Author's Note: Thanks all again for your warm and thoughtful feedback. It means a lot! I know it may not seem like it, but this story took me over four years to write, and is by far the most challenging I've ever tackled in terms of theme and perspective.

IV.

She left him soon after being laced up again, walking out the door of the conservatory with a noticeable lack of care of being seen. Her stride was confident - if with the occasional tremble - and then she was gone.

It happened in an instant, too quickly for him to figure out how she'd done it. The last thing he remembered seeing was the door opening, and then a swirl of ice-blue light as she made her exit. At first, he was stunned; then, when he had a chance to catch his breath, he sighed, suddenly understanding how she had managed to meet him without anyone noticing.

In spite of the wonder of her magic, he found himself pondering over her parting look for longer than he would've liked. Had she been enraged? Or just embarrassed? It could've been anything, and he had to acknowledge that for all the time he'd spent with the Snow Queen, he still didn't know her well at all.

The idea that he was nowhere near such a place of confidence was irritating. He prided himself on being able to find out little-known details about other people through his powers of persuasion, and initially, he'd thought he could do the same with Elsa.

It had become clear to him, however, that his usual tactics weren't working with her (or at least not as well as he'd hoped). There had been moments here and there when she'd been vulnerable with him, but they'd been only that—moments. In fact, when he looked back on the last few days with a clear head, it became obvious that very little of substance had been said between them.

But he wanted more, and he wasn't sure why.

He received word from her around noon the following day.

It was again delivered via a hastily-scrawled note, slipped under his door—though this time he was in his room reading a tragically terrible romance novel, and heard (and saw) the paper slide along the wooden floor below him.

He jumped up from his seat, slamming the book shut and tossing it aside as he opened the door, hoping to catch the messenger before (s)he had gotten away. His head whipped from side to side, surveying the dark corridor to whence he'd been relegated for the last two years, and thought he saw the very edge of a dress as it skirted around the corner.

He was half of mind to go and chase the person and demand to know for certain if all of this was really happening completely in secret, or if he was being made a fool of by Elsa and the entire court while he brooded and pondered over her "true" feelings. Not being sure if he had seen someone, however, he found that the other half of him was more desperately curious to go back and read the note.

You're an idiot.

He cursed himself even as he closed the door behind him, staring at the folded paper with a mixture of anticipation and resentment. He was giving her exactly what she wanted by reading these, meeting her at her chosen locations, pleasuring her, "teaching" her... and whatever physical benefit he got out of it, it didn't seem like it was enough to justify fulfilling her whims.

She's winning, whether you read it or not.

The idea made him frown, and he was tempted to just pick the thing up, rip it in half, and not think about any of it for a second longer. After all, he certainly hadn't agreed to any of this as some way of "repenting" for his sins towards her, and she never directly said or even implied that that was what she really wanted from him, at the end of all of this. In addition, she hadn't given him any more useful information about her time in the Isles than he could've deduced on his own.

(More to the point: he hadn't allowed himself yet, in all this time, to find any release, and his constant, aching need for it was slowly driving him mad.)

But maybe if you read it, and see her again... she can help you.

It seemed ludicrous at first - the notion that these "lessons" could in any way soften the Snow Queen towards him, much less to the point that she might petition on his behalf to release him from his house arrest - and upon second, and third, and fourth thought, the idea grew even more absurd.

But what do you have to lose?

He never used to doubt himself so much, he realized, when faced with the challenge of seducing a courtier here or there to get something he wanted; in spite of these circumstances being quite different, he didn't like his own hesitation. Whatever obstacles there were with Elsa - and there were plenty - he wanted, no, needed to overcome them, and to prove to himself that he was capable of learning from his mistakes, and not just repeating them.

So do it.

He swallowed his uneasiness and picked up the note.

Make her love you.

His hand softened as he opened it, running a gloved thumb along its edge.

Make her need you.

"I was a little surprised when I read your note, Your Majesty," he remarked as she entered the dark room well past nightfall, her face dimly lit by the candle lamp he held up to see her more clearly. "I didn't realize you knew about this room."

