Chapter Eight

A/N: Imma be honest, this is probably one of my favorite chapters that I've written for this story. Like easily in the top five. You'll see the other four eventually.

West Arendelle at night was one of the most peaceful, serene places in the world. Aside from the occasional sound of cars pulling out of driveways or coasting down the street.

Moonlight blended into the dim glow of Anna's kitchen, soft gray complimented the black and white. She sat at the dining room table they bought off Craigslist with a mug of hot chocolate that was getting colder by the minute. In her other hand, she held her phone to her ear, waiting for a moment to speak.

"Mom…", she sighed. "Mom I told you, I'm fine."

"Anna Dawson, you broke down at an elementary school and wouldn't stop crying until Rapunzel got you back into the car."

"It wasn't an elementary school. And…okay so I wasn't fine then, but I promise you that I'm fine now." Anna replied, not exactly believing that herself. "I always appreciate you checking up on me, but it's been a long day, and all I want to do is sleep."

And the less she talked about this, the better.

After Rapunzel made up an excuse to drop her back home, Anna collapsed on her bed to brood and sulk. She didn't leave her room until now. This whole week...what she wouldn't give to erase it from her memory for good. As she was trying to find something to eat her phone rang, no doubt Rapunzel had told her mom to talk to her.

"And that's another thing: Why didn't you tell me that you met with Elsa again? You tell me everything."

"I know…I know and I'm sorry I never told you anything it's just…" Anna paused, she wanted to lie at first but realized that lying to her mom was a stupid idea. Plus, she had already come clean once today. "If I couldn't admit to myself that something was wrong, then how could I tell anyone else? Especially you, mom?"

She swallowed, the truth tasting like a bitter pill.

"Oh honey…", her mother cooed, "I understand, you know I do. But you should have told me, you know I'd do everything I could to make you feel better."

Anna sighed, "Yeah…yeah I know you would have." She was incredibly grateful for her mother; she didn't know what she would do without her. "I promise you that the next time something like this happens, you'll be the first one I tell."

"Even before Rapunzel?"

"…okay you'll be the second one I tell.", Anna redacted. She heard her mother grumble, "Mom I live with her, it's a lot easier to have a face-to-face conversation than to have one through the phone."

"Well…alright I guess that's true." She heard her mom sigh, and there was a moment of hesitation until she continued, "So…what happened?"

Anna leaned back on the dingy, plastic chair and bit her bottom lip, "You mean Rapunzel didn't tell you what happened?"

"She told me the gist of it, but I want to hear the whole thing from you. Now come on, no more dodging this, I want to know everything."

Anna looked down at the mug in her hands, it was black and tiny pieces were chipped off around the rim. The faded logo of the North Mountain University crest did nothing to ease her conscience. The eyes of the lion in the center clawing at a shield pierced right through her, digging up a bottomless hole of remorse. She still had no idea why she hadn't thrown it out yet.

After gathering her thoughts and deciding the best way to answer, she decided to go with the bitter truth once again. "I screwed up…again. But worse this time."

"What do you mean?"

"I had a meeting with her last week. She told us to raise a crazy amount of money to earn by the end of the month, so I went to talk to her. I really was going to be professional and talk things out with Elsa, but something just…happened. Funny story, talking to people face to face is also harder than doing it through the phone." She tried to laugh, it sounded too forced to be convincing.

"Seeing her again made a lot of things come back to the surface. I remembered the time we spent together, all the great, amazing moments we shared, but I also remembered…how much I hurt her. And I knew that the first thing I told her wouldn't be about budgets or money or anything like that, I had to apologize."

She scratched at the logo, wondering if erasing the lion's head would also erase her guilt. "But I went way overboard in my apology, I…oh my gosh, I walked up and hugged her like nothing had happened between us. I tried really hard to control myself but once I wrapped my arms around her it was like…I just-just didn't want to let go again. I kept telling her that I was sorry and like an idiot, I cried, like stupid big tears right onto her nice dress suit thing."

Anna laid her head on the table and used her forearm as a pillow, "And then she kicked me out. Mom, why am I so stupid?"

"Now honey don't say that, you are not stupid. You're just…"

"Helpless? Idiotic? In need of a lobotomy?"

"…in love."

If she had the energy to, Anna would have shot up from the table so fast the chair would flip into another dimension. But all she did was snap her head up so fast that the mug almost tipped over. "What?!", she exclaimed. "There is no way that…I am not…I mean I can't be...what?!"

