Chapter Five

Closing up early after being open for less than two weeks was not a good look for them. Anna felt uneasy locking the front door, and felt like the frowny face on their "Sorry, we're closed" sign was staring right through her soul.

After they were visited by the scary Asian lady (they agreed to find a less racist nickname later), Anna and Rapunzel- mostly Anna- decided to confront Elsa about this sudden turn of events. Finding time to see her in the morning was out of the question, since that was one of the bakery's busiest times. And they couldn't go at night because there was no telling when Elsa's workday ended.

So, they took the bigger risk of closing right before the evening rush.

Once she locked the door, Anna slipped into the passenger seat; the blonde looked understandably worried, and Anna put a hand on her shoulder.

"If you want, I can just take the bus. You don't have to come with me," she reassured her business partner.

Rapunzel shook her head, "No, it's okay. I just really hope this doesn't come back to bite us in the butt, you know? Besides, what if I stayed and we ran out of stuff to sell? That would be more embarrassing than closing up early." She turned the key in the ignition and finessed her way out of their parallel parking spot. Anna knew that wouldn't happen, and that Rapunzel was just worried about her. "So do you know what you're going to say to Elsa?"

Not even close. So far anything she came up with either sounded too generic or way too confrontational. And even if confrontation was what she was aiming for, she didn't want Elsa to call security on her if things got too…intense.

She sighed in response, "Er…no, and I don't think I'll know what to say until I get there. But hey, I'm good at winging things. Remember that public speaking class we had?"

"Uh yeah, I remember you getting a C on the midterm because you talked about forks for like five minutes."

"Yeah but I came up with that on the spot and it fit all the requirements."

"You were supposed to talk about fine dining etiquette."

"Point being that I know how to come up with a speech on the spot.", Anna said poignantly. "And I need to expect the unexpected when I get to ArenCorp, which means no speeches in case she only gives me like ten seconds to speak."

Rapunzel looked as if she wanted to say something, but thought against it for whatever reason. She nodded and settled into her seat, "I just hope you know what you're doing, Anna."

She hoped so too.

"And you made sure that they understood the expectations of their earnings?"

"I'm sure. I told them the exact number and they didn't ask any questions. If you don't mind me saying this, they didn't look very confident in themselves."

"Their confidence is none of your concern.", Elsa replied emotionless. "You are well aware of the standards we have here at ArenCorp, and if they can't meet those standards then we no longer need to concern ourselves with them."

Elsa really wished she could say those words and actually mean them, but she knew all too well that her success hinged on Ann- on the bakery's success.

"I understand ma'am. Is there anything else you need from me?"

Elsa shook her head, "No thank you, Mulan. Do the rest of your rounds and e-mail me your reports by tomorrow morning."

"Understood."

Mulan hung up, and Elsa was left alone in the silence of her office. All alone, always alone.

It was a miracle she hadn't made any long-standing enemies throughout her career, those against her simply jealous. But she had also succeeded in making zero friends- her assistant barely counted. She talked to enough people to make some much-needed connections, and she did respect and admire certain coworkers. But the list of people she knew on a personal level? Pathetic.

But having friends, having relationships, those would just slow her down, burden her.

After four years, she accepted the idea of being alone and believed that things were always going to be like this. But that's okay, she was okay being alone. Only looking out for herself…it was easier like this, it was better like this.

At least that's what she told herself.

Elsa sat up from her desk and walked towards her bed, she hadn't taken a nap in a while and now seemed like a good a time as any. She needed to clear her head, and the mattress was beckoning her to relax.

It was a bed fit for a queen, literally. It had a foam mattress that felt like sleeping on a cloud, and the solid wooden frame had a prominent crown-shaped groove at the center of the head. The sheets and pillowcases were a deep shade of royal purple and made from fine threads imported from Agrabah.

She slipped out of her heels and unbuttoned her cream-white blazer, carefully laying it at the footboard and rolled onto the mattress. For a moment, her stress and worries fell away. A nap wouldn't help solve her problems, but it damn sure wouldn't hurt.

This whole…bakery business, she was starting to wonder if she made the wrong choice in first investments. Maybe if she decided to put it off and invest in some other business instead, it would result in a less splitting headache. That was a big "maybe", and she wasn't supposed to keep thinking about this. Elsa closed her eyes, let out a long, slow breath, and lay still as she let the envelope of calm and silence overtake her.

This feeling only lasted for five seconds before she was thrust back into reality through the ringing of her desk phone.

"Dammit.", Elsa grumbled as she rolled back out of bed and walked towards her desk. "Hannah this better be good, or else you're fired."

"Elsa, there's someone requesting to meet with you right now."

Elsa scoffed, "Right now?"

Demanding an immediate audience with the CEO of ArenCorp, who the hell did they think they were?

"Her words, not mine. What do you want me to tell Sheila?"

