Hans' subconscious pulls from the day's events to weave his dreams…
Almost a year has passed and a shattered mirror appears unexplainably in the Norwegian Castle.
It's a fractured looking glass, and it's at the end of a dark hall. The mirror has been calling to him, leaving him unsettled and wary. He's not actually seen it, nor ventured down that wing of the castle, but he knows it is there.
Elsa assured him that he needn't gaze into the broken glass - he should see the world through his own eyes and not through the mirror's distorted reflection. It's unreliable, and she insists no good would come from the reflection shone.
She's held his hand and offered her affections in an attempt to distract him, his body now content and sated from pleasure as she lays perfect and sleeping at his side. Her belly is swollen with his child, due any day and the most beautiful sight he has ever seen. He smiles at his nirvana and pulls her closer as he closes his eyes, but the call of the mirror becomes louder with each passing moment. He is unable to resist the pull and finds himself drawn to it in the dark of night as the castle sleeps.
He knows not how he came to stand before the shattered glass, but he is there now and unable to look away from the reflections in the fractured shards. He sees himself, or rather a doppelgänger - grotesque and twisted with a crown upon his head as his father stands at his side beaming a proud grin and whispering despicable evils into his ear. His doppelgänger unsheathes a sword and a dagger from his hip and Hans watches through the glass as he returns to Hans' bed to find Elsa still asleep and unaware of the danger he represents to her and the unborn child.
With elegant precision the blade falls, Hans screams at the glass before turning on his heel to return to Elsa in terror, cursing the fact he was not there to protect her.
He has no idea how much time has passed before he gets to her side, but he does and he find her still asleep and unharmed. He glances over Elsa's sleeping form to find his doppelgänger crawling over the top of her with a sadistic grin and stroking her in a manner that makes bile burn up the back of Hans' throat. Elsa's unaware of the intruder in their bed, her chest rising and falling gently with a sweet twist of her lips in response to the caress of his doppelgänger.
Hans tries to lunge forward to stop him, only to find himself paralyzed and silent, unable to warn Elsa. His doppelgänger places his hand over her unborn child and whispers to Hans as his eyes narrow with venom, "She's dead. Because of YOU…" plunging the dagger down as blood spills and Elsa gasps her last breathes in agony, pleading for Hans to save them…
Hans surges to his feet in a panic and drops to his hands and knees beside Elsa's bed, retching his stomach with his head dropped and tears burning at his eyes. He gasps for breath as cool fingers find their way onto his neck and caress calming patterns while a soft voice soothes and hushes him. Reality affixes slowly, "Shhhh, it wasn't real. You're okay, Hans..." Elsa's kneeling at his side and he shifts his weight suddenly to capture her in his arms and clings to her as he sobs, "You're okay, you're both okay. He didn't hurt you."
Elsa blinks. Although she is familiar with nightmares and the traumatic way they twists reality, she has trouble trying to decipher his words after having been startled from sleep herself. "Both okay?"
His hand twists to grasp firmly at her abdomen as he coughs and stutters, "I'm so sorry…"
She brings cool fingers to his head to cradle him to her while her other hand falls to his that lies on her belly, stroking his hand gently with her thumb. "Shhhh…Hans, I don't understand."
He shakes his head as an apology, "Just a bad dream. I'm sorry if I scared you. I'll be okay." He looks at her, eyes still frantic as he tries for a reassuring smile.
"We are quite the mess, aren't we? This is only the third night we have ever slept side by side and already we find ourselves battling demons together. Am I right?" she says softly.
Hans buries himself in her embrace and doesn't respond.
Long moments pass before Elsa tries again, "Do you want to talk about it? Was it Arendelle?"
His chest heaves silently before he eventually settles on, "No. It wasn't, exactly."
