Notes: Okay, so there's no staircase in the ballroom in the film, I'm pretty sure, BUT let's all pretend that maybe when Elsa used her powers in the ballroom she accidentally did some structural damage, and it had to be remodeled, and they put in an upper gallery with a staircase while they were at it because what good is a ballroom without a sweeping staircase.

The engagement had only been announced a week ago, and already Kristoff was wishing that he could disappear into the mountains until the wedding. Better yet, he wished he could sweep Anna off to the mountains with him, elope with a troll wedding, and then spend their honeymoon all alone, far, far away from people. Far away from people who wanted to shake his hand, people who wanted to give him marital advice, people who wanted him to exert some kind of influence on his fiancée and future sister-in-law, people who just wouldn't stop talking. Far away from all people who weren't Anna, that was where Kristoff wanted to be. But he hadn't even suggested it—it was winter, which was not the best time to camp out (although the challenge of keeping each other warm sounded so very appealing), and he wasn't sure how legal a troll ceremony would be considered by the kingdom. Besides, she was so happy.

Anna loved all the people. She loved all of the dinners and receptions people were throwing for them. She loved the excitement, and her enthusiasm bubbled over every time someone congratulated her. She didn't seem to get tired of telling everyone the entire story of how they'd met, or the story of how he'd proposed, or the story of how she'd chosen the flowers for her bouquet and what each blossom meant and how they would be arranged and what the ribbons around the stems would be like…. Every detail of the planning thrilled her, and she wanted to share it with everyone. He was excited, too—he was—but really he was excited about being married to Anna. The wedding part seemed like a lot of trouble, something that took a long time to arrange, something that was holding him back from being married to Anna. He was not thrilled about the wedding, but he didn't need to be. Sometimes during the endless social events Kristoff would manage to get away from the people for a moment, to find a place somewhere in a corner where he could see Anna, her red hair always in the center of a circle of people, and he could watch her face light up as she talked and talked, and it was okay. All the people and the fuss were okay, the waiting for months to get married were okay, if Anna was going to glow like that the whole time.

Kristoff was not sure that Willkens was okay, though. Willkens was a jowly man who somehow managed to look down his nose at Kristoff, even though he was a full foot shorter. He even seemed to be doing it while he was making his bow, a gesture that made Kristoff intensely uncomfortable.

"My lord—"

"Please don't call me that."

"—I am here to valet you."

That had been awkward. Apparently being valeted meant having his bathing supervised, his hair combed back, his clothes chosen for him, and then being dressed in them. By Willkens. The man was efficiently stuffing Kristoff into the stiff new clothes before he could figure out how to resist—he had an idea that his first instinct, which involved tossing Willkens into the hall by his collar, would lead to certain repercussions. Besides, the magic words had been said: "Princess Anna sent me."

Apparently Anna wanted him to experience the awkwardness of being dressed by another man. Fine, that was fine, he could deal with it this one time. Later he'd find a way to ask her to never, ever ask him to do this again, but he could deal with one time.

That was how he found himself squeezed into bizarre trousers with gold ribbon trim down the sides of the legs (why?), black boots that were so shiny they were painful to look at, an overly snug waistcoat, and a dark blue coat that was too tight across the shoulders (shoulders that had some sort of gold fringe, why was there gold fringe?). Kristoff drew the line at the white gloves, however.

"No gloves."

"But, my lord! Proper evening dress requires gloves."

"No gloves. And don't call me that."

"Sir," Willkens said, attempting to play a trump card. "Princess Anna asked me to see that you were properly dressed, and—"

"Princess Anna does not want me to wear gloves," Kristoff said firmly. Willkens opened his mouth, got a good look at the mountain man's face—and even under the formal clothes it was hard to forget that there was a great deal of very tall, very strong mountain man to deal with—and shut his mouth again. The matter of the gloves was settled, and Kristoff found himself being herded through the castle on an oddly circuitous route to the ballroom.

He'd been to the ballroom before, with Anna dragging him by the hand. She'd dragged him through every public room in the castle, excitedly sharing all of her memories with him—this is the kitchen, and that stain on the ceiling is from when I tried to bake a pie…here is the library! This book is my favorite, ooh and this book, and this one, this is my favorite too…this staircase is where I crashed my bike! I probably should have died but I only broke this finger, see, it's still crooked…and this suit of armor is still crooked too, it's never really been the same. Its name is Gerald. And this one is Herbert, and this one is Adam…Anna had tugged him after her into the ballroom, announcing "And this is the ballroom, where we had Elsa's coronation party, and it was the first party I'd everbeen too and it was so beautiful—except…" She'd trailed off, looking around the room, the smile fading from her face. Except that she'd spent the party being lied to and manipulated. Except that the party had ended with people screaming as her sister ran away.

