Author's Note: Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and happy every other holiday in this month. Hope they've all gone well, and that you've all enjoyed the ride so far. Next update will be part one of the alternate ending, then we get the first epilogue of this, and so on, so follow me if you want the alternate ending, and if not then you'll have to wait four weeks between the two epilogues.

Elsa was, as ever, neglecting to have breakfast. Anna was only being marginally better as she and Olaf both ate bowls of Froot Loops, while Nani and Lilo bickered, trying to get her to get dressed for school. Apparently, Lilo felt that her evil overlord Halloween costume was acceptable attire for a day in the middle of September, while Nani disagreed.

Elsa poured her coffee – which Anna supposed was better than nothing – into a plastic cup and screwed the lid on. "You two have fun at school. I need to get going. I have a crime scene to get to." She smirked. She'd taken to her new job like a fish to water these last couple months.

"I don't know how you handle it."

"Haven't had to much, yet."

Olaf set his spoon down in his empty bowl. "So, you're going to see a dead body?"

The corner of Elsa's mouth twitched. There really wasn't a good answer to that question. "Yeah, probably. You're not going to ask me to take pictures of it, are you?" That was definitely not one of the better ones.

"No, though Lilo would probably love it."

"Probably true." She leaned forward, kissing Anna's cheek. "I'll see you tonight."

Wishing that she could just give her a proper kiss, Anna gave her hand a quick squeeze. "You have a good day. Try not to throw up on the body or anything."

"All the more reason not to eat breakfast." With a final chuckle and wave, she grabbed her keys and headed outside. She'd started parking her way-too-expensive car outside, since she normally started work before even Nani and Anna's early mornings. Belle had copied her, as soon as she bought a cheap ten-year old Corolla, though Anna always wondered if that was because she actually needed to be there that early, or just because she wanted to be like Elsa. She listened as Elsa's car pulled away. She wouldn't see her for the better part of twelve hours. I still have no idea how these lawyers do it. If I had Belle and Elsa's workload, I would actually die. This is why I have I job where I just have to work 185 days a year.

"I should get going too." She kissed her son on his head and followed Elsa's example. Belle's car was on the curb, so she didn't have to ask her to move it. Nani would drop the kids off, as she did each morning, since she had to be at work twenty-five minutes after Anna, a fact that she may have taken a little too much advantage of over the past months.

As she drove her way through the New York City streets – a task that she still absolutely loathed and which brought her near heart attacks on a daily basis – she sipped at the coffee Elsa had brewed. This is the life.

"There's a big delivery for you," a voice from the door said, as the school's security officer stuck his head into the classroom. Finally! I was about ready to stab a water bottle to demonstrate how rain works, and when my teacher did that in school all it made me do was feel bad for the water bottle. I may have cried a little. I know plastic doesn't have feelings now, though! Other than my dildo. "Did you want me to bring it in or –"

"I can go get it, John. You mind looking after my class for a minute?" She was going to need help to carry it, but she needed to go grab the wheeled table from the teacher's lounge and didn't want to have him deal with all of that.

"Sure, it's no problem."

"Thank you," she called behind her as she stepped out. This whole thing had taken so long to set up, but when Esmeralda had visited, she'd made a point of just how little cultural awareness her high school students had, and while Anna herself was still lacking there, she needed to help fix that for the future.

They'd spent almost her entire trip setting up this project, with Tiana's help, going to every place in town to find all of the best options. It being a school, they had quite a few difficulties, since nothing could have nuts or alcohol in it, and that was half of Esmeralda's favorite food, and made representing a lot of cultures that relied heavily on peanut oil quite difficult, but they finally managed to arrange a menu.

It certainly wasn't comprehensive, but it gave a good smorgasboard of cultures, representing from the six major continents, and with only a quarter of the cultures being the ones that would normally be studied in any class – to use how Esmeralda explained it. Though she ruined the euphemism by immediately adding 'the white ones.'

