-Part 2-

The world will go on without me, and then you'll go on without me, Elsa.

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Of this I am sure.

And then he's gone, and everything feels the same: cold and empty, the remnants of his touch slowly falling away as days fade to weeks and weeks turn to months, and before she knows it, a year has gone by, and the scars have decayed to nothing more than imperfect little lines across the planes of her frigid heart, and neither of them have written because, really, it's always been easier to forget.

And he's right, life does go on. Just like it always has.

Just like it always will.

His brothers laugh when he returns home empty handed, no princess, no kingdom, nothing but wounded pride and the color of sin staining his skin, and just like that he's back to being lucky number thirteen, and all he can remember as he sinks back into a routine of desperate solitude is blue eyes and rolling skies and the feel of frosty lips that warmed everything but the frozen little ice castles he'd been building in the air.

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His trial passes without a hitch, and it's decided that the only reasonable punishment for such treason is to lock him away, to stick him in a cell and forget about the terrible little twist of fate that now tarnishes his family's "flawless" rule. They don't say how long he's to remain a caged animal, but he doesn't really have to ask: it's until he keels over, and maybe, just maybe, his legacy can be forgotten.

More than anything he becomes gossip- have you heard the story of our "mighty" prince?- and it's not long before his name can be heard seeping from the darkest alleys, the tale spreading like a plague. Suddenly, everyone seems to know his past and feels confident in writing off his sadistic future because maybe his life was never meant to be anything more than a tragedy, and as he listens almost contently to his sentence, he can feel the stares boring into his neck as eyes of every color look on with scorn, and for the first time, he understands why they called him a monster. He understands that pride and power are not catalytic of respect. That green eyes and well-timed smiles are different than the love given to an earned leader, and everyone seems to agree on only one thing, he is no earned leader.

And then he's locked away, and everybody breathes out a sigh of relief as he's left to his own twisted devices. That is until his brothers visit, malice and animosity in their hearts because before him, nobody had dared to question the loyalty of the Southern Isles, and even though he hates to admit it, his selfish actions could have easily destroyed a devastatingly strong kingdom.

"Nothing but a fuck-up, you are," number six scoffs, giving him that sideways smirk they all seemed to have inherited from their good-for-nothing father, as his elbow jabs roughly into Hans' side, and just like that, he's the butt of yet another awful joke as all his brother's crowd around in a swarm of twisted grins and masked hatred, and before he has time to ponder his tangled little reality and remember that he set himself up for such a moment, he has taken the offense, lashing out at the closest set of side burns his shaking fists can find. And it feels good to be in control, to let the adrenaline flow through his body and snake down his spine and root itself in his feet as he realizes perhaps for the first time in his young life that this is what he was born to be: a fighter.

Not the killer he's convinced himself he is.

Not the coward everyone has painted him as.

Not even the monster in the back of his mind that whispers the ugliness of the future and the bitterness of fate.

A fighter.

And even though his fate is sealed, and nothing can change the past, he fights, tooth and claw, until his limbs give out and his arms are bound, and every ounce of selfish will is beaten out of him in well-timed jabs as his pride is bruised and his sanity is swollen and he is perhaps more human than he's ever been before because this is his awakening as blood and bruise remind him there was so much more he could have done with this life and maybe kings and queens and broken dreams are the only thing that have any control on our twisted little world, because he sure as hell has lost all of his.

The bruises fade, but the blood that stains the floor never quite washes away; he liked to think that that is the universe's way of reminding him that memories are wounds of their own.

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He gets used to the silence, to the way the stone walls and hard cot seem to weep for him in the dead of the night, and soon the bars of his little cell seem more like a security blanket than a security device. It is learned in good time that he is nothing more than a lost soul, that the ache of defeat can only be duly masked by the perfection of solitude, and even though bruises heal, the pain that comes from imagining what could have been, never quite goes away.

But silence becomes normal for him, and normal is okay.

And maybe okay is all he was ever meant to be anyway.

