"Well now…isn't this a surprise…"

It was the time of year that his castle was visited by people from all places, those who had come in the good weather to seek out him as well as anything he could potentially provide through a deal. He was used to the spells he'd set around his castle alerting him to visitors. What he wasn't used to was feeling familiarity with those visitors. Usually, one deal was enough for his clients; besides Jefferson and Regina, no one dared enter this castle a second time. And yet, one of the people coming up to his front door was familiar. And one was not.

In his workshop, he quickly went to an old wooden box where he kept the prize from the last deal he'd made with the girl…three ribbons, one of which had belonged to the Princess long ago. Still full of power and sisterly love that made him want to roll his eyes at the very notion, he closed the box over them, and the instant the lid clicked shut he saw images, images he'd never bothered to probe for before.

He saw the three sisters, Helga, Ingrid, and Gerda. He saw Ingrid's struggle, how she tried to make the gloves work, and then he saw Helga and Ingrid. They shared a conversation shared, and in the next flash Helga was nothing but ice as her sister wept over her body. And Gerda…he watched as she used the vessel he'd once given them to capture Ingrid.

Visions ended in a rush, leaving him breathless and smiling as he used his senses to reach out over the grounds and locate the woman who was on her way. If what he'd seen was true, and he had little doubt it was as it rarely was wrong, that meant the girl approaching was not the Princess of Arendelle…she was the Queen. And that meant that the two little princesses he'd heard had been born to the Queen years ago, Elsa and Anna, did not belong to Ingrid, but to her.

Strange the way life could turn out…but what was it that she wanted now? Her sister free? Her other sister brought back to life?

He closed his eyes, and took a breath to focus himself.

He saw neither of the girls he'd once known but another one, younger than when he'd met her. She was maybe about Snow White's age, perhaps a bit younger, her hair a striking white blonde with pale skin. She sat huddled on a bench, looking out the window with her legs drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. On her hands were the gloves he'd once given to Ingrid.

"A surprise indeed…" he muttered when reality brought him back into this world.

For once, he was quick to get the door himself before they could knock or even touch it. He swept himself down into a flourishing bow at the sight of their stunned reactions, which only made them smile once more.

"Your Majesties…to what do I owe this honor, nay, the privilege of being within your Graces?"

Gerda, she didn't look much different than she had when she was younger. She was older perhaps, but she still looked him over with the exact same amount of skepticism she had then. The King, however, seemed almost put at ease by his actions. Which was odd considering he felt nothing but on edge by the King. He'd been touched by troll magic. He felt it radiating from his skull, not out of the ordinary considering trolls specialized in head magic, but why he had it about him, why he had that much on him, was a curiosity.

"The privilege is ours," the King answered. "We've heard tales of you, Wizard. And your greatness-"

"Wizard!" he echoed. "Well, dear me, I just might blush!" The poor man hadn't a clue who he was dealing with. "Enter! And tell me all your problems that I might help you find what you seek," he pronounced, standing aside and motioning them to come in.

"Well, that's just it, sir. We don't know what we seek."

"Bit of a long way from Arendelle for an afternoon picnic, don't you think?"

"Well we were off searching for something to help us from a pirate, we were told he would have an answer for us, but his solution has proved to be unusable. We were told you might offer a solution."

"Every problem has a solution, the question is can you afford it, for all magic comes with a price. Tell me…what is your problem."

"It's our daughter, sir."

"Anna?" he questioned, trying to identify which of the girls he'd seen in his vision. No, it wasn't Anna, not by their gazes, at least. "Ah…dear Elsa, then. First in line for the throne."

"She's a dear girl," Gerda inserted.

"Yes, but troubled," her husband added quickly. "She was born…well…she was born with the ability to make ice and snow! And now her powers…they're getting out of control. We were hoping you might have something that could take this burden away from her. She's willing to do anything, and we're willing to try what we must to help her!"

"Ah! A familiar problem, not unlike a problem I've had to solve before with your sister, eh, dearie."

She'd been so quiet, and he looked right at her purposefully, just to hear her heart rate go up. He had expected that reaction after what had happened, what he didn't expect was for the skeptical look on her fact to go hard, for her eyes to narrow, and her husband to look at her hanging from his arm with surprise. Slowly she raised her chin and shook her head.

"Please, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Gerda is an only child," her husband added for her. "No one in either of our lines has ever been cursed with powers like Elsa's, we've checked all the family records."

