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kristannafever · 1 year

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Into the Mouth of the Unknown - Part Two

All my wip’s and unfinished fics and this is what I was drawn to most with my desire to write again after over two years ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Rated: MA (!TW’s in Tags! - Angst!/Fluff)

WC: 11,214

Into the Mouth of the Unknown (first part)

---------------------------

Anna started crying as soon as she heard the car pull up. It was a sound she recognized as welcomed and excruciatingly painful at the same time. Not this time, though. He said he was coming home. This time he was going to stay.

She ran out to him. He was barely out of the car when she threw herself into his arms. He hugged her tight, sobbing uncontrollably into her ear. She realized that she too that she was crying as hard as she ever had. Each sob was a measure in tortuous relief. It was over, she knew that, just as she knew they would never get back that lost time. It was just the way it was. The way it had to be.

They held each other. It could have been years. The moment ceased to exist in time. It was simply them, together again. Now and for the rest of their days.

Anna was so overcome with emotion that it took her a minute to realize she was no longer standing. Kristoff had her in his arms, walking them to her house.

No. Our house. Kristoff is home now.

He took her into their room and laid her on the bed that they used to share every night… a decade ago.

Kristoff kicked off his boots and settled himself beside her, pulling the unmade sheets over both of them.

“I feel like I haven’t slept in ten years,” he muttered with a sadness in his tone that just about shattered her heart.

“Me either,” she admitted, eyes welling with tears again.

She listened to him breathe for only a few minutes before she realized he was asleep. Anna snuggled even further against him and relaxed, ready to join him, wondering idly what lay ahead for them, until sleep took her as well.

-----

They sat at the kitchen table with a coffee cup in front of each of them and stared into each other’s eyes. They slept long and late. They slept the sleep of the dead. Anna was so groggy when she woke, she was almost alarmed to find a warm body in her bed. Then it all came rushing back and she hugged Kristoff tight, accidentally waking him up too. By the sudden tensing of his body and slow relaxation, she knew he must have woken up very much the same way she did.

They got out of bed without talking much and took turns in the bathroom before they sat themselves at the kitchen table waiting for some coffee to brew.

“You want a smoke or something?” Anna asked, hating that it felt wonderful yet awkward to have him sitting across from her again without the fear that he was going to bolt to his feet and run again. Well, at least she didn’t think he was going to. He had told her he was home now, after all.

He slowly shook his head, eyes looking sad all over again. “I quit.”

Anna nodded. She understood and pushed her own pack across the table to throw away later. The past ten years had been very hard on them, emotionally and physically. Whatever Kristoff had smoked driving back to Oregon had been his last cigarettes, she could see that definite decision as clear as day on his face. There was no way she was not going to follow his lead on deciding to quit cold turkey.

“So, what now?” she couldn’t help but ask. Her mind was going in a million places as to how they were going to get back even a semblance of what they used to have.

“I…,” Kristoff sighed. “I don’t know.”

Anna eyed him a moment, watching the way his gaze slowly lowered down to the table. To the same spot it always did when he was feeling especially guilty about coming back after he kept telling her he wouldn’t. She knew what was going through his mind at that moment.

“You want to run again, don’t do?”

He looked up quickly. “No. No, it’s not…” He sighed harder and put his face into his hands. “Maybe… maybe a little, yes,” he mumbled.

Anna nodded, willing back the tears that stung her eyes.

“I just… it’s the guilt, Anna. It’s not so easy to shake.”

“Kristoff, what happened wasn’t-” He jerked his head up so quickly, eyes blazing, that Anna choked on her words.

“Don’t! It was! It is! And it always will be, okay? I can’t have it any other way.”

Anna nodded again, almost shaking with seeing such sudden intensity from him. Was everything going forward going to be this hard? After all they had shared together before Elsa’s death, had everything in the past decade ruined that? She knew things were going to be different, but were they even compatible anymore? Were they capable of anything other than angry sex and being mostly silent in each other’s presence? They’d hardly said a dozen words to each other since he got back the night before.

Kristoff slid his open palm across the table and spoke softly, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Anna sniffed, putting her hand in his and looking into his haunted eyes. She wondered if they would always look like that.

“Where do you think we should start?”, he asked, voice as tender as she’d ever heard it in the past ten years.

She shrugged. “Well, I already quit my job when you told me you were coming home, so we should move, I guess. Now that… that you’re… back with me, we can start fresh… you know?”

Kristoff seemed to ponder that a moment and Anna had to wonder why she suddenly felt so afraid to talk frankly to him. Maybe she was more worried of him changing his mind that she realized. He just still looked so… broken. And he clearly still felt the pull to leave.

“Where would you want to move?” he asked, raising his eyebrows in an encouraging way as if he picked up on her nervousness to speak her mind.

Anna shrugged again. She couldn’t help herself. “Anywhere, really. You’ve been all over the country, where would you want to start our new home?”

He looked confused for a moment. “What about being close to your…” he swallowed hard, “Your family?”

Now Anna felt confused. “My parents are dead, Kristoff. Have been for years.”

As she saw his face pale in front of her eyes, Anna realized with a sickening realization that she had never outright told him that. All the times he’d been to see her since they both passed and she had never actually mentioned it to him. Never said the words out loud. She had rehearsed it, so many times, she was sure that one time she was drunk that she had come outright and told him… then again she couldn’t remember what he did after so that must have meant she had mistakenly thought that-

He pulled his hand away from hers and stood quickly, horror all over his face.

“Kristoff, no, listen, I’m so sorry, I really thought that I had told you! realize I guess I never did-”

But he wasn’t listening. He was turning and walking to the front door like he was going to be sick. He lurched forward briskly, clearly shaking and stuffed his feet into his worn-out boots so quickly that Anna didn’t have time to put herself between him and the door. She could only chase after him as he marched towards his car.

“Kristoff, please! Don’t go! Not now! You said you were coming home for good!”

He either didn’t hear her or didn’t care because he threw himself in the driver’s seat, slammed the door and gunned the engine to life. The car surged forward and hit the street with a squeal of the tires.

