AUTHOR'S NOTE: See if you can spot the BTTF3 reference!

CHAPTER 5

"You're awfully quiet this morning."

The inside of Anna's truck had been like a coffin until halfway to school. She felt bad about it, but wasn't sure what else to do. How could she explain to Punz what she had been through in the past week – a week that didn't exist to her?

"Um… so let's just say…" Clearing her throat, she redoubled her grip on the steering wheel. "This is gonna be pretty weird. And not just 'I might be gay' weird, but more like the 'aliens melted my brain' variety. Bear with me?"

The quick glance showed her that Jennifer was looking confused, right on cue. "Um… yeah, okay, I'm with you. Like the Doc's version of strangeness."

"Exactly! Exactly that, like the Doc. In fact, let's say… hypothetically, one of his crazy inventions worked."

Punz let out a little cackle. "Hah, yeah, okay. No wonder you're apprehensive – it's hard to believe you from the first sentence!" Anna glared at her from the corner of her eye. There was no real malice there, but Punz still made a showing of zipping her lip. "Sorry. Continue."

Clearing her throat, Anna nodded. "Okay, so, one worked – hard as that is to believe. And we managed to do a successful test with a live control, but then other stuff happened and basically I had to use it and it has literally changed my life."

"Okay, um… look, Anna, whatever it is… I'm not gonna be like… mad or anything." At that, Anna gave a dry laugh. "What?"

"You can't say that, you don't know what it is yet. Or what I did."

"Look, it's not going to be anything completely bananas like a time machine or something."

Anna's laugh was strangled and her hands failed to keep the wheel quite steady. Punz stiffened visibly in the seat next to her. Anna's expression was mildly panicked.

"Anna…" Punz slowly turned to face her, her expression morphing into a one of shock and concern. "Are you… feeling okay?"

"Fine! Fine. Yep." She sounded anything but, her eyes fixed on the traffic in front, her face a rictus of normality.

"So what was it then? The invention?" A sliding note of concern was edging into Punz's voice.

"Well… I mean…. what if it was a time machine?"

This time, Punz didn't laugh. She just fixed her girlfriend with an unimpressed look. "Come on, be serious here."

"Stick with me. Like, say he invented a time machine. It's built into a car-" She had to ignore a snort "-and it runs on nuclear energy. A-and say that I had to use it to escape with my life, because Doc pissed off the wrong people to get the power for the experiment."

"Anna, this is pretty-"

"And say it took me back to the eighties, and then I was stuck there, and my phone didn't work, and my dad was a creeper, and there were kinds of Coke I'd never heard of, and my mom looked like Aimee Mann, and I had to say 'rad' all the time, and Hans was pretty much a rapist, and I was scared to death I'd never get home! Wh-what if… what if I told you that all happened? Would you like, call the police and tell them I'm a lunatic, or what?"

It took her a second or two to answer. "I'd say that at least you aren't your own grandpa because of some wacky time traveling oopsie." Punz laughed in a more relaxed manner, clearly having decided this was some kind of joke.

"So you think I've just been watching too many cartoons. Fine… it's fine, don't worry. Just wondered what you would think."

As they pulled into the school parking lot and came to a stop, Jennifer reached over and placed a hand on Anna's arm. "Okay. So… what it sounds like to me is, Doc invented some kind of… really, really intense VR? Or a new drug. Is… that where you were going with that? You tested this out for him and now it's got you all fucked up in the head?"

Nodding, she let out a long, shaky breath. "Yeah. Let's go with that."

"Anna…" Now, her voice was smaller, more genuinely concerned. And she hated it. She wanted to reassure her and yell out "April Fool!", anything but actually tell her the unfiltered truth.

"We're gonna be late for class. Um… can we table this until after? Or lunch or something."

Pressing her lips together, she sighed and shrugged. "Okay. But you can tell me anything, okay? Literally. I might not believe you off the bat, but I'll listen. Promise promise promise."

Anna believed her, but their conversation in the car had put her in a bad mood. She'd expected it – the backlash. The disbelief. Didn't mean that it didn't hurt though.

