Chapter Text
Anna Winters is stepping off of the F train on her way home when her phone starts blasting Avril Lavigne and vibrating with the wrath of seven gods.
"Shit," she mutters, squeezing past a frazzled mother who is unsuccessfully trying to calm down her stroller of twins in Spanish. Anna turns around and mouths a sorry at the mother and her twins, both for being pushy and for saying a no-no word in front of impressionable children.
Anna pauses at the base of the exit stairs to dig through her bulging Kate Spade purse, shoving past lunch receipts and gum wrappers until she feels her phone buzz angrily against her fingertips. She fishes it out and answers the call without even glancing at the screen. There is only one person with that Avril Lavigne ringtone set on her phone. "Kristoff," she says, slightly winded.
"Happy birthday, loser," Kristoff tells her with all the enthusiasm of a high schooler on a part-time job. A dog howls in the background of his call.
"Thanks, Krusty. Aren't you still in rounds or rotations or whatever?" Anna cradles the phone between her ear and her shoulder, attempting to zip her purse back up.
"Lunch break."
"At..." Anna briefly takes the phone off her shoulder to check the time. It's nearly 6:30pm in New York. "...3:30?"
Kristoff sighs. "The surgery we were performing on this horse had some complications, so we had to take care of that. Haven't had a chance to breathe until now."
"Isn't your animal hospital in Seattle? Like, the city part of Seattle?"
"Honey, no. It's really not. Also, treating horses is literally part of my curriculum."
Anna laughs. "What can I say, geography isn't my strong point." She shoulders her bag and begins heading up the stairs out into the Brooklyn streets. Leaves on the few scraggly trees that separate the road from the line of brownstones are turning orange, like ripe sweet potatoes or the color of Anna's hair. Even though her last name is Winters, Anna would always say her favorite season is fall. Her birthday being in October definitely helps. "So," she says, "did you call me in the middle of your horse rescue adventures because you missed my beautiful voice? Because if that's the only reason, I don't blame you."
"The horse is doing fine now, thank you for asking. And don't let your head get too big. I'm only calling because you should expect, ahem, a certain package at your door, like, now."
"Aw, Kristoff! You didn't have to."
"You're right, I didn't have to. Are you checking right now?"
"Dude, chill." Anna looks both ways before jay-walking across the street. "I'm on my way home from work. I'll get there in like, two minutes."
"Speaking of your corporate zombie job, how's that going?"
"The official title's Junior Business Analyst, excuse you. And it's going well." Anna had only been at her company for less than a year, but she didn't feel like she was drowning every day or that she was hated by all her colleagues, which were both good things in her book. "Jasmine and Ariel—I might have mentioned them to you, Ariel's the one who tried to eat a Keurig pod—they invited me to drinks tonight for my birthday, but you know how I'm supposed to have dinner with Hans tonight, so I couldn't go."
"That's if he doesn't bail on you, knowing Hans."
Anna ascends the steps to her building. "Yeah, well. At least I have a boyfriend. Where's yours, playboy?" She forces the front door open with a practiced shove.
"What are you talking about, so many boys are after me. They're just too shy to say so. I think it's the perpetual wet dog smell that intimidates them."
"Ha ha." She picks up the squishy parcel sitting in front of her apartment door. It's about the length and width of her forearm. "I got your package. What is this thing?"
Kristoff ignores her question. "Great, open it."
Anna flicks on the lights of her apartment, tossing her keys onto the counter and stepping out of her heels. She sets her purse onto a bar stool and drapes her blazer over it. She examines the package more closely in the overhead light of her living room. Sure enough, it's addressed to her, but the sending address is from somewhere in Nevada. She puts Kristoff on speakerphone and sets him on her coffee table. "Is this something I need a glass of wine for?" she asks.
"Oh my god, just open it."
Anna opens it. She punctures the top with a chipped fingernail—gosh, she should really repaint them—and pulls out an alarmingly red wool sweater. "Kristoff, what the hell," she says. It's so bright it could probably stop traffic. On the front is a creepy embroidered cartoon reindeer, with the words "REINDEER ARE BETTER THAN PEOPLE" underneath in large white font.
