Chapter 29

Elsa took off her hoodie, hung it over one of the treadmill's arms, and hopped on. Anyone else would have dreaded the idea of going to the gym at 10:30 PM after a long work day, but for her it may as well have been a spa. She'd been tense all day, and there were too many thoughts running through her mind; this was the best way to relax and clear her head that didn't come in a bottle.

As the number on the screen ticked higher, and the treadmill belt began to move faster, she was already itching with anticipation. Running remained one of the rare hangups from her old life that she enjoyed.

The machine settled into a jogging speed, and her legs carried her effortlessly through these next few minutes as the beginning of a runner's high seeped into her system. That point in a run where you hit a wall- from your heart pounding, your lungs burning, and your thoughts nagging you to stop- and break through it, making you feel like you could do anything.

That determination was exactly what she was craving.

Obviously, dealing with Hans would be the most formidable task she'd ever faced as CEO. He was more cunning than Flynn, and more irritating than Cruella, but these traits paled in comparison to the violent tendencies he might possess, not to mention the way he manipulated people into believing what he wanted to, and to doing what he said.

Mr. Arendelle voiced what she already knew: she had to take down Hans before his influence could stretch anywhere near Arendelle.

The parting words that self-righteous CEO told her in her office worried Elsa as well. When would she see him next? The earliest piece of business she'd be attending to was the overseeing of the renewed contracts being signed by the lumber mills in North Arendelle, but she saw no reason for him to be present at that.

And then, of course, there was the probation looming over her head. Taking down Hans might be the top priority, but she had to do it in a way that didn't further jeopardize her career. Whatever the board tasked her to do, she'd need to do it no questions asked if she wanted to stay in their good graces, and do so while still keeping Hans in her sight.

So many balls to juggle, which meant she'd have less and less time to herself. Thank goodness Hannah was coming back tomorrow to help take some of this burden off her hands. She, obviously, wouldn't task her with these big objectives, but having that assistance in handling the smaller tasks was going to do wonders for her psyche.

Should she apologize to her again?

That was the big worry on her mind when it came to Hannah. Sure, she said she was sorry at Anna's apartment, but that felt a little too informal. Then again, saying sorry again would just bring up all the pain from before, and in her email it sounded like Hannah just wanted to forgive and forget.

The speed picked up again, she was now running at the pace of her lacrosse games all those years ago. Hers and Anna's.

Anna. Now there was a tricky situation.

She could still feel the ghost of Anna's hand on her arm, and the tingling in her fingers when she held that hand. A month ago, she would have repressed it, said it was nothing, and grumble about how all of her problems were because of that pesky redhead. Now, things were...well to say they were complicated would be an understatement.

Even now, she didn't know if agreeing to start talking to her again was such a good idea. She did initially say no, but Anna's request was so innocent, and hearing her talk like they were in high school again...the scales had tipped, the good was finally outweighing the bad.

They'd already apologized to each other, all the anger and animosity had been chipped away; but things were still awkward, and Elsa still had no idea what kind of relationship she wanted with her.

It was ironic in a way: she had all these worries and things to keep track of, but this new, strange relationship she had with Anna was one she kept coming back to the most. Almost beating out her need to beat Hans.

She glanced down at the treadmill screen and stopped the machine as she looked down at the time. Somehow, almost 25 minutes had passed.

Maybe she could have stayed on it for longer, and continued to sort through her thoughts for the rest of the night, but if she only went to the gym for the treadmill, she could have just gotten one for her office.

She grabbed her hoodie and stretched out her legs, and before continuing the rest of her workout, she checked her phone.

There was one missed call from a vaguely familiar number.

Anna couldn't sleep. It was 10:50 at night, she had to be up in seven hours, and she couldn't freaking go to sleep.

Maybe it was the worrying squeak of her ceiling fan, maybe it was the burger refusing to sit well in her stomach, or maybe it was the fact that Elsa's number, courtesy of Hannah, was burning a hole into her phone, which sat tantalizingly right next to her bed.

When they'd parted ways from the food truck, and Anna drove back home, she had this unbelievably strong urge to message Elsa. Not tomorrow, not after work, but tonight. Literally right now.

Did it reek of desperation? Absolutely. Did she care? Absolutely not.

Just one text, she told herself, one text to say that she got her number from Hannah and wanted to see if it was okay to message her.

If Elsa said yes, then she could rest easy and figure out what to message her for the next three days, or months. If she said no, then...she was back to square one and relying on fate to get them talking again. Or, you know, just giving up entirely.

But there was no way that she would say no, right? She thought back to yesterday, when she touched her arm, and then Elsa touched her hand, and she felt her chest swell when she said that yes, it was okay.

