So.

It looks like we're in for another polar vortex up here in the Great North. Maybe this means I'll be able to update faster! I have a rather hard time resisting the allure of my sofa, blanket, and pile of cats. Luckily, I have my laptop set up right in the middle of all that.

I do hope you enjoy this chapter. If you make it all the way through to the end of it, candy for everyone! As always, I welcome your comments and criticisms. :)

Stay warm (or cool) and take good care of yourselves, okay?

ssg.x.

P.S. I've gotten a few PMs and reviews from people who seem to think this is the final chapter. It isn't! I promise! Not even close! :)

CHAPTER 20
THE DEEP OBSCURE

"Your hulking, sausage-fingered fiancé is rather protective of you, isn't he? And loyal. Kind of like a Broholmer. I suppose you could have done worse."

Anna crossed her arms tightly across her chest to stop her shivering and keep her hands warm, cursing herself for not taking the pair of mittens Gerda had tried to force on her as she was running out the door.

"I almost did," she hissed.

As Hans walked beside her, he reached out his hand and let his fingertips drift along stone walls, chain posts and window boxes they passed along the way, leaving diaphanous patterns of frost in their wake. He tugged gently at a low-hanging branch and the entire tree ignited like a cluster of stars.

"I'm sorry to interrupt all the fun you're having," she said, "but I have some questions."

Hans glanced across at her and smirked. "Okay, but I can't guarantee that I'll answer all of them. Truthfully or otherwise."

"If it makes it any easier, my expectations as far as you and telling the truth are concerned couldn't be lower."

Hans linked his fingers together and stretched his arms above his head. He laughed. "You sounded like your sister there for a second."

"What would you know about my sister," Anna replied sharply, "besides how she looks when she's crumpled on the ground with your sword swinging above her head?" A light snow started to fall, and Anna shrugged deeper into her wool cape. "What did you do to Elsa while she was over there? How did she hurt her head?"

"I don't know," Hans answered with a smirk on his face. "Maybe she slipped on some ice and knocked it against something."

"Like the hilt of your sword?" Anna asked. Hans said nothing, but his jaw tightened noticeably.

"Forget it," Anna snorted. "I don't even know why I'm bothering to talk to you at all. If you weren't holding the fjord hostage, I'd have ripped all your limbs off one by one until you told me what I wanted to know." It was hard to sound menacing while wearing a pink, wool bonnet, but it didn't stop Anna from trying.

They walked in silence for what felt like forever, the guards trying their best not to lose their balance on the trail of ice Hans' footsteps left behind, and Anna occasionally blowing hot air into her cold hands.

"Is she alright?" Hans asked. Anna stared at him, puzzled and a little taken aback by the softness in his voice.

"No," Anna said quietly. "Not that you deserve to know or anything, but she isn't alright. She's not like you. She doesn't hide behind masks. She hides behind doors. Locked doors."

"Masks, huh?" Hans mused. He looked back over his shoulder, eyeing the guards. One of them nervously wrapped his hand around the grip of his sword and Hans wagged a finger at him as though he were admonishing a child. "Not a good idea." he warned.

"Did you come here to finish the job? To kill Elsa?" Anna asked. "Because it wouldn't be a fair fight. Though now that I think about it, fair fights aren't really your cup of tea, are they?"

Hans smiled. "Is there something you want to say to me, my lady? I get the distinct impression that you're holding back."

"No," Anna replied, turning her nose up. "You're disgusting and I have nothing to say to you."

She was quiet for about ten seconds.

"Yes, actually! I do have something to say!"

Hans sighed. "Go on, then."

"Have you ever loved anyone or anything in your entire life? I mean besides yourself. Haven't you ever had your heart broken? How could you tell someone you love them whe-"

"I never told you I loved you." Hans interrupted.

