His hands were rough and strong in hers, holding tightly onto her as she was onto him. This was always tough for her, he knew it. He felt the sympathy that few could; he knew her pain, though differently.

She could hardly bear it sometimes, even just to visit the standing stones in the green knoll meant that it was true, that it had happened and nothing could change it. To stand before the rocks engraved with the crest of Arendelle meant that her parents were gone and that they could never come back. Her eyes were already full of tears, this was the first time since the funeral itself that she had visited the stones. The last time she had been before them she had felt alone, in fact she had buried her parents alone, despite the sea of onlookers and mourners. She had been without her sister, and even now with her back in her life, the pair had yet to visit the stones together.

She would come with Elsa one day, when the time came, but not today. Today was the day Anna knew she had to visit the stones with Kristoff. Freshly engaged she knew that now was the time to visit again.

Kristoff squeezed her hand even tighter in his own as she began to cry. He wanted to pull her into his arms and to take her away from this place which caused her so much pain, but he knew that he could not. He knew that despite the way it broke her heart she wanted to stay.

Anna walked further towards the stones and kneeled down, Kristoff, still unwilling to release her hand, knowing how badly she needed him, fell to his knees as she did. He supposed that whether or not she did, he should. These were his fiancé's parents and the late rulers of the land he loved, alive or dead they deserved his respect.

"Mom…" Anna said with a choked sob, "Dad, this is Kristoff." She looked from the ground to the stone to the sky. She wasn't sure of which direction to speak in. Her parents were not buried here in truth. The bodies that had once been her parents were never recovered but she had interned empty coffins below the dirt. She decided the sky was best because surely, despite their missteps with Elsa, they were in heaven.

She took a deep breath and tried to make the tears stop flowing with relative success. "He saved my life." She said with tear choked laughter, they would have liked him. "And we're going to get married."

Kristoff took the hand not in hers and put it atop her hand, trying to sooth her somewhat by running his thumb back and forth across the back of her hand. He hated to see her cry, but he was somewhat happy of the trip. It gave a sense of finality to their wedding plans. He and Anna had told Elsa, Sven, Olaf, Bulda and all the trolls, but before announcing it to the kingdom as a whole they knew that there was more family they needed to tell.

"You guys would like him. He works hard." She paused for a moment, regaining some semblance of control over her own emotions before moving closer to him, tucking her head into his chest, and continuing. "He has a reindeer named Sven and he plays a lute. I actually smashed his old one when we were running from wolves, as well as a bunch of his other stuff, but I replaced it all… and you know how clumsy I am anyway." She smiled. Her talk was beginning to get silly, but some bit of comfort was creeping back into her bones, something she hadn't felt in a very long time when anything involved her parents.

Kristoff smiled too, the pair staying for a while longer before agreeing that it was time to return to the palace.

"That must have been hard." Kristoff said, holding Anna's hand again but now far more gently.

"It was in the beginning, but then I started talking about you and it got better."

Kristoff smiled softly before returning to a deeper and compassionate look, staring into her eyes meaningfully. "Not just today, I mean losing your parents like that."

Anna looked down, he understood her in ways no other man ever could, and she knew that he only meant to comfort her. "It was. I mean I had no one after they died because Elsa was hiding away and she was the last living relative I had." She kicked a rock with her shoe as they walked. "There wasn't really any closure to help because they hadn't even discovered the bodies or even the ship." She frowned, "Sometimes I think that they're still out there somewhere, just trying to get home."

Kristoff stopped quickly. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her forehead gently, pushing back her hair. "I thought that for a long time too. After my Mom died I thought maybe my Dad was okay, that he was just out working somewhere." He paused for a moment before rethinking and changing the subject, "But this isn't about me, I'm sorry."

Anna was in shock. Kristoff never brought up his birth parents or what happened to them. She was honestly flabbergasted by his sudden mention of them, especially their death. "No, it's okay." Anna said, pulling her hands up to touch either side of his face, "You can talk about them. I want to know." She kissed his chin as when he stood tall it was all she could reach, "I mean only if you want to talk about it."

