Deadlock

Chapter SIX, Reeling for the Ring

Pounding.

A harsh, severe pounding toppling over itself in Anna's brain caused her to stir in the bed. Everything from her head down her feet was pulsing in aches and pains that she hardly remembered receiving. "What happened?" She breathed out through the onslaught of hurt while shielding her eyes from the sun.

The last thing that she could register was being pulled into a rowdy affair by a group of people that were far too happy for her to think of pleasantly at the moment. There was also something about laughing, Hans, and a red coloured juice, but everything was blurred together to the point that she couldn't separate them.

The bedding next to her moved slightly. She wasn't alone, not in her bed at least. Cautiously, she turned her limited vision to the side to catch a glimpse of her cocky, ginger haired companion next to her. "You?!" She yelled out in a similar fashion as the morning prior, immediately putting a hand to still the pain in her head when she instinctively jolted back at the outburst.

Hans moved only a little bit from his spot on top of her covers, lifting an arm to stop the sunlight from penetrating his eyes as well. "What is it?"

"What are earth—" She stopped to realize that yelling with herself in such a state wasn't such a good option, so she opted for a harsh whisper instead. "It's bad enough I wake up to you standing over my bed yesterday, but now you're lying along side me on it?! What ever made you think this was okay?!"

Anna heard him let out a sigh. "You asked me to stay, remember?"

She froze in response; lowering the covers she had pulled up to her chest despite the fact that she was still dressed in the same clothes as the night prior. "That's a lie, I would never do that."

He hardly moved. "Believe what you want but that's what happened."

Her head turned downwards, looking towards the sunrays across the bed before she figured out what to ask next. "So then…what did happen?"

"You really want to know?" Behind his hand she could she the start of a calculated smile.

"Wait—we didn't, no…did we?!"

"Relax, nothing like that happened." She waited for him to make a comment about her being a 'child,' but he never did. "You just drank too much that's all, kept going on about how it wasn't alcohol but a very 'special juice.'"

Phew. "I wasn't too crazy, was I?" The timidness was teeming in her voice.

"Not anymore than you usually are. For a while I could hardly tell the difference until you started complimenting me, then I realized that you must have been out of your mind."

A white set of teeth took a bite of red lips. "So then how did I make it back here?"

Hans let out a breath. "I took you back, it's not a big deal." For a moment she thought he had more to say until he started to get up off the bed and head towards the door. "You should get dressed and drink some water, your boyfriend isn't going to find himself."

She nodded, peering towards a mess of clothes on the floor.

"Anna."

His voice somehow surprised her, and she gazed back towards him with a large, curious set of eyes.

"For a complete ditz, you really do have a talent for pinning people down." He shot her an almost smile before closing the door behind him.

"But I didn't—" The latch on the door clicked. "…Say anything."

The stillness settled around her as she continued to sit, staring at the door and wondering what could've happened. Something she couldn't place her finger on seemed different, but unfortunately the fuzziness in her mind blocked her from realizing exactly what it was.

It should've come as no surprise to Hans that Anna would take slightly longer than usual to get her act together and exit the inn. Because, after all, it had taken quite a bit of time for her head to stop reeling from pain; and for her to get dressed without poking pain towards her migraine any further.

And then there was her hair, which was a totally different crisis that also had to be dealt with.

"I'm beginning to think that, that drink was not juice." She thought out loud while exiting the building, head still sore from the sunlight aggravating her hangover.

As per usual, Anna had expected to spend a while looking for the Southern Isle's thirteenth in line as he chased after various ladies. However, on this already unusual day, she instead found him simply sitting idly on a bench.

"What, couldn't find another young woman to stalk?" She chipped, striding next to him and choosing not to take a seat.

He seemed slightly despondent when he finally answered her while looking off towards a paperboy yelling gibberish in the square. "We have to find Kristoff soon, this journey has taken far too long and I'm sure that your guards are beginning to sniff around for you."

Noticing his lazy gaze, she took a moment to peek in the same direction before realizing that he was staring off at nothing. "Kristoff…" The thought hit her, that's what they were doing out last night in the first place. "You mean we didn't find him?" The question was stupid, and she knew it.

