You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

A Dream Within A Dream - Edgar Allan Poe

A book was in his lap, as had been his habit for years, but Hans' attention was miles away. It was time for his visit, and he was almost looking forward to it. Much to his surprise, he almost missed Elsa. The sex had been amazing at the beginning, no doubt, and she had been an intelligent and charming beauty –

– not exactly. She was still a stunning beauty (even the madness couldn't take that from her), but later, as she unraveled, she still had been beautiful to him.

He thought about that prickling in his chest that he'd experienced a few times. Maybe that was love. In spite of everything, he had managed to fall in love. A smile curled his lips. He had everything, and he had lost it all. He had given away nothing, and still managed to give her his heart.

If he hadn't pushed her so hard, and she hadn't been so fragile… Maybe things could have been different. Maybe he would still be king, and Elsa would be his queen, and they would have princes and princesses with his hair and her eyes –

It was all just conjecture. The opportunity was long gone, and all Hans had now were just the ghosts of future past.

He had failed. Perhaps he would always be the useless unlucky thirteenth.

A guard knocked on his door, and he glanced up, startled out of his thoughts. "Is it time already?"

"Yes, sir."

Hans nodded. He let the guard lead him along the familiar path to Elsa's room, where Queen Anna waited outside the door. Her auburn hair pulled back into a severe braided bun, her face was solemn as she glanced at him. There was white streaking her hair, and he remembered when he had asked her about that, when she had been too young. All traces of the girl she had once been were gone.

If it wasn't for the auburn of her hair, he could have mistaken her for Elsa in her prime.

She acknowledged his bow with a stiff nod of her head, and glanced at the new-looking door. He stepped forward, knocking with a familiar cadence. "Elsa?"

"Come in," said the voice from inside.

Hans paused, his hand on the handle. "Are you coming in?" he asked Anna.

"No. Not today." She brushed back an invisible strand of hair from her immaculate coif, biting her lip. "I… I'll wait here."

Hans shrugged and opened the door.

Elsa sat on the windowseat, humming tonelessly to herself, her gloved hands folded neatly on her lap. In contrast to the immaculateness of her dress, her hair hung loose around her face.

"Didn't you braid your hair today, Elsa?" he asked. He had to be gentle with her; Hans was in no mood to trigger one of her fits, and have Anna rush in to comfort Elsa – venting her rage and frustration on him afterwards. Kristoff never laid a hand on him, but he always watched, stony-faced, as his wife landed blow after blow on Hans.

The humming stopped, and she tilted her head to one side, fingering the long blonde tresses. "No, I guess I forgot."

"Let me help you." He retrieved a brush from her dresser, and sat behind her, combing out her hair. He was careful to work through it gently, brushing her scalp and earning small sounds of contentment from her.

"Do you even know how to braid?" asked Elsa. "Normally Mama does it for me."

Hans' fixed smile slipped a little at the edges. "I know how to braid." He worked his fingers through the hair, gathering it into a bunch and then expertly dividing it into three equal tails. "Before I… became King, I used to be a sailor."

"I see." She sounded like either a very wise child, or a childish adult. He chose to think the former. "I think it's very brave of you."

"What, being a sailor?"

"Yes." She glanced outside, where the sun shone in one of Arendelle's rare summer days, and the ships were at anchor in the fjord. "The sea is treacherous."

"Only in storms, and we don't sail in those when we can help it," Hans said lightly, attempting to direct the conversation away from its path. "But there's nothing better than the salty sea breeze, and the feeling of being surrounded by vast blue ocean."

Elsa said nothing, and her shoulders began to shake. "Elsa," said Hans quickly, grasping her shoulders, rubbing his thumbs over the bones, careful not to press too hard. "Are you alright?"

After a pause, she turned around. "I'm fine." Her eyes stared uncertainly into his. "Hans, is something wrong? You look worried."

His heart leapt that she had recognised him, that today was a good day and she was herself for the most part, and he would not have to deal with her moods. "Nothing's wrong, dearest." He gently pulled her into a hug, her frail body nestled in his lap. Elsa sighed softly and rested her head in the crook of his neck. "I'm happy to be here with you."

She reached up, gently tugged at a lock of grey hair. "And you've gone prematurely grey." Her fingers traced the lines of his face and he closed his eyes, leaning into her touch.

