The next morning was warm, almost too warm; Anna stuffed her coat into the pack before they headed out. She rode for most of the day's journey while Hans alternated between sharing the saddle behind her and walking on foot. As much as Anna liked to imagine Hans' sense of chivalry behind it all, she knew it really came down to simple practicality. Her ankle and knee still hurt from the previous days, and the boggy, water-soaked ground wasn't making travel any easier.

Halfway across an alpine meadow, Hans paused.

"What is it?" Anna whispered as Sitron gently nudged his master's back.

"Do you hear something?" he asked.

The last time one of them had heard something, a mountain had collapsed on top of them. Anna kept quiet, straining to hear whatever noise Hans apparently did. She closed her eyes, hoping that would increase her ears' sensitivity.

"Nope," she finally said. She peered at him, curious. "You do?"

"I'm… not sure…"

Several days ago, she would've cracked a joke at his expense. Now she simply made a soft "hmm" in the back of her throat before coaxing Sitron forward. If it was something dangerous, it'd be best to keep moving.

They made it a few more steps before Anna began to hear the noise as well. It was a soft rumbling, tiny at first but steadily rising until both the air and the ground beneath Sitron's feet shook.

The noise morphed into a wordless holler.

Anna turned in her saddle, her eyes wide as she searched for the source. It didn't sound like an avalanche, and it couldn't possibly be wolves…

Her eyes were drawn to the nearby forest they'd emerged from. A giant burst from the tree line.

Anna screamed as Sitron whinnied in fright.

"No! No!" bellowed a familiar voice. "I does not wish to harm yous!"

Anna regained control of her breath and squinted at the approaching figure. It was draped in massive dark-brown furs. Two horns protruded from its head. It was riding a massive steed, its arms thick with muscles as they clutched the reins. As she looked, it dropped them to wave at her frantically.

Then, a dazzling smile.

"Vladimir?" Anna said hesitatingly. As the man rode closer, she was able pick out more and more familiar detail. She perked up. "Vladimir!"

Several seconds later the rest of her missing party emerged from the trees.

Vladimir reached the two of them first, barely managing to stop his horse in time before it collided with Sitron. They weren't close enough to hug, but Vladimir ruffled the top of her head affectionately.

"Anna!" Caldwell called out as he approached.

"We had no idea whether or not you survived!" another said.

They slowed, circling around her in the sun-draped meadow.

"Whether I survived?" Anna cried. "I had no idea whether or not any of you survived!"

"We tried to dig our way through to you but the cave started shaking!"

"We had to turn around and—"

"You don't know how relieved I am to see you well, Princess!" Rogir said from behind the others.

"—nearest pass was over a day's ride away, and—"

"Oh, the storm! It kept getting worse and worse! We couldn't get over!"

"—and then we just felt like total failures!"

Anna beamed as the men swarmed around her, voicing both apologies and congratulations.

"Well, I felt just terrible too," she said. "You don't know how hard it was for me to keep going without you."

"You made the right decision, Princess," Thomas said, nudging his horse through the semi-circle that the others had formed around her. "I assume, based on this weather, that you were successful in your quest."

"Yes, I…" Anna trailed off as she spotted Hans standing unsurely off to the side. He was looking at the ground, looking at the sky, looking at… well, everywhere except Anna and the others. She took a deep breath. "Hans and I managed to get the stone. I couldn't have done it with out him," she added with a smile.

Hans glanced at her briefly, almost disinterestedly, before turning back away. An awkward silence descended as they all stared at him.

Thomas gave a small cough. "Thank you for helping the princess," he stuffily managed.

Hans shrugged. "What was I supposed to do?" he said, his voice lilting and careless. "Let everyone, including myself, freeze to death?"

Anna frowned. Hans was completely selling himself short. But if that was the way he wanted to play it, she wasn't about to pick up the slack and start waxing poetic for him.

The rest of her guards began to chatter, the men surprisingly giddy with relief for how rugged and brawny half of them were. At one point, Anna opened up their pack to show them the golden stone and they all let out the appropriate "oohs" and "aahs".

As the sun continued its gradual descent into the western half of the sky, Thomas pulled out a map and showed her where the secondary mountain pass was located. Since they'd lost the mare, the guards drew sticks to see who'd have to share their horse with Hans for the first leg of the journey home. Caldwell lost, and he did not look happy about it.

Then they set off, Anna being slowly herded towards the front of the party while Hans was herded towards the rear.