Sheila was their main receptionist: a portly, sassy woman who Elsa actually admired. Every time they had to give the ax to someone, Elsa always found a way to keep her on the payroll. She knew all too well that Sheila could handle anyone foolish enough to try and get through the doors of ArenCorp. "Tell Sheila to say whatever she wants, just get whoever this person is out of here."

"Oh wait a second Elsa…uh huh…okay…yeah the person's on her way up."

Elsa groaned, "Hannah, you're fired."

"Hey it's not my fault, apparently she buttered Sheila up with a muffin. Must have been a damn good muffin…"

A horrid sense of dread overcame Elsa, "Wait…what did Sheila say what this woman's name was?"

"Um…oh shoot, she told me but I forgot and she already hung up. I think it started with an 'A', was it Amy? Annabelle? No wait, I think it was-"

"Anna."

"Yes! That was it. I'm not really fired...am I?"

This couldn't be happening; this could not be happening. She thought sending Mulan instead would be a good message to Anna that she still hadn't forgiven her.

It seemed, however, that fate was not on her side once again. Even so, she was still in control, and this was still her company, her city, her kingdom. If Anna wanted to see her, Elsa wasn't going to make it easy for her.

Elsa shook her head and refocused, speaking sternly through the phone, "Hannah…I need you to listen to me real closely…"

As ArenCorp grew closer, Anna felt more and more uneasy. The feeling magnified as soon as she stepped foot inside the vast lobby more fitting of a five-star hotel than a place of business.

Gold-colored tiles and royal purple wallpaper covered every inch of space. On the right side of the lobby was a gym packed with white-collar workers- talking about business stuff probably- on the treadmills. On the left side was a café half-packed with people enjoying an early dinner. It was downright insane how much they could fit into just one floor, and made Anna both curious and intimidated over what lay in the other forty-nine.

Sheila the receptionist, if her flowery nametag could be trusted, said she couldn't let her in without an appointment. But Anna, being pressed for time, wouldn't accept this and brought out one of her secret weapons: a small paper box with a freshly made chocolate chip muffin. It was supposed to be for Elsa, a means to hopefully start smoothing things over, but she ended up using it right then and there.

Sheila took the bribe with surprising quickness, told them where Elsa's floor was, waved the two of them off towards the elevators, and that was that. "How did you know that would work?", Rapunzel asked as they waited for the silver elevator doors to open.

Anna giggled, "Oh please, no one can resist my muffins…my baked muffins, I mean."

"Hmm…well when you're right, you're right," Rapunzel muttered.

Anna sensed something was up by the sound of her friend's voice. She tried to catch her eyes to no avail. "Hey, what's up?"

"Oh nothing, it's just…" the blonde trailed off.

Anna gave up and looked in the same direction, right back at the café. "What is it? Did you want to check out the café or something?", she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah yeah, the café place," Rapunzel replied, still off in another world.

Anna knew her best friend well enough to see things from her perspective. When she followed her gaze, she got her answer. "There's a cute guy at the café, isn't there?"

"Ugh, yes!" Rapunzel looked at her with pleading eyes, "I'm sorry, I know I told you I'd be here to support you but…," she looked back at the mystery man and whispered, "He's so cute, and he looks like he's alone, and you know how long it's been since I've been on a date."

"Yeah, and you know how long it's been since I've been on a date," Anna rebutted. "We did not come here to flirt with businessmen, we came here to save our bakery."

"Yeah I know that it's just…", Rapunzel sighed and took one last longing glance back at the café. "Alright, let's go. I'm sure he'll still be there when we're done."

Anna should have felt good getting them both back on track, but instead she felt guilty. She told Rapunzel that she didn't have to come if she didn't want to, it made no sense to tell her that she had to come with her now. Besides, she could hide behind the bakery all she wanted, but Anna knew this was really her problem- and her problem alone- to deal with.

Anna shook her head, "I'm sorry, I'm being selfish. This is my problem, not yours. If you want, I can go up there myself, and you can stay down here and flirt with Mr. Lonely." She couldn't help but tease her best friend a little bit, it was her favorite thing to do whenever she saw a cute boy.

"You sure?"

"I'm sure. Elsa's not that hard to talk to," Anna replied, refusing to dwell on the irony of that statement.

Rapunzel wrapped her in a hug and squealed out a "Thank you!", and then she was off. And now Anna was alone to face this elevator ride to hell. The doors finally opened after an ominous ding. All that stood between her and Elsa was one, tense upward ride.

Anna pressed the button to the 50th floor- of course Elsa got the highest one- and the doors slid shut, a low groan bellowed through the cart as it started its ascent. It wasn't stopping at any other floor, the ride was smooth and uninterrupted, and she sort of wished that it wasn't. She wanted the inevitable to be prolonged, if only for a minute, because she knew as soon as those doors opened her life would change.

And as the elevator suddenly slowed to a halt on the 40th floor, one solely dedicated for storing old filing cabinets it seems, it looked as if she was getting her wish, just a minute to breathe. But soon that minute turned into two, then three, and then five, and still the elevator doors wouldn't close.

