Chapter Text
Epilogue
11 years later
Bulda does not consider herself to be a person that is easily surprised.
She always guessed Christmas presents when she was a young girl.
She somehow just knew when her sisters had crushes on boys, almost before they did.
She was readily prepared for pop quizzes in school.
One year her parents spent months planning a secret trip to Disney World and when she’d spontaneously been told to pack up a bag because ‘they were going on an adventure!’ She had replied, without any prompting or snooping, “Where are we going? Disney World?”.
When she was eighteen she had met Cliff at a friend’s bonfire. She was expecting it when he asked her out on a date less than half an hour after being introduced.
It did not take her off guard when Cliff had asked her to marry him less than four months later. In fact, she was already beginning to grow impatient for their life to begin together.
She just knew it was right.
She’d had an inkling when they went to the doctor and she was told she would never be able to have children. It had hurt at the time, sure, but she’d been expecting it.
She had been distinctly aware that her mother’s time was drawing to a close, and had been glad when she passed peacefully in her sleep.
Years and years later, she’d been completely ready for her father’s death too.
The one thing in her life that seemed to surprise her the most, almost without fail, was anything related to Kristoff.
Bulda had been completely blown away by just how quickly that scruffy little boy, almost a teenager and entirely too tall for his clothes, had taken over her heart. It had almost been instantaneous. He’d said hello to her and she just knew she would do whatever it took to keep him forever.
And he just kept doing things that took her off guard.
He started making her coffee in the mornings when he was still in middle school.
He raked all the leaves out of the yard without being prompted.
He would fold the laundry when she wasn’t looking.
He would go in behind her and tidy the dishes after she’d been cooking.
He would sit quietly for hours in her father’s air hangar pouring over books about planes.
Despite that ability to just be completely still for ages, he didn’t do the best in school. His tests never reflected how smart he was and she found herself thoroughly disappointed in school systems on the whole.
She was taken aback when he told her he was going into the army after he finished high school. She didn’t know she had opinions about how much she hated war until he was sent over to some far away land to fight so rich men could get richer.
Her heart was shattered at just how broken he was when he finally came home and sometimes it surprised her to find it was difficult to breath when she thought of him.
Her sweet, determined, precious boy didn’t seem to believe he deserved anything good in the world and that just flabbergasted her. She didn’t know how to help.
Then Anna came into the picture and things weren’t so surprising anymore.
Did Kristoff still throw her a curveball or two? Sure, but Anna brought a lot more predictability to the picture.
Bulda wasn’t caught off guard this time by the depth of her immediate love for Anna. She’d experienced it before, and while Cliff told her she shouldn’t get so attached because it was likely to lead her to heartbreak, she knewshe’d get to keep Anna in just the same way she knew she’d keep Kristoff.
Kristoff pretended not to be absolutely smitten with Anna at first and that was predictable.
When they finally did get it worked out between the two of them, it didn’t take them very long to move in together and that was just the way Bulda thought it would be. Predictable.
He doted on her and constantly had her cuddled up into his side. Predictable.
He waited to ask Anna to marry him to make sure she felt confident in that decision even though she was very much champing at the bit. Predictable.
They bought a house less than twenty minutes away. That was a surprise!
Anna was a few months pregnant at their wedding. Predictable.
Kristoff waited on her hand and foot and barely let her lift a finger despite her instance that remaining active in pregnancy was actually a good thing. Predictable.
They were both utterly besotted with their baby girl. Completely and utterly predictable.
Their decision to become foster parents would have been one of those little curve-ball-pleasant-surprise moments if it weren’t for the fact that Anna spent months and months badgering Bulda with questions about the ‘ins and outs’ of the system.
Their first adoption, an eight year old boy, was beyond expected. It was hoped for, dreamed for, longed for by the whole entire family, not just Anna and Kristoff
Their second adoption was a set of siblings, aged four and fourteen. Also something had all wanted.
And then…
“So,” Anna says slowly at Thanksgiving, surveying the yard where all the cousins were playing together, “we have some news.”
“You’re pregnant!” Bulda says immediately.
“Yes!” Anna cries, her face glowing, happy tears welling in her eyes.
Bulda embraces her daughter in a fierce hug, tears in her own eyes.
“How did you know?!” Kristoff looks at Bulda incredulously.
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you can’t get anything by your mother.” Cliff laughs.
“We only just found out this past weekend.” Anna sniffles out, laughing and crying all at once. “We haven’t told anybody else about it yet, not even the kids!”
“Yeah! That wasn’t even what we were about to tell you!” Kristoff insists. “We were saving that surprise for Christmas!”
“Oh, what else could your big “news” be?” Bulda raises an eyebrow.
“I noticed that Grandpabbie’s old hangar went up for sale.”
“Oh.” Bulda gasps.
“We were able to buy it.”
Life was full of surprises, so it would seem.