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His father dies two years after his sentencing, and even though he knows he should feel sadness because this is the man that brought him into this not-so-perfect little world, everything is just sort of numb. The fact is that man never acted like his father, and dead or alive, it makes absolutely no difference to him. He'll never forget the night his eldest brother, the one who sees nothing but treason behind his desperate actions, struts down the stairs and announces in the grandest manner possible that he is soon to become King Charles III of the Southern Isles.

Charming, is it not, baby brother?

And just because father went easy on you, doesn't mean I will because we both know that they should have killed you when they had the chance.

But don't worry, I'll see to that.

And soon an execution date has been selected and it's almost a relief to think that this life is almost over, that, like all great tragedies, his story will die with him, and the tale of the power-stricken prince will be nothing more than just that, a story. It's comforting to believe that maybe next time around he'll get his kingdom, complete with a queen and a happy ending.

It's times like these when she crosses his mind, her smile, her eyes, the way she whispered lies so sweetly into the cusp of his ear, and how she curled vulnerably into his side when it was all over, resting her hand on his chest and listening, like so few people have the ability to do, to the drumming of his heart. Maybe if things were different, if he wasn't a fugitive and she wasn't so damn perfect, he would have pulled her closer and buried his nose into her hair and told that even though he has no clue what love feels like, she might be the closest he'll ever come to it.

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Instead he tells her to move on, and it turns out their both pretty good at running.

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He jolted awake by the sound of party music, the same type he and Anna had danced to so many moons ago, and he knows immediately that The Southern Isles is under a fresh rule.

"Your brothers are quite charming".

And then she's standing there in all her glory, a room, no a world away from him, separated only by deafening silence and iron bars, and for a second, he's sure this is nothing more than a dream, a not-so-real reality constructed by his subconscious in response to his proximity to death, but then their eyes lock, and damn, those eyes, they never change, like cut glass bowls, beautiful and transparent, and if left to their own devices capable of frigidly cruel things.

Nobody told him that the esteemed Queen of Arendale was invited to the party.

He's hesitant to say she looks older, partially because childhood tragedies had forced her so brutally into adulthood that growing up with leisure had never been an option, forcing her maturity to far surpass her years, but somehow she's different. Her hair is longer than he recalled, still blond and beautiful, like pulled sugar, swept over her shoulder in loose curls that bellow down her torso like lovely little waves, and from this angle, he can see that her cheeks have thinned slightly, the sadness of a lonely adolescence ebbed away by the healing embrace of time, and even though he knows he's staring, he just can't seem to force his eyes away.

"How did you…" he trails off.

"I can be quite charming myself, you know."

And there's so much left to be said, he can physically feel it, the silence, hanging so deafeningly between them, but he's afraid to speak, to shatter the illusion of pregnant perfection that hangs so desperately between them. So instead he watches her watch him.

"Are you lonely?" she asks, and the innocence of the inquiry almost catches him off guard because after two years of separation, these are the things that haunt you. It takes him a minute to understand that this must have been what her childhood felt like, minus the bars and stone walls, and she hurts for him like he once hurt for her, and everything is wrong in the worst way because two years ago, she was the one who needed to be held, and when did he become this. He buries his head into his hand in half-awake confusion and grunts into the calloused heel of his had.

I'm supposed to be the one worrying about you.

She crosses the room and wraps her hands around the bars and begs him with her eyes to give her a sign that she isn't a fool for seeking him out after so long, for blindly hoping for something that they both know is nothing more than a foolish dream.

"Just tell me you're okay, Hans, please."

And he doesn't know what to say because if he says he is okay, she leaves and disappears forever. If says the world is trying its best to bury him alive, she stay to suffer with him.

And just like that, she breaks him all over again as he crosses the room and grabs her face roughly through the bars and kisses her harder than he ever thought possible because he's selfish and she's beautiful and the moment her saw her he should have known that she was always meant to be the beginning of the end. And regardless of his response to her question he suffers so might as well drag the mighty queen down with him.

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"I think they are going to kill me, Elsa, and I don't know what to do anymore"

His fingers are shaking and her lips are warm, and suddenly it falls out of his mouth and is swallowed by the pillow of her lips.

