Author's Note: Years later, I decided that the story of Denial remained incomplete. This is dedicated to everyone who has feelings left unexpressed, and with things left unsaid.

I.

Two years later, and shame still plagues his every step.

He can walk unfettered around the palace of the Isles, the gardens, and even out so far as the surrounding town—but the rumors and gossip and laughter of the courtiers and common people follow him everywhere he goes.

There is no escape from it, even in dreams.

Mocking remarks and laughter are nothing new to him - he's suffered the same all throughout his childhood, and most of his adult life - but the nature of them since his return from Arendelle seem even more poisonous than before.

How many times would the Queen have her way with you? And her sister, the Princess? I imagine they both must've had a go.

How did it feel to finally plunge your sword into those icy depths?

I suppose she must have discarded of you when she got bored. If only you'd been a better lover, she might've kept you around a bit longer!

At first, hearing such comments nearly makes him laugh; if any of them knew how far from the truth their suppositions were, what a shock they might suffer! After months pass in this manner, however, he realizes that telling said truth would only make things worse for him.

After all, was it more humiliating to have been the sexual plaything to a renowned frigid beauty, or to have been a willing prisoner who rejected her advances, and could make no great claims to have bedded the wondrous and terrible Snow Queen? At least by not denying the former version of events, he could hold onto some part of his old reputation as a terrible seducer. With the latter, he would likely be regarded as some kind of idiotic monk, or worse—impotent.

And so he languishes in idle pleasures to pass the time, barred from further naval service or any active role at court, traipsing from one gambling parlor to another. Sometimes, he even dares to venture out amongst the commoners, standing in the back of a theater for a drunken puppet show or sliding into the dark corners of taverns with a pint of cheap ale. These escapades, however, are usually brief, cut short by his fellow patrons' recognition of his face and misdeeds (followed by their coarse and unbridled laughter).

When all else fails to entertain him (or when he runs out of money), he reads - endlessly, relentlessly - but no book holds his attention for long, and he is inevitably drawn back into morose brooding over his many failures.

It is on one such day spent alternating between reading and reflecting in his quiet, dusty spot in the old stacks of the palace library, that he learns (by way of eavesdropping on a tryst between two courtiers) of the Snow Queen's upcoming visit to the Isles.

It is to be the first since his attempted coup, and the significance of the event is not lost on him; he wonders at how his older brother, the king, might try to keep him out of sight and sound of the visiting monarch, or at the new rumors and cackles that are sure to haunt him in the days and weeks ahead.

She's come back for a taste of the young prince, has she? For old time's sake.

He is filled with bitter hatred for her at the thought, and cannot stomach seeing that weak, pathetic creature again, even if only in passing glances from the shadows.

He recalls her fixation on him, her futile attempts at intimacy, her hesitation—and with each memory, his resentment grows.

Two years later, and she still won't let him be.

II.

It's the day before her arrival in the Isles, and it's even worse than he imagined.

There is no corner of the palace to which he can retreat, no tavern, theater, or parlor accessible to him, where he does not feel the eyes of every courtier and commoner upon him. His own quarters are his only solace, and there he rests on his bed with a great frown stitched onto his lips.

There is endless chatter about what might happen should the two run into one another during her visit—a possibility which, to him, seems unlikely after receiving a predictably stern warning from the king to stay away.

He has no intention, of course, to disobey his brother. In spite of his old penchant for drama, he has no desire to see the Snow Queen again, nor to let her have the upper hand in any way over him in person.

But she's already won, he thinks, and scowls. To deny that would be a fool's errand; whatever pleasure he might have extracted from dealing out small cruelties to her in the past, he knows they are worth nothing in the bigger scheme of things. In his pitiful current existence, he recognizes that he does not have the freedom - nor the impulse - to taunt and bait her as freely as he once did.

And yet—

He shakes his head at the stray thought. He cannot imagine that she has changed all that much in the two years since he left her kingdom—not someone like her, who has lived such an austere and controlled life for so long, and who had only just begun to explore the extent of her powers in the brief time he spent in her custody.

Not someone, he thinks, who couldn't even bring herself to touch me.

Besides, he does not think that he has changed much since then, either. Outside of an ever-growing number of gambling debts he will never repay, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the Northern Isles from his countless hours in the library, he feels the same as ever. (Although perhaps a bit more glum and resigned than before.)

Nonetheless, there is an irrepressible curiosity about her that has always been there, and which remains unstifled by his denials and pretend nonchalance. It has grown with each passing moment since the day he learned of her visit, and now it threatens to upset the fragile peace he has made with his quiet, unhappy life.

He wonders if seeing her again will finally break it.

III.

What are you doing?

He hears her asking him that question again, if only in his mind; he is even sat in the same position, draped across a chaise in his room with a book, as he was when she first asked it.

He shuts the tome abruptly at the memory, though he was not much engrossed in it to begin with. There is no quiet to be found even in his own room, as she is everywhere—and nowhere.

Where has your ambition gone?

He rises from the chaise in a tumult, nearly knocking it over as he snaps open his closet doors, red-faced. The Snow Queen has been in the Isles for a week already, attending meetings, fetes and dinners thrown in her honor, touring the ports, and entertaining the commoners with displays of her ice magic. He's watched it all from various vantage points around the palace, ignoring the warning looks of his insufferable brothers and their equally dreadful wives when they catch sight of him skulking.

Despite his previous disinclination, he cannot help himself; he wants to, no, has to see her.

You didn't know me then, and you certainly don't know me now.

He wonders at that seething little remark as he rifles through his clothes, running his hands over old suits without purpose or feeling for their former significance. He remembers her so differently from the way she looks to him now: determined, confident, even bold in her gait and approach, inspiring awe and obsequious speeches from his relations.