How was she going to get Punz to believe her? It was starting to feel like a necessity: she needed Jennifer to know and understand and say, "Man that's fucked up but I'm here for you." Anna stopped short on the steps of the school. Punz paused too, turning to look at her, but Anna was a million miles away. Until that moment she hadn't realised how desperate she was for that. More than her weird relationship with her mother, more than her intimacy with Punz… she needed their acceptance. Acceptance of what happened and her related feelings.

It was like she was twelve again, trying desperately to find the words to describe how she felt about girls and not about boys. The terror of 'I know my parents love me but what if?'

Goddamn she needed to see Doc again. Maybe Punz could have a nice chat with him, too…

~ o ~

Classes felt even longer than usual. Anna spent most of them staring out the window and double-checking with herself that she was really sane, and had endured all the insanity that she accepted as fact. No matter how much a hallucination or weird VR experience would comfort Jen, it was not the truth. And that sweet girl deserved no less than the truth. The trick was getting her to believe it. Thinking back, Anna probably shouldn't have started with "hypothetically", even if it was a good way to broach a tough conversation.

Her only saving grace seemed to be that Jennifer hadn't told any of their other friends. Merida would have laughed and cracked a few puns, and Anna definitely didn't think she could cope with that. By the time lunch was over, Anna was feeling much more normal.

Until Mr. Weselton appeared.

"Well, well, Miss McFly. What are we up to this time?" His mustache twitched back and forth as he stood blocking her way.

"Uhhh… going to class?" He shook his head. "Not going to class? I mean, okay, but if I'm not then I'm really curious what I'm doing here."

"Oh, I wonder that every time I see you. But this isn't an existential debate. You forgot to attend a very important meeting, didn't you?"

Anna had to squint at him for a few seconds before it caught up to her. Both of her teal orbs squeezed shut in a silent cringe.

"Detention."

She almost argued. Almost.

"Because of your tardiness," he said, spittle flying, "You're going to have to make it up. After school." And with that he was off, scolding other kids for holding hands or turning up their sleeves. Finally free of his glare, Anna let out a groan.

"What the hell – when did I get a detention?" she asked, turning to her friend. Punz looked at her, puzzled.

"On Friday, when you attached fishing line to his toupee and dragged it around school?" she said. "Honestly, I still think you were lucky not to be suspended. It was only because Principal Oaken couldn't stop giggling that you got off as easily as you did. Why didn't you just go?"

But Anna wasn't listening. Not really. She was too busy chuckling at the picture it painted – which was not one she remembered vividly from her own memory. "Man, that sounds like a good one."

"Yeah, yeah," Punz snorted with a roll of her eyes. "But the fact remains, you did the crime and now you have to do the time."

"What are you, my dad?" That one came out naturally; Kristoff was the type to say a phrase like that regardless of the timeline. "But alright, I'll go to detention. I swear, if he wasn't always on my case, I'd think I really was going crazy."

~ o ~

So Anna attended her punishment. It was only an hour, because the school had to get special permissions to keep children after 5 P.M. so it seemed easier just to let them go then. She rode out the time by writing down a few things in her notebook about her experiences. Thinking of her father again, she scrawled 'STORY IDEAS' at the top so that if anyone else found it, they wouldn't realise she had actually lived out any of the things she was jotting down. Fortunately, the detention meant she could play hooky with band practise, and instead use the time to follow through with her idea from earlier.

Swinging by Café 80s to pick up Punz, the two of them drove over to Doc's. Punz still looked highly skeptical, but she hadn't laughed once since Anna made it clear that this was important to her. It was a positive sign, at least.

"Alright, now," she muttered quietly as she fished the spare key out from under the side doormat. "I… did call him on my way over to get you, but he never picked up. So I'm not sure if he's in."

But he was. The DeLorean was parked with a large tarp over it in the garage, and Doc Pabbie was dressed in something akin to 'normal' clothing: a drab grey suit with a moss-green pocket square. He was also reclining in his easy chair, reading his way through a scientific journal of some kind or another.

