Chapter 54

A/N: Just a head's up, I might be making a new account once this story is over. Cause, you know, jobs are a thing and it was really stupid of me to have the same username across all forms of social media.

So yeah, this will be my last story underneath the "vinjhup" banner. It's been a wild ride these past five years, I hate to say goodbye but hey that's life.

The sky's a little darker, the city's a little quieter, the air's a little colder. It's as if Elsa's own emotions have spilled out onto Arendelle, covering it with the same fear, shame, and doubt that's in her. She looks out the window the same way she's done a million times before, but all she sees is her distorted, broken reflection.

All she thought about was what would happen if she trusted her gut, what would happen if she was a few more steps ahead than Hans, what would happen if she hadn't sent three policemen to the hospital.

All she thought about was how this was all her fault.

Anna helps, of course she does. Just having her around, rubbing her back when she feels the beginnings of a panic attack, hearing her sweet, soothing voice...it helps more than she can say. However, it doesn't lessen the guilt.

The day's over, and once she finds her reflection too sickening to look at Elsa collapses onto her office bed and places her hands over her eyes. She reasons that the darkness will help her think, but all it does is allow herself to repeat the disaster that unfolded just a few hours ago.

Anna sits by her and scratches her head in the spot that calms her down. Even in her lowest moments, it still does the trick. When Elsa was in a meeting, Anna sat at Hannah's desk and acted as the assistant/lifeline she desperately needed.

"I know you don't want to talk about this," Anna started, "but we need to figure out our next step."

"Next step?" Elsa asked like she was offended by the notion.

"Yes. Today was...it was tragic, but Hans is still out there. And we need to stop him before he hurts anybody else."

"He doesn't want to hurt anyone else. He's after you and me."

"Are you willing to bet on that?"

It's been weeks, and she still feels a twinge of fear shiver down her spine when she thinks about what Hans has done to her, and what he could do to other people. She wants to stop him, but how much is she willing to lose of herself to do so? How much is she willing to sacrifice to make sure that he's gone for good? "I...n-no. I guess I can't."

"The Elsa Andersen that I know would never give up trying to do the right thing." Anna pokes at her forehead to accentuate her words. "She's smart and strong. And when she falls, she's back on her feet in no time."

"Anna," She groaned as she let her hands fall onto the bed. "I don't even know what the right thing to do is. We're not on the lacrosse field anymore, the stuff I do impacts more than just me. I can get back up and keep trying, but it's clear that Hans is always going to be five steps ahead of me at every turn."

This whole time, Anna never stopped with the head scratches. "Are you sure you believe that?" She asked, unfazed by the hopelessness in her voice.

"...no. I-I don't, but I can't keep making decisions that will hurt people. Someone died today because of me. I have to live with that."

"Did you put the bombs in that house?"

Elsa shot her a look of disbelief, "What?"

"Did you set them off? Did you intentionally lead those men into a trap?"

"O-of course not. I would never do that."

"Then who did?" Her voice isn't stern at all, Anna's not trying to accuse her. These are questions, plain and simple. Elsa knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to get her to think logically.

Jerk.

"Hans," She replied. Uttering his name left a bad taste in her mouth, she felt like she was going to throw up.

"Then this is all on him. You've been trying to do the right thing, you saw that he was a threat and you were the only one that's tried to fight him. You've done more than enough, we need to do just a little bit more." Anna stopped the head scratches, which almost made Elsa whimper, and squeezed her hand. "We're so close Elsa, I know we are."

Elsa wants to believe her. Partially because they don't have time to grieve, but also because she needs this right now. This reassurance. It was something that was never there when Anna left.

"Sergeant Bjorgman had a fiancée, you know? And a dog. Apparently, they were going to move to West Arendelle because it was safer." Elsa read and reread the reports of the accident today during her free time. "That's just another burden that I have to carry through this pile of shit. That's one more thing that's going to eat at my conscience."

"Why?"

Elsa sat up and glared at her, "What do you mean 'why'?!"

Anna's face remains the same, unfazed and curious about the blonde's thought process. "Why would you let that burden you? Why are you letting these things eat at your conscience?"

"Because that's how I learn from my mistakes! If I remember the things I've done wrong, then I won't repeat them." Elsa didn't know why this wasn't making sense, she believed that she was reasonable in her anger. After all, holding on to the burden of what she did to their relationship helped her to not repeat those same mistakes.

...didn't it?

