Kristoff opened his eyes, he was confused and entirely lost. It was dark, pitch black so that he could not see his hand in front of his own face. In fact as he attempted to do so, he had to bring his hand up to touch his face to ensure that it was even there at all. Dazed, he pulled his hand away from his face only to feel some warm, sticky, thick liquid cling to it. He had been injured enough to know that it was blood, but he had no idea how it had gotten there. He was not experiencing any extreme pain, and he, of course could not remember getting injured, but he could tell that there was some sort of abrasion to his face.
"Kristoff." Came a muffled and pained voice in the darkness ahead of him. The voice was familiar to him and it immediately cleared his head.
"Anna?" He shouted, knowing clear as day that it was her he heard. "Anna where are you?"
It was all coming back to him now. There had been a snowstorm while they were out looking for the trolls and a cave had been the closest available shelter. He remembered hearing a rumbling followed by a sudden cave in, but little else. The details were jumbled in his mind and there was nothing he could piece together other than panic. They were in trouble, big trouble.
There was no reply, but rather a sound of crying coming from the same direction. Kristoff was on his back, but moved onto his stomach, crawling in the direction of the sobs until his hand met something warm and soft.
"Anna?" He asked as felt around. He was terrified for them both, but more her than himself. He needed her to be okay more than he had ever needed anything in his entire life.
"Kristoff." She said breathlessly as she winced and reached out for him in the same way he reached out for her. " Kristoff I don't know what happened it was just loud and dark and oh god, are you okay?"
Hearing her voice he nearly laughed beside himself, she was okay, and she was worried about him. Of course she was, she was always worried about others and put those she loved before herself. He had seen her frozen and thawed over that fact and he knew that it was unlikely that she would ever change. He didn't want her to, he just wanted her to be Anna, and he just wanted her to be okay.
"I know, I know." He said trying to soothe her for a moment. "I'm fine, but Anna are you okay, are you hurt?" She was speaking and he supposed that it meant that she was alright enough, but he wanted to be sure of any injuries she might have.
"I twisted my ankle when I fell I think, and everything sort of hurts from the fall, but I'll be alright." She was sitting up halfway and was honestly more worried about him than she was about herself. She had already removed her gloves and as her hands searched out blindly in the dark they made contact with his face, and more importantly the side of his head on which she could feel blood. "Kris, oh my god, you're bleeding."
He felt Anna touch his cut and winced, now it hurt, not terribly, but now that he was conscious of it being there he could feel the pain associated with it. "I'm fine, don't worry, it's just a scratch." Honestly he had no knowledge of the severity of his head wound, but he didn't want to say that to Anna and scare her. Honestly he just wanted to calm her down. To get them both calm and focused on the task at hand was the only way to get them both out of the situation as it stood.
Anna was still worried despite his words. Whenever he was hurt he never told her how bad it was, he wanted to be strong and not worry her, but not telling her everything worried her more than the actual truth. "Oh my god, where's Sven?"
She couldn't think straight quite yet, her mind still swirling with panic. Hadn't the reindeer just been with them? Where had he gone? Her mind immediately assumed the worst.
Kristoff thought for a moment, trying to collect the facts from his scrambled mind. It was difficult and his head ached but eventually an answer surfaced amongst the rubble of his thought process. "He didn't come into the cave Anna, he was staying outside until I made sure it was safe to come in." He sighed as he remembered another important detail. "He was staying out there like you were supposed to."
Of course Kristoff wasn't mad at Anna for following him into the cave, she never followed his instructions, why should he believe that she would have last time? Rather he lamented the fact that she had been injured by following him, he never wanted her to get hurt, and certainly he never wanted her injured without him, but he hated the fact that he had lead her into danger even if it were unintentional.
The realization that Sven was not in the cave with them was a relief for them both however. "Look Anna, don't worry. We're going to get out of here, Sven will find a way to get us out." He sighed letting himself touch her face for comfort and assurance.
Anna relaxed slightly with his touch, there was something about him that always calmed her. "You put a lot of faith in him." She said softly before adding, "How many of these situations have the two of you been in?"
Kristoff thought back to all the times that Sven had saved him or that he had saved Sven. Their history was long, and complex, however the answer came to him simply. "More times than you're thinking and more times than I can count." It was a simple reply but it was the truest thing he could say.
"So what do we do now then?" She asked, her eyes just beginning to adjust to the darkness so that she could make out the shadow of Kristoff's form before her. She felt guilty for having followed him into the cave against his instruction and against her own word that she could not. However she was relieved that if they were in this situation that they were in it together. They were safer together than they would ever be apart.