"It's custom-made by this very nice lady on Etsy. Now you can match me and Sven on Christmas," Kristoff replies.
Anna thinks of poor Sven and his dopey grin. "First, why would you subject your dog to this abuse? Second of all, Christmas is in like two months."
"The whole point of sending it in advance is so you can wear it on Christmas Day, when I give you your actual Christmas present. You know how postal service is around the holidays," Kristoff explains slowly, like she's a child in need of tutelage.
Geez, the reindeer even has disturbingly human teeth. Anna shudders. "Thanks. I hate it."
Kristoff cackles. "Love you too. Happy 25th," he sing-songs. "Don't make quarter-life-crisis decisions without consulting me."
Anna feels a smile slowly spread across her face. Then her phone buzzes against the coffee table. "Someone's texting me."
"Welp, guess that's my cue to leave. You know, before I collapse from all the praises you're showering on me."
"Yeah, go save a horse or whatever. Thank you, Kristoff." They say their goodbyes, and the line goes dead.
She stares at the cursed reindeer sweater for a few more seconds. There are zero ways she could make it look remotely good. She looks at the reindeer's saucer eyes and clown nose and horrible, horrible human teeth, and it's exactly something Kristoff would choose for her. Her phone buzzes again, reminding her of unread messages. She picks it up and unlocks it.
Hans: Hey babe I know we had dinner plans tonight but my team is doing this bonding thing and we're going to the Mets game
Hans: I didn't want to miss the dinner but going to this thing could put me in better standing with my boss so it's really important to my career
Hans: They're all guys you know like Phil and Naveen
Hans: Hope you understand
Hans: Sorry babe I'll make it up to you
Hans: Happy birthday
Anna places her phone face-down on the table. A deep tidal wave of resignation washes over her, and she releases her hair from its bun, letting it sweep over her shoulders like a frizzy curtain. She would be lying if she said she was surprised, but she would also be lying if she claimed she wasn't hoping that this time would be better, that this time he would care. How typical. She swipes at the prickling inside corners of her eyes with the heel of her right palm. This is definitely something she needs a glass of wine for.
***
One hour and three glasses of wine later, Anna's pawing through her old school stuff in the bedroom closet, where she's sure she has a cupcake tin somewhere. She's pulled on an apron over Kristoff's reindeer sweater, which she ended up wearing despite her disgust because it's warm and fuzzy and makes her feel less alone.
There's a mixing bowl full of chocolate cake batter waiting for her on the kitchen counter. She hasn't done this in so long—the last time she baked was before she moved into this apartment with Hans, probably last year when she was living with her parents while finishing up her MBA at Penn State. Her parents had called her half an hour ago wishing her a happy birthday, and by then she was already tipsy. Her heavy disappointment threatened to spill out when her mom's tired voice and her stepdad's throaty chuckle crackled through the phone, but she held it all in and channeled it into an almost forgotten pastime.
Anna accidentally bumps her head against the closet wall in her fumbling and sees stars for a terrifying moment. Her vision unblurs, and with a sudden clarity she realizes it's nearly 8:00 and she hasn't even prepared dinner, nor has she made the effort to order takeout. She grunts and continues searching. She's not a kid anymore, so she's legally allowed to occasionally eat cupcakes for dinner.
She groggily reaches into yet another cardboard box—yikes, maybe she has a hoarding problem—and grasps something soft. She draws her hand back and comes face-to-face with a snowman plush she hasn't seen in five years.
His name is Olaf, and he likes warm hugs. He's yellowed slightly, more cream than white now, and his felt arms are bent at awkward angles. His orange carrot-shaped nose protrudes as proudly as ever, if a little squashed, and his buck teeth are jovially set in his lopsided grin. Whoever created him, whoever sewed in his mismatched eyes and uneven buttons and three pitiful hairs, was clearly unfamiliar with making plushes. Yet it's obvious that immense care was funneled into each of his stitches, that hours or days were spent clumsily spinning him into creation.
Anna remembers the day she received Olaf as plainly as it was yesterday. She extends a trembling hand into the cardboard box again. Out comes a single photograph of herself and another face she hasn't seen in five years.