"Ah, Anna," he said genially, turning to smile at them. "And Miss Punzel – it's been quite a while since you've rode sidecar."

Neither of them knew what 'rode sidecar' meant, but Anna guessed he meant since she visited. "Yeah. Um… so you got my missed call, I guess?"

To her surprise, he shook his head. "Nope. I just had a feeling you'd be around today with Miss Punzel. I would ask what has brought you to my door, but I have a feeling I can guess."

That would have been great, except now it seemed like a rehearsed skit. Punz even looked over to Anna, eyebrow raised. There was nothing she could say, so she just marched right on in.

"Why did you think we'd be around today?"

Pabbie clambered from his chair, stepping past them and walking back towards the DeLorean. "Well, considering the week you've had, and the weekend you had planned, I merely extrapolated from the available- that is, I guessed that you would tell Miss Punzel of our experiment. She, naturally, wouldn't believe you, so you would bring her here to get me to convince her."

Wow. He was right. Damn scientists and their processes of elimination.

Anna was saved from having to actually find a reply when Punz stepped forward. "Sorry, Mister, uh… Doc," she said. Anna suppressed a snort – Jen never had been quite as comfortable around Doc as she had. No one was, really. "I'm sure you both put a lot of effort into this prank, but… well, you can't honestly expect me to believe you, can you? Like, if this is some elaborate scheme to break up with me, what's the point? All you have to do is tell me you don't like me and don't want to see me anymore. At least that would be respectful!"

"I don't quite expect you to believe me, no," Doc began. "Though I would hope you can trust Anna enough to give her the benefit of a doubt." Punz looked away, shame filling her face. Anna glared at Doc, but he didn't seem to notice. "And if that fails, I'm sure she still has the video on her phone from the experiment with Olaf."

"Hey, that's right!" Anna interrupted. "And the letter – your letter!"

Punz arched an eyebrow. "Letter?"

"I don't know if that'll matter, Anna. I mean, only because anybody can write a letter about anything they wanted." But Anna was already pulling out her phone, grabbing the video she had made sure to copy over once she got back to modern equipment, so Doc fell silent and merely looked on as she pulled up the video.

And Jen watched it. Anna could tell the scientific explanations were washing right over her head, but when the car started moving by remote control, she paid a little closer attention. Then when it disappeared, she blinked a few times, but then sighed and turned to them.

"Okay, this is… creative, but I've seen Vines like this. I'll admit, it's really… really well done." There was definite doubt in her voice; she wasn't firmly committed to disbelief, but wasn't convinced yet, either.

"It's not a Vine. Like… okay, Punz, I know. It sounded like wacko bullshit to me, too, but I swear to God it's a hundred per cent real."

Her finger flicked the video back to the moment the DeLorean disappeared, and she watched it again. Then to the end, where Doc was screaming for Anna to run for it. "So… okay, I have a lot of questions."

"I'm afraid I won't be able to answer all of them," Doc told her, in a firm but not unkind voice. "Anna is my assistant, and even she doesn't know all of the particulars of how time travel works. But the rest I must keep under lock and key. Wouldn't do to have the technology too widespread. But we can still chat about the basics, of course."

"Fine," Jennifer crossed her arms, looking between the two warily. "Like, the only reason I'm even entertaining the idea that this isn't a Vine, like Anna claims, is because she's terrible at doing effects like these. Couldn't even get the Powerpoint presentation working on our tenth grade class project. The only way for her to pull off something like this off and make it look like it's actually happening is either because of pure luck, or you got some whiz kid to do it, or… because it's actually real."

"Hey!" Anna frowned in offense, even while a part of her was relieved that there was something that Punz was using as proof to believe her. "I'm not that bad."

"Oh yeah? Don't you remember the one music video you and Merida tried to make? The one where you wanted to make a firework effect go off at the end but somehow you managed to make the effect go off throughout the entire thing? You also made so many of the effects go at once that you caused your computer to crash because it couldn't handle the continuous lag." Punz gave her a small smirk. "It took us a week to get it fixed. And you know I have at least five more examples."