The bags of food were waiting for her in the principal's office, with the Uber Eats driver himself long gone. He likely was barely allowed past the door. They were pretty hesitant to just let anyone in, even after she'd confirmed that she was expecting a delivery. Anna couldn't blame them, it was hard to be too paranoid these days.

"Hey," she said to the secretary – a Mrs. Billie Robinson, as she'd finally learned the other week. "Any chance you could help me with this? I'm gonna put it on the wheeled table."

"Really spoiling those kids, aren't you?"

"It's for educational purposes! I'm trying to use it to start teaching them about other cultures."

"For first graders?"

Just because Olaf wouldn't eat almost any of this doesn't mean they won't. "Can't start too soon, right? Besides, they have a geography test later today, and this is a good way to get them thinking about that." Even if the geography test is just on the US.

"All right. How about you go grab that table and I'll help you wheel it in?"

That was a much better plan. She should have thought of that; the teacher's lounge had been on the way. After a quick jog, she returned, struggling to push the squeaky thing into the room. With Billie's help, she managed to transfer everything to it, leaving the bags behind, and they pushed it to her class.

"All right, everyone, time for your big surprise!" She grinned, gesturing at the heavily-laden table. There were dishes from almost three dozen different countries – and almost as many restaurants – in large enough quantities that everyone could try a bit. It had taken a large chunk of her paycheck, but that was softened by not having any real expenses. "Since we've spent the last two weeks going over our social studies, and learning about the rest of the world, I thought I'd give you a chance to try using another one of your senses, since you already got to use sight." That wasn't even a pun, I'm not gonna laugh at myself. They were probably too young to really appreciate this lesson, as Billie had pointed out, but it was far better than letting them grow up without any exposure to other cultures – which would be pretty easy in private school, even in New York.

"I know a lot of us have our difficulties with certain foods," she continued, "so I have little cards drawn up with everything that's in these. If there's anything that you can't read, I'm more than happy to help, but everyone try to get themselves a plate with a bunch of different stuff to try, and I'll go over the cultures that they're from and their importance in them." Having Tiana help her with this was absolutely cheating, but she knew basically everything there was to know about food, and Anna wasn't going to just not take advantage of that.

To her great surprise – perhaps because Olaf wasn't in the class, or maybe just because Olaf had helped Tiana figure out what foods would be palatable to picky eaters – the kids seemed to actually like the food, and it helped make the lesson a lot more tangible. Despite their mouths being full of food, they asked way more questions than they usually would, and seemed to be hanging on her every word. She was glad she'd thought of it.

Anna knocked on the door to Maui's classroom. It was recess right now, and neither of them had to be out there watching the students. "Good afternoon," he bellowed, grasping her in a crushing hug. "How did your idea go?"

"Pretty great, actually. We have some leftover food if you wanted."

"Seriously? I only brought a turkey sandwich for lunch, I'd love something fresh and filling."

Beaming up at her friend, she gestured toward her door and led the way. "It's mostly just some bratwurst, carne mechada, and curry. I understand the other two just being a bit too much for them, maybe, but I don't get the bratwurst."

"Maybe it just seemed like hot dogs, but wrong?"

"Yes!" Anna felt like a massive dork for having just clapped her hands together at that realization. It made so much sense. While eating stuff similar to what they're used to was easy, if it was too similar, it could just be like the uncanny valley or something. That explained it.

"Or maybe it was just too authentic."

"Everything was though." She was already pretty full, but Anna nibbled on an arepa.

"Anything to drink? I'm assuming you don't have beer to go with the bratwurst."

"I do not. Sorry, I didn't think to get that for my first graders."

"It's the only thing that gets my students to shut up," he replied, his teeth showing in a broad smile.

Anna giggled, grabbing two bottles of Mexican soft drinks. "Will this work?" She asked, cracking the top off one with the bottle opener on her keys.

"So, what else do you have planned for the day? We just have some finger painting, which is always my favorite part of teaching kindergarten. Though mine always end up a bit smudged." He wiggled his fingers at her; they were almost as big as the bratwurst.