Anna's eyes widened incredulously. "Are you kidding? You practically sang it to me from the rooftops! Well, at least one rooftop. And a lighthouse. And that hall that goes to the lib—"

"I never told you I loved you," Hans insisted firmly. "At no point did I ever say 'Anna, I love you'. Not once. You heard what you wanted to hear. I counted on that. I preyed on that."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Listen, you can try to squeeze that huge head of yours and the rest of your slimy self through as many loopholes as you want, but it isn't going to change the fact that you're a heartless, soulless, lying snake." she said.

"Anna, if you're expecting me to apologize, it isn't going to happen. And if you think I'm going to open up to you, tell you I had a miserable childhood or that my mother never loved me, that that's why I'm such a 'heartless, soulless, lying snake', you're out of luck," he said indifferently. "Once upon a time a handsome, charming prince wanted to rule Arendelle and set about trying to make it happen. The end."

"God, you're such an a –"

"I know, I know. Your sister told me the same thing."

"Don't talk about my sister like you know her!" she shouted, pointing a finger at him threateningly. "It makes me sick to hear you talking about her at all, let alone like you know anything about her!"

Hans' smile deepened and he held his hands up. "Easy there, my lady."

"Listen - I may not have any magical powers, but just remember that little, ol' powerless me is the one that stopped big, evil, sword-wielding you from killing my sister. Don't think that I can't do it again if it comes to that. You underestimated Elsa and I once before. You'd be wise not to do it again."

Anna huffed, tugging her bonnet down around her ears and throwing her shoulders back haughtily. She practically marched the rest of the way to the palace, not looking back at Hans once.

oooOOOOooo

"Your Highness, please. You don't have to do this. There must be another way."

Kai jogged alongside Elsa as she walked determinedly down the hall leading to the library where she would meet with Hans for the first time since she left the Southern Isles. She felt strong – stronger than she'd felt in ages. The feelings of shame and sadness fell by the wayside in the wake of Hans' attack on her kingdom. There was no time just then to feel anything but protective. She had made mistakes, so many mistakes, but her subjects were innocents in all of this.

"Kai, I'll need you to take a handful of guards with you to search around for any staff that might still be lingering in the palace, particularly on the lower level."

"Yes, Your Highness. Of course. But –"

"Where's Kristoff gone?" she asked brusquely.

"He's following orders and making sure Princess Anna stays put. He really has his work cut out for him."

"It's of the utmost importance that my sister stay safe. If anything were to happen to me, she'd be all the kingdom would have left. And she's…she's my…" Elsa swallowed the lump in her throat. "She must stay safe at all costs." she finished, her voice trembling.

Kai nodded. "Of course, Your Highness. I understand. I will protect her with my life."

Elsa stopped walking and touched Kai's arm kindly. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that, Kai."

"You have an army at your disposal, Queen Elsa. You don't need to meet with him alone. You don't need to meet with him at all. I'm sure we can –"

"Kai, I know you're worried, but you and I both know I'm the only person who has even a sliver of a chance of protecting Arendelle against him."

"Your parents would be so proud of you, Your Highness."

Elsa smiled sadly, highly doubting that but appreciating Kai's kind words nonetheless. The only good thing about her parents' deaths was that they weren't around now to see the disaster she'd made of things.

She couldn't look Anna in the face. She'd shut herself up in her room for a dozen reasons, but the biggest of them all was that she was too ashamed to see her. And how could she possibly answer any of her questions?

Oh, it turns out there was no influenza outbreak. I ended up locked in a room with your ex-fiancé – you remember him – the one I insisted you couldn't marry after only knowing him for a couple of hours? The one you almost died trying to rescue me from? I may have accidentally imbued him with the special powers he's holding Arendelle hostage with now. In bed. Oh - I might also be carrying his child. But enough about me. How were things here on the homefront?

Elsa gave her head a shake. Focus. Don't think about that now. Calm yourself, control yourself… Conceal, don't feel… Calm yourself, control yourself... Conceal, don't feel…

She murmured her old mantra over and over again under her breath. Once she reached the threshold of the library, she stopped and turned firmly, facing Kai - her way of letting him know that it was time for them to part ways.

"Remember my orders, okay?" she said. "Make sure everyone is safe, and take care of my sister."

"One last time, Your Highness, might you reconsider bringing some guards in with you?"