"Governance," said Hans, "is hard."

Elsa chuffed a laugh. "So I've been told."

"You, on the other hand," he said, brushing her fringe from her eyes, "haven't aged at all." It was true, in a way; despite being too thin and with her blonde hair heavily mixed with white, when Elsa smiled, the years fell away.

"Nonsense. I'm already past thirty, surely there must be some signs. Mama used to have white hairs; she'd pluck them out early in the morning before Papa woke."

He ran a hand through his hair. "If I did that, I'd be bald."

She laughed again; although her eyes crinkled at the sides and her laughter was written into her face, to him, she was the same twenty-one-year-old woman he had seen at her coronation. It was a pity it had taken him years to realise that. "I think you'd look good even then," she said eventually.

"So you're not dumping me for a handsome young prince?"

Elsa pushed gently at his chest in mock annoyance. "Stop giving me ideas."

Hans pressed a kiss to her forehead; she smiled up at him. "I won't."

They remained like that for a moment until Elsa's body stiffened in his arms. "Where's Anna?" she asked urgently.

His heart sank. "Elsa – "

"I haven't seen her in a while – where's my sister?"

"Anna is fine, would you like to see her?"

The former queen shook her head violently. "No, I just need to know where she is. She's plotting against me, I know it – I just need to keep an eye out, before she takes you from me."

If he hadn't been listening for it, Hans would have missed the muffled sob from outside the room.

"Anna would never do anything like that, Elsa. She's your sister, she loves you."

"You told me she couldn't be trusted."

"I only suspected it, my love. I was wrong. Anna thinks the world of you, she would never – "

"You're lying," she insisted, pulling away from him so suddenly she nearly fell. Fear and anger vied for dominance in her cold blue stare. And Hans felt fear of his own, seeing the rampant insanity that unbalanced her, the wild unpredictability of a rudderless ship.

"Elsa," he said, steel underlying his tone. "Calm down." By now, he was quite immune to the snowstorms that accompanied her tantrums, and he stood firm through the biting winds.

"I thought I could trust you." She wasn't looking at him now, but past him, her horrorstruck eyes fixated by something only the former queen could see. "I trusted you, only you. I loved you."

"You can trust me. I love you. I have not done anything to betray that trust."

"I loved you," she repeated, and made a choked sound. His hands hung motionless, filling the space between them.

"I still love you," said Hans, and he knew it to be the first truth he had spoken in a long time.

Elsa opened her mouth and started to wail.

He left amidst her hysterical sobbing, and Anna was quick to round on him. "What did you do this time?" she hissed.

"Nothing, I – "

She slapped him. He pressed a hand to the sore flesh and remained silent.

"You know I can't believe a thing you say."

"Then why ask?"

Anna bared her teeth in a snarl, and his head rocked to the left, then right. Dizzy with the force of her blows, he staggered back a step, flinging out both hands to steady himself.

"Your poisoned tongue is not welcome here, never again. I may have failed Elsa once, but I won't ever do that again."

Hans smirked at her, though the effect was marred by his swelling face. "A bit too late for that, especially since she won't appreciate your efforts."

"Shut up!" She struck him again, and again, and he doubled up as her foot connected with his midsection. Hans crumpled to the ground. "Get up," she growled, nudging him hard until he scrambled upright.

"You took my innocence from me. You took my sister from me," Anna growled. "You even murdered my son. I should kill you now and rid the world of a great evil, but that would be too easy. You'll spend the rest of your miserable life atoning for your sins."

"Mama?"

Both froze. "Lise," said Anna, forcing a smile, stepping away from Hans. "What is it, sweetheart?"

The young girl's gaze was surprisingly solemn for one so young. Blue, thought Hans, like the fjord. Like ice.

Like Elsa's eyes.

"Mama, what are you doing?"

"Nothing. Hans and I were just talking."

"Okay," said the princess matter-of-factly. Even though she was talking to her mother, Princess Lise continued to stare at Hans, who stared back at her even though his mind was elsewhere, thinking about the handful of tysbast he had been saving in his room.

Soon, he would have collected just enough.

End Notes: Did some of the names sound familiar? This was intended to be the darker version of my other fanfiction, Thaw (Hans is truly irredeemable in this fic), and thus occurs in the mirror universe for that story. A little depressing, I know.