Kristoff had brushed his fingers over her shoulder, trying to come up with words that would comfort her, distract her, anything that would drive the distant, sad look out of her eyes. Words were difficult. After a moment he'd finally just taken her hand and pulled her behind one of the big purple drapes. They'd kissed a few times by then—the castle tour had already taken three days, and there had been several opportunities for soft, chaste kisses in the empty picture gallery, in the garden's hedge maze, even behind the longsuffering Gerald. He'd meant to kiss her like that again, carefully, but he'd underestimated Anna's bold enthusiasm. Maybe she felt vulnerable, and that was what made her press up close against him, her mouth taking control of the kiss, deepening it. Maybe she felt lonely, and that was why she held him so tightly, why her fingernails scratched gently up his neck, making him shiver as she tangled her fingers in his hair. Maybe it was just that this was his feisty, daring, born-ready Anna, who was so tiny, but who filled his arms and his senses with her vibrancy.

They had finally separated, gasping, and Kristoff had realized with alarm just how tightly he was holding her. He let go carefully, wondering if he had hurt her, bruised her, but Anna had just sagged back against the pillar with a contented sigh.

"What was that for?" she asked, looking up through her lashes at him.

"I just thought, maybe…some new memories," he stammered. "About this room." She'd smiled at him so sweetly that he'd given in to a sudden urge and bent over her, one hand braced on the wall beside her, and tentatively kissed her behind the ear. It was the first time their kisses had strayed beyond lips (well, and noses—how was he supposed to resist kissing a nose like Anna's?) and Anna's hum of pleasure encouraged him to kiss her neck more confidently, down to her collarbone and then back up.

It was going very well, until Anna, tilting her head back enthusiastically to give him better access, accidentally cracked her skull against the stone pillar.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry! I'm sorry," he said, straightening up in a panic, but Anna shook her head, reaching back to prod gently at the knot forming under her hair.

"That wasn't you! That was me, definitely all me. Ow." She grinned up at him. "This is what you're in for, you know—every romantic moment will be interrupted by clumsiness."

"I think I can live with that," he said, and kissed the back of her head gently.

New memories were good, and Kristoff found himself smiling despite the itchiness of the noose ('Cravat, my lord') that Willkens had tied around his neck. The servant ushered him into the ballroom, directing him to stand in the center of the floor, rearranging him so that he was standing with his back to the new upper gallery, and thenfinally left him alone.

Kristoff tugged awkwardly at the noose—cravat—and rubbed his hand nervously up and down the weird ribbon on the side of his pants, wondering what was going on. He'd assumed that there was some kind of formal thing that he'd just forgotten about (there were so many) but the ballroom was empty. There was no one there.

"Kristoff?"

He swung around at the sound of Anna's voice, his eyes flickering across the room before he finally looked up. His mouth dropped open.

Anna stood at the top of the new staircase that curved down from the upper gallery, framed by the afternoon light from the windows. It made her beautiful copper hair glow, and shone on the fabric of her dress. He didn't really understand all of the fiddly details about dresses, no matter how often he'd heard Anna discuss the pros and cons of things like hoop skirts or stomachers, but he knew that he liked this dress. He especially liked it on her. It was midnight blue, and—most notably in Kristoff's mind—it had a wide neck that showed almost all of Anna's pretty freckled shoulders, and even dipped down to expose just a hint of the soft curves hidden beneath the bodice. The full skirt swished and rustled with the sound of enumerable petticoats as Anna began to descend the stair, cautiously, with one small hand resting on the wide banister.

Kristoff could only gape at her as she moved, shimmering, down the steps—until she paused halfway, teetering slightly on the raised heels of her shoes. Then he ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time despite the stiff trousers, so that he could catch her waist and steady her.

Anna giggled. "I'm okay," she said. "Really."

"Good, um, good. Yeah." From a distance she had been stunning. Up close, she was radiant, and he stood stock still, just looking at her.

"What…what do you think?" Anna asked hesitantly, blushing slightly and brushing a hand over her full skirt.

"You look—" Kristoff had to stop and swallow hard. "You look amazing." Her hair was not in its usual braids, although there was a braid crowning her head. The rest was drawn up to the back, where there was a twist of hair pinned in place with an enameled pin shaped like a flower. The ends of her hair were loose, and had been arranged in a fall of curls over her bare shoulder. Kristoff reached out to touch the soft strands, letting them twist over his hand and slide through his fingers to drop into place. Then he pulled back quickly. "Sorry. Sorry, I'm probably not supposed to touch you at all, am I? I'll mess you up."

Anna laughed and caught his hand, pulling it to her cheek. "You can touch me," she said. "But we should probably get down the stairs first. Here—" she moved his arm so that she could tuck her hand into his elbow. He walked her slowly down, her skirts brushing his leg with every step.

