Chapter Text
"He has to go," Bunny said, his voice sad. Jack whipped around and faced him, shocked.
"What?" he asked in a breathless voice, not believing what he heard.
"We NEVER should have trusted you!" Bunny shouted in anger, punching Jack, his superior strength knocking him to the ground. Jack looked up at him in pain, holding his cheek where a deep purple bruise was already forming. Bunny advanced on him more, not noticing how terrified the young teen was.
"Easter is about new beginnings, new life. Easter is about hope." Bunny turned away from, unable to look at him anymore. Jack quickly scrambled back in fear of him. "And now it's gone."
Jack looked toward the others, hoping that they would believe him, but they faced the other direction, disappointment etched into their faces. Jack stood up slowly, wincing when he felt a bruise forming on his back from how he had landed. Turning around, he reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out the tiny wooden nesting doll North gave to him. He couldn't help but think of how this is what Pitch had said would happen. Heartbroken and in tears, he dropped the doll on the ground and flew away toward Antarctica.
Jack sat cross legged on a peak in the Arctic that overlooks the ocean. He sighed and held his head in his hands. Pitch was right; he just made a mess of everything. If he hadn't wanted to know the identity of that voice, this never would have happened. He looked up with tear tracks on his cheeks with the realization that this was all the fault of the tooth-box. He got up and screamed, about to throw the box into the ocean where he would never have to see it when his arm stopped. He couldn't do it, he couldn't.
"I thought this would happen. They never really believed in you." Jack jumped and turned around to see a man in a black robe. He flew gently toward him and landed. Pitch looked out toward him, and noticed the bruise. "I just wanted to show you the truth; I never imagined that they would harm you, a child under their care."
Jack quickly became angry; the guardians believed in him, they were just a little stressed out. Right? He jumped into the air, injuries forgotten and screamed.
"You're LYING!" he shouted, lashing out with his staff. Pitch had no choice but to defend himself, which soon turned into attacking.
"Why would I lie?" he screamed. "I know what it looks like when people are cast out! I was!" Pitch's voice grew soft and caring as he stopped firing black sand. "I just want a friend." Jack to paused, disbelief on his face, as the Nightmare King continued. "Join me; we don't have to be alone anymore. I believe in you and I know the children will too."
"In - In me?" Jack asked, unable to believe it could be true. He had longed for belief, for a friend, for three hundred years. Pitch could be that friend, maybe even become like family. He saw Pitch gesture to a terrifying statue of black sand encased in jagged ice.
"Yes! Look at what we can do!" Jack turned and looked at his broken reflection in the ice. "What goes together better than cold and dark? We can MAKE them believe. We'll give them a world where everything, EVERYTHING is..."
Sensing the trap, Jack finished his sentence with a bored expression, "Pitch black?"
Realizing how it looked, he quickly finished. "And Jack Frost, too. They'll believe in both of us."
Looking up at Pitch, Jack considered the offer before refusing. He turned and walked away slowly, the pain of his previous injuries coming back to him ten times stronger. "No, they'll fear both of us and that's not what I want. Now, for the last time, leave me alone."
Pitch's anger ignites. He had been nothing but patient with Jack. He even showed him the truth and made himself vulnerable, yet his answer was still no. If he couldn't have Jack join him, he would need to get rid of him. He reached a hand behind his back.
"Very well. You want to be left alone? Done. But first..."
Jack flips around at a familiar twitter, then groans having irritated his injuries.
"Baby Tooth!" Her eyes were wide with terror and Jack lunged forward. When Pitch tightened the fist he held her in, he stopped and raised his staff, ready to freeze the man if he hurt Baby Tooth again.
"The staff, Jack!" he shouted, making the frost child settle. "You have a bad habit of interfering. Now hand it over and I'll let her go."
Pitch watched as Jack flipped what his connection to the wind, his only way to leave, in his hand. He felt the wretched fairy struggle to escape and tightened his grip. In Jack's eyes, he could see that he thought he had no other choice. The end of the staff landed in his outstretched palm and he took it, giving it a twirl.
"Alright, now let her go," Jack said with steel in his voice.
"No. You said you wanted to be alone, so be alone!"