"What in the world…," she said as she pressed the button to close the doors. One press, two presses, and then twenty presses in rapid succession. Still nothing. "Ugh, I don't have time for this!"

Anna walked out of the elevator to look for the stairs, and that's when the elevator doors closed.

"No no no!", she yelled as she banged on the doors. But it was too late, the lights on top of the elevator subsequently flashed lower and lower numbers.

She looked to her left and saw the entrance to a stairwell.

"This better be worth it."

"The elevator's going back down to the first floor, Elsa," Hannah said to her boss standing right behind her.

"Good.", Elsa folded her hands behind her back and paced around the lobby. She was not going to make this easy on Anna, in fact she was taking away the one thing that could possibly help Anna, and the one thing she now had more of: time. Her workday officially ended in four minutes, there was no way Anna could get up here in that short amount of time. Especially if she had to walk up ten flights of stairs.

"If you don't mind me asking, why all this trouble over one woman? Do you know her or something?", Hannah asked.

"Yes, I do mind you asking. And no, it's none of your concern.", Elsa dismissed the questions coldly and continued to stare at nothing in particular. Just four minutes until she could put this whole mess behind her for at least one more day.

"Gee sorry," Hannah mumbled. "All I'm saying is that you're putting in a lot of effort to avoid talking to whoever this Anna person is. Maybe if you just get it over with, you won't have to keep doing silly stuff like this. Controlling an elevator to force her to take the stairs seems a bit excessive, don't you think?"

Elsa checked her phone, three minutes left. "On the contrary, I think I'm being perfectly reasonable.", she lied.

Hannah got out of her chair and walked over to Elsa, who stood in front of an obnoxiously large painting of a cat on a mountaintop. "Look…I've worked for you for a while now and I'd like to think you could open up to me just a little bit. I want to know what's got you rattled, that's all."

Elsa felt a hand on her shoulder and for one pitiful second, she was considering opening up. Even during their night meetings, she kept things professional. She shrugged off the hand and continued to pretend to be impressed by the painting. "Don't you have calls to return or something?"

Two minutes left.

"Not really. All you've told me to do is prevent this Anna person from getting up here in time. I bet you're counting down the minutes until your day's over, aren't you?", Hannah said with a grin.

Elsa remained silent and walked away from the painting, and away from Hannah, a nagging sense of anxiousness began to trickle down her spine through beads of sweat. She tried to ignore it, but as her impossibly slow clock continued to tick down, the feeling just got worse. She found herself staring at her closed door, and a small part of her thought about going back into her office and locking her door until time was up.

But she was better than that, more mature than that. And if she did something that juvenile, it would mean that Anna won and she was in her head more than Elsa was in hers.

Thinking about that damn woman…it infuriated her. Why was she back in her life again? Why was this happening? Why couldn't she just-

A loud bang interrupted her thoughts.

Elsa released her tight grip on the doorknob and turned around. The stairwell door creaked closed, the air grew frigid, and Anna was here with one minute to spare.

Anna hadn't worked out in over a year, so the fact that she was able to run up ten flights of stairs should have earned her some sort of medal. She ran through searing, burning pain in her legs and lungs, and didn't even take a breather when she finally reached the 50th floor. She growled and pushed open the door with her dwindling strength like a linebacker, surprising herself, surprising some brown-haired stranger, and surprising…Elsa.

Elsa was right there, no more than fifteen feet in front of her; and any kind of plan she had was thrown right out the window.

She felt the familiar chill, that frozen feeling from their first reunion. It started in her toes and worked its way right up to her legs and she knew that if she stood still like last time, it would cover her whole body.

All her work would have been for nothing. Climbing up all those damn stairs would have been for nothing.

So, she forced herself to move, one foot at a time, and go on the complete opposite end of the spectrum of reactions. She stormed over towards Elsa and barked out, "Elsa, you piece of…gah! You and I need to talk!"

Everything afterward was a blur. All Anna could remember was yelling, mostly from her, and Elsa just standing there. Her receptionist or assistant or whatever was probably trying to calm her down too, but Anna was too worked up to care. She didn't stop, didn't bring herself down until she finally heard Elsa speak.

It was one word- a loud, sharp, "Enough!"- but it did the job.

But Elsa didn't stop there. She walked towards the desk where Anna and her assistant person, apparently named Hannah, were standing. Even now, those damn, icy blue eyes still made her weak, helpless...frozen.

Anna did her best to match her look, but she couldn't, she never could. But she refused to look away because it meant giving up, it meant Elsa would win.

Elsa spoke once more, breaking the silence, and she said the words Anna both wanted and dreaded to hear. "You want to talk? Let's talk."

A/N: That muffin joke was pretty stupid, I won't be doing that again. Sorry this chapter doesn't have too much substance; I promise the next one will have a lot more. And by that I mean there's going to be more talking and angst and maybe, just maybe, y'all will find out what happened between these two (probably not).