A/N: This one is based in an AU where Agdar & Idun survive the shipwreck & are eventually reunited. It's also based on yet another headcanon. Take note that this does mention miscarriages & crib death, which I have tagged, but if I have missed anything else let me know, but be careful regardless.
He should have known.
He should have known that she had been keeping this from him.
Or at least he feels as if he should have known. He is her husband after all.
Six years he had been separated from her. From them. His family. For six years, he believed she was dead thanks to the events of that night & avoided Arendelle ever since, fearful that he would be cast away for his wrongdoings.
If only he had known what would happen six years later, when an ice harvester with a reindeer had stopped in the town he'd been living in for the night. If only he had known that the said ice harvester was courting his youngest daughter & would ultimately discover his true identity & persuade him to return. If only he had known that his family, including his beloved wife, were alive & well, would accept him back into their family with open arms, despite the old wounds that had been reopened that day.
If he had of known all of this, he would have returned sooner. But that could not be changed. But that was another story entirely.
He had been looking through some old documents that he had found when he came across some records he had never seen before. Scanning over them, he had made a discovery that he wished he had never made:
They documented a lost pregnancy.
Or more specifically, lost pregnancies.
She'd miscarried before. Twice before Elsa. They had a son, Theodor, after Anna, but he had died not too long after his birth. They had not tried again ever since. But these documents suggested that there had been more but they had been lost.
The question was, how many? How many had she kept hidden from him? How many times had she felt the pain of losing a child over & over, while he was unaware of it?
The sound of a door opening & closing snapped him out of his thoughts. He quickly hid the documents where he had found them & tried to move away, but she walked in before he had the chance.
One pair of eyes surveyed the scene, while the other stared straight ahead. Then the two meet, sapphire & emerald looking at each other, the former sad, the latter shocked. She leaves eventually, & he follows behind her, dreading what was coming next.
'There were more, weren't there?'
The question cuts through the silence. More silence follows afterwards as she prepares her answer. She finally speaks after what feels like forever:
'…..I'm sorry,'
It's quiet, but he manages to pick it up nonetheless.
This is hard for both of them. She's essentially reliving the experiences & he's only hearing about them so many years later. 'How many, if you don't mind me asking?'
More silence, which was expected. He doesn't expect any immediate answers. Not with a matter as serious as this.
'I don't know,'
Her answer doesn't quite answer his question, but she isn't done yet:
'All I can remember is that the number has two digits,'
She breaks, & he does too, despite his best efforts.
She drops her head to her hands & begins sobbing loudly. He is suddenly thankful that the door is closed, so that a wondering maid couldn't walk past, see what was happening in the room & ask what was going on if they saw the couple.
Or worse, one of their daughters, which would ultimately end in more heartbreak.
He embraces her, desperately trying to fight back tears of his own, but ultimately failed as a silent sob escapes. She sobs into his shoulder, unable to hold onto the pain of losing each child anymore.
He knows that those documents only documented a small number of them: he wasn't sure if there were many more, & decided not to ask. It would be too painful for both of them. So he holds her, wondering how she kept this from him for so long.
Wondering how she had managed to conceal each one so well that he suspected nothing. Many a night he had wondered why she had been so tired, & now he knew the answer, even though the answer was not the one he wished it was.
Hours seemingly pass. She is quiet, but she is still sobbing occasionally, & he lets one escape from time to time.
There are no words, for what can be said? How do you comfort someone in a situation like this, when the events happened so many years ago, when one party was hurting, while the other was completely oblivious?
He could only hope that his daughters never have to experience this for themselves.
Night falls, with the two of them feeling too exhausted to move anywhere. They lie down on the bed, embracing each other.
As he feels his eyelids beginning to droop, he takes one more look at her, before pressing a kiss to her forehead. He then lies down & tries to sleep for the night.