Fairy snow, fairy snow,
Blowing, blowing everywhere,
Would that I
Too, could fly
Lightly, lightly through the air.

Like a wee, crystal star
I should drift, I should blow
Near, more near,
To my dear
Where he comes through the snow.

I should fly to my love
Like a flake in the storm,
I should die,
I should die,
On his lips that are warm.

"Snow Song" by Sara Teasdale, 1911

Frozen in Time
Chapter One

Anna felt her feet and legs again before she could even see anything. They tingled and burned the way they did as a child when she'd sit by the castle fireplaces after playing out in the snow. Funny, she couldn't remember much about those days. She remembered throwing snowballs with Elsa. Oh! Of course, there was ice skating in the Great Hall. Wait, what? She thought. Ice skating in the Great Hall? My brain must still be frozen!

Then, one last tingling sensation swept up Anna's neck and chin. Elsa's sobs were the first sound Anna heard again before she realized she could move. Elsa looked up at her, wonderstruck. "Anna!" she exclaimed. The sisters hugged.

"Oh, Elsa..." Anna almost cried with relief.

Suddenly Elsa pulled away, awash with a look of pride and shock as she said, "You sacrificed yourself for me?"

"I love you." Anna had meant to be reassuring but Elsa still looked on the verge of tears. Olaf's gasp suddenly drew the attention of both.

"An act of true love will thaw a frozen heart," he murmured, beaming at the two of them.

"Love will thaw… love. Of course!" Elsa, riveted by some private revelation, stared first at her hands and then at the frozen fjord around them.

"Elsa?"

"Love!" Elsa exclaimed, holding her hands up. Anna's face lit up as she realized her sister was using magic. First, the ship beneath them righted itself upon the melting ice. The ice itself floated up, twisting and peeling away across the docks and through the town. Soon the entire kingdom was thawing. The sky turned from blizzard grey to fiery blue with a visible, beaming sun. Anna watched, reliving the amazement from when she first witnessed Elsa's power. Only now, she looked on with understanding… and something else.

"I knew you could do it," Anna said, resting her hand on Elsa's shoulder. She felt a ghostly pride she was sure she'd felt before. It was as if… as if she'd always believed Elsa could work miracles if she only put her mind and heart to it.

"Hands down, this is the best day of my life…" Olaf said, gushing and melting at the same time. "…and quite possibly the last," he added, still managing to smile.

"Olaf!" Elsa giggled. "Hang on, little guy!" Once again, Elsa worked her magic, this time to create a personal wintry cloud for the beloved little snowman. No sooner had Olaf's melting limbs and body re-solidified than he was chuckling and tapping his little snow-feet.

"My own personal flurry, hehehe!"

Anna looked from her sister to their goofy, enchanted friend and laughed a little. Everything's going to be just fine now, she started to think to herself. But a familiar voice shattered the moment.

Hans.

Anna stopped Kristoff from charging over to the deceitful prince. She would handle this. She stalked up to him with her fists clenched and her insults ready – not that she knew what to say to him, nor was she sure that there was anything to say. If Hans needed to be told what he'd done was wrong, well…

The prince was in the middle of resetting his jaw when he noticed her. His eyes went wide. "Anna?" he said, pushing himself away from the ship's rail to move closer to her. "But she froze your heart…"

She thought she would have found some joy in his bewilderment. But even as she said, "The only frozen heart around here is yours," and turned away from him, she felt… cheated. What she'd said was clever and perfectly true. Shouldn't she be happy that Hans was to witness her happy ending?

Suddenly, Anna wheeled on Hans. She punched him flat in the face with strength that hurled him overboard. The huge splash made her feel a little better.

Elsa, Kristoff, Sven and Olaf were waiting with smiling faces when she turned back to them. Anna leapt forward to hug her older sister, smiling brightly at Kristoff over Elsa's shoulder. They'd been through so much together; she was sure she wouldn't have made it this far without the reindeer, the snowman or – especially – the misjudged misanthrope. Now she and Elsa would be able to depend on each other too…

"That's funny!" Olaf exclaimed. Anna looked over to see the snowman using his stick hands to hold his head up high enough to peer over the port rail.

Anna almost dismissed it but Elsa asked, "What is it?"