Her mother laughed like she was watching her daughter stumble after taking her first steps. It was a bold move, considering the emotional state of her daughter. "Actually, you're right, you're not in love. You're still in love, even after all these years."

"And how are you so sure about that?", Anna asked but then immediately shook her head. "You know what? Don't answer that, I just know that you're wrong. Totally, absolutely wrong. I can't be in love with Elsa, not after all this time, not after what I did to her. That's just sick."

"Oh don't be so overdramatic."

"I'm not being overdramatic, you are!" Rapunzel was most likely sleeping, she lowered her voice into a harsh whisper. "You and your talk about being in love and all that, you're the one blowing this way out of proportion. I'm just here…listening to all this and thinking…gah! I knew I shouldn't have told you about what happened."

Her mom laughed again, that same laugh from before. Anna was glad her mom was getting some amusement out of this because she sure wasn't. And as her mom started to talk more about why she was right, her mind decided not to do her any favors and think back on the day that she actually did realize she was in love with Elsa.

A little more than a year had passed and Anna and Elsa were now sophomores about to celebrate an important milestone: their one-year anniversary. But instead of celebrating, they had a playoff game against one of their school's biggest rivals. Southern Isles Prep, a private school on this tiny little island off the coast near South Arendelle. Two years ago, they legally added the word "Prep" to their school title. Even though they weren't actually a university-preparatory school, they believed that adding it would gain them more sponsors and financial backers. And it did.

Students that went there walked and talked like they were humanity's greatest gift and paraded this privilege around in their navy blue and maroon uniforms. You could ask anyone in any neighboring town about the school and they wouldn't have a single good word to say about it.

A few years ago, during a football game between Arendelle High School and Southern Isles Prep, two of the players got into a fight that escalated so fast that the entirety of both teams had gotten involved and the game was called off. Later, they found that the visitors' locker room had been completely destroyed. Lockers were toppled over like dominoes, shattered glass littered the floor, stall doors were ripped off their hinges, and vulgar graffiti lined the walls.

They weren't exactly greeted with a warm welcome when they returned after that incident.

Early into the lacrosse game, Anna and Elsa knew that they wouldn't be leaving it without a couple of scars. These Southern Isles girls didn't hesitate to play dirty and skated the line between what was against the rules and what wasn't. If they even breathed in the same direction as the red and blue brutes, they were met with rough tackles and a battering from their sticks.

Their coach gave them a much-needed rest halfway through the game, Anna handed Elsa a water bottle and looked at her with a tired smile. "How you holding up?"

Elsa rolled her shoulders and tried to hide a wince. "I've been in worse games," she lied. "What about you? They aren't roughing you up too bad out there, are they?"

"It's nothing I can't handle." They watched the game with ice packs on their shoulders, cheering their teammates on as they plowed through the rest of the half. The atmosphere was electric on this Wednesday night, fans for both schools were split along the grassy sidelines. On one side was a sea of purple and green and on the other was an armada of blue and red. It was difficult to hear their coach during timeouts from the roar of the crowd.

Even Elsa's chuckle was almost drowned out, "So this is a…pretty interesting way to spend our anniversary."

"Well it could be worse. We could be on an actual date," Anna joked. "Th-that was a joke by the way…I actually wouldn't mind if we spent our anniversary on, you know…a nice and relaxing, not painful at all date."

Elsa wrapped her arm around Anna's icy shoulders, "Anna we've been together for a year now, I know when you're joking."

Anna looked up at Elsa. There was a small scratch disturbing the freckles on her right cheek, the ponytail she had put her platinum blonde hair in was coming undone, and dirt was smeared all over her face. But damn it all if she still didn't look absolutely gorgeous. All it took was one glance to remind Anna of how lucky it was to be with someone she loved.

…

Wait.

Oh crap.

She just said she loved Elsa. She'd never said she loved Elsa before. Technically she hadn't said it out loud, but she thought it and that was pretty much half the work. She just said…she loved Elsa.

This was big, really big. And maybe bad too? It slipped out, but it was so true. One year later, one year of just her and Elsa against the world, and she knew more than anything else that she loved this girl. But did Elsa feel the same way?

"Anna, you okay?"