She was dressed far less restrictively that evening in a pale-blue chemise with matching slippers, and her long blonde hair was loosely arranged in a braid laid across her chest. Her expression was calmer than usual when she answered. "I noticed the doorway from the gallery even before you made your appearance at the ball that evening," Elsa replied, her brow rising for effect, "and figured you would know how to get in."

The side of his mouth quirked up in amusement. "You were right about that," he said, taking a few steps closer until only the lamp was between them. He turned towards the wall to his right, raising the light to illuminate the paintings hung upon it. "Do you know why this room is closed off, Your Highness?"

"No," she responded, "but I'm sure you're going to tell me, whether I care or not."

He held back a laugh, vaguely agitated; there was something alien about her dry humor. "The paintings in this room were all purchased by the late Queen Mother, or given to her as gifts by visiting nobility," he informed her, looking over the works with an ease acquired from familiarity. "After she died, our late father, King Albert, shut them away in here. He didn't want anything around that reminded him of her."

He allowed himself to indulge in a memory of his mother, and then returned to form. "She was an avid collector of ocean landscapes, as you can tell."

He paused and drew closer to one painting in particular, amazed that it stood out against the garish red and gold paint on the wall upon which it was mounted. It was a scene of a small boat being tossed in the waves during a storm of biblical proportions, with wind and lightning and rain striking from every inch of the dark sky above, and he nearly jumped in surprise when he heard her speak from behind him.

"Did she paint at all herself?"

It was the first time he could recall Elsa expressing any curiosity about him, seemingly without artifice, and he had to shake off the uneasiness that struck him as he turned to face her. "No," he replied finally, cracking a small smile, "she never had a talent for it, though she always wished she could."

She stared at the same painting. "Your father must have loved her very much."

The statement earned a derisive snort from him. "Maybe he did, in his own way," he said, his lips turning down, "but he didn't waste any time in finding another broodmare, either." At her questioning look, he clarified: "He remarried only a few months after her death."

He expected a touch of sympathy from her at this revelation. Instead, she pursed her pink lips and crossed her arms. "Isn't that what kings are supposed to do?" she asked. "Have queens?"

He bristled at her tone. "Perhaps," he said, "though it's not quite as important for kings to have queens as it is for queens to have kings."

Her frown was bitter in reply.

There—that's what I wanted to see, he thought, triumphant at having earned her displeasure.

After a few seconds passed in this way, however - her glowering at him, brimming with unspoken anger - he began to feel a little anxious at the expression, and found that it didn't satisfy him to antagonize her as much as it had before.

You're getting soft.

Nevertheless, watching her look contort from one of indignation to one of resigned exasperation, his heart constricted. "I'm sorry, Elsa," he apologized before he realized that he was speaking. "That was uncalled for."

The Snow Queen's bright blue eyes widened, making him regret saying anything at all. Then, to his surprise, they softened and looked at the ground. "I'm... sorry too, Hans," she said at length, stumbling over the words as they came out. "You loved her very much—I can tell." She paused and clutched her bare, quivering hands to her chest. "I loved my mother a lot, too."

He couldn't be sure as to how genuine her apology really was - after all, he'd seen enough pleas for forgiveness at the feet of his late father and older brother by then to know that most people were rarely ever remorseful unless their survival (or reputation) was on the line - but he knew that the pain in her eyes was real.

He put the lamp on the floor and carefully slipped his arm around her waist, drawing her in closer as her face grew obscure in the darkness. She didn't resist. "I heard about what happened to your parents," he said. "It must have been horrible for you."

She rested her forehead against his chest awhile, just as she had the previous evening. "I only visited their graves for the first time after the Thaw," she admitted. "Three years after they passed away. I think I blamed myself for their deaths, somehow."

His heart thumped at the smallness of her voice, almost disappearing into the dark silence of the gallery. His embrace tightened around her as he tilted her chin up with his right hand, drawing her gaze to meet his. "It wasn't your fault," he told her. "It couldn't have been."

