A/N: it's been a while :p

xxXxx

Anna wakes up slowly, but not as pleasantly as she would like.

Her head's no longer caving in on itself, but the pain has lessened into a persistent dull ache. There's a bitterness in the back of her throat, but she supposes her mouth no longer tastes like vomit or feels raw from overusing mouthwash to get out the vomit taste and hot water to get out the mouthwash taste.

Carefully, she opens her eyes, and tries not to have a heart attack because there's apparently someone sitting across from her.

"It's alright, Anna," the woman says, "try to focus in on your surroundings. I need you to fully wake up."

Anna carefully lets her head roll to the side and tries to get a good look at the room. Everything feels far away and blurry, but she persists and eventually things start to get a lot clearer. She's in a wheelchair and her hand has a cast on it. The room looks like some sort of therapist's office, and the woman in front of her is a blonde with a name tag that says Honey. Anna's pretty sure she's awake now, but she isn't quite sure what's what anymore, so she could be wrong.

"Anna," the woman says again, "I'm Honey. I know this may seem like a lot right now, but I have to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?" Anna nods, and Honey shakes her head. "Could you try speaking for me?"

Oh. Anna clears her throat, instinctively. "Uh —" she croaks, "that's fine."

Honey looks down and writes something on her notepad. "What's the last thing you remember, Anna?" she asks without looking up.

Anna still remembers everything, she thinks. She had to separate from Elsa because her brain was turning to mush, and then she slammed her hand in the car door and Elsa came back. She even remembers talking with Elsa while she was in the spinning room and the helmet thing she had on her head. She supposes that's the last thing.

"I remember being in this spinning room. I, um, I think I had a helmet on. It was dark and I could hear Elsa. But I think I passed out after that."

Honey frowns. She wasn't even conscious for any of the testing.

"Yeah, I think I just woke up for a minute, then passed out again. Wasn't long."

Honey blinks somewhat in surprise. "Uh, um. If possible could you try to respond only to the things I say, and not the things I think? It might be hard, but you can't always trust thoughts, so it's a bad habit to get into."

Anna just stares blankly at her for a really long minute because she's not entirely sure what Honey is talking about. She is only responding to the things she's saying, and Anna's not even capable of listening to thoughts. That's like a minimum five or six and above thing.

This whole thing feels a bit weird now that she thinks about it. She's not in a hospital room, she's wearing sweats instead of hospital clothes, and has no idea where Elsa is. She's also not wearing any blocking bracelets but she isn't feeling any tugging or separation sickness or uncomfortable feelings associated with her bond — she's honestly not feeling anything. Her head is silent; feels like it did before she ever got into a bond, like she's not even bonded anymore, or worse —

"You're projecting your thoughts," Honey says, staring calmly at Anna. "Elsa's fine, and we're in a research facility that specializes in psychic abilities. This is a special room that can block out most psychic energy. We were — I was afraid the outside world and Elsa would be too much to handle so soon, especially with you two having such an imbalanced bond."

"I don't know what that means..." Anna feels almost dizzy, nauseous even. All of her thoughts are swirling, but she can't seem to grab on to one. She's trying to formulate something coherent or a sentence and it's all getting muffled inside her head. "I just. I can't."

She's starting to feel what she can only describe as frustration, but it's like it's so much more than that. It's intense, feels like her body is heating up from the inside, can feel the hairs on her neck are standing. It's welling inside of her like nothing she's ever felt before; can feel it with every part of her body. She's typically a calm person, but now she just feels unstable, and it's all complicated by the fact that she's so confused, and doesn't even know where to start asking questions.

She must have projected that as well because Honey takes in a long breath and sets her notepad on the table next to her chair.

"Emotions are always the most unstable in situations like this... or at least that's what we hypothesize. It's not like it's ever happened before. And, well, by situation like this I mean," Honey continues, before Anna gets the chance to become even more irritated, "uh, not sure how to explain it properly. Best way I guess is... You've made a bit of a psychic leap."

Psychic leap. Anna can't figure out what she means by psychic leap. Shit.

