InsaneJournal

Who: Anna of Arendelle and Cotton Weary
When: Monday, December 21 - During the Wish Plot
Where: Arendelle Household
What: Random Meeting
Rating/Warnings: Low/None
Status: Complete



Years had been lost somehow overnight for Cotton. He'd went to bed and woken up wondering where he was, why he hurt in places he'd never hurt, and barely able to recognize himself in the mirror. His phone had gone off a thousand times with people he didn't know asking him about things he had no clue about while he was trying to figure out how he'd gotten from being a janitor-slash-handyman at a high school to living in what was a veritable mansion.

It'd taken him a while to get used to the idea he had amnesia. The doctors at the ER had given him the all-clear for a head injury so it seemed he was just---blacked out for a while with no way of knowing if or when he'd get his memories back. Cotton had driven back to the huge house in a car he never could have afforded wondering what he'd done to deserve this kind of wake-up call since it was extremely out of the ordinary.

On day two of the blackout, Cotton had figured out how to use the planner built into his smartphone. The damn thing didn't seem too smart to him, but he knew what it was called. Sometimes he could recall how to use something with no idea how he knew what he was doing. It was all instinctive. Muscle memory. Some science professor had said muscle memory was the last thing to go for Alzheimer's patients.

Cotton didn't remember much from school, but he remembered that.

Knocking on the door of 'Elsa A.'s house, Cotton hesitantly told the young woman who answered, "I think I have a meeting here?"

His planner sure thought he did. The damn thing had set off five alarms already to get him there on time.

~*~

Anna was at her sister’s house, feeling pretty good. She had finished wrapping all of the presents she’d collected for this year, and had delivered more than half of them. The redhead was on Christmas Fire, so to speak. It’d been a really strange… well, since before finals, she supposed. Couple of weeks, then? But it’d been really weird. Her grades were in any minute now, and she supposed she should check them, though she was confident what she’d find. Anna Arendelle was a 4.0 student.

She was just putting the finishing touches on the gifts under the tree (positioning them perfectly to make it look as if there was a ton more gifts than there actually were) when she heard the door. So she dusted her hands off on her skirt and headed over there to answer it. There was a curious smile on her lips as she cocked her head to the side.

“A meeting?” Anna motioned for him to step inside. It was freaking freezing out there. “With my sister?”

~*~

"Is your sister 'Elsa A.'?" Cotton asked as he entered the house, noting it was even more upscale than his own.

Did no one around here live in a regular house? Was this some kind of community for the rich and famous? How did people manage to stand living like this year round?

It all seemed so wasteful to Cotton. He'd grown up in a trailer park surrounded by the poorest of the poor. The suit he was wearing cost more than his family would have spent on groceries for three months---he knew because it had still had the receipt of sale plus the tailoring receipt attached to it inside its garment bag. Apparently the suit had been purchased five months prior and he'd never even worn it!

Insanity.

"I'm Cotton. Cotton Weary. I'm having some---memory problems right now so if we've met and I've forgotten? It's not personal. My doctor says it's temporary. I just saw the appointment in my phone. It buzzes if I don't check in. Rambling. I'm doing that. I'm sorry. You have a lovely home."

Cotton winced at the weak attempt to redirect the conversation back to polite topics.

He really hated this whole amnesia thing.

~*~

"Elsa Arendelle." Anna replied. She closed the door behind him. It was freezing out there, and she wanted to keep all the heat inside the house, thanks. But this guy was a little off. She was concerned about him more than frightened for her own safety. Though, there was that, too. Assuming he was one of Elsa's coworkers or something, she'd just invited a stranger into her house! She dusted her hands together, then stepped around him again.

His explanation set her more at ease, so Anna's nerves lifted a bit. "Hello, Cotton. I'm Anna. Anna Arendelle." A little grin crossed her features and she shook her head. "It's totally okay. I'm a rambler myself. Please, come have something to drink? I'm not sure what the appointment was for, but Elsa's out at the moment."

She motioned toward the doorway to the kitchen, then took a couple steps in that direction. "I've got sparkling apple cider?"

~*~

The names met nothing to Cotton though he could recognize the pride with which Anna introduced herself. She was someone's princess. This place was likely the result of growing up wealthy surrounded by people who treated her the way a family should treat a daughter. Cotton could practically feel his father's drunken hands on him again as he tried to fight back thoughts of his own childhood.

Those memories were from long, long ago if his driver's license was anything to go on.

Cotton didn't need to remember that old man. He was his own person now. No one beat on him. No one forced him to do things he didn't want to do. No one expected him to clean their toilets. The world had changed in the years Cotton couldn't remember. He wasn't entirely certain how it had changed, but he was slowly coming to realize he didn't care how it'd happened so much as he was grateful for the shift in his luck.

"Sparkling cider sounds great, Anna. I think I should avoid any alcohol right now. I don't need to scramble my brain any more than it's already been rattled. Thank you."

He wondered how long her sister would be out. Did he have the wrong date in his phone? Had their meeting been cancelled? Was Cotton meant to have met her somewhere other than the address listed?

"Do you have any idea if your sister knows I'm coming or if she's coming for a meeting with me? I can't really rely on my own memory and the phone takes great notes, but it's not all-knowing unfortunately."

~*~

Anna moved into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She pulled out a bottle of Martinelli's and grabbed a churchkey from the drawer to pop the cap off the top. This had become a ritual--hey, these bottles only held, like, twenty ounces. Anna could go through one on her own! And did, often--so she was pretty good at pulling the wrappings off the top and opening these bottles.

"Sure! You can join me in a glass. It's good stuff, too, not the store brand." Not that it made a difference to most people, but Martinelli's was the only way to go in the world of sparkling apple juice. She grabbed a couple of glasses down, too.

