xxXxx

Elsa's asleep when Anna gets out of the shower the next night, curled up in the center of the bed with her face shoved between two pillows. She looks so so comfortable, which makes it very tempting to just go cuddle up behind her, but Anna would feel bad if she woke Elsa. So she grabs her laptop and sets up camp on the couch instead.

This is the perfect time to finally figure out what's going on with her head and her body and her bond and her life in general.

Which basically means she spends the night Googling everything until she ends up horrified on Reddit reading severance shock horror stories. She doesn't know how valid any of this is, but continuing to hear Elsa's thoughts even after Elsa dies sounds thoroughly scary and makes Anna wish she didn't choose to sit in the living room alone. In the dark.

Which mostly results in her sprinting to turn the lights on, then sprinting back to the couch to continue her search.

Although she already had the basics down, she does learn a few new things, most of which she didn't know she needed to know, like:

1. Bondmates can't bring their partners back to life by believing/loving/focusing hard enough.

2. Same thing for bringing bondmates out of comas with kisses.

3. Bonds are not predetermined, and only referred to as soul-bonds due to popular culture.

4. Bonds only connect you to your partner, not your children. There are no real advantages to having biological children vs. adopting.

5. It's not uncommon for bondmates to die after their partner dies, but typically seen in older bonded couples.

6. Diseases can't be passed through bonds. Sexually transmitted infections are still only sexually transmitted.

That one should be obvious, Anna thinks, but she was convinced her bond was a force-bond, so she knows how easy it is to believe something that simply doesn't make any sense.

She gets tired of searching after a while, and ends up flopping on her back and letting everything she read run through her mind, letting her thoughts drift off into different scenarios. She lifts her shirt and runs her hands over her stomach before throwing an arm over her eyes, completely relaxed under the warm glow of the living room light.

So she's quite surprised to suddenly hear Elsa say, "Anna."

It's not that she's forgotten that Elsa's there, how could she ever, but she was being nice and letting Elsa sleep. There's no need for Elsa to sound slightly annoyed.

She lifts her head from the couch and looks over at Elsa. Oh. That wasn't annoyed. That was strained. Elsa's standing straight as a rod near the doorway to the bedroom; her big eyes are big and her cheeks are bright red. This is interesting. "Yes?"

"What's happening out here?" Elsa asks, aggressively keeping a straight face.

"You were sleeping, so I thought I'd finally look up bonding on the internet," Anna says innocently.

"But do you have to..." Elsa flaps her hand around, revealing that she is, in fact, flustered. "...do you have to do that half naked?"

So maybe Anna only slipped on a loose t-shirt and underwear when she came from the shower. But she's used to living alone, it slipped her mind. She's not trying to be a terrible roommate, but... she can't say she doesn't like the way Elsa's looking at her. It's making the mood all different, makes her want attention, more of it. Anna sits up and turns so her legs are off the couch, lifts her arms above her head in a stretch that makes her shirt ride up.

Elsa's unusually silent, both out loud and mentally. Anna nudges at her mind, but it's like she hits a wall. Elsa must be blocking. Blocking out her inappropriate thoughts.

Anna smiles. "Did I disturb you?"

Elsa isn't listening. Anna can feel how intensely she's staring at her, even without making eye contact. Even with Elsa blocking. She doesn't even feel self conscious, revels in it. She shakes out her hair and then runs her hand through it.

"Anna," Elsa says miserably, and then suspiciously clears her throat three time. "It's... I had a nightmare." She finally drags her eyes up to make eye contact, looking at Anna accusatorily. "It was fairly persistent, a ghost bonding to me in my sleep."

Oh. "Sorry," Anna gulps. "I was reading horror stories."

"Some of us are trying to sleep."

Anna puts her hands over her thighs, the moment's sort of gone. "Sorry, was an accident. Was researching bonds and clicked a wrong link."

Elsa sucks in a long breath, visibly relaxing, and then she breathes out a laugh and stops blocking so intensely. "I can't leave you alone for three seconds without you getting into trouble."

"Sorry, I just wanted to figure stuff out so I can be better."

"Don't apologize," Elsa says immediately, and then she takes a step forward and reaches out a hand. "Come to bed so you're not a zombie tomorrow. And please put some pants on."

Right, so Anna can make Elsa flustered.

This is the best discovery yet.

xXx

"What's gotten into you?" Kristoff asks, quirking a brow.

Anna can't stop smiling. She half-wants to go on about how great it is sleeping next Elsa and semi-cuddling and watching her sleep and finding out she maybe definitely is really attracted to Anna. But then again she doesn't want to sound like Cady talking about Regina in Mean Girls, like she's just spewing word vomit. "Nothing, why?"

"You're just... last time we hung out you were dying."

Anna frowns. "Oh yeah. You didn't have to tell T, by the way. I could've done it myself."

"I just wanted to give her the heads up. In case you needed support. She's the only other bond I know. And our friend. And your boss. It was fitting."

