AN: Hey, guys! Finally done with this chapter! Sorry for the over a year long hiatus, things have been crazy for me lately. I was going to work on this chapter back in July, but then I had a sudden surgery and then university started again and everything just fell apart.

But I am very happy that I'm finally done with this chapter. And I hope you will be too once you read it. Enjoy! :)

Chapter 12: Back to square one

'This could have gone better.' Hiccup thought to homself as he slowly pulled himself together and stood up, brushing the snow off of himself. "Everybody okay?" He asked, looking over the others.

"Well, I'm a little out of shape." Olaf replied, seeing his body parts completely messed up. He quickly rearranged himself and Hiccup turned to the others.

"You guys?"

"Well, I've been better, but I'll live." Said Kristoff as he got up and brushed the snow off of himself. "Believe it or not, this isn't the roughest way I've ever been thrown out of somewhere."

"Yeah, I've noticed." the viking replied casually, refering to their earlier

Anna on the other hand just remained sitting in the snow. She was staring ahead of herself with a shocked expression. Hiccup noticed this and it was starting to worry him.

"Uh... Anna? Are you ok?" He tried again. After a few moments of silence, the redhead princess finally spoke.

"She... she threw us out!" She mumbled, mostly to herself.

"Come again?" Hiccup asked, not hearing what she said at first.

"She threw us out!" She said with remarkably higher voice this time around. Her sudden outburst actually made the others jump. "She threw ME out. I climb this god forsaken mountain, I fight wolves, I put up with you" she motioned at the viking boy. "and this is what I get?!" The girl was furious right now. Hiccup and Kristoff raised their arms as they started to slowly back away from the princess who seemed like she's ready to explode.

"I'm her sister, goddamnit! This is not how you treat your sister, or any other family member! What have our parents been teaching her during those years she has been locked up in her room?! Certainly not manners!" In the heat of her little temper tantrum, she kicked a rock. Unfortunatley, her strength wasn't increased along with her anger and this action only caused a great amount of pain in her foot. This certainly didn"t brighten her mood.

Hiccup decided to intervene before the girl hurt herself even more. "Anna, stop this!"

"Don't tell me to stop!" Anna exclaimed, once again making the viking back away in fright. "In fact, you know what? Don't talk to me at all! Ever since we met, you have been nothing but a pain in my neck! Argh! Why did I even let you come along?! You screwed up my reunion with Elsa!"

In that moment, something inside Hiccup snapped. He didn't care that this girl was a princess, he didn't care the she was the sister of a queen, he didn't care that she was just as traumatized by being thrown out by her sister from her castle in a rather unnatural way as he was, he is going to give her a piece of his mind.

"Listen, you little royal brat! I think it was you who upset Elsa with that damn glove, so don't blame your mistakes on me! If I wasn't here, you'd be either freezing to death in the woods or the wolves would chow on your remains! And thanks to YOU..." he said, pointing an accusing finger at her. "...she doesn't want to see either of us right now and the chances of fixing this winter-in-summer ordeal are slim to none! Odin's beard! If you are like this all the time, I'm willing to wager it is you she ran away from!"

Hiccup really surprised himself with this outburst. This wasn't like him. Usually he was the calm and collected one and if there was an argument, he was the one to break it up. But Anna took irritating him to whole new level. He didn't have many encounters with royalties before, but if Anna was anything to go by, he will be praying to every god his people believed in that this will stay that way. How could she be related to Elsa, who was one of the kindest and most modest people he's ever met.

Anna would have retorted in fury for sure, if it wasn't for the interruption of a certain ice harvester, who decided that he's had enough of watching those two fighting all night.

"Alright! That's enough!" Kristoff said as he stood between the two. "You two have been trying to murder each other all night so much that you forgot why are we here!"

"YOU STAY OUT OF THIS!" Hiccup and Anna yelled at him in unusion. But it had no effect on him.

"No! You two cut it out!" he yelled back at them.

"This has nothing to do with you!" Anna yelled.

"Yes, it has! In case you two forgot, the whole kingdom is frozen and buried under several feet of snow and if we don't do anything about it, it's gonna stay that way maybe forever! So you two stop acting like little kids arguing over a toy and focus on the important stuff! Saving Arendelle is more important than deciding which one of you has done more for Elsa!"

