Sometime after the 'Hans incident' a room was prepared for Kristoff in the castle. The sisters liked the idea of filling up the rooms that had been empty for so long. It took a while for Anna to work up the courage to ask Kristoff to use the room and when she did it, it was with her usually awkward control of words. Faced with Anna's adorable awkwardness, of course Kristoff could do nothing but agree. They had even thoughtfully placed his room on the ground level close to the stables so that Sven could wander along and visit or he could go to the stables if he needed to. It went without saying that it was also located close to where Anna could always casually drop by if she needed to.
She often stood outside his door when she was sleepless at night. She never knocked. Perhaps it was years of no response or perhaps that it was that she didn't want to disturb him from his sleep. Just standing there blinking, her hand half raised seemed to help her, she would quietly make her way back to bed, yawning and falling into the deep slumber of dreamless sleep. She always woke up the latest on the days after the nights she had nightmares.
Anna will always be awkward around Kristoff, but it's okay because he's just as awkward around her. They pass the time by getting used to each other as people whose lives and livelihoods are no longer in danger. Sometimes they chase each other around the kingdom, other times they never leave the castle. Tonight they were curled up in front of a cosy fire in the library reading books. They didn't notice the time and they didn't notice each other slipping into the embrace of slumber.
This made Kristoff highly confused when he awoke with a jolt, not remembering where he was and wondering what had awakened him. Anna was on the floor screaming. She was in that stage of consciousness where she was awake but the sleep still clung to her mind. Her back was as far into one of the shelves as she could possibly get without becoming one with the books and wood. She was curled up into a tiny ball with her hands and arms a tangle at her head. She can't stop crying and she can't fully come back to reality. Kristoff doesn't know what to do for a moment he is frozen in his place. But he snaps out of it and goes to her.
It hurts him a little when she flinches away from his touch with another distressful cry, but he ignores the feeling and continues to try to reach her through the fog that shrouds her mind.
"Anna, it's Kristoff, it's me, Anna." His hands reach for her as she stills for a moment. He envelops her into a hug, she struggles but he ignores this and the awful heartbroken sound that she makes.
"Shh, Anna, it's okay, I'm here. Nothing bad is going to happen; it's just a bad dream." He continues to whisper gently to her as he rocks her back and forth. He doesn't stop until she stops wailing and struggling. He doesn't open his embrace until after she sobs the rest of his tears into his shoulder and hugs him back. He lets her stay there, despite his knee's aching from kneeling for so long, until she is ready to leave his warmth.
They don't talk about it in the light of day, but he leaves his door open at night and she tells him that she dreams of when her parents died, and of lost memories from her childhood. She tells him how they went away after a while but then they came back after Hans. She tells him of an eternity as ice, and seeing everyone she ever loved but never being able to move. She tells him of being too late and both sisters dying. She tells him something new every night and he kisses away her tears and hugs away her fears, holding her until she feels safe again. Eventually she stops coming to his door at night. He almost misses it but everyone notice how much happier she seems to be.
He's happy that she's happy, and she's very happy that he makes her so happy. She never misses a chance to show him just how much.