"I am scared to die."

He feels her lips freeze under his, her eyes cracking open in a type of muted understanding because ironically, he once made her fear the same thing.

"Then run," she whispers. Run as beautifully and as terrifyingly as I did, but trust me when I say, do not let yourself get caught, do not let a man with a polished silver sword stand over you and threaten the very ground you stand on. Then, this is the most important part, refuse to fall hopelessly in love with the way he holds your head so tenderly and brushed the hair from your eyes.

The metal bars between them shatter like icicles under her frozen fingertips, and before he has time to comprehend her brashness, she's pushed past him and blown out the bars in his window as well, leaving just enough room for a man to shoulder his way through and run for the rest of his life.

Run.

"Come with me," he whispers grabbing blindly for her waist, knowing that it's hopeless, that she has a kingdom to attend to and a sister to protect, but he asks anyway, a fool for the way she looks at him, "run away with me…"

"You know as well as I do I can't so that."

And then she's pushing him against the wall in a way that the girl he left two years ago would have never been blunt enough to do as he's assaulted with the most beautiful goodbye he's ever felt before, and that's when he sees it, the diamond ring on her finger, big and beautiful, and a mark that she is not his, nor will she ever be anything but somebody else's prize. Shamelessly, he closes his eyes and forgets for a second that this isn't right and pulls her as close as two layers of clothing will allow and lets her freeze him.

And it's a power struggle as noses bump and teeth clack and somehow she ends up trapped between him and the stone-cold wall, wrists pinned helplessly above her head and a moan bubbling beneath her lips. She bites down on his lip hard enough to draw blood before pulling her face away and nuzzling her nose into his chest, and even though the time for regret is far gone, he regrets everything that he's ever done and everything he will never be able to do. He drops her wrists and grabs her face in his hands and stares for a long while at the curve of her jaw and the pink in her cheeks and the way her she's just as fatally flawed as he is, trying and failing to memorize every last dimple. He catches her hand and brings it to his lips and kisses the fingers like he did so many years ago, when they were different people and he didn't think he would ever die. The ring is cold under his lips.

"They said I couldn't rule alone."

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"Do you love him, Elsa?"

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"Yes."

And there she is lying again as she pushes herself off the wall and shoulders past him, knowing that she let him see that part of her heart that scares even her, and she knows that is she doesn't leave right this second, she might find herself running away with him at her side, but Anna needs her.

Or maybe she needs Anna…

"Run, before it's too late."

And then she's gone and the room is silent, save for the thumping of his heartbeat, and there is absolutely nothing left for him in this town, this country, this world, so he does what he's learned those who are broken do best, he runs away, away from all the things that could have been and should have been but never were. He slides out the window and lets his feet carry him past the huts and the river and into the forest that conceals so many secrets, and he disappears beautifully like a shadow underneath a dark sky.

He becomes the lost prince in so many senses of the word.

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"I was getting worried, Darling," the perfect not-so-stranger remarks, " I hope you didn't lose your bearings on the way to the powder room."

"Of course not," Elsa states with an unusual amount of hostility as she grabs her fiancées hand and lets him lead her to the middle of the dance floor, where he rocks her until the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach disappears and her heart stops beating holes in her chest.

Deep down she knows, it's best this way.

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But she'd be lying if she said she didn't regret a single moment of it.

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Because love has a twisted sense of humor and sometimes the people that can do you only harm are the ones you need more than anything.

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And I will always need you.

A/N: Well, first of all I just want to give a huge thank you for all the support this story has gotten! Over 100 favorites! Wow, y'all are amazing! I never expected this story to gain so much traffic nor to receive such kind reviews! I'm sorry for my lack of updating, but life is crazy, and to be honest, I've been afraid a continuation of this story wouldn't compare to the first part, so I put off writing it. Well anyways, I'm not quite sure how I feel about the final product, but I really do believe Han's insecurities would grow substantially with time, so I do hope it comes off that way and that you enjoyed it. As always, constructive criticism is highly appreciated!