It is strange, he thinks, to see her as a stranger; it feels wrong, somehow, that she should transform into this new person beyond his understanding, and beyond his reach.

Perhaps I didn't know her after all, he muses, though it is hard to tell from so far away who she is or isn't anymore—what is real, and what is performance.

There is only one way to find out, but he has avoided doing it. He prefers the cold embrace of the shadows, their anonymity, their familiarity; he has only ever known disappointment when he has tried to step out of them. To let her see him, and to see her again, in the light…

His hand pauses atop a pair of gloves - similar to, although not the same as, the ones he used to wear - and an old, familiar sensation of comfort courses through him at their texture. As he runs his fingers over them, he recalls the redness in her cheeks and the dusky glow in her blue eyes when he drew near.

A grim smile tugs at the corner of his lips.

Or perhaps I do.

IV.

It's an unusually chilly October afternoon when they are reunited - or, more accurately, when she requests to see him again - and he isn't informed of the exact hour, minute, or second that he should expect her to call on him.

That doesn't stop him from restless speculation, though.

It isn't lost on him that in the exact moment he'd finally made up his mind to face her, she had called for him herself. It leaves him wondering at her motives, and at what he might expect: harsh remonstrances? Retribution for his callous indifference towards her? Perhaps, he thinks, she has negotiated with his brother for him to finally be duly punished for his crimes against her and her country, and instead of her, he would be met with the palace guard carting him off to the dungeons.

This possibility, among many others, crosses his mind in the silence of the king's study, where she has asked to meet with him, alone. He paces the floors as if in a trance, his hands knotted together behind his back and his shoulders taut, missing their old epaulettes.

"Hans."

Her voice cuts through the stale air, and he stops. His shoulders lower as he turns towards her, and he fights the urge to bow.

"Elsa."

She is close, now—closer than he can ever remember her being, even though she is still on the other side of the room, the doors to the study closing behind her.

He swallows a grimace, plastering on a smug look. "You've come to see me."

She takes a few steps towards him, and it takes every bit of his strength to stand in place. "Yes," she says, "I've come to see you."

Her stride is as purposeful and powerful as he observed from afar in the previous days, but up close, there is something in her expression that unsettles him… something that he can't define or grasp.

(Something that inspires his old feelings of spite.)

"And I suppose you've come to gawk, then?" he asks. "To see what remains of your former prisoner? Or is 'ward' the more appropriate term?" His face twists as his fingers curl into fists behind him, and he approaches her with deliberate, menacing languor. When he comes to a halt, he is close enough to see the twinge of pink coloring her cheekbones, rising above the freckles dotting her skin, and he drops his voice to a low baritone.

"Or perhaps there's something else you want?"

Her eyes lift to greet his gaze, and his breath hitches in his throat.

"Hans," she says again, "please."

Her voice is gentler this time, with a plaintive note he doesn't recognize. It takes him aback, and in the silence that follows, their eyes remain locked.

He notices that something in them again that he doesn't understand, and as he scans her expression over and over again, his heart races at the unexpectedness and suddenness of their proximity.

(Of their intimacy.)

His skin crawls at the thought. "So what is it, Elsa? What could you possibly want from me now?" He sneers at her. "And don't bother asking for an apology. You clearly don't need one from me," he remarks, looking her up and down for effect. "Not anymore."

"I don't want an apology."

His back stiffens at her immediate, effortless reply, and his hands lock at his sides.

"I—"

She pauses, looking away, and the pink in her cheeks turns to red as her breath catches and releases. He watches her in silence, surprising himself; he is rarely a man without words.

"I don't want an apology," she repeats, her eyes softening as she regards him. "Rather, I… I came here - asked you to come here today - to say the opposite."

His chest tightens. "The opposite?" he manages after a moment, feeling absurd.

She gives a slight nod. "Yes. To say that I—I'm sorry, Hans." Her breath comes out as a shudder. "I'm sorry that I wasn't honest with you. About why I kept you in Arendelle, why I sought your company, why…"

She trails off, unable to look at him, and his face grows hot. "You're sorry," he repeats, not understanding—never understanding, it seems.

She reaches down into a pocket in her dress, and pulls out a pair of gloves - the very same gloves, he realizes, that he left behind for her in Arendelle - and the sight of them causes a chill to run down his spine.

With some hesitation, she places them on a small table nearby, and then removes her own, one by one, and lays them atop his. Her gaze lingers there for a moment, and then she's looking at him again.

"I loved you," she says, blinking back tears. "I didn't understand it then, but now…"

She reaches out for his hands, frozen at his sides, and brings them to her lips, bowing her head to place a kiss atop each of them. When she exhales, she releases a relieved sigh that rolls across his skin in waves, and then she lifts her head, releasing his hands from hers.

A small smile flits across her face even as her lip quivers, and in that moment, he is moved by her beauty in a way that he hasn't been since he saw her on the North Mountain.

"Goodbye, Hans."

He starts at the parting words, unready for them, still lost in the morass of her confession—and then she is gone, like ice retreating from spring, the outline of her back glimmering with a strange light as the doors close behind her.

When he is alone again, he wonders if she had ever really been there at all.

I'm sorry.

The back of his hands are tingling, his skin still warm from her lips, and he knows.

I loved you.

He takes a step back, then two, then three, until he bumps into a table - the same one upon which she placed his gloves, as well as her own - and stops.

His fingers tremble as they touch the gloves, one by one. He cannot help but notice how ragged and discolored his are in comparison to hers, which remain as vibrant and bold a blue as when he first beheld her.

I didn't understand it then, but now…

He remembers the breathless, reverent way she held his gloves in her hands - as if every stain and tear along their seams were precious jewels - and he chokes as his fists curl around them, his knuckles turning white.

Six years later, and he's finally let her touch him.