"No. There's too much of a risk of them getting hurt. You saw what happened to Anna when I froze her heart. If I could do that much damage to someone by accident, just think what Prince Hans could do with intention and the skill of an accomplished swordsman. It's one thing to send them into a fight, but it's an entirely other thing to send them into certain death."

Kai nodded, finally yielding to her logic. "Very well, Your Highness."

She reached out to shake his hand. "I'll be alright. Everything will be alright. I promise you."

Kai bowed his head, taking her hand in both of his and kissing it.

"See you soon then, my lady."

Elsa smiled. "Yes. See you soon."

Once Kai was a safe distance from the doors, Elsa took a deep breath and opened them.

oooOOOOooo

Hans stood across the room with his hands behind his back, staring off into space until the sound of the doors closing alerted him to her presence. She quickly iced the locks as inconspicuously as she could, her heart pounding in her chest.

At the first sight of Hans, she felt such sorrow building in her throat, for a moment she was afraid she might sob before getting a single coherent word out. She was fully expecting that the moment she saw him, the hurt and hate would rush her both at once, and she'd end up freezing the entire library and the page of every book in it. But this? She wasn't expecting this, though she knew she should have.

She loved him. She still loved him.

"Elsa…" he breathed, his lower lip quivering.

Elsa narrowed her eyes at him, steeling herself against the look of concern etched on his face.

"Are you alright?"

"Don't call me that." she seethed. "It's Queen Elsa. And, no – I am quite far from alright. You wouldn't know from personal experience, but when a kingdom is under attack by a maniac, it can really put its ruler in a foul mood."

"I wasn't going to hurt anyone. It's just that I needed to see you, and this was the only way I could –"

"This was the only way? Are you crazy?" Elsa cried. "Nevermind. I already know the answer to that question."

"What was I supposed to do instead?" he challenged.

"How about never see me again?"

"I couldn't do that. Not if there was a chance you might hurt yourself."

"Ah, yes. I forgot. You have a vested interest in me," Elsa said dryly. "I might be carrying your child, after all. The future heir to the throne," she hissed.

"Elsa, please –"

"Tell me, Prince Hans – did the trip over here go smoothly? Was it as easy to find your way back here as it was to get the ice queen to lift her skirts so you could skewer her like a rare piece of meat?"

"Elsa, stop," he begged, looking positively tormented. "Please. I didn't mean any of tha—"

"Shut up!" she cried, throwing her arm out in front of her and blasting Hans with a surge of frost that would have thrown him into the nearest bookcase had he not held his own arms up in front of him to deflect it back in her direction. She stumbled out of harm's way, astonished by the quick work he made of her attempted assault on him.

"Elsa, you don't want to do this. You're angry and I understand that, but if you'll just listen to me, I can ex—"

"I'm not listening anymore, Hans. Whenever you open your mouth, you spit venom. The only way to get you to stop is to remove your fangs."

She was about to launch another attack, but he managed to strike first, encasing her hands in solid spheres of ice the size of cannonballs. The weight of them pulled her to the floor. She looked up at him, a mixture of fury and alarm in her face. He was swift, but more than that – he was precise. It took her years to learn how to control her powers. How was he able to do it in mere days?

He scrambled across the floor and dropped to his knees, grabbing her shoulders to hold her still.

"You can't expect me not to defend myself this time," he said, looking hurt and angry himself.

It was then that she realized he still had no idea that what happened in that room when Hans and his parents had confronted her with their "deal" - the icy gust of wind that almost took their legs out from under them, snuffed out the fire, and shattered the lamp - that was all him. His own body was turning against itself, and it was slowly killing him. Elsa pressed her lips together and tried to focus on freeing herself. It should only have taken a moment or two, but he was too close. She was losing herself in his proximity.

"This was the only way I could see you," he insisted emphatically. "I couldn't very well stroll into town and tell the guards that I'm in love with their queen, not after everything that's happened. As far as everyone in Arendelle is concerned, I already tried that trick with their princess."

