All I Ask

All I Ask

by eversskye

Warning: Thoughts of suicide and self harm.

Chapter One

Anna did not follow the ambulance with Marsh; she'd lost that privilege to care for the other girl a long time ago.

So instead, she drove around the neighborhood in circles; wondering, worrying. She didn't want to go home, didn't want to face Hans. Not when Elsa was out there. Not when even after all these years...Elsa's presence was home, while Hans was not and never would be.

It was never easy to break up with Elsa.

Her thoughts always came back to that summer, when the world was still beautiful and she still believed in happiness. Anna remembered her intent to tell her parents about their relationship. Remembered dreaming of weddings and Elsa.

Always Elsa, with eyes filled with love wearing shimmering dresses that shone like visions from above. Elsa smiling. Elsa placing a ring around her fingers. Elsa's warm hugs and even warmer lips.

But life was not the fairytale that Anna had always imagined it would be.

The words never came from her mouth when she saw the grim look upon her parents' faces. She had swallowed that happy confession about Elsa down, down...when mother and father told her that the household servants had all been sent away.

The company was failing. They might lose the house. They're losing everything.

And so the nightmares began.

There were nights when father and mother had argued almost to the point of divorce. Nights she had spent sitting by the door inside her room, hands over her ears to cover up the noise and wishing, dreaming she was elsewhere in the arms of Elsa.

Elsa, her love.

Yet telling them of Elsa just never seemed appropriate, so she took over the company and decided to focus on rebuilding, missing her girlfriend all the while.

No, don't call Elsa. Why burden her with your problems? If you call while you're in a bad mood you'll just end up misplacing your unhappiness on her and making her sad as well.

So while Elsa's calls just rang and rang and rang...

Not answering didn't mean she missed her girlfriend any less.

Things came to a head when father suggested that she find a date in one of the partnering company's heirs one day and then she'd made an offhand comment on liking women. They immediately took away her cell phone and locked her up in that horrid room for months.

Days upon days upon days

Elsa.

Elsa.

Elsa.

Where are you?

Are you thinking of me too?

Some days she did not speak at all. Did not eat. Did not sleep.

Elsa ran through her mind. Tore through her heart. Stifled the air in which she breathed.

When freedom came, it brought with it a camera always by her side. A monitoring system to make sure she simply worked at the company and came back. No contacting Elsa. No attempt to reach the woman who had corrupted her parents' straight daughter.

Some days she'd seriously contemplated running off on her own and making a life with Elsa without her parents' approval.

Some days she contemplated just running out and getting hit by a car.

What am I?

A failure, that's what I am.

But then one night mother came with apologies and tears in her eyes...

Asking Anna to choose.

She could choose Elsa. Kind and gentle Elsa who gave the warmest hugs yet was stronger than anyone she knew.

She could choose her parents, the man and woman who had given birth to her, raised her, brought her up to become who she was. Choose to stay and save the company and hundreds of men and women who might be out of a job if she failed.

Should she choose to leave everything behind and be with the girl who held her heart?

Or take care of her old and ailing parents, becoming a calming balm to smooth over their stressful relationship?

What kind of child would be able to just sit by and watch her parents' marriage collapse? What kind of girlfriend would just give up on love like it means nothing at all?

Family and duty, or selfish love?

Anna chose Elsa.

Chose to believe that Elsa could handle it all, and that Elsa would be fine without her.

Chose to believe that Elsa was strong while Anna was weak. Elsa would find true love one day while Anna lived the rest of her life bitter with regret for what could have been.

Anna was a fool.

When she found her parents arguing yet again one rainy night, and discovered that the reason for this new argument was Elsa's untimely visit...Anna was more angry at herself than anything.

Annoyed that she had underestimated Elsa's love. Worried of her parents' reactions.

Yet so believing was she in Elsa's strength back in those days, seeing the girl crumble and actually travel to go find someone so undeserving made Anna livid at her ex's reactions.

Elsa should have been better than this.