Olaf's little stick-hands rotated his head to face the sisters. "Do you think he can't swim?"

"What?!" Anna shrieked, tearing free from Elsa to peer out into the water with Olaf. Hans was nowhere to be seen! She and the snowman simultaneously took turns giving each other sidelong stares and then gawking down from the rail. "I don't know. What? Wait, I don't know. How long has it been? Do you think he's drowning? I didn't mean to –"

But Kristoff and Elsa both appeared behind her, Kristoff clapping his hands down on her shoulders. "For goodness' sake, Anna, calm down." Anna tilted her head back to look at him, thankful but still shaken. Kristoff let out a sigh and muttered, "I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Doing what?" Anna and Elsa asked together, bewildered when Kristoff flung his mittens and boots off. When it appeared Kristoff's shirt would be off next, the sisters sheepishly turned their heads away.

"Wow…" Olaf said. "That's a lot of hair!" Anna's eyes grew wide.

"Olaf!"

"Is that normal? We snowmen don't have a lot of hair," Olaf explained, gesturing on top of his head in case Anna had never noticed. Another splash sounded. Anna, Elsa and Olaf gathered along the starboard rail, peering down at the disturbed water where Kristoff had dived in.

They held their breaths…except for Anna. "They probably teach royals how to swim on the Southern Isles, wouldn't you think?" Anna asked.

"He didn't drown, Anna," Elsa said. But Elsa didn't look away from the water when she said it.

Great, Anna thought. Everything had been resolved and she'd given them something new to worry about. She hadn't been able to help herself, not after everything Hans had done.

Together the two sisters watched the water. A small pop made Anna glance down just in time to see Elsa's hands on the wooden rail. The part Elsa touched was iced over. Elsa's white knuckles trembled.

Anna reached out but immediately stopped herself. Even though Elsa stood next to her, it felt like she was a child on the other side of a locked room again. Would Elsa just push her away?

The ice receded when Kristoff's head popped back up out of the water. He shook the wet hair out of his eyes and swam closer to the ship. "I don't see him anywhere!" he yelled.

"Are you certain?" Elisa cried down, helping Anna pick up a rope secured to the deck to toss down to Kristoff so he could climb up.

"Fairly certain," Kristoff answered. "But it was hard to see, and I could only dive so far…" Step by step, Kristoff pulled himself by the rope up the side of the ship until he was able to climb on deck. "If he can't swim…"

Elsa swung her hand up to cast but Anna grabbed her. "Wait! We don't know if he's down there."

The queen faltered, her eyes wildly fixed upon the water. "I can… I can part the fjord, make two walls of ice. If he's at the bottom, we'll see him."

"And if he gets trapped in one of those walls?" Anna asked. Usually she was the impulsive one, but she couldn't see how Elsa's plan would end well.

"Then at least I'd know where the villain is!" Elsa snapped, ripping her arm free from Anna. The instant she did it, she looked mortified. "Anna, I – I'm sorry. But we need to find him."

"We will," Anna said. She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

A/N: Originally, this first chapter was going to be 4x the length of this, but I decided to break it down into shorter chapters. I'm not sure what the general preference is. If readers prefer longer chapters later on, perhaps I can return to that. Anyway - the majority of this opening part was that scene near the end of the film, so if you want a better idea of where this story is going to go, please read chapter two. :)

I've been on such a Frozen fic kick (Hanna fic kick, more specifically) lately, so this story is inspired by a few wonderful stories on FFnet including "All That Glitters" by Othellia, "The Torn Prince" by Mogitz and "Love will Thaw" by darksidechick. Those are all well-written and different, addicting takes on both Frozen and the relationship between Hans and Anna. If you're a fan of Hans and Anna, I hope you'll read those... and I hope you'll enjoy Frozen in Time as well.

Additional Note: Also, I made a playlist of all the music I listen to as I'm writing this story. :D A lot of it is stuff that was on the radio when I first started writing this... I did a lot of brainstorming on my morning/evening commute. Some of it is old, most of it is pretty and a few things are just regionally or lyrically appropriate. Feel free to check it out: tinyurlcom/zrb5jqd (well, can't exactly link on FFnet but just put the "." before the "com" :D)