It was the first time he'd used that word in regards to his feelings for her. There was a very small window of time days ago when she wouldn't have doubted his feelings for her for a second. Now that one word was like a knife in her heart.

"Let me go," she ordered, gritting her teeth. She squirmed in his grip, still struggling to free her hands.

"I'm not letting you go," he panted, fighting to keep her bolted to the spot.

In an eruption of frost and light so bright both she and Hans had to close their eyes against it, Elsa was finally able to burst free from the orbs of ice. She flexed her fingers, letting out a gasp of relief.

Rising onto her knees and surprising both Hans and herself, she reached up and drove her hands into his hair, pulling him violently towards her. Their mouths collided with such fervour that it made her ears ring. He buried his fingernails into her back as though he were going to tear her open.

"I love you," Hans breathed between one kiss and another. "Whether or not you believe me…"

He gathered her up in his arms and dragged her to her feet, his lips not leaving hers for a moment. She wouldn't let them. He quickly opened his jacket and undid several buttons of his shirt. Grabbing one of her hands, he coaxed it beneath the fabric. She spread out her fingers and lay her hand flush against his heart.

"I can't," she murmured. "This is how everything started."

Hans placed his hand over hers. "Everything," he agreed breathlessly.

The intensity and agitation of their kisses escalated as rapidly as the storm their combined emotional turmoil generated. The books that had tumbled from their shelves during Hans and Elsa's brief physical altercation rode gusts of wind that took them from one end of the room to the other. Elsa wrapped one of the cords of the silver aiguillette that adorned Hans' jacket around her free hand, using it to wrench him closer. He moaned his approval. But then a standing candelabra nearby toppled over and skid noisily across the floor, rocking her back to her senses.

She released a strident cry of "No!", reigniting the struggle to extricate herself from his hold on her. He intertwined their fingers and continued to hold her hand to his chest with an iron grip.

"I can't do this anymore, Hans! I can't!" she wailed.

She shoved him hard, freeing herself just long enough to hastily erect a wall several feet high and more than a few feet wide between them. It was sloppily done, but it served its immediate purpose. She crumpled into a heap on the floor, physically and emotionally exhausted. She knew Hans could easily do away with the wall if he really wanted to, but he didn't.

"I can't afford to make the same mistake a third time," she said, her voice drawn and hoarse. She looked at Hans' distorted figure through the luminescent barrier.

"How could you let your parents say all those dreadful things to me?" she asked. Hans sat down on the floor with his back to the wall and crossed his long legs.

"Elsa…I…"

"How could you just stand there and –"

Winded from their scuffle, Hans swallowed hard. "I can't explain it to you without pushing you even farther away."

"Maybe that's for the best," came Elsa's weary reply.

"Very well, then," he said sadly. "When I first came to Arendelle to attend your coronation, I merely planned to be the vessel for whoever you believed was your perfect match. I would follow your lead, be the man you wanted me to be. But no one could get near you. None of the other members of royalty or visiting dignitaries in attendance knew a thing about you. To be honest, if it hadn't been for my accidental run-in with your sister, I'm not sure how far my plan would have taken me. Anna wasn't the one I was after. I wanted you."

"I was preferable," Elsa chuckled bitterly.

"Yes," Hans answered ruefully, not sounding surprised in the least that Anna hadn't left a single detail out when she was filling Elsa in on what had happened in that room he'd left her to die in. "You were preferable."

"What does this have to do with anything?" she asked tightly. "I'm not in the mood for stories. Just get to the point."

"People are complex. You have a good and kind heart, but you were ready to kill those two men that night in the ice palace. You wouldn't have gotten much satisfaction out of it, but you would have done it had I not shown up and talked some sense into you. Like I said, I had to follow your lead. I was the good guy who sympathized with you, the good guy who would only kill you if I absolutely had to, and eventually circumstances gave way to opportunity. I suspect you knew that."

Elsa bit her lip to keep from crying. She couldn't see for the tears in her eyes. "I did," she croaked.

"You asked me to take care of your sister. You knew it had come down to your life or the lives of your people. I took advantage of that. You were waiting out there for me to kill you, weren't you?"