Anna cringed at the embarrassing memory. "Yeah, okay, I suck." Almost immediately, Punz's expression went back to being pensive.

"So anyway… how long have you two been working on this little… experiment, exactly?"

"The past thirty years," Doc went on with a slight shrug. "Although, originally I would have said Anna had only been assisting me with it for a few weeks, I think recent events have changed the length of employment - even if she wasn't offering continuous contributions."

"Interesting… but I mean, I'm sure you can see how I'd be skeptical. This is a lot to take on faith. Like, how would that even work? Time only moves in one direction."

"You aren't thinking fourth-dimensionally. Much the same as the sky was not open to us before we learned to use wind resistance to defeat the laws of gravity, we only need to… well, the point is, there is always a way. Science just has to catch up to Mother Nature before it can best her."

"Wish you could have seen it, Jen," Anna sighed, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. "Dell Valley… it was so different. Freaky."

"Ah, and I have something for you." Hopping up and sprinting to one of his bookshelves, Doc nipped out a tall book, covered in red leather. A white outline of a bulldog also graced the cover, along with the date "1985".

"What's this?" Anna said, reaching for it – but Doc was flipping through it himself already, so she waited. Then he put it into her hands, tapping the page and gesturing for Jennifer to look with his other hand.

"Recognise anyone you know?"

At first, her girlfriend only shook her head at the strange outfits. But then she saw the picture he had pointed to… and her eyes focused on someone on the stage at the homecoming dance.

"I… that's you! Wait, but… I mean, this can't be real. It has to be some Photoshop job."

"It's not Photoshop, it's photography," Doc said baldly. "And I'm still upset with the level of timeline pollution, but it couldn't be helped by that point."

"It's me, Punz," Anna confirmed, petting along the page. She wished Elsa was in one of the pictures, but even so, it was fun to see herself in her terrible prom outfit, minus her shoes, playing her heart out. Maybe she could still manage to repeat history in her own time.

But then she realised – there was a picture with both of them. Fishing out her wallet, she quickly located where she had slipped the Polaroid. It had not lived there very long, after all.

"Check that out."

Poor Jennifer Punzel looked far more shocked to be gazing at an image of a very young, very excited Elsa Baines. And right next to her was an uncomfortable looking Anna. The picture looked brand new, but the technology and outfits were distinctly dated.

"No… guys…" But she didn't keep naysaying, only frowned harder at the picture clutched in her fingers. "Okay, so this is pretty cool, and the video… I'll try to believe it's real, too. But I mean, why would you need to travel through time? What's the point in going to the past, especially? The future, I can kinda understand; that'd be dope, finding out where humanity's going to be a hundred years from now…"

"It wasn't intentional," Anna informed her, "Doc set the time to the 80s as an example, and when those thugs attacked us… well, I wasn't exactly in the right state of mind to switch it. So I ended up in the past. Whoops!"

"And as to why we would need to travel through time," Doc began manically, "Why! Just think of the possibilities, young Jennifer! There are so many potential uses for this!" Doc looked so excited, his eyes twinkling with such a glee that both girls took steps back in case he began to dance or something. He began to pace instead, his arms gesturing as he went on a long spiel that neither girl was particularly into listening to.

"Okay, so, say I believe you." Punz leaned over to Anna, casually ignoring Doc and his rant on timeline dilation and refraction. Or something. "You just… popped to the past and then came back. I don't see what the issue is."

Anna grimaced. This was where it was going to get hairy. "The issue is that… I had to spend a week in 1985 because the car wouldn't work. I mean, it would work, but the time-travelling thingy didn't. It takes a lot more juice than just gas, yknow? So while we were figuring out how to get me back to my future, I was there for a week, and I… met someone."

Punz's eyes widened. "You did? Wait, that's the girl you um… yeah. Okay. But that's all in the past now – literally."

At that, Anna nodded. Biting her lip, she hedged, "Well… technically… yes…"

Doc had seemingly tuned into their conversation by now. "Stating for the record here and now that I was very much against any meddling in the timeline, for reasons which will eventually become clear. But to Anna's credit, none of her meddling was intentional; once I explained the concept of time paradoxes, she tried to avoid such events, however meager her efforts proved."