Tears fell mercilessly down her face as she watched him speed out of sight. And then, at the end of the street where he stopped at a four-way… he sat. For a moment Anna wondered if he was deciding which way to go, but after he sat there longer, and longer, she understood.

Never taking her eyes form the car as she took a seat at the bottom step of the stairs to their house, she watched as the car slowly pulled forward, turned right, and made a big circle to come back to the house. Kristoff pulled slowly up the driveway and stopped, put the car in park and turned off the engine. With that done, Anna went inside. He needed this time to think, she realized that now. All his thinking in the past decade had been completely on his own. He would come in when he was ready.

As Anna shut the front door and went to make something for some sort of brunch, she felt a sense of relief to know that he was, in fact, not going to leave her again. But he was still a broken man who was trying to repair himself in a way that he could be functional with her. Anna knew she needed to give him the time and space to do that, no matter how hard it was going to be on her.

-----

“Thanks, Anna,” Kristoff muttered as he cleared up their plates.

It hadn’t been much. All she had in the fridge was a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a very sad and wrinkly tomato. Certainly not a breakfast of champions. Or lunch for that matter since it was nearly noon.

Kristoff had shuffled back in the house two hours after Anna went inside. She offered to cook, such as toasting bread can be called cooking, and he agreed, taking a seat at the table and watching her silently while she went about making the food. They were silent still as they ate and the sound of both of them chewing the dry toast grated on Anna’s nerves. Feeling so incredibly alone the past decade aside, she still hated silence. Normally she always had the damn idiot box on for background noise, but she didn’t want to disturb Kristoff. She knew he preferred silence. Even before he liked quiet to read or think.

When he was done cleaning the dishes, he poured them each a fresh cup of coffee and sat back down at the table and spoke slowly, pointedly.

“How? When?”

Anna took a deep breath. “My Dad, four years ago. Stoke. My Mom, about seven months after him.” She shrugged now. “In her sleep. Broken heart, I guess.”

Kristoff stared at her a moment before burying his head into his arms on the table. “Oh God, Anna, I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

He was crying and it was impossible for Anna not to cry when he was crying. They remained that way until neither one of them seemed to have any more energy to shed emotion. When Kristoff looked up, he could not meet her eyes with his.

“And you were all alone for those loses. Just like your sister,” he sniffed.

All she could do was nod even thought he was staring at the wall.

He heaved a shaky sigh. “Well, quitting smoking aside, I need a drink. Or, drinks. Is that Pub still down the street?”

“It’s a health food store now.”

“The liquor store still a block over?”

“I have booze, Kristoff.”

He finally looked at her. “I need to think, Anna.”

“You can think here,” she offered softly.

He shook his head and stood. “I’ll be back.”

Anna didn’t bother following him to the door. All she did was whisper “I know” to an empty kitchen.

-----

She was surprised to hear his car pull back into the driveway an hour later. She knew he didn’t drive drunk after what happened. Had that changed now that he was back? Did he have a couple beers and figure he’d be fine to drive? Or did someone else drive him home?

With her own drink in hand, she sat on the couch in the living room and waited. He walked in, looked right at her, and without breaking his gaze, took his boots off, shut the door and leaned his back against it.

“I sat in the parking lot for a bit. Couldn’t bring myself to go in.”

Anna nodded, trying to keep the emotion from her face.

“This is hard for me.”

“I know it is, Kristoff.”

“And it is for you too.”

Anna opened her mouth to protest, only to shut it and nod slightly. He was always so preceptive. She knew that the past years hadn’t changed that. They hadn’t talked much when they were together, but she knew he was still very much aware. Too aware, if she had to say so herself.

“We’ll figure this out… won’t we?” His eyes were pleading.

Anna’s heart melted. She placed the drink she no longer wanted down as she got up and walked to him, folding herself against him in a hug which he returned eagerly. From there she simply had to look up at his face and he was kissing her. Softly. Oh, so softly. Like he used to before.

Eventually they went to the bedroom, kissing and caressing each other with a forgotten tenderness and appreciation. They fell onto the bed, slowly undressing one another until they were naked under the covers re-learning all the wonderful curves and discovering all the new scars and hardships of the past ten years over their bodies. For the first time in over a decade, they made love.

Afterward they fell asleep with no talk, too tired to care that they were about to sleep the rest of the afternoon away.

-----

They woke sometime around five and lazed about in bed, talking idly about what they might do for dinner. It didn’t take too long to settle on take-out since neither of them wanted to leave the house. Their talk moved to other things, what had changed since he’d be gone, some of the jobs he did when he was away and he places he stayed at. Then Anna mentioned that she still owned her parents house – left to her when they died – and rented it out for income, and Kristoff immediately went on guard. Anna had a feeling it was going to be like this for a while, but there were still some things she needed to clear up before she could put talk of her parents to rest for a long time.

“Kristoff, I need to tell you something else,” Anna started, not sure how to bring it up but figuring the rip-it-off-quickly band aid approach might be best.

His eyes rolled over to meet hers, weary and worried all over again.

She swallowed. “I know that it was my father who told you to leave.”

He seemed surprised. “He told you?”

Anna sighed. “No. Never. Like you never did. I figured it out. I knew, Kristoff. If there was any reason in the world that you would leave like that, it was because my father told you to get out of my life.”

He looked at her for a long time, stoic, when he finally spoke. “And I just confirmed that, didn’t I?”

She couldn’t help but nod.

He sighed and looked at the ceiling. “And I suppose you wonder what would have happened had one of us just told you the truth?”

“No,” she said immediately, then hesitated a moment before continuing. “Well… not at first. I was too hurt, way too hurt to even think about reasons.” She felt his body stiffen and added quickly, “But I understood, Kristoff. The first time you came back, when you left so suddenly… that was when I figured it out. And I understood.”

“And yet you didn’t even feel the need to ask him, or me, or even mention it to me when he died?”

Anna felt anger well up despite herself and sat up. He immediately followed to look her in the eyes.

“You weren’t here,” she said through gritted teeth. Despite how much she felt for Kristoff and his feelings, hers mattered too and she was dammed if she was going to spare him at this moment.