Anna asked if she could talk to her, hang out with her.

And Elsa. Said. Yes.

That was a massive, heaping amount of hope there that she was going to hold on to, but there was still fear that Elsa may change her mind. Anna had to know that wasn't the case, she wanted to know that Elsa really wanted to talk to her, and she also really wanted to go to sleep.

With an annoyed groan, she sat up from her bed and pulled her phone out of her charger.

Just one text, she told herself. She wasn't even going to wait for a reply, she was just gonna send it off, lay back down, and shut her eyes.

Now filled with fierce, short-term determination, Anna unlocked her phone, pulled up her Contact list, pressed Elsa's name- because of course she saved her new number right away- pressed the "Message" button…

...and watched as her phone began calling Elsa.

At first, Anna thought that maybe the more level-headed blonde was taking the first, incredibly bold, step and calling her. And then she remembered that Elsa didn't have her number. And then she realized that maybe her thumb had slipped or shifted or something in the process of trying to text her. And then she realized that she still hadn't ended the call.

Now in full-on panic mode, Anna let out a yelp, locked her phone, and covered her hands with her mouth. Both to regulate her breathing, and to keep from waking up Rapunzel.

That was stupid. That was so, so stupid.

Once she figured out how to breathe normally, she grabbed her phone and walked to their kitchen. Sleep wasn't gonna be a thing anyway, and cookies always helped with the thinking process. And right now, she definitely needed to figure out what the heck she was thinking.

She grabbed the milk out of the fridge, the light only blinding her for a second, and the jar of never-ending cookies from the pantry, and nestled into Barry's arms, their giant bear/chair in the living room.

But before she could indulge herself in some brain food, her phone began to vibrate. She was getting a call.

A call from Elsa.

Never answer calls from numbers you don't know.

It was a piece of advice Elsa had heard many times, most recently from a video the board forced her to watch about proper business conduct, and one that she was foregoing when she saw the missed call on her phone.

She sat on a bench, scrutinizing the number. Why was it so familiar? Was it a client that she'd forgotten to save in her Contacts? Was it Mr. Arendelle using one of his burner phones?

No, this was a number she had seen a long time ago. So, instead of continuing to scratch her sweaty head, she went against the warnings and called them back.

One ring. Then two. At the third ring, she realized she had no idea what she was gonna say when they picked up. At the fourth ring, she wondered if they were even going to pick up.

Finally, after the fifth ring, her doubts were cleared.

"E-Elsa?"

The voice, though timid, was immediately recognizable, and Elsa's curiosity got the best of her.

"Anna? Is everything alright?"

Anna almost dropped her phone when she heard Elsa's voice on the other end. It already felt good when she called her back, but to hear her soft, concerned- and slightly out of breath?- voice ask if she was okay…

Man, she really needed to get it together.

She nodded, "Ye-um, yup! E-everything is fine! Everything is great!...actually…"

"Are you sure? Cause it's 11 PM, and you sounded kinda, I dunno, scared when you answered."

"Pssh, whaaaat? That's silly, I'm not scared of yo-erm, I'm not scared. That was probably just the wind."

"The wind?"

"Yup, that pesky wind." Anna laughed nervously as she looked at her closed windows, wondering why she didn't just lie and say that she was trying to stay quiet because Rapunzel was asleep.

"Okaaaay...is there something you needed or…?"

"Yes! Uh, I mean no. I mean maybe, I-is this a bad time?"

"Uh...kind of? But not really, I'm just at the gym right now."

"The gym?! But it's 11 PM, shouldn't you be asleep?" Anna asked, not sensing the hypocrisy in her words until she said them. "I mean, um, the gym? Wow, what...whatcha doing there?"

"Working out?"

Anna resisted the urge to smack her forehead, if only because the glass of milk in her other hand would have splashed all over her and Barry, and she still had one working brain cell. "Wow, that sounds like a lot of work. Heheh, get it cause...cause you said…" She stopped herself, this was going nowhere. Elsa had called her back, why in the world was she wasting this opportunity?

"Okay, let me just get to the point. Hannah gave me your number because I had like zero ways to contact you, and I was just gonna try and text you and see if it was alright for me to have your number. But I guess I fat-thumbed it pretty bad and pressed 'Call' instead, and I was freaking out because calling people means like either something is super wrong, or they want to sell you something; and neither of those are true. So, just...like...I mean guess I can just ask you what I was gonna say through text anyway, before I keep talking and buff up the word count and make this paragraph super unreadable, and no one likes reading giant blocks of text and...ugh! I'm rambling again."

"Lemme just get to the point...again. Is it okay that I called you?"