"Thanks a bunch, Doc," she grunted.

"Meddling?" Punz asked. "I don't understand."

"Well… say you go back and accidentally keep your parents from meeting. If they don't meet, they can't fall in love, and they can't have children. Can't have you. So then, um… what's the word again? Paradox?" Doc nodded. "Right. If your parents never give birth to you, how can you go back in time and stop them from giving birth to you? It can't happen, so it's kinda… really horrible. Like, world-destruction horrible. It's like what happens when you smash all the keys on an old-timey typewriter at once; it can't handle that and the keys jam."

Already nodding along, seemingly pleased with how bright his assistant was despite not being a scientist herself, Doc put in, "Of course there are other theorems which state no events can unfold which were not already predestined, and therefore time travel in and of itself was preordained from the beginning. But I mostly think of those as hogwash – though of course if they proved correct, I would be forced to accept their validity."

"I'm… this is a lot to swallow." But from the fear in her eyes, Jennifer definitely seemed to be growing more open to believing them than she had been when she got there. "And I admit, the video and the yearbook together, that Polaroid… I mean, it all looks legit."

"I swear to God, Punz, we're telling the truth. Part of me wishes I wasn't, but we are. It's just… a really weird truth."

"Oh geez," she said, swaying on the spot. "I need to sit down…"

Anna surged forward, grabbing her arm and guiding her to a seat. "Sorry," she said. "I really shit the bed on this one."

Tenderly, Punz reached up a hand and pat Anna's cheek. "It's okay," she said, running her thumb across the soft skin. "Obviously whatever fuckup happened, you fixed it. Right?"

Anna looked away, giving a nervous cough. "R-right."

"Anna?"

She let out a sigh through her nose. Doc made a show of trying to sidle from the room; unfortunately for him, he wasn't looking where he was going and tripped over something that sounded expensive. It didn't distract Punz for long – a glance in his direction before turning her gaze back to Anna.

"Remember… I said I met a girl…"

Jen's eyes widened. "Holy shit… Anna… it wasn't my mother was it?"

Eyebrows furrowed, Anna just looked at her. "What?"

"Well you're being all weird about it!" Punz cried. "Which means I probably know her and- and ew my mom, Anna?"

"It wasn't your mother!" Exasperation laced her tone. "Don't worry. Far as I know, I didn't even see her at all while I was there."

"O-oh," Punz said, ears burning red. "That would be because they… dinmrv…" she trailed off in a mumble, and finally a smile twitched at Anna's mouth.

"What was that?" she asked, leaning forward. Punz sighed.

"We didn't move to Dell Valley until I was in the fourth grade," she admitted. "Remember? So you wouldn't have seen my parents. Anyway, who was it then?"

Now they had reached the truly challenging part. Unbidden, the image of her mother's face between her own thighs swam into Anna's memory, and she knew it wouldn't take long dwelling on that for her cheeks to turn pink so she forced the image away. Not that it was easy. She was supposed to be telling Jennifer the truth, not examining her own mental state from when the incident happened. No, that would come later. Over and over for the rest of her life.

"Yeah. Soooooo…" Might as well get it over with. "Ikindamademymomcrushonmeokay?"

This time, Doc really did leave the room, and much more soundlessly. He was already edging out into the garage when Punz asked, "What?"

It had been too hard to say it the first time. As she usually tended to do, Anna tried to be cheerful and gloss over how awful the implications were, letting out a nervous little chuckle. "You know, shit happens sometimes, and… I mean, there's this whole thing about attraction, and separated family members, and…"

"Enough double-talk. What did you say the first time? It almost sounded like… your mom."

Something akin to panic was brewing in her sparkling green eyes, but she was suppressing it… so far. But not forever. That was too much. Anna cleared her throat, looked around, then got up to start walking out the front door. She wasn't running exactly, but for whatever reason she simply could not sit still on Doc's couch anymore and see those eyes stabbing into her.

"Anna! Hey, what- HEY!"