At hearing his lecture, both the viking and the princess looked down at their feet. They felt really ashamed of themselves. Kristoff was right. They forgot about the main reason of why were they here. They came up here to get Elsa to thaw out Arendelle. It doesn't matter who does it or how it gets done, as long they succeed. Hiccup felt like a fool for letting his frustration get the better of him like that and lose focus. This wasn't like him at all. Anna felt similar to the chief to be. As the princess of Arendelle, her kingodm and people's well being should come before anything no matter what. She felt irresponsible, immature and childish. Some queen would she make.

They looked up to meet each other's gazes and suddenly, the anger they felt towards each other vanished and it was replaced by embarrassment. Here they were: two leader figures among their respectative people, bickering like kids when possibly a nation's fate was in their hands. This was the moment when both of them finally completely unterstood the magnitude of the situation and realized what was needed to be done.

"You're right." Hiccup said with a nod. "We have to finish this." Anna nodded too to show that she agreed with him.

"Yeah. Sorry." Anna said with regret and shame. "It's just that... I'm..."

"Sensitive about things when they include your sister." Hiccup finished for her. "I've learned that by now."

"Yeah. Pretty much." Anna said sheepishly. "I let my emotions get the better of me and..."

"No." Hiccup interrupted. "We both did. But it doesn't matter now. What matters is, we can't let it happen again. At least not until we solve this mess." he finished as he extended his hand to the princess, who took it without hesitation. Kristoff smiled as he saw the two finally willing to put aside their pointless bickering. Sure, the winter problem was nowhere near solved with this, but it was the first step into the right direction.

"Right. Now anyone has an idea about what to do now?" Hiccup asked, ending the touching moment. "I'm pretty sure Elsa made it clear that we ar no longer welcome in her new palace."

"Well, it's not like we have a choice." Kristoff replied. "She's the only one who can bring back the summer."

"It's unlikely she will listen to us when she's this worked up." Hiccup said. He started brainstorming. He had dealt with harsh winters before, but those were natural and weren't in the middle of summer. Not to mention he had help from the dragons and Toothless alone – mighty as Night Furies may be – probably wouldn't be able to thaw out an entire country by himself. He eventually realized that Kristoff was right. Persuading Elsa to do it was the only way. The very thought of that made him gulp. Even though he grew quite fond of Elsa today, revisiting her after he saw how she was when she got angry made him think they wshould just give her some time to cool off. He didn't think it was possible, but her glare frightened him even more than Astrid's. He felt like now knew the meaning of the old phrase, 'Hel has no fury than a woman scorned.'

"Come on, guys." Anna interrupted Hiccup's thoughts. "Don't tell me you're scared of her." she obviously still completely trusted her sister and was absolutley sure she can sort it out with her. She was persistent, that's for sure. Hiccup and Kristoff turned away from her and looked down, rubbing the back of their heads. They weren't really sure what to think anymore. Anna couldn't believe this.

"Seriously?" Anna asked bewildered. "Haven't you seen her? Hiccup, we were sitting beside her as she cried on our shoulders! She's not dangerous! She's scared and confused. And she needs us!" Hiccup knew that the princess was telling the truth. Elsa was the biggest victim here and she never deserved any of this. He's gotten to know the real Elsa back at the palace and he knew she wasn't like the one that threw them out of the ice castle. His respect for Anna grew enormously in the past few minutes. She was very determined and loyal to those she loved. True, her headstrong personality could be annoying at times, but Hiccup was the last in the universe to throw a stone at her about that.

"She's right, Kristoff." Hiccup told the blonde man. "I have seen how frightened she looked when she heard that she has frozen the whole kingdom. We have to help her."

"Kristoff's already done a lot for us, Hiccup." Anna said. "He's gotten us here and that was all we asked from him." she then turned to him. "You can leave now if you want to." she told him on a gentle tone. Kristoff surprised himself by not even considering it. He didn't know why, but seeing Anna like this, this determined to finish it even when all odds were against them somehow inspired him to stay with his newfound friends. And something deep inside of him just couldn't allow him to leave Anna alone up here. Especially in this weather. He wouldn't be able to live with himself. No, he was staying.

