Warnings: [Usual eventual smut warnings, you know].

xxXxx

Anna doesn't even see her until she hits her.

It's not surprising, really — she's drunk as all hell, going top speed on her road bike, at like, two in the morning, because the bar had kareoke night and she convinced herself to drink eight shots and sing six songs. Which wasn't really the best idea, considering she has the tolerance of a toddler and a presentation she can't miss at work in the morning.

So now she's booking it back to her apartment at a speed that's way too fast for how slow she's thinking. But this is Arendelle City. She's lived here her whole life, bar a few months she spent studying abroad back in college. So she figures she's got enough muscle memory to get back quickly without incident, except clearly, she's wrong because she cuts across the street and slams right into a woman on the cross walk.

It's not really head on, Anna initially swipes her with her handle bars, but it causes the entire bike to swerve hard and fast and slam flat into the woman's side. She goes flying one way and Anna travels a couple more feet in the other direction, before her bike jams because the wheel's turned awkwardly, and she flips off and slides roughly along the pavement.

The whole thing is done in maybe less than five seconds.

Which is to explain why, when Anna finally lifts herself off the ground, she spends a good ten seconds staring down at her bloody palms trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. Then she actually puts it together and processes that she hit an actual woman, and the blood rushes from her head so fast that she stumbles forward on her wobbly drunk legs.

She's normally responsible when she drinks. She's normally the one sneaking cups from her friends' hands and replacing them with water. Not that like, she's the most responsible person ever, has her flaws, but this — fuck.

She's a bundle of nerves when she finally walks over, heart pumping hard and thick in her chest as she kneels down to get a closer look.

"Hey, are you alive?" Anna's voice is shaky and her knees are pressing painfully against the pavement, but she's trying to keep it together, even nudges the woman's side to see if it gets a reaction. Her ears are ringing and her senses are dulled and her head keeps tilting forward, but she's aware enough to know something isn't right. The woman isn't moving or responding, and maybe it's just Anna's drunk mind being dumb, but it sort of looks like she's not even breathing.

This could be bad. This could be bad bad.

Anna can feel the thump thump thump of her heartbeat coursing blood through her veins at a high enough rate for her to be sobering up incredibly fast. Suddenly she's hyper-vigilant, taking everything in, assessing all the details.

She's not moving. She's not moving. She's not moving, and her head is turned the other way, so Anna can't see her face. But, then again, she doesn't necessarily want to. She's positive she can't handle seeing any blood or disfigurement, heart's already beating out of her chest from the thought that she really-actually-seriously hurt someone. It's hard to think straight; her hands are shaking — too many thoughts, too many drinks, too much adrenaline. "If you're alive, just like, grunt or something. Please."

Anna's very responsible when she drinks. Her chin is scraped up, her wrist is killing her, and there's a motionless body beneath her, but she's responsible.

It doesn't matter if her face is numb and she feels like she'll throw up at any moment. It doesn't matter if her throat is clenching and she's seconds away from hyperventilating. She knows she can fix this. She just needs to confirm the woman is alive. She just needs her to be alive, needs her to be living. It's really all she can focus on, all she can think about, the only thought swirling through her mind —

And then something happens.

It's the only way she can describe it, hits Anna so suddenly the air is knocked out of her lungs. Afterwards, there's a rush of warmth that spreads over her body, heat pooling in her chest like the aftershock of a tequila shot. Except this feels good, pleasant and inviting and reassuring. Reassuring because a few seconds later all of Anna's worry is replaced with relief. Somehow she knows the woman is alive, can feel it right down to her bones.

She's still drunk enough not to worry about what that means, but she has enough sense to dial the emergency line and wait for the ambulance.

x

Anna wakes up in the hospital the next morning, upset and afraid and confused. Which is perplexing, because she's not sure why she's afraid and confused. She knows she's safe, knows she's here from the biking accident last night, knows the girl she hit is probably going to be okay. But no matter how hard she tries, she can't get the thoughts to go away; it's almost like they're intrusive — like they're not even coming from her.

