Chapter Eleven: A Brother At Last

"Anna? Anna, are you alright?"

Hans' voice sounded like he was so far away. She couldn't respond to him even if she wanted. The heaviness in her throat seemed to suffocate her as her mind whirled with confusion.

This can't be true! Papa would never do that to Mama. He would never have hurt her with such a betrayal not after Elsa and I were around. He may have loved another before her but it would have ended when Mama came into his life. That's how true love is supposed to work!

Anna didn't want to believe it. However, a memory came to her, vivid as the day she experienced it. She was thirteen years old then and in one of the darkest moments of her young life…

Arendelle Castle

5th of June 1802

Anna entered the dimly lit room and immediately noticed the air still smelled faintly of blood. She had seen the maids just moments ago carrying the bloodstained sheets and towels. Her eyes immediately went to the figure of Mama who lay on the bed, her head bowed against a pillow and her dark hair spread in disarray around her sweat stained face.

"Mama?" Anna called out hesitantly. Her mother looked up and quickly made a desperate gesture for her to come forward. Anna raced to her side and Mama clasped her body and openly sobbed on her shoulder.

"I lost him, Anna! I lost your little brother! Another little brother!"

Tears prickled in Anna's eyes but she was determined not to cry. She had to be strong for Mama.

"It's okay Mama. I'm sure little Flynn was meant to be an angel early on," she said using the name Anna had fondly called her unborn brother.

Anna had always given names to all her baby siblings even while they were still in the womb. The names she had chosen were always those of famous heroes. The two older ones before Flynn she had named Jason (after the Greek hero of the Golden Fleece) and Robin Hood. Jason had come along when Anna was eight. Anna had been so excited to have a sibling to play with she spent weeks practicing how to hold a baby doll properly and spent months making long lists of what she would teach baby Jason. She even shared all her fun plans in a twenty-five page treatise complete with illustrations that she slipped under Elsa's door. Elsa had responded for once with a rather short letter that told her the plans were great except she had to wait until baby Jason was old enough before he jumped fences, rode bicycles or go swimming with the duckies in the pond with her. Sadly, baby Jason never grew old enough for he died one month into his birthday. It was a big blow to Anna but she was equally excited when Mama announced that she was pregnant again after a year. Unfortunately, little Robin Hood didn't even live to be a day old. He didn't cry out when he was pulled out from Mama's womb and the doctors said he never breathed. It took years before Mama became pregnant again.

Anna had been so sure Flynn was going to be the brother that she would get to care for. Mama had come to full term and the doctors were confident she was healthy enough to give birth. It came as a shock to her when Gerda woke her at three in the morning today and told her Mama had lost baby Flynn and was asking for her.

"Flynn is happy now with Jason and Robin," Anna told her mother as she struggled to believe her own words. "There will be another Mama. You just wait."

Mama pulled away and shook her head. "No there won't be Anna, I'm sorry. The doctor told me this is the last one. It's too dangerous for me. I can't... I can't give you a brother. I can't give your Papa a son!"

Anna can no longer hold back the tears as her Mama's words sank in. There would be no baby brother for her to fulfill her plans with. There was no one else to be with since Elsa still refused to come out. She sobbed into Mama's shoulder and held on to her tightly.

"Papa should be here," Anna said when she managed to recover from her tears. "I'll ask Gerda—"

"No Anna!" her mother pleaded. "I can't... I can't face him. Not yet. Let him be with Elsa." She stared into space and Anna could see the fear in her eyes. "I'm being punished. I know that now. I can't give him a son because I refused to let him have the son he wanted."

Anna was confused. Was she talking about Jason or Robin? Is she thinking it was her fault that they died? That she is refusing them by their deaths?

"I was only thinking of you and Elsa. I was afraid he would love that boy more than he would love you. Agdar could have raised him above Elsa, above her birthright… above yours!"

Of course my baby brothers would have risen above me and Elsa. It didn't matter if they were younger. They were boys and boys come before girls when it came to ruling kingdoms. It was a silly rule but it was how things were. Even she knew that. Papa and Mama both told me that but Mama must have forgotten. "Mama what are you talking about?"

Mama didn't seem to have heard her. She continued to ramble on incoherently and nothing she said made sense.

"She was dead... it was over... I was so thankful she was dead... he would mine now... but he wanted the boy... flaming red hair... like hers... I couldn't let him bring that piece of her here... I had to tell Kristian... tell him the truth... it didn't matter if it broke relations... diplomacy can hang... Arendelle is meant for my daughters! Not this boy's! Not her boy!"

Anna shrank back, fearful of her Mama's sudden anger. She was unable to find any words to say to calm her. She was startled when she felt someone touch her shoulder. She looked up and saw Papa, his eyes rimmed red with tears. He immediately held Mama to him.

"Idunn, I'm here. The past is the past. It's just you and our girls now. There's no one else."

