A/N: Sorry it took me a little longer to get this one up. I was at LeakyCon so I didn't get to finish it as soon as I wanted. But anyway, like I said, though this story is done with the main events of Frozen (a few more scenes will still pop up), it will keep going for quite a while, exploring the new lives of Anna and Elsa and their interactions with Rapunzel and Eugene. I hope you enjoy it! Please review/follow/favorite! :)
Rapunzel's amusement was short-lived as she thought about Elsa, her family, out there in that storm with Hans on the loose. She frowned, and Eugene sighed.
"They're going to be all right," he said softly, his hands still on her cheeks.
She huffed. "I just with I could do something instead of standing here-"
"The best thing you can do is keep yourself alive. And that means we need warmth. There's no way we could have made it out there." As if to prove his point, another icicle jabbed through the wall. The wind outside began howling even harder, and the distant flapping of open windows could be heard.
"This way," Rapunzel said through chattering teeth, turning and pulling Eugene along with her to an open door.
He followed her inside and slammed the door hard behind him with a crack. A coating of ice crashed to the ground and scattered all over the floor.
"Fire," Rapunzel sighed as she smelled the recent burning of wood. Red embers sat in the fireplace of what seemed to be some sort of sitting room. However, a chill wind still encompassed the area as the windows were wide open and banging from the wind.
Eugene ran over to the windows, almost closing them shut. But before he did, he paused, and his eyes grew wide. "Rapunzel!" he called to her.
She willed herself to stand up on her feet and retreat from the warmth of the leftover fire. Eugene wrapped an arm around her as she stood next to him, but it did next to nothing to help the chill. She followed his gaze outside where a blizzard was raging on over the fjord. Through the clouds and snow, only a few indistinguishable figures could be seen. But Rapunzel thought she saw a figure in blue, which had to be Elsa. Another figure, perhaps with a shock of red on top of it, approached her slowly. Hans.
Suddenly, the blizzard just stopped. The clouds, the snow, everything collapsed into a heap, and Rapunzel could see the scene clearly. Elsa was huddled on the ground, with Anna only a few yards away from her. Another several yards away from Anna was another man, who began running toward the Princess with astonishing speed.
Hans approached the defeated form of Elsa, holding a gleaming sword up high. Anna turned and started to run toward her sister, stumbling along the way.
"No!" Rapunzel squeaked, though she knew it wouldn't do anything to help. She clutched Eugene's shirt in her fists and buried her face in his chest, knowing she couldn't watch this. His arms encompassed her, holding her tightly against him.
A loud ringing resounded through the fjord and traveled through all of Arendelle, like a sword striking metal.
"Rapunzel," Eugene whispered after a few moments. She peeked out from his embrace and saw Elsa draped over an ice sculpture. No, it wasn't a sculpture. It was...
"Anna," she murmured in horror. Hans was lying, possibly unconscious, on the ice, his fingers clasped around a broken sword.
Everything was still. The distant sound of broken sobbing met her ears, and Rapunzel felt a tear slip down her cheek. She glanced up at Eugene, who was staring gravely at the scene before them.
There were several suspended, silent moments in time. No one moved, no one spoke, not even the few figures that stood on the ice near Elsa. Silent tears fell from Rapunzel's eyes as she imagined her cousin's grief and guilt.
Whenever she was overcome by sadness, Rapunzel always sang. It had been ingrained in her as a child, and even after her hair was gone, she had continued the tradition out of habit. The song had healed Eugene, and maybe, just maybe, it could heal something else. So she started in a small, broken whisper:
"Heal what has been hurt.
Change the fate's design.
Save what has been lost,
Bring back what once was mine
What once was mine."
Yet, even as she sang it, Rapunzel knew that the situation was far beyond her help. Anna was gone, forever frozen.
But then there was movement. Color began to creep back into Anna's form, spreading over her slowly. The few close witnesses to the scene began to straighten and look up, and Elsa backed away from Anna. Finally, the transformation was complete, and Anna stood before Elsa, the latter wasting no time in hugging her sister.
Rapunzel dried her eyes and smiled, starting to bounce on her toes and let out a long, pent up sigh. After another minute more, Elsa's hands went up into the air, and all the snow, ice, wind, and cold gathered up above her in one big snowflake. With a wave of her hands, it all dissipated, the warm sun proving that the great freeze was now only a memory. The small party on the fjord was now on the deck of a boat as the water underneath them rippled back to life.
Rapunzel sighed again and hugged Eugene, who chuckled quietly. "Some wedding anniversary this turned out to be. I volunteer for staying home next time."
She laughed, not able to disagree with him this time.
"Oh!" Eugene exclaimed, a smirk on his face. "That girl has got an arm!" He laughed, pointing out the window. "Anna sent Hans clean into the water!"
With a giggle, Rapunzel turned back to face Eugene. "Thank you. "
He put on a look of complete surprise. "For what?"
"Saving me." She reached up on her toes to kiss him and caressed his cheek as she pulled away. "My hero."
"Well, I didn't quite use heroic techniques to carry out the rescue. They were more like thieving techniques, actually. And I didn't just save you, I saved both of-"
Rapunzel gave him a knowing smile. "Eugene."
He grinned. "Saving a kingdom, all in a day's work." Wiping his hands together, he raised his eyebrows. "And thank you, by the way."
She set a hand on her hip and shrugged her shoulders. "I wasn't very much help."
Eugene snorted. "Of course you were! Your cousins owe their rescue to you." He chuckled as he showed her his arm, which had been injured a minute earlier. "And so does my arm."
Rapunzel wondered at what he meant, but then touched her cheek and smiled. "Well, I guess tears come in handy sometimes."
He reached for her hand and smiled. "Only if you're you, blondie."