Anna glanced back, her heart fluttering with a little bit of hope and more than a bit of anxiety. It wasn't like she was expecting anything in particular… Really she wasn't. And yet…

She tried smiling at Hans again, tried to catch his attention without outright flapping her arms in desperate frustration, but he wasn't even looking in the right direction to notice.

"Princess? Princess Anna?"

Anna snapped to attention to see another one of her guards beaming at her. He wanted to hear more about the mountain she'd climbed and the mysterious cave towards the top. Anna obliged him, embellishing several details for dramatic effect. Several of those details spawned more questions which had her thinking back for even more details, and just like that her attention was diverted for the rest of the day.

Summer was back in full force for Stralshagen, the days outright scorching and its nights breezeless and humid.

Initially, Anna had thought there'd be some other requirement left to fill, something she'd have to do to unleash the stone's true power. But by the time they'd reached Stralshagen, there hadn't been a storm cloud in sight. The streets had cheered and the steward had attempted to throw them all a multi-day feast in celebration before realizing that, even with the return of summer, his kingdom's rations were running dangerously low.

After two weeks, crops lay dead and soggy in their fields. Granaries were empty. The ground had finally thawed, making it possible to start digging the graves for the countless dead. Anna and Hans had prevented the kingdom from falling into total destruction, but even the most powerful of magic couldn't turn back time on the damage it'd already done.

Anna knew she should've continued straight back to Corona, but she was exhausted. She'd asked the steward send a messenger bird to her aunt and cousin before promptly collapsing on the nearest bed.

Just a few days of not walking and not riding and not anything. That wasn't too much to ask for, was it?

The people of the Southern Isles hadn't left yet either. Hans' brothers spent their days working on logistics. A couple of their ships had been damaged in the storm, so their re-migration would have to be done in several trips. Anna didn't think it was that much of a problem to be solved, but the brothers sure made it seem so.

The brothers argued back and forth over only God knew what during the day and through the night… Anna wouldn't have been surprised if all they all went to bed and continued to argue in some sort of shared dream state.

Normally she wouldn't have cared what they did, but ever since her return, many of the princes had become more… receptive towards her for lack of a better word. They listened when she spoke and actively sought out her opinion.

That on its own would've been fine… if there hadn't been ten of them, and if they hadn't all possessed an annoying habit of twisting whatever she said to fit their personal agendas.

She was currently involved in one such debacle.

"Carpenters take precedence over teachers!" Georg shouted, jutting out his stomach in some sort of display of masculine dominance. "Anna said so herself."

"I don't think I ever—" Anna attempted.

"You said that selection based on necessity was better than selection by random generation, did you not?"

"Well, I guess I might've, but…"

Anna shrank back as the room exploded into noise, each brother fighting to hear themselves over the other. As she started twisting her fingers in secondhand embarrassment, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

A warm smile and face dusted with freckles greeted her. Fritz. The third-youngest.

"Want to get some air?" he asked.

Anna smiled in return. "I don't know," she said. "Think they can go on without me?"

They both studied the room and its current cacophony.

"I think they'll manage," Fritz said.

Anna let out a sigh of relief as soon as they escaped the hall. She felt another tap on the shoulder, and suddenly an apple was being held in front of her face.

She blinked. "What's this?"

Fritz flashed her a smile. "Just a sweet gift for an even sweeter princess."

Anna found herself blushing and rolling her eyes at the same time.

"Thank you," she said, taking it.

Fritz shook his head. "No, Anna. I'm the one who should be thanking you. What you did for everyone was truly amazing."

Anna blushed further. "Oh, I don't know. I had a lot of help," she said with a shrug. "If it wasn't for Hans…"

She felt a slight pressure on her upper arm as Fritz slipped his hand gently around it. He took a step closer to her.

Her eyes widened. "Fritz?"

"Don't even think about Hans," he said, suddenly way way way way way too close. Anna could count every single freckle smattered across his nose and cheeks. "I know the two of you have history together, but he's not nearly worthy enough for you."

Anna turned beet red, her eyebrows shooting up above her bangs. Fritz moved his face closer to hers, and she quickly ducked and twisted out of his grasp.

"I… um, thank you. So much," she stammered, taking backwards steps down the hallway. "But there are… preparations! I need to see to, and yeah. Love to chat, but I really gotta go!"

She fled.

Anna, Crown Princess of Arendelle, Junior Member of Arendelle's Consulate to Corona, hero and vanquisher of the June Blizzard, fled.