He rises, taking her effortlessly with him and returns to bed. He clings tightly to her and presses soft lips to the crown of her head as she folds herself into him. He explains his dream, and can feel her stiffen then gasp a soft cry of surprise, "You spoke similar words to me on the frozen fjord in Arendelle. Telling me Anna was dead…because of me."
Hans croaks, "I'm so sorry for everything I've done."
She caresses his back slowly, "You needn't apologize with every dream, Hans. I have forgiven you and love you and wish to face the future together, not relive the past."
He draws her face up and to his with his hand on her neck and jaw, pouring his heart into the slide of his lips across hers and leaving her breathless. He rests his forehead to hers, "I love you, My Queen."
She lays silent before softly teasing, "I'm still not Queen. "
With a quiet laugh he whispers, "Oh. I'm pretty sure you've always been My Queen…"
His breath calms, eventually falling in time with hers. His hands stroke gentle circles at the small of her back and eventually slow and weaken as sleep begins to set in.
Hans unsettled has left Elsa to find herself wide away and wanting something. Watching him slip closer to sleep, her breath quickens as she settles on what that something may be, and oh…yes. That will do.
She tilts her head and takes his mouth gently with hers for long moments as he sleepily responds, eventually becoming more eager before her hand begins to wander deliberately to those parts of him that burn hotter under her touch. Her bright eyes take in his reaction when his flutter open.
He chuckles, his breath ghosting warm air across her lips as he takes her wayward hand to kiss before playfully scolding, "Oh no you don't. I promised to behave. Stop trying to seduce me with your lustful and wanton ways…"
Her mouth pulls mischievously as another frisky hand finds its way below the waistband of his pajamas to where the flesh of his hip slopes lower, "Really? You're not at all interested…you're turning me down?" She puckers her lips slightly as she drawls.
Hans closes his eyes and keens a sigh, "No…yes…ah…AH." His smile is small and helpless as he stumbles over his words, "We didn't exactly resolve the contraception issue today. You starting your pills back up isn't exactly like flipping a switch."
Elsa grins wider as her fingers trace his arousal, "There are other ways to…satisfy."
He catches her hand and puts it firmly on her own hip with a breathless, "Come on, Elsa. I promised."
She looks incredulously at him as she bites at her lip and runs her fingers through his hair before pulling closer to him, nuzzling the faint stubble along his jawline before taking his flesh gently between her teeth and pressing a wet kiss to his neck. The slight rumble under her lips as he speaks triggers her need to burn hotter as his hands caress and grip at her restlessly.
He groans and stills, "Two hours with the Bishop and watching you basically tar and feather yourself in guilt was more than I can take. Let me keep my promise, without temptation."
She pauses, shifting slightly to look at him intensely, confusion flickering in her features, "You're serious?"
He chuckles with an apology in his gaze, "Yes, actually…I am."
She narrows her eyes at him before rolling over in a huff, mumbling something in Norwegian, "…go play by myself…"
Hans' mouth quirks a smile at her frustration as he tries to translate her words and decides that Elsa must mean something erotically deviant and…oh my. She's going to get herself off, with me right next to her in her bed!
With an impish grin he nestles closely to her back and props up on an elbow to look down at her, the shift in the mattress causing Elsa to glare at him, "What?"
He tries unsuccessfully to resist the pull of his lips as he smirks, "May I watch?"
"Watch what?"
"May I watch as you pleasure yourself?" he questions gleefully, a ridiculous expression on his face like he's the luckiest man on Earth.
Elsa's blush is evident even in the dark room as she elbows him in the gut, "No."
"No I can't watch, or no you're not going to masturbate?"
"NO."
He laughs as he wraps an arm around her, "You little minx, I had no idea how insatiable you are…"
Elsa says something about a guestroom that he couldn't quite hear. Not that he wanted to.
"How about I bring you your coffee in the morning," he offers in consolation.
She groans something to the effect of it's the least he could do, and Hans falls asleep more quickly than he ever has after such a nightmare, a soft smile twisted in his lips.
