Frozen Hearts

By- An Unknown Foreign Beauty

Chapter 20- Let the storm rage on

Hans had no idea that Elsa possessed so much strength. Grabbing Duke's collar, she literally threw him out of the house. "Miss Kingsley….I…" The little man tried to explain, his voice sounded weak under her angry glare.

"GET OUT…" She paid no heed to his excuses and ordered the security to escort him outside. She drew a shaky breath as she tried hard to control her anger. She slammed the door in Duke's face, and turned to face Hans standing unmoving in the middle of the living room. Her whole body was shaking. She just couldn't believe it; she couldn't believe her own eyes. Her lover…her fiancé….the father of her child was planning to kill her…

"Elsa, I can explain." After a long silence, Hans finally spoke, his voice sounded calm and collected, "Let me explain." He stepped close to her, trying to hold one of her shaking hands into his. "Please."

"No!" Elsa shouted, slapping his hand off hers, curling up into a ball like that would make her disappear from his sight. Her breath was so shaky, that Hans could hear that perfectly. She leaned against the door, as if she was trying to melt into it. "Don't come near me." She whispered, wrapping her arms around her defensively, taking a step backwards, "Don't…"

"Elsa…" Despite her constant refusal, Hans sat down beside her. He needed to explain it. He needed to make her understand. "You must listen to me, Elsa." He said gently, grabbing her shaking shoulders.

"No!" Suddenly, an irrational fear clutched her heart, and a scream ripped her throat. "Go away," She cried, shoving him so hard that he stumbled backwards. Hans wasn't ready for such reaction. He was used to see a timid, loving Elsa, but he was not familiar with this Elsa- angry, and afraid. He looked up at her from the floor, and found her blue eyes burning with hatred.

"Elsa," He pleaded, "Try to understand."

"No." She yelled. "I don't trust you anymore."

He let the words rush over him. He thought she loved him….or so he believed. But now she was rejecting him, hating him, permanently. No, all he could feel was how he failed to gain her trust, how she failed to understand him in his worst time. It didn't matter about losing her love—because to Hans, in this moment all he could feel was fear and disappointment, because in his mind Elsa was still in danger, and he'd failed to save her.

And he could see Elsa being ripped off him… Because Elsa was pregnant, and he had to chose either Elsa or their child. And he snapped, because at this point he'd shut down, and all he could feel was fear and blind rage—toward Duke, toward Elsa, toward himself. And he forgot how to handle this situation gently, like he planned initially. Possibly he lost his mind completely when he pushed a frightened Elsa against the door roughly, his arm gripping hers tightly, shakily.

"YOU MUST LISTEN TO ME, ELSA." He cried, finally raising his voice over Elsa's, "You must. You are in danger."

He wanted to make her understand the importance of the whole situation. But he didn't see how frightened she looked now, or the way she was trembling in his grasp. He didn't take in how Elsa tried to get out of his tight grasp, didn't notice all the confusion and fear that crossed over her face. All he could see danger swirling around them, and he had to make a choice.

He felt the coldness of the pistol in his trouser pocket.

He could count the bullets that were meant for Elsa.

He could feel Duke's breath on his neck, asking him to make a choice.

And he had to make a choice now. Finally he heard Elsa speaking, but for him, it only made things worse.

"Why should I trust you, Hans? After everything I've seen…" Her voice was shaky. She was afraid too, Hans could feel. But his own fear was greater than hers. He leaned closer to her, holding her hands tightly for support.

Elsa's breathing was so shaky he could hear it perfectly. And she went over the edge as she declared, "What are you so afraid of…?"

How could he explain? How could he tell her the truth, make her to hate him for the rest of her life. She already hated him; he didn't want her to hate him more. If she did, he couldn't live with the burden of hate. But he couldn't lose her either. So he pressed her hard against the door, and leaned his forehead against hers. She tried to turn away her face, but with his free hand he cupped her chin, and forced her to look at him.

"Listen," He breathed heavily on her neck, "We must abort the baby, as soon as possible."