It's a selfie of Anna and a blonde girl smiling against the snowy backdrop of Arendelle University, taken during the early spring semester of Anna's sophomore year. Anna has her arm around the other girl, their cheeks almost touching with the width of their smiles. Anna doesn't smile like that in pictures anymore, with squinted eyes and lips straining to contain her bared molars. She and the girl stand next to a lumpy pile of snow decorated with twigs and pebbles, an elementary attempt at a snowman that would melt as quickly as they built it. They wear matching scarves, but with the camera angle and the color it looks like they're sharing the same one.
A terrible ache pierces through Anna's chest like a searing poker as she continues to stare at the picture. Her head feels heavy, as if she's been forced underwater and viscous liquid has clogged her brain. She realizes that the wetness clouding her vision is tears, and finally, finally she lets herself cry.
Her mouth forms silently around the two syllables of this beautiful girl's name, a girl whose face she'll always be able to pick out from a crowd, whose laugh her ears will always recognize.
Elsa.
***
It's around 2am when Hans finally comes home. Anna had already fallen asleep on the sofa, curled around Olaf underneath the shaggy tan throw blanket they keep in the living room. She blinks awake at the sound of the door opening to Netflix asking her if she's still watching, the harsh LED of the TV glaring upon her through the darkness. She left half a tin of chocolate cupcakes on the counter—they were more like muffins since she didn't have frosting to decorate them—and a quarter bottle of wine on the coffee table.
She hears Hans's footsteps tiptoe around her, but she doesn't lift her head. She watches his arm reach over her head and grab the remote. He reeks of tobacco.
"I thought you said you were going to quit," she says, fracturing the cold silence.
"Jesus Christ, Anna." Hans's silhouette shifts to sit on the armrest next to her head. He sets down the remote without turning off the TV. "I thought you were asleep."
Anna pushes herself onto her elbows and looks at him. In the dim light of the TV, his face is haggard, his beard a sullen shadow against his face and neck. The first two buttons of his shirt are undone, and his collar is popped. Anna swallows. "You didn't answer me," she presses.
"I was just...smoking one with the boys. You know how it is, if you don't smoke or drink with them, they don't see you as one of them."
I didn't know your pharmaceutical engineer team was a college frat, Anna wants to say. Instead, she says, "Right."
Hans pulls something out of his pants pocket. "Look, I'm sorry I missed your birthday dinner. I know it was important to you." He sets the item down on the coffee table. "So I got you something. I remembered you said you ran out yesterday."
Anna squints at the gift. It's...a pack of razors. From the drugstore. And not even the brand Anna uses either—she knows for a fact that the razors Hans bought are around $5 cheaper than the ones she normally buys for herself.
"Hans, not that I don't appreciate this—I do—and I know this is my first birthday we've spent together after long distance, but...is this it?"
He stiffens. "What do you mean?"
"It's just, I don't know, I'm not expecting you to spend a lot of money on a gift, and I don't want you to if you're not comfortable with it. But like, I felt pretty alone tonight when I wanted to feel special, and if you were gonna give me a gift I wish you put more thought into it? Something that, you know, maybe I wasn't going to buy myself in the first place."
Hans blinks at her. "For example?"
"Um, maybe like the audiobook subscription I got you for your birthday so you'd have something to listen to during the commute to Jersey."
"Anna, I don't really use that subscription anymore." He inclines his head neutrally towards the television. "And you know I don't exactly have the money to spend on things that aren't useful. But I guess it's different for you, since money isn't as much of a problem."
Anna sucks in a breath. Frustration rushes up her throat like stomach acid. "Hans, you know my salary is only around $7,000 higher than yours," she says incredulously, "and we're both entry-level professionals living in freaking New York City. Believe me, I think money is an issue for both of us. But you're totally missing the point."
Hans's expression is stony in the blue light. "No, I don't think I am. I'm literally trying so hard to get promoted because I want more money to support us, and that means we should also save our money for things we actually need. So I'm sorry for trying to make things better for us."
"Hans—"
"I don't want to talk about this right now." He stands up, glaring down at her. "Come to bed, Anna. Don't sleep here in that ugly sweater. We can discuss in the morning."