Her eyes glistened as her voice grew flustered. "I know that. But still, I—"

I feel guilty.

His grip on her momentarily relaxed, and he could feel her heart pounding beneath his.

Was that her thought, or mine?

His throat contracted to the point that he struggled to speak again. "These things take time," he forced himself to say, and inched his lips down towards hers. "There's no shame in that."

Her breath hitched in her throat at their closeness, his nose brushing against hers as he leaned in further—and then her face turned away from his, looking back at the entrance.

"I suppose not," she agreed.

He was startled by her reticence, if not disappointed by it. It reminded him that he remained an outsider to her despite their recent proximity. As if to drive the point home, her body - although still flush against his - grew colder, and he shuddered.

How did she get in here?

It was strange, he realized, that the question would only occur to him now. Nonetheless, it nagged at him as it had the day before. As opposed to the garden, there were far more layers of security within the palace's interior to get through to make it into the gallery—layers which he knew well and could bypass with some forethought and planning, but around which a foreigner would find difficult to navigate. He couldn't picture, for instance, her flashing through the great halls leading to this room on a spectacular carriage of ice trails and blinding flurries going unnoticed by the guards.

Combined with her taking an interest in his past life, and even being forthright with him about her own, none of it sat right with him.

What is she playing at?

The suspicions he'd had after reading her letter in the afternoon came back full force, and his arms slackened around her. He stared down hard at her, finding his attention drawn to the shadow her turned neck and chin cast across her chest.

To his surprise, it rose and fell in a stuttered fashion... as if she were nervous.

But nervous about what?

It was too dark to tell from her expression, but the very fact that he could suddenly feel her trembling against him turned all of his cynical thoughts upside down.

She's nervous because she told you too much.

That was an assumption on his part, though not an unfounded one. He knew that it had been a dangerous gamble for her to embark on these "lessons" with him from the beginning, and he was certain that she'd never intended for things to develop to this point.

And yet there they were, having just talked about their dear and deceased mothers, still embracing one another as if they were—

Lovers.

His heart thumped again, heavier and louder this time, and he swallowed thickly as his grip around her tightened.

"Why did you come to Arendelle?"

Or not.

He blinked as the question tore him from his musings, and then sighed. Her timing was hardly better than his own. "You know why."

Her focus on him was hawk-like. "But there were other reasons, weren't there? Besides what you… told Anna."

His mouth felt dry at the pointed query. "I—I wanted to escape this place," he said after a time, and found that the rest of his answer flowed out with unusual ease. "It's suffocating in its boredom, its lack of ambition. I'm sure you can see that now yourself."

Tendrils of ice ran along his arms. "That's not good enough, Hans."

He exhaled into the fog, and it was getting harder to lie. "You're right; it's more than that. It's about my family making me the whipping boy my entire life, the 'Unlucky Thirteenth,' the mistake, and me wanting to prove them wrong," he snapped, his words stifled by the cold. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"It's not about what I want to hear," she countered as snowflakes encircled them. "It's about the truth."

"As if you would believe me, even if I told you?" he retorted. It was hard to see her through the snow. "There's no point in telling someone who thinks you're a liar."

"Then be honest with me, for once."

The ice retreated back to her fingertips, and the snow dissipated until it vanished entirely. His eyes widened at her control, exercised so expertly, and then narrowed as he felt the blood rush back to his cheeks. "And what good would that do me? Or you? It can't change what happened, what I… did."

The admission felt stuck in his throat, though it came out nonetheless. She maintained her determined stare. "No, obviously," she said. "But that's not the point."

His brow rose. "Then what is?"

She hesitated, looking at the floor; he took the opportunity to swallow in the disquieting silence. When she gazed up at him again, her mouth was set in a firm line.

"To stop pretending."

Her answer touched him in a strange way. "I wouldn't know how," he said, and laughed bitterly. "I'm sure you can't appreciate that, though."