The entire time Anna talked, Elsa was doing her best not to laugh. She missed the way the redhead rambled, and then caught herself rambling, apologized for it even there was nothing to apologize for, and then continued rambling.

As she let the flustered girl speak, Elsa found a more secluded place in the gym and put her hood up. Even though no one ever came here, she couldn't just assume that she wasn't being watched.

Then, Anna asked if it was okay that she called her, and she opened her mouth to reply before stopping herself; because she had to say her next words carefully.

While they hadn't blatantly said it, the board definitely wouldn't be accepting of Elsa continuing to talk to Anna, and with she not knowing what she wanted them to be, maybe it would have been best just to say no. Refuse, and then apologize for leading Anna on like this.

Career-wise, it was the smarter, safer decision. If she wanted to lessen the tension between her and the board, and focus solely on her bout with Hans, then she had to say no. Plus, it would immediately solve her relationship dilemma with Anna, and relieve some of the stress she was suffering from.

It was a win-win situation...except it wasn't. Not after she reminded herself that Anna had been too afraid to even look in her general direction for months now, and yet she still took the risk to talk to her a handful of times.

Why couldn't Elsa take the risk to talk to her now?

"Er, y-you know what? It's fine, I know this was all super sudden, and you're probably gonna say no anyway so...yeah. I'll just hang up now, okay?"

Besides, she always had a hard time saying no to Anna when she sounded this vulnerable.

"Wait!" Elsa cried out. "Don't hang up! Sorry, I just...needed to gather my thoughts. Of course it's okay that you called me."

"R-really? Are you sure I'm not bothering you?"

"No, not at all."

She heard a strange noise come through the phone when she replied. Like a squeal and a yelp that was immediately muffled. It was kind of adorable.

"Ahem, I mean uh...good. Good, I'm-I'm glad that you think it's okay."

"Well I'm glad that you're glad that I think it's okay."

What?

"Well I'm...uh...okay, my head hurts now."

"Don't worry, mine does too." Elsa was mortified, she hadn't said anything that stupid in a while.

So, uh...how was your day?"

Anna knew that she should probably let the blonde go now that she'd gotten her answer, but the selfish side of her wanted to keep this conversation going. It was a little pointless now, but she was enjoying herself too much to care. So, she pulled out her secret weapon: expert-level awkward small talk.

"So, uh...how was your day?"

She heard the blonde laugh, but it didn't sound like it was out of pity or to be mean, it sounded like she was amused. Which was...better?

"Today's been...crazy. I had a press conference about the article- again, I'm really sorry about that- that I really didn't want to do. But I'm on probation, so I have to do everything the board says and keep my nose clean if I want to stay on with the company. It was terrible, they just kept asking about you and me, and if I still kept in touch with you, and what our relationship was."

"What did you say?" Anna asked a bit too eagerly.

"I didn't really say anything, I told them that my personal life wasn't any of their business, and it wouldn't affect my corporate life."

"Oh." she voiced.

"Oh?"

Crap.

"I-I just meant like...oooooh no, that really sucks, Elsa. I'm sorry to hear that you have to go through that."

Elsa shrugged, "Ah, you reap what you sow. Besides, that wasn't even the most stressful thing I had to deal with. Do you remember a guy named Hans Westerguard?"

"That jerk that tried to ask you out in high school? Of course I do."

Of course she did. Anna clearly didn't repress as much from their high school years as she had. Then again, she always was the more emotionally stable of the two.

She leaned further into the wall, settling herself in to be the bearer of bad news. "Yeah well that jerk is apparently the new CEO of Corona International, and it turns out he's insane. He came to my office today and did like this whole supervillain monologue about how he was gonna take me down, and how he was the guy that hired Flynn to blackmail me, and I'm pretty sure he came on to me too."

There was a grumbling noise on the other end, like a dog seeing the mailman. "What was that, Anna? Did you say something?"

"Ah, I just...I was just saying he still sounds like a jerk. And wait, he was the guy that hired Flynn? So, he's had it out for you for a while now."

"Yeah, he has." Elsa said wearily.

"Do you need help dealing with him? I've already helped you arrest one guy, what's one more, right?"

Elsa giggled, "What is this? Some sort of buddy cop movie?"

"Absolutely! I'm the rookie who makes jokes to hide that she's way in over her head, you're the grizzled, old vet two days from retirement who gets tired of putting up with my shenanigans!"

"Old?! Anna, we're the same age!"

"I meant like...old in cop years."

Elsa laughed.

Elsa laughed.

Again!

They were having their first genuine, non-confrontational conversation in years, and Anna made her laugh twice.

