Hello... Guys... This is a big one... (Not in size but in content)...

-Whovian123

Disclaimer: I do not own Frozen.


I try to think of something to say, something that feels right after all these months of hurt, pain, and threats, but nothing comes. Instead I am left staring at Hans; utterly mute.

His eyes are dark and furious. He is furious, but when is he not. Never has he been pleased. I entertain, for the briefest of moments, that he may never be pleased, that he is un-pleaseable, and everything I have wrestled with and forced myself to do had been in vain because it would never be good enough. My fists clench and I force the thought from my mind.

I can feel the ice around me, crawling across the polished floors, and creeping though the walls, glossing over the windows with thick slabs, and drawing thin shallow icicles out of the ceiling. It breathes with me, creaking as my weight shifts and crackling with my every exhale, and inhale.

We watch each other, neither of us daring to move in the slightest. We are suspended in this moment, caught in what our future may be. I am scared, nearly the most scared I have ever been, or maybe the most. I don't know where to go from here. I don't know how to kill. I have only ever come close through fear and fluke.

Can I kill?

My heart is beating too fast, and my ears only hear the sound of my blood. It rushes and pounds through my body, sending feeling and terror to the ends of my fingers, curling my toes, and flushing my face as my chest heaves. I do not want to do this. I want an easier way. I need for Hans to surrender, for him to repent and be sent to the Southern Isles for rehabilitation. I want an out, a way to avoid this, to avoid more bloodshed. Wrongs do not make rights, this is not ok. How could this be ok?

He would not stop though. I can see the resolve, the steel, in his eyes, he is determined to be victorious or die. There is no other option for him; he does not know a world where there is kindness, or forgiveness. His grip tightens on his swords and his feet shift, he looks nervous.

"Elsa, surrender." Hans calls at me from his empty side of the ballroom. "I am stronger than you. You are weak, you bend. I do not bend. I demand perfection. I will have my Kingdom." He spits as he shouts, working himself in to a rage, inflating his ego with the illusion of confidence.

I try to find something to say, to find some way of defending myself. I am lost in my mind. The words are not there, it has been too long since I could fight back with an advantage. I do not believe I have one. Hans is still stronger, isn't he? He is telling me he is, he cannot be lying, this cannot be a lie. Months of my life cannot have been spent running from a lie.

"If you cannot bend," I hear my mother's voice, shallow and horse, sounds from behind me, "then you will be broken."

I am grateful that she spoke, but I worry that I cannot break him. How can I? My hands are too shaky and my heart too furious. I am a mess, a spectacular mess of myself.

Hans waits, still as ever, and then takes one step forward, followed by another, and another. Then he stops, looks unsure and squares his shoulder and forces his posture straighter than I had thought possible. "I am not going to give you any other choice. You die, or surrender." Hans declares. "I can explain away your death, your life, and the lives of everyone you love. It will take time, and finesse, but I have the power to execute those who refuse to listen. I can get my son from another wench; a princess. I can have my pick of the litter. My son will have the perfect stock, he will be the perfect prince, and when I do die, he will be the prefect King. Your line will end."

"Hans," I call, using his name, and more strength than I ought to have. "Lines do not matter to us. The name does not make you. I would be just as much myself had I been called Elizabeth. All that matters is family, not the family name." I glance back at Anna, waiting hand in hand with Kristoff. "We are a family, life has given us every opportunity to forsake each other, boats lost at sea, insane fiancés, and dangerous powers, but time and time again we refuse to give each other up." I let my voice change, for the shortest of moments I let myself feels sorry for this man. "You could have been part of this. You could have been a friend, a bother even, but you could not understand that people are more than a means to an end. Sometimes a family is the end; a family is what we work towards and not just a tool to be exploited."

I wonder at trying to explain family to a man who so clearly does not understand one. Then I pity him again, and I imagine his childhood, what a childhood must be like for someone to hate this much. Did his brothers care, did his mother? He must not have been cared for, especially if he was able to leave the southern Isles after I returned him aboard a prison ship.

I mourn for the man he should have become, the self-assured prince with a smile that broke hearts. A man of honor, a man who did all he could to live up to the great kindness of those before him. He could have been so much. All he could have been was thrown away, because he was thirteenth.

Hanses eyes look lost, his face is hard and angry, as is the rest of his body, but his eyes look lost, lost and scared. He looks as if he wants another option, something different than surrender or die.

"You can stop." I promise, forcing myself to forget the horrible things he has done, forcing my mind to clear of the bruises worming their way to my skin, and the burns scorching up my arms, and the baby I now have to bring in to this world without my consent. "You can be better." I do not know if I believe it. Could he be better? It seems so massively impossible, but I want for it to be true.

I do not want to kill.

"NEVER." Hans shouts, a horrible rage building in his voice. "You can stop, you can give up. BUT I DON'T GIVE UP!"

I watch as Hans runs, not quite seeing the world as I should. He is running, this I know, but it looks so slow, as if he decided to run at a crawl. I see him as he comes to be in front of me and I see his shoulders tighten and his fists clench as he goes to cleave the sword upon my head. I skirt out of the way, cutting it far too close and feeling the sting of cool steel slide past my arm.

I spin around myself, trying to put some distance between Hans and I. He follows me, his sword out in front of him, leading his charge. I realize that I need to do some practice with a shield. A shield would do me well right now. I could most certainly use a shield right now. This was not a good idea.

A sheet of ice springs in to the air and deflects Hanses sword, and then shatters in to small flakes of cold, resting on the ground in a pile of white.