Once outside, she gripped the side of the truck bed and took a few deep breaths. But she couldn't seem to get enough air. On top of that, she felt silly for overreacting when Punz hadn't even said anything negative about it yet, but just the idea that she might was horrifying to her. She didn't want to feel this shame, didn't want to fall in the eyes of her girlfriend, the woman she had been expecting to take on many more dates. To take to their senior prom. To…

Growling, she brought her hand back, punching the metal with the palm of her hand. It hurt like a bitch, and tears sprang to her eyes. It wasn't from the pain. This whole afternoon had been a mistake.

"Anna!" Punz cried, finally catching up. She hovered, a little way away – she'd probably seen Anna's outburst and figured the safest place was not right next to the angry redhead. God. Yet one more thing she had to apologise for later. If Punz ever decided to speak to her again.

But Punz didn't say anything. She didn't move forward or back, either – she just stood there, watching Anna. Finally it became too much, and Anna croaked out an "I'm sorry…" that sounded so much more pathetic than it was.

"Oh God."

And there was the negative reaction. Anna squeezed her eyes shut, head falling to rest on her hands where they pressed against the car metal. "I'm sorry," she said again. It took a few seconds to get a reply, but Anna was grateful when she did. For a moment.

"That's- that's okay, Anna. I mean. She didn't know who you were, right? And it's not like anything… happened…" Silence. More was sinking in. "You- you said. At the lake…"

Still not looking, Anna nodded. What words could she give this moment? How could she explain it – her feelings, her mother's? So, she just whispered, one last time, "Sorry…"

She didn't see Jennifer leave, there were no further words. Just heard footsteps a minute or so later, then heard the distant sounds of someone being sick in the bushes off to one side of Doc's house. Of course, she could try to fool herself that it wasn't Punz, that it was coincidence…

'What did you expect?' she demanded of herself as she slumped on the hood of the car. After a few more sniffles, she forced herself to crawl into the truck cab. She couldn't drive yet, but she could at least close its doors and muffle the sounds of her sobs. 'Punz is not a complete freak like you are. She'd never do that. Nothing in the world could make her cross that line the way you did. So no wonder she thinks you're disgusting.'

The thoughts swirled around and around in her head as she beat her forehead against the steering wheel. Should she try to drive off, anyway? No, that would leave Punz without a ride. Doc might offer her a lift, but he was part of the madness; she might reject that. She might reject Anna and walk home after this was all said and done.

But finally, ten or twenty or who knew how many minutes later, the passenger door clicked open. Without looking up, she could tell Punz wasn't the same as she had been before they came to Doc's house. That they weren't the same.

"Um… I have homework… so… i-if you can't drive m-" A quiet retching noise. "If you can't drive me, it's okay. You look upset. I'm… I'll walk…"

"No, I can get you home," she sighed as she scrubbed at the tear tracks on her cheek, digging for her keys. She dropped them into the floorboard, then bumped her head when she tried to stoop down and retrieve them.

The tears came afresh. For the first time in her life, she cried in front of Punz and didn't feel arms around her right away. And the worst part is, there was no earthly way she could even be mad about it. What would she do if their places were reversed?

Finally, she did feel a hand in the middle of her back. "Sorry," was all Jennifer could offer for now. But it was strained, and real, and the word broke in the middle. She rarely said anything she didn't mean, so she must have really meant this small scrap of sympathy.

Anna simply nodded, starting the car. She was able to stop the tears from building at her eyes on the way there, however her entire drive home was spent sobbing, stopping on the side of the road each time it became a little too intense.

Of course, when she got home, she had to face it. Face Elsa herself.

~ o ~

"Anna?" she called out from the kitchen. Elsa, for her part, seemed to be in good spirits. Why wouldn't she be? From her perspective, everything had gone great that morning and there was no reason to believe otherwise. "How was band practice?"

No answer. Anna dragged herself into the bathroom to lock the door and sob some more. Even tried to throw up, like Punz had done, but it didn't really work. She wasn't disgusted, just sad.

A soft knock came a little while later. "Anna, honey… are you alright in there?"