“Anna-”

She didn’t care about the sudden panic in his eyes again, or the apology or the worry. This needed to be said. “You were gone, Kristoff. You weren’t a part of my life. For ten years, I didn’t know when I would see you next. Day after day, month after month, I waited, wondering, hoping, wishing! I’m not going to apologize for keeping you posted on my life during that time when all we did was smoke, drink and fuck!”

His eyes narrowed, and for a second Anna almost thought was furious at her, then he turned his head and looked at the wall, grimacing back more tears and she realized he was furious with himself.

Anna went on, tone firm but gentle. “I did ask my father once. A couple of months after you came back the first time. I asked him outright if he told you to get out of my life, and he said he would never do such a thing. Perhaps in his grief and stress he forgot, or he straight up lied to my face, I don’t know. But I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was lying, because you were gone. And you never said goodbye.”

“How could I?” he mumbled at the wall, sniffing and wiping the back of his hand across his eyes. “Your father told me he couldn’t lose you too and that he didn’t want me in your life. And you know what? I agreed with him. If it was our daughter…”

Kristoff choked and dissolved into sobs, curling himself into a fetal position and burying his face in the covers. Anna laid down with him and curled herself around his back, holding him, wishing for the millionth time that she had been driving the car that night. She would give anything to spare Kristoff the guilt he was carrying.

-----

For the next week they did little but sleep and talk and try and heal their bodies from a decade of cigarettes, drinking too much and too little sleep. It was hard, and they both felt like shit, but also good at the same time for clearing up their minds and bodies, clearing up the lost history between them, and working on mending the rift that had come between them.

They laid in bed, talking about where they might go to start their new life. Neither of them wanted to stay in Oregon, as beautiful as it was. There was too much pain in Oregon.

“San Francisco?” Anna asked.

Kristoff shook his head. “Way too expensive there.”

Anna sighed, although not in a dejected way. “This is hard you know. Why can’t you suggest anywhere?”

“Because I’ve been all over this country. You tell me where you want to go,” she gave him a pointed look, “Within reason,” he raised the arm from the bed that wasn’t holding her to make a point. “You want in the bay area? It’s going to be Oakland.”

Anna hummed, twisting her mouth in thought. “I’m not sold on California. I just want to see San Francisco someday.”

Kristoff’s heart fell. It had been doing that a lot in the last week. He had no money and Anna didn’t have a lot saved. She was paying the mortgage on her own after all. She had her parents’ house – which was more of a cottage – but it had fallen into disrepair and wouldn’t make a huge impact for them when it was sold with the renovations it needed. If he’d stayed, the money situation would be different, he was sure of that. But now they were a decade older and starting from scratch again. Less than that actually, because back then he had a promising construction job. Now he’d have to figure out what his social insurance number was to get a legitimate tax paying job again… and then there was what he was doing with himself for the past ten years which he was sure the IRS would be curious about-

“What’s the East coast like?”

Kristoff thought about that a moment, feeling relieved any time Anna took him away from his dark inner thoughts. “It’s the same, but different. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Manhattan is something to see.” He just about smiled, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do so.

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “I was only there once though. Too expensive, not enough cash work. Now, New Jersey on the other hand, there was some good work there.”

Anna was silent a moment before she asked. “All those odd jobs you told me about and all the places you found work… you never liked a place you wanted to settle in?”

Kristoff thought back to the one time he’d almost felt comfort since the accident, even though then it had still been very fresh, and maybe that was the reason it had felt that way to him. “Well, I almost felt that once. It was in Canada.”

Anna sat up and looked down at him. “You went to Canada?”

Kristoff nodded, a small smile he could not stop spreading on his face to think about Cliff and Bea again and the kindness they had shown him. He told Anna all about it. He opened up to her in a way that he could see that she needed from him, and they talked about it for so long that by the time she knew all there was to know – the good and the bad – it was well into the evening and they were famished for dinner.

“Where should we go?” Anna asked as she dressed, excited that Kristoff had suggested they go to a restaurant.

All week they’d been sheltering in the house, ordering takeout and grocery delivery as they healed, and for someone who hadn’t spent more than a couple days in the same place while he lived out of his car for the past decade, being stuck in their little house for a week was making him stir crazy.

“Anywhere you want, Anna. I don’t know what’s around here anymore.”

The past pain flashed across her face, but it was quickly replaced with a smile. “There’s a cool new Pub looking over the ocean on the other side of town. I’ve been dying to go there.”

“There we shall go, then,” Kristoff smiled.

They readied themselves and got into Kristoff’s car, and he sat in the front seat like he had done thousands of times before, and nearly put it in drive before Anna even had her door shut. Muscle memory was a hell of a thing and he was shaking his head at himself as he looked over at Anna as she buckled her seatbelt.

She looked back at him and smiled and suddenly Kristoff was struck with the weirdest sense of déjà vu. He had imagined her there in that seat millions of times as he crossed the county, smiling at him just like she was smiling now. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. He felt panicky and scared. He felt exactly like when Anna told him her parents had died when he was off being a selfish piece of shit.

Her smile was faltering. He needed to say something but he couldn’t think straight. All he saw was her there, and then not, and then there, like he imagined her in his mind, but she was here for real and he knew it was different but he was having a hard time comprehending what was happening, even after the past week they had spent together.

“I can drive,” she offered, clearly trying to offset his obvious panic.

“I need to sell this car,” was all he managed before he kicked the door open and practically threw himself out of the vehicle. He tried to get back to the house but the next thing he knew he was face down in her dry lawn. He could hear her calling his name and felt her hands on his body, trying to roll him back over. Almost every fibre of his being wanted to quit then, to give up, because this was too damn hard no matter how much he tried to trick himself into thinking that it was going to work out. He was too broken, too damaged. There was no hope for him and would never be, because he had taken an innocent life and destroyed Anna’s. All of the sudden he was laying in the snow, looking at that green lighter and he felt like he was finally going insane.

