Chapter Seven: The Apology
Everywhere she saw was white. Strong winds constantly whipped at her small body in every which way that she can barely walk. The ground was so thick with snow that her boots sank half a foot deep into it with each painful icy step.
"Kristoff!" she desperately cried out but all she can produce was a faint whisper that could not possibly be carried far from where she stood with the wind howling like thunder in contrast. "Kristoff? If you can hear me, answer me, please!"
Only the wind answered her, as vicious and noisy as before.
Anna felt so tired and so cold that she just wanted to collapse into the heap of icy snow and sleep but she resisted the urge. In the distance, she saw figure, dark and large. She inched her way through the snow until she was within arms-length of it. It was some sort of large object with one part protruding horizontally at a forty-five degree angle. She reached one gloved hand to touch it and found it was solid, hard and heavy.
Metal, she decided. She felt the length of the object with her hands all the way to the tip where it ended in a hole bigger than the size of her head. Cannon, she realized. It was an artillery canon half-buried in the snow. She can make out the wheels that bore the heavy machinery but only the upper part remained visible. It was lodged in too deep it could not possibly be moved. However, the sight of the cannon gave her hope. Someone must be here. Perhaps someone can help her.
She used the canon as a handhold to move to the other side. She gave a sudden whelp as she felt something solid and hard struck her boot. She peered down carefully and saw a figure lying by the wheel of the other side of the cannon. To her horror, she realized it was a man—a dead man whose eyes remained open, staring at her with an expression of agony. She backed away only to bump into something else. Whirling around, she found another grim figure of death, lying just as grotesque. At that moment the wind cleared and she could see the corpse more clearly and there was another one beside him.
She backed away, but as she did, an even grimmer picture unfolded. Everywhere she looked there were corpses of men and horses amongst pieces of broken wagons and useless artillery littering the entire snow-covered field.
"W-what happened here?" she asked to no one in particular.
She felt someone grab her shoulder and she pulled away in panic but the grip merely tightened.
"Calm down! Calm down! You're alright but you won't be if we don't move along," a man's voice called out. Anna immediately stopped struggling and noticed whoever held her was definitely alive. She felt enormous relief on finding a companion. This strange man was quite tall but wrapped heavily in winter clothes from head to foot that only his eyes were uncovered. His height reminded her of Kristoff when they first met and she felt a surge of hope.
"Are you daft soldier? Move or you'll end up like them!" the man commanded.
Anna felt offended at being rudely shouted at but obeyed him anyway. He's just trying to save me, she reasoned. When we're safe away from here, he'll apologize.
"Here, boy lean on to me," he offered. Anna accepted the help and ignored his reference to her as a boy. He probably couldn't see past through her coverings either to notice she was a girl. She realized she was wearing breeches and a military uniform jacket similar to the one worn by Kristoff when he left with the army. It didn't strike her as odd that she was wearing men's clothes and she didn't bother to correct his mistake.
They silently trudged on together for what seemed like hours through the desolate ice field yet the trail of bodies never ended. She didn't even know where they were going. They could be going in circles but she had no choice but to follow his lead as she didn't know what direction to go.
"What happened here?" she finally asked him.
"Don't you remember? The Russian winter killed the remnants of our army. You are looking at the Emperor's last men, the conquerors of Moscow." There was no sarcasm in his tone, only a deep sadness of a man who was defeated and knew it.
"So much life gone," he went on. "So much life and it's all because of me. I caused this. My ambition caused this."
Anna pulled away and stared at him intently. Was this Emperor Bonaparte? But that can't be.
Anna had met with the Emperor personally at a ball in Prussia before the army left. As a princess of an allied country, she had the privilege of dancing with him. He might have been larger than life but his height certainly wasn't higher than hers. Anna was no midget by European standards but he didn't exactly tower over her.
"Who are you?" she asked him. "Why would you think you're to blame for this?"
