Chapter 18: Close the Door

Shock had a funny way of numbing a person. For a brief moment, Anna felt like was falling down a step that didn't exist when she expected it to be there. For an infinitesimal second, everything was a cloud of confusion where she felt nothing at all. And then the senses kick in and send a horrible jolt like a tidal wave crashing into her, building one horrible thought after another until it was all that mattered in her strange new reality.

He killed Kristoff. Hans killed Kristoff. The man I cared for who I treated like a brother killed the father of my children then lied to me about it. He lied to me! It was all a lie!

"Princess, please let me help you. I'll take you home," she heard Tommy say. He offered his arm but Anna shook her head and almost slapped his hand away. No warmth of a caring hand can reach her, not when the one man she thought who had offered such warmth had proven traitor.

Perhaps that was his intention all along. 'A Westergaard through and through,' that was what Holford said. He had been playing me from the start and I was a fool to let him in all over again!

With sudden renewed strength, she stood on her own, left the ledger on the floor and walked out the door of the office. She didn't know exactly where she was aiming to go but somehow her feet automatically retraced her steps straight back to Mr. Einsborg's office.

She was contemplating how to demand from the Danish clerk to bring Hans out when she saw that the office was left wide open and that she no longer needed to demand. There was Hans himself standing next to the clerk and another older decorated man she recognized as Marshal Ney.

The villain met her eyes with a smile and suddenly something within her snapped. Anna was on him in a second hitting him on the chest, on the face and any part of him she could strike, before he could even say a word.

"YOU MURDERER! YOU BASTARD MURDERER!"

"Madame please!" Captain Bertole pleaded behind her but Anna gave him no attention. She continued to pound at Hans.

"YOU KILLED MY KRISTOFF! THE WHOLE TIME WE SPENT TOGETHER YOU KNEW HE WAS DEAD! I ASKED YOU ABOUT HIM AND YOU LIED TO ME! YOU KILLED HIM! "

"Anna please if you'll just let me explain..." Hans gasped, wide-eyed and horrified like a desperate animal. Anna didn't believe in it for a second.

"There's nothing to explain! You killed him! YOU KILLED HIM! Like you tried to kill me and my sister!"

Someone pulled her away from Hans and held her tight so she couldn't move.

"Sir, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told her," the man holding her said. "Let me bring her outside to calm down."

"No please, let her go," Hans said gently. Anna immediately felt the man's hold on her loosen. She shook herself away from his grasp. She faced Hans with a rage she never felt before. His first betrayal of her was nothing compared to this.

"You captured Kristoff Bjorgman and four other Arendellians, do you deny it?" she demanded.

"No," he said sadly, his voice dripped with regret. "I was ordered to capture them. I didn't know Kristoff was among them until one of my men delivered him to me."

"Then you knew it was him! You were there on his court martial. You witnessed the confessions. You performed their execution! His execution! Do you deny it?"

Hans didn't answer. He looked to her and then to Marshal Ney and Captain Bertole then back to her again. A single tear fell on his cheek. "I'm sorry."

Anna hated him! Hated him with a rage so overwhelming she can no longer see straight. Her eyes stared around the room. It was spinning madly. All she could see was Kristoff, her innocent, loving husband shot to death at the hands of this snake she thought could be her friend.

Her eye caught the gleam of something on Mr. Einsborg's desk. Without another thought, she approached it and felt the cold metal of the letter opener in her hand. She swiftly brought it towards Hans' chest, that same chest she nursed so carefully cleaned and changed bandages for weeks. How she wished she had let him die. He didn't deserve to live.

He must have reacted quickly before she did. She missed his chest but she struck again and grazed his right cheek. She felt his warm blood splatter at her face before someone pulled her away roughly and wrenched the slim blade from her hand. She struggled against her captor but he didn't release his hold. She was dragged away but she fought to stand and face him.

"I HATE YOU! YOU'RE A MONSTER! YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN A MONSTER AND I WAS STUPID ENOUGH TO THINK YOU CAN BE ANYTHING ELSE!"

"Anna please..." Hans begged even as the blood on his face continued to gush down his chin. He didn't even bother to wipe them away."

"I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN! IF YOU SHOW YOURSELF I'LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR IT!" She screamed before he disappeared from her view completely as she was pulled away towards another empty office.

Once there, someone held her tight as she sobbed uncontrollably. She cried until she had no more tears and still it wasn't enough. How was she to live now without the light of Kristoff in her life?

"I'll... I'll take you home, Princess."

She recognized Tommy's voice and realized it was he who held her ever so gently and yet somehow she could not bring herself to respond. It didn't seem to matter if she did. Nothing mattered anymore.