"NO! Go away!" It was stupid to lash out at her for this, but she didn't have anything else to grab onto at the moment.

"Can you let me in?" The doorknob jiggled; Anna stayed where she was, sitting on the edge of the tub. "Alright… I'm sorry. I can go."

And she did. Anna let her, because she didn't know what she could say that wouldn't be accusing Elsa of things that weren't her fault. So she stayed in there, by herself, sobbing into a washcloth.

An hour later, she finally dragged herself into her bedroom. Elsa didn't come by right away, but about ten minutes after, a knock at the door frame announced her.

"Can I come in, or would you rather I not?"

"Sure," she groaned. By now, she was past the racking, all-over-the-body sobs and the screaming into her hands. Her heart still wanted those things but she didn't have the energy left. Nor the energy to feel anything when Elsa sat down next to her.

"Sweetheart… I'm right here. Tell me whatever you want, or don't. And you can say whatever you want to me; I think you know that by now."

"I fucked up, Mom," she said – and she very much felt like it was a mother she was talking to, not… anyone else. "Big time. And now-" She had to pause for a second, eyes filling with tears once again. Fuck, hadn't she finished yet? "Now Jennifer probably hates my guts and never- never wants to see me again…"

"Jennifer?" Despite her initial surprise, Elsa moved past it. She leaned in close, and Anna felt warm arms wrapping around her shoulders. Elsa said nothing else, either, letting Anna speak at her own pace.

"I told her," Anna said when finally she could. It had taken a few minutes to compose herself, and she still wasn't really 'put together'. It was enough. "I told her about Doc and the DeLorean. Took her to see him because I couldn't keep it a secret. Not- not from her..."

Elsa's hand gently rubbed Anna's arm, soothing her as she listened. She could probably already guess where Anna was going with this, but she still said nothing.

"And- and then I told her that you- I met you. In the past. And I'd said some other stuff before and she put two and two together… I fucked up. So bad, and I don't know what I can do to make it better…"

"Oh, Anna…" Her voice wasn't disappointed or angry. Just sad on her behalf. "I don't know that there was much point in telling her this suddenly… but… well, I understand." Then she leaned down to kiss the top of her head. "And Jennifer might too, given time. Or she might not. Even if she doesn't…"

When Elsa didn't finish right away, she bit out, "What? What if she doesn't, Mom? I just ruined the only good thing I had!"

"Well, I was going to say 'it's not the end of the world', but you made me realise that's going to feel pathetic in the face of what you've been through today." Another squeeze of reassurance. "Relationships face these challenges all the time. Your father and I had our ups and downs, and even if we aren't truly 'married' anymore… we're still committed to our family."

For another minute or so, Elsa just let Anna cry. Then she rolled over and buried her face in her mother's neck. To both of their surprise, she blubbered out something she hadn't said since she was probably five years old.

"Why can't I just marry you?"

At that, Elsa snorted. "Because it's against the law, Anna. On top of a few dozen other very good reasons."

"I know… but you understand me. Punz doesn't, she can't – not after all this crap. No other girl will, either!"

"I'm not a girl, though. I'm a woman. I'm your mother. Besides, I can be pretty high-maintenance sometimes." Anna let out a wet laugh, and Elsa petted up and down the back of her neck. "I try to understand you. That's my only secret: trying. If it's not Jennifer, then someone else will."

Again, Anna was wrapped in a gentle blanket of scents, warmth echoing up into her body from the soft form beneath her. Temptations flared up, and she was just about wrung-out enough to give in. But she wanted the gentle comfort of a mother's love more than she wanted that, and so she simply clung there, like Elsa was the last piece of driftwood keeping her from going under.

"C-can you stay here tonight?" she asked softly when finally her tears subsided and she felt about as empty as her life seemed. Elsa's arm paused, just a brief stutter.

"Anna… that isn't a good-"

"Please, Mom. Just… please…"

Elsa didn't say anything else; she resumed rubbing Anna's arm, though, pulling her just a little tighter. That was all either of them could manage anymore.

TO BE CONTINUED…