When they were safely on the ground he finally asked "So…what's going on?"

"Well, I thought we could," she gestured vaguely around, at their formal clothes, "practice."

He raised an eyebrow. "Practice."

"Yeah, for, you know," she shrugged and smiled, biting her lip in that perfect way. "For the wedding."

Kristoff blinked. "What?"

"Well, for the wedding we'll have to be all dressed up—I'll be wearing a big dress, although not this dress, of course, but it'll have a big skirt like this, and a train, and I need to practice walking around in it so I don't trip. And I know you don't like this kind of thing but you kind of have to be dressed up too, although," she plucked at the sleeve of his coat, pursing her lips slightly, "by then we will definitely get you something that fits a little better and isn't so tight, not that I'm complaining about how you look in—I mean—" Anna stopped to clear her throat and Kristoff tried to suppress his grin. The clothes were uncomfortable but maybe they had some purpose after all. "Anyway," Anne went on, "we'll be wearing all this stuff, and we'll have to sit and eat, and we'll have to dance, and I was thinking that maybe before we do all that in front of a bunch of people we could…practice. By ourselves."

"It's just us? There aren't going to be ambassadors and lords and dukes and stuff?"

She grinned. "Right. Just us. You and me."

"So…" He slipped his hand around her waist, drawing her closer. "So you're all dressed up like this…just for me?" His fingertips brushed down her cheek, combed through the soft fall of curls.

"Just for you," she whispered, and stretched up to kiss him. Heeled shoes may be bad for balance, but they had certain uses. Anna could kiss him without first pulling his head down to her level.

"Wow," he said when she pulled back. She grinned, biting her lip, and he immediately pulled her back to him for another, longer kiss.

"All right, that's enough of that," she said breathlessly when he released her, and put a finger over his lips. "Come on, we have practicing to do." Anna took his arm again and led him across the ballroom to one of the curtained alcoves. The curtains had been drawn, turning the space into a small room, intimately lit only by the branch of candles resting on a round table. Kristoff held out one of the two chairs for Anna, eyeing the array of utensils at the place settings with trepidation. As simple as the concept was—work from the outside in, as Anna had whispered in his ear before his first dinner at the castle—he still felt a surge of anxiety every time there were more than two. But, he reminded himself as he sat down, this was practice. Just practice, with just Anna, who looked so soft and glowing in the candlelight.

The food had been arranged in covered dishes so that they could serve themselves, and as they ate Kristoff realized that it was their first meal alone together that didn't consist of stale jerky. It was also the first time they'd been alone since they'd come back down the mountain after getting engaged. He reached across the table to take her hand, wanting to hold on to her. Her fingers curled comfortably around his, but by then they'd worked their way to the dessert and Anna was not as easily distracted as he was.

"Have you tried this stuff?"

"Hm? What is it?"

"It's delicious, is what it is. Here," she put her spoon to his lips. It was delicious, although it was more delicious when Anna accidentally got a smear of it on the corner of her mouth. Somehow she ended up on his lap, her skirts a frothy cloud around them, and Kristoff was so pleasantly preoccupied with the soft spot behind her ear that he didn't notice when he put his elbow on his plate until something soaked through the layers of coat and shirt to his arm. Anna blinked in confusion as he pulled away, swearing under his breath.

"What did I—oooh." She started to laugh, and began helping him dab at the sleeve with a napkin. "Never mind," she said. "We're going to have to get rid of this coat anyway—if you flexed too much in it you'd rip out the seams. Oh, but Kristoff," she leaned against him, giggles still shaking her shoulders, "oh, our poor children are going to be doomed!" His hold tightened around her waist at the thought of children and she laid her arm over his. "How many should we have?" she asked. "Six? Seven?"

The very idea made him feel dizzy. "Maybe we should start with one," he suggested.

"Two, then," Anna said, turning to kiss his cheek. "Two, so that they can be friends."

"Okay," he agreed. "Two sounds good."

There was a shallow bowl on the table filled with greenery and white roses, winter blooming flowers from the royal greenhouse, and Anna pulled one of the snowy blooms out of the arrangement, twirling it absently in her fingers.

"You know how I found that book in the library, all about flowers and what they mean?"

"Mmhm." He kissed her hair.

"Well, roses are almost always about love, right? But different kinds. Like, the book said yellow was for friendship, and pink was for admiration, and red was for passion—"

"Hmmm. Maybe we got the wrong roses." He nuzzled behind her ear, making her squirm.

"No, listen—white roses, according to this book, are for undying love, and loyalty, and," she handed the flower to him, "new beginnings."