The Docks, Copenhagen Denmark

January 14, 1813

"The Captain says we are about to cast off soon Princess. He would like to ask if there is anything he can do to make you comfortable?"

Can he have Hans Westergaard arrested for me? Have him thrown in jail and pay for killing my husband?

Anna had half a mind to say those words out loud to the young lieutenant that peered into her desolate cabin. However, she held her tongue. She had been begging for days from various people for exactly that but it made no difference. Once she returned to Amalienborg, she had asked her Uncle Frederick to use his influence to give her husband justice against Hans. He and Cousin Caroline had been sympathetic to her when she told them what Hans did to Kristoff, but in the end he told her the same thing Marshall Ney, Captain Bertole and everyone in the war office said to her when she demanded that Hans be arrested: Colonel Jorgenbjorgen committed no crime and was merely following orders. He could not be charged with anything. Uncle Frederick even warned her that continuing to relate the tale to anyone else among the diplomatic circles would only hurt her husband's reputation for he would be known to have deserted the military. Anna begrudgingly kept her silence after that but swore in secret she would do anything to give Kristoff the justice he deserves.

Hans, meanwhile, kept his distance. Anna never saw him after their confrontation in the war office. She knew from the servants in Amalienborg that he didn't return to the palace. He sent for the rest of his things to the barracks where he must have stayed. Anna had no doubt she had been played again and she wondered if the part about Kristoff was the only thing he lied about. Perhaps everything he told her had been a lie from the start. Everything about his sad childhood or her Papa's affair with his mother or even all those convoluted plots of the Westergaards fathering illegitimate heirs had most likely been just a tall tale he spun to gain her sympathy. For all she knew, he was really targeting Elsa all along with the help of his brothers. She didn't know what to believe anymore.

Well then I just won't believe anything he said. He's a treacherous chameleon who probably never told a truth in his life¸ she concluded. And the more people who know about it, the better.

She told Tommy Thomson about Hans' treachery and ordered him to spread it only among the Arendellians who were travelling on the ship back with her. The Arendellian soldiers of course, who had known about Hans' treason before by their own experience five years ago, had been on her side in an instant. They alone, felt that Kristoff and the other men executed by Hans had been unjustly killed, as were many other Arendellians who were executed for desertion. Some of the Arendellian soldiers who came by to sympathize with Anna even offered to hunt Hans down and exact their own kind of vengeance but it was Tommy who provided the voice of reason and said it would do them no good. Hans had a higher rank than any of them and he was close to the top ranking French officers. If anything foul happened to Hans, Tommy explained, the suspicion would immediately fall on their Princess Anna.

So Anna helplessly, had to let it go. She decided to bid her time. Once she was home, Elsa would certainly help to find a way to make Hans pay.

"Your highness?" She realized the persistent young Danish lieutenant was still at her door. "The Captain…"

"I'll be fine," she said more harshly than she intended.

"My apologies," the man said before he softly closed the door. He hadn't been gone five minutes when there was another knock on the door.

"I said I was fine!" she shouted.

"Princess, it's me." Tommy's voice floated from beyond the door. Anna was immediately sorry. "Oh… Tommy, please do come in."

The door opened once more and the teenaged soldier's head appeared. "My apologies, your highness, but there was a messenger that came running up the plank just before we lifted it. He's asking that this be brought to you immediately. He insists that that you read it before we cast off and provide a reply. He raised quite some hell with the crew to delay our departure. The Captain figured it must be important so he promised to wait for your permission before we leave." Tommy held out a crisp white envelope to her.

Anna took the envelope in her hands and turned it over. Her name was written on the front in a familiar script. She didn't need to open it to know who it was from.

The nerve of that monster! Did he think he can write to me and justify his actions?! Well I'm through listening to his lies! I'm through letting him in! My door is closed to him forever.

She tore the envelope in two then tore it again into quarters before shoving the pieces viciously back to Tommy.

"Tell the messenger that's the only answer he'll get! The Captain can order for us to leave now without delay. If anyone dares to try and stop us from leaving, I'll go out there shoot them myself!"

Tommy's face whitened with fear at her words. He nervously nodded and slunk away, softly closing the door behind him.

Once alone, Anna's anger melted only to be revived with memory of her loss. She sat back down onto her empty bed and wept once more.

Author's note: I am quite overwhelmed with all your reactions to the last chapter and I'm quite flattered a lot of you really got so involved into this story to garner such reactions. I can't reveal anything yet on how this goes but some of you are hitting home on where exactly I'm heading on this story. For now, though I hope you don't mind grabbing a few more tissues because Anna's headed towards rough times.