It takes a few minutes for her mind to completely wake up, process everything going on with her body. The hospital room is making her feel incredibly claustrophobic and the pain in her left arm is killing her. Except Anna's never been claustrophobic before, actually enjoys small spaces, and when she looks at her arm there's nothing there — not even a bruise or a scrape.

It's all a bit alarming, because she's clearly having thoughts filtering in that are unprecedented and unreasonable, like it doesn't make any sense at all why she's thinking or feeling these things. Not unless she's suddenly one of those people that hears voices that aren't there, or... well, unless these are legitimately someone else's thoughts she's thinking and feeling.

Which is an absolutely ridiculous idea, because the only way for her to hear or feel anyone else's thoughts is if she had way more psychic ability than she actually does, or if she, wait —

Anna sits of straight as a rod, fists clenching so tight her nails are digging into the scrapes on her palms, because that can't be an actual consideration. It really, really needs to be anything but that — except, outside of recently developing a mental disorder it's the only thing that makes sense.

Her first instinct is to think something comforting, hoping all the foreign thoughts flooding her head will somehow calm down; and her second instinct is to go over every second and detail of last night as carefully and as thoroughly as possible, because there has to be an explanation. As soon as she remembers the feeling, the weird feeling she got right before the warmth and relief... It all comes together.

And then Anna promptly freaks the fuck out because Jesus Christ she must have soul-bonded to an unconscious woman and that's illegal in at least fifteen different ways.

Shit. She just watched an entire TV special on forced soul-bonding where SWAT teams raided houses and rescued women from bond trafficking. The specialists kept going on-and-on about how it's a growing problem in the world, and how it's incredibly violating and stressing and —

Anna did it to someone.

Sure it was an accident, but bonding is permanent and force-bonding is traumatizing. Which means this woman she doesn't know the name of is going to need years of bond-blocking therapy, which only has a sixty-two percent chance of working. Even then the bond can never be completely blocked, because the only way to sever a bond is if one of the people actually dies.

The little number next to Anna's heart rate keeps going up on the monitor next to her, because with each second she realizes more and more that she will probably legitimately get arrested.

Anna shoves her face in her hands. She really fucked up this time. Really, super, royally, spectacularly fucked up.

This is like ten times worse than that time she almost bonded to Hans. Anna didn't think it could actually get worse than that, but somehow she managed to out-do herself.

"Is everything okay?" someone asks, and Anna's stomach sinks into her toes. She's fairly confident the cops are already here for her, but when she looks up it's just the nurse. "It's okay, your bondmate is next door. We can move you two to the same room, if you'd like."

So that confirms it, Anna definitely bonded to the woman, except. It's weird because that's only something the nurse would offer if this bond was completely normal and her and this woman just had a routine biking accident. This is either a set-up, or no one has alerted the proper authorities yet.

"We just assumed it was an accident when you two came in, so we separated you," she continues. "But it's pretty clear you're bonded now that you're both awake." The nurse is at her bedside now, eyes narrowing as she tilts her head. Anna tenses up and swallows hard, which somehow makes the nurse smile. "It's a new bond, isn't it?"

Understatement of the year, fresh out the oven, Anna would say. "How'd you know?"

If she can sense that, then she can probably sense a lot more. Anna thinks to go for the water, throat as dry the Sahara, but the nurse holds the glass out for her to sip before she even gets to move her hands. She's probably a mind-reading psychic, maybe Anna should be blocking so she doesn't expect criminal activity. She's pretty shit at blocking, though, so if this woman is looking into her mind, then she's sort of fucked.

"Been bonded eight years now," the nurse says, still smiling as she holds up her hand with a pretty blue and black ring on her bond finger. "You start to be able to spot signs of new ones. Like how you keep holding your arm in the same spot your bondmate got hurt."

"Oh." Anna moves her hand instinctively, hadn't even noticed she'd put it there. "Yeah, it's... hard figuring out what's what right now."

"Yeah, it's disorienting at first, especially sorting through everything and figuring out how to coexist in the same headspace... but it gets easier with time."