"Wait." Kristoff responded simply before negotiating his body to fit against a cave wall. He opened up his arms to her and unbuttoned his jacket. It was cold within the fallen rubble of the cave, and he had already seen that they were trapped, so at the very least he could give Anna a little bit of warmth. "Come here." He said to her gently. Usually he would move her himself, pulling her in to rest her back against his chest and settle her body between his legs, but his worry of hurting her further meant that he would allow her to move to him on her own.
As soon as Anna heard Kristoff implore her to be close to him she did so. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to be in his arms. She shifted herself until she was seated between his spread legs with her back on his stomach. He was warm and the rising and falling of his chest was calming for her. He was alive and so was she. They could weather this as long as they were together.
As soon as Anna's familiar weight was upon him, Kristoff leaned forward to kiss the top of her head. Hopefully Sven would come along soon with help, because he was sure that even the two of them together could not move any of the large rocks blocking their path to freedom. Honestly he wasn't even sure of how far they were caved in. All he knew was that panicking would help nothing.
"Kristoff?"
"Yes?" He replied, he heard a quiver in her voice as she spoke.
"Kristoff are you scared?"
He couldn't lie to her, "Yes Anna, I'm scared."
Anna gasped slightly, it was the first time that she had ever heard Kristoff honestly admit something like that. Usually he was too afraid of scaring her to answer to that. However she wasn't any more frightened by his fear than she had already been. "It's okay." She said, being the strong one. Ever the optimist that she was, "We're going to be alright and we'll tell the trolls the news, especially Bulda." There were little tears in her eyes as she spoke, "She'll be so excited."
Kristoff brushed his hand through Anna's hair, undoing the braids as he went, "I know she will." He said gently, wrapping the unused arm around her waist, pulling her back even tighter to his chest. "She was always so excited about the idea of me getting married." He chuckled a little bit, trying to lighten the situation a little for the both of them. "You know she's going to try to plan the whole thing, right?"
Anna smiled then, he was always great about distracting her from her fears. "I wouldn't mind wearing that grass and gem crown again."
"How would Elsa feel about that?" he asked, "She always strikes me as a bit of a traditionalist with that sort of thing."
"Well she'll insist on a white dress with it, and maybe even a veil, but if it makes me happy, she'll let me wear whatever I want."
Anna ran her hand over his leg gently, "Besides she's getting less rigid with that sort of stuff by the day, you can see it too can't you?"
"Yeah, she's relaxing a lot now. I think it's because of you."
Anna laughed a little bit, "You're helping too, and she just needs to be surrounded by people who love her for who she is. She's still scared sometimes, living your life in isolation is kind of hard to get over you know?"
"She was really excited when we told her." Kristoff remembered how she had smiled and congratulated them both. He was happy to be part of a family at last, especially if his involvement in their family made it whole again for them. He loved Anna with every fiber of his being, and with that came affection for Elsa. The two of them were very alike in many ways, and it was taking them a while to completely understand one another, their friendship was coming along nicely enough.
"I'm making her the maid of honor you know."
Kristoff smiled, "Of course you are, she's you sister, she deserves it."
"Who's going to be the best man?" Anna asked with a smile, she already knew the answer of course, but the talk of details of their wedding was calming her down greatly.
"Sven of course, and some of the trolls and harvesters will be groomsmen."
"I wonder if Olaf will mind being a brides maid?" Anna asked with a laugh before admitting, "Honestly other than him and a few members of the staff my only other friends are paintings."
Kristoff, who had finished unbraiding her hair, wrapped both of his arms around her. She had mentioned this before in a previous heart to heart. Kristoff could somewhat relate to her, he hadn't had much for friends either, but he at the very least had been friends with a few of the harvesters and had the trolls for family. Anna had nothing and no one. He kissed her head again; he would never let her feel as alone as she had growing up.
Hours later Anna had fallen asleep. He had been singing old folk songs to her when she did so, and he was content with holding her as she slept. Of course he could not rest, despite all the promises that he had made to her about their safety, he was still worried and somewhat on edge. He had been hearing a scratching song for what he estimated to be about twenty minutes and though it was likely just a mouse or some other cave dwelling creature, he held hope for a rescue coming.
Finally there was something that Kristoff was sure about. A thin beam of light was passing between the cracks of two rocks. And what had sounded like scratching before now sounded like breaking and shifting. "Hurry!" Someone shouted and there was a sound of slamming before the entire wall of rock fell away.
"My baby!"
Kristoff looked up into the dim morning light, it was Bulda, Sven and the other trolls.
Anna began to wake in Kristoff's arms as the gaggle of his family began to rush in. There were shouts of his name, her name and questions coming so quickly that neither he nor the freshly awoken Anna could answer.
In fact the only thing that he could do once his wits came about him was lift up Anna and announce somewhat lack luster compared to how he had imagined it, "We're getting married."