Kristoff sighed, looking down at the red headed beauty in his arms. He had already wanted to tell her, he had wanted to tell her before they were even engaged, but it was painful. Now was the time and he knew it. She had shared her pain with him, and now it was his turn to allow himself to hurt before her.

Walking over off the path back into the city Kristoff sat in a patch of short grass with Anna sitting down beside him. It was something of a long story, and he wanted to be sure that they were both seated and comfortable as he told it. "Well I was seven years old when it happened." He began slowly. "My father was an ice harvester and my mother was a seamstress, he hadn't been home in a few nights and my mother was worried, but we went to bed that night without him like we did the nights before. It was a blizzard so we just figured he was up at camp late." He felt uncomfortable. He hadn't shared the story with anyone other than the trolls since he was a small child. It was somewhat frightening to share it after such a long time, like saying it would make the pain worse, but as Anna grabbed his arm with both of her hands, holding it tightly, he knew he could go on. If anyone would understand his hidden pain it was her.

"I smelled smoke in the night and my Mom was screaming for me to get out. The chimney hadn't been swept and it had caught fire…" He paused, remembering the heat of the flames, the smell of the smoke, the horrifying red light that had consumed his childhood home fourteen years before. "Mom said she was behind me, but when I got out of the door I looked for her, I watched and a neighbor was already out there, he wouldn't let me go back in, but I wanted to. Anna I was so afraid, and…"

Her grip on his arm tightened, she had never seen him so worried and scared in the entire time that she had known him. He was slipping back into the feelings of that night, and she supposed that it was no wonder that he had never shared it with her before. It sounded like an extremely traumatic experience.

Kristoff felt himself losing it, he felt the tears welling in his eyes, and he took a deep breath to calm himself before continuing. "Everyone around was coming to help, even in the blizzard outside they were trying to bring buckets of water and wet blankets to douse the fire, but they couldn't put it out, and the house fell in before anyone could get my mom." He was silent for a minute or so after that.

"I'm so sorry." Anna said softly, letting one hand leave his arm to go to his face. She touched him gently, trying to express through her skin all the things she could not explain with her words. She wanted him to find comfort in her touch, she wanted to make sure he knew she was there, that he didn't have to continue, that she wished she could have been there all those years ago, as a four year old girl, to ease his pain.

He smiled, but it was still pained, "It's okay." He said softly.

"No it's not." Anna replied. She knew what okay was, and having to deal, every day with the pain from losing one that you love was not okay.

He smiled then again, more genuinely. She understood him in ways no other living being could. "My father never came back home and I was sent to an orphanage that I left when I turned eight. I guessed that my Dad didn't know where I was and I knew he was an ice harvester, so as soon as the lakes turned to ice I left the orphanage and headed for the lake my father used to work on. Ends up he had fallen through the ice the night the house burned down. They never found him." He shrugged, though Anna could see he was hurt. "We never had a funeral or anything for him. I don't even remember what either of them looked like. They had one for my Mom but I was already in the orphanage and we couldn't afford a stone so I don't even know where she was buried."

Anna knew the pain of not knowing the final resting place of a parent. "You know they had to keep records on it." She said softly, her mind taking control over her mouth before she even planned to speak at all. "There was a law passed when my Grandpapa was King that said all burial plots and their occupants must be formally recorded and listed." She couldn't believe that something she learned about Arendelle's history in her stuffy childhood tutor lessons had actually paid off. "If you know the cemetery I can sanction the records and we can find where she is as long as they followed the rules." She was shocked with her own thoughts and how honestly useful they were. "We could get a stone."

Kristoff kissed her. He could not find words for how he felt as she spoke. She was the most amazing woman he had ever met, and he was so happy, whether or not anything involving his mother panned out, that they had had this conversation today. He was just thrilled that they both knew the other a little better. "Anna, just that idea is the best gift I've ever been given." He kissed her again, and beside herself she laughed.

"Does that mean I should take back the new boots I bought you as a wedding gift?"

So this is my version of Kristoff's back-story. I'm not sure if Disney ever released anything official about this or if anything ever came up in OUAT, but this is my thought on the matter. I'd love to hear some opinions on the matter.