Granted, she made her laugh with a really stupid joke and not her award-winning charm and wit, but still. A laugh is a laugh, and she made Elsa do just that. And it was better than she remembered, it was sweet and lovely, yet still reserved. Like a queen laughing at her jester's joke. And she was perfectly okay with calling herself a jester, she'd get the silly hat with bells on it if she had to.

She thanked fate for bringing them together like this again, and hoped this moment would never end.

"Thank you for calling, Anna. This was nice."

"No problem." she replied with a dumb grin on her face.

"But…"

No.

"...it's late and…"

Don't say it.

"...I'm sure I'm keeping you from getting sleep."

No, she absolutely was NOT. This was better than getting sleep. This was more important than getting sleep. Waaaay more important.

She didn't say any of that, obviously. Instead, she regained her composure, and downed the glass of milk in her hands for liquid courage, "Nah, it's fine. I can run off…" She looked at the time on her phone, "...six hours of sleep. Baking is super easy, a monkey can do it."

Elsa laughed for the third time.

"Well even so, I already feel bad for keeping you up this long. So, I think we should call it a night."

Anna was grateful that this was an on-the-phone conversation, or else Elsa would see the most pitiful frown on her face,. "Yeah, I...guess we should."

Elsa didn't even need to see Anna to know that she was frowning right now. But it was already so late, and she had a long day tomorrow. Besides, she knew that she would stay on the line with her for the next four hours if she didn't call it a night now.

This was nice, though, really nice; their talk had cleared up a lot of doubts in her mind.

"But I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?"

Wait, what? She didn't mean to say that, it just sort of slipped out.

There was silence on the other end. Oh no, did she make a mistake? Did she cross a line in this relationship they'd just begun to build up again? Did she hang up?

She checked her phone. No, the timer was still going, Anna hadn't hung up. Immediately, Elsa put it back to her ear just in case she had started talking, but there was still silence.

Fortunately, not for long.

"Okay!" Anna replied excitedly, not caring if it made her sound desperate. The fact that Elsa was the one that put out the offer meant that she was just as invested in making these conversations work, and she would have been an idiot not to accept. "Does...does this time work for you?"

"Err...honestly, not really? It's a little late. Does 9 work for you?"

Anna nodded, "Yes! Absolutely! 9 is perfect!"

"Are you sure? You don't have already have something scheduled?"

"Nope, I just checked and I'm perfectly free tomorrow at 9 PM." Anna lied, although maybe she should have checked her schedule first before agreeing. Oh well, if anything came up, there was no way it'd be as important as this phone call.

"Alright, well then I guess I'll...talk to you tomorrow at 9 PM."

"Right! Tomorrow at 9 PM."

"Right."

"Right…"

A very loud, very awkward silence smothered the two through their phones. It had been so long since she'd talked to a, well, regular person, that Elsa had forgotten how to end the call other than to say something like "Thank you for your time." And that would have been stupid, she'd sound like a telemarketer.

She pursed her lips, looking around at the empty gym, hoping that Anna would know how to end the call. But from the lack of words being said, it didn't seem like it.

"So…" Elsa finally said, trying to get the ball rolling.

"So…" Anna repeated.

"Uh...goodnight, I guess?"

"Yeah, um...goodnight. Sleep tight. Don't…" Anna sighed, "Okay this is stupid. Here, let me just say one more thing. And then you can hang up, okay?"

Elsa let out a grateful groan, "Yes, thank you. That sounds like a plan."

"Good. Well, I just…" Anna took a breath. Being this open so soon might be a bad idea, but speaking her mind had like an 80% success rate, so she liked her chances. "...it was really nice talking to you again, Elsa. Especially after everything that happened between us, I'm really glad that we can start to leave that garbage in the past. I...really missed talking with you, and hearing your voice and all that, so I'm happy that you want to keep talking. I mean it's through the phone, but honestly I'll take what I can get. So...yeah, I'm glad that we're talking again is what I was trying to get at."

There was no hesitation from Elsa when she replied, "I'm glad that we're talking again too."

Anna shook her head to loosen out the dumb, intruding thoughts in her head, "Anyway yeah, that's...that's what I wanted to say. Goodnight, Elsa."

Elsa smiled with content. For the moment, she didn't care if she was making a huge mistake. Whatever happened would happen, but for now she was content.

"Goodnight, Anna."

A/N: I feel like I could have made this whole chapter just ten pages of straight up dialogue, no narration or letting you know what was going on in their heads, and you guys would still be asking me for more Elsa/Anna interaction. And I say that out of love.

Hope all the line breaks weren't too jarring and you could still follow the story. That's what happens when you're trying to get two POV's from one phone call.