"That's good to know." Anna tries to focus only on her own thoughts and feelings, which is a little easier now since it seems like the woman isn't freaking out anymore. At least that's good. "Do you ever regret getting bonded?"

She realizes it's a mistake asking as soon as it's out. The nurse's smile leaves so fast it's nearly comical.

"If it's something you wanted, you won't regret it," she says. "It's just scary in the beginning, but it all works out, I promise. I have to, um, I have to check on a few other patients, but let me know if you need anything or need to talk."

The moment she's gone Anna feels fucked all over again. If this were a normal bond maybe she'd feel comforted, but this is nothing close to being normal.

Although, she has to admit, being in Elsa's head isn't all that bad. Once she calmed down, she actually started to be quite comforting. Anna's not exactly relaxed about this whole thing, but she's not having a heart attack anymore. It's almost as if — oh.

Her name is Elsa. It's weird because Anna's not quite sure how she knows it, but she's confident she's right. Maybe if Elsa isn't freaking out, then this isn't as bad as Anna thinks it is. Maybe it'll all be okay.

She keeps telling herself that as she closes her eyes and buries her face into her hospital gown. And then a few seconds later she feels Elsa is there before she opens her eyes and sees her. It's the weirdest thing in the world; she can't explain how she knows it's her, but everything is intensifying between them. Her first reaction is to smile, big and dumb and happy just to be seeing Elsa, strange as that is.

Until she realizes her and Elsa are alone. In her hospital room. Just the two of them.

"What are you doing in here?" Anna blurts, hastily grabbing her cover to pull it up over herself. She crumples the edges in her hands, holds it like it's some sort of magical protection. Nothing can save her from this, though. "You have to go now; this isn't good for you."

Elsa doesn't bother responding, leans against the wall instead and lifts an eyebrow. She looks absolutely gorgeous, long and lean and amazing, white blonde hair falling over her eyes in the cutest way possible. Anna just wants to kiss every little scrape on her cheek, and the bruise on her eye, and her lips. She really wants to kiss her lips.

Elsa blushes at the exact moment Anna realizes that she can probably hear all these thoughts because they're basically sharing a head. Shit.

"Um, I..." Anna swallows, decides it's best to just stay on topic. "The TV special said too much contact makes separation harder, so. I, um. Have you alerted the authorities yet?"

Elsa still doesn't move or speak, which is probably smart of her. She shouldn't be talking to Anna, most likely is only in the room because she thinks Anna might escape. It's just a little sad because Anna wants to know how she's feeling or what she's thinking, or anything about her. And she could try figuring out how to read her mind, but it all seems incredibly invasive.

"You don't have to worry about any of that," Elsa says unexpectedly, shuffling her feet and looking at the floor. "It wasn't you."

"What do you mean it wasn't me? We're bonded, the nurse said so."

"I know," Elsa says quickly, knocking her fists together like she doesn't know what to do with her hands. "But you're not the reason we're bonded. I am."

Oh no. It's just like the special said — Elsa's being sympathizing towards her abuser — happens, apparently, because once you're in someone's head it's hard for them to hate you. Something about bond chemistry fostering unconditional love, which is terrible for forced —

"It wasn't forced," Elsa says, and Anna doesn't believe her. How can she believe her, especially considering they're bonded and Elsa was unresponsive when it happened. Anna was just a free-spirit yesterday, young and energetic with her whole life ahead of her. And now she's forced a complete stranger into a lifelong relationship. She's dumb and reckless, even more so when drunk, but this, it's a whole new level even for her."I mean it, Anna. It wasn't forced. I felt you in my head. It was like you were reaching for me, so I reached back. I reached back willingly."

"Willingly?" Anna asks, seventy percent curious and thirty percent confused. "You expect me to believe you willingly bonded to a complete stranger?"

She doesn't mean for it to sound judgmental, she really doesn't, but it comes out that way.

Elsa's big, bright blue eyes get even bigger, and Anna's heart stops dead in her chest. She can feel Elsa falling apart, can feel her shattering into a million pieces, and she just wants it to end. She already feels like a monster, and this is just making it so much worse.