Mama held on to him desperately and Anna decided to leave them for now. She sat down outside her Mama's room and cried alone for the loss of little Flynn.

It was probably an hour later that Papa came out of Mama's room. She immediately went to him.

"She's asleep now. We should let her rest," Papa announced.

"What was she saying before Papa? I didn't understand."

Papa shook his head. "It was just grief, nothing more." He enclosed Anna tightly in his arms. "You and Elsa are always number one to me. Remember that. And your mother is the woman I chose to love until the end of my life."

Anna held him back, reassured by his words. They will get through this. They had each other.

Warsaw, Poland

Present Day

"Anna? Anna, I'm so sorry. Please speak to me. I didn't mean to upset you."

Anna woke from her trance as she realized Hans was still talking to her. The memory of that night they lost baby Flynn hung heavily in her heart and she now began to understand with sudden clarity her mother's rambling and the pain she must have gone through.

"My Mama told your father about the affair," Anna said to Hans.

Hans nodded. "My father never knew until then. He never really paid much attention to my mother after he married her and gave birth to me. His would-be wife number six was already his mistress by then. That didn't mean he would let my mother's indiscretion go, or his cousin's. He refused your father's petition to take me and he cut off all diplomatic ties to Arendelle. King Agdar couldn't take me unless he declared war. My father actually goaded him to do it. He was that eager to punish your father for being involved with his wife. I suppose in the end, your mother convinced him I wasn't worth it."

Anna believed her Mama had done exactly that. "I know she did. She fought to have him. It was her right!" She paused as a sudden sickening thought came to her. "Wait? Hans, you're not… I mean… are you… my brother?"

Hans' eyes widened with shock at the question. "Your brother? You mean, you think I'm your father's…" He gave her a look of disgust. "NO! I tried to marry you and Elsa. I may have been desperate but I wasn't desperate enough to try to marry my own sister!"

"But are you sure? I mean if Papa and your mother were involved, couldn't there be a chance that you were Papa's?"

Hans shook his head. "The thought did cross my mind since I was a boy and I spent years trying to prove that I was King Agdar's, but there was simply no evidence I was. My own father bragged to my face that I couldn't possibly be anyone's child but his because he had my mother when she was untouched and she was pregnant soon after. My own nursemaid attested your father didn't return to the Southern Isles until after I was born. I've questioned dozens of courtiers in the Southern Isles who were there at the time our parents were having an affair, and they all claimed the same thing. I was the son of King Kristian, there was no question about it." He paused and let out a sad smile. "And of course there was the most obvious evidence of all: your father gave up on taking me with him."

Anna's heart clenched at Hans' heartbreaking admission of that painful rejection. "He should have fought harder for you," she said.

"I don't blame your father," Hans said gently. "He probably felt trapped in his situation. You do know his marriage to your mother was arranged for political reasons and those can really put pressure on a man."

Anna used to think that it was love match. Her parents showed such affection to each other it was easy to imagine they had fallen in love and married because of it. However, now that she thought about it, Mama and Papa had never really related the love story of how they met. Mama used to say they met at a ball in Corona hosted by her older brother, King Frederic. They were introduced and married a month after. She gave no details of a romantic courtship. She mentioned he was the most handsome, most intelligent man she had ever met and she was happy to have married him but Papa never related anything similar like that. She was beginning to think the attraction between her parents had been one-sided at the time of their marriage.

"Corona was the most prosperous kingdom that bordered Prussia. They controlled the sea routes that benefited the Arendellian ice trade," Hans explained. "Your mother's dowry was a forty percent reduction of all tariffs of Arendellian goods that passed through the Coronan ports. It's the same deal my father got with Corona when he married his youngest sister Arianna to King Frederic."

"Wait? Aunt Arianna? Cousin Rapunzel's mother is your father's sister?" Anna asked as she remembered her fun-loving, quirky cousin who she met during Elsa's coronation and still maintained a close friendship through letters.

Hans nodded. "Rapunzel is also my cousin. She's another one of those relations we share and another product of my father's political matchmaking. My brothers were furious when Rapunzel married that former thief. They were hoping one of them would marry her after she was found and returned to her parents. Corona is still one of the most strategic states for trade and political influence even with its small size and marrying the heir to throne is a sure ticket to a life of prosperity."

Anna was secretly glad Rapunzel did marry cousin Eugene and not one of the Westergaard brothers. She had spoken to them both during Elsa's coronation and they seemed very happy together. They reminded her of her parents' relationship—warm and openly affectionate. She wondered if her parents' relationship had been like that at the beginning and realized with growing dismay that it probably wasn't.

"Anna, whatever you may doubt now about your father, I can assure you he loved you and Elsa," said Hans gently. "I know because he spoke of you often to me when I was little."

"He spoke about us?"