"Pretty much just review, then a geography test. If there's time, I was thinking maybe we'd do story time, I found an old fairy tale I hadn't read since I was a kid, and was hoping they'd like it."

"Sounds fun. Though I don't think you can beat finger painting."

"Finger painting is overrated."

His jaw dropped. "You take that back."

"Nope." She stuck her tongue out at him, swirling her beverage in her hand.

"Finger painting is the apex of human achievement. We've just been going down from there, since Neanderthals first invented it."

"Please, the greatest human invention is clearly air conditioning."

"Not possible without finger painting. How do you think they made the blueprints?"

Sometimes, Anna could swear that hanging around kids all day just made them more immature. That couldn't be though, right? "Just because it lets you make a perfect turkey doesn't mean it's the best art."

"But have you seen those turkeys? They're really impressive."

"Yeah, that's why I'm going to have my class make them in November, but it's not even October yet."

"Yeah, that's why I'm having my kids make spiders."

"You can't fingerpaint spiders!"

"Sure you can. Just come drop by my class and you'll see. They look perfect."

"I don't believe you. Maybe I'll have my class paint spiders properly for their art time tomorrow, and we can show just how much better ours are."

"Nope, my class's spiders would eat yours. I'm sorry. Finger painting is superior."

"I think you're challenging me." To hold back another giggle, Anna took a swig of her soda, calming herself down enough to give Maui a serious staring down.

"I think I am too."

"Well then, you're on. Our spiders are going to wrap yours up in a web and drain out all of their juices."

"Please, they won't even be able to get through all of the webs we'll have waiting."

Anna chewed on her lip. "Are we drawing the webs too, or cutting them out? I need to know the rules for this contest."

"Whatever way works," he growled back.

Her eyes narrowed. "You're on."

"I'm not messing around here, our spiders will scare your pants off. You don't know how terrifying finger paint spiders are, we'll have the Halloweenest room."

"My kids have a year better motor control, you don't stand a chance."

"But those advanced motor controls mean nothing to our artistic spirit."

Anna swiped a cupful of curry. She wasn't even slightly hungry anymore, but the smell was amazing and she hadn't had any yet. "So, what will we get when we win?"

"Well, when we win, we're going to get a trophy."

"We can't do a trophy, the kids would know that they were competing, and whichever class loses – meaning yours – would feel bad."

"Teacher with the losing class buys lunch?"

"Deal!" She stuck her hand out, still a bit greasy from the food, and he shook it, their eyes meeting in a vicious challenge.

"Well, that'll be fun. You and your wife doing anything for Halloween?"

Anna grinned, the fight gone from her face. "Yes! We're going trick or treating with Olaf and Lilo! She's going to be a vampire and I'm going to be a vampire hunter."

"What does a vampire hunter look like?"

"I'll have like a big hat and a crossbow and stake. Plus, like some garlic hanging on my belt. It'll look amazing and you'll see the pictures on Facebook!"

"I'm just going to a costume party. I was going to go as Master Chief, I had the armor made custom and everything, but now that I know about your vampire hunter outfit, I just don't know if it's good enough. Maybe I should just be the ghost of a bed sheet."

"My costume will be amazing!"

"Whatever you say." He patted her head, chuckling as she glared up at him. "So, what're the kids going as?"

"Lilo is going as like a Sauron sort of character, I think just her own invention, so Olaf is just going as her right hand man, with like a sword and stuff. I tried to get them to at least be someone that people would recognize –"

"Like the famous 'vampire hunter.'"

She glared back at him. "But they like their costumes. I don't know why Olaf is fine with just being a minion." She shrugged. Granted, she certainly didn't mind following Elsa around as a kid, but it wasn't the same! God, that would just be weird if they did end up together.

"So, does he look like Saruman or something?"

"I don't know who that is, but I don't think so."

"He's from the thing you just referenced!"