The King was talking, but he kept his eyes firmly on Gerda, on the way she shifted her weight nervously, the way that she tightened her grip on her husband's arms by moving her fingers restlessly, and the biggest give away…for the first time since she'd ever been in his castle, she tore her gaze away from him and looked up at her husband instead. Those were the traits of a guilty woman trying to hide something. And now his curiosity was piqued.

"Please, sir, we don't know how to-"

He waved his hand in the air in front of the couple and suddenly the King stopped mid-sentence and stared straight ahead, eyes unseeing, as his wife continued to stare up at him. He focused his magic on the King. Like this his head was an open door. It was impossible for Gerda's husband to have gone through records and not found traces of her sisters unless he was lying, which he dismissed immediately because he didn't show any signs of lying. Either he truly didn't know or…well, he supposed now he knew what the troll magic he sensed in him was doing there.

He sighed as he directed his magic at Gerda and gave her the ability to move again without unfreezing her husband. Immediately jumped at the sudden statue before her, and moved away in panic.

"What did you do?"

"Let's you and I talk alone for a moment, shall we? Honestly, the dealmaker to the dealtaker," he commented.

"I…I don't know what you mean…" she commented, staggering away.

"Of course, you do, Dearie!" he commented. "If you didn't, I'd have found traces of troll magic in your head and these-" in his hand he summoned the box from upstairs and opened it in front of her "-wouldn't still have their magic attached to them."

Before him, Gerda went white as a ghost as she stared down into the depths of his box.

"You still have them," she muttered breathlessly.

"'You still have them?' Don't you mean 'what are those?'" he smiled quickly, sending the box back into storage. Gerda looked back up at him, then glanced at her husband and finally back to him and nodded.

"I remember."

"Shocking."

"Ingrid and Helga-"

"Don't waste your breath I've already seen it. What I haven't seen is why he is ignorant of not just one but two sisters, and you are not."

"All magic comes with a price," she responded. "After Ingrid killed Helga, the Kingdom would never have recovered. Civil war would have broken out. It was better for no one to remember them and just assume I was the only daughter. The trolls cast the spell, the cost is that I'm doomed to always remember those terrible days, and now watch helplessly as history repeats itself."

"With your daughter."

"Daughters," she corrected before she could catch herself. "Elsa already hurt Anna once, when she was a child. The trolls removed the memory of her magic from Anna, and her father was so hopeful that as she got older, she would be able to control it, but…I know better. Ingrid wanted so badly to control it and Helga believed in her, but in the end, that hope is what destroyed them both. I only did what I had to do in the end."

"And you want that same fate for your oldest daughter now too, is that it?"

"I love my daughters! And they love each other. I will do whatever it takes to save them from my sisters' fate. Even if it means stripping Elsa of her powers. I'm told that's possible."

He let out half a laugh at her ignorance. "For a normal sorcerer who voluntarily wants their powers stripped yes, but your daughter is an Elemental, there's nothing normal about her. I sent you home with the answer that would save you from her long ago."

"I won't subject my daughter to that urn."

"And it won't hold two people at once. Trap your daughter, and you'd release your sister. Free of one is still bound to another."

"There must be another way," she insisted.

"There is…only one way that I know of."

"Then tell me."

"Things haven't changed that much, dearie! All magic still comes with a price, you know, even if that magic is simply knowledge."

"Then tell me your cost, I'll pay anything!" she answered with the determination her sister Ingrid had once had. There was only one problem, he couldn't think of a single thing that she had he wanted. Except of course perhaps her daughter, he'd love to train her just as he'd trained Regina, just as he'd wanted to train Ingrid all those years ago. The idea of getting close to an Elemental and seeing how she worked, thrilled him. Not to mention that dreaded warning the Seer had given him all those years ago when he'd first met Ingrid and her sisters. He remembered it like it was yesterday. A wall of ice. A mirror imbued with magic. Villian. Victim. Curse. A feeling of death, murder. "You shall try. Kill the spares. Spare your family. Try you shall." Sisters. But not the three with the ribbons tied on their wrists. But rather a new set of sisters acting through a bond preserved…through the ribbons he had upstairs. "Only when the time is right."

Yes, that was a vision he wouldn't mind exploring. Especially since the Seer was telling him Elsa was important to it in some way. But he was good at evaluating situations and knowing what would and wouldn't work. The suggestion wasn't going to help her daughter, at least not in the way that Gerda wanted it to, so it was never going to happen. And considering the knowledge that he had to pass on to her was bad news, it only meant Elsa would continue to worsen without training. In that case…he could think of one thing that she had he wanted.