"No!" A blood curling scream ripped from Elsa's lips, she jumped, and her free hand came quickly towards his face, slapping him hard. This reaction puzzled him. Instead of striking Elsa back, he went numb. Hans staggered back, letting go of her as he fell against the opposite wall, realizing he was panting as hard as she was. His hair fell in his face; Elsa just gazed up at him with her huge, red-rimmed eyes, and that's when he recognized what damage he had done. Instead of gaining her trust, he just broke it again.

"How could you?" She cried, finally collapsing on the floor. Tears welled up from her big blue eyes. "How could you even think of killing our child?"

"Elsa," Hans just shook his head and looked down. That's when he noted he was shaking as well. He finally met Elsa's eyes again, his expression was pained, "Please, try to understand…"

"I've nothing to understand…just stay away from my child." Elsa cried, holding her stomach protectively and finally scurried up from the floor, yanking the door open, shaking as she tripped to run out of their suite.

Hans didn't go after her. Instead he collapsed into the floor in a heap. Leaning against the wall, he drew up his knees close to his chest, and hugged them tightly, like he used to do as a child. He felt like a child, a scared child. He looked around their room. This room that just a moment ago he considered as his heaven suddenly turned into his torture cell.

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Elsa Kingsley busted through the glass revolving door of her office and stalked right past her secretary's desk. "Miss Kingsley—" Gerda greeted, but her employer didn't so much as glance her way. She walked towards the art department without saying a word, pressed the button for the elevator. And, when the doors opened, she walked inside. Her head felt as if someone had buried an ax in her skull, and the bright fluorescent light above her head made her eyes ache. Wincing, she turned away from the source of the light, and closed her eyes. She rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the headache; the effect of the truth was too much to make her sick.

The elevator stopped in the third floor, and Elsa walked past the stunned guards at the door of her gallery. She flashed her ID, and the doors opened instantly. A blast of cold air greeted her as she walked into the walk-in-cold-room. Unblinking eyes of the ice statues watched her as she picked up the sculpting instruments from a corner, and stopped near a large block of ice, waiting to be shaped into a statue.

Ice made sense. Statues made sense. She could shape them in any way she wished. There was never any confusion, never any blurred lines or false assurances.

There was no betrayal.

There were no sudden twists and turns that would change and break her heart.

It wasn't just a mistake, Elsa realized, as her hands continued to curve a human face out of the ice. It was a plan laid long before she got herself involved with Hans. He planned long before she arrived; he planned it all the time when she was too busy to grieve for Anna. He used her to gain her property. But she thought he loved her.

But the truth was he never loved her or Anna. Not for a moment.

Curve…curve…curve…. Her fingers were all blue from being with contact with ice for so long. She dropped her instruments, and cradled her cold hands in the warmth of her body. She forgot to put on the gloves. She gazed at the face she just curved from the ice.

It was Hans.

Oh, no! Why him again? Couldn't she think anything else without thinking about him?

Lies…lies….lies….Everything he told, everything he did, every moment they shared together, were nothing but a big fat lie. How could she be so blind? How could she not see his face behind the mask? From when she became so naïve?

And she gave herself to him. No man ever touched her except him. And now she felt herself violated. She felt like one of those prostitutes from the streets. She looked at the ice statue of Hans again, and pushed it hard. Ice-Hans hit the marble floor, and shattered into thousands of pieces. Icicles flew around the room; few of them grazed her palm. Blood oozed from the cuts, splattering all over ice-Hans' face.

She didn't try to stop the bleeding. Why would she, when her heart was bleeding more than the cuts on her palm.

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"You are bleeding."

Elsa whirled around to find Hans standing at the door of her ice gallery, holding a pair of gloves in his hands. When he looked at her, his eyes were wide, scared, and even. Like he was well aware of everything he'd done earlier, and he felt such pain at the thought of losing what he had.

"Let me help you." He walked near her, and took her bleeding hands into his. Elsa's heart couldn't help but race a bit when he touched her hand, despite her apprehensions. "Don't." Elsa withdrew her hands from his, and flinched away. "Don't dare to touch me." She took a step backwards.

