"No, thanks," Kristoff said, not looking at her.
It was the question he knew Elsa would ask eventually. The one he'd been dreading, the one that had been bouncing around in the back of his mind ever since that day. The day the dam came down. The day Elsa had somehow - miraculously, thankfully - returned from the dead to save Arendelle.
The day he asked Anna to marry him. The day he found out that his soon-to-be sister had unlocked the gateway to the past.
They stood on a balcony overlooking the courtyard, watching Anna greet a newly-arrived delegation from...someplace, Kristoff wasn't even sure where. Elsa probably knew, and he suspected she was relieved that she was no longer the one expected to greet them. Kristoff wondered how much of it he would one day be expected to do.
"Are you sure?" Elsa asked. "I mean, we know how old you are, even if we don't know your exact birthday -"
"No!" Kristoff swung around, his voice was a barely controlled shout. Elsa recoiled, eyes widening, and he softened a bit. "No - I mean, yes, I'm sure."
Elsa didn't miss his big fists clenching and unclenching by his sides. She raised a questioning eyebrow. He retreated inside and threw himself onto the sofa near the balcony door. The bottle of akvavit on the sidebar tempted him, but Elsa had followed him in, her sharp blue eyes missing nothing. He didn't need to let her know that her question had touched a nerve.
Like she can't already tell. For someone who spent over half her life locked away, she was remarkably perceptive at times.
"Kristoff, what's wrong?" she asked gently, sitting down beside him.
He rested his elbows on his knees and sighed.
How could he explain this to her? He had long ago accepted who he was - a working man, an ice harvester, a guy who slept in hay piles and lean-tos and the back of his sled. A man raised by trolls, with no past to speak of. No past that mattered, at least not to that man.
What little he could remember wasn't worth remembering. Images, mostly, little glimpses through a child's uncertain memories. A time before he'd found the ice harvesters and the trolls and that sense of stability. A scowling, bearded face. Loud, angry voices. A woman screaming, her face covered in blood.
He didn't really want to know anything more about that.
Especially now. When he proposed, Anna had been a princess. He'd known that there would be more scrutiny of him as soon as he went from being 'the princess' boyfriend' to 'the princess' fiance.' He knew that would happen, and he thought he was prepared. The Strong Arm to the Queen's Right Hand.
But then Elsa had abdicated. Suddenly the past mattered. Kristoff went from being 'the princess' fiance' to 'the Queen's betrothed,' and even more critical gazes turned his way. Even up here, away from the pomp in the courtyard, he could feel the weight of all those eyeballs, focusing on him, examining him like an ant under a magnifying glass.
If I don't know about me, then they won't know about me either. Only Elsa can tell them.
His chest burned with a sudden flare of white-hot anger. Why had Elsa dumped this on him? Thrust her duty onto Anna, left him to suddenly be the Right Hand of the Queen? It was like a bad joke.
Not mention trying - not always successfully - to fill the Elsa-sized hole in Anna's life. Oh sure, Elsa came home regularly, but even when she was here, she wasn't always here. And when she left, the way Anna's eyes followed her until she disappeared over the horizon…
He sometimes wanted to grab Elsa and shake her and shout Don't you understand?
A cool hand touched his arm. "Kristoff?"
He looked up, his anger dissipating at the concern etched in her features.
At least she asked first. She could have just...found out. Come home and shown everyone.
"I don't...I don't really count time normally," he said. "There's Before Anna and After Anna, and honestly, there's not a lot in the Before Anna time that I care a lot about. Except Sven. I mean, I care about my family - the trolls, I mean - but the rest of it...I was just kind of..existing. Living didn't really start until I met Anna. After Anna, that's the time I care about. It's the only time that matters. At least for me."
She nodded, her eyes filled with understanding. "I was the same way. Except that it was Before the Accident and After the Accident. Everything good was in the Before, and the rest was just the constant struggle to control...this."
She lifted a hand, holding a blizzard in miniature in her palm. His eyes were immediately drawn to it. Even after all this time, her magic still fascinated him. Especially dressed as she was now, in a simple blouse and skirt, with her hair back in its regular braid. She looked like any other woman her age, rather than the Snow Queen.
And she'll always be the Snow Queen, ice dress or not. If I run north, I could truly escape. Elsa never will. She'll always be under that magnifying glass.
Hopefully neither of them would get burned by it.
The tiny blizzard spiraled off her palm at a flick of her wrist, dancing around the room and leaving memory-sculptures in its wake.
"But now I have my own After Anna," she said. She walked past a rendering of her teenage self curled into a ball against a door, over to one of her and Anna hugging on the fjord. Then to one of Anna with her arms full of birthday presents. Then one of Anna and Elsa skating in the courtyard. "The happiest times of my life."
She beckoned him off the sofa, taking his hand. "Which also happen to be After Kristoff."
He could see more of the sculptures now. Elsa wiping paint off his face with her thumb. Kristoff carrying a sneezing Elsa in his arms, snowgies winking to life all around them. Elsa's first taste of Flemmy stew. And one more…
Kristoff looked down at his much younger self, on his much smaller sled, being pulled by a very much smaller Sven.
His mouth opened and closed several times before he managed, "But I thought…"
Elsa put her hand on memory-Kristoff's head, as though to ruffle his hair. "This is the only one I've seen, Kristoff. I think because...this was the first time you touched our lives. Maybe it wasn't direct, but you've been bound up with us, with Anna and I, for longer than any of us knew. You were always meant to be part of this. Us. What we are now."
"It's your decision," she continued. "I won't go looking. What was Before, that's only important to me if it's important to you. Because After Anna -" she lifted her hand to his cheek - "and After Kristoff, those are the times that matter to me as well."
He put his hand over hers and met her gentle gaze. She really did understand, this sister he had found. And now he did too.
He not only had After Anna, but he also had After Elsa.