I hear Anna shout and run forward, her face clouded with furry and her sword clumsy and raised. Hans sees her and moves all too fast, swinging around to catch her with his own sword. I decide that I cannot have that. Through instinct, and terror at the thought of losing my sister, I cast up a wind to knock Anna back and out of harm's way, and another sheet of ice to stop Hans from running. Anna does not fly across the room as the guards did, she glides, feet firm on the ground, toward the side of the room where Kristoff, my mother, and Kasper have gathered. I can see the concern for Anna written across Kristoff's face, so I send her straight in to his arms, knowing that he will not let her out of his embrace until he can be sure that she will be safe.

"Don't. Anna, don't." I shout at her, backing away from Hans and again wishing that I had a shield stronger than ice. "Don't die for this. I need to save you. I owe you a family."

"Elsa. Please, stop pretending that I could ever have a family without you. I need you here, I need my sister." Anna begs, struggling against Kristoff's strength.

I ignore her, shutting out my obligation to keep myself safe. I back away from Hans, dragging our battle out in to the center of the ballroom. He is never truly close enough to hurt me, but he does graze me, the end of his sword drawing vibrant strips of dotting blood from my arms and hands. It should sting but it does not. All of me as stopped hurting, though I know my burns still fester, and my shoulder still bleeds.

"Elsa," Hans presses forward, his voice a low growl that rumbles through my chest. "I am going to kill you. You are not going to get out of this. I don't care how strong you think you are, your ice is useless."

He could have been great, I decide. He could have been the perfect leader. I wonder when he was lost, I wonder at which moment in his youth he went as sour as to never be sweet again. I lament the day he stopped valuing human life. What kind of day must it be when one decides that a weighty and uncomfortable throne is worth more than a human life.

Hans reels back and then jams his shoulder in to my chest. The air rushes out of me and I flail to the ground, my arms and legs sprawling everywhere. Hans sneers, delighted at the thought to breaking me before this ends.

I suppose I have given up. I know I cannot kill him, I want to, but I doubt my strength. My ability to take the final breath from a man is sorely lacking. I know that he is not reasonable, and that he is aiming for no such kindness with me, but I cannot fathom a life I would not feel guilty for taking.

"Are you not even going to try? I guess you know there isn't much point to it. Still I would have thought you would have fought just a little bit more. At least you won't have to live with yourself much longer, but your family will be kept around for a while. I like the way your mother screams, it's such a sweet sound. And your sister, I bet I could get a son out of her."

The ground is bitter, and Hans's words are biting. I squeeze my eyes shut and clench my fists in a rhythm, hoping to distract myself, hoping to stop remembering just how awful this is. I can't let Hans kill Anna. I cannot let my mother lose the only freedom she has known in thirteen years.

"Why won't you fight?" Hans hollers at me. Banishing his sword in the air, making a terrifying spectacle of himself. "Don't you want to live? Where is the fire? Oh right, I forgot, you're just ice. There is no passion in ice. Ice melts, slow and painfully. Ice does not win. Fire is too strong."

"You can still stop." I promise one last time, knowing that Hans is not going to stop; he is blind in his ambition, clouded with insanity and has been driven far beyond any place I know.

"NO!" Hans bellows. His face twists and creases and his voice cuts through my skin, pushing past the burns and the slashes and the stab wound in my shoulder, straight to my core. It sits in the center of me, stewing and bubbling. His arms swing up, sword pointed to the ceiling and then falling, falling far too fast. It's going to cleave my head in half.

I imagine my son, the future lined up for me. I see my weeping mother and my broken sister, both soon to be killed after my blood has been spilt.

Then see the other one, the future where I live, and get to live so vibrantly that anything else in unbearable. I see the world that gives me my family. A proper family that is broken, damaged, and so blindingly perfect. Even my child, for the world where I live gives my child the freedom to be a boy or girl, each option given without threat of death.

I wonder at a world where I can take my child on picnics, where I can watch him grow and where he can breathe easy in a world free from Hans. I could enjoy the stupid pointless pleasures of the day, and heal to the point where the thought of warmth does not send me in to a blind panic. The world can be fixed, rarely is anything so far gone that it cannot be fixed. I want to be able to try and fix my world. I want the chance to properly live.

I know that I will not die. I decide that Hans will not be permitted to kill me. My hands fly up, shielding me and my child. My chest burns and ice fills my body, every inch of my soul flaming with winter.

Then silence.

Not a sound breaks the air, everything sets in to quiet, and it solidifies in to thick syrup of nothing. I dare not look up. I keep my gaze focused on the polished wood grain of the ground.

I am still not dead.

How am I alive?

I take the deepest breath I can, letting it fill my lungs and cast away the fear. Then I chance a glance up, and my blood runs cold.

Hans is still where he was, poised with his sword over his head and his eyes glassed over with rage, but his limbs are stuck, frozen in place, and there is a thick knotted spine of ice speared through his chest.


Please, please, please, let me know what you thought. Only a few more chapters to go before I set out on the sequel. (Not like that changes anything all that much it's not being uploaded separately its going to be tacked on to the end of the story. (I think.))

New chapter heading your way on the 10th!

-Whovian123

Aggregate-Dragon: Thank you. Fight scenes are not my strong suit, I need to practice them a little bit more.

bexmad: Thank you. Dramatic! You haven't seen anything yet.

marvelousgameofdisneythrones: Thank you. Han's never really seemed to be as secure in his standing as he claimed to be... He was a shady dude...

Loridhhp: Thank you. I was rather worried about the flashback, having never lived through one myself, it's good to know I gave the appropriate "vibe".

musicalocelot: Thank you. Don't worry about it, you are entitled to a life. Yup, everyone knows about the baby, and Kasper is being super cute, but also probably struggling with that baby thing just a little bit...

Guest: Thank you. OMG BEST REVIEW EVER (probs)