"It wasn't forced," Elsa says, loud. So loud it bounces off the walls of the room and just hangs between them for a moment. When she speaks again it's considerably quieter, but equally as intense. "That's not what happened."

"I was drunk..." Anna says. She feels hot all over, nervous anxious scared. "... and I —"

"I Know," Elsa interrupts as she lifts her hospital t-shirt, and ah. Anna's heart clenches in the worst way possible because Elsa's entire left side looks like one big bruise, deep purple and red and black, and painful. She did that. She did that to Elsa. "I wasn't unconscious, I was scared and in pain, and. It's like I was frozen. I couldn't move, but I could feel you in my head. And it just felt like all you wanted was for me to be okay."

"That is all I wanted," Anna clarifies. "It is."

"I know. I know, and so I reached back." Elsa bites her lip and squeezes her eyes shut, tilts her head back against the wall and says, "Willingly. I reached back willingly for support. But I think it's why we bonded. So, could you please stop with the force-bonding?"

"Sorry, I just. I'm sorry, I saw the thing on the TV and then it seemed similar. And I was just worried that like, you know." Elsa's just silently staring at her and she can feel her cheeks heating up, knows she seems dumb because she can't stop thinking about force-bonding.

Anna folds her arms across her chest, feels super self-conscious. She's just not exactly a high-level psychic and, except for Hans, she's never really thought about bonding. So maybe she's not super super familiar with all the intricacies of it. It's all fine, though, she's ready for Elsa to give her shit for it, for making the last few minutes stressful. She's not ready for Elsa to laugh. It's soft and mostly to herself and barely half a chuckle long, but it's a laugh and it's an undeniably happy one; the most beautiful sound in the world.

"Christ, you're adorable," Elsa whispers, and then she shoves her face in her hands like she said something offensive. She's apologetic when she looks up. "I'm sorry, okay? I really wasn't aware we'd bond. I just know you reached for me and it felt welcoming and nice and caring, and I..." Elsa slumps into herself. "It's not an excuse, but I'd had drinks too and I'd just fought with my parents and was crossing the street without looking. And, now it's... everything is fucked, and I'm sorry."

"Doesn't really sound like you had the best night," Anna offers, turning to fluff her pillow so she can avoid looking as helpless as she feels right now. It only succeeds in making the silence between them painfully awkward, though, so she turns back. "Maybe it's not really anyone's fault... but we're still bonded. And what if we don't like each other?"

Elsa feels more open suddenly; Anna can feel that she's just as anxious as Anna is, just as worried that maybe this is all going to go to shit at record speed, upset that Anna was being a total dork earlier about the forced thing.

"Hey, that wasn't a nice thought," Anna says, but Elsa smiles at her big, corners of her mouth crinkling, and Anna can't help giggling. Jokes. If jokes are involved she can easily navigate probably the biggest curveball she's ever been thrown in her life. "Don't tease me, I really woke up thinking I'd get arrested. I was flustered."

"You really didn't notice we bonded last night?" Elsa asks, laughing again, but this time it's longer and fuller and so so beautiful. "How much did you have to drink? Why were you on a bike?"

"It's that or my car," Anna points out.

"Or Uber," Elsa says, grinning like Anna didn't consider that option. Which, she didn't.

"My bike worked fine before you drunkenly walked in front of it, thank you." Anna gasps dramatically after she says it, worried she's gone too far, but Elsa keeps smiling. Which is really all the comfort she needs. They can get through this, they can figure it out, her life doesn't have to be over. "I think we can figure this out, doesn't have to ruin our lives."

"Yeah," Elsa says, nodding like she's reassuring herself and not Anna, "...maybe we can just go on with our lives, pretend it never even happened."

xXx

"I'm literally dying, Kristoff. You don't understand."

Pretend it never happened, biggest lie of the century. Anna couldn't possibly even begin to go about pretending it never happened, because Elsa's literally all she thinks about. It's not even voluntary, just pops in her head every hour of the day like a constant reminder that she has a bondmate, that they should be together.