He didn't answer her but urged her with a gesture to keep walking. The wind was once again picking up and sent flurries of snow all over them, making it difficult to see. However, Anna remained where she was. "Who are you?" she repeated.
"A man condemned!" he shouted over the growing storm. "I was cursed by a woman I betrayed to walk this frozen wasteland, watch as my men… my friends all die before me in cold and starvation and there's nothing I can do."
The wind whistled above them and Anna felt herself sinking with the weight of the cold. Her legs could no longer hold her and she collapsed to her knees and was immediately buried to the chin in snow. She could feel the cold seeping down to her bones and she felt the allure of sleep even harder to resist.
"No! I won't lose another!" the strange man cried out as he came to her. "Get up soldier! Get up! Walk with me! I'll take you home!"
But Anna could not even lift a finger. Everything was just too heavy. The man used his own hands to dig her out. He scooped her in his arms and carried her. He raced through the snow storm but the wind was too strong for him. Finally, his legs gave way too. He lost his hold on her and she fell back into a mound of ice. She cried painfully at the renewed shock of the cold.
"Stay with me soldier! Stay with me!" he cried out as he crawled towards her. He took off his scarf so he can place it on her shoulders and that's when she saw his face.
Hans!
She wanted to cry out but she couldn't. She felt so weak and her vision was starting to blur.
"Don't die on me! Please don't die!" he pleaded at her but she didn't have the strength to respond. He raised his eyes to the heavens and shouted once more. "I need you to stop this winter! Elsa please! I'm the monster! Not you! It was never you! Help me end this!"
The storm answered him with another fierce wind that brought him down once more. He knelt by her side, his green eyes pleading with her as he spoke: "Don't die please… Open your eyes, soldier… open your eyes…"
Anna opened her eyes and slowly felt the stiffness in her joints. The cold was completely gone but it took her a moment to realize she was not in a frozen wasteland anymore. She was dreaming. That's all it was, just a dream. Slowly, the images from her nightmare began to fade to give way to the stiffness of her neck coupled with the wet stickiness on her chin that told her she had been drooling again while asleep.
"Ugh!" she groaned audibly as she slowly lifted her heavy head. She was used to waking up sore and stiff from long hours of standing and moving about while taking care of patients but stiff necks happened only on nights she fell asleep by a bedside. It clued her in that she had pulled an all-nighter once more from nursing a dying poor soul.
"Morning sleeping beauty," a familiar voice startled her that she fell off the chair she was half sitting on and landed hard on the floor.
"Owww!" she groaned.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to surprise you," the same voice apologized.
Anna picked herself off the floor and found Hans very much alive, looking completely warm and staring at her with a look of shock as if he had seen the apocalypse rising from the heavens.
"What?" she asked.
He shook his head as if to clear it. "Errr... uhmmm... hair..."
Anna realized she woke up with her infamous wild bed-head again. The first time Elsa slept next to her after their reconciliation, her sister woke up the next day screaming, as she thought Anna's hair was some hairy beast that crawled into the bed beside her. Hans, obviously, reacted in a similar manner upon seeing her crowning glory.
Self-consciously, Anna began finger-combing her hair and wiping the obvious drool on her chin. She winced when she realized her saliva left a part of his sheets with a stain that Hans quickly noticed with an obvious wince of disgust. He did not even bother to look away from her but kept on staring at her while she tidied herself.
Darn it! He's the one who's been puking his guts out for days, had fevers that make him toss and turn endlessly at night, had been to brink of death and hasn't had a decent bath in weeks but his hair still manages to look good in its rumpled state. I just sleep and I become the hairy drooling wonder. There is no justice in this world!
"Anna?" he whispered uncertainly. "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was you. "I thought it was one of the other nurses."
Anna glared at him as she remembered the flirtatious tone of his first greeting. He immediately looked apologetic and she decided to let it go though she handled him rather roughly as she felt his forehead and neck for his temperature.