Anna pulled herself out of her thoughts and shook her head, she was sure that she had been looking at her girlfriend- thank goodness they could finally use that term now- with the dumbest expression. "Yeah-yeah I'm okay I…I was just, you know, thinking of what you wanted to do after this."

Elsa didn't look entirely convinced but didn't push. "I dunno, you got any crazy anniversary date suggestions?"

Was confessing her love a crazy suggestion? Anna didn't suggest it just in case. "I don't know either, maybe we can just…get something to eat?" Preferably somewhere private and away from other people just in case the adrenaline from the game and her penchant for jumping the gun made her do something super bold. And stupid.

"Sounds like a plan." Elsa smiled, her pale lips looked soft and inviting. Usually a fun thing for Anna to think about, but not so much now.

Before they knew it, they were both sent back into the game. The unstoppable duo put their shoulder pads and helmets back on and marched right back onto the battlefield. They were down to the wire and tied at 4 points apiece.

With five minutes left, things seemed to be going in their favor. Anna and Elsa were working like a well-oiled machine, skirting past the defense and playing a two-woman game, passing the ball between each other at such speed that their opponents didn't know where to look. Nothing could stop them now.

And then something did. Or rather, someone.

The opposing goalie was in their sights and all eyes were on them. All it took was one more pass, one more throw, and they could be able to breathe a momentary sigh of relief with the lead in their hands. But they were so focused on each other, that they didn't manage to see one of their opponents coming at Elsa like a freight train. Anna was too busy catching the ball after a pass that went a bit too high that she couldn't warn her girlfriend in time. All she could do was watch as the girl behind Elsa rammed into her and sent her to the ground with a sickening thud. Her helmet bounced as she toppled over, and for a second Anna thought she'd died.

And that was one second too many. Her heart pounding in her ears kept her from hearing the coach tell her to keep going. She dropped her stick, raced over to Elsa, and with inhuman strength pushed the girl off of Elsa and sent her flying.

Anna, so far gone from her rage-induced stupor, could only watch as a bystander in her own body while the world moved around her. Referees and teammates flooded the field. Elsa, thankfully still alive, was helped back to the locker room, and fans on both sides were either praising her or shouting what were most likely death threats.

But she didn't care about any of that. All she cared about was hoping that Elsa was okay, and she rushed off the field as well once she finally got her legs working again and her vision returned.

By the time she got inside, Elsa had already been stripped of her gear and was sitting on an exam table getting checked for injuries. Anna took off her own shoulder pads and helmet, waiting anxiously for the physician to finish her checkup. After an agonizing few minutes, the physician handed Elsa an ice pack and left the room.

Anna stopped her before she walked out. "Is she…is she alright?", she asked without even trying to hide the intense worry on her face.

"She'll be okay, it was a rough tackle and she'll probably have a splitting headache and some bruising around her ribs for a few days. But there aren't any major injuries to be worried about."

Anna leaned against the wall and let out a sigh of relief, "Oh thank goodness..."

"Just keep an eye on her for the rest of the game, will you? Besides, I don't think you want to be out there right now anyway since you've got half of the Southern Isles wanting your head." She didn't have to tell her twice.

Once the physician left, Anna rushed into the room to see Elsa, sitting on the table with her shirt off and ice packs wrapped around her ribcage. She was fully aware that this was the least amount of clothing she had ever seen Elsa in, but she also knew that the only thing that mattered was her physical well-being.

"Hey…", Elsa grunted with a painful smile. "You okay?"

Anna looked at her astonished, "You're asking me if I'm okay?! Did you not see what happened out there?"

"See it? Anna, I lived it.", Elsa tried to laugh but made a regretful grunt afterward and clutched her side.

Anna noticed that the cut on Elsa's cheek had gotten deeper and grabbed the first aid kit in one of the drawers. "Your cut's gotten worse, hold still and let me patch it up."

"Will do." Elsa patiently waited for Anna to get to work, but she hissed when Anna rubbed a cotton swab with alcohol on her cheek. "Hey, that hurt!"

"You got hit so hard I saw your soul come out, I think you can handle a little rubbing alcohol on a cut," Anna quipped. Although she felt a knot in her stomach hearing her girlfriend in pain, especially since she was the one that hurt her. It came with the territory that they'd suffer injuries and get hurt on the field, but that didn't make it any less easy when it happened. "Besides I'm almost done, so just…you know, keep holding still."

"Fine," Elsa sighed. "Hey speaking of hits, did you…I also saw you tackle the heck out of that girl too."