Elsa should have let her go once she found out how pathetic Anna was.

Anna sent a text that she would end up regretting. When the apology was not received two weeks later, she believed that Elsa had moved on at last.

It was better this way, she tried to persuade herself.

Wait for me, Anna thought. In my next life I'll become stronger. I'll become worthy of your love, and nothing in the world would be able to break us apart.

She settled with looking for Elsa's images in the crowd. Brief glances at platinum-blonde strangers who she could pretend was Elsa, passing her by. And always, always...the Elsa in her imagination would be the one who left her, not the other way around.

Because who would be so stupid to give up on a girlfriend like Elsa?

What she could never admit to herself was that selfishly, she feared Elsa moving on more than anything else. That maybe in that next life, Elsa had already promised herself to someone else.

And unworthy Anna was nothing to her anymore.

Let it be said that Hans is not a perfect man.

As a person, he might not even be a good one. He tended to be stingy and rude to those who worked under him. He treated those who had no use to him as though they were less than human, and was disgustingly obsequious to those he had something to gain from.

Yet as far as boyfriends and fiancés went, Hans was patient and caring enough. Sure, to a more attached girlfriend, he might be too much of a workaholic sometimes. But Anna knew he acted in such ways because he always felt like he had something to prove.

As a son, the youngest of thirteen, he was the most obedient child a parent could ask for. If there was anyone in the world Hans has ever loved unconditionally...perhaps it would be his father. All of his life, he had striven for his father to notice him.

It was in this single virtue that Anna saw in him, one that bound him to her since she was able to understand him as no one else did. Since she too, strove to do everything for her own parents. It also helped that marrying her would give him a positive light in his father's eyes, since she was from a respectable family- yet her company has been struggling for the past couple of years and it wouldn't seem as though he was vying for her money.

But understanding each other is one thing. Love is another.

Anna didn't love him. Anna was also pretty sure that he didn't love her either, which made everything a lot simpler.

Thus when Anna entered the house late that night after having driven around in circles for the past many hours, she was not expecting him to be awake waiting for her.

It suited her just fine, walking through the dark hallway of the house they shared. No need to greet anyone. No need to pretend. Because if there was one thing Anna hated most in the world, it would be saying "hello".

People say that "goodbyes" should hurt. People say, goodbye means the end.

But what was so painful about ending? One clean cut and it's done, just as how she'd hoped her relationship with Elsa had ended.

It was harsh, perhaps. But it was very final. Very fast. No time for things to deteriorate, no time for both parties to see the worst in each other. Goodbye meant they could still look back and remember only the happier, better things of each other before everything ended.

Hello meant having to live with that ending forever, to the beginning of the rest of her life without Elsa.

Hello was the dark, empty house she had been facing ever since then. Hello to her cold room, to her unkempt bed that had no Elsa in it.

Hello to the wrong face, to the wrong person. To the home she shared with a man whose hair was never white enough, whose eyes were never blue enough, whose hugs were never soft enough nor warm enough...

Hello to the hell of a life she had chosen.

Anna hated hello's.

So she went to her room and said hello to the emptiness and the bed that would never welcome her as though she belonged.

It was always easier to hate someone than hate yourself.

Yet Anna hated herself most of all.

Anna rose from bed the next morning not having slept at all. She went through the motions of her morning rituals, then headed off to work. She arrived just as the first workers had opened the doors for employees to enter, and spent the next few hours pacing in her office wondering if she should head to the lab and check to see if Elsa was there.

An awkward peek into the building's research department five hours later, Anna was not sure if she should be relieved or upset that Elsa had not shown up for work that day. By lunch time she found out through the careful prodding of Elsa's coworkers that her brother had called this morning and told them Elsa was still in the hospital.

They had made plans to visit the girl after work, asking Anna if she wanted to join. Nodding before she realized what she was doing, Anna followed in her own car, mindlessly joining everyone when they stopped by a florist to get flowers to bring with them for the visit before heading to the hospital.