"Elsa, do you honestly believe that?" Anna squeezed her hand again, still unfazed by her outburst. "Do you really believe that dwelling on your mistakes will help you learn from them? Especially the ones that you didn't cause?"

"Of course! I mean take our relationship for example. I held on to that pain that I caused you, and now it reminds me to never do the same things again." That made sense in her head, it had to.

"Elsa, all that did was make you beat yourself up about it. If anything, you holding on to that burden made it harder for us to get back together." Anna placed a hand on her cheek and smiled. She was smiling. How could she be smiling after all this? "If you don't learn to forgive yourself, and let go of these burdens, they're just going to make you feel worse. And they're going to keep you from making the right decisions."

Elsa opened her mouth to speak but found that she couldn't find the words to argue with her. Anna's argument sounded backward, like two things canceling each other out, but the more she thought about it...the more it made sense. Her inability to get over her mistakes meant she spent more time dwelling on them than fixing them.

As if to support that point, Anna continued, "When you stopped beating yourself up from keeping the secret about Hans from me, that's when you finally realized how to get me back."

She tried to look at her confused, but her lips betrayed her and curled into a smile. "Anna, I kidnapped you!"

Anna laughed, "Marshall kidnapped me."

"Yeah, but I told him to. Which means, by proxy, I kidnapped you."

"The point being…" Anna rubbed her arm, "...is that you worked to make things right. So what are you gonna do now? Are you gonna dwell on this? Or are you gonna make this right?"

It didn't take long for Elsa to think about that decision. She believed Anna, as hard as it was to do so currently. There was no time to dwell on this mistake, Hans was still out there and would hurt more people while she sat on her ass and moped. "I'm gonna make this right."

Anna beamed at her, proud of her decision to not give up. "I know you will."

Thirty minutes after Elsa called him, Flynn arrived at her office. "I'm sorry, I thought for sure that he was there."

She bounced her red ball one more time before placing it back on her desk. "It's not your fault, besides we have to get back to work. There's something missing here, I had a feeling in my gut that finding him there would have been too easy."

Flynn nodded, "Sometimes if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

"We need to go over everything that we know so far." She sat up and tapped her fingers on the desk, "To be able to get to West Arendelle, plant those explosives, and then get out before you could show up means that Hans and his bodyguard have to at least be in the city."

"That makes sense." Flynn pulled up a chair and flipped it around so he was leaning forward on the back of it. "His bodyguard being at the exact place you were in yesterday must have been a message that he was close by."

"And he mentioned something about being up in your 'ivory tower', right?" Anna glared out the window, hoping the look would intimidate Hans wherever he was. "That means he knows you and I are up here."

"He might think that it's just me up here."

"Oh come on Elsa, he knows you would never let me leave your side." In a quieter voice, she heard the redhead mutter "Not that I'd want to."

Elsa smirked for a second before returning back to the task at hand. "And those noises from the phone calls, they have to give away his position."

Flynn rubbed his chin and looked off to the side. "Scraping metal and a loud pop. Did you hear any of those when he called you earlier?"

"Just the scraping, but I did hear something else. Another noise that I've been trying to figure out."

"Do you know what it sounded like?"

She would have if her head wasn't full of static when Hans called her. All she heard for certain was the metal and his disgusting voice, but it was there. And if she could just think harder, go back to that moment...because it was familiar. She knew for sure that it was a noise she'd heard before.

There's a warm hand on her shoulder, Anna's by her side and smiling at her as if to say that she can do this. Her thumb gently kneads a knot in the back of her shoulder that she wasn't aware of.

Uh...it was...something, I-I'm sure it's…" Elsa groaned. "Damn it! I know it's something I've heard before. It was too faint, I couldn't hear much aside from the metal and him breathing into the microphone."

"Gross," Flynn added. "If you've heard it before, then that definitely narrows our location down to Arendelle. And if the scraping metal is any indication, then he has to be somewhere where there's a lot of it. Maybe some factory, or a warehouse-"

"Or a shipping container," Anna added.

Wait.

That's it.

Elsa's eyes widened and she stood up so fast that Anna almost fell over. They both look at her as if she's been possessed. "The docks," She whispered.

"What?" Anna and Flynn said at the same time.

"The docks in South Arendelle, that's where he is," Elsa explained.

"Are you sure?" Flynn asked.

"I'm definitely sure. That sound I heard? I heard it in the brief period Hans wasn't scraping his knife around like a tool. It sounded like...I don't know like a chime or something. There's a boat that comes in at 12:30 on the dot every other day and it has bells that they use to tell the time."