"No thanks," Anna hisses. She crosses her arms protectively over her sweater. She's sitting up now, staring him eye-to-eye.
"Why not? Is it because we're fighting right now? It's not good to end the night angry, you know."
"It's because you smell like tobacco." Anna grinds her teeth together. Once again, her eyes begin to sting with hot tears, and she blinks against them.
"I'll shower—"
"Just go to bed, Hans. I'm already on the couch anyway. Might as well stay here." Anna jerks away from him and shrugs underneath the blanket, lying on her side to face the back of the sofa. Hans continues to watch her for a minute with even breaths. She waits until his footsteps exit the living room, the bedroom door closes, and the bathroom tap begins running before she lets angry tears stream horizontally across her nose bridge.
She tries to tell herself that this is not the Hans she knows, the man she's dated for the past five years. It's futile. Ever since college he's been this way, and Anna had been so thoroughly deluded with heartbreak at the time that she never noticed, or she just ignored the signs. Maybe she didn't even care. But she'd stuck with Hans even as they both moved on after graduation, Anna to business school in Pennsylvania and Hans to his first job in New York. They did the long distance, they did the breaking up and getting back together. And now here they are, at the "next step" of their relationship, basically ready to start a family in an overpriced Brooklyn apartment.
And for whose benefit are they still together at this point? Is it Anna's? She's living through the worn-down trope of college sweethearts who move to the city. Soon they'll probably get married, relocate to the suburbs, talk about having kids. The thought of marrying Hans stirs a bout of uneasiness in her gut. Is that what she really wants? Maybe she's still with Hans because she's grown used to his company. Maybe making him coffee every morning and coming home to Domino's pizza on his days to cook and watching late-night talk shows with him have become easy to her, comfortable.
Anna wonders when she became a girl who prefers things that are easy or comfortable. Her past self would be so disappointed with her. Elsa would probably be disappointed in her too, if she knew.
God, Elsa.
Anna falls asleep clutching Olaf to her chest, thinking of wide-eyed snowmen and platinum blonde hair.
***
"Psst. Anna. Wake up."
Something flimsy pokes Anna in the left cheek. She slowly opens her eyes. "What—"
She's floating in a vast whiteness. It's like being in a sci-fi movie, with blank space extending as far as the eye can see, or a dream. Yes, it must be a dream, because hovering in front of her is a certain snowman plush, very much alive and very much talking to her in a squeaky tenor voice. "Anna, hi! You're awake! Wow, this is so exciting." Olaf's misshapen eyes blink at her, one at a time.
"Are you shitting me right now?"
"No, silly. I'm Olaf, and I—"
"—like warm hugs," Anna finishes for him. She looks him up and down, at his wiggling feet and his expectant smile, and the ache comes back in full force, squeezing her insides like Play-Dough. She smiles back. "Hi, Olaf."
"Hi, Anna! Oh wait, I think I said that already." Olaf scratches his chin with a surprisingly stable twig hand—does he have opposable thumbs?—as if he's sorting through his memories. "Anyway, it's great to finally talk to you! I've waited so long for this. I've been living in the bottom of that box for most of my life, and I've made friends with all the mothballs and dust bunnies. Did you know dust bunnies aren't actually bunnies? I don't know why they call them that."
Heavy guilt drags down Anna's head. "I'm sorry."
"Well, don't be! Because today we finally got to meet each other again, and it was your birthday too! It was super fun, especially when you told me about the Crust Off guy and his horse rescue squad. I hope you don't mind I stole a bit of your cupcake. It was really delicious!"
Anna shakes her head fondly. "Olaf..."
"Anyway, you looked super sad when you found me today. I hope I helped you feel less lonely. That's what I'm here for, you know?"
"Thank you, Olaf. You've been doing great."
"But...?" His animated eyebrows crease together.
"But..." She takes a shuddering breath. "I mean, everything else in my life is going well. I like my job, my coworkers are cool, Kristoff's a good bro, I love the city. I just feel stuck in this...thing with Hans. I wish things could have gone differently, maybe. Or that I made different choices." Anna reaches out and smooths over the three hairs sprouting from Olaf's head. "It's just—I miss her. She was the best thing in my life, and I screwed it all up. And now there's no way I'll get her back."