"Then I guess I don't remember that movie very well." She scratched at her head, chuckling awkwardly. She'd re-watch it when Olaf hit that phase, and she had no doubt it would come, but she didn't need to see it before then. "But it's just sort of a knight kind of thing, but with more evil stuff."

"Heh, I went as a knight when I was his age."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I think that's pretty common for boys. Though, Lilo isn't going as a princess, so that's definitely not tradition."

"Gender roles bow before her." Laughing at her own joke, and at just how easily she could see Lilo saying it, Anna leaned back in her chair, sipping on the semi-sweet beverage.

A bell rang outside. "Damn, I swear, there's never enough time to eat."

"You went through like three sausages and half the shredded beef!"

"I know, not enough time." Clapping her on the back, he rose from the chair. "I should go get back to my classroom. Have fun with your geography test."

"I will. I'm gonna know the states so hard."

"Yeah you will. Well, while you were studying geography, I had extra time to prepare for our contest!" He ran out of the room with an expression that could only mean that he was prepared to finger paint up a storm.

Anna took a minute to enjoy her drink. She'd been so worried about making friends at her new school, after having had Giselle and Esmeralda to rely on at the last one, but she'd already made such a good one from even her first day. Granted, she hadn't added any the last few months, but that didn't diminish how glad she was to have Maui.

Her students were escorted back inside and filed into their desks, a few dropping toys off at their cubbies or the pile she had in the closet. "So, is everyone ready for the test?"

Groans and panicked looks passed among the students.

"That's what I thought, time for some review."

Surprisingly, they didn't actually need as much review as she'd planned for. They were getting all of the states right – and even a few capitals, and those weren't even going to be on this test. So, she went ahead and handed out the blank map, and pretty quickly was able to give everyone check pluses. There were only a couple mistakes, and they were mostly mixing up a North and South, or things like that, so she was pretty happy with the results.

"Since you all did so well and finished early, I thought we could do story time. It's one of my favorite fairy tales. Have any of you heard The Snow Queen before?"

Anna walked into the public school, its walls covered in hand-drawn posters with various inoffensive quotations, and a few school spirity things, because Elementary school had such intense sports competitions. There was a latchkey program, for students who didn't have a parent home when school ended, and Olaf and Lilo went to it, despite the fact that if they just took the school bus, by the time they made it home, she or Nani would already be there. It was just a convenient place for them to spend a half hour until she could get there.

"Hey, Mama!" Olaf called, looking up from the board game he was playing with Lilo and a boy that she didn't know the name of. He was about Olaf's size, but with darker dirty-blond hair in a moppy bowl cut, that reminded her of when Kristoff had tried to grow his hair out in college. It had not gone well. She'd seen Olaf playing with the kid before, but it was a bigger game, so she hadn't realized that they may be friends.

"Hey, Olaf," she replied, sitting down at their table. With her school ID clipped to her lapel, it wouldn't surprise her if the teachers on duty didn't question her presence, but she'd made sure to get to meet all of the teachers, so that they'd know who she was when she came to pick up the kids. "You two have a good day of school?"

"Mmhm," Olaf confirm, "We went over all the states."

"Oh, hey, that's what I did with my class today."

"Do you need me to help you practice them?" he asked.

Snickering, Anna shook her head. "I think I've got it down."

"Some stupid kids insisted that Hawaii wasn't a state," Lilo grumbled.

"Aww, I'm sorry." She wasn't sure if she should insist that Lilo shouldn't call her classmates stupid. It was mean, and definitely wasn't going to help her make friends, but why were they even arguing that in the first place? Who taught them that it wasn't?

"Olaf held me back from fighting them. I'm still mad at him."

"I didn't want to let her get in trouble again," Olaf insisted, whining like he'd been caught doing something wrong.

"You did the right thing, Olaf. Thank you for looking after this little trouble maker."

Lilo glared at her.

Ignoring her, Anna asked, "So who's this then? Is he your new friend?"