She squeezes her eyes shut and presses the palm of her hand against her forehead, as if she can physically push the frustration back. The feeling just keeps getting stronger anyway. It must be the bond. Elsa not holding back must have wreaked havoc on Anna's brain and now she can't even get a grip on her own emotions during a simple conversation. She's been awake all of five minutes and she feels like she's going to explode. "Can you explain leap?" she manages to ask. "Can you be as clear as possible? Please."

"Well, going back a bit, during World War II scientists got the go ahead to basically break every ethical rule imaginable," Honey says, and Anna has to bite down on her lip, because the more confused she gets, the more agitation she feels curling inside of her. "The goal was to create super soldiers, figure out how to mass produce high-level super psychics, turn fives into tens and so on. A lot of people died, just for scientists to figure out that increasing psychic ability leads to internal bleeding, muscle atrophy, heart attacks, strokes, seizures, you name it — and eventually, death. No human has ever survived having their psychic ability tampered with... until you."

The frustration inside Anna stops intensifying long enough for her to feel just how monumental that is, but also lets her think about what it all means. It's sort of coming together now. She made a psychic leap. She can hear thoughts. Which means she's not a four anymore, has to be at least a six or higher, and that would be awesome news except for the fact that everyone who's tried before her is dead due to seizures and internal bleeding — jesus fucking christ, she's the literal walking dead.

"No, you're stable," Honey comforts. "These subjects weren't dying years later, more like days. You've been in here nearly two weeks under constant supervision, and if anything you're healing at an unheard of rate. When you first got here you were moments from death — bruises were sprouting all over your body and your heart rate was off the charts — and then it just... stopped."

"I just don't. I mean..." And now the frustration is back. "That all sounds cool and shit — er stuff," she fumbles out, "but I um. I need to see Elsa if that's fine. She's my bondmate. I need to see her."

It's weird, the frustration, feels like she's feeling one of Elsa's emotions and not one of her own — which is probably a result of the leap, but for the life of her she can't figure out how to control it or make it go away.

Honey nods as if she understands, but then instead she says, "I just have to go through a few more things with you. We're trying to be as careful as possible, it's — we've never seen anything like this before and — "

"Please," Anna shouts, startling even herself, and then her leg beeps and Honey reaches over to grab her notepad again. "I just want to see Elsa."

Low tolerance, highly unstable, Honey thinks as she writes insanely fast.

"I'm not unstable," Anna says; which she knows is a lie since her ears are ringing and she feels like she's completely lost control. "I just want to see Elsa."

Her leg beeps a second time and she feels a stinging sensation in her ankle, and then in a matter of seconds it's gone — all the heat and frustration and her ringing ears dissipate and Anna feels her body relax even though she wasn't aware she'd tensed it so much.

"Is that better?" Honey asks, as if nothing just happened.

Anna just blinks. And then she blinks again, focusing all of her energy on her breathing. In and out, in and out, until she's ready to talk about what the hell just happened and why Honey isn't surprised and why she's being labeled as unstable. And what the hell is going on.

"Can we, from the beginning, then?" she says after a couple minutes of recuperation.

"Sure," Honey says, but then she just blinks at Anna for a moment, like she's going over some mental checklist. "To get to the point — you came to us dying, and then suddenly you weren't. We ran scans that initially placed your psychic ability somewhere around a five, which Elsa said was weird because you told her you were a four. We were a little curious so we kept monitoring you over the next couple of days — in the spinning room — and you managed to climb to about a 7.12 before you stabilized. We pulled all of your old records and your initial testing did, in fact, put you at a 3.84. You're an anomaly."

Oh. This is all a lot easier to process when Anna's not mentally Hulking out. "So, before, you were saying all the research says that increasing psychic ability leads to death? How do you know I'm not dying?"

"Because you're doing the opposite of what research found," Honey says. "When you came in you looked like a text book case. Bruising from internal bleeding and your heart was kicking out, and then you just stabilized. I can't — there's no other way to describe it honestly. We thought you were going to die and you didn't. We have some theories — "

"Like what?" Anna interrupts. "What's the theory?"

"Whatever caused this — it has to do with Elsa. This isn't the first time a super psychic has bonded to someone like you. Trust me, it never ends this way."