Then he heard his name though the fog. It was Anna. It was always Anna. Whenever he heard a voice telling him something in his head in the past decade that he was unsure about, it was always Anna. She was, and always would be, the thing in the world that he could not live without, no matter where she was or what she happened to be doing. He shuddered to think of what he would have done had he returned to Oregon all those years ago and found out she hadn’t made it. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, he would have taken his own life right then and there.

“Kristoff! Kristoff!”

He opened his eyes and found hers. There was pain in her eyes, sadness, worry, love and a whole lot more that he could not place. He opened his mouth, feeling a weird calm wash over him. It was like he finally saw a way back to some normalcy.

“Can we just order pizza tonight?” He tried his best smile despite still feeling disoriented.

Anna stared at him a moment before her mouth twisted down in a half smile, half grimace, that tugged on his heart. “Sure, Kristoff. Yes, I would love to order some pizza.”

He sat slowly, with her help, surprised he didn’t feel at all like passing out anymore. He was dead serious about selling the car. There was no way he was going to sit in that thing ever again.

“I will take you out tomorrow night, Anna. That is a promise. But we need to take your car.”

Anna nodded at him, and he found complete understanding in her eyes.

-----

They sold Kristoff’s car first. Technically it had been Anna’s, but Kristoff stole it and claimed it as his the night he left. He lived in it for a decade, it was his car. He was not sad to see it go. In fact, he practically gave it away to a young college-bound kid just trying to get out of their small town. The kid was ecstatic and Kristoff was happy to see it drive out of his life forever. He knew the car would do the kid well. He’d taken meticulous care of it himself. It had been his mode of transportation and the only roof over his head, after all.

Next was Anna’s parent’s cottage and neither of them expected that to go as easy as it had. When Anna approached the renters that she was planning on selling the place, they suggested visiting the bank and trying to see if they could make an offer. Anna agreed that was a good idea and threw them a price way below market value since there was so much work to be done on the place. They were a pair of young lovers, like him and Anna had been once, and Kristoff had a feeling Anna felt much about her parent’s place as he had about his car. The bank came back with a mortgage value for the kids that was slightly below the amount of rent they’d been paying and Anna was happy to sign all the papers to make the place theirs.

Then it was time to sell the house they had started their lives in. Anna had done her best with the upkeep, but the outside needed a lot of work and the realtor said the kitchen was severely outdated. In the end they decided not to do any of the work but to list it for what the realtor thought they could get. The amount he gave then was slightly disappointing.

Over the next two weeks of house showings and trying to figure out where they were going to move, Kristoff and Anna had grown incredibly close again. They still struggled, and Kristoff still had merciless nightmares, but they were making it work better than either of them had expected. They even began to laugh together again, a sound Kristoff missed to much he still felt jolted to hear it.

They sat at the kitchen table chatting with the realtor after yet another open-house and he was telling them he felt good about a few people who’d come through. One older couple even had visions of all the renovations they could do to the place, which was apparently encouraging talk to the realtor. Deep down, however, Kristoff felt a twinge of sadness to realize that this place would no longer be theirs. Not that he really had any claim it, he’d left Anna and it was all in her name now, but they’d bought it together and they were proud of themselves. He wondered if wherever they ended up if he’d feel the way they felt when they spent their first night in the little house they had bought on their own.

That night for dinner, Kristoff took Anna to a little Italian place on the other side of town and asked her what she thought about it, sharing the feelings he had earlier in the afternoon.

“Well,” she hesitated, putting her fork down and taking a sip of water. “I understand why you feel that way, Kristoff. You haven’t had a place to live in over ten years… I did. And it was our house. But I was alone.”

Kristoff nodded, not taking his eyes form hers. They were past expressing hurt and confusion over what had happened. Now they talked about it frankly. The scabs were getting thicker day by day.

“I had wanted to leave so many times, I guess I won’t be that upset to actually leave it behind, you know?”

“I get that. I know I’d feel the same way if I was in your shoes.”

She smiled at him softly. “Can we take a vacation before we settle down? A little road trip?”

That surprised Kristoff a little and he raised an eyebrow. “A vacation? Where would we go?”

Anna chewed her lip and looked down for a moment, thinking, then brought her eyes back up to his. “Maybe Canada? That place you went afterwards? Unless, that would be too painful? I understand if this is way out of line, but I just can’t get the thought out of my head after you told me about it and I just kind of wanted to… what? What’s with the look?”

Kristoff couldn’t help but chuckle softly. “You know what’s weird, I was having the same thought about going back to see them. Like you said, a road trip. Except maybe this time we stop along the way and see some sights. A proper vacation.”

Anna’s face lit up and Kristoff was happy they’d finally picked a way to start over once the house was sold.

-----

Two days later the realtor came in with an offer from the couple he had mentioned to them. They were new retirees with no kids and three dogs and they had fallen in love with the potential to make the place their own. The offer was below listing, but Kristoff and Anna accepted it anyway and agreed to a thirty-day close.

Two days before the turnover date, they packed only the things they really wanted and a few mementos and piled them in the trunk and back of Anna’s car. They both decided to donate their furniture to the community and the house was completely empty by the end of the day. Kristoff had booked them a room in one of the nicer hotels in town and they were excited to hit the road in the morning and head up to Canada. It had been a pain in the ass for Kristoff to get a new passport, but once he had all his paperwork sorted, he was able to get it done just in time.

For what felt like the first time in his life, Kristoff was excited for what lay ahead. And he knew Anna was too.

-----

“Okay, it’s official, I’m obsessed with Tim Hortons.”

Kristoff laughed behind the wheel of the car as they pulled away from the drive-thru. “Locals just call it Timmy’s.”

“I’m obsessed with Timmy’s then. Especially these Ice Capps.”

“Those and your Timbits.”

Anna chuckled with him and settled further into her seat, heart full and happy. Their time visiting Cliff and Bea had been wonderful and Anna had a new appreciation for the story Kristoff had told him of his time with them.

Bea had instant tears in her eyes when she opened the door and saw Kristoff standing there. She pulled him, and Anna, into a wonderful bear hug before she even said hello. Cliff appeared at the door a moment later, curious expression turning into one of genuine happiness to see who had knocked on their door. He embraced them both as well and they were invited in for dinner.