It's just, the more distance between them, the more muffled their bond becomes and the more Anna misses Elsa. She never thought it was possible to miss a person she doesn't properly know, but she's skipped right past the usual pining where she eats ice-cream and checks her phone a thousand times, to experiencing actual, physical pain. It hurts when Elsa isn't around. Anna can feel it in her head and her chest and her stomach, and it's like... a large chunk of her has been scooped out and thrown away.

So figuring things out has kind of sucked so far, but she doesn't exactly know Elsa enough to know if it's okay to contact her.

She's sort of lost her mental connection, like she can't hear Elsa's thoughts anymore, but every so often she can sense Elsa's sad or afraid or nervous, so she assumes distance doesn't affect feelings as much as it does thoughts. But, then again, she really doesn't know shit about shit when it comes to bonds.

She doesn't expect Kristoff to understand or know either, because he's never been bonded before, but he's all she has. It's why she called an emergency meeting in their favorite restaurant.

"Can you tell me how you managed to get bonded Anna? It's not something you do on a whim."

Kristoff's a nice enough guy. Big and kind of dumb and cares too much sometimes — but he's not exactly tactful. Anna just wants someone to echo her feelings back to her, not pick apart all her shitty decisions.

"Yeah, it's something you do after ten shots," she shoots back. "Why's it matter how it happened. It did, and I feel terrible, like, I don't feel good."

Kristoff just glares at her. "Have you tried calling?"

"Um." She hasn't because she can't. They're supposed to be doing their own thing. They're supposed to be living their own lives. "We thought maybe we could just, you know, pretend it didn't happen."

"You're bonded, you can't pretend that didn't happen. You need to talk to her."

Anna sighs because she knows that. She's known since the first day they were separated when she almost sleep walked right out of her apartment. Since the first time she started craving tomatoes, and she hates tomatoes. She knows there's no way she can live without Elsa.

But, still. "I don't know. I don't think I can call her."

Kristoff rolls his eyes, which, freaking inconsiderate. "Anna, I'm serious. You really need to talk to her. Bonds aren't something that can be ignored. Why do you think the government takes them so seriously?"

"I don't know," Anna says.

She doesn't know, and she doesn't want to think about it.

Thankfully, the waitress shows up. She's tall and blonde, pencil tucked behind her ear with her hair in a messy bun. She's Anna's favorite waitress, usually chats her up and flirts a lot, but today she's keeping her distance.

"Haven't seen you here in a while," she says, eyes flickering between Anna and her notepad like she's disappointed about something. She sighs after a moment, then stares decidedly down at her pad. She's never even bothered bringing that out before, said she has a knack for waitressing, can remember even the most complex orders. Anna's even put that to the test. "Will it be the usual?"

"I um," Anna says, words sticking in her throat. There's an unexpected tension to the whole situation, sort of like she's in trouble or something. She decides on just nodding instead, and then the waitress bounces off without even bothering to take Kristoff's order. Being bonded is literally changing everything, right down to ruining her favorite restaurant. "What was that even about?"

"She can sense you're bonded now," Kristoff points out. "It's like, radiating off of you."

Anna gulps. "You mean like, I'm marked?"

"Yeah, guess there's really no cheating without feeling guilty about it."

"I figured that much out when I felt her in my head," Anna says, "but it's not really cheating if we're not exclusive. I mean we're bonded, but we're not dating."

"Bonding is literally the meaning of exclusivity, Anna. Normally you would've checked out like six women in here by now, but you haven't noticed one."

"That's not true," Anna says, looking around. But it is. There's at least six women she would have found attractive before today and pointed out to Kristoff so he could decline being her wingman. This isn't good. "But, I can't just call her. I don't even know what I'd say."

x

It only takes another night of tossing in her sleep for Anna to give in and call Elsa.

"Anna?" Elsa picks up on the first ring, relief obvious in her voice. "I wasn't sure you'd call."

"Yeah, I just... I can't be away from you," Anna admits, and her stomach knots up because that honestly isn't what she wanted to start with. "Crap, sorry. I... I promised myself I wouldn't be creepy or weird, I swear, but it's hard navigating this alone."