"Elsa, how do you know so much about the docks?" Anna asked.

"There's a bar there that I go to sometimes." When Anna raises an eyebrow in concern, she just adds: "Don't worry about it."

"Well now I am wo-"

Elsa held both her hands, the smile on her face didn't match up with the intensity in her voice, "Anna trust me, I only go there for business...and for the whiskey. But only in moderation, and if you don't like that then we can talk about it later."

Anna blinks, "O...okay."

Elsa took a deep breath and squeezed her hands, "Now...he's either in a shipping container like you said, or he's hiding out in one of the warehouses. All I know for sure is that he's definitely at the docks. Flynn, could you check the cameras around there starting from the day he first called me."

"I gotcha. What do you want me to do when I find him?" Elsa felt a swell of determination as soon as he said "when" and not "if".

"Call me."

Without saying another word, Flynn nods and walks out of the office to do his job.

"What will you do when Flynn finds him?" Anna asks.

She doesn't want to answer that because she knows Anna won't be on board. But knowing that she can't lie to her, Elsa sighs and says "I'll go down there and confront him myself. I've already put the APD through enough."

"Elsa, no!" Anna moves in front of her, there's an immediate fear in her eyes that she never wants to get used to. "You're not going there alone."

"As soon as I see Hans, I'm calling the chief so they can arrest him," She replies as if that's supposed to ease the worry on her girlfriend's face. It's obviously not enough, so she puts her hands on her shoulders and says: "I'm going to be okay."

"That's great and all, but I'm still coming with you. You're not doing this alone, and I don't want to see you get hurt again." There's a determination in her voice, but Elsa knows it's less of a demand and more of a plea.

It's not one that she can grant, however. "If you're there, then we're both in danger. He won't kill me if he doesn't see you, so in some twisted way me going alone ensures that we're both safe."

"At least take Marshall with you."

Elsa shakes her head, "He's staying with you. You're going back to work tomorrow, and I want to make sure you have as much protection as possible in case he tries anything like he did today. I know for sure that he's at the docks, but I don't want to think we're out of the woods just yet."

"Elsa…"

The look on Anna's face, the fear, hurts her heart. What makes it worse is that even now she's still wary about this plan working. Maybe the uncertainty she feels on the inside is reflected on her own face, which is making Anna more worried than she should be.

Ready or not though, this is what she needs to do. Going alone and having Marshall at the bakery maximized her chances of keeping Anna safe.

Elsa's ready for Anna to continue arguing against this plan, adamant about keeping it the same no matter what she says. But she doesn't keep fighting, she just looks down, "Okay...if you say that this is the right thing to do then...then I trust you."

In their earlier argument, Elsa knew the exact moment Anna shifted from being mad at her to being mad at herself. Sleeping with Hannah wasn't the problem. Anna was still holding on to the guilt for breaking them up, and she's been feeling uncertain about her own role in this relationship. Anna's scared of not doing enough, she's scared that her "inability" to help right now makes her useless.

Elsa knows that's far from the truth. She reassured her of that last night, but she'll gladly do it again now.

"Anna…" She lifts up the redhead's chin and stares lovingly into those sad eyes. Before she speaks again, she leans forward and kisses her. It's tender, calming, she feels Anna let out a much-needed sigh.

"I wouldn't have been able to get this far if it wasn't for you. Right now you're not sitting on the sidelines, you're keeping me alive. Like I said, he wants to go after you first before he even thinks about hurting me. If you're not there, then I'm safe. We're safe."

"I know all that, I just feel like…like…"

Another kiss, the same desired effect minus the sigh.

"The work that you did to get us back together again doesn't just go away afterward. You've done so much for us, and it's my turn to do the same. Okay?"

It takes a little bit for Anna to answer, the lip bite and the look away are tell-tale signs that she's thinking those words over. When Anna does finally look back, she tackles her with a hug and wraps her arms around her neck.

"If you don't come back, I'm kicking your butt," Anna whispers, her voice giving away that she's about to cry.

As the tears fall onto the back of her coat, Elsa wraps her arms around Anna's waist just as tightly. This whole thing is risky. Maybe Hans only goes to the docks to make his creepy phone calls, maybe he will kill her on sight, maybe...so many maybe's.

What she knows for certain is that she'll do whatever it takes to end this, and to come back home so Anna doesn't make good on her threat. This plan has to work, this can't be the end.

She won't let it.