Anna loved their little home. It was everything she imagined a grandmother’s home would look like, even though Kristoff had told her they were never able to have their own kids. The colours were earthy and warm, the furniture – though dated – was taken care of and comfortable, and the wonderful smells coming from the kitchen could only by Bea’s home cooking and Anna’s stomach started grumbling as soon as they stepped inside.

Cliff and Bea never asked Kristoff what he’d been up to the past decade and Anna knew that Kristoff had appreciated that. Instead, they had filled him in on the happenings in their town, what had changed, what had stayed the same, who had died, who got married and who moved away. Kristoff hung on every word, clearly remembering all the people they had been talking about. Anna sat in silence for the most part but she was simply happy to listen, getting more and more of a picture of what Kristoff’s life had been like back then.

Anna jumped at the chance to help Bea get dinner on the table and enjoyed talking to the older woman about herself when she was asked questions. Bea was clearly an intuitive person and never asked her anything personal about her and Kristoff, just things about herself as a person. Did she like to read? What was her favourite flower? Was this her first time in their country? Wonderfully simple things that Anna appreciated. And Bea was very gracious in answering all Anna’s similar questions.

It struck Anna how easy it was to talk to Bea when she was setting the table. Even easier than her own mother, and that was even before Elsa had died. Afterward, talking to her parents was difficult. It was as if when they looked at her, they only saw Anna’s boyfriend who got their precious first born killed. Part of her always felt that they resented her for that. They did nothing to make her feel any other way about it. She only had wished they understood how hard it was for her, and how impossibly hard it had been on Kristoff. They could not put themselves in hers or his shoes. Anna loved her parents unconditionally, but when they passed away, she had to admit that there was a very small, deep-down part of her that felt relief she would no longer see that resentment in their eyes.

Bea had put a hand on Anna’s shoulder and she realized she had zoned out, pondering the feelings of the past. She felt embarrassed, hoping that Bea wouldn’t ask her what was wrong, but she didn’t. She simply smiled a sweet and understanding smile at Anna and asked if she would please call the boys in for dinner. Anna happily did so and they all had a wonderful meal together.

That night they stayed in the room Kristoff had once occupied while he tried to heal a broken ankle and came to terms with living with a broken heart. Kristoff told Anna they would insist they stay instead of wasting money on a hotel. It was a wonderful gesture and they were happy to stay, but both Kristoff and Anna lay awake that night, no words between them but their minds both thinking about similar things. Eventually Kristoff pulled Anna into an embrace, mumbled in her ear, and they were able to fall asleep.

“There were so many nights back them I wished you were here with me,” he had sighed. “I’m grateful that you are here now.”

-----

They had stayed for three days, Anna taking a great delight in helping around the house while Kristoff and Cliff went about working on things outside that needed to be done. Bea had taught Anna how to bake a perfect loaf of bread, the process of canning preservatives and the art of saving things around the house for re-use in various other ways. Anna knew most people their age had lived through some financially hard times and knew all the best ways to save a buck and reduce useless waste, which was very much unlike her parents. They had squandered a lot of the money her father’s family had, and by the time Anna and Elsa came around they were living a comfortable middle-income existence with little regard for tossing things into the trash.

When it came time for Kristoff and Anna to move on, there was a palpable sadness as they said their goodbyes. Unlike the last time Kristoff had left however, or so she imagined from what he had told her, there was a good feeling amongst the four of them. A feeling of hope and a feeling of a future, and a promise to keep in touch and return again someday.

This time there were no tears with the goodbye.

They drove towards the mountains and ended up in Banff, a place Kristoff said he’d always heard Cliff and Bea talk about. Even though they were in the cheapest motel in the whole town, it was clean and well taken care of and they had a wonderful time while they were there. Kristoff took her all over, driving something called the Minnewanka Loop, taking a gondola up to the top of Sulphur Mountain, exploring the museums in town and going to the Cave and Basin National Historic sight, where some of the first settlers of the area believed that the natural hot springs had healing qualities. Anna was in awe of the beauty of everything, especially the spectacular Rocky Mountains that towered around the town, all their angles gleaming in the sunlight.

On their last night while they lay in their motel bed after making love, Anna told Kristoff what had been on her mind all day. The more and more she thought about it, the more conviction she had that it was the right decision to make.

“I’ve lived by the ocean my whole life. I want to live close to the mountains. Our new home should be in the mountains.”

Kristoff had smiled at her with an incredulous shake of his head. “Even after all this time, we still have the same ideas.”

Anna grinned, heart filling anew with joy and excitement for what lay ahead.

-----

They followed the Rocky Mountains south and a week later they arrived in Denver. They figured it was the best place to start out since jobs in small mountain towns were scarcer than that of a city.

They did all the right things. They got themselves a small apartment, they got life insurance and added Kristoff to Anna’s health insurance. They got jobs and they got rental insurance and they bought another beater car for Kristoff to drive to and from work since they both headed in opposite directions. They shopped grocery sale items and put whatever money they saved each month into an interest-bearing account. They did all the proper adulting things they could, because they had a new dream to buy a place of their own in a small mountain town and start some sort of business for themselves to sustain the rest of their lives.

Five months after they began their new lives there, Anna found a better paying job closer to home and Kristoff was promoted at the construction company he worked for, which came with a raise. They went out to celebrate that night, an extra fancy place for the one night a month they went for a meal out, and toasted each other on a job well done.

It was a wonderful moment in time and they had a wonderful evening. Life was looking very bright, but darkness has a way of hiding around the corner, and it can fall upon you when you least expect it.

-----

“Do you ever think about kids?”

Kristoff choked on the coffee he had just taken a sip of, coughing and sputtering as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

“I’m only thirty-one, Kristoff. It’s certainly not too late,” she added, not giving him much of a chance to catch his breath let alone think straight. “Even if we had two kids in three or four years, we would still be at an appropriate age, I mean, a lot of people have kids later in life these days, right?”

Kristoff had a feeling this was going to come up someday soon, but he was still unprepared for the feeling it had given him for Anna to actually bring it up. His mind was racing in all sorts of directions, but deep down his heart always harboured a desire to have children with Anna. And right in that moment, he realized that there was nothing his damaged mind could do to remove that yearning from his soul.