For a moment, she thought she noticed him scowl. "If we had, then I highly doubt you'd be running back to me." His sarcasm seemed slightly subpar compared to usual. "There are only a few bars left to check out, he's bound to be at one of them."

"But—wait, we can't find him now!"

"And why is that, Anna?" The cut to his words almost made her forget why she had protested in the first place.

"Because…" She had to collect herself. "…We haven't even picked out a ring!"

"Oh, good heavens, a ring? You're joking me, right?" He leaned forward with a roll of his eyes and a dramatic downturn of his lip.

Suddenly she felt stupid. "Well…yeah."

"You're planning on proposing to that—that—" He stopped himself, though she couldn't help but wonder what more he had to say. "Fine, whatever, lets get a ring." He stood up and stormed away, forcing her to run after him.

"What is the big deal?! That's been the plan from the beginning, I only came after him because I knew I wanted to propose!"

"Because that worked out so well for you last time."

The snarky comment made her stop walking as a pair of hands flew to her hips. "You're being especially enchanting today Hans, for what occasion to I owe this pleasure?"

He stopped too, glancing at her huffing behind him. "I don't know—could it possibly be that I'm being dragged to a ring shop when I could actually be doing something towards getting you off my back?"

She approached him in the same fashion that he had done not a few minutes ago. "You're completely insane if you think I'm drawing this out any longer than I have to." An aggravated noise escaped her when she stormed off towards a shop that fit the bill.

"Really, because by the way you suddenly bring up this whole 'ring' ordeal after I tell you we need to get your boyfriend and get out of here, I couldn't quite tell." He followed after, stepping through the door that she had so kindly slammed open.

The abrupt scene visually started the jeweler, who both Anna and Hans were now staring at with a seething rage.

"I need a ring!" Anna yelled, pounding a fist down on the glass case and rattling a few pieces of jewelry that lay underneath it.

"O—Okay…" It was clear that the saleslady was unsure of how to go about this. "We have many different kinds in stock, bright golds, cool silvers, various cuts and sizes of stones…" She trailed off, looking through pieces in the display before turning her attention back towards Hans and Anna. "I'm sorry, but if you don't mind me asking, is everything okay here? You both seem so tense and it never makes for a good occasion when picking out rings. You two are together, right?"

Anna was so angry she couldn't even respond, which was a mistake as it had given Hans the time to answer instead. "Oh yes—of course we're here together! I insisted on coming alone, but you know fiancées, always so picky and annoying about every little detail that they can never keep their eyes on the big picture!" He laughed, pulling Anna close.

She nudged her shoulder away with a disgusted face. "Yeesh, isn't he just the sweetest?" The fakeness in her laugh was almost alarming. "He says that now, but really he was the controlling and devious one that tricked me into going here with him the first place!"

"Aw, my little cupcake, don't say that!" He touched a finger to her nose that she swatted away. "You were so convinced you loved me, you just couldn't stand the thought of not marrying me even though I didn't yet have a ring!"

"The only reason I said 'yes' is because I didn't know the whole story, about how different you were when things really came down to it, pumpkin." She accented the pet name is a prominent 'p.'

"Weird, because I specifically remember something about a true love's kiss and how I was the only one who could administer it? Or perhaps that just my imagination running wild again." He rose an eyebrow and she responded with silence.

The saleslady had long since taken a step backwards until Anna finally decided to demolish the pairs failing façade. "That's it! Outside, now."

Hans shot the clerk a sickening smile before following the small girl out.

"What was that?!" Anna's words were brimming with anger. "You know—for a moment I almost thought that you were beginning to not be so bad of a guy and then out of nowhere you just make me realize that once a lying murderer, always a lying murder! Congratulations, I hope you're happy!"

"Happy? Happy?! Oh no, I haven't been happy since the moment you stepped back into my life, so don't go and blame me because you're a wreckless fool who only realized she 'truly loved' a guy after he was oceans away!"