"Yeah! James, this is Mama, Mama, this is James." He gestured between her and the other kid.

"Nice to meet you, ma'am," he replied.

Wow. Manners. That's going to take some getting used to. "So, are you two friends?" I can only dream, right? Lilo always scares off any friend that Olaf tries to make.

"Yeah!" No way! "He plays Mario Party with me at recess."

Anna missed when making friends was that easy, but still, it was a huge success. She barely managed to resist pumping her fist. Now, if only I could ask 'How has Lilo not scared you off?' It would really help to find out, so maybe Olaf can keep making friends. "That's great. I'm so glad you two are friends." That was a weird response, wasn't it? Am I going to scare him off instead.

"Me too! Olaf is cool."

She looked down at her son, trying her best to hide her surprise. Olaf was kind, smart, gentle, empathetic, and the lowest maintenance kid imaginable, but between her own dorkiness, Kristoff's oafishness, and the awkwardness that Olaf himself had always seemed to display, she had trouble imagining how 'cool' could possibly describe him. But, asking that would be about the meanest thing she could do, and she wasn't going to be that mom, so she just ruffled his hair and said, "Yeah he is." That probably lost him all of his cool points anyway, but it was the best she could do. "So, you kids ready to leave, or did you want to finish your game? James, if you wanted, I could call your parents and see about you coming too?" Because that wouldn't make me sound like a kidnapper or anything. I just really want Olaf to have more friends.

"I'll ask them tonight and maybe I can this weekend?"

"Sure, that would be great. Our number is in the class directory."

"'Directory?'"

"Your mom should have it." You're a teacher, Anna. You should've tried to use that to teach him a new word. How do you define directory anyway? It's an index of numbers? A list of names and numbers. "It's like a list with the whole class's info on it, though directory doesn't have to mean for a class." Give me a break, I'm all taught out.

"So, are we going?" Lilo asked.

"Yeah, come on. We can grab ice cream on the way." It had been a good day, they could have a treat.

"Yes!"

Olaf cheered, and jumped up from his seat, knocking over the game's pieces. "Let's go!"

Well, they're stopping anyway, so I suppose ruining the game doesn't matter. She grabbed their hands and led them back to her car. To Max and Mina's Ice Cream!

Anna tossed her wallet and keys onto the table by the front door, slipping her hands into the pockets of her slacks. Olaf and Lilo filed in behind her, their mouths smeared with chocolate syrup and ice cream. "You two go wash up," she said, stretching out a kink in her neck. That had been bugging her for the last five minutes, and she desperately needed it.

They ran off. She had little doubt that they were just going to go play video games or get into a sword fight, but she'd ask about homework later, not that they tended to get all that much. She grabbed a beer from the fridge – Maui was right, it was just necessary after the bratwurst – and flopped onto the couch. The garage door opened just as she settled on some cheesy reality show to vedge out to.

"How was your day?" she asked, as Nani opened the door.

"Long! I had three dogs chase me today. I know it's a stereotype, but that really doesn't happen that often to me."

"Did you pet them?"

"No, I just threw some treats to them, but they still seemed more interested in me than the snacks."

"You okay?" Anna leaned over the armrest, trying to peer into the hallway. "They didn't get you, did they?"

"Two of them were chihuahuas and the other was a Pomeranian, I'm fine, it was more annoying than anything. They didn't even bite me."

"That's good. I'd hate to have to drive you to the emergency room."

"I could drive myself, you know."

"Not if your ankle's all swollen up."

The fridge slammed shut and Nani finally appeared a moment later, holding a bottle of iced tea. "I wouldn't have been able to drive home then, and would've probably been taken to the hospital."

"Well, I'd come visit you at least."

Falling into the other end of the couch, Nani propped her feet up on the table – still in her work shoes. Well, what Elsa doesn't know… "I know you would. Are you seriously watching this trash?"

"You have something better to watch? It's 4:30, there's nothing good on."

"We have DVR! And Netflix! There's lots of good things to watch."