“Anna,” he coughed, trying his best to repress the spasms of his throat, but Anna wasn’t done pleading her case.

“I know that you must have all kinds of thoughts about kids, and maybe you have some reasons for perhaps not wanting to, but I want you to talk to me about this, and even if you want to take some time to think more about it, hopefully we can-”

“Anna,” Kristoff managed more clearly and she stopped, looking at him with those beautiful wide eyes all full of hope.

He cleared his throat a few times, finally confident that he could now speak without hacking. “The answer is yes, I have thought about having kids.”

“And?” she asked.

The smile that ghosted across her lips almost broke his heart all over again. He pulled in a deep breath, letting it out slowly as he prepared to tell her the truth, even though he was scared out of his mind.

“When we were younger, I always knew we’d have kids. Then after what happened,” he paused, feeling the waves of guilt wash through him for the millionth time. His smile faltered as the familiar weight settled itself back into his shoulders. “After that,” he continued, raking a hand through his hair and trying his best to look her in the eyes. “I pictured it often. Our life with a family. It hurt, but it was also… nice. I imagined it a lot actually, no matter how devastated it always made me feel. But now… now with the way things are and with what we can do with what’s left of our lives, I can’t pass on the opportunity to try and have a family with you, Anna. I can’t.”

She threw herself at him then, weeping with joy and knocking his coffee cup right off the table, clacking off the linoleum floor and spewing coffee everywhere. It was a wonder the mug didn’t break.

They both decided there was no time like the present, and made love every day for two weeks. Their efforts were rewarded when Anna’s period was late and a pregnancy test came up positive. There was no diminishing the joy they had both felt and the love that they had for their baby on the way. They talked every night about names for boys and girls and all the things they couldn’t wait to experience when the baby came.

Then on Anna’s ninth week of pregnancy, she started to bleed.

At first it was only spotting, something the baby books said could happen, but then it got worse, and eventually she decided to go to the hospital to find out what was happening.

They did blood tests and an ultrasound and Anna didn’t really know what to think beyond the worry over their baby. She was anxiously waiting to hear about the results of all the poking and prodding but the next thing she knew it wasn’t a doctor she was talking to, it was grief counsellor, passing her a pamphlet on dealing with the loss of a pregnancy and cooing about how these things happen, they are no one’s fault, and that there were ways to process the grief of the loss.

Anna was numb. She sat there for a long time after the hospital counsellor left them to deal with the tragedy. She couldn’t come to grips with what she had been told. How could this have ended in a miscarriage? They were supposed to have a baby. They were supposed to start their family and get the joy out of having children. They were supposed… it was supposed to happen for fucks’ sake!

They drove in silence. Kristoff hadn’t said one word since they left the hospital. He was despondent, he wouldn’t even look at Anna when she softly said his name, and Anna was becoming terrified that this was the thing that had broken him for good.

“Kristoff, please, talk to me,” she pleaded, putting her hand gently on his arm that was gripping the steering wheel so tight, his knuckled were white.

Suddenly he wrenched the car to the right, plowing into the shoulder and slamming on the breaks. Before Anna could make heads or tails of what was about to happen, he was out of the car and on his knees, screaming up at the sky. The anguish in his cry turned her blood cold.

Anna shook violently, fumbling with the door release to get out of the car and get to Kristoff. Wild fear made her think he was going to get up at any second and hurl himself into oncoming traffic or just take off into the woods on the side of the road and she would never see him again.

But he wasn’t going anywhere. His outrage turned into horrible sobs and he laid down in the dirt with his hands over his face by the time Anna reached him. She kneeled next to him, ignoring the rocks poking her knees through her tights, pleading him to talk to her, to even just look at her.

Eventually he did and Anna didn’t know what to make of the eyes looking back at her, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she could never have kids with Kristoff. If they tried again and this happened again… it would be the death of him.

-----

Kristoff was too messed up to do anything but slump his body across the backseat, so his miscarrying wife was forced drive his pathetic ass home. Everything he had taken from Anna, her sister, ten years of her life, her future, and now he had taken a family away from her too.

He closed his eyes and wished he was dead.

Anna was talking softly to him the whole way. He wasn’t sure what she was saying however, he was too far gone in his own mind. He wasn’t even entirely sure if she had helped him into the back seat, or of he had just slithered himself into the car like the snake that he was.

Voices through the fog told him he was a monster. That he was the reason that they lost their child. Kristoff was a murderer after all, of course their child would pay that price with its life. That was how Karma worked right? An eye for an eye. He’d taken a life so a life was taken from him. Only it wasn’t, it was taken from Anna, right from inside of Anna. Again, she was suffering because of him. She would always suffer because of him. What he needed to do was finally get himself dead and spare her the curse that he was on her life.

Then Anna’s sweet voice broke through the midst. She was telling him to see a therapist. She’d said it before, many times, and he wondered if it was memory he was hearing, or her talking to him now. She was still there, he could feel her presence. He knew she was talking, but he was simply unable to focus on what she was saying at that moment.

I don’t want you in Anna’s life anymore. I can’t lose another daughter! Do you understand that? I can’t!

Kristoff winced as Anna’s father shouted at him. Then all of the sudden he was looking at Elsa’s twisted body in the snow, the words coming again but echoing as though they were far away. Anna’s mothers sobs echoed from the dark forest all around the wrecked car.

A green lighter. Blood in the snow. A broken body.

Blackness.

-----

Kristoff startled awake when something cool touched his face. He jerked up in surprise, scaring Anna as she was trying to adjust a cold washcloth onto his forehead. Anna gasped, flinching back in a way that made Kristoff sick to his stomach to realize that he was the reason she looked scared.

In all of the earth, was there a sadder excuse for a man than him? He didn’t think so.

“Kristoff, are you okay? Talk to me, please.”

He stared into her eyes and he was suddenly filled with intense shame. Outburst aside, he should never have shut down like that. Anna was in pain, losing the baby, and he was acting like a fucking child having a temper tantrum. He felt at a profound new low, and that was saying something.