"But you are bleeding!" Hans looked like a child who just lost his mother.

"Let it bleed." Elsa said. Couldn't he just see her heart bleeding more than that? "Just don't touch me."

"Alright." Hans nodded, taking a step back. Elsa picked up the gloves from the floor, and wrapped them around her injured hand like a bandage. As she did, she noticed that Hans was shaking a bit, probably from the cold. He wasn't wearing any coat. She wanted to offer him her coat, and tell him to put it on. But she didn't. Instead she remained standing where she was.

"Why are you doing here?" Finally she broke the silence, walking over him. He didn't move. She knew he wouldn't. She could control it. Conceal, don't feel.

"To say sorry…" Hans said, slipping his hands into his pockets, as if restraining himself from touching her. "For everything I did." He said calmly, his tone was somber. "For every lie I told…. I dropped Duke's evil proposal. I was afraid if I didn't agree with him, he would harm you. I thought he'd tell you my secrets.

"What is your secret…?" Elsa asked cautiously. Why did he do? What made him so afraid of that little weasel? Elsa looked into his eyes, as green as the forest, held the juvenility like it always did. But now they looked vulnerable, and frightened. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, and tell him not to be afraid.

"I can't tell…Please Elsa, don't ask me." He muttered, his voice sounded so broken, "But I'm ashamed of everything I did in the past. I love you, and I ask for your forgiveness. I want to make everything right, make amends for every wrong I did."

And then he knelt in front of her, like a defeated solider, surrendering to his enemy. "Only if you grant me the chance…." His voice trailed. Tears rolled from his eyes. He was crying. Elsa gasped. She had never seen him cry.

It was a huge moment of vulnerability for him, she realized. Elsa had never seen a moment of him looking like he could lose everything.

"Can you give me a second chance?" his voice was almost inaudible.

Elsa closed her eyes, and drew a shaky breath. It was a lie. Another big fat lie. He was fooling her again. Her heart was already bleeding, and she couldn't let it bleed again.

"No." Her eyes opened again. "I do not trust you."

"Elsa," Hans looked up at her, his expression was pained.

"Get out!" She growled, knowing that she couldn't let him to fool her again. Never. "Get out of my gallery, Hans. I don't want to see you again." The storm inside her was getting stronger, and she couldn't control it. She slammed her fist against a nearby statue, and it shattered. The cuts in her hands were reopened, and the bandages around her hands were stained with dark red blood.

"Elsa," Hans looked concerned, "You are bleeding again."

"I say get out." Elsa cried, and shoved Hans so hard that he fell on the floor. "Go away." Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Hans slowly get up, shaking as he ran out of the gallery.

When he was gone, she moved near the glass window, watching him getting inside his car. He looked like a shipwrecked man, who had lost all hopes. She leaned her forehead against the icy glass, and watched his car wheeling away, out of her sight, out of her life. Forever. And finally Elsa broke into tears.

Gosh! She loved him so much.

Did he know that?

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His head reeling from the tension of the day, Kristoff opened the door to his bedroom with the hope to find Anna. The curtains were drawn, leaving the room in an unnatural darkness. Moving cautiously in the dark, Kristoff traced the switch on the switchboard. He was in the process of turning on the light, when he heard her speaking from the darkness, "I think we don't need much light."

Kristoff whirled around to find Anna sitting in the room's only chair, watching him intently in the darkness. She was dressed in her old clothes- the lingerie, she wore on the day he rescued her. Rest of her clothes lay discarded on the floor. She wrapped her arms around herself in the futile attempt to keep herself warm. Her bare legs, fair body created an excellent contract against the darkness of the room.

"You are going to catch cold." Kristoff picked up the discarded shirt from the floor, and walked near her to wrap it around her bare shoulders.

"NO!" A shrill cry ripped from Anna's throat, making Kristoff freeze where he was. "Don't come near me."

"But…" Kristoff tried to move, but Anna's stern glare stopped him.

"They don't belong to me." She said in the lazy, sensual drawl that almost made him cringe. "Don't touch me, Kristoff, or should I say Mr. Bjorgman."