Anna rolls her eyes and doesn't bother commenting on that. Instead, she opens the glove compartment and rifles through the CDs until she finds 25 by Adele. She pulls the CD out of the case and then ejects the CD already in the stereo system. Surprisingly, it's another copy of 25. "I know I'm not in a position to judge, but I think you have a problem."

Kristoff groans. "One of them is borrowed, okay? Was just until I got my own copy and then I was going to return it."

Anna laughs. "Yeah, sure. Who even buys CDs anymore anyways. Especially when cars have bluetooth and phones hold so much more."

Kristoff must have something important to say, because he looks at her and not the road. "It's Adele."

"It'd be Adele in a digital copy as well," Anna retorts. "You know, the singer doesn't actually change, just the media format."

Kristoff sighs, and then he turns and fixes her with his serious stare once they're at a red light. "So, the bond. What's new since she moved in?"

Anna swallows and adjusts her cardigan. It's dark blue and fits perfectly on her. Which has less to do with it's actual fit and more to do with the fact that it's Elsa's, so it's automatically perfect. "Nothing, tragically. You really don't have to keep asking about her."

Kristoff shoves her shoulder. "Don't be ridiculous. I need to know why you think she's so great all of a sudden."

"What, you don't believe me?" Anna asks, giving up hugging the cardigan around herself to glare at Kristoff. "I texted you pictures of her napping on the sofa."

"She was asleep with her shoes on and her feet on the couch. You deserve better than that."

Anna can't help her smile. "She dozed off and I put her feet up to make her comfortable. All my doing."

Kristoff is supposed to be giddy with her, but instead he just sighs again. And she gets it. She really gets it. It's just that the first time she even thought about bonding, it was with Hans. She thought she was in love, like true love, and she chattered off nonstop to Kristoff about it until he was behind it one-hundred percent. In fact, no one supported Anna's potential bond more than Kristoff.

So when Hans turned out to be a complete twat, Kristoff sort of lost his faith in people faster than Anna did. But he was the one that had to do damage control and deal with a generally depressed eighteen year old Anna. It was a dark time, she doesn't like talking about it.

"She's very considerate," Anna tries. "And I'm already in her head, so how many big surprises can there be?" There can actually be a lot, but she keeps that to herself in the name of comforting Kirstoff.

"I know," he says, "it's just. You do this annoying thing where you think the best of people."

"How's it annoying?"

"Because if you were more cynical I wouldn't have to worry about my best friend getting hurt all the time."

"It's not all the time," Anna disagrees. "And this is different. It's permanent, so I can't really give up on her." She gets that Kristoff wants the best for her, but whether Elsa is the best or not, Anna's stuck with her. She might as well enjoy it.

"Fine," Kristoff says, giving in. "How's getting to know her? What's she like?"

Kristoff's making it hard to not talk about Elsa since he keeps asking about Elsa. But as long as they're on the subject, Anna doesn't mind. It's sort of her favorite topic. "She's really nice and supportive and caring and - " Anna sighs. "She's funny and smart and cute and older. She gets that I'm clumsy and jittery when I'm nervous, so she's always distracting me with questions and interesting facts. And she likes that I'm sappy." She slumps down in her seat because it feels like her heart's melting. "I think she's perfect."

"But have you seen her outside a contained environment, like interacting with other people? Like with friends?"

"No," Anna admits. "I only see her when we're both home. And grocery shopping."

Kristoff shakes his head. "You can't live like you're two separate people that only share a home. You have a bond, so it's already more than that. You're not awkward freshman roommates."

"There's nothing awkward about us," Anna clarifies.

Kristoff hums, tapping his chin. "But she hasn't met any of your friends. How do we know you're not making any of this up?"

"You're just mad because she's cuter than you, so you have to tell yourself she's not real."

Kristoff laughs. "No, smartass. I'm telling you invite her to your office party. Let her meet T and the gang. And by gang I mean me. Show off your nature stories and cool paper clip figures you keep hidden in your desk drawer. It can be fun."

Anna looks at him like he's a genius. "That's actually not a bad idea."

"I'm full of good ideas," Kristoff says smiling. He taps the wheel and wrinkles his nose. "So, have you like, you know. Like, sex."

Anna gasps. That's none of his business. "Not yet, but I think we will maybe."

She expects him to comment on that or follow up, but instead he waits a while before speaking again, and then asks, "So, what's her family like? Her childhood? What school did she go to? What was she like before you?"

Those questions are actually a lot harder than they seem, mostly because they're so basic but Anna doesn't know the answers to them.

"I — I, um. We're still getting to know each other," she says honestly. "It can't all happen in a day. In a perfect world I'd know everything about her, but it's. It's just not that easy. You gotta understand that."

Kristoff comes up short. He's silent for a moment. He sounds a bit more reasonable when he asks, "What's being bonded feel like? When you're not dying, that is."