His mouth opened but he had no words. There was nothing he could say. He realized then that no matter if the voice of Anna he heard was one from the past or from earlier that day, he needed some help.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, sitting up and sliding towards the open door to get out. He took a couple of breaths before taking to his feet, steadying himself with the open car door. His legs felt like jelly and his heart lay heavy in his chest. How could he tell Anna that he absolutely could not live through this again? How could he tell her that he had to break his promise, that he could not try again to have a child with her?

“It’s okay, Kristoff. It’s okay. I understand, alright?”

Anna was nodding supportively but the deep sadness was like a neon sign on her forehead. He didn’t have to tell her he was going to break her heart again. She knew.

She always knew.

-----

Therapy was working wonders for Kristoff, and it didn’t take long for him to come to terms that what had happened to their first baby was ‘just one of those things’. It made him feel more human to realize that the part of his soul that wanted to have kids with Anna wasn’t killed as he had feared it had been that day three months ago when they went to the hospital.

Anna was washing dishes when Kristoff got home. He was slightly annoyed to see her doing so, insisting that since she got home from work first and always made dinner, that she was to leave all the dishes to him, even tough she came home from work most days on her lunch break to cook for herself since she worked so close. He found her doing her lunch dishes more often than not and it bothered him that she simply wouldn’t leave them for him like he’d asked. He would cook dinner if he made it home earlier, but with his long work hours and regular therapy sessions, she was always the one to get the groceries and make dinner. Perhaps he was annoyed because he felt like he wasn’t providing for her the way he wanted to. Likely, he was annoyed with himself and not her.

The things he was learning in therapy still amazed him.

Letting his petty annoyance go, he stepped up behind Anna and wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzling his nose against her neck and planting soft kisses on her skin.

“I know, I know,” she started. “You want to do the dishes, but dinner is all in the oven and I know you work so hard so I just thought-”

“Let’s try and have another baby,” he said against her skin.

Anna stopped washing and her body went ridged in his embrace. He let the silence stretch, at peace with his decision, even if Anna decided that she was the one who didn’t want to try again, he was calm. But he knew her, and he knew she wanted a family with him more than anything. The only reason she wouldn’t have one, would be because she changed her mind. He vowed to himself it would not be because of him.

“Kristoff,” she sniffed, still not moving and clearly trying not to cry. “I don’t want to put you through anything like that again if… well if…”

“It’s okay, Anna.” He said, gently turning her around to face him. She still had wet hands and a sopping sponge in her hand that dripped onto the floor between them. “I want to try again. As long as you are willing and this is still something you want?” Anna nodded quickly. “Then I do, too.”

The sponge made a splat sound on the floor as they embraced each other with tears in their eyes.

-----

Kristoff thought he was going to pass out he was so scared. His heart jackhammered away in his chest as he tried to remember all the information from those damn classes.

“Breathe, breathe,” he kept repeating while his mind drew a blank on literally any other word that he knew. His whole vocabulary, out the window.

“I am breathing!” she half moaned, half screamed, baring her teeth with her eyes squeezed shut. Her hand had his in a death grip but he didn’t feel it, all he felt was unbridled terror that something was going to go wrong.

“You’re doing great, Anna. Push on the next contraction, okay? You can do it.”

Kristoff barely heard the doctor, but Anna opened her eyes and nodded her agreement to the woman positioned between her legs, then her eyes went to him.

He nodded at her, speechless, trying to be reassuring when all he felt was cold dread. Despite all the therapy, there was still a part of him that was convinced he was going to lose Anna and the baby because of the car accident when they were young.

“I’ve got this.” Anna said to him.

Kristoff blinked, seeing new determination on Anna’s face. Part of him felt that it was there more for his benefit than hers, and that made him feel pretty bad about himself as a man. Anna was giving birth to their child and in more pain than he could ever imagine, and here she was being strong for his fragile psyche as well. He was going to have to take up this incredibly inadequate feeling in his next therapy session.

Anna gave a guttural groan as she pushed again and then all of the sudden, she gasped, and the room was filled with the wail of a baby.

“It’s a girl!” Announced the doctor, pulling the baby up and gently placing her on Anna’s chest before resuming a flurry of activity of next steps that Kristoff had read about in books but failed to bring to mind just then. All he could do was stare at the small form on Anna’s chest as both mother and baby cried.

He was in shock. The world around him went gray and he wondered idly if he’d kill himself by hitting his head on the way down to the floor. That would be fitting, since he had made a deal long ago with whatever higher power might be out there, that if anyone in his family was going to bite the dust next, it better be him, or there would be literal hell on earth to pay for it.

A nurse caught him by the shoulder and forced his ass clumsily down into a seat as they greyness went in and out on the sides of his vision. Anna was calling his name, bringing him back, but it was slow, fighting the urge to just slump over and take a quick nap to reorient himself. Finally, he came back, and his focus cleared on Anna and her breathtaking smile beaming proudly at him.

And that was it.

Clarity took over and he had tears in his eyes before he even realized it.

A girl. Their baby girl. Their daughter. She was finally here.

-----

Unlike the previous time, they had wanted to find out the gender of this baby rather than have it be a surprise at birth like their first. An unlike the birth of their daughter, Kristoff held new strength and new conviction, determined to be a rock at Anna’s side.

“How the fuck did I do this last time without an epidural?” Anna groaned miserably.

“Because you were too far dilated. Don’t worry, the nurse said they’ll be here soon.”

“They fucking better be!” Anna wailed as another contraction took over.

Kristoff rubbed her back while she stood and leaned herself against the bed, riding it out and trying to breathe.

“I swear it’s because it’s a boy,” Anna panted as the contraction ebbed. “More morning sickness, high blood pressure, all of it!”

Kristoff had to laugh. They had been talking about that for the past three days. They both had a feeling this little boy was going to be a handful.

Their daughter was going to be eighteen months old in two weeks. It might seem a little crazy to have two kids under two, but Kristoff and Anna both wanted two kids, if it was in the cards, and they wanted them as quickly as they could have them. When they agreed to start trying again nine months after their daughter was born, they had almost assumed it would be a little while before she got pregnant again, but apparently, they were the two most fertile people on earth, and the pregnancy test Anna took four weeks later was positive.