"Why don't you just talk to Elsa about that then?"

A laugh practically jumps out of Honey. "I don't know if you've ever tried talking to her, but she's a brick wall. I can tell you, however, that we had to remove her during your psychic testing because she was disrupting the machine. She's something we've never seen before and I think she knows it." Anna opens her mouth to respond to that, but Honey waves it away. "Anyway, sorry about being so cryptic right off the bat, but I needed to get a feel for your distress tolerance. And, well, it's not good."

Anna shrugs, feels like that should be expected considering everything else. "So, what next?"

"Honestly, we're not sure, but a few more tests wouldn't hurt."

xx

Anna has to go through a battery of different tests and agree to continue wearing a psychic ability monitoring bracelet (which injects her when she reaches too dangerous of a level, Honey explained), but after what seems like forever she's finally, finally allowed to see Elsa.

The second she sets eyes on her, she can't breathe. It's been forever since she's been able to just take her all in, and now she's standing in the middle of the hallway like a ray of sunshine. Elsa's blocking and it's perfect, and Anna's definitely not planning on asking her to open up again anytime soon.

"Barely made it out of there," Elsa says, walking over to her and ruffling her hair. Anna leans into the contact; it feels amazing on her mind. Elsa's being playful, but she can tell how worried she still is, even through her blocking. "Had us worried there for a moment."

"I'm pretty reckless, but I usually come out okay."

Elsa smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "Let's just be extra careful for a bit, yeah?"

"It's not your fault," Anna says, leaning into Elsa's hand. "I know you think so, and maybe everyone here thinks so, but I know. It's not."

"That's fine," Elsa says, grabbing Anna's chair, and it all seems a bit forced. Anna's not typically the most perceptive, but she knows something is off. Her feelings are only confirmed when Elsa rolls her into a private room and sits across from her looking forlorn. "We need to talk, Anna."

Anna swallows. "You're not breaking up with me are you?"

"I can't," Elsa says laughing, genuinely. "We need to talk about the very near future. Your very near future."

"Honey promised me I'm not dying," she starts, but Elsa only shakes her head.

"It's not that. I mean, there are going to be a lot of people asking you a lot of questions and trying to run a lot of tests. I want to do what we have to do to keep you alive, but nothing more than that. We clear?"

Honestly, Anna's not seeing the forest through the trees, or whatever the hell Elsa is trying to get at. They bonded accidentally and it's not turning out the best, but it's not like they've done anything illegal. There's nothing to worry about.

"I don't know. I'm not sure what you mean. We haven't done anything wrong."

Elsa pinches the bridge of her nose, which is what she does when she's trying to conceal something, but Anna knows better than to dig into that.

"You don't have to be afraid of me hurting you, okay? So stop thinking like that. And I — you're the biggest scientific breakthrough maybe since the discovery of fire. I'm not letting you turn into a lab rat or start World War III, okay?"

Anna puts her face in her hands and massages her forehead because she can feel the frustration bubbling up again because she's confused. The last thing she wants to do is lose it in front of Elsa. She can't hear her thoughts right now, but if she's figured out anything about her by this point it's that she likes to blame herself for everything bad that happens. But, fuck if holding back the frustration isn't the hardest thing she's ever had to do.

"I don't get why I'd be starting World War III. This could be good for science, and like..." Anna winces as her head starts to pound. There's no stopping it; it's like once it starts up it doesn't die down.

Elsa places her hand on Anna's thigh and squeezes gently, and Anna inhales sharply because the contact is so intense. It's not even skin-on-skin, through Anna's sweatpants, but it's still just short of overwhelming.

"It's alright," Elsa says soothingly, "you have to breathe through it. Emotions come through differently now. Most people at a six or above get extensive training in controlling this, and this is just day one for you. Just ride it out, let yourself feel it."

"It's too much," Anna grunts into her hands, eyes squeezed shut and toes digging into the feet of her chair. She can't just let go and see what happens, not after Honey told her just how precarious a position she's in with her life right now. "I can't. It's gonna rip me apart."