The ride, as well as the check-in, were both peaceful enough. Most of her new coworkers were still wary of her position as their head of department, so they kept to themselves just as Anna had when she chose to drive alone rather than carpool with everyone else. The rest were kind enough to include her in their conversations, impressed that she was visiting one of their coworkers despite, to their knowledge, never having met the girl before.

It should have been easy to just blend in along with the group and visit Elsa. Yet at the last moment, Anna got cold feet and abandoned her coworkers just before entering the room. Mumbling a quick excuse on something about an urgent call, she ran back down the hallway and out of the hospital building.

She ended up crouching at an empty corner, flowers still clutched in her hands and eyes tinged with red while her heart raced with the dozens of thoughts passing through her mind.

She didn't even know why she was here. None of the coworkers new why Elsa was in the hospital in the first place, so perhaps it wasn't anything serious. Maybe it was something in what the blonde girl ate?

Anna had no business in worrying anyway. It wasn't as though the other girl was anything to her. Not anymore. Anna didn't know what she expected of herself, or what she wanted in seeing Elsa.

Wouldn't it just break both of their hearts again?

Yet selfishly, she wished to see her former girlfriend anyway. Even if it was for the last time, even if Elsa might angrily push her away. Frustrated, she glowered at the white roses still in her hands, some of the petals having become tattered and bent when she dashed outside.

By the time the strawberry-blonde finally gathered enough courage to walk back to Elsa's room, everyone else had already left. Still, the door to Elsa's room remained slightly ajar, and with the slightest hesitation, Anna peaked in to finally look at the girl who had been on her mind for the past many years.

Elsa was as beautiful as she remembered. Luscious blonde locks adorned aristocratic-looking features, which were softened by the girl's gentle eyebrows and long, curling eyelashes. Her eyes were still as blue as the sky and deeper than any ocean.

And yet...

The girl seemed a lot more fragile than Anna had ever imagined she could be.

Her skin, while always pale, now seemed to have lost all the rosy blush of health in them. Her body was almost too thin, her frame swallowed up by the blankets and the mattress that held her up.

But even then, those features seemed only to accentuate her heartbreakingly angelic countenance. She sat like a mirage borne from Anna's deepest wishes, easily shattered and quick to disappear with one careless step forward.

How much of you had I destroyed back then?

Anna lost her courage to approach the other girl at all. With a deep breath, she quietly laid the white roses on the floor in front of the door. Blinking away the tears that had appeared in the corners of her eyes, she turned and left, not daring to look back.

Even now, I'm still such a fool.

No one knew what kind of condition she had, but silently they all wondered, as Elsa did not return for the rest of the week.

In that time, Anna had grown accustomed to the habit of visiting the blonde every late afternoon. She memorized the nurses' schedules, dodging any encounters that might arise with any of the hospital staff or even visitors of the ailing girl.

For the most part, she simply remained outside the door, sometimes peeking in if it remained open. Often, she simply sat against the white walls of the empty hallway, basking in the knowledge that the love of her life was only a door apart.

Elsa slept often.

Sometimes, Anna worried if she ever woke up much at all. But then the next day she would find the other girl sitting, quiet and still...always staring blankly ahead.

She did not dare to question why Elsa was in the hospital for so long, nor did she dare to ponder on her own actions and what she wanted in visiting the other girl. She simply let herself feel, as she had not allowed herself the privilege of knowing such emotions for many years.

Thus Anna felt, and Anna loved.

Each day before she left, she would place a couple of white roses upon the patterned tiles before the door. She could not guess where the previous roses went, or if Elsa ever saw them at all. Still, she left them anyway, hoping but not daring to hope that the flowers did not end up prematurely in a trashcan somewhere.

She could not have predicted that on the fifth day, right as she was about to leave another set of roses, the door to Elsa's room would suddenly open, revealing a pale and shaking hand reaching forward and grasping onto her wrist.

End Chapter One.