Anna groaned through another contraction before she was finally got the epidural she had asked for. Afterwards she was able to relax and the birth of their second child went wonderfully while Kristoff spoke encouraging words to her the entire time. The screaming baby was placed on Anna’s chest and she beamed that proud smile at Kristoff again, giving him an odd but welcoming sense of déjà vu. He felt that weird clarity again, although this time he was nowhere near fainting. He smiled back at her, elated.

Now that their son was here, their family was complete. Kristoff had already made a vasectomy appointment for the next month. They were excited about their future, excited about watching their kids grow up.

Excited that they got this second chance at happiness.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

EPOLOGUE

The children’s laughter filled his ears. The smell of Anna’s famous chocolate chip cookies hit his nose. His eyes took in the sight of their four grandchildren playing on the lawn.

Kristoff’s heart was full. The cancer was eating away at his body, but his heart was light and happy.

The diagnosis had come months earlier. Stage two pancreatic cancer. That night him and Anna had cried themselves so sleep holding each other. Kristoff had strange dreams of beauty and horror, mingling together, attacking him from both sides. He felt pulled and stretched, haunted and at peace, scared and resigned.

The next morning, they phoned their children.

Their daughter was distraught and her family was at their door within the hour. Their son was upset and angry that such a thing would happen to his father and arrived with his family not long after their daughter. After a lot of tears amongst the adults sitting around the kitchen table while the children played in the next room, the mood began to lighted as they all agreed Kristoff was going to beat this.

And he’d be dammed if he wasn’t going to give it the fight of his life.

Still, there was a part of him that was at peace – almost glad, dare he say – to know that in all likelihood, he’d be the one leaving next, as selfish a thought as that was. His family would grieve and they would be in pain, but they would move on, and he hoped they would all live very long, happy and fulfilled lives, even if he wasn’t there to see the rest of it.

Everything that had happened in his life, he knew that if he died tomorrow, he would die a fulfilled man. Both his kids were married to wonderful people with two children each of their own, and a third on the way for his son. They had their own lives and they had their own futures and he knew they would take care of Anna after he was gone. They all loved her so very much.

He would be eighty-one next month and that was a respectable age to die. At least in knowing his death was approaching, he could tell his kids all the things he wanted to tell them. He could give Anna all the rest of the love he was able to give with his time left. He could make arrangements and make sure they’d all be taken care of when he was no longer there. They’d be okay.

Anna offered him a cookie from the nearly empty plate after the grandkids took fistfuls of them but he politely waved it off. The chemo was making him sick to his stomach and he had little appetite these days. His chances were about fifty-fifty they told him. Every morning he pulled a beanie over his nearly bald head and wondered if this was the day the cancer would win the battle.

He reflected more and more over the life him and Anna got their second chance at having. There were hard times, times when him and Anna went hungry so that their kids could eat dinner when the bills were more than they could handle. There were times Kristoff had to work nights so that they’d still have a roof over their heads. There were times that Anna had to swallow her pride and go to the food bank so that there was something she could pack in their kid’s school lunches. There was one time Kristoff ended up stealing a loaf of bread, something that bothered him so much, he went back to pay for it eight months later when money wasn’t as tight and he was able to pay back the $1.49. But throughout all the struggles, his kids were happy. They were all happy. No matter how hard the struggle was, they were a very close family and they shared many laughs together.

Kristoff and Anna had worked hard for everything they had. They even built themselves a business at night instead of sleeping. So tired they were, that their kids often woke them while they dozed off while reading books to them or telling bedtime stories. On more than one occasion one or both of them would wake in their children’s beds and need to stagger to their own room and collapse back into sleep. But it was worth it. Not long after launching their custom printing business, it took off, sales soared, and they were able to live very comfortably with the pleasure of working from home. While they never did get a home in the mountains – their kids were in Denver and they wanted to stay close to them – they had enough money for yearly vacations all over the globe. Truly it had been a blessed life, despite everything in their youth.

Kristoff thought about the guilt and those impossibly hard years more along with all the good that had happened. He supposed it was all part of it, part of his path or whatever. He was agnostic, he didn’t profess to know what was beyond his capacity to understand, but part of him hoped that there was something beyond death now that it was looming in his very near future. Whatever the case, he knew he would die at peace. Anna had given him that. She’d given him the peace he had longed for in life. She had given him everything, even after what he’d taken from her. And he would fight this thing with all the strength he had left, for her.

A squeeze of his shoulder brought him back from his thoughts.

“You okay, Dad?”

Kristoff smiled up at his daughter. “I’m wonderful, sweetheart.”

“The kids want to know if you want to play hide and seek, but I think maybe you should just rest since-”

“Nonsense!” Kristoff laughed, struggling a little to get to his feet. “I’m not going to pass on a chance to play with my grandkids.”

His daughter helped him down the front porch while they kids squealed that he was ‘it’. Kristoff closed his eyes and counted loudly to twenty, smiling to himself at hearing them scamper away. When he opened his eyes, he looked around, already spotting a pair of small shoes poking out from behind the bushes the lined the porch.

“Ready or not, here I come!” He exclaimed, eyes passing up to the porch and catching Anna’s gaze.

She smiled at him. That sweet, understanding, compassionate smile. He smiled back and mouthed ‘I love you’. She blew him a kiss and then mouthed it back. Then he went searching for his hidden grandkids, determined no matter what happened with his illness, that he was going to squeeze every last drop of joy out of however much life he had left.

#cee wrote this mess #into the mouth of the unknown part two #kristoff #anna #kristanna #TW: thoughts of suicide #TW: Misscarriage #TW: Birth #TW: Cancer #I can't believe it's been 5 years since I wrote the first part #I had started this right after but re-wrote most of what I had and came up with for this #I stuck to the angst! theme!#but there are some good parts #and despite the subject matter it felt good to dust the cobwebs off the fic writer part of my brain #even though I'm pretty sure not many will read this #I'm still proud of it

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