"Your fever's easing," she said as evenly as possible. Inwardly she was overjoyed that he at least survived the night. However, now that he was again conscious, Anna felt the awkwardness of being alone with him once more after their last encounter. "How long have you been awake?" she asked without meeting his eyes.
"A few minutes, probably half an hour, I'm not sure," he replied. "I didn't want to wake you." There was a long paused and then he added: "You stayed with me all night?"
Anna nodded.
"I... apologize if I said something that might have hurt you the last time I was here," he said carefully.
Anna kept silent. She didn't want to admit that he struck a sensitive cord at her that time.
He swallowed hard and looked away from her. "I suppose that's not the only thing I should be apologizing for."
"No it's not," Anna blurted out.
He heaved a deep sigh. "I'm not going to ask for your forgiveness. What I did was unforgiveable. I understand if you still hate me. If it's worth anything to you, I'm sorry for lying and taking advantage of you and I'm sorry I tried to kill your sister."
Anna had waited so long for him to hear those words. She had imagined so many times what she would say back to him. She would berate him, tell him he was a pompous ass, a no good horrible person who deserved everything he got. She would call him a million horrible names and make him apologize over and over again until she was satisfied. She would order him to crawl to Arendelle on his hands and knees and beg her sister for forgiveness then tell him just for good measure that his penance would never be enough. She could have written an entire book with the long list of punishments she had thought of to impose on him. However, at this moment she could not think of a single thing to say. She didn't know exactly how to feel about his apology. She had expected to feel satisfied when he said it, triumphant even. Now, she realized, she didn't feel any of those.
"You should go," he said. "Get some rest. You don't have to waste your time on me. I'm not worth it."
He's driving me away again, Anna thought as she recalled Commandant Cloutier's words. No, I won't let him do that. A good sister, that's what I'll be to him, no matter how short that time may be. His fever may have broken but it's no sign he's going to survive this. I've seen men improve then relapse back just as easily and end up in the grave within a few days. I'm staying with him until the end, whatever that may be.
She stared at him and gave him a wan smile. "Sorry, I'm the duty nurse assigned to you. Not allowed to leave you just yet."
She saw a flash of fear in his eyes. Okay, maybe I'm punishing him, just a little with my presence. She couldn't help but give him an evil grin. "First order of business this morning, do you need help to the chamber pot?"
He buried his face into his hands but she could see the deep blush that colored up to his ears. Finally, he muttered faintly without showing his face: "Yes."
"Good," Anna said more enthusiastically that she intended to. She went around the bed so she can assist him in getting up. "Okay let's go," she said as she grabbed hold of his shoulders.
Hans followed her lead but didn't dare look at her on the short trip to the corner of the room where the usual pot lay. By the time Anna got around to loosening his clothes, his face was already as red as his hair. When he was finally encased in the private screen, Anna paused to contemplate the situation.
So maybe he wasn't really trying to drive me away, he just needed me out of here as fast as possible so I don't embarrass him when he needs to do his private business. Perhaps he thought apologizing for what he did is the quickest way to get me out the room. So does that mean his apology isn't really sincere? Maybe he just really needs to go. Okay note to self: If you really want a sincere apology from this man, don't expect for it when he has more pressing bodily functions to attend to. He'll say anything.
She waited for him to finish then assisted him back to the bed. Once there, she started checking his bandages and saw that they needed changing.
"Anna, I can wait for the next nurse to come by later to do that," he said when he realized what she was about to do. "You don't have to do this.
"I do," she replied as she met his eyes and this time he didn't look away.
"Why?" he asked, genuine confusion marring his features.
"I don't need a reason why."
"Everyone has a reason."
"I'm not everyone," Anna replied matter-of-factly. "I'm just me."
"Just you?" he asked in that same tone he said it when they first met. Something in his eyes lit up but he looked away before she could tell what it was. "Anna I…"
"Just shut up! I'm already here, there's no use waiting for someone else," she ordered in a harsher tone than she intended. It apparently worked for he no longer said a word of protest after that.