"Fine then, you pick out whatever you want, and I'll watch it. If I start snoring, it's just me paying extra attention. Make sure you wake me to check that they did their homework."

"Fine by me." She flicked through a long menu, while Anna adjusted, getting comfortable, and finally settling on resting a pillow on the armrest and putting her feet in Nani's lap.

"I've seen that one," she said, as Nani read a description.

"Oh, right, we watched it together, didn't we?"

"We did!" That was back in college, wasn't it? How had I forgotten? "Wait, I think there were only three seasons then."

"Are you awake enough to actually pay attention to a show right now?"

"Maybe," she insisted, without much conviction.

"We can watch it tomorrow. That sounds fun, I remember really liking it. For now, I'll just watch something that'll put you to sleep."

"That means a documentary, doesn't it?"

"It does, in fact, mean a documentary." Pressing a few more buttons, she started a series on marine life. The fish were really pretty, and the narrator put a lot of passion into everything, maybe this wouldn't be that bad.

She was asleep by the second animal.

When Anna finally awoke, it was to her partner standing over her. "Nani said she'd wake me up," she muttered.

Elsa pointed toward her feet, where Nani was drooling on the back of the couch. The TV was rather judgmentally asking if they were still watching whatever that show had been called. "That explains it. Did the kids run away and take over the city?"

"No, they were playing some Mario game. I checked on them first."

"You're a good mom."

Rather than shiver, or recoil at that, Anna was surprised to find that Elsa gave a faint smile. Maybe she actually is coming around on that idea. Guess she could've been happy with Tiana. She tried to push that thought from her head, she hadn't made them break up, and wouldn't have even tried to stop anything from going on there while they were together, but Elsa had chosen her, and seemed to be genuinely happy with it. She wouldn't let herself doubt that. "You too," Elsa finally said, taking a seat on the arm rest, and running her fingers through her hair.

"I still need to check if they did their homework."

"I asked, even made them show it to me. It was just some addition tables, and it's all done."

"Damn, you are a good mom." She leaned into the touch, letting out a low moan, Elsa's fingers were magic.

Elsa smiled down at her before leaning forward and kissing her forehead. "You want to go back to sleep?"

"What time is it?"

"A little after seven, I think."

"No," she grumbled, stretching and trying to force herself to sit up, unsuccessfully. "If I sleep anymore than I'll be up all night and I'll be too sleepy in the middle of class tomorrow. I need to get up."

Elsa glanced to Nani, who was snoring lightly, and very clearly asleep. "Well, I can think of one way to wake you up."

"And what's that?"

This kiss was not on her forehead, was much more forceful, and involved tongue as well as her hands roaming down her. If she wasn't awake when Elsa grazed her through her bra, then she was sure as hell awake when Elsa's hand settled on her thigh.

"Okay, I'm up. Did you want to go to bed?"

"No, I brought dinner, we should eat first."

"But that's not what I'm hungry for."

"Anna," she was clearly trying to sound annoyed, but she looked far too jovial – and a bit turned on – for it to be believable. "We have to eat. We'll have plenty of time."

"Nope. I'm going to sleep or you're taking me to bed."

"Someone has to be able to keep an eye on the kids."

"Then wake Nani up."

She glanced over at the sleeping woman. "She's very beautiful, but I'm not up for doing that for her."

Rolling her eyes, Anna spat back, "Not like that!"

"Not like what?" Nani mumbled.

"Like that." Anna grinned up at her partner. "So, ready now?"

"Anna –"

"We don't have to if you don't want to."

"Dinner first, then I'll want to. Promise."

"Fiiiine," she groaned, pulling her feet off of Nani and sitting up. She regretted it immediately, but it had to happen. "What's for dinner?"

"Pizza."

"Motorino's?"

"You guessed it."

Okay, maybe getting up wasn't so bad. And she had such a tempting dessert afterward. She could manage to sit through dinner first, no matter how desperate Elsa had made her.

It was definitely worth the wait.