Chapter 2: Taking a Husband
It was close to three weeks before she saw Kristoff again; Anna and Hans would be due back from their honeymoon any day. Multiple bouts of nausea and sleeplessness had made the Queen suspect all was not well. One simple test later and she knew: there was life with her. She was heavy, great with child.
Elsa immediately went to Kristoff's stall in the stablehouse to see him. When he saw her enter in her ice dress, her hands cradling an as-yet-imperceptible baby bump, he didn't need to ask. He knew.
"Are you...?"
She nodded solemnly. "Yes, I am."
Elsa saw the way Kristoff's eyes lit up - those eyes she hoped their baby would have. She peered at him curiously. "You want to have it, don't you?"
He nodded. Elsa took a deep breath. "Well, then..." She looked him right in the eye. "Master Kristoff Bjorgman, will you marry me? Be my King?"
Kristoff did not weigh the Queen's proposal of marriage lightly. He knew that he wanted to do right by Elsa and their baby. He wanted to marry and take care of this beautiful woman. And yet, the terror at becoming King hardly crossed his mind as he murmured, "I will."
Elsa smiled weakly. Filled with relief, the Queen and her Ice Master embraced and kissed.
The Queen did not let the inevitable uproar from her Council dissuade her. It did not matter to her that Kristoff was a commoner; she knew the ways of her heart and wanted to marry for love. Besides, there was a child to think about.
Elsa and Kristoff eloped, swearing a priest to secrecy rather than wait and marry in a normal church wedding. Even so, Hans and Anna returned from sea to find that Queen Elsa was to be wed that very day, to an ice harvester no less. Anna happily gave her sister away, trusting her decision; the shock never left Hans' face for the entire ceremony. When he learned he was also to be an uncle, he nearly fainted.
The bishop blessed the couple and pronounced Kristoff and Elsa husband and wife, and they kissed to cheers. Nine months later, Elsa would give birth to a beautiful baby boy - now first in line for the Arendellian throne. She named him Kristoff Jr. - to remind her of her husband and the man she loved and what had brought them together.
The only drawback, she decided, was that Hans seemed livid that he would never become King...