"I really don't know. I suppose we could call her? It's okay, though. Do you have other appointments today?" Was he in a rush? "I suppose you probably need a keeper now." Bad joke. She paled. "I mean, do you have other friends and family who are helping you through this rough time?"

~*~

If Cotton had been in possession of his memories, the idea of having a keeper would have made him physically sick. As it was, it only earned a grin out of him.

"I do feel as if I need a keeper. I don't have family, no, though I have a friend---of sorts. I'm not sure how we're friends. I'm grateful to have her in my life, I know that. I also have an extremely pushy agent who is practically panting at the idea of moving into my place to personally direct my every movement until this whole thing clears up."

He took the glass of cider from her, raising it in a toast before taking an experimental sip. Cotton couldn't remember ever trying sparkling cider. Alcohol? Sure. His last memories were still after he'd turned 21 so drinking had been a part of his life. It had never consumed his life the way it had his father's, but it'd been more than some throwaway comment for him. The cider tasted cleaner, crisper, fresher than any beer he'd ever had.

"Not bad! I have a feeling you don't buy the store brand on anything. If my pantry is anything to go by? I don't either. I seem to be busy a lot though today this is the only appointment in my calendar. No rush. I was only wondering if I was possibly at the wrong place. I'd hate to think Elsa Arendelle is sitting in an office somewhere waiting on me thinking I've stood her up for a meeting. I'm a better guy than that."

~*~

Hey, there wasn't anything wrong with needing a keeper. If you asked Anna, anyway. Half the time she felt like she needed one, too! She missed out on just about everything that wasn't school or school related. It gave her a four-point-oh grade point average, but it meant she didn't have much of a life during the school year.

"I think everyone sort of needs one," Anna agreed. She sipped her own apple cider, smiling, and then set the glass down on the counter. "Friends are priceless. Especially when things go wrong. You know? My parents... well, they died about eighteen months ago. I was inconsolable. But my best friends were there for me, and I don't know what I would have done without them."

"Well, sometimes it doesn't make a difference," Anna added, about the name brand versus the store brand. Sometimes the store brand was just as good. "But with Martinelli's?" She gave him a shrug. "I'll text her and let her know you're here." She said, and drew her phone from her pocket. "It was Cotton, right?" Her fingers were deft and quick as they slid across the glass front of her phone's screen.

~*~

"That's right, Cotton like the fabric."

His smile faded a bit at the thought the Arendelle sisters had lost both their parents. This was the holiday season. Cotton didn't have a family to celebrate with himself so he empathized with how it could feel. There were worse things than being orphaned, but he couldn't think of them at the present time. All he could think was he wished he was smarter, better with words, something so he could tell Anna how sorry he was for her loss.

That was what everyone said though, wasn't it?

'I'm so sorry for your loss.'

Those words were cliched beyond reason. They'd gotten to the point where they meant nothing to anyone, not the person saying them or the person they were directed to or even to the memory of the person they were referencing. Cotton wouldn't use that phrase for his life. It was too wrong.

"Martinelli's," he repeated instead, "I'll remember it so I can pick some up for my place."

~*~

"Like the plant," Anna said, smiling brightly. "Cotton plants are quite lovely, actually. Even though I've heard they're a bit messy. I've only seen pictures. I've never actually been to anywhere where they grow cotton, but..." This was Anna rambling. She pressed her lips together to stop the words coming out.

It'd been eighteen months for Anna. They had last Christmas without their parents, and this was number two. It wasn't any less painful, but it was getting easier. She felt a little less guilty at being happy, a little less remorseful when she realized she hadn't thought about her missing mother or father all day. She would still go to church and light a candle for them, probably, but she didn't cry much anymore.

"You definitely should. It's so good. Especially at holidays. I mean, we have champagne around here sometimes... though I'm not supposed to have any... but Martinelli's actually tastes better than fermented grape juice. If you ask me, anyway."

~*~

Cotton had never been to a plantation where they grew cotton either. He had thought about it once. A nagging feeling came over him making him wonder how much he had thought about leaving California before he'd forgotten the last fifteen or so years of his life. It had been a passing fancy for him as a younger man. At his age now, Cotton figured he had no intention of leaving Cali, especially considering how much work had gone into his house.

The place had custom photographs on the walls. Which had been his idea. When did he become interested in art or photography or decorating?

"I agree with you on the taste. I haven't actually tried champagne that I remember, but I don't like the idea either. There's a bottle in my refrigerator at home. I thought about opening it since it's expensive. Maybe it tastes better, you know? It's got to be expensive for some reason. I haven't because who knows if I was saving it for a special occasion? Besides. My old man was a drunk. I don't want to be anything like him."

That was about as much as he felt Anna needed to know about him.

"Can you show me where I can wait on your sister?"

~*~

Anna hadn’t done a lot of leaving California, either. She’d been so sick as a child, she was sheltered beyond belief. Then she turned eighteen and had a clean bill of health from the doctors… so she’d gone to Louisiana, she’d gone to Disneyland, she’d traveled with her ex-boyfriend and her best friend Caroline. She’d gone to Paris! So many things had happened over the last year.

Though she didn’t really like the taste of champagne, Anna did like the feeling of being intoxicated. She liked getting tipsy and dancing with friends, or whatever. But the taste? Gross.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t either. I can’t really, though, I have too much school stuff going on most of the time to drink too much. Though sometimes I can go out on the weekends and have a good time.” She gave him a bright smile.

“Oh! Yes. Well, right through here is her office.” She said, carrying her glass with one hand and waving for him to follow her with the other. He could wait for Elsa in her office while Anna got back to the very important task of preparing for Christmas.

~*~