"Yeah, I did," Anna said, leaving out the part about how she'd do it all over again if she could. She gave as well as she took, but she hated it when anything happened to Elsa.

"But why? I mean you could have just kept going, you could have scored and like won the game right there. This could have happened to you too, Anna. You know that right?"

"Maybe, maybe not." Anna unwrapped a band-aid and placed it on Elsa's cheek. Unfortunately, she'd let her guard down for a bit too long, and let something slip that she probably shouldn't have. "All I know is that I'm not going to let people hurt someone I love and get away with it."

"Wha…what?"

Anna froze, realizing what she said. She wanted desperately to pretend that didn't just happen, she wanted to backtrack, she wanted to convince Elsa that she heard her wrong. But all she did was stand there, face petrified, and her fingers hovering over the band-aid on Elsa's cheek.

And then suddenly her fingers weren't on Elsa's cheek. Suddenly they were in Elsa's hands. Suddenly Elsa's eyes were right on hers, searching for more answers. "Anna did…did you just say you love me?"

"I-I uh…um no I…I mean that's not…" It was useless, the fact that she hadn't immediately denied it gave her away. There was no turning back now. "Okay yes, yes I did say that…I love you. Or at least now I did…like officially anyway. I realized it- tonight actually- and I was trying to find the best way to tell you and this was…this was definitely not it."

"Hey it's alright, you don't-"

"No, it's not alright!", Anna frowned. "I did it again! I jumped the gun, I didn't-I don't know where your head is at and just kept thinking about me and what I was feeling. I knew I would feel these feelings at some point, but when I finally confessed them I wanted to know where your head was at first. The confession was going to be somewhere private, and romantic, and special. This super dark medical station thingie is definitely not any of those things!"

"Anna, just-"

Anna tore her hands away from Elsa's and dug them into her hair. "What if I said it too early? What if I messed all of this up and I made you feel awkward and uncomfortable? I don't wanna lose what we have, and I feel like I am! I'm so scared and so stupid, and just…why couldn't I just shut up and-"

"Anna!"

"What?!"

Suddenly there was no more talking and no more worrying. There was just Anna and Elsa, in the privacy of a physician's office, with ice and band-aids, and Elsa's hands on her shoulders and they were kissing each other with the same passion from when their adventure began. When Elsa pulled away, Anna whimpered and leaned forward for more only to be denied.

"Anna Dawson…", Elsa said amused at her eagerness. "I love you too."

Anna couldn't remember won that game, nor did she care. Something magical happened in that room, something that no one could ever take away from them.

It was the greatest anniversary they ever had. Even now, seven years later, she could say this with utmost confidence. But seven years was a long time ago; a lot happened afterward.

She had gotten off the phone with her mom a couple of minutes ago after Anna convinced her that she would be okay. And she meant it too, at least for the time being. After washing off her mug and putting it back on the shelf, she decided it was time to call it a night. As she passed Rapunzel's door, she could see light coming from the crack in the doorframe. Turns out she wasn't sleeping after all. Nonetheless, she still knocked before letting herself in.

Rapunzel looked like she had been hard at work for a while now judging by the papers all over her desk, her long hair tied up into a bun, and the calculator on her phone glued to her hand. "Hey," Anna said, testing whether Rapunzel was up for a conversation.

"Hey yourself," Rapunzel replied without looking up from her desk. "You have a good talk with your mom?"

Anna closed the door behind her and leaned on it, arms crossed. "I did actually. We cleared some things up, I told her some things I probably should have told her before, and she gave me some…advice about all this."

"All this? What's that mean?"

"Oh you know, advice about our bakery and how we can get more opportunities and stuff like that to make more money," Anna half-lied.

"Anna, you were on the phone for an hour. I seriously doubt that's all you two talked about.", Rapunzel punched some numbers on her phone and wrote them down. "You're telling me Elsa didn't come up in the conversation at all?"

For a minute she wondered not whether she'd tell Rapunzel the truth, but how much she'd actually tell her. Would it make sense to tell Rapunzel that her mother thought she was still in love? And if she did tell Rapunzel, did that mean she was admitting it to herself? Did she want to admit it?

Absolutely not. As far as she was concerned, telling Rapunzel about what her mother said would just make things even more confusing. Besides, she still hadn't told her why they broke up in the first place.