"Very well, a simple exchange of knowledge for knowledge. Tell me the location of the urn."

The skepticism returned to her face as she took a step back. "Why?"

"'Twas mine to begin with," he answered. "It's done its job, and you're no longer using it, may as well be assured that it's in a safe place."

"But…if you release my sister, or take that urn…"

He sighed and then straightened his back as he raised his right hand. "I, Rumpelstiltskin, do so swear not to remove the urn or free whoever dwells inside of it…blah, blah, blah…I believe you'll find the details in this contract…"

Magically he produced a long and wordy contract out of thin air. It wasn't an ideal promise, but he could cast spells around it, the same spells that were cast around his castle to know when someone else moved it, that alone would make it his own. And if she was smart enough to read the fine print, the Queen would see that his promise only lasted until someone else found the urn or opened it themselves. After that he was free to retain his property wherever he saw fit for whatever job he saw fit. To them it was endless waiting, to a man who did nothing but wait, it was just one more thing to keep his eyes on.

Gerda looked at the contract for a moment, she took it in her hand and accepted the quill he summoned for her. She read the contract that was nearly the size of her for all of maybe ten lines before she sighed "very well" and signed her name to it. He felt magic seize over him, a kind that would ensure he didn't touch that urn until someone else did first, but then he rolled the paper away and stored it safely out of sight as he leaned in closer.

"The location of the urn."

"Hidden in the North Valley."

Not a bad hiding place. His spells would make sure it stayed safe until someone else found it.

"Now it's your turn," she urged.

"Ah yes! Ehm…I think you'll want him to hear this too. Can't have him asking too many questions, can we?" he sneered. They'd been in the middle of discussing sisters that she swore she didn't have when he froze him, unfreezing him now would only lead to more questions. Gerda seemed to understand that and, with a sigh, moved back to wrap her hand around her husband's arm again. Once in place, he waved his hand again.

"-help our daughter!" he finished. "We'll do anything."

"No, no, I'm sorry!" he interrupted. "But I'm afraid the thing you need cannot be found."

"What is it?" he demanded at the same time Gerda cried "Excuse me!" in an angry voice. This was why those he dealt with never came back. Obviously, she hadn't gotten the message the first time. Maybe this time, it would sink in.

"Your daughter Elsa is an Elemental. There is only one object I know of that would be strong enough to free her of her power and hold them. 'Tis an object called the Sorcerer's Hat. Unfortunately, it is not in my possession."

"But-"

"All we have to do is find the hat?" the King questioned, cutting off his wife.

"If it were that easy, no Elemental would ever go through what your daughter is going through. The hat is currently in the possession of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. He guards it away, keeping it hidden and locked away at all times. Even if you were to find it, he'd never permit you to use it."

"Please, there must be another way," the King begged.

Again, the King was talking, but his eyes stayed locked on Gerda, who looked like she couldn't decide if she should cry or shout and argue with him even as her husband's presence told her she couldn't. Now she'd learned her lesson.

"I'm sorry, you've wasted your time in coming here."

And here we go again. I promise you the Frozen Section will not be all Frozen all the time and what do I give you in the second chapter...Frozen. But I will say, I actually ended up really liking how this chapter came out. We never saw it in the show, but it was eluded to. Anna finds out that her parents when to see Rumple and we do hear him confirm that they came to see him. He tells her that they seemed frightened of Elsa and he sent them away empty-handed because he didn't have the hat in his possession. I don't know why we didn't see it, but it seemed important enough to the storyline that I had to add it and I loved how it came out. I had a lot of fun with this chapter and despite the fact that it's Frozen, I'm hoping you'll love it too!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Alarda, MerlockVonBaron, Grace5231973, and Jennifer Baratta for the great reviews on the last chapter. I'm happy to know that I didn't break your hearts entirely with that as so many of you were expecting it at some point. We will see more of Jefferson, if you read Moments you know he'll be back, but it might be sooner than you think that we catch a glimpse of him. However, we do have a few other things to handle before we arrive there. Up next we're meeting a different really important character. It wasn't my favorite flashback episode, it had some issues with it that I had to work out, but because of the nature of this fiction I was able to build some of the problems with it out of the fiction and I think it came out okay in the end. And besides, if you make it through the next episode's chapters then I promise that what comes next will make you very, very happy! Peace and Happy Reading!