Her sarcastic tone hurt him, but he kept himself calm. "I know and I can explain," he said. "I—"

"I didn't come here for conversation," she interrupted. "This morning, you're saying that I'm not your fiancée. I'm just some homeless, amnesic waif, whom you gave shelter out of pity. Or did I mistake the matter?"

"No," he whispered, her every word was breaking his heart. "But Anna, let me…"

"It is true that the engagement between us was a farce." As he spoke, Anna looked at him in impassive silence, noting with an eye of a connoisseur, not the besotted fool that she'd been. He didn't like that look, but he continued anyway.

"Believe me Anna; I never let you stay out of pity." He collapsed in the chair, where Anna was sitting a moment ago. "Nor that I considered you as a homeless waif."

She slowly approached the chair, standing above him. She saw him burying his face in his hands, and his body was shaking with the burden of the guilt. She wanted to touch him, tell him that she liked him a bit too. But she didn't. She stood where she was, watching him with the same cold, calculating glare.

"But you wanted to get rid of me." Her voice was ice cold, "You invented the whole Kristina fiasco to get rid of me. Can you even deny, Kristoff?"

Kristoff shook his head. He looked like a drowning man, trying to hold onto a piece of straw. But there was no straw to hold on.

"Why did you lie to me?" He heard her snarl.

Silence. Kristoff lowered his head. He didn't know the answer.

Anna fell against the opposite wall. And then she realized that she was shaking. Her eyes widened with the realization. He never loved her. He only used her vulnerability to gain her affection, to have her body. And she made love with him last night. Oh, God! Could she even call it making love, where there was no love, except lies? So many lies. Anna wanted to hate herself for being so naïve. Her knees felt so weak, as she wrapped her arms around herself, keeping herself from falling apart. She couldn't stay here. Not anymore. She couldn't bear the burden of so many lies. With shaky legs, she turned towards the door.

"What are you doing?" Kristoff gasped from behind.

What was she doing? Anna wondered savagely. What the hell was she doing here, talking with the same man who'd fed her nothing but lies? In answer to his question, she reached for the doorknob. "What I am doing is leaving," she clipped, already stalking the three steps to the door. "Isn't that what you wanted initially? Make me leave?"

"NO!" The word burst out of Kristoff. "Don't leave!"

Anna turned, intending to give him the scathing reply he deserved, but he rushed near her, and grabbed her bare shoulders with a strange desperation. "Please don't go." He was crying, his nails biting into her shoulders, and still she kept her hands at her sides, but she was losing the battle, and she knew it.

"Just let me explain…."

"No…let me go." She struggled against him, but his arms around her were like iron bands. He grabbed her face between his hands to silence her, his eyes already on her parted lips. "I love you, Anna, " Kristoff said fiercely, grabbing her face, as he kissed her with that strange combination of desperation, and instinctive sensuality that used to drive her wild.

But she didn't respond. She didn't kiss him back. She turned her face away from him. Placing her small hand on his chest, she pushed him away. She was rejecting him, permanently, for real this time. Kristoff's shoulders slumped, and his grip loosened around her.

"Understand this. There is nothing you could say that I would believe." Her whole body was shaking with the cry, she was trying to resist. "Nothing."

Kristoff looked at her; there was a steely determination in her voice. Nothing could change it.

"Can we be friends, at least?" Kristoff asked, his voice was broken.

His words made Anna to look at him. And in the darkness he saw the cold, calculating look in her eyes. She kept looking at him, as if judging the benefit of his offer. "Yes, only if you help me to find my true identity." She said a moment later, as if having a second thought in her mind.

Kristoff nodded. It was a better truce than losing her again. "Thank you." He whispered, almost inaudibly.

"But don't ask me to love you again. I can't do that." Anna's voice sounded harsh, matching the darkness of the room.

Review? Faves? Follows?

Errors are all mine. Consider them nicely.

Spoiler: Make your pick who will die- Anna, Kristoff, Hans, Elsa.

Hans seems the popular choice yet.