"And why do you think that happened?!" She threw her arms in the air. "Because Elsa and I were too busy picking up the pieces of our Kingdom after you ripped my heart out of my chest and then proceeded to try and kill us both!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, ripped out your heart? I must've missed that part seeing as you went crawling back to Kristoff not two seconds after you realized how ludicrous it was to fall in love with a complete stranger!"

"It wasn't too hard of a choice—Kristoff is ten times the man you'll ever be!" Though her voice had hushed, the words coming out of her mouth seemed harsher. "That must be so hard for you to swallow—being a whole thirteenth in line for a throne that you'll never see and him being a 'plain, country bumpkin.'"

"Ugh," He rolled his eyes to divert the attention, but she could tell the comment had cut him deep. "I am so sick of hearing that name!"

"What name?! Kristoff?" The gnash of his teeth only proved that her assumption had been correct. "Well in that case—Kristoff! Kristoff, Kristoff, Kristoff, KRISTOFF!"

"Stop it, now!"

"And why should I?! Why do you care so much about what me and him do!?"

"Because, believe it or not, I wasn't completely lying that night of your sister's coronation! Is that so hard for you to wrap your thick skull around?!"

Hans' impulsive outburst brought Anna to a halt; for a moment the only sound between them was Hans' sharp intake of breaths as she stared onwards towards his contorted features.

"What, you can't believe a heartless monster such as myself could actually feel something? Maybe you should stop twisting the world into what only you want to believe and grow up." The moment he finished was the same moment he spun to walk away, leaving a stunned Anna in the dust.

He was long gone by the time something actually formed in her throat that resembled a voice. "Wait…" She breathed, seeing him slink further and further into the crowds of people in the distance. "I really…didn't know."

After that little fiasco, the rest of the day was pretty much ruined for Anna.

She had still made a pathetic attempt to ask around at bars for anyone who fit Kristoff's image, but often times the answers she was given ended up not registering in her mind.

No, she wasn't thinking straight, and yes, it was unadmittedly because of Hans. She had tried everything to not think about what he had said, but it seemed that the longer she walked on through the island, the more she seemed to fail. At one point she was even so absorbed in her own thoughts that she circled around the same row of buildings three times before making the connection that she had gotten herself nowhere.

She couldn't go on like this. Against her better judgment, she had to go talk to him.

Though…that was much easier said than done when Anna was finally standing in front of the door to his room, the number of which she only had remembered from him writing it on that woman's parcel yesterday.

She took a breath, letting it out slowly. "You can do this Anna, it's not a big deal." Except it was, otherwise she wouldn't have sat in that same position for 5 minutes, balling a fist right above the wood of his room door. "Just…knock." Her hand still wouldn't move. "One time, then if he doesn't answer you'll leave." This time she nodded, finally forcing the hand forward for a couple of taps.

The door creaked open slightly, which she wasn't really expecting, so she peeked in to see Hans leaning over on the bed with his head in his hands. "Go away Anna." He didn't do so much as even look at her.

"No." No? What on earth was she thinking? "I—I'm not going." Her mind knew it was a horrid idea, but her feet took her further in anyways.

"What do you want from me?" In a fluid motion he pulled his head up and faced it towards her. "Another insult? To embarrass me further? Are you looking for—"

"I just came to talk, that's all." She took a seat at the edge of the bed next to him as he rolled his head back onto his palms.

"I have nothing to say to you."

"Really? Because you had quite a lot to say a few hours ago."

His shoulder adjusted. "That was a joke."

"And that was a lie."

His lack of words only confirmed her speculation.

"…So I guess I should just say it then, shouldn't I?"

Hans didn't even flinch.

She let out an uneasy, careful breath. "…What was that back there…what you said?"

"I told you, its nothing serious. It doesn't matter."

She moved forward to peek at him more closely. "If it's nothing then why are you getting so defensive about it?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"I waited thirteen years for my sister to come around, and even then I still gave her a chance. Try me."

"This isn't anything like that Anna, it's not about you or being shut out!" He took a hard swallow to calm himself down and hushed his voice before continuing. "What I did...I made a choice."