She didn't slow down until she was passing by one of the doors that led to one the castle's many parapets. With the return of summer, the parapets were the breeziest spots in the whole city and always relatively unpopulated: a perfect combo. Glancing around the hallway to make sure she hadn't been following, Anna pushed open the door with her free hand and froze.

A red-headed man was standing about halfway down the parapet. Anna winced in exasperation at having to deal with yet another brother and was about to figure out some other place to retreat to when she realized the man was Hans.

True to his own pessimistic predictions, Hans had been placed right back under house arrest as soon as they'd arrived. Well, sort of house arrest. He was allowed to wander certain portions of the castle now instead of being locked in the cramped room she'd originally found him in. He still scowled whenever his brothers passed by though. And mostly ignored her.

Steeling herself for whatever might happen this time, Anna tromped forward until they were standing side by side. Then she leaned against the nearest stone and let out a heavy sigh.

"Your brother just tried to hit on me," she said to the breeze. She looked at the apple still cradled in her hands. "Gave me this as a present and then…"

Anna frowned, not wanting to describe the next part.

Hans was stiff and silent beside her. As usual. And then—

"Fascinating," he said. "And you? Is a single apple enough to win your heart?"

Anna snorted, about to tell him 'as if,' but suddenly changed her mind. "I don't know," she said, lips quirking. "Maybe it is."

It was a small joke, teasing him to try and lighten the mood, but Hans seemed to miss the humor. Anna sighed. She returned her attention to the apple, turning it over and over in her hands. As her fingers moved across its surface, something itched in the back of her head.

Something about its color didn't seem entirely… right.

Hans suddenly snatched the apple from her hands and took a large bite out of it.

"Hey!" she said. "That was mine."

Hans shrugged. "Depending on the giver, you're better off without it," he said between crunches. "Which one was it?"

Anna sighed. "Guess."

"Hmm…" As the hum rumbled against his throat, Anna felt her heart race slightly before spreading out into a calming warmth. "Well, the ones who'd actually have enough confidence to try anything would be either Leon or Fritz. But if we're getting into who actually has the biggest crush on you? Have to say Manfried. Definitely Manfried."

Anna turned to stare at him. "Which one was Manfried again?"

"The pasty one who's always agreeing with whatever Georg says."

Anna blanched as the relevant memory rushed back. "Euck!" she said, fingers curling into the stone. "Really?! Him?"

"Now, Princess," Hans said with condescending lilt. "That's not a very nice way to react. People can't help how they feel."

"But he's like… twice my age!"

"Oh, he's not that old… even if he can look it at times. He's thirty-four."

"Thanks. That makes me feel so much better. I'll be sure to hand you the wedding invitations by Tuesday."

Hans snorted in laughter. He glanced at her, and their eyes locked.

For a moment everything was perfect. A slight breeze had finally picked up, and it twined past the two of them. The sun was beginning to set, casting the entire sky in purple. If he'd only…

Hans was the one to break away first. He cleared his throat and went straight back to staring at the town of Stralshagen below.

"When are you heading back again?" he asked, his tone brusque and impersonal.

"Oh, umm…" Anna fiddled with a strand of hair at her ear. "Tomorrow actually."

"Tomorrow?!"

He looked up at her with such alarm that she half-felt the need to apologize.

"Yeah, that is… I talked it over with Thomas and the others last night. We really should've gone days ago, but we just needed the rest."

"Have you told my brothers yet?"

Anna shook her head. "I was going to do it at dinner tonight," she said.

Hans smirked. "Well, at the very least it'll be entertaining. I'll tell them to cancel the post-dinner musicians."

Anna smiled, but it was at odds with the sudden tension in her stomach. She felt like she should say something. That she had to say something. It wasn't forgiveness; she didn't think she'd really ever be able to forgive Hans for what he'd put her and her sister through, but this was something different from forgiveness…

"Hans?" She nervously cleared her throat. "I just wanted to say… we… that is, as a team… We weren't half bad, were we?"

Hans smiled, and like hers there seemed to be an undercurrent of sadness mixed in with it.

"No," he said. "I suppose we weren't."

Anna bit her lip. "Do you think—"

"Princess Anna!"

Both their heads snapped toward the door of the castle. Thomas was standing there, his hands clasped dutifully to his sides.

"My apologies for interrupting, your highness," he said. "But we need you to review our planned route for the journey home."