Olaf nods sagely. "You really loved her, huh?"
"Of course I did. She was my best friend."
"Mhm." Olaf gives her a blank look.
Anna stares back at him artlessly.
"Well," he continues, "I don't think it's too late."
Anna laughs. It comes out like a honk. "I don't know, Olaf. It kinda is."
"Oh Anna." He drifts closer and hugs her. His tiny arms barely encompass the front of her waist. Anna pats the back of his ovular head. "It hurts me to see you like this," he mutters into her sweater. "You don't know what's going to happen, do you?"
Anna freezes. "I—what?"
"What if I told you there was a way to see how things could have gone differently?" He floats backward in a fluid motion, gesturing widely. "What if there was a way to make different choices?"
"Um, I don't know. I wouldn't even know what to say."
"Don't worry, you'll see real soon. Think of it as a birthday gift, from me to you." He flies in circles around her, performing somersaults mid-air. "Oooooh, this is so thrilling! I can feel it in my non-existent bones!"
"Olaf, wait—" Small white flurries begin swirling around her legs, sticking to her clothes as howling wind whips her hair. Snowflakes, she realizes. They travel up her torso, refreshingly cold. Olaf's voice penetrates through the chaos.
"You have to give me permission to send you back," he says, at a surprisingly normal volume. "Do you want this, Anna?"
Anna closes her eyes. She thinks about Kristoff and his gruff love, eking out his well-deserved place at vet school in Washington. She thinks about her job on Wall Street, where she finally feels useful and her team gathers around Jasmine's desk during lunch breaks to tease each other. She thinks about her parents in Pennsylvania, supporting her unconditionally through each of her legitimate and not-so-legitimate decisions.
Then she thinks about Hans, sleeping alone in their queen-sized bed, probably without even changing into pajamas. It dawns on her that they barely talk anymore. Their interactions have been reduced to "we're out of bread" or "the toilet's clogged" or "for the last time, can you not leave your socks on the floor?" Even on the nights they spend together in front of David Letterman or Conan O'Brien, they're in silence but for a few of Hans's chuckles interspersed here or there. And even those kinds of evenings have become rare. Last night was one of the first meaningful conversations they've had for a long time, and even then they were repeating the same things they'd argued about before, the same disagreement repackaged in different wrapping paper.
She thinks about Elsa. They haven't talked in years, but Anna still remembers the sound of her voice, humming along to a made-up tune at the stove or giggling at one of Anna's dumb jokes. She thinks about Elsa in the stands at Anna's tennis matches, always cheering the loudest even though everyone had pegged her as a quiet sort of girl. She thinks about the day they built that snowman in Anna's sophomore year, about how Elsa spent twenty minutes searching for the right sticks to use as its arms.
Anna opens her eyes. "Yes."
"Awesome," Olaf's lucid voice says. "I'll come get you when you're ready."
The snowflakes coalesce into a mighty blizzard. A gust lifts Anna through the space, filling her every pore with levity. She is a feather, a cloud, a helium balloon. Her vision goes white.
***
Anna comes to on a lumpy mattress with her back pressed against a frigid wall. Her right arm is thrown around someone's soft midsection, her left arm pinned in the space between their bodies. She inhales deeply, which is a mistake, because the indisputable scent of rose shampoo—the kind she's avoided for years—wafts into her nose. She opens her eyes and finds herself staring at the back of a blonde head, the distinctive French braid partially coming undone. Morning sunlight beams through the slats of the window blinds above them, shining soft stripes over golden hair.
If this is still a dream, it's a damn realistic one.
Anna must have accidentally shifted or something because the girl she's holding begins to stir underneath her arm. Anna's heart pounds with the force of five elephants, and she swallows the grapefruit-sized lump in her throat. The golden head turns around to face her, and she's met with pale blue eyes that are forever burned into her memory.
"Happy 20th birthday, babe," Elsa says, like absolutely nothing is wrong and Anna hadn't just time-traveled five years to the past.