"Well," he began. " I actually think I'll stay around to see this finished."

"Really?" Ann asked, a little more enthusiastically than she intended, but luckily that went unnoticed by Kristoff.

"Yeah. After all, if the ice isn't gone, my business will be in serious danger." he tried to make an excuse.

"Oh, right." Anna said as she looked down, rubbing her arm in embarrassment, sounding a little disappointed. Hiccup smirked to himself at how lamely they tried to brush it off. They weren't fooling him.

When Anna looked up, she saw both boys staring at her with widened eyes. She looked back at them in confusion. "What?"

It took a few moments for the boys to come over their shock and reply. "Your hair." they said together. Anna raised an eyebrow.

"My hair? We were just thrown out of Elsa's palace by a snowstorm. You should see your hairs!" Kristoff shook his head.

"No, your hair is turning white." he told her.

"What?!" Anna exclaimed as she took one of his pigtails into her hand and examined it. Sure enough, her red hair was getting white. "Uh... does it look really bad?" she asked as she turned back to the boys.

"Uhhhhh..." Kristoff and Hiccup hummed, trying to come up with an appropriate response. "...no." they said after a few seconds.

"You guys hesitated." Olaf said, signaling his presence after a long time.

"We didn't." they replied, once again together, which was getting a little creepy. "Okay, stop that." they said as they pointed at each other. Realizing they've done it again, they both turned away from each other and stopped talking. A few seconds of silence fall upon the group, which was then broken by Kristoff.

"Anna, it's because Elsa's ice hit you in the heart." he informed her. "There's no time to go back to her now. You need help. We have to go to my friends."

"You mean the 'love experts'"? Hiccup asked, referering to their earlier conversation.

"Yeah. The 'love experts'." Kristoff nodded.

"How do you know if they can help me?" Anna asked.

"I've seen them doing things like that before." Kristoff replied after a bit of hesitation. He wasn't sure how much should he reveal to the princess for her to go along with the idea.

"But... but what about the winter?" Anna exclaimed. "All of Arandelle counts on me. I can't go back with nothing!"

"Don't worry." Hiccup stepped forward. "I'll take care of Elsa. If Kristoff thinks his friends can help you, you need to go with him." Anna thought for a moment. She knew that if something happened to her because of the ice in her heart, she won't be able to do anything for Arendelle. And he knew Hiccup was a good guy. Even if he could be get on her nerves sometimes, she knew he liked his sister and wouldn't do anything do hurt her. He can sort this out peacefully. She trusted him. She made her decision.

"Fine." she accepted. Hicczp smiled and nodded in appretiation.

"Come on." Kristoff said as he started leading Anna, Sven and Olaf back into the woods. Hiccup started heading back towards the ice palace, when he heard Anna calling out to him. "Just please, be gentle with her. You saw how fragile she is at the moment." she said with a voice full of concern. Hiccup smiled back at her warmly.

"Don't worry. I will." Anna didn't know how, but his words were enough to convince her. She somehow knew they were genuine and he meant what he said. She gave her a tiny smile and turned away to follow the rest of the group.

Hiccup turned back to the palace's enormous ice gates. His heart was beating faster than ever. He was taking deep breaths to calm himself down. Not even before riding a dragon did he feel such an amount of adrenaline rushing through his body than when he walked up to the gates for the second time that night. He even knew why. 'Because dragons can be tamed. But an ice queen? Not so sure.'

He raised his hand to knock, but then changed his mind. There was no time for formalities. They were past that. He pulled the gate open and was about to walk inside, before stopping dead in his tracks. Just when he thought this night couldn't get any more messed up, he was once again proven wrong. It looks like Elsa seriously wasn't in the mood for any more visitors anytime soon, because as he opened the gate, he found himslef face-to-face with a giant snow golem that didn't look pleased to see him at all.

'Things just got a bit more complicated.'

AN: I am very happy that I finally finished this chapter! Hope you liked it. If you did, let me know in the form of a review and stay tuned for next time. Marshmallow vs Toothless, anyone? ;)

Wow! It's almost midnight here and you know what that means! Happy and successful new year to everybody and stay the wonderful, awesome people that you are! See you all in 2017!

This is fanfictionmakermachine, signing out, peace!