Baby Tooth squirmed until she was able to peck Pitch in the hand with her sharp beak. Pitch let out a shout and threw her in the air and down the mouth of a crevasse. When Jack saw her disappear into the ice, he gave an anguished cry, unable to believe that he lost the only friend he had left. He turned back to Pitch in time to see him raise his staff over his knee and break it in half.
Jack cried out in pain and closed his eyes as the staff broke and clutched at his chest. His eyes only opened long enough for him to see nightmare sand hit him in the chest and send him flying into the wall of the crevasse, breaking most of his ribs. His eyes closed as he passed out before he could hit the bottom and break one of his arms.
He awoke moments later to see a blurry image of Baby Tooth looking at him in worry and the two halves of his staff laying on the other side of the hole. He went to lean forward only to fall back with a hiss. Knowing he would only pass out again if he moved his chest, he reached his arms out. He knew something was wrong when he saw that his left arm was bent backward, he gently touched it with his other hand and let out a yelp of pain. He reached his good arm out and scooped up the shivering fairy who chirped at him and pointed at the ground below him. Worried, he whipped his head down which only resulted in him becoming dizzy and his vision going black for a moment.
When his vision cleared and the world stopped spinning, he looked at the ice. It was red all around him, fading to pink the further away it got. After setting Baby Tooth on his hoodie, he reached out his hand and felt a wet drop on it which, once he looked, he found was blood. Another drop fell, and another, and soon his whole hand was covered in the red substance. He shuddered at the feel and wiped it off in the nearby snow.
He turned back to Baby Tooth and saw her wings frozen together, small drops of his blood resting on them. Suddenly, he felt a sharp pain in his head and his world went black.
Baby Tooth looked worriedly at Jack as his chin fell limply to his chest. She had heard him scream when he hit the wall and could hear the harsh crack from where she lay. Only then did she notice the yellowing bruise on the side of his head. Chirping, she tried to wake him up. If it had been Pitch, she should have hurt him more.
The first thing he heard as he woke again was a soft chirping, causing his eyelids to flutter open and shut. With each short glance, he could see the tiny fairy curled on his sweater, staring at him, or more specifically, the mark on his face. When she realized he was awake, she chirped and pointed at his cheek and glared, as if demanding an explanation.
"Oh, Baby Tooth," frozen tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, "It's all my fault. Pitch was right. After - after I lost you I went to find the others. They -" A broken sob escaped him, "They saw the box and thought I traded you for - they thought I gave you to Pitch, they didn't - wouldn't let me explain. Bunny - he hit me. I - I TRUSTED them!"
Baby Tooth watched in shock as the boy who was always happy broke down. He had given his trust to them and they broke it in the worst way. The thing she hated the most, though, at that moment was the fact that Jack seemed to believe that - in some twisted way - he deserved it. Though she was barely able to move her limbs, she jumped up and climbed his jacket to his shoulder and gently patted an uninjured area of his cheek, silently telling his that it was okay - that it would be alright.
Jack turned his head to face Baby Tooth and thank her for listening and gasped. He couldn't breathe. He opened his mouth to suck in a breath but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't. His hand moved to where his lungs were and gently touched the area. The rib that stood guard and protected his lungs was cracked. When he had begun sobbing the bone had stabbed toward it, the shaking of his shoulders only causing it to stab further inward. It was only then that he realized that he was freezing.
The cold seemed to surround him, and, though it was once comforting, seemed to choke him. His feet, he realized, he couldn't feel his feet! Terrified, he looked to Baby Tooth only to see that she had frozen, forever to be encased in a layer of his ice. He couldn't take it anymore. He failed everyone. When the man in the moon chose him, it must have been a mistake. The only thing he seemed to be good at was messing up.
Soon, he found himself unable to move; all of his limbs seemed to be filled with concrete, his head filled with wool. He couldn't think straight. The walls that once only seemed to be thirty feet tall now seemed like a thousand. Then, all he saw was the blue of his hoodie. Through the fog in his head, he wondered when he had begun to look down. Even though he couldn't get air into his lungs, he giggled. Everything looked funny. He giggled until the sound faded to a gurgle. His crystal blue eyes looked ahead, not blinking, as his heart stopped.