"It's okay, Anna," Elsa says, calm enough for Anna to let out the breath she's holding. "I feel the same way. I don't think we can just... ignore each other like this. I miss you, and I can't stop thinking about you, and I can't stop dreaming about chocolate and sandwiches and Joan of Arc."

"Oh, sorry." Anna laughs unexpectedly, like just talking to Elsa is making her whole life better. She can feel her heart thumping in her chest, can't tell if the butterflies and the nerves and the warmth she feels when she's talking to Elsa are just from the bond, or if she's actually really into her. They've only met once, really, so maybe it's the bond or maybe it's both. Either way it feels nice and Anna can't help imagining what it must be like actually bonding to a person you're in love with. "I'm sorry about this whole thing, but I don't think apologizing changes it. So, we should probably figure out what's next."

"You're right, I think that's a good plan. Although, I still feel like I should say sorry, since it's largely my fault."

Anna doesn't need her to apologize, she needs her here. But she appreciates it. "Don't worry about it, Elsa. I hit you with my bike, so I can take a big piece of that blame off your shoulders."

Elsa just breathes on the other end for a while, and Anna's too full of nerves to take the plunge and invite her over so she just sits in the silence. It's really what she wants, wants her over, breath catching just thinking about it. Which is so super weird, considering she doesn't even know Elsa. She has absolutely no idea who Elsa even is, and yet she's all Anna wants.

"Hey if it's not too weird," Elsa finally says, breath shaky, "could I maybe come over?"

Anna sits straight up in her bed, so eager for it. "Yeah, yes. Um, yeah. Of course you can. I mean, you're in my head. You're welcome in my house."

"I know, but — I still don't know what to do about this whole thing. And I don't want to mess up."

Anna swallows. She doesn't know what to do about this either, but she'd really like Elsa to be close to her while they figure it out.

"You should hurry over," she whispers, "because I really just need you here." She hangs up right after she says it, before Elsa can think she's weird, but then she realizes she forgot to give her address so she quickly texts it and apologizes.

Less than half an hour later, Anna doesn't even look through the peephole before she opens her door. It could very well be an axe murderer, but instead it's the most beautiful woman in existence — or, fuck. It's Elsa, who's blushing again because Anna can't control her obvious bond hormones.

But Elsa's so lovely; Anna can't help it, especially when she's right in front of her. She looks so gorgeous, with her braided ponytail and the hopeful expression lighting up her face, that Anna has to take a moment and remind herself to breathe. Or maybe it's Elsa mentally reminding her to breathe.

It's good advice either way.

"You going to invite me in?" Elsa finally says, because Anna's just been staring at her in the doorway like an idiot. "I'm not a vampire, but I also don't want to just break into your apartment."

More jokes. She's perfect. Elsa smiles big enough that her eyes get squinty, most likely because Anna can't turn her thoughts off, and Anna moves aside and bites her lip like stifling her mouth will shutup her brain mouth too. It's a tight fit, though, since Anna's apartment is small and she wasn't smart enough to actually walk away instead of pressing against the wall. So there's a moment when Elsa walks by and brushes against Anna.

Except instead of feeling the expected fluttering stomach, she gets a chilling head rush, mind snapping to a cold, dark room. There's this all-consuming feeling that she's trapped inside the room, and it's so overwhelmingly terrifying that she reflexively snaps her head back and ends up smacking it against the wall behind her.

And then it's gone, the imagery and the accompanying feelings, and the terror. And there's just Elsa staring at her, obviously concerned but decidedly keeping her hands to herself.

"Are you okay?"

Anna's one-hundred percent certain that wasn't one of her thoughts or memories, so perhaps she should be asking Elsa that, but instead she tries her hardest to block everything she's feeling when she says, "Yeah, think you shocked me on your way by."

She doesn't need to be able to read Elsa's mind to know she's not buying it, but she turns away and focuses her attention on the apartment again either way.

Which is fine; they don't have to talk about it. Anna just hopes she never has to feel that again.