"Why? Because you think I can't relate?"

His teeth were set on edge by the question. "Well, can you?"

"Better than you think."

His expression lifted in surprise, and he noted that her eyes were growing increasingly dark as she boldly closed the distance between them again. It made him remember his purpose in that room, and reminded him to be on guard with the newly unpredictable and insatiable Snow Queen.

Love isn't enough for her.

"Then show me that you understand," he said in a low voice, stroking her cheek with his thumb. He pressed it against her lips until they parted, and added: "And stop pretending."

She has to learn.

She stared up at him in defiance even as her breathing grew labored. When he felt her grip relax on his shirt, he slid his thumb into her mouth. "Suck," he instructed; after a moment's hesitation, she responded. "Use your tongue more—yes, that's better," he told her, maintaining as best he could an inscrutable, distant demeanor. "Take your time; you're doing very well."

She has to need.

Even swallowing felt painful under her ministrations, and for her efforts, he slid down the top of her chemise until her left breast lay naked in his bare palm, pinching her nipple. Elsa's back arched at the sensation, pushing her breast further into his hand.

She slowed down, laving his thumb delicately at first, and then curling around it more firmly with her tongue, rolling the tip between her lips. He held back a groan, and withdrew his thumb from her mouth—though not without reluctance, as her lips lingered on the tip of his finger. "That's very good, Elsa," he complimented as he rolled her other nipple between that thumb and his left forefinger, causing her to gasp. He experimentally pinched harder for a moment, and she shuddered, her cheeks flushed.

He grasped her hands in his own not long after, lowering them to waist-level—and then pressing them against the ties to his trousers. She jolted at the feeling of the tip of his aching erection straining against the fabric under her palms, and looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Oh," she said, and he could feel her pulse racing beneath the skin of her wrists.

He smiled. "Yes, 'oh,'" he teased, making her frown. "Now untie those," he directed, "and do just what you did before."

Her gaze shot up to meet his. "I don't see the benefit in this for me," she replied, her cheeks burning.

His right hand pressed between her thighs, causing them to quake, and his smile thinned. "The benefits aren't always apparent at first, Your Majesty," he said, "but I can assure you that you'll feel them soon enough."

She looked dubious at this promise, and obviously he had no expectations that she trusted him to do as he said. Nonetheless, he felt her begin to undo the tie, her eyes remaining locked with his.

"I'm holding you to that," she said, and lowered herself to her knees.

His head tilted down so he could watch her, enjoying the sight of the Snow Queen sliding his trousers down over his hips. Her fingers brushed his backside, and then paused when the strain of his erection prevented her from pulling down the fabric any further.

A smirk tugged at his lips. "Please continue, Your Highness," he requested. "It'll be quite uncomfortable for you, otherwise."

She glared at him for that, though her blush was fiercer than ever. "Fine," she ground out, and pulled down his trousers so suddenly that he winced in pain. Pleased by the reaction, she smiled at him, and then - finally, he thought - stared directly at his member.

Her eyes were wide, understandably so—he was sure it was her first time seeing one, and a part of him was secretly pleased that his was her introduction. "Just touch it with your hands, first," he told her.

Considering his abstinence from climaxing the last few days, he didn't think he would last very long in the thrall of her slim, smooth fingers. Still, as he watched one of her small hands come up from her lap - first hovering around, and then just touching the tip of his penis - a heat unlike anything he had experienced in years rushed through his body, flooding his senses, and he groaned more loudly than intended.

She recoiled in surprise at the noise, and he swallowed his embarrassment. "Continue," he said.

One of her eyebrows lifted at his command, but she complied, this time trailing her fingers slowly from the tip to the base of his shaft, all the way down to cup his balls, before coming back to the start again. He held in another groan as she repeated this sequence one, two, three times (even that feather-light sensation was enough to send him reeling), and he supposed that she was surveying the terrain, so to speak, before pressing on.

