I sincerely apologize for the super-late update and the slowly deteriorating quality of my writing. D:
I've also decided to change the title to the song from Within Temptation's Shot in the Dark, because I thought it fitted this story better. You should listen to it. c:
This is probably the longest thing I've written, which is sad. Thank you all for following, favoriting, and reviewing!
Disclaimer: I hold no claim on the English language or the characters, etc etc.
The bed creaks noisily, and the room is damp and heavy, and every breath he takes sits heavily on his chest. The sky outside is still dark, but that is just fine. It leaves him plenty of time, and he finds that the darkest moments are always the quietest. The silence rings, oppressing. The burden is familiar, as is the resignation. It does not matter, anyway- he saw her one last time, and he never breaks promises. At least, not of his own free will. Free will. He tastes tight bitterness as he laces up his boots.
The thing is- Hans has always wanted to make a difference. When he was being laughed at with sand in his shoes and dirt on his fingers, and he looks up at twelve heads of his father's dirty blonde hair and his mother's cold green eyes, he knows he sticks out, an unwanted presence among seas and seas of people better than him, of people worthy to mock him because he was not anything special, after all. The little prince that had to be dragged out of training, who dreams about fairytales and everything else just as unattainable (you will never be better than any of us- don't delude yourself, Hans.)
Oh, he made a difference, alright. Just maybe not the good kind.
His gold, worn pocketwatch tells him there is an half hour to go. The door rattles slightly on its hinges as he shuts it behind him, and the innkeeper glances blearily at him as he leaves the rusty keys on the table. The man scribbles something down on a yellowed scrap of parchment and waves at him blearily.
Hans ignores the man and pushes open the creaky inn door to the purple light of just-before-dawn. His footsteps sound eerily loud in the quiet, and a bird chirps mournfully in the distance. The forest behind the stables of the old inn looks stark against the landscape, black shadows of barren tree branches stretching out into the still starry sky.
Hans rubs a hand over his eyes as he moves closer to where Victoria is waiting for him. He feels more weary now, and every hour feels like a year, a decade, a millennium of a life spent wandering around in a endless desert, marooned at sea, lost in the stars. There was once an oasis, a lighthouse, a gravitational force that used to anchor him to the ground where he stood. Now, every fall of his boots against the solid floor does not seem quite so certain anymore.
He is a compass that forgot how to point due north. He walks on water and he drowns in air, and he should have never came back. But he did, and he is not sure whether it was worth it after all.
Anna's night is sleepless, and the stars watch her mournfully from the sky outside her latticed bedroom window.
The moon shines mockingly, all stark white and black and she watches it until there is a crescent shaped hole in her vision whenever she blinks. Anna wishes it was easier to figure this out.
When she finally falls asleep, there is a ghost with Hans' face and Kristoff's ice blue eyes wearing a crown of thorned roses at the edge of her room, blocking the doorway (you need to choose, Anna, why won't you?), and she wakes up in a cold sweat and no recollection of why the orange roses on her nightstand, a gift from Jack from his homeland, sends her heart pounding.
In the end, she leaves the palace an hour before dawn, and hopes she isn't too late. Her knuckles are white from how tightly she is gripping the reins, and every clack of Almond's hooves against the ground seems painfully slow.
Hans knows he is dithering, but he cannot bring himself to leave. All he is able to do lately seems to be making bad decisions, and it all starts when he volunteers to go in the kingdom's stead for the coronation of a small kingdom next to the city of Bergen.
The tip of light is just beginning to peak over the horizon, and Hans adjusts his cloak absently before spurring Victoria towards the edge of the forest. He does not have anywhere to go, but anywhere from the memories of what could have been, at least, where he has time to think. A decade is nearly not enough.
Anna is desperate, and running out of time.
"Hans, wait!"
The figure atop a creamy brown horse, thankfully, stops. Anna's breath is coming in heavy, heaving breaths, and her fingers are numb from her grip of the reins. The sun is nearly visible now, and Anna has never felt so relieved.
"I... I know that this isn't-" Anna sighs. "I know it's at least my fault... But if you ever think that you can ever talk to me again... can you come back?"
Hans is silent for a long while. It feels like the decade she's lost, looking for him. The sun laughs mockingly as it slips higher in the distance. He turns, and his blue eyes are still piercing underneath the hood of his cloak.
"I will. In time. And maybe we can get to know each other like the civilized adults we should be." His smile is nearly faded, but it's there. The little lines around his eyes crinkle.
Anna nods. It does not take much effort for her to return the smile. "Right. I suppose that's all I can ask for."
Hans doesn't respond, but the smile gets bigger, before he turns away, and rides further away from her. It feels a little less like losing him and a little more like finally letting go.
Tea sessions with Elsa were starting to become more frequent. Jack was a genuinely nice person, but the loneliness and the blurred haze of a cold, frozen heart beside a fireplace, a not-kiss and a cruel smile seems to intensify whenever she sees him.
At least it wasn't real, she thinks. She hopes Jack will not do the same, because there will be no cold in her heart stopping her from braining him with whatever metal object is close at the time.
The next time, his black cloak is slightly tattered and worn, but Victoria's coat is as well groomed as ever, and his face is the same, but his eyes are older.
The ornate doors open in a wide welcome, and he enters only after a little hesitation to a familiar palace, and Anna's nervous smile.
(tell me) did you fall for a shooting star? -one without a permanent scar,
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself (out there?)