Her ear perked up. "…Excuse me?"

"That night, Anna, I made a choice."

The blue-eyed princess still didn't quite get what he was trying to say.

"…I thought it was all going to be so easy, waltzing into your Kingdom and capturing the heart of Queen Elsa—because who wouldn't fall in love with such a handsome fellow after being locked up all those years?" He gave a wry laugh that was absent of its usual haughtiness. "To be honest, after I left the Isles I started to consider that the whole thing had been an idiotic idea…until I met you." She continued staring at his hunched figure while he stole a deep breath and forced it out. "You were just so endearing, such a complete, captivating contrast to myself. It made me start to wonder if, perhaps, I had been right in thinking that taking over a Kingdom was a fool's dream, implanted by so many years of oppression from my siblings…"

Part of her wanted to comfort him with a touch to the shoulder, but the other part quickly decided against it.

"Then you had to go and blab that you were the princess! After that I just couldn't help myself. I changed my plans to focus on you—found you at that dance, spent that whole night with you, and brashly decided I'd propose to you after. At first I thought I was going to be putting on this charming, fake mask the whole time…" He took a moment to pause. "But somehow you cracked me wide open and I started to let myself enjoy the moment—sliding down the halls in socks like madmen, giggling our way up to the light house, dancing our shadows against the sail of a boat in the moonlight…" He clenched some hair in his hands while shaking his head with a guilty smile. "You know, for a second I even thought it wouldn't be so bad. I could just marry you and be happy until your sister stepped down from the throne…or so I thought, at least; until that night when she went flying off the handle and you went after her." Visibly, he cringed. "Things got complicated after that, with too much time to let my thoughts fester and morph into more greed. I started to think that maybe power simply was all I needed to be happy, because if people knew who I really was they would never want to spend more than a second around a nobody like myself. Hell, even my own family couldn't stand to look at my good-for-nothing face. No title, no chance for a crown, no point in wasting time on a prince who would never inherit."

All of the sudden Anna started to catch the reason as to why Hans thought so lowly of the people in his Kingdom that day they first arrived. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize..."

His hands rubbed over his features before he moved his head slightly upwards, his gaze still avoiding her own. "No one ever does, but I deserve it." He pursed his lips while shooting a disheartened stare towards the wall. "I had a chance to change when you burst in and started talking about how only 'true love's kiss' could save you…" He paused, then grimaced with a downward glance. "…But in the end I didn't take it. I could have lived in utter bliss with you, yet for whatever reason I was afraid of what would happen if I did kiss you and it didn't work—how you would look at and judge me for lying to you all that time. I couldn't take it."

Anna wanted to look away from him, however something didn't let her. She was clinging hungrily onto every single syllable.

"In that moment I had to make a choice, of which I was battling about right up until the moment I decided to let you die." He laughed in disbelief, looking back down shamefully. "Anna, what you said last night, you were right. So astonishingly right that it hurt to hear it." His stare was intense. "I wanted to love you so badly, and you were so willing to love me in return, however, in that moment I chose greed because it was all I never knew. Love was so foreign—so scary and new…but greed, well, greed was something I knew had always worked for me before."

All the puzzle pieces were starting to assemble in Anna's head. "So that's why you did it, to be noticed." In a twisted way, she could relate. She could remember those desolate days of roaming around the castle halls, hoping—yearning for Elsa, or really anyone, for that matter, to finally acknowledge that she was more than just the spare.

Hesitantly, she placed a hand on his knee in a comforting manner. Apparently she wasn't the only one confused at how the notion had came to be, because Hans let go of his head to finally turn a pair of emerald eyes toward her own.

"You shouldn't trust me." He said simply. "I'm a monster, you should be long gone by now."

"I know, I don't—I mean, not like I don't but like, just—I know what it's like…being the spare." The words came out jumbled, but she got them out nonetheless.