"Why are you telling me all this?" she asked miserably, pretending she didn't hear his question. She was too ashamed of her answer. "What does this have to do with what happened in that room with your parents? With the way you treated me?"

"Don't you see? I was playing a part in that room with my parents that day, too. They had this preconceived notion of who I was. I had to follow their lead. I had to be the bad guy, - the spoiled, royal brat - because that's who they thought they were dealing with, but there had to be a delicate balance. I wanted to get you out of that place alive. I had to trick them into thinking they were getting what they wanted the way someone like me would give it to them, otherwise they'd know…They'd figure out that…"

you loved me.

Elsa wondered if the gentle snowfall lightly coating the floor of the library was the corporeal manifestation of her grief or Hans'.

"Tell me, Elsa – what would Anna have said had you agreed to meet me? I mean if I just waltzed into town whistling redemption and you decided to sit down and chat with me, what would Anna do?"

"She'd remind me that you were the man who tried to kill me. That you fooled us both once and now you were trying to do it again." Elsa admitted reluctantly.

"This way Anna gets to be right and you don't lose a shred of your integrity in her eyes or the eyes of your kingdom for meeting with a traitor."

Oh, God. His twisted thought process was starting to make sense to her.

"And what do you get?" she asked softly.

"I get to see you. I get to make sure you're not thinking about blindly running out into another storm."

Elsa buried her face in her folded arms.

"You're not pregnant," Hans said after several long moments of silence. "Well, I mean at least I'm pretty sure you're not."

"How could you possibly be 'pretty sure' of that? In between lying about being the hero, and lying about being the villain, did you also lie to someone once or twice about being a doctor?"

"You're just going to have to trust me."

"You really have to stop using that word. It's almost comedic coming from you now."

"Does that mean you're smiling right now?"

Elsa rolled her eyes. Yes, she was smiling - but she wasn't going to tell him that.

"It's embarrassing and kind of disgusting. I'd really rather not get into it," he explained.

"Well, now I must know," Elsa said, practically on tenterhooks. She waited patiently for him to get over his bashfulness despite how desperately she needed deliverance from the private hell that had been days of wondering if she was or wasn't…

"Fine. If you must know, nothing came out," he said, sounding absolutely mortified.

Puzzled, Elsa turned around in her seat and peered through the wall that separated them. His back was still to her, and his shoulders were drawn up defensively.

"I don't know what that means," she said.

Hans sighed. "Nothing came out. Nothing that…ugh. I can't do this. I don't know why, but…when we were…"

"Yes?"

"And then we…finished…"

"Okay…?"

"Well…nothing came out."

Elsa's brows knitted together as she tried to add two and two together. Once she finally managed to figure out what the "nothing" he was referring to was, her eyes lit up.

"Oh!" she blurted. "Oh, I get it! So you have a problem with -"

"Hey, wait a second!" he interrupted, sounding thoroughly indignant. "I don't have a problem with anything! It only happened that one time. Or didn't happen, as the case may be. Do you think there's a chance that maybe you froze more than just my heart?"

Despite the earnestness in his voice, Elsa burst into peals of laughter. God, it felt so good to laugh again. Only moments ago she doubted she'd ever laugh again.

"I'm glad you find it so funny," he snorted.

"How do you know?"

"Know what?"

"How do you know nothing came out?" Elsa asked with great interest.

"I just know," he groaned. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

"Oh, I'm enjoying myself alright," she giggled. Hans started to laugh, too. They barely noticed when the barrier separating them started to come apart and evaporate into the air.

Being locked up alone in a room together seemed to work well for the two of them.

Once their laughter subsided, Elsa reluctantly asked aloud the question neither of them were sure they really welcomed an answer to just yet.

"Hans…" she started softly, her hand searching along the snow-covered floor for his. "What happens now?"

The tips of his fingers toyed with hers. He tilted his head back against hers and sighed.

"Now, Your Grace? Now we open those doors and you order your guards to arrest me for crimes committed against Arendelle."