She prepared the dressings then carefully removed his old bandages. She saw that his injuries were indeed quite nasty. The skin of his chest were marred by old scars from what she could tell were gun-shot wounds. He had fresher wounds from shrapnel and his shoulder was still raw from the stitches that were reapplied quite recently. There was no sign of infection and he looked to be healing well enough. She soaked a towel in hot water and began cleaning his wounds. She handled it as carefully as she could but he still hissed at the pain. She had to admire his control. Most men would have screamed themselves hoarse with the kind of pain he must be feeling.
She worked as quickly as possible in silence. She spoke again only when she began replacing fresh bandages on his torso.
"Look if you want to thank me, you can do it by telling me something."
"Alright… what do you want to know?" he asked tentatively.
"My husband, Lieutenant Kristoff Bjorgman. He's assigned to the 26th light infantry regiment along with the majority of the Arendellians that were conscripted. Do you know anything about him or any of the other Arendellians?"
Hans looked away and said nothing.
"Hans? Do you know anything?" she repeated.
"I was assigned to the cavalry, made up predominantly of French and Polish officers. I was the only one from the Scandinavian region who was part of it. My brothers made sure I wasn't assigned to a regiment where I was well-known. I don't cross paths often with regiments from our region," he replied without meeting her gaze.
"But certainly, you've encountered some of them. If not an Arendellian, perhaps you've met someone from the Southern Isles or Weselton or the Northern Isles who may have mentioned something?"
"It was a big army Anna. There are thousands of men. Our retreat from Moscow was… chaotic. It's hard to keep track of regiments. It's even harder to identify individual men that make up each regiment."
"Oh…" Anna said slowly. "So you haven't heard anything?"
He was silent again for a long moment before he slowly turned to face her. "It's difficult to get any news from anywhere. But I hope he'll turn up soon."
Anna nodded dejectedly. That was it. There was still no news of Kristoff.
She finished binding his wounds just before the familiar bell rang that announced there were new patients coming in. As much as Anna wanted to stay with Hans, she knew it was her duty to help out where she was needed most. Besides, a fresh batch of patient means another chance to find someone who might know about Kristoff.
"I should go," she said. She stood to leave but Hans held her arm to stop her.
"Anna… I…" he hesitated but Anna understood what he was trying to say from his expression. It was an apology, for real this time.
She shook her head. "Save it for next time. I'll be back tonight," she said simply.
He nodded and gave her a small smile.
She took her leave of him and it was only in the corridor that she realized with a lightening of her heart why she stopped him.
I don't really need an apology from him. Not anymore.
Author's Note: A bit of historical trivia for you. Napoleon Bonaparte was rumored to be short (that's where the famous term "Napoleon complex" came from) but in reality he had average European height at 5 feet 7 inches. However, Anna I can surmise is also quite tall at about the same height. I based it on the estimate that both Hans and Kristoff are actually quite tall (6 feet 2 inches by my estimate) and Anna is a little more than half a foot shorter than both.
I checked the French military ranks during the Napoleonic era and I assigned Hans the rank of a Colonel, which is just one rank below a Brigadier General, and four ranks higher than his original rank of Captain when he was reinstated in the military—an indication he had risen in the French military ranks quite fast in the four years he served. As a prince, Hans would have had military training in the Southern Isles navy but he would have been reassigned to the army when he was conscripted to the French forces. Hans' ability as a horseman and a capable shot makes him ideally suited to the cavalry—a more elite position than the infantry. This gives him more opportunities to interact with the higher ranking officers in the French military.
Kristoff, on other hand, despite his title as a prince of Arendelle, is not likely to rise higher than lieutenant (this is one rank below a Captain) at this stage of his military career since he would not have sufficient military training prior to being conscripted. I do not see Arendelle as a country with a strong military force, so most Arendellian recruits would end up in the infantry with rather low ranks.