"Don't try to relate to me, Anna." He turned away with a tinge of what she thought was frustration. "Don't you dare let me believe that you actually care—that you actually understand the heart of a man who tried to murder you, when in the same situation you unselfishly chose to save your sister." Slowly he turned back and Anna visually saw something click in his head. She wasn't quite sure what until she sensed him grabbing her chin with one hand and placing the other on her cheek.

"Wait, what are you—"

"We're completely different. You, so pure and innocent, trusting a man who tried to overthrow your Kingdom—sitting alone with him in his room, on his bed."

She made a weak attempt to move her face away but failed. "I—I don't understand what you're trying to say."

The next thing she could discern was the feeling of Hans' hands sliding up her arms as he forcibly pushed her back against the bed and pinned down her wrists. Momentarily she gave a nervous struggle against him, but he was far too demanding for her to make any leeway. "H—Hey! This isn't funny Hans, let me—"

His lips brushed her neck as he pushed his grip on her down harder and straddled the rest of himself over her thin figure, making escape a less likely option. She felt her face start to redden as dread flooded her stomach. There was no way she could win, Hans was heavier than her, and she was stupid enough to think for a second that she could handle being entirely alone with him.

A grimace forced to her lips as she turned her head away, feeling his warm breath trace along her neck and stop just at her ear. "I bet your boyfriend doesn't play with you like this, does he?"

She clenched her mouth shut harder, not wanting to answer his pervasive questions.

"Oh, what's this?" He hovered his head near her cheek, veering his eyes along the freckle trail framing her facial features. "A virgin? So he hasn't ruined you yet after all."

The delight he got from that made her shrink; the fear making her body start to quiver against his own.

"That's right, be afraid."

She let out a vacant scream as he held down her shoulders and undid the tie on her bodice. The terror pumping adrenaline throughout her body had long since taken away her voice; everything else seemed to slow and she felt his rhythmic breaths on her ear once more.

"Run, while you still can, or I'll end up ruining you."

Miraculously, with the phrase she felt his weight lift off her

"I'm not kidding Anna," He started to turn towards her from his spot in the doorframe. "You can't fix damaged goods."

He left after that, but her head was still reeling to the point at which she almost hadn't realized he had done so. What was going on? Here she was, on an honest quest to propose to the man of her dreams…but instead had been mounted by a man who lead her along to the tune of a heartbreak that had lasted way longer than Anna was willing to readily admit. "This is not good…" She slapped a set of hands on her face. "No, no, no, Anna, not good!"

Notes:

Here we are again, at the end of another chapter! I hope you all enjoyed! I've probably had the most fun writing this out of all the chapters so far! (Although I read it almost ten times over before finally figuring that I could read it ten more and I still wouldn't feel it ready) It just keeps getting better and better…

I just loved getting to delve into a more human element of Hans, seeing why he made the choices he's made and realizing that nothing he can really say will justify them. So good. B-)

But enough blabber, onto you awesome people!

BlackCatNeko999: Hopefully it wasn't too much suddenly being thrown at you! This was definitely a far more dramatic chapter than the rest…hope you were ready for it! C: But seriously, that is so sweet! I am delighted that you think that of this story!

.Guest: Thank you! I'm just keeping motivated because I've never taken on a project this big before, especially in writing. I can't believe that this is Chapter 6 already and that I basically have 3 chapters left (to write) before its done! Woah!

Ava-Potter Gal: Phew! Ask and ye shall receive, chapter is posted! C: The chapters are definitely getting longer so hopefully you won't have to wait too long until the next one!

DarkSideChick: Oh my gosh I am so excited for Kristoff too, you don't even know. Things are going to get AWESOME when he finally arrives B-) Thank you for your so-sweet comment! It feels good to know that people are excited to read my story!

Animelle: Woah!? Nuh-uh, really?! Ahh…I'm blushing…I feel so honored that you favour this Hanna story above others! Seriously, floored. c: thank you so so much!

And that's it!

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Wait, you didn't think I would forget about the rest of you awesome readers, did you? Of course I didn't! Thank you all for reading and sticking with this so far! I really appreciate it!

You da bess. Can't wait to hear more from you all!

XOXO,

BrittBerry