"Yeah, she came up," Anna replied after a heavy exhale. "But she told me what I already expected her to: that I needed to put the past behind me and just focus on making this bakery work. And I agreed with her. No matter how badly I want to bury the hatchet it's clear that Elsa doesn't." A sickening feeling started to grow in the pit of her stomach, both from lying to her best friend and from the bits of truth she'd sprinkled in hitting her hard.

Rapunzel finally looked up from her desk, she stared at Anna with a look that was less accusatory and more worrying. "Are you sure that's what you want?", Rapunzel asked, going straight for the question that would hurt the most to answer.

Anna forced herself to shrug and said sadly, "It's not about what I want." She knew that if they continued to dwell on this topic, things would come up that she absolutely could not deal with right now. She needed to change subjects and fast. "Anyway, uh…what are you working on?"

Rapunzel peered at Anna, seeing right through her plan, but she played along anyway and held up her phone with the calculator app still on it. "Oaken's check came through, I've just been crunching the numbers seeing how much we still need to make this month."

"How much did he end up giving us?"

"$5,000."

Anna's face lit up, "Oh my gosh, that's an insane amount of money for one dinner. We're already halfway there!"

"Not exactly," Rapunzel replied, just as disappointed as Anna was. "We have to subtract the cost of all the ingredients we used up today, and the cost of the van we rented. Plus, we closed up shop early so we need to take into account the earnings we lost. That's a good thousand dollars right there if I did my math right."

"Oh…", Anna pouted. "That's a bit of a bummer. But hey, that's still better than nothing, right? We've still got time to make up the deficit."

"Of course we can. But we're going to have to work our butts off, and I've been running the numbers here-"

"Did you just say you've been 'running the numbers'?" Anna asked, a little amused. She wasn't going to say anything about her saying 'crunching the numbers', but two cliches in a row were enough for her to interject.

"Yes I did, hush. Anyway, I've been running the numbers and…well, I don't think we're going to get the rest of the money just from manning the shop from here till the end of the month." Rapunzel leaned back on her chair and let out a tired sigh. "We're going to have to think outside the box again."

Anna walked over to the desk, all the papers that covered it were full of numbers and words that made little sense. "I don't suppose you have any ideas," she asked.

Rapunzel smiled, "Actually, I do." She pushed one of the papers towards Anna, on it was a draft of an email and the subject line read: Arendelle Fair Booth Registration.

"Every year, ArenCorp holds a city-wide fair to celebrate the city and how it made the company like this big success," Rapunzel continued. "It's like a farmer's market on steroids. Local businesses have booths where they can show off and sell their products and whatnot, and so I signed us up to register for a booth. It still needs to be approved, but if it does then not only can we get some great exposure off of this, but we can make some good money too."

Typical Rapunzel, always being more on top of it than Anna could ever dream of being. Anna put down the paper and clapped her hands together and bounced on her toes, "Let's do it then!"

Rapunzel laughed at her friend's enthusiasm, "Whether we do it or not is out of our hands, but I'm glad you're so on board with this. I have to warn you though, there are two…problems if we do this."

"Alright, what are they?" The redhead asked, feeling the shot of adrenaline coursing through her from this great idea.

Rapunzel held up one finger, "Well the first one is the amount of food we have to prepare. We'll be feeding more than just a school; this is like half the city at least. And the festival is in a week. Are you sure you're ready for that?"

She stopped herself before blurting out an answer too quickly. It would be different to say she could handle this if they had a whole crew to work with, but it was only them. And while Rapunzel was good at being on top of things in every other aspect of life, she wasn't much use in the kitchen. Regardless, they had to do this, and Anna had to be ready. She squared her shoulders and nodded, "Yeah, I'm ready."

"Alright…I trust you.", Rapunzel put up another finger and she looked more serious than before. "The second problem is- well you see, some of the more higher-up positions at ArenCorp usually show up to this festival. They're there to make sure they keep their jobs or if they want something from someone else, but other than that they don't do much…except for one. There's one person who's tasked with giving the opening speech, visiting all the booths to see how they're doing, and giving a closing speech. One person who, at some point, will probably come over to our booth too."

"And who's th-", Anna stopped, and the adrenaline immediately drained from her system. "…oh."

Rapunzel mirrored the uncertainty on her face, "Are you sure you're ready for that?"

A/N: Spoiler alert- She's not. Or maybe she is. I don't know, I just write this stuff.