"It's not, it just feels that way because you're fighting it." Elsa moves her chair closer and rests both her hands on Anna's thighs. "If you keep fighting it, you lose control. You start projecting, and — trust me, Anna. I've had to deal with this my whole life, and I've done it the wrong way more than a few times. You're used to your normal emotions, but you don't know how to feel this."

There's a wave of heat that rolls through Anna and she presses harder into her hands, muscles tensing and breathing becoming more harsh. This one feels worse than the one in Honey's office for some reason, and she doesn't know if it's her or Elsa, or — "Breathe," Elsa repeats, "let yourself feel it. It's going to be okay."

But Anna's only reaction is to bite down hard on her lip and tense up even more. Her lip is still sore from last time, so this is already taking a toll on her and it's just day one. After a few more seconds of this, she finally reaches her tipping point and just lets go, like Elsa's instructing and —

It's like nothing she's ever felt before, and this time in a good way.

She feels like a dragon, like she's going to breathe fire at any moment and roast Elsa alive, but she doesn't. Instead her fingers start to tingle and then the feeling spreads evenly over her whole body and in the end she just feels warm. She's still frustrated, but she's not exploding anymore.

It's all a big rush, like her ability is being amplified. She feels powerful. She is powerful. She's very powerful. And that means she's dangerous.

Maybe Elsa's wrong. Maybe she should be kept in the lab.

"You can't, Anna," Elsa says, like she's pleading. "The world isn't ready to know how to do something like this. There's nothing good that can come from it."

"It's not me," Anna says, remembering what Honey said in her office. "It's you. Honey said whatever caused this has to do with you. I was going to ask her what she meant, but then she changed the subject. She said you're something they've never seen before."

"She's too smart for her own good," Elsa says, like it wasn't meant for Anna hear, even though she said it out loud. "That's why we can't stay here."

"She seemed like a good person," Anna explains.

But Elsa just closes her eyes and shakes her head. "She's a scientist, and they only care about one thing. It doesn't matter how many lives they ruin in the process."

Anna opens her mouth, but then she shuts it right away. There's so many questions she wants to ask, but she's, well, she's afraid more than anything else. She already got in over her head once, and now she's in this predicament. It's probably best that she sticks to knowing as little as possible.

"Alright, Els. I'll do whatever you say."

xx

Telling the editor of a magazine about all the scandalous shit that just went down in her life maybe isn't the smartest thing to do, but Anna almost died and Tiana's one of her closest friends.

"Anyway, I'm like a seven now, but Elsa says we're supposed to keep it on the DL."

"That's the craziest thing I've ever heard," is Tiana's initial response, and then she looks around the restaurant three times and scoots in closer like the government is secretly watching. "So what's going to happen?"

"I have to go in twice a week for testing, and Elsa just stands there like a Hawk. They can't so much as take a blood sample without having to account for every drop in explaining which tests they ran."

"Seems like she's on top of it then," Tiana says, relaxing a little. "Are you worried?"

"That I might start World War III?" Anna asks, and then she drops her fork in her salad as both her and Tiana laugh. "It wasn't what I got voted most likely to do in high school, but Elsa seems concerned about it. She's a bit of a professional worrier, though."

"Could never hurt to be too careful."

"I've been doing some thinking myself," Anna says, tapping her forehead. "And I've been thinking if Elsa's the key to it all, that we've got nothing to worry about. Most they can find is that it's something to do with Elsa, and then what? It's not like they can force her to do anything."

Tiana seems to agree with that, Anna thinks. "I suppose. How's your hand doing?"

"It's not that bad anymore," Anna says, because it's not. It's just a low throb at the moment, that only really twinges with pain when Anna puts pressure on it. "Can't believe I slammed it in the door, but I'm also glad I did. Probably would have passed violently in my sleep, otherwise."

Tiana doesn't even pretend to find that amusing. "I'm really glad you're okay, Anna. And I'm here if you need me, for anything."

Anna just nods, because she knows. But part of her hopes she never needs her. Part of her hopes this whole thing just blows over and everyone forgets about it, but she knows that's not going to happen.

Despite her jokes, she has a bad feeling about this, and unfortunately her feelings haven't been wrong lately.