Kristoff turned the rose around in his fingers, its sweet smell filling the air. He paused, then he broke the stem so that it was only a few inches long, carefully peeling off the thorns with his thumbnail, and tucked the shortened flower into Anna's hair, anchoring it under her coronet of braid so that the blossom rested just above her right ear. The snow colored petals stood out vividly against the red strands, reminding him of the white streak that had once run through that spot. "So we got the right roses, then," he murmured. Then he turned his head, listening. Outside of the curtained alcove, in the main ballroom, the sound of violins began to fill the air. "What's that?"

"Oh! Dancing!" Anna bounced off of his lap and tugged him to his feet. "We still need to practice dancing."

She pulled him after her back out into the center of the ballroom. The music was floating down from the gallery above, and Kristoff hoped the musicians were positioned so that they wouldn't be able to see. He had forgotten about practicing dancing.

"Okay," Anna said, "it's easy. Really it is. Most of dancing is just standing the right way and turning in little circles. I mean, technically it's more than that, but honestly at Elsa's coronation ball most people were just turning in circles. So you put your hand here…" she tugged on his right arm and guided it behind her so that his hand rested below her shoulder blades. "Now hold your other arm out, like this…and I put my hand on top of yours like this—" She paused, looking at his hand as if noticing it for the first time.

"Ah," Kristoff said hesitantly. "Willkens told me I was supposed to wear gloves, but I didn't…I didn't want…"

"I never thought about it," Anna said slowly. Her thumb brushed over the callouses on his palm, then she laid her hand firmly in his. "I like no gloves. I like the way your hands feel. I mean—" She looked up at him, blushing as she realized what she'd said, and he bent to kiss her pink nose. Anna took a deep breath. "Right, dancing. Okay. So this elbow has to stay firm, okay? Because you're supposed to lead, and you use that hand to push, and your hand on my back to pull, and that's how you tell me where to go. Where you lead, I follow."

"In circles."

"Exactly. Just small steps in a circle, in time with the music." She hummed to demonstrate.

She made it sound so easy. Kristoff was afraid of pushing her, and afraid of stepping on her, and he kept anxiously staring down at their feet. He turned in a few stumbling, stiff-legged circles, and Anna finally took her hand from his shoulder to grip his chin. "Kristoff, stop looking down. Look at me." When he met her eyes she smiled encouragingly. "Don't think so hard," she said. "You aren't going to knock me over, you're just guiding me. Like when you put a hand on my back when we were in the woods and I was going to walk into a tree. Right? Just listen to the music and relax. And don't look down."

He nodded, taking a deep breath, and focused on Anna's face. Their steps slowly grew smoother and easier with each revolution, Anna's skirts swirling and rustling around their feet. Kristoff realized that he liked this—he liked having Anna in his arms, liked the feeling of her moving with him. He'd held her against him before, much closer than this, but there was something about this that was just as intimate. Just as intimate, but…different.

Anna showed him how to lift her hand over her head and spin her away from him before pulling her back, but he used too much strength and she thumped into his chest, giggling. "Sorry—" he began, and then realized with horror that he was also stepping on her dress. "Sorry," he muttered, blushing, as he carefully took his foot off of the embroidered him. Anna was still giggling.

"It's okay, it's okay! It's not torn, there's not even a mark."

"Maybe we should stop," he said, his confidence quickly draining away, but Anna shook her head.

"Nope. I'm not done with you. Here—" She kicked her heeled shoes off, letting them skitter away across the floor, and then stepped up onto his boots, clinging to his shoulders for balance as her bare toes left smudges that would probably make Willkens frown. The thought of discomfiting Willkens made Kristoff smile and relax.

"Is this a different kind of dancing?" he asked.

"Mm," Anna shrugged, lifting up so that she could put her arms around his neck. "It will be a new fashion. And you can't worry about stepping on me if I'm standing on you." She snuggled her cheek up against his chest, then pulled back, making a face.

"What?"

"You smell all wrong."

"What? I had a bath—a supervised bath, even."

"Supervised? What—never mind. I think it's the cravat. It smells all…lavendery." She tugged it loose, making Kristoff sigh with relief, and then she undid the top button of his shirt for good measure. Anna tucked her nose into the hollow of his throat and inhaled contentedly. "That's better."

"I thought I was…what was that word? Pungent."

"Mm, only when you've been wearing the same clothes for a week and using a reindeer as a pillow. Then you smell like dirty clothes and Sven. Otherwise you smell nice." She poked him in the rib. "You're supposed to be dancing with me."

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around her waist to hold her against him as he began turning in a slow circle, trying to listen to the music again. This kind of dancing was even better, he thought. The flower in Anna's hair was getting crushed against his shoulder, filling the air with the scent of rose. The scent of new beginnings. Kristoff's steps slowed and stopped, his arms tightening around Anna to hug her close, his head bowing so that he could bury his face in her sweet smelling hair.