Dawn arrived far earlier than Hans expected. He's wide awake in the span of a heartbeat and staring.
The fact he's slept in the bed of the Kings of Norway, beside the most beautiful and powerful woman he has ever seen (or dreamt) triggers a rush of hot panic and disbelief to wash over him as his heart races.
He realizes he could be waking beside her anywhere and feel exactly the same way, simply astonished she loves him with the same intensity he loves her. He pulls closer to her while brushing an aberrant lock from her face and allows his hand to linger in her hair before her head pulls just slightly and her eyes squint open a fraction, just to squeeze shut with a raspy and irritated, "Must you..."
"Good morning, Your Highness. Not really a morning person, are we?"
"Is that the 'royal we' or the 'Hans being a jack-ass we'?"
With a genuine laugh he flops down on his stomach beside her while she rolls herself over and pulls the bedlinens over her head. He revels in the amazement of how happy he is and decides to ignore the twinge of remorse that pulls at him for being a nuisance.
She's fabulously sarcastic first thing in the morning when she's not trying to be nice.
"Coffee?"
The linens grunted in response.
He draws back the lines off of her enough to expose her temple, and his lips linger happily there before her hand darts up to swat him away half-heartedly, weakly flopping back to the mattress.
"Fine. Coffee…I'm going," he whispers with a grin.
Hans strides into the sitting area of Elsa's private chambers, freshly shaved (his cheek not looking as bad as he had feared it would, just slightly swollen) and adoring the sound of Elsa singing in the bathroom. Her blatant disregard for who hears her surprised him somewhat, knowing how introverted and private she is. She had laughed at his delight in her singing, "Sometimes I just have to let it go." A strange expression shifted in her features before she cocked her head the side, "Hu. That was strange way of putting it." She shook her head and turned on the ball of her foot to the dressing chamber, "Give it to me I'm worth it…Baby I'm worth it…"
His eyes are fixed to the floor as he turns the corner, lost in her voice singing as he hums along, "Uh huh I'm worth it…Gimme gimme I'm worth it…Uh huh I'm worth it…"
He suddenly freezes.
Eric's staring at him bemused.
"She's not out of the bathroom yet," Hans says weakly.
Eric raises and eyebrow as he proceeds to sink into a chair near the grand fireplace off to the side of the sitting area, a Red Bull in one hand and his phone in the other. "I can hear that. Her repertoire has always been rather disturbing, if you ask me. "
Hans blinks, resisting the twist of a smile, "The fact that the Queen of Norway shamelessly belts out questionable lyrics without a thought as to who's nearby to hear her is…"
"Frightening?"
His startled laugh of agreement surprises him, "Yeah."
"That was sprung on me my first morning working with a then seventeen year old Princess Elsa," Eric smirks as he takes a swig of his Red Bull, "She was going through a Britney Spears phase. Here is this graceful, poised, articulate future ruler of Norway that all I have to do is run alongside with through Central Park. She's hardly said two words to me, not being rude…just kinda cold. She's got her MP3 player going and earbuds in, haughtily ignoring me for the first mile before she begins singing to me."
It's Hans' turn to cock an eyebrow as he folds his arms, unsure of where this story seems to be going.
"Womanizer. She's singing as she's running. Loudly. By the end of the song she's even jogging backwards to look at me as she points and belts it out."
Hans again finds himself laughing.
The men fall into strained silence as a butler enters to set up a light breakfast and coffee service on the dining table as Elsa finally joins them wearing a look of determination (and a casual light blue silk maxi dress).
"Okay. Let's do this," she gestures for Hans to sit near Eric as she acknowledges the shallow bow of the butler. He offers her a cup of coffee before excusing himself quietly. The men sit silently, alternating between glances at her and glares at each other.
Eventually Elsa prompts, "Eric. Tell me about the security cameras on the Westergaard property…"
A/N The song Elsa is singing is Fifth Harmony's "Worth It".