Anna nibbles on her lip and thinks about it, really thinks about. It's surprisingly hard to explain how it feels. The best she can come up with is it's like having a second heartbeat; sometimes you're super aware of it, and other times it's barely noticeable, but you'd definitely know if it stopped or if something was wrong. But it's also like having a second pair of lungs and a second set of feelings. At first it's confusing and chaotic, but it fades into this pleasant buzz that's always there and soothing and she can't remember what it was like before her bond, but she's not interested in ever going back.

The trouble with it is that she's sure that even if she hated Elsa, she'd still feel this way. Maybe to a lesser extent, but not liking Elsa is like not liking herself, because Elsa is a very real and quite literal piece of her.

"It's like you're no longer your own person," Anna settles on. "You feel what they feel, and they feel what you feel. But instead of feeling cramped or invasive it's like — Whenever you touch them or see them or when you're just around them it feels like coming home from a hard day of school and finding fresh baked cookies in the kitchen. It's like a pleasant feeling that resonates in the deepest parts of your mind."

"Maybe you should write poetry instead of nature stories," Kristoff jokes.

Anna doesn't laugh, though, or jab back. Because as much as everyone thinks it's cute or funny that she's being sappy or whatever, it's all real to her. Elsa's practically a ten on the Argo-Meyer scale, so she can probably turn it off whenever she wants. She can block Anna or dull out the bond, but Anna can't do that. She couldn't really block Elsa even if she wanted to. Sometimes she feels like she's more Elsa than she is herself. Sometimes when they eat together she has to eat the same things at the same times because otherwise she'll taste the spinach Elsa's eating as she bites her hamburger and her stomach will turn.

She feels Elsa in her fingertips and on the tips of her ears and in her toes and her bones and she's so attached to Elsa that sometimes it hurts.

It may be her only cynical thought, but underneath how 'cute' that is, is the very real, and very scary fact that Elsa's life is her life and that's essentially what a bond is. It's sacrificing the deepest parts of yourself in order to be a singular unit with someone else.

And maybe Anna doesn't understand how people skip how serious that is and go straight for it being cute.

She shrugs. "You just have to be bonded to understand."

xXx

Anna sits on the office party idea for a week before she builds up enough courage to ask Elsa. Or at least sits on it until she has to ask Elsa because the party is tomorrow night and she already confirmed she's bringing a plus one. Ever since Kristoff brought up that they're living in an isolation bubble, it's been more and more apparent to her, so she knows this is important for their relationship.

And it's the perfect set-up, really.

Office parties under Tiana are always organized, fun, and awe-inspiring. Tiana has a knack for everything because she's generally just an impeccable human being, but on top of that she's like, beautiful, and down to earth and has an enviable work ethic and she's perfect in every way.

Which is exactly how Anna sells the office party to Elsa.

"I think I just became the biggest supporter of Tiana's secure bond," Elsa says, between scoops of macaroni. She baked it and it has four cheeses and bacon and it's great and Anna officially swears she will never eat another TV dinner again. "I'm almost jealous."

"No," Anna says quickly. "She's just more like, who I want to be when I grow up. Not who I want to bond to. It's different. There's role model and then there's bondmate." She feels like that explanation didn't come out as great as it sounded in her head, and judging by Elsa's scoff, she's right. "I mean, and then there's role model and bondmate."

Elsa at least looks to approve of the correction. "I don't know, a room full of strangers isn't really my scene."

"They're not strangers," Anna explains. "They're more like family, you know? They're my people. If you like me you'll like them."

Elsa sighs deeply because this is an obvious guilt trip. But Anna really needs to pull out the big guns here; it means a lot to her.

"Last time I went to a party I ended up bonded, remember?" Anna nudges her to look up and note her deep frown, and Elsa adds, "Not that you're not a great person to be accidentally bonded to, just. In the grand scheme of things it's not my most responsible decision."

Anna pouts, and Elsa immediately thinks it's cute. She's always thinking about how adorable Anna is, but Anna never seems to get her way perfectly. She reaches over and forks some pasta off Elsa's plate, chewing it slowly, and it's almost too delicious to keep a pouty face.

"Please come," Anna whines, giving her best puppy eyes. "It'll be fun."

"It'll be weird," Elsa clarifies, knocking Anna's fork away when she reaches for seconds. "I don't know them and they don't know me and... we'd have to tell the same we-got-drunkenly-bonded story over and over again."

"We could make it interesting, tell a different story every time just for a laugh. Elsa," Anna whines again, sliding closer to her. "What do you think is going to happen? You can't really bond to someone else, if that's what you're worried about. I think we've gotten the worst out of the way already. My friends want to know you, so either they show up here unannounced and interrogate you, or you got to this party."

Elsa sighs, closing her eyes, even as a warm feeling spreads across her mind at the idea of knowing Anna's friends. "Fine, I'll go."

It still takes two more times of Anna begging and convincing, but Elsa can't physically say no, since Anna would just flood her mind with mental frowny faces until she caved anyway.

Because Anna's determined to make this work. Because she's sure they can have a typical bond.