’t live with. In another life, she would have loved having a bit of time to spend with him: a normal dinner out to catch up and show off her report card...

That wasn’t the life she was living, however. Anna squared her shoulders and faced Adgar directly.

“I’m sorry, Anna,” he said. Voice somber, it had none of the shallow happiness from before. “I know that my efforts are, by and large, too little too late.” He sighed. “I would give anything to do this all over and make it right, but... this is my attempt to right those wrongs now, in the present.”

Anna drew a breath to interrupt him, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Hearing him confess that he had been wrong was deeply overdue, but compelling.

“I cannot correct the past,” he continued, “but right now I just hope that, before you go off to college, we can be made right again.” He smiled. “Dad and daughter. I was wrong to let other factors intervene in the past. You deserve a place next to me no different than Elsa’s, and—”

“No!” Hearing Elsa’s name broke the spell. Anna recoiled and shook her head violently. “You don’t get to change your mind plop me into your ‘daughter’ slot just because she’s not here right now,” she said.

Adgar shook his head. He took a step forward. “No, Anna. That’s not it at all—”

She waved a hand. “No, I know you’re not trying to get me to replace her or whatever, but...” Anna heaved a sigh, trying to reach for words that made sense. “But... this... you’ve always offered this validation to Elsa. The whole time. It’s always been there for her.” Anna swallowed hard. “You mean well, but... you can’t just show up and be proud of me now. You can’t do that and expect everything to be fine. Not after I’ve dragged myself all the way here on my own.”

Anna could remember being ten, eleven, and sitting at her mother’s kitchen table. Her mom would ask what kind of homework Anna had while she made dinner and they’d talk about her day. If Anna needed help, her mom would try to provide it.

Anna felt, suddenly and decisively, that if parents didn’t ask about their kids’ classes and homework, they didn’t have the right to be proud of any good grades.

Adgar regarded her steadily for several long moments. With slumped shoulders, he leaned against the countertop. “I... I suppose I can’t really blame you for that,” he said. “I’ve made so many mistakes... and I’m so sorry for hurting you like I have.” His breathing shook and for one terrifying beat Anna thought she might have made him cry.

He continued after a pause. “I should have been more sensitive about approaching a renewed familial relationship with you. Your reservations are understandable.” He smiled to himself, and not kindly. “I just want you to know that I will be here and I will always be open to coming together as a family.”

Anna waited a moment, but he seemed done. She took a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said. Not for the offer, but for the apology. At various points in her life, Adgar had apologized for instances of his absence. He had always been ‘sorry’ to miss her riding competitions and ‘sorry’ to only visit on her birthday, but he had never before been truly sorry for being simply so wrong in how he’d treated her, so absent overall.

A tightness in Anna’s chest loosened. She sighed and let her shoulders drop their tension. “I’ll think about it,” she said.

Relief flooded Adgar’s voice. “Thank you,” he said. “I... I’m going to do a little work from the office now.” He paused. “It is a very nice report card,” he said, “regardless of everything else going on.”

She just nodded in response as he excused himself. After he shut the door to the office, she slumped against the kitchen counter. She hadn’t been lying. She really would think about it, and she had been. As atypical and fucked up as her relationships with Adgar, Idunn, and Elsa were, she did care about them. They weren’t her family, but they might as well have been, for all intents and purposes.

It wasn’t as if there was anybody else alive to claim that position.

Anna grabbed a glass of water and made her way upstairs to her room. Her room in her home.

She sighed as she sat in her chair and thought about Elsa, her calculus homework, and whether or not it was possible to want two completely opposite things.

Because the confrontation with Adgar made two things clear: Anna could push him away and hurt his feelings, but she did care about him and Idunn. She also, without a doubt in her mind, did not want the familial offer he had extended her.