This was confirmed when she wrapped her whole hand around his shaft a few moments later, stroking it more firmly. She paused again when he throbbed under her touch, but this time only for a moment; she'd learned enough by then to realize that the point was to keep going.

Without him prompting her, she picked up the pace and brought her other hand to cup his balls, tugging at them every so often. The combination was enough to throw him off balance, and he panted, catching his breath just long enough to glance at her expression. It was, he noted, fixed with resolve to complete the task he'd given her—and had he been more in control of his senses, he would've found her concentration rather amusing, if not endearing, in its earnestness.

"Slow down, Elsa," he said through shaky breaths, and she did as directed, her hands twitching from their effort. When he regained his composure (though he was still erect, of course), he spoke again, enjoying the continued, lazy caress of her fingers. "It's time to use your mouth."

Her lips quirked down in distaste at the idea as she glanced up at him, and then back at his cock. The tip was already glistening just from being touched; she pressed her thumb against it, drawing a deep moan from him. She took her time - deliberately, he was sure of that - before she let herself nearer to him, craning her neck back ever-so-slightly until the tip was just resting against her lips.

She learns too fast.

They opened slowly, as per his (idiotic, he now cursed himself) instructions, drawing him into her soft, wet mouth. Her tongue ran unsurely along the underside of his shaft, and then applied pressure as she pushed him further in, then out again, mimicking what she'd done to his thumb.

"That's—very good," he said as she sped up, his voice ragged. His cock pounded in her mouth, close to coming, though he had sense enough to add: "But don't forget to use your hands as well."

She paused for a moment to consider these directions, causing him to nearly groan in disappointment. Soon, however, her hands had arranged themselves again around his balls and the base of his shaft, and she continued, the sensations even more intense with the addition of her deft fingers. Her eyes closed as her mouth adjusted to him, her tongue laving him hungrily, and his head dropped back in pleasure.

I want her.

His eyes snapped open at the thought, darkly looking down at her face.

I want her.

It seemed almost serene to him in spite of her blushing, heaving bosom, and her skin shining with sweat from her effort; he marvelled at how beautiful she was.

"Elsa."

He uttered her name in bliss, and buried his hands in her fraying golden hair.

Elsa.

Her jaw constricted a little as he finished in her mouth, and her tongue froze in place. When he'd collected himself enough to look down at her again, he found that her eyes were watching him intensely, a mixture of confusion and irritation swimming in her large, blue irises.

He refrained from smiling. "Now swallow," he ordered, "and I'll see to it that you're taken care of."

She breathed through her nose deeply, twitching, before he saw her throat bob in reluctant acceptance. As she withdrew, she licked her dry lips, her gaze returning to her lap.

He pushed aside his trousers, pooled at his feet, so that he could sit on the floor. Pausing to take in her expression, he pulled her towards him gently, and patted his bare lap. "Come and sit here."

She stared at his now-limp cock a little warily, then back up at him, her spine stiffening. "I'm—" she began, looking embarrassed, "I'm not ready for..."

He nodded. "We won't do that yet," he reassured her, and rubbed her hands in a soothing way. "Not until you're ready."

She paused. "And what if I'm... what if I'm never ready?"

He smiled. "You will be," he said in a hushed tone as he eased her onto his preferred seat atop him. His cock stirred a little at the feeling of her bottom against it, and she shuddered at the sensation, pressing the side of her face against his and letting her arms rest against his chest. "And when you are," he continued, "you'll know, because you'll be mad with desire for it."

He slid his hand beneath her chemise and underclothes, breathing in with contentment as his fingers found her center, already damp with want (no, need, he reminded himself).

Her arms moved up to wrap themselves around his shoulders, and she buried her face in his hair. "Don't say such stupid things," she murmured, gasping when she felt him pull down her drawers so that his cock, now fully erect, rested just along the curve of her backside. She gave voice to his thoughts from the night previous, but her voice trembled when she spoke. "You don't know me at all."

"You're right," he conceded, his fingers pulsing inside of her. "I don't."

But I know you a little better than I did before.