"Well Elsa mostly, which was understandable since you were still an infant then and he couldn't say much about you except that you cry a lot and would crawl into places you shouldn't."

Anna couldn't help but chuckle. Her Mama used to tell her even as a baby she was troublesome. She kept her nursemaids awake for hours and she never kept in one place like she was supposed to. Elsa, on the other hand, was known to all the servants Anna spoke to, as a well-behaved child. She may have frozen things around her but she was always obedient, knew to take her naps on time, always finished her milk and didn't bawl for hours unless it was necessary. Gerda often said Elsa was born mature, while Anna was forever stuck at terrible two stage.

"He told you about Elsa?"

"He did. He said she was his precious tulip and she was clever and poised like a queen. He used to carry a miniature of Elsa that he showed me. I remember just staring at it for a long time and I would steal it from his pocket to look at it some more. She was just this little blonde angel I can't help be fascinated with. He told me if I was a good boy he'd take me one day to see her and I could play with her."

He paused and looked away but not before Anna noticed a reddening at his cheeks. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing," he shook his head. "Just something I remembered."

"Remembered something embarrassing?" Anna teased. "You have to tell me."

Hans colored even more and Anna knew she was hitting right on mark. She said nothing but grinned knowingly at him.

Hans finally let out a defeated sigh. "I once asked your father if I could marry Elsa. I think that's another piece of evidence that I wasn't really his. He didn't go crazy sick when I asked."

Anna burst out laughing as she pictured a five-year-old Hans asking her Papa to marry her three-year-old sister. It didn't escape her that Hans had a bit of a crush on Elsa based on a picture. It was adorable. "Did he say yes?"

"Uh no, he didn't. He asked me what made me think I deserved her. He was probably jesting but I took it seriously. I told him I'd be a knight who will slay dragons for her or rescue her from a tower. And you know what he said?"

"What?" Anna asked between giggles. The image of a little Hans dreaming of doing heroic deals was just too cute.

"He said she doesn't need any of that. That both of his daughters can slay their own dragons and escape from their own towers because they're his little girls and they will one day be strong women he can be proud of." Hans looked away and a sad smile lit his face. "That's when I knew. He may care for me but it was nothing compared to how much he loved you two."

And you've been jealous of us since then, Anna realized. Mama need not have worried about Hans taking our place. Papa put us first just as he said to me that night we lost baby Flynn. Oh but poor Hans! Even the man he looked up to for affection considered him only as secondary to his love. No child should be made to feel that way.

"You should have been my brother," Anna said softly. "I would have accepted you."

"I know you will," Hans said. He continued to avert his glassy gaze before he sighed dejectedly. "But things are what they are."

Anna shook her head. "They don't have to be." She got up from her seat at the edge of her bed and moved towards him. She enveloped him in her arms.

"Anna what are you doing...?" Hans gasped as he stiffened at her embrace.

Anna just held him tighter and whispered to him. "Sharing with you my Papa's love, the one you missed out on for the last twenty plus years."

Hans drew back, his green eyes grew wide with astonishment. He opened his mouth to protest but he closed it again and something like understanding lit his face.

"Thank you," he murmured before he let himself fall into her hug.

Author's Note: One of the more popular Frozen-Tangled fan theories is that Anna's mother Idunn and Rapunzel's mother Arianna are sisters. However, I noticed two specific details among these characters that made me question this theory: eye and hair color. Idunn's eyes are blue like her daughters. Though it's not impossible for her to have a sister who has green eyes, I noticed it's Rapunzel's father Frederic who shares this trait with Idunn along with the dark brown hair. So I conceived the cousin connection between Anna and Rapunzel is more plausible if Idunn and Frederic were siblings. Queen Arianna, on the other hand, shares her bright green eyes with Rapunzel. The hue matches exactly with Hans. So I concluded that there must be a connection there too with Arianna possibly being a Westergaard before she was married.

Agdar, as I've already established, is the first cousin of Hans' father, thus their similarity in facial structure and green eyes. Agdar is also a strawberry blond, a trait he shares with Anna. Did you ever wonder why Anna and Hans are both red heads? There you have it, it's genetically passed through centuries of royal interbreeding. However, I surmised Hans' hair is a brighter red, a trait he obtained from his mother. Johanna Jorgenbjorgen may be born a commoner but she also had some royal blood mixed into hers at some point from her Scottish ancestors. Any guess who they are?

I hope this satisfies the question on a lot of guest reviewers' minds on whether or not Hans is Anna's and Elsa's brother. No he isn't, at least not biologically, but Anna is willing to treat him as such in her heart. (So to my other reviewer Loreley9, I just granted your dream of having Anna, Elsa and Hans as siblings without totally ruining your OTP).

This story isn't over yet as I still have a few chapters to go to tie up some loose ends regarding other characters. Thanks a lot to all of you wonderful readers and reviewers who follow this story.