Anna blushed. She glanced at Hans, giving him a sort of apology shrug.

"Talk to you some other time?" she ventured.

Hans grinned.

"We'll see."

Anna, Rapunzel, and Eugene stared at the glowing stone resting innocently on a pedestal in its new home in one of Corona's royal vaults.

"So," Anna said. "We just… leave it here?"

"That's the idea," Rapunzel said.

Anna glanced around the windowless room. They were about five levels underground; there weren't any doors other than the one they entered from. A number of other priceless objects were stored on surrounding pedestals and in glass cases: necklaces, tiaras, scepters… Anna knew the stone would be just as heavily protected as everything else, but—

"Are you sure it won't be safer Arendelle?" Anna asked. "I mean, not that I'm doubting your guards, but Elsa—"

"Woah, woah, woah," Eugune said, cutting her off with a sharp wave of his hands. "Think about this for a moment. You want to bring this stone to Queen Elsa?"

Anna blinked at him.

"Yeah?"

"You want to bring this stone to your magical sister?"

"Yeah," Anna repeated, mildly irritated this time.

"This anti-magic stone to your magical sister?"

"Yeah, I— Oh…"

Anna fell silent.

That had been Hans' original goal, hadn't it? To use the stone as a way to defeat her sister? Anna hope he'd moved past that after everything they'd struggled through, but it was still frustrating that the person most capable of protecting the stone would also be the one rendered powerless by it.

As she continued to fret, Anna felt a hand rest gently on her arm. Rapunzel smiled at her.

"Don't worry, Anna," she said. "It'll be more than safe with us."

Anna smiled back. "Thanks."

She took one further glance at the stone — it really was a tiny thing for all the work that'd gone into findng it — and left the vault with Rapunzel and Eugene in tow. They watched the two royal guardsmen lock up behind them before making their way slowly up through the twisting passages and into the aboveground portion of the castle.

"You don't have to go back if you don't want to, you know," Rapunzel said as they strolled through a small courtyard. "You're still on the Arendelle consulate. There's plenty of work stacking up, especially after that blizzard. We can send word to Elsa that you're okay. That's everything's okay thanks to you."

Anna let out a heavy sigh. "I know…"

When she'd stepped off the boat from Arendelle all those weeks ago, she'd been so excited to start work. Even though a lot of things had changed since, that hadn't. Not in the slightest. Finally breaking free from the remaining walls of her childhood home… Being useful, not just as Elsa's little sister, but as herself. As Anna.

Just Anna.

"I have to go back home," Anna said. "Even if we send ten thousand letters, it wouldn't be enough for Elsa. She'll fret and worry and set off a whole 'nother blizzard until she sees me in person."

"Anna has a point you know," Eugene said as Rapunzel started to protest. "If you were the one who'd gone off a life-threatening adventure, I wouldn't sit around and be content with a letter either."

"Yeah, and then you'd end up putting yourself in peril in the rush to find me," Rapunzel told him with a smirk.

"But you'd always be there to save me," Eugene said, bending over as he nuzzled into her cheek

"Eugene!" she hissed, her face burning scarlet. To Anna she said, "He normally doesn't do things like this. He just likes to embarrass me in front of company."

She shoved him away, and he burst out laughing.

Anna stiffed her own giggle at their antics. The two reminded her that Elsa wasn't the only one waiting for her at home. There was Olaf and Sven and Kristoff…

Kristoff.

Anna's chest hollowed ever so slightly.

The stuff that had happened between her and Hans… It wasn't technically cheating, was it? That is to say, it'd been a situation that even the most romance-entrenched heroines could only dream of. It'd been a single kiss and a small one at that. It was only natural that she'd sort of… just… gone with the moment.

And now that moment was over and Anna would be able to resume her normal life.

Whatever "normal life" meant.

Anna breathed deep, in and out, and then realized that Rapunzel had been trying to talk to her.

"Huh?" she said.

Rapunzel sighed. Her lips quirked in a wry smile. "I said it's not as though you'll be away from us forever, right?"

Anna laughed.

"Just you wait," she said. "I'll be back before you know it."

A/N: And that's all she wrote for Act One. Thanks everyone who's made it here so far with me. I know it was a bit of a wait for this one. Will take another short-ish break before diving back into Act Two. I'd say look for the next chapter around the start of September? Middle of September? General September-ish time.

This is almost like an ending in and of itself, so yeah. Good temporary stopping point. Nothing but cliffhangers and drama from here on out.